The Borgia Mistress

by Sara Poole

  Cesare’s men remained in Rome, where they were watching over his interests, but apparently he had shared his thoughts on such matters with Vittoro, for the captain had equipped Borgia’s own household guards with the lamps. They were produced and lit as I watched. By their dim light, I could not help but notice that the faces of the men holding them were tense and anxious. I couldn’t blame them. The thought of going back into that place under any circumstances filled me with horror, but to do so in darkness …

  “Could I have one of those?” I asked.

  With a lamp in hand, I turned to look at the building. No lights shone within. Rank poverty offered its own protection against fire.

  We proceeded quickly. Cesare took several men to check the shed where Magdalene’s body had been found as well as other nearby structures. A larger group of guards spread out down the lane toward the tanners’ shops. To a man, they had their cloaks pulled over their mouths and noses in an effort to block the stench. The occupants of the shops clearly knew of our presence; they had pulled their shutters closed and snuffed their own lights.

  In near total darkness, I started toward the building. At once, Vittoro and David joined me.

  “Is there any chance,” the captain asked, “that I can convince you to remain outside while we search?”

  “I was about to ask you the same,” I replied. At his chiding look, I explained, “The more clamor we make, the likelier the abbess is to realize that we are on her trail. If Herrera is still alive, he won’t be once she realizes that. I should go alone. The rest of you wait out here in case she attempts to flee.”

  I wasn’t being entirely serious, realizing as I did that there was absolutely no chance of Vittoro’s agreeing to any such thing. But I hoped he understood that there was also no possibility of my remaining outside.

  The captain sighed. Not unkindly, he said, “She can kill him while we stand here arguing. Let’s go.”

  Entering the building, I tried to remember the interior as best I could. On my previous visit, with at least some daylight seeping through the cracks in the walls, it had been difficult enough to see anything. Now, even with the help of the lamps, it was all but impossible.

  Even so, I did think to warn both men. “Be careful; the ceiling is very low.”

  They ducked just in time to avoid cracking their heads. David, the tallest of us, had to bend so low that I feared he would end up walking on his knees. We proceeded slowly. Having some small experience with the place, I led the way. We passed stalls that appeared at a glance to be empty but where I was sure the poor creatures I had seen before were huddling deep in the shadows, praying that we would pass them by without notice.

  Many others appeared to have fled entirely. Though it was difficult to be sure, I saw far fewer signs of habitation than I had before. Only the strongest and the bravest could have run off into the night. I wondered where they were hiding even as I forced myself to keep going. We came at last to the stall where I believed I had found Magdalene. It was empty; there was no sign that anyone had been there since her death.

  “He isn’t here,” I said, unable to conceal my despair.

  Vittoro leaned over, bracing his hands on his knees, and breathed through his mouth. David sat down with his back to a wall and appeared to be trying not to breathe at all. Both men, tough and experienced as they were, looked ill. I felt the same way. With each passing moment, the chances that I was wrong increased. I realized that I was straining for any sound from outside that Herrera had been found—dead or alive—and forced myself to concentrate on what was in front of me instead.

  “There is much of the building we haven’t searched,” I said. “We should split up and cover as much ground as possible.”

  Vittoro looked disposed to argue, but David forestalled him. “Francesca is right. This place is a labyrinth. Our best chance is to divide it—left, right, and down the middle. Objections?”

  The captain, who was accustomed to giving orders rather than taking them, hesitated; but after a moment, he nodded. “Any sign of trouble, don’t keep it to yourself, all right?”

  We all agreed and speedily took our leave. David went right, Vittoro went left, and I stayed where I was, resolved to work my way down every inch of the center of the building. I confess to a profound sense of unease as solitude closed in around me. The darkness, the stench, and the all-pervasive miasma of hopelessness weighed on me intolerably. I felt as though I had been buried alive.

  Panic curled at the edges of my mind. I steeled myself as best I could and pressed on. In the maze of close-packed stalls, I could become disoriented all too quickly. To prevent that, and to protect myself in the event of a sudden attack, I withdrew my knife from its sheath. By keeping the tip of the blade scrapping along the wall to my right, I left a tracing of my path.

  It was a trick I had learned from Cesare when together we had penetrated the catacombs beneath Saint Peter’s the previous year. On that occasion, we had stumbled across the mass skeletal remains cast aside as rubble when the Great Constantine built the basilica a thousand years ago. I had to hope that I would encounter no such reminder of omnipresent death in Tanners Lane.

  Continuing on through the darkness, I looked in each stall I passed. Here and there, frightened faces peered back. Worse were the blank, empty stares of those whose minds seemed to have deserted them entirely. I picked up my pace, only to slow again as I became aware of the faint noise all around me. With such limited sight, and with my sense of smell simply overwhelmed by the stench, my hearing seemed to become more acute. A faint but growing cacophony of moans, groans, sighs, and whimpers filled the fetid air.

