The Scarlet Contessa (44 page)

Neither Caterina nor I uttered a word; we knew well what it meant.

I turned over the second card, wishing for a glimmer of hope, and there it was: the Nine of Batons. It was a simple-looking card, nine golden scepters arranged against a background of white, edged by green foliage.

“Strength,” I said. “Whatever befalls you, Madonna, you have the strength to endure. There is success here, against all odds.” I did not utter all that my instinct told me—that this was strength pushed to the limits of exhaustion, and victory earned at the bitterest cost. I looked on it with dread, but kept my expression carefully neutral.

Caterina nodded solemnly, and pressed a finger to her lips.

In silence, I turned over the third card.

On its face was the painting of a man suspended upside down from a gallows by a rope tied to his ankle. His free leg was bent at the knee and crossed over the other leg, so that his lower body took on the shape of an inverted Arabic numeral 4.

“The Hanged Man,” I whispered. This card, too, needed no explanation. Sudden tears welled in my eyes.

Caterina saw them and put a comforting hand upon my forearm; surely she thought I was looking at her death. I drew a steadying breath.

“There are two possible fates here,” I said at last. “The choice is yours, Madonna. Whichever you choose, you have the strength to endure.”

Only then did I begin to sob. Caterina put her arms around me, and we wept together like sisters.

Caterina went back to her dancing that night, and did not return until the first black hours of Christmas morning. I slipped quietly from the bed at dawn, and as I dressed myself in the dark closet, I decided to find the leather-bound collection of Ficino’s writings that Ser Giovanni had so kindly given to me.

I took it to Paradise’s dining hall in hopes of finding breakfast, but the room was deserted, and the entire fortress as silent as the dead. I went to the deserted dining hall, where the Christmas Eve fire was reduced to a heap of white ash. Quiet hours passed as I read the words of Marsilio Ficino concerning the soul, God, the order of the heavens, and the proper use of magic, which was to bring enlightenment to humankind.

I remained distracted until the muted blare of a herald’s trumpet brought me back to the present. I closed the book and hurried up to the parapet overlooking the moat.

I stared down. On the shore, in front of his own cannon and flanked by a uniformed trumpeter, the captain of the papal army sat astride his warhorse. Cesare Borgia wore a black velvet tunic with a thick insert of pleated white satin at the breast and collar, and a black velvet cape trimmed with thick gold braid and lined with white ermine. His beret was likewise black, with a great white plume that moved with the wind. The effect was one of severe elegance.

At last I could see his face: his lips were even but small, his profile rather flat, his jaw too long. But these irregularities were easily overlooked because of his beautiful dark eyes, which slanted slightly upward at the outer corners; his lids were lined with lashes as black and thick as kohl. His brows were nicely arched, the better to emphasize his eyes; his cheeks were lean and artfully sculpted, and his nose straight, of perfect width and length. His hair was the color of jet and fell without wave or curl to his shoulders. He wore a neatly trimmed goatee and thin mustache in the Parisian style.

If the Lady of Forlì was beautiful, then Cesare Borgia was surely handsome.

“Go fetch your mistress,” he shouted.

I flew to Caterina’s apartment and shook her awake; the instant she heard the word
Borgia,
she sprang to her feet. I dressed her quickly in the gown she had worn the night before, and covered her tousled hair with a veil.

Within ten minutes, the Lady of Forlì walked out onto the parapet, looking calm and supremely confident. Despite the cold, she would not wear a cloak; she wanted Cesare to see that she was still lithe and fit, still attractive. When she stepped forward to greet Borgia, I hung back.

Caterina looked down, and her eyebrows lifted slightly as she registered the young Borgia’s attractiveness. A smile bloomed on her lips.

“Good Christmas morning, Your Grace,” she called down, and Borgia called back:

“A blessed Christmastide to you, Madonna Caterina.” His voice was deep and resonant, easily heard over the wind.

Caterina’s brow lifted again, very slightly, at the insult. She had addressed Borgia as befitted a duke, but he addressed her not by her title, but as a civilian.

“Madonna,” Borgia called, “I bring you good tidings on this holiday. Being a generous man of goodwill, Pope Alexander wishes to offer his hand in friendship. He has instructed me to call off the siege and grant you safe conduct to Rome.”

Caterina moved to the dizzying edge of the stone precipice. “How very gracious of His Holiness! I trust you to explain to him that I am very happy here in Forlì, and so must decline.”

Borgia’s smile thinned, but he soon recovered himself.

