by Sara Poole
Before it could, I found the last of my strength and managed to stagger across the room to where I had left the possessions I had brought back from the villa. In among them was the small wooden box in which I had packed a few essentials of my profession, including the substances that can, if given in time, prevent poisoning.
I will not dwell on what happened next except to say that it was both violent and unpleasant. Without knowing exactly how much of the elixir Mother Benedette had given me, except that it was a significant quantity, I could not take any chances. I purged the contents of my stomach until there was nothing left but dry heaves and a little bile.
Weak and disoriented as I was, I made to open the door, only to realize that Mother Benedette had locked it from the outside. For a moment, I considered trying to crawl out a window, but even if I were foolish enough to do so in my present state, there would be nowhere to go. I could let myself simply drop the single story to the ground below, but the distance was great enough that I was likely to be injured, possibly too much so to go on.
That left only one other possibility. Using thin metal probes from the tools I employed in my investigations, I slowly and with great difficulty managed to work the lock. By the time I had done so, I was bathed in sweat and my heart was pounding wildly. Throwing open the door at last, I hurried out.
The corridor beyond was empty—no chance of help. Still retching, wincing with every step, I kept going until I reached the stairs. At the top of them, I stopped, terrified that I would fall. Clutching the railing tightly, I ventured down slowly, painfully, step by step until finally I reached the bottom. A guard was stationed there. By the look on his face, he had been watching my struggle with bewilderment but not with any inclination to assist me. I stared at him, straightened my shoulders, and said, “I need help.”
At least that is what I think I said. My voice was little more than a rasp, and so startled was he by my appearance that I doubt he heard anything at all.
Anger flared in me, warring with despair. I would not be undone like this! By God I would not! I would be heard, I would be obeyed. I would prevail.
“I need help!”
He heard me then, for certain he did, for his face convulsed with fear. Even so, he still stood frozen.
Holy Mary and all the saints, was there no one who could aid me in this moment when all our fates hung in the balance?
“Francesca?”
I turned, scarcely daring to hope, and found myself face-to-face with Renaldo. The steward looked stunned at the sight of me.
“What has happened to you? Is that blood? Francesca?”
“Where is Herrera?”
Renaldo stared at me in bewilderment. I reached out, grabbed his robe, and held on with all my strength. “The Spaniard, where is he?”
“He and Cesare came back from hunting an hour or so ago. That’s all I know. But you—”
“We must find him!” I turned, looking in all directions, trying frantically to decide what to do.
“What has happened, Francesca? What is wrong?”
“Herrera is in mortal danger. The abbess means to kill him.”
Renaldo paled in shock. He grabbed my arm and stared at me as though I truly was mad. “Mother Benedette? That holy woman—”
“For pity’s sake, do not doubt me now! I speak the truth! We must find him before it is too late!”
A lesser friend, one who told himself that he had only my best interests at heart, would have stopped me. Help would have been summoned, I would have been shuffled away, and ruin would have fallen upon us all. But Renaldo, that man of dry numbers and ledgers, believed in the existence of free will and even, just possibly, of the ability of a woman haunted by dire visions to change the future.
“Quickly, then,” he said. Together we ran; not toward the Spaniard’s apartments, for I had no hope of anyone there heeding me, but toward Cesare’s. His valet opened the door. The man was a model of discretion—a necessity given his position—but even he looked surprised at the sight of me.
“Donna Francesca, is everything all right?”
“Is he here? Is he back yet?”
“Yes, but—”
Without waiting to hear more, I pushed past and hurried through the antechamber toward Cesare’s private chambers. His Eminence was lounging in his bath. Looking up from a document he was perusing, he frowned. “Is that blood on you?”
It was, but I had scarcely noticed, nor did I intend to waste any time acknowledging what could be dealt with later. “Get up. We have to find Herrera.”
