The Shepherdess of Siena: A Novel of Renaissance Tuscany (11 page)

C
HAPTER
25

Siena, Pugna Hills

J
ULY
1574

He could tell by her restless hands, the way she rubbed the horses furiously with the rag, and from her fidgeting stance, that something was not right. It was as if she were about to jump out of her own skin.

“I must ride,” Virginia whispered to Giorgio. She held the rope of a horse he was doctoring, twisting the end with her fingers. Her Uncle Giovanni and his friends knelt several yards away, throwing dice. Their eyes were riveted on the game.

“Two weeks a month is not enough,” she said. “I cannot bear it any longer.”

“I have told you,” Giorgio said, still looking at the hoof he cradled in his hand. “To ride in the dark is to injure yourself—or worse, your horse. And do not forget, Rompicollo, these horses are not yours.”

The girl stamped her foot. “I cannot control this urge—”

Giorgio stifled a laugh. He looked at her from under the horse’s belly. His soft brown eyes glittered, amused. Virginia looked away, annoyed when she heard a chuckle deep in his throat.

“You do not take me seriously, Giorgio,” Virginia hissed. “I cannot sleep. I have to ride—and I will, whether you—”

“Hand me the tincture of violet oil from the shelf,” said Giorgio, digging packed manure and stones from the horse’s hoof with a blunt-tipped knife. He carefully avoided the soft triangle of flesh, the island of sensitivity in a horse’s foot.

“Do not fret, Rompi,” he said, dousing the hoof with the solution. The pigment etched deep into his cuticles, coloring his fingers a deep purple. “I will find a way.”

He slipped the halter off the horse and walked to the doorway of the stable. The skies had cleared after the hard morning rain, and the air was fresh with the scent of crushed grass.

She is seized by passion, the urgent need to ride. It is no different from my need to paint. But it is dangerous to ride in the pitch-dark the way she rides now, with complete abandon. A galloping horse could easily stumble on a root, put its foot in a hole
. . .

But for her, I will find a way
.

Giorgio had asked me to meet him at the field on the night of the new moon. I stumbled through the fields, my feet catching on roots.

He was right. It was foolhardy to ride in the dark. I stared up at the sliver of moon, barely a fingernail paring. Fragile and white.

I thought of white bone, the fragile vertebrae of a lamb carcass, picked clean by wolves. I remembered my fall from Adela, taking the stone fence. The panic when I could not breathe, rendering my blood as cold as icy water from the well.

I could indeed kill myself or my horse. He was right to call me Rompicollo.

At the crest of the hill, I looked down toward the stand of olive trees where the horses pastured for the night. I sucked in my breath.

A circle of light flickered in the darkness. Giorgio had created a small track, outlined in the glow of lanterns, a butter-yellow halo in the night.

At the edge of the circle, I saw the silhouettes of horses, dark shadows mesmerized by the lighted world at midnight. A colt ran erratic laps in the moonlight, racing an invisible rival.

C
HAPTER
26

Florence, Villa Baroncelli

J
ULY
1574

Leonora di Toledo de’ Medici had spent several months living at Baroncelli with her cousin and sister-in-law, Isabella de’ Medici Orsini, Duchessa di Bracciano.

The beautiful estate in the Arcetri Hills, near Florence’s Porta Romana, had been a gift to Isabella from her father, Cosimo, before his death. The vineyards and property stretched down the hill, meeting the Boboli Gardens of the Pitti Palace.

Isabella had spared no expense in creating a country estate to rival any in Tuscany. She embellished the property with fountains and formal gardens. Beyond the gardens were fruit and olive trees and a roadway she had built leading into Florence.

With its magical gardens and stables, Baroncelli was a world of wonders, the perfect place for the frail Leonora to regain her health and strength.

Isabella carefully supervised all the meals, nourishing Leonora back to health. She was certain poison-laced wine or food had been responsible for her young cousin’s poor health. Just enough poison to make her ill, killing her slowly, because a precipitous death would be suspect.

