The Scarlet Contessa. Jeanne Kalogridis

paid for their renovation thirty years earlier; the crumbling wood and mortar were replaced by the more durable and handsome pietra serena and cream stucco.

      I sat, only half listening as Domenico spoke in hushed tones. He told me that the abbot was expecting me, and that the next afternoon at None, the ninth hour after dawn, a service for Matteo would be held in the sanctuary, followed by burial in the churchyard. I left, relieved that I had survived the discussion without tears, and returned to the waiting driver, his wife, and the now-empty wagon.

      We continued south down the wide Via Larga and the driver continued his narration. He pointed out the home of Lorenzo the Magnificent, an unremarkable, square, three-story fortress of stone, with the Medici banner hanging from every window.

      The driver pointed straight ahead. “And that way lies the church of San Lorenzo, where Lorenzo’s father and grandfather are buried.”

      We rolled past similar palazzos and gardens, then artists’ workshops, goldsmiths, and jewelers. Not long after, we approached the massive cathedral of Florence, also called the Duomo because of its magically unsupported dome, the largest in all the world. Across from it stood the pale stone octagon of the Baptistry of Saint John, its gilded bronze doors dazzling in the sun.

      We turned east to drive alongside the long stone spine of the cathedral, and followed the road as it curved due south again. Eventually, we came to a grim, four-story fortress with a crenellated tower, which housed the city magistrate; there we veered sharply left onto the Via Ghibellina. A few minutes later, the driver pulled the horses over to the curb.

      “The convent of Le Murate,” he announced, and hopped down from his seat to help me down.

      I descended to find a long expanse of stone wall broken by a tall, narrow wooden gate. Two rusting iron grates, one at the level of my eyes, the other of my ankles, were set into the door; the uppermost grate was covered on the inside by a black cloth. While the driver waved down a street lad to help him fetch my trunk, I clanged the brass knocker and called out softly; as I did, I caught a sudden whiff of vinegar and felt inexplicably nauseated.

      Within a few minutes, the gate opened far enough to allow the driver to shove my trunk inside the door, though he was not allowed entry himself. He promised to come for me the next afternoon, and as I passed through the convent walls I saw the vinegar—used to prevent plague—in a bucket that held alms thrown through the grate by passersby.

      Le Murate was old but in good repair and very clean; the furnishings were spare but elegant and comfortable, even by the court of Milan’s standards. The abbess, who had received Bona’s letter, welcomed me personally and gratefully accepted the duchess’s generous donation, which I pressed into her palm. Even so, the place evoked a strange anxiety in me.

      I went at once to the cell assigned me, closed my door, and studied the star rituals written in Matteo’s hand. “For banishing,” he had written beneath the first, “start here.” I was not certain I wanted to know what needed banishing, but the alternative was to sit and think deeply on the funeral that was to come. I chose instead to practice drawing the five-pointed stars in the air with my index finger, the way I had seen Matteo do it in the darkness. I began, also, to memorize the strange words that went with the banishing. I did not emerge from my cell until supper; afterward I walked the grounds alone, and came upon the carefully tended gardens. In the center of them stood an unusual tree: a cedar, as tall as four men standing upon each other’s shoulders, its branches broad and sweeping.

      The sight jolted me, as if I had seen Matteo himself standing there. I hurried to the tree and reached past the bristling blue-green needles to press my hand to the bark; it was ridged and rough, as I knew it would be, though I had supposedly never seen such a tree before. I leaned against it and drew in its pungent fragrance; tears came to my eyes as I heard a woman’s voice whisper in my memory.

      A cedar of Lebanon.

      My mother’s voice. The convent’s outer walls loomed close and began to spin; I closed my eyes, panicked. The Duomo’s red cupola, the cobblestoned streets, the whitewashed convent walls, even the grates on the door and the smell of vinegar . . . hadn’t I recognized them all?

      I do not know this place, I told myself firmly, and hurried back to my cell through halls grown terrifyingly familiar.

      That night, I silently performed Matteo’s banishing ritual, and did not emerge from my cell until the next day at half past two, when it was time to leave for my husband’s funeral.

      The driver delivered me to the main entrance of the church of San Marco, where the redheaded Brother Domenico waited for me. He led me into a modest chapel, where a small candelabrum burned in front of a magnificent altarpiece painted with a scene of the Last Judgment. Nearby, a balding priest was lighting coals for the censer, muttering prayers as he did so. Two monks in white tunics and black capes stood together just left of the altar, and lowered their gazes as I entered.

      As the church was the recipient of the Medicis’ charity, there were wooden chairs for the worshippers. In the last row sat a tall, spare woman dressed in a rich but modest gown of dark gray velvet; her face and bowed head were veiled in black silk gauze. She did not look up as I passed, but kept her head inclined toward the rosary in her prayer-steepled hands.

      Domenico deposited me in my seat, in the first row directly before the altar, and departed without a word to the woman. The priest sprinkled frankincense upon the now-hot coals, and put the lid on the censer; smoke streamed out through the holes. Swinging the censer from a chain, he made his way down the aisle, chanting. I turned as the door to the chapel opened and Domenico and five other men carried Matteo’s casket as far as the threshold. There they waited while the priest censed the casket, then took a brass asperger from the font by the door and sprinkled Matteo with holy water.

      As he did, the two monks by the altar began to sing a hollow, aching melody.

      De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine . . .

      Out of the depths have I cried unto Thee, O Lord . . .

      The priest then led the slow procession into the chapel. I turned away, struggling to contain my tears, and did not look at the coffin again until the priest took his place at the altar, and the pallbearers gently set the casket down a few steps from him.

      For the first time, I noticed the pallbearers. One was Brother Domenico and two others his fellow monks. But three of the men were wealthy gentlemen, given their exceedingly fine but unostentatious clothes. The first was small and delicate-looking, with graying red-gold hair; the second was Matteo’s age, young, handsome, dark-haired and muscular. And the third was Lorenzo de’ Medici.

      At the sight of Lorenzo, my tenuous grip on my emotions failed. Tears spilled from me, hot and fierce. I remembered Matteo’s suffering on that last horrible night; I thought of how Lorenzo must have waited for him and finally realized that something had gone horribly wrong.

      I heard Matteo’s ragged whisper: Tell Lorenzo . . .

      I remember little else of the ceremony—only the sacred Host dry upon my tongue, and the priest circling the coffin twice with more incense, more holy water. Only when it was over, and the pallbearers returned to take the coffin, did I realize that they had been sitting behind me the entire time.

      The priest caught my arm and led me after the coffin; as I left the chapel, the tall veiled woman rose and stood respectfully.

      We went to a deep hole flanked by a large mound of reddish dirt in the churchyard; the gravediggers were waiting for us, leaning on their shovels. The coffin was set upon ropes, which the diggers used to lower it into the ground. Matteo was laid to rest so that his head lay due east of his feet, since Christ would appear in the eastern sky when He returned to raise the dead.

      Lorenzo and the younger man flanked the veiled woman, their arms wound about hers in support; the delicate middle-aged man stood on Lorenzo’s other side and dabbed at his red-rimmed eyes. They remained a short distance from me, as if unwilling to intrude on my grief.

      I listened, dazed, as the priest spoke of Saint Martha and her profession of faith that her brother would indeed