My head was spinning as I struggled to take it all in, the expectations and implications. The scale of the matters he was placing into my hands. “Proceed with … what, exactly? Forgive me, but I still do not understand…”
“We must move against Savonarola eventually,” he said. “But we do not know precisely when or how would be best. You will help us determine that.”
I was silent.
“He cannot be allowed to continue to oppose the Church,” Cesare went on. “He cannot continue to challenge the pope’s authority and inspire Florentines to do the same. If he were some backwoods preacher in a little village in the Kingdom of Naples, he would not matter. But he all but controls one of the greatest and wealthiest cities in Italy. He must be curtailed. Or, more likely, silenced.”
He paused, and when I still did not speak, went on. “I have thought long and hard on it,” he said, “and it can only be you. There is no one else who fits our needs like you, no one else whom I trust enough to accomplish this. You are the only one, Maddalena.”
He finished speaking and looked at me expectantly. I was conflicted, truly so. I had heard much gossip from all quarters about Fra Savonarola. Many of them thought him a true holy man, even a saint. He had assisted in driving out the corrupt Medici and reestablishing republican rule in Florence. And I had yet to hear of anything he had said of the pope that was not technically true.
The thought of opposing such a man was frightening. The thought of bringing about his downfall—of bringing about a coup, if Cesare’s comments about restoring the Medici were to be taken seriously—was frightening. The thought of influencing the politics of Italy was frightening.
But it was a powerful feeling.
Cesare Borgia, gifted political operator as he was, was entrusting a large, crucial task to me. Maddalena Moretti, a maid from the countryside of the Romagna. He trusted me. He valued me. I was indispensable to him.
“Very well. I will do it.”
Chapter 68
MADDALENA
Florence, June 1497
In only a few days I was ready. Cesare had procured for me clothing befitting a gentlewoman—nothing too ostentatious, but much finer than anything I owned—and a fine trunk to carry it all in. We went over and over what I was to do in Florence, where I was to go, the types of people I was to speak to, what information I was on the lookout for. I was to write down anything and everything of interest and send the news on to Cesare as I had it, in code. He was sending a few of his men along after me to serve as messengers and would be providing them with the fastest horses he could find, so they could make the ride from Florence to Rome in three days. There was a house in Florence where I would stay, a small one not too far from the city center. One of Cesare’s men, a young guardsman who served under the terrifying Michelotto da Corella, was to accompany me for my protection, posing as my groom. Lucrezia was still in the convent of San Sisto; no excuses would need to be made to her for my absence. I was to tell no one of where I was going or what my task was, though I whispered to Isabella the night before I left that I was going away on an errand for His Eminence and could not say more. Eyes troubled, she had pressed me, but I had refused to tell her more. “Be careful, Maddalena, won’t you?” she bade me. “I hope you know what you’ve gotten yourself into.”
My guard Rodolfo Ubaldini and I departed early one morning, with him driving a cart bearing our luggage and me. It took us four and a half days to reach Florence at the speed of the cart. Rodolfo did not speak much, though he was respectful enough. I had no fear he would take untoward liberties with me, seeing as Cardinal Valentino had tasked him with protecting me with his life. No doubt Rodolfo knew exactly who I was to the cardinal. So I was quite certain that I was as safe as the cardinal himself.
The afternoon of our arrival, we settled into the house Cesare had directed us to, unpacking our few belongings and eating a meager meal of provisions we’d brought with us for the road. The next morning I would have to find the market and see what I could procure—how much nicer it would have been to have someone posing as my maid instead of my groom, I thought grumpily. Yet Cesare had given me a purse full of florins for any expenses. We would eat well, even if I had to be the one to cook.
And, I thought, as I drifted off to sleep that first night, if Florence was anything like Rome, the market is where I would certainly hear some of the best gossip. No doubt most cities were alike in this regard.
* * *
I had spent much of the journey to Florence fretting as to how, exactly, I would accomplish the mission Cesare had entrusted to me. What did I know of being a spy? The fear of failing—of failing Cesare—was a very real one.
Yet as it turned out, information about the “little friar,” as many referred to him, was not so hard to come by.
My first full day in Florence, I rose early and went to the market to get whatever could be found fresh. Tomatoes, spinach, fresh bread, and why, I may as well spend my Borgia coin on a freshly slaughtered chicken.
“You new around here?” asked the woman selling vegetables as she counted my coin.
I smiled. “Yes, indeed. I’ve just moved into Florence from the countryside.”
“Thought so. I know most of the women and servants in the neighborhood.” She nodded at me. “Maria Bati. My husband and I have the best vegetables in Florence, and don’t let anyone tell you different. And you are?”
“Maddalena Valenti.” Cesare had said I might use my true Christian name—it wasn’t so uncommon—but advised me to choose a false surname, should anyone ever come looking for me, unlikely though that was. Valenti had a certain romantic appeal to me, being a take on his own title, Valentino.
“Good to meet you.” She handed over the produce, which I placed in my basket. “I’m sure I’ll see you most mornings, eh?”
