The Scarlet Contessa. Jeanne Kalogridis

my wrist.

      “Read them for me,” she said. “Tell me my future.”

      The fire flared suddenly as it found a bit of pitch; Caterina and I both started. She laughed nervously, and let go of my wrist.

      I took hold of the cards. “Only this once, Madonna,” I warned. My lip still felt the sting of the duke’s blow. “And if you wish me to be honest with you, you must swear that if the future is not to your liking, you will not turn your anger on me. Otherwise, I will confess everything to Bona.”

      Caterina nodded eagerly in agreement. I did not trust her, but I also could not resist the cards.

      Just as I had for the duke, I mixed the cards thoroughly, instructed Caterina to cut them, then gathered them up and set three cards facedown in front of her.

      “The past,” I said, turning over the first card. Four golden goblets were painted against a white background decorated with green leaves and tiny flowers; a banner reading a bon droyt, rightfully, was unfurled across the center of the card. It was a motto often used by the Sforza, indicating that God had made them earthly princes because they were deserving of it.

      Words came unbidden to my lips. “The Four of Cups. Luxury. A coddled childhood, and much wealth.” I paused; the shining, gilded cups held something as dark and bitter as the draught Bona had forced me to drink when Matteo had died. “Yet this is not a good thing, but a tarnished past to be overcome. This is a dream from which you must wake.”

      I turned over the second card. There again was the image of a barefoot young man in rags, with a walking stick resting upon his shoulder.

      “The present,” I said. “Once more, the Fool. The beginning of a long journey, one that will leave she who takes it much changed. The fool loses his naïveté in the end.”

      Caterina leaned an elbow upon the desk and frowned down at the image. “Of course, we’re returning to Pavia, but there will be no more journeys after that.”

      “Perhaps not immediately,” I countered, “but soon.” I turned over the third card, and announced, “The future.”

      I had barely set it down again when Caterina reared up, almost knocking the cards from the bed.

      “No!” she whispered harshly. “It’s a trick, all of it! You’re doing this to frighten me!”

      She began to weep as I stared down at the image of the Tower, torn asunder by a lightning bolt. Abruptly, I saw myself standing inside a wall made of thick stone; not only Caterina but I, too, dwelled inside the very Tower that would someday be blasted to its foundations. I heard a sudden deafening boom, like thunder, and put my hand against the wall to steady myself. It trembled violently, but did not fall.

      A second boom, and the wall quaked harder, but it did not crumble. Not yet.

      But in time it would be lost, just as the duchy of Milan had been torn from Galeazzo’s iron grip.

      My attention returned suddenly to Caterina; I cast about for whatever truth might calm her. I, too, was shaken. I had not wanted to scare her.

      “This does not mean death,” I said honestly. “Not for you. You will not die as your father did, Madonna. But . . .” I gazed at the image, and fancied the ground shook beneath my feet. “This is an upheaval, an end to old ways. This is destruction.”

      “I don’t want it!” Tears streaked Caterina’s cheeks as she wrung her hands. “I don’t want any trouble! A bon droyt! A bon droyt! Why does God give us noble blood? Why does He give us power, but refuse to protect us? It isn’t right!”

      “Perhaps not,” I answered soothingly. “But the Tower stands a long way from you, and you have a long journey ahead. Perhaps along the way you will find the means to avert whatever disaster this represents.” I paused. “But there is one thing you must know.”

      She looked over at me, stricken.

      “These are castle walls. Your castle, Madonna. You will rule someday.”

      She wiped her streaming eyes and nose upon her black sleeve and settled back onto the cot, faintly mollified.

      “You must never leave me,” she said. “Never.”

      Though I was sorely tempted to keep the triumph cards, I convinced Caterina to return them to the duchess’s trunk. Early the next morning, on the twenty-eighth of December, the court returned to bucolic Pavia. Bona traveled in a private carriage, accompanied only by Galeazzo’s right-hand man, Cicco, and the military adviser, Orfeo da Ricavo, in whose arms the duke had taken his last breath. I would have made my way on horseback, but Caterina insisted that I sit in the wagon beside her on the long ride home, along with Bona’s children and their nurses. Caterina had frantically demanded that I sleep in her chamber every night, and Bona kindly allowed it, even though I far preferred the duchess’s calm company to that of the duke’s selfish daughter. The weather had finally warmed, and a slow drizzle of rain accompanied us as the wagon’s wooden wheels slung mud on the soggy journey home.

      Once back in Pavia, eight-year-old Gian Galeazzo and his younger brother, Ermes, moved into their father’s luxurious bedchamber, while their mother, Bona, declared herself regent and formally assumed power until Gian Galeazzo reached his majority. She spent her first day back privately consulting Cicco in the duke’s gloriously appointed study.

      She summoned me briefly to the study, where she sat at Galeazzo’s huge ebony desk. The new regent of Milan looked haggard and distracted by numerous worries; at the same time, there was unmistakable relief, even lightness, in her gaze and bearing.

      As Cicco looked on, Bona handed me a letter. I glanced down at it. It was dated the twenty-fourth of December, and it bore the signature of the abbott of the monastery of San Marco in Florence.

      “You will be allowed to bury your husband at San Marco,” Bona said gently. “I have made arrangements for your travel. When you arrive in Florence, you will stay at the convent of Le Murate.”

      I put my hand to my mouth in an effort to stifle a sob, but failed altogether. Bona rose from Galeazzo’s desk and wrapped her arms around me as I wept.

      Late that afternoon, I resorted to subterfuge by asking Francesca to pack my things and leave them in Matteo’s room. After nightfall, when Caterina was fast asleep, I went to my husband’s chamber and retrieved his secret papers and the little black pouch containing the mysterious brown powder, and slipped them into the trunk Francesca had filled with my things.

      At Caterina’s insistence, I lay beside her in her feather bed, and woke well before dawn. Happily, Galeazzo’s daughter did not stir, but lay so silent I could not hear her breath. I slipped from the bed, dressed quickly, and hurried down to Matteo’s chamber. Just before sunrise, a pair of grooms came to take my trunk, and the three of us headed for the stables. The cold, light mist settled upon my cheeks and eyelashes.

      My covered wagon was waiting. The driver, who before age had taken its toll had been master of Bona’s stables, was a tall, skeletal man with sunken cheeks and a cottony white beard. Beside him sat his aged wife, a tiny, equally frail-looking creature with one blind, clouded eye. To my amazement, the driver leapt from his seat and helped the young grooms push my trunk into the back of the wagon with ease. He then caught my elbow and, with an arm thinner than my own, pulled me up into the wagon with impressive strength.

      I would have sat beside the pair, but the driver, Gennaro, gestured emphatically for me to sit in the back, and held open the canvas flap for me; he pointed in the direction of the sun, which had just begun to infuse the thick, gathering clouds with a pinkish red glow. The mist would soon turn to cold rain.

      I yielded, and crouched low as I moved inside the wagon, half of which was covered with cushions, pillows, and fur throws. The other half bore my trunk, and a coffin fashioned from fresh-hewn, fragrant pine.

      I fell to my knees upon the cushions and threw my arms about the coffin as if it were Matteo himself; I put my cheek against the smooth, sanded wood and wept. I had known, of course,