The Borgia Betrayal: A Novel (41 page)

I stood stiffly and brushed myself off. “Perhaps he suspects that you’re watching. Why don’t you just go in and take him?”

I thought I already knew the answer but I still hoped that Cesare might be persuaded to do it all the same. It was the simplest solution, at least so far as I was concerned.

“In case you haven’t noticed,” Cesare said, “my brother has his own household guard. If I try to enter without his permission, there will be a battle. In the confusion, Morozzi could get away.”

I considered that unlikely, though not impossible given the mad priest’s wiliness. The more probable reason for Cesare’s restraint was his knowledge that his father would blame him if blood was shed at Juan’s expense. Cesare’s goal in all of this was to emerge elevated in his father’s eyes, the son who had proven himself a man of action, capable of defeating a deadly enemy, a true
dux.
He would not risk giving Borgia any excuse for believing that he had acted only to defame his brother.

My goal was simpler; I wanted Morozzi dead.

The previous year, I had thwarted the mad priest, but only barely and only at the last minute. I had underestimated him but I also had, without even realizing it, made certain assumptions that had proven to be false. I wondered if I might be doing the same again, as might Cesare.

A trap had been laid, baited with nothing less than Borgia himself. By all rights, Morozzi should have been lured into it. Yet he seemed content to wait. Because he had a plan to kill Borgia designed to unfold during the wedding itself? But that would mean acting in public, in the presence of both the papal guards and Pesaro’s own men. With the portrait that Nando had done of him being circulated among all the condottierre, his capture would be certain.

What then was his thinking? What did he intend?

If I were him, what would I do?

You will understand that I shied away from trying to put myself into the mind of the mad priest. I could not bear the thought that the evil in him was akin to what dwelled in me. Yet there was no denying that both of us were killers, driven by dark forces beyond the ken of those fortunate enough to live in the light.

Even so, though I did try, I could not discern Morozzi’s plan. It continued to elude me.

With the coming of day, Cesare had no choice but to pull his men back farther or risk discovery. They took up positions in buildings surrounding Juan’s residence, careful to keep out of sight. The ordinary activity of the street began, people coming and going seemingly without noticing that anything was amiss. I was encouraged by that but still preoccupied with wondering what Morozzi planned.

Red-eyed and unshaven, and far too anxious to stand still any longer, Cesare withdrew to his own residence with me in tow. There he hastily bathed, threw on clean clothes, and ate standing, without, I believe, noticing what he chewed. I contented myself with a restorative tea and a pitcher of cold water splashed on my face.

“I’m going out,” I said when I was done.

“Where?” Cesare demanded.

“I want a look at the guesthouse. The men who died there were Il Frateschi.”

“I suspected as much.”

“They’re the only link we have to Morozzi. They may have left some clue as to what he intends.”

We went, Cesare reluctantly but desperate for something, anything to do that might prove helpful. The piazza in front of Santa Maria was less busy than usual. The combined effect of the girl having been burned there followed by the fire at the guesthouse kept people away. Only a few women were drawing water from the fountain, going as quickly as they could and scurrying away swiftly with their buckets sloshing from their haste.

There was little wind, meaning that the stench of fire hung heavy in the air. Cesare and I approached slowly. I suspect that he was as struck as I was by the utter devastation of the guesthouse. Fortunately, because all the buildings surrounding the piazza were built of stone with tile roofs, the fire had spread no further. But the guesthouse itself was a virtual ruin. The building stood open to the sky, the floor separating the two stories having fallen in along with the roof. Blackened timbers lay in heaps against scorched stone.

I stepped over the threshold gingerly and took a quick look around. If any remains had been present, they were not in evidence. So far as I could tell, the ferocity of the fire had been intense enough to turn bone to powder. It might be that the fate of the “Florentine merchants” would never be known precisely.

“What could have such an effect?” Cesare asked.

I straightened and slowly shook my head. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like this.”

The fountain was less than fifty feet from the building. It stood to reason that a genuine attempt would have been made to extinguish the fire. Yet it had raged so fiercely that even the stone of the outer walls appeared to be in danger of crumbling.

