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

our rallying cry, the words on our supporters’ lips as they raised their swords in our defense.
    As I watched, a wool dyer, his hands and tattered tunic stained dark blue, climbed onto his fellow’s shoulders and pulled down the banner to shouts of approval. A third man touched a torch to the banner and set it ablaze. Passersby slowed and gawked.
    “Abaso le palle!”
the wool dyer cried, and those surrounding him picked up the chant. “Down with the balls! Death to the Medici!”
    In the midst of the tumult, the iron gates opened a crack, and Agostino—Aunt Clarice’s errand boy—slipped out unobserved. But as the gate clanged shut behind him, a few of the men hurled pebbles at him. He shielded his head and dashed away, disappearing into the traffic.
    I leaned farther out of the open window. Behind the thin streams of smoke rising from the burning banner, the wool dyer spied me; his face lit up with hatred. Had he been able to reach up into the window, he would have seized me—an eight-year-old girl, an innocent—and dashed my brains against the pavement.
    “Abaso le palle!”
he roared. At me.
    I withdrew. I could not run to Clarice for comfort—she would not have provided it even had she been available. I wanted my cousin Piero; nothing cowed him, not even his formidable mother . . . and he was the one person I trusted. Since he was not in the boys’ classroom receiving his lessons, I hurried to the library.
    As I suspected, Piero was there. Like me, he was an insatiable student, often demanding more of his tutors than they knew, with the result that we frequently encountered each other huddled behind book. Unlike me, he was, at a rather immature sixteen, still cherub-cheeked, with close-cropped ringlets and a sweet, ingenuous temperament. I trusted him more than anyone, and adored him as a brother.
    Piero sat cross-legged on the floor, squinting down at the heavy tome open in his lap, utterly captivated and utterly calm. He glanced up at me, and just as quickly returned to his reading.
    “I told you this morning about Passerini coming,” I said. “The news is very bad. Pope Clement has fallen.”
    Piero sighed calmly and told me the story of Clement’s predicament, which he had learned from the cook. In Rome, a secret passageway leads from the Vatican to the fortress known as the Castel Sant’Angelo. Emperor Charles’s mutinous soldiers had joined with anti-Medici fighters and attacked the Papal Palace. Caught unawares, Pope Clement had run for his life—robes flapping like the wings of a startled dove—across the passage to the fortress. There he remained, trapped in his stronghold by jeering troops.
    Piero was totally unfazed by it all.
    “We’ve always had enemies,” he said. “They want to form their own government. The Pope has always known about them, but Mother says he grew careless and missed clear signs of trouble. She warned him, but Clement didn’t listen.”
    “But what will happen to
us
?” I said, annoyed that my voice shook. “Piero, there are men outside burning our banner! They’re calling for our deaths!”
    “Cat,” he said softly and reached for my hand. I let him draw me down to sit beside him on the cool marble.
    “We always knew the rebels would try to take advantage of something like this,” Piero said soothingly, “but they aren’t that organized. It will takethem a few days to react. By then, we’ll have gone to one of the country villas, and Mother and Passerini will have decided what to do.”
    I pulled away from him. “How will we get to the country? The crowd won’t even let us out of the house!”
    “Cat,” he chided gently, “they’re just troublemakers. Come nightfall, they’ll get bored and go away.”
    Before he could say anything further, I asked, “Who is the astrologer’s son? Your mother sent Agostino to fetch him.”
    He digested this with dawning surprise. “That would be Ser Benozzo’s eldest, Cosimo.”
    I shook my head, indicating