The Medici Queen aka The Devil’s Queen

Florence, Italy

May 1527

One

The day I met the magician Cosimo Ruggieri-the eleventh of May-was an evil one.

I sensed it at daybreak, in the drum of hoofbeats on the cobblestone street in front of the house. I had already risen and dressed and was about to make my way downstairs when I heard the commotion. I stood on tiptoe and peered down through my unshuttered bedroom window.

Out on the broad Via Larga, Passerini reined in his lathered mount, accompanied by a dozen men at arms. He wore his red cardinal’s robes but had forgotten his hat-or perhaps it had fallen off during the wild ride-and his white hair stood up in wisps like a coxcomb. He shouted frantically for the stablehand to open the gate.

I hurried to the stairs, arriving at the landing at the same moment as my aunt Clarice.

She was a beautiful woman in that year before her untimely death, delicate as one of Botticelli’s Graces. That morning found her dressed in a gown of rose velvet and a diaphanous veil over her chestnut hair.

But there was nothing delicate about Aunt Clarice’s disposition. My cousin Piero often referred to his mother as “the toughest man in the family.” She deferred to no one-least of all to her four sons or to her husband, Filippo Strozzi, a powerful banker. She had a sharp tongue and a swift hand, and did not hesitate to lash out with either.

And she was scowling that morning. When she caught sight of me, I ducked my head and dropped my gaze, for there was no winning with Aunt Clarice.

At the age of eight, I was an inconvenient child. My mother had died nine days after I was born, followed six days later by my father. Happily, my mother left me enormous wealth, my father, the title of Duchess and the right to rule Florence.

Those things prompted Aunt Clarice to bring me to the Palazzo Medici to groom me for my destiny, but she made it clear that I was a burden. In addition to her own sons, she was obliged to raise two other Medici orphans-my half brother Alessandro and my cousin Ippolito, the bastard of my great-uncle Giuliano de’ Medici.

As Clarice stepped alongside me on the landing, a voice drifted up from the downstairs entry: Cardinal Passerini, acting regent of Florence, was speaking to a servant. Though I could not make out his words, the timbre of his voice conveyed their message clearly: disaster. The safe and comfortable life I had shared with my cousins in our ancestors’ house was about to disappear.

As Clarice listened, fear rippled over her features, only to be replaced by her customary hardness. She narrowed her eyes at me, searching to see if I had detected her instant of weakness, threatening me in case I had.

“Straight down to the kitchen with you. No stopping, no speaking to anyone,” she ordered.

I obeyed and headed downstairs, but soon realized I was too nervous to eat. I wandered instead toward the great hall, where Aunt Clarice and Cardinal Passerini were engaged in strenuous conversation. His Eminence’s voice was muffled, but I caught an impassioned word or two uttered by Aunt Clarice:

You fool.

What did Clement expect, the idiot?

Their conversation centered on the Pope-born Giulio de’ Medici-whose influence helped keep our family in power. Even as a child, I understood enough of politics to know that my distant cousin Pope Clement was at odds with the Holy Roman Emperor Charles, whose troops had invaded Italy; Rome was in especial danger.

Abruptly, the door swung open, and Passerini’s head appeared as he called for Leda, Aunt Clarice’s slave. The cardinal was grey-faced, his breath coming hard, the corners of his mouth pulled down by agitation. He waited in the doorway with an air of desolate urgency until Leda appeared, at which point he ordered her to bring Uncle Filippo, Ippolito, and Alessandro.

Within moments, Ippolito and Sandro were ushered inside. Clarice must have come to stand near the doorway, for I could hear her say, quite clearly, to someone waiting in the hall:

We need men, as many as will fight. Until we know their number, we must tread carefully. Assemble as many as you can by nightfall, then come to me. A strange hesitancy crept into her tone. And send Agostino to fetch the astrologer’s son- now.

I heard my uncle Filippo’s low assent and departure, then the door closed again. I remained a few minutes, trying vainly to interpret the sounds emanating from the chamber; defeated, I wandered toward the staircase leading to the children’s rooms.

Six-year-old Roberto, Clarice’s youngest, came running in my direction, wailing and wringing his hands. His eyes were squeezed tightly shut; I barely caught him in time to stop him from knocking me down.

I was small, but Roberto was smaller still. He smelled of heat and slightly sour sweat; his cheeks were flushed and tear-streaked, and his girlishly long hair clung to his damp neck.

At that instant the boys’ nursemaid appeared behind him. Ginevra was a simple, uneducated woman, dressed in worn cotton skirts covered by a white apron, her hair always wrapped in a scarf. On that morning, however, Ginevra’s scarf and nerves were undone; a lock of golden hair had fallen across her face.

Roberto stamped his foot at me and emitted a scream. “Let me go!” He struck out with little fists, but I averted my face and held him fast.

“What is it? Why is he frightened?” I called to Ginevra as she neared.

“They’re coming after us!” Robert howled, spewing tears and spittle. “They’re coming to hurt us!”

Ginevra, dull with fright, answered, “There are men at the gate.”

“What sort of men?” I asked.

When Ginevra would not answer, I ran upstairs to the chambermaids’ quarters, which overlooked the stables and the gate that opened onto the busy Via Larga. I dragged a stool to the window, stepped onto it, and flung open the shutters.

The stables stood west of the house; to the north lay the massive iron gate that kept out trespassers. It was closed and bolted; just inside it stood three of our armed guards.

On the other side of its spiked bars, the street hosted lively traffic: a flock of Dominican monks on foot from nearby San Marco, a cardinal in his gilded carriage, merchants on horseback. And Roberto’s men-perhaps twenty in those early hours, before Passerini’s news had permeated Florence. Some stood along the edges of the Via Larga, others in front of the iron gate near the stables. They gazed on our house with hawkeyed intensity, waiting for prey to emerge.

One of them shouted exuberantly at the passing crowd. “Did you hear? The Pope has fallen! Rome lies in the Emperor’s hands!”

At the palazzo’s front entrance, a banner bore the Medici coat of arms so proudly displayed throughout the city: six red balls, six palle, arranged in rows upon a golden shield. Palle, palle! was our rallying cry, the words on our supporters’ lips as they raised their swords in our defense.

As I watched, a wool dyer, his hands and tattered tunic stained dark blue, climbed onto his fellow’s shoulders and pulled down the banner to shouts of approval. A third man touched a torch to the banner and set it ablaze. Passersby slowed and gawked.

“Abaso le palle!” the wool dyer cried, and those surrounding him picked up the chant. “Down with the balls! Death to the Medici!”

In the midst of the tumult, the iron gates opened a crack, and Agostino-Aunt Clarice’s errand boy-slipped out unobserved. But as the gate clanged shut behind him, a few of the men hurled pebbles at him. He shielded his head and dashed away, disappearing into the traffic.

I leaned farther out of the open window. Behind the thin streams of smoke rising from the burning banner, the wool dyer spied me; his face lit up with hatred. Had he been able to reach up into the window, he would have seized me-an eight-year-old girl, an innocent-and dashed my brains against the pavement.

“Abaso le palle!” he roared. At me.

I withdrew. I could not run to Clarice for comfort-she would not have provided it even had she been available. I wanted my cousin Piero; nothing cowed him, not even his formidable mother… and he was the one person I trusted. Since he was not in the boys’ classroom receiving his lessons, I hurried to the library.

As I suspected, Piero was there. Like me, he was an insatiable student, often demanding more of his tutors than they knew, with the result that we frequently encountered each other huddled behind book. Unlike me, he was, at a rather immature sixteen, still cherub-cheeked, with close-cropped ringlets and a sweet, ingenuous temperament. I trusted him more than anyone, and adored him as a brother.

Piero sat cross-legged on the floor, squinting down at the heavy tome open in his lap, utterly captivated and utterly calm. He glanced up at me, and just as quickly returned to his reading.

“I told you this morning about Passerini coming,” I said. “The news is very bad. Pope Clement has fallen.”

Piero sighed calmly and told me the story of Clement’s predicament, which he had learned from the cook. In Rome, a secret passageway leads from the Vatican to the fortress known as the Castel Sant’Angelo. Emperor Charles’s mutinous soldiers had joined with anti-Medici fighters and attacked the Papal Palace. Caught unawares, Pope Clement had run for his life-robes flapping like the wings of a startled dove-across the passage to the fortress. There he remained, trapped in his stronghold by jeering troops.

Piero was totally unfazed by it all.

“We’ve always had enemies,” he said. “They want to form their own government. The Pope has always known about them, but Mother says he grew careless and missed clear signs of trouble. She warned him, but Clement didn’t listen.”

“But what will happen to us?” I said, annoyed that my voice shook. “Piero, there are men outside burning our banner! They’re calling for our deaths!”

“Cat,” he said softly and reached for my hand. I let him draw me down to sit beside him on the cool marble.

“We always knew the rebels would try to take advantage of something like this,” Piero said soothingly, “but they aren’t that organized. It will take them a few days to react. By then, we’ll have gone to one of the country villas, and Mother and Passerini will have decided what to do.”

