The Scarlet Contessa (13 page)

Some hours later, a boom jolted me full awake. I sat, heart pounding, and listened to thunder roll off the nearby mountains. I felt an odd anticipation, as if an event of enormous import were about to pass.

A profound determination seized me: it was the time to summon the angel.

The thought left me exhilarated and terrified; my hands shook as I laid the rituals out upon the bed and found the little pouch containing the powder. As Lucrezia had instructed, I put some of the powder into the wine—only a pinch at first, then another, then a third, and finally, a larger amount, for I suddenly could not remember how much I was to use.

The draught was noxious. I downed half of it before deciding that I had probably added too much powder, and set to performing the rituals at once. The whole business took half an hour. At the end, I stood in the center of my invisible circle, waiting for the angel to appear.

Nothing happened. I felt a sudden hot flush, followed by nausea, and staggered to the bed, realizing that my limbs were difficult to move. I lay down beneath a crushing heaviness and closed my eyes; even so, I felt the walls slowly revolving around me.

After a period of misery, the nausea grew urgent; I leaned over the edge of the bed and emptied my stomach onto the worn stone floor. Relief came immediately; with the dizziness gone, I fell back into a delightful languor.

The low, many-times-patched ceiling no longer spun. Instead, it began to shimmer, as if each tiny, golden atom were dancing and twinkling like stars. I watched, delighted, as they began to form shapes: wreaths inside infinite wreaths of bas relief flowers and vines, as if the creamy stucco were blooming tondi sculpted by artists, as if I lay staring up at the inner dome of a great cathedral and not the tired ceiling of an aging inn. The wreaths swelled like clouds, like rising dough, then sank again, only to repeat the process.

Abruptly, the walls fell away: I lay alone on the bed in the center of the inky storm. Overhead, rain fell in sheets, though magically none of it struck me; it pulsed with distant lightning while the racing clouds parted fleetingly to reveal glimpses of a filmy, luminous moon. Images born from the storm coalesced, only to be dissolved again by the wind: the Tower, whole and as yet unshattered; the Fool, one foot lifted in mid-step toward the chasm; the Nine of Swords, every blade dripping blood. Each time lightning kissed the dark, distant Apennines, coins, chalices, swords, and batons glittered in the sky.

The absurdity of the present moment struck me: of my lying there in the storm, of Matteo poisoned and dead, of my mother’s cards, still hidden in the cloak upon the chair, of Duke Galeazzo crying
I am dead!
It was so hideous that I wept, so meaningless that I laughed. So much struggling, so much pain, and all of it for nothing.

At the clutch of grief, I told myself not to weep; Matteo was at peace, with God, his suffering ended. Or was it? If God did not hear my prayers, if God had let Matteo die, then how did I know He would take him to Heaven?

Worse, if the angel had let Matteo die, then how could I trust it?

“Matteo,” I groaned aloud, clutching my head, then laughed to remember that he had been my own brother all along, and I too much of a fool to see it.

The nocturnal scene above me shuddered. I sat up to find that the bare wall had been replaced by smoke; fingers of white mist were streaming up from the threshold where the wall had once met the floor. They rose, swirling against the backdrop of dark sky to form a column slightly broader and taller than I. Faster, faster the mist swirled, until it grew entirely opaque; just as swiftly it stilled, and began to part.

In its place stood the living night: the outline of a grown man, its form blacker than the sky surrounding us, and darkly glittering, like coal. Its features, hair, and dress were obscured by impenetrable shadow, yet I knew it faced me. For long seconds, we remained motionless, watching each other.

“Who are you?” I breathed at last, and remembered enough of Matteo’s instructions to demand: “By what name shall I call you?”

The sentient darkness took a step toward me; as it did, the sky behind it transformed into a yellowed stucco wall with scarred wainscoting. In a wholly human gesture, it lowered itself onto its haunches and leaned, glistening onyx, against the wall.

I stared, transfixed, terrified, exhilarated.

Dea.
The words formed themselves distinctly inside my skull, but they were not my thoughts.
You will know that only after you vow to obey me unto death. Only then will I be able to share with you my secrets.

Thinking myself clever, I countered, “How can I do that, when I cannot even see who or what you are?”

You know me. You’ve always known me. If you cannot see me, it is because I reflect the darkness in your own soul.