“Madonna,” he called, “Forlì is no longer legally yours; such is the price of attempting to murder a pope. But I have no desire to harm a woman of your courage and beauty. Nor does His Holiness, who in his piety is willing to forgive. Instead, we exhort you to submit to the law.”

Caterina’s smile vanished as she shouted, “I do not recognize laws when they become weapons wielded by wicked men!”

“You are beside yourself, Madonna,” Borgia answered smoothly, “and understandably so, given your dire circumstance. It must be difficult to know that you have but nine hundred men in Ravaldino, whereas I have access to fifteen thousand. Surrender, and His Holiness and I guarantee that you will not be harmed. In fact, we shall make you a most generous offer in the spirit of friendship: come with your children to Rome, and we will give you property and a large pension.”

Caterina was unmoved. “If I surrender to you, Your Grace, you will do with me as you please. Your words have no value.”

“Untrue!” Borgia countered. “History is full of rulers who wisely chose to surrender and went on to lead prosperous lives. Do you not want to see your sons grow up to rule? Or will you doom them to die as their mother watches?”

Caterina flushed. “You would like to know whether my sons are here with me, wouldn’t you? Actually, sir, history shows that the brave’s legacy endures, while cowards’ deaths are soon forgotten. I am my father’s daughter; I am not stupid, nor am I afraid to die.”

In her vehemence, she had leaned so far over the bulwark’s edge that I stepped forward to get a secure hold on her arm.

“And I am my father’s son,” Cesare answered, a hint of impatience in his tone. “I swear on my family name that if you will come peacefully with me, none in Ravaldino shall be harmed. Not even your pretty lady-in-waiting, who seems to have a good deal of sense.” He grinned up at me; there was something unsettlingly familiar about his wolfish smile. “You would not want her to die—or worse, would you?” He spoke to me. “What are you called, lovely one?”

“Dea,” I answered stupidly, before Caterina pushed me aside.

“Dea,” he repeated to himself, grinning. “I hope to make your acquaintance soon, Dea.”

“Swear on the name Borgia all you like!” Caterina shouted. “But only an idiot or madman would take the word of anyone who wears it!”

With that the audience was over. Caterina turned and dragged me back to her apartments.

Christmas Day passed; the next day was the Feast of Saint Stephen, and the truce continued.

Even though the rest of the troops were enjoying a second day of freedom from the contessa’s obsessive drilling, Caterina left me to discuss a “military arrangement” with one of her advisers. She returned after an hour with a slight, smug smile on her lips.

Shortly before noon, trumpet blasts sounded again outside Ravaldino’s walls; as tradition demanded, the captain of the papal army had come again to make an offer of peace. This time, Caterina dawdled; when she finally went up to the battlement to look down at her visitor, she remained silent.

“Greetings, Madonna,” Borgia called up cheerfully, removing his plumed cap with a sweeping gesture and bowing low in the saddle. “I trust you enjoyed a blessed Christmas.”

“Greetings, Your Grace,” Caterina replied sweetly. “Have you come to your senses yet and ordered your men to retreat?”

The duke laughed with good humor at the notion. “Not yet.” His manner grew a bit more serious, though his tone remained light. “I felt that the offer I made to you yesterday requires clarification. As you know, most of my forces are composed of the French army, whose ultimate allegiance is to King Louis. I have discussed your situation at length with the
bailli
of Dijon, who rides with me; it is his duty to see that the king’s troops and any prisoners of war are treated in accordance with French law.

“You are aware, Madonna, that under French law a woman cannot be taken prisoner of war? If you put yourself under the
bailli
’s protection, it is his duty to protect you until you reach a place of safety.

“Do so, and I will see that you arrive safely in Rome—or elsewhere, if you prefer.”

The Lady of Forlì tilted her head thoughtfully, and after a moment’s pause, answered, “If you would have me trust you with my life, then do the same for me. Come to the gate; I will have the drawbridge lowered so that you can enter the fortress and speak to me in detail about your proposal. And have your trumpeter go and summon the
bailli
of Dijon; I would like to speak to him personally about the matter. If the two of you would be willing to sign a contract . . .”

She trailed off as Borgia’s unrestrained laughter drowned out her words; his head was thrown back and he slapped his thigh, causing his horse to snort nervously. When he recovered, he called: “To paraphrase what you said yesterday, Madonna: I am my father’s son, and am not stupid. I have no doubt that you would be pleased indeed to coax me alone into your fortress!”

Caterina’s cheeks colored. “And you, sir, would be pleased indeed to coax me out of it. My offer is made in good faith. If I say that no harm will come to you, then you will be safe indeed. Your reluctance to trust me shows that
you
cannot be trusted.”

