The Red Lily Crown (21 page)

“Crushed?” So she had tried to help Isabella, tried to do what he could not. She had courage, his quick-witted
soror
. Well, he had known that from the first moment he had seen her, fighting off two guardsmen in the rain. “Will she be able to do the work required of her?”

“Yes. I had one of my battlefield chirurgeons treat her, following the methods of Ambroise Paré. A fever almost took her, but in the end she recovered.”

What had she done, to get herself wounded so badly? He would have to find a way to ask her. Perhaps she, too, would have a desire for revenge. At the very least, she would know the truth of Isabella's death.

“She has been assigned a position in the grand duchess's household,” the grand duke went on. He put the pomander to his nose and breathed deeply. He was clearly pleased that everything would be as it was.

Although of course it would not.

“Once she has settled into her new place, she will help us begin the
magnum opus
again.”

The Villa di Pratolino

LATER THAT SAME NIGHT

“S
he was insolent!” Bianca cried. She was flushed with anger and agitation. “She would not curtsy to me as she should have done—is she your mistress, Francesco, for all your talk about vows of virginity?”

The grand duke drew back his hand to slap her. He was disgusted by her reddened face, her shrieking voice, the overly decorated lavishness of her night-gown, embroidered as it was with gold thread and citrines. It was unfastened, and under it, like a slattern, she wore only her camicia. She had taken her pretended pregnancy as a license to eat too many sweets and drink too much wine—she had put on enough genuine flesh that padding was hardly necessary.

To his amazement she ducked out of the range of his palm and ran to the other side of the room.

“I will
not
be your Bia today! I am so tired of Bia—tired of Franco—tired of it all. You are the Grand Duke of Tuscany, one of the greatest men in Italy. I wish to be acknowledged as your mistress, a great lady, the first lady of Florence, with your heir inside me.”

The grand duke paced slowly across the room, his steps light and careful. The scheme about the child had changed everything. He had imagined his Bia placid and motherly at her hearth, sewing tiny shirts and swaddling-bands, softer and gentler than ever. Instead it seemed he had put an unexpected weapon in her hands, a weapon she used every day to batter him with her presumed dynastic importance. It was almost as if she herself had come to believe she was truly with child.

End it? Force her to feign a miscarriage? That would put her back in his power.

On the other hand, the image of himself with a new baby in his hands, undeniably and triumphantly male, was sweeter than any siren's song.

“The grand duchess is the first lady of Florence,” he said. He made his voice even and soft, the tone that warned Bianca to expect violence. As he spoke, he picked up a pitcher, lead-glazed white pottery from France. The handle was formed in the shape of a curved tree trunk, from which emerged a winged dragon with a lion's face. It was a beautiful and valuable piece. He had chosen it particularly for the Pratolino, the new villa he had built—was still building—so his Bia would not have to go out in the streets of Florence where people threw stones and rotten fruit at her carriage.

“The grand duchess was never the first lady of Florence when your sister was alive!” Clearly Bianca was too much beside herself to be warned. “She is ugly and tedious and does not care about anything but God and her children. She—”

The crash of the pitcher shattering on the floor at her feet cut her off. She stared down at the broken pieces for a moment, then looked up at the grand duke. Her face had turned pale.

“I liked that pitcher,” she said. It was not Bia's voice, but at least it was quieter and more reasonable.

“You should not have defied me. Now. Let us begin again.”

She clasped her hands together and took a deep breath. “Your alchemical maidservant,” she said. “She accompanied the grand duchess and other members of her household to the Palazzo Medici, where I—where I happened to be.”

The grand duke nodded. “I have already collected her jewels and other valuable objects,” he said. “You were quite welcome to the rest of her clothes, if you wished to have them.”

“The grand duchess did not agree. She ordered me out.”

The grand duke shrugged. “If she ordered you out, you should have done as she asked.”

Bianca's lower lip thrust out and her eyes flashed. The grand duke picked up another piece of the white pottery. This one was a shallow stemmed cup, a tazza, with decorations similar to those on the broken pitcher.

