by Sara Poole
“I’ll look for more of those cherries you enjoy,” I offered. “His Holiness is fond of them as well. We just got a new shipment in from Vignola. Nothing but the best.”
Placated, Portia bestowed a smile and rubbed Minerva behind her ears, eliciting a throbbing purr that followed me as I hastened back out onto the street.
The day being mildly warm with a pleasant breeze from the sea, I decided to walk rather than be ferried along the river or avail myself of one of the sedan chairs that thronged the crowded streets. Rome is a great city for walking, assuming one does not mind hills. Beyond being virtually guaranteed of encountering something new and interesting, being on foot gave me the opportunity to gauge the mood in the streets, always of concern to one charged as I was with protecting a noble family.
I admit to paying even more than usual attention to my surroundings, on the lookout for anything that might give a clue as to who was behind the attack on Lux. Were there truly more of the black-robed Dominicans present in Saint Peter’s Square or was that just my imagination? Did the golden-haired priest I thought I glimpsed at a distance bear more than a passing resemblance to Bernando Morozzi or were my eyes playing tricks? Was there more security evident in general or had a bad scare and a sleepless night so frayed my nerves that I was jumping at shadows?
I breathed a small sigh of relief as I approached the Vatican barracks, housed in a long, low stone building constructed only a few decades before and kept in excellent repair. The papal guard, including many of the men who had served Borgia when he was a cardinal, enjoyed an array of comforts reflective of his dignity. In addition to the barracks, they had their own kitchens, expansive stables, a spacious training field and, it was said, access to some of the better brothels in the city, all courtesy of His Holiness.
Despite the latter, they maintained an admirable level of discipline and readiness thanks in no small measure to the man charged with leading them. Vittoro Romano was in his fifties, of medium height and build with the straight spine and firm stance of a much younger man. He had been a soldier almost all his life but had also found time to become a husband and father to a boisterous family, all daughters who had married well and graced him with grandchildren he adored.
He was speaking with one of his subordinates as I approached, giving me an opportunity to observe him. The two might have been talking of the prospects for rain, the capabilities of a new recruit, or the imminent likelihood of war; it was impossible to tell which. Vittoro was always and unfailingly a man of great calm with seemingly no capacity for excitement. An astrologer would ascribe his temperament to having been born under the sign of Saturn, although as to whether that would be correct I could not say. Like almost all of us, he had no notion of the date of his birth, far less the time. I wonder if it is such ignorance on the part of ordinary people that allows astrologers to appear so wise.
Seeing me approach, Vittoro dismissed the man he had been speaking with. Before I could say a word, he shook his head and gestured toward the nearby stables where deep shadows offered concealment. Even there, he kept his voice low. Intrigued despite myself, I gave him my full attention.
“I am glad to see you looking so well, Donna Francesca. I thought we might have a word before you are swept into the day.”
I took the compliment for what it was, the kindness of a friend. After the events at the villa and a sleepless night, I was hardly looking my best.
“Of course, Capitano. What can I do for you?”
He glanced around to be sure we were not observed, then leaned a little closer.
“Cardinal della Rovere has reached Savona. Word has it that he is gathering forces there and intends to make for France.”
I inhaled sharply. Ever since the conclave the previous year that resulted in Borgia becoming pope there had been rumors that the bitter rivalry between His Holiness and the much younger but no less ambitious della Rovere was about to break into open warfare. At Savona, family seat of the della Roveres, the Cardinal would be as a hawk in its aerie, inviolate. And if he did make for France and the welcoming arms of its young, war-hungry king, not all Borgia’s scheming might be enough to save us. Coming on top of the trouble with Naples, this boded very ill.
“What does His Holiness intend?” I asked.
“He has ordered security here increased. I am bringing men in from the other papal properties. Of course, the task of protecting His Holiness would be simpler if he hadn’t acquired a troubling new habit.”
