The Medici Queen aka The Devil’s Queen

Imprisonment

May 1527-August 1530

Six

Images from that day are etched clearly in my memory: the long walk down the stairs, the sight of Clarice in the vestibule, a shawl tossed over her shoulders to hide the fact that a swath had been torn from the back of her gold gown. Her wrist-resting now in a sling-had left her pale with agony. Although the man she spoke to was more than a head taller and flanked by two aides of similar height, she seemed larger than them all. Gesturing sharply with her free hand, she railed as fearlessly at him as she had at Passerini the morning he came to tell her Pope Clement had been routed.

As I moved down the stairs, the man listening to her glanced up. He was intense and very quiet, and made me remember something Piero had once said, that a dog who did not bark was far more likely to bite. His hair and beard and eyes matched his new brown cloak. He was Bernardo Rinuccini, head of the rebel militia.

I remember how his eyes grew rounded at the sight of me, how Aunt Clarice’s mouth fell open as she glanced over her shoulder, stricken and profoundly speechless.

“Promise me you won’t hurt her,” I told the general, “and I will go with you.”

Rinuccini stared down at me. “I have no reason to hurt her.”

“Promise me,” I repeated, gazing steadily at him.

“I promise,” he said.

I walked past Clarice to Rinuccini’s side; there was horror in her eyes as she watched me slip irrevocably from her care. But the greater horror was mine, to glimpse the proud spirit behind those eyes and to mark the instant it broke.

They led me away. When I appeared in the doorway, the troops waiting on the lawn cheered. I moved quickly so that they had no cause to touch me, not until I was lifted up onto a horse and into the lap of a well-born soldier. He wore not a sword but a weapon I had never seen before: an arquebus, a contraption of wood and metal designed to blast balls of lead into distant victims, like a miniature cannon one might hold in one’s hand. He regarded me with victory and loathing; never was a trophy more scorned or prized.

The ascending sun coaxed the previous night’s rain from the earth; the horses moved through low swirls of mist as we rode across the quiet countryside. Numbed by the enormity of my decision, I rode in mindless dread, my back pressed to my guardian’s chest.

By midmorning we had returned to the city. We headed not south to the great Piazza della Signoria and the gallows but north. As the streets were busy, we attracted much attention, but most failed to notice a little girl huddled against one of the soldiers; by the time a few had, we had already passed, and their faint curses, like stones hurled from too great a distance, did not frighten me.

Our procession turned onto an unfamiliar street lined with stone walls. They were thick and high, unbroken save for three narrow doors at long intervals.

We stopped at one of the doors. Set into it were two iron grates, one at eye level, behind which a black cloth had been hung, and an uncovered one at foot level.

An aide dismounted and called at the covered grate, while another soldier swung me down from the horse. The door opened inward, an aide pushed me inside, and someone quickly shut the door behind me.

I stumbled forward onto a stone patio that lay in the shadow of a large building and glanced up at the woman who faced me. She was worn and colorless and dressed in black but for the white wimple beneath her long veil. She put her finger to her lips for silence, so emphatically that I followed her without a word into the building, which was as plain and aged and soundless as she. She led me up two flights of narrow stairs, then past a long row of cells, before depositing me in a tiny room, with a bed pushed against the wall opposite the window and two chairs.

The latter were occupied by two young women clad in shabby brown dresses. They dropped their mending after making the same gesture, finger to lips, before they hurried to me.

Clumsily, they began to remove my gown. I doubt they had ever seen anything as fine, for they didn’t understand how to unlace the sleeves, but at last my gown slipped free and I stepped out of it into an uncertain future.

Seven

On one of Florence’s most oppressively narrow streets lies the Dominican convent known as Santa-Caterina da Siena. The convent’s denizens fiercely opposed the Medici and supported the rebels, no doubt because it catered to the poor. Its six boarders-girls of marriageable age or younger, from families who had discovered that it was cheaper to keep them at the convent-were born of the lowest class of workers: the dyers, weavers, and carders of wool and silk, men whose occupations stained their hands, twisted their bodies, scarred their lungs. These were men who fell sick and died young, leaving behind daughters who could not be fed. These were men who had torn down our Medici banners and ignited them out of hatred for the rich and well-fed.

Santa-Caterina stank because its ancient plumbing and sewers were in disrepair. Nuns were always on their knees scrubbing floors and walls, but no amount of cleaning overcame the smell. The inhabitants were all thin and hungry. There were no Latin lessons here, no efforts made to teach the girls letters or numbers, only work to be done. The abbess, Sister Violetta, had no energy to like or dislike me; she was too busy trying to keep her charges alive to worry about politics. She knew only that the rebels paid for my care on time.

I shared a cell-and a dirty straw mattress alive with fleas and a family of mice-with four other boarders, all of them older than I. One of them hated me bitterly, as her brother had been killed in a clash with Medici supporters. Two of them did not much care. And then there was twelve-year-old Tommasa.

Tommasa’s father was a silk merchant whose mounting debts had prompted him to flee the city, leaving his wife and children to deal with his creditors. Tommasa’s mother was sickly; Tommasa, too, was frail and suffered from frightening bouts of wheezing and breathlessness, especially when she over-exerted herself. She had the long, thin bones and delicate coloring of a Northerner: pale hair, white skin, eyes blue as sky. Yet she worked as hard as the others without complaint, and her lips were always curved in the gentlest of smiles.

She treated me as a friend, even though her brothers were passionate advocates of the rebel cause, so much so that Tommasa never mentioned me to them.

Tommasa was my sole link to the world beyond Santa-Caterina’s walls. Her mother visited weekly and always brought news. I learned how the Medici palazzo had been pillaged, how its remaining treasures had been seized by the new government. All the banners bearing the Medici crest had been torn down, and all sculptures and buildings bearing the same had been crudely edited with chisels.

I asked about Aunt Clarice, of course, and tried not to cry when Tommasa told me she was still alive, though no one knew where she had gone. Ippolito’s and Alessandro’s whereabouts were also a mystery.

When I commented on Tommasa’s kindness to me, she was taken aback.

“Why should I treat you otherwise?” she asked. “They say your family has oppressed the people, but you are kind to me and the others. I can’t punish you for something others have done.”

I loved her for the same reason I had loved Piero, because she was too good to glimpse the blackness hidden in my heart.

I spent a dismal summer fearing execution and hoping for news. Neither came, and by the time autumn arrived, I dwelled in a haze of hunger and grief. I lost will and weight and stopped asking questions of Tommasa as she relayed the latest gossip.

Winter came and brought an icy chill. Our room had no hearth and was freezing; I never stopped shivering. The water froze in the tiny basin we five shared, but we were too cold to bathe anyway. The fleas guaranteed that, if I slept at all, it was poorly. The cold never eased but grew more bitter.

One morning in late December, I headed with the other girls to the refectory. As we passed by a cell, a pair of nuns were carrying out a third. The last was completely rigid, and her sisters had lifted only her head and feet, as if she were a plank of wood. The two nuns glanced up at us, their forbidding gazes intended to silence all questions.

As they passed, Tommasa quickly crossed herself, and rest of us followed suit. We held our tongues and our places until they had disappeared down the corridor.

“Did you see that?” Lionarda, the oldest girl, hissed.

“Dead,” one of the others said.

“Frozen,” I said. But at the refectory, as we were waiting to have our bowls filled, one of the novices in front of us fainted and was taken away. I thought little of it: I swept floors and patched worn habits, unflinching when I pricked my chill-numbed fingers with the needle. I didn’t worry until that evening at vespers, when I noticed that the chapel was only half full.

I whispered to Tommasa, “Where are the other sisters?”

“Taken sick,” she answered. “Some sort of fever.”

That night, I counted five separate times that the nuns hurried up and down the corridor. In the morning, four of us rose from the mattress. Lionarda did not.

Her breath hung as white vapor in the frigid air above her face; despite the cold, her forehead shone with sweat. One of the other girls tried to wake her, but neither shouting nor shaking could make her open her eyes. We called for the nuns, but no one came; the cells near ours were empty.