“What darkness?” I had spent my entire life trying to be good, to please God and Bona and everyone but myself. It was not my fault that God had failed me.

It gnaws at you. If you do not expel it, it will ultimately devour you.

“What darkness?” I insisted.

The key to it has already come to you in the cards. The key to your past. It must be expunged if you are to move into the present, into the future . . . toward your destiny, as one of the magi.

“But I have done nothing wrong! I am an innocent victim trying to discover who . . .” My words grew thick. “Who killed my brother. Please, help me.”

The angel was suddenly upon his feet; the swirling darkness that was his form dulled as its glittering motion slowed.

The key to your own darkness has already come to you in the cards. When you have mastered it and taken the vow, you will see me. I am but a mirror of your soul.

“Can you not help me now?”

The help you need is not the help you seek. Vow to obey me unto death, and I will reveal all.

I hesitated. Even though my darling Matteo had trusted the angel enough to have left me instructions for contacting it, it had not protected him from a terrible death. And I had no intention of giving up my quest to find his killer.

“I will obey,” I replied cautiously, adding silently
insofar as I am able
. I bowed my head. “Please, come to me, and reveal your name. Reveal how and why my brother died, and I shall trouble you no more.”

My feeble attempt at deception failed.

I am already here. But your darkness shackles my tongue and hides my true form. If you would be a true magus, and know all things, seek me honestly.

A cold gust howled through the room, lifting my hair and chilling me to the core. I lifted an arm to shield my eyes, and watched as the black form began again to swirl and glitter like coal dust. Invisible drops of freezing rain stung my face, my shoulders.

“Tell me what I must do!” I cried, but my words were swallowed by the gale.

The angel’s form grew thinner, sheerer, until I could see the wall behind it; the words that had sounded so clearly in my head now faded to something less than a whisper.

The key has already come to you in the cards. . . . The key to your past is also the key to your future. . . .

The wind roared in my ears; thunder rolled off the mountains. I shut my eyes against the stinging rain, covered my ears with my hands, and howled.

By morning the storm had passed, and I had mostly returned to my senses, save for a lingering appreciation of color and form. I remembered the encounter with the angel vividly, and over the next two days of travel, sat inside the wagon meditating on my mother’s triumph cards—specifically, those of the Fool, the Tower and, especially, the Nine of Swords.

The key to your past . . .

I set the three cards beside me on the cushion, faceup, then fanned the others in my hands and stared at them: trumps, batons, swords, chalices, coins. Words came to mind, words that seemed to spring from an external source.

Batons represent will; swords, thoughts; chalices, feelings; coins, material goods. Trumps represent experiences that all of us must pass through, in this life or another. . . .

I stared back down at the Nine of Swords, and heard:
Cruelty, and self-cruelty. Pain to the point of madness.
I closed my eyes, and saw blood dripping from the blades of the eight lowered swords—and from the one sword pointed heavenward.

If there had been cruelty in my past, I told myself, it had never been self-directed. The duke had killed my mother, and a different monster my brother. Any wound I suffered was their fault, not mine.

Thus deluded, I rolled through the Emilia into Lombardy, and back to the Castle Pavia.

We arrived home in the late afternoon of a fine, sunny winter’s day. I went from the stables to Matteo’s room. I intended to sleep there from now on, with Bona’s permission. I needed privacy to decipher Matteo’s letters, to work with the cards, and to communicate further with the angel.

I bathed and dressed and went to seek the duchess. I waded through a crowd of courtiers and petitioners waiting in the hall to find Bona in Duke Galeazzo’s gilded, mirrored office, looking dwarfed by his enormous carved desk. Bona was quite short, and the effect would have been enhanced had she not replaced his thronelike seat with her own smaller, feminine chair. She was dressed with more care than she had ever been; her black mourning gown had a bodice quilted with thread of gold and studded with seed pearls. Rubies sparkled at her ears and throat, and her veil was held in place with a headband of gold filigree inlaid with tiny diamonds.

Cicco Simonetta, tall and thick as an oak at sixty years, stood beside her as she squinted down at a letter on the desk. Across from her stood a nervous young lad in noble dress.

I pressed to the front of the crowd and bowed low. “With your permission, Your Grace,” I called, ignoring the guards flanking the doorway, each of whom directed a scowl at me for calling to the duchess out of turn.

