The Red Lily Crown (13 page)

The Palazzo Medici

16 SEPTEMBER 1574

C
hiara slammed the pot of saffron threads down on the table. The unglazed clay cracked and feathery dark red strands floated up into the air. Under her breath she said,
“Che palle!”

“Chiara.” Donna Jimena looked up from her sewing. Her expression was serene but her voice was sharp. “Do not use such language in my presence. It is unsuitable for a young woman, and disrespectful to Donna Isabella, who has been so kind to you.”

Chiara collected the saffron threads, one at a time. They were valuable, and even more important, they helped drive out the poisonous vapors of the pox. “Everyone says it.”

“That does not mean you may say it.” Donna Jimena held out her hand. She was making thin silk bags stuffed with saffron to tie around the children's necks.

“I'm supposed to be the grand duke's
soror mystica
, not a nursemaid.” Chiara put the captured saffron into Donna Jimena's hand. “I—”

“Enough.” Donna Jimena began to portion out the saffron into her little bags. “A little more humility, if you please, my dear. You should be grateful you are allowed to help, with the grand duchess in mourning.”

In August, the grand duke's youngest daughter Lucrezia had died in a wave of the pox that had swept through Florence. She had been not quite two years old and the grand duke had seen her perhaps two or three times in the whole of her short life. The grand duchess, however, had wept over her daughter's sickbed and after her death grew sadder than ever. Five little daughters she had borne in the nine years of her marriage, and now only two remained: eight-year-old Eleonora and four-year-old Anna. No sons. The grand duke took it as a slur upon his manhood, that there had been no sons.

Donna Isabella had fled to the mountains with Donna Dianora, escaping, or so they thought, the heat and the sickness. Both ladies had left their children behind; travel and change were dangerous for little ones. Chiara had dug in her heels and refused to leave the city—in Florence she had been born, and if the pox chose to take her, in Florence she would die. The grand duke had laughed—
I am as Florentine as you are, back to Lorenzo il Magnifico and beyond
—and sent her off to the grand duchess's household with Donna Jimena, to help with the collection of children.

The grand duchess, poor lady, spent most of her time praying, and God only knew that plenty of prayers were needed. Chiara's reading and writing exercises had been put aside in favor of napkins to be changed, lost toys to be recovered, and dogs to be taken out into the gardens. Sad as she was for the little princess's death, she also felt restless and resentful and, well, yes, frightened. What if the grand duke's requirement for a
soror mystica
had been a passing fancy, and he had decided he didn't want her anymore?

“I'm sorry, Donna Jimena,” she said. She made her voice meek and soft. It usually worked with Nonna and should work with Donna Jimena as well. “I won't say any more bad words.”

“Not till the next time. Do not try your cajolery with me,
ragazzina
.”

Chiara looked down at her toes. She was wearing silk stockings and slippers made of velvet, with soft leather soles and red embroidery. For a moment she wondered what had become of the worn, rain-sodden shoes she had been wearing on the day she'd met the grand duke. She'd lost one, when Magister Ruanno swung her up on Lowarn.

Curl your toes so it does not fall off again. You should have stockings.

I must've forgotten to choose a fine silken pair from the dozens and dozens in my gold-painted wardrobe chest.

And now she did have silk stockings. Two pairs, at least. She did have a wardrobe chest of her own, although it wasn't painted with gold. She had so many things she'd never had before.

For the moment, at least.

“I'm not cajole—cajoling—whatever that is,” she said. “Well, maybe only a little. I'll try to be humble, Donna Jimena, really I will.”

“See that you do.”

There was a scratch on the door, and two gentlemen came into the room. They wore the grand duke's colors. Chiara's heart turned over.

“I have a message from il Serenissimo,” the first man said.

Donna Jimena rose and held out her hand. “I will take it,” she said. “I am Donna Jimena Osorio.”

“It's words,” the man said. “Not anything written down on paper. We're to take Soror Chiara Nerini back with us, to the Casino di San Marco. She'll have to prepare herself, il Serenissimo says, so we're to wait.”

