by Kate Quinn
“A sodomite escorting a whore,” I mused. “Not such an unusual pairing, really. I have always suspected sodomites and whores find each other restful company.”
“I am not a whore anymore, Leonello. Or hadn’t you heard?”
Another roar went through the crowd as we reached the fringes of it. I looked back and saw the flames climbing hungrily over Fra Savonarola’s robes, stretching greedy fingers toward his dangling head as the kindling under his feet spread into a nest of flames. Giulia did not look, merely drew her honey-colored cloak closer about her as though she found the bright spring day chilly. The guards beat a path for her through the outskirts of the crowd, toward the Ponte Sant’Angelo, and I followed.
“Why did you come to the execution?” Automatically I fell into my old spot: to her side and just slightly behind, the place where I could best keep an eye for attackers. “You don’t like such things.”
“Perhaps I have changed since you left me, Leonello.”
“I don’t believe so.”
“I felt—” She hesitated. “Guilty.”
I laughed. “Of all the sins on your shoulders, I doubt you can count Fra Savonarola among them!”
“He denounced the Pope and his family and his church as a nest of vipers. It was not true once, perhaps, but it is true enough now. Fra Savonarola speaks truth, and for that—” She twisted her head, looking back at the commotion around the pyre. The flames were rising high and bright now, visible even from here, sending a plume of black smoke into the air just as white smoke had been sent up when Rodrigo Borgia was elected Pope. Giulia crossed herself.
“If you hate this nest of vipers so much, why stay?” I couldn’t help asking. “You were always singing the beauties of country life, and now you have Carbognano. Green hills, simple pastimes, and a handsome young husband to enjoy them all with. Eden before the fall; not a viper in sight. Why not go back to it?”
“Lucrezia has requested that I stay for her wedding.” Giulia fiddled with a tie on her sleeve. “His Holiness would be just as happy to see the back of me now, but he won’t deny Lucrezia anything. So, I’ve been ordered to remain in Rome.”
“Why should that stop you? You’ve gone journeying before without the Holy Father’s permission.”
“Orsino wishes to stay too, for the moment.”
I laughed. “Surely you can maneuver that weedy, chinless sprout wherever you want him to go!”
“My husband has become very stubborn.” Her voice was careful, expressionless. “I must pick my battles these days, and I’m doing my best to discourage him from the notion of sending Laura to be fostered in France for a French marriage.”
I thought of sunny little Laura being brought up in the stiff formality of the French court and kicked a loose stone out of my way.
“I think I may win on that front,” Giulia went on. “I’ve quarreled very badly with the Holy Father, so he isn’t so keen on giving Laura a dowry anymore. I don’t see any French comte making an offer for her now.” A faint smile. “And no son of Adriana da Mila will want to put up the coin for that kind of dowry, either. But Orsino is still hoping some grand match will present itself.”
“What has any of that to do with not leaving Rome?” I still didn’t like the thought of Laura being raised to speak French. That sweet, laughing child who had clung to my stubby fingers as she took her first steps . . .
“The Holy Father has made it clear he can’t stand the sight of me—and Orsino likes that. He takes me to a great many parties now, so all the other men can watch the Pope snub me, and envy Orsino instead of pitying him as the cuckold.” Exasperation colored Giulia’s voice. “Though really, I don’t think that particular plan is going as well as Orsino hoped. He can introduce me all he likes as the Rose of Carbognano—I ask you!—but no one will ever think of me as anything but the Bride of Christ. Men don’t honor him for having me for a wife; they just despise him for reclaiming soiled goods. They tell him he should have thrown me out like the whore I am, and then usually they come around and try to seduce me. Men!”
“Your husband is a fool,” I said.
“And he is my husband, so of course I obey his wishes in all things.” Giulia’s voice went flat again. “We’re to stay at least until Lucrezia’s wedding. I pass my days sewing with Lucrezia, new gowns for her bridal chest. She chatters away like nothing ever happened, mostly about her new husband-to-be. Apparently he’s young and handsome.”
“Ah, yes, Alfonso of Aragon. I wonder if he’ll last any longer than Lord Sforza.”
