The Red Lily Crown (14 page)

The Palazzo Medici

20 JULY 1575

T
he necklace was made of square, table-cut rubies and emeralds set in stylized flowers of gold, separated by pairs of matched pearls. A single large pendant pearl swung from the ruby flower at the center.

“Saints and angels, Isabella,” Chiara said. In private she and the grand duke's sister now called each other by their Christian names. At first it had been strange but now that almost a year had passed it had come to seem fitting. She was, after all, the grand duke's own
soror mystica
, his sister in the art, just as Isabella was his sister in the flesh. “This is worth a fortune.”

“Two hundred scudi, perhaps,” Isabella said. She didn't seem to think of it as a lot of money, but of course she'd been immeasurably rich all her life. “You must take it to a certain gentleman. I am watched every moment, and Francesco's guardsmen would follow me.”

“Why? What's happened?”

Isabella turned away for a moment, rearranging the pots and flasks on her dressing table, picking up a mirror and putting it down again. She did that, played with things, when she didn't want to tell the truth, but in the end she always told. That would be her undoing one day—that she needed to talk, loved to talk, and couldn't keep herself from telling secret things.

“You cannot tell Francesco.” Isabella swung around abruptly. “Swear to me, Chiara, that you will not tell Francesco.”

“I have not spoken so much as a greeting to him for weeks.”

The exuberation had succeeded, but the stage after it, the fixation, had failed. She and the grand duke and Magister Ruanno had started over, achieved six of the stages over a period of four months—with an interruption for the court's Christmas and Epiphany festivals,
befanini
cakes and wine and fireworks and pageants such as she had never seen before—and then failed on the seventh, the separation. The grand duke had been frenzied with anger and frustration. Madonna Bianca had gone into seclusion for a few weeks, and everyone said the grand duke had beaten her until she couldn't walk or wear proper clothes.

Then in March, before they could start over again with the first stage, the grand duchess had taken to her bed for another childbirth, her sixth. Of course that meant that the grand duke had taken his pleasures in her bed at least once, which might have been another reason why Madonna Bianca refused to show her face for a while.

Sometimes, when the headaches were bad and the voices started their endless whispering, Chiara could stand outside herself and wonder at how her life had changed since she'd become part of the Medici court. She'd grown out of all her clothing, for one thing—she needed longer skirts and sleeves, and camicias cut fuller because her breasts were suddenly the breasts of a woman, not a girl. She ate fine food every day and slept in a tiny cell of her own, like a nun. The other ladies of the household thought she was a witch and refused to share their dormitories with the grand duke's sworn
soror mystica
. She didn't care. She didn't like the other ladies anyway—all they talked about was men and clothes and jewels and being part of the
nobilità
.

The furnishings of the cell were nothing like a nun's, though. The narrow bed had a pillowy feather mattress and clean, soft linens and coverlets. There was a cabinet with a porcelain basin where she washed her face and hands every day, and rubbed her body with a scented lotion. She had a mirror-shard of her own, a piece of a mirror Isabella had broken. She cleaned her teeth with an embroidered cloth every time she ate. Every three months she washed and dried her hair with vervain, licorice root and vinegar—a task that took hours, considering its length and thickness—and when she combed and braided it she used a powder of rose petals and cloves to give it a sweet scent. She reveled in it all. A stranger, meeting her, would never know she wasn't a fine lady herself.

“I swear I won't tell the grand duke,” she said to Isabella. “By all the saints, I swear.” Even as she said it, she remembered Donna Jimena saying,
There are ears everywhere
.

Isabella must have been thinking the same thing, because she came close and whispered, “Dianora is in trouble. We are both in trouble. Francesco has arrested a man named Orazio Pucci—surely you've heard Dianora speak of him? He has been at the heart of a conspiracy against the Medici, and Dianora has been stupid enough to help him.”

“Help him?” Chiara was too surprised to keep her voice to a whisper. “But why? She herself is a Medici, married to your brother.”

“Hush! I know. Pietro is the worst possible husband—he beats her, I know that, and leaves her alone in her bed while he cavorts with whores. He's worse than Francesco. Even so, she is mad to have done what she has done, abet assassination and revolution.”

“Assassination! Whose assassination?”

“Better you do not know. Listen, Chiara. Orazio Pucci will talk—Francesco will have him tortured and he will talk in the end, however brave he may be. He will tell Francesco the names of the men who have conspired with him, and one of those men is now Dianora's lover. If he is arrested, if he talks—I do not know what Francesco will do.”

“But what—?”

“We must get Dianora's lover out of Florence. She cannot do it herself—she dare not do anything to draw Francesco's attention, and in any case she is too terrified to do more than huddle in her bed and weep. I must protect her, because if her lover is arrested, she will be arrested, and if she is arrested, she will babble out everything she knows. Things I do not want Francesco to know.”

