The Borgia Betrayal: A Novel (12 page)

“Will you ever tell me what haunts you?”

I turned my head away, letting my tears fall onto the pillow at the same time I tightened around him, drawing him deeper. He groaned and closed his eyes, the question and all else forgotten, if only for the moment.

Later, while I lingered in the bed, my breathing slow and regular, my mind mercifully mute, Cesare rose and went into the pantry. He came back with wine, bread, cheese, sausage, and Minerva. This man, who had lived all his life with hosts of retainers waiting to serve his every need but who to the end of that life preferred a simple meal whether in a camp of soldiers or in the bed of a lover, waited upon me.

We ate, feeding each other and sipping from the same goblet, laughing at the kitten’s antics until she fell asleep curled in a white ball at our feet.

“Do you know who did it?” Cesare asked at length. He lay propped up on his side, the palm of his hand cupping his cheek. He looked young, as he was, and disingenuous, as he most certainly was not.

I had been expecting the question. What bound us together all those years was not merely bedsport. Make no mistake, for all his volatile temperament, Cesare possessed rare intelligence. The praise of his tutors who taught him Latin and Greek while he was still a child and his performance at the universities of Perugia and Pisa where he distinguished himself attest to that. I will not claim that the clarity of his mind was chief among his attributes where I was concerned, however it did make all our dealings at once more appealing and more satisfying. When all was said and done, we were allies. Almost to the very end.

“He was wearing della Rovere’s colors,” I said.

He raised a brow, challenging me to draw the obvious conclusion.

“You see your father’s hand?”

“Who wants della Rovere dead more than he?” Cesare challenged. “They’ve been rivals for years but it’s worse now, much worse.”

Indeed, it was, but I was not about to tell Cesare that his father had ordered me to find a way to solve the problem. Let him discover that for himself.

“There’s another, more likely explanation,” I said.

By the time I finished telling Cesare about Morozzi, the languor of our interlude was gone. He was all keen attention and honed instinct, this man Il Papa was determined to make into a desk-bound redskirter.

“Are you certain about this?” he asked.

I nodded. “He was followed to Florence and observed there, then followed on the way here. Apparently, he has allied himself with Savonarola.”

Cursing under his breath, Cesare rose and walked naked from the chamber. He returned moments later carrying his clothes and mine.

“Get up,” he said, tossing the garments to me. “My father must hear of this. He will have questions for you.”

I had some experience in not bringing information to Borgia’s attention in a timely manner and I had no intention of making that mistake again. I threw off the covers, rose, and began quickly to dress.

“I can’t say I’m eager to tell him—” Accepting that the task was necessary did not make me relish it. I had been subject too recently to Borgia’s wrath to want to experience it again so soon.

Pulling on his trousers, Cesare grinned. “Don’t worry, I’ll tell him. He’ll hear it from me and he’ll realize that he needs me at his side.”

My dark lover was relishing the situation, I realized, pleased with the opportunity to be of service to Il Papa on his own terms, as though Borgia might yet be persuaded to let his eldest son have the life he longed for. That would not happen, of course. I knew it, and perhaps in some way so did Cesare. But just then he was still hopeful enough to try.

As I have said, Rome was safer in the early days of Borgia’s reign than it had been for some time. Even so, I would not have ventured out alone after dark if I could possibly avoid it. Cesare had no such hesitation nor did he seem to see the need for any sort of escort. He suffered himself to wait only until I had myself more or less in order, then we were off.

For the sake of his dignity, Cesare ordinarily would not have risked being seen traversing any part of the city on foot. He kept a stable of splendid horses, all lavishly cared for, and never looked more at ease than when he was mounted. But the present circumstances required discretion, hence his willingness to forgo the usual trappings of his rank.

The night air stirred heavily under the weight of a late season sirocco blowing out of the distant desert far across the sea. It brought with it the usual oppressive mugginess that clogs the head while still managing to sting the skin with a thousand tiny pinpricks. Some say that the incessant wind also brings madness borne on the breath of foreign devils but I am skeptical of that.

