The Scarlet Contessa

by Jeanne Kalogridis

  I returned to the closet and hid my encryption key in my trunk, then went to the stables. A lone groom was mucking out one of the stalls, a young boy with a silky shock of carrot-colored hair and a face so smudged with grime that the whites of his blue eyes stood out alarmingly. I offered him two denarii to deliver a message “from the master to the French ambassador, but it must be done discreetly, for it contains a secret.” I told him that he should take the letter to the aide, Gerard de Montagne, personally, and explain that he should show it to no one, but wait for a second letter to arrive. And if the first were delivered safely, I would give the boy two more silver coins, and a second letter the next day to take to Monsieur de Montagne.

  Intrigued by the thought of danger, he agreed eagerly. “I’ll be free at noon, to go to mass,” he said, “but the stablemaster need not know I’ve gone elsewhere. No one shall know, I swear it.”

  I gave him the encryption key with a reminder that we would meet again the following day at the same hour and place. I dared not send the key and letter together, lest they be intercepted.

  I went back to Caterina’s chamber to report my accomplishment only to discover that she had returned to bed and was dozing. I went out onto the balcony to sit in the shade of the awning, and thought about Matteo’s death, and the rider who had brought him home.

  I knew nothing about the late Duke Galeazzo’s reasons for sending Matteo to Rome. Clearly, he had been on a sensitive mission, one that involved Lorenzo de’ Medici; why else would Lorenzo have come secretly to visit the duke? Why else would Lorenzo have hoped to speak to Matteo in private immediately upon his return? Before his imminent death required his swift return home, Matteo had been escorting papal legates back from Rome to meet with the duke. Try as I might, I could remember nothing of the cardinals who had come to see Galeazzo; the days immediately following Matteo’s death were a blur. I remembered only the black-haired rider.

  A rider who served Count Girolamo as a scribe, one who sat alone in a tiny room hidden from view, encrypting secret messages. One who had traveled to Pavia alongside Matteo and the papal legates sent from His Holiness and Girolamo.

  On his journey, had he discovered that my brother had been the Medici’s spy?

  A wave of grief and rage swept over me; I steepled my hands and pressed the tips of my fingers to my lips, but I could no longer pray. Instead I spoke to the angel.

  “Come to me,” I whispered. “Show me the truth. If he killed Matteo, give me proof.”

  As if in reply, the angel’s words surfaced in my memory, blotting out all other thoughts.

  I am already here. But your darkness shackles my tongue. . . .

  Vow to obey me unto death, and I will reveal all.

  I closed my eyes and saw the Nine of Swords: four swords crossed over four others, with a ninth sword thrust, tip pointing heavenward, through the center of the others . . . and all of them weeping blood.

  “I will obey,” I whispered, “if you will only show me who killed my brother. . . .”

  In my heart, in my mind, only silence answered. Silence, and gnawing, bitter pain.

  I slept poorly that night, and in the hour before dawn, surrendered to wakefulness and slipped on an overdress to cover my thin linen chemise. As it was still dark, I took a lamp and stole down the stairs to the second floor, and the east wing, Girolamo’s province. I was surprised to find the sconces there already lit, though the corridor was silent.

  I headed to the far end of the hall and the little room where I had found paper and ink. It was a purely irrational act; the door was no doubt locked, and I had no plan, only an urgent need to discover whatever I could about the scribe.

  The sconce mounted on the wall near the supply chamber door was lit, and the door stood ajar. Holding my breath, I stepped up toward the threshold and peered inside.

  In a neat row against the eastern wall stood tall wooden shelves, upon which were stacked various items: reams of paper, scrolls of clean parchment, ink vials, inkwells, blotters, ledgers, boxes, awls, magnifying lenses, rules, penknives, pumice stones, ribbons, portable writing desks, wool dusters, and a fresh new pile of untrimmed quills.