Letters from Pietro in Spain were infrequent—he seemed to care little where his wife and young son lived or how they fared.

Leonora gradually grew stronger, taking in the sunshine of the country, embraced by the cheery yellow-stucco villa.

In the absence of both their husbands, the two cousins flourished, laughing and sharing secrets as they had when Isabella was a teenager and Leonora her five-year-old constant companion. Their days and nights were filled with activities and entertainment, appealing to the cousins’ voracious appetites for sport and intellectual activity.

Accomplished riders from childhood, they would head out on hunts, daring each other to jump obstacles, cheering encouragement for their feats. They recalled the days of Cosimo, how proud he had been of his two fearless girls—the ponies and hunters he had purchased over the years for each of them.

The good scent of horses brought Leonora vivid memories of better times. She dismounted at the end of the day, tired and happy, stroking her mare’s neck.

“My dear father said there was no tragedy that could not be made better by a good gallop in the hills,” said Isabella.

“Your father was the wisest, kindest man,” said Leonora, wistfully. “I miss him more than you know.”

Isabella smiled. “I am so pleased to see the change in you,” she said. “You are blossoming.”

Leonora pressed her lips to the mare’s salty neck. She breathed in the comfort of childhood, of being the coddled Spanish niece of Granduca Cosimo.

“If only we could remain together at Baroncelli forever,” she said. She relinquished the reins to a waiting groom. As the horse’s shoes rang across the stableyard, she whispered, “Without our damnable husbands!”

They both laughed, but the laughter soon wore thin as they locked eyes, recognizing the fear in each other’s gaze.

Every night, Isabella de’ Medici planned diversions. She reveled in the theater, concerts, and literary events. She hosted the Accademia della Lingua Toscana. She scoured Tuscany for the brightest, wittiest company in the land.

Isabella sat in the cool shade of an arbor at a little desk, making out her guest list and addressing invitations. A shriek of delight rose from the gardens. Isabella looked up from her parchment, smiling at her cousin, who sat by a fountain, reading.

Children’s laughter rang out again from deep in the garden. Leonora’s little son, Cosimo, delighted in following his cousins around the vast grounds of Villa Baroncelli. The two-year-old toddled after Isabella’s children, Virgino, three, and Nora, four, shrieking gleefully among the cool shadows of cypress trees.

Leonora sat in the sunshine, her eye straying to the hills north toward Florence. Isabella glanced up at a leaf tumbling down from the arbor. She brushed it away. She watched her cousin’s smile fade and two faint lines etch across her brow.

“You are thinking of Pietro. Stop it.”

Leonora sighed, her fingertips touching her mouth.

“I cannot help it. Everything here is so peaceful, so
. . .
perfect.”

“We did have fun last night,” mused Isabella. “What a heavenly voice you have. And Troilo gave you the perfect nickname!
Ardente
—with your flashing eyes and passion, so Spanish—”

“Oh, Troilo! The story you told last night of dressing as a boy and visiting the taverns of Florence with him. Was it really true?”

“Of course. He did not tell you the night we sneaked a common girl—as ugly as she was flea-infested—into the
Ferrarese
ambassador’s bed! He thought the peasant was his beautiful mistress and got under the covers with her, groping for his lover. Once he touched her, he knew he’d been deceived and he shot out of bed, cursing. We laughed so hard! He slept in another bed that night and burned the mattresses the next day to rid his bed of fleas.”

“The de’ Medici have such a terrible relationship with Ferrara,” laughed Leonora. “I have often marveled at the hatred your father and brothers had for Duca Alfonso. Yet I remember his kindness to me when I was five years old in his court.”

Isabella’s eyes narrowed.

“Our enmity goes back centuries, Leonora. Do not forget that the Duca d’Este poisoned my sister—his dear wife!”

“The man I knew would never—”

“You were a child! What could you know? The d’Estes backed the Senese against my father. They will always remain our enemies.”