Cesare banished his grin. “Madonna Caterina, I mean no offense. But it would be foolish of me to give such an advantage to you. You are surrounded, with no hope of rescue; I have come to offer you life instead of death.”

Caterina’s ill humor was replaced by a sudden coquettishness. “Will you not come at least to the drawbridge? I will come out to you. It is impossible to conduct such a delicate political discussion by shouting back and forth.”

Cesare laughed. “Madonna, were I in your hopeless situation, I would try to lure my enemy inside my fortress. But I assure you, my men would continue the siege, whether you took me prisoner or not.”

“Don’t be so confident, Your Grace!” Caterina pressed a gloved palm against the side of the battlement and leaned perilously forward. “I’ve offered a considerable amount of money to anyone who brings you to me, alive or dead!”

“I know of your offer,” Valentino said darkly. “I have offered ten times as much for you dead—and twenty more should you be brought to me alive.”

With that, he signaled his trumpeter to depart and spurred his mount; the stallion kicked up tufts of mud and grass as it wheeled about and headed with its master back to Forlì.

With a faint sigh, my lady turned and I turned with her, to head back into the fortress and await the inevitable siege.

Chapter Thirty-four

Another day passed, and Borgia’s artillery remained silent; apparently it took two days for Valentino’s soldiers to recover from the holiday. But early in the morning of the twenty-eighth of December, I woke to the ear-splitting roar of the cannon as the mighty walls of Paradise shuddered. I leapt from the bed, only to feel the marble floor quake in earnest beneath my feet.

Caterina rolled from the bed immediately and grabbed my arm. “They’ve struck Paradise,” she shouted in my ear as I scooped up our winter cloaks and handed one to her. “Come!”

We ran down to the lower floors of the main tower where the castellan and top commanders conferred and slept. These grim, Spartan quarters were the safest in the fortress, as they were on a low floor and completely sheltered by Ravaldino’s walls. Caterina entered, calling for da Cremona, but he and the others were all manning the artillery. She deposited me in a meeting room beside the fire.

“I should have realized,” she said, angry at herself, “that Borgia would not have the decency to wait until the new year. He has figured out that I live in Paradise; we will have to move down here for the remainder of the siege.

“Stay here,” she commanded. Clad in only her nightgown and cloak, without even slippers, she went to join her men. I held my freezing feet to the fire and massaged them, trying to ignore the artillery’s constant pounding.

It continued for the entire day. Despite the fiercely cold weather, Caterina remained with her artillerymen, giving orders in her bare feet. After a time, I found my courage and went back up to Paradise to collect our trunks and take them down to the main tower. Then I delivered a pair of shoes to Caterina, who was on the rampart shouting orders. She was grateful; by then, her feet had turned an alarming shade of blue.

When night fell, the explosions continued. Captain da Cremona gave us his apartment, which consisted of a small bedchamber and even smaller sitting room. Caterina slept upon a narrow, lumpy mattress while I took the narrower straw cot. The blasts were muffled in our new location, but loud enough to work on my nerves. Restless, I left the cot, lit the lamp out in the sitting room, and took out the book Ser Giovanni had given me.

I did my best to concentrate on Ficino’s Latin text, but the more I read about God and the angels and the celestial order in the Heavens, the less I believed it. There was no order, no grace. Ficino himself had recently died, as had Lorenzo the Magnificent, his mother, my beloved Matteo, and kind Ser Giovanni—and the world had not changed. Now Caterina would die, too, and my great fear was that I should have to witness her violent end—or worse, force her to watch mine.

How pretty Ficino’s lofty philosophy must have seemed when he wrote it down during Florence’s halcyon days, in the lavish palace loaned to him by the Medici. He wanted for nothing, but wore the best clothing, ate the best food, drank the best wine; he did not listen to the thunder of artillery and wonder, each passing moment, how much time he was allotted to live, or how bloodily he would die.

“For nothing,” I hissed aloud. “My brother died for nothing.”

I began to weep—not gentle tears of sorrow or resignation, but of outrage, bitterness, and despair. I stood up, and, forgetting Caterina in the room next to me, hurled the fine leather volume across the room.

It sailed through the air, opening in mid-flight. The fluttering pages struck the wall first, badly creasing many of them before the book fell, spine side up, to the floor.

Stunned, I stared at my crime for an instant before tiptoeing to the half-open door of the bedchamber; the exhausted Caterina was still snoring loudly. I went over to the splayed-open book and lifted the binding carefully. The spine, alas, was broken and the pages permanently damaged. To my dismay, one of them had come altogether loose and slipped to the floor.

