The Red Lily Crown (28 page)

The Casino di San Marco

20 NOVEMBER 1577

T
he athanor had been the hardest part. Chiara had chosen a small one made of dark gray stone, hidden away at the back of one of the grand duke's cabinets. Even so it had been too large and heavy for her to carry out of the laboratory on her own. After studying how it was constructed, she took it apart, and carried it away one piece at a time: the base, the lower tower, the upper tower, and the cupola, which corresponded to the four elements of earth, fire, water and air.

From that point on it was easy—a retort here, a small alembic there, a few lengths of tubing, a set of silver cochlears and a box of glass rods, and of course the elements she needed for the four steps described in Tommaso Vasari's book. There were abundant stores of everything. She was just collecting containers of purified flowers of sulphur and elemental mercury, making sure each container was perfectly sealed before wrapping it in lamb's wool and packing it into a leather saddlebag, when the grand duke himself strolled into the laboratory as if he owned it.

Which of course he did.

“Soror Chiara,” the grand duke said. His narrow dark face was half-in, half-out of the light and looked like the faces of a man and a demon put together a little crookedly. He had put on flesh in the months since little Prince Filippo had been born. “What are you doing here alone? I did not see your guardsman at the door.”

She fumbled with the glass container of mercury. It was impossible to hide it.

“I am—looking at—counting—making an inventory of—of the laboratory's stores.” She could feel her face burning. “We're going to start the
magnum opus
again on the winter solstice and I didn't want any of the elements to be missing. Or used up, or not enough.”

The grand duke walked across the tiled labyrinth toward the table where she was working. Two gentlemen remained at the door, looking away as if they didn't want to see or hear what was going to happen.

“And this—inventory—that you purport to be taking,” he said. “Does it necessitate lamb's wool for packing, and a stout leather saddlebag?”

Chiara said nothing.

The grand duke picked up the glass container of mercury and tipped it from side to side, watching the viscid silvery metal break up into bright droplets, roll about and then recombine. “You intend to sell this, I take it? Are you not provided with enough luxury as my
soror mystica
, you, a bookseller's daughter?”

Sell it?

Sell it, of course.

Oh, thank you, saints and angels. A lifeline. Stealing the elements for their value in money might be forgivable. Stealing them to set up her own secret laboratory—well, there'd be no forgiveness for that.

She came out from behind the table and knelt at the grand duke's feet, rather like she had knelt before his brother the cardinal. “Magister Francesco,” she whispered, keeping her eyes lowered in penitence. “Forgive me. There was so much of it, and I never thought— I have every possible luxury, Magister Francesco, all by your generosity. The only thing I don't have is—well, actual money. And I wanted to purchase a gift. I wanted it to be a secret.”

She dared to slant a look up at him. Before her eyes his expression softened. She had seen it happen often enough at court, men coaxed and manipulated by ladies pretending a pretty submissiveness. She had never thought to play the game herself. It was surprising and disconcerting to see how well it worked.

“And what gift is this?” he said. His voice was stern but it was pretend-stern, like someone playing a part. “I trust you are not exchanging gifts with men, when you are a vowed virgin.”

“Oh, no, Magister Francesco.” She looked up at him fully, opening her eyes wide. “I wanted a gift for the grand duchess, because I know her happy news, even if she has not yet made it publicly known.”

He smiled. He had made no secret of the fact that he hoped for another half-Imperial son. That would make three sons in all.

“And what did you have in mind to give the grand duchess?” He reached out and ran one hand over her hair, where it was smooth and tight against her head, caught back in its braid. A ghost of a headache blossomed softly behind her eyes, like a blood-colored rose barely visible through morning mist. It wasn't bad, but thank the saints he had a glove on. If he had touched her with his bare skin she might have been sick all over his embroidered boots—

“Embroidered boots,” she said, before she thought. Hastily she added, “Tiny ones, for the baby, to keep his little feet warm when he begins to walk. I meant to buy soft leather, and metallic threads, and precious stones—rubies and sapphires and topazes, for the Medici colors.”

“A charming idea.” The grand duke stroked her hair again, then gestured for her to rise. “But you should not be trying to sell alchemical elements in the street markets, my
soror
, without my personal protection. You could easily be taken up by the Dominicani for practicing witchcraft.”

