Piero raised his hand and silenced her. His voice was a low rumble. “Caterina, you think you know everything. I know, I was your age once. But you have no idea how dangerous this city is for our family.”
Her mind flashed back to the preacher, railing against the wealth of Florence’s patricians. She could almost see the eagerness in his eyes. But it wasn’t like she’d really done anything dangerous. She’d kept to the shadows, and it was only a few blocks, after all. She opened her mouth to protest, but her father’s icy glare froze the words in her throat.
“Don’t argue with us, Caterina. Did you know someone tried to kill Lorenzo last year? And two years ago, your mother and Giuliano were attacked by bandits on the road from Rome. It wasn’t a mistake. We have enemies who would die to harm you.”
Her stomach twisted. Was it true? She knew people were jealous of the Medici, but did their rivals really want her dead?
“We were roused by guards in the middle of the night who told us you were missing. Your mother fainted and even the doctor’s smelling salts didn’t rouse her for nearly an hour. I was out of my mind worrying about you. If someone had kidnapped you. If you were dead. This isn’t a game.” Her father’s voice was sharp.
Caterina swallowed and looked to her mother. Lucrezia’s face was compressed with worry. And her father—she’d never seen him so angry. “I’m . . . I’m sorry,” Caterina whispered. “I thought I was helping.”
“Well, you weren’t. And we can’t risk you making such dangerous judgments in the future.”
“I won’t,” Caterina vowed.
Piero again raised a hand. Caterina took a deep breath and tried to calm her racing pulse.
“Caterina, do you know why I spent so much time covering up your escapade? It wasn’t to save you the embarrassment. Imagine what would happen if our enemies learned what happened. That our daughter wandered the streets of Florence at night. That she was gone for an hour before our guards even noticed. It makes us look weak. And it makes you appear like an easy target. A thousand plots to kidnap you would bloom if word got out.”
Caterina stared at the floor. She’d never considered that.
Lucrezia stepped forward and titled Caterina’s face up with a finger. Her mother saw the single tear trickle down her face. “We know you love your family, Caterina. We know you mean well. But it’s our job to protect you. And right now, that means we have to send you away.”
“Send me away?” The words burst from Caterina’s mouth. She turned her pleading eyes on her father. “Where?”
Piero was looking down at his desk as he answered. “A little place near Viterbo. Just north of Rome. You’ll be safe there.”
Her mother locked eyes with Caterina. “It’s a convent.”
“You’re hiding me away in a convent?” Caterina had never expected this. She’d imagined all kinds of punishments: being grounded in the palace, or ordered to clean the stables. But this?
Her question hung in the air as a look passed between her parents. Unease settled in Caterina’s stomach.
“We’re not hiding you there,” her mother said. “You’ll take orders. You’ll be a nun.”
The word slapped Caterina in the face. A nun? No. She couldn’t even picture herself in the black habit, yet alone waking up in the middle of the night for prayers. But her father’s jaw was set. Caterina knew that expression. It meant he wouldn’t change his mind.
Caterina looked back to her mother. Tears welled up in Lucrezia’s eyes. “But I’ll never see you,” Caterina said, her voice cracking.
Lucrezia closed her eyes for a second. “It’s just off the road to Rome. I’ll visit every year, I promise.”
“And what about Lorenzo and Giuliano? Or Nannina and Bianca? Or you, Father?” Warm tears streaked her cheeks. Caterina didn’t wipe them away. They couldn’t send her away. Her family meant everything.
“This isn’t up for debate,” Piero said. “The caravan leaves next week. Lorenzo will escort you to the convent.”
And that was that.
Now Caterina gazed from her window. It looked out on the empty courtyard—the architect had made sure none of the windows faced the street, in case of attack.
Five more days in Florence.
How had she been so blind? Of course it was dangerous to be a Medici in Florence. But Caterina had never even considered the possibility that people were trying to kill her family members. They had guards, yes, and there’d been a plot two years ago, but no one had been hurt. Or—maybe she was wrong about that, too.
