The Red Lily Crown (5 page)

“Magister Ruanno.” It was the first time she had spoken his name. It felt strange to shape her mouth to it. “Why are you doing this? Helping me?”

If there was any sort of ordinary feeling inside him, it was buried very deep. He didn't seem to be helping her because he liked her, or felt any emotion about her at all. Well, maybe some kind of peculiar protectiveness. What had he said in the street?
I dislike seeing women mishandled
.

“I am helping you,” he said at last, “because the prince has decided he needs a
soror mystica
. I wish to make sure he gets one.”

Chiara took a deep breath. “I'll do my best,” she said. “I want the Philosopher's Stone—I want to help my family and I want to heal myself, cure my headaches and—” She stopped there. No need to tell him about the cracked skull and the voices inside her head. No need to tell him about becoming an alchemist in her own right, so she wouldn't need him or the prince.

“The search for the
Lapis Philosophorum
is different for each of us,” he said. His expression was hard to read, almost as if he didn't think there really was any such thing as the Philosopher's Stone. But that couldn't be true. Why would he call himself an alchemist if he didn't think there was a Philosopher's Stone?

“What do you mean, it's different for each of us?” she demanded. What he said was wrong. It made her angry and frightened. “There are stages. They're written down in old books. You have to do them right, each step, or the work fails and you have to start over.”

“Admirably straightforward.” He went to the door and opened it. In his black jacket and breeches he seemed to fade into the darkness on the other side. “Remember what you have just said, when you are taken for your initiation—do each step correctly, or the work will fail.”

“And if it fails?” The pain burst back into her head. “If the work fails, I will have to start over?”

From the darkness he said, “Do not fail, for there will be no starting over.”

R
uan kept only two servants, a groom to look after Lowarn in the grand ducal stables and a body-servant to look after his own few clothes and books. He had no personal possessions beyond that—the simple furnishings of his rooms in the Casino di San Marco were provided from the grand duke's storerooms, and to the grand duke's storerooms they would return one day. He treated his servants fairly but did not encourage intimacy. He lived as a stranger in a foreign country, keeping to himself but for his dealings with the prince and the laboratory, the grand duchy's mines and metal-smelting operations, because one day—

One day he would go home to Cornwall.

That skinny, sharp-chinned alchemist's daughter with her questions and her helplessness, her deep-set changeable eyes—she had brought it back, the misery of a six-year-old boy in a Cornish mine, his hands already torn and scarred from carrying rocks, watching his mother die slowly and terribly and helpless to save her. Ruan Pencarrow, the boy's name had been, son of Mark Pencarrow, rightful owner of Milhyntall House and its lands and the mine itself, Wheal Loer—all but for the rebellion, the rising of the old religion against the new English prayer book, which had scorched Cornwall with fire from Launceston to Land's End, and changed Ruan Pencarrow's life forever.

Like malachite, he had gone into the fire one thing and come out of it something else. He was now Ruan the Englishman, Ruanno dell' Inghilterra—the Florentines saw little difference between England and Cornwall and it served his purposes well enough to keep his true birthplace hidden. In Latin he styled himself Roannes Pencarianus, alchemist, metallurgist, scientist, the one man in Florence who was truly a close confidant of Prince Francesco de' Medici. He thought in an amalgamation of Cornish, English, German, Latin and Italian, bits and pieces of voices he had loved and hated and feared and admired in the twenty-four years of his life.

There was a letter in the breast of his doublet, two lines on a strip of paper cut from the edge of another letter. It was unsigned, but he knew the handwriting. She knew he would know it, and she knew he would come. She was afraid, as everyone else in Florence was afraid. She had more reason to be afraid than most.

The secret entrance to the Palazzo Medici was not locked. As he walked in a footman stepped forward and took his cloak without a word. He nodded briefly and made his way up a flight of polished marble stairs. He went straight into an apartment of rooms on the second floor without so much as scratching at the door.

The woman at the dressing table froze. She was wearing only a loose gown, pale rose-colored silk embroidered with gold thread. The mother-of-pearl powder on her skin glimmered in the light from two branches of three candles each. Six candles, no more.