Leonora pressed her lips together, lowering her eyes. She cast about for another topic.

“What a handsome signore, your Troilo—so gallant!” she said in a moment. “I can see why he is a favorite in the French court. How could one not admire him?”

Isabella sniffed. She did not like thinking of Francesco’s sending him away as an emissary to France.

“Troilo resembles nothing of his cousin, my husband,” she said.

“And,” Leonora said, lifting her chin, “your father, Cosimo, God rest his soul, reminds me nothing of his son.”

Isabella put down her pen.

“When does Pietro return from Spain?”

“Next month,” said Leonora. She looked down the long hill in the direction of Florence. “I must ready the apartments, return to the Pitti Palace.”

“I want you to take my assistant cook with you. He will—”

“That will surely upset Giovanna and Francesco! The palace cooks—”

“Leave that to me. I will accompany you for the first few days of Pietro’s return. He may hesitate to do you harm if he knows I am watching. I shall say you are on a special diet for your delicate health.”

A breeze blew through the branches of the cypress trees, knocking a few cones to the ground. Little Cosimo waddled over to pick one up. The sharp points pricked him as he clutched the cone in his baby fist.

He dropped it, his eyes filling with tears. He held out his finger to his mother.

A shiver shook Leonora’s body. She embraced her son, kissing his finger. Isabella could see she was crying.

Isabella hurried to her cousin’s side. She stretched her arm around Leonora, pulling the red-haired young woman against her shoulder.

“It will be all right.”

“I do not know what is to become of us, Isabella. He frightens me, and he despises his son.”

“I know,” said Isabella, tightening her embrace. “Pietro frightens everyone in the family. He was born not quite
. . .
right in the head.”

“Will Francesco protect me? As his father, my uncle, did?”

Isabella bit her lip, pulling the frightened young woman closer. She thought she could smell the sharp scent of fear mingling with the perfumed satin of her cousin’s bodice.

Then she wondered if it was her own fear she sensed.

“I do not know. Will he protect
me
?”

C
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27

Ferrara, Castello
d’
Este

A
UGUST
1574

The late-afternoon light crawled up the interior walls of Palazzo d’Este. Alfonso, Duca di Ferrara, sat plucking at his beard as he listened to Ambassador Ercole Cortile’s report from the de’ Medici Court.

“According to my sources,” said Cortile, “two years after the wedding, Pietro de’ Medici was finally forced to consummate the marriage with his bride.”

Alfonso grimaced, his hand waving a fly away from a golden fruit bowl. A particularly fat fly, it moved only inches, from an apple to a cluster of purple grapes.

“Despicable fool,” muttered the duca. “What justice is there in the world when a half-wit should have such a lovely flower to pluck? And need to have his hand forced to grasp its beauty.”

“More than his hand, my duca,” whispered Cortile. He looked at his master, arching an eyebrow. “Pietro de’ Medici was coerced—by force—to penetrate his wife.”

The duca grimaced. He swatted savagely at the fly.

“Gah! Ercole, such an image! Tell me, is she still as beautiful as she was as a child?”

“Leonora inspires poetry, Duca. Yet Pietro despises his cousin-wife. He threatens her, making her life miserable. He disowns their son—grumbling drunkenly to anyone who will listen that the child is not his.”

“Cosimo’s, then?” asked Alfonso, plucking an orange from the fruit bowl. He turned the fruit in his hand, hunting for blemishes.

“That is the gossip in Florence, my duca. But Florentines are known for their lively imaginations.”

Alfonso put down the orange and stood up, smoothing his velvet tunic. He walked to the window, looking down at the green waters surrounding Palazzo d’Este.

“I knew her as a child, after she lost her mother at the age of five,” he said. “She was like a songbird, filling my wife’s heart. They were inseparable. I remember her playing under the orange trees.”

He breathed in the fragrance from the fruit trees.