Caterina felt unsteady on her feet. She sank back onto the bed, wondering how many other secrets her family kept from her. Her father said she had no sense. He’d accused her of girlish fantasies. But if she was ignorant, it was because her own family sheltered her. No one had told her about the attempts to harm her brothers or her mother. No one had even explained what happened two years ago—was it a coup? A revolt? She had no idea.
She buried her face in her pillow.
A few minutes later, someone knocked at her door. Caterina ignored it. But then she heard the hinge squeak as the door opened.
She sat up, ready to give the person a piece of her mind. Then she saw it was Giuliano. He slipped in and closed the door behind him.
“Is it true?” he whispered.
She nodded. Suddenly she was afraid to speak, in case the tears returned.
He sat on the bed across from her. “I can’t believe they’d send you away because of what happened.”
Caterina took a deep breath. “There’s more to the story.”
Giuliano leaned forward, his eyes wide. “Did you . . . I mean, did it involve a man?”
She swatted him with the pillow. “Of course not. I’m not an idiot.” She was a patrician’s daughter—she knew that her virginity was worth a fortune. How could Giuliano think she was risking everything for a man? She swung the pillow at his head again.
“What, no one tells me anything,” Giuliano insisted, hiding behind his arms. “Stop hitting me!”
She rolled her eyes as she let the pillow fall. “I thought Father told you want happened.”
Giuliano shrugged. “He said you snuck out. I filled in the blanks.”
“That’s not how it happened at all,” Caterina insisted. “Giuliano, listen to me. There are people plotting against our family, here in Florence.”
Giuliano raised an eyebrow. Caterina wondered how much he knew—had her parents held back the risks to their family from Giuliano, as well? In a flash, Caterina made up her mind to tell him everything. He deserved to know. She wasn’t going to keep him in the dark like her parents had sheltered her.
She leaned closer before she continued. “Within the last two years, someone tried to kill Lorenzo, and those bandits that attacked you and Mother weren’t random highway brigands. Father thinks they were send to hurt you.”
Giuliano’s mouth fell open. “Really?” he squeaked.
“Yes. And a few weeks ago I overheard two of Father’s friends talking about our family. Saying that Father isn’t a good ruler.” She locked eyes with Giuliano. “One of them was Luca Pitti.”
Giuliano let out a low whistle. “Did you tell Father?”
Caterina shook her head. “No, I wanted proof. So I decided to break into his house to steal evidence against him. I practiced for weeks.”
“Oh, that’s what you were doing.”
“What?”
“We all wondered why you started wearing black and creeping around the courtyard.”
“You saw me? Wait—we?”
“Yeah, Lorenzo and Nannina. And some of the guards.”
Caterina’s cheeks burned. “You all saw me? And you didn’t say anything?” She picked up the pillow and threw it at his head.
“I figured it was one of your weird hobbies. Like the falcon.”
The falcon. Bettina. In all the chaos, Caterina had forgotten about her falcon. Her chest ached. What would happen to Bettina? Her father would never allow
her to take the bird to the convent.
She reached out to her brother, taking his rough hand in hers. “Giuliano, promise me you’ll look after Bettina. My falcon. You know where I keep her.”
He nodded. “Of course. I swear it.”
Caterina expected to feel lighter, but sadness still swirled in her thoughts. “Anyway, I snuck out last week to break into the Pitti Palace.” She stopped. “It didn’t go quite as planned.”
“They caught you?” Giuliano guessed.
“You could say that.” She let out a loud sigh. “Look, don’t tell everyone about this. I broke into the wrong palace.”
“You what?”
“Don’t look at me like that!”
“How do you break into the wrong palace?”
“It was dark!”
Giuliano couldn’t contain his laughter. He let a giggle slip, and then gave in to a deep belly laugh.
Caterina tried to stop herself—but she smiled, too. Until she remembered the convent. When Giuliano finally stopped, she continued. “Our parents didn’t think it was very funny. Apparently I caused an incident with the Strozzi. And because of everything they think I’ll be safer in a convent.”
