Servant to the Borgia

by Elizabeth McGlone

  His hand resumed the rhythmic stroking of her back. “I know.”

  “In front of me! As soon as I came up the stairs, he let her go and then smashed a jug down on her.” Lucrezia’s lip trembled as the tears began again. “I heard her b.b.bones snap.”

  Cesare tried to control his breathing and unclench the hands; they had formed fists. He could feel the steady pulse of blood, goading him to action. Now was not the time to show his anger. That would come later when there was no Master Niccolo to stop him. In the night, only those too afraid to intervene could hear Juan scream. But Juan knew to be wary during the night, taking to the roofs when pursued, a place that Cesare could not follow. How like Juan to discover what frightened him, the high places where he could not move for fear of falling. It would not save him this time; he would have blood for this, for blood was the only thing that Juan understood, lessons taught in pain.

  “Why is he so cruel? I stay out his path, as you told me, and I do not speak to him unless he wills it. But even then, he does mean things.” She pushed up the sleeves of her gown, revealing a collection of purple and black bruises, startling against white skin.

  Because you are beautiful, Cesare thought, an angel, and because our father and I love you. “You know that there was an accident, the year after you were born.”

  “Yes,” Lucrezia nodded, curls dancing. “You were fighting with swords. He fell and hit his head.”

  Cesare smiled to hear the horror of those days reduced to only a few sentences. In his mind’s eye, blood seeped again across the stones, followed by hours and hours of waiting to see if Juan would open his eyes and return from the deep sleep where his mind was trapped. Days of trying to ignore the accusation in his father’s face, the grief in his mother’s eyes. And then, overwhelming happiness to have his brother awaken and return to health, though it soon became apparent that a different child that had opened his eyes, one full of hate and rage.

  When she nodded, he continued. “Since then, he has been different. Angry. Before, he was never cruel.” Memory served up an image of how it had been for them before the accident, playing with wooden swords on the terrace, Cesare allowing Juan to win sometimes because Juan was a year younger, hiding from their tutors and stealing sweets from the kitchens. He grieved for the brother he had lost, even as he grew to hate what had remained.

  “I don’t remember,” she said, snuggling closer. She did not understand death any more than she understood the brother who hated her for being born. And he would not tell her. Her sweetness was precious to him, like the carved ivory bird that Papa had given to Mama, a thing of delicate beauty smashed to a thousand pieces in one of Juan’s rages. He would not allow the same to happen to Lucrezia.

  Still sitting on his lap, they watched as the birds of the city dipped and swooped over the rooftops, the cacophony of noise blending with the sounds of the street below. Rome gentled during the noon hour when the blazing sun drove all but the hardiest from rooftops and street corners. Below, servants chattered as they went about their work, emptying buckets and sweeping, clearing away the remains of what had been a feast the night before to celebrate his entry into the Sapienza of Perugia. In a fortnight, the journey from Rome would begin, leaving Lucrezia without a protector. The thought sent cold shivers racing down his arms, lifting the hairs. He must see Lucrezia safe. Before he left, he would speak to the servants, the guards, and cellarers, the pages, and stewards. They were accustomed to Juan’s moods. They would keep Lucrezia from harm until Juan left to begin his studies with the Gonfalonier.

  They would keep her safe, or someone would suffer for it.

  Voices rose from the terrace, a steward calling his name.

  Cesare cupped the base of her skull in his hand, holding it close to his chest for a moment. “Come, Lucrezia or they will send someone looking for us.”

  Lucrezia nodded and rose, brushing out her skirts with a fussy motion of her hand. Their mother insisted on garbing Lucrezia in the most opulent gowns, Florentine velvet and silks imported from distant lands, nothing was too precious for Rodrigo Borgia’s daughter; she was never allowed to play as the children in the streets played, dirty and rough.

  “Shall I find you another kitten?” he asked, thinking of the months and years he would be away, the loneliness that would eat at her. There were no children deemed appropriate for the cardinal’s daughter; Joffre, their youngest sibling, was but two years old and a slow-witted child besides. Not for the first time, it struck him what a lonely girl she was, and soon to be lonelier.

