slipped to my knees beside Henri; I reached up for his clenched fist. He flinched, so absorbed in the memory that my touch startled him, but he let me take his hand and gently uncurl it, and kiss the palm.
“Henri,” I said softly. “We have much in common, you and I.” And when curiosity flickered in his gaze, I explained, “I spent three years a captive of the Florentine rebels.”
His lips parted as he blinked in surprise. “No one told me,” he said. “No one dares speak of my imprisonment to me, so perhaps they were afraid to tell me of yours.”
He seized my hand and squeezed it hard. He looked at me and for the first time saw me, Catherine, and not the Pope’s niece, the foreigner, the hateful obligation.
“Catherine, I am so sorry. I would not wish for anyone…” He trailed off. “Was it terrible?”
“At times. I was always afraid for my life. I was betrayed, too-by my own cousins, who escaped and left me behind, knowing I would be taken prisoner. One of them now rules Florence. But I can’t waste my time hating them.”
“I’ve tried not to hate my father,” he said, “but the sight of him fills me with such anger…”
“You need him,” I said gently. “He’s your father, and the King.”
“I know.” He dropped his gaze. “I hate him only because I love my brother so much. For the Spanish, tormenting the Dauphin was the same as tormenting the King, because they knew he would rule France someday. So they singled him out. They defiled him.” His voice broke on the last two words. “Sometimes there would be as many as five men-always at night, when they were full of wine. We were isolated, in the mountains, with no one to hear him scream but me.” He looked up at me, his face contorted, his black eyes liquid. “I tried to stop them. I tried to fight. But I was too small. They laughed and shoved me out of the way.”
He let go a hoarse sob. I rose, wound my arms about his shoulders, and kissed the top of his head as he pressed his face to my bosom.
His words were muffled. “How can people be so evil? How can they want to hurt others so badly? My gentle, good-hearted brother, he can forgive them all. But I can’t… And our father hates us, because each time he looks at us, he’s forced to remember what he’s done.”
“Hush,” I said. “Your brother Francois wakes each morning happy. He let go of his suffering long ago. For his sake, you must stop clinging to yours.”
He pulled back to look at me as I held his hot, damp face in my hands. “You’re like him, kindhearted and wise,” he said. He reached up and brushed my cheek with his fingertips. “So beautiful of spirit that all the other women at Court are hideous by comparison.”
I drew in a breath, voluntarily captive. I know not who moved first, but we kissed each other with sudden heat and fell by the fire. I lifted my skirts and petticoat; when I pulled off my pantaloons and flung them so carelessly that they landed on his head, he giggled.
This time when he took me, I was ready. I rode him with wild desperation, abandoning myself with spectacular result. No one had told me that women could gain as much pleasure as men from the sexual deed, but I discovered the fact that day, to my astonished delight. I suppose I cried out rather loudly, for I remember Henri laughing wickedly while I was in the grip of unbearable pleasure.
When we were spent, I rang for my ladies to undress me while Madame Gondi fetched one of Henri’s valets to do the same for him. After the servants departed, we lay together naked in my bed. I permitted myself to do what I had longed to do since coming to France: I ran my palms over the contours of my husband’s body. He was so very tall, like his father, with long, sculpted legs and arms. And he touched me-my breasts, and my legs, muscular and shapely-and pronounced them to be perfect.
“You are so brave and good,” he said. “You endured prison, and coming to France, a strange land, and have been patient with me…” He rolled on his side to face me. “I want to be like you. But there are times I think I’m going mad.”
“You’re unhappy,” I countered. “It’s not the same thing.”
“But I remember all the terrible things my brother went through-and I grow frightened that they’ll happen again. So frightened that I can’t trust anyone, that I can’t even speak kindly to you when I want to…” He looked away, haunted.
“It won’t happen again,” I said. “It’s past.”
“How do you know?” he demanded. “If Father was captured again-if something happened to Francois… It might not be the same thing, but it could be even worse.”
He fell back against the pillow, his eyes wide at the thought. I wrapped my arms around him.
“Nothing bad will happen to you,” I whispered, “because I won’t let it.” I kissed his cheek. “Let me give you children, Henri. Let me make you happy.”
The tension in his face dissolved, giving way to trust, and I dissolved with it. I laid my head upon his shoulder as he whispered, “Oh, Catherine… I could love you. I could so easily love you…”
He fell asleep in that fashion. And I, swooning with infatuation, reveled in the feel of his warm flesh against mine. Filled with blissful thoughts, I dozed.
In the middle of the night, I woke in a mindless panic and lifted my head from Henri’s shoulder to stare down at him. In the dimness, blood bubbled up from his face-the stranger’s face, the one from my dream.
I understood my life’s purpose in that crystalline instant.
“I heard you far away in Italy, my love,” I whispered fiercely. “You called to me, and I have come.”
At the sound of my voice, Henri stirred and stared up at me with eyes that were black and haunting as the Raven’s Wing.
He slept the rest of the night beside me, but when I woke to the first light of morning, he was gone.
Nineteen
When I saw Henri had gone, I rose quietly, so as not to wake Madame Gondi, sleeping in the adjacent garderobe.
I had discovered three volumes on astrological magic by Cornelius Agrippa in the King’s library and brought them all to my cabinet. I went into the tiny office, lifted the first volume from the shelf, and began to thumb through it. I no longer believed in coincidence. Chance hadn’t presented me with the magician any more than it had brought me Henri-or Agrippa’s masterwork there upon His Majesty’s library shelf.
Until that morning I had been reluctant to try to create a talisman myself. I doubted the books contained all the information necessary for dealing with the intangible world. But the convergence of Henri’s need and the appearance of Agrippa’s tomes convinced me that I was destined to do this.
I found what I wanted in volume two: Corvus the Raven is a constellation near Cygnus the Swan. The Raven’s stars are ruled by morbid Saturn and bloodthirsty Mars; yet combined as they are in a star named Gienah, said Agrippa, they “confer the ability to repel evil spirits” and protect against “the malice of men, devils, and winds.” When the figure of a raven is drawn over the constellation, Gienah glitters in its wing.
The image required was that of the raven. The stone required was black onyx; the herb daffodil, burdock, or comfrey; the animal a frog-specifically, its tongue. On a night when Gienah was rising and favorably aspected to the Moon, the stone should be inscribed with a sigil, fumigated, and consecrated.
This was my task, then-to obtain a ring fitted to Henri’s finger, construct a raven’s image, collect the stone and herb and frog, and perform the ceremony. First, however, I needed to locate Gienah, track its movements, and determine when, over the next months, it rose conjunct the Moon.
I felt purposeful that day, believing that the bloody burden I had carried for so long would soon be lifted. I never dreamt that I was instead taking another step toward the heart of the magician’s sinister and ever-widening circle.
In the meantime, my fortunes bloomed while Florence’s withered. I received a letter from my dear cousin Piero. He lived in Rome now with his father, Filippo, and his brothers. They had been forced to flee Florence. Sandro, it seemed, had become a murderous tyrant and profoundly suspicious of his relatives-to the point of accusing Piero of plotting to seize control of the city. Others who had provoked Alessandro’s distrust had been executed or poisoned,
