Poison: A Novel of the Renaissance (35 page)

“Yes?”

Cesare was kneeling beside me, his hands on my shoulders. He shook me urgently. “Francesca, are you all right?”

I blinked once, twice, and saw them both staring at me with grave concern. My throat was very dry. I could scarcely speak and when I did my voice sounded high and thin.

“I am fine.” It was a lie. The nightmares were bad enough. These visions, I suppose they can be called, were an altogether different matter. Everyone has bad dreams from time to time, some more often than others. But to be taken out of this world so utterly, presented with sights, sounds, even smells and tastes from an entirely different reality . . .

Rocco claimed to believe that God had a purpose for me in eradicating the evil that was Innocent. I longed to believe him but
my heart feared otherwise. Among all the souls in this world, why would the Almighty reach down to one so flawed as myself? You will say that His son reached out to the whore Mary Magdalene. But all she did, if the Church is to be believed, was lie with men, whereas I am driven to kill them. Surely, I am the far greater sinner?

“You are not,” Borgia declared. “The strain has been too much. I should have known—”

“Do not!” I stood so quickly that Cesare had to do the same. The sudden motion made me dizzy but I ignored that and plunged on. “Do not say that I am not capable of doing what I must!”

Above all, I could not bear for him to say that there was something gravely wrong with me, some malady that explained the times when I seemed to step outside myself and become another, a creature of heightened senses and perceptions who far from abhorring blood was drawn to it.

Were he to speak so, he would give voice to my deepest and most secret fear that of late had grown stronger in me with each passing day. That I truly was damned not simply by my actions but by the dark nature of my soul, a stain not all the absolution of Holy Mother Church could ever wash away.

Before that fear could seize even greater hold, I took a breath and forced myself to speak calmly.

“There is nothing wrong with me. I am perfectly fine. What is wrong is sitting around like this, talking when Morozzi is out there somewhere preparing to act.”

“We have hundreds of men searching the city,” Cesare pointed out, not unreasonably. “In addition to my father’s army of spies. What do you imagine we can do that they cannot?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But two more sets of eyes and ears
won’t go amiss.” On impulse and because I could think of nowhere else, I said, “We can start at the basilica.”

“Why there?” Borgia asked.

Why indeed? I had wandered Rome in my imagination, trying to divine where Morozzi might strike only to find myself once again kneeling before the altar to Saint Catherine as I had the day the mad priest followed me into Saint Peter’s. The holy woman had received visions of Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory in her communion with our Lord. My visions, if that was what they were, seemed of a far less blessed sort.

“Because Torquemada claimed that the Holy Child of La Guardia was killed on a mountainside,” I reminded him. “If Morozzi seeks to re-create that crime, it is true that he has his choice of hills from the Capitoline to the Palatine and the Aventine, and more. All have great significance to ordinary Romans, but the Vatican itself was built on a hill, and besides, Morozzi is a priest. For him there can be no place of higher importance than Saint Peter’s Rock.”

Cesare looked skeptical. “I’d rather roust Torquemada from his bed and see what we can scare from him.”

“A tempting thought—” Borgia said, but he did not give his approval. Instead, he looked to me.

“You understand there are hundreds of guards all through the Vatican, including in the basilica. How do you imagine Morozzi could get past them?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But he all but vanished in front of my eyes near the altar to Saint Catherine of Siena. Perhaps that would be a good place to start.”

“If he could disappear like that,” Cesare said nervously, “he may be more demon than man.” Instinctively, he made the sign of the cross to ward off evil.

“Take this,” Borgia said and, having stripped off the gold crucifix he wore beneath his shirt, handed it to his son, whose nature he understood full well.

Cesare seized it and dropped it around his own neck. His faith, for all that it strayed wildly from Church dogma, was always far greater than mine, much good that it ever did him.

“Go with her,” Borgia commanded. He stood, his energy renewed. “Do not let her out of your sight. Find Morozzi, take him alive if you can, kill him if you must. But do whatever is necessary to assure that I have no further trouble from him.”

