The Borgia Mistress

by Sara Poole

  I would what? I was not a foolish girl who mooned over what could not be. The pain was back behind my eyes. I sat up in the tub and stared down into the water, struggling to find a measure of calm.

  And found instead my mother, her face looking back at me. The sight stirred such yearning that I had to believe I truly did remember her. Remembered, too, the knife as it flashed, cutting through flesh, destroying hope, dreams, all that was good. Bringing only blood.

  The water in the tub was gone. I was bathing in blood, drowning in it, and I could not even scream. I was paralyzed, unable to move. My mind was shattering, threatening to fly away in a thousand jagged pieces like the mosaic I had seen. When next I was aware, I was standing beside the tub, naked and shivering. Choking on sobs, hardly able to breathe, I staggered to the bed. Slumped there, hugging my knees, I managed finally to pull a blanket over myself, but I could not stop the convulsions that wracked me. I reached out for the small box in which I kept Sofia’s powder, only to knock it onto the floor. The lid flew off and the powder spilled. Frantically, I scrambled to retrieve as much of it as I could. In my haste, I sent more drifting up into the air, dispersing beyond my grasp. Much of the rest was lost in the threads of the carpet. I was left with only a faint tracing, which I licked in desperation from my fingers, the bitter taste mingling with the salt of the tears that coursed down my face.

  Exhausted and aching, I finally accepted that the powder was gone. Only the clawing hunger for it remained. Sleep was out of the question, but I forced myself to rise and with trembling hands dropped a nightgown over my head and straightened the bed. Achieving that small degree of order soothed me a little, but I needed much more. Looking around for some source of comfort, I remembered my mother’s psalter.

  When I had retrieved it from the puzzle chest, I crawled back into bed holding the small book. Cupping it in the palm of my hand, I spread my fingers and let it fall open as it would. My eyes alit on the delicately inscribed words:

  The Lord is the keeper of little ones: I was little and He delivered me.

  Turn, O my soul, into thy rest: for the Lord hath been bountiful to thee.

  For He hath delivered my soul from death: my eyes from tears, my feet from falling.

  I will please the Lord in the land of the living.

  Abruptly, I slammed the psalter shut; heedless of what damage I might do to it. Hot tears trickled down my face. How cruel the promise of those words. I was little and he did not deliver me. I was still falling, far from the land of the living. There was nothing and nowhere for me to catch onto.

  Except the memory of the mother who had hidden me and turned to face the darkness by herself.

  My throat was thick and my eyes burned as I slowly opened the psalter again. Though I could barely see at first, I turned each page with care, my fingers lingering where she had touched as though I might feel what she had felt—her courage, her joy … her love.

  I don’t remember falling asleep, but I must have done so because the nightmare came. I was behind the wall, peering out through the small hole in it. It was a game, my mother had said. There was no reason to be afraid. Her words echoed in my ears.

  “Don’t move, sweetheart, and don’t make a sound until I get you out.”

  Three men came into the room. They all seemed very large, much taller and broader than my mother. One wore a brown felt hat pulled low over his brow. She called him brother.

  “Why are you here?” she asked.

  “You know why.” He punched his right hand in his left and cracked the knuckles. “Where is the child?”

  “With friends. Aldo, listen to me. We only want to be left in peace.”

  He snarled and spit a great wad of phlegm that landed almost on her feet. “You should have thought of that before you married one of them.”

  “My husband is a Christian!”

  “Your husband is a filthy Jew! You have brought shame on us all! Father drinks all day. Mother … she just weeps and weeps. We cannot endure this any longer.”

  “Then they should accept him! We can be a family again!” She held out her hands, pleading. The other two men circled to either side around her. They looked bored.

  “A family? You stupid bitch!”

  That was a bad word! Young as I was, I knew that. Frightened, I forgot what she had told me and opened my mouth.

  “Mamma!”

