The Red Lily Crown (18 page)

T
exts of a series of secret messages from Chiara Nerini to Magister Ruanno dell' Inghilterra in the spring of 1576, written in the Trithemius cipher and using an invisible ink compounded from a dilute solution of blue vitriol and sal ammoniac in water, which becomes visible only when heated:

T
hird day of April. Isabella and Dianora were out in the city yesterday with alms-boxes, collecting alms for the poor as a Lenten penance. They are laughing about it. All is well.

Feast of San Marco. Dianora has been sick again. Isabella is worried because there's no natural cause for her symptoms. Thank you for your assurances regarding the three persons traveling to the northwest.

Last day of April. Dianora's health is better. Bianca C. has been here twice.

Tenth day of May. Dianora has been receiving secret letters and poems from a man whose name you know. She reads the poems aloud to Isabella, and too many people hear them.

Ascension Day. At Cafaggiolo with Isabella. She is safe, I think, because the Duke of B. is not here. Dianora remains in the city with only her servants. She writes that Bianca has become her fast friend, and helps her with her secret letters.

Day after Trinity Sunday. Back in Florence. Isabella is well. Dianora was sick again, but she is better now.

Twenty-seventh day of June. Bianca C. has discovered the letters and poems from Dianora's lover, hidden in a footstool. She gave them to the grand duke. Dianora's lover has been strangled in prison.

A final message, not delivered because Ruanno dell' Inghilterra was not in his customary apartments at the Casino di San Marco, and was in fact nowhere to be found:

Eighth day of July. Isabella's husband has arrived in Florence, as I am sure you know. We are preparing to travel to the Medici villa at Cerreto Guidi for hunting. Dianora and her husband are not coming with us, but have gone separately to the villa at Cafaggiolo. You must act if you can—I am afraid for us all.

Cerreto Guidi, west of Florence

16 JULY 1576

“M
adonna Isabella,” Chiara said. She straightened the embroidered silk coverlet, careful not to touch Donna Isabella herself where she lay curled in the great bed. “Won't you get up, eat a little bread? You have been crying all night.”

They had been shut up inside the villa for what? Six—seven—eight days? Chiara didn't know for sure, because the time had run together in a shadowy blur of terror and prayers and contradictory mad entertainments with Isabella's pet dwarf Morgante dancing and singing. No one was allowed to go out or in. The Duke of Bracciano did nothing but eat and drink. Was Magister Ruanno outside, trying to find a way in to save Donna Isabella, save them all? Chiara didn't know if her last secret message had reached him. When she prayed, she imagined him, dark and inscrutable, looming on Lowarn's back. She imagined his whip uncoiling and wrapping around the locks on the doors, tearing them loose, setting them all free.

Then yesterday—could it have been only yesterday?—a messenger wearing the grand duke's colors had come and had been allowed in. Donna Isabella had been summoned into her husband's sodden presence. She had come back with her eyes like burned holes in the paper-white oval of her face, and thrown herself into her bed in tears.

Dianora was dead.

Eleonora di Garzia di Toledo, wife of Pietro de' Medici, beautiful careless sensuous unfaithful Dianora. The grand duke had written to tell his brother-in-law that Dianora was dead at Cafaggiolo, suffocated by accident in her bed and her body hastily carried back to the city, entombed in a crypt under the Basilica of San Lorenzo with no mass, no ceremonies, no mourners.

Although of course her death hadn't been an accident. Who suffocates herself accidentally in her own bed?

And why would the grand duke write such a letter to Donna Isabella's husband, now, when they were all trapped at Cerreto Guidi?

“I do not want to get up,” Isabella said. Her voice was hoarse. She had been crying and screaming all night. “I will not move.”

“Do you want me to call Father Elicona?”

“No. What good can a priest do? She is dead.”

Chiara crossed herself. “He can pray for her, Madonna, and you can pray for her too.” I sound like Nonna, she thought.

“I told her,” Isabella moaned. She turned her face away. “I tried to warn her. The letters and poems that whore Bianca discovered—they were the last straw. She had too many lovers, too many plots. And it is partly my fault. I helped her arrange Pierino Ridolfi's escape. Francesco never forgave her for that.”

