The Red Lily Crown (29 page)

I am required to return to England to address my affairs there. The grand duke has refused me permission or papers, so I am going secretly. Whatever he tells you, do not listen. Do not forget—we are bound to each other, and in the end we will find a way.

It was not signed, even with an initial.

So he was not dead. He had not left Florence forever. Her heart was thudding and her breath coming fast. I should have known, she thought. He is the one person Vivi would go to.

She crumpled the paper and put it into the brazier. Whatever reason the grand duke had for making such a mystery over Ruan's absence, she would pretend to believe it. She would wait. Maybe she would learn something useful.

Am I even still myself? she wondered, as she watched the paper burn. Ruan has gone, and I think only that I will wait and learn. Chiara Nerini, daughter of Carlo Nerini—troubled, fearful, awestruck Chiara Nerini, with her headaches and falling-spells and demons' voices—that Chiara Nerini would have been afraid. She would have struck out, flailed, lost herself ever more hopelessly in the Medici maze. But now—now. I have learned to be still, look about me, and choose my own path. I wait for Sundays, after Mass, when I can let a drop of
sonnodolce
fall on my wrist and show me visions of what I want most in the world. Even the headaches and the falling-spells have lessened, and I hardly ever hear the voices anymore.

You would be proud of me, Babbo, if you could see me now.

The last embers of the paper fell into ash.

Tomorrow, she thought, as she climbed back into her pallet. I'll collect the mercury and the flowers of sulphur tomorrow, and put them carefully away in my new laboratory. I'll take Babbo's book back from the grand duke's shelves at the Casino di San Marco and give it a place of honor. What would Ruan say, I wonder, if he knew about my new laboratory?

We are bound to each other, and in the end we will find a way.

After he comes back, I'll tell him all about the laboratory, and my plan to create the
Lapis Philosophorum
with the four colored stages.

And while I'm at the shop, I'll ask Nonna about making baby boots.

The Palazzo Vecchio

11 APRIL 1578

“S
ie sind charmant
,”
the grand duchess said. She dangled the tiny pair of boots by their strings and looked at them first from one side, then from the other. “They are charming, Signorina Chiara. Did you make them yourself?”

“Yes, Serenissima. I'm afraid some of the stitching is a little crooked.”

“Yes, but something one makes oneself, that is special, is it not? A short time more, and he will be born. You can put them on his feet yourself.”

Easter had been early this year, and spring had swept into Florence like a lady wearing a ruffled cloak of blue skies, fresh breezes and flowers. Roses and irises were beginning to blossom in the formal gardens of the Boboli, and buttercups starred the grass along the paths. Ruanno dell' Inghilterra, on the other hand, had not come back to Florence. Well, it was a long way to Cornwall—wherever that was, somewhere in England—and winter was a bad time to travel. Maybe he'd arrive to greet the grand duchess's new baby, bearing exotic Cornish gifts of his own. Maybe the grand duke would forgive him for going away without permission.

There had been nothing but the simplest alchemical work at the Casino di San Marco since he had gone. The grand duke depended on his English alchemist more than he knew. Surely he would welcome him back. She herself would welcome him back with—

“I wish to go over to the Pitti today,” the grand duchess said. “The gardens are so lovely, and it is warm for April. Put the leashes on the dogs, please, Signorina Chiara—we will take them with us.”

“Yes, Serenissima.”

While Chiara snapped the leashes on Rostig, Seiden and Vivi, the grand duchess turned to consult with Prince Filippo's nurse. Contrary to everyone's expectations the little prince had lived, and even begun to hold up his poor head a little. The bones of his skull had hardened and at almost a year old he had a mop of curly reddish-brown hair that grew down in a point at the center of his forehead, just like his father's. He had not begun to say words and he could not yet sit up on his own, but his eyes were bright and sometimes he smiled.

“Filippino,” the grand duchess said softly. “
Mein liebste kleine prinz
. Are you going to be a good boy today?”

He made gabbling sounds.

“There,” the nurse said stoutly. “He said ‘Mama,' plain as plain. He's always a good boy.”

The grand duchess smiled and ran her hand lightly over his hair. “Indeed he is. We shall take our dinner at the Pitti, and return this afternoon. Magdalena, the red mantle, if you please, with the fox fur. Chiara, are the dogs ready?”

“Yes, Serenissima.”

“Then let us go.”

They made their way down the stairs from the second floor to the first floor. The grand duchess took each step carefully. Her back always troubled her when she went up or down stairs, and the weight of the baby made it worse. Seven times she's gone through childbearing, Chiara thought, watching her slow progress. Eight times, it will be, counting this one. She's braver than the men who parade around with their swords and daggers, boasting of their exploits.

When they reached the first floor, the grand duchess stopped to rest. Rostig lay down on the cool polished marble and whined softly. His arthritic joints made the stairs as difficult for him as they were for his mistress.