I lifted it gingerly. It was deeply creased, as if it had been folded and unfolded often. The edge was not torn; I realized then that it had never been part of the bound manuscript. The paper was worn and discolored by age.

The text, written in a different hand, was not a continuation of Ficino’s text; in fact, it was not in Latin at all. It was a vertical list of the Italian alphabet, and directly across from each letter was a different letter, number, or symbol, written in an even, elegant script.

A script I recognized well, despite the passage of two decades. The writing was Matteo’s, and this was one of his cipher keys.

I felt the sort of physical chill one experiences when mortally frightened. Yet I was not afraid, only gripped by anticipation and fragile hope. Carefully, I closed Ficino’s book, thinking that the weight of the unharmed pages would press the creases out of the damaged ones. Then I stole into the bedroom and quietly fished Matteo’s little diary out of the bottom of my trunk. I went back out to the writing desk, lifted the top, and found paper inside. With the key beside me, I opened the diary—careful lest the already cracked spine fall apart—and turned to a random page in the middle of the little book.

“Matteo,” I whispered foolishly. “Dear brother, help me.”

Letter by letter, I translated the first line:

...warfnsmtethastcbounvtginrolcamoscangnotpbetcrusitedoonethezmatgterdofiamolsa

It was gibberish. I set down the quill and put my face in my hands, angry at myself for trusting in something other than a cruel God. But I could not cry; the restlessness still had hold of me, and I stared down again at Matteo’s key.

At the very bottom of the page was a tiny note, so small that I had to hold it to the lamp:

ev 4th

I looked from Matteo’s key to the diary, again and again; in the end, I struck out every fourth letter. This gave the result:

. . . warnsmethatcountgirolamocannotbetrustedonthematterofimola

When properly spaced and capitalized, it rendered this:

. . . warns me that Count Girolamo cannot be trusted on the matter of Imola . . .

I had known that Marsilio Ficino had also been Giovanni de’ Medici’s teacher, yet it had never occurred to me that Giovanni, like Matteo, might have been exposed to the same teaching about the Egyptian mysteries and the angel. Or perhaps it had simply been chance that Matteo had read the same book in the Medici library and accidentally left his key there.

It didn’t matter; I was still grateful.

“Thank you,” I whispered. “Matteo, Ser Giovanni, thank you.”

I never went to bed; instead I sat translating Matteo’s diary throughout the night. At times, I had to stop because emotion overwhelmed me, especially when I read lines such as:

My poor sweet sister, I have confused her so. When I return home, I will take her to Florence and let her learn the truth of her past. Like our mother, she has a great talent for understanding symbols and portents, too great a talent to be ignored or misused. I pray the time is soon ripe for her to discover the angel. . . .

A later entry was more melancholy, as if Matteo had finally glimpsed his approaching doom:

If only I could live long enough to teach Dea all that I know. . . . But I understand too well the symbol of the Hanged Man. My one prayer is that my sacrifice—whatever it may be—will be of great help to her. I want only happiness for her. I want her to experience the joy that knowledge of the angel confers.

The next morning, Caterina found me asleep at the desk, my cheek upon Matteo’s diary, the quill still in my hand.

Even though I was not even halfway finished with deciphering Matteo’s journal, I went to bed and slept through the artillery’s constant thunder until midday. When I woke, I took advantage of my solitude by retrieving the rest of Matteo’s papers from the bottom of my trunk. There was the little pouch with the gray-brown powder and the diagrams of the stars and circles in Matteo’s hand, as well as the ancient Egyptian invocation written in another.

Caterina was in her element, commanding her artillerymen. I spent the entire day reacquainting myself with the rituals and rehearsing the motions I had seen my brother make in the air so very long ago. It wasn’t rational, but it gave me something to do besides listen to the battle.

It also distracted me so that my mind was free to think clearly. I knew that the last cards I had dealt Caterina were also intended for me: the Tower, the Nine of Batons, the Hanged Man. I, too, had the strength to make the choice between total destruction and sacrifice. But what sacrifice could I make that would save Ravaldino and the Lady of Forlì?

By the time Caterina returned, well past nightfall, I was back to translating the diary, where I learned that Luca had always been honest with me. He had not only befriended Matteo during the long journey back from Rome, but had privately warned him of Girolamo’s determination to take Imola at any cost, and Matteo had informed Luca of Galeazzo’s equal determination, at his dear friend Lorenzo de’ Medici’s request, to keep Imola under Milan’s rule.

