by Kate Quinn
“What, you aren’t maestro di cucina yet, Bartolomeo?”
“I plan to have his post by next year.” Matter-of-factly. “Signore Capece is already a great admirer of my sugar subtleties. ‘Food made art,’ he says. Many thanks again, Madonna Giulia.”
“Don’t thank me, thank Carmelina,” I smiled. “She trained you, after all. I remember her whacking you over the head with a spoon in Capodimonte, when you were mangling her pasta shapes.”
“I’ve not heard from Carmelina lately.” His smile disappeared. “She can’t write often; she says the nuns won’t have letters delivered without a good fat payment. She did say she’d be able to leave when Madonna Lucrezia did . . .”
“I shall see what I can find out about Madonna Lucrezia, then,” I promised. “Surely she won’t be staying at the convent much longer.”
He gave me another bow and a round of thanks. I’d meant to hunt down Carmelina anyway, and lure her away from the Borgia employ to my castello in Carbognano. I’d have to promise her new stoves and new trestle tables and all the spices she wanted, no doubt, but she was worth it. Perhaps this handsome no-longer-apprentice would wish to accompany her . . . Though it would hardly repay poor Vittorio his hospitality if I stole his cook on departure. On the other hand, given Vittorio’s tastes for strapping young men, perhaps it was a good idea at that.
Orsino was still wandering about our new chamber in his dusty doublet, looking a trifle lost among all the luxury, and I devoted myself to fussing over him for a while in the way I knew he liked: unlacing his shirt with my own hands, bathing his temples in lavender water. He put his hands about my waist, and I knew what he wanted so I smiled and cast my eyes down and let him lead me to our borrowed bed. I lay under the rich green satin bedcover, and then I lay under my husband, and he hardly seemed any more substantial than the satin. He was still so hesitant to touch me, so furtive when his fingers stroked my skin or his weight pressed against me—and it pressed against me a great deal, because my husband very badly wanted me pregnant.
His eyes had lit up when I showed him the letter I had first written Rodrigo, saying I could not return to him because I was carrying the child of Orsino Orsini. “You are?” my husband breathed.
“No,” I said, wincing because he looked so crestfallen. “But if I say it, he will not want me,” I placated. “And it will be true soon enough, surely!”
We’d managed to delay bringing Laura to Rome until November—and I know Orsino had been hoping to get me with child in that time. It was not just to make my lie a truth, or even because he wanted a son as all men do. Orsino wanted to parade me about Rome with a swollen belly, so that no man would look lustfully at me anymore.
He moved over me, gasping into my shoulder, and I folded my arms about his neck and murmured sweet bits of nonsense. I knew what pleased him by now: soft arms, loving looks, delicate shivers of pleasure. Nothing too bold, because boldness is for harlots, not good and decent wives. I had not always been a good wife to him, but I was now. He deserved that.
I didn’t know what I deserved. Maybe just to do my duty—it was what I’d been born and reared for, after all.
“Husband,” I scolded softly afterward. “We shall be late.”
The Sala del Pappagallo in the Vatican was clustered with ambassadors, envoys, petitioners, flatterers; lords bearing gifts and lords begging favors. How many papal audiences had I witnessed here? The hall of parrots, named for the once-brightly-colored birds painted about the walls in fading splendor. You’d wonder why parrots on a wall instead of something a trifle more grand: saints or martyrs, or, if one must follow an animal motif, at least pick a grander animal like the splendid Borgia bull. I think whoever painted those parrots must have had himself quite a chuckle, because a cacophony of cardinals all bickering and backstabbing away in that sala could make more noise than any gaggle of birds. And what a great lot of chirping and fluttering went up as Orsino and Laura and I were announced.
I had expected to feel nervous—I had not been so stared at since my arrival in Carbognano, when the villagers looked as though they’d expected their lord’s notorious wife to have demon horns and a forked tongue. But it was Orsino’s arm that trembled, and I gave his elbow a reassuring squeeze as we approached the glittering figure in the sweeping robes. Rodrigo.
I fixed my eyes instead on a parrot on the wall, a faded green parrot with a cross expression, and I had a wild urge to laugh when I remembered the sulky parrot that had once belonged to little Lucrezia, and how I’d privately named it Vannozza.
