The Scarlet Contessa (6 page)

I pushed it from the deck toward him. Cicco, as always carefully appraising the others without revealing his own feelings, accepted a card without comment.

“Would it please Your Grace for the ladies each to have one, as well?” Lorenzo asked with consummate politeness.

Galeazzo gave a loud sniff of impatience, but nodded to me. I shifted in my chair toward Bona, but the duchess gently shook her head.

“The cards are exquisite,” she said sweetly, “and I shall treasure them always, just as I shall treasure my friendship with the magnificent Lorenzo. But I am content to wait upon God to reveal the future in His own good time.”

Galeazzo scowled at her and clicked his tongue. “Come now, don’t spoil our fun!” His temper was rising, and he would have lashed out at his wife had Caterina not interrupted.

“One for me then! One for me!”

Lorenzo said cheerfully, “It seems, Your Grace, that the young lady does not wish to be kept waiting.”

The duke sighed, yielding, and gestured for me to give his impatient daughter a card. I set it down and pushed it in Caterina’s direction. Rather than wait for the others, she reached out and turned her card over immediately. As she stared down at it, her expression soured. “But it is only the Fool! I want another!”

Lorenzo looked to me before saying, very softly, “It can be a good card, Madonna Caterina. You might not want to dismiss it.”

I studied it. The Fool’s eyes were fearless and innocent, his posture unguarded. He was on the verge of a long and tumultuous experience, ignorant as a child of the perils awaiting him. He might well decide to turn and head for the serene mountains behind him, in which case, he could reach the highest pinnacle—or he could just as well take a single step forward and fall into the dark, yawning chasm.

“A long journey awaits you,” I said. Caterina leaned past Bona, the better to see and hear me. Expression avid, the girl propped an elbow on the table and rested her chin upon her hand; the long golden curls framing her face spilled forward and caught the light. “The most important journey of your life,” I continued. “Be cautious and reflective, lest you fall into danger.”

She drew back, mollified. Aware that Lorenzo’s eyes were on me, I did not wait for his prompting, but drew one last card, for myself, and set it aside.

Galeazzo was intrigued and once again smiling. “Let us go in ascending order now.
Her
card first”—he indicated me—“and then yours, Lorenzo, and Cicco’s, and last of all, mine.”

I turned over my card, and fell into the image, scarcely hearing Bona’s soft, shocked inhalation.

I saw a woman dressed in flowing golden robes and cape and seated upon a throne. She wore a nun’s white wimple, and upon her head, unmistakably, rested the triple crown of the papal tiara; in one hand, she held a holy book, in the other, a long staff atop which rested a large gold cross.

She was a female pope, a papess—a scandalous image, yet I was not in the least appalled. I trusted her, with the same unreasoning certainty I trusted Lorenzo. I stared at the landscape around her, seeking clues as to where I might find her; a green, carefully tended orchard lay in the distance behind her.

I must have stared for some time, but my reverie was interrupted by a sharp pain in my shin as Caterina kicked me beneath the table.

“She is . . .” I began, and searched desperately for a word that would not offend Bona;
papess
was out of the question, as was
priestess
. Finally I said, “The Abbess. She holds much wise spiritual advice.”

Lorenzo’s card was the male version of mine—a white-haired, bearded man wearing the gold papal crown, with a gold cross atop his staff. But the card had been accidentally turned upside down, and at the sight of it, I felt a thrill of fear.

Lorenzo’s homely face grew solemn as he gazed upon it. “The pope, ill-dignified,” he said.

I stared back at it, too, and saw a thousand fleeting things, too numerous to give voice to: an old, vengeful man weeping over a dead son, the swirl of frankincense, the glint of a blade, a spray of blood, an oddly familiar voice sighing,
Lorenzo
. . . My fear must have been visible, for when I looked up again, the women were wide-eyed and silent, and Galeazzo, though frowning, was chastened.

I struggled to put all that I had seen into words. “There is vengeance here,” I said, “and sorrow, and great treachery. You must take care, or there will be blood.”

Bona crossed herself; the duke and Lorenzo shared a troubled, knowing glance. “I know how to deal with the matter now,” Lorenzo said, his tone firmly optimistic; I felt his words were not so much true as intended to comfort Duke Galeazzo. “I will take care. Thank you, Madonna Dea.”