Giuliano’s grin slipped off his face. “A convent?”
She nodded. “I leave in five days.”
“All because of a silly prank?”
Caterina gripped his hand. “It wasn’t a prank. We have enemies in Florence. You should remember that. Last month I saw a preacher in the Piazza del Duomo railing against wealth and he named our family. I was trying to protect the family.”
That sobered Giuliano. He bit his lower lip for a second. “Caterina, I’ll keep my eye on Luca Pitti. And I’ll do my best to learn of other plots.” It was the most serious tone Caterina had ever heard from her brother.
She squeezed her brother’s hand. “Thank you.” At least someone was taking her warnings seriously. And at least now Giuliano wasn’t in the dark.
His eyebrows inched up. “If I uncover the plot, then maybe you could come back to Florence.”
Hope soared in her chest, but Caterina forced herself to remember the stony expression on her father’s face when he ordered her away. “I don’t know, Giuliano,” she said.
The silence stretched on. Finally, Giuliano stood, shifting his weight on his feet. Caterina suddenly pictured him as a young boy, eager to keep up with his older siblings, trailing them around Florence. Back then, Cosimo had run the city, and Florence had seemed safer for the Medici. The last three years, under Piero’s rule, had changed everything.
She locked eyes with her younger brother. “Stay safe, Giuliano.”
Chapter Eleven
The Arno River sparkled in the early morning sunlight. James was sitting on the shore, a half-mile upriver from Florence, enjoying the quiet. In the distance he could hear the sound of fishermen pulling up their nets, and even farther away the ring of an axe striking a tree. There weren’t many quiet places near Florence—no, the city was always growing, always consuming the surrounding countryside to fuel its expansion.
James loved that about Florence. He’d grown up far from any cities on the ragged west coast of Scotland. The craggy coast was dotted every few miles with houses—shacks, by the standards of Florence—and even less frequently a defensive tower. His earliest memories were of the tower practically attached to the house where his aunt and uncle lived. It had long ago been an outpost for soldiers, but the Stewarts had taken it over and turned it into a home.
Until it burned to the ground.
James shook off his memories and focused on the river. The Arno wasn’t a mighty river like the Thames or the Seine, but it was the lifeblood of Florence, bringing water and food to the fifty thousand residents clustered in the city.
Florence was almost like a living creature, pulsing with energy. James felt it every time he walked the streets. Florentines were a loud, cheerful people, but their boasting could quickly turn violent. Spend a day in any of Florence’s major piazzas and you were bound to see a fistfight. The young men were the worst—they always had something to prove. James avoided that sort. But the rest of the city—the dome, the buildings, the churches. It really was a marvel, to James’s eye.
Still, sometimes he missed the quiet of the country. So he’d find a tucked-away corner of the city that everyone had forgotten, or venture outside the walls to explore the countryside. It cleared his mind.
But today the river wasn’t doing its job.
Today his mind churned with thoughts. Poole had left Florence weeks ago, but James couldn’t stop thinking about the man. And about the promise in his letter that war would break out by September. It was already mid-August. If war came, would it touch Florence?
James tried not to imagine the walls of Florence breeched by an army, the blood of Florentines flowing in the streets. But he’d seen war. He knew how it ended. No one won—everyone lost.
He tossed a stone into the river, watching the rings expand and fade.
It wasn’t just his worry about war. The short taste of his old life had left James ravenous for more. His guard duties felt hollow. He went through the paces, but under the surface he longed for the excitement, the energy he’d felt when he broke into Poole’s office, or spied on his conversation with Luca Pitti.
Luca Pitti. That was another problem. He couldn’t stop thinking about the conversation between Piero and his daughter last week. She’d said something about Luca Pitti plotting against the Medici. Fire flared in his belly when he thought of the evidence mounting against Pitti, but it was quickly drenched, again and again, when James reminded himself that a patrician girl was unlikely to know anything about conspiracies.