I pulled away from him. “How will we get to the country? The crowd won’t even let us out of the house!”

“Cat,” he chided gently, “they’re just troublemakers. Come nightfall, they’ll get bored and go away.”

Before he could say anything further, I asked, “Who is the astrologer’s son? Your mother sent Agostino to fetch him.”

He digested this with dawning surprise. “That would be Ser Benozzo’s eldest, Cosimo.”

I shook my head, indicating my ignorance.

“The Ruggieri family has always served as the Medicis’ astrologers,” Piero explained. “Ser Benozzo advised Lorenzo il Magnifico. They say his son Cosimo is a prodigy of sorts, and a very powerful magician. Others say such talk is nothing more than a rumor circulated by Ser Benozzo to help the family business.”

I interrupted. “But Aunt Clarice doesn’t put a lot of faith in such things.”

“No,” he said thoughtfully. “Cosimo wrote Mother a letter well over a week ago. He offered his services; he said that serious trouble was coming, and that she would need his help.”

I was intrigued. “What did she do?”

“You know Mother. She refused to reply, because she felt insulted that such a young man-a boy, she called him-should presume that she would need help from the likes of him.”

“Father Domenico says it’s the work of the Devil.”

Piero clicked his tongue scornfully. “Magic isn’t evil-unless you mean for it to hurt someone-and it’s not superstition, it’s science. It can be used to make medicines, not poisons. Here.” He proudly lifted the large volume in his lap so that I could see its cover. “I’m reading Ficino.”

“Who?”

“Marsilio Ficino. He was Lorenzo il Magnifico’s tutor. Old Cosimo hired him to translate the Corpus Hermeticum, an ancient text on magic. Ficino was brilliant, and this is one of his finest works.” He pointed at the title: De Vita Coelitus Comparanda.

“Gaining Life from the Heavens,” he translated. “Ficino was an excellent astrologer, and he understood that magic is a natural power.” He grew animated. “Listen to this…” He translated haltingly from the Latin. “ ‘Using this power of the stars, the Magi were first to worship the infant Christ. Therefore, why fear the name Magus, a name which is pleasing to the Gospel?’ ”

“So this astrologer’s son is coming to bring us help,” I said. “Help from God’s stars.”

“Yes.” Piero gave a reassuring nod. “Even if he weren’t, we would still be all right. Mother might complain, but we’ll just go to the country until it’s safe again.”

I let myself be convinced-temporarily. On the library floor, I nestled against my cousin and listened to him read in Latin. This continued until Aunt Clarice’s slave Leda-pale, frowning, and heavily pregnant-appeared in the doorway.

“There you are.” She motioned impatiently. “Come at once, Caterina. Madonna Clarice is waiting.”

The horoscopist was a tall, skinny youth of eighteen, if one estimated generously, yet he wore the grey tunic and somber attitude of a city elder. His pitted skin was sickly white, his hair so black it gleamed blue; he brushed it straight back to reveal a sharp widow’s peak. His eyes seemed even blacker and held something old and shrewd, something that fascinated and frightened me. He was ugly: His long nose was crooked, his lips uneven, his ears too large. Yet I did not want to look away. I stared, a rude, stupid child.

Aunt Clarice said, “Stand there, Caterina, in the light. No, save your little curtsy and just hold still. Leda, close the door behind you and wait in the hall until I call you. I’ll have no interruptions.” Her tone was distracted and oddly soft.

After a worried glance at her mistress, Leda stole out and quietly shut the door. I stepped into a pane of sunlight and stood dutifully a few paces from Clarice, who sat beside the cold fireplace. My aunt was arguably the most influential woman in Italy and old enough to be this young man’s mother, but his presence-calm and focused as a viper’s before the strike-was the more powerful, and even Clarice, long inured to the company of pontiffs and kings, was afraid of him.

“This is the girl,” she said. “She is plain, but generally obedient.”

“Donna Caterina, it is an honor to meet you,” the visitor said. “I am Cosimo Ruggieri, son of Ser Benozzo the astrologer.”

His appearance was forbidding, but his voice was beautiful and deep. I could have closed my eyes and listened to it as if it were music.

“Think of me as a physician,” Ser Cosimo said. “I wish to conduct a brief examination of your person.”

“Will it hurt?” I asked.

Ser Cosimo smiled a bit more broadly, revealing crooked upper teeth.

“Not in the least. I have already completed a portion; I see that you are quite short for your age, and your aunt reports that you are rarely sick. Is that true?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“She is always running in the garden,” Clarice offered palely. “She rides as well as the boys do. By the time she was four, we could not keep her from the horses.”

“May I…?” Ser Cosimo paused delicately. “Could you lift your skirts a bit so that I can examine your legs, Caterina?”

I dropped my gaze, embarrassed and perplexed, but raised the hem of my dress first above my ankles and then-at his gentle urging-to my knee.

Ser Cosimo nodded approvingly. “Very strong legs, just as one would expect.”

“And thighs,” I said, dropping my skirts. “Jupiter’s influence.”

Intrigued, he smiled faintly and brought his face closer to mine. “You have studied such things?”

“Only a little,” I said. I did not tell him that I had just been listening to Piero reading Ficino’s attributions for Jupiter.

Aunt Clarice interrupted, her tone detached. “But her Jupiter is in detriment.”

Ser Cosimo kept his penetrating gaze focused on me. “In Libra, in the Third House. But there are ways to strengthen it.”

I braved a question. “You know about my stars, then, Ser Cosimo?”

“I have taken an interest in them for some time,” he replied. “They present a great many challenges and a great many opportunities. May I ask what moles you have?”

“There are two on my face.”

Ser Cosimo lowered himself onto his haunches, bringing us eye to eye. “Show me, Caterina.”

I smoothed my dull, mousy hair away from my right cheek. “Here and here.” I pointed at my temple, near the hairline, and at a spot between my jaw and ear.

He drew in a sharp breath and turned to Aunt Clarice, his manner grave.

“Is it bad?” she asked.

“Not so bad that we cannot repair it,” he said. “I will return tomorrow at this very hour, with talismans and herbs for her protection. You must employ them according to my precise directions.”

“For me,” Clarice said swiftly, “and for my sons, not just for her.”

The astrologer’s son cast a sharp glance at her. “Certainly. For everyone who has need.” A threat crept into his tone. “But such things bring no benefit unless they are used exactly as prescribed-and exactly for whom they are created.”

Clarice dropped her gaze, intimidated-and furious at herself for being so. “Of course, Ser Cosimo.”

“Good,” he said and bowed his farewell.

“God be with you, Donna Clarice,” he said graciously. “And with you, Donna Caterina.”

I murmured a good-bye as he walked out the door. It was odd watching a youth move like an elderly man. Many years later, he would confess to having been fifteen years old at the time. He had used the aid of a glamour, he claimed, to make himself appear older, knowing Clarice would never have listened to him otherwise.

As soon as the astrologer was out of earshot, Aunt Clarice said, “I’ve heard rumors of this one, the eldest boy. Smart, true-smart at conjuring devils and making poisons. I’ve heard that his father despairs.”

“He isn’t a good man?” I asked timidly.

“He is evil. A necessary evil, now.” She lowered her face into her hand and began to massage her temple. “It’s all falling apart. Rome, the papacy, Florence herself. It’s only a matter of time before the news spreads all over the city. And then… everything will go to Hell. I need to figure out what to do before…” I thought I heard tears, but she gathered herself and snapped open her eyes. “Go to your chambers and study your texts. There will be no lessons today, but you’d best comport yourself quietly. I won’t tolerate any distractions.”

I left the great hall. Rather than follow my aunt’s instructions to go upstairs, I dashed out to the courtyard. The astrologer’s son was there, moving swiftly for the gardens.

I cried out, “Ser Cosimo! Wait!”

He stopped and faced me. His expression was knowing and amused, as if he had completely expected to find a breathless eight-year-old girl tearing after him.

“Caterina,” he said, with odd familiarity.

“You can’t leave,” I said. “There are men outside calling for our deaths. Even if you got out safely, you would never be able to come back again.”

He bent forward and faced me at my level. “But I will get out safely,” he said. “And I will come back again tomorrow. When I do, you must find me alone in the courtyard or the garden. There are things we must discuss, unhappy secrets. But not today. The hour is not propitious.”

As he spoke, his eyes hardened, as if he was watching a distant but approaching evil. He straightened and said, “But nothing bad will happen. I will see to it. We will speak again tomorrow. God keep you, Caterina.”

He turned and strode off.

I hurried after him, but he walked faster than I could run. In seconds he was at the entrance to the stables, in view of the large gate leading to the Via Larga. I hung back, afraid.

The palazzo was a fortress of thick stone; its main entry was an impenetrable brass door positioned in the building’s center. To the west lay the gardens and the stables, viewable from the street behind a north-facing iron gate that began where the citadel proper ended.