Tommasa and I stayed with Lionarda and sent the other two girls to get help. Half an hour later, a novice came in her white veil and black apron. Silently-for it was during an hour the nuns did not speak-she slipped her hands beneath Lionarda’s nightgown and ran them swiftly over her neck, collarbone, armpits. She then reached under the gown to feel the area around Lionarda’s groin and drew back with a spasm of fear.

She lifted up a corner of the nightgown to reveal a lump the size of a goose egg at the top of the girl’s thigh, encircled by a dark purple ring, like a perfectly concentric bruise.

“What is it?” Tommasa breathed.

The novice mouthed an answer. I looked up too late to see it, but Tommasa gasped and lifted her hand to her throat.

“What is it?” I echoed, directing the question at Tommasa.

She turned toward me, her eyes and nose streaming from the cold, and whispered:

“Plague.”

After they carried Lionarda away, Tommasa and I went to the refectory for the morning meal, then headed to the common room. Sister Violetta normally assigned us our chores there at that time. But the room had become a hospital, with a score of women lying on the floor-some groaning, some ominously quiet. An elderly sister intercepted us at the doorway and gestured for us to return to our cell. There we found the other two boarders, Serena and Constantina, sewing shrouds.

“What happened to Lionarda?” Serena demanded, and when I explained, she said, “Half the sisters were missing from the refectory this morning. It’s plague, all right.”

We huddled on the bed, our conversation anxious. I thought of Aunt Clarice, of how devastated she would be to learn that I had died in a squalid hovel, of how Piero would cry when he learned that I was gone.

After two hours, the elderly sister appeared in the doorway to tell Tommasa her brothers were at the grate-and to warn her that she was not to speak of the sickness at the convent. Tommasa left, and within the hour returned, her eyes bright with a secret. She said nothing until midday, when she rose to go to the water closet and gestured surreptitiously for me to join her.

After we entered the foul-smelling little room, she drew her fist from her pocket, then slowly uncurled it.

A small black stone, polished to a sheen, rested in her palm. I snatched it from her and thought of how Aunt Clarice had looked at me when the Wing of Corvus and the herb had dropped from my gown, how she had gazed thoughtfully at me as I bent to pick them up.

Did Ser Cosimo give you those? Keep them safe, then.

Only Clarice could have known that I had left the stone at Poggio a Caiano. Only Clarice could have found it and returned it to me to let me know I was not forgotten. My heart welled.

“Who gave this to you?” I demanded of Tommasa.

“A man,” she said. “My brothers were leaving and I had just lowered the veil over the grate. The man must have looked through the bottom grate and seen the hem of my skirt.”

“What did he say?” I asked.

“He asked me whether I was friend or foe of the Medici,” Tommasa replied. “And when I said neither, he asked me if I knew a girl named Caterina. I told him yes, you were my friend.

“He offered me money if I would bring you that”-Tommasa nodded at the stone in my hand-“but speak of it to no one. Is it a family keepsake?”

“It was my mother’s,” I lied. Tommasa could clearly be trusted, but I needed no accusations of witchcraft to add to my troubles. “Did he say anything else?”

“I told him to throw the money through the lower grate into the alms box, as an offering to the convent. And I asked him whether he had any message for you, and he said, ‘Tell her to be strong a little longer. Tell her I will return.’ ”

A little longer… I will return. The words made me giddy. I tucked the stone between my apron and dress, nestling it near the fabric sash that served as my belt.

I looked up at Tommasa. “We must never speak of this, not even to each other. The rebels would kill me or take me away.”

She nodded solemnly.

Despite the presence of plague and the relentless winter, I walked Santa-Caterina’s halls with growing joy. Each time I slipped my hand beneath my apron, I fingered the stone, and its cold, smooth surface became Clarice’s embrace.

The next morning, we four remaining boarders rose to discover that the refectory had been closed. The cooks had fallen ill, and the remaining healthy sisters were overwhelmed by the added work of caring for the sick. No doubt there were more shrouds to be sewn, but the convent’s routine had been broken, so we were forgotten. We returned to our cell and sat on the lumpy straw mattress, hungry and frightened and cold, and tried to divert one another with gossip.

After a few hours, sounds echoed in the corridor: a nun’s sharp voice, feet scurrying against stone floors, doors being opened and closed. I peeked down the hallway and saw a sister madly kicking up dust with a broom.

“What are they doing?” Serena called. She sat cross-legged on the bed next to Tommasa.

“Cleaning,” I replied in wonderment.

More doors were closed; the frenzied sweeping stopped. I could hear Sister Violetta issuing orders in the distance but could see no one. After a time, we girls went back to our stories.

Sister Violetta suddenly appeared in the open doorway.

“Girls,” she said crisply and beckoned at them with her finger, even though this hour was one of silence for the sisters. “Not you, Caterina. You stay here. The rest of you, come with me.”

She led the other girls away. I waited in agony. Perhaps another sister had seen the the stranger who had looked for me; perhaps Tommasa had revealed the secret. Now the rebels would kill me, or take me to a prison even worse than Santa-Caterina.

Moments passed, until footsteps sounded in the corridor-ringing ones, the unfamiliar sound of leather bootheels against stone. A rebel, I thought with despair. They had come for me.

But the man who appeared in my doorway looked nothing like Rinuccini and his soldiers. He wore a heavy cape of pink velvet lined with ermine, and a brown velvet cap with a small white plume; his goatee was fastidiously trimmed, and carefully crafted long black ringlets spilled onto his shoulders. He pressed a lace handkerchief to his nose; even at a distance, he exuded the fragrance of roses.

Beside him, Sister Violetta said softly, “This is the girl,” then disappeared.

“Ugh!” the stranger said, his words muffled by lace. “Forgive me, but the stink! How do you bear it?” He lowered the kerchief to doff his cap and bowed. “Do I have the pleasure of addressing Catherine de’ Medici, Duchessa of Urbino, daughter of Lorenzo de’ Medici and Madeleine de La Tour d’Auvergne?”

Catherine, he said, like the man in my bloodstained dream.

“I am,” I replied.

“I am-ugh!-I am Robert Saint-Denis de la Roche, ambassador to the Republic of Florence at the will of His Majesty King François the First. Your late mother was a cousin of His Majesty, and it came to our attention yesterday that you, Duchessa-a kinswoman-were being held in the most egregious of circumstances. Is it true that those are the clothes you are forced to wear, and this is the bed upon which you are forced to sleep?”

My fist, hidden beneath my scapular and clutching the Raven’s Wing, began slowly to uncurl.

“Yes,” I said.

I wanted to run my fingers over the folds of his velvet cloak, to step out of my itchy wool dress into a fine gown, to have Ginevra lace up my bodice and bring me my pick of sleeves. I wanted to see Piero again. Most of all, I wanted to thank Aunt Clarice for finding me, and that last thought brought me very close to tears.

The ambassador’s expression softened. “How terrible for you, a child. It is freezing here. It is a wonder you are not sick.”

“There is plague here,” I said. “Most of the sisters have it.”

He swore in his foreign tongue; the square of lace fluttered to the ground. “The abbess said nothing to me of this!” He took almost immediate control of his temper and fright. “Then it is done,” he said. “I’ll arrange to have you moved from this flea-ridden cesspool today. This is no place for a cousin of the King!”

“The rebels won’t let me go,” I said. “They want me dead.”

One of his black brows lifted slyly. “The rebels want a secure republic, which they do not have. They need the goodwill of King François, and they will not have it until they show proper respect to his kinswoman.” He bowed again, suddenly. “I shall not linger, Duchessa-if there is plague in this building, I must move all the more swiftly. Give me a few hours, and we will take you to a home that is more suitable.”

He began to move away; I called out, “Please tell my aunt Clarice how grateful I am that you have come!”

He stopped and faced me, his expression quizzical. “I have not been in contact with her, though I will certainly try to send her your message.”

