by Sara Poole
When he was gone, the child sat outside and drew with a stick in the dirt. The shapes she traced were simple: a lopsided circle, an almost square, lines that wandered off to nowhere. The lack of rain in the days that followed preserved the markings.
Evening came; the candles were lit, and her mother spooned soup into a bowl and helped her to eat. They were finishing when a dog barked in the road just beyond the shop. Or some other sound drew their attention. The child dipped a small piece of bread in the bottom of the bowl and sucked on it. Her mother went to the window. She opened a shutter and peered down.
Or so Giovanni imagined when he sat in the room afterward, trying to grasp what had happened. There were tiny signs: the bread left on the table beside the bowl, the shutters drawn a little apart, the overturned stool where the child would have been sitting just before her mother grabbed her up.
He tried to see it all in his mind’s eye even as the ghost of his butchered wife stood at his shoulder, gazing at him with great sorrow.
The next tenants would have to sand the wood floor to get the bloodstains out, and even that might not work. So much blood—incredible to think that the body of one small woman could have contained all that.
As for the child …
She had not spoken, might never again. Her mind was broken in some way that, for all his skill as an apothecary, he could not heal.
How much had she seen? Understood? There had been three men, he thought, working backward from the number of stab wounds in his wife’s body and the footprints in her blood. She must have recognized them in that moment when she looked from the window. They had worried her enough for her to hide the child, but not herself.
Perhaps she had feared that failing to find her, they would tear the place apart and discover the child as well.
Or perhaps she simply had not been able to believe that men she knew would do what they had.
It was his fault. In his vanity, he had believed that the letter summoning him to the ducal palace was real. Believed that he—a converted Jew of humble origins—would be offered a position for which the ablest and best-connected men vied. Arriving to the discovery that no one had any knowledge of him had been merely annoying at first. He had wasted precious hours trying to rectify what turned out to be no one’s mistake but his own. By the time he started for home, it was too late.
So much blood … Slipping and falling in it, he cried her name, gathering her into his arms, refusing to believe what all his senses told him. The woman who had filled his world with light and love was gone, leaving nothing but a torn, empty shell.
And the child. Scrambling frantically to his feet, he looked in all directions, terrified that he would find the tiny body.
“Francesca!”
Nothing, no sound. Was she dead? Had she fled? Was she out there somewhere wandering, alone and afraid?
Or—
He tore desperately at the wall that he had built despite Adriana’s laughing protestations, knowing in his soul that hatred never slept.
“Francesca!”
Was there a sound? Not a voice, only a soft rustling. He ripped the last plank away and fell to his knees, grasping the small, still body. Still but alive. Alive but … away.
* * *
“That was the word he used when he spoke of you,” Mother Benedette said as she finished her recitation of the events as told to her by my grief-stricken father. “You were there … but not. It was as though your mind were somewhere else and he had no idea how to reach you.”
Floating in a sea of silence for how long? A year? Two? My memory was such that I had difficulty remembering much of anything until the day we came to the grand palazzo on the Corso, the home of the renowned prince of Holy Mother Church, Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, who had hired my father in some capacity I did not then understand. At that moment, walking through the doors into Borgia’s domain, my life seemed to begin again.
Yet, contrary to my father’s hopes, the past had never given up its grip on me. Its talons were wedged deeper than ever into my soul.
“Who killed her?” I heard my voice as though from a great distance. The wall loomed before me, pressing me down into a narrow, confined space from which there had never been any real escape.
“All the signs pointed to her family being responsible. They never forgave her for marrying a Jew.”
“Are they still alive?” Why did I ask? Because I had a sudden, fierce need to seek them out and kill them one by one as they had killed my mother?
“Two years later, a plague swept through Milan. They did not survive it.”
The thought of my anonymous, faceless relations writhing in Hell failed to satisfy me. Plainly, I lacked sufficient trust in divine retribution.
“Your father blamed himself for not being there, for putting your mother in such jeopardy by marrying her, for everything. You were all he had left, the sole reason for his continuing to live. He could think of nothing except protecting you.”
Perhaps that was true, but it was equally true that my father’s lie had left me exposed to the hideous nightmare that haunted me. Robbed of the right to acknowledge it as memory, and deal with it as such, I could only conclude that I was mad or damned, or both. My fear, as I sat on the stone bench clutching my mother’s psalter, was that the truth had come too late to save me. Could I be anything other than what I had so long believed myself to be? Did I even want to try? My infirmity, as Renaldo had so delicately called it, was the price I paid for my armor against the world. Without it, how could I live?
“I must go.” The world tilted as I stood. I reached out a hand to steady myself. My legs turned to water and my head spun. Only with an effort was I able to right myself.
“You are not well,” Mother Benedette said as she, too, rose. “Let me help you.”
I had difficulty hearing her, so thick had the fireflies become. But I managed to shake my head. “I’m fine, really, and I have much to do. This business with Herrera—”
I broke off, abruptly aware that I had begun to speak of matters entirely private to His Holiness. Even so, the look that flitted across the abbess’s smooth face suggested that she had heard about the incident with the officer’s wife.