Given all of Borgia’s myriad peccadillos, I was hard-pressed to imagine what new vice he could have acquired, and said as much.
“He has taken to disappearing,” Vittoro said.
My initial reaction was disbelief. Granted, there were long stretches of time when His Holiness was in camera, not to be disturbed. But there was no mystery as to why. Everyone knew that Christ’s Vicar was blessed with a robust carnal appetite.
“He is with La Bella or some other woman,” I said. There was no reason to assume that Il Papa restricted himself to just one mistress, lovely though she was, when so many appealing women in Rome would be happy to receive him.
“Not so,” Vittoro said. “He isn’t in La Bella’s apartments or his own or any guest accommodation and he hasn’t left the precincts of the Vatican. He is somewhere else, somewhere I don’t know about.”
“There are any number of discreet ways in and out of the Vatican—”
“Forty-seven ways—tunnels, passages, and the like. Or at least there were. I had forty-five of them sealed up shortly after Borgia was elected, with his approval. The remaining two are closely guarded.”
“Then where is he?”
“His secretaries claim not to know. They say that he is disappearing from within his private office. Two concealed doors lead from there but they connect either to his own apartment or to the passage through the Sistine Chapel that comes out in the Palazzo Santa Maria in Portico, near to La Bella’s quarters. Neither solves the mystery of where he is going.”
“Or what he is doing,” I said slowly. The implications were considerable. Borgia was at heart an inveterate schemer. Partly that was a necessary by-product of his lust for power but also I think he simply enjoyed what was for him something of a living chess game but with much higher stakes than to be found on any board.
“Precisely,” Vittoro said. “How am I to protect him if I do not know what he is up to?”
“I will learn what I can.”
The captain nodded, clearly relieved that I had grasped the importance of the matter. After a moment, he said, “When His Holiness got the news about della Rovere being in Savona, he called for you. You weren’t to be found.”
I shrugged, hoping to convey the impression that my absence was of no particular significance.
“It’s probably to the good that His Holiness has had time to reflect.”
Vittoro understood as well as I that there are occasions when the most faithful servant has to turn a deaf ear. Otherwise what is said in the heat of the moment can take on its own momentum. Even so, he was not so easily put off.
“Is everything all right, Francesca?”
Such informal address did not surprise me. He had known me since I came as a child to Borgia’s palazzo on the Corso. When I succeeded to my father’s position, far from condemning my methods, Vittoro had offered me support and more. I knew that I could rely on him absolutely and yet I still hesitated to confide in him. Lux was that important to me and, I feared, that vulnerable.
“Well, let us see,” I said with a smile. “Il Papa may or may not be about to give the Indies away to the Portuguese, prompting Spain to arms. Unless, of course, he’s giving it to the Spaniards, which would put the Portuguese at our throats. There is the matter of Naples … and the multiple attempts on His Holiness’s life by unknown sources … and now his bitter rival seems to be positioning himself for war. In the midst of all this, our master has taken to disappearing mysteriously. All in all, I would say matters lie about
as we who serve la famiglia must expect.”
Vittoro chuckled. “Don’t forget Madonna Lucrezia, whose nuptials will be soon upon us.”
“Quite right, let’s not forget that.” Privately, I gave odds of no better than five to three that Borgia would allow the marriage to take place. Lucrezia had already been betrothed formally once or twice, depending on which rumor you believed. What would another broken pledge mean?
Except that this particular betrothal and the marriage to follow involved the peacock-proud house of Sforza, whose support had been key in securing Borgia’s election to the papacy. On that basis alone, he might feel called upon to honor it.
“Sometimes I imagine that in my old age,” Vittoro mused, “I will sit in a garden and watch my grandchildren at their play. The sun will be shining, but not too brightly, there will be a gentle breeze smelling of lemons and lavender, pigeons will coo in the cote, and I will have no thought save for whatever tasty dish my dear wife is preparing for our dinner.”
