Duchessina - A Novel of Catherine de' Medici (23 page)

F
OR DAYS AFTER
the tuneless singing incident, I worried about Akasma. I remembered the hungry, lascivious look on Alessandro's face as he watched her, and I should have known what was coming. She couldn't keep singing off-key forever. One day she confessed to me that he had forced himself upon her, trapping her when she was washing my linens.

“I'm safe only when I'm here with you,” she told me, and for the first time I saw tears glittering in her eyes. “Now he comes to me at night in the servants' quarters and doesn't care who sees him or knows what he's about. And his cousin, Lorenzino—I'm afraid of him, too.”

“Why didn't you tell me this before?” I demanded. “You must stay with me from now on.”

That very day we arranged to have her few belongings brought to my apartment. She would sleep on a pallet beside my bed.

“Now you'll be safe,” I assured her. “And I've learned that Alessandro has decided to move to the Palazzo dei Signoria. He says it's better fortified in the event of an uprising.”

This was good news, but until he was gone, I hadn't worked out how she could avoid encountering Alessandro as she went about her duties. He regularly rampaged through the household, ordering slaves to be whipped when they didn't obey his orders quickly enough, striking fear in the hearts of everyone who lived there. Lorenzino, too, skulked around like a cheetah about to pounce.

“Within a few months we'll be on our way to France,” I promised my slave, “and you'll no longer need to worry about those two.”

I tried to reassure her and myself, but we both knew that, although she served me, she belonged to Alessandro. I decided to ask him to give her to me as a wedding gift. If he refused, I would offer to buy her. Surely he had no reason to object. I needed her wit and wisdom, for she had a way of seeing the world with a clarity that I hadn't yet acquired. And I needed her friendship.

But everything depended on Alessandro.

F
OR WEEKS,
every communication that arrived from Pope Clement trumpeted that this wedding, this union of two great families of Europe, was to be the grandest celebration of the century. It would take place in October in Marseilles. I must be ready to leave Florence on the first of September—less than three months away. My uneasiness, mild at first, began to increase.

I visited Le Murate again to tell my friends that their parents had all agreed to the journey. Their excitement and enthusiasm helped to ease my mind.

But I still had not spoken to Alessandro about Akasma. I was afraid that if he knew how much I wanted her, he would find a way to use that to bargain. I was waiting for the right moment, but one day when I saw him alone in the garden, I decided that the “right” moment might never come. I made up my mind to approach him.

“I want to take Akasma with me to France,” I said simply. “Will you give her to me as a wedding gift?”

He studied my face, probably trying to determine how badly I wanted her. I kept my face as blank as I could, revealing nothing.

“Perhaps,” he said. “I'll think about it.”

“
Grazie,
” I said, and walked away.
The devil take you if you decide against it, Alessandro!

A
T THE BEGINNING
of the summer our household moved to Poggio a Caiano, where the weather was cooler and occasional showers freshened the vineyards and olive groves. Seamstresses and embroiderers and furriers and jewelers set up workshops there and continued to enlarge my trousseau. I was occupied from sunrise to sunset with fittings and countless details. Sleeves longer or shorter? Blue ribbons or white?
Will this never end?
I wondered wearily.

Because I was small and I'd heard that my bridegroom and his father and brothers were all quite tall, I ordered special footwear from Venice, chopines with thick platform soles that added several inches to my height. Chopines made walking difficult, but I practiced every day so that I wouldn't trip or turn my ankle. I learned to perform deep curtsies without toppling over. But I realized that trouble would come if I tried to dance in them.

“I have an idea,” Akasma said after she'd watched me totter around. “Keep the sole high in back, beneath the heel, and have it cut down low in front, under your toes. Then you'll still be taller, but you'll walk more easily. Maybe you can dance, too.”

I summoned a local cobbler immediately and explained Akasma's idea. He was skeptical, but two days later he returned with a pair of shoes that were high in back, low in front. I tried them on and began walking in them. Soon I was dancing without wobbling.

“Perfect!” I cried. “Now make me a dozen pairs!”

We entertained visitors from the city—Niccolà and Giulietta and Tomassa and their families came for a week. The widow, Maria Salviati, visiting from Rome, brought her sister, Francesca, and Francesca's new husband, Ottavio de' Medici, for an extended stay. At dinner we discussed arrangements for the journey to France. Betta clucked and hovered, overseeing the packing with help from Akasma. The days passed too quickly. There was still too much to do. I was tired. My temper was short, and my uneasiness increased.

Whenever we could manage to escape, Akasma and I ran down to the riverbank, where we lolled in the tall grass and talked. Here I finally gathered my courage and whispered my greatest fears to her: I had no idea what to expect on my wedding night. There had been no woman in the family to instruct me in these mysteries. I might have expected Maria Salviati, or even the elderly Lucrezia, to offer some enlightenment, but they had not.

