The Medici Prize (The Stolen Crown Trilogy Book 1)

by Sylvia Prince

  But the youthful excursion had turned darker when the two met up with a group of men traveling north. As soon as the men realized Marie hailed from the Bourbon branch, cousins to the royal Valois, the bandits had slain her lover and used the innocent girl roughly.

  James had come upon the men camped out around a single fire, Marie weeping at the edge of the circle. He’d slain every single man before he picked up Marie and carried her back to her father.

  The duke blamed James for Marie’s condition.

  James didn’t disagree.

  He should have watched her more closely. He should have predicted that the stable boy who watched Marie every evening when he brushed down the horses might grow more forward. He should have known that Marie, wide-eyed and excited to see the world, wouldn’t have run from the evil men she’d met on the road.

  The entire time James road back to Fontainebleau, he’d mentally scorched himself like a flagellant until he was raw with guilt. He’d vowed never to guard another person, since his own failure had caused Marie harm.

  How could he have let that happen?

  The duke roared the same question when James returned Marie to her father. James had assumed that the duke’s fury would be no worse than his own internal anguish, but the duke had his knights, and Fontainebleau was made for hunting. They gave James a thirty minute head start before they set after him on horses. Thankfully, they didn’t bring hounds. When they found James, they dragged him back to a cell in the chateau.

  That cell couldn’t hold him. And neither would this one.

  James shook off the memories and concentrated on his current problems. He was trapped in a box, chained to the walls, on the road headed somewhere. Captured by someone.

  It had to be the duke’s men. Who else would put so much energy into seizing James?

  A sound outside the box caught his ear. James stilled and tried to focus on the noise.

  He pressed his ear to the wall at his back.

  “Who’s there?” he whispered.

  The noise stopped.

  He’d failed to protect Marie, and after that day James never served as a bodyguard again. But somehow he’d fallen into the task of returning another nobleman’s daughter to her father.

  Caterina was nothing like Marie, though. Where Marie had been young and foolish, Caterina had a sharp mind and an even sharper tongue. James should have done a better job of protecting her—Marie, years ago, and Caterina right now. What would Caterina do when she returned to the inn and didn’t find him? Would she assume he’d abandoned her? How would she get back to Florence?

  James let out a long sigh. Caterina could get back to Florence without him. He was sure of it. The more troubling thought was where these men were taking James. They hadn’t killed him back in Siena, so someone must want to talk to him. The Duke of Bourbon?

  James tried to track the sun, hoping he could figure out what direction they were traveling. But he had no idea if the light filtering through the box was morning or afternoon sun. Still, they had to be traveling north or south. North, James would guess. Back toward France.

  The noise returned. “Hello?”

  This time, a weak voice responded. “James?”

  He pressed his ear back to the wall. “Who is it?”

  He heard a sniff, and then, “It’s Caterina.”

  Caterina. No. Why would the duke take her, too? The panic flooded back. “Are you unharmed?”

  She was silent. He felt acid burning his throat as he strained for her next words. “I’m fine.”

  Her voice was low and shaking. What had the duke’s men done to her? Had they seen her with James? Had her association with him made her a target? He couldn’t voice the fears running through his mind. He had to stay strong for her.

  “Are you chained?”

  “No.”

  “Are you in a box?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll get us out of this,” James vowed. “It’s my fault we’re here.”

  He heard a muffled sob from through the wall.

  “Caterina. Caterina! Say something.”

  But she had fallen silent again.

  James pressed a hand into the wall, wishing he could make it vanish. Was he a beacon for bad fortune? It seemed to follow him everywhere. In Scotland, his aunt and uncle had paid the price, and in France it had been Marie.

  And after two years of avoiding making connections in Florence, two years of doing his job and going home without building anything lasting, without putting down roots that couldn’t be upended in a day, he’d done it again. He’d started to care about Caterina, and as soon as he did, she’d come to harm. Because of him.

  If only he’d left Florence. If only he’d said no when Piero had ordered him on the trip to Rome. If only he’d died back near Viterbo. At least then he wouldn’t have so many lives hanging over his head.

  And then Caterina spoke. Her voice was barely above a whisper.

  “It’s not your fault we’re here. It’s mine.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Caterina balled herself into the corner of the dark crate.

  Only silence greeted her when she confessed that it was her own folly that had landed James in trouble. He must be furious. He should be furious.

  She’d ignored every warning and insisted that her way was the best. And now she’d not only gotten herself locked up, but somehow the Piccolomini had connected her with James, and he was trapped as well.

  When the guards had roughly shoved her in the box and sealed it, Caterina had held on to a sliver of hope that James would come to her rescue. But once she heard his voice on the other side of the wall, she knew there was no easy escape from this trouble.

  But why would Piccolomini lock them up and haul them onto a wagon? Where was he taking them?

  He’d accused her of being a fraud, disguising herself as a Medici. Was he taking them to jail?

  The questions hung in Caterina’s mind as the hours passed in the box. But no matter how loudly she insisted they release her, no one responded. Until James had finally spoken to her.

  Caterina heard the sound of metal rubbing against wood. Chains. Why would they chain James?

