The Borgia Betrayal: A Novel (35 page)

“Nonsense! She is beautiful, sweet, pure, kind, she sings like an angel and she will set you on the path to make your fortune. Of course you want to marry her! Admit it!”

He looked down at his feet, then up again at me. “She is not entirely objectionable.”

Do not be misled by so seemingly tepid an endorsement, for surely I was not. Rocco did not act but for looking first, and again, that lesson having been hard-earned in his youth. If he could consider marriage to Carlotta d’Agnelli at all, he knew himself willing to bed her, keep faith with her, and build a life with her.

Well, then.

“I have said what I came to.” I turned to go with as much dignity as I could muster.

He reached out to stop me but I jerked away and kept going, out through the shop, into the street, and quickly along it, around the corner and beyond, intent on losing myself in the anonymous crowd. Behind me, Rocco shouted my name, but perhaps it was only the wind, which, after several days of calm, had begun to blow hard again.

By the time I had retraced my steps and regained my apartment, the last of my strength was gone. I fell the last few feet down the chimney and emerged from it on my hands and knees. I crawled out of the fireplace but got no distance at all before I bumped into a sturdy pair of legs topped by a startled frown.

“I was wondering when you’d be back,” Portia said. “I’ve been rattling around here for hours, talking to myself so those idiots outside wouldn’t think anything was amiss.” She held out a hand to help me up.

I blew out soot, wiped my nose on my sleeve, and said, “Thank you. I’m sorry to put you to such trouble.”

That was as close as I could come to apologizing in advance for the burden I was about to lay on her. If my plan worked, it would be Portia who found my body. Her reaction, not to say her absolute belief that I was dead, was crucial. To that end, I could not breathe a word to her of what I intended.

“No need to apologize, Donna,” she said cheerfully. “You’re far and away the most diverting tenant I’ve ever had. I got the food you wanted. Are you hungry?”

I was starving, and since I wasn’t entirely clear on when—or if— I might enjoy another meal, I agreed readily when Portia announced that she would be cooking.

“Come along then,” she said as she headed toward the pantry. “I’ve news as well.”

I followed her willingly. After my encounter with Rocco, not to mention the strain of planning my own death, I preferred company over the solitude of my turbulent thoughts. When Portia directed me to wash my hands before chopping the fennel, I obeyed. Minerva joined us, no doubt in search of some treat. Already, she looked startlingly different from the bedraggled kitten I had adopted. I began to wonder exactly how big she would become, and whether I would see that happen.

Simple domestic tasks have a way of driving off such moroseness. As Portia set purposefully about the business of preparing us a meal, I whittled away at the stack of fennel until there was scarcely anything left of it. My skills with a knife did not extend to vegetables.

“Everyone is talking about you and Cesare,” Portia said as she set water to boil over the small pantry stove. To it she added thin strips of dough made from durum wheat and a little water. There are some who claim that this dish was introduced to Italy by the revered Marco Polo, but that is nonsense. Whatever he saw in faraway China merely reminded him of what he had already enjoyed in his homeland. Some say we always knew how to make such delectable and versatile noodles; others say that we acquired the skill from the Arabs when they invaded Sicily. Whatever the source, it is good, filling food that, in the hands of a Portia, can transcend all expectation.

“The general opinion,” she added, “is that you have had a lovers’ quarrel.”

“For God’s sake.”

“I’m only reporting what I hear. You know how people love to gossip.”

“Love to invent things out of whole cloth, you mean. People should tend to their own affairs and leave mine alone.”

As they surely would the moment human beings ceased to be human and became angels.

A little olive oil, a handful of sardines from the Adriatic, whose cool waters produce the most flavorful fish, all tossed with what was left of the fennel, and we were ready to eat. Portia even produced a fragrant white wine from Umbria redolent of just a hint of honey.

My stomach growled.

Lest you think me entirely unfeeling to be so moved by base needs at such a time, let me say only that my appetite—for food, at least—was always capricious, seemingly vanishing on a whim only to reappear without warning like a wolf emerging from a winter cave.

