by Sara Poole
“I have business to attend to myself.” Without offering any hint of what that might be, Cesare added, “If I’m free before you are, your portatore—Portia, that’s her name, isn’t it?—will let me in.”
I was quite certain that she would, nor could I really blame her. But to assure that he didn’t have the upper hand entirely, I said, “Just take care not to touch anything unless you’re certain that it’s safe, all right?”
We were at the bottom of the stairs by then and about to part. Cesare could not resist having the last word.
“I’ll bring supper. We both know you can’t cook.” He strode off, leaving me hard-pressed not to laugh again, this time at the unexpected domesticity cropping up between us, absurd yet somehow pleasing.
* * *
My mood sobered as I worked my way through the piles of supplies that had arrived while I was occupied hunting Morozzi. Mercifully, since the attack on Lucrezia, Borgia had decreed that all wedding gifts and other items meant for her use would be sequestered until such time as I could examine them with greatest care. Given the sheer quantity involved, I had to wonder if the marriage would still be in effect before I was done.
By the time I finished, I was tired, sticky, and regretting—just a little—my excesses with Cesare. Being laid across a desk and thoroughly … is there a polite term for what we did? Never mind. I told myself that the twinges I felt were merely a reminder that I was alive.
Slipping through an archway next to the kitchens, I passed through a short tunnel before coming out into the Piazza San Pietro. By then it was mid-afternoon. The day had turned even sultrier, the air hanging wet and limp. Most anyone with an ounce of sense had taken shelter out of the sun, as I intended to do myself.
Even so, the square was crowded with pilgrims moving like schools of gap-mouthed fish. Several, seemingly attached to each other at the hips, walked into a ruddy-faced priest who clearly did not relish being out and about in the heat. He dropped his ledgers and emitted a stream of invective that appeared to impress them mightily.
I dodged around the priest and his new admirers while avoiding a pile of manure fresh enough to still be steaming. I had it in my mind to pay Nando a visit, and perhaps enjoy a goblet of Donna Felicia’s excellent homemade cider, when I stopped suddenly. Up ahead, no more than fifty or so feet in front of me, a tall, slender friar in a hooded robe emerged from a side door of the basilica. Something in the set of his shoulders … the way he moved … his haste despite the heat and the general languor of the hour caught my attention.
A group of visitors from the Low Countries in their distinctive peaked hats and tasseled capes stepped into my path. I went right, then left, then right again before I was able to evade them. By the time I had done so, the monk had vanished. Telling myself that I was jumping at shadows, I was continuing on toward the barracks when I caught sight of the same man near the main gate leading out from the Vatican. The distance separating us was greater by then, being easily a hundred feet or more, but when he turned his head in my direction, there was no mistaking the gleam of golden hair beneath the hood of his habit.
My breath left me in a rush. For a horrible moment, I froze, uncertain of what to do. If Morozzi really had penetrated the precincts of the Vatican, I could not let him escape. But what if he was not alone? His accomplices among Il Frateschi could be nearby, going about his bidding unrecognized. I had promised Rocco that I would keep Nando safe. Where was the boy?
I looked around frantically, hoping to spot Vittoro or one of his lieutenants but although more guards than usual were present throughout the square, they were all common soldiers unlikely to understand my concern, much less respond to it. Any time I spent pleading with them would be wasted.
I had two choices—go after the monk myself or find Nando. Before I could decide, a two-wheeled carriage, the roof and sides of sturdy leather unmarred by any insignia, drew to a stop just beyond the gate. Without pause, the monk opened the carriage door and stepped in, shutting it behind him. The vehicle, connected by ox-hide straps to the wheeled chassis, bobbed with his weight. Before it could settle, the driver lashed the pair of horses. The carriage disappeared rapidly in the direction of the Ponte Sisto.
I had no illusions about the clergy’s fondness for luxuries but I knew full well that it was not the custom of monks to ride about in carriages, such comfort being reserved solely for the wealthiest and most powerful, or those who enjoyed their patronage. Any doubt I had as to the identity of the man I had seen vanished.
Gathering up my skirts, I raced for the barracks, heedless of the startled, censorious looks that followed in my wake.
24
I found Vittoro near the stables and gasped out what I had seen. Mercifully, he did not doubt me but instead barked an order that sent a dozen men running hard in the direction the carriage had gone. I nurtured little hope that they would find it. Bent over, my hands on my knees as I struggled to regain my breath, I said, “Tell me Nando is safe.”
I take it as a measure of his intrinsic honesty that rather than offer reassurances he feared might be false, he grasped my arm and, supporting me, moved swiftly in the direction of his residence. I held fast to him, weighed down by dread that threatened to crush me, but sometimes God truly is merciful. Before we reached the tidy house, we caught sight of Nando. He was sitting out in front, his tousled head bent over a flat board holding a sheet of paper. He was busy sketching.
I took my first full breath since glimpsing Morozzi and gathered up the shreds of my composure. With a smile I could only hope looked genuine, I approached the child.
“What is that you are drawing?” I asked.
He glanced up and, seeing me, smiled. Holding up the notebook, he said, “Moses receiving the Commandments. It’s supposed to look like the one in the Chapel but it doesn’t really, does it?”