“But who sent you?”

“An old friend of your family alerted me,” he said. “He said that you would know it was he. Ruggieri, I believe his name was.” He paused. “Let me go now, Duchessa, for the plague moves swiftly. I swear before God, you will not spend another night here. So be of good cheer and brave heart.”

“I will,” I said, but the instant he disappeared down the corridor, I burst into tears. I cried because Ser Cosimo, a near stranger, had found me and taken pity; I cried because Aunt Clarice had not. I picked up the abandoned square of spiderweb-fine lace to wipe my eyes, and inhaled the scent of flowers.

I told myself that the Raven’s Wing would protect me from plague and see me freed from Santa-Caterina; I vowed never to let it go again.

But the French ambassador did not come for me that morning, nor did anyone come for me that afternoon. I sat with the other girls sewing shrouds, so exhilarated and distracted that I pricked myself a dozen times. By dusk my good spirits had faded. What if the rebels were not as desperate to please King François as Monsieur la Roche had thought?

Night fell. I refused to undress, but lay in the bed beside Tommasa and scanned the darkness for signs of movement. Hours passed, until I saw the glow of a lamp outside. I hurried into the corridor to find Sister Violetta, who smiled fleetingly at my enthusiasm and gestured for me to follow.

She led me to her cell and dressed me in a regular nun’s habit and winter cloak.

“Where am I going?” I asked.

“Child, I don’t know.”

She guided me outside, to the door leading to the street.

A male voice on the other side heard our footsteps and asked, “Do you have her?”

“I do,” Sister Violetta said and opened the door.

The man on the other side wore a heavy cloak, and the long sword of a fighting man on his belt. Behind him, four mounted men waited.

“Here now,” the man said. He held out his gloved hand to me. “Keep your face covered and come quickly, and without a peep. More’s the danger if you cause a stir.”

I balked. “Where are you taking me?”

A corner of his mustache quirked upward. “You’ll learn soon enough. Give me your hand. I won’t ask nicely again.”

Reluctantly, I took it. He swung me up onto his horse, then took his place behind me on the saddle, and off we rode in the company of his men.

The night was moonless and cold. We made our way through empty streets that echoed with the clatter of our horses’ hooves. I tried to figure out where we were going, but the gauzy wool limited my vision.

The journey lasted only a quarter hour. We stopped in front of a wooden door set in an expanse of stone wall; I was to be confined to yet another nunnery. I panicked, and dug beneath my cloak and habit for the black stone talisman.

My host dismounted and lifted me down while one of his soldiers banged on the heavy wood. In a moment, the door swung open silently. One of the men shoved me inside and shut the door firmly behind me.

The smell of vinegar was so sharp, I lifted a hand to my nose; the fabric wound around my head and face slipped, obscuring my vision. A cool hand caught my own and drew me several halting steps forward, away from the smell. When it let go, I pulled the veil down.

In a half circle before me stood twelve nuns-tall, graceful, veiled, and cloaked in black so that their forms disappeared into the darkness. I saw only their faces, lit by the lamps three of them bore-a dozen different gentle smiles, a dozen different pairs of kindly eyes.

The tallest of them stepped toward me. She was robust, broad-faced, middle-aged.

“Darling Caterina,” she said. “I am the abbess, Mother Giustina-like you a Medici. When you were born, I stood as your godmother. Welcome.”

Fearless of plague, she opened her arms to me, and I ran to them.

Eight

The Wing of Corvus had not failed. I found myself in Heaven, surrounded by angels: the Benedictine convent of Santissima Annunziata delle Murate, the Most Holy Annunciation of the Walled-In Ones, and the noblewomen who had taken vows there. Most were relatives of the Medici; only a few supported the new Republic.

The convent itself had been built and supported by Medici money; the fact showed in its broad corridors and elegant appointments. That night, Mother Giustina led me to my new quarters. Fear had left me exhausted, and I noticed no details except a large bed with heavy blankets and a plump pillow. I stood obediently as a servant stripped me; I palmed the stone and peered at the quiet, solemn woman. She had not noticed, being more concerned with filling a basin with heated water. She bathed me with a cloth, then pulled a clean nightgown of fine, soft wool over my head. I tucked the black stone into a pocket as she indicated the tray of cheese and bread on the bedside table. I devoured the food, then fell into bed. The servant laid a warmed brick at my feet and tucked the thick blankets around me tightly. For the first time that winter, I stopped shivering.

I slept for hours, the Wing of Corvus clutched in my fist. When I woke the next morning, I found myself in a vast chamber, with carved wainscoting on the walls and a marble fireplace. Honeyed light filtered through the large, arched window and revealed a large table and well-padded chairs, whose dark green velvet matched the drapes and bed coverings. On the wall in front of me was a large gold cross of filigree, beneath which sat a cushioned kneeling bench.

On the wall opposite the hearth were several shelves containing books. One of them, on the lowest shelf, caught my eye: it was bound in dark brown leather, with the title stamped in gold, of a familiar heft. I flew from the bed and dragged the heavy volume from the shelf.

Ficino. De Vita Coelitus Comparanda, Gaining Life from the Heavens, the very copy that had sat on Piero’s knees; I recognized the nicks on the leather and laughed aloud. Inspired, I scanned the shelves, hoping to find gems rescued from the Palazzo Medici. I found no more, although I discovered two other volumes with titles written in Ficino’s hand.

I was still poring over the titles when a knock came on the door, and two women and a nun appeared. The women carried a tub, and the bespectacled, elderly nun smiled brightly at me. Her body was plump and rounded, and her bearing and speech marked her as highborn. In her hand was a little tray bearing a glass and a dish of sweetmeats.

“Duchessina!” she said cheerfully. “So you have discovered your library. There is a larger one in the other wing, of course, but we put a few titles here we thought you might enjoy. I am Sister Niccoletta; if you have need of anything, ask me. I brought you some small treats and sweet wine to tide you over until breakfast arrives-you must still be so terribly hungry. Afterward, we’ll properly rid you of those fleas.”

Little duchess. The affectionately respectful term of address made me smile. I put my hand on Ficino’s work and, forgetting my manners altogether, said, “This book. How did it come to be here, in this room?”

She peered through her thick spectacles, which magnified her dark eyes. “Ambassador de la Roche brought some things for you yesterday. This must be one of them.”

“This was rescued from our palazzo,” I said.

“God be thanked,” she replied dismissively and turned as last night’s solemn-faced servant entered with a large kettle in each hand. “Dear Duchessina, our servant Barbara is here. You can call on her as well for whatever you need.” She set the tray on my night table, then from a pocket at her waist produced a letter sealed with wax. “Your breakfast will come shortly; in the meantime, you might enjoy reading this.”

Her knowing smile made me reach eagerly for it and break the seal. The handwriting was Clarice’s.

I pressed the letter to my heart. “Sister Niccoletta, please, forgive my rudeness. It’s just that I have not been shown kindness in such a long time that I have forgotten my manners. Thank you for everything.”

She beamed. “Why, your manners are lovely! You need not apologize to me, my dear, given all you have been through.” She made a small curtsy. “Enjoy your letter, Duchessina. I will return in an hour.”

Breathless, I unfolded the letter.

My dearest Caterina,

We are horrified at the news of your incarceration, and the cruel conditions you have been forced to endure. I hope you find your new surroundings more congenial. I shall remain in constant communication with the French ambassador from this time forward to ensure that you never again endure such privation. The rebels are desperate to keep the support of King François I of France, and His Majesty wishes his distant cousin to be well cared for.

Discretion precludes any discussion of my current whereabouts; it also precludes my visiting you in the flesh. Please know that I am working without rest to obtain your release. Pope Clement has escaped the ravaged landscape of Rome. He and Emperor Charles will soon be reconciled; I shall do whatever is in my power to nurture this newfound goodwill so that it leads to the restoration of the Medici to Florence.

I have not forgotten your bravery. Hold fast and never forget the destiny to which you are born.