Cesare bent his head once in acknowledgment and in the same motion donned his helmet. With one hand on the crucifix and the other on the hilt of his sword, he went from the room.

I would have followed immediately had not Borgia stopped me. “What did you see, Francesca?” he asked, so softly that for a moment I was not sure he had spoken.

I turned and looked at him with studied innocence that belied the sudden rapid beating of my heart. “When, Eminence?”

“Just now when you were no longer with us. What vision was revealed to you?”

I took a breath and let it out slowly. He was watching me closely. I feared he saw far too much.

“With all respect,” I said lest I appear to be instructing him in what he surely already knew. “Only those who find favor in the eyes of the Lord can hope to see beyond the veil of this world.”

He sat back in his chair, a faint smile playing at the corners of his mouth. Not for a moment did I fool him.

“Is that what you believe?” he asked.

“It is what Holy Mother Church teaches, is it not?”

“And Holy Mother Church is never wrong, is she?”

A moth, drawn by the flickering candles, flitted into the room. It circled a flame, swooping so close I thought its fragile wings must surely be singed.

“You are far better able to answer that than am I, Eminence.”

Softly, he said, “I should be able to, Francesca. I have known you since you were a child, watched you grow up in my household, taken note of your particular talents and, shall we say, your vulnerabilities. Yet in matters concerning you, I confess to a certain confusion.”

“You should not,” I said, startled by the notion that he had observed me so closely. “I am, above all, your faithful servant.”

Before he could reply, I said, “Do something for me, if you will. Send men to the shop of the glassmaker Rocco Moroni in the Via dei Vertrarari. He has had dealings with Morozzi and may have some idea of where he would hide.”

I hoped the predawn visit would not trouble Rocco overly much, but I was confident that he would understand the need for it. If I was wrong about Morozzi’s likely whereabouts, I needed to know that as soon as possible.

“All right,” Borgia said, and looked about to say more. Before he could do so I murmured my thanks and beat a speedy retreat from his office, down the broad steps into the night.

There Cesare waited, pacing impatiently, a splendid animal as eager as I to be loosed upon the hunt.

It is said that Rome was built on seven hills, yet these days only the Capitoline seems a true hill, the other six being much diminished by the draining and building up of the marshlands that once lay between them. But before Christ walked the earth, before there was a Holy Mother Church, there was an eighth hill that the old ones who were here even before the Romans called Vaticum. There, evil spirits dwelled close to the entrance to Hades, the mad Emperor Nero staged chariot races and executions, and the poor buried their dead. One such humble grave received the mortal remains of the martyred Peter the Apostle, companion and disciple of our Lord.

It is said, and I know no reason not to believe it, that as soon as Peter’s body was laid to rest, his followers began to venerate his grave. They kept watch over it, buried their own dead nearby, and did their best to assure that the spot was not disturbed.

Of course, all of this happened centuries ago, and much is lost to us in the turmoil and darkness that followed. But the great Emperor Constantine left records of the church he built a thousand and more years ago to shelter Peter’s grave, modeling it on the old Roman basilicas. It is whispered that to erect the monument to his own greatness as much as to the greatness of his faith, Constantine destroyed many other old Christian tombs, casting the bones of the faithful to the wolves. But it is best not to speak of that.

It is enough to say that from his vision so long ago sprang the great moldering pile of rock that these days threatens to crush us all.

Cesare and I entered through the atrium, past the Navicella mosaic, and continued on into the basilica proper. Despite the late hour, we were not alone in that vast and hallowed space. In addition to the several dozen men-at-arms who had come with us from the palazzo, Vatican guards were everywhere in evidence. Our arrival attracted some attention, but the sight of the Borgia livery discouraged anyone who might have challenged us.

The interior was lit by prayer candles and perpetual lamps burning in front of the altars lining both sides of the wide nave. Even so, it was very dark. Without the help of the torches carried by our guards, I would not have been able to see clearly more than a dozen or so feet in any direction.

“I was kneeling there,” I said, indicating the side altar dedicated to Saint Catherine. “Morozzi appeared there.” I pointed to the rear and left.