Nor had Betta, who'd explained to me what was happening when my body changed from a girl's to a woman's. “Now you're ready to beget children,” Betta had told me, “the joy and the duty of every woman.” But when I had asked how the begetting came about, she brushed aside my question. “Time enough for you to learn about that business when you're married. Don't worry—your husband will teach you whatever you need to know. As mine did me.”

Now I turned to Akasma. Not yet sixteen, she seemed worldly and knowing about many things that I had no knowledge of. And, I knew, she had been initiated into the mysteries by Alessandro.

Akasma laughed at my questions. “How is it possible that you don't know even the simplest things? Have you never seen animals perform the act? It's not so different for humans.”

I remembered a stallion I had once seen with a mare when I was out riding, and the crude remarks Alessandro had made. I had looked away then, not really understanding. Now I understood, and my stomach turned. “And that's how it will be for me?” I asked, my voice quivering.

“If you're fortunate, this French boy you're marrying will have had lots of experience before you turn up in his bed, and he will be kind to you. But whether he's kind or crude, there's not much you can do about it.”

She went on to describe to me in plain language what was going to happen on my wedding night. When I shuddered, she offered this advice: “Remove your mind from the scene and think of something pleasant. Remember what it was like when we were here today—sweet-smelling flowers, warm sunshine, laughter. It will help you.”

I thanked her for her advice and promised to follow it.

Akasma plucked a reed from the riverbank and chewed the stem thoughtfully. “Have you spoken to Alessandro? Will he allow me to go with you to France?”

“I asked him. He said he would let me know. I'm afraid to press him, because then he's sure to refuse.”

Akasma sighed. “This is as good a time as any to tell you: Alessandro came after me again. When I tried to get away, he threatened to have me whipped if I didn't submit. ‘I would rather be whipped,' I told him. I struggled, but the harder I fought, the more he laughed. In the end he overpowered me.”

“The beast!” I cried. “Surely he must be punished for this!”

Akasma spat out the stem. “Punished by whom, Duchessina? He's the Duke of Florence and I'm a slave—I'm the one who will be punished, not Alessandro. That's the way of the world, and I must make the best of it.”

I thought of Suor Immacolata, the nun at Santa Lucia who'd spoken of my father:
Lorenzo ruined me, and left me to hear his child.
Is that what had happened to Akasma? I studied her face. “Are you with child?” I asked, fearing the answer.

Akasma looked away. “Two months gone.”

“Does Alessandro know?”

She shook her head.

“Then we must make sure he doesn't find out. You'll travel with me to France and bear your child there. All will be well.”

All will be well.
I'd believed that in the past, but it hadn't turned out that way. If Alessandro found out about the child, he would insist that it belonged to him—especially if it were a boy. I dared not press him; that practically guaranteed his refusal.

B
Y THE END OF
A
UGUST
everything was ready. The time had come to leave Florence, perhaps forever. To my dismay, Alessandro announced his intention to travel with my entourage on the first stage of the journey to France. If he decided he wanted Akasma after all, it would be impossible to keep her safe from him. I had no idea how to protect her.

13

T
HE DAY BEFORE
I began my journey to a new life, I entertained the wives and daughters of the leading noblemen of Florence at a dinner. Remembering the months when we'd all gone hungry, I ordered the cooks at Palazzo Medici to prepare a feast: roast capons and pigeons and quail, a whole suckling pig, several kinds of vegetables, ravioli stuffed with spinach, tortes made with eggs and cheese, bowls of nuts and olives, all to be served with the finest wines from Alessandro's cellar. The final presentation was an elaborate model of Venus and Cupid made of sugar, so amazingly lifelike that it drew gasps from the ladies. I knew they'd be talking about the dinner for weeks, and that pleased me.

The next morning I paced anxiously in my apartment as Betta finished packing the
cassoni,
each wooden chest decorated with scenes from Greek mythology and now filled with part of my enormous trousseau. Akasma ran up and down the stairs, watching as the chests were strapped onto a specially built cart; panniers on the backs of pack animals carried the rest of our belongings. Once we reached La Spezia on the coast, we would board ships and sail to Marseilles; the baggage would go by an overland route, except for my little
cassone.
That I insisted on carrying with me.

In the crowd preparing to travel that day were Filippo and my Strozzi cousins, my three friends from Le Murate, Maria Salviati from Rome, and a large number of Medici relatives or people claiming to be relatives, many of whom I'd never met until that day—and all of them had their servants as well as governesses for the younger girls. The number was in the hundreds. King François had sent seventy gentlemen of the French court to provide an escort. At midafternoon the chief steward announced that everything was ready, and we must leave immediately in order to reach our first stop by nightfall.