The Borgia Mistress Read online

  I rose reluctantly. “Yes, of course. I would like that very much. You know I am at the palazzo?”

  That was as close as I could come to asking what she knew of me. Her smile did not falter.

  “I am aware that you serve His Holiness.”

  “I should perhaps tell you—”

  The abbess held up a hand. “Francesca, I did not seek you out in order to judge you. From what I understand, you protect the life of Christ’s Vicar on Earth and do so very ably. That is enough for me to know.”

  I looked away quickly before she could see how nearly her words undid me. Such generosity of spirit was almost unknown in my experience. I was accustomed to being viewed with a mixture of fear and revulsion, if not outright hatred, by all but the very small number of people I could call friends.

  The abbess and I parted a short time later, having made plans to meet again the following morning. As I crossed the square to the palazzo, my thoughts were of my mother and what I had learned of her. For the first time, I allowed myself to wonder what my life would have been like if she had lived. What I would have been like.

  Most probably, I would be married, with children of my own. My experience with normal women was very limited, but I did know a few. Would that other self be like Vittoro’s daughters, all good girls well married and busy presenting him with grandchildren? Would she spend her days keeping house, tending her growing brood, and pleasing her husband, as every proper woman surely lived to do? Without the nightmare to plague her, what would she dream of? What would she think, feel, desire? My imagination faltered. Sadly, I recognized that she was as great a stranger to me as anyone I might pass in the street.

  The rain had lessened, but even so I felt its chill through my wet cloak. As I entered the palazzo, I was thinking of nothing other than a warm fire in my rooms and dry clothes. I almost missed Herrera, who was lounging just inside the entrance, where he had a clear view of the piazza. Had he not spoken, I likely would not have noticed him at all.

  “I am astounded that you dare to enter a church,” he said. “Has it occurred to you that you offend God by doing so?”

  Good sense dictated that I ignore the insult and keep going. But under the circumstances, I had scant patience for the man I remained convinced would better serve us dead.

  “Indeed,” I said. “I live in expectation that the ground will open under me and I will fall through a fiery chasm into Hades. And yet, curiously enough, that has yet to happen.”

  Clearly, the beloved nephew was not accustomed to being addressed in such a manner by one he regarded as an inferior. His face darkened as he straightened away from the wall and glared at me. “You blaspheme.”

  “Do I? No doubt your depravity makes you an expert on the subject.”

  The words were out before I could think better of them, as well I should have. It was not in my nature to provoke anyone. I much preferred the single, deadly blow delivered without warning. Even so, I was surprised by the violence of Herrera’s reaction.

  “How dare you!” His hand shot out, grasping my arm. Abruptly, it occurred to me that I had pushed the vainglorious scion of the Spanish royal family too far. Worse yet, I could not manage to care.

  “Puta maligna!” he exclaimed. “You pollute the bed of a prince of the Church who may well be pope one day. Your malevolence threatens the Throne of Saint Peter itself. The sooner His Holiness realizes the threat you represent and disposes of you, the better!”

  Pain shot through me. My arm was in danger of being wrenched from its socket, but all I really knew was that he was very close; I could feel the heat of his breath and smell his sweat. He had made a serious mistake. Unfortunately, most anyone who could have told him that was already dead.

  A red mist moved before my eyes. The knife I wore in a leather sheath over my heart slipped into my hand with ease. In an instant, the point of it was lodged under the Spaniard’s chin. The darkness within me stirred, a hungry beast rousing itself to feed.

  While I still retained a shred of control, I said, “Consider, if this knife is coated with a contact poison that need only enter through the smallest prick in your skin in order to kill you, shouldn’t you be making yourself more pleasant to me?”

  Herrera began to speak, but the pressure of my knife against his flesh stopped him. Though he did not release me, his grip on my arm loosened. I was distantly aware that all those in the hall were staring at us, some in shock but most with avid curiosity. The Spaniard had not made himself loved. More than a few of our audience looked as though they would not mind seeing him die. Another few moments and they would be taking bets.

