The Devil's Queen: A Novel of Catherine De Medici by Jeanne Kalogridis Page B

in straw,” Clarice told him. “You hid because, like the others, you had heard too much, and they were going to kill you, too. You know where the heirs have gone, don’t you?”
    Owl-eyed, he dropped his head and stared hard at the grass. “No, Madonna, no . . .”
    “You lie,” Clarice said. “And I don’t blame you. I would be frightened, too.”
    His face contorted as he began to weep. “Please, Donna Clarice, don’t be angry, please. . . . Before God, I swear I will not tell anyone. . . .I could have gone to the rebels, run to the gate and told them everything, but I stayed. I have always been loyal, I will be loyal still. Only do not be angry.”
    “I’m not angry,” she soothed. “We’ll take you with us. Lord knows, if we don’t, the rebels will torture you until you speak. I’ll give you another florin if you tell me where Ser Ippolito and the others have gone. But first, hand me the girl.” She leaned down and held her arms out to me.
    He was bony but strong; he seized me below the ribs and swung me like a bale of hay up into Clarice’s fierce clutches.
    A wave of fear slammed against me. I endured it until it crested and faded, leaving everything still and silent its wake. I had a choice: to quail, or to harden.
    I hardened.
    At the instant the boy handed me to my aunt, I slipped the stiletto from its sheath, hidden in my skirt pocket. It sliced easily through the skin beneath the boy’s jaw, in the same grinning arc Clarice had drawn for me on her own throat, with her finger.
    But I was a child and not very strong. The wound was shallow; he flinched and drew back before I could finish. With all my might, I plunged the weapon deeper into the side of his neck. He clawed at the protruding dagger and let go a gurgling shriek, his eyes bulging with furious reproach.
    Clutching me, Clarice kicked the boy’s shoulder. He fell backward, still screaming while Clarice set me on the saddle in front of her.
    I stared down at him, horrified and intrigued by what I had just done.
    He’s going to die in any case,
my aunt had said.
But the rebels would torture him horribly,until he confessed, and then they would hand him over to the crowd. You can spare him that.
    Even we must not know where Ippolito and the others have gone. Can you understand that, Caterina?
    It did not seem like a kindness now, watching him flail in the new grass, the blood from his throat collecting in a pool on the grass near his shoulder, crimson against spring green.
    Suddenly, ominously, he stilled and fell silent.
    He will break,
Clarice had said,
and tell them where the heirs have gone, and the House of Medici will be no more. But he will not be suspicious of a child. You will be able to get very close to him.
    Clarice shouted in my ear. “Stand up in the saddle, Caterina! Stand up, I won’t let you fall.”
    Miraculously, I struggled to my feet, swaying. I was now almost the height of the wall next to me.
    “Crawl up, child!”
    I pulled myself up while Clarice pushed. In an instant, I was kneeling on the wide ledge.
    “What do you see?” my aunt demanded. “Is there a carriage?”
    I looked out onto the narrow Via de’ Ginori—deserted save for a peasant woman dragging two small children with her, and a motionless one-horse carriage sitting next to the curb.
    “Yes,” I called to her, then shouted and waved a hand at the carriage. Slowly, the horse lifted its hooves, and the wheels began to turn. When it finally arrived, the driver pulled so close to the wall that the wheels screeched against the stone.
    I looked over the roof of the stables as the gate squealed; it swung wide open as a small crowd swarmed onto the estate. A man pointed up at me and let go a shout; the crowd headed directly toward us.
    The driver, dressed in rumpled, oil-stained linen, stood up in his seat and stretched out his dirty hands to me. “Jump! I’ll catch you.”
    Behind me, Clarice lurched as she grabbed the wall’s edge; her