  As if she’d spoken out loud, James finally responded. “Don’t say anything.” His voice was a dull hiss above the clatter of the wagon. “Keep your mouth shut.”

  She wanted to tell him everything, how she’d donned her patrician’s garb only to find that she was no longer convincing as a Medici. She wanted to apologize and beg his forgiveness. But this time, she listened to him. She kept her mouth shut.

  The sway of the wagon made her stomach turn. It had been hours since someone loaded her onto the wagon, already sealed up in the crate, for a journey somewhere outside of Siena.

  Caterina looked down at the torn handkerchief in her hands. The guard had tried to silence her with it, but she’d bitten down hard on his hand and he’d released her, cursing. It had taken three more men to carry her from the storeroom, kicking and screaming. In all the tumult, she’d stuffed the handkerchief down her shirt.

  At least she hadn’t gone easily.

  Now she rubbed the cloth between her fingers. If only she had more tools. Something for protection.

  She pulled off her leather boots and searched them, again, for anything that might help her escape. Or at least cause damage when they unsealed the crate.

  They were going to open it eventually.

  But the leather boots were smooth and empty.

  Caterina laid her head on the floor, the energy sapped from her body. After escaping a kidnapping attempt and traveling a hundred miles through the woods, she’d leapt right back into danger. Maybe her father was right: she didn’t have enough good sense. She couldn’t trust her own judgment.

  With a sigh, she rolled onto her back.

  Something poked her scalp.

  It was the thin pieces of metal she’d used to pin her hair up the previous day. Somehow the guards hadn’t noticed and she’d
forgotten they were woven into her hair. The flat, narrow rods weren’t much, but they were better than nothing.

  Caterina stuck the flat end of the metal between the slats and pushed. Nothing happened. She threw all her weight behind it and heard the wood give, aching and protesting. And then the strip of wood, no wider than her palm, shuttered and snapped, popping out of place. Like a loose tooth barely hanging on, Caterina could wiggle it out of place enough to stretch her hand through the gap. But all she found on the other side was another wall.

  This, though, had to be the wall of James’s box. Caterina refused to let herself celebrate. She was still a long way from getting out of this trap.

  She slid the metal into the slats of James’s box. This time, when she shoved the metal bent between her hands and she dropped it.

  The metal clattered to the wagon bed and Caterina froze. Would someone come check on the noise and find her damaged crate? But the pace of the wagon didn’t slow. She picked up the last metal piece and tried again. This time the wood gave and splintered, creating a mirror gap in the slats.

  “What are you—” James hissed, and then she saw his face peeking through the narrow gap. “How did you—no, there’s no time. We can’t draw attention.” He pulled back and she could barely see anything in the dim light of the peephole.

  “James?”

  “Shhh.”

  A minute passed, and then another. Caterina was about to speak again when James thrust a hand through the gap and into her box. “Can you do anything about this?”

  She studied the band of metal around his wrist, the hinged metal closed with a thick bar across the outside of his wrist. Caterina ran her hand around the cuff, searching for a point of weakness. But while wood might bend under the metal rod she’d used in her hair, this would not.

  Her hand came to rest on top of James’s. She could feel his pulse beating through his skin. Was he afraid? It was hard to imagine James feeling fear, but he must. He rotated his hand under hers until their hands clasped together, the chain of his restraint wrapping itself around her wrist. James held her hand in his for a second, and then gave her a light squeeze before pulling his manacled wrist back into his own crate.

  “We’ll just have to wait,” he said. “I can’t see a way out of these chains.”

  Caterina threw herself against the wall of the crate, fury rising in her belly. They’d come so far, and now they were trapped.

  But all she accomplished was tiring herself out. Her breath burned in her lungs. Hopefully James would figure something out. He wouldn’t just give up. Would he?

  Fear and hope churned in her belly in equal proportion. But the hours passed with no changes—they stopped twice, to feed and water the horses, Caterina assumed, but they always started again within minutes. No one offered Caterina or James food. Not even water. Caterina’s stomach rumbled in protest and her mouth was bone dry.

  Night began to fall, but still the wagon didn’t stop.

  Caterina’s eyes slowly adjusted to the moonlight. Flickering torchlight cut through the walls of her prison, but the wheels kept turning.

  She banged on the roof of the crate, first with her hands and then, lying on her back, with her feet. The slapping sound gave her hope, made her feel like at least they wouldn’t forget there was a human being in the back of the wagon. But no one responded.

  It had been hours since James had said anything.

  Caterina rolled onto her side on the hard floor of the crate. The roll of the wagon was hypnotizing, and in spite of the empty feeling in her belly, she found her eyes drooping. Exhaustion overtook Caterina and she fell into a restless sleep.

  Sunlight filtered in through the slats when her eyes jolted open. Caterina sat up with a jerk. Something was different. Something had happened.

  She blinked the sleep away and looked around. The walls of the crate still pressed down on her. The splintered wood leading to James’s box hadn’t changed.

  And then she realized—it was quiet. They weren’t moving anymore.