  Of course, I knew that I could not kill him. Borgia had forbidden it, and besides, there were witnesses. All the same, my hand tightened on the knife. I let the Spaniard feel the tip of it just a little more.

  There was no contact poison on the blade, not then. True, I had killed the man in the Basilica di Santa Maria a few months before in such a manner. Perhaps Herrera had heard of it. That could explain his pasty complexion and the nerve that leaped to life in his clenched jaw.

  God forgive me, but I was enjoying myself.

  Too soon reality intruded. Our audience faded away in every direction. I sensed a presence behind me and heard the clearing of a throat.

  “Francesca?”

  Without moving the knife, I glanced over my shoulder. Cesare stood with his hands on his hips, regarding me quizzically.

  Herrera mewed. The son of Jove ignored him.

  “Is there a problem?” Cesare asked me courteously.

  I shrugged. “Your friend here called me a malignant whore.” Never mind that he had also tried to break my arm.

  Cesare frowned. “Did he? What an infelicitous choice of words.”

  “I want him to apologize.” Such was my disgust at the Spaniard that I was at least partly serious. Cesare was trying to look stern, but it was a losing battle. He knew as well as I the utter impossibility of what I was insisting on.

  “I want him to apologize, too,” Cesare said. “But there is a problem. Don Miguel is a Spaniard. He is as proud as I am. The odds of him begging your pardon, as I am sure he would really like to do under the present circumstances, are about equal to him flapping his wings and flying to the moon.”

  I made a show of looking behind Herrera’s back. When I failed to find any evidence of wings, I sighed. Considering my point to have been made—and Cesare’s patience to have been strained about as far as it would go—I sheathed my knife.

  Herrera released me, but in the same instant, he raised his arm to strike a blow that at the very least would have thrown me against the nearby stone wall and probably shattered a bone in the bargain. Cesare did not hesitate. He stepped between us, in the process elbowing the Spaniard with enough force to drive the breath out of him. Taking both my hands in his, he looked deeply into my eyes.

  “Allow me to entreat your pardon on my friend’s behalf.”

  A smile tugged at the corners of my mouth. We were, both of us, behaving shamelessly, to my delight.

  “Well, if you insist.”

  “I do, absolutely.” He stepped closer and pressed a kiss into each of my palms, first one, then the other, his mouth lingering on my suddenly heated skin.

  Herrera made a sound of disgust and whirled away. When he was gone, Cesare dropped my hands and took a step back. He stared at me with what looked like real concern.

  “What were you thinking, Francesca? This will be all over Viterbo before sunset and in Rome in time for breakfast. Like it or not, we need Herrera. You provoke him at your own peril … and ours.”

  “I know, and I am sorry. It’s just that—” How to explain what I had done, even to myself? Above all else, I counted on being able to control myself, at least in public. To conceal the darkness that drove me beneath a veneer of professionalism and to go about my daily tasks as though I wasn’t really all that different from ordinary people, merely equipped by chance with a peculiar set of skills. But in t
hat instant when my knife flew from its sheath, I could cheerfully have slit Herrera’s throat and waded in his blood. The realization of how tempted I still was to do that was startling. Was Borgia right? Had it been too long since I had killed?

  “Something happened,” I said. The admission cost me. As a rule, I never admitted to any weakness, even with those I counted as friends.

  Cesare drew me a little aside, down a passage where we would be less observed. His hand on my elbow, he said, “Tell me.”

  “I met a nun … an abbess. She knew my mother.”

  Cesare drew a breath and let it out slowly. Young as he was, he knew me well enough to understand the import of that.

  “I thought your mother died when you were born.” I had told him that and, inevitably given our intimacy, he knew of the nightmare that visited me so often.

  “Mother Benedette and she were friends when they were girls together in Milan. I am meeting her again tomorrow. She has much to tell me.”

