Midnight Fire (A Jagiellon Mystery Book 2)

by P K Adams

  Up there on the hill, Giulio still spent most of his time in bed under Cecilia’s watchful eye. He took an interest in his late uncle’s library of some one hundred volumes and was working his way through the treatises on agriculture, art, and politics, including an early copy of Machiavelli’s popular work on the most desirable qualities in a ruler. I had also seen him read Castiglione’s Il Cortegiano, which, to my knowledge, had not yet been translated into Polish. Giulio did not understand much, if any, of it, but he enjoyed putting the words and sentences together, and it warmed my heart to see him so happily engaged. If only his physical strength returned enough to allow him to run through the woods and swim in the pond, like other boys his age did during the long summer days.

  “I didn’t expect you back so soon.” Sebastian kissed me lightly on the cheek. It had also been a while since we embraced with ardor.

  When I left for the audience with Bona, I told him I might stay in Kraków for a few days to visit Beatrice Roselli. A former maid of honor to the queen, Beatrice had married Gabriel Morawiec, a northern magnate who had a palace on the outskirts of the city, and I looked forward to spending time with an old friend living in such luxurious circumstances. But the queen’s unexpected offer had caused me to return home immediately.

  “There is something I must tell you,” I said, getting straight to the point. The sooner the decision was made, the better.

  We took a path away from the orchard and the barn and walked toward the pond. The road skirted the pasture under the shade of a row of old planted oaks whose leaves rustled in the breeze. Long reeds grew over the far side of the pond and gave shelter to hundreds of frogs. Their loud, rhythmic, strangely soothing croaking could be heard as far as the house after dusk. We had almost reached it by the time I finished recounting my conversation with Bona.

  “She wants you to go to Vilnius to talk her son out of a marriage?” Incredulity colored Sebastian’s voice.

  “Yes. I would do that at the same time as I would consult his Italian physician regarding Giulio’s fevers,” I reminded him quickly.

  He shielded his eyes as he gazed over the pasture where a dozen cows, far fewer than the farm could accommodate, grazed lazily, their tails intermittently whipping one or the other side of their hind parts to swat flies. He mulled over the news for a long while, then said, “She’s using you. Do you realize that?”

  I straightened my spine, vaguely piqued that he did not trust me to see that for myself. “Of course. That’s what she does. Nevertheless,” I added, equally pointedly, “it is an opportunity for our son to be seen by a competent doctor. You cannot deny that.”

  His eyes shifted toward the house. “So you think it’s worth it?” he asked, his voice softer.

  I took a deep breath. “Yes.” I had been thinking about nothing else since the previous day and decided that it was best to accept the offer. I would do it first and foremost for Giulio, and if in the process I could prevent Bona’s son from making a terrible mistake, so much the better. Although I had no idea how to accomplish the latter. “I’ll take Giulio to Lithuania, if you give me your leave to do so.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  We were silent for a while as I considered his words and he waited for my reply. I surveyed the estate around us. We had brought it to a semblance of life again after several masterless months. But the fields that had not been plowed and sown in the spring, and the decrepit state of some of the outlying buildings, spoke of much work that remained to be done. I turned to Sebastian and saw, in his face, a yearning to see it through.

  “There is no need, my love.” On the spur of the moment, I used the term of endearment we spoke to each other so often early in our marriage. Instead of comforting me, it reminded me again of the intimacy we had once shared and seemed to have lost. “We will go as part of a train of merchants and courtiers who travel regularly between the two courts. We’ll be safe.”

  He frowned. “I don’t like the idea of you both on the road for so many days.” The conflict was plain in his face.

  “We will be fine,” I repeated.

  His gaze traveled beyond the orchard and up the hill again. “I’m worried about how Giulio will handle it. He’s still recovering from the journey from Bari. Perhaps we should wait until Doctor Nascimbene returns to Kraków in December. Isn’t that what the queen said?”

  I strove to hide my impatience. “She said he should be back, but she cannot be certain. What if the roads become impassable for months? Have you forgotten what winters here are like?” My mind was made up, and I would do what I could to stop Sebastian from revoking his permission. “Then we’ll have to wait until next spring, by which time Giulio might have a relapse.”