With sincerest affection,

Your aunt,

Clarice de’ Medici Strozzi

P.S. Your uncle and cousins send their regards. Piero insists I write that he misses you dreadfully.

Reading Clarice’s elegant script made me ache to see her, but I was soon distracted by a plate of sausages and apples. After I ate, I submitted to the steaming tub. Barbara washed my hair, drowning the last of Santa-Caterina’s fleas, and dressed me in a tailored gown, then swathed me in fine wool shawls to protect me from the chill.

Life at Le Murate was pleasantly distracting. Every morning and evening I sat with the nuns in the refectory and drank good wine and ate good meals, often with meat and cake. Sister Niccoletta treated me like a favored granddaughter, always bringing me little gifts of candied fruits and nuts, or a bright ribbon for my hair. She and the other nuns allowed me free run of the convent.

I did not abuse their trust. I attended Mass each morning and afterward accompanied Niccoletta to the sewing room. Many of the nuns did fine embroidery, one of the skills by which they supported themselves. Without a single guiding mark upon the fabric, Sister Niccoletta could stitch a perfect lamb holding the banner of the cross, or the Holy Spirit descending as a dove from Heaven.

On that first morning I was introduced to the other seamstresses: Sister Antonia, the abbess’s second, tall, poised, and elderly; Sister Maria Elena, a Spanish woman with an angelic voice who led the choir; and a boarder, Maddalena, five years older than I, with chestnut hair that fell well past her shoulders. Maddalena was a Tornabuoni-the family that had produced the mother of Lorenzo il Magnifico. There was Sister Rafaela, an artist whose talent with brush and paint allowed her to decorate the finished manuscripts in the scriptorum with dazzling images. And there was Sister Pippa, a handsome young woman with red-gold eyebrows and light green eyes, colorful surprises against the frame of her white wimple and black veil. A blush bloomed upon her cheeks and neck when we were introduced; shyness, I thought, until I caught the look on the face of her constant shadow, the dark-skinned Sister Lisabetta, whose gaze revealed frank hatred.

That first morning, I sat on a cushion and stared out the large windows at the withered gardens, listening to the cheering crackle of the fire while Niccoletta brought me silk floss, a needle, and scissors. She gave me a handkerchief to practice on and directions on threading the needle and taking the first few stitches. Afterward, the sisters began to whisper to each other from time to time. The sounds comforted me, until I heard Sister Pippa’s pointed question:

“Ought she to be moving about freely? She is, after all, a prisoner.”

Lisabetta immediately chimed in. “No one stood guard over her chamber last night. She could easily have slipped away.”

Sister Niccoletta let the swath of brocade she was embroidering drop to her lap and said, in a hard tone, “She’s a child, one who has been through a horrible time. She certainly doesn’t need you to remind her of it.”

Pippa’s neck and cheeks went scarlet, and nothing more was said on the matter. I soon learned that her and Lisabetta’s families belonged to the People’s Party, the most radical faction within the new government.

In the meantime, twice a week, Mother Giustina had me brought to her comfortable cell, where she privately instructed me in matters of noble protocol. She had not forgotten my rank as duchess, nor the fact that I had been destined to rule Florence, and her lessons reminded me that many in the city had not given up hope that the Medici would return to power. She taught me manners at table and the art of conversation, as well as how to address kings and queens and my uncle Pope Clement.

I attended other classes with Maddalena. Sister Rosalina taught me French, given that the French ambassador paid me regular visits in order to keep King François apprised of my well-being. I was uneasy during my first lesson and did not understand why until Sister Rosalina addressed me as Catherine-Catherine, the name Ruggieri had once unthinkingly called me, the name the bloodied man had called me in my nightmare.

It was at Le Murate that I began to suffer again from evil dreams. I was perplexed until I remembered that Ser Cosimo had said the talisman would make me recall them.

Mars dwells in your Twelfth House-the House of Hidden Enemies and Dreams.

I vowed never to be separated from the talisman again; I credited it, and Ser Cosimo, with the turn in my fortunes.

Your horoscope holds many terrible challenges, and now is the first. I intend to see you survive it.

Fate had returned Ficino and the talisman to me. I could not overlook such gifts; I spent my evenings studying De Vita Coelitus Comparanda by lamplight. Further exploration of the bookshelf in my room revealed another present: right next to the aforementioned tone sat an ancient-looking volume titled The Book of Instruction in the Elements of the Art of Astrology, by an Arab named al-Biruni.

The reading was dry and daunting for one so young, but I felt my survival depended on it. At the age of eight, I memorized the twelve signs of the Zodiac, and the twelve houses, and the seven planets.

In my nightmares, a man stood calling out my name, then later lay at my feet, his face a bubbling crimson spring.

Catherine…

More blood was coming: The Frenchman was calling out to me for aid to stop the approaching slaughter. It was up to me to decipher the danger, and to prevent it. Fate was offering me a chance to redeem myself.

I passed a content winter. Spring brought more bulletins from Clarice about Pope Clement: he was safely in Viterbo now, and Emperor Charles was apologetic about the horrors his mutinous troops had committed on Rome. Spring also brought newsy letters from Piero: I am so tall now, you would not know me! The air was heavy with fragrance; I, light with optimism. I felt safe, soon to be in control of my world thanks to my astrological studies.

Then came the eleventh of May, 1528, a year to the day I first heard that Pope Clement had been routed from the Vatican. When Sister Niccoletta came to fetch me for Mass that morning, her smile was forced and tremulous. I smelled an unhappy secret; and when Mother Giustina announced that the French ambassador would meet me in the reception chamber, my foreboding increased.

I sat in the sunlit room. Ambassador de la Roche was not long in coming. He had shaved his goatee, leaving a clean chin and a razor-thin mustache beneath his formidable nose. He was dressed for spring in a farsetto of pale green brocade and yellow leggings, and when he entered, he bowed low, with a great sweep of an arm.

“Duchessa,” he said, rising. He did not smile; his tone was somber. “I hope you are well.”

“Very well, Ambassador,” I said. “And you?”

“Quite so, quite so, thank you.” He dabbed his nose with the kerchief. “Your health has been good, then? And how go your studies?”

“My health has been fine. And I very much enjoy my studies. I have excellent teachers.”

“Ah,” he said, nodding. “All good then.” He paused.

“Please,” I said, suddenly hoarse with fear. “You have come to tell me something. Just say it.”

“Ah, dear Duchessa. I am so sorry.” His tone held pity as he produced a letter from the pocket at his belt. “Dreadful news has come. Clarice de’ Medici Strozzi has died.”

The words were too absurd to make sense of at first; I could not speak or cry. I could only stare at the Frenchman in his ridiculously cheerful colors.

“Duchessa, I am sorry. You are too young to have endured so many blows. Here.” He thrust the letter at me.

May 4, 1528

Dear Caterina,

I am sorry to inform you that my wife, Clarice Strozzi, died yesterday. She suffered the last week with fever, but insisted on leaving her bed to entertain a visitor from Rome.

The night before she died, she sat at her desk writing letters to those persons most able to help her cause; morning found her still at her desk, so ill that she could not rise. We helped her to her bed and summoned the physician, but by then she realized she was dying.

Even in her suffering she did not forget you. She instructed me to write this letter, and tell you that your fortunes shall soon improve.

Look to Ambassador de la Roche from this time forth. He shall see that you are cared for and protected, as King François remains your faithful ally.

I am bereft.

Your uncle,

Filippo Strozzi

Like Uncle Filippo, I was disconsolate. I buried my face in Sister Niccoletta’s lap while she wrapped her arms about me. I felt abandoned: Uncle Filippo was not bound by blood to me; my welfare now depended on the vague, distant interest of the King of France.

For two days I sat in my bed and refused to eat. Surrounded by my books, I read obsessively about Saturn, harbinger of death, and of his heavy, cold attributes, and wondered how he had been placed in Clarice’s chart in the hour of her demise. I read all through the night; morning found me still reading, my eyes burning from strain, when Sister Niccoletta burst in abruptly, with her reticent servant Barbara in tow.