Chiara's knees almost buckled under her. It was as if she'd wished them there with her longings, with her anger, with breaking the jar of saffron. At last, at last, she'd see the grand duke and his foreign alchemist actually practicing alchemy.
We have completed the third stage, the stage of calcination
, Magister Ruanno had said.
For the fourth stage, the stage of exuberation, we have decided we need a third adept
. So perhaps she would actually take part in the exuberation. Whatever that was.

And they called her Soror. Just as they called Magister Ruanno, Magister.

“I'm Soror Chiara,” she said. She wanted to dance. To sing. She felt as if she was taller and stronger than she'd ever been before. “I'll go and get ready now—wait here.”

She heard Donna Jimena clicking her tongue with disapproval. Not very humble, of course, to give a direct order to the grand duke's men like that, when Donna Jimena, her elder and superior by blood, was in the room. Not very polite, to think Donna Jimena could stay with the children and click her tongue as much as she liked. But she was Soror Chiara and the grand duke wanted her. The grand duke had sent the men to wait upon her.

She ran out of the room.

The Casino di San Marco

LATER THAT SAME DAY

R
uan stood with Magister Francesco—in the laboratory there was no nobility, only mastery of the art—in the six-petaled rosette in the center of the black-and-white labyrinth. It was a symbol of the
magnum opus
, the great work itself, darkness and light and the quest for the six elements of creation at the heart of the cosmos; pieced together with chips of quartz and onyx, the labyrinth covered most of the floor. Tables and chests with fine alchemical equipment stood against the walls, outside the circle; everything that had been used in the girl's initiation had been taken away. The room was bright as noontime, with twenty-nine branches of candles, twenty-nine being a prime number divisible only by itself.

Ruan wore his black cassock and his amulet, the unpolished chunk of red hematite drawing power from the iron and copper in which it was set. Francesco was garbed the same, and his double rose-cut diamond on its gold chain cast quivering sparks of light, tiny spectra of color that danced over the labyrinth's path.

The girl Chiara Nerini stood outside the labyrinth in her habit of undyed wool, her hair loose down her back to her hips, the egg-sized cabochon moonstone quivering between her breasts. The hard angles of her chin and cheekbones had softened after a few months of good food and easy work in Donna Isabella's household, and the hollows around her remarkable eyes had filled in. Her grandmother and her two little sisters were well, and her father's shop was recovering its business. A word from the grand duke, and the booksellers' Arte had been happy to allow Mona Agnesa to run the shop herself. No, Chiara Nerini had nothing to be afraid of, not anymore. Ruan had made certain of that.

“Follow the path to the center of the labyrinth, Soror Chiara,” Francesco said. “We will bring together the powers of the sun, the earth and the moon.”

Ruan knew him well enough to hear the excitement in his voice—he genuinely thought the girl's presence was going to make a difference. So be it. Too much of his time and money had been spent wielding his new grand ducal powers against his enemies, playacting with his indolent mistress, and visiting whores behind her back, in the lowest parts of the city. Ruan wanted to move forward with the great work. He had made promises to John Dee in London, and he needed gold to fulfill the promises.

The girl started along the path of the labyrinth, walking left, then right, then left again through the cusps and arcs, turning at the double folds that were symbolic of female power. Ruan closed his eyes and focused his thoughts on the exuberation, the transformation of the heavy, dark red
caput mortuum
, left at the end of the calcination, into purified mercury, triumphant and gleaming. It was not magic, as the grand duke believed, but metallurgy. It required steady hands, exact measurements, perfect timing. From what he had seen of Chiara Nerini so far, she was steady enough, careful enough, but the first task of grinding the red stone into powder was dangerous. What would make a difference was not her femininity, but her skill. Would she be equal to what the grand duke was asking?

The girl reached the center of the labyrinth. “I am here,” she said. She had a clear, pure voice, like a novice nun's. In a way she was a novice nun. “Serenissimo. Magister Ruanno.”