“Poor man.” Maybe Giulia meant Giovanni Sforza, or Alfonso of Aragon, but she was looking at me. “Why did you come to see Fra Savonarola’s execution, Leonello? You don’t have any reason to hate him.”
I studied my former mistress. She had not guarded her skin in Carbognano; she’d come back to Rome with a faint golden tang to her face and bosom. Most ladies would never have gone out in public without covering themselves in white powder for the proper fashionable paleness, but she didn’t bother, setting her golden skin off instead with a pale gold gown just a shade darker. She looked like one of her favorite golden roses, and now of course all the ladies of Rome would be leaving off their sun hats, hoping to look so ripe and beautiful. I remembered Savonarola’s Angels attacking her for no other reason than that. They’d taken Botticelli’s incipient portrait of her, they’d tried to take her hair, they’d even taken a kiss in all the struggling. I remembered the black pang of jealousy that had stabbed me when my mistress kissed that lout, even if it was only to push him over backward. No, I did not like Savonarola’s Angels or the master they served. Perhaps that mad Dominican spoke truth of the Pope but his was an ugly truth, and I found him an ugly little man.
Perhaps it takes one such man to know another.
Giulia was still waiting for my answer.
“I came today because I like watching people die,” I said at last. “Didn’t you know that, madonna?”
“No. You don’t like it at all.”
“Well, I still do a great deal of it. Juan Borgia, Pantisilea—”
“Was that you?” Giulia’s voice rose, and I saw grief flash through her eyes. “They pulled her body out of the river, and I thought—”
“No, she was Michelotto’s. I don’t like killing women, so when it came to parceling out the victims, I picked Perotto and he picked her.”
“My poor Pantisilea . . .” Giulia’s voice trailed away; she crossed herself and I saw tears in her eyes.
I still saw her face in my dreams, poor silly girl, but I couldn’t say that. “She didn’t suffer,” I said instead, and kicked another stone out of my way. “I’ll say that for Michelotto; no one suffers when he kills them. Better than me; I botched Perotto. He ran straight for the Pope as soon as he saw me coming. Am I perhaps getting a reputation?”
“Is it a reputation you deserve?”
“I am a killer, Giulia.” I said it brutally. “I am small and amusing and you like me for that. But I am not your jester, or your bodyguard, or your poet.”
“You are a man who understands Virgil and translates Homer and can hold a child spellbound with a story for hours,” Giulia replied. “A man who once told me he dreamed of having enough time someday to translate the Odyssey into Italian, and study the verses of the Provençal troubadours.”
“Spare me your sentimentality,” I said. “My skills lie elsewhere. I am a killer of men, and now I do the work I am so good at.”
“Spare me your brooding dramatics,” Giulia shot back, and gestured to my knives. “There is much more to you than this!”
“Cesare Borgia knew what I was the moment he laid eyes on me.”
“Cesare Borgia is empty inside.” Giulia held my eyes in hers. “You are not.”
“I tortured Juan Borgia and I enjoyed every instant of it.” I spat the words at her, venomous and soft so the guards would not hear. “I staked Lord Sforza’s hand to the letters of impotence until he signed them, and I enjoyed that too.
Cesare Borgia told me to kill Perotto, and I never hesitated. I saw Michelotto sink a knife into your Pantisilea, a silly bawd of a girl who never did anyone any harm, and I didn’t lift a finger to stop him.” I swirled a hand about my face. “Do you see me now? Or will you bleat more idiotic questions at me?”
“Just one. Did you kill Carmelina too?”
The silence stretched.
“I didn’t think so,” said Giulia. “Tell me why.”
I wound my hands through my belt.
“You didn’t kill her because you like her. You always have. So when you got your orders, you saved her instead.” I heard hope in Giulia’s voice. “That makes me very glad, Leonello. For her sake, and for yours.”
“Don’t be sentimental.” I began walking again, walking fast, but Giulia kept pace with me as we crossed the center of the Ponte Sant’Angelo. The guards tramped ahead, oblivious. “I didn’t kill her, but she might as well be dead. I walled her up in that convent, and I assure you she would rather be dead.”
“But you spared her life! Would Michelotto have done that? Or Cesare—”
An explosion rocked the city behind us. My hand dropped to my dagger, even though I knew what it was, and Giulia spun.