Chiara scrambled to her feet. The headache had dissolved away. “I'll put it all back, Magister Francesco,” she said. “I swear I will. I'll think of another gift for the grand duchess. I'll—”

“Oh, no,” he said. “You must buy your materials, and make the little boots you describe for the new baby. It will please the grand duchess a great deal.” He reached into his pouch and took out a gold scudo, then another, then another. “Here. Be sure to take your guardsman when you go out into the markets. You will want only the finest of everything.”

Chiara took the coins because there was nothing else she could do. “Thank you, Magister Francesco,” she said. She didn't curtsy to him—he was playing at being simple Magister Francesco and that would have annoyed him. But she bowed her
soror mystica
's bow, her legs straight, her hands crossed over her breasts. He seemed to believe her—please, let him believe her—and hopefully he would be further softened by the special mark of deference.

He was. He nodded. The spark of sensual consideration in his eyes made her stomach lurch, as if it wanted to jump out of her mouth.

“Now,” he said, after a moment. “I have come to the Casino di San Marco to obtain some of Magister Ruanno's compound for little Prince Filippo's bandages. It has helped him considerably, I think, and our physicians' supply has run out.”

“Magister Ruanno keeps it in his locked cabinet. He has the—”

Magister Francesco took a small silver key out of his pouch and held it out to her. It glinted in the candlelight, dangling on its chain. She had never seen that key anywhere but in Ruan Pencarrow's own hand.

“Magister Ruanno has left Florence,” the grand duke said. “You may open the cabinet.”

“
What
?
Left Florence? When? Why?”

“Open the cabinet, if you please.”

“But— Where has he gone? When will he return?”

Magister Francesco put the key in her hand and closed her fingers around it. “Perhaps he will return,” he said. “Perhaps he will not. Why do you ask so many questions, Soror Chiara? It is nothing to you, vowed as you are, whether Magister Ruanno is present or not.”

Horror made her dizzy. Surely the grand duke had not set his assassins on Magister Ruanno, scholar and scientist, miner and metallurgist, his brother in the alchemical art. Yes, he had imprisoned him at the time of Donna Isabella's murder, but Ruan had talked his way out of the Bargello somehow, convinced the grand duke to trust him again.

The grand duke never forgets a betrayal.

Perhaps not, but surely the grand duke still needed his English alchemist. Surely it was nothing more than a test, to see what she would do or say if she thought Magister Ruanno had gone. Surely when she arrived at the grand duchess's apartments, measured jar of healing compound in her hands, Magister Ruanno would be there, half workman, half gentleman, full of secrets as he always was.

Agree with him, she thought. Haven't you learned it's always safest to agree with him?

“I can't make the compound,” she said. She fought to keep her voice steady. “That's all I meant—once it's used up, I can't make more by myself. Do you want to measure out the compound, Magister Francesco, or should I?”

“You may do it. The physicians desire enough for one week's applications. They have assured me that after one or two weeks more, the compound will no longer be necessary.”

“Yes, Magister Francesco.”

“I will see you shortly, then, in the grand duchess's apartments at the Palazzo Pitti. As you have come out without your own guard, I will leave one of my gentlemen to escort you.”

He went out, with a single gesture indicating which of his followers was to accompany him and which was to stay. Chiara looked after him for a moment, listening for the footsteps to fade. She wanted to scream, wanted to throw something, wanted to fall down on the floor and crawl under the table and howl in terror. But the grand duke's gentleman was standing there watching her steadily and she didn't dare. She didn't dare let herself think of Ruan gone, Ruan dead, garroted like Donna Bianca's women, drifting in the dark currents of the Arno.

After a little while she collected herself. The grand duke's gentleman looked at her without expression or curiosity. Taking care with each step, she turned to the cabinet to unlock it and collect the jar of Magister Ruanno's compound.

He was not dead. He was not dead. What would he have done, Magister Ruanno, if he'd caught her stealing flowers of sulphur and elemental mercury from the laboratory? He would never have believed her garbled lie about boots for the grand duchess's new baby.

