The Medici Prize (The Stolen Crown Trilogy Book 1)

by Sylvia Prince

  But when Caterina pulled out the dress, her heart sank. After days crushed under apples and mushrooms, the fabric was marred with deep wrinkles. There were a few stains on the skirt, too. Still, she had no other option.

  Caterina slipped the dress over her head and shivered as it wrapped around her body. After weeks in wool, silk felt like a soft caress.

  She didn’t have a mirror to check how she looked, so she smoothed down the skirt as much as possible and laced up her soft leather boots. Caterina stretched to her full height, finally feeling like herself for the first time in weeks. She took a deep breath and headed for the door.

  As she strode through the streets, Caterina could feel the difference in how people responded. Men stepped to the side as she approached and merchants tilted their hats in her direction. Servants kept their heads down, not daring to meet her eyes. A well-dressed young woman, maybe a year or two older than Caterina, glanced at her dress and turned up her nose. Caterina sneered right back—who was that girl to judge, when her heavy skirts were at least a decade out of fashion?

  It was a completely different experience from traveling the city dressed as a maid. Then, she’d been the one stepping to the side and lowering her eyes, but now she commanded respect from everyone in the city.

  She approached a young man wearing a crimson doublet atop spring green hose. The red reminded her of the family colors back in Florence. “Excuse me, could you direct me to the Palazzo Piccolomini?”

  “It’s still under construction,” the man replied, narrowing his eyes.

  “Thank you,” Caterina said quickly as she walked away. It must be obvious to anyone that she wasn’t Sienese, since she didn’t know the city. Every time she asked a question, she revealed something about herself. And although James was too wary, he was right that Siena wasn’t a safe place for a Medici. Hadn’t those men earlier in the day ranted about the problems caused by their more powerful neighbors to the north in Florence, a city run by her father?

  No, she’d have to be more careful.

  So instead of asking questions, Caterina searched through her memory for the Piccolomini family crest. She’d spent hours studying the different sigils of prominent Italian families, but after a time they all ran together. Of course she could spot the Pazzi or Ridolfi crest from across a piazza, but families outside of Florence were different.

  It had crescents on it—she could remember that much. She started searching the buildings for something that matched, checking each corner for a sign that she was getting closer. But somehow she wandered down the hill away from the town hall and ended up in a neighborhood of workers. She turned her feet back up the hill and started again.

  Once, as she was circling the city, Caterina stepped too close to the door of a tavern and saw James sitting inside.

  So that’s what he does when he sneaks off, Caterina thought as she ducked away from the door. If James saw her dressed as a patrician . . . well, she couldn’t guess what he’d do, but it probably wouldn’t be good.

  Caterina wondered how long it had taken James to run off to a tavern. It was barely noon and he was already clutching a tankard of ale. She shook her head and turned back to the search.

  The grandest homes were near the town hall and the Basilica. Finally, Caterina saw one with yellow crescents on a blue field—that might be the Piccolomini. But should she just walk up to the door?

  She stood outside the stone structure, watching people walk by. Most seemed to be on business, carting goods or carrying their purchases. A gang of boys ran up the street, laughing and chasing each other. Caterina’s eyes traveled up the face of the building, solid stone barely marked by windows. No wonder they were building a newer palace—this one looked old.

  She couldn’t delay all day. She had to return to the inn before James—though if he was planning to spend the next few hours drinking, he might not notice if she was missing.

  The corner of her mouth turned up at the thought. She pictured James’s mouth falling open as he walked through the door, expecting to find her but instead staring at the two beds—she’d insisted—that were empty. It would serve him right after how uptight he’d been on the trip.

  The fantasy gave her courage to cross the street and knock on the door.

  When it swung open, she came face-to-face with a dark-haired doorman sporting a prominent nose. He raised an eyebrow at her.

  “I’m here to see the lady of the house?” Caterina’s voice squeaked as it rose. She quickly cleared her throat. After all, she had as much right as anyone to knock on their door. Why was the doorman giving her that look? She wasn’t going to ask to speak with whoever ran the Piccolomini clan these days. That would have been strange—if she’d shown up unannounced and asked to see a patrician. But there was nothing wrong with a young woman asking to speak with the matron of the house.

  The doorman didn’t respond. Instead, he left the door partially open and walked into the shady interior of the house.

  Caterina shifted her weight from one foot to the other as she waited.

  When the door swung wide, the doorman’s face hadn’t changed. But he raised an arm to gesture that she should follow him into the house. Can he say something? His silence unnerved her. But she followed him inside.

  She trailed behind him, up a flight of stairs to the piano nobile. Or was it still called a piano nobile in this narrow, constricted house? It didn’t look very noble. And it was dark inside, even during the brightest part of the day, with barely any windows cut into the stone wall of the palace. Instead of the wide, open hall Caterina expected to find, she saw a narrow hall at the top of the stairs. Her steps echoed off the cool, hard floors as she hurried to keep up with the doorman.

  Finally, he stopped outside a door.

  She stepped closer, her heart pounding in her ears. Why was the building so quiet?