“The flames must have reached the gunpowder on the pyre.” I let go of my dagger hilt, but my heart was still racing, and not just from the explosion. “They always salt the brushwood with gunpowder, just to give the crowd a bang. Though most people will still hang about for a few hours, making bets on how long it will take the good friar’s arms and legs to roast and fall off.”
“You never used to be callous.”
“And I believe we have established that you do not know me as well as you think.”
“But you know me.” She hesitated. “Leonello—am I in danger?”
“From me?” My stomach twisted despite myself. “Didn’t I say I dislike killing women?”
“And you said Michelotto doesn’t mind.” She shuddered. “Will he come for me, or for Laura?”
“Why would he? The Pope is done with you. It’s that haughty bitch Caterina Gonzaga he’s mounting now, and a stable of others besides. You don’t matter.”
Giulia brushed my barbs aside. “I angered him. When I saw Perotto die, I—” Her steps speeded, outracing the memory. “I just wanted Rodrigo away from Laura. I wanted all of them away from her, especially with all that talk about sending her somewhere far away—” A deep breath. “So I said Laura was Orsino’s daughter. I threw it in the Pope’s face and taunted him with it, as soon as we were alone.”
Apparently it wasn’t quite gone, my old habit of fearing for her safety. Maybe it never would be. “How could you be so reckless?” I demanded, and my heart kicked in my chest.
“I had no choice, Leonello! He wouldn’t listen any other way, not to anything I said—it was lie to his face, or lose Laura.”
She sounded very certain, but I was used to reading her expressions. “If you had no choice, then what troubles you? Why do you think you are in danger?”
“Rodrigo looked so furious.” Very quietly. “Like he could throttle me on the spot. Many times he’s lost his temper and shouted at me, but—” She gave a little shudder. “I’ve only seen him look like that once before. When he had that poor man at the menagerie masquerade hanged, just for calling Juan a bastard.” She crossed herself. “I took one look at his face and fled the room.”
I had another half-dozen barbs at my lips, but I didn’t loose any of them.
“What will he do to me, Leonello?” Her eyes met mine square. “I never thought in all the world that he’d hurt me or Laura; not ever. He’s no monster to wreak vengeance on a woman and a child, even if they offended him—”
“You aren’t the only one he might decide to hurt,” I pointed out. “What about your spineless little husband? You threw it in the Pope’s face that your husband bedded you, after all, stole you back and fathered a child on you—”
“Orsino is Adriana’s son and Adriana is Rodrigo’s own cousin and ally. He’s family, and we all know what Rodrigo thinks about family.” A bitter twist at that. “But I’m not family, and I’ve made it plain Laura isn’t either. So will Michelotto come in the dark for one of us?”
I hesitated.
“Go ahead, Leonello,” she said tiredly. “Tell me I was a fool to say such things to Rodrigo. Tell me I was reckless. Cut me up and down with that tongue of yours; I won’t complain. Just tell me the truth.”
“Truth?” I said, and shrugged. “The truth is that the Pope loves you. He may never hold you in his arms again, but part of him will love you till he dies. So no, he would not harm you or Laura. Men don’t think that way, Madonna Giulia. Women and children are not fitting objects for vengeance. The Holy Father may find some way to punish you, but it will not come at the end of Michelotto’s knife. Not in your heart, at least, or Laura’s.”
I saw the relief well in her eyes at once. Stupid woman, why would she place so much trust in anything I said? I was a killer of men, a stunted little monster with a dark soul and a list of crimes longer than my twisted body. She knew that, so why did she have such faith in my judgment?
“Stay for Lucrezia’s wedding if you must,” I said. “But after that, persuade your stupid, stubborn husband to take you away from Rome as soon as possible. Just get away.”
She reached down and smoothed a lock of hair off my forehead. I recoiled as though she’d burned me, making a snap of my teeth at her fingers.
She snatched her hand back. “Leonello—”
“Don’t touch vipers,” I said. “We bite.”
I turned and left her at the end of the Ponte Sant’Angelo, standing under the crow-picked bones.