“I did as she asked,” Bianca said, swallowing her anger. “I paid homage to her. But her women—particularly the little alchemist, who is nothing but a bookseller's daughter—they did not show me the proper respect as I passed by.”

“Very well. I shall speak to Soror Chiara.” The grand duke put the tazza back on the table, gently. He was pleased he had not been compelled to destroy it. “Tell me now, what else were you looking for at the Palazzo Medici?”

Color rushed up into Bianca's face again. She pulled the velvet night-gown more closely around her lush body. “Nothing,” she said.

“Nothing?”

The grand duke took a thin leather letter-case out of his belt. He laid it on the table beside the tazza and opened it. Every movement was slow and deliberate. Bianca watched him. Only her eyes moved, following his hands. He took out three letters, one at a time. He unfolded them. The crackling sound of the paper was the only sound in the room. The writing on the pages was large and round, with loops and underlinings.

“These letters, perhaps?” The grand duke's voice was pleasant. He had her under his control again.

“Yes,” Bianca whispered. Her voice came out in a rush. “You have them. Oh, God be thanked, you have them. When I could not find them—”

“Do not be so sure that you are safe. These letters—they are proof, beyond any doubt, that four years ago you conspired with my sister to have your own husband attacked in the street and murdered.”

He had been perfectly well aware of the foolish conspiracy between his mistress and his sister to assassinate Pietro Buonaventuri. He had been more than willing to let it go forward, because even though Buonaventuri had worn his cuckold's horns willingly, he had been reckless enough—or stupid enough—to involve himself in an intrigue of his own, with a young widow attached to the Ricci. The Ricci were not pleased about that. Roberto de' Ricci had turned to his good friend and patroness Isabella de' Medici, and Isabella, damn her for always involving herself in scandals and conspiracies, had happily arranged for a band of stout fellows to assist Ricci in murdering Pietro Buonaventuri.

“But—Francesco—surely you would not use those letters against me?” Bianca was trembling. “Isabella swore to me you knew. You wanted me, all for yourself.”

“I had you, all for myself. Your husband meant nothing to me, alive or dead. Do you have any idea why Isabella would do such a thing for you, arrange your husband's death?”

“His mistress—she was related to one of Isabella's fine friends.” Bianca faltered. “She was much above him in rank, and by giving herself to him, she had besmirched her family's honor.”

“Rather like you, in fact.”

Bianca said nothing. She did not take her eyes off the letters.

“Ah, my Bia. You are such a fool. My sister arranged the murder of your husband to put you in her debt. After my father died,
di felice memoria
”—he crossed himself; it was a measure of how terrified Bianca was, that she did not do the same—“she pressed you to support her in her demands for money, did she not?”

“Y-yes, but—”

“But nothing. She used you, my Bia. She hated you and the influence she believed you had over me.”

“We were friends!”

The grand duke laughed. “Hardly friends. She kept these letters when a true friend would have destroyed them. Who knows what she ultimately intended to do with them?”

“Francesco,” Bianca said. “Franco. Please.”

Franco
.

“That is better.” He re-folded the letters, put them back in the letter-case, and tucked it into his belt again. “Now, take off that abominable over-decorated night-gown and serve me a cup of wine in your camicia, as a proper big-bellied wife would serve her husband.”

He took off his own jacket and sprawled comfortably in a leather chair. What a pleasure it was to slouch like a workman and stretch his legs out before him. How many times had his tutors berated him when he did not sit up straight? How many times had his father rebuked him? How many times had his mother made him kneel on the prie-dieu with the peahen and the chicks?
You are the prince
, they had said to him, over and over.
You are the heir. Your life is not your own to live
.

Here, at least, his life was his own.

Bianca let the night-gown slide off her shoulders, although she did not drop it. She folded it carefully and placed it in a chest with her other fine clothes. Then she went into the next room and after a moment came back with a cup. Her naked flesh gleamed like mother-of-pearl through the thin white fabric of her camicia.