“Did you see where he came from?” Cesare asked.

I shook my head. “I believed he followed me from the palazzo, but I did not actually see him until he stood there.”

“How long did you speak with him?”

“Not more than a few minutes. I looked away for a moment. When I looked back, he was gone.”

“Anyone could vanish into these shadows.” He spoke as though he wanted to believe that was what had happened, but his hand kept a firm hold on the cross around his neck.

“It was daylight when we met.” I glanced up at the clerestory windows under the eaves of the gabled roof. At night, they did nothing to relieve the darkness, but during the day, they admitted enough light to make most of the interior visible.

Cesare glanced around uneasily. “Then where could he have gone to?”

“The foundations of the basilica are below us,” I replied, remembering that my father, who had actually seen them, has described a vast maze of structures and debris roofed over when Constantine’s construction began.

“Perhaps he went there,” I added. Although how precisely he could have done so with such speed eluded me, at least for the moment.

“Or perhaps he vanished into the air,” Cesare suggested. “If he truly does the Devil’s bidding, he could possess such power.”

Which would make him all but impossible for us to defeat. I could not accept that any more than I could allow Cesare to be overcome by such dark fears.

“If he is a demon,” I asked reasonably, “how could he enter so holy a place as this? Surely, he would have been struck down the moment he crossed the threshold.”

“Not if he did not touch the holy water,” Cesare said with all seriousness. “As long as he avoided anointing himself, it is possible that he would be safe.”

I had never heard anything of that sort, but then I am no expert on the power of demons. I do, however, possess a modicum of reason and attempted to use it then.

“He is a priest, Cesare. His holy office requires him to perform Mass daily. How could he transform wine and bread into the blood and body of our Lord if he is a demon?”

“No doubt he merely pretends. At any rate, you’re the one who said he vanished almost in front of your eyes. If you have a better explanation, tell me what it is.”

I had none, but spurred by him, I was determined to find an answer that placed Morozzi firmly in the mortal realm, which was to say within our reach. Otherwise, we were defeated before we began.

Gesturing to a guard to follow me, I moved slowly toward the altar to Saint Catherine and knelt before it. Having assumed the exact position I was in when I became aware of Morozzi, I looked over my shoulder in the direction where he had appeared. Without moving my eyes, I stood and walked a few feet forward as I had done before.

Cesare watched me closely. So, too, did the guards, who made no effort to conceal their unease. It is a curious fact that people are often uncomfortable in holy places, especially at night. Whatever they suspect lingers amid the altars, it is nothing they wish to encounter.

“We are wasting time,” Cesare said nervously. “Torquemada—”

I ignored him and reached out my hands toward the air into which Morozzi had vanished. One step . . . another . . . I touched something solid.

“Bring the light,” I said. Deep in the shadows, hidden between pillars, was a small door. It so closely resembled the paneled wall to either side of it as to be almost invisible. But when I put the palm of
my hand against it and pushed lightly, it swung open without a sound. Apparently, the hinges had been kept well-oiled. Just within the door, I spied an iron bracket meant to hold a torch. A striking box sat on a small shelf next to it but the bracket itself was empty.

“So much for Morozzi’s demonic powers,” I said with a smile.

Cesare had the grace to look abashed. “It’s a robing room,” he suggested, speaking of the chambers in which priests don their vestments before conducting Mass.

But I had already glimpsed the steps leading downward and knew it was far more.

Cesare, all credit to him, let loose his grip on the cross and insisted on taking the lead. I followed, along with the guards who lifted their torches high to light the passageway to which we descended.

Cool, damp air struck my face. I took a breath and felt its thickness in my chest. Moisture trickled down the walls lined with ancient bricks. The floor was set with stones slick with lichen. I smelled the wet clay of the hill into which the basilica was built and spared a moment to pray that Constantine truly had emptied the ancient burial grounds.

We went on, the passage slanting downward at a gentle but steady angle until it widened suddenly. By the flickering torchlight I saw arched openings in the walls to either side with spaces beyond that were filled with tumbled debris. There was something familiar about it all that made me pause.