The Scarlet Contessa

by Jeanne Kalogridis

  One day I was helping the aged Marta change the linens on my lady’s bed when Caterina entered the room. She had given birth only a fortnight before, and was still tired; worse, she had just been to see her husband, who before midday was already drunk and playing dice with his new noble friends, the dissolute Orsi brothers and the hotheaded Ludovico Pansecco. Girolamo had put a gaming table in his private upstairs dining room, which he dubbed “The Hall of the Nymphs” for the mural of naked demigoddesses upon the walls. Usually, after such encounters with her husband, Caterina was scowling and irritable, but that morning, I looked up from the linens to see her trying to suppress a smile; her eyes were unusually bright.

  “Dea,” she said liltingly, “I would speak to you alone.”

  She looked pointedly at Marta, who departed as quickly as her aching bones permitted. I tucked in a sheet and, after smoothing it with my hand, walked up to my mistress.

  “My husband,” Caterina began, “is not comfortable discussing the Castel Sant’Angelo, but I believe he has finally come to see just how great a risk I took for him—a risk that deserves to be repaid. As a result, he has granted one of my most persistent requests.” She paused for dramatic effect, studying me carefully to see whether I understood her.

  I waited silently, politely, for her to go on; my mind was already moving to the fact that the children’s bedclothes also needed washing, and that the nurse, Lucia, could not possibly watch her four charges while taking the soiled linens down to the overwhelmed laundress.

  Seeing how distracted I was, Caterina sighed and stated her surprise bluntly. “Dea, can’t you guess what I am saying? Girolamo has agreed that you may marry Luca.”

  I stared blankly at her, trying to process the words, and, finding them too incredible, could not. “What?”

  Grinning, she repeated herself.

  Stunned, I sat heavily on the edge of the bed. Caterina moved in front of me and took my hands.

  “Dea, don’t you understand?” Her tone was giddy. “You can have your Luca! And you can choose the day.”

  When I could speak, I whispered, “Oh, my lady. Oh, my lady . . .”

  I had not intended to move, but the next instant, I found myself standing, my arms wrapped tightly about her, as if she truly were my sister. Startled by my impulsiveness, she took a half step backward, but corrected herself at once, and leaned into the embrace.

  “Thank you,” I said, my cheek against hers. “Thank you . . .”

  “Do you not think,” she said slyly into my ear, “that we should share the news with Luca, too? The count is certainly in no condition to do so.”

  Less than a month later, Luca and I were married in the late afternoon in the town’s main cathedral, Santa Croce, also called the Duomo. Luca had made private arrangements with the priest, telling him that it would be a small affair involving household staff. He did not bother to mention that our few guests would include the Lady of Forlì, who remained heavily veiled until she was safely inside the church. Girolamo was back at the palazzo, of course, well into his cups in the Hall of Nymphs.

  I could not afford a new wedding dress, but made do with the best summer gown—of silver silk trimmed with black lace—that I had taken with me to the battlefront at Paliano. To my surprise, Luca had also chosen a silver brocade tunic, with a fingerprint of dark ink near its hem; I smiled at the stain and told him he looked handsome, which was no lie. He had trimmed his black mustache carefully, and shaved most of his beard to leave a neatly sculpted goatee.

  As we stood before the priest in the chapel, Luca’s voice wavered slightly as he recited his vows; I tried, but could barely speak above a whisper. When he faced me at last to slip the thin gold band upon my finger, his hands were damp and shaking, and his eyes unnaturally wide. Once the priest pronounced us wed, however, he broke into a grin of pure relief and we sagged, exhausted by nerves, into each other’s arms. When Luca’s lips found mine, however, his energy returned, and I would have fallen onto my back from the passionate pressure of his kiss had he not held me fast. As it was, I was obliged to bend backward from the waist, a move that caused Caterina and the children to giggle and clap, much to the priest’s disapproval.

  It was November, and frost had already burned the gardens behind the palazzo. We celebrated instead in Her Illustriousness’s dining chamber, a room so small that the house staff, reduced as it was, filled it. Caterina drank and dined and danced as if she were one of us, and I think, at that moment, that she was as happy as she had ever been in Rome; I was certainly happier. Luca kept refilling my goblet, and I drank a great deal of the sour local wine.

