The Devil's Queen: A Novel of Catherine De Medici Read Online Free PDF Page B

armed with short swords at their hips; they stood in disciplined ranks, forming a barricade around the compound. Traffic in the Via Larga had stalled, thanks to sentries who questioned each passerby.
    Troubled, I quit the window and went down to seek Piero. I found him in the boys’ apartment, where Ginevra was lifting a stack of folded items from an open wardrobe. She had turned to set them down into a half-packed trunk when she caught sight of me standing in the doorway.
    I stared at the bundle of boys’ clothing in her arms. Beside Ginevra, Leda sat on a low stool folding bed linens, which she set in a second trunk. I could not imagine why Leda, who always tended Aunt Clarice, should be fussing with the boys’ linens.
    Ginevra flushed brilliantly. “You shouldn’t be here, Caterina,” she said. “Did you get your breakfast?”
    I shook my head. “What are you doing?”
    Piero heard and came out of the bedroom. “Packing,” he said, smiling. “Don’t look so frightened, Cat. We’re going to the country, just like I said. Mother’s going to speak to the rebels tonight, after we’re gone.”
    In a small voice, I said, “No one is packing
my
things.”
    “Well, they
will
.” Piero turned to Ginevra, whose gaze was carefully fixed on the trunk in front of her. “Who’s going to take care of her things?”
    Ginevra’s reply was so long in coming that Leda, the braver of the two, said sternly, “Her aunt will speak to her about it when the time is right. In the meantime, she should get her breakfast and stay out of trouble.”
    My lower lip twitched despite my best efforts to control it, and I said, tearfully, to Piero, “They’re not going to let me go with you.”
    “Don’t be silly!” he said and turned his gaze on Leda. “She is going with us,
isn’t
she?”
    Leda tried to meet his stare brazenly, but in the end, she looked away. “Madonna Clarice will speak to her later.”
    Piero’s voice rose in protest, but I bolted before I heard what he had to say. I raced breakneck down the stairs, out into the courtyard, and past the formal garden to the far end of the stables. A large sycamore grew beside the stone wall that enclosed the rear of the property. I hurled myself beneath its shade and wept. The world had betrayed me; my only hope, my only happiness, was Piero, but now he was to be taken from me. I cried undisturbed for what seemed an eternity, then lay with my back against the damp ground and stared up at green leaves punctuated by bits of sky.
    I have the best insurance of all; I have the heirs
. Piero and his brothers would be taken to safety, and I, an heir, would remain. I was currency Clarice could use in her negotiations with the rebels.
    In my reverie, I almost failed to notice the songs of church bells—San Marco, San Lorenzo, Santa Maria del Fiore—tumbling over each other in melodic cascades. They had nearly stilled when I sat up and reconstructed the number of tolls from memory. It was terce, the third hour of the morning.
    I rose, brushed the twigs from my skirts, and hurried along the side of the stables until I was able to peer around the corner toward the gates that opened onto the Via Larga.
    Our two dozen guards were focused on the silent rebels on the other side of the iron bars, while a boy was leading a gleaming black mare to the stalls. She was spirited and tossed her head, obedient enough but letting him know, with a disdainful glare, that she did not trust him.
    Ser Cosimo could not be far away. I went to the deserted garden and waited there for half an hour—an agonizing length of time for a restless child.
    At last the magician appeared, in a farsetto of black and red striped silk. He spotted me and silently led me to an alcove sheltered from view by a tall hedge.
    Once there, he said sternly, “You must promise me, Donna Caterina, that you will tell no one of our meeting—for many reasons, not the least of which is the unseemliness of my meeting privately with a