And I carried her necklace and put it in Pierino Ridolfi's hands, Chiara thought. I'm guilty, too. Saints and angels, will I be the next to suffocate in my bed? What if they've arrested Magister Ruanno and tortured him? He could tell them what I did, and what Nonna did, and how he helped them escape. Why did I think I was safe, just because I am the grand duke's
soror mystica
? He has conspired in the murder of his own cousin, his brother's wife. Who will be next?

“Donna Isabella,” she said. “We must go away. Somewhere, anywhere. Surely Don Paolo cannot prevent you if you surround yourself with all your household and demand to go back to the city, in front of everyone. Once you are out of Cerreto Guidi you could run away—”

“Run away where? And how? I have no money.”

“You have your jewels.”

“They will not take me far. And what about the children? Paolo would keep them from me—I would never see them again.”

“Isabella.” Chiara did not dare touch her, but she caught hold of the top coverlet and tried to pull it away. “Listen to me. No matter what Don Paolo says, Dianora was
murdered
. You know it, and I know it. She was taken to an isolated villa with her husband and the next thing anyone heard, she was dead. You are in an isolated villa with your husband. You must find a way to escape before you end up dead as well.”

There. She'd said it.
Before you end up dead as well
. And before I end up dead too, she thought.

“Don't be ridiculous.” Isabella pushed Chiara's hands away and curled up among the cushions and coverlets. “I am a princess of the Medici by birth and blood. Pietro, yes, I can see my brother killing his wife in a rage—he has always been difficult, unstable. But Pietro is a Medici—he is one of us. Dianora may have had great Spanish connections, she may have been my mother's niece, but she was not a Medici by blood. She had lovers, and my brother's honor was touched.”

Chiara stared at her. “She was your cousin, your sister-in-law. She was your friend. She loved you and looked up to you—she modeled her life on yours.”

Isabella threw back the coverlets. “How dare you? Fetch me hot water. Fetch me bread and wine. I am a
Medici
. Francesco and I may argue with one another over money, but we are brother and sister—blood is everything. My husband is an Orsini, an outsider—he would never dare to touch me. Francesco would never allow it.”

She got out of bed and wrapped herself in her night-gown, rich sky-blue velvet with silver embroidery, glistening with sapphires and pearls. Just at that moment there was a scratch at the door, and one of her waiting-women came into the bedchamber.

“Your husband requires your presence, Serenissima,” the woman said.

“I am not dressed.”

“He said to tell you that you are to come to him at once, whether you are dressed or not.”

Isabella laughed. “There, you see? He wishes to make love to me. Death has that effect on people sometimes—they are overwhelmed by the desire to make new life.”

Chiara stood back, unconvinced. She and the waiting-woman looked at each other, and the waiting-woman shrugged. Isabella swept out of the room as if she was on her way to one of her grand entertainments. She'd always put Grand Duchess Giovanna in the shade with her brilliance, and the grand duchess had yielded, sunk in melancholy as she was, sad and homesick and pious, unpopular with the Florentines who saw only her Habsburg pride and not her private kindnesses. Until this past Carnival season, Isabella had reigned unchallenged. Until this past Carnival season—

Bianca Cappello.

The grand duke loved only two things, women and alchemy. And for him, “women” had shrunk and shrunk until it had become one woman. Donna Bianca.

Treason and honor were all very well, but if both Dianora and Isabella were gone, Donna Bianca would reign supreme.

Paolo Giordano Orsini could claim his honor had been touched as well—his wife's lover was Don Troilo Orsini, his own kinsman.

“Isabella!” Chiara cried. “Come back!”

She ran after the grand duke's sister. Isabella had paused for a moment in the room that separated her bedchamber from her husband's. She was speaking to the poet-priest, Father Elicona; the dwarf Morgante was in the room as well, doing somersaults, watched by a handful of ladies. Chiara went straight to Isabella and did the unthinkable: she put her hand on Isabella's arm.

“Don't go in,” she said. “Stay away from your husband, and think of a way to go back to Florence.”