As we ate, Portia regaled me with tales of the hapless men-at-arms assigned to guard me. They appeared trapped between terror at what Cesare would do to them if they failed in their duty and excruciating boredom made all the worse by the antics of the neighborhood children, who, with each passing hour in which nothing of interest occurred, became bolder, darting out from around corners to taunt the guards before disappearing again.

“I could almost feel sorry for them,” Portia said. “They’re in full armor in this heat and they don’t know who to be more frightened of, you or Cesare.”

“Me, definitely,” I said, leaning back to pat my stomach. My plate was empty but Portia had kept my glass full. The bleak sorrow that had dogged my heels all the way back from Rocco’s still lurked, but at sufficient distance for me to pretend to ignore it.

“You should become a chef,” I said. “Borgia would hire you. I’d make him.”

“I wouldn’t work for that man if he offered me a job on bended knee,” Portia scoffed. She hadn’t stinted on the wine either. “He’s a lech, you know, and that’s hardly the worst of it.”

“You don’t have to tell me about Borgia. I’m the one who’s supposed to keep him alive.”

“That can’t be easy. Does he get up every morning intent on making yet more enemies? The French, most of the princes of the Church, the Spanish if he doesn’t do what they want, the Sforzas if he does. Tell me again, why was he elected?”

“It was the will of God.”

We both fell to giggling. You will conclude that I was drunk and you will not be far wrong. In my own defense, I will say only that I am far from the only woman—let us not even attempt to count the men—who has found relief from death’s shadow in the arms of kindly Bacchus.

“The real question is why Borgia hasn’t sent his own men to release you,” Portia said. “What could Cesare have told him to make him accept your absence?”

“If I had to guess, I’d say he told Borgia I’m being used as bait to lure out an enemy.”

“You seem to have more than your fair share,” Portia observed.

I shrugged. “On the other hand, perhaps Il Papa thinks that being forced to work together has caused us to fall out. Perhaps that is even what he wanted to happen.”

“You aren’t making sense. Why would he want that?”

I waved the hand that held the goblet in airy explanation. “He has a dark side, our pope. You might not think it to look at him but it’s there all right. It whispers that Cesare and I are in league against him.”

Portia looked shocked but not surprised. The higher a man climbs in this world, the more keenly he feels the wind. Even so, such things are not to be spoken of, and she knew it.

“I’ll tidy up, Donna. You need to rest.”

Perhaps so, but what I wanted was more wine and company to hold my thoughts at bay.

“It’s scarcely evening. I can’t possibly sleep at such an hour.”

“Then just lie down,” she said, and led me, like a fractious child, to my bed, where she lingered until my boy’s garb lay discarded on the floor and I was tucked between cool linen sheets with Minerva on watch beside me.

Despite my protests, sleep was about to claim me when I grasped Portia’s hand.

“I’m so sorry. Forgive me.”

Her broad face creased in a frown. “For what, Donna? What have you done?”

If I tried to answer her, I have no memory of it. Whether because of the wine, the food, or being tucked into bed like the child I had never been, I slept heavily, and mercifully without dreams, waking only to the calls of the street sweepers and night soil collectors that came with the dawn.

Two days passed. Portia came regularly to take Minerva to the garden, to bring me food, and to keep me company. If she thought at all of my drunken attempt at apology, she did not mention it. I suspected that Luigi had told her to keep an eye on me but I was also confident that he would not have breathed a word to her of what I planned. My guilt regarding her remained even as we chatted, cooked together, and played cards.

Portia brought a set of
carte de trionfi
that she claimed was copied from a deck made for the Sforzas themselves by a great seer. The family into which Lucrezia was about to marry were notorious card-players and never stinted when it came to providing themselves with the best. They were also rumored to seek glimpses of the future in the arcane deck but I cannot say whether this was true or not.

Portia and I played a simple version of the game, acquiring and discarding cards in search of the most profitable combinations. She was better at it than I, or luckier. Hand after hand, I was left with the infelicitous pairing of Jove and Mars, father and son, the two ever vying for power across the cosmos. Worse yet, brother Mercury kept appearing, that clever god so skilled at placating Jove and thwarting the ambitions of his sibling, Mars. Had I been so inclined, I might have imagined that the cards carried a portent of events well beyond a simple game. As it was, I was merely glad of the diversion, for the hours weighed heavily as I waited for Sofia to do what was necessary.