“And you will not be bored? You won’t miss all this?”
“As I said, I will be old.”
We did not speak of what I imagined for myself, for Vittoro knew better than to ask. The past haunted me too vividly to leave much room for the future.
I lingered a little longer before going off about my duties. There were always new supplies arriving in the kitchens, sides of beef and baskets of fish, heaps of fruits and vegetables, rounds of cheese, vats of wine and ale, and all that without regard for the provisions that were beginning to come in for the wedding feast.
I sampled everything, delving to the bottoms of sacks and baskets, prying open carcasses, and so on. Fresh food is notoriously hard to poison, any agent leaving traces of smell, taste, and color for the experienced eye. For the same reason, it is difficult to taint wine or ale without making either liquid cloudy, although sometimes the visual evidence is very slight indeed, discernible only to the most experienced eye, which, grace to God and my father’s excellent training, I have. Prepared foods are a different matter—sausages, smoked meats, dried fish, anything with a great quantity of spice all offer the promise of concealment. For that reason, I required that anything of that nature be manufactured under my supervision.
That left only the matter of contact poisons, the rarest and most difficult to handle of all substances in the poisoner’s arsenal. I had some considerable familiarity with them, having accomplished the rare feat of applying a contact poison to the outside of a glass carafe, the method by which I had killed my father’s successor and claimed the position for myself. With that incident always in mind, I inspected anything that could come into contact with Borgia or his family—every scrap of fabric but also other materials including glass, gold, silver, and the like. With the wedding fast approaching, gifts were beginning to arrive and each of these also had to be checked.
Despite all these demands on my attention, I was at work only a little time before a page came to fetch me. His Holiness required my attendance. I washed my hands in a copper basin, dried them on a length of cloth offered by a kitchen maid who kept her head down and fled the moment I was done, and followed the page up the stone steps from the kitchen, through flagstone passageways, up a gilded flight of steps, and finally into the presence of Christ’s Vicar on Earth, Il Papa Alexander VI.
6
“Christ’s blood!” Borgia bellowed. His voice shook the gilded walls and threatened to crack the high windows looking out over the square. Secretaries, clerks, and hangers-on alike quaked and looked about wide-eyed for some means of escape.
“Blessed Mary and all the Saints tell me why I did not kill that man when I had the chance?”
Abruptly, his attention swiveled to me. My hope that his anger would have been defused by now was not to be fulfilled.
“You should have convinced me to do it,” Borgia declared. “That’s your job, isn’t it?”
As our avid audience looked on, relieved no doubt that someone had taken the brunt of his displeasure, I came a little farther into the room. My face was schooled to calm despite the knot in my stomach and the dampness of my palms that had nothing to do with the sultry morning. Borgia was not given to such outbursts of temper, reserving them solely for those occasions when he felt particularly provoked. But when he was so roused, truly he was a force to behold. In the interest of candor, I will also say that there were times when I suspected his anger was more artifice than actual emotion, but on this occasion, he seemed genuinely enraged.
In light of the news Vittoro had given me, there was no mystery as to who had so provoked Borgia’s ire, nor could I pretend to misunderstand him. That being the case, I had no choice but to fall back on the semblance of candor. True candor would be a shocking breach of decorum, raising all sorts of problems of its own accord. But the semblance of it was a well-practiced art within the hallowed walls of the Vatican and, for that matter, wherever those with an appreciation for power gather.
“Is it?” I asked lightly, as though it were really no great matter, certainly no reason to explode in fury and burn all before him, starting with my own poor self. “I thought my job was to see to your safety.” Almost as an afterthought, I added, “And on occasion perhaps remove some encumbrance. I don’t recall you mentioning the Cardinal in that regard.”
“More fool I,” Borgia muttered but he was calming already, the admirable intelligence and order of his mind once more in evidence. He glanced round as though suddenly aware that we were observed. “Out! Out! Worthless dregs, all of you! Out!”