  My cry was lost beneath her scream as a knife flashed. My mother fell to her knees, clutching her chest. The knife rose and fell again. The other men were joining in, their own blades drawn. Her brother was shouting, but I could no longer hear. The rush of blood in my ears drowned out all else. Disbelief and horror overwhelmed me.

  I had to get away! Had to. Away from the wall, away from the terror, and most especially, away from the knowledge that what I was seeing was not the product of a disordered mind but was actually real. I had witnessed my mother’s brutal murder and lived for three days trapped with her butchered body. Because of my father’s deception—however well meant—I had never been able to speak of it. It had been left to fester inside me, an oozing wound poisoning me from within. The stark truth of that was as terrifying in its own way as the memory itself. Of course, there could be no escape from it, but even so, every instinct I possessed spurred me to flee.

  A well of darkness beckoned. I leaped into it, racing away from the hideous scene, running with all my strength. My breath came in gasps, my heart beat frantically, but I ran on and on, heedless of the sharp stones tearing at my feet, of the cold and damp, of the endless night that threatened to swallow me forever. On and on I ran until at last I could run no more. I collapsed and lay still, my arms wrapped around my upturned knees, trying to make myself as small as possible so that I might, at long last, disappear.

  * * *

  “Francesca?”

  A man’s voice—deep, familiar.

  “Francesca, can you hear me?”

  Odd question. Why wouldn’t I be able to?

  Slowly, I opened my eyes to find myself staring at blades of grass directly in front of me, illuminated by the glow of a torch. So close were they that I could make out each separate, glistening drop of dew clinging to them. I stared at them in fascination. If I had the capacity to move, I had no desire to do so.

  Strong arms lifted me. I was wrapped in a cloak, held against a broad chest, carried.

  “Cesare?” My voice came out as no more than a croak. A flicker of fear stirred in me. What had happened?

  “Hush,” he said and walked on, up a flight of steps, down a hallway, past stone-faced guards, into rooms I recognized as his own.

  I winced as he sat me down on the side of the bed. My feet throbbed, and the rest of me was stiff and aching. I looked up to find him standing over me. His Eminence, thankfully not in his crimson clerical regalia but casually dressed in a loose shirt and trousers, stared back. He looked at once displeased and worried.

  Honest confusion drove me to ask, “What has happened?”

  “You will have to tell me, for I have no idea.” Without waiting for a reply, he gestured to his valet. That hapless fellow, who I only just then realized was hovering in the background, was holding out a silver tray. Cesare put a goblet in my hand and closed my fingers around it.

  “Drink,” he ordered.

  Vaguely, I remembered wanting a drink. Or several. Perhaps I had gotten drunk. My head hurt, but not with the deep, resonate throb of a serious hangover.

  I started to sip the brandy, than thought better of it and took a long swallow. Though the liquid burned going down, it also revived me. Belatedly, I became aware that I was wearing only Cesare’s cloak and a nightgown. My feet were bare. They were also cut, bloody, and dirty.

  Slowly, I said, “I don’t understand. What happened?”

  “I came to your rooms an hour ago. I assumed you would be asleep, but there was no sign of you. Fortunately, you had been seen by several of the guards. They were able to point me in the right direction.”
r />   “Where?”

  “Running, as one said, ‘as though pursued by demons.’” Before I could respond, he added, “Don’t worry, they won’t say anything.”

  I hadn’t thought of that, caught as I was by the sudden return of memory. The nightmare … my struggle to escape …

  “They should have stopped you,” Cesare went on. “For their failure, they are being posted elsewhere.”

  I didn’t inquire as to where the men were going, there being so many unpleasant possibilities. Instead, I concentrated on the problem at hand: namely, reassuring Cesare that I was not entirely mad. That was complicated by the fact that I was not at all certain of that.

  “This must look very odd to you,” I began.

  “Let me see your feet.”

  “I can take care of—”

  “Damn it, Francesca, do as I say!”