Just inside that gate were seven armed guards, warily eyeing the crowd on the other side of the thick iron bars. When I had last peered through the upstairs window, only six men had lingered by the western gate. Now more than two dozen peasants and merchants stood staring back at the guards.

A groom handed Ser Cosimo the reins to a glossy black mare. At the sight of the astrologer, a few in the mob hissed. One hurled a stone, which banked off an iron bar and struck the earth several paces from its target.

Ser Cosimo calmly led his mount to the gate. The mare stamped her feet and turned her face from the waiting men as one of them cried out: “Abaso le palle! Down with the balls!”

“What,” called another, “did they bring you here to suck the cardinal’s cock?”

“And his Medici-loving balls! Abaso le palle!”

The commotion alerted others who had been standing watch across the street, who hurried to join those at the gate. The chant grew louder.

“Abaso le palle.

Abaso le palle.”

Men shook their fists in the air and pushed their hands between the bars to claw at those on the other side. The mare whinnied and showed them the whites of her eyes.

Ser Cosimo’s composure never wavered. Serene and unflinching, he walked toward the metal bars amid a hail of pebbles. He was not struck, but our guards were not as fortunate; they yelped curses as they tried to shield their faces. One hurried to the bolt and slid the heavy iron bar back while the others drew their swords and formed a shoulder-to-shoulder barricade in front of Ser Cosimo.

The guard at the bolt glanced over his shoulder at the departing guest. “You’re mad, sir,” he said. “They’ll tear you to pieces.”

I broke out from my hiding place and ran to Ser Cosimo.

“Don’t hurt him!” I shouted at the crowd. “He’s not one of us!”

Ser Cosimo dropped the reins of his nervous mount and knelt down to catch my shoulders.

“Go inside, Catherine,” he said. Catherine, my name in a foreign tongue. “I know what I am doing. I will be safe.”

As he finished speaking, a pebble grazed my shoulder. I flinched; Ser Cosimo saw it strike. And his eyes-

The look of the Devil, I was going to say, but perhaps it is better called the look of God. For the Devil can trick and test, but God alone metes out death, and only He can will a man to suffer for eternity.

That was that look I saw in Cosimo’s eye. He was capable, I decided, of undying spite, of murder without the slightest regret. Yet it was not that look that unsettled me. It was the fact that I recognized it and was still drawn to him; it was the fact that I knew it and did not want to look away.

He whirled on the crowd with that infinitely evil look. At once, the rain of stones ceased. When every man had grown silent, he called out, strong and clear:

“I am Cosimo Ruggieri, the astrologer’s son. Strike her again, if you dare.”

Nothing more was said. Darkly radiant, Ser Cosimo mounted his horse, and the guard pushed open the singing gate. The magician rode out, and the crowd parted for him.

The gate swung shut with a clang, and the guard slid the bolt into place. It was as though a signal had been given: The crowd came alive and again hurled pebbles and curses at the guards.

But the astrologer’s son passed unharmed, his head high, his shoulders square and sure. While the rest of the world fixed its unruly attention on the palazzo gates, he rode away, and soon disappeared from my sight.

Two

My memories of Florence are blurred by terror, affection, distance, and time, but some impressions from that long-ago past remain sharp. The peals of church bells, for one: I woke and ate and prayed to the songs of the cathedral of San Lorenzo, which holds my ancestors’ bones; of Santa Maria del Fiore, with its vast impossible dome; of San Marco, where the mad monk Savonarola once dwelled. I can still hear the low “mooing” of the bell called the Cow, which hung in the great Palazzo della Signoria, seat of Florence’s government.

I remember, too, the rooms of my childhood, especially the family chapel. On the walls above the wooden choir stalls, my ancestors rode on grandly caparisoned horses in Gozzoli’s masterpiece, The Procession of the Magi. The mural spanned three walls. The eastern one captured my imagination, for it was the wall of the Magus Gaspar, he who led the way after Bethlehem’s star. My forefathers rode just behind him, in dazzling shades of crimson, blue, and gold.

The mural had been commissioned in Piero the Gouty’s time. He rode just behind Gaspar; my great-great-grandfather was a serious, tight-lipped man in his fifth decade, riding immediately in front of his own father, the aged but still wily Cosimo. His son Lorenzo il Magnifico followed them both. He was only eleven then, a homely boy with a jutting lower lip and wildly crooked nose. Yet there was something beautiful in his upward-slanting eyes, in their clear, focused intelligence that made me yearn to touch his cheek. But he had been painted high upon the wall, beyond my reach. Many times I had climbed onto a choir stall when the chapel was empty, but I could touch only the fresco’s lower edge. I had often been told that I possessed Lorenzo’s quick wit, and felt a kinship with him. His father had died when he was young, leaving him a city to rule; not long after, his adored brother was assassinated, leaving him truly alone.

But Lorenzo was wise. His child’s gaze was sober and steady. And it was fastened not on his father, Piero, or his grandfather Cosimo-but directly on golden-haired Gaspar, the Magus who followed the star.

Young Lorenzo gazed down at me that evening at vespers. Uncle Filippo was absent, but Clarice was there, her tense features softened beneath a gossamer black veil. She murmured prayers with one eye open, her monocular gaze darting behind her, at the open door. She had seemed chastened during her encounter with Ser Cosimo, but the intervening hours had restored her nerve.

To her immediate right was my cousin Ippolito, straight and tall, having recently sprouted a man’s broad chest and back. Tanned from hunting, he had grown a goatee and mustache, which enhanced his dark eyes and made him dizzyingly handsome. He was kind to me-we were after all, to be married someday and rule Florence together-but now he was eighteen and had come to notice women. And I was just a homely little girl.

Alessandro, his junior by two years, stood beside him, murmuring prayers with his eyes wide open. My half brother, Sandro, son of an African slave, had thick black brows, full lips, and a taciturn demeanor. No matter how long I studied his heavy, pouting features, I never glimpsed a hint of our common ancestry. Sandro was well aware that he lacked his elder cousin Ippolito’s physical beauty and charm. Their relationship had become marked by competitiveness, yet the two were inseparable, bound by their special status.

In the chapel, Ginevra prayed on Clarice’s immediate left, flanked by little Roberto, then Leone and Tommaso, then my beloved Piero. Even he, who had earlier been so dismissive of my fears, had grown quiet and pensive as the crowd outside our gates swelled.

I remember little of the actual ritual that evening-just Aunt Clarice’s strong alto as we sang the psalms, and the priest’s wavering tenor as he led the Kyrie eleison.

He had just begun to chant the benediction when Aunt Clarice’s head turned sharply. Outside, in the corridor, Uncle Filippo held his cap in his hands.

He was a grim man with sunken cheeks and grey hair cut short in the style of a Roman senator; when he caught Clarice’s eye, his expression grew even grimmer. She motioned quickly at Ginevra: Go, go. Take the children with you. She inclined her head at Ippolito and Alessandro. And take them, too.

The priest’s hand sliced horizontally through the air to complete the invisible cross. He, too, had seen the crowds at the gate and departed quickly through the exit near the altar.

Clarice moved aside, allowing Ginevra to herd the cousins toward the door. At the same time, Uncle Filippo advanced into the chapel. Last of the children, I lagged behind.

Sandro followed the others meekly, but Ippolito broke away from the group to face Clarice. “I will stay,” he said. “Filippo bears important news, doesn’t he?”

Clarice’s expression hardened, a sight that made Ginevra redouble her efforts to shoo the children outside. I ducked behind a choir stall, itching to hear Uncle Filippo’s news.

“Here now,” Filippo said gently as he came to stand beside his wife. “Ippolito, I need a moment alone with her.” He waited until Ginevra cleared the other boys out of the chapel. “You’ll hear everything in good time.”

Ippolito looked sharply from his aunt to his uncle. “Now is good time. I’ve been watching quietly while Passerini alienated the people. I can’t be patient any longer.” He drew in a breath. “You’ve been summoning military support, I take it. How do we stand?”

“We stand in a complicated situation,” Filippo said. “And I will tell you everything I have learned this evening. But first, I will have a private word with my wife.”

For a long moment, he and Ippolito stared at each other; Uncle Filippo was solid as stone. At last, Ippolito let go a sound of disgust, then turned away and strode out after the others.

Filippo drew Clarice to a pew. As he sat down beside her, she raised her veil and said, stricken: “So. We are lost then.”

Filippo nodded.

Flaring, Clarice jumped to her feet. “They’ve forsaken us already?” There was fury as well as disappointment in her tone. She had already known what news Filippo would bring, yet she had hoped wildly, secretly, that it would not be the news she expected.

Filippo remained seated. “They’re afraid. Without Clement’s support-”

“Damn them!” When Filippo reached for her arm, she shook him off. “Cowards! Damn the Emperor, damn Passerini-and damn the Pope!”

“Clarice,” Filippo said forcefully. This time when he caught her arm, she did not pull away but instead sat down hard.

Her features contorted in a spasm of grief, and sudden tears-diamonds caught in candlelight-rained onto her cheeks and bosom. The impossible had occurred: Aunt Clarice was crying.

