Читать книгу The Scarlet Contessa - Jeanne Kalogridis - Страница 8

Chapter One

At dusk the screams came—outraged, feminine, shrill. We would never have marked them had it not been for the smoke and the singers’ sudden silence. I heard them eight days before Christmas as I stood in the loggia, gasping in stinging cold air from the open window, brusquely unshuttered by a quick-thinking servant.

A moment earlier, I had been sitting in front of the snapping hearth in the duchess’s quarters while one of her chambermaids roasted pignoli on a wood-handled iron peel—treats for the ducal heir, seven-year-old Gian Galeazzo Sforza, who stared blankly into the flames while his nurse brushed out the straw-colored curls covering his frail shoulders. Beside him sat his six-year-old brother, Ermes—thick-limbed and thick-waisted, slow to move or think—with a straight cap of dull red hair. To their left sat their mother, Duchess Bona, a sheer white veil wrapped about her coiled, muddy braids, her lips pursed as she squinted down at the needle and silk in her plump hands. She was twenty-seven and matronly; God had dealt her a stout frame, squat limbs, and a short, thick neck that dwarfed her broad face. Though her features were not unpleasant—her nose was short and round, her skin powder-soft and fine, her teeth small and fairly even—she had a low forehead with thick, overwhelming eyebrows. Her profile was flat, her eyes wide set, her small chin lost in folds of fat, most of it acquired after the birth of her first child; yet at the court of Duke Galeazzo, to my thinking, there was no lovelier soul.

To Bona’s left sat the duke’s two natural daughters, results of his dalliance with a courtier’s wife. The elder, Caterina, was, at thirteen, an example of physical perfection, with a lithe body that promised full breasts, clear skin, and a straight, well-proportioned nose, though her lips were rather thin. Two attributes propelled her past mere attractiveness into true beauty: full, loose curls of a gold so pale and bright it glittered in the sun, and eyes of a blue so intense that many who met her for the first time let go an involuntary gasp. The effect was enhanced by the natural confidence of her gaze. That afternoon, however, her gaze was sullen, for she had no patience with the needle and she hated sitting still; she paused often in her embroidery to glare at the fire and emit sighs of vexation. Had it been summer, she would have ignored the duchess’s insistence on a sewing lesson and joined her father on the hunt, or gone riding with her brothers, or chased them across the sprawling courtyard. No matter that such activities were exceedingly inappropriate for a young woman, already betrothed and certain to wed within three years. Caterina had no fear of the duchess’s wrath, not just because Bona was disinclined to anger, but also because her father the duke favored her and rarely allowed her to be punished.

The same could not be said of her nine-year-old sister, Chiara, a rail-thin, timid mouse with bulging brown eyes and a narrow, sharp-featured face. For all the attention the duke showed Caterina, Chiara—a slow-witted, obedient girl—received only his unwarranted abuse; she rarely met another’s gaze and kept close to Bona’s side. For Bona’s heart was so great that she treated all the duke’s children equally; her own son, Gian Galeazzo, who would someday rule Milan and all her territories, was shown the same tender kindness as Caterina and Chiara, both living proof of her husband’s philandering. She was also good to his two bastard sons, who were then almost men, off in Milan learning the military arts at their stepfather’s home. Although she had encouraged all of us children to address her as our mother, Chiara alone called her Mama. Caterina called her Madonna, my Lady; I called her Your Grace.

Bona was kind even to me, a foundling of murky origin. She claimed publicly that I was the natural child of one of her disgraced cousins in Savoy, and therefore related to the king of France. I had only the vaguest memory of a beautiful raven-haired woman, her features blurred by time, who murmured endearments to me in French; surely this had been my mother. I had recollections, too, of kindly nuns who cared for me after the raven-haired woman had disappeared. But when I pressed Bona privately on the subject, she refused to give any details, hinting that I was better off not knowing. She adopted me as her daughter—if a lesser one, fated to spend my days as her most coddled lady-in-waiting. I was grateful, but ashamed of my origins. And being ashamed, I imagined the worst.

Almadea, she named me: soul of God. Over the years, I came to be called simply Dea, but Bona made sure I never lost sight of my soul. She was a pious woman, given to prayer and charity, eager to raise her children to serve God. Since Caterina took no interest in the invisible world, Gian Galeazzo was destined for a secular fate, and Chiara was slow, I alone was the diligent recipient of her ardent religious instruction.