Giulia
I was very late returning to Vittorio Capece’s palazzo, so late I knew my host would return home before I did. Doubtless Orsino would be displeased with me for being so tardy; there was a masquerade he wished to attend tonight with me on his arm in one of my extravagant new gowns to be paraded and admired. But I felt too worn and shaky to go back just yet, so I went to the nearest church after Leonello left me. Holy Virgin knows how long I spent there on my knees, praying to Santo Giuliano the Hospitaller, who was patron saint of repentant murderers. I didn’t know if he was patron saint of the unrepentant ones too, and it seemed like something worth begging for on my knees.
Leonello had looked so tired under all his bitter, spitting scorn. Exhausted and drained, as though his dreams were all black and his waking hours blacker, and any hopes he had of the future blackest of all.
I was so late returning, I thought I must have missed cena altogether. Hopefully Orsino and Vittorio hadn’t quarreled over the dishes of spiced pears and wild duck. Without my bright chatter for a cushion, my husband could be a trifle uneasy in the presence of a rumored sodomite, and Vittorio could get a shade sarcastic with a houseguest of whom he had every right to be tired. I’d have been tired of us too. Orsino didn’t see any reason why we should move ourselves elsewhere—“Doubtless he’s honored to play host to visitors of our connections, my little rose.” I’d whispered my private apologies to Vittorio for the length of our stay, and he’d patted my arm and said, “Bless you, m’dear, I’d be delighted to have you stay with me forever.” Don’t think I hadn’t heard the faint emphasis on you.
Holy Virgin, why couldn’t we just go home? Why did Orsino have to grow stubborn now, of all times?
But for once, I didn’t dare press him. Even if the French match had blown away on the wind, well, Orsino would still be perfectly within his rights to send Laura for fostering elsewhere, “for her education.” Somewhere she couldn’t return too often to disturb his peace of mind with thoughts of the past. No, I had to keep my husband charmed and bedazzled and far too besotted to think of upsetting me by sending my daughter away. If he wanted to parade me on his arm tonight for everyone to admire, sparkling and beautiful and all his, then so be it.
I was trying to muster some sparkle when I came back to t
he palazzo, but everyone was in an uproar. I saw a cluster of maids sobbing in one corner of the long sala, and rough-shod workmen clumped up the stairs with tools in hand. “What—” I began, and Laura’s nursemaid hurled herself wailing into my arms.
“Oh, Madonna Giulia!”
“What is it?” An icy finger of dread began wandering down my spine. “What’s happened?”
She was sobbing too hard to answer. I looked over her heaving shoulder and saw Vittorio Capece running toward me, white as rice.
“Giulia, my dear,” he said, and his words stumbled over each other. None of his usual elegant drawl. “I don’t know how it happened. It was while we were all gone at the execution. Half the servants slipped out too to see—some strange man begged entrance, one of the maids said. Some excuse about visiting your Orsino, but Jesu knows the palazzo was half empty, he could have wandered about anywhere, he could have had something to do with it—”
“What man? Who?”
“—because I swear to you, the ceilings have always been perfectly sound!”
“What’s happened?”
“The ceiling came down.” There were tears in his eyes. “Only part of it, the arch over the doorway to your sala, but—Giulia, be brave.”
I was already running up the stairs, screaming my daughter’s name.
Carmelina
Your cousin is here to see you,” Suora Teresa came to tell me, and I thought I was dead for certain. My skin crawled and for a moment I thought it was Marco waiting for me down in the convent parlor, Marco dead and stabbed through half a dozen times, staring at me accusingly in a cook’s apron all stained with red, because he’d never have gone to work for Juan Borgia and thus met his death if I hadn’t taken his post. It wasn’t fair, but ghosts didn’t care for fairness, and ghosts seemed much closer in a convent than they ever seemed in a busy kitchen. Maybe because the sisters all seemed like ghosts from a distance, gliding along the stone halls in their anonymous black and white. Who was to know if the veiled figure preceding me to Mass was really Suora Teresa or Suora Cherubina or Suora Paolina? Maybe it was some long-dead nun who was still tramping off to Mass every day because she didn’t realize she was dead. Within these walls, I couldn’t see much difference between being dead and being alive. Ghosts seemed entirely possible, especially at midnight prayers.