Like your own long-ago love affair with Magister Ruanno, Chiara thought. Like your present lover, your husband's own cousin, Don Troilo Orsini.

Medici,
Nonna had said.
Whores, the lot of them, women and men
.

“What do you want me to do?” Chiara said.

“You must take this necklace to Dianora's lover—his name is Pierino Ridolfi. It is Dianora's own—he will recognize it, and believe you when you tell him he must leave Florence at once.”

“Where is he? How am I to get to him with the necklace?”

“I will send a horse as well. You must disguise yourself in a plain messenger's clothes, breeches and hose and a dark cloak like a man, and ride to the house where he is staying. Then you can give him the necklace and the horse, and walk back.”

Chiara's stomach lurched. “Isabella, you know I'll do anything I can for you. But ride a horse through Florence at night? By myself? In men's clothes? That's madness. I've never ridden by myself, and you know how much I hate horses.”

“I have chosen a very gentle one. You know the city better than anyone, Chiara. You love every cobblestone, I've heard you say it. You can find hidden ways.”

“Hidden ways to where?”

“Pierino Ridolfi is hiding at a place you know very well.”

Chiara stared at her. “Please don't tell me he's at Babbo's shop. I know my Nonna hates the Medici, but she wouldn't—”

“She would. She has. He's hiding there, in the cellar. You can do it, Chiara. I'll bring you the clothes. The horse is in the mews, saddled and ready. Please, I beg you. I would do it myself if I thought Francesco's guards would not follow me.”

“Isn't there someone else in your household, someone you trust to—”

“No! They spy on me, all of them. They report what I do to Francesco. Chiara, I thought you were my friend. If you do not do this, what can I believe but that you are spying on me as well, for Francesco? Are you a spy? Are you?”

She began to cry. Were her tears real or were they artful? Chiara couldn't tell, and real tears or not, her accusations stung. It was so much a part of her new life, being Isabella's special friend, being part of her glamorous, opulent circle. What would she do if Isabella repudiated her?

“I'm not a spy for anybody,” Chiara said. “Isabella, I'm your true friend, I swear it. I'll go. Get the clothes.”

Sant' Ippolito, she thought, let the horse be a gentle one.

I
f not exactly gentle, the horse was at least well-trained, and well-trapped with a fine leather saddle. A single small lantern burned just outside the stall, casting wild shadows, and yet the horse stood like a rock while Chiara clambered up into the saddle. It blew out its breath with a whickering sound and responded predictably to what she did—a touch with her heels, it walked forward, pull on the right rein and it turned right, pull on the left rein and it turned left. She felt awkward and a little sick. If horses could laugh, she thought, it had to be laughing at her clumsiness.

After more than a year at the Palazzo Medici, she'd been around enough horses that her fear was no longer a paralyzing terror. She'd ridden pillion a good many times, on Magister Ruanno's Lowarn in particular. Still, the smell of the horse, the sound of its hooves against the stones of the street, made her head ache viciously, as if her brain and her eyes were too big for her skull. The scar over her left ear prickled. Babbo's voice whispered,
You should have been the one to die, not Gian. If Gian had lived, your mother would have lived, and I would be alive as well
.

Grimly she clung to the saddle and guided the horse through the dark streets from the Palazzo Medici to the booksellers' quarter near the Palazzo Vecchio. The moon was a couple of days from full and gave just enough light for her to pick her way. Fortunately she wasn't stopped by the watch. She had a story ready—
I'm carrying a message from Donna Isabella to the grand duchess at the Palazzo Pitti
—but she didn't have to use it. She kept to the narrow side streets, streets where she and Gian had played as children, letting the horse walk slowly and quietly. When she reached the shop, she guided the patient horse down the alleyway and into the tiny walled yard at the back.

I'll say a novena to you, Sant' Ippolito, she thought. I really will.

She slipped down from the horse's back, tied it, and in the moonlight crept up to the back door. Before she could even scratch on the wood, the door swung open and a dark figure jumped out at her, and grabbed her by the throat. She flailed at him in panic as he squeezed. Then a broom came down on the man's head, he swore and let go of her, and Nonna jammed the broomstick into his belly. He doubled over with a grunt of pain.

“Blessed Virgin Mary.
Nipotina
. What are you doing here? And why are you dressed like that?”

Chiara put her hands to her throat, gasping. She would have bruises. She whispered, “Donna Isabella sent me. There was no one else she could send in secret, no one else she trusted.” Bruises and all, it made her feel important and special that she was the one Isabella trusted. “She gave me these clothes so I could pretend to be an ordinary messenger. She wants to give this horse and a valuable necklace to a man named Pierino Ridolfi. He's hiding here, she said.”

The man who had tried to strangle her straightened up. His face was flushed. In a hoarse whisper he said, “I am Pierino Ridolfi. Forgive me. I heard the horse—I was afraid.”