  Lucrezia shook her head. Weariness had replaced her grief- it slumped her shoulders and dimmed the sparkle in her eyes.

  “No. Juan would just kill it.”

  Cesare placed a hand beneath her chin, tilting her head up. Tomorrow he would tell her that he was leaving, off to study and become a prince of the church like their father. But not today.

  “Someday I will find you another to love, Lucrezia. I swear it.”

  Chapter 4

  Morning brought another full day begun before the roosters greeted the sunrise. Donna Maria watched her consume a cup of watered wine and a hunk of bread before hurrying her off to the kitchens, where the preparations for cena had already begun. Pots and skillets awaited her attention in the scullery, together with other tools she could not name.

  Increasingly, Betta became aware of the simplicity of her mother’s meals. In the bodega, there was a spit for meat when it could be found to grace the Sabbath meal, a single cauldron for the pottages and soups that were their daily sustenance, and a skillet for frying. They were the tools she had grown up with and begun using when she was no older than Ginevra.

  To her eyes, the tools for cooking in the villa were as varied and precise as those used by her brothers to make and repair shoes. In the days that followed, she learned each of their names, for there was nothing that Master Bartolomeo liked better than to speak of his craft and the feasts he had prepared during the decades of service to the Bracchis family. A simple enquiring look would have him launching into a detailed explanation of the different types of tongs or whisks or knives.

  During such moments, Angelo would glower at her from behind the master’s back, jealous of any attention the old man showed her. Not that the master neglected the tutelage of the young apprentice who, it was agreed, was probably his grandson although his mother had been a kitchen maid notorious for lifting her skirts.

  “The copper cauldron,” the master would mutter from the side of his mouth, and Angelo would fetch the cauldron from its place on the shelf. If the master found the smallest speck of dust, the cauldron would be brought to Betta and cleansed. After, the pot returned to the scullery, often with spices or sugar still clinging to the sides. These Betta sampled with rapturous glee, closing her eyes at the pleasure of sweetness.

  The days flew by, and before Betta had a chance to miss her mother, it was Sunday, and she walked through streets crowded with families on the way to mass. There was a copper coin clutched in her hand. Though Donna Maria had said she would save her wages until Lent, as Betta had walked to the door, the older woman had appeared and slipped a coin in her hand.

  “See that you give that to your mother, hear? Not that…” The housekeeper’s face went red, a blood vessel beginning to pound in her temples.

  “Yes, Donna Maria. I will return before nightfall.” Joy was coursing through her, as potent as sweet French wine. There was so much to tell her family.

  “See that you do.” She turned Betta and scooted her to the door. “Off with you, then, and see that you go to mass.”

  “Yes, Donna.”

  Rome passed in a blur, the sights and sounds of a thousand passersby muted by anticipation. Betta reached the crescent-shaped street near the ruined bridge. In the morning light, it was smaller than she remembered, a simple, narrow building whose width could be spanned by two men holding hands. For the first time, she noticed the shutters hanging from their hinges, and the tiles missing from the r
oof.

  The door to the cobbler’s shop was bolted from the inside, the windows carefully shuttered. Betta knocked, only to be rewarded by a grumpy snort followed by the opening of the barrier. Franco’s face, partially covered by tousled brown hair, changed when he saw her, a quick lightening of features that made him appear both boyish and devilish at the same time.

  He spoke a word, and before a moment had passed, there was the pounding of feet. A lever moved, unlocking the door with a squeak, and her family poured out. Ginevra was there, bobbing up and down with excitement and speaking so fast that her words ran together into an unintelligible mass. Marco and Franco stood behind, their faces split into identical huge grins. And her mother. Paler, with dark circles so deep around her eyes that they appeared bruised. Her belly was rounder, the burden lower. She opened her arms and Betta flew into them. The smell was the same, river water and leather, grass and soap, and she had to restrain a sob. Still clasped to her mother’s chest, she slipped the coin into her hand.

  “I’m home,” she said.

  Something warm and wet fell onto her hair, and her mother squeezed. “You are my good girl, Betta. I am proud of you.”

