The Medici Prize (The Stolen Crown Trilogy Book 1)

by Sylvia Prince

  Caterina opened her mouth to ask about this race, but before she could speak, James put an arm on her shoulder. “No, just passing through.”

  “But you’ll stay the night,” the man said, gesturing toward the sun, already dipping in the sky. “There’s nowhere else to stay within a four hour’s ride. And the donkey race.”

  What, exactly, was this donkey race? James kept pressure on Caterina’s arm, signaling her to remain silent. “Are there rooms for rent?”

  “We have one inn, but it’s full because of the race. There’s a spare room in my house, though.”

  James nodded. “My wife and I would appreciate that.”

  My wife. It sounded so easy slipping off his lips. Caterina shivered.

  “I’m called Sero.”

  “Giacomo. And Caterina.”

  “Welcome to Civita.”

  Civita. Caterina had heard the name before. But where? She mentally scanned through the books she’d read. Nothing came to mind.

  Sero lifted one of his buckets. “Now, if you don’t mind waiting, I have to fill these at the spring.”

  “Let me help,” James offered, and the two headed back down the road together, leaving Caterina alone for the first time in a week.

  She stood on the rocky path, looking out at the canyon surrounding her. They were above the canyon floor. From here she could see the tops of the trees swaying in the breeze. She could leap on the horse and ride away right now—but what if James wasn’t working with Ercole? Caterina wasn’t confident she could make it back to Florence by herself.

  Still, she couldn’t do nothing.

  As she stood on the path, her mind caught in a whirlwind, searching for the right choice, James and Sero returned. This time James was carrying both buckets. Caterina could see the strain on his face and tried to grab the bucket in his right hand, but James waved her off. What a fool. He was going to set his recovery back if he kept that up.

  Sero was chattering on about his wife, the weather, and the difficulty of hauling water now that his donkey was too old to make the trip. Caterina let the man’s words flow over her as she led the horse up the steep grade and into the town of Civita.

  The path hugged the cliff face—this was apparently the back entrance into town, so instead of the massive stone gate that greeted visitors from the west, they had the winding path reserved for residents to fill their buckets twice a day. Halfway up the side of the cliff, Caterina saw something carved into the wall of the plateau. It was a small room with an image of the Virgin Mary—a shrine in a most unlikely place. And next to the shrine, another room, smaller and empty. Metal bars somehow fitted into the stone separated the two rooms from the path.

  A few more steps and they were at the top of the plateau.

  Caterina’s breath burned in her lungs. They had to be a hundred yards above the canyon floor, at least. She longed to stand on the edge of the town, gazing at the trees below, and imagining what it would be like to fly like her falcon. But there wasn’t time for such whims.

  Stone walls lined the edges of the path, creating a gate that could be barred against attack. As soon as they passed the entrance, low houses crowded each other on either side of them. Some looked dangerously close to the hundred yard drop, and Caterina hoped that Sero didn’t live in one of those buildings. She wasn’t afraid of heights, but she was afraid of tumbling down the side of a mountain in her sleep.

  “This way, this way,” Sero said, leading them between stone houses and away from the view. “Rina will be thrilled to have guests. It’s been quiet since our boys moved away. They live in Orvieto now,” he said, raising an eyebrow at the mention of the city. “We couldn’t convince them to stay here. Not enough going on, they said.”

  Caterina had to agree. In spite of Sero’s talk of the donkey race filling the local inn, Caterina hadn’t seen anyone since they’d arrived in the city. Where was everyone?

  She got her answer when they reached the town’s piazza, a small open space with a church on one side. Or, at least, Sero called it a piazza. It was almost as small as one of the courtyards in the Medici Palace. But here Caterina saw the residents of Civita, crowded around a donkey.

  “He’ll win tomorrow for sure. I guarantee it!” one man said to another, clapping him on the back.

  “I don’t know. Did you see Nino’s donkey?”

  “Pshaw. That donkey couldn’t run fast if Satan himself was chasing it.”