“No doubt.” In a flash of inspiration, I spoke again. “Pray tell me, if you would … where does everyone in this neighborhood go to hear Mass? I am still hopelessly lost in all these streets … so different from the country, you know. Perhaps you may point me in the right direction?”
“The parish church is just there,” she said, pointing over my shoulder. Between the canopies of the market stall I could see a small dome and campanile that looked to be in the next street. “Of course, most were cramming into the Duomo to hear Mass for a while, what with the friar preaching his sermons.”
“Friar?” I asked, my eyes wide with innocence.
“Fra Girolamo Savonarola. You’ve not heard of him?”
I shook my head. “We get so little news in the country,” I excused myself. “At least I did, since my husband passed.”
Maria crossed herself. “God bless his soul. Well, all the way to Rome, and beyond, they’ve heard of Fra Savonarola, make no mistake. His sermons used to draw thousands.”
“And they do not anymore? Does he no longer preach?”
Maria snorted. “He’s been excommunicated, he has. Seems he offended the pope. I’ve not heard him myself, my husband and I living outside the city walls on our farm as we do.”
“I see,” I said. “I do not know whether to be disappointed or not that I cannot hear him myself.”
“From what I hear, he’ll be back in the pulpit sooner than later, excommunication or no,” she said. She turned away to assist another customer, and so I wandered away with my basket.
At the next stall, where I purchased the chicken, I overheard a group of women gossiping. Judging by their dress, they were who I was pretending to be: women of good families, whose husbands had respectable trades or owned their own shops, perhaps. “This Sunday, that is what I heard,” one said in a low whisper.
“Does he dare?” another wondered.
“How can he not?” interjected a third, who seemed to be the self-proclaimed leader of this group. “How can he not return to the pulpit, when God himself speaks through him? He has a responsibility.”
“I will believe it when I see it,” the second woman said.<
br />
“Come to the Duomo for Sunday Mass, then, and you shall see the friar take the pulpit with your own eyes. My husband heard it from one of the men in the Signoria. They do not wish to anger the pope, but they fear the growing displeasure of the people if they do not allow him to preach.”
I paid for my chicken and walked away, heart racing. The Signoria was part of Florence’s governing body. If they were not forbidding Fra Savonarola from preaching, then preach he would.
I returned to the house, left my purchases in the kitchen, and ran immediately into the small study. Pulling out ink and parchment, I wrote, It is as you suspected. Fra Savonarola will preach again this Sunday in the Duomo.
I wrote down the rest of what I had heard, folded and sealed the letter, and went off to find one of the messengers, who would take it to Cesare.
* * *
That Sunday I went to the Duomo to hear Mass and, more importantly, to see if the friar would preach.
Florence’s Duomo, properly called Santa Maria del Fiore, was a hulking, enormous structure that dominated the other buildings of the city. Built of green and white marble on the outside, it was capped by a massive reddish-orange dome. That Sunday was the first time I had seen it up close, and I could not help but gawk upward at the mammoth church. Even St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome was not this impressive, especially in the state of disrepair it was in. As I traversed Piazza del Duomo and approached the main entrance, a man to my right crossed himself. “Every day that it does not collapse is a miracle,” he murmured.
I arrived early, and it was a good thing, for while I was able to get a seat at the back, those who came later were forced to stand, and even started spilling out the doors of the cathedral into the piazza. Clearly word had spread about Fra Savonarola’s rumored return to the pulpit.
None of us were to be disappointed.
I did not know the friar on sight, but as soon as he took the pulpit, the congregation burst into a kind of hysteria, immediately beginning to sing the hymn “We praise thee, O God.” A woman at the end of the pew to my left, dressed in shabby and torn clothing, burst into tears, covering her face with her hands and rocking back and forth as she sobbed. Bewildered, I looked about and beheld similar behavior from many of the congregants, hysterical weeping and shouting and calls of thanks and praise to the Lord.
He has not even spoken a word yet! I thought, almost indignantly. I waited for the congregation to quiet so the friar could speak, bowing my head piously, but not so much that I could not glance up and study the man of whom I had heard so much.
He was a small figure, nearly swallowed within the cowl and robes of his black-and-white Dominican habit. He had a hooked nose and thick lips, with deep-set eyes that were very dark from this distance. Had I passed him on the street I would never have looked twice at him, so undistinguished a figure did he cut. Yet the moment he opened his mouth to speak, I understood everything.
“Lord,” he said, his voice booming and authoritative, powerful enough to fill the massive cathedral and carry to the people outside, “I who am but dust and ashes, wish to speak to Thy Majesty.”
His voice was so commanding that even as he spoke to God directly, one could not help but imagine his was what the voice of God would sound like. Who could help but believe he spoke for the Lord himself?
I had but a moment to wonder whether he would speak of his excommunication, of what he was risking by preaching this day, before he immediately delved into that very topic.
“A governor of the Church is a tool of God, but if he is not used like a tool of God then he is a broken tool, and he is no greater than any man. You may say to him, ‘You do not do good, because you do not let yourself be guided by the supreme Lord.’
“What was the purpose of those who lied so I might be excommunicated? Once my excommunication was announced, they once more abandoned themselves to consorting with concubines, and to all manner of lies and wickedness.”
