The Medici Mirror

by Melissa Bailey

  The curtains blew into the room once more, caught by the strong breeze. It carried with it the sound of children’s voices, her children’s voices, from the garden below. They were playing, shouting and laughing. As she listened she heard Edouard-Alexandre, his voice ragged, out of breath, calling for his sister. She heard the patter of his small feet, running. A moment later she heard him reprimanding Claude for cheating. She broke into a smile as she listened and her heart bloomed. Thank God for Edouard-Alexandre, for her beloved children. A moment later another voice floated into the room. It was a woman’s, one that she recognised instantly, subdued and asking the children to be quiet. She called them by their nicknames, affectionate names used by Catherine and the King, names that Catherine believed only she and the King should use.

  Instantly her small moment of contentment vanished and her mood changed. The rising hatred she felt was almost suffocating. She listened for the voice again, certain that if she heard it she would screech in anger, unable to suppress her rage. But the breeze carried nothing more. She breathed deeply and tried to compose herself. But her heart constricted inside her. Was there nowhere, nothing, sacred from this woman’s polluting influence? She turned abruptly onto her side and felt a searing pain in her abdomen. The force of it caused tears to spring to her eyes but she did not care. The physical pain was a welcome distraction from the emotional turmoil she had to endure at the hands of this whore day after day. She poked her nose into affairs that should not concern her, prodded with her grasping tainted fingers at things that were treasured, private, held dear. If only Catherine could be rid of her. But it was too dangerous for her to meet a death that could be traced back to the hand of the Queen. She was, after all, still protected by the King.

  A knock on the door disturbed Catherine’s thoughts. She pushed herself upright, wincing in pain as she did so, and settled herself once more on the pillows.

  ‘Come in,’ she said a moment later.

  The door opened slowly to reveal Cathelot, her female jester. For a moment the two women simply looked at one another. Then the dwarf closed the door behind her and moved across the room. The ringing of the bells on her jester’s hat echoed dissonantly through the subdued chamber. Catherine watched as she approached, in her usual red and gold attire, and something in the incongruity of her dress, so usually associated with mirth, made her heart weep. When she reached the edge of the bed she scrambled up onto it like a child and, sitting beside Catherine, took her hand.

  ‘How are you, my Queen?’ Her voice, usually so joyful and full of laughter, was curiously muted.

  Catherine said nothing for a moment, not trusting herself to speak. Finally, when she was certain of her composure, she answered. ‘I am rallying, Cathelot, I am rallying. I am better simply for seeing you. It has been a while.’

  Cathelot nodded. ‘And I am sorry for my absence, my lady. I have been back for a little while now. But I did not wish to disturb you so close to the birth. In the circumstances, I could stay away no longer.’ Pause. ‘I am very sorry about the little one.’

  Catherine took a deep breath. ‘I must count my blessings, Cathelot. I have eight children alive.’

  ‘Yes, my Queen. But no doubt you still feel the loss keenly.’

  Catherine looked at her, at this woman who knew her better than most, and fought back her tears once more. She raised the dwarf’s hand to her mouth and kissed it. Then she moved to change the subject.

  ‘And what news of the King, Cathelot? How fares he?’

  ‘He is well, Your Majesty. Much relieved now that you are out of danger.’

  Catherine smiled. ‘And how does he pass the time?’

  ‘He has spent much of the day outside with the children. They are now all retired to the nursery.’

  ‘And her . . .?’ Catherine remembered the voice of the woman floating through the window of her chamber.

  ‘Much the same, my lady.’ She felt her servant’s hand tense within her own.

  ‘Do you have news?’ She looked Cathelot directly in the eye and found something evasive there. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Your Majesty, I do not think that now is the time. You need to rest and recover. You need to be peaceful.’

  Catherine looked at her favourite again, at the pained expression on her face, the concern wrinkling her brow. She was loyal beyond all others to her Queen. And yet she was also trusted by the King, by his mistress even, and in that blessed position could wander freely where others could not. ‘I thank you for the love and care you have shown me, Cathelot. I know the depth of your devotion and allegiance. Know that I could not have asked of anyone else what I asked of you.’ She paused and smiled. ‘But I am strong, more resilient than you can imagine. So know that whatever it is you have to tell me, I can bear it.’

  Cathelot stared at her for a few moments. ‘Very well. Then know that I did as Your Majesty requested during your confinement. I accompanied both the King and the Duchess of Valentinois to both Anet and Chenonceau.’

  Catherine nodded. These were the palaces where she considered it most likely that the object would have been kept. It had not been present in the mistress’s chambers in the other chateaux – Catherine had had those checked by her dames d’honneur – but these residences, belonging to her, were more private; where she and the King were most often together alone. Thinking of it, Catherine felt a jealous stab in her chest. She closed her eyes to the images of ecstasy that flooded her mind and thought of the mirror and where it might now reside.

  ‘I searched both places thoroughly, Your Majesty. I found my moments when she and the King went out hunting or riding.’

  Catherine felt a light-headedness taking her over. ‘And did you find it?’