“Duchessina,” she said, “a man has come to see you to pay his condolences.”

I scowled. “Who is it?”

“I don’t recall,” Niccoletta replied, “but Mother Giustina knows him, and says it’s all right for you to speak to him at the grate. I must hurry back to the sewing room, but Barbara will attend you.” She turned to the servant. “Make sure that his behavior is appropriate and that no one overhears.”

Uncle Filippo? I wondered. Perhaps he had risked coming to Florence. Or perhaps-this thought brought a small thrill-Piero had managed to come see me. Quickly I asked, “Was he young or old, this man?”

Niccoletta looked blankly at me before turning to leave. “Mother Giustina did not say.”

Barbara led me outside to the convent wall. The door’s upper grate was curtained, but near the basket of alms-reeking of the vinegar used to prevent the spread of plague-the lower grate was uncovered. I saw a man’s boots.

Barbara knocked on the door and loudly announced, “The girl is here, sir. Mind your conversation remains discreet.” In a weak gesture of privacy, she took two steps back from me.

“Donna Caterina,” the man said, in a voice so resonant and deep I longed to hear it sing the words, “I come to bring heartfelt condolences on the death of your aunt. These have been cruel times for you.”

Had I been tall enough, I would have thrown back the veil and looked on his ugly visage-on the pitted, sickly looking skin, the crooked nose and overlarge ears-to see whether he had changed over the chaotic months that had separated us. I rose onto my toes, wanting to be closer.

“Ser Cosimo.” My tone held wonder. “How did you find me?”

“Did you think I had ever abandoned you? At Santa-Caterina, I brought you the stone. I thought surely you would know who sent it. You have it in your possession, do you not?”

“I do. I’m never without it.”

“Good.” He paused. “And the books rescued from the palazzo…?”

“That was you…” It had been not Clarice but Cosimo Ruggieri all along. “But how did you save the books from the rebels? And I left the stone at Poggio a Caiano. How could you possibly have known…?”

“You need not worry about the how, Madonna. You only need know that you have never been alone, and never will be.”

Tears threatened, but I censored them. “I thank you. But how can I contact you if I need you?”

“Through the French ambassador.”

“Why are you so kind to me?”

“I told you before, Caterina. You and I are bound by the stars. I am simply protecting my own interests.”

“The stars,” I said. “I want to learn everything I can about them.”

“You are only a girl of nine,” he countered quickly, then added, “but a most precocious one.” He sighed. “Read Ficino, then. And al-Biruni is a helpful guide.”

“I have to learn,” I said. “I need to know what will happen to me, whether the Pope and Emperor Charles will come to an agreement, whether I will ever be rescued.”

“The Pope and Emperor will come to an agreement,” Ser Cosimo said easily. “Even so, there is no point in worrying about the future now. Just know that I am at your disposal whenever you have need of me.” He took a step away; his voice grew distant. “I must leave now; for your sake, I cannot risk being seen. God be with you, Caterina.”

I listened to his footsteps as they slowly faded away.

“Ser Cosimo,” I said and pressed my palm to the door. I did not move until Barbara caught my elbow and pulled me away.

The summer passed without further incident, as did the next fall and winter. I grew and became more proficient in French. In my dreams at night, I told the bloody man, Je ne veux pas ces reves, I do not want these dreams.

When summer came again, I and most of the sisters at Le Murate rejoiced to learn that the Pope would soon return to Rome; Clement had agreed to crown Charles in return for Charles’s support of the Medici cause. Having lost too many battles to the Imperial forces, the French King, François, had likewise made peace with Charles and was withdrawing all support from Florence’s rebel Republic.

One warm, sticky morning in June, surrounded by the sisters, I stared beyond the open windows of the sewing room to find charcoal-colored clouds billowing on the horizon: Outside the city, crops and barns were burning, set ablaze by soldiers of the rebel government. Emperor Charles was coming-or at least his troops were, led by the Prince of Orange-and the rebels did not intend for them to find succor beyond the walls of Florence.

Outside the confines of Le Murate, a militia ten thousand men strong was forming. Walking outside in the garden or on the patio, I heard the terse shouts of commanders trying to organize untrained troops. Fearful of the coming battle, hundreds fled Florence. With Maddalena standing watch, I climbed the alder in the garden and tried to look beyond the city walls but saw only rooftops and the grey haze hanging over the city. Florence stank of smoke; it clung to our clothes and hair, and permeated every corner of the convent.

September brought happy news: King François had signed a treaty with Emperor Charles. No French troops would aid the rebel Republic. I celebrated silently when I heard these things yet at the same time was afraid. I remembered the horrific Sack of Rome, when the Emperor’s men ignored orders and laid siege to the Holy City, breaking down the doors of convents and raping nuns.

On the twenty-fourth of October, I sat sewing in my usual spot between Maddalena and Sister Niccoletta, both of them as anxious as Pippa and Lisabetta, who huddled over their work in silence. Sister Antonia’s normally serene visage was troubled.

Beyond the window, the day was gloomy with smoke and the threat of an autumn storm; the alder had lost most of its leaves and stood bleak and jagged.

I was working on a white linen altar cloth; that morning, I fumbled. The floss seemed too thick, the hole in the needle too narrow. My first few stitches were errant and had to be snipped out.

My thimble had worn thin at the spot I exerted the most pressure. Distracted, I gathered too much fabric at once, requiring me to push hard against the thimble. As a result, the threaded eye of the needle pierced the leather thimble and sank deep into my thumb.

I let go a startled cry and jumped to my feet; the altar cloth dropped to the floor. All the nuns stopped their work to look at me. I gritted my teeth and, with a sensation of nausea, grabbed the needle and pulled hard. It came free, and I stared at the swelling pearl of blood on my thumb.

“Here,” Niccoletta said. She snatched a bit of fluff from a ball of uncombed wool in the sewing basket and pressed it to my thumb.

As she did, a distant boom caused the open windowpanes to shudder. Maddalena and Sister Pippa ran to the window and peered out at the distant plume of smoke rising into the air.

“Back to your work, all of you.” Sister Antonia’s voice was calm. “Take care of it, and God will take care of you.”

The instant she finished speaking, a second boom sounded.

“Cannon,” Niccoletta whispered.

Sister Pippa remained at the window, staring as if she could somehow look beyond the convent walls. “The Emperor’s army,” she said, her voice rising. “Seven thousand men, but we have ten.” She looked at me, her eyes bright with hate. “You’ll never win.”

“Pippa,” Antonia chided harshly. “Sit and be silent.”

The cannon sounded a third time; simultaneously a fourth rumble came from the opposite direction: Florence was surrounded. Lisabetta jumped to her feet and hurried to Pippa’s side.

Pippa’s cheeks were scarlet with fury. “They won’t let you go free.”

“Pippa!” Antonia snapped.

Pippa ignored her. “Do you know what the Republic plans for you?” She sneered at me. “To lower you in a basket over the city walls and let the Emperor’s men blast you to pieces.”

Sister Niccoletta rose urgently. “Pippa, stop it! Stop it!”

“Or to put you in a brothel so you can play whore to our soldiers. Then Clement won’t be so quick to marry you off to his advantage!”

Niccoletta lunged and slapped Pippa full in the face.

“Enough!” Sister Antonia cried. She moved between the two women; she was taller than either, and more formidable. Niccoletta sat back down beside me and put an arm about my shoulder.

Pippa stared defiantly at Sister Antonia. “You’ll regret coddling her. She’s an enemy of the people and will come to a bad end.”

Sister Antonia’s face and eyes and voice were stone. “Go to your cell. Go to your cell and pray for forgiveness for your anger until I send for you.”

In the hostile silence that followed, cannon thundered.

At last Sister Pippa turned away and left. After a dark glance at Antonia, Lisabetta went back to her chair.

“And you,” Sister Antonia said, more gently, to Niccoletta, “will need to make your own prayers when you are in chapel.”

