The Medici Prize (The Stolen Crown Trilogy Book 1)

by Sylvia Prince

  “We’ll also need to refill our waterskins. You lost blood yesterday. You need to replenish yourself.”

  He walked over to the tent, breaking it down so they could leave.

  Caterina followed him, her hands on her hips. “And I hope you haven’t forgotten that I’m riding today. My feet are killing me.”

  James turned and gave her a steady look. “Of course, my lady. But look around. We’re in the middle of the woods. I doubt we’ll find any farmers today, or tomorrow. And I don’t steal.”

  She recoiled as if he’d slapped her, but she covered the movement so quickly that he wondered if he’d only imagined it. Her face gave away nothing. Instead of responding, she walked over to the horse, hoisting her leg through the stirrup and swinging herself into the saddle. Her skirt pulled tight across the horse’s back, exposing a long strip of her legs.

  James looked away.

  He folded up the tent and her blankets—apparently that was still his job—and tied them behind the saddle. Then he started north, into the woods.

  For an hour, he trudged through the trees, not looking back at Caterina. He could hear the horse trailing him. If she was going to treat him like a servant, he’d act like one.

  But somehow the ache in his arm and his irritation with Caterina started to melt in the morning sun. It was a crisp morning, the kind of day that dawned with a chill but warmed by mid-morning. The green leaves sparkled with dew, casting rainbows through the trees. He hopped over a stream, a cheerful little trickle that might have gone untouched since Roman times.

  The sounds of the woods surrounded James, singing a merry tune. Water against rock, the low croak of a frog, the buzzing hum of a nearby bee hive. Leaves rustling as birds darted from branch to branch, after some invisible snack. It had been a while since he’d spent time in the woods, but somehow everything fell back into place.

  Years ago, he’d wandered a similar wood somewhere in France—he still wasn’t quite sure where he’d been. It was a dark time. He’d had to flee from the King’s court with a posse after him, led by the furious Duke of Bourbon. James had fled into the forest with nothing but the clothes on his back. He’d spent the next three months wandering through the woods, barely keeping himself alive.

  City folk tended to assume the woods were empty, but James knew that wasn’t true. Just on their walk, he’d spotted rabbit tracks. James knew that he could find mushrooms under the broad, flat leaves springing from the ground. Chestnuts were easy enough to find on the forest floor, and they roasted up nicely in a fire. They wouldn’t have to find a farmer to feed themselves—Caterina obviously hadn’t spent much time outside of her enormous palace.

  He snuck a glance at her over his shoulder. She was staring right at him, her eyes flecked with gold. Well, he wouldn’t look away. She’d just have to get used to him looking where he wanted.

  “I’m going to gather some chestnuts.” He wandered toward one of the taller trees and she turned the horse to follow him.

  “I can help,” she offered.

  “You wouldn’t know where to look.”

  “I know what a chestnut looks like,” she said, and he could almost hear her roll her eyes. “I’m pretty sure you find them on the ground.” She slid down from the horse’s back, an ungraceful performance. But when she landed, she brushed off her skirts and straightened her spine as if she were about to enter a party.

  James shook his head and turned back to his search for chestnuts. The stallion found a patch of clover next to a small spring to keep himself entertained.

  “Just keep an eye out for mushrooms. If you find any, I’ll check to make sure they’re edible.”

  She shuffled through the undergrowth, her eyes trained on the ground. He added another handful of chestnuts to his growing stash.

  “Oh, I found some!” Caterina exclaimed. The satisfaction oozed from her voice.

  James walked over to where she crouched next to a small patch of mushrooms. They were porcini, enough to fetch a high price back in Florence, but James approached with a frown. “Hmm,” he sighed, leaning down to look at them. One cap was nearly as wide as his hand. But there was no reason to further inflate Caterina’s ego. “I’ll pick them to make sure they’re safe. You can keep looking.”

  She wandered off, a grin on her lips. Before James had finished picking the large clutch of mushrooms, Caterina called out again, from a spot a dozen yards away. “There are even more over here.”