“All this seriousness!” Galeazzo scolded. “Here now, this was meant as lighthearted entertainment.” He gazed sternly at me. “Read Cicco’s card now, and see to it that it doesn’t spoil our luncheon!” He nudged Lorenzo playfully as he addressed me. “Speak to us now of song and sport and love!”

I murmured an apology and turned over Cicco’s card. Ten glittering golden coins rested against a white backdrop decorated with flowers; I sighed with relief. “You will come into a good sum of money,” I told him.

Cicco gave the slightest of smiles and nodded; the duke grinned, pleased.

“That’s because I pay him too well!” Galeazzo quipped. “Now, let’s see if I am luckier than my secretary!”

I turned over the duke’s card. Like Lorenzo’s, it was upside down. Upon a throne, a crowned king sat in full gilded armor. In his left hand was a gilded shield, in his right, a long sword with a wicked sharp point. His hair appeared golden on the card, but my internal eye recognized a dark-haired man, a courtier wild with outrage, who had waved his sword at Lorenzo de’ Medici.

I felt a welling of dark satisfaction. “Here is justice at last,” I said.

The duke frowned. “Regarding which matter?”

I shook off the pull of the card and kept my wits. I wanted desperately to see what action this king of swords would take, and whether that action would succeed; I hoped that vengeance was coming at last to His Grace, but feared warning him. I did not want him to be able to protect himself.

And so I pretended to study the card further, then said, in as casual a tone as I could muster, “There is business that soon will be concluded, though not to His Grace’s favor, unless he take exceptional care.”

“Which business?” he persisted. The appearance of another negative symbol had awakened his ire; if I answered in a manner that displeased him, we would all pay.

I replied smoothly, “Political. I will speak no more of it, for I believe it concerns a secret matter. I have confidence that, should his Grace ponder the card, he will come to a clever solution to avoid the difficulty.”

He nodded, feigning understanding, and studied the card thoughtfully until Caterina, her blue eyes narrowed with curiosity, said to me, “So it’s true . . . your mother
was
a witch!”

I looked up sharply. Beside me, Bona turned to Caterina and hissed: “Mind your tongue!”

I had spent the past nine years of my life with Bona and had never heard her criticize Caterina, much less scold her in anger. Nor had the duke, who leaned across the table to give his wife a look that threatened imminent physical violence.

“Caterina jests,” Galeazzo said witheringly. And to prove it, he laughed, but when by accident I caught his eye, I saw the fear in it.

An hour before dusk I made my way down to Matteo’s chamber, ostensibly to rekindle the fire. In truth, I wanted to be alone so that I could cry. Since the appearance of the Hanged Man, I had been increasingly worried about Matteo. Bona had said that he would come today, but Bona was wrong; the triumph card had merely confirmed my feeling that something terrible had happened.

My mood had not been helped by Bona’s reaction to the deck—or, more to the point, her reaction to
my
reaction. After bidding Lorenzo a warm farewell, the duchess had returned to her chambers in uncharacteristic silence, clutching the red velvet box containing the cards. Upon arriving in her quarters, Bona had given it to one of the chambermaids, with instructions to “hide it well, where I will not soon set eyes upon it again.” Caterina, too, was unusually quiet, though her eyes were adance with amusement at the duchess’s and my discomfort.

I confess, I paid close attention when the chambermaid moved toward a trunk set in a corner near the duchess’s bed, opened it, and slipped the box beneath a fur throw.

While Bona retreated to her wardrobe to change into less restrictive attire, I moved to the front of the chamber to gaze anxiously out the window overlooking the duke’s hunting park. Caterina followed, and when I was certain the duchess was thoroughly distracted, I asked the girl, “Madonna, why did you say that? About my mother being a witch?”

“You should have seen your eyes,” Caterina hissed, widening her own until the whites showed ghoulishly. “There were times, I swear, when you had no idea where you were . . . you were carried off by visions!”

Impatient, I pressed: “What has this to do with my
mother,
Madonna? You speak as though you’ve heard rumors.”

“I have,” she said coyly.

“From whom?”

