The Devil’s Queen. Jeanne Kalogridis

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СКАЧАТЬ Pope Clement have been warned? Even more: Had my mother been warned that mine would be a difficult birth, would she not have consulted a physician earlier? Might my father have been warned to see to his health? Might both their lives have been spared?

      Surely God would have wanted to spare the Pope and my parents. Surely He would not condemn a frightened child for seeking safety, even if it lay in the arms of a man who spoke to devils.

       There are things we must discuss, unhappy secrets.

      I stared up at Gaspar, the King of the East, young and glorious astride his white mount. He did not hold my attention long; it was the boy Lorenzo who captivated me—an ugly, lonely, brilliant child, forced by fate to grow shrewd before his time. Lorenzo, who ignored all others and kept his gaze intently focused on the Magus.

      The next morning I woke to the sounds of a household unbearably alert but subdued. The usual lilts of servants’ voices had become terse whispers; their steps were muted. I could not even hear the cook and scullery maid banging pots and dishes in the kitchen.

      Ginevra dressed me hurriedly and left. I should have gone directly down to breakfast—but I knew that the chambermaids would already be busy at their tasks, so I headed to their empty bedroom. I dragged a stool to the window, stepped up, and looked down.

      The composition of the crowd had changed. The day before had brought unarmed merchants and peasants. Today the men were highborn and armed with short swords at their hips; they stood in disciplined ranks, forming a barricade around the compound. Traffic in the Via Larga had stalled, thanks to sentries who questioned each passerby.

      Troubled, I quit the window and went down to seek Piero. I found him in the boys’ apartment, where Ginevra was lifting a stack of folded items from an open wardrobe. She had turned to set them down into a half-packed trunk when she caught sight of me standing in the doorway.

      I stared at the bundle of boys’ clothing in her arms. Beside Ginevra, Leda sat on a low stool folding bed linens, which she set in a second trunk. I could not imagine why Leda, who always tended Aunt Clarice, should be fussing with the boys’ linens.

      Ginevra flushed brilliantly. “You shouldn’t be here, Caterina,” she said. “Did you get your breakfast?”

      I shook my head. “What are you doing?”

      Piero heard and came out of the bedroom. “Packing,” he said, smiling. “Don’t look so frightened, Cat. We’re going to the country, just like I said. Mother’s going to speak to the rebels tonight, after we’re gone.”

      In a small voice, I said, “No one is packing my things.”

      “Well, they will.” Piero turned to Ginevra, whose gaze was carefully fixed on the trunk in front of her. “Who’s going to take care of her things?”

      Ginevra’s reply was so long in coming that Leda, the braver of the two, said sternly, “Her aunt will speak to her about it when the time is right. In the meantime, she should get her breakfast and stay out of trouble.”

      My lower lip twitched despite my best efforts to control it, and I said, tearfully, to Piero, “They’re not going to let me go with you.”

      “Don’t be silly!” he said and turned his gaze on Leda. “She is going with us, isn’t she?”

      Leda tried to meet his stare brazenly, but in the end, she looked away. “Madonna Clarice will speak to her later.”

      Piero’s voice rose in protest, but I bolted before I heard what he had to say. I raced breakneck down the stairs, out into the courtyard, and past the formal garden to the far end of the stables. A large sycamore grew beside the stone wall that enclosed the rear of the property. I hurled myself beneath its shade and wept. The world had betrayed me; my only hope, my only happiness, was Piero, but now he was to be taken from me. I cried undisturbed for what seemed an eternity, then lay with my back against the damp ground and stared up at green leaves punctuated by bits of sky.

      I have the best insurance of all; I have the heirs. Piero and his brothers would be taken to safety, and I, an heir, would remain. I was currency Clarice could use in her negotiations with the rebels.

      In my reverie, I almost failed to notice the songs of church bells—San Marco, San Lorenzo, Santa Maria del Fiore—tumbling over each other in melodic cascades. They had nearly stilled when I sat up and reconstructed the number of tolls from memory. It was terce, the third hour of the morning.

      I rose, brushed the twigs from my skirts, and hurried along the side of the stables until I was able to peer around the corner toward the gates that opened onto the Via Larga.

      Our two dozen guards were focused on the silent rebels on the other side of the iron bars, while a boy was leading a gleaming black mare to the stalls. She was spirited and tossed her head, obedient enough but letting him know, with a disdainful glare, that she did not trust him.

      Ser Cosimo could not be far away. I went to the deserted garden and waited there for half an hour—an agonizing length of time for a restless child.

      At last the magician appeared, in a farsetto of black and red striped silk. He spotted me and silently led me to an alcove sheltered from view by a tall hedge.

      Once there, he said sternly, “You must promise me, Donna Caterina, that you will tell no one of our meeting—for many reasons, not the least of which is the unseemliness of my meeting privately with a young girl. You must repeat what I tell you to no one—especially your aunt Clarice.”

      “I promise.”

      “Good.” He leaned down so that his face was at the level of mine. “Your natal stars are remarkable. I would like to help you, Caterina, to mitigate their evil and strengthen the good.” He paused. “You will rule. But not for many years. Saturn in Capricorn assures that.”

      “We will lose Florence—for a while?” I asked. “And then come back, as we did before?”

      “You will never rule Florence,” he said, and when my features began to crumple, he snapped, “Listen to me! The chart of your nativity shows Leo ascending and Aries in your Tenth House. That is the marker of a king, Caterina. You will rule far more than a single city If—” He stopped himself. “Your horoscope holds many terrible challenges, and now is the first. I intend to see you survive it. Do you understand?”

      I nodded, intrigued and terrified. “Is that what you saw yesterday, when you looked at the moles near my ear? You saw something that frightened you.”

      He frowned, trying to remember, then broke into an amused smile. “I wasn’t frightened. I was…impressed.”

      “Impressed?”

      “By the king,” he said. “The one you are to marry.”

      I gaped, dumbstruck.

      “I do not know how far we can rely on Madonna Clarice,” he continued. “A betrayal is coming, one that threatens your life, but I am not sure whence it arises. I have been honest with your aunt about your singular importance, and I have given her talismans of protection for you and your cousins. But I did not know whether I could trust her to give you this.”

      His fingers dug into the pouch on his belt and found a small item; he opened them to reveal a polished black stone СКАЧАТЬ