Once, she had surrounded herself with dozens of candles, hundreds of them, welcoming their light. Once, she had studied the cosmos, sponsored readings by poets, judged debates between fine young gentlemen over fine shades of meaning in words. Once, she had sung and danced like an angel, patronized composers and singers, surrounded herself with books so beautiful and expensive, she herself was the only one who dared open them to read. Once he had loved her—more than loved her, worshipped her, as any headstrong sixteen-year-old boy who thought he was a man would have worshipped Isabella de' Medici, princess and duchess, first lady of Florence.

But in the eight years he had known her, she had borne two children, eaten too much rich food, drunk too much wine, intrigued her way through too many passionate affairs. She had been older from the beginning—he had made it his business to find out her birth date in order to cast her horoscope, and the difference in their ages was seven years, eight months, and six days. She had not aged as well as she might have.

Behind her a lady-in-waiting was brushing her hair with a jeweled brush, the masses of rich russet-gold curls unpinned and loose over her shoulders. If she owed some of its color to bleaches and dyes, she was certainly not unique in Florence. In front of her another lady adjusted the angle of a round mirror in a silver stand, set with aquamarines.

In the mirror her eyes met Ruan's.

“I would speak privately with the Duchess of Bracciano,” Ruan said.

The two ladies curtsied and left the room without a word. Isabella said nothing. She did not turn her head, but continued to watch Ruan in the mirror. He walked up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. She shrugged very slightly, skillful as a courtesan, and her gown slipped down over her arms like the falling petals of a flower, leaving her half-naked in the candlelight. The line of her throat was still exquisite, and her nipples were like amber-colored citrines against the lush white velvet of her breasts. Did she intend to seduce him again, after all these years? Did she think it was necessary? The scarred and sun-darkened skin of his hands made a barbaric contrast to her softness and paleness.

“You sent me a message,” he said softly. “I am here, Isabella.”

“Thank you.”

“You know I will always come.”

She reached out and turned the mirror away. “Most men would hate me,” she said. “I took you into my bed when it pleased me, then put you aside when it pleased me to take another. Most men would be gratified to see me grow old, and sick, and afraid.”

“You are neither old nor sick.”

If she wanted further compliments, she would be disappointed. He waited.

After a moment she said, “Ruanno. My father is dying. For all I know, he is already dead.”

It was like her to state such a truth without flinching. She was hot-blooded, yes, and self-indulgent, avaricious and extravagant, but she had courage and she was nobody's fool. Her father had protected her, supported her excuses to avoid her husband's bleak castle at Bracciano, encouraged her to remain in Florence amid the golden pleasures of her childhood home, her own palaces and country villas. Her father had given her unprecedented freedoms. When he was gone, her freedoms would be gone as well.

“I know,” he said. “I am sorry.”

“Francesco hates me. You know he does. He will change everything when he becomes grand duke.”

“He does not hate you.” Ruan ran his hands gently over her shoulders, her arms. Her skin was warm and very soft. She would always be lovely in his eyes, because she was the woman who had taught him the ways of women. More than that, the ways of the court. “You must make more of an effort to please him.”

“I do make an effort. I have befriended his insolent slut of a mistress, have I not? You do not know, Ruanno, how much I loathe her and her ambitions.”

Ruan smiled. “I do know,” he said. “Your brother knows as well, because you talk behind Donna Bianca's back and what you say is reported to him. It makes me afraid for you,
cara
. Do you not remember the first lesson you taught me about court politics? Everything is overheard, everything is repeated.”

Isabella frowned. She caught hold of the silk of her gown and drew it back up over her breasts. “Such lessons were for you, not for me. I am a princess of the Medici by blood, and I say what I please.”

Ruan lifted his hands from her shoulders, allowing her the freedom to rearrange her gown. “So you do,” he said. His voice was lightly mocking. “What do you want from me, then,
altissima principessa
?”

“Do not make fun of me, Ruanno.” Her voice was sharp. The tightness of her mouth suddenly showed her age. “You have my brother's ear, more than anyone else but Donna Bianca herself. Speak for me.”

“What would you have me say?”

“I wish to continue as I am, here in Florence, living my own life. I wish to have my properties and my children's inheritances confirmed to my own possession.”

“Is it not the Duke of Bracciano who should take care for your children? He is their father, after all.”

“He does not have a quattrino the Medici have not given him, and you know it. Even if he had riches of his own, I do not wish to be in his debt.”

“You are his wife.”