Under normal circumstances, I would never have been so foolish as to give Cesare orders, but exhaustion and terror combined to make me reckless. I even went so far as to grab hold of his arm and try to haul him bodily from the tub.
I didn’t succeed, of course, but I did get his attention. “What’s wrong?” he asked as he stood, water sluicing off him. At once, his valet darted forward with a towel.
As succinctly as possible, I said, “Mother Benedette is a Cathar. She means to kill Herrera. We have to find them.”
In the midst of wrapping the towel around his waist, Cesare stopped and stared at me. “She’s a what? She means to do what?”
It was not like him to be so slow, but in all fairness, I was asking him to accept in an instant what it had taken me a good deal longer to recognize.
“A Cathar,” I repeated. Afraid that he would not understand, I went on hurriedly, “The Cathars were a sect that the Church deemed heretical and supposedly stamped out centuries ago, but—”
“I know who they were. Why do you think that the abbess is one of them and what do you mean, she is going to kill Herrera?”
My nerves, already shredded, were at the breaking point, but I strove to answer as calmly as I could. “She admitted it. She has an elixir that the Cathars believe enables them to see the path to the true god. She gave it to me and—Never mind, there is no time! We must find Herrera.”
“What has he to do with this?” Cesare asked as he accepted the clothes his valet held out. To my great relief, he began to dress. A taste for the habits of the war camp and the battlefield meant that he could ready himself far more swiftly than most. Even so, each moment was torture for me.
“She is the assassin sent by your father’s enemies to destroy the alliance.”
The danger had not come from David as I had worried, or from Cesare as I had feared. Mired in my own concerns, drugged by my own hand and hers, I had seen only a woman who claimed to be my mother’s friend and mine. What had she said? People will always believe what they want to believe. Of all my sins, just then I was more ashamed of that than any other.
“Please, we must go!”
Tucking his shirt into his breeches, he looked at me closely. “You truly believe this? A Cathar assassin sent to destroy the alliance for what … revenge after all these centuries?”
Despair filled me. If I could not convince him … “More than that; to set off a battle within Christendom itself, the cardinals pitted against each other, against you, with no one strong enough to win. France, Spain, the great families of Italy all choosing sides. It will be the Great Schism all over again, only this time the Church will not survive.”
When he continued to stare at me, I said, “I know that I sound mad, and perhaps I am. But this is real, and if we don’t act now…”
My shoulders sagged. I was asking him to trust me when the hard truth was that I could not fully trust myself.
“If we do act and you are wrong…” He did not finish, but there was no need. I understood full well that if I was in the grip of a delusion conjured by my drug-disordered mind, all the world was about to learn of it. The howling of the wolves would be as nothing compared to the baying of my enemies for me to be put away or worse. It did not escape my notice that I was risking everything in order to save Herrera. Truly, those whom the gods wish to amuse themselves with, they afflict with irony.
“I am not wrong,” I said and prayed that
it was so.
Cesare nodded once, curtly, and said, “Then we go.”
Gratitude surged through me, but I had no time to contemplate it. Having made up his mind, Cesare did not tarry. I had to run to keep up with him as he strode through the corridors bustling with guards, servants, and retainers, all hastening to get out of his way, until we came to Herrera’s quarters.
Cesare raised his fist and banged on the door. His summons was answered at once by a servant who, at the sight of His Eminence, bowed low. A rapid-fire conversation followed, all of it in Castilian, therefore much of it incomprehensible to me. In the course of it, a young nobleman, one of Herrera’s retainers, appeared and took over. He and Cesare spoke together for several minutes. I peered around them, hoping to catch sight of David, but there was no sign of him.
By the time they were done, Cesare was frowning. “Herrera left a short time ago after receiving a note,” he told me. “He didn’t say where he was going or why, and he wouldn’t allow anyone to go with him. But he did appear very excited, even elated.”
My stomach clenched. The Spanish emissary was not inclined to go anywhere without a retinue appropriate to his dignity. That he had suddenly done so suggested that something was very much amiss.