“The Spaniard,” she said. “He is not liked.”
Apparently, the gossip of the town breached even convent walls. “The affection of the mob is always capricious,” I replied absently. Borgia had said that one night when we were drinking together, shortly after his election to pope. Cesare had come in and found us most of the way through a goodly amount of Lombardy red. He had thought it all very amusing.
“I must go,” I said again. The echo of my words rang hollowly within the church walls.
The abbess touched my arm to keep me a moment. “Read your mother’s psalter. It will give you comfort.”
I nodded and slipped the book into the pouch I wore beneath my gown so that the sight of it would not spark anxious speculation as to its contents.
“One more thing,” she said. “The road to Assisi is still closed, but I am of a mind to remain here awhile in any case. If you have need of me—”
I murmured something to the effect that I would be in touch with her as soon as circumstances allowed. I think I also thanked her for the psalter, but I am not certain. The world was splintering into a thousand pieces, like the shards of a mosaic suddenly free of the mortar that had held it in place. I feared that I would do the same if I did not get away quickly. Having bade the abbess farewell, I left the church and hurried across the piazza. My heart beat rapidly, and each breath I took was painful. I could scarcely feel the ground beneath me.
The guards on watch in front of the palazzo stiffened as I approached. No doubt I did not look my best, fleeing a church as though pursued by unseen demons. They made way for me with haste, all but falling over each other. Once in my quarters, I attempted to secure my mother’s psalter in the puzzle chest, only to discover that my fingers had turned to clumsy lumps unable to perform the comp
lex series of movements needed to unlock the chest. Worse yet, I could not remember the sequence for more than a second or two before it flitted from my mind.
Hardly aware that I did so, I sat down on the floor in front of the chest. My heart beat frantically and my breath was ragged. I was in desperate need of a calmative, but when I looked, I discovered that less of Sofia’s powder remained than I had thought. Panic flared. Clearly, I had to restrain my use of it or I would be left without. Yet my need was great. I stumbled to my feet and set off for the cellars, thinking only of finding an alternative. I had in mind to help myself to a small cask of brandy, not that I would drink very much of it; not at all. Just enough to soothe my jangled nerves. Surely I deserved that much, given what had just been revealed to me?
At the bottom of the stone steps, I paused. I had visited the cellars once shortly after arriving in Viterbo, but with every bottle, barrel, vat, and cask intended for la famiglia secure under my seal, there had been no reason to return. For a moment, I could not remember where in the maze of redbrick chambers the brandy was stored. As my eyes adjusted to the dim light filtering through window slits at ground level, I began to get my bearings. Setting off in what I thought was the right direction, I soon came to an arched chamber lined with wooden stands holding supplies for the papal household.
A flicker off to the side distracted me. Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I glimpsed a figure moving along the aisle that ran the length of the cellars. At once, I stiffened, fearful that the terrifying vision I had experienced earlier was about to return. When it did not, I looked again, but the figure had disappeared. With a sigh of relief, I stepped into the chamber.
Only to trip and almost fall over an obstruction in my path. Thrusting out an arm, I caught hold of a barrel to steady myself. Slowly, I straightened. In the dim light, it looked as though a large sack had been dropped carelessly just inside the chamber. I knelt, reached out a hand, and felt the unmistakable shape of a body.
Looking more closely, I saw that the eyes were open and as yet unclouded by death. The skin, when I touched two fingers to the side of the neck, was warm. The young man staring up at me wore the mulberry and gold colors reserved for His Holiness’s personal household staff.
I leaped up, ran out of the chamber, and looked in all directions. In the shadows, I could just make out the figure, too far away for me to catch. It was moving swiftly.
I took the stairs I had come down two at a time. For a change, Fortune favored me. Vittoro was in the hall, preparing to go out on patrol. As soon as he saw me, he stepped away from his men so that we could speak privately.
Quickly, I said, “A page is dead. In the cellars. The killer may also still be down there.”
Without hesitation, he called an officer over. “Fifty men. Now. Half block all stairs to the cellars, the rest come with me.”
There followed shouted orders, a rush of motion, the pounding of booted feet, and—off to the sides—the startled faces of high and low alike, suddenly awakening to the presence of danger within the walls they had counted on to keep them safe.
Following with all speed, I told myself that I was certain of what I had seen, but was I really? That day alone my mind had conjured up a vision of a blood-soaked world, the pretty spectacle of fireflies dancing beneath the roof of a church, and reality turned into a shattered mosaic. How could I even consider trusting my senses?
Yet they were reliable at least as regarded the dead man. The page remained where I had found him. His face, revealed more clearly by torches swiftly lit by the guards, appeared serene. Like the others, he gave every evidence of having died suddenly and with very little awareness of what was happening to him. As Vittoro’s men spread out, searching for anyone hiding in the cellars, I knelt beside the body. A quick examination confirmed the absence of any wound or other sign of violence. I was considering whether to look deeper when Vittoro returned.