“From Nonna Beatrice,” she replied. Nonna had been Bona’s girlhood nurse and had accompanied the duchess from Savoy when the latter had married Galeazzo; Nonna had died the previous year. “She said your mother was a witch and saw the future.”

I controlled the urge to shake the duke’s favorite daughter by her shoulders. “What else did she say about her? What else?”

Caterina shrugged; her shell pink lips curved upward in delight at my agitation. “Just that.”

Nothing I said could force her to say more. Shortly afterward the duchess joined us, with the curt remark: “No good ever came of fortune-telling.”

With that, Bona dismissed the subject completely and ignored all of Caterina’s attempts to revive it. I spent the rest of the day marking the movement of the sun and struggling to suppress my growing dread. When dusk came, Bona dismissed me. While she was undressing and the chambermaids distracted, I did an unthinkable, inexplicable thing: I went to the trunk, slipped my hand beneath the fur throw, and made off with the diamond-littered velvet box. I wrapped my shawl tightly around me, tucking the hand that held the box beneath it, around my waist, and headed down to the first-floor loggia, bound for Matteo’s apartment.

Lorenzo was there, leaving one of the guest quarters with his two gentlemen; the three of them wore cloaks and caps and riding gloves, and carried saddlebags. My hand was on the door when Lorenzo caught sight of me and waved.

“Madonna,” he called, and handed his saddlebag to one of the men, then gestured to both of them to go on to the stables ahead of him. It was an odd hour, I thought, to be setting out for distant Florence.

“A word with you,” he said as he approached. But the loggia was crowded with servants headed wearily back to their quarters; a pair of Cicco’s apprentice clerks brushed past us, laughing and joking. Lorenzo looked pointedly at the door handle to Matteo’s room. “Might it be a private word, Madonna Dea?”

I dropped my gaze. He was a man in his late twenties—homely, to be sure, but with an accomplished swordsman’s shoulders—and I a young woman. His request was faintly inappropriate, but his manner held no whiff of impropriety. He was also unquestionably my better, so I unlocked the door and gestured for His Magnificence to enter. As I did so, I could not help but reveal the velvet box in my hand; he marked it without comment, and I offered no explanation.

Inside, the fire was reduced to glowing embers, but the hearthstones still gave off a good deal of warmth. I stood near the door, the box still in my hand.

Lorenzo removed neither cloak nor glove; his expression was as darkly serious as I had ever seen it. “Forgive my brazen request, Madonna,” he began. “I intend nothing improper. But I did not wish to be overheard.” He paused. “As I said, I know your husband well. It was my understanding that he was to have arrived home yesterday.”

“Yes,” I said, embarrassed that my voice betrayed all my repressed tears. I expected him to reassure me then, to say something comforting, but Lorenzo was, apparently, no liar. Or perhaps, like me, he had recognized the danger in the Hanged Man.

“I am sorry for that,” he said softly, “and for your worry. I had hoped for a word with him in private. But I can tarry no longer, as my wife and children will never forgive me if I’m not home by Christmas.” He studied me for a long moment. “I can trust you to deliver a message for his ears alone, can’t I, Madonna?”

“Of course,” I answered, and he smiled faintly at my indignant tone.

“If Matteo returns before tomorrow evening, would you tell him that I have taken the route to the north, and will await him at the lodge? He knows which one.”

I lifted my brows in surprise at the direction; Florence lay well to the south of Pavia and Milan. “I will be sure to tell him, Your Magnificence.”

“Lorenzo,” he admonished me cheerfully, then grew serious again; his gaze strayed to the velvet box in my hand. “God gave you a gift, Madonna Dea, one best practiced with discretion, and shown to few. I am glad to see your interest in it. It is not my place to give such a new acquaintance advice, but—”

“I should like to hear it,” I interrupted bluntly.

“The duchess and others mean well, but . . . Do not let them keep you from it. Such a gift was meant to be used. Remember the parable of the servant and the talents.”

“I will,” I said.

“Good. Then God keep you, Madonna Dea, until we meet again.”

“And you,” I responded.

As I watched him slip out the door, I felt a sudden conviction that our next encounter would come too soon.

