Madame Serpent

by Jean Plaidy

  But when the men had been shown out and she was alone with the Reverend

  Mother and the nuns, she sensed a change all out her.

  One of the nuns so far forgot the presence of the Reverend other as to come forward and kiss Caterina, first on one cheek then on the other.

  ‘Dear little Duchessina, welcome!’ said this nun.

  Another smiled at her. ‘We heard you were coming and could scarce wait to see you.’

  Then the Reverend Mother herself came to Caterina. Her eyes were bright,

  her cheeks rosy; and Caterina wondered how she could have thought her like the Reverend Mother of Santa

  ‘Our little Duchess will be tired and hungry. Let us give her food; then she may go to her cell and rest. In the morning, Duchessina, we will have a talk.’

  It was confusing, and she was bewildered. So many strange things had

  happened to her that she could no longer be surprised. She was given a place of honour at the long refectory table; she noticed that the soup had meat in it, and she remembered that this day was a Friday; the fish was served with sauces; it was more like a meal in the Medici palace than in a convent. There was

  conversation, whereas at Santa Lucia there had been a rule of silence during meals. But she was too tired to think very much about these matters, and as soon as the meal was over and prayers had been said, the two nuns who had greeted her on her arrival took her to her cell. She felt that the bed was soft, and that reminded her that they had eaten meat. The nuns were very friendly, respectful even; she could ask them why they ate meat on Fridays. She did.

  ‘Here in the Murate, Duchessina, we may eat meat on Fridays. It was a special dispensation from the Holy Father many years ago.’

  They were shocked by the coarseness of the shirt she wore, and brought her one of fine linen. ‘This will be better for your delicate skin, Duchessina.’

  ‘At Santa Lucia,’ she told them, ‘all wore coarse shirts next the skin.’

  ‘That is well enough for Santa Lucia, but here in the Murate we are not of lowly birth, as many are in Santa Lucia. Here we temper godliness with reason.

  For the glory of God, we wear our sombre robes, but for sweet reason’s sake we wear fine linen next our skins. Now sleep, dear little Duchess. You are among friends here.’

  First one bent down to kiss her. ‘My brother is a member of the Medici

  party,’ she whispered. ‘He will rejoice to know you are safe with friends.’

  The second nun bent over her. ‘My family await deliverance from the

  republicans.’

  Caterina stared up at them and they laughed.

  ‘Tomorrow we will show you who are the supporters of your noble family.

  There are many here in the Murate.’

  ‘And are there some for the republicans?’ asked Caterina.

  ‘Some. But that makes life exciting!’ said the nun who had first kissed her.

  Caterina could not sleep when they had left her. She realized at once that life was going to be very different from what it had been in Santa Lucia.

  ―――――――

  ‘Pray be seated,’ said the Reverend Mother.

  How small the child looked in the big chair, her feet scarcely touching the ground. But what poise, what dignity! So rare in one so young. This child was going to be quick to learn and a joy to teach. For that very reason and because she was doubtless observant, it was imperative for the Reverend Mother to have a talk with her.

  Yesterday Caterina had witnessed the entry of a young novice into the

  convent. There was a significant ceremony which always took place on such occasions, and from this ceremony the convent took its name. The novice

  arrived outside the convent walls accompanied by high dignitaries of the

  Church, who, with their own hands, broke down a section of the wall, and

  through the hole they made the novice pass. When she had done this, the wall was built up again. It was solemn and significant; the novice had passed behind the grey walls forever; she was built in and could not leave the Murate.

  And little Caterina was puzzled. She had been for six months with the nuns of Santa Lucia, and Santa Lucia, with its fasting and strict observances, would seem what a convent should be. Here in the Murate there were amusement and laughter; the nuns were highly-born ladies, gay rather than earnest. It might seem to that logical little mind that, for all its ceremonies an outward show of piety, the Convent of the Murate was less holy than that of Santa Lucia; and it was very important what this little girl thought of the Murate, for one day she was to make a grand marriage and hold a very high position in the world. She must be made to understand that the Murate’s way of life was, in its comfort, as godly as that of the Santa Lucia its austerity.