  Sebastian studied me with sudden concern. “You miss the excitement of court life, don’t you, Caterina,” he said with a trace of reproach. “You gave it up all those years ago, but you haven’t forgotten it.”

  I opened my mouth to protest but could not find the right words. For, in truth, he was right. The circumstances of my quitting royal service were still a thinly healed wound, prone to reopening if I were not careful. But time had blunted the pain and cast the other aspects of my life at Wawel—the banquets, the hunts, the sleigh rides, and, yes, even the fashions—into a softer light, tinged with nostalgia.

  “You know exactly why I left the court,” I said sharply. “It was the right decision, and I have never regretted it. But I won’t lie to you”—the words came out before I realized I was saying them—“the prospect of spending a few weeks in Vilnius intrigues me. It will be good to reexperience court life again for a short time.”

  I felt color rising in my face as my pulse raced. A strange elation enveloped me as I tasted the forgotten feeling of being honest with my husband, the freedom that came from trusting that I could tell him anything and he would understand.

  We held each other’s gaze, and Sebastian’s eyes remained inscrutable. “I will go with you then,” he repeated.

  I shook my head. Then I pointed toward the pasture and the farm beyond. “We both need to escape from the things that have preoccupied us for such a long time. You have the renovations, and I have this mission for the queen.”

  The anxious gaze he cast in the direction of the barn and the workers told me that I was right.

  “We’ll be safe,” I assured him again. “We’ll be under the queen’s protection.” Then I added, “If all goes well, we’ll finally find a cure for Giulio.” I inhaled deeply. “Just imagine—it will change our lives.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Late August 1545

  The night before we set off for Vilnius, a powerful thunderstorm blew over Konary, cooling the air once again. It toppled one of the old oaks by the pond and tore some of the branches off the apple trees in the orchard. Miraculously, the repaired parts of the barn roof withstood damage, although a section inside was flooded.

  Sebastian rode with us to the city, a trip that took almost five hours instead of the usual two because the driver had to stop occasionally to clear fallen branches and other debris off the road. I wondered if the departure would be postponed; in fact, a part of me hoped, for Giulio’s sake, that we would spend a night at Emilia and Leon’s house before setting out, but that was not to be. Evidently, Queen Bona still approached every project with the same determination, energy, and single-mindedness. No pesky storm would delay her plans. It was no wonder, I reflected, as I settled myself, Giulio, and Cecilia in a spacious carriage with gilded knobs and soft cushions, for the very future of the monarchy was at stake.

  As the train of carriages left the castle’s forecourt and descended the hill toward the city’s eastern gate, dark clouds hung heavy and ominous in the western sky, a reminder of last night’s storm. I tried to quash a superstitious worry that this did not bode well for the success of my dual mission. As it happened, I later learned that on that day, the twenty-seventh of August, Bishop Gamrat died—the only man, Bona later told me, who had never betrayed her trus
t.

  * * *

  Four people rode in my carriage. To my surprise, the queen appointed Maria d’Aragona, Marchesa del Vasto, as my companion on the journey. If she was anything like her aunt Giovanna—and from the little I knew of her, that appeared to be the case—she would not stop talking until we reached our destination. Just the thought of it caused a headache to form in my temples even before our driver whipped the horses into motion.

  Sure enough, the marchesa’s presence gave rise to a constant buzz of observations and commentary as we left the walls of the capital and made our way toward the bridge over the Wisła through suburbs of increasingly smaller and more rickety houses. And like her aunt—who, Maria informed me, was currently staying in Paris at the court of François I, to whom she was also distantly related—she seemed oblivious to the effect her talk had on those around her. Giulio fell asleep quickly, lulled by the swaying motion and Maria’s incessant chatter, so there was at least a silver lining in that.