“It will have to be pulled down,” Cesare said.

I nodded. The devastation of the guesthouse posed a mystery that I could not begin to solve, yet neither could I bring myself to walk away. I turned in a circle, trying to comprehend what I was seeing. Where had the fire started? How quickly had it spread? No one had been seen to escape so it must have been swift indeed, but not even that accounted for what I saw all around me.

Hesitantly, I bent and ran my fingers over the charred surface of a fallen beam. The wood disintegrated under my touch. A heavy, wet smell rose from it—the scent of fire dampened by water, but under it there was something else.

I lifted my hand to my face and inhaled deeply.

“What are you doing?” Cesare asked.

I did not answer him at once but exhaled slowly and breathed in again. Fire, yes, flame on wood and less familiar, probably flame on stone. But underneath all that … what was it?

“Trying to determine what happened here,” I said finally. “There is something—”

I got up, dusted off my hands, and walked farther into the destroyed building. Cesare followed.

“Be careful,” he said. “The floor could give way.”

It remained in place only by virtue of being made of slate, but I saw his point. In all likelihood, there was a croft beneath. If the beams under the slate had been touched by the fire, they could crack. Indeed, as I looked more closely, I saw a large, gaping hole off to one side of the house.

I made my way to it cautiously and bent, peering down into the darkness.

“Something happened here,” I said.

Cesare joined me, staring into the croft. “The floor collapsed.”

I supposed that he was right, but something about how the shards of slate were lying around the hole gave me pause. So, too, did the faint smell that rose from it.

“We have to go,” Cesare said. “Pesaro is due at noon and I must be on hand to welcome him.”

No doubt Borgia had ordered that he be in attendance, and on his best behavior as well. I shot him a sympathetic smile.

“You go ahead. I want to look around a little more.”

He agreed reluctantly, really because he had no choice. If he was late, or worse yet did not appear at all, there would be hell to pay with his father.

Once he was gone, I took my time slowly surveying the ruins. What I saw puzzled me deeply. From what I could tell, the fire had started near both the front and back windows, which was believable given that Alfonso and his confederates could have thrown flammable liquid in from both sides. But that did not explain the hole in the floor, much less the dark stain of smoke darkening the wall behind it.

Or the fact that the slate shards were lying a few feet away from the hole, as though they had been thrown out of it rather than falling into the undercroft.

“What happened here?” I murmured.

Scarcely had I spoken than I heard off in the distance the blare of trumpets announcing Pesaro’s entry into the city. How excited Lucrezia must be. I imagined her standing at the windows of Palazzo Santa Maria in Portico, straining for a glimpse of her betrothed. Would he be everything she hoped for? Could any man ever fulfill the dreams of a woman?

What was that I smelled?

I knelt again and plunged both my hands into the debris on the floor, then raised them and inhaled. At once, I coughed and regretted my impulsive action. And yet, there was something—

Cannons roared in honor of the Sforza heir. Startled pigeons rose into the air and I, losing my balance a little, tumbled back onto the slate floor hard enough to feel it crack under me. Scrambling to my feet, I moved quickly toward the street. Once safely outside again, I stared into the ruin. It revealed nothing more than what I had already discerned. The fire had been swift and terrible; the likelihood of anyone escaping being virtually nil. But something else had happened as well.

What was that smell?

I closed my eyes and raised my fingers cautiously toward my nose. At the same moment, I wondered why I was wasting so much time. Morozzi had not come out of Juan’s house. Either he had not been there to begin with, no matter what Cesare believed, or—

He was too afraid to come out?

That did not agree with anything I knew of the mad priest. He was a true fanatic convinced that Almighty God favored his cause. He would fear nothing.

What if he did not need to come out?

How could that be? How could he remain safe in Juan’s house and still manage to kill Borgia?