  At last Luca whispered in my ear; the time to leave our little party had come. Hand in hand, we stumbled to his sterile bachelor’s room, which he had earlier shared with Girolamo’s cupbearer. Now it was ours alone, and as Luca swung open the door, I took it in: It was barely larger than Caterina’s walk-in closet in Rome, and just as gloomy; the only light came from the small, circular window, which was so high that neither Luca nor I could look out through it. The only furnishings were a low bed half the size of Caterina’s, one small night table, one unpadded wooden chair, one large cabinet, and a small trundle desk equipped with quill and ink. The furniture was crowded together, leaving little space for walking; combined with the dirty stucco walls, the effect was grim.

  Yet I laughed as Luca walked over the threshold and started at the sudden crackle beneath his boot; some sly soul had scattered unhulled walnuts on the floor, an ancient tradition normally reserved for royalty, meant to mask the sounds of lovemaking. We pushed the nuts out of the way as best we could, and, after securely closing the door, began to undress each other; I unlaced Luca’s heavy sleeves, and he mine. We proceeded slowly, solemnly, for we had never seen each other fully undressed and the moment seemed oddly sacred. I was fascinated by Luca’s body—by the sweep of sparse dark hair across his upper chest, by the inverted V of hair that began beneath his navel and continued downward.

  I caught his wrist, thinking to drag him to the bed, but he resisted, instead pointing out the bottle of wine and two goblets resting on the night table. There was a small note sticking out from beneath one of the goblets; surprisingly, it was from Count Girolamo, wishing us well. To our delight, the freshly uncorked bottle contained excellent wine from Rome.

  “It’s a sign,” Luca teased, as he filled a goblet and handed it to me as I sat on the lumpy, disagreeable-smelling mattress.

  I shook my head, grinning. “A sign of what?”

  “A sign that I must get you drunk. You are, after all, a virgin; we must make sure you feel no pain.”

  I laughed as I sat back against the hard wooden headboard. “You’re too late for that; I’m already drunk.”

  “Then we must get you even drunker.” He sat beside me on the bed and we touched goblets.

  We did not even finish the first cup. When Luca leaned over to kiss me, I reached past him to set down my goblet, and proceeded to kiss back. Once I began, I found I could hold nothing back, and soon he was easing himself carefully down onto me.

  “Are you ready?” he whispered.

  I was ready.

  For all the fables I have heard about losing one’s virginity, I will tell you this: I felt little pain, and what I felt was soon forgotten as we gave ourselves over to ecstasy.

  Just as he had done in the storage closet outside his secret office in Rome, Luca clapped his hand over my mouth in an entirely unsuccessful effort to muffle my screams.

  For the first few weeks of our marriage, I spent the nights with Luca and stumbled back to my mistress’s bedchamber before dawn. Each night I fell asleep to the deeply comforting smell of iron-gall ink, male flesh, and parchment. Luca would light the lamp and carry it to the trundle desk, where, placing his cap over the lamp globe so that my eyes were shielded from its glare, he sat and wrote, just as my brother had. I never asked what he was writing, and he never volunteered any information about it.

  Once, I woke to
find that the lamp had gone out. Luca had opened the shutters, and stood beneath the little window with a ribbon of moonlight in his hair. I watched through barely open eyelids as, with his extended forefinger, he drew the outline of a five-pointed star in the air, before the southern wall. I lay still, scarcely breathing, as he continued drawing the circle, moving carefully from quarter to quarter, lest he collide with the furniture and wake me.

  The sight filled me with love and guilt and terror: love, because I knew that Luca knew the angel, and that my husband’s heart was as pure and noble as my brother’s; guilt, because I knew Matteo had wanted me to come to know the angel, but I had not pursued it; and terror.

  Terror, because I feared what the angel might ask of Luca.