  Besides ours, three more carriages composed the train, which was protected by men-at-arms in royal livery riding in front and bringing up the rear. I did not know who our travel companions were as they were never introduced to us, but from their dress and manners I surmised they were high-ranking courtiers. The eight of them avoided us throughout the journey, taking their meals together while discussing business in low voices. Like me, they were on a mission—or missions—for the old royals, and the well-guarded, bulky trunks tied to the roofs of their carriages testified to the importance of the goods they were conveying between the courts. Yet in the summer of 1545 Poland-Lithuania was relatively peaceful, and I wondered if their tasks could be as sensitive as mine.

  The queen assigned a knight by the name of Jakub Zaremba to protect us. He arrived wearing armor over a padded tunic, and a pair of greaves and gauntlets. Taking off his helmet and revealing dark golden hair and a reddish-blond beard, both untouched by gray although he looked to be well into his thirties, he introduced himself as Her Majesty’s trusted man, whose task it was to deliver us safely to Vilnius. Perhaps to stress his credentials, he added that he was a deputy to Bernard Pretwicz.

  That impressed me: Pretwicz was a famous military leader, whose bravery and tactical skill in fighting Tatar invasions had earned him widespread admiration and respect, as well as the nickname Terror Tartarorum, Terror of the Tatars. Tatar mothers were said to invoke his name to rein in unruly children. Pretwicz was a Pole from Silesia and therefore had German ancestors; nonetheless, he enjoyed the queen’s favor due to his success in containing the threat to the southern borders. For his service, she had named him the starosta, or administrator, of the town of Bar in the Podole region, part of her dower lands. Since then, the castle at Bar had become the base from which Pretwicz and his troops organized their expeditions against the Tatars. I had learned all this since my return to Poland, such was the fame of the man and his exploits.

  Zaremba did not talk much, which was unsurprising in a soldier, but having him ride alongside us for days offered opportunities for chatter. Thanks to Maria’s endless curiosity, I soon learned some interesting facts about him. At Bar, for example, Captain Pretwicz had chosen Zaremba to lead clandestine and reconnaissance work prior to launching expeditions into Tatar territories. His tasks involved secretly observing the enemy, tracking and capturing individual warriors for questioning, and—he even hinted—infiltrating encampments in the guise of a captive in order to gather information. It all sounded very dangerous and brave, and I listened rapt as a child caught up in a fairytale.

  Having such an accomplished knight in charge of our escort gave me peace of mind. His military successes aside, Zaremba’s air of quiet efficiency and self-assurance, seemingly without arrogance, reminded me of the young Sebastian, a fact I noted with some consternation. I should add that he looked nothing like my husband. In addition to his fair coloring, he had a faintly pink, healed battle scar running from his left temple, under his ear, and down his neck, disappearing into the collar of his gambeson, and his skin was more weathered due to his outdoor life.

  I soon discovered another advantage of traveling under the queen’s auspices. Instead of stopping overnight at drafty inns with bad food, unpleasant odors, and dirty blankets, we stayed at comfortable cottages on the rural estates that were part of Bona’s ever-growing landholdings. Here, too, I was able to see the effects of her agricultural reforms, especially as we came closer to, then entered, the borders of the Grand Duchy.

  Lithuania had always been poorer than the Crown, a reality manifested in smaller and more scattered villages where the peasants barely made ends meet at the best of times and went hungry when harvests were poor. The towns, too, were less populous and showed little of the prosperity of their Polish counterparts. Yet the lands administered by the queen were visibly more affluent, with larger fields worked by well-fed laborers. I remembered the queen’s early ideas about merging fields, rotating crops, and installing capable administrators, and the results were on display throughout her lands. How sad and ironic, then, that all this power and wealth could not buy her son’s affection.

  By and by, I also discovered a benefit to Maria’s presence. She was a veritable fount of information (again, like her aunt) about private details of the lives of everyone at court, both in Kraków and Vilnius. As we broke our fast in a large caretakers’ kitchen early one morning—Cecilia was feeding Giulio upstairs in our room—I asked Maria whether the young king’s love affair was indeed as serious as the queen feared.

