The Borgia Betrayal

by Sara Poole

  Benjamin urged us forward toward the dais. The two dozen or so people gathered there were all young, some no more than children, and garbed in a motley collection of garments that paired the brocade waistcoat of a nobleman with the miter of a bishop and the leather jerkin of a soldier. Some of the boys had shaved their heads, giving them the look of fierce hatchlings. A few sported star- and crescent-shaped brandings on their cheeks that I knew to be the marks of Roman gangs. The girls, some very young, had attached themselves to these boys, several of who had gathered two or three to his side while others had to be content with one. All gazed at me with frank suspicion bordering on hostility.

  Alfonso the First, il re dei contrabbandieri, lounged at the center of all this, on an ornately carved chair covered with gilt such as Borgia himself would not have despised. He was little taller than myself with close-cropped hair, gangly limbs, and raw-boned features. I made his age to be about seventeen or eighteen years, testament to the hard life of Rome’s poor in which fewer than half saw twenty. Added to that the dangers of a smuggler’s existence and I was not surprised that older rivals had fallen by the wayside.

  Two girls of no more than fifteen years stood to either side of him, leaning close to display their pippin-sized bosoms. Each had a hand on one of his thighs. They were both blond and at first look appeared to be at least sisters, if not twins.

  Nothing in the appearance of il re explained his rise to power over the others, save for the hard gleam in his eyes that bespoke at once intelligence and will.

  “Who’s this then?” he demanded, his voice slightly high and strident but lacking nothing in authority.

  “Friends, padrone,” Benjamin said with no sign of the fear he must have been feeling, for I certainly was. We were surrounded by brigands, all no doubt willing to do their chieftain’s bidding in an instant. No one in the world above knew where we had gone. If we did not return, our fate would become one more of those enduring mysteries in Rome, trotted out from time to time over the years and mused about before being forgotten again.

  Bowing his head with every indication of true deference, Benjamin approached the throne.

  “They have come to ask for your help, if you would be so gracious as to give them audience?”

  “You mean they’ve come to try to buy it,” the smuggler king said. His acolytes laughed though none smiled.

  I shot a quick glance at David, who did not appear amused but who was, grace to God, holding himself in check.

  Alfonso studied us for a moment before affording us a single nod. I took that as an indication that I could speak. Choosing caution as the wisest course, I addressed him as I would Borgia when he was in a middling good mood but still required careful handling.

  “It is true, sir, that we do not expect something for nothing. However, we are hoping to convince you that our interests align with yours in a matter of great importance.”

  Whether because I had spoken instead of David—it is always assumed that a man will take the lead—or whether il re was simply innately cautious, he took a moment to think this over. At length, he said, “What matter?”

  “We are hunting a man lately come to Rome. We believe he is using the underground passageways to move around the city undetected. This man is highly dangerous. He must be stopped.”

  “He sounds like some kind of criminal,” Alfonso said, to appreciative guffaws.

  “Would that he were. He is, in fact, a madman who puts us all at peril.”

  At the mention of madness, the mood sobered. Madness, as every sensible person presumes to know, is a sign of the Devil’s possession. The afflicted either have committed some act so sinful as to open the way for evil to possess their souls or they have fallen to such misfortune by failing to follow the dictates of Holy Mother Church—obeying her priests, tithing to her, and so on. The idea that madness might be a sickness like others of the body is entertained by only a very small circle of scholars, namely those who have read the texts of Arab physicians and others who have dissected the brain and speculated as to its function.

  I had no particular opinion one way or the other as to what drove Morozzi to his vile actions. My interest extended no further than putting an end to them by killing him.

  The smuggler king’s eyes narrowed. “What danger does he pose to me?”

  I was reluctant to answer within hearing of his followers. Instead, I inclined my head and asked, “May I approach?”

  He hesitated, no doubt suspicious of my intent. But I was, after all, only a young woman whose garb suggested some degree of standing and affluence but who certainly gave no cause for alarm.

  With a flick of his hand, he dismissed the blondes and in the same motion beckoned me to his side. I bent closer and dropped my voice so that only he could hear me.

  “What do you pay Borgia, signore, two parts in ten?”

  He frowned, possibly at the ease with which I spoke of His Holiness, Christ’s Vicar on Earth, and his propensity for having a finger in every pie. But likely also because I seemed better informed than my appearance would account for.

  “Less than that.”

  I made a show of being impressed though I doubted he was telling the truth. Since becoming pope, Borgia had tightened his hold on every aspect of life in Rome. Nobody could do business without paying him what he regarded as his due, not even the wiliest of smugglers.

  “What do you think his successor will demand?”

  “You’re talking about that prig, della Rovere. Word has it he’s starting to take religion seriously.”

  “We can’t have that, but forget him. What about Savonarola?”

  Alfonso looked at me in surprise. So close to him, I could see the pockmarks of childhood disease on his face and note that one eye squinted while the other appeared healthy.

  “That hound who’s always yapping about purifying the world?”

  I nodded. “The man we seek is working for him. If he succeeds, he will bring Savonarola’s cause to Rome, perhaps even bring him.”