We all sat then, and took up our work again. I had forgotten about my thumb, and in the excitement, the bit of wool had fallen off. When I gathered the altar cloth in my hands, I stained the linen with blood.

The cannonfire continued until dusk. That afternoon, Maddalena’s panicked mother came to the grate and confirmed what we suspected: The Imperial army had arrived and had surrounded the city.

That night I penned a letter to Cosimo Ruggieri. My correspondence with him had been limited to the subject of astrology, but desperation caused me to open my heart.

I am terrified and alone. I was foolish enough to think that the arrival of the Imperial troops would make me safer. But war has rekindled the people’s hatred toward me. I fear the Raven’s Wing alone is not enough to shield me from this fresh danger. Please come, and set my mind at rest.

My esteemed Madonna Caterina,

War brings dangerous times, but I assure you that the Wing of Corvus has guarded you well, and will continue to do so. Trust the talisman; more important, trust your own wits. You possess an intelligence uncommon in a man, unheard of in a woman.

Only wait, and let events play themselves out.

Your servant,

Cosimo Ruggieri

I felt abandoned, betrayed. I gave up my books, made no effort at my studies. In the refectory I sat beside Niccoletta and stared down at my porridge; food had become nauseating, unthinkable. I did not eat for three days. On the fourth day, I took to my bed and listened to the shouts of soldiers, the song of artillery.

On the fifth day the abbess came to visit. She smelled faintly of the smoke that permeated Florence.

“Dear child,” she said, “you must eat. What do you fancy? I will see it brought to you.”

“Thank you,” I said. “But I don’t want anything to eat. I’m going to die anyway.”

“Not until you are an old woman,” Giustina said sharply. “Don’t ever say such a thing again. Sister Niccoletta told me what Sister Pippa said to you. Horrible words, inexcusable. She has been reprimanded.”

“She was telling the truth.”

“She was repeating silly rumors, nothing more.”

Exhausted, I turned my face away.

“Ah, Caterina…” The bed shuddered gently as she sat beside me. She caught my hand and took it between her own cool ones. “You have been through too much, and these are terrible times. How can I comfort you?”

I want Aunt Clarice, I began to say, but such words were vain and heart-wrenching.

I looked back at her. “I want Ser Cosimo,” I said. “Cosimo Ruggieri.”

It was enough, Mother Giustina said, that she had tolerated the astrologer’s one visit and, indeed, that she had permitted me to study astrology although it was an inappropriate subject for a woman, much less a young girl. She had conveyed Ser Cosimo’s letters to me only because he had been a friend of the family. But there were rumors of his alliance with unsavory individuals, and of certain acts…

I faced the wall again.

Giustina let go a troubled sigh. “Perhaps earlier, before your aunt died, we should have tried harder… But even then, the rebels watched our every move, read every letter sent you. We could never have gotten you past the city gates. And now…”

I would not look at her. In the end, she agreed to allow further communication.

Within three days-during which I remained abed but allowed myself a few hopeful sips of broth-Sister Niccoletta arrived at my bedside, fresh from outdoors. A bitter storm had brought freezing rain; tiny beads of ice melted upon her caped shoulders. In her hand was a folded piece of ivory paper, and even before she proffered it to me, I knew its author.

My esteemed Madonna Caterina,

The good abbess Mother Giustina has informed me of your malaise. I pray God you will soon find health and cheer again.

There is no cure for these uneasy times save caution and wit, but I would be happy to provide another talisman should it give you comfort. One under the augury of Jupiter would encourage, in some small way, good fortune, but

I crumpled the letter into a ball and, while Sister Niccoletta watched wide-eyed, cast it into the fire.

Afterward, I shunned even broth and water. Within a day, the fever came. Outside my window the wind howled, swallowing the boom of the cannon. The thrill of the sheets against my skin set my teeth chattering; my body ached from the cold, but the blankets gave no warmth. Firelight stung my eyes and made them stream.

I began to lose myself-lose the walls and the bed and the baying wind. I traveled to the stone wall enclosing the rear of the Medici estate, where the stableboy appeared, miraculously alive, the dagger’s hilt still protruding from his neck; we argued a time over the necessity of his death. The scene shifted: I stood on the battlefield where my bloodied Frenchman lay. During my long and vague conversations with him, murmuring crows huddled before the hearth, casting long shadows over the crimson landscape, speaking senselessly. Perhaps I cried out Clarice’s name; perhaps I cried out Ruggieri’s.

When, tearful, aching, and uncertain, I discovered I was still in my bed at Le Murate, it was still dusk. The light was still too bright, the fire too cold, the sheets too painful against my skin.

Barbara looked down at me, one of my better gowns in her arms.

“You’re better,” she announced. “You should sit up awhile, and be properly dressed.”

The suggestion was so absurd that I, in my weakness, could not reply. I tried to stand but could not, and sat trembling in the chair while Barbara coaxed my body into the gown and laced it up.

My bed was too distant, my legs unreliable. I sank back in the chair, unable to fight off the cup lifted to my lips. Cup and chair and Barbara: These things seemed solid at first glance, yet if I stared too long they began to shimmer.

“Stay there,” Barbara ordered. “I’ll return soon.” She stepped outside and closed the door.

I clutched the arms of the chair to keep from sliding off, and let myself be dazzled by the fire’s sparks of violet and green and vivid blue.

The door opened and closed again. A raven stood in front of the hearth-one tall and caped with a hood pulled forward, obscuring its face. Slowly it lowered the cowl.

I was alone with Cosimo Ruggieri.

Nine

I blinked; Ruggieri’s apparition did not fade. He looked older, having grown a thick black beard that hid his pockmarked cheeks. In the hearth’s orange glow, his skin took on a devilish hue.

Delirious, I trembled in my chair. He could not be standing there, of course. The nuns would never permit him behind the cloister walls.

“Forgive me if I have startled you, Caterina,” he said. “The sisters told me you were very ill. I see that they were telling the truth.”

My head lolled against the chair. Speechless, I stared at him.

“Stay just as you are,” he said. “Don’t move. Don’t speak.” He let the cloak slip from his shoulders and drop to the floor. All black, his clothes, his hair, his eyes-there was no color to him at all. On his heart rested a coin-sized copper talisman, unapologetic magic. He moved to the room’s center, just in front of my chair. Facing the fire, he drew a dagger from his belt and pressed the flat of the blade to his lips, then lifted it high above his head with both hands, the tip pointing at the invisible sky.

He began to chant. The sound was melodious, but the words were harsh and utterly incomprehensible. As he sang, he lowered the blade, gently touching the flat to his forehead, then to the talisman over his heart, then to each shoulder, right and left. Again he kissed the dagger.

He then took a step forward to stand an arm’s length from the hearth. He sliced the air boldly, then jabbed the knife in its center and called out a command. Four times he did the same: carving great stars and joining them with a circle. I huddled in the chair, entranced. In my feverishness, I imagined I could see the faint hot-white outline of the stars and circle.

Ser Cosimo returned to the room’s center and flung out his arms, a living crucifix. He called out names: Michael, Gabriel, Raphael.

He turned and knelt beside the arm of my chair, his tone gentle. “Now we are safe,” he said.

“I’m not a stupid child,” I told him. “I won’t be soothed by lies.”

“You’re frightened of the future,” he countered. “Afraid you don’t possess the strength to survive it. Let us learn something of it together.” He tilted his head and looked into me. “A question. Formulate your fears into a question.”

Uneasy, I asked, “A question for whom?”

“A spirit,” he answered. “One of my choosing, for I know those whom I can trust.”

The skin on my arms prickled. “You mean a demon.”

He did not deny it but gazed steadily at me.

“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.

The youngest of them, all gangling limbs and nerves, had eyes as bright and wide as mine. His chin was up, his hand on his hilt. “Back away,” he told my sisters. “Back away. We must take her, by order of the Republic.”

Niccoletta and the others stood fast and silent. The soldiers drew their swords and advanced a step. A collective sigh, and the women scattered.