  Her eyes lit up with excitement, and even more color rose in her over-rouged cheeks—another family trait. “Zygmunt is very much taken with Barbara,” she said, settling herself more comfortably across the table from me. A flagon of wine and a platter of fresh cheese and warm bread stood between us, making my mouth water. I ate as she talked with barely a pause for breath. “Before, his affairs were short-lived. No sooner would rumors start circulating about a new mistress than that woman would be replaced by another. After he married, Queen Bona tried to persuade him to be more discreet about his passions, and when his wife’s health began to deteriorate, she even sent him women of pleasure, if you know what I mean.” She winked. “A friend from Vilnius wrote me that he did indeed avail himself of their services in order to appear more restrained, but once he met Barbara he sent them all back to Kraków. As you can imagine, the old queen was furious.” She chuckled. “That was more than a year ago, and there has been no talk linking him to anyone else since then.”

  So the affair had started quite a while back, even before Queen Elizabeth’s final illness. Again I felt pity for the young woman, barely more than a child, thrust into the middle of so much licentiousness and deception. “How did he meet her?” I asked. “Was she Elizabeth’s lady-in-waiting?” Royal mistresses often advanced along that particular pathway.

  Maria shook her head and leaned forward, as if to ensure I did not miss a word. An unlikely possibility, even when she whispered. “They met when the king visited Gieranony, the seat of the magnate Gastold family, into which Barbara had married. She was a young widow by then; her husband died the year before. That’s where she and the king fell in love.” She pressed her hand to her bosom in that age-old gesture of women talking about fairytale romances.

  I remembered Bona’s words about Barbara’s allegedly bad reputation and considered asking about that, but I did not want the servants coming in and out of the kitchen to overhear us. Besides, Maria was already continuing her story, her tone gossipy once again. “Soon after the king returned to Vilnius, Barbara followed him, staying with her mother at the Radziwiłł palace, which is next door to the ducal palace. How convenient! The king took to organizing masquerades and tournaments for her and had a passage built from his residence to the Radziwiłł gardens to be able to meet with her secretly.”

  I shook my head slowly, both because the story was unlike anything I had expected and because the extent of Maria’s knowledge impressed me. Too bad women could not
serve as court officials; her skills in information gathering would be truly invaluable in that role.

  “A year is not a very long time,” I said, “and he has never tried to marry a mistress before. Perhaps the danger isn’t quite as serious as Her Majesty believes.”

  She shrugged. “Who can tell? He apparently confided in his most trusted courtiers that he wished to marry Barbara. But he is known to be fickle. He tires quickly of women and luxuries—always looking for the next plaything. He has recently taken an interest in tapestries and is expanding the collection his father started at Wawel. He’s having the most expensive specimens sent to Vilnius from all over Europe …”

  She went on, but I stopped paying attention. As I recalled everything I had heard and seen of Zygmunt August, a picture coalesced in my mind of a man who was spoiled and selfish. In some ways Bona’s indulgence of him was understandable: he was her only son. She probably experienced some guilt as well. In the fall of 1527, she was pregnant when she decided to join her husband on a hunt in Niepołomice. But a terrible accident took place: a bear charged toward the queen, and her horse, spooked, reared and threw her off its back. Miraculously, Bona survived, but that same night she gave birth to a boy who died within hours. After that, she could have no more children, and the future of the dynasty came to rest on the slender shoulders of young Zygmunt.

  If that explained why his mother had done everything to protect him and cater to his every whim, though, the result was a man whose predominant concern was his own pleasure rather than the well-being of his subjects. I knew how seriously Bona took her own responsibilities as queen, and I could only imagine her disappointment as she watched Zygmunt grow into the role that destiny prepared for him.

  “… her family is nothing if not greedy and ambitious,” Maria’s words reached me through my musings. I turned my attention back to her. “That brother of hers, Mikołaj—they call him Rudy, the Red, because of his auburn hair and beard—wants to elevate the Radziwiłł clan over all the others in Lithuania. And now that the king’s path to marriage is open once again, he’ll do everything in his power to put his sister on the throne.” She nodded as if this were a foregone conclusion and took a rare sip from her cup. I had already noticed that her near-constant talk prevented her from eating much—perhaps that was what kept her so thin. “They say,” she added the moment she swallowed the wine, “that Rudy wants to be elevated to a dukedom, a goal that would be greatly facilitated by having a royal connection.”