Her hands shook as she scooped out the thick greenish compound. So close to disaster, so close.

On the table the grand duke's three gold scudi gleamed.

He'll remember, she thought. He'll be waiting for me to present my gift. So now I'll have to make good on my lie, actually shop for the leather and thread and jewels, and make the baby boots. Serves me right.

How did you make baby boots, anyway?

M
agister Ruanno was not in the grand duchess's apartments.

They were full of people, though, and blazing with light and warmth. A consort of strings played softly in one of the outer rooms, and the music drifted in the air with candle smoke and perfume, sweat and the rich scent of sugared fig pastries. Ladies in bright-colored silk sleeves and velvet overgowns whispered of lovers and babies; gentlemen in padded doublets and pansied trunk hose were as bright, if not brighter, than the ladies. At the center of it all sat the grand duchess in Habsburg black and gold, erect as always, aloof as always, yet at the same time glowing with a happiness Chiara had never seen before. Her two parti-colored hounds sat at her feet. Rostig's rich rust-colored face was turning white.

Chiara stepped forward with the jar of ointment in her hands and curtsied deeply.

“I have brought Magister Ruanno's medicament, Serenissima,” she said.

“Das is gut,”
the grand duchess said. “The grand duke informed me you would be arriving.”

“Have you seen Magister Ruanno today, Serenissima? Surely he should supervise the application.”

“I have not.” She reached down and stroked the dogs' heads. “I was surprised when the grand duke told me you would be bringing the compound. Perhaps Magister Ruanno will arrive later, or perhaps the grand duke has assigned him some other task.”

“Perhaps.” The knot of fear and uncertainty in Chiara's belly pulled tighter. “Where is the grand duke, Serenissima?”

“He is consulting with the physicians. Come, I shall walk over with you.”

She rose, gesturing to a little knot of men with long beards and the black academic gowns and hoods of physicians, standing to one side of the fireplace. The grand duke was at their center, his expression intense as he argued with one of them. Chiara stepped back to make way. All the other ladies and gentlemen did the same, as if opening up a magic pathway from the center of the room to the fireplace.

Next to the fireplace, surrounded by the physicians, stood a cradle. Well, a child was lying in it, so presumably it could be called a cradle, but it was enormous and elaborately carved in polished light brown wood. At the head it had a
baldacchino
draped with satin curtains in the Medici colors of red, gold and blue. The wood itself was incised with a medallion of the Holy Family and the legend
GLORIA IN EXCELSIS ET IN TERRA PAX
. All around the
baldacchino
, down the rails and around the posts, were carved flowers and fruit and fanciful animals, symbols of health and strength.

Poor little Prince Filippo was red-faced, hot and restless, swaddled with far too many embroidered blankets despite the fact that his cradle was so close to the fireplace. His head was wrapped in bandages, and because of their thickness it was hard to tell if the unnatural swelling had been reduced or not. On top of the bandages was pinned a heartbreakingly jaunty little blue velvet cap with a red feather.

Get that child out from under all those blankets and swaddlings and let him kick
, Nonna would say.
Let him crawl if he can. He's six months old and needs air and exercise if his bones are going to grow strong and hard
.

“Signorina Chiara has brought the compound, my lord,” the grand duchess said.

“Excellent.” The grand duke took the jar and handed it to one of the physicians. “It is having a salutary effect, I am sure.”

The grand duchess bent over the cradle and stroked her little son's cheek. He turned his head toward the touch and made a gurgling sound.

“See, he knows his mother,” she said. “My lord, do you think he is too hot? Look how red his face is.”

“It is of the greatest importance to avoid dry and cold humors,” one of the physicians said. “Please do not excite him, Serenissima—too much stimulation will only cause his brain to swell further.”

The grand duchess sighed softly and took her hand away. “My little son,” she said. “Next summer perhaps you will have a brother, and the two of you can play together.”

The physicians looked at each other. It was clear as clear that they didn't expect Prince Filippo to grow up and play with his brother.

“The physicians will take him now,” the grand duke said, “and apply the compound. Come, Madonna, let us go into the other room and enjoy the music.”

