The Red Lily Crown by Elizabeth Loupas

of the chain. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. Wait here now, Monella Chiara, and someone will come for you.”
    He went out.
    She waited a moment to be certain he wouldn’t return, then went behind the black curtain. There she found a prosaic basin, more blue and white porcelain, and fine clean towels. She half expected her piss to be black, after drinking the black water. But it was reassuringly clear and light. When she emerged from behind the curtain, the crystals on the shelves glittered in the candlelight, and the skulls grinned at her, empty-eyed.
    A woman was waiting. She was short and thick-bodied and had plump wrinkled cheeks like last season’s apples; her gown and sleeves and headdress were fine enough but not trimmed with silver or gold or jewels. Beside her stood a little hound, parti-colored black and white and russet, with long silky ears. It was wearing a collar of shiny purple fabric like silk, and although the woman did not have jewels, the dog did, pearls and purple stones sewn to its collar with silver thread.
    â€œI am Donna Jimena Osorio,” the woman said. “Related by blood to the late Duchess”—she crossed herself—“Eleonora of Toledo. She invited me to Florence to manage her daughter Donna Isabella’s household, and so I have done with all my heart, for thirty years and more. This”—she gestured to the dog, which was looking up at Chiara with dark, intelligent eyes—“is Rina, Donna Isabella’s special pet. You are to come with us now.”
    â€œI want to go home,” Chiara said. She hadn’t realized how much she wanted to go home until she said the words. “My Nonna will be afraid for me. My little sisters will miss me. Please, Donna Jimena? I beg you. Just for an hour—no one will ever know.”
    â€œThe prince has forbidden it.”
    â€œPlease.”
    â€œYour Nonna knows where you are. How do you think the prince knew your name, and your father’s name? Magister Ruanno found out for him, as he finds out so many things, and he spoke with Mona Agnesa himself. That is your Nonna’s name, is it not?”
    Chiara nodded. She didn’t know what to say.
    â€œNow come with me.”
    â€œWhere have the prince and Magister Ruanno gone?”
    â€œTo the Villa di Castello,” Donna Jimena said. She crossed herself again. “Grand Duke Cosimo is dead. Everything is changed from this night forward, for you and I and everyone in Florence are now subjects of Francesco de’ Medici, the first of his name to be Grand Duke of Tuscany.”

PART II
    Isabella
    The Star of the House of Medici

CHAPTER SEVEN
    The Villa di Castello
    21 APRIL 1574
    B reathing hard—grief? fear? simple exertion?—Francesco de’ Medici stepped into the room where his father’s body lay. It was full dark, and the Villa di Castello blazed with torches and candles. The light wavered and rippled, and there were eyes, eyes everywhere.
    Cosimo de’ Medici, the first Grand Duke of Tuscany, who had devoted his ambitious, ruthless and vainglorious life to the
precedenza
of his name, his city and himself, had been dead for two or three hours, no more. His body, once so robust, had withered over the past months with sickness and inactivity. He looked like an old man, much older than his fifty-five years, his eyes as hollow as a skull’s eyes. The oil of the chrism gleamed on his forehead and lips and the backs of his hands.
    Every man in the room, even the priests, bowed to the new grand duke. Some made deeper reverences than others. The new grand duke noticed every detail, measured every inclination of the head and bending of the knee. He would remember.
    He began, however, by kneeling beside his father’s body and reciting the
De Profundis
. He did not care whether his father’s iniquities were forgiven or not, but he wanted his own reign to begin with a public act of filial piety his secretaries could