  Cathelot nodded, but her demeanour was morose. ‘I found it. But it was in a place that I believe, that I am sure, no one visits. It is kept in a bare cellar at Anet, Your Majesty. Hidden, locked away. It moulders in the dark.’ She paused before she went on. ‘She knows, my lady. Or if she does not know, she senses.’

  Catherine stared at Cathelot for a long moment. Then she murmured, ‘Thank you for your honesty.’ She closed her eyes and leaned her head back into the pillows beneath her. But now they felt like needles pressing into her skull.

  ‘Are you all right, Your Majesty?’ Cathelot’s voice was tinged with concern.

  ‘I am fine,’ Catherine mumbled. ‘Now please leave me.’

  ‘Are you sure? I do not feel comfortable doing so.’

  ‘I am sure. Please go.’

  ‘Very well. But I will visit you later, my lady, if it pleases you.’

  Unable to respond, Catherine squeezed Cathelot’s hand and then released her. The bells tinkled mockingly as the dwarf crossed the chamber floor. When Catherine heard the door close, she opened her eyes and for a moment was supremely still. Then her tears began to flow, tears that until now she had fought against. Now she wept with a silent, unquenchable grief, for the gift that had been given and then hidden away, for the death of her plan that had never come to fruition. She wept for her thwarted love, her plight to be always second to a woman whom her husband championed, a woman who had to cajole him to sleep with his own wife. She wept for the death of her child and the one in all likelihood that would follow in its wake.

  She wept for the stillbirth of all her dreams and ambitions.

  28

  IT WAS A cold, dark Saturday morning.

  I was sitting in the coffee shop, drinking my third espresso, distractedly making my way through the Guardian. Ophelia had left the previous evening for her photo shoot and in her absence I was contemplating going to the factory. It was still early and I didn’t expect anyone from the office to be there at this time, if at all on a weekend. I skimmed the contents of a review of some play at the National and turned the page. It was a report of a woman’s body found in the basement of a Central London block of flats. She had been missing for a couple of months. A man wanted for questioning by the police had, it seemed, left the co
untry some time ago. I closed my eyes, rubbed them and an image of a different woman’s body, reclining on a bed, flashed across my mind. I blinked to get rid of it and continued flicking through the newspaper. But I couldn’t concentrate on the articles. Eventually I folded up the paper and put it down on the table. Then I drained my coffee cup and headed out into the day.

  I listened to the slap, slap, slap of my trainers as I crossed the road. The movement was quick and even, the asphalt hard against my feet, sturdy and supportive. I mounted the pavement and concentrated once more on the smoothness of the beat, the equable rhythm. Slap, slap, slap. A concrete beat on a concrete surface. The icy wind buffeted the trees, tossed torn newspaper print along the pavement, whipped up a sandstorm of gritty air. Bodies loomed towards me and just as quickly receded. Voices flooded into and out of my brain. It was an average day for a London winter. Cold, loud and windy.

  I shivered and turned off the main road into a side street, colliding with another pedestrian in the process. I felt the elbow hard against my ribs and instinctively closed my eyes, as if somehow that would dull the impact. But in that moment, that split second of darkness, my head flooded again with thoughts of Amelia. Amelia Holmes. A woman who had also walked on dirty pavements, breathed and existed in a London not all that different from my own. What had happened to her?

  My eyes snapped open, bringing me back to the grey of the here and now. What was it she was trying to tell me? I remembered my dream of her, her parting words. ‘Find out who I am,’ she had said. ‘The rest will follow . . .’

  I turned left at the next road junction, made a right into the square and the factory came into view. I traced the outline of its windows as I approached, as I had done many times before. My gaze moved over the bricks and glass of the ground floor, then the first and second in turn. It was all dark. So no one was here yet. I unlocked the outer doors and pulled them open defiantly. Then I made my way in.

  Standing in the stillness of the clicking room, I began to feel with more certainty that something here, something in the factory, could tell me about Amelia. That something here was connected to her. I had felt the same way after my dream of her, when Tara had found me on the ground floor in front of the stiletto machine. The notion back then, however, had been vague, unformed. It was a general inkling. But now I felt a more powerful conviction. After all, this place and Amelia were intrinsically linked. Something here could tell me something. I was sure of it. I just wasn’t sure what.

  I had started my search in the storage cupboard. There were all kinds of records there. But by and large it was general factory paperwork, papers that made for the smooth running of a business: lists of customers, invoices, remittances, order forms for materials, that kind of thing. And a whole lot of financial data: accounting information, reports, projections, forecasts and suchlike. It was entirely mercantile, dry. Even the newspaper articles I came across were about the business – its times of prosperity in the late nineteenth and early part of the twentieth centuries and its subsequent period of decline. But there was nothing that focused on either James or Amelia.

  I had moved upwards through the factory, scrutinising each floor as I went. But all paper records seemed to have been located in the dispatch room. On the upper floors I had discovered nothing beyond the carcasses of old machines, rotting under layers of dust. And finally I had concluded my search in the clicking room, where I now stood, staring into its silence. Reaching forwards, I pushed the metal beam of one of the clicking machines. It let out a hollow metallic groan as it rocked back and forth, a sad, aching noise that reverberated along the length of the room. I put out my hand and, bringing the movement of the metal to a stop, silenced the noise. The stillness regrouped around me.