“I will not be his possession. My father allowed me to live as I please, and I want Francesco to do the same.”

Ruan walked around the dressing table so he could face her. She looked back at him with dread and defiance, and it gave him a pang of apprehension. “It will never be the same,” he said. “And it is dangerous for you to try to make it so. Isabella, listen to me. When your father is dead, you must surrender yourself to your brother's authority. Openly, for everyone to see. There is no other way.”

“I will not.”

“There is another thing you taught me about the court. Do what the powerful require, for the powerful to see. Do what you like in private.”

She turned her face away. He could see her thinking about what he had said, and remembering the days when she had taught it to him. After a moment she looked at him from the corners of her eyes, and he saw a glint of guile. It was hard to tell if she thought to deceive him, or deceive her brother, or both. Perhaps she herself was not certain. “Tell me then,” she said. “What do you think I must do to please Francesco?”

“You know the answer to that already. Show him sweet submission and respect.”

“And truckle to his mistress.”

“Not necessarily. If there is any truckling to be done, it should be done to Prince Francesco alone.”

She smiled, for the first time. “That I understand. Very well, Ruanno. Do you have any other advice? I suppose you think I should bury myself at Bracciano.”

“Not at all. Use your patronage and entertainments to support your brother, and he will be perfectly well pleased to have you in Florence.”

Her smile hardened, like hot iron quenched in water. She said nothing.

“Also,” Ruan went on inexorably, “rein in Donna Dianora. You are her elder, her sister-in-law, her cousin by blood. She patterns herself upon you, as you well know. Prince Francesco blames you, that she is not a faithful wife to Don Pietro. That she dabbles in treason as well as poetry and music.”

Isabella stood up suddenly, grasped the silver mirror, and threw it hard across the room. It crashed into the wall like a harquebus-shot, and the glass shattered into glittering slivers. Aquamarines rolled in every direction. “She patterns herself on me, for faithlessness and treason? Take care what you say, Ruanno. At least I do not abduct tradesmen's daughters off the street for my pleasure.”

Her movement brought her scent to life, intense and arousing, a combination of musk and ambergris and jasmine. With the perfume, memories—
re Varia hweg, penn an syns
, what memories, her mouth, her skin slicked with sweat, her silken muscles convulsing around him, intoxicating every sense. The urge to touch her became so strong that he closed his hands into fists to control it.

“Who told you I abducted a tradesman's daughter?”

“Who did not? They say you are sharing her with Francesco, and that two of his guardsmen had her first.”

“That is not true.”

She laughed. Her eyes were like crystals of mica, gold flecked with gray, shining and opaque. “Probably not,” she said. “Francesco would never share one of his whores with anyone, and in any case he is obsessed with Donna Bianca. But I can read it in your face—there is some truth in the tales, is there not? There is a real girl.”

He hesitated for a moment, and then he said, “There is. She is an alchemist's daughter, not a whore, and Prince Francesco desires to make her his
soror mystica
.”

“What is that?”

“Something he has read about in old books—a woman who assists an alchemist, supposedly providing the feminine element to balance his masculinity.”

Isabella laughed again. Her anger was forgotten, and she sounded delighted as a child. “Donna Bianca will be furious,” she said. “She is jealous enough as it is, being my brother's childless mistress while his Imperial wife produces baby after baby. All girls, but still.”

“The girl is a virgin, and she will be compelled to take a holy vow of virginity before she is allowed to assume a place in the prince's household.”

“How titillating! I suppose you examined her yourself, to verify the presence of her maidenhead? You really have no business chiding me, Ruanno, for—what was it? Faithlessness and treason, and too many entertainments.”

“Isabella.” He had recovered his detachment. He took her by her shoulders and shook her, gently but sharply. “Do not be a fool. You must control Dianora. You must be more discreet about your own affair with Troilo Orsini.”

“I am a princess of the Medici. Gossip cannot harm me.”

“Gossip can harm anyone.”

She pushed him away. “I had hoped you would help me, Ruanno, not berate me.”

“I am helping you. I will always help you in any way I can.”

“Go away. I do not need your help after all.”

There was no reasoning with her when her temper was roused. He went to the door. “I will come again if you call me. And Isabella?”

She would not look at him.

“It would be best,” he said gently, “if you say nothing more to anyone about the alchemist's daughter.”