Chapter Four

I spent that evening staring at the gilded illustrations on the cards. At times, the images evoked something very like recognition in me, so much so that for long moments, I was able to forget my worry. When exhaustion overwhelmed me, I stacked the cards neatly and returned them to the box, which I hid in the trunk at the foot of the bed.

I slept poorly that night, pulled from sleep again and again by the clatter of frozen rain pelting Bona’s window. By dawn, the storm had passed, leaving the glass coated with a wavy layer of ice; even though the window stayed closed and shuttered, the groaning of the trees was audible, and the occasional ear-splitting crack of a breaking limb made me start. By midday, all clouds had cleared, and the sun gained strength. The ice on Bona’s window began to melt, revealing the hunting park beyond, glazed and glittering like a jewel.

On the sixth day before Christmas, all at Castle Pavia were filled with festive cheer as preparations for the procession to Milan intensified; even Bona had forgotten her distress over the incident with the young woman and my reaction to the triumph cards. The season inclined Bona to be even more generous than usual. She feted her servants and courtiers in the great dining room, setting out the Milanese sweet bread called
panneton,
cheese, and good wine. I had no taste for any of it. When the duchess kindly released me in the early afternoon to do as I wished, I went to light the fire in Matteo’s quarters, then climbed the southwest tower steps and stood staring out toward Rome for hours.

They came at dusk, galloping across the Lombard plain: a solitary horse and rider, black against the graying sweep of snow and ice and sky. I let go a cry of infinite relief; my breath clouded the glass, and I wiped it away, compelled and squinting as I struggled to recognize the rider.

At last he reached the moat, reined in his horse, and shouted for the castellan to lower the drawbridge. Only then did I see the body slung over the saddle; I gasped and pressed my fingertips to the freezing glass.

Somehow I calmed myself, gathered my skirts, and hurried down the stairs. I ran outside, across the cold, endless courtyard to the main gate just as the horse’s hooves struck a last, hollow thud against the wooden bridge and passed, ringing, onto the cobblestones inside the gate.

I ran to Matteo, his belly pressed against the saddle, his long legs hanging down one flank of the lathered steed, his head and torso down the other, his arms horribly limp and dangling. He would have slipped easily to the ground had the rider not held him firmly in place.

I cried out, thinking he was dead, but when the rider dismounted and helped him slide into my arms, he groaned.

I do not remember the rider carrying him to his bed or shouting for the doctor. Others ran to help, but I do not remember them at all. Of the breathless moments before the doctor came, I recall fragments: Matteo’s hazel eyes, the whites now red, sparkling, utterly lost; Matteo’s brow and cheeks, an ugly mottled violet; his skin slick and glistening; Matteo’s limbs, spasming as cramps seized his gut. I held his head as he retched yellow-green vomit streaked with bright blood. I wiped his sunken face with a cold cloth that appeared magically in my hand and called his name, but he did not know me.

If I had to lose him, if he had to die, why did he not die as the Hanged Man, limp, peaceful, resigned? Why did he have to suffer horribly?
God is merciful,
Bona said,
and just,
but there was no mercy, no justice in Matteo’s dying, only the most savage cruelty.

Plague,
someone whispered, and crossed himself, but it was not plague. Bona’s physician appeared with leeches and a bitter draught, but Matteo vomited up what little he was able to swallow, and his limbs convulsed so violently at times that he crushed many of the leeches and the doctor removed the rest for fear of losing them.

Fever,
the doctor said, but it was like no fever I had ever seen. Matteo’s master Cicco came, his huge bulk huddled, his tiny eyes wide, his rounded features slack with fright; Matteo did not know him, either, and he did not stay long. Bona came and said that I must rest—a ridiculous suggestion, I thought, for I had no idea then that it was nearly dawn—and that she would sit with Matteo. I sent her away. I sent the doctor away. I sent the hovering rider away, until my husband and I were alone.

As the morning light filtered through the open shutters, Matteo’s thrashing eased at last, and I closed them, hoping he might sleep. Amazingly, the hearth was still crackling; someone must have stoked it. As I turned to where my husband lay, his long, naked torso and limbs motionless against the dark soaked sheets, I heard a rasping croak.

“Lorenzo.”

I moved swiftly to the chair by the bedside and put my cool hand to his cheek. His eyes were frighteningly dull; the purple flush had faded from his cheeks, now ashen.