The energy of Florence had changed recently. There was a tension in the air, a sense that something was coming. James wasn’t the only one who felt it—he’d seen more fights lately, and the guard had even had to break up a few gatherings outside the Medici palace led by the preacher who decried wealth.
His insides swirled more than the turbulent waters of the Arno.
And on top of everything, he was late for work.
James fell into a rhythm, his long strides carrying him closer to the city walls. The narrow footpath that hugged the river was mainly used by fishermen, and James ran into a handful on the walk. The sun at his back, James slipped past two men carrying a narrow boat on their shoulders and scrabbled up to the cobbled road that hugged the outside of Florence’s thick thirteenth-century walls. The usually dull brown bricks looked almost red, bathed in the light of the sun.
And then he stood in front of the Porta alla Croce, the eastern most gate into the city. On the other side of the wall, Florence’s artisans and poor merchants huddled in stone houses, nothing like the colossal palaces near the city center. Every step took James closer to wealth, closer to power. Closer to the Medici.
In ten minutes he was outside the Medici Palace—but in spite of his grueling pace, he was still thirty minutes late for work.
Maybe he could slip in before anyone noticed.
But Fortune wasn’t on his side today. Bruzzo was standing near the narrow entrance at the back of the building where Medici guards signed in.
“You’re late,” Bruzzo growled. “I had to send Tommaso out to meet the shipment coming in from Milan.”
The shipment. Another case of gold from one of the bank branches. James had forgotten all about it. “It won’t happen again,” he promised Bruzzo.
But the man didn’t step aside. Instead he gave James a long stare, his eyes traveling down to the empty spot where James was supposed to be wearing a sword. He’d left it in the palace last night, not wanting to wear the thing in his normal clothes. Walking the streets of Florence carrying a sword was an invitation for the wrong kind of attention. Young patricians, eager to prove themselves, unsheathed their blades at the slightest provocation—a glance, a step too close, or nothing at all. And even if the lordling drew first, James would be in deep trouble if he felled the m
an. Which he would.
But patricians usually traveled in packs. James would have to cut through a half-dozen or more, earning the ire of a dozen powerful families, before it would be over.
James met Bruzzo’s gaze. The man was old, slow, but he’d been hired by Cosimo so he stuck around. His singular talent was identifying guards with the potential to supplant him—more skills, better liked, smarter. He’d never liked James.
“Piero wants to talk to you again,” Bruzzo said.
No wonder the old guard looked like he’d been chewing on horseshoes all morning. James gave a quick nod and made his way into the interior of the palace. It felt like he’d been inside the palace more in the last month than in the past year. His guard duties kept him at arm’s length from the Medici family. James liked it that way. He preferred to guard things rather than people.
As he climbed the steps toward Piero’s studio, the back of his neck began to tingle. Why did Piero want to see him again? During their last encounter, the Medici ruler had been brusque, almost dismissive. That had been weeks earlier. He hadn’t even looked at James on the night his daughter vanished. James thought Piero was intentionally ignoring him, though he couldn’t figure out why.
Why summon him now?
When James walked into Piero’s office, he saw Mazzeo and a handful of other guards already clustered around the desk. Piero barely looked up when James walked in. “Oh good, you’re finally here.”
Unease nestled into James’s belly.
Pushing down his worry, James stepped forward to see what was on the desk.
It was a map. A simple, hand-drawn map, but recognizable to James, who’d spent three months in Urbino studying military fortifications and drawing under their mercenary captain. It was the kind of sketch that generals drew to identify routes during invasions or plot out wars.
War.
Had the war predicted in Poole’s letter come to Florence?
James’s heart pounded in his chest.
Piero put his finger on the point representing Florence. It was detailed enough that James could see the city walls, almost shaped like an eye, with the Arno cutting through the middle. “The caravan will follow the road down to Rome. We’ll have to travel quickly. Then, here,”—his finger halted an inch above the city marked as Rome—“half the caravan will split off toward Viterbo. The other half will continue on to Rome. A week later, you’ll meet up and head north for Florence together.”
The Medici Prize (The Stolen Crown Trilogy Book 1) Page 8