  I looked along the factory floor, past the rows of sewing machines, the leather scraps and samples littering the floor, over the benches of tools and patterns, to the giant machines of the sole-cutting room. My gaze flickered over it all, then came back to rest where I stood. What was I doing here? I smiled and almost laughed out loud. I mean, really. Sneaking around the floors of the factory, following an oblique hunch that something here could tell me something. It was ridiculous.

  I picked up a knife resting on a piece of black leather on one of the workbenches. I touched its point which, in spite of its age, was still incredibly keen. It was a clicking knife, kept sharp by the whetstone that lay alongside it. I ran my fingers over the stone. It was coarse and grainy. Although the knife didn’t need it, I felt a sudden compulsion to sharpen it, pushing the blade up and then pulling it down the rough block. I repeated the movement a few times before stopping. Then I pulled a pattern from an adjacent workbench and, placing it on the leather, made an incision with the blade along its length. The knife moved easily, slicing through the material in a single fluid movement. At the end of the cut, the knife clicked against the wooden bench. A subtle clicking sound. I repeated the movement over a different area, following the contours of the pattern. The same click finished the cut. I did it again. The same clicking noise. It was hypnotic, satisfying. Click, click, click.

  A few minutes later I had cut out the shape of an upper from the leather. I smiled at my handiwork. A little rough – I didn’t quite have the skill of a clicker. But a good assembler might have been able to make something of it. I turned to look once more down the factory floor. The four rows of sewing machines lay in front of me, receding along the length of the assembling room. They were abandoned now but at one point the place had been full of women, Amelia among them. A scene flashed across my mind – women working away, stitching and sewing in a black and white world. I frowned. Where had I seen that? I gazed along the factory floor, trying to remember. Then I turned and looked down the stairwell. As my gaze took in the bank of photographs, dense and tightly packed on the wall opposite me, I suddenly remembered. I had looked at a picture of such a scene, capturing the women workers of the assembling room. I had seen it on the first day I had visited the factory with Richard. I walked down the stairwell, my eyes moving over the rows of photographs until I found the image again. 1898 said the caption beneath it. Workers in the Assembling Room. It pictured four rows of women, each seated at a sewing machine, stitching. They were dressed in black, with white aprons over their dresses, their heads bowed, focused on their work. All, that was, except for one. Her head was raised slightly, distracted by something, and although she wasn’t facing the camera directly it was clear that she was a beauty. I smiled. I remembered now. I had focused on her the last time I had looked at this photograph. Long thick hair, refined features – she stood out from the crowd. Only then I hadn’t known who she was. Now I did. It was Amelia.

  I followed her gaze in the shot and saw for the first time that it was directed towards a man. The only man in the photograph. I didn’t remember him. He was tall, well built, dressed in a black suit, ostensibly supervising the industry of his workers, making his way between the benches. While he was still very much in the background of the image, his head was tilted towards the woman, the merest hint of a smile on his lips, the camera seeming to have caught the very moment their eyes met. There was something profound about the timing of the shot, something quintessentially romantic about the look. Half given, half disguised. And if you knew nothing about them perhaps it would have looked like nothing. A supervisor doing his rounds, a young woman looking askance, both distracted during working hours. But now I knew that it was James and Amelia.

  With trembling fingers, I reached forward to unhook the photograph from the wall. It came away easily in my hands but I could feel the back of it, loose and moving, clearly not well attached to the frame. As I brought it downwards, away from the wall, the back shifted and fell away, clattering against the wooden floorboards. Several pieces of paper also fluttered to the ground. They came to rest by the side of my foot.

  When I bent down to pick them up, I saw that they were letters.

  29

  Venice, Italy

  1898
<
br />   My darling,

  How I have missed you. Believe me when I tell you that you have been almost constantly in my mind – a mind which tortures me with visions of you. I remember your beautiful mouth and I long to kiss your lips, I imagine your skin and ache to touch it, to feel its smoothness beneath my fingers. I wish, beyond all things, that you could be here with me. Especially now, in Venice. I have found the weight of your absence almost impossible to bear, and have had to force myself to engage with others, to focus on everyday matters.

  Now, as I sit at the writing desk in my hotel room, overlooking the city, I find a rare moment of peace. And in this quiet space I can tell you what has transpired whilst I have been gone from you.

  We have spent the last two days in Stra with our exemplary host, Signore Giovanni Voltan. He is a charismatic, driven and determined man and his vision, as you know, in its scale and imagination, is an exciting one – through increased mechanisation to replicate in Italy the shoemaking processes he learned in Boston. We visited his new premises, reviewed his proposals for mass production and I, for one, am convinced that his plans will put this village in the Venetian hinterland firmly on the map.

  This morning, however, leaving industry behind, we rose well before dawn and traversed the 20 or so miles from Brenta to the edge of the Venetian lagoon before daybreak. Giovanni had promised that this way we would enter the floating city by boat as the sun was rising. It is the only way to arrive in Venice, he said.