The Red Lily Crown Read Online Free Page A

than Magister Ruanno, although his mouth pursed up as if he’d taken a bite of wormy cheese. Clearly he wasn’t pleased with the task of explaining to Madonna Bianca that she’d been put aside for an alchemist’s daughter. “Yes, Serenissimo,” he said.
    â€œWe return to the Palazzo Vecchio.” The prince mounted his gray stallion again. “Magister Ruanno, bring
la nostra piccola
Chiara and her silver descensory and her amusing ideas of how much she is worth.”
    â€œNo,” Chiara said. “I don’t want to come with you. You can’t—”
    The foreigner took hold of her arm, just as he’d done before. It didn’t hurt, but it could if he wanted it to. Oh, yes, it could.
    â€œCome with me,” he said. “You wished to speak of alchemy with the prince? Now you will have your chance.”

CHAPTER TWO
    â€œT onight, perhaps, or tomorrow, or the next day, my father will be dead.” The prince’s voice was cold, as if he didn’t care if his father died or not. He probably didn’t. “I will be Grand Duke of Tuscany, and I will have absolute power in Florence. If you are wise, you will wish to please me.”
    They had clattered back through the
cancello
into the courtyard of the Palazzo Vecchio, renewed rain showers spattering around them. Once again Chiara rode pillion behind Magister Ruanno—she’d survived one ride, so why wouldn’t she survive another? In fact, she’d overcome her fear to the point that she could actually feel her poor bruised backside when the ride was over. Horses! Dangerous, smelly playthings of aristocrats. On the other hand, she had to admit they’d arrived back at the palazzo much more quickly than she could have done if she’d walked in the rain.
    Another thing about aristocrats—they had so many servants they never did anything for themselves. Servants had run to lead the horses away, run to open every door, run for gilded chairs and embroidered cushions and hot spiced wine, a thing Chiara had never tasted before, not once in her whole life. Just the scent of it made her head swim, and the taste—it was like Nonna’s wild-currant cordial mixed with the angelica pasticci she made for stomachaches, like liquid wildflowers and honeybees, sweet and stinging and velvety. It was enough—well, almost enough—to make her think the Medici might not be so bad after all.
    â€œI will please you if I can, Serenissimo,” she said.
    â€œGood. Then I will tell you that my true life’s work is the creation of the
Lapis Philosophorum
, the Stone of the Philosophers. In this, Magister Ruanno assists me.”
    He gestured briefly to the other man in the elaborate little studiolo, the English alchemist. In his precise foreigner’s Italian, Magister Ruanno said, “We have completed the third stage, the stage of calcination. For the fourth stage, the stage of exuberation, we have decided we require a
soror mystica
.”
    The prince said, “Do you know what that means, Mona Chiara?”
    Chiara looked from one man to the other, the prince who took wealth and luxuries and absolute obedience as his everyday due, and the foreigner in his dark doublet and hose, his shoulders thick with workman’s musculature, his mouth so cruel and his eyes sadder than sad. How could two men be so different and at the same time be—well, what were they? Master and servant? The prince clearly thought everyone was his servant, and the foreigner, for whatever reason, was willing to play the part.
    â€œ
Soror mystica
,” she repeated. “Something mystical?”
    Magister Ruanno smiled his unsettling wolflike smile. “So you do not know as much Latin as you claim.”
    â€œI never claimed to know it to speak it every day. I know bits that my father taught me, that’s all.”
    â€œIt means a sister in the art,” the prince said. “A female