The duke, who praised Caterina to the skies and cursed poor Chiara, had little to say to or of me. I was strictly Bona’s project—although I, four years older than Caterina and often her chaperone, had many opportunities to be in the presence of His Grace, who doted on his blue-eyed, golden-haired daughter and paid her frequent visits. At those times, his eyes belonged to Caterina, and in those rare instances when his gaze strayed and caught mine, he quickly averted it.

On that eighth day before the Feast of the Nativity, the castle at Pavia—the duke’s favorite country lodgings—was bustling. Every servant’s expression was one of harried determination, every courtier’s one of eager anticipation. In two days, the entire court of several hundred would make the daylong procession to the city, Milan, and the majestic Castle of Porta Giovia. There, on the day before Christmas, the duke would address the people, issue pardons, and distribute charity; when the sun set, he would ceremonially light the ciocco, the great Yule log, for his staff and servants in the great banquet hall. The fire would be faithfully tended throughout the night. The duke had never lost his childhood love of the holiday, so he also privately celebrated the ciocco ritual with his family each Christmas Eve, followed by a lavish banquet.

On that particular afternoon, in a festive gesture anticipating the annual pilgrimage, the duke sent a quartet of carolers to his wife’s chambers. These were members of Duke Galeazzo’s choir, the most magnificent in all Europe. The duke took only a vague interest in the arts, leaving the acquisition of books and paintings to his underlings, but music was his passion, and he took great care to seek out the most talented vocalists and composers in all of Europe.

Gian Galeazzo, Ermes, Duchess Bona, Caterina, Chiara, and I sat facing west before the fire, with the open doorway to our left, while the carolers—two men and two lads, the latter chosen by the duke for their pretty bodies as much as their talent—stood just left of the hearth, lifting their amazing voices in song. Behind us, two chambermaids were busy packing Bona’s Christmas wardrobe into two large trunks. Sitting on the floor by his elder brother’s feet, Ermes dozed while little Gian Galeazzo sat dutifully enduring his nurse’s brush as he stared into the fire and listened; Duchess Bona hoped that the boys would catch their father’s passion for music. She and Chiara were distracted by their embroidery, and Caterina by a wooden ball at her foot, a toy belonging to her younger half-brothers. She slyly nudged it with her toe until it rolled a short distance and gently bumped the nose of the dozing greyhound coiled at Bona’s feet. The dog—three-legged and, like me, one of Bona’s rescues—opened one eye and promptly returned to its nap.

The duchess’s chamber was of comfortable size, with a large arched window, vaulted ceilings, and walls paneled in dark, ornately carved wood. Unlike the duke’s, it consisted of a single room that featured a sitting area in front of the fireplace, a dressing area shielded from view by several garderobes, and a platform upon which rested a mahogany bed, its brocade curtains drawn. Near it were three cots, one of which I occupied on those nights my husband traveled. Bona’s chamber resembled most of the other rooms in Castle Pavia, which consisted of a two-story stone square large enough to comfortably house five hundred souls. Each corner of the square was marked by a great tower, and these corner suites were reserved for the most important personages and functions. On the upper floor, the northeast tower housed the duke’s suite of rooms, the northwest, his heir’s; the southeast and southwest towers served as the chancery and the library, respectively. On the ground floor, the tower rooms held the reliquary and the prison. Except for the duke’s, all rooms opened onto a long common hall, or loggia, overlooking the massive interior courtyard; the loggia on the first floor, which housed the servants, lesser visitors, butchery, prison, bathhouse, laundry, and treasury, was open to the elements. For the comfort of the duke and his family, however, the upper loggia was bricked in, though there were windows to catch summer breezes, with shutters to close out winter winds.

As a girl, I used to race down the long, seemingly endless halls, barely avoiding collisions with the servants who filled them. One day I determined to count every room on both floors: There are eighty-three if you include the saletti, the little sitting rooms that protrude from the chapel, the chamber of rabbits, and the chamber of damsels and roses, the last two named for their murals. My favorite was the first-floor chamber of mirrors, with a floor of glittering mosaic and a ceiling of brightly colored glass.

Bona’s fireplace rested in the center of the wall adjoining her son’s apartment, and so we sat many steps away from either the window or the chamber door. I sat nearest the latter, which was open to allow the servants who were packing the duchess’s Christmas luggage easy access.

I should have relaxed in the fire’s warmth and simply listened to the singing. One lad’s voice was so hauntingly beautiful that when he performed a solo, Bona stopped in her sewing and closed her eyes at its sweetness.

I closed my eyes, too, but opened them immediately at the sudden welling of tears and the unwanted tightness in my throat. For the third time in the last hour, I set my sewing down and—as discreetly as possible, moving behind the seated group—stepped rapidly away from the hearth into the cool shade at the arched window, and looked out.