  He sucked in his breath and leaned forward. “Who are you?”

  “My name is Francesca Giordano.”

  Il re dei contrabbandieri paled. He pressed himself into the high back of his chair and stared at me in disbelief.

  “You can’t be her. She’s old and has warts.”

  “Because she is strega? Ask yourself, why would any self-respecting witch go about looking old and with warts?”

  Il re contemplated this without ever taking his eyes from me. Slowly, he nodded.

  I smiled and made my offer. “I would like to be your friend.”

  We all want to have friends, the more useful the better, and the smuggler king was no exception. He needed only a scant moment to consider his options. Why risk the enmity of a powerful witch who has the ear of the Pope when you can have her on your side?

  “And I wish to be yours, Donna Francesca. Tell me more of this man who troubles us both.”

  When I had done so, including providing a detailed description of Morozzi and warning that he might be accompanied by members of Il Frateschi, we took our leave with promises that I would hear as soon as anything was discovered. Satisfied that searchers were looking high and low for the mad priest, I could only hope that word would come from some source before too long.

  The soft light of evening clung to the city as we emerged onto the surface once again. David insisted on seeing me home and I accepted gratefully. The attacks on the villa and my residence had heightened my sense of danger. I took some comfort from the knife in its leather sheath tucked under my gown but I was also glad of his company, and Benjamin’s as well, of course.

  At that hour, most citizens of Rome were hurrying to finish their business and retire for the night. Shopkeepers were closing up, lowering large wooden shutters down over windows that fronted onto the street. Light shone in the windows above where families would be gathering soon for supper. The last retainers of the mighty were making their way back to their masters’ pa
lazzos, their horses’ hooves clattering over the cobblestones. The pushcart men were trundling off accompanied by the squeak of wooden wheels. Pigeons sought their roosts while the gulls bold enough to venture inland from the port of Ostia made one last circle of the sky before departing for open water. In another hour or so, after darkness descended, the denizens of the night would begin to emerge—the pimps and whores, cudgel men and tricksters, the purveyors of opium for those who could afford it and wine that had scant acquaintance with a grape for those who could not. All those and more would claim the night city for their own. So, too, would come the rats, which I particularly abhorred.

  At the corner of my street, I bade farewell to my companions but not before I said, “We will find Morozzi, one way or another. I am certain of it.”

  David mustered a smile but it faded quickly. He put an arm around Benjamin’s shoulder, a simple gesture of protection and comfort such as I knew he would offer, if only he could, to all the children threatened by fanatics like Morozzi and Savonarola but equally at risk from the della Roveres of this world who blindly assume that whatever is good for them serves the greater good. Beside them, Borgia seemed almost benign.

  “Let it be soon,” he said.

  I watched them go before turning into my street. Portia was still at her post. She raised an eyebrow at sight of me.

  “Think you’re smart to get him riled up, do you?”

  I pretended not to understand her but she was having none of that. “How you expect to keep such a man when you’re off doing who-knows-what is beyond me.”

  Did I expect to keep Cesare? The question took me by surprise. We had known each other for so long and had fallen into being lovers so readily that I gave scant thought to what lay ahead. Unlike silly girls who sigh over le canzoni di amore, I had no interest in such things. How could one such as I when love is difficult enough, not to say impossible, for normal people to achieve?

  But there was another reason why I gave no thought to what future I might have with Cesare. I gave little thought to any sort of future at all. My plans extended no further than the day, hopefully soon, when I would kill Morozzi. Of what came after that, if anything, I had no notion.

  On that thought, I climbed the steps to my rooms and opened the door to find the son of Jove glaring at me.

  15

  Cesare stood with his hands on his hips and an unholy look in his eyes.

  “You haven’t harmed it, have you? Tell me you haven’t. There’s no need for that. I like children, I have two that I know of and I take good care of them as well as their mothers. You shouldn’t think that I would do otherwise with you. On the contrary, I—”

  By which I gleaned that Renaldo had offered up the feckless explanation for my absence that I had so impulsively suggested and that Cesare, hearing of it, had leaped to entirely the wrong conclusion.

  Even so, I confess to being touched. Exasperated, to be sure, but also moved in a way I could not quite grasp.

  “There is no child.” I entered and closed the door behind me. “And no, I don’t mean now; there never was. I told Renaldo to tell your father what I did so that His Holiness wouldn’t fuss about my being away for a few hours. It never occurred to me that you would hear and be concerned.”

  “You’re not pregnant?” He managed to look both relieved and chagrined at the same time.

  “I take precautions.”

  “That is against God’s will.”

  “For Heaven’s sake, Cesare, do you hear yourself?”

  I was too weary to debate the matter, thinking only of a bath, something to eat, and bed. But I had not counted on my dark lover. Whether it was the thought of progeny or some other impulse that had stirred him to thoughtfulness, he had filled my private chamber with roses and caused a table covered in white linen to appear laden with what he knew to be my favorite delicacies.