“Will you take a cup of wine, Franco?” she said. It was her own voice, husky and adult. She bowed before him, offering the wine and at the same time a voluptuously unreserved view of her breasts and belly where the deep round neckline of the camicia fell away from her body. She did have more flesh, a lot more. It was pleasant to receive homage from her in that fashion, as if the workman Franco had seduced and debased a fine lady of the court. She was Bia and at the same time she was Bianca as well.

“I will,” he said. He took the cup and drank. “I am pleased.”

She sank to her knees before him. “Will you allow me to please you further?”

“Who am I?”

“You are Franco, a laborer.”

He smiled and unfastened the laces holding his codpiece in place. He did not remove any other piece of his clothing. She crept closer, on her knees, pressing herself between his legs. He did not look at her. He took another swallow of his wine, looking straight ahead.

She touched him with her hands first, her fingers working deeper into the fabric of his breeches and cupping his cods, caressing them, squeezing lightly, running her fingernails delicately over the tightening skin. Then she bent forward, tilted her head, and kissed the very base of his
cazzo
, where the shaft joined the cod-sack. She licked and pressed with her tongue.

He drank more of his wine.

You are Franco, a laborer.

It excited him. She was all the more his possession and his plaything, for being—well, not herself, exactly. When she was herself she was too shrill, too demanding. But this woman—this Bianca—he could imagine the workman Franco having drunk a little too much wine, perhaps, and abducted a lady of the court from her fine coach. Rolled her in the mud of the gutter while she begged for mercy. Brought her home to his laborer's hovel and stripped her to her fine camicia. Ordered her to please him, if she wished to see the morning's light.

She flattened her tongue and ran it up the underside of his
cazzo
, dragged it slowly like warm, wet velvet. Then she made her tongue a point and flicked at the sensitive spot, just under the ridge beneath his foreskin. He felt himself swelling, stretching his foreskin and beginning to thrust out of it.

“Franco,” she whispered. He could feel her breath, warm and cool at once, against the wetness her mouth had left on him. His hand shook as he lifted the cup of wine and drank.

A little at a time she took the whole length of him into her mouth.

He put the cup of wine down and sank his fingers into her red-gold hair. Every sense in his body focused itself, like light through a lens, into the softness at the back of her throat.

•   •   •

After she had finished, he picked up his cup of wine again.

“Franco,” she said. She had retied the laces of his codpiece. Her cheek lay lightly against his thigh, her hair spread out and tangled.

“What?”

“I am happy, so happy that I am with child.”

He actually believed it at first. In the haze of his pleasure he had separated her so completely from Bianca Cappello, the grand duke's mistress. Bianca Cappello, who had been the grand duke's mistress for ten years and more, and never quickened. Then with a shock he came back to himself.

She was only pretending to be with child. He himself had arranged it, and when the time came he would arrange for a strong baby son to appear. A male child at last. She was pretending—and yet she was coming to believe it was true.

All the better.

“Yes,” he said. “You are with child. My seed is swelling your belly with a son.”

She looked up at him. There was something in her eyes but he could not read it.

“It was the marten skins,” she said. “I had them made into a coverlet, and slept wrapped in them every night.”

“That is superstition.”

“Even so, Franco.” She lifted her head. “Even so, Francesco. Francesco de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. I slept wrapped in marten skins, and now I am going to bear you a son.”

The Palazzo Pitti

A WEEK LATER

“F
or the occasion of my marriage,” the grand duchess said, “I chose a pair of turtledoves as my device, with the motto
Fida Conjunctio
, a faithful union.”

She was embroidering a white dove on an altar-cloth, a symbol of the Holy Spirit. Chiara was working on the border, where exquisite skill in needlework wasn't as important. A good thing, since her left hand still didn't always do what she wanted it to do. The fingernails were beginning to grow back, at least.

