Duchessina - A Novel of Catherine de' Medici

Copyright © 2007 by Carolyn Meyer

All rights reserved. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Harcourt Children's Books, an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, New York, 2007.

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to
[email protected]
or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

www.hmhco.com

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

Meyer, Carolyn, 1935–
Duchessina: a novel of Catherine de' Medici/Carolyn Meyer,
p. cm.

Summary: While her tyrannical family is out of favor in Italy, young Catherine de' Medici is raised in convents, then in 1533, when she is fourteen, her uncle, Pope Clement VII, arranges for her marriage to Prince Henri of France, who is destined to become king.

I. Catherine de Médicis, Queen, consort of Henry II, King of France, 1519–1589—Childhood and youth—Juvenile fiction. 2. Italy—History—16th century—Juvenile fiction. [I. Catherine de Médicis, Queen, consort of Henry II, King of France, 1519–1589—Childhood and youth—Fiction. 2. Kings, queens, rulers, etc.—Fiction. 3. Convents—Fiction. 4. Orphans—Fiction. 5. Clement VII, Pope, 1478–1534—Fiction. 6. Italy-History—16th century—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.M5685DUC 2007
[Fic]—dc22 2006028876

ISBN 978-0-15-205588-2 hardcover

ISBN 978-0-15-206620-8 paperback

eISBN 978-0-547-53903-4
v1.0216

Duchessina
is a work of fiction based on historical figures and events. Some details have been altered to enhance the story.

For Ramona,
and in memory of George

1

“Y
OU ARE A
M
EDICI
,” Aunt Clarissa used to tell me. “And you are destined for greatness. Never forget that.”

And I have not forgotten, even though my very existence has been threatened—not once or twice, but many times. Before I was a month old, both my mother and my father were dead. Yet I have survived and endured. Not everyone is pleased about that. At my christening I was named Caterina Maria Romula di Lorenzo de' Medici. When I was a child, those who loved me called me
Duchessina
—Little Duchess. Now my enemies have begun to call me
Madame Serpent.
No doubt they have their reasons.

This, then, is my story—and how my destiny was fulfilled.

T
HE ENORMOUS
Palazzo Medici—a ground floor and two upper floors—was an entire world, entered from the street through a grand arched portal and a foyer leading to a large inner courtyard. Marble statues stood silent guard among splashing fountains. I spent the days of my early childhood with my nurse, Elisabetta—I called her Betta—in a suite of rooms overlooking the courtyard. Sometimes I watched from my window as important visitors arrived, handed their horses over to the grooms, and climbed the broad stone stairway to the
piano nobile,
the main floor of the palace where Cardinal Giulio de' Medici received them in his vast apartment.

From Betta I learned part of my story:

“You came into this world at eleven o'clock on a Wednesday morning, the thirteenth of April in 1519. Three days later your aunt Clarissa and I carried you to the Medici family church of San Lorenzo for your baptism. Our hearts were bursting with grief as well as hope, for your mother had fallen victim to childbed fever and your father had been ill for some time. Less than two weeks later your mother's bright soul left her suffering body. In another six days your father's soul went to join hers.”

I wept when my nurse reached this point in my story. How unfair it seemed that death had snatched my parents from me before I had a chance to know them! I cried for them, but mostly I cried for my orphaned self.

As I grew, I became curious about other parts of the palace. When I thought I could escape Betta's watchful eye, I began to explore. Betta had a habit of falling asleep over her needlework every afternoon following our midday dinner. I was supposed to be resting, too, but as soon as Betta nodded off, I crept down the narrow stairway from my apartment to the main courtyard. Beyond that I found a second, more interesting courtyard, where servants hurried back and forth and the business of the palace was conducted. Through a small door leading to a dark and scary passageway I could get to the splendid gardens, alive with bright flowers and trees and birds and sparkling fountains.