  At the far end of the room, near the closed door to the scribe’s tiny chamber, a woman with a black scarf wrapped about her head was stooped over, reaching for one of the portable writing desks on the lowest shelf; beside her was a broom and dustbin. Her cheeks were weathered and sunken, her eyes almost hidden by heavy folds; she was broad of shoulder and hip, and dressed in a black, uncorseted peasant’s kirtle and white apron, and a leather thong round her neck, from which hung half a dozen or so keys. These clanked together as she sank, groaning, to her knees, then lifted the corner of one of the slanted lap desks with a gnarled hand; with the other, she reached beneath the desk and brought forth yet another key.

  She set down the desk and, with one hand pressed hard against the adjacent wall for support, rose with a groan. I watched as she unlocked the door to the scribe’s office with the key, and took her dustbin and broom into the scribe’s office.

  When she was done sweeping, she locked the door and replaced the key beneath the lap desk; I darted into the nearest open doorway on the opposite side of the corridor and remained pressed against the wall as she moved out into the hall—not without first locking the door to the supply chamber as well, then rising onto her toes to set this second key flat against the arm of the nearby wall sconce.

  She moved on to the adjacent chamber, a library. I scurried across the corridor, took the key hidden on the wall sconce, unlocked the door to the supply chamber, and slipped inside.

  I closed the door behind me, and set my lamp down upon the shelf as I retrieved the second key hidden beneath the little writing desk.

  Within seconds, I stood inside the scribe’s tiny quarters, lamp in hand. There was no sign of any letters, in cipher or regular text. I tried the desk drawers, but both were locked. Stymied, I lifted my lamp high and turned in a slow circle about the room, looking for a likely hiding place for another key.

  Just before I gave up, I noticed that the right rear leg of the desk was darker than the rest. I crouched down beneath the desk and turned the lamp on it. In the gloom, it had seemed merely dirty; now I saw the imprint of hundreds of inky fingerprints at the base, where the foot of the leg rested against the unfinished stone floor.

  Girolamo’s scribe was not only slovenly, but also careless.

  I set my lamp far to one side and with both hands, lifted the right desk leg a finger’s breadth off the ground. There, gratifyingly, lay the key.

  The leftmost top drawer held two documents: the abbreviated letter and half-page of cipher I had seen the day before. Our scribe had made little progress.

  There, in the little closet of an office, I sat upon the scribe’s stool and, with the lamp perched beside me on the desk, read the abbreviated letter. It had apparently been dictated, as the scribe had written in haste.

  YGrace, mst highly est. Montefeltro etc.

  We r now fully committed to removing 1st citizen fm pwr, yr assistance crucial to our success, need u to gathr min 600 trps outside Flor’s walls, our agents will tk care of both bros, when they r dd, Cow will ring as signal, then yr troops storm walls, go to P. d. Signoria, join Pazzi in denounce Lor. & fam. Must destroy opposition. HH promises u not only handsm purse we discussd, bt also favrs & land. Reply swiftly to signal yr agreemt—plan will be enacted shrtly. Will give u notice of day, hr.

  W grtest esteem, etc.,

  I let go a gasp that would have been audible to anyone passing by in the hall, and clamped my hand over my mouth. I knew where Flor was and who both bros were, for I had stayed at their palazzo after Matteo’s funeral. I knew the 1 citizen, Lor. I even knew that the Cow was the low, “mooing” bell that summoned all citizens of Florence to the city square, the Piazza della Signoria. And I understood all too well what dd meant.

  Girolamo Riario and HH, His Holiness, were plotting to kill Lorenzo de’ Medici and his b
rother.

  I do not remember replacing the letter or locking the doors and returning the three keys to their places, though I surely did. I only vaguely remember returning to Caterina’s chamber and dressing silently as she snored, then taking the encrypted letter for Caterina’s admirer, Gerard de Montagne, to the stalls. I paid the little red-haired groom his two silver coins, and hinted that, once his mission was accomplished, he might get a third.

  All of this I did in the cold grip of fear. Girolamo was a murderer, and Lorenzo de’ Medici and his younger brother, Giuliano, were in terrible danger. It was my duty to warn them quickly.

  Caterina was still sleeping when I returned to her chamber. I fetched a copy of the cipher I had created for her correspondence with de Montagne and went down the hall to her study and bolted the door. Making good use of the quill, ink, and paper I had recently obtained from the supply room, I made a second copy of the cipher and wrote a very brief letter.

