The Borgia Mistress

by Sara Poole

  “Trust me,” I said instead and reached for him.

  The valet came back. Finding us preoccupied, he withdrew quickly, but he left what Cesare had charged him to recover from my quarters. Later, in the gray light of early dawn, the prince of Holy Mother Church stood naked beside the bed and turned my knife over in his hands, examining it.

  “Clean,” he said.

  I smiled to hide my own relief, but questions remained: Where had I gone in my frenzy? What had I done?

  “Did you doubt it?” I asked.

  He bent a knee on the bed and stroked my cheek. “Of course not.”

  I knew he lied, but it didn’t matter. Cesare had urged me to accept myself, and I knew that I had no other choice. I was as I was, God help me. My only hope lay in confronting what had made me—and destroying it.

  The knife, unstained for now, could not long remain so.

  16

  “It’s a sad day,” David said, “when a jester with a hat full of Jew jokes can’t get a laugh out of a drunken Spaniard.”

  “Sad indeed,” I agreed.

  We were in the kitchens, where I had gone out of a sense of duty and because I knew that if I did not eat something, I would be sick. The realization of how fragile my mind had become terrified me. I feared even to breathe lest I shatter into pieces. For the first time, I understood how powerful the instinct to hide could be and why, as a child, I had not been able to resist it.

  David was ladling porridge into bowls for both of us. Although preparations for the midday meal were already under way, everyone from the most exalted maestro di cucina to the humblest spit boy had discovered a sudden need to be elsewhere the moment I appeared. Unpleasant as that was, it gave David and me a chance to talk alone.

  “Herrera is baying for your blood,” David said as we took our seats at one of the long wooden tables. “He is convinced that you killed his servant.”

  I winced. Although the evidence suggested that I was not responsible, the fact that I had no memory of the hours I had lost troubled me deeply.

  “Does he say why I would do such a thing?”

  He hesitated but finally said, “There’s a rumor going around that you were seen last night in a state that some take as proof that you are possessed by demons.”

  So much for Cesare’s belief that he had banished the witnesses before they could talk.

  “I see.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.” Lying to friends was becoming a habit, but even if I had been willing to tell him the truth, I saw no benefit to distressing him. “Who do you think did kill the servant?”

  “I have no idea. Given the mood in the town, it could have been anyone.”

  I swallowed a little of the porridge and looked at him. “Was it you?”

  There was a time for discretion, but this was not it. Matters were coming to a head. I had to know where I stood.

  David lowered his spoon and stared at me. “You’re not serious?”

  “Cesare has a theory. He thinks you may believe that Borgia’s papacy is more likely to survive if he makes peace with his enemies. But Il Papa won’t do that as long as he has the support of Spain. As Herrera is Their Most Catholic Majesties’ beloved nephew, killing him would not only destroy the alliance, it would also be some measure of revenge for the suffering they have caused your people.”

  “Cesare thought of that? Does he always seek such convoluted explanations for events?”

  “He has a fondness for intrigue,” I admitted. “That doesn’t mean he’s wrong.”

  David sat back a little and looked at me. A faint smile played at the corners of his mouth. “Well, then … let’s say I am the assassin. Why would I kill the servant?”

  “Perhaps he found out something about you that he shouldn’t have?”

  “Perhaps, but why haven’t I struck at Herrera already?”

  “There hasn’t been an opportunity? You yourself said that his men are well trained and capable.”

  “When they aren’t listening to their master rant about you, they find me quite amusing. I could slit Herrera’s throat and probably several others before they realized what was happening.”

  “Then you’re waiting for something.”

  His smile broadened. “I’m starting to enjoy this. What am I waiting for?”

  I knew David too well to be deterred by his seeming unwillingness to take me seriously. He had not survived so long as a fighter for his people without the ability to conceal his true thoughts and motives, even from those most determined to discover them.

  “You said yourself that if the alliance were shattered, Borgia’s enemies would move at once to destroy him. There wouldn’t be any time for him to reconcile with them … unless that process was already under way.”

  “Is it?”

  “Not that I know of, but I wouldn’t put anything past Il Papa. He could pretend to be interested in a reconciliation in order to force the Spanish to release Juan. But if circumstances changed…”

  “If someone happened to kill Herrera?”

  I nodded. “His hand would be forced. He would have to make the reconciliation real.”

  “Go on. You’ve almost convinced me that I am the assassin.”

  I admit to being a little hurt. We were friends, yet he seemed oblivious to the danger confronting me.

  “It’s not a joking matter, David. Under the present circumstances, if Herrera is killed, I’m likely to be the one who’s blamed.”

  Abruptly, his smile vanished. “You’re referring to the fact that several dozen people saw you put a knife to his throat?”

  “Among other reasons. In that event, His Holiness would no longer have the benefit of my services.” That was as close as I would come to acknowledging that Herrera’s fate and my own were now inextricably linked. If he died, in all likelihood so would I.

  David nodded slowly. “Destroy the alliance and strip Borgia of the protection you afford him. You’re right; there’s nothing to laugh about.”