Orsino’s name was given, but the Holy Father had no glance for him. “Madonna Giulia,” Rodrigo said formally, and gave me his hand. I bent my head to brush my lips against his ring, and his dark eyes crinkled at me in their old way, and my heart squeezed. Because my former lover had changed so much in only five months. There were deep new lines about his mouth and eyes, graved there by Juan’s death, I imagined, and the flesh about his neck hung in loose folds. His hair was entirely gray, and the skin had loosened over the knuckles of the hand he had presented me. But he smiled, and his smile had all its old energy. His fingers gave mine a squeeze and he lowered his voice. “You are looking well, mi perla.”
I could see him looking for the pearl he had given me, but I had looped a silver crucifix about my neck instead, an ornament belonging to Orsino’s grandmother. I had also made a point to dress my hair low and my neckline high, in just the kind of subdued gray satin gown that a virtuous wife should wear. Voluminous gray satin, too, to hide the belly that was supposed to be showing the first signs of Orsino’s child—I’d seen Rodrigo’s eyes flit to my stomach at once. “Your Holiness,” I said, taking my hand away with great firmness, and cast my eyes down.
I felt my husband let out a silent breath. Rodrigo looked at me a moment longer; I could feel his gaze as tangible as a touch, and more whispers went up along the Sala del Pappagallo. But I went on gazing serenely at the floor, and I heard Rodrigo sigh. “The little one,” he said, his gaze moving to Laura. “She has grown.”
I had coached my daughter for this moment, and she advanced with great gravity in her small gray satin gown, which was an exact copy of mine. “Your Holiness,” she piped, and curtsied as though she had never seen him before in her life, had never squealed with delight when he gave her a string of seed pearls for a present, had never looked at him in his horned mask and inquired if he was the Devil. But she smiled at him, and Rodrigo smiled back, and perhaps it was because I’d not seen them together in almost half a year, but I saw it. Holy Virgin help me, but they had the same smile.
Don’t see it, I prayed, and felt a cold shiver run down my back. Don’t see it, Rodrigo. Once I’d wanted nothing more than for him to believe Laura was his daughter in truth, but now . . .
He threw his head back and laughed as Laura continued to look up at him fearlessly. “What a pretty little thing you’re growing up to be, Lauretta mia. You’ll be pretty as your mother in a few years’ time. Come, come—”
And I saw the men craning to look with speculation in their eyes: envoys from Naples and ambassadors from Milan and couriers from Ferrara, sniffing like interested hounds around my daughter as Rodrigo turned her for inspection. I should have known. The Sala del Pappagallo was where the Pope received his ambassadors, the men who brokered brides for their Neapolitan masters or their French masters or their Florentine masters.
“So the little Orsini is a Borgia after all,” I heard the Milanese ambassador say professionally to an envoy from Venice as they looked my daughter over. “Too young to breed for a good ten years, but a betrothal might be worth something in the interim.”
“No firm amount set for the dowry yet, I suppose . . .”
“Lucrezia Borgia will bring the next husband forty thousand ducats. The little Orsini will be worth more, and a virgin . . .”
I saw little Burchard taking his notes as usual. One Borgia daughter for sale; opening bids accepted from Milan, Ferrara, Naples . . .
/> My eyes flew up at Orsino, but he was gazing at the floor, not a glance for Laura. The Pope had not addressed a single word to him, and the tips of his ears had gone scarlet with humiliation. I took my hand from his elbow and bent to recapture Laura as she twirled in her satin dress, laughing now to be the center of all eyes. “If you will pardon me, Your Holiness,” I said evenly. “My daughter is too young for such excitement. She needs her bed.”
“Yes, yes.” Rodrigo looked at me fondly. Remembering, no doubt, the bed we’d shared to create Laura. “We will talk more of her later, Madonna Giulia. Of her future.”
No doubt.
The next petitioner came forward, launching into his prepared speech, and Orsino and I were allowed to press back through the crowds. Laura looked up at me, questioning. “Did I do well?” she said, and I swept her up to my hip and hugged her close, crushing the gray satin dress.
