The House of Medici Read online

  She smiled, but knew immediately it was a weary smile. Weary from spending night after night contemplating the proposal which she had finally decided to accept. But now it was too late. Now she had given her word and now she must stand by it.

  ‘If I did that, I should be separated from you and to no purpose. No. It’s too late now, Cosimo. You need me to look after Lorenzo’s gold. How else will you know it is safe in that vault and undisturbed? Who else, when the time comes, will tell Lucrezia and Lorenzo where the money is? I have accepted this undertaking in good faith, in respect for you and in thanks for all the Medici family has done for me over the last thirty-six years.’

  Cosimo’s eyes were wet with emotion. ‘Thank you my love. You are right. There is nobody else I could have trusted with this matter. I have told no one, not even my wife.’

  ‘You haven’t told Contessina?’

  He shook his head. ‘How could I tell Contessina that I was planning to hide money from her own two sons because I did not trust them? No. Nobody knows and nobody must know. But already, I must warn you, they suspect. Already people are sniffing around, and not just within the family. Agnolo Acciaiuoli, Luca Pitti, Dietisalvi Neroni, they all have their noses in the air, sensing something is in the offing. They think I don’t know about them, but half their spies are paid even more by me to spy on them, and to report back only what I tell them to report.’

  His eyes looked tired now and for the first time that day, she could see his age showing. ‘It’s a dirty little world, Maddalena, but I must do what I can. For the future of the family.’

  He tapped the book again. ‘I shall write to you when I can, and send my letters by trusted servants. But I dare not let you reply.’

  She went to protest but he held up his hand. ‘No. The situation is too fluid. If you’re not there day by day, at Careggi, at Fiesole, at Cafaggiolo, and particularly at the Palazzo Medici in the city, you will never know who you can trust. That’s why I must forbid you to write to me.’

  He extended the book toward her. ‘Instead, I am giving you this journal. When you wish to speak to me, write your words in here. Then, when next I come to visit you, I will be able to read what you have written.’

  She took the journal, felt the leather, opened the pages and smelled the clean paper. Then defiantly, she shook her head. ‘I shall write my replies in this book, but when you visit me again, I shall not give them to you to read. Instead I shall read them to you myself.’

  Cosimo kissed her on the forehead. ‘That is even better. Agreed then.’

  He walked across the room and opened a simple plain chest beside the wall. Inside was a nun’s habit and he lifted it and draped it across the chair. ‘It is nearly time. Time for me to depart, and for you to make your vows. Soon they will be waiting, downstairs.’

  As he spoke the words, she was seized once again by panic. It had come. The moment she had closed her mind to. The one part of the whole arrangement that she had not allowed herself to visualise. This was the moment of departure. There was no going back. It was so final. So absolute.

  ‘Don’t leave me, Cosimo . . .’ She clung to his gown and for a moment her whole world was encased in soft red velvet. Then she felt his arms strong, around her, his body stiffening, his hands, busy, urgent, and familiar yet fumbling in their hurry.

  ‘One last time.’ His voice had become husky,

  ‘Cosimo we can’t.’ As she said it her own hands made a lie of her words. She knew his clothing almost as well as she knew her own. He was naked and soon so was she. Giggling with embarrassment, they climbed onto the little bed. It had not yet been made; just a plain mattress, a coarse blanket folded up on the pillow. She shivered. It was draughty there, with the great chestnut folding doors still wide open.

  He reached across the floor and pulled his velvet gown over them. Again, as so many times in the past, since that first time in Venice, they were together.

  They clung to each other, relishing the proximity, unwilling to let it end, and as their breathing subsided in unison, briefly, they slept. Silently, the ray of light from the tiny window above worked its way across the wall and shone its meagre warmth on them. And at that very moment, a solitary bell began to chime, and they both knew the time had come.

  ***

  Alone on the balcony, wearing only her silk camicia, she watched him walk towards the horses and she knew that the last breath of her old life had just been expelled. Now, alone for the first time since her childhood, she must take the first breath of her new life.

  She walked back into the room, and for a moment considered, before rejecting the thought. No, I must not begin by cheating. I must do this properly. Regretfully, but resigned to the necessity, she allowed her camicia to fall to the ground, picked up her nun’s habit, and let it slide over her head, coarse and rough against her skin. Her heart was thumping with apprehension. But she knew it had to be done. She had agreed to enter this place and now, whatever happened, she must make the most of it.

  Chapter 4

  Settling In

  Monday, 3rd October 1457

  Maddalena stepped in from the balcony of her room and began to close the double-folding doors. The chestnut wood still smelled freshly planed and the new hinges gave the gentlest of sighs where the oil had yet to seep into place. But like everything else in the room, they had been beautifully executed to a most thoughtful design. She ran her finger down the smooth edge of the door and wondered which of Michelozzo’s carpenters had made these doors. It had to be him, of course. Every detail of the tower and her little room here at the top resonated with his style and attention to detail.

  She smiled to herself. Cosimo and Michelozzo! What a combination. Was there nothing they couldn’t create between them? Cosimo’s imagination and his endless money had always seemed able to conjure up one dream after another. But the real credit, she thought, must go to Michelozzo, who seemed to be able to see into Cosimo’s head, to pluck the dream from inside, and to turn it into a working reality. Oh the joy and responsibility of patronage.

