The Devil’s Queen. Jeanne Kalogridis

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СКАЧАТЬ in worn cotton skirts covered by a white apron, her hair always wrapped in a scarf. On that morning, however, Ginevra’s scarf and nerves were undone; a lock of golden hair had fallen across her face.

      Roberto stamped his foot at me and emitted a scream. “Let me go!” He struck out with little fists, but I averted my face and held him fast.

      “What is it? Why is he frightened?” I called to Ginevra as she neared.

      “They’re coming after us!” Robert howled, spewing tears and spittle. “They’re coming to hurt us!”

      Ginevra, dull with fright, answered, “There are men at the gate.”

      “What sort of men?” I asked.

      When Ginevra would not answer, I ran upstairs to the chambermaids’ quarters, which overlooked the stables and the gate that opened onto the busy Via Larga. I dragged a stool to the window, stepped onto it, and flung open the shutters.

      The stables stood west of the house; to the north lay the massive iron gate that kept out trespassers. It was closed and bolted; just inside it stood three of our armed guards.

      On the other side of its spiked bars, the street hosted lively traffic: a flock of Dominican monks on foot from nearby San Marco, a cardinal in his gilded carriage, merchants on horseback. And Roberto’s men—perhaps twenty in those early hours, before Passerini’s news had permeated Florence. Some stood along the edges of the Via Larga, others in front of the iron gate near the stables. They gazed on our house with hawkeyed intensity, waiting for prey to emerge.

      One of them shouted exuberantly at the passing crowd. “Did you hear? The Pope has fallen! Rome lies in the Emperor’s hands!”

      At the palazzo’s front entrance, a banner bore the Medici coat of arms so proudly displayed throughout the city: six red balls, six palle, arranged in rows upon a golden shield. Palle, palle! was our rallying cry, the words on our supporters’ lips as they raised their swords in our defense.

      As I watched, a wool dyer, his hands and tattered tunic stained dark blue, climbed onto his fellow’s shoulders and pulled down the banner to shouts of approval. A third man touched a torch to the banner and set it ablaze. Passersby slowed and gawked.

      “Abaso le palle!” the wool dyer cried, and those surrounding him picked up the chant. “Down with the balls! Death to the Medici!”

      In the midst of the tumult, the iron gates opened a crack, and Agostino—Aunt Clarice’s errand boy—slipped out unobserved. But as the gate clanged shut behind him, a few of the men hurled pebbles at him. He shielded his head and dashed away, disappearing into the traffic.

      I leaned farther out of the open window. Behind the thin streams of smoke rising from the burning banner, the wool dyer spied me; his face lit up with hatred. Had he been able to reach up into the window, he would have seized me—an eight-year-old girl, an innocent—and dashed my brains against the pavement.

      “Abaso le palle!” he roared. At me.

      I withdrew. I could not run to Clarice for comfort—she would not have provided it even had she been available. I wanted my cousin Piero; nothing cowed him, not even his formidable mother…and he was the one person I trusted. Since he was not in the boys’ classroom receiving his lessons, I hurried to the library.

      As I suspected, Piero was there. Like me, he was an insatiable student, often demanding more of his tutors than they knew, with the result that we frequently encountered each other huddled behind book. Unlike me, he was, at a rather immature sixteen, still cherub-cheeked, with close-cropped ringlets and a sweet, ingenuous temperament. I trusted him more than anyone, and adored him as a brother.

      Piero sat cross-legged on the floor, squinting down at the heavy tome open in his lap, utterly captivated and utterly calm. He glanced up at me, and just as quickly returned to his reading.

      “I told you this morning about Passerini coming,” I said. “The news is very bad. Pope Clement has fallen.”

      Piero sighed calmly and told me the story of Clement’s predicament, which he had learned from the cook. In Rome, a secret passageway leads from the Vatican to the fortress known as the Castel Sant’Angelo. Emperor Charles’s mutinous soldiers had joined with anti-Medici fighters and attacked the Papal Palace. Caught unawares, Pope Clement had run for his life—robes flapping like the wings of a startled dove—across the passage to the fortress. There he remained, trapped in his stronghold by jeering troops.

      Piero was totally unfazed by it all.

      “We’ve always had enemies,” he said. “They want to form their own government. The Pope has always known about them, but Mother says he grew careless and missed clear signs of trouble. She warned him, but Clement didn’t listen.”

      “But what will happen to us?” I said, annoyed that my voice shook. “Piero, there are men outside burning our banner! They’re calling for our deaths!”

      “Cat,” he said softly and reached for my hand. I let him draw me down to sit beside him on the cool marble.

      “We always knew the rebels would try to take advantage of something like this,” Piero said soothingly, “but they aren’t that organized. It will take them a few days to react. By then, we’ll have gone to one of the country villas, and Mother and Passerini will have decided what to do.”

      I pulled away from him. “How will we get to the country? The crowd won’t even let us out of the house!”

      “Cat,” he chided gently, “they’re just troublemakers. Come nightfall, they’ll get bored and go away.”

      Before he could say anything further, I asked, “Who is the astrologer’s son? Your mother sent Agostino to fetch him.”

      He digested this with dawning surprise. “That would be Ser Benozzo’s eldest, Cosimo.”

      I shook my head, indicating my ignorance.

      “The Ruggieri family has always served as the Medicis’ astrologers,” Piero explained. “Ser Benozzo advised Lorenzo il Magnifico. They say his son Cosimo is a prodigy of sorts, and a very powerful magician. Others say such talk is nothing more than a rumor circulated by Ser Benozzo to help the family business.”

      I interrupted. “But Aunt Clarice doesn’t put a lot of faith in such things.”

      “No,” he said thoughtfully. “Cosimo wrote Mother a letter well over a week ago. He offered his services; he said that serious trouble was coming, and that she would need his help.”

      I was intrigued. “What did she do?”

      “You know Mother. She refused to reply, because she felt insulted that such a young man—a boy, she called him—should presume that she would need help from the likes of him.”

      “Father Domenico says it’s the work of the Devil.”

      Piero clicked his tongue scornfully. “Magic isn’t evil—unless you mean for it to hurt someone—and it’s not superstition, it’s science. It can be used to make medicines, not poisons. Here.” He proudly lifted the large volume in his lap so that I could see its cover. “I’m reading Ficino.”

      “Who?”

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