  Reluctant to anger him further, I obeyed. At once, Cesare seized my feet in his hands and looked at them carefully.

  “You couldn’t possibly have done this much damage going only so far as the garden.”

  “Is that where you found me?”

  He nodded. “Do you remember where else you went?”

  I shook my head. “I only know that I had the nightmare and I had to run. This has never happened before.” The tremor in my hand made it difficult for me to raise the goblet again but I managed and downed the rest of the brandy.

  “I have heard of people walking in their sleep,” Cesare said.

  “I wasn’t walking; I was running.”

  “To where?”

  “I have no idea.”

  He made a sound of dismay—or was it disgust?—and let go of me. Turning to the valet, he said, “Bring water, soap, and bandages. Then go to Donna Francesca’s quarters and find her some clean clothes.” The man was about to obey when Cesare held up a hand, stopping him. To me, he said, “Where is your knife?”

  “My knife?” I truly was bewildered. The circumstances were worrisome to be sure, but Cesare seemed more upset than was justified, and his mind appeared to be darting about in odd directions.

  “The knife I gave you,” he said. “The one you have used on more than one occasion. Where is it?”

  I didn’t know, but I could guess. “Under my pillow.” Where I always kept it at night, as he had reason to know.

  “Bring that as well,” Cesare ordered the valet, who hastened off with an understandable look of apprehension.

  “Why this interest in my knife?” I asked when he was gone. As I spoke, I swung my legs onto the bed in the vain search for a more comfortable position. The brandy helped, but the more aware I became, the more I hurt from head to toe.

  Cesare sighed and slumped into a nearby chair. Looking at me, he said, “One of the Spaniards has been murdered.”

  My breath left me in a rush. “Not Herrera?”

  “No, thank God. It was a servant sent into town to fetch some whores. When he didn’t return, a guard went to find him. He’d been stabbed to death.”

  Shock roared through me. I fumbled for words. “Why? Who?”

  “That’s what everyone is going to want to know.” With another sigh, he added, “Unfortunately, you picked a bad time for whatever it is that happened to you.”

  Darkness swirled at the edge of my mind. Cesare and I shared a bed on occasion, but—far more important from my perspective—we also shared a bond of common experience and outlook. Alone among almost everyone in the world, he knew me. Or so I had believed.

  “You think that I—?”

  He waved a hand dismissively. “Given the hatred toward the Spaniards here and the growing animosity to Il Papa, any number of people could have killed the man. But you can be sure they can all account for their whereabouts, truthfully or not. All except you. If this escapade of yours—running about in the middle of the night like a madwoman—becomes known, you will be suspected. Only too many people will jump at the chance to blame you, starting with Herrera himself.”

  I sighed and held out my empty goblet. Cesare was right, of course. The Spanish servant’s death put me at serious risk and would do so unless I could discover who really had killed him. “Is there any indication at all of who did do it?”

  Pouring brandy for us both, Cesare shook his head. “You won’t be surprised that no witnesses have come forward. That being the case and given the mood in the town, we may never know.”

  He sat down beside me on the bed, swirled his drink and said, “Francesca, we need you—my father, Lucrezia, and I. La famiglia needs you. If something is wrong—”

  Perhaps the brandy was to blame, but before I could stop myself, I laughed. Did he truly not see me as I was? Dirty, disheveled, with bloody feet, having been driven into a frenzy by a nightmare? Did he imagine that there was anything remotely right with me? Or did he simply not want to admit what seemed increasingly evident, that I was descending further and further into madness, from which I might never be able to emerge?

  “You mean more than usual?” I asked. “Be honest, Cesare; neither of us has ever pretended that I’m like other people.”

  With a sublime lack of concern that appeared to be completely genuine, he shrugged. “If you were, you wouldn’t be of any use to the family, and you certainly wouldn’t be as interesting to me as you are.”

  Like all the Borgias, Cesare saw the world in the mirror of his own desires. If something suited him, it was good, regardless of how it might discomfort anyone else.

