The Red Lily Crown (4 page)

The Casino di San Marco

LATER THAT SAME NIGHT

T
he first thing she felt was the softness of the bed. The way it smelled—clean, linen and feathers and soap. There was silence inside her head, too, delicious, drowsy silence. Chiara stretched out her arms over her head and—

The headache crashed back, pulsing pain and a sense her eyes were about to burst from their sockets. The demons screamed and screamed. At the same time she remembered it all—the rain, the guardsmen, the horse, the prince, the golden studiolo in the Palazzo Vecchio, the spiced wine, the silver funnel, and the foreigner, may he be damned to hell for all eternity, his arm around her neck just so, and his hand pressing her head forward.

Where was she?

She squinted her eyes and opened them just a slit. No bright light. She opened them a bit more and gingerly pushed herself up on her elbows.

The room was small, five or six paces square. The walls and floor were plain dressed stone. There was a single tiny window with an iron grating, high over her head; the sliver of sky she could see was black. One stoneware lamp, burning steadily, on a lamp stand. That was the only furniture other than the pallet she lay on. There was a wooden door, with an arched shape. It was closed, and there was no handle.

Barred from the outside?

She stood up slowly. The headache snarled and clawed and whispered inside her head, then little by little began to curl in upon itself and go quiet. She went over to the door and pushed on it.

Yes. Barred from the outside.

So where was she?
Take her to the Casino di San Marco
, the prince had said.
Use the secret door. Lock her up there, and allow her to speak to no one
. She knew the Casino di San Marco, of course—everybody in Florence knew it, the grand duke's villa up by the Piazza San Marco. So if she was there, she was still in the city.

What did they intend to do with her? Starve her to death? Babbo and Nonna had told tales of oubliettes under the Medici palaces, cells where inconvenient prisoners were thrust to be forgotten forever. But if they meant her to die, why leave a lamp burning? And why provide a soft mattress and a clean coverlet?

She went back to the pallet and sat down. There was nothing else to do. She was thirsty, so thirsty, and hungry, and she needed a necessary-pot. Her hair had dried. She untied the black woolen cord at the end of the braid and combed it out with her fingers. It was crimped from drying in its braid, but the rainwater had made it unexpectedly soft. Sometimes loosening her hair helped keep the headaches away.

The lamp burned, and burned, and began to flicker.

Just before it went out completely, hinges creaked and the door opened. Chiara wedged herself back in the corner of the pallet, pulled her feet up off the floor and wrapped her arms around her knees. She'd been afraid of a lot of things in her life but she'd never felt sinking, breathless fear like this.

Magister Ruanno stepped into the room. He was alone.

Chiara tried to speak—
Where am I? What do you want?
—but her mouth and throat were too dry to form words.

“Do not be afraid,” he said. “I have come to help you.”

His voice was grave and impersonal, and he sounded like he was soothing a wild animal. Well, in a way maybe he was. He was holding a pitcher of water and a cup. He put the cup down on the table beside the lamp and filled it with water.

“Drink.”

She reached over and snatched up the cup and gulped the water down. It was clean and cool, the best water she had ever tasted.

She held out the cup. “More.”

“Wait a moment. Let the first cup settle.” He put the pitcher on the table and went back outside the room, then returned with a jug of oil for the lamp, a loaf of bread, and a ceramic basin with a cover. The basin was white porcelain decorated with blue flowers. It was imperfect—she could see small cracks and bubbles in the glaze. He put the basin on the floor and the rest of the things on the table.

“You may pour more water for yourself,” he said. “Eat a little, refill the lamp, and use this basin as you may need to. I will return shortly.”

He went out. Chiara heard a bar creak down and settle into place on the outside of the door.