“Yes, Lauretta mia. You did very well.”
“She looks like Lucrezia did at her age.” I heard the cool voice behind me, knowing it at once. “I used to carry her about like that too. Juan called me Nursemaid, but I did not mind.”
“Your Eminence,” I said with another small curtsy. Cesare Borgia, looking as out of place in his red clerical robes as he ever did.
“Giulia Farnese,” he returned, without even a glance for Orsino hovering nervously at my side. “I have missed you.”
“I doubt that, Cesare. You have never even liked me.”
“I like Caterina Gonzaga less. She’s arrogant, and she’s grasping, and since my father is bedding her now instead of you, I see a great deal of her.”
“Caterina Gonzaga?” The wife of the Count of Montevegio, a very pale and very proud beauty indeed who had always made eyes at Rodrigo. I could feel Orsino’s gaze on me. “I hadn’t heard,” I murmured, and cast my eyes down.
“You are surprised?”
“Your father intended so many . . . reforms.” To purify himself, and the church with it. A lifetime’s work, and I’d seen him filled with its terrible, bowed resolve after Juan’s death. A transmutation of sorts: Rodrigo Borgia into Pope Alexander VI.
“What did I tell you?” Cesare gave a lazy shrug. “His fits of reform never last long. He wanted you back within the month, didn’t he? The council he’d appointed to head all these great changes was gone shortly after.”
My heart squeezed again. I’d known my former lover would not find such a transformation easy—I’d received his letters, after all, begging me to come back to his side. But I hadn’t thought—
“Jesu.” Cesare looked almost amused, looking at me. “I’d not thought to see you disappointed.”
“Very.” No transmutation of Rodrigo Borgia after all. Base metal would remain unchanged, not turned to gold. Yes, it disappointed me.
Less noble, perhaps, was the small outraged part of me that thought, Caterina Gonzaga?!
“Your Eminence,” Orsino attempted, pink-faced with chagrin to be ignored yet again, but an authoritative voice overrode him from behind us.
“The Milanese envoy wishes to meet with you, Your Eminence. I’ll wager he can tell you if Lord Sforza is finally ready to sign his wife away.”
I whirled around, hearing that voice. But Laura had looked first, bored with all this adult talk over her head, and I saw her eyes go wide with delight as she saw the small figure in black and cried, “Leo!”
My eyes flew over my former bodyguard. He stood small and proud, holding a place of his own beside blank-faced, stone-eyed Michelotto, who had always given me the shivers. Leonello looked every bit as hard, head thrown back and boots planted, fingers drumming along his dagger hilt as he looked me over with casual eyes. I saw a court lady glance at Michelotto, glance at Leonello, and cross herself with a surreptitious little shiver.
Laura had wriggled down from my arms, running to him with her skirts bunched in her little hands. “Leo, Leo, I can read now, I can read anything, I told you I’d learn!” But he disengaged her without even a glance.
“Back to your mother, little one.” His deep voice was as cool as I remembered—and on his black sleeve, I saw he wore the badge of Cesare Borgia. Just like Michelotto. “I am no fit company for children.”
I was moving toward him, disengaging my hand from Orsino’s arm, but Leonello slid into the crowd and vanished.
Leonello
I am no Latin scholar, but I can tell you one thing about the language of ancient Rome: it does not pair well with weeping. Latin is clipped, masculine, cool. Blubbering and wailing your way through terse Latin cadences, no matter how beautifully worded, is no way to impress anyone with your declamation.
“Try again,” I heard Cesare Borgia say patiently as Lucrezia broke down in her oration with a fresh welter of tears. “Take it up from the next line.”
“Why do I have to bother?” Lucrezia wailed from inside the chamber. When she was unhappy she was piercing, and her voice penetrated clearly through the half-open doors of her chamber to where I leaned against the wall of the stairwell outside. “My husband gave his testimony, he finally signed it before witnesses the way you wanted him to, so why do I—”
“You will confirm his testimony before the court when they hear the petition of annulment.” I could hear the smile in Cesare Borgia’s voice. “My pretty little sister with her lovely accent in Latin—the canonical judges will be moved.”