Bona looked up. She seemed weary, and her brow was lined; her pale, small eyes were limned by purple shadows. But at the sight of me, she broke into a bright smile and waved for me to approach.

“Dea! Dea, my darling, my prayers have been answered! God has brought you safely home to me! How do you fare?” She did not rise from her seat—though before the duke died, she would have rushed to embrace me—but instead held out her jeweled hands and inclined her cheek toward me. “Come, come!”

Dutifully, I kissed the proffered cheek and took her hand; it was cold, even though the room was stiflingly warm from the blaze in the fireplace. She maintained a slight air of formality—great responsibility had changed her—and beyond that, an odd emotional distance.

“You look well,” she said, smiling.

“And you look grand, Your Grace.”

“How was your journey?”

“Uneventful,” I said.

She let go of my hand to cross herself. “Thank God!” She paused. “I am afraid I have little time now for conversation, but perhaps after supper, we shall speak again. As you can see, I have more petitioners than I have minutes in a day. However . . . if there is anything you have need of today, on your return, ask it now, and I will grant it.”

I had not meant to speak of my plans so soon or so publicly, but I could see how enormously busy she was; it might be impossible to get her attention for some time in the future. “Your Grace,” I said, “I do have a petition of my own.”

Bona smiled, waiting.

“I discovered that Matteo had family in Florence. It is my hope that I might return to live there, to be near them. However, I can remain here for as long as Your Grace wishes, of course . . .”

Bona listened, her expression mildly pleasant; if she was offended that I wished to spurn her generosity, she showed no sign. “You had best take this up with Madonna Caterina,” she said.

I looked up. “Caterina?”

Bona let go a sigh. “She is your mistress now. She was so distraught when you left that she came to me weeping and begged me to place you in her service. Her father’s death has not been easy for her, and she said your company would give her great comfort. What else could I do?” She rubbed her eyes, then gazed back down at the letter upon her desk; her tone grew distracted. “I will abide by whatever she says.”

With those words, I was dismissed from Her Grace’s care and presence.

Chapter Ten

Caterina was at the hunt, taking advantage of the warmer weather. I went to the stables and watched the riders return, their forms dark against the coral glow at the horizon. Caterina rode at the head astride a chestnut mare, her stockinged calves bared, one hand on the reins, the other dangling a dead hare by the scruff of the neck to tease the pair of eager hounds in the basket fastened to her saddle. Her hair had been woven into a single plait, to keep it out of her eyes, but her headdress had come off during the hard ride, leaving a disheveled gold halo about her head. Her face was flushed from exercise and sun; the young master of the hunt rode beside her, and laughed with her at the hounds’ desperation.

There was something newly womanish in her appearance and manner; she had passed her fourteenth birthday in my absence and, I suspected, a feminine milestone. Over the past year, her cheeks had thinned, losing their girlish plumpness; her breasts had grown full, her waist narrow. Now, for the first time, I watched her flirt with a man. She made a saucy comment to the master, and tossed her head, laughing, as she gazed sideways at him.

I watched unobserved until Caterina finally glanced in my direction. She urged her tired mare into a trot, deserting the others, and came to a halt a few arms’ lengths away. She ignored the help proffered by a stablehand, gathered up her skirts and neatly swung down from her mount, then tossed the reins to the groom.

She strode up to me, and, to my utter astonishment, embraced me so urgently that it pushed the breath from me; her heart was hammering beneath her bodice.

Just as suddenly, she pushed me away, and struck me so hard across the cheek that it sent me staggering; I bit my tongue, and spat blood upon the damp earth.

When I looked up, her blue eyes were narrowed and gleaming with tears.

“You will never leave me again!” Her voice was hoarse, her tone bitter. “Never again, do you hear?!”

Imperious, furious, she turned and left me standing there, with my hand to my jaw.

I did not dare broach the subject of Florence with Caterina for some weeks. By then I had learned that Bona, worried about uprisings and eager to gain the protection of the pope’s army, had agreed with Pope Sixtus IV that the best strategy would be to marry Caterina off quickly to her betrothed: Girolamo Riario, the pope’s nephew (such was the euphemism for Sixtus’s son) and captain general of the Papal Army.

In February, Pope Sixtus sent Cardinal Mellini to Milan to arrange a proxy wedding. When spring arrived, Caterina was to travel to Rome to meet her new husband and take up permanent residence with him there.