  Chapter 5

  A roar came from the kitchen. Betta dropped her scrubbing brush into the basin. The water fountained up, soaking her apron and making Betta curse under her breath. Ignoring the mess, she darted through the arched doorway, expecting to see a catastrophe that could have warranted such a terrible noise.

  Master Bartolomeo stood over an exposed cask of salted eel, the repulsed expression beating new lines into the crags of his face. He poked at the eels with a knife.

  “Look at them, Angelo,” he said, using the other hand to waft away the noxious odor. “Black as pitch and smelling like the asshole of the devil. They will not do, not at all.”

  Angelo prodded one of the slimy eels with a finger. “They don’t look so bad, Master. Might do with a bit more spices added to the pottage. And he won’t notice, besides, not with that whore…”

  Master Bartolomeo threw up his hands in exasperation. “A bit more spices, he says! As though he has not been my apprentice for the last two years! Master Lorenzo will have nothing but pottage during Lent, made of the finest eel. You’ll leave at this moment to fetch new from the fish seller.”

  A line appeared between the apprentice’s heavy brows. “You’ll be needing me here, Master.”

  Thin arms flew wide. They trembled, the flesh wobbling like bread dough. “For fifty years, I have been managing the kitchens without your assistance. Leave off complaining now, or you’ll feel the back of my hand!”

  The concerned expression did not abate, While the master might threaten and bellow, she had yet to see him strike the apprentice, whose only concern was his master and the filling of his belly. Betta thought his fears were well-founded. Though the sauces and pottages, haunches and filets that issued forth from the Master’s kitchen were enthusiastically greeted by the Signore, who took his meals at home before venturing forth, there was no doubt that his mind was failing, each day grayer than the last. Three days prior, Betta had entered the kitchen to see the master rolling out a pastry crust for a pie of ox tongue; the dough was stained scarlet by a knife wound on his hand still seeping blood.

  Betta hesitated, then crept out from behind them. “The fish market on the Campo de’ Fiori?” she asked. From this distance, the smell of the eels was overpowering, a rotten stench making her nose crinkle.

  Master Bartolomeo ceased his haranguing. “Yes, of course.”

  “I can get them.”

  Before the master had time to consider her offer, Angelo nodded. Without waiting for a directive, he left the room, returning from the steward with coins in his hand. “No more than three coppers for a dozen fat eels,” he said, handing her a basket with a strange look, as though the idea of accepting a kindness caused him pain.

  Betta nodded, brushing the bits of food from her apron with the hand not holding the basket. Sunshine greeted her on the terrace, along with a breeze she had missed in the scullery. The day was cooler then she had thought, pleasant against her cheeks. The wind ruffled her hair, and she looked up, savoring the feel of the sunshine painting the insides of her lids with dazzling colors. Hitching up her skirts, she began to run.

  Betta arrived in the Campo de’ Fiori before a quarter of an hour had passed and located the fishmonger, his shop a dilapidated shelter whose west facing pole was canted sharply to the side. Leaning over the tray, breathing in the scent of salt and fish, Betta examined the eels; their flesh was kept moist from occasional dowsing by a bucket. The monger leaned his shoulder back against one of the pillars that supported the roof over his market and eyed her with a bored smile.

  “Fetching for your master, little Donna?” At her nod, he continued. “These will be the ones you want,” he said, pointing to the eels at the top of the tray, thicker around than her wrist and dark in color.

  Smell them, came the remembered voice of Master Bartolomeo in the lessons meant for the apprentice but which she could not help but overhear. The hint of water, fresh, clean, no tinge of rot.

  “No,” she said firmly, pointing to the eels waiting in the center of the tray. Though smaller, their odors seemed friendlier, the color lighter.

  The monger harrumphed, but Betta thought there was the hint of a smile of his wrinkled face. “Got a nose, eh? Aye, these’ll do, but see you don’t dawdle on the way back.”

  Paying with the three coppers. Betta covered the eels with a cloth and began the return journey, a process made slower with the heavy burden. The church towers were chiming terce as she arrived back at the villa.