To my left, the feeble sun was dying behind thick winter clouds that threatened snow; before me stood the formal garden, withered save for spots of evergreen. Straight ahead, to the north, the Lombard plain stretched out, much of it obscured by the bare, spidery-limbed trees in the nearby park where the duke hunted. A day’s ride away, beyond the plain and my sight, stood the Alps; to the east, the kingdom of Savoy, where Bona had been born.

My Matteo would not be coming from the north, but court life required me to attend the duchess, and quash all yearning to run southward down the endless loggia to the library, where I could climb the steps to the southwest watchtower and stare out toward Rome.

Matteo da Prato served the duke as a scribe, occasional courier, and minor envoy. His mother had died giving life to him, and his father had died not long afterward; like me, he had been adopted by a wealthy family and educated. His talent for breaking ciphers and creating impenetrable code had earned him the attention of the duke’s top secretary, Cicco Simonetta. I first set eyes on him seven years ago, when I was ten and he seventeen, new to Milan and freshly apprenticed to Cicco; I never dreamed then that we should ever marry.

I had never expected to marry at all.

Back at the hearth, Bona noted my dismay. When the singers caught their breath between arrangements, she called softly, “He will not come today, Dea. I’ve said a hundred times, there is nothing more certain than delays during winter travel. Don’t fret; they’ve already found lodging and are sitting comfortably right now just as we are, in front of a fire.” She paused. “Time to shutter the windows now, anyway. It’s growing bitter.”

She did not remark on the fact that it had been the coldest winter anyone at court could remember.

“Of course, Your Grace,” I said. At my words, a gust of wind stirred the clouds; before my eyes they writhed and reformed into a haunting image: the shape of a man dangling in the darkening sky as if an invisible God held him by one ankle, his opposite leg bent at the knee to create an upside-down four.

The hanged man, Matteo had called him.

I pushed the heavy slatted panels into place and latched them, then hesitated an instant to flick away a tear. When I faced Bona again, it was with a false smile.

Reason, if not the clouds, said that I had no cause to worry. Matteo was a seasoned traveler, and the guests he was escorting from Rome to Milan were papal legates, too precious to risk by traveling in bad weather. Matteo was also armed against bandits, and the legates traveled with attendants and bodyguards. Yet my anxiety would not ease. I had awakened that morning in a peculiar panic from a dream of a double-edged sword pointed downward, dripping blood onto the frozen earth, while a voice whispered flatly in my ear, Matteo is dead.

Before morning mass, I had lit a second candle for Matteo, so that God would be doubly sure to hear my prayers. Bona noted it when she arrived in the chapel, and when I knelt beside her, she set a comforting hand upon my forearm.

“God hears,” she said softly, “and I am praying, too.”

Her kindness forced me to flick away tears, yet my worry did not lift; in my mind’s eye, I saw Matteo suspended upside-down, pale and unconscious.

After mass, I was gratefully distracted by the task of supervising the chambermaids as they prepared the duchess’s and children’s households for the return to Milan.

At noon, I noted the gathering snow clouds but told myself stubbornly that Matteo, the smartest man I knew, would mark them, too, and hasten his progress; but as the sky darkened, so did my mood, and sunset brought a growing dread. By the time I shuttered Bona’s window, I was again fighting back tears.

Yet I returned to my embroidery with a vengeance, and with each jab of the needle uttered a silent prayer: God, protect my husband. Surely God would hear. No one was more deserving of protection than Matteo; no prayers were worthier of being granted than Bona’s.

My stitches were large and careless and later would have to be snipped and resewn—not today, though, for the light was failing and soon, when Bona gave the word, all needlework would be retired. The male quartet began again to sing, a lively folk tune that made Bona smile and Caterina keep time with her feet.

My eyes were on the pool of white silk in my hands; I did not see what caused the first loud clatter, but I looked up in time to see Francesca’s iron peel drop with a resounding clang to the stone fireplace floor, scattering nuts in the flames. Francesca looked down at the carpet in horror, and threw up her hands; the act caused her shawl to slip from her shoulders. One edge spilled into the hearth and ignited, while she, unaware, stared down at a red-hot stone smoldering on the carpet at the very feet of the ducal heir.

Francesca let go a shriek, which was quickly seconded by Bona and the nurse, who dropped the brush at once and lifted her charge, Gian Galeazzo, straight up out of his chair, overturning it in the process. Ermes screamed for his mother. The quartet of singers—the coddled cream of Europe’s musical talent, and loyal to the duke’s family insofar as their generous salaries were paid—were quickly out the door.