  Caterina thought the donkey looked like every other donkey she’d ever seen. How could you even tell if a donkey was fast?

  “Sero, get that horse out of here,” the first man said. “He’ll make the donkeys feel bad.”

  Sero laughed and led them across the piazza. “You can stable the horse here,” Sero pointed. “And when you’re ready, this is my house.”

  Caterina could feel the men in the piazza looking at her. She longed to get inside, where she could wash her face and change her clothes.

  Except once James had tended to the horse and they’d gone inside to meet Sero’s wife, a round-faced woman who was as gray as Sero, Caterina realized she wouldn’t have much privacy here. The room Sero showed them contained a bed and not much else. “For when our sons visit,” Sero explained.

  Caterina avoided looking at James. She was supposed to spend the night in here with a stranger who might be trying to kill her? Okay, maybe that was too dramatic. But Caterina couldn’t rule out the possibility that he saw her as a payday and nothing more. Or, worse, that he might force her into marriage to ensure his fortune. In the tales her nursemaid had told growing up, evil men were only after one thing. Caterina looked at the bed. She couldn’t stay here with James.

  “Thank you, Sero. Could we have a minute?”

  “Of course. If you’re hungry, Rina was planning roasted boar in honor of the donkey race.”

  Caterina’s stomach didn’t even growl at the mention of hot food. Her heart was pounding too quickly.

  With the door closed, the room felt even smaller.

  “If you don’t want to stay here, we can leave,” James said quietly.

  She did want to leave. She wanted to be home in the Medici palace, with Giuliano and her sisters. She wanted to see her mother again. She wanted to feel safe again.

  But instead she was trapped in a tiny hamlet with a man she couldn’t trust.

  Caterina straightened her spine and stuck out her chin. “No, this is fine,” she lied. “As long as there’s room for you to sleep on the floor.”

  James looked down at the narrow space between the edge of the bed and the wall. “If that’s your wish.”

  Caterina’s calm shattered. A rush of heat traveled through her body. “What do you mean, if that’s your wish? Do you think I’d wish you into my bed? Is that what you’re after?”

  James’s eyes had gone wide.

  She didn’t give him a chance to speak. “Tell me the truth, Giacomo. What are you after? Why did you come to Florence in the first place?”

  His surprise melted into frustration. “That’s none of your business.”

  “I say it is my business. And if you don’t tell me the truth—”

  “What’s gotten into you?”

  “How am I supposed to trust you? How do I know you are who you say you are?”

  He threw up his hands. “I’m taking you back to Piero, aren’t I?”

  “For the reward?” she snapped.

  “Because it’s the right thing to do,” he countered.

  “Oh, and so many men make choices because it’s the right thing to do.”

  “Where is this coming from?”

  The exhaustion of the past three days felt like a crushing weight on Caterina, but her rage burned it away, giving her strength. Her voice rose higher. “Tell me. What’s your angle, here? Why are you trying so hard to get close to me? Why didn’t you want to go back to the Via Romana?”

  Before James could reply, they were interrupted by a knock on the door.

  “Everythin
g okay?”

  Caterina opened the door. James’s eyes flashed a warning at her but she ignored him. “No, Sero, it’s not. This man lied to you. We aren’t married at all. In fact, for all I know he’s married to someone else.”

  She half expected James to grab her, or try to silence her. But he just stood there.

  Sero looked at James. “That’s a grave sin. I think you better come with me.”

  Caterina had expected Sero to offer them separate rooms. But this—the old man ordering a young guard to obey him—was a surprise. And when James nodded and followed Sero out of the room, Caterina’s mouth nearly fell open.

  Sero closed the door. Caterina sank onto the bed, her head suddenly dizzy. Had it been a mistake to come to Civita? Or had the error been accusing Lancelot? In the silence of the room, her anger faded, leaving her only with questions. And guilt. She had accused him of using her for money. And, worse, she had attacked his honor. The picture she’d painted—a man who would force himself into her bed—didn’t fit Lancelot at all.