“Yes, my lord.” The grand duchess turned away obediently, with only one last sorrowful look at her child. “I will join you shortly—I feel the need to withdraw for a moment. Signorina Chiara, attend me, if you please.”

Chiara curtsied politely to the grand duke, avoiding his eyes, and followed the grand duchess into one of the inner rooms, and from there to a tiny private alcove fitted out with a shelf that held a basin, a silver ewer, and a stack of clean white towels. Beside it was a box—a chair, really, but with the space under the seat enclosed with carved panels. The back was upholstered in violet-colored velvet. The grand duchess lifted the seat to reveal a padded under-seat, pierced with a hole under which a silver chamber pot rested.

“Pour out some water, Signorina Chiara,” the grand duchess said. She gathered up her skirts and seated herself on the chair. The arms, Chiara could see, were designed to make it easy for her to seat herself and get up again, even with the brace and padded bodices that disguised her twisted back.

“Forgive me, my dear,” she said. “I wished to speak with you privately, and I could not think of any other way.”

Chiara smiled. “I'm hardly embarrassed by all this luxury, Serenissima,” she said. “I grew up sharing a single bedroom and a necessary pot with my Nonna, my mother, and my two sisters.” She picked up the ewer and poured out some water for the grand duchess to wash with. “It was just a cheap earthenware basin on the floor, too, and nothing so beautiful as yours.”

The grand duchess nodded. “Now tell me what you know about Magister Ruanno's strange disappearance,” she said. “I promise you I will not tell the grand duke, if it is something you wish to keep secret.”

“But that's just the thing, Serenissima. I don't know anything. The first I knew he was gone was when the grand duke came to the laboratory and told me. I thought he might be here, but he isn't.”

The grand duchess looked thoughtful. “He could not leave Florence without the grand duke's permission—without papers, a passport. I suspect my husband knows where he has gone and why, and is keeping the knowledge to himself for some reason.”

Ruan got Nonna and the girls out of Florence with no papers, Chiara thought. He could get himself out if he wanted to, and the grand duke would never know.

“I hope you're right, Serenissima,” she said.

The grand duchess held out her hand for a towel. Chiara handed her one and discreetly turned away. When the rustling of skirts told her the grand duchess had finished and risen from her chair, she turned her head again. The grand duchess dipped her hands in the fresh water, and took a second fresh towel to dry them. Chiara expected her to nod a brief thanks—the grand duchess was always courteous, for all her stiff reserve—and step out of the room to return to her guests. But she hesitated. She looked down at her hands, spreading her fingers out as if to count the rings she was wearing.

“They do not like me to touch him,” she said. “It has nothing to do with whether or not my poor little son is over-stimulated. The grand duke fears this new baby will be marked, if I touch Filippo, or hold him.”

Chiara couldn't think of anything to say to that. Everybody knew babies could be marked by what a woman saw or touched or ate. Nonna had a hundred stories of women who'd been startled by an owl, or who'd eaten too many peaches, or who'd held a one-eared rabbit in their arms, and who'd borne babies with the marks of it.

In a very low voice, so low that even in the tiny closet Chiara had to lean close to hear her, the grand duchess said, “He blames me that Filippo is as he is.”

What did one say to such a dangerous confidence from the Grand Duchess of Tuscany, the daughter and sister of emperors?

“I'm sorry, Serenissima.”

“The physicians do not know if he will ever be—healthful, strong, if his mind will ever develop completely. There is one man who suggests cutting an opening in his head to let the excess humors out. He claims he has read instructions for such an operation in old writings. Have you ever heard of such a thing, Signorina Chiara?”

Saints and angels. Cut a hole in that pitiful child's head? Were they mad?

“No, Serenissima, I've never heard of such a thing.”

“I am praying for another son. A fine strong son, like—the other one. They say she is keeping court at the Villa di Pratolino.”

“She's at the Villa di Pratolino because people stoned her house here in the city. She's hated, Serenissima, especially since your own little prince was born.”

“She knows I am with child again, I think—it is one of those secrets that is not really a secret. She is only waiting for me to die, so she can step into my shoes.”