  “I’m glad you understand that. If you are the assassin, I hope you realize this means that your plan is fatally flawed. The moment I’m taken off the board, there is a very real risk that Borgia’s enemies will strike. There will be no chance for any reconciliation.”

  I rose to go. “On the other hand, if you aren’t the assassin, I hope you’ll help me find out who is.”

  David sighed. “I’ll dust off the Jew jokes and try again.” More seriously, he said, “But Francesca, you have to realize what could really be happening here. Cesare has every reason to loathe Juan. He’d like nothing better than for him to rot in a Spanish prison. And if the alliance crumbles, His Holiness will need an army fast. Whom do you suppose he will trust to lead it?”

  My stomach tightened. He was right, of course, but I should have thought of that myself. And I would have had my mind not been so disordered.

  Cesare or David? David or Cesare? Two men I both liked and cared for, one of whom might be set on a course of action that I could not survive.

  “You be careful as well,” I said. “Whatever your true purpose in being here, the next few days could prove deadly for any of us.”

  I left him to consider that and went out through the empty kitchens and across the courtyard. Uppermost in my mind was the thought that I had to find out who had killed the servant. But how to accomplish that when almost no one in the palazzo would look me in the eye, much less tell me anything of use?

  A shout rang out in the direction of the field behind the palazzo. Through the archways, I glimpsed Vittoro drilling his men. Seeing me, he called for a lieutenant to take over and came to where I stood.

  “Are you all right?” he asked at once.

  I restrained a sigh. “It was a nightmare, nothing more.”

  “An inopportune time for that to happen.”

  “Indeed.” Before he could pursue the matter further, I went on. “I have a favor to ask. People in the town will be gossiping about the serva
nt’s death, but they will be reluctant to speak to me. If I had a means of encouraging them…”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “Perhaps Donna Felicia would like some company while she is shopping?”

  Vittoro’s wife was a plump and cheerful matron, mother to three daughters, grandmother to a growing horde, who had insisted on accompanying her husband to Viterbo. Something about their having been separated quite enough during his career and her unwillingness to tolerate any more such partings.

  Nor had she come alone. The entire brood, sons-in-law included, was also in residence, jammed into a little house just beyond the palazzo. I took their presence as evidence of Vittoro’s concern about conditions in Rome and the safety of the Holy City should everything go catastrophically amiss.

  “You think the good citizens of Viterbo will be more likely to talk to her than to you?” he asked.

  I shrugged, acknowledging the obvious. “We both know that people can be uncomfortable around me, even when they don’t know who I am.” As though they had an instinct for what was outside the norm, and therefore dangerous.

  He did not dispute that but said, “You understand that I couldn’t agree to her being involved in anything dangerous?”

  “A simple shopping trip,” I promised. “Nothing more. And remember, a good outcome to all of this is to her benefit as well.”

  “Very well, then. Just one thing.” I waited, knowing that I would have to agree to whatever he was about to say. Vittoro had expressed concern about my visits to Santa Maria della Salute. If he insisted that I tell him what I had been doing there—

  “See if you can find some nice mutton shanks, would you? Felicia hasn’t made them in weeks, and I’ve got a craving.”

  With a quick smile to conceal my relief, I promised that he would not long go shankless. As I had hoped given the hour, Felicia was about to set out for the market when I reached the house. But not before cleaning the dirt from one grandchild’s face, helping another into his shoes, and admiring the doll thrust into her hands by yet a third. Her daughters were lining up to go with her, but, seeing me, Felicia waved them back inside.

  “There is laundry to be done and mending, and the flagstones in the kitchen need scrubbing,” she said.

  With varying degrees of disappointment, they obeyed and left us to ourselves. I marveled at Felicia’s authority even as I had the sense to respect it.

  “I don’t mind helping you,” she said when I had explained why I wanted to go with her. “But my girls aren’t to be involved in anything that is going on, whatever that might be, understood?”

  “Of course, absolutely. There’s really nothing to be concerned about. This is just a little trip to the market; a bit of gossip, that’s all.”

  She cast me a frankly skeptical glance and thrust a basket into my hands. As we started down the street, she said, “Terrible business, that murder. Who do you think did it?”

  “That’s the problem: I have no idea. I’m hoping to pick up a whiff or two to point me in the right direction.”

  “Oh, you’ll get more than that. Everyone will have an opinion, most of them useless.”

  “Then where do we begin?”

  Felicia furrowed her brow beneath her neat kerchief, from which wisps of gray-brown hair trailed. She had been pretty in her youth and now she was … something more. Wise, vibrant, very much alive. I could understand why Vittoro was so devoted to her.

  “The poor soul was killed in the alley behind a butcher shop,” she said. “We should start there.”

  We did, only to discover the place so crowded with the curious—and the butcher himself so intent on basking in his newfound celebrity—that we got nothing of use, neither information nor mutton shanks. Fortunately, Viterbo was large and prosperous enough to support more than one butcher. The rival establishment, just on the other side of the road, was nearly empty. A ruddy-faced, morose fellow in a blood-splattered leather apron manned the chopping block.

  Wielding his cleaver with quick jabs, he produced a quantity of shanks to Donna Felicia’s specifications as she complimented him on the freshness of the carcasses dangling on hooks above our heads.

