The Devil’s Queen. Jeanne Kalogridis

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       Five

      Poggio means hill, and the villa my great-grandfather built at Poggio a Caiano rests atop a sprawling grassy prominence in the Tuscan countryside, three hours from the city. The home Lorenzo obtained in 1479 had been a plain, three-storied square with a red tile roof, but in il Magnificos hands, it became much more. He encased the ground floor by a portico with several graceful arches that opened onto the front courtyard. A staircase originated on either side of the central arch and the two curved upward to meet at the grand middle-floor entrance, where a triangular pediment rested atop six great columns in the style of a Greek temple. The structure stood majestic and alone, surrounded by gentle hills and streams and the nearby Albano mountains.

      No one would think to look for us there, Aunt Clarice explained, as it lay northwest of the city, and the rebels would be searching all the roads leading south. We would spend the night there, during which she would formulate a plan that would eventually take us safely to Naples.

      We rolled through the open gates, coughing from the dust, and tumbled barefoot and disheveled from the carriage to be met by a dumbstruck gardener. Exhausted though we were, our nerves would not let us rest or eat. Her gaze distant, her mind working, my aunt paced through the formal, painstakingly groomed gardens while I dashed ahead of her in an effort to tire myself. Dove-colored clouds gathered overhead; the breeze grew cool and smelled of rain. I thought of the astonishment and reproach in the stableboy’s eyes. I had learned a fundamental truth about killing: The victim’s anguish is brief and fleeting, but the murderer’s endures forever.

      I ran and ran that afternoon, but never succeeded in leaving the stableboy behind. Clarice never spoke to me of him; I honestly believe that she, lost in her efforts to transform a bleak future, had already forgotten him.

      When evening came, my aunt and I shared a supper of greasy soup, then went upstairs. Clarice undressed me herself. When she undid the laces on my bodice, the smooth black stone hidden there dropped to the marble floor with a click, and the battered bit of herb followed mutely. I bent to pick them up, bracing for angry words.

      “Did Ser Cosimo give you those?” my aunt asked softly.

      I nodded, flushing.

      Clarice nodded, too, slowly. “Keep them safe, then,” she said.

      She sent me to bed while she sat just outside, in the antechamber, and laboriously penned letters by lamplight. I put the herb and gem beneath my pillow and fell asleep to the halting scratch of her quill against the paper.

      Some time later, I was awakened by a wooden bang; an early summer storm had ridden in on a cold wind. A servant girl hurried into the room and closed the offending shutters to keep out the rain. I stared at the antechamber wall, where Aunt Clarice’s shadow loomed and receded as the flame danced, and listened to the shutters’ muted complaint.

      My sleep, when it finally came, was troubled by dreams—not of images but of sounds: of Clarice screaming for men to let go of her skirts, of horses neighing, of rebels chanting for our downfall. I dreamt of hoofbeats and the pounding of rain, of men’s voices and the faraway roll of thunder.

      Consciousness returned like a lightning strike; with a start, I realized that the drum of hoofbeats, the strident cadence of Clarice’s voice, and the lower one of men’s were not part of any dream.

      I pushed myself from bed and hurried to the shuttered window. It was low enough that I could look out easily—but the shutters were latched, and I too short to reach them. I looked about for a chair, and in that instant the door opened and a servant entered. She was not much older than I, but she was tall enough to unfasten the shutters at my impatient command and open them, then step back, her eyes enormous with fright.

      I stared out. On the vast, downward-sloping lawn, two dozen men sat on horseback in four militarily precise rows, sheathed swords at their hips.

      In that instant, my faith in Ruggieri’s magic crumbled. The Wing of Corvus was at best a harmless piece of jet. I would never grow up to rule; I would never grow up at all. I backed away from the window.

      “Where is she?” I whispered to the girl.

      “Madonna Clarice? At the front door, talking to two men. They told me to fetch you.

      “She is so angry with them,” the girl continued. “She did not want them to wake you. She is swearing at them so, she will surely provoke them—” She pressed her hand to her mouth as if she was going to be sick, then forced herself to calm. “Last night, she summoned me and said that, if anything happened to her, I was to see you safely to her mother’s people.” She glanced nervously at the door. “They will come looking for you, if we don’t appear soon. But …”

      I lifted my brows questioningly.

      “But we could leave by the servants’ stairs,” she continued. “They wouldn’t see us. There are places to hide here. I think Madonna Clarice would want that.”

      I expected Clarice did want that, and that she knew if I did not appear, the rebels would torture her in the hope of learning my whereabouts; they might well kill her. Escape seemed possible but unlikely—but my disappearance would undeniably put Clarice in terrible danger. Weighing this, I moved slowly to the bed, reached beneath the pillow, and found the hidden stone. I stared at its glassy surface, a black mirror in my palm, and saw my aunt refleeted there:

      Aunt Clarice, lifting me up to touch Lorenzo’s childish face. Clarice, lifting me out of the rebels’ reach, even as they tried to tear her apart. Clarice, who could well have departed with her husband and children, leaving us heirs in rebel hands. But like her grandfather, she did not abandon those of her blood, no matter how fatally afflicted.

      I placed the worthless gem upon the pillow, then pulled off the silver talisman, on its leather cord, and coiled it beside the stone. Then I looked up at the servant.

      “Get my gown, please,” I said. “I will be going down to meet them.”