While the area of the hearth filled with smoke and shouts, I rose, determined to stamp out the fire before it caught in earnest, and tried to move toward Francesca. But Caterina, already on her feet, blocked my way. Her blue eyes were wide and blank, her manner that of a mindless, terrified beast. As I pressed toward the fire and she away, she gave my shoulders such a mighty shove that I staggered backward and nearly lost my footing. She ran past me, the three-legged greyhound at her heels, out the door and into the loggia.

Behind her, Bona had gotten Chiara, stiff and weeping with fright, from her chair and was herding her, Gian Galeazzo, and Ermes toward the door. With her charges safe, she moved past me, allowing me to help Francesca stamp out the woolen shawl, now a heap on the carpet, its edges burning steadily, filling the room with the smell of burning hair.

One of the maids who had been packing the duchess’s things ran forward and, with a poker, pushed the errant hearthstone—which had initiated the calamity by tumbling from the chimney and striking Francesca’s peel—back into the fireplace. A second ran up and doused both the shawl and the smoldering carpet with water from the duchess’s slop jar.

By this time, the nuts had begun to give off a scorched stink; the air grew noxious. Gasping, Francesca hurried to the window I had so recently shuttered and opened it, letting in the chimes from the nearby Certosa monastery and the freezing alpine air.

I joined the others outside in the loggia, where the window overlooking the interior courtyard had been thrown open. Gian Galeazzo’s nurse was leading him, his brother, and the still-weeping Chiara next door, to the ducal heir’s chamber in the northwest tower; the singers had all disappeared from sight. A few nervous servants had appeared in Gian Galeazzo’s doorway in response to the outcry, but seeing the danger past, they were already receding back into the tower room.

Bona remained by the loggia window, waiting to make sure I was unscathed; she clucked maternally at the sight of my coughing and steered me directly to the opening. I bared my face to the painfully cold air and filled my lungs. When my coughing finally eased, I wiped my streaming eyes and drew back to examine the duchess.

The incident had left her unharmed, but some new disaster had claimed her attention: I followed her gaze east down the long loggia and saw Caterina standing at the far end of the great hall that separated the duchess’s quarters from the duke’s.

In the yellow light cast by a wall sconce, Caterina stood profoundly still with her back to us, her normally exuberant aspect hushed, her chin lifted and head canted to one side; I was reminded of a cat that, before pouncing on a bird, pauses to listen to its song. I paused, too: a woman was screaming in terror and outrage somewhere in the opposite wing of the palace.

The five doors that led into the great hall were uncharacteristically closed, and the servants inside oddly silent. The loggia, too, had grown abruptly deserted, save for an old servant who paused to light each wall sconce with the long taper in his hand; he made his way slowly toward us from the direction of the duke’s apartments. Surely he had heard the lady’s cries; perhaps he had even seen her, struggling in the grasp of Bruno, strongest of all the duke’s bodyguards. Yet like all good servants of Galeazzo Sforza, Duke of Milan, he had learned to keep his eyes downcast, his pace steady, his expression blank as though he could not hear her ragged screams.

They emanated from the east, from the loggia in the men’s wing, and they grew ever louder as they moved toward the northeast tower, and the duke’s quarters.

Let me go, let me go!

For the love of God . . .

You there, help me! Someone, help!

I understood at once why everyone else had so efficiently departed the scene.

Caterina whirled to face us, her blue eyes avid, bright; she did not quite smirk.

“Madonna,” she called, almost gaily, to Bona. “Shall we pray?”

Bona’s dark, bovine eyes were wide with hurt. Yet she mastered her pain and, ignoring the servant and Caterina’s insolent, knowing gaze, lifted her skirts. With calm, deliberate steps and all the grace her square, portly frame allowed, she moved down the loggia, past the closed doors of the great hall, to the open entrance of the family chapel.

Caterina and I entered the chapel with her. Just inside, to our right, stood the interior door that connected the chapel to the duke’s dressing chamber. For safety and privacy, none of the duke’s rooms opened directly onto the loggia. Instead, one had to enter the chapel and from there, gain entry to the duke’s dressing chamber, which in turn led to the duke’s bedchamber, which in turn led to the duke’s private dining hall in the northeast tower. The dining hall opened onto the northernmost room of the men’s east wing, the chamber of rabbits. This sported a life-sized mural of the duke on horseback in the summer-green park, following greyhounds in pursuit of a warren of hares; the chamber opened directly onto the eastern loggia. In sum, there are only two ways to reach the duke’s suite from the common hallway: either from the chapel off the north loggia, or from the chamber of rabbits off the east.