  When she peeked around the corner, instead of the matron of the Piccolomini clan, Caterina saw a tall, thin man standing behind a desk.

  She was struck by the sudden urge to turn on her heel and run back down the hallway and out of the house.

  But instead she straightened her spine and stepped into the room. She was a Medici, after all. The Piccolomini wouldn’t dare harm her.

  “Please, sit,” the man said in a low voice.

  “I’d prefer to stand,” Caterina said.

  The door closed behind her and she jumped in her boots.

  “Fine,” the man said with a wave of his hand. “Suit yourself.” He remained standing behind the desk as well, but his granite eyes swept over her, coming to rest on her face. She lifted her chin to let him know she saw what he was doing. Though—what was he doing?

  “Thank you for agreeing to see me. I am here to call on the Piccolomini to help my family with urgent business,” Caterina began, reciting the speech she had practiced on the walk. “In times of trial, we must be able to turn to our old friends for assistance. The bond between our families will be even stronger after you help me.”

  “And your family would be?” The man’s eyebrows folded together as he watched her.

  “The Medici.” She’d said that. Hadn’t she?

  But her thoughts were interrupted by a peal of laughter from the man, a short, barking noise that cut off quickly. “The Medici? Is this some kind of joke?”

  She scowled and glared at him. “I am Caterina de’ Medici, the daughter of Piero de’ Medici.”

  “Did Alfonso send you? He has a strange sense of humor. And where did you find that dress?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with my dress,” Caterina spat back. This was not going how she’d imagined at all. “And this is no laughing matter. My father will reward you handsomely if you aid me.”

  He leaned back on his heels. “What aid do you require?”

  Finally. He was coming to his senses. Caterina’s shoulders relaxed. “My caravan was attacked near Viterbo. If news of the attack has reached Florence, my father might fear me dead. If you help me get home,
he will surely be in your debt.”

  The man leaned forward, across the surface of the desk until he was almost close enough for Caterina to touch. “You have the accent down, but no one would mistake you for a Medici. Tell Alfonso it was a good try, but I’m not falling for another of his practical jokes.”

  Caterina’s chest tightened. Fire rose in her belly. “Now see here. You have treated me very poorly, barely befitting a man of your station. You shame your entire family with your behavior today. I will certainly tell my father of this once I return to Florence, and you’ll hear from him shortly—or you’ll hear from Florence’s armies.”

  She spun around, ready to stomp from the room, but the door was blocked by a guard. Where had he come from? She nearly ran into his chest, until he gripped her arm tightly to hold her firm.

  “What’s the meaning of this?” Caterina sputtered. “Release me.” When the guard didn’t comply, she turned back to the man behind the desk. “Order your guard to let me go.”

  But instead of responding, the man spoke only to his guard. “Take her downstairs and make sure she doesn’t leave. I’ll figure out what to do with her shortly.”

  And without another word, the guard dragged Caterina from the room and down the hall to a smaller staircase. He practically pulled her down the stairs into the basement, where he tossed her into a dark room and sealed the door tightly. But not before snatching away her leather bag.

  Caterina had been too shocked to speak as the guard hauled her through the house. But now she banged on the locked door and let her voice rise to an impolite level. “Release me, immediately! The Medici will hear of this!”

  But there was no reply. After banging on the door until her hand hurt, Caterina turned to study the room. It looked like an old storeroom, with only a very small window at the street level, much too small for her to wedge her way through. A stack of empty wooden boxes rested in one corner of the room and a pile of empty sacks sat in another. The entire place was coated with dust.

  Her family never would have allowed one of their storerooms to fall into disuse like this, Caterina told herself. Their storerooms were always full. And they were never dusty.

  Suddenly Caterina felt overwhelmed with longing for Florence, for the warm embrace of her mother and the easy smile of her father.

  She sank onto one of the boxes and watched the closed door. Where had she gone wrong? Was her dress really that dirty? She was Caterina de’ Medici, so why didn’t anyone believe her? The patricians on the street had treated her with respect, but for some reason the Piccolomini man had laughed in her face.

  Maybe she shouldn’t have threatened to attack Siena with Florence’s armies. That might have gone too far.

  Caterina sighed and rested her head in her hands. What would James think now, once he knew that he’d been right about reaching out to the Piccolomini? He’d been insufferable before, but it would only grow worse now.

  As the hours passed and the sun dipped toward the horizon, Caterina started to wonder if they’d forgotten her down in the basement. Would James somehow figure out where she’d gone and come find her? If she yelled out the small window, would someone help her?

  It was dark when she heard the door scrape against the wall. Caterina leapt to her feet, ignoring the growl in her stomach. “I demand to speak with Signore Piccolomini,” she said firmly, raising a hand against the bright light from outside the door.

  “I’m right here,” the man said, stepping into the doorway. The guard behind him was carrying a torch. “And it’s past time for you to tell me who you really are.”

  Caterina forced herself to keep her features smooth and unruffled. “I am Caterina de’ Medici. You have made a grave mistake.”