“I’m too ill to be dragged all the way to the Vatican!” I could see a flash of the Pope’s daughter through the half-open door: all but buried in her bed under a mound of furs and lap cushions, her eyes swollen from crying. She had not even risen to greet her favorite brother when he arrived like a dark arrow shot into the convent and sent all the nuns into a flutter. “Can’t you just read my testimony, Cesare?”
“It will look better coming from the Countess of Pesaro herself.” I heard the bed settle as Cesare put an arm about his sister. They were speaking Catalan, which the family always saved for private moments, but after serving them five years, I had picked up enough of it to understand. “Though you’ll soon be much grander than a mere countess, of course. Did I tell you the Duke of Gravina is sniffing for your hand?”
“He is?” Lucrezia sounded less damp and more interested.
“Ottaviano Riario as well, though he has that Sforza bitch for a mother, and I think we’ve had enough of Sforzas.” Another rattle of paper. “So, try the oration again.”
The sonorous Latin began, punctuated by periodic honks as the little Countess blew her nose, and I wandered away down the stairs. My head throbbed with every step. Perhaps from the wine I’d drunk to forget the recent things that needed forgetting. Perhaps from the memory of the last time I’d descended these steps, at a dead sprint away from Giulia Farnese’s stunned and pitying eyes.
I had not seen what look she had in her eyes when we came face to face in the Sala del Pappagallo. I’d slipped away too swiftly to see, bowed and threaded back into the thickest part of the crowd. Though I’d seen that little Laura had grown taller, in her months in the country sun. By the time the Pope made up his mind on a French husband for her or a Milanese one, she’d probably top me in height.
I found Carmelina not in the kitchens but in the garden, kneeling alone in the barren patch of earth and grubbing at the dirt. I’d have sauntered right past the anonymous figure in the dark nun’s habit, but I heard a mutter of Venetian invective behind me and turned for another look. “Signorina Cuoca,” I greeted her. “Don’t tell me you have renewed your vows?”
“I didn’t have a dress heavy enough for the cold, so—” She gestured at the heavy wool habit, glowering. “How was I supposed to know to pack clothes for winter? I didn’t intend to stay here five weeks, let alone five months!”
The coarse black weave turned her olive skin sallow, and even sitting back on her heels in the hard dirt I could see the hem was too short at her shins. “As a costume I prefer the giraffe ensemble,” I agreed, and sat down on a sawed section of log that was the on
ly seat the garden had to offer. November’s first snow had fallen last night; it showed in dirty gray sprinkles over the packed earth. The sky overhead was like beaten pewter—more snow soon, to be sure.
“What are you doing here, Leonello?” Carmelina uprooted a basil plant with a brisk yank, tossing it roots and all into her basket. “I’d heard Madonna Giulia came back from Carbognano, but you’re not in her pay anymore. Not if I know you.”
She didn’t say why I would no longer be taking Giulia’s coin, and for that I could have kissed her even though her lips were red and chapped from cold. But she probably would have smacked me. “I work for His Eminence Cardinal Borgia now,” I said, indicating my new livery. Much like the old: unadorned black with plenty of hidden sheaths for knives. Though it missed the subtle tailoring that had made Giulia’s livery a work of art, and me in it almost a handsome man.
“You, working for Cesare Borgia?” Carmelina’s straight black brows flew up. “Don’t tell me you’ve finally learned how to juggle.”
“No.” I smiled thinly. “It’s my other skills he finds the occasional use for.”
“Ugh. Don’t tell me.” Carmelina yanked up another basil plant.
“It’s not as often as people think.” Only one task, in fact, since I had been hired. Of course, that one had been quite enough.
“Still, don’t tell me.” A few sad tendrils of tarragon joined the basil. “So is Madonna Lucrezia still weeping upstairs? She’s been weeping for weeks, even when she heard Lord Sforza agreed to have their marriage annulled.”
“She’s dried her tears enough to butcher the verbs on a very nice little Latin speech written by her brother.”
“Don’t tell me how nice it is. She’ll recite it to Pantisilea and me all week until she knows it. We’ll all have it by heart in the end.”