  Ser Lorenzo,

  It is I, Dea, Matteo’s sister. I now reside in Girolamo Riario’s household and I have learned that he and the Pope are plotting to murder you and Giuliano. Beware: Girolamo has asked the Duke of Montefeltro to wait outside Florence’s walls with an army of 600 men, and intends to give him a signal to storm the city once you and your brother have been eliminated. Take great care; Girolamo plans to strike soon.

  I encrypted the letter carefully. When I was done, I fed the letter in plain text to the lamp’s flame; it caught and quickly blackened and curled. I let it finish burning in the cold hearth while I folded the cipher key and the encrypted letter, and sealed them both before placing them snugly in the pocket hidden in the folds of my skirt.

  I returned to my lady’s bedchamber to fetch another silver coin for my little messenger; unfortunately, Caterina had awakened by then, and was in a surly mood upon hearing that her would-be lover would probably not reply to her that day, as he would not receive the encrypted letter until after midday.

  I was desperate to take Lorenzo’s letters to my little groom that morning, so that they would be delivered that day to the Florentine ambassador; instead, I spent the morning tending to Caterina’s whims.

  The two letters hidden in my skirt pocket weighed heavily on me; unfortunately, Caterina was demanding, and engaged me in a dozen other tasks. At several points, Caterina interrupted me to complain:

  “What is wrong with you, Dea? Your mind is elsewhere today!”

  For her own safety, I could not confide in her, so I murmured vague excuses and apologies. Time passed swiftly and I was startled when I heard a sudden cascade of midday church bells. I made up a hasty lie, telling Caterina that I had forgotten to pay my messenger, and had to do so immediately. I then ran as fast as my skirts would allow to the stables, to no avail. My little groom had already left on his mission.

  Crushed, I headed back to the contessa.

  Late in the afternoon, I finally escaped Caterina and went down to sit in the large kitchen garden off the servants’ ground-floor dining hall in the far western wing. When the cook finally emerged to ring the supper bell, the outdoor workers—gardeners, stonemasons, artisans, and the stableworkers, who crossed over the gravel courtyard separating the stables from the estate proper—made their way wearily toward the hall.

  I spotted my little messenger; as he neared, I called softly. Clearly, his mission had been successful, for he grinned broadly at me, revealing a newly missing front tooth.

  “Madonna!” he exclaimed happily.

  I shushed him and led him away from the gathering diners, back toward the gardens behind the palazzo’s central wing. We stopped in an alcove beside a softly burbling fountain, the whole sheltered from view by an ancient rose thicket, loaded with fragrant blooms.

  “Your letters are delivered, Madonna,” the boy whispered, beaming. “The French aide, the one whose name sounds like a mountain, he came himself for the second one, and tipped me!”

  “You’ve done an excellent job,” I answered softly. “But now I have a far more important, and even more secret, task for you.”

  He squared his thin shoulders proudly. “I can do it!”

  “Is there a chance that you could go into the city tonight?”

  “Tonight?” He grimaced, and I felt a strong pang of guilt.

  “It’s all right,” I said abruptly, deciding that I would have to figure out a way to go myself. “It’s wrong of me to ask you to do something so dangerous.”

  “It’s safer for a boy to go out than a woman,” he said wisely. “Besides, Madonna, I just thought of a way to do it. Where is it that you want me to go?”

  “To the house of the Florentine ambassador,” I said. When Caterina had first arrived in Rome, her regular secretary had been overwhelmed by the amount of correspondence required to thank the hundreds who had given wedding gifts. I had helped, and learned where most of the ambassadors lived; I gave the boy the address.

  He nodded and thought for a moment. As he did, I brought the two sealed documents from my pocket, and showed them to him. I was extremely reluctant to send both at the same time, for if they were intercepted together, Girolamo would discover that he had a spy for the Medici in his household, but I was too frightened for Lorenzo and Giuliano’s sakes to wait the extra day.

  “No one but the ambassador himself must see these,” I said sternly. “What is your name, child?”

  “Angelo, Madonna.”

  I fought not to smile. “Angelo, our lives depend on keeping these secret from everyone except the ambassador. If anyone else in this household learns about these, you will at the very least be severely punished. And I will die.”