“Damn them all,” she said. “They’re idiots, every one. Just like my father, who lost this city through sheer stupidity. And now I’ll lose it, too.”

Filippo put a hand upon her shoulder and waited patiently for her to calm herself. Once she had, he brushed away her tears and asked softly, “You will talk to them, then?”

She gave a helpless little wave. “What else can I do?” She let go a deep sigh, then reached out and stroked Filippo’s cheek with a bitter, fleeting smile. He caught her hand and kissed it with genuine tenderness.

Clarice’s smile vanished abruptly. “I’ll negotiate with no one but Capponi himself,” she said. “You’ll have to find him tonight-tomorrow morning will be too late. By then, there will be bloodshed.”

“Tonight,” Filippo echoed. “I’ll see to it.”

“We meet on my terms,” Clarice said. “I’ll write it down; I’ll have no misunderstanding.” She gave Filippo a meaningful look. “You already know my condition.”

“Clarice,” he said, but she put a finger to his lips.

“They won’t hurt me, Lippo. It’s not me they want. When it’s all over, I’ll join you.”

“I won’t leave you without protection,” Filippo said.

“I’ll have it,” she countered. “The best kind-better than soldiers. Tomorrow, the astrologer’s son is coming-the magician, Cosimo. I’ll meet with him before I see Capponi.”

Filippo recoiled. “Cosimo Ruggieri? Benozzo’s black-hearted boy?”

“He knew, Lippo. He knew the hour and the day that Clement would fall. He tried to warn me weeks ago, but I wouldn’t listen. Well, I’m listening now.”

“Clarice, they say he conjures demons, that he-”

“He knew the hour and the day,” she interrupted. “I cannot dismiss such an ally.”

Filippo remained troubled. “I will still make sure you have the best men and arms.”

Clarice graced him with a cold, sly smile. “I have the best insurance of all, Lippo. I have the heirs.” She rose and took her husband’s hand. “Come. I need quill and paper. Capponi must have my letter tonight.”

Uncle Filippo followed her out. I crawled out from my hiding place, but lingered in the chapel.

He knew. He knew the hour and the day.

If Ser Cosimo had been able to convince Clarice of his knowledge weeks earlier, could Pope Clement have been warned? Even more: Had my mother been warned that mine would be a difficult birth, would she not have consulted a physician earlier? Might my father have been warned to see to his health? Might both their lives have been spared?

Surely God would have wanted to spare the Pope and my parents. Surely He would not condemn a frightened child for seeking safety, even if it lay in the arms of a man who spoke to devils.

There are things we must discuss, unhappy secrets.

I stared up at Gaspar, the King of the East, young and glorious astride his white mount. He did not hold my attention long; it was the boy Lorenzo who captivated me-an ugly, lonely, brilliant child, forced by fate to grow shrewd before his time. Lorenzo, who ignored all others and kept his gaze intently focused on the Magus.

The next morning I woke to the sounds of a household unbearably alert but subdued. The usual lilts of servants’ voices had become terse whispers; their steps were muted. I could not even hear the cook and scullery maid banging pots and dishes in the kitchen.

Ginevra dressed me hurriedly and left. I should have gone directly down to breakfast-but I knew that the chambermaids would already be busy at their tasks, so I headed to their empty bedroom. I dragged a stool to the window, stepped up, and looked down.

The composition of the crowd had changed. The day before had brought unarmed merchants and peasants. Today the men were highborn and armed with short swords at their hips; they stood in disciplined ranks, forming a barricade around the compound. Traffic in the Via Larga had stalled, thanks to sentries who questioned each passerby.

Troubled, I quit the window and went down to seek Piero. I found him in the boys’ apartment, where Ginevra was lifting a stack of folded items from an open wardrobe. She had turned to set them down into a half-packed trunk when she caught sight of me standing in the doorway.

I stared at the bundle of boys’ clothing in her arms. Beside Ginevra, Leda sat on a low stool folding bed linens, which she set in a second trunk. I could not imagine why Leda, who always tended Aunt Clarice, should be fussing with the boys’ linens.

Ginevra flushed brilliantly. “You shouldn’t be here, Caterina,” she said. “Did you get your breakfast?”

I shook my head. “What are you doing?”

Piero heard and came out of the bedroom. “Packing,” he said, smiling. “Don’t look so frightened, Cat. We’re going to the country, just like I said. Mother’s going to speak to the rebels tonight, after we’re gone.”

In a small voice, I said, “No one is packing my things.”

“Well, they will.” Piero turned to Ginevra, whose gaze was carefully fixed on the trunk in front of her. “Who’s going to take care of her things?”

Ginevra’s reply was so long in coming that Leda, the braver of the two, said sternly, “Her aunt will speak to her about it when the time is right. In the meantime, she should get her breakfast and stay out of trouble.”

My lower lip twitched despite my best efforts to control it, and I said, tearfully, to Piero, “They’re not going to let me go with you.”

“Don’t be silly!” he said and turned his gaze on Leda. “She is going with us, isn’t she?”

Leda tried to meet his stare brazenly, but in the end, she looked away. “Madonna Clarice will speak to her later.”

Piero’s voice rose in protest, but I bolted before I heard what he had to say. I raced breakneck down the stairs, out into the courtyard, and past the formal garden to the far end of the stables. A large sycamore grew beside the stone wall that enclosed the rear of the property. I hurled myself beneath its shade and wept. The world had betrayed me; my only hope, my only happiness, was Piero, but now he was to be taken from me. I cried undisturbed for what seemed an eternity, then lay with my back against the damp ground and stared up at green leaves punctuated by bits of sky.

I have the best insurance of all; I have the heirs. Piero and his brothers would be taken to safety, and I, an heir, would remain. I was currency Clarice could use in her negotiations with the rebels.

In my reverie, I almost failed to notice the songs of church bells-San Marco, San Lorenzo, Santa Maria del Fiore-tumbling over each other in melodic cascades. They had nearly stilled when I sat up and reconstructed the number of tolls from memory. It was terce, the third hour of the morning.

I rose, brushed the twigs from my skirts, and hurried along the side of the stables until I was able to peer around the corner toward the gates that opened onto the Via Larga.

Our two dozen guards were focused on the silent rebels on the other side of the iron bars, while a boy was leading a gleaming black mare to the stalls. She was spirited and tossed her head, obedient enough but letting him know, with a disdainful glare, that she did not trust him.

Ser Cosimo could not be far away. I went to the deserted garden and waited there for half an hour-an agonizing length of time for a restless child.

At last the magician appeared, in a farsetto of black and red striped silk. He spotted me and silently led me to an alcove sheltered from view by a tall hedge.

Once there, he said sternly, “You must promise me, Donna Caterina, that you will tell no one of our meeting-for many reasons, not the least of which is the unseemliness of my meeting privately with a young girl. You must repeat what I tell you to no one-especially your aunt Clarice.”

“I promise.”

“Good.” He leaned down so that his face was at the level of mine. “Your natal stars are remarkable. I would like to help you, Caterina, to mitigate their evil and strengthen the good.” He paused. “You will rule. But not for many years. Saturn in Capricorn assures that.”

“We will lose Florence-for a while?” I asked. “And then come back, as we did before?”

“You will never rule Florence,” he said, and when my features began to crumple, he snapped, “Listen to me! The chart of your nativity shows Leo ascending and Aries in your Tenth House. That is the marker of a king, Caterina. You will rule far more than a single city. If-” He stopped himself. “Your horoscope holds many terrible challenges, and now is the first. I intend to see you survive it. Do you understand?”

I nodded, intrigued and terrified. “Is that what you saw yesterday, when you looked at the moles near my ear? You saw something that frightened you.”

He frowned, trying to remember, then broke into an amused smile. “I wasn’t frightened. I was… impressed.”

“Impressed?”

“By the king,” he said. “The one you are to marry.”

I gaped, dumbstruck.

“I do not know how far we can rely on Madonna Clarice,” he continued. “A betrayal is coming, one that threatens your life, but I am not sure whence it arises. I have been honest with your aunt about your singular importance, and I have given her talismans of protection for you and your cousins. But I did not know whether I could trust her to give you this.”

His fingers dug into the pouch on his belt and found a small item; he opened them to reveal a polished black stone accompanied by a bit of greenery.

“This is the Wing of Corvus Rising, from Agrippa, created under the aegis of Mars and Saturn. It holds the power of the raven’s star. Its wing will shelter you from harm until we meet again. Wear it hidden, with the stone on top and the comfrey touching your skin. Make absolutely certain that no one sees it or takes it from you.”

“I’ll make certain,” I said. “I’m not stupid.”

“I can see that,” he answered, with a glimmer of humor. He held out his hand, and I took the dark gift. I had expected the gem’s touch to be cold, but his flesh had warmed it.

“Why do you do this for me?” I asked.

Something sly flashed in his smile. “We are tied, Caterina Maria Romula de’ Medici. You appeared in my stars long before you were born. It serves my interests to keep you safe, if I can.” He paused. “Let me see you hide the talisman on your person.”