  What could I do but throw off my weariness and give myself to the fleeting moment? We dined after a fashion as Cesare insisted on feeding me choice tidbits rather than allow me to feed myself. After a bit more of a hearty Umbrian red than sense dictated, I did the same until his insistence on licking every crumb from my fingertips before sucking each clean proved too distracting.

  You may find it unlikely that one born to so great a life of privilege would be determined to make more of himself, but Cesare was a great believer in the ability, not to say the duty of a man to forge his own destiny. To that end, he had examined his nature and concluded that while there was much to be admired, he was lacking in one particular virtue:

  Patience.

  His choice to cultivate it in passion’s bower may seem unorthodox but it worked—too damn well.

  “Enough!” I cried at last. For emphasis, I dug my fingers into his broad shoulders.

  He raised his head from between my thighs and grinned wolfishly. “Just a little more.”

  Teetering on the precipice, held there by his too-talented tongue and his uncanny knowledge of my body? A puppet pulled this way and that at his pleasure. I didn’t think so.

  My hips bucked, trying to throw him off. Never mind my shortcomings as a horsewoman. If I could get him on his back, he would be well and thoroughly mounted before he could draw breath. “I’ll do the same to you if you don’t—”

  “Don’t what, Francesca?”

  That easily, he slid up the length of my body and into me. My gasp turned to a groan as I tightened around him. Whatever fancy I had entertained of tormenting him in turn vanished as quickly as it had come.

  “Now,” I urged, and clasped him fiercely.

  “Restraint is its own reward,” he murmured, but that did not stop him from moving just as I longed for him to, so smooth and sleek, devilishly good for all that he was still in some respects a boy. A strange consortium of sensation overcame me: pleasure, of course, shattering in its intensity but hard on it a wave of tenderness that caused me to wrap my arms around him and hold him close, as though I might shelter him from all the perils beyond our private world.

  It was a foolish notion to be sure for Cesare himself represented just such peril to any foolish enough to cross swords with him. Yet in the aftermath of release that left my bones limp, I cradled him and smoothed the dampened curls from the pale nape of his neck, that hidden place where the sun scarcely ever reached and he remained spotless as a babe.

  * * *

  Some time later—pale dawn was edging up over the roofs of the buildings I could see out the open windows of my chamber—I stirred in Cesare’s arms. He muttered something I could not make out and turned over, dragging the covers with him. I extricated myself and sat up. My body was pleasantly quiescent but my mind, that was another matter entirely. It was restless and in need of occupation.

  I saw to my ablutions, fed Minerva, and wandered out to the table where I kept my apparatus, including an array of glassware I used in my experiments and the hourglass by which I timed them. Nearby were the shelves holding my books, some of recent vintage but many handwritten manuscripts passed down to me by my late father.

  My mind, ever restless, turned toward the matter of how to kill della Rovere. The task remained a tantalizing puzzle. As Vittoro had suggested, an assassin with no thought to his—or her—survival could kill anyone. But since that did not describe me except in the matter of Morozzi, I had to find another way.

  How to penetrate the layers of security around the Cardinal formed by his guards and his own poisoner? How to assure that he ate, drank, or touched something that would prove fatal? How to do all that without directly pointing the finger of guilt at Borgia and thereby undoing any good that might come from the Cardinal’s demise? Or, of concern only to my own conscience, unnecessarily endangering others?

  I confess, it was a problem to which I could find no ready solution. All the tried and true methods of poisoning rely on some degree of proximity to the victim, some opportunity to slip a lethal powder or potion past the most vigilant protection. But, on the other hand, poisoning is use
d to instill fear and ultimately obedience. Generally, whoever has ordered the victim dispatched wants to be known or at least suspected, if only to reap those rewards.

  Not so in this case. Borgia could not afford to give the French king any cause for war. If della Rovere died, His Holiness had to be able to decry the tragic loss of a respected prelate, admittedly with whom he had disputes but who, in the spirit of Christian charity, was mourned all the same.

  How then might it be done? Any poisoner worthy of the name can spot tainted food or drink. Contact poison is more difficult to discern but with due care it, too, can be discovered. What could I possibly slip into della Rovere’s household undetected with reasonable expectation that it would reach him before it killed someone else, thereby alerting him to the danger?

  Only one answer seemed possible. I had to find a poison that did not work at once. One that required an accumulation of exposure to have its effect. Arsenic would do for that except that it would take far too long. I had to find another way.

  I was attempting to do so when a sound from the door to the salon caused me to turn. Cesare stood there, as he had arisen from bed, naked and in the usual state of arousal that came on him in the mornings.

  “What are you thinking about?” he asked, idly scratching his chest.

  “You, of course,” I replied, and went to him.

  An hour later, he was off to attend on his father. I stayed behind to collect myself, which mainly involved having a bath while I considered what needed to be done next. A walk always being useful in clearing the head, I set out and shortly found myself in the Campo dei Fiori near Rocco’s shop.

  Lest you think ill of me for going from my lover’s embrace to the man I might have married, let me remind you that the fate of men and nations hung in the balance. Besides, I had never claimed to be other than contrary when it comes to affairs of the heart.