  ‘You are a little puzzled by our ways here, Duchessina?’ asked the Reverend Mother.

  ‘I am very happy here, my Mother.’

  She was a little diplomat already. It was certainly very important that she should be made to see the Murate point of view.

  ‘You never saw such ceremonies as you witnessed yesterday when you were

  at Santa Lucia. Yet, in that convent, the strictest rules of Holy Church were adhered to. Here, you think, we eat meat on Fridays; our services are beautiful; our church full of colour; we do not wear coarse linen; you think we are not so forgetful of the vanities of the world as our sisters of Santa Lucia.’

  ‘Oh no, Reverend Mother.’

  But the Reverend Mother continued: ‘We wash our bodies, and that the nuns of Santa Lucia would tell you is a sin.’ Caterina was silent.

  ‘And yet,’ said the Reverend Mother, ‘it is the Santa Lucia that has been visited with the plague, and the Murate is the only unpolluted spot in Florence.

  That is a miracle, my little one. Let us pray now. Let us give our thanks to the saints for showing us that our way of life is the one which has given them most pleasure.’

  The Reverend Mother watched the grave little face while Caterina

  murmured her prayers. The child was learning the first of the lessons the Murate had to teach her.

  Caterina loved to sit stitching at the tapestry with those who were her

  friends. There were hardly any in the convent who were not her friends; but those nuns whose families supported the Government felt it their duty to treat the little Medici with some reserve.

  As they stitched at the altar cloth which they were making, they talked.

  Caterina loved to speak of Ippolito, to tell the nuns of his charm and his gaiety and his chivalry; she even confided in one or two of them the hope that she would one day marry him. She knew that he was alive. She could not say how she knew, but she was certain of it. ‘It is something inside me that tells me this is so,’ she tried to explain.

  She was happy in the Murate― as happy as she could be without Ippolito.

  And with that peaceful feeling within which told her she would see Ippolito again one day she felt that she might enjoy these pleasant hours. There was one summer’s day as she sat at work with the others on this altar cloth that a conversation took place which she was to remember all her life.

  Lucia, a garrulous young nun, was talking of miracles which had been

  performed in the convent.

  ‘Once,’ said Lucia, ‘the Murate was very poor indeed, and there was great trouble throughout Florence. The city was poor as the Murate, and the citizens thought to beg relief from the Impruneta Virgin. So they brought the statue into the city and every convent was expected to make some offering to the Virgin.

  Now, here in the Murate, we had nothing at all, and we did not know what to do.’

  ‘Ah!’ said Sister Margaretta. ‘You are going to tell the story of the Black Virgin’s Cloak. I have heard it many times.’

  ‘Doubtless you have, and doubtless our Duchessina has never heard it.’

  ‘I have not,’ said Caterina. ‘Nor has little Maria.’

  Littl
e Maria was the novice whose ceremonial entrance Caterina recently

  witnessed. ‘We should like to hear, should we not, Maria?’

  Maria said she would like to hear the story of the Black Virgin’s Cloak.

  ‘Well,’ went on Lucia, ‘the Reverend Mother summoned all the sisterhood

  to her and she said, “Do not despair. We will give the Impruneta Virgin a cloak.

  It will be a cloak such as has never been seen before in Florence, a cloak of rich brocade, lined with ermine and embroidered with gold.” The nuns were aghast, for how could they in their poverty give such a mantle? But there was about the Reverend Mother a look of such holiness that there were some, as they declared afterwards, who knew a miracle was about to be performed.