In fact, it wasn’t a bad copy, especially not considering the extreme youth of the artist. Yet it troubled me all the same.
“When were you in the Chapel?” I asked. It had been in my mind to take him but the opportunity had not presented itself. I doubted that Vittoro would have thought of doing so.
“This morning.” Nando replied. He continued to regard his sketch critically. “The monk took me.”
As though from a great distance, I heard myself ask, “What monk?”
“Papa’s friend. He said we could go again and you could come with us.”
Vittoro and I exchanged a quick glance. I saw that he was as taken aback as I.
With as much calm as I could muster, I asked, “Do you remember the monk’s name?”
The boy shook his head. Belatedly, he seemed to realize that perhaps something was wrong. “But he has golden hair, like an angel.”
I could say that my blood ran cold and that I was filled with dread. But all that is mere words, incapable of conveying the rage that consumed me. Morozzi had come into this place where Nando—and Borgia—were supposed to be safe. He had moved at will and in so doing, left an ummistakable message. He could strike where and when he chose. We were helpless before him.
“How could this happen?” I demanded under my breath lest I alarm the child. My instinct was to blame Vittoro but the misery writ clear on his face made me reconsider. Without doubt, the condottierre was profoundly shocked. There was no mistaking his misery.
“I don’t understand … I have men everywhere—”
“What were they told? To look for a golden-haired priest? They’d be too busy doing that to see anything else.”
It is the way of people to see only what they expect to see. Most everything else in this vast, roiling world passes by uncomprehended. A monk, not a priest, striding with confidence rather than going surreptitiously would be all too unlikely to draw attention.
“Should I not have gone with him?” Nando asked. His voice was very small and filled with remorse. “He said he was Papa’s friend and he knew your name, too, Donna Francesca.” He ducked his head, staring at the ground.
“I thought it was all right.”
Of course he had. No doubt Rocco had warned his son never to go with a stranger, but how to prevent a child from trusting one who seems to be a friend, and moreover a figure of authority?
“It’s not your fault,” I said, trying as best I could to soothe him. A sudden thought occurred to me. “Do you think you could draw his face?”
Nando nodded eagerly. “Yes, of course.” At once, he chose a fresh page in the notebook and went to work. Very quickly, a recognizable portrait of Morozzi began to take shape.
“I will make sure the drawing is shown to all my men,” Vittoro said after we had watched for several minutes. “They will be warned that this devil may come in any disguise.” He hesitated. “Donna Francesca, I don’t know how to tell you how sorry I am. The boy is here on my pledge to keep him safe. If Morozzi had—” The man who was both father and grandfather paled.
What need I had felt for recrimination left me as abruptly as it had come. “You are not alone. I, too, have underestimated him.”
Vittoro glanced around, then gestured to me. We walked a little way from Nando to a place where no one could overhear us.
“I thank you for your forebearance,” the captain said. “Forgive me but under the circumstances, I have no choice but to raise another matter. Will you tell me how you stand with our master?”
“I seem to be forgiven, if only for the moment.”
“I am glad to hear it. His Holiness is hard-pressed on all sides. He needs his friends close to him.”
“He trusts no one outside la famiglia.” I spoke without rancor, confident that Vittoro understood that truth as well as I did.
“His trust may be misplaced.”
I looked at him sharply, wondering how he possibly could have learned of Cesare’s deception. But it was not of him that the captain spoke.
“When Senor Juan is drunk, as he often is, his tongue rattles around in his mouth like dice in the hand of a man compelled to risk all even when he knows he cannot win.”
“What are you saying?”
“He hates and fears his brother, believing as he does that Cesare will go to any lengths to take for himself the life that Borgia intends for Juan. Further, he is convinced that you and Cesare are in league against him.”
I shook my head in dismay at my own failure to see the danger Juan could pose. Our few encounters should have given me ample warning.
“You don’t think he would do something foolish, do you? Not now of all times?”
“I have no idea what he might do. I am only saying that he is increasingly agitated and bears watching.”
“Does Borgia know?” Surely, a few of His Holiness’s “eyes” could be dispatched to shadow the errant son?
“If he does, he seems unprepared to admit it. Juan frequents certain taverns in Trastevere. Last night, before all the trouble started, he was heard declaiming that his father is in thrall to a witch. There can be no doubt who he means.”
“He called me that—a witch?” It seemed to be the fashion. Morozzi had called me the same.
Vittoro nodded. “Strega. He said that you will burn.”
My throat clenched so tightly that I could not breathe. I looked away, hoping that Vittoro would not see the depth of my fear. It raged through me, a fire unto itself that could not be quenched.
I gasped, dragged in air, and forced myself to remember who—and what—I was. “He is a fool.”
“Fools are dangerous.” Vittoro paused, looked at me, and said, “He must be stopped.”
“I cannot kill Borgia’s son.” The very idea was outrageous. Vittoro had to know that. He had to realize that were I to lift a hand against Juan, Borgia would lop it off, then remove the rest of me at his leisure. Mine would not be an easy death.
“I am not suggesting that you kill him.”