Borgia’s artillery fired upon us continuously until the sun set on the eve of the New Year of 1500—a year that many preachers declared would bring God’s judgment and the end of the world. At Caterina’s urging, I joined her and her commanders in Paradise’s stripped dining chamber that evening and drank a few cups of wine before retiring early. The Lady of Forlì danced until well after midnight to the pipes and drum.

As a result, I woke earlier than all the others on the first day of the year to deep, blessed silence. Caterina was fast asleep and looking haggard after long days of battle; I closed the door to the bedchamber and slipped outside, where my brother’s diary awaited me on Captain da Cremona’s desk. I was grateful for the quiet and eager to start, as only a few pages remained undeciphered.

Matteo’s melancholy tone persisted, as if he had been aware of his fate. He spoke of his deep gratitude to Lucrezia de’ Medici, the benefactor who had rescued him and who had tried to rescue me, and his affection for Lorenzo, Giuliano, and “my teacher,” Marsilio Ficino. Such reverie was interrupted by details of the journey and the mistrust he felt toward the legates whom he escorted from Rome. He feared that they had been so thoroughly corrupted that Duke Galeazzo’s person might be in danger.

One of them in particular concerned him.

Luca has shared with me even more disturbing news. The Spanish legate has created a powerful new poison, which he might well have brought with him from Rome in order to assassinate the duke, should His Grace refuse to cooperate on the matter of Imola. Rodrigo Borgia is a shrewd and wary man, with a keen mind that captures every detail, so I must be careful—but before we arrive in Milan, I hope to find where he has hidden the poison, and to dispose of it without his being the wiser.

The quill dropped from my hand onto the desk, where it left a black blot; I stood up so quickly that the chair skittered backward, screeching against the uncarpeted stone.

Borgia. Was he the priest who performed last rites for Matteo? Had I been so stricken by grief that I had not remembered? For the first time, I intentionally recalled that horrible moment. The priest had not worn black at all, but a finely tailored scarlet robe.

In the end, my swirling thoughts coalesced: Rodrigo Borgia had killed Matteo, and now he intended to kill Caterina. For fear of him, Luca may have returned to Rome. Perhaps Luca, too, had already been killed for his efforts to stop a most dangerous man.

Borgia had cost me everything.

From my very core, a vile, bitter brew of emotions—impotent rage, vengefulness, hatred, grief—swept over me. I understood the depthless hatred Girolamo and his father had felt toward Lorenzo de’ Medici, believing as they did that he had stolen from them a brother, a precious son. I craved vengeance more than air.

It was no accident, I decided, that Matteo’s cipher key had appeared after all these years. It was no accident that I had still had the diary and the wits to decipher it. And I now understood the two fates the cards had presented to me.

I could sit upon my hands and die with Caterina when the steady pounding from Borgia’s artillery breached Ravaldino’s walls.

Or I could sacrifice myself by going directly to Cesare and feeding him his father’s poison in an act of perfect justice. It did not matter that I would likely be caught and killed; Caterina would be saved, and Matteo avenged at last.

My plan was simple and relied on chance, but I convinced myself that the angel would protect me as I made my way to Cesare. I would go into Forlì on the sixth of January, Epiphany, a holiday that the French and Florentines held dear and celebrated with copious amounts of wine. By late Epiphany night, Cesare and his troops would be drunk and sated and, I hoped, asleep, as they would have to rise early the next morning to return to war.

Caterina often watched as Cesare came to and from his artillerymen. He was definitely sleeping in Luffo Numai’s palace. Numai was playing the courteous host, as he had for Caterina and Girolamo when they had first arrived in Forlì.

I shared nothing of my intentions with Caterina. When the fighting began again on the morning of the second of January, she went to oversee her artillerymen while I spent the day preparing to escape.

After Ser Giovanni died, I had taken his clothes down to the guest quarters in Paradise, where he had stayed after his first visit. I stored them in a trunk at the very back of the closet, so that Caterina would never have to look on them again. Indeed, she never visited those quarters, as they reminded her of the early days of her relationship with Giovanni. There I found a woolen tunic and winter cloak, leggings, a belt, and a man’s broad-brimmed hat, all black save the belt, and set them aside.

I knew that Caterina kept a sheathed stiletto beneath her pillow; I took it and a pair of my winter riding boots to Ser Giovanni’s old apartment and left both next to the pile of clothing.

That night, Caterina returned and went straight to bed after supper, where she slept so soundly nothing would wake her.

This pattern repeated for three more days; each day, I remembered some other item critical to my mission—a scarf to cover my face; a pair of lined gloves and the key to the shaft, both of which I put in the pockets of the cloak; the small black bag that held the dried, gray-brown powder—and practiced the rituals.