“Lorenzo has gone back to Florence,” I said. There was no point in mentioning Lorenzo’s diversion to the north in hopes of a secret rendezvous. His Magnificence was already well on his way home. “You must not worry about him now.”

His eyelids fluttered. “Dea,” he gasped. His voice was so hoarse as to be unrecognizable; his throat must have been terribly sore.

I pressed my knuckles to my lips. “Oh, Matteo. Matteo, my poor darling . . .”

“I am dying,” he whispered, and I felt as though I would melt—my blood, my bones, my flesh—and only the blinding pain in my throat and chest would remain.

“I won’t let you,” I sobbed, but he gestured desperately, impatiently with his right hand. He was so weak that I had to fall silent to hear him.

“My quill,” he said.

I ran to his desk, retrieved the quill, and lifted the inkpot from its place, my hands shaking, clumsy. I fetched a piece of parchment along with his little lap desk, and propped him up against the pillows.

Once situated, he tried to dip the nib into the inkpot I held for him, but tremors plagued him; he dropped the quill. He squeezed his eyes shut and let go a moan of frustration, then gathered himself and looked back at me. His lips were dove gray and trembling.

“Swear,” he whispered.

“Anything,” I said. “Anything for you.”

It pained him to speak; sweat dripped from his forehead as he formed the words. “On your life,” he gasped. “Take me to San Marco. And my papers . . . Read them in secret. Tell Lorenzo:
Romulus and the Wolf mean to destroy you.
”

He fell abruptly silent.

“I swear,” I said.

As I spoke, his body stiffened, and he let go a terrible strangled sound and lost control of his bowels. For several seconds, he lay thus—stiff and trembling—and then his arms and legs began to thrash. I cried his name and tried to hold him down, lest he harm himself, but I was not strong enough.

In the end, he fell still; his eyes closed, and his breathing grew harsh. Half an hour later, it stopped, and his eyes slowly opened; I looked in them and knew that he was dead.

I stripped the soiled sheets and set them outside, and used the basin of water someone had left behind to wash my husband. When he was clean, I dressed him in his finest tunic and leggings, then lay down beside him and held him until someone knocked upon the door.

I did not answer, but I had forgotten to throw the bolt and Bona entered. She tried to coax me away; I would not hear, would not leave Matteo. She left, and when she came again, she brought others, including Cicco, his foolish hair disheveled from sleep. The lumbering bear of a man, normally stoic, burst out weeping at the sight of Matteo, his star pupil. He tried gently to pull me from my husband, but again, I would not go; he had to recruit a second man. I clawed and kicked, to no avail; they caught my arms and tore me from my beloved.

I screamed, I thrashed; the sobbing Cicco held me lest I hurt myself. When I finally grew tired and had to sit, Bona convinced me to take a sip of strangely bitter wine. She had brought her priest, Father Piero, and after I had fallen into a strange state between sleep and waking, Father Piero told me, “You must accept this. We are human and frail, and do not understand as yet, but it is God’s will.”

“God is a murderer,” I said listlessly, “and a liar. He bids us pray, yet will not hear us. He sets evil men over us, and takes no pity on their victims.”

“Dea,”
Bona chided, aghast. “God have mercy on you!” She crossed herself, covered her eyes with her hands, and wept.

I turned calmly to her. “When did He hear us? When did He ever hear us?”

She never answered. To my astonishment, a scarlet-robed cardinal entered and produced a vial of holy oil, dipped his finger into it, and touched my darling’s eyes, ears, nose, lips hands, feet, and loins, praying:
Per istam sanctam unctionem et suam piissimam misericordiam, indulgeat tibi Dominus . . .

Through this holy unction and His own most tender mercy may God forgive whatever sins you have committed . . .

Matteo needed no forgiveness, I decided. It was God who needed to apologize to my husband.

When Bona’s draught had left me sufficiently compliant, Francesca and the chambermaids took me away to the duchess’s room and dressed me in black skirts that were too long, and a veil that filmed the world darkly; I did not care. I did not want to see.

