The Devil's Queen: A Novel of Catherine de Medici

by Jeanne Kalogridis

  “Sister Violetta,” I said.

  She stared at me, her gaze blank. Her mouth worked for an instant before she was able to say, “Remember us kindly, Caterina.”

  “I will,” I answered, “provided you tell me how to get to Santissima Annunziata delle Murate.”

  She frowned and finally saw my tousled braid and dingy, sleeveless nightgown, its hem lifted by the wind, the outlines of the black silk pouch visible beneath the fraying linen at my breasts.

  “You can’t go out onto the streets,” she said. “You’re not even dressed. There will be soldiers. It isn’t safe.”

  I laughed, an unfamiliar sound. I was bold, unstoppable. Mars had just surrendered its hold on me, and now lucky Jupiter was ascendant. “I’m going, with or without your help.”

  She told me. South and east, down the Via Guelfa, past the Duomo, to the Via Ghibellina.

  I hurried down the stairs, ran across the patio, slid the bolt on the thick convent door, and stepped out into the Via San Gallo.

  It was early but hot, the cobblestones beneath my bare feet already warm. The street was alive with noise: the low-pitched toll of the Cow, the clatter of hooves, the rumble of excited voices. I had expected to find a populace shuttered indoors, hiding in fear from the same army that had savaged Rome; instead, people streamed out of their houses. Their poverty caused my giddy fearlessness to waver. I rubbed elbows with the well-dressed merchants and the starving poor, their children’s bellies bloated from hunger. Some headed with me, toward the tolling Cow in the Piazza della Signoria, but most headed due south on the Via Larga, toward the southern gate and the Imperial army. Toward food.

  Republican soldiers moved against the crowd—some on foot, some mounted. None looked up at me. Their heads were bowed, their gazes downcast as they headed wearily home to await their conquerors and certain death.

  I ran unnoticed, sweat streaming from my temples, the tender soles of my feet bruised and cut. The throng swept along faster and faster, as a cry went up.

  The gates are open! They’re coming in!

  I turned to see Ser Silvestro headed in the direction opposite mine, slouching astride his stallion, riding very slowly. His bare head was bowed; at the crowd’s shout, he lifted his chin, acknowledging the inevitable, then dropped it again.

  Chance, some might call it, or luck. But it was Jupiter, touching us both with its beneficence, bestowing us upon each other.

  I hurried to him; his weary horse paid me no mind.

  “Ser Silvestro!” I shouted giddily. “Ser Silvestro!”

  He did not hear; I reached out and touched his boot in the stirrup. He started and scowled down at me, ready to shout at the urchin who disturbed him—then recoiled and looked more closely at me.

  “Duchessina!” he exclaimed in amazement. “How can it be . . . !”

  Without ado, he reached for my hands and I grasped his, and he lifted me up onto his saddle.

  I turned round to look at him. “Do you remember our wager?”

  He shook his head gently.

  “You should,” I admonished. “The stakes were your life.” And when he looked blankly at me, I added, “You said that, in two months’ time, our fortunes would be reversed. Two months, but only three weeks have passed since we met.”

  His features relaxed into a pale, unhappy smile. “I remember now,” he said heavily. “I suppose, since it has been three weeks and not eight, I have lost.”

  “To the contrary, you have won,” I said. “You need only take me to the convent of Le Murate to collect.”

  PART IV

  Rome

  September 1530–October 1533

  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 scaff olding embraced the façade of every other building. Artists’ shops were crowded with clients arguing over commissions, apprentices grinding gems, sculptors chiselin
g huge chunks of marble.

  At last the carriage slowed, and Uncle Filippo said, “The Piazza Navona, built on the ruins of Emperor Domitian’s circus.”

  It was the largest square I had ever seen, wide enough for a dozen carriages to travel side by side. Ostentatious villas, newly built, lined its perimeter.

  Filippo pointed to a building at the far side of the square and proudly announced, “The Medici Palace of Rome, which rests upon Nero’s baths.”

  The new palace, of pale stucco edged with marble, had been built in the popular classical style—square and flat-roofed, three stories high. The carriage rolled into the long, curving driveway, then stopped, and the driver jumped down to call at the front door. Instead of the expected servant, a noblewoman appeared.

  She was my great-aunt Lucrezia de’ Medici, daughter of Lorenzo il Magnifico and sister of the late Pope Leo X. Her husband, Iacopo Salviati, had recently been appointed Florence’s ambassador to Rome. Elegant, thin, and slightly stooped, she wore a gown of black and silver striped silk that precisely matched her velvet headdress and hair.

