Pippa stared defiantly at Sister Antonia. “You’ll regret coddling her. She’s an enemy of the people and will come to a bad end.”
Sister Antonia’s face and eyes and voice were stone. “Go to your cell. Go to your cell and pray for forgiveness for your anger until I send for you.”
In the hostile silence that followed, cannon thundered.
At last Sister Pippa turned away and left. After a dark glance at Antonia, Lisabetta went back to her chair.
“And you,” Sister Antonia said, more gently, to Niccoletta, “will need to make your own prayers when you are in chapel.”
We all sat then, and took up our work again. I had forgotten about my thumb, and in the excitement, the bit of wool had fallen off. When I gathered the altar cloth in my hands, I stained the linen with blood.
The cannonfire continued until dusk. That afternoon, Maddalena’s panicked mother came to the grate and confirmed what we suspected: The Imperial army had arrived and had surrounded the city.
That night I penned a letter to Cosimo Ruggieri. My correspondence with him had been limited to the subject of astrology, but desperation caused me to open my heart.
I felt abandoned, betrayed. I gave up my books, made no effort at my studies. In the refectory I sat beside Niccoletta and stared down at my porridge; food had become nauseating, unthinkable. I did not eat for three days. On the fourth day, I took to my bed and listened to the shouts of soldiers, the song of artillery.
On the fifth day the abbess came to visit. She smelled faintly of the smoke that permeated Florence.
“Dear child,” she said, “you must eat. What do you fancy? I will see it brought to you.”
“Thank you,” I said. “But I don’t want anything to eat. I’m going to die anyway.”
“Not until you are an old woman,” Giustina said sharply. “Don’t ever say such a thing again. Sister Niccoletta told me what Sister Pippa said to you. Horrible words, inexcusable. She has been reprimanded.”
“She was telling the truth.”
“She was repeating silly rumors, nothing more.”
Exhausted, I turned my face away.
“Ah, Caterina…” The bed shuddered gently as she sat beside me. She caught my hand and took it between her own cool ones. “You have been through too much, and these are terrible times. How can I comfort you?”
I looked back at her. “I want Ser Cosimo,” I said. “Cosimo Ruggieri.”
It was enough, Mother Giustina said, that she had tolerated the astrologer’s one visit and, indeed, that she had permitted me to study astrology although it was an inappropriate subject for a woman, much less a young girl. She had conveyed Ser Cosimo’s letters to me only because he had been a friend of the family. But there were rumors of his alliance with unsavory individuals, and of certain acts…
I faced the wall again.
Giustina let go a troubled sigh. “Perhaps earlier, before your aunt died, we should have tried harder… But even then, the rebels watched our every move, read every letter sent you. We could never have gotten you past the city gates. And now…”
I would not look at her. In the end, she agreed to allow further communication.
Within three days-during which I remained abed but allowed myself a few hopeful sips of broth-Sister Niccoletta arrived at my bedside, fresh from outdoors. A bitter storm had brought freezing rain; tiny beads of ice melted upon her caped shoulders. In her hand was a folded piece of ivory paper, and even before she proffered it to me, I knew its author.
I crumpled the letter into a ball and, while Sister Niccoletta watched wide-eyed, cast it into the fire.
Afterward, I shunned even broth and water. Within a day, the fever came. Outside my window the wind howled, swallowing the boom of the cannon. The thrill of the sheets against my skin set my teeth chattering; my body ached from the cold, but the blankets gave no warmth. Firelight stung my eyes and made them stream.
I began to lose myself-lose the walls and the bed and the baying wind. I traveled to the stone wall enclosing the rear of the Medici estate, where the stableboy appeared, miraculously alive, the dagger’s hilt still protruding from his neck; we argued a time over the necessity of his death. The scene shifted: I stood on the battlefield where my bloodied Frenchman lay. During my long and vague conversations with him, murmuring crows huddled before the hearth, casting long shadows over the crimson landscape, speaking senselessly. Perhaps I cried out Clarice’s name; perhaps I cried out Ruggieri’s.
When, tearful, aching, and uncertain, I discovered I was still in my bed at Le Murate, it was still dusk. The light was still too bright, the fire too cold, the sheets too painful against my skin.
Barbara looked down at me, one of my better gowns in her arms.
“You’re better,” she announced. “You should sit up awhile, and be properly dressed.”
The suggestion was so absurd that I, in my weakness, could not reply. I tried to stand but could not, and sat trembling in the chair while Barbara coaxed my body into the gown and laced it up.
My bed was too distant, my legs unreliable. I sank back in the chair, unable to fight off the cup lifted to my lips. Cup and chair and Barbara: These things seemed solid at first glance, yet if I stared too long they began to shimmer.
“Stay there,” Barbara ordered. “I’ll return soon.” She stepped outside and closed the door.
I clutched the arms of the chair to keep from sliding off, and let myself be dazzled by the fire’s sparks of violet and green and vivid blue.
The door opened and closed again. A raven stood in front of the hearth-one tall and caped with a hood pulled forward, obscuring its face. Slowly it lowered the cowl.
I was alone with Cosimo Ruggieri.
Nine
I blinked; Ruggieri’s apparition did not fade. He looked older, having grown a thick black beard that hid his