I insinuated my fingers beneath my tightly laced bodice and placed the gem between my undeveloped breasts. The bit of crushed comfrey took some maneuvering before it rested properly under the stone.

“Good,” Ser Cosimo said. “Now I must take my leave.” But as he turned to go, a thought occurred to him, and he asked quickly, “Do you dream, Caterina? Memorable dreams, remarkable ones?”

“I try not to remember them,” I said. “They frighten me.”

“You will recall them clearly now, under Corvus’s wing,” he said. “Mars dwells in your Twelfth House, the House of Hidden Enemies and Dreams. Heaven itself reveals what you must know of your fate. It is your gift and your burden.” He executed a shallow bow. “I take my leave of you for a time, Donna Caterina. May God permit us to meet again soon.”

He did not intend for his voice to betray any doubt regarding that future meeting-but it did, and I heard that doubt all too well. I turned away without answer and ran back across the courtyard, the raven’s stone hard against my chest.

Three

I ran to the library and threw open the shutters to let in the sun and any sounds from the street or the stables near the gate. Then I found De Vita Coelitus Comparanda, written in the author’s script on yellowing parchment. Piero had left it on the bottom shelf so he could easily retrieve it, which allowed me to slide it off and guide it clumsily down to the floor.

I sat cross-legged, pulled the volume onto my lap, and opened it. I was far too agitated to read, but pressed my palms against the cool pages and stared at the words. I calmed myself by lifting a page, turning it, and smoothing it down with my hand. I turned another page, and another, until my breathing slowed, until my eyes relaxed and began to recognize a word here, a phrase there.

I had finally settled down enough to read when my eyes caught a flash of movement. Piero stood in the doorway, his cheeks flushed, his chest heaving. His face betrayed such misery and guilt I could not bear to look at him but lowered my gaze back to the book in my lap.

“I told them I couldn’t leave you,” he said. “If you can’t go, then I won’t.”

“It doesn’t matter what we want,” I said flatly. If I was in grave danger, then Piero was better off abandoning my company; the kindest thing I could do for him now was to be cruel. “I’m an heir and must remain. You’re not, so you must respect your mother’s bargain and leave.”

“They want Ippolito and Sandro, not you,” he persisted. “I’ll talk to Mother. They’ll see reason…”

I ran my finger down a page and said coldly, “It’s already decided, Piero. There’s no point in talking about it.”

“Cat,” he said, with such anguish that my resolve wavered-but I kept my gaze fixed on the page.

He stood in the doorway a bit longer, but I would not look up, not until the sound of his footsteps had faded.

I sat alone in the library until the sun passed midheaven and did not stir until a sound drew me to the window.

The coach bearing Piero, his brothers, and Uncle Filippo had rolled up to the gate and paused there while our soldiers moved aside to let the gate swing inward. As they did, two men walked through the opening onto our estate. Both were of noble birth; one wore a self-important air and an embroidered blue tunic. The other was dark and muscular, with a military commander’s bearing. Once they made their way past our guards, the man in blue signaled the carriage driver.

I stared, stricken, as the carriage rumbled through the gate and onto the street outside. There was no chance Piero could see me: The low sun created a blinding glare, and I could not see the windows of the carriage. Even so I waved, and watched as it headed north down the Via de’ Gori and disappeared.

At suppertime, Paola found me and shooed me to my room, where a plate of food awaited me. She also brought a talisman on a leather thong and hung it round my neck. I agreed to remain in my room in exchange for Ficino’s book, but before Paola could deliver it and leave, I pelted her with questions: What were the names of the two men at the gate? How long were they expected to stay?

She was overworked and exasperated, but I managed to tease from her the phrase “Niccolò Capponi, leader of the rebels, and his general, Bernardo Rinuccini.”

I obeyed her and kept to my room. After many hours of anxious reading, I fell asleep.

I woke to the sound of shouting and hurried to the main landing. In the foyer at the foot of the stairs, Passerini-in his scarlet cardinal’s gown trimmed with ermine, his ample jowls spilling over the too-tight neck-stood shouting, flanked by Ippolito and Sandro. The Cardinal had apparently drunk a good portion of wine.

“It’s an outrage!” he shrieked. “I am the regent, I alone possess the authority to make such decisions. And I denounce this one!” He stood inches from Aunt Clarice, who, accompanied by two men at arms, barred entry to the dining hall. “You insult us!”

He seized Clarice’s right wrist, wrenching it so violently that she cried out in surprise and pain.

“Worthless bastard!” she shouted. “Let go of me!”

On either side of her, the guards unsheathed their swords. Passerini dropped hold of her at once. The younger of the guards was ready to strike, but Clarice signaled for peace and caught Ippolito’s gaze.

“Get them from my sight,” she hissed.

Cradling her injured wrist, she turned and swept imperiously back into the dining hall. The door closed behind her, and the guards positioned themselves in front of it. The Cardinal lurched slightly, as if considering whether to charge the door, but Ippolito caught his arm.

“They’ve made the decision to deal with her,” he said. “There’s nothing we can do here. Come.” Still gripping Passerini’s arm, he moved for the stairs; Sandro followed.

I held my ground on the landing as they ascended toward me and looked questioningly at Ippolito.

“Our aunt has chosen to humiliate us, Caterina,” Ippolito said tautly, “by barring us from the negotiations at the request of the rebels. I’m sure they’ll find her more accommodating.” His voice grew very low and soft. “She has humiliated us. And she will pay.”

I watched as they made their way to their apartments, then I returned to my bed and stared at the window and the darkness beyond it, broken by the wavering glow from the rebels’ torches.

I slept fitfully, with dreams of men and swords and shouting. At dawn, sounds pulled me from sleep: the ring of bootheels on marble, the murmur of men’s voices. I called for Paola, who came and dressed me with a far rougher hand than Ginevra ever had. On her orders, I ran down toward the kitchen but stopped in the ground-floor corridor. The door to the dining hall was open; curiosity compelled me to peer past the threshold.

Clarice was inside. She sat alone at the long table littered with empty goblets; hers was full, untouched. She was dressed gorgeously in deep green brocade, and the train of her gown spilled over the side of the chair and pooled artfully at her feet. Her arm rested on the table, and her face, nestled in the crook, was turned from me. Her chestnut hair hung upon her shoulder, restrained by a gold net studded with tiny diamonds.

She heard me and languidly lifted her head. She was full awake, but her expression was lifeless; I was too young to interpret it then, but over the years I have come to recognize the dull look of undigested grief.

“Caterina,” she said, without inflection; her eyes were heavy-lidded with exhaustion. She leaned over and patted the seat of the chair beside her. “Come, sit with me. The men will be down soon, and you might as well hear.”

I sat. Her wrist, propped upon the table, was badly swollen, with dark marks left by Passerini’s fingers. Within a few minutes, Leda led Passerini and the cousins to the table. Ippolito’s manner was reserved; Passerini’s and Sandro’s, angry and challenging.

When they had taken their seats, Aunt Clarice waved Leda out of the room. Capponi had guaranteed us all safe passage, she said. We would go to Naples, where her mother’s people, the Orsini, would take us in. With their help, we would raise an army. The Duke of Milan would support us, and the d’Estes of Ferrara, and every other dynasty in Italy with sense enough to see that the formation of another Venice-style republic was an outright threat to them.

Passerini interrupted. “You gave Capponi everything he wanted, didn’t you? No wonder they preferred to deal with a woman!”

Clarice looked wearily at him. “Their men surround this house, Silvio. They have soldiers and weapons, and we have neither. With what did you intend me to bargain?”

“They came to us!” Passerini snarled. “They wanted something.”

“They wanted our heads,” Clarice said, with a faint trace of spirit. “Instead they will grant us safe passage. And in exchange, we must give them this.”

She spoke tonelessly and at length: The rebels would let us live, if, in four days, on the seventeenth of May at midday, Ippolito, Alessandro, and I went to the great public square, the Piazza della Signoria, and announced our abdication. We would then swear oaths of allegiance to the new Third Republic of Florence. We would also swear never to return. Afterward, rebel soldiers would lead us to the city gates and waiting carriages.

The cardinal swore and sputtered. “Betrayal,” Sandro said. The magician’s face rose in my imagination and whispered: One that threatens your life. They both fell silent the instant Ippolito rose.

“I knew Florence was lost,” he told Clarice, his voice unsteady. “But there are other things we could have purchased our safety with-properties, hidden family treasure, promises of alliances. For you to agree to humiliate us publicly-”

Clarice raised a brow. “Would you prefer the bite of the executioner’s blade?”

“I will not bow to them, Aunt,” Ippolito said.

“I kept our dignity,” Clarice countered; the tiny diamonds in her hairnet sparkled as she lifted her chin. “They could have taken our heads. They could have stripped us and hung us in the Piazza della Signoria. Instead, they wait outside. They give us a bit of freedom. They give us time.”

Ippolito drew in a long breath, and when he let it go, he shuddered. “I will not bow to them,” he said, and the words held a threat.