They planned, of course, to drag the girl in through the chamber of rabbits, so that she could not be seen by anyone passing in or out of the duchess’s chambers. If a stone had not chanced to tumble from the chimney in Bona’s hearth, the duchess would have heard no one but the singers, and would have remained cheerfully unaware of the rape occurring under her husband’s roof.

The chapel smelled of hot candle wax. It was paneled in ebony wood, like the duchess’s chamber; the choir stalls were carved from the same. The room’s sole spot of color could be found in the large stained-glass window, which depicted Milan’s patron saint, Ambrose, white-bearded and stern in his golden bishop’s mitre against a garden backdrop of emerald green. The sunlight had almost disappeared, leaving the window dark and the chapel shrouded in shadow, broken only by the glow from lamps flanking the entry and tapers burning on the altar, beneath the large wooden crucifix where a bronze Christ hung, his head bowed in death. The room was hearthless, dreary, and chill; Bona believed that God paid closer attention to the prayers of the suffering, which was why she often wore a hair shirt hidden beneath her fine silk chemise. No doubt she hoped God might post some of her excessive contrition to her husband’s account.

Beneath the altar, a dozen votive candles burned, two of them for my Matteo’s safety. By the time Bona knelt at the altar and I lifted one of the burning tapers to light two new votives—one for the duke’s soul, one for his victim’s—the shrieking had stopped. I replaced the taper on the altar, then returned and knelt on the cushion next to the duchess, who smelled of rosewater and smoke.

Bona’s deep-set eyes were fast shut, her dimpled hands clasped, her lips moving silently. Her features were pinched but set; one who did not suspect her personal agony would think she was simply earnest at prayer.

Caterina did not kneel, but unabashedly pressed her ear against the door adjacent to the duke’s dressing room; she did not test it, for she knew that it would be bolted from the other side. When Caterina was still quite young, but old enough to suspect what was happening, Bona had tried to send her to her quarters for the duration. The girl disobeyed and kept escaping to the men’s wing in an effort to catch a glimpse of her father in flagrante. She was stronger, faster, and far cleverer than her nurses, with the result that Bona finally acknowledged the duke’s trangressions and brought Caterina with her to the chapel, insisting that the girl should pray for her father. But Caterina refused to waste her time.

“If it is wrong of my father to do such a thing,” she asked reasonably, “then why does no one stop him?”

Bona, devoted to God but no philosopher, had no answer. She soon despaired of trying to influence Caterina for the good, as the girl was obviously as stubborn as her father and most likely just as inclined to wickedness.

I, on the other hand, was desperately beholden to the duchess and eager to please her. My parents had no doubt been so horribly damned—my mother perhaps a shamed woman, my father perhaps too wicked to care for his own children—that Bona, unshakable in the face of evil, had never been able to bring herself to say much about them. I feared that whatever had driven them to unspeakable sin had infected me, and so I embraced the duchess’s assiduous instruction concerning religion.

God is loving, Bona always said, but also just. And though you might not see results at once, He surely hears the prayers of the meek. Pray for justice, Dea, and in good time it will come; and pray for yourself, that you might be wise enough to love sinners while abhorring their deeds.

For Bona’s sake, I believed it all, prayed often and sincerely, and waited on God to reward the faithful and punish the wicked. The duke was all-powerful, his bodyguards cunningly armed and ready to deal death to those who interfered with their master’s pleasure; what else could I, a mere seventeen-year-old woman, do other than pray and offer Bona my comfort and companionship?

Yet when it came to sinners who relished cruelty, such as the duke and his coldhearted pet, Caterina, I could not match Bona’s saintliness. My heart held hate, not love. And so, as I began to mouth silent prayers beside the duchess, I asked God not for patience or for charity, but for vengeance, of a swifter sort than He was accustomed to meting out.

In my mind’s eye I pictured not the dying Christ or the Holy Mother, but the duke, who had invited the current silence by holding out his hand to the girl and speaking gently, quickly, as if soothing a frightened beast. He was telling her that all the stories about him were lies, that he was in fact a kindly man who wished her no harm.

And she—fifteen years old at most, lovely, unmarried, and a virgin from a decent family—was crazed with fear and desperate to believe him.

I yearned to be a man, one with a sword and the access to His Grace Duke Galeazzo. I pictured myself stealing up behind him as he murmured to the girl, and ending his crime with one short, swift, avenging thrust of my blade. Instead, I had only the opportunity to whisper one Our Father and two Ave Marias before Caterina, her expression one of fascination, hissed, “They are moving into his bedchamber now.”