  His pale eyes widened. “Why, Madonna? Are they going to harm anyone?”

  I shook my head. “No. They’re going to save someone’s life. That’s why they need to be delivered as soon as possible. I would do it, but my mistress does not like for me to be far from her for very long.”

  Squaring his shoulders bravely, he nodded. “It is for good, then. I will do it. You are a nice lady, and I want no harm to come to you.”

  “Thank you, Angelo. You are a good, brave boy. When the letters are safely delivered, I will give you a gold ecu. In the meantime . . .” I took a silver coin from my pocket and handed it to him along with the letters. “Take this for your pains.”

  He took the coin and letters eagerly, and hid them inside his grimy tunic. I made him repeat the phrase, several times: “Deliver these to Lorenzo de’ Medici, each by separate courier. It is a matter of life and death.”

  When he had memorized it to my satisfaction, I dismissed him and watched him run back to the stables instead of the dining room, and whispered a prayer on his behalf to the angel.

  The light was failing quickly by the time I headed back along the garden path and across courtyards to Caterina’s wing of the palace. I was lost in a reverie where fear warred with relief now that I had taken action on Lorenzo’s behalf. What would I do if the boy failed in his mission? I was so caught up in my anxious thoughts that I didn’t look carefully where I was going, and when I made my way up the back stairs leading up to Caterina’s apartments—it was dim because the sconces had not yet been lit—I ran into someone coming down.

  “Sir, forgive me,” I said, flinching. I lifted my head up to see the scribe, and recoiled as though I had just stepped on a viper.

  He had not been moving but had been waiting, motionless, in the dimness.

  He was dressed magnificently, in a tunic of dark silver brocade, with sleeves of lilac silk laced with silver braid; his black hair and beard were freshly trimmed and the feathered end of a quill protruded from behind his right ear. The whites of his deep gray eyes were bloodshot; he was exhausted but, like me, animated by unsettled nerves.

  “Madonna Dea,” he said, his tone soft but utterly serious.

  “I do not know your name, sir,” I said.

  “Luca,” he answered, with a cursory bow. “Luca da Siena.” His words were polite, but his tone wa
s darkly urgent and none too friendly. “Forgive me for not remembering you earlier, Madonna; your face seemed especially familiar to me, but I assumed that I had seen you only in Her Illustriousness’s household. I do not know whether you remember me.”

  “Oh, yes,” I said, my heart pounding violently; my tone was no friendlier than his, but I knew that I dared not behave in a suspicious manner.

  I had been so concerned with the Medici brothers’ safety that my mind had not yet focused on the implications of Girolamo’s secret correspondence. Up to that moment, I had only been suspicious of the scribe Luca. But now I remembered my prayer.

  Come to me, I had begged the angel. If he killed Matteo, give me proof.

  And then I had discovered Girolamo’s clandestine letter stating his intent to murder Lorenzo.

  My thoughts returned to the previous Christmas season, and Lorenzo’s secret visit to Milan. According to Caterina, he had come to speak to Duke Galeazzo Sforza about Imola, the town that now belonged to Girolamo Riario, the papal captain.

  But at the time, Lorenzo was strongly opposed to allowing Pope Sixtus control of Imola. It was too close to Tuscany, and Girolamo’s possession of it would set a dangerous precedent. The pope already controlled the Papal States; to give him more power would seriously destabilize Italy and lead to more war.

  Up to that point, Imola had been under Milan’s control, but Pope Sixtus had pressured his soon-to-be in-law, Duke Galeazzo, to give Imola to Caterina, and thus Girolamo and Sixtus, as a wedding present. Lorenzo, however, had swayed Duke Galeazzo to his point of view, and ultimately, Galeazzo refused the pope’s request.

  A fortnight later, Galeazzo lay murdered in the cathedral of Santo Stefano, and my Matteo was dead.

  These thoughts raced through my mind as Luca leaned forward to say, in a barely audible voice, “You were in my office again, even though I warned you once. That was unwise and very dangerous.”

  “I was not in your office,” I whispered.

  “But you were,” he whispered back. “In fact, you were in my desk.”