And I was to go with her, as her first lady-in-waiting.

It was an honor, Bona chided me, when I finally went to her, weeping, begging to be permitted to go to Florence, or at the very least, to remain with Her Grace—anything but be forced to go to Rome with the duke’s spoiled daughter.

My efforts were in vain. Bona took offense that I was not honored and pleased by my new role, and reminded me that Caterina’s husband, Girolamo, was the second most powerful man in Rome after the pope, and that my new role as her chief lady-in-waiting afforded me much greater status. I was an ingrate, Bona said; it was the harshest word she had ever spoken to me.

Caterina reminded me at least daily, sometimes hourly, that I was to remain by her side, and to keep the triumph cards nearby so that she could consult them whenever she wished. I never slept again in Matteo’s chamber, but in Caterina’s bed. She was slow to forget her bitterness over my departure, with the result that I found myself in the odd position of being both favored—with sumptuous clothes, jewelry and perfumes, and the choicest food—and constantly chastised for all manner of imaginary misdeeds.

After one such scolding—when I was slapped at the dining table by Caterina, who claimed that the goblet she knocked over herself was somehow my fault—I reached my limit and strode away from the table, brazenly refusing to ask my lady’s permission. I knew I would be punished, but did not care. I half ran to Matteo’s chamber, and bolted the door behind me.

“Tell me,” I whispered passionately to the angel. “Must I go to Rome? Can I not go to Florence?” I bowed my head, awaiting an answer. But in my heart, my head, there came only silence.

At last I lifted my face as, for the first time, reason dawned. Matteo had died returning from Rome. He had been traveling with papal legates, had he not? And the mysterious rider who had delivered him had also spoken with a Roman accent.

His murderer was in Rome. Fate—and perhaps the angel—had not failed me after all.

“Very well,” I whispered. “I will go to Rome. I will obey you. Now reveal yourself to me.”

A long silence followed; the angel was not fooled. But I was resigned to my fate. I slowly returned, back through the courtyard and up the stairs to face my punishment.

A fortnight later, Caterina and a small entourage traveled to the castle of Porta Giovia in Milan, still draped in black in honor of the late duke. We went to meet Cardinal Mellini, who had arrived earlier from Rome. There, in a solemn, hushed ceremony, Caterina was wed by proxy to her betrothed, Girolamo Riario, who was far too preoccupied to attend the ceremony. Because of the official state of mourning, no celebrations followed.

Now a contessa, Caterina was eager to leave the memory of her father’s assassination behind in order to head to Rome. But Girolamo was adamant; a spell of abnormally hot weather had brought an outbreak of deadly fever to the Holy City. Worse, there had been unrest among feuding noble families, which had led to battles just outside the city walls. The situation had grown so grave that Girolamo had narrowly escaped assassination.
I cannot in good conscience expose my young bride to such dangers,
he wrote.

Caterina and patience, however, remained strangers. At least once a day, she disturbed the overburdened Bona to make her case for an immediate departure for Rome. Worn down, Bona at last wrote Girolamo asking for permission to send him his eager bride. It was all the duchess-regent could do to make Caterina wait long enough to receive a reply.

Girolamo was a determined man:
Under no circumstances can I permit her to come to Rome at this dangerous time,
he wrote.
But if she will not be placated, let her start her journey southward and go to Imola. I will notify the townspeople that she is coming, and make certain that she is feted and well cared for. But she must stay there until I send for her.

Imola—a little town in the Romagna, south of Milan and north of Rome—had long been owned by the Sforza; upon Caterina’s engagement, it had been promised as her dowry to Girolamo, who eagerly accepted the terms. Born of peasant stock, Girolamo had been a customs clerk in a fishing village until his “uncle’s” elevation thrust him into a more glorious role, and Imola gave him the opportunity to finally acquire the title of count. All of Imola would turn out to properly welcome Caterina, their contessa, and would see that she was well cared for until her husband summoned her to Rome.

Caterina accepted the invitation with great excitement, and was elated when Girolamo insisted on sending an escort of more than a hundred men, including the bishop of Cesena and the governor of Imola, as well as trumpeters, guards, and assorted dignitaries from Caterina’s new kingdom. On a bright morning in late April, I took my place beside her in a luxuriously appointed carriage, and left the life I had known at the court of Milan behind forever.