It being that hour when the last sot has sought his bed and the first peddler has yet to leave his, nothing moved in the streets save the ubiquitous rats, scurrying here and there. I imagine them as the descendants of their kind who saw Augustus and Constantine, who watched civilization rise and fall, and who now see it rise anew for however long the Almighty allows us before we are struck down again. Truly, Fortuna betrays us all in the end.

It was well past midnight when we climbed the steps to the Vatican Palace. A drowsing guard leaned against the entrance with his halberd all but slipping from his grip. He straightened up abruptly when Cesare kicked him in the shanks.

The guard’s expression of righteous outrage turned to horror when he recognized the Pope’s son. Shocked to attention, he muttered, “Sorry, sir, very sorry, didn’t realize it was you.”

With one hand on my elbow, Cesare brushed past the guard and up the wide marble stairs to the papal offices. Even at that hour, several hapless secretaries were loitering, half asleep on their stools, in case Il Papa should require them as the insomniac Pope was known to do even in the depths of night.

Cesare roused one with another well-placed kick. “Where is my father?”

He was not, as we had expected, with La Bella. To the contrary, he was in his office and he was not alone.

The moment I saw the dark head in the seat opposite his desk, my instinct was to leave. I had met Borgia’s second son only a handful of times and had no particular opinion of him save that he lacked his elder brother’s wit. But he and Cesare together in the same room was never a good idea and especially not when matters were already so fraught.

Cesare, however, seemed of a different opinion. He strode into the room with a broad smile and exclaimed, “What an unexpected pleasure! Brother, you are well, I hope?”

The Borgia charm seemed on full display but the appearance was deceptive. Whereas his father was genuinely outgoing, boisterous, and high-spirited, Cesare’s nature took a much more secretive and inward-looking turn. He was inclined to suspicion and the nurturing of grudges, although he did his best to conceal both inclinations. Over the years, he had mastered the trick of reflecting back upon his father what Borgia most wanted him to be—a young version of himself, ultimately his means of cheating death and assuring his own immortality.

But the cost of maintaining this simulacrum was high. I was one of the very few who knew that Cesare was prone to episodes of lethargy and despair during which he lacked even the energy to rise from his bed.

Juan, lately made Duke of Gandia, stood. His tone was cool, if superficially cordial, but he did not have either the good sense or the will to fully conceal his enmity. It shone too clearly in his eyes, all the more so when he glanced at me, only to avert his gaze quickly.

“Well enough, brother. We were just speaking of you.”

I stepped back a pace, unwillingly fascinated to see these sons of Borgia together. They both had their father’s height although Cesare had the better form, even allowing that I was prejudiced in his favor. Chance had graced them equally with the looks of their mother, who it was said had dallied with the young Giulio della Rovere in the days before he became a prince of the church. Their affair supposedly ended when Vannozza came to Borgia’s notice, though some still say that the rivalry between the two men had its origins in her bed.

That lively lady’s sons stood, backs erect, shoulders squared, hands reaching for but not quite touching the hilts of their swords. Had they ever been friends? Perhaps as very young boys; there was little more than a year between them, they naturally would have been drawn to the same games and pastimes. But not for most of their lives, pawns as they were in their father’s great game.

Unhappy, rebellious pawns, I saw, and not just Cesare, for the same tension shimmered in Juan. Having come second since the day of his birth and now tasting what it meant to be first, if only in his rival’s eyes, he would be reluctant to yield the smallest part in the struggle that seemed inevitable between them. Almost I could believe the rumor then circulating in the city that Juan had gone so far as to threaten his brother’s life should Cesare lay claim to any of the honors and benefices that Juan regarded as his right.

Borgia did not appear to see that or, perhaps more correctly, he did not care. They were his sons; they would obey him. To remind them, his voice snapped as a whip cutting through the fragrant night air wafting off the terraces lined with orange and lemon trees.

“Sit down, both of you.” When they had obeyed, however reluctantly, he turned his attention to me. “And you, Francesca, don’t be shy, join us.” As I took the chair he indicated, he demanded, “Have you come as surety for my wayward son’s behavior?”