“Whomever you may have seen down here is gone,” he said. Looking down at the body, he asked, “The same as the others?”
“I think so.” Rising, I added, “These deaths coming right now cannot be a coincidence. The assassin is here in Viterbo.”
“If you could give a description…”
I shook my head. “The light was too dim. I saw a figure moving. Nothing more.”
Vittoro nodded slowly. He put a hand on my shoulder. “What brought you down here at this time of day?”
Briefly, I considered telling him the truth, but I could not bear for him to see me as weak or pitiable.
“You know what has been happening. I wanted to check everything again.”
“No other reason?”
“What other reason could there be?”
He hesitated a moment. “You have become very regular in your devotions.”
“What do you mean?”
“You were seen not long ago returning again from Santa Maria della Salute.”
“What are you saying? Am I being watched?”
Vittoro stepped back a little. In the light from the torches, he looked brooding and worried. “When the Pope’s poisoner suddenly feels the need to make regular church visits, tongues are going to wag.”
I had not thought of that. In my blind absorption with my own concerns, it had not occurred to me how my actions might be interpreted. Cesare knew a little about Mother Benedette, and Renaldo was aware that a nun had come looking for me, but I had to hope that no one else had any notion of who she was or why I would be speaking with her.
In a bid for time to think, I asked, “Do these wagging tongues offer an explanation for my behavior?”
Vittoro smiled faintly. “The consensus is that His Holiness has charged you to do something so terrible that you feel compelled to beseech Almighty God’s forgiveness in advance. The difficulty lies in imagining what you would consider that bad, but everyone is much diverted trying to figure it out.”
“Oh, well, as long as they’re diverted.…”
“Seriously, Francesca, if there is something I should know, I would like to hear it now.”
“It is a private matter, not touching on my responsibility to His Holiness.” I spoke too quickly; Vittoro would know that I was unnerved. But he was my friend and I was counting on him to understand that I did not want to discuss the matter. Of course, he would also make his own inquiries in the meantime, but that was only to be expected.
“As you wish,” he said. “If you remember anything more about what you saw down here—”
“I will tell you at once. I trust your men to keep a good lookout.”
“Of course. Someone is going to a great deal of trouble and risk. There has to be a reason.”
I was no closer to determining what that might be when together we left the cellars and returned to the palazzo above. Throughout the remainder of the day, my thoughts were jumbled and unclear. I was missing something, but worse yet, in my present state I had scant hope of unraveling the skeins of danger and intrigue that were drawing us all deeper and deeper into a deadly web.
15
Water sloshed from the wooden bucket and splattered across the floor. The maids gasped and fell to their knees, mopping frantically with their aprons. I thought to reassure them that a little spill was not such a calamity, but instead I pretended not to notice. In the hours since the page’s death, the usual fear and dread that my dark calling inspired had intensified beyond all my previous experience. Everywhere I went, I encountered sullen, angry looks and worse. Now, when my sole wish was an end to the torturous day, I could not bear to see such condemnation in the eyes of the two young girls sent to fill my bath.
When they were gone, running in their haste, I stripped off my clothes and sank into the water. Leaning my head back against the rim of the tub, I closed my eyes and tried to relax. Thoughts of the dead page intruded, but I pushed them away. My only hope of preventing further deaths was to find the assassin before he could strike again. I would not do that by dwelling on what it was too late to chan
ge. For a time, my efforts seemed to work. The pain behind my eyes lessened, as did the aching stiffness in my back and shoulders. But with the easing of bodily discomfort, other thoughts intruded.
My father had told a great lie. By denying the truth of what had happened to my mother, he had denied the horror I had witnessed. No matter how good and loving his purpose, he had left me alone to deal with memories no child should ever have to endure. For a time, I had retreated into a place where nothing could touch me. But when I emerged, the memories were there waiting for me. They had become the nightmare that haunted me.
Nothing would ever lessen the love I had for my father or my determination to avenge his death. Even so, anger at what he had done threatened to overwhelm me. Unbidden, I suddenly found myself wondering what Rocco would make of it all. He and my father had been good friends; under other circumstances they might also have been father- and son-in-law. What would he think of such a deception? As he was a father himself, I suspected he would be better able to understand it than I could. And as a former monk, he would certainly be more inclined to forgive.
I missed Rocco. Whatever else there might have been between us, he was my dear friend, to whom I had turned in times of great trouble and whose wise counsel I had the good sense to value. Or at least he had been. Surely I deluded myself if I thought that could continue after he and Carlotta wed. She could hardly be expected to welcome my coming by the shop, taking him from his work, and involving him in dangerous matters. She would see to it that he was far too busy for any of that.
What would I do without him? There was Cesare, of course, but my relationship with him was entirely different, and besides, he would be occupied with his father’s business. I had other friends—Sofia, Vittoro, a handful more—but none was as close as Rocco. If he were here right now, I would—