The Devil’s Queen. Jeanne Kalogridis

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       Twelve

      I made good on my bargain with Ser Silvestro. His comrades met their deaths at chopping blocks and gallows; he was fated to join them until I dispatched a letter to the Pope. His sentence was commuted to exile.

      When Le Murate’s door opened to me, I ran into Sister Niccoletta’s waiting arms; we held each other fast and I laughed at the pools of tears collected on her spectacles. Within two days, Roman legates arrived with gifts of cheese, cakes, lambs, pigs, pigeons, and the finest wine I have ever tasted. While the rest of the city mourned defeat, those at Le Murate celebrated my return with a feast.

      Fortunately, our invaders were not the wild, angry troops that had decimated Rome. The occupation of Florence was orderly. The Imperial commander who brought greetings from the Pope and Emperor Charles kissed my hand and addressed me as Duchessa.

      On the fourth morning after the Republican surrender, a carriage took me to the Strozzi family villa. There, two men waited in the reception hall, one of them the gray-haired, sunken-cheeked Filippo Strozzi. As I entered the room, he embraced me more enthusiastically than he ever had before. He had reason to be glad: Florence and Rome were in the throes of rebuilding, and Filippo, kinsman by marriage to the Pope and a banker with money to lend, was positioned to become dazzlingly rich.

      The other man was young, short, barrel-chested, and wearing a blinding grin. I failed to recognize him until he cried, his voice breaking with emotion, “Cat! Cat, I thought never to see you again!”

      I had no words. I hugged Piero tightly, reluctant to let go of him. When we sat, he pulled his chair next to mine and held my hand.

      My joy at the Imperial victory was tinged with sorrow at the realization that I would have to leave Le Murate, but I comforted myself with the thought that I would soon return home to the Palazzo Medici with Uncle Filippo and Piero.

      “Duchessina” Filippo said, “His Holiness has sent you gifts.”

      He fetched presents: a silk damask gown of vivid blue and a choker of pearls from which hung a pea-size diamond.

      “I shall wear these,” I said, delighted, “when we dine together again at the Palazzo Medici.”

      “Pope Clement bids you wear these when you go to meet him in Rome.” Filippo cleared his throat. “His Holiness wishes the heirs to remain in Rome until such time as they are ready to rule.”

      I cried, of course. I had to be pried away from Piero after we said good-bye.

      Back at Le Murate, I mourned bitterly. I wrote impassioned letters to Clement, begging to stay in Florence. It didn’t matter. By the end of the month, I was forced to say farewell to Sister Niccoletta and Mother Giustina and my beloved Piero.

      I was orphaned again.

      Rome sits upon seven hills. After hours of rolling green countryside, I glimpsed the first of them, the Qirinal, from the window of the carriage that carried Uncle Filippo, Ginevra, and me. Filippo pointed at an approaching expanse of worn, unremarkable brick, sections of which had dissolved with age and sprouted greenery.

      “The Aurelian Wall,” he said reverently. “Nearly thirteen hundred years old.”

      Moments after, we reached the wall and passed beneath a modern archway: the Porta del Popolo, the Gate of the People. Beyond, a sprawling city stretched to the horizon, dotted with campaniles and cathedral domes rising above the flat roofs of villas; white marble glittered beneath a hot September sun. Rome was far larger than Florence, far larger than I could have imagined. We rolled through common neighborhoods, past shops, humble homes, and open markets. The poor traveled on foot, the merchants on horses, the rich in carriages, a preponderance of which belonged to cardinals. Yet the streets, though busy, were uncrowded; a third of the buildings were still empty three years after the devastation wrought by the Emperor’s troops. Rome was still licking her wounds.

      As the districts grew wealthier, I saw more evidence of the Sack. The gaudy villas of cardinals and of Rome’s most influential families exhibited damage: Stone finials and cornices had been smashed, wooden doorways scarred. Statues of gods were missing limbs, noses, breasts. Over the entrance to one cathedral, a headless Virgin held the Christ child in her arms.

      Hammers rang on every street; wooden scaffolding embraced the façade of every other building. Artists’ shops were crowded with clients arguing over commissions, apprentices СКАЧАТЬ