  He trailed after her, amassing a pile of mushrooms big enough to serve as their dinner. Somehow, Caterina kept finding more. By the fourth cluster, James told her to look for something else. “Did your father take you mushroom picking?”

  “No. But they like this leaf,” she said, pointing to a dark, feathery leaf streaked with lighter green. “They grow under it.”

  He pulled back the leaf to find even more mushrooms. He grunted.

  “What else can I look for?” Caterina demanded.

  “That should be enough for today. We don’t want to get too far from the horse.” He watched her as she picked her way through the woods, stepping over fallen branches and across mossy patches. Was there something about patricians that made them naturally better at everything? No. He shook off that thought.

  A snap in the forest made James whip his head around. It was coming from behind them.

  In a flash, he was at Caterina’s side, blocking her in case it was another attack. She yelped in surprise but stilled in his arms as he scanned the woods.

  “Uh, Lancelot,” Caterina said into his chest. “It’s just a deer.”

  And then he saw the doe, a hundred yards away. He sprung away from Caterina, who smoothed her hair and raised an eyebrow at him. “Do you think we’re being followed?”

  His heart hadn’t slowed yet. “We haven’t been covering our tracks,” he explained. “Any tracker worth his salt could tell where we went yesterday.” Then her words sunk in. “Lancelot?”

  She blushed, looking away from him. “I . . . I didn’t know your name.”

  He let out a laugh. “So you named me after a handsome young knight?” He watched her squirm.

  “It’s not like that. I just . . . You look like a Lancelot.”

  James puffed up his chest. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  She hit him with a withering stare. “Don’t.”

  “Well, my name is James. Giacomo. But you should feel free to call me Lancelot if you’d prefer.”

  “James.” The word sounded awkward in her mouth. “Then you aren’t Italian.”

  He raised an eyebrow at her. She hadn’t guessed before. Or she simply hadn’t paid him much attention. “No. I was born in the North.”

  Caterina picked up the horse’s lead and started walking north. He met her stride for stride. “Flanders?”

  He shook his head. “Farther north.”

  “England?”

  “No.”

  “What’s north of England?”

  “You’ve never heard of Scotland?”

  “Oh, Scotland. I hear that monsters walk the earth and the seas are full of dragons.”

  He thought back to the shaggy sheep of the Highlands, barely recognizable to foreigners, and laughed. “You could say that.” Dragons on the sea, not quite. But the raiding ships that hit the shore did more damage than dragons ever could.

  “Then why did you come to Florence?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “We’ve got time.”

  “I’d rather not talk about my past.”

  Caterina clapped her hands together. “Oh, it must be pretty terrible, then. Hmm. Let’s see. You ran off with a nobleman’s daughter and he put a bounty on your head.”

  He grinned. Caterina could try to turn his life into one of her knight’s tales. But she’d never guess what actually happened.

  His silence only encouraged her. “No, it must be more dramatic. You’re a spy, sent from Scotland to infiltrate Florence and learn how the Medici pluck gold out o
f thin air.”

  “It is an enviable skill,” James replied.

  “There’s not much to it. Money makes money. Once you have a little money, you trade it for influence. Then use the influence to get more money. Back and forth, until you control a city.”

  “You make it sound so easy.”

  “It’s not that hard,” she said with a shrug. “You just have to know your rivals.”

  He fell silent for a moment. “And who are your rivals?” he asked in a low voice.

  Caterina sensed the change in mood. “You mean who attacked us yesterday and killed all those guards? I don’t know.”

  “The men wore a red cross on white,” James said. “The pope’s colors.”

  Caterina’s face drained of color. “But the pope is allied with the Medici. We’re his bankers! Why would he try to kidnap me?”

  “Just because they wore papal emblems doesn’t make them pope’s men,” James said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Someone might have wanted you to think the pope was behind the attack.”

  Caterina’s mind worked whip smart. “But they didn’t plan to leave any survivors. They killed the guards and kidnapped Fiametta. Who would report on their sigils?”