All of them, except Niccoletta. She stepped in front of me, her arms spread, her voice hard. “Do not lay a hand on this child.”

“Move away,” the young soldier warned.

I caught hold of Niccoletta’s arm. “Do as he says.”

Niccoletta was stone, and the soldier so nervous, he swung his sword. The flat hit Niccoletta’s shoulder and dropped her to her knees.

The sisters and I cried out at the same instant Niccoletta did. I knelt beside her. She was speechless, gasping in pain, but there was no blood; her spectacles were still in place.

The other more seasoned soldiers elbowed the younger man back before he could do further harm.

“Here now,” one said. “Don’t press us to violence in God’s house.”

As he spoke, two more soldiers entered, followed by a dark-haired man with silver in his trimmed beard and an air of authority. He had come to take me to die.

Mother Giustina, red-eyed and resigned, walked beside him.

With one hand, I gestured at my white veil and raised my voice; it echoed, clear and ringing, throughout the chapel. “What sort of excommunicated fiend would enter a sanctuary to drag a bride of Christ from her convent? Would dare to drag her to her doom?”

The commander’s eyes crinkled in amusement.

“I dare do neither,” he said, in a tone so good-natured that it broke the spell of fear. The women, arms raised in protest, slowly lowered them; the soldiers sheathed their weapons. “I have simply come to transport you, Donna Caterina, to a safer place.”

“This place is safe!” Mother Giustina countered.

The commander turned to her and politely said, “Safe for her purposes, Abbess, but not the Republic’s. This is a den of Medici sympathizers.” He settled his gaze again on me. “You see that we have sufficient force to take you, Duchessa. I would sincerely prefer to use none.”

I studied him a long moment, then lifted my fingers to Sister Niccoletta’s face and stroked it; she touched her forehead to mine and began to cry.

“Stop,” I said softly and kissed her cheek. Her skin was powder-soft and weathered, and tasted of bitter brine.

Ten

The commander asked me to dispense with the habit and change into a regular gown, but I refused. He did not ask a second time. Haste was critical, and when, for the first time in two and a half years, I stepped outside Le Murate’s walls into the street, I understood why.

Eight soldiers on horseback had fanned out in a half circle around the cloister gate. Four of them held torches; four of them brandished swords against a crowd thrice their number but steadily growing.

As the soldiers and I passed through the gate, a man in the crowd shouted, “There she is!”

I could not see much of the crowd beyond the men on horseback, only a leg here, an arm there, a glimpse of a face. Color fled in the wake of twilight, leaving behind black and grey.

In the center of the group of soldiers, two men held the reins of unmounted horses and a donkey. One of them handed off his reins to the other as he caught sight of us and hurried over.

“Commander,” he said apologetically. “I don’t know how word got out…”

No, it’s her, it is! The little nun-

The Pope’s niece-

Pampered in a rich nunnery all this time while we starve!

The commander’s face grew still, save for a muscle that spasmed in his cheek. He looked out at his men and said softly, “I chose you because I thought you could hold your tongues. When I learn who has done this-I care not why, I care not how-I will see him swing.”

Death to the Medici! a woman cried.

A hurled stone struck just inside the ring of soldiers; it skipped and clattered to a stop near my feet.

Bastards! Traitors!

Give her to us!

The commander looked down at it, then back at his second. “Get her mounted,” he said. “Let’s move on before it gets worse.”

The troops ran to their horses. The second, a large, sullen-faced man, took my elbow as if I were an unruly commoner and swung me up onto the donkey. The animal looked reproachfully back at me, showing large yellow teeth that worried the bit.

The commander, now astride a pale grey stallion, rode up alongside me and called to his men. We began to move: the commander and I side by side, each flanked by a mounted soldier. In front of us, behind us, men rode three abreast.

Before all the men were in formation, three street thugs dashed between the horses’ bodies; one reached for me, the tips of his fingers grazing my leg. I cried out. The commander bellowed and leaned toward him with such urgent ferocity that the filthy youth shrank back, and was trampled by a horse.

Abaso le palle! someone shouted. Death to the Medici!

The soldiers closed ranks around us, and we made our way down the broad Via Ghibellina at an earnest trot. The crowd followed us for a while, hurling curses and the occasional missile. We soon outpaced them and made our way onto a quieter thoroughfare. We passed monastery walls, cathedrals, and rich men’s houses, the windows dark because the owners had fled in the face of the siege.

I clutched the saddle horn and slapped, stiff with dread, against the donkey’s saddle. Too late today for a public execution; it would have to wait until morning-unless a quick and private death awaited.

The streets grew narrower. The grand estates gave way to shops and tradesmen’s houses.

As we turned onto a broader avenue, our caravan slowed. In the near distance, black forms blocked the street. They had been waiting silently in the dark.

“Damn you,” the commander cursed his men. “Before God, if one of you is the traitor, I’ll send you to Hell myself…”

Death to the Medici, someone in the darkness said uncertainly.

The cry erupted with fervor: Abaso le palle! Down with the balls!

A hail of stones followed.

Beside me, the commander reined in his stamping horse and bellowed, “This prisoner is being transported at the command of the Republic! Anyone who interferes is a traitor!”

“You are the traitors,” a woman’s voice cried.

She stepped forward into the torchlight, a starving wraith wrapped in filthy rags. Beneath her jutting collarbones, her torn bodice had been rolled down to expose one breast, where a weakly wailing infant refused to suckle. She glared at me, her eyes two wild black holes.

“Medici bitch!” she roared. “You kill me, you kill my child! Your soldiers starve us, while you grow fat! You should die! You!”

You, the crowd echoed. Death to the Medici!

Two youths ran out of the dark to accost the soldier on my left. One grabbed his heel in the stirrup and pulled him down; the other struck him with a club. He fell sideways in the saddle, grappling with the first youth.

“Get his sword!” someone shouted, and the crowd rushed forward.

The commander barked orders and reined his horse in until his leg pressed against mine. The fallen soldier had managed to unsheathe his sword and held the youths at bay.

A grizzled beggar dashed into the light, gripped the skirt of my habit, and tugged mightily; the donkey brayed and I screamed. My saddle slipped, and the world canted sideways in a frightening whirl of animal hide and swords and filthy limbs.

My legs became tangled in the stirrups; my shoulder struck bone and flesh. I looked up in midfall and saw the beggar’s yawning grin, studded with cracked and rotting teeth, maggots in a putrid hole. I felt his hands on me and screamed again.

Suddenly he disappeared; I kicked free from the stirrups and was guided up by strong hands onto my feet. The commander’s right arm pressed me close; his left hand brandished his sword. On the stones before us, the beggar lay bleeding. The soldiers encircled us, holding back the now-quiet crowd.

The commander pointed the tip of his sword at the beggar’s head and thundered, “The next one who touches her, I’ll kill.” He lowered his voice. “She’s just a girl. A girl at the mercy of the same politics you poor bastards are.”

He mounted his stallion, then gestured at his second in command, who lifted me so that the commander could pull me up into his saddle. We began to move again. The commander’s arms were on either side of me as he held the reins, and momentum pushed me back against his chest, warm and hard.

Now and then, I caught a whiff of raw meat left too long in the sun. The commander pulled out a square of linen and handed it to me.

“Put it over your nose and mouth,” he said. “There’s plague in this neighborhood.”

I put it over my nose and breathed in the antiseptic fragrance of rosemary.

“You’re still trembling,” he said. “It’s all right now. The street rabble, I won’t let them harm you.”

I lowered the kerchief. “That’s not what I fear.”

He grew quiet, then said softly, “We don’t know what to do with you. Were it my choice, I’d free you now. It’s only a matter of time.”

Eager, wistful, I half turned in the saddle. “You really think I’ll be freed?”

The same muscle in his cheek twitched. “A cruel thing for a child,” he said. “You’ve been our prisoner-how long now? Three years? With luck, you’ll outlive me, Duchessa. Me and every one of these poor bastards here.” He indicated his troops with a jerk of his chin. “Your friends outnumber ours now.”