Cesare must have thought the same, for he turned to Renaldo, who had followed us and was listening intently.
“Find Captain Romano. Tell him that I want to speak with him.”
As the steward rushed off, Cesare turned to me. “Listen to me, Francesca.”
How could I not when he was speaking with all the authority of a prince who—never mind his youth—regarded himself as superbly endowed to decide all things?
“You are not well, that is obvious,” he said. “Go back to your quarters, lie down, and rest. Vittoro and I will handle this. We’ll find Herrera and get to the bottom of whatever is happening.”
I had absolutely no intention of doing any such thing, but rather than risk trying his pride too far, I responded as meekly as I could manage. “Where will you look for him?”
Cesare hesitated. Evidently, he had not yet gotten that far in his thinking. Still, he was never at a loss for an answer. “He could be on the training field, or he could have gone off to sketch a building, or—”
“Pardon me, but didn’t his man say that he was excited, even elated? What would account for that? What is so important that he would rush off on his own without companions? When has he ever done that before?”
“I don’t know.”
“The note he received was from Mother Benedette; it had to be. She would never take the risk of killing him here in the palazzo. They’ve gone somewhere else.”
“Where?”
I took the question as his way of admitting that I was not to be sent off to bed quite yet. Quickly, I said, “The abbess and I met several times at Santa Maria della Salute, on the far side of the piazza.”
“Show me,” Cesare ordered.
Without waiting for Vittoro or anyone else, we made haste to the church. I was breathless and gasping when we came through the heavy wooden doors into the incense-laden air. Sagging against a wall, I peered into the dim interior. To my despair, it appeared to be empty.
Cesare paced down the aisle dividing the apse, glancing into the shadows near the side altars. When he reached the main sanctuary, he called down the distance separating us.
“There is no one here.”
“I realize that.”
“But there will be soon for vespers. If she did draw him to this place, she would not have lingered.”
As we stepped back out into the piazza, I said, “They must have gone elsewhere. If we don’t find them in time…”
But how were we to do so? Viterbo was a small enough place compared to Rome, yet it was still a labyrinth of twisting streets and huddled buildings. We could search for hours, even days, with no hope of discovering Herrera.
But wait. If I was right and Mother Benedette did intend to destroy the alliance, she would not want to conceal Herrera’s death. On the contrary, she would have to make it known.
If only I knew more about where she had gone and what she had done in the town. But one thought did occur to me. “How many convents are there in Viterbo?”
His Eminence looked at me as though I truly were mad. “How could I possibly know that?”
“She was staying at a convent before I convinced her to move into the palazzo. That might be where she took Herrera.” Or it might not be; there was simply no way to tell. If I made a mistake, sent us off in the wrong direction, any opportunity we had to save the Spaniard would be gone. There would be only one chance.
The sun was lowering behind the roofs of the town; time was running out. Once darkness fell, all hope of recovering Herrera would be gone. Vittoro was coming at a run down the steps of the palazzo, flanked by a troop of men. Cesare would give orders, and the search would begin. But where? Which way? I had caused all this by trusting Mother Benedette. Whatever happened would be my fault.
Tears blinded me. Another woman would have prayed, but as I have said, I have no skill at that. Even so, just then I saw in my mind the silver path and the vast, mysterious light that lay beyond it. My tears did fall, but they washed the veil from my eyes.
“Forget the abbess,” I said. “Find the fool.”
27
“David and I argued over Mother Benedette. He thought there was something wrong about how she was behaving, but I wouldn’t listen to him. If I know him as I think I do—please God let it be so—he’s been learning everything he could about her.”
“Where can we find ben Eliezer?” Vittoro asked.
“There’s a tavern he favors. Come, I’ll show you.”
Vittoro begged off, saying that he would roust out more men and prepare them to search. He arranged to meet up with us as quickly as possible.
