The Devil’s Queen. Jeanne Kalogridis

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СКАЧАТЬ dusk on the twentieth of July, I sat in the refectory flanked by Maddalena and Sister Niccoletta at the supper all sisters shared. Per custom, we observed silence as we dined on our minestra, whose broth now lacked meat or pasta.

      The eastern wall of the refectory bore a fresco of the Last Supper; the adjacent wall was broken by a large window overlooking the patio and the convent door, its grates now boarded shut.

      Atop my scapular, the work apron worn over the habit, I wore a golden crucifix, but beneath the habit I wore Ruggieri’s black amulet. I had assiduously studied my nativity until the greater details were committed to memory, and had followed the position of the planets and stars over the days and nights. Mars, hot red warrior, was conjunct Saturn, harbinger of death and destruction, and passing through my ascendant—Leo, the marker of royalty. Such a transit warrants danger and ofttimes violent ends. And Saturn, silent and dark, had sailed into my Eighth House, the House of Death. Like Florence’s, my stars boded catastrophic change.

      When I heard the pounding at the convent gate, I felt little surprise. For a moment, we women sat very still and listened to it echo off the worn cobblestone.

      Sister Antonia directed a pointed look at Mother Giustina; the abbess nodded, and Antonia rose and walked out of the refectory, her gaze guarded and avoiding mine. As she did, masculine voices at the door began to shout.

      I set down my spoon. The walls that for two and a half years had afforded protection were now a trap. I jumped up, thinking to run, knowing I could go nowhere.

      “Caterina” Mother Giustina warned. When I gaped at her, she ordered sternly, “Go to the chapel.”

      Outside at the gate, Sister Antonia cried out, “You cannot come inside. This is a nunnery!”

      Something slammed against the door, something heavier and thicker than a human fist. Giustina was on her feet.

      “Go to the chapel,” she repeated and then ran, veil and full sleeves fluttering, to join Antonia. Halfway across the cobblestone patio, she called out to the men behind the wall, but the battering was so loud her words were lost.

      Sister Niccoletta rose and seized my arm. “Come.” She pulled me with her toward the refectory door, and suddenly we were encircled by others—Maddalena and Sister Rafaela, Barbara and Sister Antonia and Sister Lucinda—all of us moving together.

      Lisabetta and Pippa remained at the table. “They’ve come for you,” Pippa gloated. “They’ve come and God will see justice done.”

      The others engulfed me. We swept out into the corridor, past the archway that opened onto the patio, past the nuns’ cells.

      Behind us, the hammering abruptly stopped, giving way to voices calling back and forth over the wall: Mother Giustina’s, a man’s. The sounds faded as we moved deeper inside the convent, passing the scriptorum and emerging from the other end of the building. Outside, the dying light colored the clouds in sunset shades of rose and coral against a greying lilac sky.

      We crossed the walkway and entered the chapel, the candles already lit for vespers, the air hazy with frankincense. The sisters brought me to the altar railing and formed a half-moon barrier around me. I knelt trembling at the railing; Saturn weighed so heavily on me I could not breathe. I reached for the rosary on my belt and began to recite from memory but stumbled over the words. My mind was not on the beads in my hand but on the black stone over my heart; my prayers were not truly to the Virgin but to Venus, not to Jesus but to Jove.

      Giustina’s shouts filtered in through the open doors. “You commit sacrilege! She is a child, she has done no one harm …!”

      Bootheels hammered against stone. I turned and saw them enter: men with heads unbowed, hearts uncrossed, as though these walls were not hallowed.

      “Where is she?” one demanded. “Where is she, Caterina of the Medici?”

      I crossed myself. I rose. I turned and looked beyond the shoulders of my sisters at four soldiers armed with long swords—as if we were a danger, as if we might give fight.

      The youngest of them, all gangling limbs and nerves, had eyes as bright and wide as mine. His chin was up, his hand on his hilt. “Back away,” he told my sisters. “Back away. We must take her, by order of the Republic.”

      Niccoletta and the others stood fast and silent. The soldiers drew their swords and advanced a step. A collective sigh, and the women scattered.

      All of them, except Niccoletta. She stepped in front of me, her arms spread, her voice hard. “Do not lay a hand on this child.”

      “Move away,” the young soldier warned.

      I caught hold of Niccoletta’s arm. “Do as he says.”

      Niccoletta was stone, and the soldier so nervous, he swung his sword. The flat hit Niccoletta’s shoulder and dropped her to her knees.

      The sisters and I cried out at the same instant Niccoletta did. I knelt beside her. She was speechless, gasping in pain, but there was no blood; her spectacles were still in place.

      The other more seasoned soldiers elbowed the younger man back before he could do further harm.

      “Here now,” one said. “Don’t press us to violence in God’s house.”

      As he spoke, two more soldiers entered, followed by a dark-haired man with silver in his trimmed beard and an air of authority. He had come to take me to die.

      Mother Giustina, red-eyed and resigned, walked beside him.

      With one hand, I gestured at my white veil and raised my voice; it echoed, clear and ringing, throughout the chapel. “What sort of excommunicated fiend would enter a sanctuary to drag a bride of Christ from her convent? Would dare to drag her to her doom?”

      The commander’s eyes crinkled in amusement.

      “I dare do neither,” he said, in a tone so good-natured that it broke the spell of fear. The women, arms raised in protest, slowly lowered them; the soldiers sheathed their weapons. “I have simply come to transport you, Donna Caterina, to a safer place.”

      “This place is safe!” Mother Giustina countered.

      The commander turned to her and politely said, “Safe for her purposes, Abbess, but not the Republic’s. This is a den of Medici sympathizers.” He settled his gaze again on me. “You see that we have sufficient force to take you, Duchessa. I would sincerely prefer to use none.”

      I studied him a long moment, then lifted my fingers to Sister Niccoletta’s face and stroked it; she touched her forehead to mine and began to cry.

      “Stop,” I said softly and kissed her cheek. Her skin was powder-soft and weathered, and tasted of bitter brine.

       Ten

      The commander asked me to dispense with the habit and change into a regular gown, but I refused. He did not ask a second time. Haste was critical, and when, for the first time in two and a half years, I stepped outside Le Murate’s walls into the street, I understood why.

      Eight СКАЧАТЬ