Four miserable days passed; the men spent them closeted in Ippolito’s chambers. Aunt Clarice wandered empty halls, as all of the house servants-except the most loyal, which included Leda, Paola, the stablehands, and the cook-had left. Beyond the iron gate, the rebels kept watch; the soldiers who had guarded our palazzo abandoned us.

By the afternoon of the sixteenth-one day before we were all to humble ourselves in the Piazza della Signoria-my room was stripped. I begged Paola to pack the volume of Ficino, but she murmured that it was a very big book for such a little girl.

That evening, Aunt Clarice prevailed upon us to have supper in one of the smaller dining rooms. Ippolito had little to say to anyone; Sandro, however, seemed surprisingly lighthearted, as did Passerini-who, when Clarice voiced her regret over leaving the family home in hostile hands, patted her hand, pointedly ignoring her bandaged right wrist.

The dinner ended quietly-at least, for Clarice, Ippolito, and me. The three of us retired, leaving Sandro and Passerini to their wine and jokes. I could hear them laughing as I headed back toward the children’s apartments.

That night, I dreamt.

I stood in the center of a vast open field and spied in the distance a man, his body backlit by the rays of the dying sun. I could not see his face, but he knew me and called out to me in a foreign tongue.

Catherine…

Not Caterina, as I was christened at birth, but Catherine. I recognized it as my name, just as I had when the magician had once uttered it so.

Catherine, he cried again, anguished.

The setting changed abruptly, as happens in dreams. He lay on the ground at my feet and I stood over him, wanting to help. Blood welled up from his shadowed face like water from a spring and soaked the earth beneath him. I knew that I was responsible for this blood, that he would die if I did not do something. Yet I could not fathom what I was to do.

Catherine, he whispered, and died, and I woke to the sound of Leda screaming.

Four

The sound came from across the landing, from Ippolito and Alessandro’s shared apartments. I ran toward the source.

Leda had fallen in front of the wide-open door onto all fours. Her screams were now moans, which merged with the song of bells from the nearby cathedral of San Lorenzo, announcing the dawn.

I ran up to her. “Is it the baby?”

Gritting her teeth, Leda shook her head. Her stricken gaze was on Clarice, who had also come running in her chemise, a shawl thrown around her shoulders. She knelt beside the fallen woman. “The child is coming, then?”

Again, Leda shook her head and gestured at the heirs’ room. “I went to wake them,” she gasped.

Clarice’s face went slack. Wordlessly, she rose and hurried on bare feet into the men’s antechamber. I followed.

The outer room looked as it always had-with chairs, table, writing desks, a cold hearth for summer. Without announcing herself, Clarice sailed through the open door into Ippolito’s bedroom.

In its center-as if the perpetrators had intended to draw attention to their dramatic display-a pile of clothes lay on the floor: the farsettos Alessandro and Ippolito had worn the previous night, atop a tangle of black leggings and Passerini’s scarlet gown.

I stood behind my aunt as she bent down to check the abandoned fabric for warmth. As she straightened, she let go a whispered roar, filled with infinite rage.

“Traitors! Traitors! Sons of whores, all of you!”

She whirled about and saw me standing, terrified, in front of her. Her eyes were wild, her features contorted.

“I pledged on my honor,” she said, but not to me. “On my honor, on my family name, and Capponi trusted me.”

She fell silent until her anger transformed into ruthless determination. She took my hand firmly and led me ungently back into the corridor, where Leda was still moaning on the floor.

She seized the pregnant woman’s arm. “Get up. Quick, go to the stables and see if the carriages have gone.”

Leda arched her back and went rigid; liquid splashed softly against marble. Clarice took a step back from the clear puddle around Leda’s knees and shouted for Paola-who was, of course, horrified by the revelation of the men’s departure and needed severe chastising before she calmed.

Clarice ordered Paola to go to the stables to see if all the carriages were gone. “Calmly,” Clarice urged, “as if you had forgotten to pack something. Remember-the rebels are watching just beyond the gate.”

Once Paola had gone on her mission, Clarice glanced down at Leda and turned to me. “Help me get her to my room,” she said.

We lifted the laboring woman to her feet and helped her up the stairs to my aunt’s chambers. The spasm that had earlier seized her eased, and she sat, panting, in a chair near Clarice’s bed.

In due time, Paola returned, hysterical: Passerini and the heirs were nowhere to be found, yet the carriages that had been packed with their belongings still waited. The master of the horses and all the grooms were gone-and the bodies of three stablehands lay bloodied in the straw. Only a boy remained. He had been asleep, he said, and woke terrified to discover his fellows murdered and the master gone.

In Clarice’s eyes, I saw the flash of Lorenzo’s brilliant mind at work.

“My quill,” she said to Paola, “and paper.”

When Paola had delivered them both, Clarice sat at her desk and wrote two letters. The effort exasperated her, as her bandaged hand pained her; many times, she dropped the quill. She bade Paola fold one letter several times into a small square, the other, into thirds. With the smaller letter in hand, Aunt Clarice knelt at the foot of Leda’s chair and took the servant’s cheeks in her hands. A look passed between them that I, a child, did not understand. Then Clarice leaned forward and pressed her lips to Leda’s as a man might kiss a woman; Leda wound her arms about Clarice and held her fast. After a long moment, Clarice pulled away and touched her forehead to Leda’s in the tenderest of gestures.

Finally Clarice straightened. “You must be brave for me, Leda, or we are all dead. I will arrange with Capponi for you to go to my physician. You must give the doctor this”-she held up the little square of paper-“without anyone seeing or knowing.”

“But the rebels…,” Leda breathed, owl-eyed.

“They’ll have pity on you,” Clarice said firmly. “Doctor Cattani will make sure that your child arrives safely in this world. We will meet again, and soon. Only trust me.”

When Leda, tight-lipped, finally nodded, Clarice gestured for Paola to take the other letter, folded in thirds.

“Tell the rebels at the gate to deliver this to Capponi immediately. Wait for his answer, then come to me.”

Paola hesitated-only an instant, as Aunt Clarice’s gaze was far more frightening than the prospect of facing the rebels-and disappeared with the letter.

After a long, anxious hour-during which I managed to dress myself, with Clarice’s help-Paola reappeared with news that Capponi would let Leda leave provided she was judged sincerely pregnant and about to give birth. This led to an urgent consultation between the women as to where the letter should be concealed, and how Leda should pass it to the doctor without detection.

Then, per Capponi’s instruction, Clarice and Paola helped the pregnant woman down the stairs to the large brass door that opened directly onto the Via Larga. I shadowed them at a distance.

Just outside the door, two respectful nobles waited; beyond them, rebel soldiers held back the crowd that had gathered in the street. The nobles helped Leda into a waiting wagon. Aunt Clarice stood in the doorway, her palm pressed against the jamb, and watched as they drove Leda away. When she turned to face me, she was bereft. She did not expect to see Leda again-a ghastly thought, since the latter had served Clarice since both were children.

We headed back upstairs. In my aunt’s carriage, I read the truth: The world we knew was dissolving to make room for something new and terrible. I had been sad, thinking I would be separated from Piero for a few weeks; now, looking at Clarice’s face, I realized I might never set eyes on him again.

Once in her room, Clarice went to a cupboard and retrieved a gold florin.

“Take this to the stableboy,” she told Paola. “Tell him to remain at his post until the fifth hour of the morning, when he must saddle the largest stallion and lead it out through the back of the stables, to the rear walls of the estate. If he waits there for us, I will bring him another florin.” She paused. “If you tell him the heirs have gone-if you so much as hint at the truth-I will throw you over the gate myself and let them tear you to shreds, because he just might realize he can tell the rebels our secret to save his skin.”

Paola accepted the coin but hesitated, troubled. “There is no chance-even on the largest horse-that we could make it past the gate-”

Clarice’s gaze silenced her; Paola gave a quick little curtsy, then disappeared. Her expression, when she returned, was one of relief: The boy was still there, happy to obey. “He swears on his life that he will tell the rebels nothing,” she said.

I puzzled over Clarice’s scheme. I had been told several times that I was to go to the dining hall no later than the fifth hour of the morning, because Capponi’s general and his men would be on our doorstep half an hour later to escort us to the Piazza. Whatever her plan, she intended to execute it before their arrival.

I watched as Paola arranged Clarice’s hair and dressed her in the black-and-gold brocade gown she had chosen to wear for our family’s public humiliation. Paola was lacing on the first heavy, velvet-edged sleeve when the church bells signaled terce, the third hour of the morning. Three hours had passed since daybreak, when I had discovered Leda huddled on the floor; three more would pass until the bells chimed sext, the sixth hour, midday, when we were to arrive at the Piazza della Signoria.

Paola continued her task, although her fingers were clumsy and shaking. In the end, Clarice was dressed and achingly beautiful. She glanced into the mirror Paola held for her and scowled, sighing. Some new worry, some problem, had occurred to her, one she did not yet know how to resolve. But she turned to me with forced, hollow cheer.