At that hour, the proper folk of Viterbo were in their homes, preparing for their suppers and their beds. The most devout were in church to hear vespers. Which left everyone else to drink and revel in peace. David was sitting over a cup of wine and a modest meal when Cesare and I found him.
He frowned at the sight of us. “What’s wrong?”
Quickly, I told him. Before I was done, he was shaking his head in dismay. “I shouldn’t have left Herrera, but I thought if I could find something that would convince you that the abbess couldn’t be trusted—”
“Did you learn anything?” Cesare asked.
David hesitated. “It sounds crazy, but Francesca has a friend here in town, apparently. Name of Erato. She heard I was asking about an abbess and she sent for me. She claims a nun has been renting a room in the back of a brothel not far from the market.”
I stared at him in bewilderment. “That can’t be right. Mother Benedette is an abbess. She has been staying at a convent in the town.”
There were stories about nuns turning their convents into brothels, but they always seemed to involve sisters who dared to resist efforts by local priests and prelates to seize property left to the holy women or to otherwise assert their absolute authority over them. Though upon examination none of the tales had ever proven to be true, that was not to say there weren’t many women forced to take holy vows who found chastity unbearable.
So, too, there were many actual brothels on church property. Perhaps that accounted for Erato’s confusion. Although it was hard to believe that she could make such a mistake.
“I was going to visit the place,” David said. “Try to find out if there was any possibility that the abbess had been there. But now—”
“She isn’t an abbess.” Even as I spoke, the full magnitude of how gullible I had been almost choked me. I had imagined her a secret Cathar hidden among the clergy, as it was said certain Jews concealed themselves for safety even as they remained adherents to their faith. How readily she could have used her position of authority to pursue her own designs. But if it had all been a lie … She would have been taking too great a risk to try to pass amo
ng women of the cloth, who would have noticed any error in her behavior. Better to hide among the outcasts of society, who knew better than to question anyone.
“I know where they are.”
Both men looked at me in surprise. “Are you sure?” Cesare asked.
I nodded. “She lured Herrera out of the palazzo by promising him evidence he can use to be rid of me.”
David glanced from me to Cesare and back again. I saw the swift calculation behind his eyes. He had been in the Spaniard’s company long enough to have at least a hint of how things stood between the beloved nephew and His Eminence.
Cesare did not wait. He tossed a handful of coins on the table and strode out of the taverna. David and I followed. Outside in the lane, a dank wind was blowing.
Beyond tired, stomach empty, every bone and muscle in my body aching, I stood for a moment, struggling to gather my fractured thoughts.
“Francesca?”
Belatedly, I realized that Vittoro had arrived with his men. They were all waiting for me.
“Where are we going?” Cesare asked.
Dread weighed on me, a great pall that threatened to crush all beneath it.
“To Hell,” I said and showed the way.
* * *
“We can’t take torches in there,” Vittoro said. “A single spark and the whole place will go up like so much kindling.”
We stood on Tanners Lane, looking at the ramshackle building where I had found Magdalene. In the darkness lit only by the torches the guardsmen held, it appeared like a black hole against the darkening sky. Night was almost upon us. I could make out a few shuffling, hunched figures fleeing at our approach but nothing more.
“Hooded lamps, then,” Cesare said.
Several months before, as a sop to his anger at being forced to don the red skirts of a cardinal, Borgia had agreed to allow Cesare to form a military company under his own leadership. The concession, if that was what it was, merely recognized an existing reality. For several years Cesare had been ranging far and wide with a band of companions, living off the land, practicing battle maneuvers, and generally preparing for the life he really wanted to live. With the instincts of a true war leader, he had introduced several tactical innovations, including training his men for nighttime incursions. To that end, he had caused to be designed and built small portable oil lamps, each with a flame shielded by metal strips. The lamps gave only enough light to see a few yards ahead, but they had the virtue of being far less visible than even a single torch. As a side benefit, they were also far less likely to cause a fire.