29

At mid-morning on the third day of my incarceration, Portia was off tending to her other duties when a clamor erupted below. Bored and anxious, desperate for diversion, I opened my door in time to see Sofia bustling up the stairs with a red-faced guard hard on her heels.

“Your pardon, Donna,” he called after her. “I meant no discourtesy—”

“You cannot recognize your own master’s seal,” she said without a backward glance, “or be bothered to read his orders until they are thrust under your nose. Who would expect otherwise?”

Before he could reply, she reached the top of the stairs. Her gaze went straight up and down me before she nodded.

“You’ve been eating at least, that’s good. I shudder to think what will happen if I report back to Signore Cesare that you lack for care.”

“She does not,” the guard protested. “The
portatore
comes several times a day bringing the finest food, wine, everything imaginable. The greatest attention has been given to—” He broke off, looking at me fearfully. Clearly, it was not prudent to refer to me as
strega,
but what else fit? “—to the prisoner’s care.”

“Prisoner!” Sofia exclaimed. She shook her head in disgust. “So much for your master’s claim that he only seeks to protect Donna Francesca. How long does he think such a lie will be believed with you spouting off the truth at every opportunity?”

The guard’s face turned redder yet and his eyes began to bulge. I watched, well diverted, until Sofia caught my arm and drew me inside, slamming the door behind us.

When we were alone, she let go of me and heaved a sigh. “That man’s an idiot.”

She tossed the paper she carried on a nearby table. Out of curiosity, I picked it up and scanned it quickly. The document directed that one Sofia Montefiore, Jewess, be allowed admittance into my presence and further be permitted to converse with me privately. But careful examination showed that the paper had been bleached to erase an earlier message, faint traces of which could be seen underneath. As for the seal and signature, so far as I could tell they were Cesare’s.

“What did it used to say?” I asked, holding the paper up to the light. Anxious though I was for the waiting to end, Sofia’s arrival had taken me by surprise. I needed a little time to rein in my nerves and get my thoughts in order.

“Something about authorizing Luigi to transfer funds from one bank to another. No matter, it served well enough. How are you really?”

I set the paper aside and produced a smile. “Without complaint other than being bored to distraction. You?”

“I’ve scarcely slept, what for arguing with David while trying to determine how to see you safely through this. We have racked our brains seeking an alternative.”

“And have you found one?” It was not an idle question. Even then, I would have considered any other option save what I believed to be necessary.

“No,” she admitted. She held her hands clutched at her waist, the knuckles white. “There is something more that you should know. In the last few days, rumors have been spreading that are clearly intended to discredit Cardinal della Rovere. People are saying that his lust for power is so vast that he does not care if the French make war from one end of this land to the other so long as he is pope in the end. David believes that Il Frateschi is encouraging such talk in anticipation of the papacy becoming vacant very soon.”

“You mean in anticipation of Borgia’s death?”

Sofia nodded. “Every sign points to the attack against the Pope being imminent. Della Rovere has badly miscalculated the matter. When he does try to claim the papacy, the mob will erupt in fury and come out into the streets to stop him.”

Roman mobs had a great history of rioting upon the death of popes, including looting the properties of anyone thought to be a candidate for the papacy, as a flagrant reminder that the collective will of the people could not be trampled upon. In such uncertain times, it was entirely possible that the outraged citizenry would place the College of Cardinals under such threat that no member of it would dare to stand against it.

“If worse is possible,” she added, “there are also rumors that the Spanish envoy de Haro has instructions from Their Most Catholic Majesties that, in the event of Borgia’s death, their support is to be given to the Hound of God and not to any friend of the French.”

Which suggested that Ferdinand and Isabella had at least some inkling of what Savonarola planned. Truly, we lived within a nest of vipers with the only wonder being that they did not swallow themselves whole.