For a moment she sat frozen—was she dreaming? Dream or not, whatever he wanted from her, she'd be better prepared to fight him off if her thirst was slaked and her belly was full and she didn't have to piss so badly her legs were shaking. She clambered down and took the cover off the basin—oh, saints and angels, the relief. She replaced the cover and pushed the basin back against the wall. Then she refilled the lamp, drank another cup of water, and ate the top half of the loaf of bread as slowly as she could. It was spread with butter, rich and unctuous and savory with salt. She'd eaten butter only three or four times in her life but she knew what it was.

She was just swallowing the last bite when the bar was lifted again, the door opened, and the foreigner came back into the room.

“Better?” he said.

“Where am I? What do you want?”

She didn't really expect him to answer, but he did. “You are in the cellar of the Casino di San Marco. The prince has a laboratory here, and other secret rooms.”

“What day is it? What time is it?”

“You have been here for six or seven hours and it is past midnight, so it is the day after you were first brought here.”

Six or seven hours! After midnight! Nonna would be beside herself. The water and bread and butter made her feel strong enough to thrust out her chin at him. “I want to go home.”

Magister Ruanno smiled. It wasn't his wolf smile, but a weary smile, and it softened the cruel line of his mouth. A little bit, not entirely. “It no longer matters what you want, Monella Chiara. You should be grateful the prince has chosen you. Your life will be changed forever, and the lives of your family.”

“Chosen me!” Chiara unfolded her legs and put her feet on the floor. She wondered if she could jump up, slip by him, and run out the door. Probably not. And she wouldn't know where to go once she got out of the room anyway. “He didn't choose me—he said things he shouldn't have said, magical tests for virgins with blood and fire, and I was unlucky enough to be in the room to hear them. You said it yourself.”

“I did.” His expression changed. He wasn't looking at her as if she were a fractious nanny goat to be gentled, not anymore. Had he thought she was too stupid to understand?

“I won't tell anybody, but of course you don't believe me.” She considered snatching up the water pitcher and throwing it at him. But what good would that do? He would only squeeze her neck again and send her down into the blackness. “It won't do you any good to keep me here. I won't submit to the tests.”

“One does not say, ‘I won't,' to Francesco de' Medici. He will compel you to submit. That is why I am here.”

“So you can threaten me? Half-strangle me again?”

“No. So I can help you. You will be much more likely to pass through the tests successfully if you are willing.”

“I'm not willing. I don't know what—”

“Listen to me.” He took a step forward. She pulled her feet up off the floor again. As if that would help. “I am going to tell you,” he said, “what the tests are.”

“Why not just call in a midwife to examine me?”

“Such examinations are far from conclusive.”

“And magic isn't?”

He laughed at that. Not a
laugh
laugh, but a half-smile with a single wry exhalation. Maybe he was human after all. “You know, Monella Chiara, from an alchemical standpoint, it makes no difference anyway. Do you think Mistress Perenelle Flamel was a virgin?”

“Of course not. She was that Magister Nicolas's wife.”

“Exactly. The prince wishes you to be vowed as a virgin, with all the rituals of magic he loves so dearly, to satisfy his wife and his mistress. They are jealous enough of each other as it is, and when they find out he has taken a
soror mystica
to help him in his experiments, they will immediately conclude he has taken you to his bed as well as his laboratory. Only if you are proclaimed to be a virgin and vowed to remain a virgin will they accept you.”

“What about all his other women? People say he's had hundreds of women.”

“None of his other women have been made part of his household.”

Chiara thought about that for a moment. The prince's household! The prince's wife was an Imperial archduchess, everyone knew that. And his mistress was a beautiful, ambitious and much-hated Venetian noblewoman. Would they really be jealous of her, Chiara Nerini, a bookseller's daughter whose feet got wet in the rain because she had no chopines? Would being the prince's
soror mystica
really vault her up to such unimaginable heights?

But the tests. Blood and fire . . .

“You'll tell me what the tests are, and how to do them safely?”

“I will tell you some things. Passing through the tests safely will be up to you.”

“You say I'll have to remain a virgin—does that mean forever?”