  James shrugged. “Maybe they figured someone would survive. Maybe they planned to let the maid carry tales of the kidnapping.”

  “Fiametta,” Caterina breathed. “Don’t you see? They expect her to carry the message back to the Medici. They’ll ransom her and set her free, so she can tell Piero that the pope’s men killed his own.”

  “Maybe.”

  Caterina nodded her head as if she’d decided something, but she didn’t share with James. He could sense that she was holding something back, a fear or a secret that she hid away. What was she hiding behind her unreadable green eyes?

  But her grave expression lightened. “Ah, I know. You’re a changeling, a wolf-man sent to Italy to find a bride who can tame you.”

  Laughter rocked through James’s body. “What kind of books have you been reading?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Oh, all kinds of things. Histories, poetry, troubadour songs. The Golden Legend. Saint’s lives. You might not expect it, but saints can surprise you.”

  “Just to be clear, I’m not a wolf-man.”

  “I do enjoy reading,” she mused. “It’s one of my favorite hobbies. I’m sure you find other ways to fill your hours.”

  What did that mean? His belly tightened. Did she assume he couldn’t read? Yes, it was true that most guards were illiterate, or could only sign their name. But he’d been educated by his aunt and uncle. He could read in four languages, for God’s sake. And yet she assumed he was only a strong arm, useless for anything but fighting.

  James scowled, his earlier joviality evaporating. He should probably feel lucky that Caterina deigned to speak to him at all, considering she seemed to believe him a barbarian barely capable of complex thought.

  Caterina could think what she wanted about him. He wasn’t going to tell her his secrets.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Caterina eyed Lancelot without turning her head. He had fallen silent at midday. She searched his profile for clues of his origin. But his tanned face and straight nose revealed nothing.

  Scotland. She’d seen the place on a map once, one of the new Ptolemaic depictions of the known world. Italy, of course, had been near the center, instantly recognizable because of its shape. She’d barely paid attention to the borders of the map but recalled an island practically hanging off the edge of the world. Was that one Scotland? There was something else out there. Hebron? That didn’t sound right. Hibernia? Or was Scotland the one attached to England?

  Caterina had never had an eye for geography. She paid more attention to history, but everyone knew that Rome was the hero of history. The Romans had never made it to Scotland, Caterina knew. Maybe it had been too wild for them.

  Her tutors always said Rome had a civilizing influence on the world, spreading culture and knowledge as their imperial borders expanded. If the Romans had left Scotland alone, what kind of place might it be? Wild and untamed, men barely better than beasts. At least that’s how Caterina imagined it.

  Lancelot must have left Scotland looking for a more civilized place. And Florence was obviously the center of the world. No other city could boast a dome like Florence’s, and the florin passed hands throughout Europe as the common currency of Christendom. And Florence’s wealth was a beacon for artists, like moths attracted by a flame. Frescoes, statues, portraits, landscapes. Florence was swimming in art.

  They probably didn’t have frescoes in Scotland. What did they look at all day?

  And James. What kind of name was that? Hard enough to say in Italian. In her mind, she still thought of him as Lancelot. Out loud, she’d avoid giving him a name.

  His lips were a thin, straight line across his face and his eyebrows were low. His mood changed quickly—one minute he was laughing, and the next he was silent. Maybe it was a Scottish thing.

  “How much farther are we going tonight?” Caterina asked.

  Her only companion didn’t even look over. “If you’re tired, you can ride.” His voice was flat, emotionless.

  Moody. Scots must be moody, Caterina concluded. Not like that friend of his with the easy smile.

  “Who’s that guard you rode with?” Caterina heard herself asking. “The one who made jokes.”

  “Mazzeo.”

  “Ah, an Italian.”

  “A Florentine.”

  “He was always so cheerful.” Unlike you, she didn’t say.

  “Hmm.”