“Now,” she asked, “how shall we amuse ourselves for the next two hours? We must find a way to busy ourselves, you and I.”

“I would like to go to the chapel,” I said.

Clarice entered the chapel slowly, reverently, and I reluctantly followed suit, genuflecting and crossing myself when she did, then settling beside her on the pew.

Clarice closed her eyes, but I could still see her mind struggling with some fresh challenge. I left her to it while I wriggled, straining my neck to get a better view of the mural.

Clarice sighed and opened her eyes again. “Didn’t you come to pray, child?”

I expected irritation but heard only curiosity, so I answered honestly. “No. I wanted to see Lorenzo again.”

Her face softened. “Then go and see him.”

I went over to the wooden choir stall just beneath the painting of the crowd following the youthful magus Gaspar and tilted my head back.

“Do you know them all, then?” Clarice asked behind me, her tone low and faintly sad.

I pointed to the first horse behind Gaspar’s. “Here is Piero the Gouty, Lorenzo’s father,” I said. “And beside him, his father, Cosimo the Old.” They had been shrewdest, most powerful men Florence had known, until Lorenzo il Magnifico supplanted them both.

Clarice stepped forward to gesture at a small face near Lorenzo’s, almost lost in the crowd. “And here is Giuliano, his brother. He was murdered in the cathedral, you know. They tried to murder Lorenzo, too. He was wounded and bleeding, but he wouldn’t leave his brother. His friends dragged him away as he shouted Giuliano’s name. No one was more loyal to those he loved.

“There are those who aren’t there beside him but should have been,” she continued. “Ghosts, of whom you have not heard enough. My mother should be there-your grandmother Alfonsina. She married Lorenzo’s eldest son, an idiot who promptly alienated the people and was banished. But she had a son-your father-and educated him in the subject of politics, so that when we Medici returned to Florence, he ruled it well enough. When your father went away to war, Alfonsina governed quite capably. And now… we have lost the city again.” She sighed. “No matter how brightly we shine, we Medici women are doomed to be eclipsed by our men.”

“I won’t let it happen to me,” I said.

She turned her head sharply to look down at me. “Won’t you?” she asked slowly. In her eyes I saw an idea being birthed, one that caused the recent worry there to vanish.

“I can be strong,” I said, “like Lorenzo. Please, I would like to touch him. Just once, before we go.”

She was not a large woman, but I was not a large child. She lifted me with effort, trying to spare her injured wrist, just high enough so that I could touch Lorenzo’s cheek. Silly child, I had expected the contours and warmth of flesh, and was surprised to find the surface beneath my fingertips flat and cold.

“He was no fool,” she said, when she had lowered me. “He knew when to love, and when to hate.

“When his brother was murdered-when he saw the House of Medici was in danger-he struck out.” She looked pointedly at me.

“Do you understand that it is possible to be good yet destroy one’s enemies, Caterina? That sometimes, to protect one’s own blood, it is necessary to let the blood of others?”

I shook my head, shocked.

“If a man came to our door,” Clarice persisted, “and wanted to murder me, to murder Piero and you, could you do what was necessary to stop him?”

I looked away for an instant, summoning the scene in my imagination. “Yes,” I answered. “I could.”

“You are like me,” Clarice said approvingly, “and Lorenzo: sensitive, yet able to do what needs to be done. The House of Medici must survive, and you, Caterina, are its only hope.”

She smiled darkly at me and, with her bandaged hand, reached into the folds of her skirt to draw out something slender and shining and very, very sharp.

We returned to Clarice’s quarters, where Paola waited, and spent the next hour twisting silk scarves around jewels and gold florins. With Paola’s help, my aunt tied four heavy makeshift belts around her waist, beneath her gown. A pair of emerald earrings and a large diamond went into her bodice. Clarice helped Paola secure two of the belts on her person, then set aside one gold florin.

Then we sat for half an hour, with only Clarice knowing what awaited us. Prompted by a signal known only to her, Clarice picked up the gold florin and handed it to Paola.

“Take this to the boy,” she said. “Tell him to ready a horse and lead it through the stables and out the back, then wait there. Then you come to us at the main entry.”

Paola left. Aunt Clarice took my hand and led me downstairs to stand with her by the front door. When the servant returned, Clarice caught her shoulders.

“Be calm,” she said, “and listen carefully to me. Caterina and I are going to the stables. Stay here. The instant we leave, count to twenty-then open this door.”

Paola’s arms thrashed to free herself from Clarice’s grasp; she began to cry out, but my aunt silenced her with a harsh shake.

“Listen,” Clarice snarled. “You must scream loudly to get everyone’s attention. Say that the heirs are upstairs, that they are escaping. Repeat it until everyone rushes into the house. Then you can run out and lose yourself in the crowd.” She paused. “The jewels are yours. If I don’t see you again, I wish you well.” She drew back and gave the servant a piercing look. “Before God Almighty, will you do it?”

Paola trembled mightily but whispered: “I’ll do it.”

“May He keep you, then.”

Clarice gripped my hand. Together we ran the length of the palazzo, through the corridors and courtyard and garden until we were in sight of the stables. She stopped abruptly in the shelter of a tall hedge and peered past it at the now-unlocked iron gate.

I peered with her. On the other side of the black bars, bored rebel soldiers kept watch in front of a milling crowd.

Then I heard them, high and shrill: Paola’s screams. Clarice stooped down and pulled off her slippers; I did the same. She waited while all the men turned toward the source of the noise-then, when they all surged to the east, away from the gate, she drew in a long breath and ran west, dragging me with her.

We kicked up clouds of dust as we dashed past the heirs’ waiting carriage, past our own; the harnessed horses whinnied in protest. We came alongside the stables, then veered behind them, past the spot where I had lain after I learned Piero would leave me. There, next to the high stone wall, stood a saddled mount and an astonished boy-a wiry Ethiopian not much older than I, with a cloud of feather-light hair. Bits of straw clung to his hair and clothes. Like the horse’s, his eyes were wide and worried and white. The massive roan shied, but the boy reined it in with ease.

“Help me up!” Clarice demanded; the shouting out in the street had grown so loud he could barely hear her.

My aunt wasted no time with modesty. She hiked up her skirts, exposing white legs, and placed her bare foot in the stirrup. The horse was tall and she could not bring her leg over its withers; the boy gave her rump a mighty shove, which allowed her to scramble up into the saddle. She sat astride it, taking the reins in her good hand, and maneuvered the horse sidelong to the wall until her leg was pressed between the animal’s barrel and the stone. Then she pierced our young rescuer with her gaze.

“You swore on your life that you would tell the rebels nothing,” she said. It was an accusation.

“Yes, yes,” he responded anxiously. “I will say nothing, Madonna.”

“Only those who know a secret promise to keep it,” she said. “And there is only one secret the rebels would want to hear today. What might it be? They would not care about an absent stable master and his murdered grooms.”

His mouth fell open; he looked as though he wanted to cry.

“Look at you, covered in straw,” Clarice told him. “You hid because, like the others, you had heard too much, and they were going to kill you, too. You know where the heirs have gone, don’t you?”

Owl-eyed, he dropped his head and stared hard at the grass. “No, Madonna, no…”

“You lie,” Clarice said. “And I don’t blame you. I would be frightened, too.”

His face contorted as he began to weep. “Please, Donna Clarice, don’t be angry, please… Before God, I swear I will not tell anyone…I could have gone to the rebels, run to the gate and told them everything, but I stayed. I have always been loyal, I will be loyal still. Only do not be angry.”

“I’m not angry,” she soothed. “We’ll take you with us. Lord knows, if we don’t, the rebels will torture you until you speak. I’ll give you another florin if you tell me where Ser Ippolito and the others have gone. But first, hand me the girl.” She leaned down and held her arms out to me.

He was bony but strong; he seized me below the ribs and swung me like a bale of hay up into Clarice’s fierce clutches.

A wave of fear slammed against me. I endured it until it crested and faded, leaving everything still and silent its wake. I had a choice: to quail, or to harden.

I hardened.

At the instant the boy handed me to my aunt, I slipped the stiletto from its sheath, hidden in my skirt pocket. It sliced easily through the skin beneath the boy’s jaw, in the same grinning arc Clarice had drawn for me on her own throat, with her finger.

But I was a child and not very strong. The wound was shallow; he flinched and drew back before I could finish. With all my might, I plunged the weapon deeper into the side of his neck. He clawed at the protruding dagger and let go a gurgling shriek, his eyes bulging with furious reproach.

Clutching me, Clarice kicked the boy’s shoulder. He fell backward, still screaming while Clarice set me on the saddle in front of her.

I stared down at him, horrified and intrigued by what I had just done.

He’s going to die in any case, my aunt had said. But the rebels would torture him horribly, until he confessed, and then they would hand him over to the crowd. You can spare him that.

Even we must not know where Ippolito and the others have gone. Can you understand that, Caterina?