Before I could reply, Cesare said, “She has come to answer the questions you will have when I tell you what I have discovered.”

A bubble of exasperation rose up in me. It was not that I begrudged Cesare taking credit for what I had learned, or at least not entirely. Rather it was more a case of being weary of the constant jockeying for position that went on all around Borgia. I was guilty of that, too, on occasion, but I liked to think that at least in that regard, I was one of the lesser sinners.

“Remember that priest,” Cesare continued. “Bernando Morozzi, who caused us so much trouble last year? He’s returned to Rome and he’s working for Savonarola.”

Borgia sat back in his gilded chair, steepled his fingers, and regarded his eldest son over them. “Yes, I know.”

I released my breath slowly. Until that moment, I had hesitated to let myself truly believe that Morozzi was in the city. After all the months of chastising myself for staying in Rome rather than pursuing him, he really had come within my grasp. It was almost too much to hope for.

“You know?” Under other circumstances, Cesare’s expression would have been comical. As it was, I was too involved in my own thoughts to feel more than passing sympathy for him at being so deflated.

Not so his brother.

“Of course, he does,” Juan said. He made no attempt to hide his pleasure at Cesare’s chagrin. To the contrary, he clearly relished it. “Our father has the finest spy network in Christendom. How did you imagine that he would not know?”

“Did you?” Cesare demanded of his brother. To give him credit, he rebounded quickly. Perhaps overly so. Although he remained seated, I saw his hand creep again toward the hilt of his sword, his fingers flexing as avidly as he ever touched me.

“Did you?” he repeated.

“Enough,” Borgia said. “I have no patience for this.” He turned to me. “I assume you will want to be involved in stopping him.”

I did not answer at once but only stared at my employer. Thoughts that had swirled in the back of my mind since the attack on Lux came to the fore, gelling suddenly as certain substances will when presented with the right conditions.

“I thought I already was involved,” I said. “The only question is how much?”

Ever choleric, Juan demanded, “What is that supposed to mean?”

I ignored him and addressed Borgia. “How long have you known that Morozzi was back in Rome? Did you, for example, know before an assault took place on a certain villa?”

I was daring greatly by challenging him, but whether it was the late hour, the influence of Cesare’s presence, or my own contrary nature, I was no longer willing to sleepwalk my way across Borgia’s chessboard. He knew what Morozzi was to me.
He knew.
His failure to tell me at once of the mad priest’s return so that I might take matters into my own hands and do what I had to was inexcusable. And led to only one possible conclusion: He had kept silent so that he could use me to his own purposes.

It was not in Borgia’s nature to offer explanations for his actions. That he did so now suggested that he knew how deeply he had offended me.

“Given that Morozzi blames you for thwarting his effort to defeat me last year, you were the most obvious way to draw him out. I used you as bait to lure him to the villa in the hope that he would be captured or killed. It was never my intent that you come to harm. Why would it be? We both know that I have need of your services now more than ever.”

That being self-evident, I could hardly dispute it. There was a great deal more I would have liked to ask—how he had known that I would be at the villa; how he had gotten word of my presence there to Morozzi? But I judged that I had gone as far as was prudent for the moment.

“You have not asked me about the second attack on you,” he said.

Nor had I had any intention of doing so. The attack on the villa had been bad enough but the circumstances there—the warning provided by the dogs and the availability of the escape tunnel—gave reasonable assurance that I would have every opportunity to elude Morozzi.

The second attack was a far different and more serious matter. But for the dark turn of my own nature, it could well have ended with my death. If I truly thought for a moment that Borgia would countenance that—

“There is no need to ask you of it, Holiness. The assassin was wearing Cardinal della Rovere’s colors.”

“And that persuades you that he was responsible?” He looked amused by the notion that I could be so naïve.

“It persuades me that Morozzi is attempting to drive a wedge between us. Your conflict with della Rovere is hardly a secret. No doubt the priest thought that I would blame you.”