“Cosimo sent her a white pony. Leonora hounded me mercilessly to let her ride every day.”

The duca grew silent. He thought of his wife, now dead more than a decade, and the young Leonora. The grinding mechanical scream of a rising drawbridge broke his reverie.

“Lady Isabella has taken young Leonora under her wing,” said Cortile. “Together they hunt and ride the hills of Florence, a bucolic life.”

Ercole’s eyes glittered, a sign he had more to report. The duca nodded.

“And?”

“And their sexual escapades do not escape the notice of Granduca Francesco. He is enraged by their conduct.”

“What does he intend to do?”

“He, of course, withholds money, their allowances. Even inheritance rightly destined for Isabella and her children. My sources say he tried to take her estate of Baroncelli from her, but it was legally impossible.”

“Laws rarely interfere with a de’ Medici’s will. I am surprised.”

The duca took up the orange again. With an ivory-handled fruit knife, he peeled it in a delicate, continuous spiral.

“I have always hated the de’ Medici,” said Alfonso, turning toward his ambassador. “But Francesco is by far the worst. He would crush—nay, strangle—everything of beauty in his world.”

The duca looked at the perfect spiral of orange peel, catching the last of the light. It reminded him of a tempera still life.

“The little bird Leonora, with her bright eyes that gleam like twinkling stars. To be spurned in her own marriage bed? My heart grieves for her. My mind—my mind sees a de’ Medici web of evil that threatens her life.”

His sharp knife severed the white curl of fruit skin. It missed the fruit plate and fell to the floor at the duca’s feet.

He stared at it, pondering. Then he kicked it out of sight with the toe of his boot.

“Francesco has already murdered once to rid himself of his whore’s husband.”

“But, my duca. Do you truly believe he would allow harm to come to his own cousin?”

“His cousin and a relative of the Spanish king. But yes. I think the young granduca is capable of such evil and folly. I do not put it past him to murder his own blood to make his life easier. Leonora and Isabella have won the hearts of Florence. He will not stand by idly, watching their adoration.”

He popped a segment of orange in his mouth.

“The women disobeyed the granduca by taking lovers and showing independence. He will make them pay. He cares more about his revenge than the fate of the House of de’ Medici.”

Cortile leaned forward and whispered, though there were no servants in the vaulted room. “Isabella fears he has tried already to poison the fair Leonora.”

Alfonso spat two orange seeds to the tiled floor.

“Bastardo! And they accuse
me
of poisoning my de’ Medici wife!”

Tiny beads of sweat stood out on Cortile’s forehead. The haunting memory of Lucrezia di Cosimo de’ Medici’s death flashed through his mind: painful, lingering fevers and a bloody cough. He chased away this ghost, as he always did. He would never know whether the duchessa had been poisoned by his master, the Duca d’Este, or had died of natural causes.

“Francesco’s darkness is untempered by reason or politics.” Alfonso filled the silence without a moment’s reflection. “Perhaps he has poisoned his brain with his alchemical experiments. He does not have the temperament nor the wisdom of a ruler.”

Cortile gave an emphatic nod, glad to have the conversation steered into safer waters.

“He spends more time locked away in his windowless studiolo than he does at council or Court. An alchemist, they call him, but others swear he works on poisons to murder his enemies.”

The duca grimaced. “De’ Medici and Borgia! Gold and power breed a venomous sting.”

Alfonso always demanded a thorough report after his ambassador’s stay in Florence. The way this interview was proceeding, thought Cortile, he would probably be sent back south within days. He was already saddle-sore from the ride to Ferrara.

“A granduca who dabbles in the occult, while giving little regard to his allies,” growled Alfonso. “He utterly lacks decorum, or he would have given up his Venetian whore long ago.”

The duca wiped his hands clean on an embroidered linen cloth. He wrinkled his nose, catching a whiff of sweat from the silks of his Florentine ambassador.

“I want you back in Florence as soon as possible.”