  “Oh, well, that makes it all worthwhile.”

  He cast me a chiding glance. “Francesca … It’s not that I don’t care about what’s happening with you, whatever that is. It’s just that we have to be realistic. If you are not up to the task of protecting my father—”

  “You’ll what? Find another poisoner who is more capable? It’s too late. The assassin is already here, in Viterbo. Besides, threatening me with losing my position to some imaginary poisoner who will do my job better than I can is pointless. All it does is make me think about what I could be doing if you Borgias had no part in my life.”

  It was not the first time I had thought of that. Several months before, after sacrificing an opportunity to kill my father’s murderer in order to protect la famiglia, I had threatened to leave Borgia’s employ. In the end, I stayed because I had no other access to the power I needed in order to avenge my father’s murder.

  Apparently, Cesare had also been considering an alternative life for me and had come to his own conclusions about what it would involve.

  “You’d be married to Pocco,” he said.

  I sputtered, all but choking on the brandy. “What?”

  “You know, that glassmaker, Pocco.”

  “Rocco.” That Cesare would think of him was a shock, but perhaps it should not have been. For all his worldly nature, His Eminence had a gift for seeing into men’s souls—and women’s.

  Cesare shrugged. “You’d be married to him.”

  “I am not suited to marriage.” I hoped to put a quick end to that particular topic, but Cesare had other ideas.

  “But you would be, if you were different. That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it? You could have had an entirely different life.”

  “That I do not is not because of you or your father.” To the contrary, thanks to Mother Benedette, I knew better than ever what forces had shaped me. I was the product of murderous evil made even more powerful by a well-meant but flawed effort to deny its existence. Only by facing it starkly could I have any hope of ever defeating it.

  He set down his glass and ran both his hands from my knees to my poor battered feet. “You would do better to accept yourself as you are. Forget everything else.”

  Forget. Is any possibility more enticing … or more terrifying? No consequences for anything we do or for what is done to us. No festering pain. But also no promise of a future, no pretense that anything extends beyond the next breath.

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “Isn’t it?” He stroked
a warm hand upward along my thigh. “You’ve seen someone tortured, haven’t you?”

  A sudden flash of memory: the cell beneath the palazzo on the Corso. Borgia was in his final months as a mere cardinal, before his apotheosis to pope. One of the men responsible for my father’s death was in his custody. A drone, no more; not the man who had ordered the crime. A flash of the knife … not the one I had now but the one pressed into my hands by Borgia himself.

  “Kill him,” he said.

  I acted out of the urge to be merciful as much as I did from hate. The twin sides of human nature, so at odds with each other, so intertwined.

  “Why torture yourself?” Cesare asked. “What is the point?”

  “I…” What could I say? How could I explain what drove me? “All this has to have some purpose.”

  He laughed. The prince of the Church, the future pope, was amused by my stab at faith.

  “What do you think, that somehow you can balance the scales? Your father’s death for the death of the one who killed him? The cosmos can be evened out, maintained in order?”

  The valet returned just then with a basin of water, sparing me the need to reply. That was fortunate as I had no idea how to answer. Cesare had given voice to an inchoate yearning I had not even known I possessed but which when presented with it, I could not deny. The cosmos in balance, predictable. Safe.

  For all the disorder of my mind, even I knew the unattainable when I encountered it.

  Cesare cupped my feet in his warm, roughened palms. Despite my feeble effort at protest, he insisted on washing away the blood and dirt inflicted by my mad flight.

  As he did so, he said, “I do care about you. I know you think that I don’t, that I’m not capable of caring about anyone other than myself. Everything would be much easier if you were right, but you aren’t.”

  “Cesare…”

  His gaze held mine. “Trust me.”

  God help me, I wanted to. My very soul yearned to yield to him, to put my fate in his hands and surrender all responsibility for what was to come. But I could not. The memory of my butchered mother—she who had followed her heart—stopped me.