by Sara Poole
“Once he’s ill,” Borgia said, “the Cardinal may stop eating.”
“He may,” I agreed, “but I believe that there will be so many fine cuts as to make it impossible for his body to heal. Additionally, physicians know well that injury to the lower bowel brings on sickness very swiftly, even if they do not know why. That is what will actually kill him.”
Borgia thought for a few moments. He examined the salt again, as well as the diamond. Finally, he said, “This is the best you’ve been able to come up with?”
“Given the difficulties involved in getting past della Rovere’s poisoner, it is.”
“Yet you’ve hesitated to bring this to me. Why?”
“I only just recently—”
“You were fully prepared with everything to hand. Clearly, you’ve had ample time to think this through.”
He had me there. Not for a moment did I consider revealing to him that I had been concerned about killing anyone in addition to della Rovere. Far less that I had hesitation about killing the Cardinal himself.
“It is expensive,” I said.
“How expensive?”
“Extraordinarily, given the quantity of diamond I believe will be required. Indeed, I think it is fair to say that there has never been a poison as expensive as this.”
Borgia sighed. He ran a hand over his jowls and looked at me. “You are asking me to decide how much della Rovere’s death is really worth to me.”
“That is what it amounts to.” I gathered up the salt and, with greater care, the diamond powder. When I had returned both and the lens to my pocket, I said, “Perhaps you would like to consider the matter?”
“Perhaps I had better. Does anyone else know about this?”
“Not so far as I am aware. That is why I asked to speak with you privately.”
“You didn’t read about it in one of those books your father left or hear about it from him?”
I shook my head. “So far as I know, I am the first to think of it. Of course, that may not be true. The ancients had great knowledge of poison, much of it now lost to us. At any rate—”
“Have you figured out how to protect against it?”
I understood his concern. Though I might well be the first poisoner—at least of my own day—to realize how diamond powder could be used, that did not mean that I would be the last. While the price would be prohibitive for almost everyone, all that was needed was one ambitious prelate—or monarch—willing to kill at literally any cost.
“I have discovered that while salt dissolves in water, pulverized diamond does not. I do not know why this is but I think it has something to do with the hardness of diamond that remains unchanged even when it is finely ground.”
“And it won’t occur to della Rovere’s poisoner to test it in that way?”
“Salt is notoriously hard to poison, at least until now. Without knowledge of this method, there would be no reason to examine it with such care.”
He seemed satisfied by that but not enough to come to any decision or to dismiss me. I remained standing where I was while Borgia appeared to sink into deep reflection. Finally, just as I was wondering if I should slip away, he roused himself to notice me again.
“You don’t think I should do it, do you?”
“I have carried out your instructions—”
“And presented me with a ruinously expensive method that might or might not work. Hardly encouragement to get the deed done.”
“I’m sorry if my efforts do not meet your expectations, but—”
“It isn’t that,” he said, brushing aside my concern. “What you’ve come up with is ingenious. As I said, you have a gift for finding fresh solutions. No, you’re not the problem.”
I was glad to hear it. So, too, was I relieved that he did not rush to order della Rovere’s death. The price might be deterring him but I hoped there were other considerations as well.
“You know about the Spanish envoy who is coming?” Borgia asked.
“There are rumors.”
“I’m sure there are. Have you talked to your Jewish friends? I’m assuming they still have decent enough sources in Spain. Do they understand the predicament I face?”
“You need the support of Their Most Catholic Majesties to prevent war between France and Naples, a war della Rovere hopes to use to depose you. But the price for their help seems to be going up.”
“Novi Orbis is no longer enough,” Borgia said with palpable disgust. “Now they want the Sforza alliance broken and, for good measure, the Jews expelled. They would leave me stripped of allies and beholden to Spain for everything. But worse yet, they don’t think. How is it possible for people to have so much power yet be so stupid?”
I did not presume that he really wanted my opinion but a response seemed called for all the same. “In what way are they failing to think, Holiness?”
“About the Jews, of course! They go on and on about the need to expel them but do they ever ask themselves what purpose the Jews serve? Yet the answer is obvious. Whenever something goes wrong who do ordinary people blame? The Jews. At the first sign of plague, crop failure, drought, anything at all, it’s the fault of the Jews. But what if there weren’t any Jews? What if they were gone? Who do you think would be blamed then?”
“I don’t know, Holiness.”
“Holy Mother Church, that’s who, for failing to prevent the ills of the world. How long then do you think people would obey our laws, tithe to us, bequeath us their property for their souls’ sake? The whole business would come crashing down in the blink of an eye.”
He sighed deeply and fell back in his chair. “If the Jews didn’t exist, we would have to invent them.”
I will admit I had never considered what he was saying but it did possess a certain logic. Since the conclusion of the reconquista of Iberia the previous year by Ferdinand and Isabella, there weren’t enough Moors in Europe to take the blame for everything that went wrong. As for witches, really, how many of them can you burn before ordinary people finally object to their wives, daughters, sisters, mothers, aunts, and the like meeting such a grisly fate?