  “My husband will thank you,” she said. I noticed that in speaking to him, her Roman accent—which some claim to find harsh—had faded, replaced by the softer tones associated with country folk. “There’s nothing he likes better than a nice braise of mutton.” With a sigh, she added, “I do, too, normally, but I must admit, my appetite isn’t what it should be.” She leaned a little closer, as though to impart a confidence. “I fear I’m quite undone by the terrible events across the way there. How anyone can still buy their meat where that man was butchered—”

  “Oh, they aren’t buying,” I interjected. “They’re just standing around gawking. I daresay the poor fellow who owns that shop is desperate watching his goods spoil.”

  Cheered by the notion, the rival butcher said, “Shame, isn’t it?” Whack. “But it was a Spaniard, after all. Can’t expect anyone to be too upset about that.” Whack.

  “I suppose not, what with the way they’ve behaved,” Felicia said. “Still, I have to wonder who would take a knife to one of them.”

  “I can’t say.” Whack.

  “You don’t think it could be someone from here, do you?” I asked.

  “Could be.” Whack. “Maybe someone from the garrison. But likelier it was one of their own out to stir up trouble.” Whack.

  I didn’t dismiss that possibility out of hand, but neither could I conceive of any reason why Herrera and the rest of the Spaniards would want more trouble than they already had. As we left the shop with the shanks tucked into Felicia’s basket, I asked her, “What do you make of that?”

  She shrugged. “Good mutton at a fair price, but he doesn’t know anything about what happened. Don’t worry, there are plenty of other shops. Someone’s bound to know something.”

  Buoyed by her confidence, we set out through the market, stopping in succession at a vintner, who claimed the French were to blame because they produced inferior wine and were known to cheat people; at a cheesemonger, who opined as to how the killer was likely a Turk since, as everyone knew, they excelled at close knife work; and finally at a fruit stand, where an anxious young woman hoped the Spaniards would leave and take their demons with them before Viterbo suffered even more serious calamity.

  Munching on late pears, we stopped for a brief rest, leaning our rumps against a handy stone wall. “It’s almost as though no one wants to know what happened,” Felicia said as she wiped juice from her chin.

  The same thought had occurred to me, but I thought I knew the reason. “They are afraid.” Of Borgia and what he could bring down on them, and of the shifting sands of power beneath their feet that threatened the very foundation of their lives. Where there was fear, there was also often anger … and violence.

  Felicia tossed the core of a spent pear into the bushes and turned to look at me. “They aren’t alone. Vittoro insisted that we come here because he doesn’t think Rome is safe right now, and not just because of the floods and the plague. But Viterbo strikes me as a very uncertain refuge. If there is war—”

  “We have to hope there won’t be.”

  She raised a brow at once questioning and mocking. “Hope? Is that what I tell my daughters when they worry for their children? They should hope that His Holiness prevails against his enemies, numerous and powerful as they are? What if he does not?”

  Then we would all go down to disaster, as Donna Felicia no doubt knew quite well. Not even the smallest and most innocent among us was likely to be spared. I thought of the little granddaughter with her doll and sighed.

  “It would help,” I said, “if I could discover who killed the Spanish servant.”

  “Why? How does he figure into all of this?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “But if I can find that out, I may be able to protect Borgia better, which is to say, protect all of us.”

&nb
sp; She plucked a handful of sunflower seeds from her pouch and offered them to me. I took several, separating the shells between my teeth. Together, we spit.

  “Back to business, then,” she said.

  We returned to the market. The day wore on as we visited a seemingly endless array of shops and stalls—how did Viterbo possess so many?—and still we learned nothing of use. My basket grew heavy with figs, dates, pomegranates, olive oil, bunches of dried herbs, bags of pearl barley and peppercorns, heads of kale and cabbage, and all manner of other items that Felicia considered necessary to the comfort and well-being of her family. My injured feet hurt, my back ached, and as for my patience … it had just about expired when my companion remembered that we had yet to purchase fish.

  “A nice bit of cod,” she said, giving every appearance of being as fresh and energetic as when we had started out. I admired her stamina even as I despaired of sharing it. “And perhaps some anchovies,” she added.

  I nodded wearily. We waited beside a stall as a pair of Viterbo’s housewives rattled on about the murder in between haggling over herring. When they completed their business and were gone, Felicia said, “Silly creatures. Not a notion in their head about what really happened, wouldn’t you say?”

  The fishwife—an old woman with a nose full of broken veins and one cloudy eye—shrugged. Even so, she looked pleased to be asked her opinion.

  “Brutal, it was,” she said, smacking her lips. “Absolutely brutal. He was stabbed through and through, with gore running everywhere. That’s what I hear.”

  Felicia shook her head in appreciative dismay. “Who could have done such a terrible thing?”

  “A whore from the Priory, so the wind says.”

  As all the world knows, brothels are commonly found on Church property—where they provide a tidy source of revenue for our Holy Mother’s faithful servants. That being the case, the name did not surprise me. Moreover, the possibility made sense. Cesare had said that the servant was sent to fetch whores for the Spaniards. Perhaps that was actually true.