  ‘Listen to me,” said the Reverend Mother. “This mantle shall be made

  through prayer. For six yards of brocade three Psalters in honour of the Holy Trinity shall be sung; fifty psalms for each yard with Gloria tibi Domine, and meditations on the great favours Mary received from the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. For the ermine skins seven thousand times the Ave Maria; for the embroidered crowns sixty-three times the Rosary; for a golden clasp seven hundred times the O Gloriosa Domina; for a golden button seven hundred times the Alma Redemptoris Mater; for embroidered roses seven hundred the Ave Santissima Maria. ” Well, there were many prayer to be said for each item that went into the making of the cloak; and so, in addition to other duties, the nuns of the Murate must say these thousands of prayers. It meant hours and hours of devotions.’

  Caterina leaned forward. ‘But even then,’ she said, ‘they would have no

  mantle to lay at the feet of the Virgin, for you need brocade and ermine and silver and gold for such a mantle, and these were only prayers.’

  ‘But you have not heard all, Duchessina. On the day when the gifts were to be given, many people were gathered in the piazza before the municipal palace.

  The great figure of the Virgin was placed there, waiting to receive the gifts; and gifts there were in plenty― beautiful gold and silver and precious stones. And there stood the Reverend Mother and sisters of the Murate empty-handed, but faces shining, for in their minds they saw the beautiful mantle that was made of prayers. And then― what do you think? Two men came forward, and at the feet of the Virgin, on behalf of the Murate, they said, they laid a mantle of brocade lined with ermine, embroidered with roses in exactly the detail the Reverend Mother had described to her nuns. The two men were angels, and that was the miracle of the Virgin’s Cloak. There, Duchessina. What do you think of that? I might say that from that time the Murate passed into prosperity, for the tale spread and many rich ladies came to share the life of the convent, and many donations were given. It was a great miracle.’

  ‘Oh, it was wonderful!’ cried Maria; but Caterina said nothing.

  ‘Well, Duchessina?’ asked Lucia.

  ‘I think,’ said Caterina, ‘that it was a very good miracle, and I think that the two angels were two men.’

  ‘Two men! You mean it was no miracle?’

  Caterina’s solemn dark eyes surveyed the nuns. She felt old and wise in

  spite of her youth. ‘It was a miracle,’ she said, and as she spoke she felt that this was how the present Reverend Mother would have explained it to her, ‘because the Holy Virgin would have put the idea of the cloak into that Reverend

  Mother’s head. “Make a mantle of prayers,” she would have been told, “but at the same time have one mode embroidered with jewels. Let two men appear as angels and lay it at my feet. For if you made such a mantle yourself, rich as it is, it would please the people so much as one made of prayers and presented by two whom they could think of as angels.’

  ‘You mean you believe it to have been a trick?’

  ‘It was a miracle,’ insisted Caterina. ‘It brought prosperity to the convent.

  The object of miracles is to do good. Miracles from Heaven, but they are

  sometimes mode on Earth.’

  Lucia put an arm about Caterina and kissed her. ‘You are too clever for us,’

  she said.

  ―――――――

  Knots of people stood outside the convent walls. They murmured amongst

  themselves.

  ‘She is but a child.’

  ‘A child of serpents.’

  ‘We could not harm a child.’

  ‘She will be eleven or twelve― old enough for mischief, if she be a Medici.’

  ‘The nuns will keep her from doing harm.’

  ‘She will lure the nuns into mischief. You know not these crafty Medici.

  They are born cunning. The city is in a state of siege. A Medici is sending those shots into Florence. A Medici is preventing our food reaching us, and here we stand starved, and wounded, and there are those among us who say: Spare the Medici child! ’

  ‘Shall we spare the spawn of tyrants?’

  From inside the convent walls, Caterina heard the shouts of the people. She knew there was no longer safety for her at the Murate. Trouble had risen in Florence and was creeping close to the sanctuary of the walled-in-ones. Even her friends who loved her, even the Reverend Mother, could not save her now.

  The whole of Florence was rising in hatred against the Pope. Some time ago, dressed as a peddler, he had escaped from St. Angelo, and when the plague had driven its ravishers from Rome, he had returned to the Vatican. Now he was determined to subdue Florence, but Florence was not easily subdued.