Hope tugged at me. “Don’t lie,” I said.

His mouth stretched in a cynical grin. “I’ll lay you a wager that, within two months’ time, you and I will see our fortunes reversed.”

“And what are the stakes?” I asked.

“My life.”

I didn’t properly understand his reply then, but I said, “Done.”

“Done it is,” he said.

I settled against him. Whether he had lied or not, he had put my mind at ease.

“For our wager,” I said lightly, looking out at the shopfronts and walls as the torches’ yellow glow swept over them, “if you lose, whose head shall I ask for?”

The instant he opened his mouth, I knew what he would say.

“Silvestro,” he said. “Silvestro Aldobrandini, a humble soldier of the Republic.”

I thought of my mother’s letter, lying beneath my pillow at Le Murate, forever lost.

Our party encountered no more challenges, and we made our way quickly to the northern quarter of San Giovanni. Once there, we turned onto the narrow Via San Gallo and came to a cloister wall, behind which Sister Violetta was waiting to receive me.

It was the convent of Santa-Caterina, where I had spent the first months of my captivity. Ser Silvestro had seen me safely returned.

Eleven

As she closed the wooden gate on Ser Silvestro, Sister Violetta received me as she had before, finger to lips. Her lantern revealed the toll the past three years had taken; she was even gaunter now. She turned and led me upstairs to my old cell. A young woman with pale golden hair sat on the straw mattress; when the glow of the lantern found her, she lifted a thin arm and squinted at the light. Like Violetta’s, her face bore the pinched look of the hungry, but hers was growing into womanly beauty.

“Tommasa?” I asked.

She let go a gasp of recognition and embraced me as Sister Violetta again signaled for silence, then turned and disappeared down the corridor.

Tommasa broke the silence as soon as Violetta’s footsteps faded. “Caterina!” she hissed. “Why did they bring you back? Where have you been?”

I took in the filthy straw mattress, the stink of the sewer, and slowly sat down on the edge of the bed. Back at Le Murate, Sister Niccoletta was surely weeping, and I wanted to weep, too. I shook my head, too heavyhearted to speak.

Tommasa was too lonely to be silent. Most of the sisters and all of the boarders had succumbed to plague, she told me, and because of the siege, the convent’s larders were almost bare.

I lay awake all that night on the hard, lumpy straw, listening to Tommasa’s soft snores. All the while, I thought of Sister Niccoletta and Mother Giustina, and the life I had lost at Le Murate.

When morning came, I learned the new terms of my imprisonment: I was not to do chores, nor eat in the refectory, nor attend chapel. I was to remain day and night in my cell.

A miserable fortnight passed. There were no books at Santa-Caterina, and my requests for mending to pass the time were ignored. I lost weight on watery gruel. My only distraction was Tommasa, who returned in the evenings.

One hot August morning, the cannon started booming again, so loudly the floor vibrated beneath my feet. Sister Violetta, hollow-eyed with fear, appeared in the corridor outside to confer with my guardian nun. After several concerned glances in my direction, Violetta stepped forward and shut the door to my cell. Had there been a bolt or lock, she would have used it. From that point on, the door remained closed. Tommasa did not return, and I spent the night alone on scratchy, sour-smelling straw, vacillating between hope and terror.

The next morning, I woke again to the thunder of cannon; the merciless assault against Florence’s walls had begun. My guardian sister failed to bring food. When night fell, the fighting and the cannon ceased.

On the second day, there were only the cannon, closer than ever; on third morning, I woke to silence. I got out of bed and knocked on the door. No one responded; as I caught the handle of the door, a bell began to toll.

It was not a church bell marking the hour or summoning the faithful to prayer. It was the low, sad chime of the Cow-the bell in the tower of the Palazzo della Signoria, the Palace of Lords, the bell that called all citizens to the town’s central square.

Overwhelmed by joy, I threw open the door to glimpse my captor disappearing swiftly down the hallway. I followed. We came upon other sisters, all rushing to the patio beside the convent wall. From there they ascended a steep staircase built into the side of the convent. I elbowed my way up the stairs to the slanting roof, dizzyingly free and open to the sky and the city; I spread my bare arms to the breeze. Florence sprawled out around me, her walls surrounded by rolling hills, once green but now dark earth, raw from the tread of enemy boots and the wheels of artillery.

On roofs throughout the city, people were gathering. Some were pointing to the south, beyond the river, at Florence’s walls and their most ancient gate, the Porta Romana. There, just inside the city walls, huge white flags billowed as they slowly neared the gate. Soon they would pass outside, to the waiting enemy.

Down below, people swarmed into the streets; beside me, the nuns sobbed openly. Their hearts were broken, but mine was sailing on the wind with the flags.

Overcome, Sister Violetta sank onto her knees and stared out at the swelling white harbingers of defeat.

“Sister Violetta,” I said.

She stared at me, her gaze blank. Her mouth worked for an instant before she was able to say, “Remember us kindly, Caterina.”

“I will,” I answered, “provided you tell me how to get to Santissima Annunziata delle Murate.”

She frowned and finally saw my tousled braid and dingy, sleeveless nightgown, its hem lifted by the wind, the outlines of the black silk pouch visible beneath the fraying linen at my breasts.

“You can’t go out onto the streets,” she said. “You’re not even dressed. There will be soldiers. It isn’t safe.”

I laughed, an unfamiliar sound. I was bold, unstoppable. Mars had just surrendered its hold on me, and now lucky Jupiter was ascendant. “I’m going, with or without your help.”

She told me. South and east, down the Via Guelfa, past the Duomo, to the Via Ghibellina.

I hurried down the stairs, ran across the patio, slid the bolt on the thick convent door, and stepped out into the Via San Gallo.

It was early but hot, the cobblestones beneath my bare feet already warm. The street was alive with noise: the low-pitched toll of the Cow, the clatter of hooves, the rumble of excited voices. I had expected to find a populace shuttered indoors, hiding in fear from the same army that had savaged Rome; instead, people streamed out of their houses. Their poverty caused my giddy fearlessness to waver. I rubbed elbows with the well-dressed merchants and the starving poor, their children’s bellies bloated from hunger. Some headed with me, toward the tolling Cow in the Piazza della Signoria, but most headed due south on the Via Larga, toward the southern gate and the Imperial army. Toward food.

Republican soldiers moved against the crowd-some on foot, some mounted. None looked up at me. Their heads were bowed, their gazes downcast as they headed wearily home to await their conquerors and certain death.

I ran unnoticed, sweat streaming from my temples, the tender soles of my feet bruised and cut. The throng swept along faster and faster, as a cry went up.

The gates are open! They’re coming in!

I turned to see Ser Silvestro headed in the direction opposite mine, slouching astride his stallion, riding very slowly. His bare head was bowed; at the crowd’s shout, he lifted his chin, acknowledging the inevitable, then dropped it again.

Chance, some might call it, or luck. But it was Jupiter, touching us both with its beneficence, bestowing us upon each other.

I hurried to him; his weary horse paid me no mind.

“Ser Silvestro!” I shouted giddily. “Ser Silvestro!”

He did not hear; I reached out and touched his boot in the stirrup. He started and scowled down at me, ready to shout at the urchin who disturbed him-then recoiled and looked more closely at me.

“Duchessina!” he exclaimed in amazement. “How can it be…!”

Without ado, he reached for my hands and I grasped his, and he lifted me up onto his saddle.

I turned round to look at him. “Do you remember our wager?”

He shook his head gently.

“You should,” I admonished. “The stakes were your life.” And when he looked blankly at me, I added, “You said that, in two months’ time, our fortunes would be reversed. Two months, but only three weeks have passed since we met.”

His features relaxed into a pale, unhappy smile. “I remember now,” he said heavily. “I suppose, since it has been three weeks and not eight, I have lost.”

“To the contrary, you have won,” I said. “You need only take me to the convent of Le Murate to collect.”