Duchessina - A Novel of Catherine de' Medici by Carolyn Meyer

Author:Carolyn Meyer
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

ABOUT A WEEK after my arrival in Rome a papal messenger delivered a note. His Holiness would receive me at dinner in three days at the Belvedere, his private villa near the Vatican. I took the note to Maria.

“You’ll have frequent dinners with His Holiness,” Maria said. “And I’ve been thinking about this: You have only one proper gown. It’s pretty, but it’s not enough—you’ve worn it every day since you arrived. I’ll summon a tailor and a seamstress to begin work on a larger wardrobe. The bigger problem is your hair.” Maria rarely smiled, but the sight of it actually made her laugh. “What a disaster!” Maria declared. “It will be Easter until you can go about without a head covering.”

On the appointed day I anxiously dressed for dinner with the pope in my green gown. Betta fussed over me, adjusting the sleeves. Lucrezia loaned me some jewels. Maria arranged the headdress my friends had made.

“Are you nervous?” she asked when I dropped a ring for the third time.

“Si,” I admitted. “A little.”

“Don’t be. There’s nothing to be uneasy about,” she assured me. “My mother and sister and I will be with you. There’s sure to be a huge crowd. No one will pay the least attention to you.”

The sky was a perfect blue, and autumn sunshine bathed the buildings of Rome in a warm glow as we set out toward the Vatican, accompanied by a dozen servants.

“It’s a nuisance,” Francesca grumbled, riding beside me on a handsome gray mule. “The dinners are terribly dull, but we have to go. My mother is the pope’s official hostess.”

Our party skirted the Piazza Navona and made its way along a well-traveled street of half-ruined palaces. We crossed the Tiber by way of a graceful bridge, passed the Castel Sant’ Angelo and the walls of the Vatican, and arrived at the Belvedere.

I hadn’t seen Pope Clement, the man I remembered as Cardinal Giulio, since he’d ridden out of Florence in a gala procession on his way to Rome. I was just six years old then; now I was eleven and a half, and I believed I’d become quite a different person. My experiences at Santa Lucia and Le Murate had taught me much. Surely the Holy Father would notice the changes in me and be pleased.

I followed Lucrezia and her daughters along a crimson carpet. One set of doors after another parted, opened by white-gloved Swiss Guards in blue and yellow striped uniforms with red doublets, the Medici colors. We passed through room after room hung with rich tapestries and works of art, having no chance to admire any of it. Instead, I kept my mind on the lessons that Suor Paolina had drilled into us:

Eyes lowered modestly.

Hands still, clasped lightly.

Sedate walk, neither quick nor laggardly.

Thoughts quiet, reflective.

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