  Horror crawled under my skin. My mouth tasted of bile. I needed every ounce of will that I possessed to keep going, and even then I almost did not manage it. Voices shouted in my head: “Turn back! He is not here! You cannot find him! Go back! Run!” Most insidiously of all, reason itself insisted that someone else could find Herrera. Someone better suited to the task. Cesare, Vittoro, David—it was best left to any or all of them. Indeed, they would be relieved if I withdrew.

  Reason, it seemed, did not have much sway with me. I kept going. Deep inside the building, with nothing to guide me out again but the thin scratching of my blade, I called out softly, “Don Miguel? Are you here?”

  Up until then, I had tried to refrain from making any sound so as not to alert Mother Benedette to my presence. But with time rushing past and my own fear mounting, I felt that I had no choice.

  Again, I called, “Don Miguel?”

  I heard a groan, not unlike all the others except for what seemed a particular note of anguish and urgency.

  “Don Miguel?” I called louder as caution fell away. If it was him, he was in distress.

  I heard a broken sob in a voice I thought must surely be a man’s for all that it was too weak to be sure. “Ayúdame … por el amor de Dios me ayúda.”

  Castilian again, but close enough to Catalan that I could understand. “Help me … for the love of God, help me.”

  I surged forward, heedless of any effort to mark my trail. My knife was in one hand, the lamp in the other as I came round a corner amid the stalls and found myself face-to-face with a vision out of a nightmare. Herrera was there all right, and blessedly still alive, although it was impossible to guess how much longer he could remain that way. Mother Benedette must have drugged him as she had me. In his helpless state, she had stripped him naked. In a glance, I saw that his clothes were thrown in a nearby corner.

  As for Don Miguel himself …

  He lay on the floor, his legs crossed at the ankles, his arms flung out at right angles to his body. His hands were turned up with the palms toward the ceiling. I needed a moment to understand why there appeared to be dark stains seeping from the center of his palms across the wood slats. And from his side. And from his feet.

  When I did finally grasp what I was seeing, I could only be glad that I had emptied my stomach so thoroughly a short time before. Even so, the
impulse to retch was all but overwhelming. Pity and revulsion struck me with equal force as I stared at the horror before me.

  Don Miguel de Lopez y Herrera, beloved nephew of Their Most Catholic Majesties, had been nailed to the floor of Hell in a crude parody of Christ’s crucifixion. Left there much longer, he would most certainly bleed to death, if he did not die from shock first.

  Not even the denizens of Tanners Lane would be able to conceal what had happened. In their own terror at discovering the body, word would spread and he would be found. The obvious victim of a madwoman who, I saw, had left behind a cloak by which she could be identified. My cloak, the one I had wrapped around Magdalene when I left her in the shed … after promising that she would be safe.

  All thought of any disagreement I had ever had with Herrera fell away. Even so, I hesitated. His wounds were grievous. If I acted too hastily, I could worsen his condition beyond recovery.

  I had to do something, but as I struggled to determine what that should be, a flicker of movement in the corner of my eye distracted me. For just a moment, there in the stygian darkness of the crib, I thought I saw Mother Benedette. She was standing just outside the stall, as though she had been nearby. Her face, framed by her wimple, was startled. Clearly, she had not expected to see me.

  Her reaction, more than anything else, convinced me that I was not hallucinating. For whatever reason, perhaps to make sure that he really did die, the abbess had lingered at the scene of her crime. That, I promised myself, would prove to be a fatal mistake.

  With a cry, I leaped after her.

  She was quicker by far than I had expected. In an instant, I lost sight of her in the darkness. But I could hear her, scrambling frantically as she sought to elude the one she had presumed to be safely dead.

  I wasted neither breath nor effort calling out for her to stop. Instead, I plunged on, heedless of every other consideration. I could think of nothing other than the absolute imperative that she not escape me. The abbess, of course, had precisely the opposite intent. She ran with speed that belied what I had assumed to be her age. As I had been wrong in all else, I had to recognize that I was wrong about that as well.

  Twisting, turning, racing through the maze that was Hell’s crib, she managed to stay a few yards ahead of me. I held on to the lamp for dear life, for only by its faint illumination did I have any hope of keeping up with her. Perhaps because she had laid her plans so well, she seemed to know her way through the maze far better than I could ever hope to do. Too soon, before I had barely begun to tire, she ran toward a portion of wall that appeared to have collapsed outward. With a backward glance at me, she vanished into the darkness beyond.

  I went after her. Without pause, without thought, I jumped the distance to the ground and followed the shadow vanishing toward the lane. Off in the distance, I could make out the shapes of men moving amid the buildings. I thought to call out to them, but my chest was tight, my breath strained. The chances that they would hear me were faint.