“We should not have brought the older dogs, after all,” the grand duchess said. “Poor Rostig. Magdalena, Anna, please take Rostig and Seiden back upstairs. Carry them, if you will. No, Chiara, you stay here with me to manage your Vivi. We will wait until Magdalena and Anna return, and I will catch my breath for a moment.”

Anna, being the taller and stronger of the two, gathered Rostig into her arms. Magdalena picked up Seiden and the two women started back up the stairs. Vivi whined—partly to see her sire and dam go, Chiara thought, and partly just because she was anxious to go down the rest of the stairs to the courtyard, and outside into the sunshine. Chiara crouched down to quiet her.

The swish of a skirt.

A voice, familiar. “Good day to you, Serenissima.”

Chiara looked up.

A woman in a plain dress and apron had come up to them, as if out of nowhere. Her hair was covered by a serving-woman's wimple and coif, and from a distance she would have looked like any one of the dozens of women who worked in the kitchens and laundry-rooms and sewing-rooms of the Palazzo Vecchio. Face-to-face, however, her strongly marked eyebrows and reddened, sensuous mouth were unmistakable.

I see her sometimes. Bianca Cappello. Here, at the Pitti, and at the Palaz- zo Vecchio, too. She dresses up in a servant's clothes and comes to spy on me
.

Holy saints and angels, the grand duchess had been right. But of course the grand duke's mistress couldn't come openly into the Palazzo Vecchio, not as hated as she was in Florence, not when the grand duke himself required her to stay at the Villa di Pratolino. Her curiosity about the little prince and the grand duchess's condition must have been driving her half-mad. This play-acting was worse than madness.

“Signorina Chiara,” the grand duchess said. She did not acknowledge her husband's Venetian mistress by so much as a flicker of her eyelids. “Perhaps we should go downstairs into the courtyard to await Magdalena's and Anna's return.”

Chiara scrambled to her feet. “Indeed, Serenissima,” she said. “Lean on my arm, if you will, and I will—”

“You will be silent, alchemist woman, and stand to one side while your betters speak together.” Bianca pushed her, unexpectedly, one hand flat against her shoulder. Chiara stumbled back against the balustrade, her foot coming down on Vivi's paw. Vivi yelped, high and shrill.

Chiara went down on her knees and wrapped Vivi in her arms. The little hound pressed close to her, confused and frightened. At the same time, the grand duchess turned her head and slowly, with every ounce of Habsburg pride in her fragile twisted body, focused her gaze on Bianca Cappello. “Touch either Signorina Chiara or her dog again,” she said, in an icy, even voice, “and I will make you sorry. What are you doing here, dressed in such mummery? Or has my husband disowned you at last, and put you to work in the kitchens where you belong?”

Bianca flushed, hot as fire. “The grand duke has given me leave to enter any of his palaces,” she said. “And I wear whatever I choose—I do not need silks and jewels, or iron corsets to make my back straight.”

“An iron bridle to control your tongue might be a fine thing.”

Chiara put her face down against the sleek black-and-russet fur of Vivi's shoulder. It was not like the grand duchess to wrangle like this, but what woman could withdraw in dignified silence when her husband's mistress mocked her deformity? Even an emperor's sister would fight back.

“I need no bridle.” Bianca Cappello's voice rose, and her Venetian accent became more pronounced. “You look pale, Serenissima. Thin. Uglier than usual. My astrologers tell me this child will be another girl, and that she will be the death of you.”

At that Chiara straightened. She wasn't sure what she intended to do, but she had to do something. But the grand duchess lifted her hand—
Stop
.

“Your astrologers are fools,” she said, quite calmly. “Stand aside.”

“I will not stand aside. I have been standing aside for months now, caged up in the Villa di Pratolino. It is your fault, Serenissima, that I cannot come into the city unless I have disguised myself. You have turned the people of Florence against me.”

“I do not consider that a fault, but rather a badge of honor.”

“If so, it is the only honor you can claim. Your son is a monster—”

The grand duchess turned white.

“—while mine is strong and straight. He has taken his first steps already, did you know that? He knows a dozen words and more. ‘Mama,' he calls me. And he calls the grand duke ‘Papa.'”

“The more fool he, poor changeling child. Stand aside at once. You may be sure I will tell my husband you call his legitimate son a monster.”

Bianca laughed. “I call it a monster?” she said. “Francesco himself calls it a monster, when you are not listening. He calls it—”

The grand duchess drew back her arm and struck Donna Bianca across the mouth, with all her small reserve of strength. It was so unlike her—Chiara had only a moment to wonder if she had ever struck anyone or anything before in the whole of her life. Then the arc of her arm made her lose her balance, and her foot slipped on the polished marble.

