The Devil's Queen: A Novel of Catherine De Medici (15 page)

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.”

I made good on my bargain with Ser Silvestro. His comrades met their deaths at chopping blocks and gallows; he was fated to join them until I dispatched a letter to the Pope. His sentence was commuted to exile.

When Le Murate’s door opened to me, I ran into Sister Niccoletta’s waiting arms; we held each other fast and I laughed at the pools of tears collected on her spectacles. Within two days, Roman legates arrived with gifts of cheese, cakes, lambs, pigs, pigeons, and the finest wine I have ever tasted. While the rest of the city mourned defeat, those at Le Murate celebrated my return with a feast.

Fortunately, our invaders were not the wild, angry troops that had decimated Rome. The occupation of Florence was orderly. The Imperial commander who brought greetings from the Pope and Emperor Charles kissed my hand and addressed me as
Duchessa
.

On the fourth morning after the Republican surrender, a carriage took me to the Strozzi family villa. There, two men waited in the reception hall, one of them the gray-haired, sunken-cheeked Filippo Strozzi. As I entered the room, he embraced me more enthusiastically than he ever had before. He had reason to be glad: Florence and Rome were in the throes of rebuilding, and Filippo, kinsman by marriage to the Pope and a banker with money to lend, was positioned to become dazzlingly rich.

The other man was young, short, barrel-chested, and wearing a blinding grin. I failed to recognize him until he cried, his voice breaking with emotion, “Cat! Cat, I thought never to see you again!”

I had no words. I hugged Piero tightly, reluctant to let go of him. When we sat, he pulled his chair next to mine and held my hand.

My joy at the Imperial victory was tinged with sorrow at the realization that I would have to leave Le Murate, but I comforted myself with the thought that I would soon return home to the Palazzo Medici with Uncle Filippo and Piero.

“Duchessina,”
Filippo said, “His Holiness has sent you gifts.”

He fetched presents: a silk damask gown of vivid blue and a choker of pearls from which hung a pea-size diamond.

“I shall wear these,” I said, delighted, “when we dine together again at the Palazzo Medici.”

“Pope Clement bids you wear these when you go to meet him in Rome.” Filippo cleared his throat. “His Holiness wishes the heirs to remain in Rome until such time as they are ready to rule.”

I cried, of course. I had to be pried away from Piero after we said good-bye.

Back at Le Murate, I mourned bitterly. I wrote impassioned letters to Clement, begging to stay in Florence. It didn’t matter. By the end of the month, I was forced to say farewell to Sister Niccoletta and Mother Giustina and my beloved Piero.

I was orphaned again.

Rome sits upon seven hills. After hours of rolling green countryside, I glimpsed the first of them, the Qirinal, from the window of the carriage that carried Uncle Filippo, Ginevra, and me. Filippo pointed at an approaching expanse of worn, unremarkable brick, sections of which had dissolved with age and sprouted greenery.

“The Aurelian Wall,” he said reverently. “Nearly thirteen hundred years old.”

Moments after, we reached the wall and passed beneath a modern archway: the Porta del Popolo, the Gate of the People. Beyond, a sprawling city stretched to the horizon, dotted with campaniles and cathedral domes rising
above the flat roofs of villas; white marble glittered beneath a hot September sun. Rome was far larger than Florence, far larger than I could have imagined. We rolled through common neighborhoods, past shops, humble homes, and open markets. The poor traveled on foot, the merchants on horses, the rich in carriages, a preponderance of which belonged to cardinals. Yet the streets, though busy, were uncrowded; a third of the buildings were still empty three years after the devastation wrought by the Emperor’s troops. Rome was still licking her wounds.

As the districts grew wealthier, I saw more evidence of the Sack. The gaudy villas of cardinals and of Rome’s most influential families exhibited damage: Stone finials and cornices had been smashed, wooden doorways scarred. Statues of gods were missing limbs, noses, breasts. Over the entrance to one cathedral, a headless Virgin held the Christ child in her arms.

Hammers rang on every street; wooden scaff olding embraced the façade of every other building. Artists’ shops were crowded with clients arguing over commissions, apprentices grinding gems, sculptors chiseling huge chunks of marble.

At last the carriage slowed, and Uncle Filippo said, “The Piazza Navona, built on the ruins of Emperor Domitian’s circus.”

It was the largest square I had ever seen, wide enough for a dozen carriages to travel side by side. Ostentatious villas, newly built, lined its perimeter.

Filippo pointed to a building at the far side of the square and proudly announced, “The Medici Palace of Rome, which rests upon Nero’s baths.”

The new palace, of pale stucco edged with marble, had been built in the popular classical style—square and flat-roofed, three stories high. The carriage rolled into the long, curving driveway, then stopped, and the driver jumped down to call at the front door. Instead of the expected servant, a noblewoman appeared.

She was my great-aunt Lucrezia de’ Medici, daughter of Lorenzo
il Magnifico
and sister of the late Pope Leo X. Her husband, Iacopo Salviati, had recently been appointed Florence’s ambassador to Rome. Elegant, thin, and slightly stooped, she wore a gown of black and silver striped silk that precisely matched her velvet headdress and hair.

At the sight of Uncle Filippo helping me from the carriage, she called out,
smiling, “I have been waiting all morning! How wonderful to finally set eyes upon you,
Duchessa
!”

Aunt Lucrezia led Ginevra and me to my new apartments. I had come to think of my room at Le Murate as lavish; now, I entered a sunny antechamber with six padded velvet chairs, a Persian rug, a dining table, and a large cherry desk. Paintings covered the marble walls: an annunciation scene, a portrait of Lorenzo as a young man, and one of my mother, an arresting young woman with dark eyes and hair. Lucrezia had brought the painting out of storage for me.