  Piccolomini shook his head. “See,” he said to the guard. “I told you. Either she’s someone’s insane relative who managed to find an old dress, or she’s some kind of actress, sent here to make a fool of me.”

  Caterina opened her mouth to protest, but Piccolomini turned back before she could speak. “If you refuse to admit your lie, I have no choice but to lock you up. It’s for your own good. We can’t have a foolish girl wandering the streets of Siena claiming to be a Medici. It will only cause problems.”

  Foolish girl.

  Caterina bristled at the words, her cool exterior burning away. “How dare you,” she hissed. “You will pay for that.”

  “She’s got a temper, like I said,” Piccolomini told the guard. “Just make sure she stays quiet.”

  And before Caterina could do anything, the guard advanced.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  The pounding in James’s head beat in rhythm with the jostling of wagon wheels.

  He eased his eyes open and quickly closed them again. On top of the creaking wheels, he could make out the slap of horse hooves on hard packed dirt.

  He was inside a wagon, that much was clear.

  But when James slowly opened his eyes, he couldn’t make out much. Shards of light filtered in between the wooden slats of his cage, which jostled along at a fast clip.

  It was day. The men had assaulted him at dusk.

  He must have passed the night unconscious.

  He ran a hand along the rough slats of the wall. It was a cage, James realized—he’d been sealed up inside a box, wide enough to touch both sides at the same time but not tall enough to stand. He raised himself to a crouching position, his back facing the direction of the horses.

  Who would have put him in a box?

  And then it came back to him—he’d wandered Siena looking for clues about the Medici. He must have drawn the wrong kind of attention. Had he said too much in the taverns near the city walls? The Medici weren’t the only ones to post informants in rival towns—could he have set off the Pope’s men? Or Milan, perhaps?

  The armed men waiting in the room were clearly looking for him. That was important, James knew. If only the shooting pain in his head would let up for a minute. He reached a hand to his forehead, but his arm jolted to a stop halfway past his chest.

  Chains. Not thick ones, but thick enough. They linked the manacles around his wrists to steel rings somehow welded into the framework of the box.

  Someone had gone to the trouble not only of locking him in a box, but making sure he couldn’t use his arms.

  Fear flashed through his body. He could feel the walls of the box pressing around him, choking the air around him.

  This isn’t the slave ship. It isn’t the slave ship.

  He repeated the mantra again and again, but his pulse barely slowed.

  James pressed his head into the wooden wall in front of him.

  He couldn’t be sure who would fear him enough to track him down in Siena. He had too many enemies, that much was clear. The men who’d attacked their group near Viterbo dressed in the Pope’s colors wouldn’t lock James up—no, after what he’d done to four of their own, they’d have slit his throat and tossed him in a ditch.

  Caterina.

  Her name flashed through his mind, pushing out every other thought.

  Was she safe?

  He was alive, so it couldn’t be the men who’d attacked them outside Viterbo. They would have been after Caterina, not him. They wouldn’t bother to keep him alive.

  It had to be someone else. Someone who’d been tracking him for months, or years, maybe. He’d made enemies. And they were powerful enough to hunt him down.

  But did they know he’d been traveling with Caterina de’ Medici? They were in his room. Had they taken her, too?

  Panic boiled up in his chest again.

  He took long, steady breaths, just as his uncle had taught him. Wallace always said that maintaining calm on the battlefield could be the difference between life and death. With each breath, the panic dissipated and James slowly regained his composure.

  Caterina must have slipped away, he decided. He was the target this time, not her.

  And if he didn’t concentrate on the belief that Caterina was safe, James wouldn’t
be able to do anything. He had to find a way out.

  James pulled at the chains until his wrists ached. Then he sat and kicked against the wall with all his strength.

  He heard a laugh coming from outside the box.

  “You can try all day if you want. You’ll not escape la cella.”

  La cella. The cell.

  Where was he?

  A chill snaked up James’s spine. It had to be the Duke of Bourbon. Who else would have tracked him across Europe, waiting until now to strike? Three years ago the duke had vowed to take his life if James ever set foot in France again. Was the duke still enraged about what had happened with his daughter Marie?

  Yes. Yes, a father didn’t forget that sort of thing easily.

  James screwed his eyes shut and saw the Chateau de Fontainebleau rising in his mind, its colonnades and peaks reaching for the sky. The Chateau was centuries old and still larger than most palaces in France. The Duke of Bourbon had been free with his suggestions for renovations, even though the palace belonged to his cousin, King Louis XI.

  James had never seen the king on his only visit to Fontainebleau—the duke had brought his contingent to prepare the palace for the king’s annual spring hunt, but everything with Marie happened before the king’s arrival.

  Marie.

  James had been charged with watching her on the journey from Paris. She was only fifteen, and her father planned to legitimize her once she was old enough to marry, as he’d done with her older sister, Marguerite.

  Marie had been a tiny slip of a girl with raven black hair and an easy smile. James hadn’t realized until it was too late that she was planning to run off with a stable boy. The two were halfway back to Paris, claiming that they were headed for a priest, before James caught their trail.