  “I wonder where Mazzeo is right now. Probably not wandering through the woods, looking for mushrooms and planning to sleep on the ground.” She was rambling, but at least it filled the silence. “They’re supposed to reach Rome today. I’ve never been to the city, though my mother has. She talked about the monuments, the columns and colonnades. I’d love to see Rome some day. Can you imagine what the city looked like a thousand years ago? Or, maybe not a thousand. Rome was falling a thousand years ago. Let’s say in the age of Augustus. The city of marble, Augustus called it.”

  She paused, hoping he would have something to add. Instead, she only heard the sound of wind rustling in the trees.

  “I know we’re not supposed to like Augustus,” she continued. “I mean, us Florentines. Since Florence is a Republic and Augustus was an Emperor. But I always thought Augustus was more like a Medici than my tutors realized. He never called himself Emperor. He was Princeps, first among equals. He kept the Senate. He ruled a Republic without an official title or position, bending institutions to his will. Just like my grandfather, Cosimo.”

  She patted the horse’s mane. Lancelot still held his tongue.

  “Augustus never had a son. Did you know that? He always wanted one, and I think he adopted some, but he only had a daughter. Julia. Can you imagine being the daughter of Emperor Augustus? It’s bad enough being the daughter of Piero de’ Medici.”

  He snorted. “Bad? Your family is the richest in Italy.”

  “And look where that got me,” Caterina shot back. “I was nearly kidnapped yesterday.” She’d almost blurted out that her parents tried to force her into a convent but held her tongue. Lancelot didn’t need to know that. He’d probably pack her on the horse and cart her off to the convent himself.

  He shrugged, as if to say she was right on that count, but it didn’t change his calculation. “You’ve grown up with everything you might desire. An enormous palace. The finest clothes. Tutors to weave tales of Ancient Rome.”

  “But all that money didn’t change the fact that I’m more valuable as a bargaining chip than as a person. Do you know what happened to Augustus’s daughter Julia? He bartered her away in marriage for the first time when she was only two. That engagement dissolved before Julia was old enough to wed. But then Augustus married her off three times just to make alliances with other powerful Romans. When she refused
to acknowledge her last marriage to some old man, older than her father, Augustus exiled her.”

  Caterina’s voice cracked. “His own daughter! He called her a whore and sent her away to a deserted island where she died.” A torrent raged in Caterina’s belly. Julia had been brilliant, but her father only saw her as a piece on a chessboard, useful until she’d served her purpose. And then he cast her away.

  The woods were silent for a long moment. Caterina looked up at the trees, blinking back tears. She hoped Lancelot wouldn’t notice.

  After a long time, long enough for Caterina to regain her composure, Lancelot muttered something under his breath. “We all have our challenges.”

  Caterina opened her mouth to shoot back a question about his challenges. Who was he, really? She’d joked about his past, but now she actually wondered. Was he some kind of criminal, on the run and using an assumed name? They were completely alone in the woods and he was the only person in the world who knew she was here. What if he was a murderer?

  If he was a murderer, he probably wouldn’t have given me so many of the apples for lunch.

  So maybe he wasn’t a murderer. But she still might not be safe. What if he was only keeping her around because she was valuable? She’d proved her worth a dozen times since they’d struck off into the woods. She was the one who’d removed the arrow from his arm, lead them true north while he was ill, and set up camp by herself last night.

  She was the great mushroom finder.

  But she was valuable in other ways, too. What if Lancelot saw a chance to get his own reward if he returned her, unharmed, to her father? The man had come to Florence for something—what if it had been money? Suddenly this new opportunity fell into his lap, and he saw her as a pile of coins, ready to be cashed in.

  Her legs ached from the hours of walking in the woods. Walking didn’t seem so difficult, until you had to dodge fallen trees and dense underbrush. Plus, she’d nearly stepped in a mossy stream earlier, which would have ruined her shoes.

  She glanced over at Lancelot, his spine straight as he set a quick pace through the woods. He’d been a pin-cushion the previous day. If he didn’t need to ride, she didn’t, either.