During these explorations, I made a surprising discovery: Two boys, much older than I, shared a large apartment on the top floor with their servants and tutors. I hid from the boys, slipping behind the thick columns or squatting in one of the shadowed doorways, and listened to their conversations. The older boy, who I learned was called Ippolito, was handsome, polite to the servants, and good-natured, always ready to laugh. The younger boy, Alessandro, appeared to be just the opposite: He had a cruel mouth, frizzy reddish hair, and a dark scowl. He spoke rudely to the servants, mocked his tutors, and haughtily argued with Ippolito. I disliked this Alessandro and wanted Ippolito for a friend, without ever having spoken a word to either of them or even knowing exactly who they were. I thought the boys were my secret, and I didn't mention them to Aunt Clarissa or Betta.

One day when I was not quite four, I crouched quietly in the main courtyard. No one paid me much attention. I was intently observing a small lizard as it skittered across the smooth paving stones when the two boys thundered noisily down the stairs from their apartment. Alessandro spotted the little lizard at once and lunged at it. I had tried a few times to catch it, or one like it, but it was always too quick for me. I had decided it was better simply to watch it. Now Alessandro had it in his ugly paws, and in an instant he had pinched off its tail.

Ippolito, my friend who didn't yet know that he was my friend, protested. “Don't be cruel,” he told Alessandro sharply, but Alessandro merely laughed at him.

“It'll grow a new one,” Alessandro said, heartlessly poking his victim.

Could it really grow a new tail?
I wondered. I didn't know, but I felt deep sympathy for the poor lizard. Unable to keep still any longer, I popped up out of my hiding place. “And what if it does not?” I demanded, glowering at Alessandro.

He jumped back, startled. “Well, well!” he cried. “What's this?”

“It's
la duchessina!
” said Ippolito, smiling at me. I couldn't resist smiling back.

“Such tenderness you show for small creatures,” Alessandro said with a smirk, dropping the tailless lizard. It tried to scurry away, but Alessandro put a speedy halt to that. He stomped on it, ending its short life and leaving a bloody mess on the stones.

“You killed it!” I cried, horrified. “How could you
do
that?”

Alessandro glanced at me with heavy eyelids lowered disdainfully, looking somewhat like a lizard himself. “Perhaps you'd like to offer a prayer for the deceased? Or maybe we can ask His Eminence the cardinal to say a mass for it.”

I burst into tears and ran away, the sound of Alessandro's harsh laughter grating in my ears.

Ippolito ran after me. “Duchessina, wait!” he called. Obediently I stopped and allowed him to take my hand. “May I call you that? We should get to know one another. We're cousins, you know. Like you, we are under the direction of our uncle, Cardinal Giulio. His good friend, Cardinal Passerini, is our principal tutor. I'm sorry you witnessed such cruelty. I make no apologies for Alessandro—that's simply the way he is, and I've made up my mind that I must tolerate it, since we're always together. Can we be friends, then, you and I?”

I gazed up at the handsome boy who offered me friendship. He bent down and kissed the hand he still held. “Friends?” he asked again, arching one dark eyebrow.

“Friends,” I agreed. But I was still troubled by what I had just witnessed. “Is that nasty boy your brother?” I asked, thinking they did not resemble each other in any way.

“No, no—Alessandro is a cousin, also. We live in a world of uncles and cousins, and no one is exactly who he says he is.”

I wanted Ippolito to stay and tell me more about who he was and where he'd come from and who the dreadful Alessandro was and where he fit into this puzzle. But Ippolito simply smiled again and strode off in search of his despicable companion.

T
HOUGH
I
LIVED
at Palazzo Medici under the guardianship of Cardinal Giulio, it was the frequent visits from Aunt Clarissa, my father's sister, that I looked forward to. When she thought I was old enough to understand, she told me more about who I was.

“You are descended from an ancient family,” Clarissa said proudly. “The Medici is a family of great prestige and enormous wealth. They amassed a fortune through trade, in spices from the East and cloth from Europe, and an even greater fortune in banking. There is no greater family in Florence or in all of Tuscany—indeed, in the whole of the Italian peninsula.”

She told me about my great-grandfather, the first Lorenzo de' Medici, known as
Il Magnifico
—the Magnificent. He had reigned like a prince over the city of Florence. The Medici coat of arms appeared everywhere. One of
Il Magnifico'
s sons became Pope Leo. “He was the first pope from Florence,” Clarissa said. “The city went mad with joy when he was chosen.”