“You're a fool, Pierino,” Nonna said brusquely. “Why is one of the damned Medici risking my granddaughter's life by sending her with a horse and a necklace for you? It's the grand duke who's out for your hide. And come inside, both of you, before the watch stops to ask questions.”

“Donna Dianora supports us,” Ridolfi said. “She paid me to—”

He stopped.

“To what?” Nonna closed the door behind them and opened a lantern. The light picked out every wrinkle in her face. Pierino Ridolfi was a good-looking young fellow in a swarthy way, although badly pockmarked. His clothes were the clothes of a courtier.

“To kill them all,” he said. He was sweating and sour-smelling with tension and fear. “Her husband abuses her, and she is not a Medici by blood—she is the daughter of Garzia Alvarez di Toledo. She longs to be free of Don Pietro and his brothers, and everything to do with him.”

Chiara stared at him. So that was what Isabella had meant by assassination and revolution. Dianora, beautiful, sensuous Dianora, foolish Dianora, desperate Dianora—she had paid this man to assassinate her husband and the grand duke and the cardinal. And everything to do with her husband—what did that mean? Surely not—

“Well, clearly she didn't get her money's worth.” Nonna rubbed her fingers against her thumb scornfully. “Who knows about this plot?”

“Only a few—Orazio Pucci, Cammillo Martelli, Piero Capponi.”

“Orazio Pucci has been arrested,” Chiara said. “That's why Isabella sent me—if they torture him, he may say whatever they want, even if it's not true.”

“You'd better take the damned horse and be off, Ridolfi, so you don't bring the guardsmen down on me.” Nonna was nothing if not practical. “I'm all for assassinating the Medici, but I don't want to hang for a failed plot.
Nipotina
, let's see that necklace.”

Chiara took it out of her doublet. It was wrapped in a silk scarf, scented with Dianora's favorite perfume, a combination of rose oil, chypre, marjoram and cloves. She unfolded the silk and let the necklace spill down from her fingers, the rubies and emeralds glinting in the candlelight, the worked gold and the pearls glowing.

“Blessed Virgin,” Nonna said. “That will keep you in style, Ridolfi. Do you recognize it?”

“Yes. It is Dianora's.”

“Break it up quickly so it can't be identified, and get rid of that scarf.”

Pierino Ridolfi took the necklace and the scarf, and tucked them both into his own doublet. Chiara wondered if he was truly in love with Dianora, and if he'd keep the scarf as a favor. Dangerous lovesickness, if it was true. “I thank you, signorina,” he said. “You have taken a great risk for me. Tell Donna Isabella I will never betray her, or Donna Dianora.”

Nonna made a scornful sound and closed the lantern. “Off with you,” she said. “Keep quiet until you're well out of the booksellers' quarter. Here, take these silver
quattrini
—don't try to bribe your way out of one of the gates with a jewel, or they'll know you're up to no good. Ride fast and ride far, and don't come back.”

Pierino Ridolfi took the coins and slipped out the door in the darkness. Leather creaked as he mounted the horse; its hooves clopped gently as he rode away. Then silence.

Ride fast and ride far, and don't come back.

What would it be like, a life of exile?

“And how do you plan to get back to the Palazzo Medici?” Nonna asked in the darkness. “Surely your fine lady's feet are too soft now for so much walking.”

“They're not as soft as you might think. I'd rather walk than ride a horse, any day.”

Nonna laughed. There was bitterness in it, and sadness, and fear, and love. “Take care with your Donna Isabella,
nipotina
. Even if Ridolfi escapes, someone else may point a finger at her, and a finger pointed at her points at you also.”

“I'll be all right. No one suspects me. The grand duke doesn't think of me as one of Donna Isabella's women—he only placed me in her household for his own convenience.”

“Stay close to the grand duchess, if you can. She's a good woman, despite the Medici devil she's married to.”

“I'll try, Nonna.”

“Good. You'd better go. It sounds quiet out there.”

Chiara reached out and took Nonna's hands in hers. They felt like bundles of sticks wrapped in very old, well-worked leather, but they were strong, strong enough to half-stun a grown man with a broom. Strong enough to meddle in conspiracies too dangerous for an old woman. “Nonna,” she said. “You be careful, too. I know you've always supported the old republic, but I didn't know you were actually mixed up in plots against the Medici. What would happen to Lucia and Mattea if you were arrested?”

“You will take care of them,” Nonna said. “You, the grand duke's own
soror mystica
.”

Chiara pulled her hands away. She felt cold, then hot. A headache exploded behind her eyes like a blood-red, poisonous flower. “How do you know that?”

“Not many things are truly secret in Florence,
nipotina
, particularly if they're goings-on at the court. Now run away back to your friend Donna Isabella, and come back in the daylight like a decent woman.”

She hugged Chiara once, hard, then without another word pushed her out the door into the moonlit night.