They went. Borgia and I were left alone, as no doubt he had intended, for now there would be great speculation about what he had to say to his poisoner in private. I admit to being curious myself.
Without ceremony, he slumped in the high-backed chair behind the vast desk of burled wood and inlaid marble, and gestured me into one of the smaller chairs across from him. It was a signal honor to be seated in his presence and one he did not accord me except when we were alone or as good as. You may wonder at such intimacy, as I did myself from time to time, but over our years together I came to at least some understanding of what drove Borgia to confide in me. La Bella and other women who came and went had their place in his life but I don’t believe he ever allowed them to see into the darker reaches of his soul. As for his confessor, some hapless priest held that nominal position while no doubt thanking God daily that Il Papa felt no impulse to bare his conscience to him.
But great men, for all their armor of invincibility, are still only men, and something in them all cries out to be known by at least one other who can, at the end of days, attest to their humanity. Typically, it is an outcast who takes such a role—a jester, a dwarf, or, though it was painful for me to acknowledge, one such as myself, set apart and isolated by my dark calling.
All the same, I did not fool myself. Whatever the needs of his soul, Il Papa played a deep game in which I was only one more pawn.
“That turd, della Rovere, plots to bring down my papacy,” he said. “Moreover, he may be behind the recent attempts on my life, the source of which you still have failed to discover. Whatever he is up to, I want the problem he presents resolved once and for all.”
“Holiness—” I intended to mention the practical difficulty of getting to della Rovere now that he was over three hundred miles away in his family’s stronghold, and perhaps even my own doubts that he had a hand in the attempts to kill Borgia, but Il Papa was having none of it.
Before I could speak further, he declared, “You’ve come up with creative solutions in the past. Do not disappoint me now.”
Having written fini to the discussion, at least so far as he was concerned, His Holiness reached for a flagon of wine set on a silver tray on his desk, filled a Venetian goblet studded with gems, and took a long swallow of claret. He was drinking earlier and more often than had been his custom before coming into the papacy. La Bella had told Lucrezia, who had told me, that he slept poorly and sometimes woke in the grip of nigh
t sweats. I wondered if what he had plotted and schemed for decades to attain was proving to be both more and less than he had anticipated.
I was about to stand, assuming myself to be dismissed, when he spoke again.
“What do you hear from Cesare?”
Still struggling to come to terms with the order I had just been given, I replied noncommittally. “He seems well.”
I assumed that letters from Cesare were intercepted and read before they ever reached me. What Borgia wanted was not so much the content of the letters as my interpretation of them, but that I was hesitant to give.
“Happy with his lot, is he? Content to follow my orders?”
Cesare happy? Content? His was a mercurial nature ruled by passion and ambition. Happiness did not enter into it. Surely his father, who was not far different, knew that?
“He is loyal to you,” I said, because in the end wasn’t that all that mattered, at least to Borgia?
Il Papa passed a hand over his jowls wearily. An observer might have been forgiven for thinking that he was an old man resigned to the foibles of the young. Nothing could have been further from the truth.
“Is he? He rails against the life I have given him. Claims he’ll go off and become a mercenario for whoever will hire him. Says he’ll make his living with his sword before he’ll put on red skirts.”
“He is young yet—” Although to be truthful, I had difficulty imagining Cesare in the vestments of a cardinal of Holy Mother Church. Aside from the very few old men still clinging to their missives, the princes of the church were cunning, ambitious schemers best suited to wield power from behind their expansive desks. Cesare, on the other hand, was made for the field of battle. Anyone who had been in his presence long enough to say a single paternoster ought to have known that.
“He is my son! He will damn well do as I tell him.”
My father had wanted me to marry and give him grandchildren but he had the good sense to recognize that I was my own self, for better or worse, and not a mere extension of his will. Perhaps it was because he had afforded me such regard in life that I was so determined to honor him in death.