  Florentines had relentlessly cleared a space one mile wide all round the city, burning beautiful villas and destroying rich lands so as to give the enemy no cover. Every one of them had given himself up to the task of defence― even artists like Michelangelo had left their work to join in the fight. For months the struggle had gone on, and Caterina knew that the citizens of Florence had not forgotten that the Convent of the Murate sheltered her, a daughter of that house which was bringing death and disaster to Florence.

  She knew that another happy period of her life was fast coming to an end.

  She had grown to love the convent, her lessons, the sensuously stirring chants for which, at one time, the convent had been censured by Savonarola; she had loved the spice of intrigue, the sending out of baskets of pastry by certain nuns of the convent to members of their families, baskets which would be

  embroidered with the Medici sign of seven balls, and were meant to indicate that, shut away from the world though the nuns were, they retained their interest in politics.

  Notes were sent into the convent in the baskets. It was thus that she had heard that Ippolito was safe in Rome. She had felt lightheaded with joy when she had heard that; but it was not such good news that Alessandro was also in Rome. In all the years that Caterina had been away from Ippolito, she had never forgotten him.

  And now, outside the convent walls, an angry mob was shouting for her.

  ‘Give us the Medici girl! Give us the witch! We are going to hang her in a basket on the wall of the city so that Clement’s men may have her for their target.’

  ‘Hang her in a basket! That’s too good for her. Give her to the soldiers! Let them have their sport with her. Then we can decide how she shall die.’

  Night came and the city was quieter. Another day of siege had been lived

  through.

  There was a sudden knocking on the outer door of the convent, a knocking

  that echoed through those great corridors and seemed to be answered by the violent beating of Caterina’s heart.

  The Reverend Mother took her lantern and, going to the door, found there

  three senators from the Government of the city. They had come for Caterina de’

  Medici.

  Caterina knew this could mean only one thing. It was sequel to that obscene shouting which had been going on all day outside the convent walls. Death for Caterina! Death? Such horror, indeed, that death seemed preferable. their cells the nuns were praying― praying to the Virgin for a miracle that woul
d save their Duchessina. But Caterina had no time for prayers. She ran to her cell, and there, in a frenzy of terror, she cut off all her lovely fair hair. When she had done this, she ran from cell to cell until she found a dress of the Order, and this she put on. After that, she felt composed, and ready to face what might be awaiting her.

  She went down to the men who had come for her. The Reverend Mother and

  the nuns, as well as the men, stared at her in astonishment.

  ‘I am Caterina Maria Romola de’ Medici,’ she said haughtily. ‘What do you want of me?’

  ‘I am Salvestro Aldobrandini,’ said the leader of the men. ‘A senator of the Florentine Government. It has been decided that you shall leave the Convent of the Murate, where you suspected of carrying on intrigues against the

  Government. You are to be transferred to the Convent of Santa Lucia, and we order you to leave with us at once.’

  ‘I shall not go,’ she said.

  ‘Then we must take you by force.’

  ‘You would not dare walk through the streets with me in these clothes.’

  ‘You have no right to wear those clothes. Take them off.’

  ‘I refuse. Will you take a nun, a bride of Christ, through the streets of Florence?’

  That was a clever stroke. They all knew it. Nuns were sacred, vowed to

  Christ; and it would not be easy to carry a struggling female, her head shorn and her dress proclaiming her to be a nun, through the streets of Florence.

  ‘We do not wish harm to befall you,’ said Aldobrandini. ‘We have men to

  defend you as we pass through the streets.

  Caterina, alert of mind, was quick to sum up the character of this

  Aldobrandini; he did not like the task which had been allotted to him. He was wavering.

  ‘I refuse to take off these clothes,’ said Caterina.

  The Reverend Mother said: ‘Good sir, leave her with me until morning. I

  will pray with her. She will then find in her heart the courage she needs.’

  To the astonishment of all, Aldobrandini agreed to wait until morning; and all that night the nuns of the Murate prayed for Caterina.