No doubt Sofia and David would be interested to hear Borgia’s views on why the Jews were necessary. I would have to remember to tell them when next we met. For the moment, my sense was that I would be wise to stay close to His Holiness. In his present mood, he bore careful watching.
I worked through the remainder of the day within the Vatican Palace and went home with a purloined leg of lamb, part of the perquisites—big and small—of serving His Holiness. This I entrusted into Portia’s capable hands. Cesare still being off on his father’s business, she and I enjoyed it together in her rooms accompanied by fresh asparagus and a nice claret. Minerva had a share of the lamb and seemed to enjoy it.
I slept better than usual and might have gone on doing so for some hours after dawn had not I been awakened at the first hint of light by a banging on my door.
Wrapped in a robe, I stumbled out to find half a dozen condottierri, the leader of whom held out a large leather pouch. Placing it in my hands, he said, “With the compliments of His Holiness.”
The condottierri left, marching down the stairs loudly enough to rouse any other tenants still trying to sleep. Portia emerged in their wake, blinking sleepily. I called down the stairs that everything was fine and withdrew back into my rooms.
Having taken the pouch over to my worktable, I opened it and peered inside. In the faint light of the new day, I beheld a seeming infinity of stars that burned with cold, inhuman light. Borgia, it seemed, had made up his mind.
17
The Spanish envoy, Don Diego Lopez de Haro, arrived with due pomp, bearing flowery declarations of Their Most Catholic Majesties’ filial obedience to the Supreme Pontiff. Negotiations commenced; at once the rumors began to fly. His Holiness was exhibiting coolness toward de Haro. He had cut short one of their scheduled meetings and missed another entirely. His Holiness was becoming irate. He had suggested that de Haro’s
lineage was insufficiently noble for so significant a mission. He had taken to interrupting de Haro and seemed disinclined to let him speak. He had raised his voice … he had shouted … he had broken a blood vessel in his eye shouting … he had hurled a vase of inestimable value at de Haro and thrown the man out of his office. De Haro had said that he would not return without proper regard for his safety.
Some of this was true, some was not. (The vase incident was exaggerated; it was a goblet.) In the end, it wouldn’t really matter how angry Borgia was; he would have to strike the best deal that he could and let the rest go.
In the interest of giving him wider options, I occupied myself in turning the king’s ransom worth of diamonds into finely pulverized powder, still valuable to be sure but worth only a fraction of what they would have commanded while whole.
Before I began, I will confess to considering what else I might do with the gems. They were sufficient to buy a life of luxury anywhere, as well as the force necessary to protect it. I could flee to Constantinople, where the Ottomans seemed set on establishing a great center of learning. How welcoming they would be to a woman I could not say but wealth always smooths the way. Or I could make for Paris, disguise myself as a boy, and penetrate the university there. And then there was Bruges or Basel, both centers of light in our world of darkness. With due care, I could escape Borgia’s vengeance and make a good life for myself as that rarest of creatures, an unmarried woman of independent means.
I might have given more serious thought to such a course had I not been tethered to the life I already had. Aside from the matter of vengeance for my father, never far from my heart, I would also have to leave people for whom I truly cared and who might face Borgia’s retribution in my stead—Rocco, Sofia, David, and others. Under no circumstances could I allow that to happen.
With His Holiness’s grip on my life in mind, I took firm hold of the steel-tipped hammer bought from a blacksmith in the Via dei Fabbri, where the forges burn all day and night and the air rings with the clang of metal on metal. I inhaled deeply and, before I could think too much of what I was about to do, struck a blow against the leather pouch laid on my worktable. I really had no idea what to expect but I reasoned that if the gem cutters of Bruges so renowned for their craft could score facets into diamonds using a fine steel wedge carefully tapped, the stones had to be susceptible to dividing. The hammer was a brute-force method, but unlike a master cutter, I was not looking for precision. Crushed would do well enough.
I worked at the task for several days, going slowly and checking often to make sure that the results could not be detected when mixed with the finely milled salt I kept nearby for comparison. In between bouts of hammering, I secured the diamonds in the secret compartment of the puzzle chest that I had from my father. The chest itself was an ingenious mechanism designed to keep a false bottom in place. To free it, the right sequence of steps had to be carried out on the four outer sides of the chest itself, a procedure that involved sliding separate sections of wood in different directions until at last the hidden lock was released. Only then would the bottom tilt slightly, revealing itself. One misstep and the lock would reset.
I had put the diamonds away and was preparing to leave for the Vatican when I remembered that Minerva was overdue for a visit outside. When I went in search of her, she was not to be found. Well aware that cats take frosty pleasure in watching humans scramble about on their behalf, I refused to worry but made a show of departing anyway. Before I could do so, she emerged—I’m not entirely certain from where; like every building in Rome, mine had its secrets—appearing in the center of the salon, where she sat washing herself with admirable unconcern.
We returned from the garden to find Benjamin waiting for me. He bopped up and down and launched at once into his purpose in coming with great urgency.
