Duchessina - A Novel of Catherine de' Medici (2 page)

But the Medici also attracted jealousy and hatred. The people had once enjoyed
Il Magnifico's
rule, but the mood changed. They wanted to rule themselves. Even during my great-grandfather's lifetime there had been attempts to drive the Medici from power. “As the daughter of Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, you are the last of the Medici line descended from
Il Magnifico.
You need to understand all this, dear Caterina, for your own good. Life may not always be easy for you.”

She told me that from the beginning it had not been easy for me. Within a few months of my birth, I had contracted a terrible fever.

“You hung suspended between life and death,” my aunt remembered. “We prayed over you night and day, and thanks be to God, you survived. I wanted to take you into my home and bring you up as my own dear child, but your uncle, Pope Leo, ordered you brought to Rome. I dared to argue with him: What did he know about raising a girl? But he would not relent. I begged to be allowed to accompany you. This time, Pope Leo agreed, and off we went to Rome with Betta and a large retinue.”

“And our uncle? How did His Holiness receive me?” I asked eagerly. Her answer always heartened me.

“The Holy Father unwrapped your fine linen swaddling, looked you over from the top of your curly head down to your sturdy little feet, and pronounced you fine and fat. Then he sent me back to Florence, saying he had no further need of me. You would stay in Rome, in the care of his sister, Lucrezia Salviati. I could hardly bear to leave you.”

I had no memory of any of it, except that I did seem to recall a fat, jowly man with sparkling gems on his fingers. While I was still an infant, Pope Leo gave me my father's title, creating me Duchess of Urbino. That was when everyone—everyone but Aunt Clarissa—began to call me
Duchessina.
To my aunt I always remained Caterina.

I had been in Rome for two years when Leo suddenly sickened and died, a victim of Roman fever, caused by the bad air of the swamps surrounding the city. When Leo had first become pope, he'd brought his cousin, Giulio, to Rome as his chief assistant and made him a cardinal. After Leo's death, Cardinal Giulio decided to return to Florence and to take me with him to live at Palazzo Medici. Although he was only a distant cousin of Pope Leo, Giulio insisted on calling himself my “uncle.”

“You can't imagine how happy I was to have you back in Florence,” Aunt Clarissa said. “Now I could visit you nearly every day.”

O
NCE A MONTH
Cardinal Giulio called for me to be brought to him for a kind of inspection. These visits always unnerved Betta. If the cardinal found any fault with me, it was sure to be a reflection on her care. I knew she was nervous, because she always tugged at the snarls in my hair with more impatience than usual. Hair combed, faces and hands washed, clothes neat, we made our way through a series of connecting rooms that were hung with tapestries, until we were announced at the cardinal's most private studio. Cardinal Giulio didn't smile or rise to greet us but stayed seated behind his writing table.

“She remains quite small,” the cardinal said, peering down at me and pursing his thin lips. “Does she eat well?”

Betta dutifully recounted dishes I had eaten recently My uncle frowned and urged that I be fed more meat, especially veal, as well as macaroni. “But not too much fresh fruit. It's known to be unhealthful for children,” he said. “Allow only dried figs,
per favore.
”

Betta promised to do her best, although I made her task more difficult by pleading for fresh figs, which I loved, as well as cherries and pears.

Sometimes Aunt Clarissa came from nearby Palazzo Strozzi, where she lived with her husband, Filippo, and their children, to accompany me on visits to the cardinal. Our uncle would question her about the development of my manners. “Progressing nicely,” my aunt would assure him, and to prove her right, I would execute a dainty curtsy, moving my left foot back and bending my knees as I had been taught.

My greatest fault, though, was my inability to remember to keep my eyes modestly lowered. I was always gazing around curiously or unflinchingly meeting the looks of whoever was inspecting me. I had not yet learned how to steal sidelong glances.

“Why don't you ask
me,
Your Excellency?” I asked. “I would gladly answer your questions.” Speaking out too boldly when questioned was another fault.

Cardinal Giulio's eyes bored through me. “The child still has much to learn, Clarissa,” he said, his lips drawn in a disapproving scowl.

I committed yet another error by staring back at him frankly and then made matters worse by asking, “Exactly what do you want me to learn, Excellency?”

“To quell your impertinence,” snapped the cardinal. “Now leave us.”

W
HEN
I
TURNED FOUR
, I gained more freedom to roam around the palazzo, and I learned more about my cousins, our “uncle,” and this palace in which we lived our mostly separate lives. Ippolito was fourteen, and Alessandro nearly twelve. Naturally, they had little in common with a four-year-old girl. Almost every day I saw the boys' principal tutor, Cardinal Passerini, hurrying somewhere with an imperious air, shouting orders to the servants. I knew the servants didn't like him; I saw the faces they made when he wasn't looking. Except for the dreaded inspections, Cardinal Giulio remained a remote figure whom I saw only on feast days when he celebrated Mass at San Lorenzo.