  Terror, because I feared even more what it might someday ask of me.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  It is far easier never to know wealth and status at all than to have them in abundance and suffer the shock of losing them. Nonetheless, I was content those first four years in Forlì because of the joy Luca brought me; the tiny, uncomfortable room we shared was more a haven to me than any of the grand bedchambers in Milan or Rome that I had shared with Caterina. Although my lady had more need of me than ever before, she was generous, often permitting me to sleep with Luca the entire night; but there were many nights when old, dark fears overcame her and she could not forget that terrible moment when her father was killed before her eyes. On those nights, I went to her bed and remained there to comfort her.

  The enmity Caterina felt toward her drunkard husband continued to increase as Girolamo, utterly undone by his fall from grace, refused to speak with her about their lack of income. She had attempted at first to restore the old palazzo and bring it up to Roman standards, yet within the first two months, she realized that there were no funds to do so. The forty-four hundred ducats from Rome were almost gone, and what remained needed to be spent on food and drink for the household.

  This caused Caterina to acquire the habit of dining often at Luffo Numai’s house, for she and Girolamo would be assured of enjoying free but good wine and food. Unfortunately, I accompanied Caterina to those meals, and spent most of my time fending off Ser Luffo’s advances. I admit, I learned that the fastest way to please Ser Luffo was to strike him and speak cruelly to him—the crueler, the better—which reduced him quickly to a quivering mass who did my bidding. During one such encounter out in the hallway, Caterina left the dining hall in order to visit the water closet and saw us again.

  “It’s good that you do not entirely spurn Ser Luffo,” she told me later. “I’ve done the same with him myself. He’s far too powerful for us to make an enemy of him; the people listen to him.”

  Her attitude was far different from that of the spoiled duke’s daughter who had done whatever she pleased in Rome; such is the price of poverty. Caterina eventually pawned most of her jewels and silverware, and found herself in the humiliating position of begging money from her relatives—Ludovico the Duke of Milan, Cardinal della Rovere, and even her disapproving nephew, Cardinal Raffaele Riario. Ludovico and della Rovere never replied; astonishingly, young Raffaele did, with true concern for his struggling relatives. He paid a visit to his aunt and uncle in Forlì in grand style, throwing silver coins to the peasants and providing a public feast for them in the town square, to show them what it meant to be a Riario. His generosity extended to his aunt; without Girolamo’s knowledge, Raffaele gave Caterina a gift of several thousand ducats, knowing she would make far wiser use of it than his spendthrift uncle.

  The shame she suffered over that incident propelled her to action. One morning she went to Girolamo’s bedroom as he lay sleeping off the previous day’s wine, and would not leave until he agreed to sober up long enough to convince Forlì’s city council that, given that the Lord of Forlì was near bankruptcy, he must now impose taxes on the citizens. To his credit, Girolamo remained sober long enough to do the deed, and succeeded because of his wife’s careful instructions. It was enough to fend off hunger in the Palazzo Riario, but not even a tenth of the money that had poured into Girolamo’s coffers in Rome.

  Yet poverty was not the greatest of Caterina’s concerns: there remained the question of physical safety. Pope Innocent had formally invested the Riario with Imola and Forlì, but made it clear they could not count on Rome for protection should any other greedy soul decide to invade their little fiefdom. Once captain of the great papal army, Girolamo now oversaw the tiny local militia whose loyalty could not be counted on, as the Forlivese still perceived the Riario as outsiders. Nor did Girolamo have the money to buy mercenaries, as many rulers of small duchies did.

  As a result, Caterina again penned many letters asking for military help, should it ever be needed. She received only one reassuring reply, but an important one, from Duke Ludovico: The might of all Milan, he wrote, stands behind you. We could only hope that Ludovico was as generous with his soldiers as with his words.

  After two years of near-constant inebriation, Girolamo collapsed at his gambling table; one of the Orsi brothers came stumbling out of the Hall of Nymphs shouting for a doctor. Caterina found her groaning husband on the floor, doubled over in agony, clutching his ribs. Luca helped carry him to his bed.

  Caterina stayed with him until the doctor came. Girolamo suffered from excruciating pain in his upper abdomen and vomiting; the very sight of food nauseated him. He also suffered from teeth-chattering chills and soaking sweats.

  The doctor pronounced that the patient had a “glandular disorder,” and when Caterina asked the doctor pointedly whether Girolamo would live, the physician shrugged. “Time will tell,” he said. “It might get better, or worse.”

