The Devil's Queen: A Novel of Catherine De Medici (13 page)

“No,” I said. “No demons. Ask God.”

“God does not reveal the future. An angel might—but angels are too slow for our purposes tonight.” He looked away at the shadows veiling the western wall. “But there are others who might . . .”

“Who?”

He stared at me again. “The dead.”

Aunt Clarice,
I meant to say. But something raw welled up from my core, a hurt so deeply buried that, until that instant, I had never known it was in me.

“My mother,” I said. “I want to speak to her.”

The emotion of the moment gave me strength. I got to my feet beside Ser Cosimo and turned toward the western wall, opposite the hearth. Ser Cosimo produced a stoppered vial, opened it, and dipped the tip of his index finger in it, then traced upon my forehead a star.

I smelled blood and closed my eyes, dizzied. I had gone too far, let myself
slip again into the grasp of evil. “There is blood in this,” I whispered and opened my eyes to see his response.

Ruggieri’s eyes were wide and strange, as if his spirit had suddenly expanded and become a force greater than himself.

“Nothing comes without cost,” he said and traced a star upon his own forehead, leaving a dark brown smear. Then he sat down at my writing desk.

“Paper,” he demanded.

I took a clean sheet from the drawer and placed it in front of him. Before I could move my hand away, he caught it and pricked my middle finger with the tip of the dagger.

I cried out.

“Hush,” he warned. I tried to pull away, but he held my hand fast and milked my finger until a fat drop of blood dripped onto the page. “My apologies,” he murmured as he let go and I put the offended digit to my lips. “Fresh blood is necessary.”

“Why?”

“She will smell it,” he answered. “It will draw her.”

He set the dagger down, then closed his eyes and breathed deeply. His head began to sway.

“Madeleine,” he whispered. My mother’s name. “Madeleine . . .” His eyelids trembled. “Madeleine,” he said, then groaned loudly.

His torso and arms stiffened and twitched; this continued a moment, until he slumped in the chair and released a harsh, involuntary sigh.

Of apparent separate volition, his right hand groped for the quill and dipped the nib in the ink. For moment, the pen hovered over the page as the hand that held it jerked spasmodically. Suddenly his hand relaxed and began to write with impossible speed.

I gaped as the letters poured onto the page. The script was distinctly feminine, the language French—my mother’s native tongue.

Ma fille, m’amie, ma chère, je t’adore

My daughter, my beloved, my darling, I adore you

My eyes filled with silent tears; they sprang pure and hot from a wound I had never known existed.

A woman, yet greatest of all your House

You will meet your benefactor

A question

The pen hovered over the paper; Ruggieri’s hand trembled. A pause, and then another spasm of writing:

A question

“Will the rebels kill me?” I asked. “Will I ever be freed?”

The hand hesitated, then jerked and began to write.

Do not fear,
m’amie,
Silvestro will see you safely returned

The quill fell and left a dark blot upon the paper. Ser Cosimo’s hand went fully limp, then curled into a fist.

“What more?” I cried, desperate. “There must be more . . .”

Ser Cosimo’s head lolled upon his shoulders, then steadied. His eyes opened—blank and clouded—then slowly cleared until he saw me again.

“She has gone,” he said.

“Call her back!”

He shook his head. “No.”

I stared down at the impossible writing. “But what does it mean?”

“Time will make it clear,” he said. “The dead see all: Yesterday, today, tomorrow are all the same for them.”

I lifted the paper from the desk and held it to my heart; Ruggieri, the desk, the floor, suddenly began to whirl. I staggered; the room tilted sideways, and I fell into darkness.

I woke in my bed. Sister Niccoletta sat beside me, reading the small psalter in her hands; light streamed through the window and glinted dazzlingly off one lens of her spectacles. She glanced up and smiled warmly.

“Sweet girl, you’re awake.” She set aside her book and laid a cool palm upon my forehead. “The fever’s broken, praise be to God! How do you feel?”

“Thirsty,” I said.

She turned her back to me to fuss over a pitcher and cup on the nearby table. I sat up and quickly patted my chest, the last place I remembered putting my mother’s letter, but felt only the silk amulet that held the raven’s wing. I panicked. Had Ruggieri’s visit been the product of a fevered dream?

I propped myself up with my palms behind me. They slid against the sheets and beneath my pillow, where my fingertips grazed the sharp edge of paper.

I pulled it out quickly. It was folded in half, with the writing on the inside so that I could not make it out, but I recognized the large blot of dark ink.

Ma fille, m’amie, ma chère, je t’adore

As Sister Niccoletta turned with the cup in her hand, I slipped the letter beneath the blankets.

“I’m hungry, too,” I told her. “Would it be possible to get something to eat?”

I kept my mother’s letter beneath my pillow and every night tucked my hand there, palm resting upon the only memento I had of her; the rebels had taken all else. It brought warmth and sadness and a wistful welling of affection; it brought comfort the way no talisman could.

Christmas came and Christmas passed, and the new year of our Lord 1530 arrived. In February, Pope Clement crowned Charles of Spain Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. Clement had fulfilled his end of the bargain; now it was time for Charles to deliver Florence into Medici hands.

In those early months, the cannon were silent. The Imperial commander realized that his advantage lay in striking not at Florence herself but at those towns that supplied her with arms and food. The summer before the siege all crops grown outside Florence’s walls had been torched months before the harvest, all livestock slaughtered. To eat, Florence relied upon supplies smuggled from Volterra. For goods, for news, for troops, she relied upon Volterra.