Isabella frowned and pulled her arm away. She didn't like to be touched unless she had invited such a familiarity. “You presume too much, Mona Chiara,” she said. Her voice was cold and her expression was stiff with pride, as it always was when she was imagining herself at the center of the cosmos. Nothing bad could happen to her, because if it did the cosmos itself would blink out of existence. “I am sad for my little cousin's death, but Pietro was justified. I will support my brothers, as I have always done. My husband, well”—she looked around at all of them and shrugged a little—“I have always been perfectly capable of managing my husband.”

She walked on. Chiara watched her. They all watched her, in deathly silence.

She didn't scratch on the door to her husband's private chamber. She simply opened the door, and walked in, and closed the door behind herself.

There was a pause, and then the click of a lock.

The dwarf did three more somersaults, and ended just outside the door. He pressed his ear against the carved wooden surface. At the same time there was the unmistakable sound of a slap, the crack of a hand against flesh.

All of them, Chiara, the priest, the ladies, ran to the door and struggled for the best listening spots. Chiara pushed one of the other ladies away and put one eye against the crack between the door and the wall, just under one of the hinges. She could see only a tiny slice of the room. Wherever Isabella and her husband were, they weren't in that tiny space.

“How dare you lay your hand on me?” It was Isabella's voice. She didn't sound afraid, only angry. “I am going to return to Florence. Get out of my way.”

“You are going nowhere.” Don Paolo sounded as if he had been drinking wine, even though it was barely midday. “I have things to say to you.”

“I do not wish to listen. I—”

Her words were cut off with another slap. She did not cry out in pain, but in anger. Chiara saw a brief flash of the blue night-gown, and then the door-handle rattled violently.

“Unlock this door!” Isabella shouted. There was an edge of fear in her voice.

“You will listen,” Don Paolo said. “Do you not want to hear the things your brother's messenger told me, things the grand duke did not choose to commit to paper?”

The door creaked. Isabella was leaning against it. The dwarf Morgante growled like a wild animal. He loved his mistress, Chiara knew, and would have given his life to protect her. But the door was locked on the inside, and there was no other key.

“She fought hard, Donna Dianora did.” Chiara saw an enormous blob of black velvet pass across the crack in the door. Don Paolo, so fat no horse could carry him. His voice was conversational and chilling. “She bit your brother's hand like a mad dog, and almost took off two fingers. Fortunately he had a pair of fine fellows from the Romagna in the room with him, to help him.”

“I will not listen to you. Let me out.”

“They threw her on the bed and held her down. Your brother was swearing, his hand bleeding. He said that if she wanted to bite him like a dog, she could die like a dog.”

The handle of the door rattled frantically. Uselessly.

“He sent for a dog's leash—the servants were too frightened to disobey him. The two
teppisti
held her down, however much she struggled and screamed. A man brought him a leather leash, not one of the embroidered silk ones she liked to use for her own little hounds, but a good stout leather strap like the ones used to hold mastiffs. It was muddy—it had not been cleaned since the last time the mastiff hunted.”

“For the love of Mary Virgin, my lord, stop.” Isabella sounded genuinely frightened now. “I do not want to hear these things.”

“No?” There was a sound of ripping fabric, and a sob from Isabella. “You will listen for as long as I choose to speak. And I want to tell you everything, all the details your brother told his messenger to share with me.”

“Francesco would not wish that!”

“Oh, but he does. Where was I? Yes, the mastiff's leash. While the two men held her down, your brother wrapped the filthy leather strap around her lovely neck. Her clothes had become torn and disarranged in her struggles, and her throat and breasts were naked. He wrapped either end of the leash around his fists and jerked it tight.”

Two of the ladies at the door had begun to cry. The priest was praying, his eyes closed, his fingers counting the beads of his rosary. Morgante had scratched grooves in the wood of the door, snarling. Chiara was frozen, unable to move, unable to cry, hardly able to believe the devil's tale she was hearing.

“Her face began to turn blue,” Don Paolo went on. He was savoring every word. “She had such fine, clear skin, thin as silk. Your brother said he could see the veins beating beneath it. Her eyes started from her head, and her tongue from her mouth. He took his time about it, throwing the names of her lovers in her face while she could still hear them. How they were all dead. How he didn't believe the little boy, Cosimino, was his own seed, and would send him after his mother in a few weeks' time.”