“Here,” Francesco said, “and only here, you will address me as ‘Magister Francesco.' In the laboratory I am a master of the great art, nothing more.”

“Magister Francesco,” the girl said. Ruan could hear awe in her voice. Good. It would keep her intent on doing every task carefully and completely.

“We will now walk the labyrinth again, to the outside,” Francesco said. “Soror Chiara, your first task will be to pulverize the
caput mortuum
until it is a very fine powder, so fine your breath will lift it from the stone.”

The girl at least had the sense to keep quiet until they were outside the labyrinth. Then she said, “What's
caput mortuum
?”

“It is the result of the step of calcination,” Francesco said. “A heavy, red stonelike substance containing, among other things, the essence of Venus. Here, see? In this mortar. Because it contains Venus, I believe it will respond to the female element.”

Chiara looked at it. She frowned. “I recognize it,” she said.

She sounds like I must have sounded, Ruan thought, fifteen years ago in Vienna, when Konrad Pawer began to teach me scientific metallurgy—essentially ignorant but proud and impatient to show off what little knowledge she had. “It's calcined mercury, isn't it?” she went on. “I'd better cover my mouth and nose when I grind it, because if I breathe in the powder it'll make me sick, even kill me.”

Francesco stared at her. Ruan laughed. He said, “You are indeed an alchemist's daughter, Soror Chiara. That is exactly what it is, and it can indeed be poisonous. Look in that small chest, and you will find silk masks to wrap around your face.”

She scowled at him and pushed out her chin. The gesture was not quite as pugnacious with the new soft flesh covering her bones. “Was this a test?” she demanded. “Would you have let me grind it without anything protecting me, if I hadn't known what it was?”

“It was a test, of sorts.” Francesco had recovered his self-possession. “You have passed it fairly.”

“And no,” Ruan added. “We would not have allowed you to pulverize it unprotected.”

She looked at him as if she did not entirely believe him.

“Mask yourself, Soror Chiara,” Francesco said. “We must begin.”

She fumbled with the mask, getting it straight and tying the ties properly. Ruan remembered that she had spied on her father—
I watched, sometimes, when he didn't know
—but she had probably never actually put a mask on herself. Once she was prepared she clasped the moonstone in her hand for a moment, then set to work with a will. She had used a mortar and pestle before, that was certain, although not necessarily in a laboratory.

“What . . . is the next . . . step?” she asked after a while, breathless with effort.

“The powder of the
caput mortuum
is placed in an athanor,” Francesco said. “We will use your father's Trapezuntine athanor, to redouble your influence, the influence of Venus. Then Magister Ruanno will add the dephlegmated oil of vitriol, and you will add the white spirit, the spirit of Luna, the virgin moon. When that is done, I myself will close the athanor and turn it—circulate the elements upon the earth until they are perfectly united.”

“Sounds like Nonna making turnip soup,” Chiara said, under her breath. “The powder is finished, I think. Look.”

Through the silk mask she breathed out gently upon the fine red powder she had ground, and a little of it lifted and swirled delicately in the air before settling back into the mortar. Ruan felt a chill. It was death, that red powder, a terrible death with one's lungs falling to pieces inside one's chest. Chiara knew it, too. Even masked, she turned her face away before taking a breath again.

“Well done,” Francesco said. “The breath of a virgin—perhaps that will make the difference. Use that silver cochlear, Soror Chiara, and transfer the powder into the athanor.”

She was careful with the spoonlike instrument, taking up each small amount and depositing it lightly so the powder remained still. When she was finished, she put the cochlear down and stepped back from the athanor.

“It is ready, Magister Ruanno,” she said.

Ruan stepped forward and measured out the oil of vitriol. It was clear as water but thick, the consistency of honey. Very gently he poured it over the powdered calcinate of mercury. It was important to do it slowly, to contain the reaction. Little by little, crystalline white granules formed and precipitated to the bottom of the athanor.