As the weather warmed, the Imperial forces attacked our lifeline. We sent a garrison to defend our sister; Volterra survived the first battle. Deciding that the Emperor’s army had been decisively defeated, our garrison commander—against orders—left for the comforts of home. Hearing this, the Prince of Orange laid siege to the town a second time.

I was at my embroidery when Mother Giustina appeared in the sewing room doorway. Her expression was troubled but furtively hopeful.

“Volterra has fallen,” she said.

Without help from the French and now without sustenance or arms, the rebel leaders faced certain defeat.

I sat listening to the sisters’ unhappy murmurs and thought very hard.

My hair fell past my hips, fine and thin, the color of olive bark. That day it was gathered up into a large net that rested heavily on the nape of my neck. I unfastened the net and shook my hair free, then took up the scissors and began to snip. It took a long time; the scissors were made for embroidery and could take only small bites. After each cut, I carefully placed the ribbon of hair neatly at my feet.

The thunderstruck sisters watched silently; only Mother Giustina understood. She waited in the doorway, and when I was fully shorn, she said tersely, “I’ll find you a habit.”

I took the veil but not the vows. I was an impostor, but not even Sister Pippa complained.

Meanwhile, citizens grew desperate. Without Volterra’s grain stores, there was no wheat; without the hunters’ catch from the forest beyond the city walls, there was no meat. The poor were hit first and hardest, and began starving in the streets. Plague flourished, prompting Mother Giustina to remove the alms box and board up the lower grate.

In the first days of July, I received my last letter from Ser Cosimo:

I will not be corresponding for a while. This morning I saw my neighbor sitting propped against his front door, eyes closed as though he were sleeping. I thought hunger had made him faint. Fortunately, I had not advanced too far before I saw the buboes upon his neck. I called out to those inside but heard no reply.

I went home immediately and bathed with lemon juice and rose water, a remedy I highly recommend. As a precaution, burn this letter and wash your hands.

I have confidence we will meet again in the flesh.

At dusk on the twentieth of July, I sat in the refectory flanked by Maddalena and Sister Niccoletta at the supper all sisters shared. Per custom, we observed silence as we dined on our
minestra,
whose broth now lacked meat or pasta.

The eastern wall of the refectory bore a fresco of the Last Supper; the adjacent wall was broken by a large window overlooking the patio and the convent door, its grates now boarded shut.

Atop my scapular, the work apron worn over the habit, I wore a golden crucifix, but beneath the habit I wore Ruggieri’s black amulet. I had assiduously studied my nativity until the greater details were committed to memory, and had followed the position of the planets and stars over the days and nights. Mars, hot red warrior, was conjunct Saturn, harbinger of death and destruction, and passing through my ascendant—Leo, the marker of royalty. Such a transit warrants danger and ofttimes violent ends. And Saturn, silent and dark, had sailed into my Eighth House, the House of Death. Like Florence’s, my stars boded catastrophic change.

When I heard the pounding at the convent gate, I felt little surprise. For a moment, we women sat very still and listened to it echo off the worn cobblestone.

Sister Antonia directed a pointed look at Mother Giustina; the abbess nodded, and Antonia rose and walked out of the refectory, her gaze guarded and avoiding mine. As she did, masculine voices at the door began to shout.

I set down my spoon. The walls that for two and a half years had afforded protection were now a trap. I jumped up, thinking to run, knowing I could go nowhere.

“Caterina,”
Mother Giustina warned. When I gaped at her, she ordered sternly, “Go to the chapel.”

Outside at the gate, Sister Antonia cried out, “You cannot come inside. This is a nunnery!”

Something slammed against the door, something heavier and thicker than a human fist. Giustina was on her feet.

“Go to the chapel,” she repeated and then ran, veil and full sleeves fluttering, to join Antonia. Halfway across the cobblestone patio, she called out to the men behind the wall, but the battering was so loud her words were lost.

Sister Niccoletta rose and seized my arm. “Come.” She pulled me with her toward the refectory door, and suddenly we were encircled by others—Maddalena and Sister Rafaela, Barbara and Sister Antonia and Sister Lucinda—all of us moving together.

Lisabetta and Pippa remained at the table. “They’ve come for you,” Pippa gloated. “They’ve come and God will see justice done.”

The others engulfed me. We swept out into the corridor, past the archway that opened onto the patio, past the nuns’ cells.

Behind us, the hammering abruptly stopped, giving way to voices calling back and forth over the wall: Mother Giustina’s, a man’s. The sounds faded as we moved deeper inside the convent, passing the scriptorum and emerging from the other end of the building. Outside, the dying light colored the clouds in sunset shades of rose and coral against a greying lilac sky.

We crossed the walkway and entered the chapel, the candles already lit for vespers, the air hazy with frankincense. The sisters brought me to the altar railing and formed a half-moon barrier around me. I knelt trembling at the railing; Saturn weighed so heavily on me I could not breathe. I reached for the rosary on my belt and began to recite from memory but stumbled over the words. My mind was not on the beads in my hand but on the black stone over my heart; my prayers were not truly to the Virgin but to Venus, not to Jesus but to Jove.

Giustina’s shouts filtered in through the open doors. “You commit sacrilege! She is a child, she has done no one harm . . . !”

Bootheels hammered against stone. I turned and saw them enter: men with heads unbowed, hearts uncrossed, as though these walls were not hallowed.

“Where is she?” one demanded. “Where is she, Caterina of the Medici?”

I crossed myself. I rose. I turned and looked beyond the shoulders of my sisters at four soldiers armed with long swords—as if we were a danger, as if we might give fight.