“Donna Francesca, Padrone Alfonso wants you to know that the man you seek may have been seen in a tunnel under Trastevere in the early hours of this morning. It’s not certain but based on the description you gave, it sounds as though it could have been him. Il re asks what you want him to do?”
My heart beat a little faster as I strove to remain calm. After all my efforts, this was the first real indication I had received of where Morozzi might be hiding. I set Minerva down in the salon as I strove to gather my thoughts.
There really was very little to think about.
“Tell him to meet me in Trastevere just after sunset, at the fountain in front of Santa Maria.”
“You’re going into the tunnels?”
“I must. Tell him also to make sure his people know how dangerous this man is. They should do nothing to draw his attention to them.”
“I will go with you,” Benjamin said stoutly.
I grimaced and gave him a little shove out the door. The thought of another child coming within Morozzi’s reach— “Don’t think for a moment to do any such thing. Sofia would have my head, and that’s only if she got to it before David did.”
“Even so—”
I bent down—though not very far, for he had grown inches in recent months—took him by the shoulders, and spoke earnestly.
“Benjamin, hear me, I know that you have a great deal of experience on the streets and that you can take care of yourself in most situations. But Morozzi is … different. He has something inside him, a kind of darkness that makes him extremely dangerous.”
“How do you know that?”
What could I say? That I understood Morozzi in a way others could not because we were alike to some degree? The mere thought of that filled me with such horror that I was hard-pressed not to scream out in denial of it.
“I just know. You have to promise me that you will be with Sofia tonight or somewhere else safe. Otherwise, I won’t be able to concentrate. I’ll be distracted worrying about you and who knows what that could lead to.”
“I don’t want you to come to any harm,” he said with sincerity that touched my heart.
“Good, then promise me you will do as I ask.”
He needed a moment to think it over but finally Benjamin nodded. “I promise, but you have to promise, too, not to take any crazy risks.”
I tried a look of bafflement but he was having none of it.
“I know some of what happened last year,” he said. “You’re lucky to still be alive. You have to be more careful.”
More affected by his concern than I cared to admit, I assured him that I would take every precaution. As usual in such circumstances, I was lying.
When Benjamin was gone, I delayed my own departure long enough to make the necessary preparations for the night to come. That done, I walked briskly toward the Vatican, being sure to keep my wits about me and maintain a sharp eye for any sign of trouble. Along the way, I noticed more condottierri than usual in the streets. Despite the gathering warmth of the day, they wore full armor and the plumed helmets of the papal household. I wondered if the show of power wasn’t Borgia’s way of sending a message to a populace too well amused of late at his expense. Of the graffiti, I saw no sign at all, although I did notice that quite a few walls appeared freshly scrubbed.
The sun was bright, the day all but cloudless. The incessant wind that had plagued us of late had died away, if only temporarily. In its place was a light, fresh breeze that smelled of the distant mountains to the north where the ice we Romans love to eat flavored with lavender and rose petals has its birth.
I was crossing the Piazza San Pietro—noting as I did that the crowd appeared sparser than usual and the guards more numerous—when I saw Rocco coming from the direction of the barracks. He had not yet seen me and for just a moment, I was tempted to dart into the kitchens until he had passed. But although my vices are manifold, cowardice is not among them. I stood my ground and found a smile. Glimpsing me, his brow knit together and in the moment before he spoke, I sensed that the reluctance I felt was not mine alone.
“How is Nando?” I asked after we had exchanged stilted greetings. I assumed Rocc
o had come to visit his son and in that I was correct. Nonetheless, his reply surprised me.
“He is … happy.” A rueful grin forced its way past his guarded manner. “Donna Felicia is the soul of kindness. She pampers him unabashedly, as do her daughters. I swear he has been more cosseted, more admired, and generally made more of in these few days than I have managed to do since he was placed in my arms.”
Having had the benefit of a loving father myself, I knew full well that Rocco was a devoted parent—caring, patient, and wise. No child could have asked for more.
But when I said as much, he passed a hand through his hair in which buried gold glinted and replied, “I don’t know whether I am or not but I do know what I am not—and cannot be. A mother.”
It was then I noticed that his eyes, usually so clear and candid, were focused somewhere over my shoulder. He was not looking at me directly.
“Francesca—”
Did I know? Did some secret sense warn me that the ground was about to shift beneath my feet and assumptions I had made unknowingly come tumbling down? I have wondered that from time to time but have never really found an answer.
Suffice to say that I was not prepared when, having fortified himself with a deep breath, Rocco said, “I have been wanting to tell you … that is, I think you should know … there was a reason why I wasn’t at the meeting at the villa.”
That had been more than three weeks ago and a great deal had happened since. I had long since ceased to wonder at his absence; indeed, I had never given it more than passing notice. Such was my trust in Rocco that I assumed he had a sound reason for his not being there.
But Sofia had asked after it, hadn’t she? She had wondered, even if I had failed to do so.
“I had planned to attend,” Rocco said. Something fascinating must have been going on in the direction of the stables because he was still looking toward them and not at me. “I’d arranged for Nando to stay with Donna Maria at the bakery. But at the last minute, a visitor turned up.”