She hoped the Holy Spirit would be more faithful to the grand duchess than the grand duke had been.

“I remember it, Serenissima,” she said. “I was only a little girl, and not a part of the court, but there were so many celebrations in the streets. Duke Cosimo was still alive, of course. His men threw coins and I had a fight with my brother Gian over some silver
quattrini
we both wanted.”

A sharp pain flashed in her temple as she thought of Gian. Her father's voice whispered,
He should be alive and you should be dead
.

“I did not know you had a brother,” the grand duchess said. She knotted her thread and held out her hand for a new needle, freshly threaded with the white silk. A sewing-woman had one prepared. The grand duchess took it and continued her stitches. Chiara wondered what it had been like, to grow up never having to thread your own needles.

She was part of the grand duchess's inner circle now, a special pet, like Donna Isabella's little hound Rina and Donna Dianora's Leia. It turned out the grand duke had taken a dislike to one of the grand duchess's German ladies, her closest friend from childhood, and bundled her unceremoniously back to Vienna; the dogs and Chiara were the lonely grand duchess's new playthings. It was just as well, because Donna Jimena had withdrawn, more and more, her faithful heart broken by her beloved Isabella's death. When she spoke at all, she spoke of entering the convent at Le Murate.

Barring all the praying—and there was a lot of praying—Chiara was content enough to drift through the days in the grand duchess's household. Vivi followed her everywhere and with Nonna and the little ones so far away—would she ever see them again? Surely one day they would come home—it was good to feel as if she had a living creature who loved her and needed her. Her reading and writing lessons had begun again, with some of what the tutor called computation now, numbers and formulas. Magister Ruanno had been released from the Bargello, although she hadn't seen him. She dreamed of him sometimes, although she remembered only flashes. His arm around her throat, squeezing just hard enough. His hand on her wrist, not caressing, just resting there. His scarred palm against her sleeve, making her feel as if she were protected. She dreamed of the laboratory. Maybe one day the three of them, the grand duke, Magister Ruanno and herself, could begin again on the
magnum opus
.

Or maybe not. Did it matter? Did she even care, anymore?

“Signorina Chiara? Are you all right?”

She came back to herself. “Yes, Serenissima, forgive me. My brother was killed in—in an accident.”

“May God have mercy upon his soul. Your father and mother are dead as well, are they not?”

“Yes, Serenissima.”

“Perhaps one day, when the grand duke sees fit to release you from your vow, you will marry and have children of your own. They are a great comfort, children are. I myself—”

She paused as she took tiny stitches, outlining the white dove's wing.

“I have hopes of another child of my own,” she said at last. A flush of color mounted in her cheeks. “It is hardly a private matter, with all the court watching and counting the occasions upon which the grand duke honors me with—his presence in the night. Perhaps if God sends me a son this time, the grand duke will take
Fida Conjunctio
as his motto as well.”

“I pray it will be so, Serenissima,” Chiara said. A thousand prayers, she thought even as she said it, a prayer for every single star in the sky, won't make the grand duke a faithful husband. Not with Bianca Cappello stepping into Donna Isabella's shoes before they were fairly cold, inviting everyone to her entertainments and pretending to be a patron of poets and musicians. Not with Bianca Cappello flaunting her belly for everyone in Florence to see.

“I met him for the first time in Vienna.” The grand duchess's stitches slowed and stopped as she remembered. “We—we were—congenial, he and I. He brought me gifts. I liked him better than the Duke of Ferrara, who was to marry my sister Barbara. They were in Vienna at the same time that summer, and their gentlemen actually came to blows—the Duke of Ferrara contested with Duke Cosimo for years over which one was to take precedence.”

Chiara also stopped sewing. Her left hand ached and she was glad for a chance to rest it.

“I thought I would be—content, at least. Mistaken, I was. Did you know, it was during the wedding celebrations here in Florence that he met—her—for the first time?”

“No, Serenissima. I didn't know.”

