The Scarlet Contessa. Jeanne Kalogridis

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СКАЧАТЬ Bona’s draught had left me sufficiently compliant, Francesca and the chambermaids took me away to the duchess’s room and dressed me in black skirts that were too long, and a veil that filmed the world darkly; I did not care. I did not want to see.

      Miserable, pointless hours passed, after which I was taken to the ducal chapel to discover Matteo in front of the altar, lying in a wooden box, his arms crossed, a crucifix over his heart. The votive candles I had lit for his safety still burned upon the altar. I threw them across the room, ignoring the startled gasps of onlookers and the scalding wax that spilled down my arm.

      I did not sleep at all that first night.

      The next day, I sat beside Matteo in the chapel, Bona at my side, while most of the courtiers filed past his body. In the midst of familiar faces, one unknown appeared, with beard and hair and eyes black and shining as jet. I did not know him, yet felt I had laid eyes upon him before. He bore a saddlebag slung over his shoulder, and when he approached, he went down upon one knee and presented the saddlebag as if it were a gift.

      I realized then that he was the rider, the man who had broken away from the caravan of papal legates my husband was leading from Rome to Milan, in order to bring Matteo swiftly home. He had remained in Matteo’s room, awaiting the outcome, until I had thrown him out.

      “This was your husband’s, Madonna,” he said. His voice was deep and soft, his gaze averted; if he felt any emotion, it was carefully contained. “He asked me to be certain you received it.” He looked to be Matteo’s age and would have been pretty enough to capture the duke’s attention—Galeazzo occasionally indulged in affairs with his male staff—had it not been for his great sharp nose.

      I thanked him. The bag was heavier than I expected, and when he handed it to me, it slipped from my grasp to the ground. I could not bring myself to look inside, not there, with others watching. The man bowed and retreated, and I thought no more about him.

      Duke Galeazzo was last to appear. He stared with distaste at my husband’s corpse and said flatly, “A pity. He was one of my most talented scribes. Poison, was it?”

      At those last words, I gasped. The red-eyed Cicco was with the duke and drew him away with a word, but I rose, and called after him to explain himself. What poison? Had the doctor said this? Why had no one mentioned this to me?

      I tried to push through the crowd and find the black-haired man who had given me Matteo’s saddlebag. He had traveled with Matteo; surely he would know if my husband had been poisoned.

      But the man was nowhere to be found, and Francesca and Bona pleaded with me to sit back down. His Grace was mistaken, they insisted. He was confusing Matteo with another man, another matter, but I did not believe them, and broke down sobbing.

      After a time, there were priests and Roman legates, public prayers and psalms, but there was no burial. For the first time in anyone’s memory, the ground was coated with a layer of solid ice; we could not lay him in the earth until it thawed.

      Matteo’s corpse was taken away—somewhere outside, I suspected, sheltered from animals but not the freezing cold; they were wise not to tell me where. Bona led me to a nauseating display of food in the common dining chamber near the chapel. I could not bear the sight of it, so her ladies returned me to Bona’s chamber, where I drank more of the wine laced with the bitter tang of poppies. For hours I stared into the glittering fire.

      Matteo had been murdered. Romulus and the Wolf had killed him in order to silence him, and they would kill Lorenzo next. And I was stripped of reason and will and could do nothing to stop it. Whom should I tell? Whom should I trust?

      When night fell, Francesca helped me undress and put on my nightgown. She offered me more bitter wine, but I refused and was taken to my little cot. When Bona arrived, she paused before climbing into her own bed to pray; I lay listening to her whispers and began to tremble with silent rage. I wanted to strike her, to tear the rosary from her fingers, to scream that she had taught me only lies: God was neither loving nor just, and I hated Him.

      I held my tongue and waited, anguished, until Bona fell asleep, until Francesca snored. By the light of the hearth, I rose and found my shawl and slippers, then slipped out into the loggia.

      I pattered downstairs, gasping at the freezing air when I hit the open hallway. I staggered in the blackness, twice almost slipping on the ice, and was shivering uncontrollably by the time I got to Matteo’s room. It was cold and dark and drafty; the fire had gone out and the flue was still open, but I did not bother to light it, as I did not care whether I caught cold or froze to death. I would have been pleased to die.

      I am unsure why I went to my husband’s chamber. I believe I meant to scream myself hoarse, though even with the windows shuttered, I would have been overheard. I only know that when I arrived and drew the bolt behind me, I spied Matteo’s quill upon the carpet.

      It must have been tangled in the bedding and fallen when I removed the sheets to clean him. I dropped to my knees before it and grief rushed out of me in a torrent. The sobs wracked me so that I sank down upon the carpet, the quill clutched to my chest.

      I wept a good half an hour. When I was done, my eyes, nose, and mouth were streaming, the poor feather crushed. Gasping for breath, I pushed myself up to sitting, and felt something small and metal brush against my breastbone, beneath my nightgown.

      Matteo’s key.

      Use it in case of emergency.

      I drew my sleeve across my eyes and nose, and stared across the room at Matteo’s writing desk and the secret panel next to it, hidden in the dark wooden wainscoting. Weak and trembling after the paroxysm of tears, I crawled on my hands and knees to Matteo’s desk, and pulled myself up into his chair to light the lamp. The oil was low, and the flame feeble; I leaned down and had to run my fingertips over the wall to find the tiny black keyhole.

      I slipped the leather thong over my hand, and put the little key into the lock.

      The door to the compartment popped open with a faint click. Behind the wood panel, a large stone brick was missing from the wall; in the gap sat a thick stack of papers the size of a library manuscript. I drew them out carefully, set them upon my husband’s desk, and pulled the lamp closer.

      On the very top was a tiny black silk pouch, tied with a red ribbon, and beneath that, a letter on fresh paper, folded into thirds, sealed with wax, and addressed For my Beloved. At the sight, I braced myself for the emotional upheaval to come as I opened the little black pouch. I thought it contained jewelry—a keepsake, perhaps, by which I could remember him, but it contained only a coarse grayish-brown powder.

      I turned to the letter, expecting to learn, at long last, why my husband had rejected my amorous advances.

      I did not expect to be frightened.

      It was not a heartfelt farewell letter but a diagram, in Matteo’s hand, of a circle with the cardinal directions marked—oddly, with east at the top of the circle instead of north, and west at the bottom. At each direction, he had put a five-pointed star, with arrows carefully indicating how it should be drawn, and beneath each star, a word in what I suspected was Hebrew; underneath these were written phonetic translations in the vernacular, but no meaning was given.

      Beneath this was a diagram of a second circle, again with the cardinal directions, this time accompanied by hexagrams and more barbarous words.

      It was magic, the same magic I had seen him work at night when I pretended to be sleeping СКАЧАТЬ