His eyes narrowed. “Why? Do you have a lover? A
promesso
?”

“No. But—forever. That's a big promise. That's all my life.”

“You will be required to vow yourself to virginity for the length of time you remain in the prince's service as his
soror
. When the experiments are complete and the
Lapis Philosophorum
is ours, you will be released from your vow.”

Or I can release myself by running away, Chiara thought. If I act meek and obedient, I can get gold for Nonna and the little ones, and yes, for myself too, and I can convince the prince to trust me. And who knows, maybe we really will find the Philosopher's Stone, and it will put my poor head back the way it was before that aristocrat's horse kicked me, and I'll become the most famous female alchemist since Perenelle Flamel.

She could tell from the downward twist at one side of Magister Ruanno's mouth that he knew exactly what she was thinking. The running-away part, at least.

“I agree,” she said. “Tell me about the tests.”

“Very well.” Something about the way he stood, the way he balanced his weight on the floor—he was relieved. He was glad. It was important to him, then, that she agreed to become this
soror mystica
. Why?

He said, “As the prince told you, there are four tests— the black water, the blood-red ribbon, the silver sieve and the golden fire. Only the sieve is in any way difficult.”

“Begin at the beginning. What is the black water?”

“It is a common test for virginity in courts of law, handed down by the Roman historian Pliny and also by Saint Albertus Magnus. The girl is given a potion to drink, and if she can hold her water for a suitable length of time afterward, she is deemed to be a virgin.”

“That's ridiculous. What does pissing have to do with being a virgin?”

“Presumably,” he said with a perfectly straight face, “it is a test of the tightness of the girl's— Well, you understand.”

“What's in the potion? What's the trick?”

“I will tell you this, and no more. If you eat something and use that basin”—he gestured to the covered blue-and-white vessel—“thoroughly just before the initiation begins, you should have no difficulty.”

If all the tests were that stupid, she'd pass them easily. “What's the one called the blood-red ribbon?”

“The blood,” he said, “is metaphorical. It is performed with a red ribbon, that is all. Certain measurements of your head and neck are made and compared. It is said that expansion of a woman's neck is a sign that—other parts of her body—have been expanded as well.”

“That's as ridiculous as the black water. The prince is a fool to believe such things.”

He smiled. “Perhaps,” he said. “But if I were you I would not say such a thing to his face. Now—the silver sieve and the golden fire. The sieve is really the only one of the tests that will require some care and concentration from you.”

“What do I have to do?”

“Carry water in the sieve, and use the water to put out a fire.”

“Carry
water
in a
sieve
? That's impossible.”

“I take it you have not read any old tales of the Vestal Virgins of Rome?”

“The what virgins?”

“Never mind. Suffice it to say that carrying water in a sieve is an old, old test of virginity. And it is not as impossible as it sounds. If you hold the sieve level and steady, and take care that the underside remains absolutely dry, then you will be able to pour water into it slowly, and the water will be held.”

“Are you sure?”

“I am sure—I will see that the sieve is treated with lanolin, which will be invisible but will help create surface tension under the water. Once you have filled the sieve, you must step down the room to a golden grating, under which a fire will be burning. Hold the sieve over the grating and shake it slightly. The water will pour out, and put out the fire. You will then step over the grating in perfect safety.”

“Can you bring me the sieve? Let me practice?”

“No. You will have one chance, and you must make the most of it. Just remember—when the prince's guards come for you, eat the food you have and use the basin. And do not show fear.”

She leaned forward and looked at him, really looked at him for the first time. They were allies now, the two of them, secretly in league together against the prince. It was dangerous, but it was exciting, too. She saw details, the severely plain richness of his black velvet jacket and the edge of white linen showing above the collar. His skin, smooth-shaven over his jaw line, was youthful despite the effects of sun and wind. He's young, she thought, surprised. Younger than the prince. Younger than he wants people to think.