“I did not know either, for a long time. They kept it a secret, and I suppose I did not wish to see it. But then a few years ago one of my Florentine ladies dared to tell me the truth.”

She looked down at the altar-cloth, the pristine white dove. One dove, not two. Chiara wished she could think of something comforting to say. After a moment, the grand duchess took another stitch, and another, filling in a feather on the dove's wing.

“Magister Ruanno, your alchemist,” she said. “Did you know he came to Florence from Austria in my household?”

“No, Serenissima.” Chiara felt the prickly warmth of color creeping up into her face. “I thought he was from England. Well, somewhere in England. He speaks in a language sometimes that doesn't sound like English to me.”

“He was born in England, in a place called Cornwall—Cornovaglia, it is, in Italian. It is known for tin and copper mines, and the boy, Rohannes as he was called in Saxony, was born with metal in his blood.”

It was strange to hear Magister Ruanno spoken of as a boy. He seemed all of a piece, as if he'd just appeared in a laboratory, a grown-up man, scars and all. She'd never thought about it before, where the scars on his hands had come from, or how long he'd had them. It was impossible to imagine him without them.

“He was an apprentice to Agricola's nephew, and a brilliant student of Agricola's sciences. Do you know who Agricola was?”

“Yes, Serenissima. I've read a little of his writing in my lessons. He wrote a great book about metals and mining.”

The grand duchess nodded. “My brother the emperor knew the grand duke—the prince, as he was then—was interested in alchemy, and so arranged for young Rohannes to come to Florence.”

Chiara took more stitches in her border. She didn't know what to say, or why the grand duchess wanted to talk about Magister Ruanno.

“He found a great love in Florence, and was foolish enough to think he would be happy. Just as I was. He was only fifteen or sixteen when I first saw him, dark and rough-looking. Isabella was older—twenty-three, twenty-four, I am not sure. She seduced him, I think, as an amusement. She was already tired of her husband, and casting about for new sensations. With the boy Rohannes, she found more than she expected. For a while, at least, she loved him too.”

“I didn't know you knew Magister Ruanno so well, Serenissima.”

“Oh, I do not. But I watched him, and Isabella. They first saw each other on my wedding day, you see. An unlucky day for them, and for me. I know that you—”

“Your Imperial and Royal Highness.”

They both jumped. It was one of the grand duchess's remaining German ladies, addressing her as always with her full titles in every correct detail. The lady continued, “Your brother-in-law the Cardinal Prince Ferdinando de' Medici is here, and desires an audience.”

“Ask him to come in, if you please.” The grand duchess put her needle down. “Bring some wine and sweet cakes. No, Chiara, remain. I would like to ask the cardinal to bless you.”

The grand duke's brother stepped into the room. The two priests who accompanied him bowed to the grand duchess and withdrew.

“Peace be with you, my sister,” he said.

Anyone less likely to bring peace, Chiara couldn't imagine. He had the Medici look—swarthy, bearded, his closely cropped black hair receding on either side to create a point in the center of his forehead. But unlike the grand duke he was fleshy, his cheeks round and pink, his mouth sensual. His robes were the traditional robes of a cardinal but cut and embroidered with worldly richness. He wasn't tonsured. How could he be a cardinal, Chiara wondered, if he wasn't a priest?

Because he was a Medici, of course.

How many mistresses did he have in Rome?

On the other hand, the day of the old grand duke's funeral, he had looked up at the grand duchess where she stood at the window, and signed a cross to bless her. Chiara remembered thinking that his connection with his sister-in-law was not of the flesh, but of the soul.

A complicated man, then. A man of contradictions.

“My lord cardinal,” the grand duchess said. She rose to her feet and bowed, then knelt before him and kissed the enormous cabochon sapphire he wore on his right forefinger. When she straightened she took his perfumed white hand in hers, a surprisingly intimate gesture from the Austrian emperor's daughter who never touched anyone. “My brother. Come in, sit down. Have a cup of wine and some sweets.”