  At the sight of Uncle Filippo helping me from the carriage, she called out, smiling, “I have been waiting all morning! How wonderful to finally set eyes upon you, Duchessa!”

  Aunt Lucrezia led Ginevra and me to my new apartments. I had come to think of my room at Le Murate as lavish; now, I entered a sunny antechamber with six padded velvet chairs, a Persian rug, a dining table, and a large cherry desk. Paintings covered the marble walls: an annunciation scene, a portrait of Lorenzo as a young man, and one of my mother, an arresting young woman with dark eyes and hair. Lucrezia had brought the painting out of storage for me.

  She explained that my great-uncle Iacopo was meeting with His Holiness that very hour, arranging a time for my audience. She left me in the company of a seamstress, who fitted me for several fine gowns.

  Before supper, Lucrezia’s own lady-in-waiting arrived. With Ginevra’s help, she laced me into a woman’s gown of daff odil yellow brocade. An inset of sheer silk, fine as a spider’s web, stretched from the low bodice to my neck. My hair was smoothed back at the crown with a band of brown velvet edged with seed pearls.

  Sheepish in my grand costume, I followed her down to the family’s private dining chamber. At its entrance, Aunt Lucrezia and Uncle Iacopo, an authoritative, balding old man, greeted me. They led me inside, to my place at the long, gleaming table, and I found myself staring across it at Ippolito and Sandro.

  I had known they would be there, of course, but had not allowed myself to think about it because facing them was simply too awful: I could never forgive them—but they were now the only family I had.

  Now nineteen, Sandro looked more than ever like his African mother, his clean-shaven face dominated by heavy black brows and great dark eyes ringed by shadows; he wore a drab, old-fashioned lucco, the loose tunic of a city elder.

  “Cousin,” he said formally and bowed on the other side of the table, keeping his distance, at the same time that Ippolito came grinning round the table.

  Beneath an attractively hawkish nose, Ippolito’s mustache and beard were blue-black and full, his large eyes brown and rimmed by thick lashes. Dressed in a tight-fitting green farsetto to show off the broadness of his shoulders and narrowness of his waist, he was, simply, beautiful.

  “Caterina, sweet cousin!” he exclaimed. The diamond on his left ear flashed. “How I have missed you!”

  He reached for me. In my mind’s eye, I saw Aunt Clarice staring down in horror at a tangle of hastily discarded leggings and tunics; I put my hand up to keep him from touching me, but he bent down and kissed it.

  “The Duchessina is tired,” Aunt Lucrezia pronounced loudly. “She is glad to see you both, but she has been through too much; let us not tax her. Take your chair, Ser Ippolito.”

  We sat down. The food was exquisite, but the sight of it nauseated me. I went through the motions of putting a small bite into my mouth and chewing it, but swallowing it made me want to cry.

  Conversation was polite, dominated by Donna Lucrezia and Ser Iacopo. The latter asked what I thought of Rome; I stammered replies. Donna Lucrezia inquired politely about the cousins’ studies; Ippolito was the quicker to answer. A lull followed, during which I felt Ippolito’s steady gaze on me.

  Softly, he said, “We were all horrified, of course, when we heard that the rebels had taken you prisoner.”

  I pushed back my chair and ran from the table, out the French doors that opened onto a balcony overlooking the city; thousands of windows flickered yellow in the darkness. I crouched in the farthest corner and closed my eyes. I wanted to vomit up the food I had just eaten; I wanted to vomit up the last three years.

  I heard footsteps and looked up at Ippolito’s silhouette, backlit by the glow from the dining room.

  “Caterina . . .” He knelt beside me. “You hate me, don’t you?” “

  Go away.” My tone was ugly, raw. “Go away and don’t ever speak to me again.”

  He let go the saddest of sighs. “Poor cousin. It must have been dreadful for you.”

  “They might have killed us,” I said bitterly.

  “Do you think I feel no guilt?” he countered, with a trace of vehemence.

  “Consider my point of view: I was about to make a very dangerous escape, one I might well not have survived. I didn’t tell you for fear you would be endangered. We dressed like common thugs; our accomplices were thieves and murderers. We didn’t feel safe with them ourselves. What would they have done to a young girl?”

  “They tore her gown when we were climbing the wall to escape,” I hissed. “It broke her heart to lose Florence. It broke her heart, and she died.”