  Master Bartolomeo met her at the door, hopping up and down with impatience, making his hair dance in the wind. “Give them to me, give them to me,” he insisted, waving his hands in a hurrying gesture until she drew near and then snatching the basket from her hand. Rushing over to the table where a tourte pan was lined with thin layers of dough, he skinned the eels, the strips of flesh like dark cords staining the scrubbed table. The knife struck so fast that the blade was a blur and Betta watched, entranced, as the master removed the teeth and cut the flesh into rounds, spitting them over the fire. Scents filled the kitchen as Bartolomeo layered the tourte with the crisped eel, then marjoram, dates, raisins, and lumps of fresh creamy butter.

  Angelo elbowed her in the side as the pastry slid onto the hearth flames. “Back to the scullery,” he mumbled, rousing her from the stupor of watching the tourte prepared.

  Betta nodded, giving a last, lingering look around the kitchen with its layered smells and the sunshine filtering in through the open windows.

  After the pans from the evening meal had been scrubbed, Betta found that a piece of the tourte had been saved for her. The taste of it was magic on her tongue, the sweet flesh of the eels, the earthy bite of the herbs encased in a tender crust. Though he would not meet her eyes, Betta thought it was Angelo who had kept it for her. Certainly, it was he that suggested she take over his task of venturing into the market when the ingredients for meals proved inadequate or of poor quality.

  The sellers at the markets came to know her on sight, laughing at her quick feet and the enormous basket. The journeys there became the bell tolls of her days, mingling with the scents of the kitchen and the hum of Master Bartolomeo’s wheel as he sharpened the blades used for butchering, a task he would entrust to no other. He took special care with the knives, tending to them every day. Flashes of rainbow light danced along the blades as he drew them back and forth.

  “To kill without pain, that is an art, young one. The knives, they must be so sharp that the flesh parts at a single touch. Here,” he said, handing her a small blade used to take the outer flesh from vegetables. “feel the wheel in your fingers. The hum of it dancing along the metal.”

  Betta applied the gentlest of pressure and had to suppress a start when she could feel every part of the blade and the rough stone as it drew along the edge. It was a living
thing.

  Bartolomeo looked down at her. The years fell away, and his eyes were sharp, as sharp as the blade he tested against the skin of his thumb. Nodding in satisfaction, he led her out to the terrace, where a crate of chickens waited. “Here,” he said, pointing to the neck of a chicken he retrieved and then held by its feet, unmindful of the squawking and flying feathers. As he brought the knife down, the sounds of the bird faded, and Betta could not help but stare at the eyes twitching in its severed head as it lay on the tiles. The amount of blood was smaller than she would have thought, only a trickle.

  The master offered her the knife in one hand, a struggling chicken in the other. She had never killed. Meat, when they had the coin to purchase it, was only ever portions from the butchers, a half chicken, or the haunch of a goat. Some with more land kept animals, a pig fed on scraps, or a few chickens, but they were too poor to afford such a luxury.

  From the doorway to the kitchen, she could see Angelo watching her, trying to hide a smirk behind his hand. His superior expression decided her. The knife leaped in her hand, and she felt the bones and skin part as she drew it across the neck, severing it. The body of the chicken went soft, a breath begun in its beak finding release through its neck.

  The blood was warm on her hands. Looking at it, the copper tang of its scent and the warm approval in Master Bartolomeo’s eyes, she smiled.

  Chapter 6

  To the Provost of Alba, Cesare Borgia, whom I love above all others,

  As you please, send me word at once when you will come home and make company with me once more. My heart bleeds with you gone. Your studies cannot continue so long, for you have been at them for a year. When I see you again, I will cover your face with kisses and not let you go until I know that my Cesare has returned.

  It saddens me to tell you that our brother Pedro Luis has died, and very peculiar it was. A host of bees found entrance to his room though you will recall how he ever avoided them. The servants whisper that it must have been an evil spirit that guided them, for he was found covered in stings, red and swollen as a plum. The priests say that it was God’s will and that we must pray for his soul.