The screaming began again, this time wordless, outraged, animal. I clasped my hands until they ached and tried desperately to quash my imagination. From behind the altar wall came muffled thumping—bodies or limbs striking walls, perhaps—and the tinkling of glass. Beneath it all was the very faint, vicious sound of male laughter.

Holy Mother, take pity upon her. Lord, let the duke taste justice.

“Why do you not help her?” Caterina demanded. There was no concern or frustration in her tone, only a dogged insistence. “He is hurting her, after all. Surely God does not mean for you to stand idly by.”

Without lifting her head, Bona replied, “We are only women, and far frailer than men. Should they not come to our aid, we can rely only on the goodness of God.”

A corner of Caterina’s lip twitched in disgust. “Only a coward waits on God.”

Angered by the attack on Bona, I jerked my face toward Caterina’s. “If that is so, Madonna, then why do you not stop your father? You’re his favorite; persuade him. Save him from sin and protect the lady.”

Without lifting her ear from the door, Caterina stuck out her tongue at me; still at prayer, Bona did not see.

“You all speak nonsense,” Caterina said. “First you say that my father sins. Then you say that God chose my father to rule, so his will must be respected. Well, it’s his will to lie with pretty young women. So where is the sin? And if it is sin, then why would God have such bad judgment as to anoint my father duke?”

Bona did not open her eyes, but behind her veil, a fat tear spilled from the corner of her eye and slid down her cheek. It was not her way to question God or her husband. “If you will not pray for your father,” she said, her voice husky and uneven with sorrow, “then at least pray for the girl.”

“The fact is,” Caterina countered, “a duke can do whatever he pleases.”

She began to say more, but her words were drowned out by a man’s shouts coming from the direction of the chamber of rabbits: “Duca! Duca! Your Grace!” His rasping, nasal voice was soon joined by others, and grew muffled by the sounds of scuffling.

Intrigued, Caterina hurried into the hall to learn the source of the noise. Within a minute, she retreated back into the chapel in a fright, and dropped to her knees at the altar on the far side of Bona.

Boot heels rang against the loggia’s stone floor; soon a trio of cloaked men armed with drawn short swords stood in the chapel archway. One of them, of powerful shoulders and good height, stepped inside. Upon seeing the interior door leading to the duke’s suite, he rattled the handle, found it locked, then nodded to the other two, who began in turn to throw themselves at the door to break it down.

Ashamed, Bona turned her face from them.

Meanwhile, the first man—with straight dark brown hair, parted down the middle and falling a few fingers shy of his shoulders—bowed low to us, then straightened and said, “Good ladies. My deepest apologies for disturbing you at prayer and disrupting the peace in God’s chamber, but one of your fair sex is in danger. I beg your forbearance while we work to bring this matter to a happy end.”

His dialect was Tuscan, and his diction revealed an education reserved for the highest born, yet his voice was peculiarly nasal. He was in his twenties or thirties, but it was difficult to judge, for his face was remarkably strange. His jaw was very square, and his chin jutted far forward; he had a noticeable underbite and when he spoke, his lower lip stuck out while his upper disappeared. This would not have seemed so unfortunate had it not been combined with his huge nose, which was flat at the bridge where it met the inner corners of his eyebrows, then rose and swooped alarmingly off to one side; it had an unusually long, sloping tip. It made me think of a clay likeness that had waited too long for the kiln and begun to droop. He might have looked foolish or unforgivably ugly had it not been for the rare intelligence in his eyes and his unselfconscious, confident grace.

I stood, curtsied reluctantly, and said, with as much contained fury as I dared show a noble, “You have disturbed my mistress at prayer, my lord. And you have violated the sanctity of the chapel.”

I looked pointedly at his two companions, gasping after their few failed attempts to break down the door. Like him, they were dressed in new winter cloaks trimmed with brown marten fur at the collars and sleeves.

“I am no lord,” he replied, clearly troubled by the fact that the screams had turned ominously to muffled groans. “Only a commoner trying to help in an emergency. I beg your forgiveness in what surely must be a difficult time for you all. But can no one else in this palace hear that the lady needs help?”

Bona bowed her head low, still too mortified to speak; Caterina stayed on her knees but peered past Bona at the speaker, clearly eager to see where this unexpected development would lead. Before the man could say more, a low wail emanated from a distant room behind the door, followed by wracking sobs.

The self-professed commoner’s strong, homely faced twisted with pity at the sound; pushing aside his fellows, he threw his shoulder against the door with all his force. The thick, solid wood did not so much as tremble at the blow. Rather than leave in frustration, the commoner knocked the wood with the hilt of his short sword.