“The white spirit is in that flask,” he said to the girl, when he was finished.

Chiara picked up the flask and removed the stopper. “What will it do when I pour it in?”

“It should create no visible reaction at first. But take care—one can never be certain.”

She closed her eyes for a moment—praying?—and then with steady hands poured the white spirit into the athanor.

The white powder swirled in the spirit. Ruan could see it begin to dissolve. Good.

“Now,” Francesco said. “I shall close the athanor and circulate the liquors. Step back, both of you.”

There was no danger at this point, but Francesco did like his mysteries and miracles. Ruan stepped back and gestured to Chiara. She withdrew as well. She was still wearing the mask.

The athanor rested on a mechanism that could be turned with a foot pedal. Francesco placed the cover and turned it, slowly at first, then more vigorously, then slowly again. His lips were moving; he was reciting some Latin incantation to himself to time the process.

“Now,” he said, when he was finished. “Magister Ruanno, you and I will seal the athanor and transfer it to the fire, then connect the alembic and the retort. The entire dissolved substance must be sublimed three times. The product of the first sublimation will be the exuberate water.”

“How long will it take?” Chiara asked.

“In all, several days,” Francesco said. “Each step of the great work requires time, and the greatest care.”

“Several
days
?”

Ruan smiled. “All three of us,” he said, “need not be here for every moment of the process. Now that the stage of exuberation has begun, we will observe it by turns. You will have plenty of time, Soror Chiara, to sleep and eat and perform your tasks for Donna Jimena.”

“And you, Magister Ruanno,” said Francesco, “will have time to meet secretly with your messengers, who run back and forth to London at your direction. Is that not so?”

He sounded petulant. Ruan was surprised he would say such a thing in front of the girl, and wondered if he himself had made a misstep in the delicate balance between his allegiance to the Medici on the one hand, and his affairs in England on the other. Affairs—that was putting a fine point upon it. What he actually intended to do, when he had bought the English queen's support, was to kill Andrew Lovell as Andrew Lovell had killed his father, and drive the usurping Lovells out of Milhyntall House and Wheal Loer and into the same poverty and misery his mother had known, alone and widowed and heavy with child.

“Perhaps,” he said calmly. “I have never kept my dealings with the English a secret from you.”

“Now that we have begun this new step of the
magnum opus
, I would have you focus all your mind and thoughts upon it. Leave everything else. No plots, no vengeance, no women.”

Ruan bowed his head, as much to conceal his expression as to indicate his acquiescence. “So be it, Magister Francesco.”

It was a lie, of course. And Francesco knew it was a lie. The silence was dangerous.

“Let us arrange an horarium,” the girl Chiara said suddenly. She had taken off her silken mask. She looked different—older. An adult, not a child. Impossible. Although perhaps the successful conclusion of her first foray into genuine alchemy had given her confidence, enough confidence to speak as if she were on an equal footing. “Magister Francesco, what is the most convenient time of the day for you to observe?”

The sense of danger evaporated. Francesco said, “I will observe from None until the middle of the second watch.”

“I will watch from the second watch until, say, an hour after Prime,” Ruan said. This was not an inconvenience. He loved the laboratory at night, dark and solitary and full of secrets. “That leaves the hour after Prime until None for you, Soror Chiara.”

She nodded. “So be it,” she said. “I'm familiar enough with sublimation that I can send a message if it appears to be complete. You will have messengers on duty as well, Magister Francesco?”

“I will,” Francesco said.

“The second watch has already begun,” Ruan said. “I will remain to tend the sublimation tonight. Soror Chiara, I will see you in the morning, then.”

“Come with me, Soror Chiara.” The grand duke began to take off his black cassock. The
magnum opus
had ended for the night, and Ruan automatically began thinking of him as the grand duke again. “Magister Ruanno, we leave the great work in your hands.”

“It will be safe,” Ruan said. “This time, we will succeed.”