If she was anybody but who she is, Chiara thought, I'd say they were lovers. She had risen too, and curtsied, and remained standing. Neither one of them paid her the slightest attention. She might have been a chair or a table or a candlestand.

The serving-woman returned with a tray; the grand duchess and the cardinal sat down and took cups of wine and plates of small spiced cakes scented with apricots and sparkling with crystals of grated sugar. When they were comfortable and their first appetites were sated, the grand duchess said, “Signorina Chiara. Come here.”

Chiara stepped forward and curtsied again. She wasn't sure if she should kiss the cardinal's ring, but he didn't extend his hand and she certainly wasn't going to reach for his sugary fingers.

“Ferdinando, this is Signorina Chiara Nerini, the girl Francesco chose to be his alchemical
soror mystica
. She was in Isabella's household, but of course—well, we had to find a place for her. And so here she is.”

Chiara felt a little dizzy with all the Christian names, used so lightly.

“Younger than I would have imagined, my dear Giovanna.” The cardinal looked her over with a very un-cardinal-like eye. “So, Signorina Chiara, you assist my brother with his alchemical experiments? I would not think he would want a young girl for such a task.”

“He required her to take a vow of virginity,” the grand duchess said. “He convinced the priests at the Cathedral of Santo Stefano to lend him the Sacra Cintola for a night, and she put her hands upon it when she swore.”

“A virgin, hmmm?” The cardinal's eyes brightened even further. Chiara felt as if he was looking right through her clothes, bodice and skirts and camicia and all. “Tell me, signorina, why did my brother do such a strange thing?”

The prince wishes you to be vowed as a virgin to satisfy his wife and his mistress. Only if you are proclaimed to be a virgin and vowed to remain a virgin will they accept you.

Magister Ruanno's voice, calm and straightforward. But of course she couldn't say such a thing in front of the grand duchess.

“An alchemist's
soror mystica
is always a virgin, my lord cardinal,” she said. A lie, but surely the cardinal and the grand duchess didn't know about Perenelle, the wife of Nicolas Flamel. “She represents the moon, the labyrinth, water and silver, symbols of virginity and the feminine principle, and brings the power of those elements into the creation of the
Lapis Philosophorum
.”

“There, Ferdinando, do you see?” the grand duchess said. “Francesco is dabbling in magic as well as alchemy. I fear for his immortal soul, and for Chiara's as well. That is why I have asked you to bless her.”

Her sincerity shone through the heavy Germanic consonants in her voice. Whatever else people said about Giovanna of Austria, the Grand Duchess of Tuscany, her piety was pure and heartfelt as a saint's.

“Come here,
ragazzina
,” the cardinal said. “Kneel before me.”

There was a glint of carnal humor in his dark eyes, and Chiara knew he was imagining her kneeling for things that had nothing to do with blessing her. She stepped in front of him and knelt, tucking her skirt under her knees. She was close enough to see that his black cassock was made of fine silk, not coarse wool, the edges piped with the scarlet of his rank. His short cape was violet silk with a moiré pattern woven into the fabric, and his pectoral cross was heavy gold set with pearls and amethysts. She crossed herself—perhaps that would lift his mind out of the gutter—and closed her eyes as if she were praying.

He put his hands on the crown of her head. She could tell he was assessing the texture of her hair with a connoisseur's fingers. Well, there wasn't anything special about it, barring its length and the few silver strands that marked the scar over her left ear. It was brushed straight back and braided in a single thick braid, the braid looped and pinned with plain silver pins.

“Mary immaculate, ever-virgin, advocate of Eve,” he said, his voice slow and deliberate, “watch over this girl, protect her purity, and turn her thoughts away from magic and worldliness.”

She heard the grand duchess whispering the words after him.

“In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, amen.”

He traced a cross on her forehead with his thumb. It lingered just a fraction of a second too long, and her headache stirred. The scar on the side of her head hurt, even though he hadn't touched it. He withdrew his hands.