“Your Grace! Good Your Grace!” he called, his tone playfully cajoling. “It is I, your secret guest, freshly arrived to enjoy your legendary hospitality. Let me repay it in small part now by offering the young lady an escort home.” And when no reply came, he added cheerfully, “I am determined, Your Grace; I shall wait at this door, and my fellows at the other, until we have her.”

With that, he turned to his men and gestured in the direction of the chamber of rabbits; they understood and left at once, while the so-called commoner remained, his ear to the door.

A long moment passed, during which Bona found her composure. She then crossed herself, rose, and turned to the man; at her side, Caterina rose as well, and watched with unselfconscious fascination.

“Your Magnificence,” Bona said softly, slowly, as always in control, though I knew her heart was breaking. “My lord the duke informed me to prepare for a guest’s arrival, but he did not tell me that it was you. I fear I cannot greet you properly at this time, given the unpleasant circumstance.”

He squinted hard at her and took a slow step toward her, frowning, until his eyes suddenly widened and his jaw dropped.

“Your Grace!” he exclaimed softly, his voice hushed with embarrassment; his cheeks reddened. “Oh, my lady Duchess!” He bowed deeply from the shoulders, and remained in that position as he spoke. “I cannot— I would never have— Your Grace, I beg forgiveness for my cruel thoughtlessness! My judgment has failed me once again. Had I recognized you, I would have been far more discreet.”

I applauded his desire to save the distressed lady, but could not forgive the humiliation he had just inflicted on Bona; my temper took abrupt control of my tongue. “How could you not recognize the duchess, good sir, when she stands directly before you? A poor excuse for such rudeness!”

Bona moved to me and caught my elbow. “Dea,” she said, her voice very low. “His sight is poor. Now you, too, must apologize.”

Behind us, Caterina giggled. Tongue-tied, I looked back at His Magnificence, and he looked back at me.

“Dea,” he said, with faint surprise, and in his eyes curiosity dawned. He uttered my name as if it were a familiar one.

Before he could say more, we all turned at the sound of footsteps approaching the door leading to the duke’s dressing chamber, and the squeal of the bolt being drawn. The door opened a crack; His Magnificence inclined his ear to it, and listened to whispered instructions from one of the duke’s valets. He gave a sharp nod to show he had understood, and the door closed again.

His Magnificence turned to Bona and bowed to take his leave. “Your Grace, my apologies once more. When we meet tomorrow, I will greet you as you deserve and do my best to make full reparation.”

“When we meet tomorrow, or any other day, dear Lorenzo,” Bona said softly, “we shall not speak of this.”

“Agreed,” he answered, then nodded to Caterina and last of all, me. “Ladies,” he said briskly, and was gone; I listened to his ringing steps as he made his way down the loggia toward the chamber of rabbits.

Like everyone else in Italy, I had heard tales about Lorenzo the Magnificent. At the tender age of twenty, he had become the de facto ruler of Florence upon his father’s death. I had glimpsed him only once, in 1469, when I was nine and had been living in Bona’s household only a year. Along with four other prominent rulers in Milan’s great Duomo, Lorenzo de’ Medici stood as godfather at Gian Galeazzo’s christening. Unlike us lesser mortals, Lorenzo possessed such intelligence, confidence, and charm that he could speak bluntly to Duke Galeazzo without provoking his wrath, and the duke, who routinely abused his family, courtiers, servants, and peers, treated Lorenzo with respect.

Once Lorenzo had left the chapel, Bona turned to me, her eyes brimming with tears. “God surely answered our prayers, sending him to help the lady . . . and to teach me humility.”

“Surely,” I gently agreed, though I did not believe for an instant that Bona had any pride left after eight years of marriage to Galeazzo Sforza. But I was grateful for Lorenzo’s attempt to intervene.

“Take Caterina with you,” Bona ordered, “and make sure she gets to her quarters and stays there. You’re free to do as you wish until I summon you again.”

“I will deliver her to her nurse, then return, if you like,” I said softly. I could see the duchess was in need of comfort. It is a hard thing to accept that one’s husband is a monster, and harder still to endure that monstrousness in polite company.

Her gaze averted, Bona shook her head, and I suddenly understood: Lorenzo’s appearance had so shamed my mistress that she was no longer able to control her tears. As I herded Caterina out, Bona knelt again at the altar railing, pausing before she returned to her prayers to call: “Please close the door behind you.”

I did, leaving her to weep in private.

Caterina broke away from me the instant we were out in the loggia; she turned toward the men’s wing and, cursing her full woman’s skirts, lifted them high and half ran in the direction of the chamber of rabbits. I was taller, with a longer stride, and easily caught her by the elbow.