Then what was the purpose of him telling me—? Too quickly, I realized what he intended. I could confide my troubles to my lover and let him deal with them. And why not? Cesare truly did want the life Borgia planned for Juan, and if anyone had a chance of surviving Il Papa’s wrath, it was the son he wanted to follow him onto Peter’s Throne.
“Why are you telling me this now?”
Ever practical, Vittoro replied, “Because you had to survive Borgia first. Now you have to find a way to survive the next threat.”
“And the next and the next and the next. There will never be an end.” I was only just beginning to understand that; it terrified me but it also filled me with more sadness than I could bear.
Vittoro sighed, as though called upon to instruct a pupil who had not quite grasped the lesson, yet who still showed promise.
“That is the nature of the lives we have chosen.”
“I did not choose! It was not my choice that my father be murdered. Nor my choice that I should be the only person concerned with finding justice for him.”
I was outraged that Vittoro should think otherwise. Surely any person who knew me understood that I had no choice in what I did?
“We all make choices, Francesca. You are no different from anyone else in that regard. If you truly think otherwise, you are deluding yourself.”
I could not remember Vittoro ever speaking to me so directly or so harshly. He seemed intent on sparing me nothing. For a moment, I could think only to walk away before I said something irreparable. The look on my old friend’s face stopped me.
“You think the danger is that great, that you must strip away my pretenses and force me to confront it?”
He looked so uncomfortable that I thought he would not answer, but finally he said, “I had a dream last night.”
Vittoro, that man of straightforward action and no nonsense. The man who believed in nothing he could not see, touch, and kill.
“A dream?”
“A very unpleasant dream. Felicia insisted that I tell you of it.”
“What was its nature?” I was not entirely certain that I wanted to know, the matter of dreams touching too closely on the nightmare lurking always just on the edge of my awareness. In the light of day, I did not wish to think of such things, but under the circumstances, I would be the fool if I ignored whatever it was that troubled Vittoro so.
He looked away, embarrassed.
“I was standing in front of a great pile of faggots set around a stake in a square somewhere I did not recognize. The fire was already lit, smoke rose from it and flames licked deep within. Ravens circled in the sky, cawing to each other. A man—I suppose he was a monk because he wore a habit with a hood pulled down, obscuring his face—held out his arm, pointing. I looked where he was looking and saw you coming out of a church. You were distracted by something in the other direction and were unaware of the danger.”
“What happened next?”
“I tried to call to you but you couldn’t hear me. Then I woke up.”
“That was all, the monk was just pointing?”
“I know it doesn’t sound like very much but the effect—”
He had been terrified for me. That good, brave man had awakened so worried about my welfare that he had confided in his wife and steeled himself to warn me.
“You really are concerned about Juan.”
“My concerns go far beyond him. If Borgia falls—”
He did not have to explain what the consequences of that would be. If Borgia fell, his enemies would not stop until they had destroyed everyone close to him. Vittoro, Felicia, their daughters and grandchildren, all would be lucky to escape with their lives. So would I. It is the way in Rome, where the rise and fall of great men has meant blood in the streets since time immemorial. I had accepted that risk when I entered Borgia’s service, seeking the power I needed to avenge my father’s death. But now Vittoro forced me to consider that although I was without family, I was not without friends, and they, too, would be in danger. Rocco, even little Nando, could be hunted down and put to the sword. As for Sofia and David, and the Jews in general, suffice to say that they might well b
e doomed.
“Borgia will not fall,” I said. “He is the wiliest, most ruthless, and most determined man of our time. Moreover, he has us to help him. It is his enemies who should wake in dread in the night.”
“That is very loyal but—”
“Loyalty has nothing to do with this.” Borgia was a means to an end for me. I fulfilled my duties to him diligently but only for my own purposes.
But Cesare was a different matter; I truly did not want to see him come to harm. That being the case, I could not think of encouraging him to commit fratricide. Juan was a problem beyond my ability to solve. I would have to hope that his father succeeded in negotiating a grand marriage that would send him far from Rome.
Only later, after I had parted from Vittoro with assurances that I would take his warning seriously, did I remember what he had said about my looking in the wrong direction. I turned the notion over in my mind, trying to understand why I could not let it go. Had I truly overlooked some possibility in searching for Morozzi? Was he hiding someplace that I had not thought of? Luigi and his army of portatori had discovered nothing. Alfonso and the smugglers had caught only his trail, not his lair. Similarly, David, Sofia, and Benjamin had found no sign of him, even though he seemed able to move at will throughout the city and even into the precincts of the Vatican itself. Guillaume had not been heard from since sending word of divisions within the Dominicans. Most puzzling yet, even Borgia’s “eyes” seemed blinded.
How could a man render himself invisible in a city where the best of friends spy on each other and gossip runs as lifeblood?
For just a moment, the fear that Morozzi was something other than strictly human stirred in me. I had known that fear before and had successfully defeated it, or so I had thought. Yet there it was again, tormenting me.
That was nonsense. Morozzi was a man, nothing more or less. As Borgia said, he had to eat, sleep, piss, and perhaps even fulfill other needs.
