The Scarlet Contessa. Jeanne Kalogridis

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СКАЧАТЬ to hold up. “My future for the coming year.”

      “Then think on that, Your Grace,” I said coolly, and took the cards from the velvet box. They were warm, as if they had been stored close to a hearth, and despite the fact that they were much larger than playing cards, they shuffled easily this time, as if tailored to my grasp. I mixed them for as long as I dared, praying silently all the while. I saw no point in calling upon God; I spoke to the only one I still trusted.

      Matteo, help me. Help me to get out of here untouched and alive.

      Filippo broke the silence with a drunken giggle; Ottaviano joined in, but the duke had grown serious and hissed at them to be quiet.

      I, too, grew deeply still, and surrendered even my prayers in order to listen to the cards whispering in my hands. Instinct directed me to gather them up, stack them neatly, and push the pile to the center of the dining table, within Galeazzo’s reach.

      “Cut them, Your Grace,” I directed. An odd calm descended upon me, turning my feigned confidence into something real, a strange and ancient authority.

      Leaning heavily upon his left elbow, chin still propped upon a fist, Galeazzo reached out with his right hand. It was unsteady, and on his first attempt to cut the deck, he dropped the cards, overturning some, and swore.

      “No matter, Your Grace,” I said smoothly. “Gather them up, and cut again. It is all as fate wishes it to be.”

      By then, Galeazzo was scowling and visibly unnerved. Filippo’s drunken grin had vanished; he and Ottaviano were paying careful attention to their brother’s changing mood. Galeazzo pushed the cards back into a pile and cut them. I placed one stack atop the other, and took them back across the table.

      I drew a card from the top of the deck, turned it over, and dropped into another world.

      Before me, a glittering marble tower reared up against the bright blue sky, its pinnacle so high that wisps of clouds kissed it. At the top—so far up, they appeared as small as flies—two stonemasons wielded mortar and plane to build ever higher. This was the Tower of Babel, I realized, representing the hubris of man; and as I tilted my head far back to study its apex and the men working there, a roiling indigo cloud rushed from the horizon and enclosed the pinnacle and the men.

      It was the wrath of God, this cloud, and it birthed a blue-tinged, blinding bolt of lightning; the crack and roar was so ominous, I shrieked and covered my ears. At the same instant, the Tower exploded, sending shards of shattered marble hurtling to earth. The masons’ screams grew louder as they fell, headfirst, into oblivion. One of them, flailing a steel blade, I recognized as the King of Swords, he who metes out justice. I dropped to my knees and covered my head as he and a second man struck the earth beside me.

      Just as swiftly, God’s dark wrath disappeared, and the sky was again an unmarred blue—but the Tower was reduced to a shambles. Beside me lay the body of the second man. Impossibly, he was whole, and his eyes open in stark surprise, but he was no less dead and bloody, pierced through the heart by the King of Swords’ weapon. His hair was a light chestnut, his lips thin, the bridge of his nose marked by a single large bump. He was Duke Galeazzo, and I knew that he had at last paid for his sins, and was glad.

      “What does it mean?” Galeazzo demanded, and when I did not immediately reply, his tone changed from impatient to apprehensive. “What does it mean?”

      Matteo, help me, I prayed again. I drew a deep breath and spoke the truth. My words were just loud enough to be heard over the crackling fire and the duke’s quickened breath.

      “That you will be attacked, my lord, by those against whom you have sinned. That unless you repent immediately and make reparation, you will not live to see the coming year.”

      His brothers looked on while Galeazzo let go a ragged gasp of amazement and clumsily pushed himself to his feet. Grimacing with fury, he let go a snarl and raised an arm to strike.

      I glared back, defiant and ready to face my own unhappy fate. Matteo was dead, and I did not care to live. Yet it brought me wicked comfort to know that Duke Galeazzo would quake with fear until his own time came.

      “You!” he roared, his voice shrill with outrage. “You rotting bitch, how dare you speak to us so! How dare you . . .”

      He struck out. The stinging blow caught my upper lip, and almost tipped me backward in my chair. Stubbornly I held on and would not stir from my place, though my lip smarted enough to provoke tears. I refused to shed them, but looked boldly back at him.

      “You,” he hissed, his anger transforming in that exhaled word to curiosity. He stared at me, and his eyes narrowed in disbelieving recognition, then widened as his brows rushed together in fear. “Mother of God, it’s her, she’s a ghost! A ghost come back to haunt me! God help me . . . Save me, someone!”

      He crossed himself and staggered backward, promptly falling over his own chair; Ottaviano and Filippo rushed to help him. As he struggled back to his feet, his brothers clutching his elbows, he bellowed, “Get her out of here! Get her out!”

      I rose, and when the guards caught hold of my arms, I did not struggle, but let myself be pushed through the swiftly opened doors, and flung down upon the cold, hard marble in the loggia. Once there, I sat up and gingerly fingered my lip to find it greatly swollen. I touched my tongue to it, and tasted blood and morbid satisfaction.

      Bona was sitting in front of her fireplace beside Caterina and Chiara when I returned from the duke’s chambers. I knew she still felt betrayed over the cards, but at the sight of me, she let go a cry and rushed to embrace me. I put my hands upon her shoulders to comfort her, and when she realized I was otherwise untouched, she let go a sob of relief.

      I admit, I was surprised to find Caterina there, wearing an unusually somber expression. Once she learned I was mostly undamaged, however, she grew at once insolent. While Francesca went downstairs to the larder to find a piece of fresh meat for a poultice, Bona made me sit in front of the fire and gently pressed her own kerchief to my lip to staunch the bleeding. She could not bring herself to ask how her husband had behaved, but Caterina, who had settled in the chair beside me, had no such reluctance.

      “Did the king appear?” she asked.

      Bona, Chiara, and I looked at her in puzzlement.

      “The king,” she prompted. “The one with the sword. You drew that card for my father before, when Lorenzo came to visit. Did it come again? Or does some new future await him?”

      Bona’s lip curled. “You ought not ask such impertinent questions,” she said, with uncharacteristic asperity. “Let Dea rest. She’s tired and has been through enough.”

      Caterina ignored her and turned her whole body toward me. “It must have not been a very good future, or he wouldn’t have hit you.”

      Bona was right: I was tired—tired of secrets and lies. And Galeazzo’s reaction had left me with an odd sense of power. No matter what punishment he was planning for me, I no longer cared. I had spoken the truth and it had squarely hit its mark; now I did not want to stop.

      “The king was there,” I said, my words muffled by Bona’s kerchief and my huge upper lip. “But he appeared inside another card: the Tower.”

      Caterina leaned closer with avid curiosity. “And the Tower means?”

      “The wrath of God will strike your father down,” СКАЧАТЬ