She tried to shake free, but I held fast, wheeled her about, and dragged her with me toward the women’s wing.

“Bitch!” she snapped. “I’ll tell my father!”

“That I am following the duchess’s orders?” I paused. “What would your father say, were he to see you waiting in the chamber of rabbits?”

She said nothing, but accompanied me, sourly, back down the loggia toward Bona’s chambers, where servants had managed to clear out the smoke and close the windows, though the smell of burnt wool and nuts lingered. Next to it was little Gian Galeazzo’s and Ermes’s quarters in the northeast corner, and just past them was the northernmost room in the ladies’ wing, the pink chamber, so named because its walls were covered in rose moiré silk. It served as nursery to Bona’s daughters, five-month-old Anna and four-year-old Bianca Maria, who had already been married off to her first cousin, Philibert, Duke of Savoy. Just past it was Caterina’s room. I deposited her there and informed her nurse of Bona’s order, knowing all the while that the duke’s headstrong daughter would likely dash off the instant I had left.

I did not care. I proceeded southward down the endless ladies’ loggia, with its life-sized murals of those in Bona’s household, framed against a summer garden backdrop. Near the duchess’s quarters, there was a painting of Bona, seated and gazing proudly down at the infant Gian Galeazzo in her arms. Her courtiers clustered around her: the duke’s aunt, Elena del Maino; Emilia Attendoli, who had served Duke Galeazzo’s mother; and Emilia’s daughter, Antonia. Farther down the hall, in the newest mural, Ermes handed his baby sister Bianca Maria an apple picked from a tree, while the image of ten-year-old Caterina made one of her beloved greyhounds sit for a morsel.

My likeness, like my heritage, was nowhere to be seen.

At last I arrived at the open door of the library, in the southwest corner tower. Here, the plain stone flooring became gray-veined white marble, and the ceiling rose three stories high. There were no murals here; the vast walls were covered in tall oak shelves. Upon the last rested stacks of parchments bound in brocade, damask, or velvet. Despite the duke’s lack of interest in literature, his collection was priceless; he owned a copy of Virgil’s Aeneid, annotated in Petrarch’s very hand. For this reason, all works were attached to the shelves by silver chains.

Only three souls stood inside the vast chamber: the librarian and two young monks from the nearby monastery at Certosa. Unable to leave his domain unguarded, yet eager to retire now that the sun had set, the librarian scowled as I entered. I ignored him, knowing that I would be gone well before the monks, who stood with reverent awe in front of one of the manuscripts.

I passed them and headed for the library’s interior staircase, thinking to climb all the way to the fourth-floor perch, where I could stare far to the southern horizon toward Rome, looking for signs of my husband.

As I moved to the landing, movement outside the window caught my eye. On the banks of the moat near the castle’s main entry, two courtiers stood next to a servant who held the reins to two horses in one hand and a lamp in the other. In the faint arc of light, snowflakes sailed relentlessly downward.

I paused to stare at them. Though I could not make out their faces clearly, I recognized the build of one of them: Carlo Visconti, a black-haired courtier and member of Milan’s Council of Justice, his bearing and gestures betraying violent emotion. Beside him was an older, white-haired man who might have been his father.

Approaching them from the direction of the castle was a third man carrying a swooning young woman. At the sight, the older man beat his chest, then threw open his arms; gently, the third man handed her to her father.

Visconti was not so conciliatory; he drew his sword and lunged at the man who delivered the girl. The third man reacted by taking a great step backward, then spreading his arms in a gesture of peace.

For the space of several seconds, neither party moved; I supposed that one of them was speaking. Abruptly, Visconti sheathed his sword and sagged with grief. The man he had threatened stepped forward to put a hand upon Visconti’s shoulder, and in doing so, stepped into the lamplight.

I watched as Lorenzo the Magnificent kept his hand upon the courtier’s shoulder, then put another on the father’s, and spoke for a moment. Afterward, he dug into a pocket and discreetly handed Visconti a purse. The latter pocketed it without argument.

The snow grew heavier, prompting the father to mount one of the horses. He reached for his daughter, who was unsteady on her legs; it took both Visconti and Lorenzo to get her up into the saddle. Visconti and the servant then mounted the remaining horse; Visconti paused long enough to bow from the shoulders to Lorenzo, who returned the gesture before the trio galloped off across the drawbridge.

I remained at the window as Lorenzo turned, the wind whipping his dark hair across his face, and watched as he made his way grimly back to the castle. At its entrance he paused to glance pointedly up at the library window—at me, as if, impossibly given his poor eyesight, he saw me standing there.