Poison.
In food, in drink, in something intended for use during the wedding celebrations. But I had checked everything once, twice, and again. No round of cheese, or tun of wine, no chicken, pig, cow, no carrot, turnip—nothing had escaped my scrutiny. After the attack on Lucrezia, I had redoubled my vigilance. What had I missed?

Panic coursed through me but hard on it came blessed reason. Sternly, I reminded myself that Morozzi was no poisoner, though he might aspire to the alchemical arts. He had no particular skill in compounding deadly substances. But he could have acquired something from one of my profession in Florence or elsewhere.

Something that could have escaped my notice? I did not think so, especially given that after Lucrezia—

After the attack on Lucrezia, I had redoubled my vigilance. The strange episode of the soaps, tainted but not in any way that could kill, had left me more convinced than ever that Morozzi would strike at Borgia with poison.

But what if all that had been a diversion? A means of making me look where the mad priest wanted me to and not where I might better have done so.

What was that smell?

Again, I closed my eyes. Again, I breathed, and finally I caught the scent under smoke and wood, fire and stone … the dry, sharp, but unmistakable bite of … sulfur?

With salt and mercury, it is one of three alchemical principles, denoting the expansive force, dissolution, and evaporation. I had worked with it myself in a variety of experiments and understood its capabilities.

Did Il Frateschi harbor alchemists? Holy Mother Church is conflicted as to our activities, being uncertain about whether we plumb the mysteries of the divine or invite the worship of the demonic. In either case, our curiosity is not encouraged.

But why else would I find sulfur in the ruins of the guesthouse?

Off in the distance, I heard cheering and realized that Pesaro was on his way to Saint Peter’s Basilica, where he was scheduled to be received by a Mass welcoming him to Rome and into the embrace of
la famiglia.
Borgia would be officiating with Cesare and Juan no doubt in attendance, the youngest, Jofre, would be there as well, I assumed. Only Lucrezia would be barred from attending, forbidden as she was from meeting her betrothed before the wedding.

In addition, the basilica would be filled with those princes of the Church who still allied themselves to Borgia. There would be wealthy nobles and merchants, foreign ambassadors, and—

Sulfur!

I may have cried out; I do not know for certain. What I do know is that I turned and ran, as fast as I possibly could, through the piazza, along the streets where startled passersby leaped out of my way, over the Sisto Bridge and into the Piazza San Pietro. Directly ahead stood the one place on earth where I most dreaded setting foot. A guard tried to stop me but I darted past him and raced on, my breath coming in gasps, my heart pounding so fiercely that it threatened to explode from my chest, up the steps to the basilica crowded with honored guests, past the banners of the great houses of Sforza and Borgia, and into the ancient nave.

Where the Mass had just begun.

34

Confíteor Deo omnipoténti
 … I confess to Almighty God …

The instant I stepped inside the basilica, terrifying memories of the events of the previous year swept over me. So, too, did I brace myself for the divine retribution I feared must surely fall upon one of my dark calling daring to enter so holy a place. Only the knowledge that I came to do good—surely God would take that into consideration?—kept me going. That and the fact that I truly could see no choice. Grasping such courage as I possessed, I plunged on. A pair of guards near the entrance to the nave moved to stop me. They were big and clumsy whereas I was fueled by stark terror that lent wings to my feet. I darted under the outstretched arm of one and around the other.

 … beátæ Maríæ semper Vírgini
 … to blessed Mary ever Virgin …

The basilica was fragrant with the perfume of incense. Down the length of the nave, I glimpsed Borgia, garbed in red, standing before the altar, his arms raised as he conducted the holy liturgy.

 … beáto Michaéli Archángelo
 … to blessed Michael the archangel …

Several noble guests—not too noble, for they were positioned toward the back of the basilica—noticed my presence. A little flurry of activity ensued as they hesitated, uncertain whether to try to stop me or pretend nothing was amiss.

… beáto Joanni Baptístæ
 … to blessed John the Baptist …

I raced on, down the aisle adjoining the nave toward the pillar that I knew concealed a staircase leading to the garret that stretched the length of the basilica above the ornate ceiling. I had almost died there the previous year, but please God, I would not think of that.