I hoped the veil I wore hid my face, for it went red with shame. He could not know it, but he referred directly to me. I was indeed the concubine of a prince of the Church, one who had no doubt played a part in his excommunication. It was as the friar said, and I was proof.
“On whose side will thou be, O Christ?” Fra Savonarola went on. “On the side of the truth or lies? For Christ says, ‘I am the truth.’”
The friar went on, and I was rapt, listening to his every word, letting it fall on my skin like a stinging rain that might cleanse me of my sins. If such was even still possible for me.
* * *
When I returned to the house after Mass, I dutifully went to my desk and wrote everything down. It was everything Cesare needed to know and had hoped I could tell him: Fra Savonarola had indeed returned to preaching, and his sermon directly challenged Pope Alexander and those powerful members of the Church hierarchy. I described the mood of the congregation, their hysterical ecstasy, and the power with which the friar spoke. All of that knowledge was necessary for those who would oppose Savonarola.
For the first time, I wondered if I was doing the right thing.
Chapter 69
CESARE
“It is as we feared and expected,” Father said.
I had just reported to him what was in Maddalena’s letter, and he was as displeased as he was unsurprised. “It was only a matter of time before he returned to the pulpit.”
“Do none in Florence fear the power of Holy Mother Church? Of the damnation they could be cast into for disobeying us?” Father ranted, pacing angrily across his private chamber. “We are the pope. We are the representative of Christ on earth. Not some fanatical Dominican spouting doomsday prophecies!”
“Your commission looked into this,” I pointed out. “Everything he has preached is technically in line with the Bible.”
He rounded on me. “You would take his side?” he spat. “You would prattle on about technicalities? Next you will become one of those sniveling Piagnoni—”
“I merely point out,” I interrupted calmly, “that if we wish to take down the little friar, heresy may not be our strongest argument.”
“Then find me another one!”
“I will,” I assured him, soothingly. “I need more information as yet from my spy in Florence, and then we shall know how to proceed.”
* * *
Maddalena was doing an excellent job, better than even I had expected. She was just where I needed her to be, doing just what I needed her to do, and yet there were times when I had to stop myself from picking up a pen and writing her two simple words: Come home. By which I meant, come back to me. Come back to my bed.
It took me a few nights after her departure to remember I could not summon her easily from nearby Santa Maria in Portico; she could not come to me whenever my whim demanded it. She was indeed the perfect person for the task I’d set her. This fine logic, however, did not make it any easier at night, when I ached for her touch, for her body beneath mine.
I went with Michelotto to what had formerly been my favorite brothel in the city. There was a woman there Michelotto favored, and so I told myself I was merely seeing to it that he was able to enjoy himself. He certainly deserved it. The woman the proprietress had chosen for me, though beautiful, simply did not captivate me as Maddalena did. I bedded her, of course—it would not do to have rumors get out about my supposed lack of prowess—but I did not enjoy it. All I could think was how her hair was too dark, not the reddish auburn of Maddalena’s, and that she was a bit too thin, without Maddalena’s soft, enticing curves.
Still, there was other work to be done as I waited for Maddalena to report back. Lucrezia’s divorce remained the principle item on the pope’s agenda, and therefore mine. I threw myself into that; it was not, after all, in my nature to sit about like some lovesick swain and pine for a woman.
I met with Ascanio Sforza in my rooms at the Vatican in early July to discuss the matter further with him. As I had predicted, he had been relieved to have himself and his relation
s publicly cleared by the pope of any involvement in Juan’s murder. He was eager indeed to get back into the Holy Father’s good graces, for both his sake and his family’s. It was plain he knew his cousin’s marriage to the pope’s daughter was a lost cause, and though he made token attempts at trying to preserve the alliance, it was all too clear that both he and his brother Duke Ludovico were most willing to facilitate the divorce in any way they could.
Ascanio Sforza had never liked me much, nor had he made any secret of it; therefore it was immensely entertaining to watch him battle between that dislike and his nearly desperate desire to accommodate the pontiff in whatever way possible.
“And the grounds, Your Eminence?” Ascanio asked, his nose wrinkled with disgust as he addressed me by my title. “Infidelity, I suppose?”
I arched an eyebrow at him. “What is it precisely that you are implying of my sister, Cardinal Sforza?”
“Not on her part, of course,” he hastened to assure me. “No, on my cousin’s part. What with being on campaign with his men here and there over the years … well, he is a man, with a man’s needs, as I no doubt do not need to explain to you. Certainly there were other women along the way.”
I leaned back in my chair, allowing myself a smile. “Were there? The problem with infidelity as grounds for divorce is it is damnably difficult to prove. Not to mention that such might set a precedent that men across Christendom will hardly thank us for.”
Ascanio’s smile was strained. “What did Your Eminence and His Holiness have in mind, then?”
“Granting divorce on the grounds of non-consummation will be easiest for everyone.”
Ascanio nearly choked on the sip of wine he had taken. “Non … non-consummation?” he gasped, once he’d ceased his coughing. “Surely not. Certainly the marriage has been consummated.”
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