The Scarlet Contessa Read Free

hurry upstairs to find Caterina in the nearly bare reception chamber. She has left her chair, behind which a second impassive bodyguard stands, and is on her toes at the window, craning her neck to stare down at the stone courtyard Ser Niccolò and Ser Ludovico will cross on their way out of the fortress.
    When I enter and pause to curtsy, she jerks her head over her shoulder to look back at me, and I know in an instant that all is lost.
    “Bastard!” she swears. “Son of a filthy whore . . . !” Her lips are trembling, her teeth gritted, her blue eyes wide with rage. I do not move, but remain genuflected as she turns her face back to the window and continues her tirade.
    “Luffo Numai!” she shouts. Numai is the richest man in Forlì; he has served on the city council for some years and considers himself the spokesman for the townspeople. “That’s who it was—that’s the traitor! He convinced them all that they had no chance with me, that Valentino’s army would slaughter them, that they were safer surrendering to him.” She lets go a wild laugh. “They’ll learn soon enough what becomes of those who trust the Duke of Valentino!”
    I lift my head. “The Forlivese?” I whisper.
    “They will not fight in my defense,” she says, still facing the window. The bitter words steam the glass, and she wipes them away angrily as she stares down at the courtyard below. “They are sending a messenger to Valentino to tell him so. And according to my apologetic guests, it was Luffo Numai who worked tirelessly to convince the citizens that surrender was their only hope for survival. Many of the people supported me, wanted to raise their swords for me, but Numai bullied them until they gave in.” She lurches toward the window as her eye catches something below. “Hah! There they go!”
    She turns toward me, skirts whirling, words tumbling out of her so rapidly I can scarcely follow them. “I was polite to Niccolò and Ludovico, of course. I was gracious; I told them that, given the fall of Imola, I could not expect the citizens of Forlì to defend me. But they would have, had it not been for Numai. How much money, do you think, Valentino promised him? And governorship, of course, since Valentino will not be able to look after the cities himself.”
    She moves swiftly to the chair and throws on her cloak, then strides out of the chamber, through the door, and down the same steps Niccolò and Ludovico had recently trodden; since she continues to address me, I follow, breathless from the effort to keep pace with her.
    “Numai thinks he will steal my lands from me,” she says darkly, “and from my sons, but he will pay. The bastard will pay! I will see to it personally.”
    I follow her down to the second level, where tunnels have been cut deep into the stone wall to accommodate artillery. Caterina leads me to the end of one of them and calls to a nearby soldier.
    “Bring the gunners!” she shouts, and as the soldier runs off to obey, Caterina moves to the side of one of the long bronze cannons, which is tilted upward forty-five degrees.
    My lady does not need to search for the long-handled ladle, or the great wooden box that houses the gunpowder; she knows where both are kept, and fills the ladle full of the sulfurous powder with practiced ease, then pushes it down the cannon’s long barrel. At her bidding, I run and fetch a huge handful of hay to serve as wadding from a pile kept near the gunpowder box, and the long wooden rammer.
    As I drop the hay into the muzzle and push it down with the rammer, Caterina goes to fetch the ball from a large pyramid-shaped stack. She staggers beneath the weight of the dressed stone sphere; she can carry it only crouched over, in both hands, with the ball at mid-thigh. But carry it she does, and as she steps toward the muzzle, I join her, and together we manage to lift the ball high enough to push it into the barrel.
    By this time, six gunners have finally assembled, and they take