Read Online Duchessina - A Novel of Catherine de' Medici by Carolyn Meyer - Free Book Online Page B

missals and graduals and prayer books intended for private devotions. An elderly nun with gnarled fingers, her back twisted grotesquely, glanced up from her work and smiled. Her face was deeply seamed, but her eyes were a luminous blue green, shining with intelligence.
    â€œI’m Suor Battista,” she said. “And you are Duchessina, are you not?”
    I said that I was.
    â€œA child possessed with great curiosity, I believe.”
    I nodded, puzzled.
    â€œI saw you hiding beneath my cot,” she said.
    I stared at the floor, ashamed. “I wanted to see the painting of the Annunciation. It was as if the Blessed Virgin was calling to me. I promise I won’t do it again,” I whispered.
    â€œOf course you won’t. And you’re not supposed to be here, either, until you’ve finished your classes. But now that you are, let me show you the copyist’s art. Silence,
per favore.
”
    I stood behind her and watched her hand move unhesitatingly across the parchment, copying line after line of text, until the bell rang for prayer. “Will you teach me to do that?” I asked as we hurried to the oratory.
    Suor Battista smiled. “Perhaps.”

    B Y C HRISTMAS my cough had disappeared and my scabs were healed. The violet hangings on the altars were replaced with white damask embroidered with gold thread. During Mass in the convent church, the nuns sang in ethereal voices that I thought must be the way angels sounded. Afterward, the community of Le Murate feasted on roast meats and puddings as fine as anything I’d ever tasted at Palazzo Medici.
    The next day I was allowed a brief visit from Aunt Clarissa. Convent rules prevented us from meeting face-to-face, but we could converse through the iron grille that separated those on the inside from those outside the convent wall. Although I couldn’t see my aunt, it was a pleasure just to hear her voice again, to learn that her four sons were all well and that Betta had been taken into the Strozzi household to help look after the boys.
    â€œI have wonderful news, Caterina,” Clarissa murmured close to the grille. “I am again with child. Perhaps this time it will be a daughter!”
    Naturally I rejoiced with her, although I felt a pang of jealousy:
I
had always been her daughter!
Will she forget me when she has one of her own?
I fretted.
    Too soon the abbess signaled that the visit must end. I squeezed back tears.
    â€œDon’t cry, dear Caterina,” my aunt said soothingly. “I shall come again, as soon as I’m allowed. But it will be difficult,” she warned. “The Medici are hated more than ever. An angry mob attacked Michelangelo’s magnificent sculpture of David in the Piazza dei Signoria, believing the statue is a symbol of the Medici! I can’t leave the palazzo without an armed escort, although my husband opposes my going anywhere at all these days. But I wanted a chance to speak with my darling Caterina.”
    I recognized the dangers she faced. Over the past year I had been smuggled out of my home disguised as a boy, torn from my family’s villa by soldiers, and rushed from one convent to another accompanied by men armed with pistols. “Be careful, Aunt,” I begged. “I couldn’t bear to lose you.”
    â€œOf course I will,” she said.
    Her footsteps faded away, and I wept unashamedly.

    D URING THE JOYOUS yuletide observances that lasted through the Feast of the Epiphany, I got to know the other girls who lived under the care of the nuns of Le Murate. These were girls from wealthy families whose fathers wanted them to remain at the convent until their marriage had been arranged. Until their wedding day was near, they were not allowed to leave, even for a short visit.
    Most of the girls suffered from a painful separation from their families and wanted desperately to go home. They longed to be with their mothers and little sisters not yet old enough to