  But she couldn’t be sure.

  Caterina buried her head in her hands.

  Another knock on the door, lighter this time. A voice. Rina. “Caterina?”

  It was jarring hearing her real name on the woman’s lips. For an instant, Caterina longed to tell Rina the entire truth. She was a kind old woman, surely she could be trusted? But no. It was too dangerous. “Come in.”

  Rina stuck her head through the door. “Sero told me. Don’t worry, he’s taken care of everything. Giacomo won’t bother you anymore, if that’s your desire.”

  Ice shot through Caterina’s belly. “What did Sero do? Where’s Giacomo?”

  Rina smiled and told her.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The stone ceiling was too tall for James to stand up. So he sat on the floor, cursing Caterina de’ Medici.

  Her hot head had landed him in jail.

  Or, not a jail, exactly, but a cell nonetheless.

  Sero had asked James to visit the shrine so that he could ask Mary to forgive his sins. James had started to explain that he hadn’t sinned, at least not in the way Caterina had suggested, but he didn’t want to ruffle any feathers or hurt Sero. So he’d followed the man.

  Somehow, Sero had convinced James to step into the cell next to the shrine carved into the cliff wall. And then he’d slammed the door shut.

  James had been bested by a seventy year old man who was half his weight.

  He shook his head. Sero had promised it was just to cool off, but James didn’t need to cool off. He needed to get out of this cell.

  Why had Caterina lashed out at him? He’d been expecting her to sound the alarm and tell everyone that she was a Medici. He had felt blindsided when she accused him of adultery, of all things—he wasn’t even married!

  And worse, she’d acted like he was some rapacious knight with no morals. How could she think such things about him?

  James let out a frustrated sigh. How long would Sero leave him in this cell? Would Caterina use his absence to steal his horse and ride back to Florence? If she did, James would track her down. He wasn’t the best tracker—he’d known a man in France who claimed he could smell a horse that had ridden by a day earlier—but Caterina left a wide trail. And he knew where she was going.

  What would he do when he caught up to her? James imagined surprising Caterina in the woods. Her green eyes would fly wide at the sight of him. He’d confront her, demand to know why she had left him in a cell in Civita.

  He’d take back his horse. Leave her in the woods by herself—just for a night, he wasn’t a monster. Maybe one night sleeping on the ground without her precious tent would teach the Medici princess not to throw false accusations.

  The sun was dipping in the sky when James heard a noise. Someone was coming down the path.

  He kept his head down. It was probably just one of the young boys of Civita, sent on an errand to get water. A dozen had already passed his cell, most heckling him on the way.

  But this person stopped.

  When James raised his head, he saw Caterina. Her lips made a straight line across her face.

  “Tell me, Giacomo. Were you working with Ercole?”

  His stomach dropped. All thoughts of revenge flew out of his mind.

  Ercole. That traitorous bastard.

  How hadn’t James seen it sooner? The missing bodies at the attack; Ercole’s insistence that some—though not all—of the men drink ale the night before the attack . . . and the mysterious symptoms James had suffered that very evening. The arrow hadn’t been poisoned at all—the hangover remedy from Ercole must have been laced with something.

  The realization slammed into James like a runaway horse.

  And then he looked up at Caterina. Her eyes watched him warily from the other side of the bars, though she stood tall and he could tell she was trying to cloak her emotions.

  Did she really think he’d work with Ercole?

  How could she think that?

  Because she doesn’t know you, he told himself.

  Suddenly her behavior over the last two days made sense.

  James wanted to run to the bars and plead with Caterina to believe him. But he didn’t want to scare her away.

  “No, I was never working with Ercole,” James said in a firm, even voice. “I barely knew the man before this journey. I killed three of the men who attacked our caravan that day. I was hit by their arrow. And Ercole gave me a draught an hour before the attack.” He met Caterina’s eyes. “He drugged me because he feared I would kill him if I knew his intentions.”