Chiara cried out and jumped to catch hold of her.

At the same time Bianca Cappello, blind with fury, struck back. Her blow—so much more practiced, how many of her serving-women had she slapped over the years?—glanced off the grand duchess's shoulder and pitched her headfirst down the staircase.

“No! No no no no!” Chiara skidded and stumbled down the stairs, trying to catch the grand duchess's skirts, her mantle, anything to break the fall. There was no human way she could be quick enough. The grand duchess turned over and over, in eerie silence, until she struck the stone floor at the bottom of the stairway.

Chiara fell beside her, knees and elbows bruised and skinned, sobbing. She was afraid to touch her, for fear she would hurt her more. She was not unconscious—her eyes fluttered open and her lips moved. She pressed one hand to her belly, and groaned very softly.

“Serenissima, Serenissima. No, do not try to move. Guards, help! Guards! Magdalena! Anna!”

As she screamed she looked back up at the top of the stairway. Vivi stood there alone, her tail tucked between her legs, her soft ears pinned back against her head with fright and misery.

Bianca Cappello was gone.

•   •   •

Word was sent immediately to the grand duke and the physicians. A litter was brought and the grand duchess was lifted—she screamed, high and anguished—and carried back up the stairs to her own apartments. There was blood on her skirt, and on the cheerful red velvet mantle with its rich fox fur. Chiara was pushed aside and ordered to take the dogs to the kennels. No one asked her what had happened. Everyone—guards, ladies, physicians—simply assumed the grand duchess had slipped and fallen because of her awkwardness and the weight of the child.

I'll tell the grand duke, Chiara said to herself as she ran back from the kennels. I have to tell someone the truth. Someone.

When she reached the grand duchess's apartments again, the doors were closed and two of the grand duke's personal guardsmen stood outside.

“I'm Chiara Nerini,” Chiara said. “The grand duke's
soror mystica
. I was with the grand duchess when she fell. I must speak to the grand duke at once.”

“No one's allowed in,
signorina
. Il Serenissimo's own orders.”

From inside the apartments Chiara could hear a woman screaming.

“Please.
Please
. I was with her. I saw her fall. I saw—”

But no. It was too dangerous to speak aloud, to two ordinary guardsmen.

They did not answer, and did not move from their places. The screaming continued, and after a while faded to choking sobs.

Chiara waited, but the grand duke didn't come out. No one came out. No one went in. The guards refused to look at her or speak with her further. After a while she crept away, sick at heart. She went downstairs to the kennels again and sat with the kennel master and his family. They cried and prayed together. The dogs pressed close, as if they knew something terrible was happening.

Around midday the next day, one of the guardsmen came into the kennels.

“You,
signorina
,” he said to Chiara. “Il Serenissimo requires your presence.”

“The grand duchess,” Chiara said. She ached all over with her own bruises. Her eyes were sticky and her mouth was dry and sour. “What has happened? Is she—”

“Il Serenissimo said only to fetch you.”

She went with him.

The doors to the grand duchess's apartments were still guarded. The rooms were silent and empty. Chiara followed the guardsman through the receiving room and the reading room and the supper room, into the private bedchamber. It smelled of blood and death. The grand duke sat beside the bed in a heavy chair. His face was expressionless.

The grand duchess lay on the great bed, her body straight as a stone effigy, her hands crossed on her breast. She was covered with a black-and-gold velvet pall. Her face was white, but for a bruise on her cheekbone, sharp-edged and empty in death. The holy oil of the unction glistened on her eyelids and lips.

Chiara fell to her knees and made the sign of the cross over her breast.

“Her child was stillborn,” the grand duke said. “He became twisted in her womb, the physicians said, when she fell. He was a fine boy, and would have been healthy in every respect.”

He didn't say,
unlike Prince Filippo
, although of course that's what he meant. Poor sad little prince, not even a year old, motherless now.

“I will pray for his soul, Serenissimo.”

“Her womb was ruptured. The physicians could not stop the bleeding. She lived long enough to make her farewells to the children, and to me, and to take the Viaticum.”

Chiara said nothing. She looked at the grand duchess's profile, white as a paper cutout. How could it have no life in it, when yesterday she had smiled, and hoped, and planned to walk in the gardens at the Palazzo Pitti?

“I am told you were with her.”

Slowly Chiara turned her head and looked up at the grand duke's dark face. He knew. Bianca Cappello had sent him a message somehow. If I speak the truth, Chiara thought, what will he do?
Your Venetian mistress was in the Palaz- zo Vecchio, dressed as a servant woman, spying on your wife and wishing her ill, calling her names, calling your son names. Yes, the grand duchess stumbled after striking her, but who would not strike a low, vicious woman who calls her son a monster? She stumbled a little and I would have caught her. It was your mistress striking her back that pushed her into the stairway. It was your mistress
—