  For the rest of his life, Girolamo was to drink no wine or spirits or eat rich foods. In the interim, the doctor supplied him with a liquid to relieve pain, one so bitter that Girolamo would not drink it without pleas and threats.

  The liquid worked; Girolamo slept. As he did, Caterina and I returned to her chamber. In private, she spoke, her tone grimly serious.

  “Will you ride with me now to Ravaldino? I give you a choice because of the grave danger involved.”

  The fortress of Ravaldino was the single most impressive structure in Forlì; it lay flush with the southeastern wall of the city. Girolamo and Caterina were its rightful owners, but it was now held by a man named Zocho, a mercenary who had fought for Girolamo for many years. As a reward for Zocho’s friendship and services, Girolamo had made him castellan of Ravaldino. Unfortunately, since arriving in Forlì, Girolamo had relied on his new castellan to loan him money to cover his gambling debts. Since the count had no way of repaying him, Zocho suggested that he be given a percentage of ownership in the fortress. After four years, the result was that Zocho had earned more than fifty percent ownership in Ravaldino . . . and he had already let the Lord of Forlì know that the fortress was now his, unless Girolamo could find a way to reimburse him for the loans.

  Before I could reply, Caterina interrupted.

  “If Girolamo dies,” she said evenly, “I must have control of Ravaldino. There are far too many power-hungry souls who believe they can easily wrest Forlì and Imola from a poor widow. I cannot trust the Forlivese, nor can I afford an army. But if I have the fortress . . .”

  She trailed off at the sight of my face; I cannot imagine what she saw, for at the moment, I was plummeting down into darkness amid the jagged stones, my eyes blinded by searing lightning. “The Tower,” I gasped, though I was not speaking to her; I was in another place and could see nothing but the imprint of lightning on my inner eyelids.

  I became vaguely aware that Caterina was shaking my shoulders angrily. “I have already survived the Tower!” she shouted. “I have nothing more to fear.”

  “Thrice you will enter the Tower, and thrice emerge,” I said, frightened by the fact that I did not know where the words were coming from. “Whether alive or dead at the last is your choice. Choose well, and what you perceive as victory shall be defeat; what
you see as defeat shall be your greatest victory.”

  She held on to my upper arms until the spell passed; without her, I would surely have fallen. When I came to myself, Caterina continued speaking, as though I had not just uttered a frightening prophecy.

  “Go find your husband, Luca,” she said urgently. “His is the best script, and he knows how to make an order look official.”

  That night, as Girolamo lay on his sickbed, Caterina and I rode on horseback to Ravaldino. We stopped at the moat and Caterina called for Zocho to appear. He climbed onto the battlement above the drawbridge; his clumsiness showed that he had already imbibed a good deal of wine.

  At the first sight of him, I knew my lady’s cause was hopeless. Zocho was no nobleman; he laughed scathingly at the sight of Caterina, then turned his insolent, faintly lascivious grin on her. He was tall, thin, and completely bald, dressed in a rumpled, wine-stained tunic of plain cotton. A thick raised red scar bisected his right cheek, ultimately pointing to his right ear, which sported a large gold hoop. His pointed chin bore a scraggly goatee.

  “Caterina Sforza!” he exclaimed sarcastically. “The Lady of Forlì has come for a visit . . . which means, most assuredly, that the Lord of Forlì is dead. I heard that he had fallen ill.”

  Caterina’s temper rose at his impudence, but she struggled to contain it. “I have just left my lord’s side,” she said. “He is recovered enough to sign this.” She held up the writ Luca had so recently penned, and which Girolamo in fact had signed, though Caterina had held her hand over his as his shaking hand gripped the quill. “It is an order from my husband. You are to surrender Ravaldino now, to me. My lord has the right to seize whatever property is necessary for the protection of Forlì, debts notwithstanding.”

  Zocho cackled heartily at the notion that he would surrender his fortress to two women, one of them unarmed; once recovered, he squinted at the writ in Caterina’s outstretched hand and shrugged. “A piece of paper. How do I know the count is not dead, and that this is not forgery?”