It did not seem like a kindness now, watching him flail in the new grass, the blood from his throat collecting in a pool on the grass near his shoulder, crimson against spring green.

Suddenly, ominously, he stilled and fell silent.

He will break, Clarice had said, and tell them where the heirs have gone, and the House of Medici will be no more. But he will not be suspicious of a child. You will be able to get very close to him.

Clarice shouted in my ear. “Stand up in the saddle, Caterina! Stand up, I won’t let you fall.”

Miraculously, I struggled to my feet, swaying. I was now almost the height of the wall next to me.

“Crawl up, child!”

I pulled myself up while Clarice pushed. In an instant, I was kneeling on the wide ledge.

“What do you see?” my aunt demanded. “Is there a carriage?”

I looked out onto the narrow Via de’ Ginori-deserted save for a peasant woman dragging two small children with her, and a motionless one-horse carriage sitting next to the curb.

“Yes,” I called to her, then shouted and waved a hand at the carriage. Slowly, the horse lifted its hooves, and the wheels began to turn. When it finally arrived, the driver pulled so close to the wall that the wheels screeched against the stone.

I looked over the roof of the stables as the gate squealed; it swung wide open as a small crowd swarmed onto the estate. A man pointed up at me and let go a shout; the crowd headed directly toward us.

The driver, dressed in rumpled, oil-stained linen, stood up in his seat and stretched out his dirty hands to me. “Jump! I’ll catch you.”

Behind me, Clarice lurched as she grabbed the wall’s edge; her panicked mount had taken a step away from the wall. I tried to pull her up but lacked the strength.

I sucked in a great deep breath and leaped. The driver caught me easily and set me down beside him, then called to Clarice. I could see only her fingers and the backs of her hands-the right one purpled and swollen-where the fine bones stood out like ivory cords.

“Hold on, Madonna, I’ll pull you over!”

Our rescuer walked to the far edge of the driver’s box until his chest was pressed against the wall. He strained but could only brush Clarice’s fingertips.

“God help me,” Clarice screamed, at the same time that her horse shrieked. Men shouted on the other side of the wall.

“Get her! Hold her horse!”

“Don’t let her escape!”

In desperation, the driver climbed onto the roof of the carriage and, flexing his knees, bent from his waist to reach over the ledge and catch her arms. Clarice’s good hand caught hold of him; when he straightened, her face appeared over the top of the wall.

She screamed again, in fury rather than fright; her shoulders dipped beneath the wall as the men on the other side pulled at her. “Bastards! Bastards! Let me go!”

The driver staggered and almost fell, but pulled on her with such brute force that he fell back onto the carriage roof. Aunt Clarice came tumbling with him. The driver leaned down to examine her, but she sat up and struck him with her left hand.

“Go!” she snarled. She clambered down the side of the carriage and pulled me inside to sit beside her. She was gasping and trembling with exhaustion; her hair was wild on her shoulders, and the back of her gown had been torn off, exposing her petticoat.

She leaned out the door and shouted, “Out of the city, quickly! I’ll tell you then where we’re going!”

She fell back against the seat and stared down at her injured wrist as if astonished that it had not betrayed her. Then she stared up at the dirty wooden interior; unlike me, she made no attempt to look back at the home she was leaving.

“We’ll go to Naples,” she said, “to my mother’s family. But not today. They’ll expect us to go there.” Shivering but unshaken, defeated but indomitable, she turned her fierce gaze on me. “The Orsini will help us. This is not the end, you know. The Medici will retake Florence. We always do.”

I looked away. In the beginning, I had not wanted to take the knife, but it had drawn me like the darkness in Cosimo Ruggieri’s eyes. Now I stared down at the palm that had wielded the blade and saw that same darkness in me. I had told myself that I did it for the House of Medici; in truth, I had done it because I was curious, because I had wanted to see what it was like to kill a man.

Like Lorenzo, I learned early that I was capable of murder. And I was terrified to think where that capability might lead.

Five

Poggio means hill, and the villa my great-grandfather built at Poggio a Caiano rests atop a sprawling grassy prominence in the Tuscan countryside, three hours from the city. The home Lorenzo obtained in 1479 had been a plain, three-storied square with a red tile roof, but in il Magnifico’s hands, it became much more. He encased the ground floor by a portico with several graceful arches that opened onto the front courtyard. A staircase originated on either side of the central arch and the two curved upward to meet at the grand middle-floor entrance, where a triangular pediment rested atop six great columns in the style of a Greek temple. The structure stood majestic and alone, surrounded by gentle hills and streams and the nearby Albano mountains.

No one would think to look for us there, Aunt Clarice explained, as it lay northwest of the city, and the rebels would be searching all the roads leading south. We would spend the night there, during which she would formulate a plan that would eventually take us safely to Naples.

We rolled through the open gates, coughing from the dust, and tumbled barefoot and disheveled from the carriage to be met by a dumbstruck gardener. Exhausted though we were, our nerves would not let us rest or eat. Her gaze distant, her mind working, my aunt paced through the formal, painstakingly groomed gardens while I dashed ahead of her in an effort to tire myself. Dove-colored clouds gathered overhead; the breeze grew cool and smelled of rain. I thought of the astonishment and reproach in the stableboy’s eyes. I had learned a fundamental truth about killing: The victim’s anguish is brief and fleeting, but the murderer’s endures forever.

I ran and ran that afternoon, but never succeeded in leaving the stableboy behind. Clarice never spoke to me of him; I honestly believe that she, lost in her efforts to transform a bleak future, had already forgotten him.

When evening came, my aunt and I shared a supper of greasy soup, then went upstairs. Clarice undressed me herself. When she undid the laces on my bodice, the smooth black stone hidden there dropped to the marble floor with a click, and the battered bit of herb followed mutely. I bent to pick them up, bracing for angry words.

“Did Ser Cosimo give you those?” my aunt asked softly.

I nodded, flushing.

Clarice nodded, too, slowly. “Keep them safe, then,” she said.

She sent me to bed while she sat just outside, in the antechamber, and laboriously penned letters by lamplight. I put the herb and gem beneath my pillow and fell asleep to the halting scratch of her quill against the paper.

Some time later, I was awakened by a wooden bang; an early summer storm had ridden in on a cold wind. A servant girl hurried into the room and closed the offending shutters to keep out the rain. I stared at the antechamber wall, where Aunt Clarice’s shadow loomed and receded as the flame danced, and listened to the shutters’ muted complaint.

My sleep, when it finally came, was troubled by dreams-not of images but of sounds: of Clarice screaming for men to let go of her skirts, of horses neighing, of rebels chanting for our downfall. I dreamt of hoofbeats and the pounding of rain, of men’s voices and the faraway roll of thunder.

Consciousness returned like a lightning strike; with a start, I realized that the drum of hoofbeats, the strident cadence of Clarice’s voice, and the lower one of men’s were not part of any dream.

I pushed myself from bed and hurried to the shuttered window. It was low enough that I could look out easily-but the shutters were latched, and I too short to reach them. I looked about for a chair, and in that instant the door opened and a servant entered. She was not much older than I, but she was tall enough to unfasten the shutters at my impatient command and open them, then step back, her eyes enormous with fright.

I stared out. On the vast, downward-sloping lawn, two dozen men sat on horseback in four militarily precise rows, sheathed swords at their hips.

In that instant, my faith in Ruggieri’s magic crumbled. The Wing of Corvus was at best a harmless piece of jet. I would never grow up to rule; I would never grow up at all. I backed away from the window.

“Where is she?” I whispered to the girl.

“Madonna Clarice? At the front door, talking to two men. They told me to fetch you.

“She is so angry with them,” the girl continued. “She did not want them to wake you. She is swearing at them so, she will surely provoke them-” She pressed her hand to her mouth as if she was going to be sick, then forced herself to calm. “Last night, she summoned me and said that, if anything happened to her, I was to see you safely to her mother’s people.” She glanced nervously at the door. “They will come looking for you, if we don’t appear soon. But…”

I lifted my brows questioningly.

“But we could leave by the servants’ stairs,” she continued. “They wouldn’t see us. There are places to hide here. I think Madonna Clarice would want that.”

I expected Clarice did want that, and that she knew if I did not appear, the rebels would torture her in the hope of learning my whereabouts; they might well kill her. Escape seemed possible but unlikely-but my disappearance would undeniably put Clarice in terrible danger. Weighing this, I moved slowly to the bed, reached beneath the pillow, and found the hidden stone. I stared at its glassy surface, a black mirror in my palm, and saw my aunt reflected there:

Aunt Clarice, lifting me up to touch Lorenzo’s childish face. Clarice, lifting me out of the rebels’ reach, even as they tried to tear her apart. Clarice, who could well have departed with her husband and children, leaving us heirs in rebel hands. But like her grandfather, she did not abandon those of her blood, no matter how fatally afflicted.

I placed the worthless gem upon the pillow, then pulled off the silver talisman, on its leather cord, and coiled it beside the stone. Then I looked up at the servant.

“Get my gown, please,” I said. “I will be going down to meet them.”