  Cesare regarded me closely. He had a complex relationship with his own mother, the redoubtable Vannozza dei Cattanei. Though she had not shared Borgia’s bed in years, His Holiness continued to visit her regularly to enjoy her famed lemon cakes and discuss mutual interests, chief among them the future of their children. Rumor had it that Vannozza had been the first to suggest Juan’s Spanish marriage and that she had raised no opposition when Borgia revealed his intent to make Cesare a cardinal. Despite his mother’s showing no more interest in helping her son achieve his own dreams than did Borgia himself, Cesare remained devoted to her.

  “It is only natural that you want to know about your mother,” he began, “but…”

  I understood his hesitation. Clearly, I could not return from every encounter with the abbess in the mood to pull a knife on Herrera or anyone else. As delicately as he could, Cesare was reminding me of the need to control my darker impulses lest they interfere with my ability to serve his father.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked.

  I lied, fluently and well. And yet, there was a particle of truth in what I said. “Of Capri. I may retire there, assuming that I live long enough.”

  He laughed and drew me closer. “You wish to live among the Sirens, luring the unwary to their deaths?”

  “I wish to have done with death.” Done and done a thousand times over. That, at least, was the truth.

  “Unfortunately,” Cesare said, “we are not free to follow our hearts.”

  Truth again, sour though it was. I leaned my head against his chest; he stroked my hair. We took such comfort from each other as we could and pretended that it was enough.

  10

  Herrera was absent from the hall that night. Rumor had it that he was off sulking with his fellow Spaniards. Cesare had gone with them. Borgia bestowed a chiding glance on me when I appeared, but he said nothing. He was deep in conversation with his prelates, who, tame though they might be, were beginning to show signs of restlessness. I heard della Rovere mentioned, and the French. Of Juan, there was not a word.

  David was gone as well, no doubt keeping an eye on the Spaniards. They are great ones for fools, although I hear that they prefer them to be dwarves. Perhaps I should have sent for Portia. I was wondering if she could still execute a backflip as in her days as one of Rome’s most popular acrobats when Vittoro joined me.

  “What were you thinking?” the captain murmured. Such was the understanding between us that he did not need to say more.

  I flushed and hoped he did not see. “Clearly, not much. I realize it should not have happened.” That was as close as I could come to admitting that my response to Herrera had been ill-advised. Even so, I could not completely regret what I had done. Never would I be anyone’s helpless victim. Far better to die fighting.

  Wryly, Vittoro said, “Perhaps you meant to impress the Spaniard with your skill so that he would trust you to protect him?”

  I laughed despite myself. “We both know that I am not that clever. I do understand that he is unlikely to let me anywhere near him.”

  Satisfied that I grasped the seriousness of what I had done, Vittoro moved to reassure me. “We’ll find a way around that. Meanwhile, we’re keeping a close eye on everyone arriving in Viterbo. But with the roads flooded to the north, there are many stranded travelers, which is complicating the task. Do you have any more thoughts on who this assassin is or what his plan may be?”

  “Cesare told you about the money?”

  Vittoro nodded. “Ben Eliezer says it comes from Spain, which, of course, makes one think that the assassin does as well.” He hesitated a moment, then added, “I have the greatest respect for David, you know. He is not a man I would ever underestimate.”

  “Nor would I.”

  “I am glad to hear that. He’s lately come to Viterbo, hasn’t he? Indeed, he’s right here in the palazzo.”

  I shot Vittoro a quick glance. “He is. And your point…?”

  “Herrera is the beloved nephew of Their Most Catholic Majesties, who expelled the Jews from Spain.”

  My breath caught even as my mind raced. The Jews had suffered terribly because of the expulsion. They had lost wealth, true enough, but many had also lost their lives, whether through deliberate violence or through the spread of disease engendered by chaos. In my mind, Ferdinand and Isabella had committed a great crime, for which all of Christendom could justly be called to answer. But that had nothing to do with one particular Jew.

  “Vittoro, you can’t think that—”

  He shrugged almost imperceptibly. “A champion of his people could be pardoned for wanting to avenge an act that cost thousands of lives and inflicted terrible suffering on countless more.”