  His features, faded by darkness, twisted with anguish. “It broke my heart to leave you both. I thought the rebels would rightfully blame us, pursue us, and let the both of you go free. I thought that, by confiding nothing, I had protected you. Then I heard you were imprisoned. And when Clarice died, I . . .” He turned his face away, overcome.

  I startled myself by reaching toward him—but when he faced me again, I withdrew my hand, uncertainly.

  “Sweet little cousin,” he said. “Perhaps in time you will be able to forgive me.”

  In the end, Ippolito led me back into the dining room. Supper continued in subdued fashion. Afterward, I went up to my room, unnerved yet relieved by the ease with which Ippolito had coaxed me back. That night, as I struggled to fall asleep in my fine new bed, with Ginevra snoring enthusiastically out in the antechamber, I recalled the regret and sorrow in Ippolito’s voice when he spoke of Clarice and wondered what might have happened had I not drawn my hand away.

  The next morning, wearing Clement’s gifts—the blue gown and diamond pendant—I climbed into a gilded carriage with Filippo, Lucrezia, and Iacopo. We rolled over the Ponte Sant’Angelo, the bridge named for the giant statue of the Archangel Michael atop the nearby fortress of the Castel Sant’Angelo, his huge wings sheltering the wounded city.

  The bridge spanned the river Tiber, which separated the Holy See from the rest of the city. The Tiber was so crowded with merchant ships—a thousand sails, so close together they might have all been one monstrous vessel—I could scarcely see the muddy water, which stank of garbage.

  The Ponte Sant’Angelo took us into Saint Peter’s Square—in fact a circle, its circumference ringed by massive stone colonnades; at the far end stood the new Basilica of Saint Peter. Built in the shape of a Roman cross, it rose above the colonnades embracing it. The beggars and pilgrims, monks and cardinals upon its sprawling marble steps were gnats in comparison. Like the rest of Rome, Saint Peter’s was undergoing repairs—it had served as the stables for Lutheran invaders during the Sack—and its flanks were covered with the ubiquitous wooden scaff olding.

  Our carriage stopped on the Basilica’s northern side. Ser Iacopo led the way as Filippo, Lucrezia, and I passed porticoes, courtyards, and fountains en route to the Papal Palace, surrounded by the famed Swiss Gu
ard, clad in broad stripes of yellow and blue, with plumes of Medici red on their helmets. When the Emperor’s troops swarmed Saint Peter’s Square, forcing Clement to run for his life, the Swiss soldiers had died almost to a man defending him.

  The guards knew Ser Iacopo well and parted smartly to permit us entry. We ascended a great marble staircase, Donna Lucrezia whispering in my ear, pointing out landmarks as we made our way past priests, bishops, and red-robed cardinals. On the second landing, a pair of closed doors were bound with a chain: the infamous Borgia Apartments, sealed off entirely since the death of the criminally inclined patriarch Rodrigo, better known to the world as Pope Alexander VI.

  Soon we arrived at the suite directly above the Borgia Apartments: the Raphael Rooms, named for the artist who had adorned their walls. In the alcove just inside, a frail, white-haired cardinal frowned as he listened intently to an urgently whispering widow. Ser Iacopo gently cleared his throat; the ancient cardinal smiled up at Ser Iacopo and asked eagerly, “Ah, Cousin . . . Is this she?”

  “It is,” Ser Iacopo replied.

  “Duchessina.” The old man bowed stiffly. “I am Giovanni Rodolfo Salviati, at your service. Welcome to our city.”

  I thanked him, and he staggered away bearing news of our arrival. A moment later, Cardinal Salviati returned and beckoned to us with a gnarled finger. We passed through an outer chamber so thoroughly covered with murals I could not absorb them all.

  The door to the adjacent chamber lay ajar; the Cardinal paused on the threshold. “Your Holiness? The Duchess of Urbino, Caterina de’ Medici.”

  I walked into a work of art. The floor was shining inlaid marble arranged in varying geometric designs, and the walls . . .

  The walls. Three were covered in painted masterpieces limned by gilt and encased in marble lunettes; the fourth was lined from floor to ceiling with ornately carved shelves that held hundreds of books and countless stacks of scrolls yellowed by the centuries. The ceiling was a riot of marble molding and painted allegorical figures, gods, and haloed saints; in its center was a small cupola, where four plump cherubs supported the gold and crimson shield bearing the papal tiara and keys.