  “James? James!” She hissed his name through the gap. She didn’t see him in his box. Was it just too dark? Or had he been taken somewhere while she slept?

  “James?”

  Still, there was no reply.

  Caterina’s stomach clenched and she pulled at the fabric wrapped around her legs. How could she have fallen asleep? How could James have left her here, alone, without calling out to her?

  A sound above her head sent a spike of fear through her body. The wooden lid of the crate was bending and creaking as if something enormous was trying to get at Caterina. It felt like a nightmare, except Caterina knew she was awake.

  And then the lid popped off. The same guard who’d pushed her into the crate, kicking and screaming, reached down a hand to haul her out.

  She weakly raised a hand toward his.

  “Not so feisty today, eh?” he said with a sneer.

  Caterina wanted to lash out, but she was exhausted. She settled for digging her nails into the pad of flesh between his thumb and first finger. He snatched back his hand.

  His cry of pain buoyed her spirits, but it was quickly followed by a closed-fist punch that caught her in the face. Her vision flashed black and white, and she could feel the swelling already growing on her right cheek. But she refused to cower.

  “You deal with her,” she heard the guard say from outside the crate. “I’ve had enough trouble today.”

  Caterina’s breath caught in her throat. The next face that appeared at the edge of the crate was a stranger, a dark-haired man whose scowl broke through a thick beard. Caterina pulled back into the far corner of the crate, but the man’s long arm snaked out to grab her bruised forearm. With a tug, he pulled her up and out of the wagon.

  When the stars faded from her eyes, Caterina looked up and saw the bold curve of the Duomo.

  Florence? She was home?

  The ground seemed to spin beneath her feet. Why would Piccolomini bring her to Florence?

  And then relief flooded through her body, so fast that it made her weak in the knees. These men would soon learn they’d made a grave mistake. She was home—that meant she was in charge. She could prove that she was a Medici.

  Ignoring the aches in her body, Caterina turned to the guards who stood a head taller than her. “Take me to the Medici palace,” she ordered in her most patrician voice.

  The first guard let out a barking laugh. “The Medici don’t want to see you. You’re a liar and charlatan. The Preacher will deal with you.”

  Caterina blinked and looked from one guard to the other. “The Preacher?”

  “He’s going to cleanse Italy of sin. Starting with evil temptresses like you.”

  Her mind couldn’t process his words. The Duomo was right there, on the horizon. They were inside the city walls of Florence. She was so close to home that she could almost feel her mother’s embrace. But they were going to take her to some preacher? How could her father allow such a man to grow roots in Florence?

  Before Caterina could organize her thoughts into words, the bearded guard grabbed her arm and pulled her down a narrow street toward a wide piazza. They were somewhere on the western side of the city, Caterina could tell from the position of the Duomo, but she didn’t know this neighborhood very well. Her arm screamed out in protest at the guard’s rough treatment. She was nearly pulled off her feet as she tried to keep up.

  And then they emerged into the light, Caterina shading her eyes with her free hand. Ahead of them she saw the façade of a church, rising up from the square to a pointed peak above a wide circular window. Green and white lines crossed the church, the upper stretches still under construction.

  Serpentino. The word echoed in Caterina’s mind. The green was called serpentino.

  Why did the most random thoughts steal her attention at a moment like this?

  In the center of the square, Caterina saw a scaffold. A single man stood on the wooden platform, his arms raised to the sky as if he was cau
ght up in a moment of communication with the Lord.

  Caterina’s stomach dropped as she recognized the man. It was the preacher she’d seen in the Piazza del Duomo, two months earlier. The one who hated the Medici.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  It was hot inside the thick bag over James’s head.

  He tried to keep his breath steady and even as he stumbled along the stone path, his hands tied behind his back.

  The guards had caught him distracted—he’d allowed himself to doze off in the early hours of the day, and before he knew it, they were pulling his chains and dragging him out of la cella and into a narrow alley, the first light of morning barely visible between the tightly-packed buildings.

  And then the bag was thrust over his head.

  He could tell they were in a city, and a large one, at that. Best he could reason, they’d been on the wagon for nearly a full day—they must have swapped out the horses a few times to keep up that pace. They hadn’t gained much elevation, so they hadn’t crossed the Apennines. And traveling north or south, there were only a few places that could boast dense four and five story buildings. It hadn’t been enough time to travel to Rome, not by a day at least, and they hadn’t topped a hill as they would need to in Orvieto or Perugia. He didn’t smell salt on the air as he would have in Pisa.

  They had to be back in Florence.

  But why?

  He barely had time to think before it grew even darker outside and the noise around him changed, echoing in an enclosed space.

  They’d entered a building.

  He smelled fresh wood and a musty odor, like cloth stored out of the sun for years. The guards who’d led him here didn’t follow James inside—they just gave him a shove. But James knew he wasn’t alone. He could hear the small shuffles of other people in the room, a sharp intake of breath and the smell of sweat. He pulled at the ropes tying his hands until he felt a trickle of sweat or blood run down his wrist.

  And then his legs were kicked out from under him. James fell to the floor with a gasp of air. He landed hard on his right arm and shoulder. The old arrow wound burned in protest.