  James saw a shiver pass through Caterina’s body.

  “I want to believe you,” she said. “But I have to be cautious.”

  “I’m the only person who’s been at your side, helping you, since the attack. I want to return you to Florence, nothing more. And I want to find those bastards and see them hang for what they’ve done.” He growled the last words.

  Caterina leaned back from the bars. James sensed that he’d convinced her—it was the truth, after all—but something still made her hesitate.

  “Who are you?” she asked, her voice wavering slightly.

  “James Stewart. From Scotland.”

  “That’s not an answer and you know it.” She put her hands on her hips.

  “I don’t talk about my past.”

  “If you want to get out of that cell, you better start talking.”

  James took a deep breath and made her wait. It bought him some time. He could lie, but why? If Caterina ever found out—and he had a feeling she’d dog him for eternity if she thought he lied—she’d never leave him be. But the truth was too painful to face.

  He hadn’t told anyone why he’d left Scotland five years earlier. He’d never been close enough to anyone who would ask.

  James let his eyes travel Caterina’s body, from the leather boots peeking out from the hem of her gray dress, to the caramel mane cascading down her shoulders. It was his duty to return her to Florence, but more than that, he wanted to spend time with her. She constantly caught him off guard with her insights, and she found such joy in simple things like discovering a mushroom under a leaf.

  James hadn’t been close to another person in years. He refused to let anyone pull him in.

  And yet this patrician’s daughter, with her falcon eyes and upturned nose, had roused his protective impulse, the instinct he’d tried to deny for years. He avoided guarding people because it was too risky. The one time he’d broken his rules, it had ended in chaos.

  But the fire in Caterina’s eyes pulled to him.

  He began to speak without looking at her.

  “Like I told you, I grew up in Scotland. I was an orphan, so my aunt and uncle took me in. Wallace, my uncle, taught me to fight. He’d been a knight long ago, but before I was born he retired to a castle on the coast. Or, it wasn’t a castle so much as a tower with a house attached. It seemed like a castle to me as a boy. Wallace promised that when I grew u
p, I’d become a knight, too, and serve a noble lord.

  “My aunt, Ina, taught me my letters. I don’t know who taught her, but she knew. She could read Gaelic, English, and French. And Scots, of course. You’re used to people who can read, but it was rare where I grew up. Ina always told me that fighting was fine, but reading was better. I loved both as a boy. I’d tend to our sheep in the morning, practice with Wallace at midday, and read all afternoon.

  “But we were always removed from the Stewart Clan. As a boy, Wallace said it was because we had to guard the tower, guard the coast from invasion.” James paused, almost hearing Wallace’s voice echo in his ears. “We were on the rocky west coast, with the Highlands rising at our backs. As I got older, I asked Wallace which branch of the clan we claimed. He always changed the subject. It was an isolated life, but I loved it.”

  James stopped. He shot a look at Caterina, who leaned forward with one hand on the bars of the cell. A thousand questions brimmed in her eyes, but she held back. He was grateful for that. He needed silence to tell this part.

  “On day, when I had just turned seventeen, we were attacked. I don’t know who they were, but they came from the south. Before I could grab my sword, they set fire to the house. I tried to fight them, but there were too many.” His voice cracked. “They took me captive. I was knocked out in the fighting. The next day, I woke up in the belly of a slave ship, my face beaten bloody and raw. I never saw Scotland again.”

  Caterina spoke cautiously. “And Wallace? Ina?”

  James shook his head, not trusting himself to speak the words.

  Caterina was silent for a long, stretching time. And then James heard a click. When he looked up, the cell door hung open. His eyes sought Caterina’s, the questions written on his face.

  “The horse is packed and ready. Let’s go to Florence.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  By the time the sun dipped behind the canyon wall, they had climbed out of the ravine and found a path heading north. It was wide enough for two men to walk abreast, but showed no signs of wagon tracks.

  They were silent as they left Civita behind.