‘Your cousin Ippolito is to go on a mission to Turkey.’
She did not speak; her lips trembled. She knew that she had been living in a dream. There was to be no happiness with Ippolito. It was not the wish of this all-powerful man that they should marry. They had been together through carelessness, indifference to the torture separation must mean to them both.
Perhaps the Holy Father had some pity in him. He looked down at the misery in that pale young face.
‘My daughter,’ he said, ‘You should rejoice. A great future awaits you.’
She did not mean to speak but the words escaped her; ‘There is no future for me without Ippolito; without Ippolito, I do not wish to live.’
The Pope was not so angry as he should have been at this affront to ceremonial dignity. He remembered his heated passion for a Barbary slave who had given him Alessandro.
‘My daughter,’ he said, and the gentleness of his voice startled Caterina out of her misery temporarily, ‘my well beloved daughter, you know not what you say. I hope to send for you in Florence. You will go to France, if all is as I plan; to France, my daughter, to marry the second son of the King.’ He laid his hands on her head to bless her. ‘To France, daughter. The second son of the King!
Who knows, one day, you may be Queen of France! Miracles can happen, daughter. It may be that our family has been chosen to rule great countries. Sigh not. Weep no more. Your future is bright.’
Dazed with wretchedness, she allowed herself to be dismissed and led away.
This was the end of rapture. This was goodbye to love. Clement’s ambition, in the shape of the second son of the King of France, had come between her and her lover.
THE WEDDING
Riding on horseback from Florence down to the Tuscany coast, surrounded by all the noblest people of Florence, was a broken-hearted little girl. She was still dazed, bewildered by this horror which had overtaken her; she was supposed to rejoice at what they were pleased to call her great good fortune, and she could only weep.
Her uncle, Filippo Strozzi― a widower, for Aunt Clarissa had died before she was able to see what she would have called ‘this great and happy event’― was in charge of the concourse until it should be joined by the Pope; after each day’s journey he would summon his niece and talk to her, implore her to show some interest in her good fortune, to hide her melancholy, to suppress her folly, and with her family rejoice. But every member of her family did not rejoice, she pointed out.
Indeed, it was so. And Filippo Strozzi was inclined to think His Holiness had erred in making Ippolito of the party which was to conduct Caterina into France.
‘It will put an end to rumour,’ Clement had said. ‘There must be no more of this talk of the Medici lovers.’ Filippo shrugged his shoulders. All very well for His Holiness. Perhaps the life he had led did not give him great understanding of young and passionate lovers. Not that Clement had pursued unswervingly the life of a celibate. There was that depraved monster, Alessandro, to prove that.
But His Holiness would never allow passion to interfere with ambition, and, being a man of little imagination, no doubt believed his young relatives would behave in similar fashion. Filippo was a man of the world, and, looking from the sad, smouldering eyes of Ippolito to the rebellious ones of Caterina, he knew it had been a mistake to include the young man in the party.
Ippolito was handsome enough, romantic enough to turn any girl’s head; he had made a success of the mission in Turkey and had returned much earlier than had been expected― the lover, eager to see his love again. As for the girl, she was, even at fourteen, an adept at hiding her feelings, but the softness of those lovely eyes of hers when they rested on the young man betrayed her. Filippo would feel most uneasy until they boarded galleys which would take them across to Nice.
While Filippo longed for a sight of the Tuscany coast, Caterina dreaded it.
She knew that once she left the soil of Italy, she was doomed. There would be no escape then; but while she sat on her horse and Ippolito was close to her, it was possible to dream, with the hope that out of the dream reality would come.
Why should they not ride away together?
Sometimes, during that journey, it was possible to exchange a few words with her cousin that would not be overheard by those surrounding them. Then in desperation she would throw aside reserve and plead for the fulfillment of their love.
‘Ippolito, let us break away. Let us ride fast― anywhere, what does it matter? Let us be together.’
Ippolito looked at her sadly. She was only a child. She knew nothing of the world. Where would they go? How would they live? Escape was impossible.
They would be brought back to the Pope.
‘I would not care, Ippolito. We should have had some months, weeks, days together.’
‘Caterina, do you think I have not brooded on this? I have made plans. But each one ends in wretchedness. I could not take you to that. Where would we live? Among beggars? Among robbers? There would be a price on our heads.
There would be no safety. Caterina, you have been carefully nurtured. Oh I know you have faced dangers, but you have never known starvation, my love.
Believe me, I have pondered this. I have looked for a way out for us as I have never looked for anything else, but I can find none, for there is none.’
‘There is always a way, Ippolito,’ she protested tearfully. ‘There is always a way.’
But he shook his head. ‘No, dearest cousin. We are as nothing― you and I.
Your feelings? My feelings? Of what import are they? We are not meant to love.
We are meant to marry and beget children― or to become celibates of the Church. For you, my love, life is not so cruel as it is for me. You are but a child and, say what you will, a glorious future awaits you. But for me a life which I do not want.’
‘Do you think I want a life away from you?’
‘Oh, Caterina my love, you are so young. Perhaps you will love your husband. He is your own age. Why should you not? There will be happiness for you, Caterina, when you have forgotten me.’
‘I shall never forget you!’ she cried stormily; and she was hurt and more bewildered than ever . I would not have cared what happened to us as long as we could remain together, she thought . He does not love me as I love him. I think of him, and he thinks of comfort, safety, the future. But the dream persisted. She believed that one day he would come to her and whisper his plan for their escape. But he did not, and it was with great relief that Filippo saw them all embark and leave the coast of Tuscany behind them, while Caterina, with despair in her heart stood, straining her eyes for the last look at the land she had hoped never to leave.
As they sailed towards Nice Filippo was constantly in the company of Caterina.
‘My child,’ he implored her, ‘what will these French think if you go to them, a sullen-eyed bride? What will your young bridegroom think? Calm yourself. Be reasonable.’
‘Reasonable!’ she stormed. ‘I am leaving all that I love, to live among strangers. Is that cause for rejoicing?’
‘You are going among those who will cherish you. It is true that I, His Holiness, and Ippolito― those of your blood― cannot stay with you; but you will have your own countrymen and women about you. Why, you have the boy astrologers, the young Ruggieri, whom His Holiness allowed you to take with you; there is Madalenna, of whom you are fond; and there are others such as young Sebastiano di Montecuccoli. I could name dozens. You could not be alone in a strange land with so many friends from Italy about you.’