  Before the doors closed completely, she took one last long lingering look outside. Then, decisively, she took a deep breath, closed them and slid the bolts home. I must stop doing this she said to herself. Cosimo has gone. Michelozzo is part of another world; no longer my world. They all are; Piero, Giovanni, Lorenzo, Lucrezia . . . . She smiled; a wry smile as she realised that she had been about to name Contessina in her list, but Cosimo’s wife in full sail was one image she could easily learn to live without. But the others, yes she would miss them. All of them. She pressed her hand against the chestnut doors with a decisive finality and turned back into the room. I must accept the reality of my incarceration here and learn to embrace it. Every day—every hour I look out there and cling to my old life will make it more difficult.

  Clinging on. Despite telling herself not to, she knew it would be hard to avoid.

  She sighed and tried to concentrate. It would not be easy to blank out the memories from almost four decades of living amongst the greatest family in Europe. She shook her head and snorted at her own stupidity. Of course she could not erase the memories; why should she? That was not the challenge she faced.

  She crossed the room and put her hand on the votive table, at the exact corner where Cosimo had held it as he helped her turn it round. She nodded to herself, a decision made. Yes she would retain the memories, succour them, enjoy them, and nurture them, as the residual echoes of her former life. But what she did have to do was to remind herself that that is what they now were: memories, not realities. Part of her past—but only in their echoes, part of her future.

  Letting go. She was finding it harder than she had thought. Standing on the balcony, she had watched him go. She had stood back from the edge so that he would not see her; but to her disappointment, he had not looked back once keeping his eyes firmly fixed on the rough little ridge between his mule’s ears as slowly he disappeared down the steep lane towards Bivigliano and then to
Vaglia and the valley road back up to Trebbio and Cafaggiolo.

  Try as she did, she hadn’t been able to shake off the feelings of that moment. Even now, looking back forty-eight hours later, she couldn’t remember which had been stronger; the gut-wrenching feeling of loss as she watched him ride away, or the stifling, claustrophobic fear of the future. Not fear of the nuns, or the endless repetition of the office, spelled out by the pages of the breviary; she was used to regular prayers and her life within the Medici family had always been constrained by the strict protocols of the family’s religious responsibilities. No, her fear was more physical; the returning, overpowering fear of enclosure. Of imprisonment. Of confinement in a small space.

  She had thought she had shaken it off, but The Dread still returned and at times, still haunted her. But not here. Not in this room. She looked around, remembering the light, the feeling of expansiveness when those great doors were opened and she nodded to herself. He knew, didn’t he? He understood my feelings; my fear of entrapment. It was for that reason, I am sure, that he chose this convent, on a hilltop, with fine views and with an open Rule, allowing conversation, exercise and work out there in the great gardens. Gardens that separate the outer walls from the convent building itself. He even had Michelozzo build this room, this whole tower, just for me. To make it easier. I know he did.

  But then the opposing thought—a clear and terrifying memory, ineffectively suppressed, flashed back into her mind. The sights, the sounds, the smells; they all returned in an instant. Immediately, she found herself panting with apprehension. I thank the Good Lord he didn’t choose Le Murate. Anything—anything but Le Murate. Her mind went back over thirty years, to the day shortly after Cosimo had brought her from Rome to Florence. The date was still etched in her mind.

  ***

  VIA GHIBELLINA, FLORENCE

  14th December 1424

  ‘In for Christmas. Well done! They should be so proud of themselves.’

  She turns. Cosimo is smiling enthusiastically, standing at the very front of the crowd and applauding loudly. The crowd is filling the Via Ghibellina, and massing opposite the great doors of the new Benedictine convent of Santa Maria Annunziata. It’s a day to remember. She can sense its importance and knows she will remember it for years to come. They have just watched the Walled-In Nuns process from their old building on the Ponte Rubaconte to their new home. All along the route there has been great celebration, the singing of psalms and hymns and the parading of their works of art. And now it’s time for the finale.

  Cosimo leans towards her. ‘The fourteenth of December in the year 1424. You should remember that date, Maddalena. It is important. What an occasion!’ Cosimo looks at her and she attempts a smile that echoes his enthusiasm. But now she begins to think about what is to come next and the prospect of it is already filling her with a cold, clammy dread.

  It’s the same sort of sick, dizzy feeling she gets when Cosimo takes her up to high places, like the top of the tower on the Palazzo Signoria, where he expects her to stand beside him on the balcony, part of his retinue, holding his hat and looking downward, while he waves to the crowd.

  But now it is not the fear of falling that she knows will overcome her. Even more terrifying, that suffocating feeling of impending doom. The Dread, as the doors are closed and the entrance to the convent is symbolically bricked up. Le Murate. The Walled-In Nuns. She understands their history and the extent of their faith, but how can they bear to be enclosed like that?

  The singing of hymns comes to an end. Inside the great archway, the nuns turn outward; facing the crowded street through the great doors, then, in unison, take three steps backward. In front of them, as trumpets play, first one door, then the other, is closed from within. The key is heard turning in the great lock.