Miserable, pointless hours passed, after which I was taken to the ducal chapel to discover Matteo in front of the altar, lying in a wooden box, his arms crossed, a crucifix over his heart. The votive candles I had lit for his safety still burned upon the altar. I threw them across the room, ignoring the startled gasps of onlookers and the scalding wax that spilled down my arm.

I did not sleep at all that first night.

The next day, I sat beside Matteo in the chapel, Bona at my side, while most of the courtiers filed past his body. In the midst of familiar faces, one unknown appeared, with beard and hair and eyes black and shining as jet. I did not know him, yet felt I had laid eyes upon him before. He bore a saddlebag slung over his shoulder, and when he approached, he went down upon one knee and presented the saddlebag as if it were a gift.

I realized then that he was the rider, the man who had broken away from the caravan of papal legates my husband was leading from Rome to Milan, in order to bring Matteo swiftly home. He had remained in Matteo’s room, awaiting the outcome, until I had thrown him out.

“This was your husband’s, Madonna,” he said. His voice was deep and soft, his gaze averted; if he felt any emotion, it was carefully contained. “He asked me to be certain you received it.” He looked to be Matteo’s age and would have been pretty enough to capture the duke’s attention—Galeazzo occasionally indulged in affairs with his male staff—had it not been for his great sharp nose.

I thanked him. The bag was heavier than I expected, and when he handed it to me, it slipped from my grasp to the ground. I could not bring myself to look inside, not there, with others watching. The man bowed and retreated, and I thought no more about him.

Duke Galeazzo was last to appear. He stared with distaste at my husband’s corpse and said flatly, “A pity. He was one of my most talented scribes. Poison, was it?”

At those last words, I gasped. The red-eyed Cicco was with the duke and drew him away with a word, but I rose, and called after him to explain himself. What poison? Had the doctor said this? Why had no one mentioned this to me?

I tried to push through the crowd and find the black-haired man who had given me Matteo’s saddlebag. He had traveled with Matteo; surely he would know if my husband had been poisoned.

But the man was nowhere to be found, and Francesca and Bona pleaded with me to sit back down. His Grace was mistaken, they insisted. He was confusing Matteo with another man, another matter, but I did not believe them, and broke down sobbing.

After a time, there were priests and Roman legates, public prayers and psalms, but there was no burial. For the first time in anyone’s memory, the ground was coated with a layer of solid ice; we could not lay him in the earth until it thawed.

Matteo’s corpse was taken away—somewhere outside, I suspected, sheltered from animals but not the freezing cold; they were wise not to tell me where. Bona led me to a nauseating display of food in the common dining chamber near the chapel. I could not bear the sight of it, so her ladies returned me to Bona’s chamber, where I drank more of the wine laced with the bitter tang of poppies. For hours I stared into the glittering fire.

Matteo had been murdered. Romulus and the Wolf had killed him in order to silence him, and they would kill Lorenzo next. And I was stripped of reason and will and could do nothing to stop it. Whom should I tell? Whom should I trust?

When night fell, Francesca helped me undress and put on my nightgown. She offered me more bitter wine, but I refused and was taken to my little cot. When Bona arrived, she paused before climbing into her own bed to pray; I lay listening to her whispers and began to tremble with silent rage. I wanted to strike her, to tear the rosary from her fingers, to scream that she had taught me only lies: God was neither loving nor just, and I hated Him.

I held my tongue and waited, anguished, until Bona fell asleep, until Francesca snored. By the light of the hearth, I rose and found my shawl and slippers, then slipped out into the loggia.

I pattered downstairs, gasping at the freezing air when I hit the open hallway. I staggered in the blackness, twice almost slipping on the ice, and was shivering uncontrollably by the time I got to Matteo’s room. It was cold and dark and drafty; the fire had gone out and the flue was still open, but I did not bother to light it, as I did not care whether I caught cold or froze to death. I would have been pleased to die.

I am unsure why I went to my husband’s chamber. I believe I meant to scream myself hoarse, though even with the windows shuttered, I would have been overheard. I only know that when I arrived and drew the bolt behind me, I spied Matteo’s quill upon the carpet.

It must have been tangled in the bedding and fallen when I removed the sheets to clean him. I dropped to my knees before it and grief rushed out of me in a torrent. The sobs wracked me so that I sank down upon the carpet, the quill clutched to my chest.