“You must not think such things, Serenissima, or you truly will mark your baby.” Chiara could have shaken her, although of course one didn't shake grand duchesses. “You're not going to die. And the fine strong son, well, he's not hers. He's not the grand duke's, either. Everyone knows he's a changeling who was carried into the room in a Neapolitan
mandolino
.”

The grand duchess smiled a little at that. “Ferdinando tells me you were there,” she said. “You saw it.”

“I did.” It was a lie, or part of a lie, but who cared? “Serenissima, don't you want to return to your guests? They will be wondering—”

“I see her sometimes.”

Chiara blinked. “Who, Serenissima?”

“Bianca Cappello. Here, at the Pitti, and at the Palazzo Vecchio, too. She dresses up in a servant's clothes and comes to spy on me.”

“Serenissima,” Chiara said. Her own voice sounded strange to her. “Enough. You will hate me tomorrow for hearing you say such things.”

The grand duchess clasped her hands together and straightened. There would be no more confidences. Chiara wasn't sure if she was glad or sorry.

“You think I am seeing things which are not there,” she said, in her precise, Imperial voice. “I assure you I am not.”

“Of course not, Serenissima.”

“I will never hate you, Signorina Chiara. And I have every faith in your discretion.”

“Of course, Serenissima.”

“Then let us return to my guests.”

•   •   •

After supper the grand duchess's bedchamber-ladies undressed her and put her to bed. The grand duke disappeared, leaving whisperers to conclude—probably rightly—that he had gone to the Villa di Pratolino to spend the night with Bianca Cappello. Chiara wanted to slip away to the laboratory again but she didn't dare go out into the city alone, at night. Her one task was to take the dogs out to the garden on their embroidered leather leashes, and even for that she had to have one of the Austrian kennel master's assistants to accompany her.

“How have they been today?” she asked the boy as she attached the leashes to the dogs' collars. He was twelve or thirteen, with hair as coarse and yellow as straw and a gap between his two front teeth. His name was Rudi and he was a nephew or a cousin or some sort of relation to the kennel master.

“Fine, Fräulein Klara, fine. Rostig, a little stiff and sore, but he has eight years now and it's to be expected.”

“Poor Rostig.” Chiara stroked the old dog's soft ears and gave him a bit of dried meat for a treat. “We'll walk slowly. Anything else?”

They passed out of the back of the Palazzo and into the gardens. “That Vivi of yours,” Rudi said. “She's a wild one, no mistake about it. She ran away from me earlier, when I brought them out here. Just pulled her leash right out of my hand and ran straight toward the Neptune fountain down there.”

“How strange,” Chiara said. “That's not like Vivi.”

“It was as if someone was a-calling her. After a little while she came back, though.”

“I would say she smelled a rabbit, but it's too late in the year for rabbits.”

Rostig and Seiden, the grand duchess's original breeding pair from Ferrara, walked down the gravel path with the stately assurance of elder statesmen. The younger dogs, the four-year-old littermates Rina and Leia and then Vivi, not quite a year and a half, ranged from side to side, sniffing everything. They walked to the end of the path and then turned back.

“I'll take Vivi upstairs with me,” Chiara said. “Please make sure the rest of them are warm and comfortable, especially Rostig.”

“So I will, Fräulein Klara, and I'll be seeing you on the morrow.”

When she had undressed in her bare little cell, she patted the pallet beside her and Vivi jumped up, pushing close for petting.

“What were you thinking, Vivi, to run away like that?” She stroked the little hound's rich russet ears, tickling her fingertips in the patches of soft puppylike fur behind them. “You are a lucky dog to have a home, with plenty of food and a warm bed. There are stray dogs in the street who would—”

Under the blue leather collar there was a tiny corner of paper. No one would ever see it if they were not holding the dog close and petting her. Chiara ran her fingers under the collar. The piece of paper was folded lengthwise, and attached to the collar with two loops of fine blue silk thread.

“What's this? Rudi said you ran as if someone was calling you—who were you running to, Vivi?”

She unfolded the paper. It was blank. She remembered the notes she had sent to Ruanno dell' Inghilterra in the terrible months before Donna Isabella's death, and scrambled down from the pallet to hold the paper over the tiny brazier that provided her cell's only light and heat.