  ‘That would suit you wouldn’t it?’ Cosimo is grinning. ‘Not a bad way for a woman to end her days; in the peace and tranquillity of an isolated existence, given over fully to prayer and contemplation?’ He has his teasing expression on his face. But today she is not in a mood for teasing. Today it is all she can do to remain on her feet as, horror of horrors, she watches the bricklayers step forward, lay the first line of mortar across the entrance, and then start bricking up the doorway.

  It is too much. The crowd surges forward, to watch every moment of this, the climax of the day, and as the crush tightens around them, the claustrophobic thought of being walled-in overcomes her and makes her heart race. Immediately, the dizziness becomes worse and as Cosimo turns to see what the commotion is, she falls, unconscious, to the ground.

  ***

  Maddalena leaned against the table and willed her heartbeat to slow down. Her first instinct had been to rush to the chestnut doors and to fling them open again, but she had not let herself do it. Instead she had gripped the edge of the table and forced herself to concentrate.

  She must fight this. She had known immediately what was happening, the moment it started. The memory of that day, thirty-three years before, was triggering the fears all over again. Already the palms of her hands were wet with sweat and there was a strange hollow feeling inside her that she knew, if she couldn’t control herself, would soon turn to an increasing and all-encompassing tightness. She bit her lip, concentrating hard, trying not to let her heartbeat climb again, as it had done three times already since her arrival in this place. Each time she had fought the breathlessness and the horror that she would die of asphyxiation unless she ran outside. Each time, she had fought it; and each time, she had not allowed herself to run outside.

  Now, once again, she conquered her fear, taking slow breaths as she gripped the corner of her little votive table, her knuckles white, whilst with the other hand she pressed gently with the first two fingers against the great artery on the left hand side of her neck. It was a physicians’ trick she had learned from her father when she was still a child, and as always, it began to work. She counted to twenty, and then removed her fingers as her heartbeat began to drop back to normal, as the constriction in her chest eased and she could breathe once again.

  Even as she recovered, a thought came to her. But he still did it didn’t he?

  As her head cleared, the thought hit her harder. Even knowing of my fears. Even having seen them for himself and the effect they always had on me, he still put me in this place. I was right in what I said to him. He lent me my freedom; gave it to me, but as soon as I had it, he took it back again.

  Once more she remembered that last look down at his departing mule, flanked by a line of soldiers either side of him, looking, for all the world, as if he was the prisoner, not her.

  And then another thought came to her. Perhaps that was how he felt. Perhaps he, too, felt imprisoned; in his case, by his worries. What had he seen himself returning to? A great palace, yes. Money, paintings, sculptures, rich food; a world of endless luxury. Yes.

  But also a life of loneliness. Who will he talk to now?

  The truth was, without her, Cosimo was alone. He did not trust his sons’ judgement or even, in some cases, their motives. And as for his wife, he may have remained publicly loyal to Contessina for her constancy, and the reliability with which she ran the family and the household. And it was true he respected her good taste when it came to patronage, or filling their buildings with good things; but let’s be honest, she was, in the final analysis, a fat, old-fashioned, narrow-minded and uneducated sow of a woman who had never showed the slightest interest in the bank or in affairs of state, other than as part of her narrow circle of social relationships within the noble families of Florence. He won’t be able to talk to her about the big things, the things that matter. Secretly, she thought, Cosimo despised his wife nearly as much as she did. Contessina was one person she wouldn’t miss.

  But enough of them. She had left them now and she must address her own situation. Realising that the fainting feeling had abated, she took her hand from the table and shook it until the circulation recovered. Once again, she could stand alone. She did not need
support. Come on. You’ve been through worse than this. It will not beat you. Cosimo has a task for you to perform; an obligation, an entrustment. Stand upright. Move forward and embrace your new responsibilities. What would Carlo say if he saw his mother wilting like a waterless flower? The memory of her son—Cosimo’s son, and her proudest achievement—gave her strength, and she turned towards the door.

  She had been kept busy since arriving in her new home. The abbess must have recognised the signs of her rising panic as soon as Cosimo had departed. No doubt she had seen them many times before. The answer, it seemed, was to remain busy and they had not allowed her any time to think. Not, that is, until now.

  Taking her vows had not been as distressing as she had expected. By the time the service began, she had already faced the reality of her situation and to her pleasant surprise she had felt a real sense of welcome and acceptance from the other nuns. Well, most of them; there were four or five old ones huddled in one corner by themselves, who looked at her as if she was the devil incarnate. Their response had reminded her of Contessina’s open distaste when Cosimo had first brought her back with him from Rome and announced that she would be living amongst them, in the family home, as his personal slave. She had survived that, and she would survive this.

  The abbess had been clever. She had insisted that ‘our new sister’ took her vows before they partook of the great feast that Cosimo had provided, and she had announced that ‘in the spirit of welcome’ the daily rule of silence during meals would be dispensed with. The result was that Maddalena, the new Suora, had been able to participate in the feast as a full member of her new community and the permission to speak had actively encouraged everyone to talk to her.