I was not yet considered old enough to eat at the table in the palace dining room or to join the festive dinners served in the beautiful garden. Instead, I took most of my meals in my apartment with only Betta for company. Occasionally, though, I was allowed to attend special feastday dinners. Cardinal Giulio de' Medici sat at the head of the table, his shrewd glance darting around the crowd, but my attention remained fixed on Ippolito and Alessandro.

Betta claimed to know little about the boys. “You must ask Signora Strozzi,” she said. “Your aunt can tell you more than I can.”

“Who are those boys?” I asked Aunt Clarissa when she next came to visit. I was already digging into the packet of sweets she'd brought, little jellies flavored with saffron and formed into animal shapes.

“Your cousins,” she answered vaguely. “Through the kindness of our uncle the cardinal you've all been provided a home here and an education and a good life.”

I recognized this as the kind of thing adults said when they didn't want to explain things to children. And, anyway, I already knew that much. “But who are their parents?” I persisted.

“You wouldn't know them,” she said, and briskly changed the subject. “Have I told you that the seamstress is coming to make you a pretty new gown for the Feast of Corpus Domini? I was thinking that pale blue over yellow silk would be lovely. Don't you agree, Caterina?”

F
OR A WHILE
I stopped asking questions about Alessandro and Ippolito. But lonely little girls have a habit of hovering in places they are not supposed to be and listening to the gossip of servants who have forgotten about the child perching quietly on a sack of grain in a shadowy corner of the pantry, pretending to play with a doll.

One day I was wandering through the kitchen where a dozen cooks and helpers were plucking fowl, boning fish, stirring soups, rolling out dough for ravioli and lasagne, all in preparation for the Feast of Corpus Domini. Everyone was too busy to pay any attention to me. Suddenly, amid the rattle of pans and clash of knives, an angry cry went up. Alessandro raced by, making off with two ripe melons and a pile of almond cakes. The baker ran after him, shaking his fist.

“Lorenzo's bastard,” the baker muttered when he returned red faced and empty-handed. “
Il Moro
is worse than worthless, and a thief in the bargain.”

Lorenzo's bastard? Lorenzo, my father—was he Alessandro's father, too?
My aunt had never mentioned that. How could such a despicable boy be my father's son? It couldn't be! I would not believe it! It had to be a different Lorenzo.

But the very possibility made me ill, so ill that shortly after that scene in the kitchen I was put to bed with a fever and a bad stomach. For two days I refused to eat. Each time I fell into a restless sleep, I woke up sobbing. Betta sent for Aunt Clarissa, who hurried to see for herself what ailed me. I finally confessed to her the cause of my illness.

“The wicked Alessandro is my brother!” I cried. “I would rather die than have it be true!”

“Who told you such a thing?” Clarissa demanded.

“I heard the servants talking,” I said, not wanting to cause trouble for the baker. “They called him ‘Lorenzo's bastard.'”

“Don't believe slanderous gossip,” she advised me. “It's hardly ever true. And what were you doing in the kitchen?”

“Nothing,” I said, which was not quite the truth—I'd been looking for fresh figs and cherries. “But why do they call him
Il Moro,
the Moor?”

I watched anxiously as Aunt Clarissa paced the room, her chin cupped in her hand. Finally she stopped and gazed down at me. “Listen, Caterina, I'll tell you whatever you wish to know about your cousins if you will first promise to drink some veal broth and then to sleep until the bell rings for vespers.”

I promised to do as she asked.

My aunt sat beside me on my great bed. “Alessandro is a bastard, it's true. But your father isn't Alessandro's father, so you may rest easy about that. Alessandro is the son of a cardinal, and his mother was a Moorish slave—that's why they call him
Il Moro.
No one is permitted to speak of Alessandro's relationship to the cardinal, although almost everyone suspects it. Because your father, Lorenzo, is dead, it's easier to pretend that
he
was the boy's father.”

Alessandro, the son of a cardinal? My aunt had not mentioned the cardinal's name, but I thought I could guess: loudmouthed Passerini. This new information was nearly as shocking as what I'd overheard in the kitchen. But I felt greatly relieved. At least the ruffian Alessandro was not my brother.

“And Ippolito?” I asked. “What about
him?
”

“That's not a secret. He's the son of Pope Leo's younger brother, Giuliano, who drowned when Ippolito was just a boy. Leo was very fond of the child.”

“And his mother?”

Aunt Clarissa merely shrugged. “Ippolito's a bastard, too.”