  “But it was David who brought news of the assassin,” I reminded him. “Why would he have done that if—?”

  “To deflect suspicion from himself, perhaps? We both know that His Holiness has a formidable network of spies throughout Europe and beyond. Isn’t it likely that he would have learned of the assassin quickly enough from his own sources?”

  “That is true, but the Jews need Borgia to protect them. Why would they do anything to threaten his papacy?”

  “They wouldn’t, but they would act in such a manner that they believed would strengthen it.”

  I shook my head, unable to comprehend what he was saying. “By destroying his alliance with Spain? The alliance that he must have if he is going to survive?”

  “Survive on his present course,” Vittoro corrected. “But what if instead he was left with no choice but to seek reconciliation with the other great families in Italy and beyond? Wouldn’t that ultimately protect his papacy even more?”

  Actually, it might, but the likelihood of Borgia doing any such thing was remote. For decades he had nurtured the vision of la famiglia supreme above all others in the Church and in the world. By such means, he intended to secure his own immortality. Like the greatest of the Caesars, his name would live forever. Yet he was also a consummate realist who, more than any man I had ever known, looked at the unvarnished truth and did not blink.

  “Compelled to do so by the loss of the Spanish alliance?” I asked.

  Vittoro nodded. “Exactly. Forcing Borgia’s hand in such a way would be risky, perhaps too risky to even consider. I’m not saying that is what is happening. All I’m asking is that you not blind yourself to any possibility.”

  The very idea struck me hard, for David was my friend. But so, too, did the realization that I should have thought of it myself.

  “Does this come from you or from Borgia?” I asked. His Holiness consulted with the captain of his guard as least as often as he did with me. I was not privy to what was said between them, but I knew that as much as Borgia trusted any man, he trusted Vittoro.

  “Neither. It comes from Cesare.”

  I could not conceal my surprise, not that the son of Jove would see the possibility of such treachery, but that he had not told me of it himself. “Why did he leave this to you?”

 
; Vittoro shrugged. “He knows that you count ben Eliezer a friend. Perhaps he thought you would take it better coming from me. Besides, wherever it comes from, it is worth considering. All right?”

  Having assured him that I would keep uppermost in my mind the possibility that the man I had introduced into Borgia’s household was an assassin who threatened all I was sworn to protect, I excused myself. His Holiness could linger as long as he liked at table. I was for a bath and a much-needed dose of Sofia’s powder. If God was merciful, I would sleep without dreams.

  * * *

  Despite the drug, I woke early. For a moment, I lay on my back staring up at the canopy above, wondering what seemed odd. Only gradually did I realize that it was not raining. Indeed, I could just make out a watery ray of sunshine filtering through the shutters. Quickly, I rose and dressed. There being some little time before Mother Benedette and I were to meet again, I thought to find Cesare and ask him directly about his suspicion. But I had scarcely left my rooms when Renaldo intercepted me. The steward was pale and sweating. For a moment, I feared that he was ill, but quickly enough I discovered the cause of his distress.

  Dabbing his brow with a cloth, he whispered, “A laundress has been found dead. Vittoro is with the body now. He thinks you should take a look.”

  We hurried down a narrow stone staircase into the lower level of the palazzo, where the laundries were located close to the interior wells sunk deep into the earth beneath. As we approached, wet, steamy air rose up to envelop us.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Heaven if I know. All I was told was that she was found facedown in one of the rinsing tubs.”

  I had visited the laundries shortly after arriving in Viterbo, finding them a smaller version of those in the papal palace in Rome. Under vast, arched ceilings, women and a few men labored amid boilers kept constantly stoked to provide hot water, bubbling vats of lye, tall wooden wringers, and enormous tubs that held alternately hot soapy water or cool water for rinsing. Nearby, ropes were strung to receive linens and garments belonging to the household staff and the guard. The laundries had not concerned me very much because everything worn or otherwise used by la famiglia was cared for elsewhere by skilled servants devoted solely to that task. Now I had to wonder if I should not have been more watchful.