  Just then, the sliver of the moon moved from behind curtaining clouds, and I saw her. She was looking back over her shoulder again, directly at me. For a moment, I wondered if she had some power to see in the dark better than I could, but I dismissed the thought. It is always a temptation to ascribe unnatural powers to one’s adversaries. Equally, it is always a mistake, sowing confusion and fear as it does. Far too many of my own enemies have made that error, for which I am grateful.

  I ran on, feet pounding, determined to close the distance between us. What was I thinking as I did so? Of Herrera, perhaps. Of my mother, certainly. Of a world ruled by a god of evil? No, not really. And yet there is no concealing what happened. Whether because of a hump in the ground or debris of some sort, the abbess stumbled.

  The moment she did so, without an instant’s thought, I drew back my arm and hurled the burning lamp straight at her.

  28

  The lamp shattered on impact. Mother Benedette stopped, frozen in surprise, and I did the same. Truly, I have no idea what was in my mind. If I felt compelled to throw anything, it should have been my knife, but, as I have said, I have no skill with it except for close work.

  For a moment, nothing happened. And then … I hesitate even to remember, so terrible was it. The oil in the lamp spread across the ground, lapping at the hem of her habit. A spark caught, and licks of flame raced up her skirts. The simple, undyed fabric ignited like a torch. Her white face, distorted in a scream of terror, shone from behind a sudden wall of smoke and fire.

  In fact, none of that was real. True, the flame did catch and it did singe the bottom of her habit. She did react with horror, as any sensible person would, and she did make at once to stamp it out. But whether because of the lingering effects of the drugs she had given me or the darkness stirring within my mind, I saw it differently. Saw what might have been if she had been lashed to the stake as so many Cathars had been and left to burn as they had.

  As I feared I would if my many enemies ever had their way.

  I screamed. A wrenching, tearing sound that seemed to rend the air itself. For certain, it tore my throat, for I promptly tasted blood. Choking on it, still screaming, I ran at her.

  What does it mean to seek to kill and save at the same time? I hated her; I wanted her dead. And I could not bear to see her perish in so hideous a manner. I ran straight into the flames that, in that instant, I truly believed were devouring her.

  Later, I found strange patches on my arms, a sore redness almost like the beginning of a burn, as though a fire that existed only in my own mind still had the power to harm me.

  She kicked, pummeling me with feet and fists, reaching with her nails for my eyes, but, driven as I was by terror, my strength was greater than her own. We fell together onto the ground and rolled, the sputtering flames snuffed out as we went. In mud and mire, in the filth of Hell, I clung to her. She was alone, and I … I was not. All I had to do was hold on long enough and I would win.

  David got to us first. He came out of the darkness, pulling me off the abbess so that he could hold and secure her. Even then, she continued to fight, snarling at him with wild eyes and bared teeth. Her wimple came away. Dark hair tumbled loose. As it settled around her smooth face, I saw at once that she was a much younger woman than I had thought, little older than myself.

  What followed was all confusion. Vittoro was there, and Cesare. I tried to explain, but really I needn’t have bothered. Cesare barked orders and the abbess was surrounded by men-at-arms. My last glimpse of her as she was led away was a fierce stare and, I thought, a strangely confident smile.

  I remembered Herrera.

  “He is inside, badly hurt!” More explanation was needed, but I did not have it to give. Nor was there any time. Heedless of the vise gripping my chest, I grabbed up my skirts and ran with all my strength.

  The others followed. Frantically, I reached out and found the thin tracing of my knife along the wall. Following it, running desperately, I came at last to the place where Herrera lay. Scarcely had I done so than I heard the strangled gasps of those behind me. Someone was vomiting; someone else could not stop moaning. I had no idea who they were, nor did I care. All that mattered was that Cesare remained in full control of himself.

  Kneeling beside Herrera, he passed a hand over the other man’s brow, looked deeply into his eyes, and said, “We’ve got you. You’re safe now.”

  A long sigh escaped the Spaniard. He stared at Cesare a moment more before consciousness mercifully left him.

  At once, I bent down beside him. Before Cesare could do anything, I said, “If we are not careful, we will make this worse.”

  “For pity’s sake, Francesca, we have to free him!”

  I heard the horror in his voice, and the anguish, but I would not relent. Instead, I elbowed him aside and looked to David, who was right behind us.

  “We have to release him slowly. If we jar the nails loose too quickly—”

  “He could bleed out.” Kneeling beside me, the rene
gade Jewish leader reached out to help the beloved nephew of the monarchs who had expelled the Jews from Spain, and who would have condemned them all to extinction had that been within their power.

  “You’re sure you want to do this, given who he is?” I asked, ashamed of the doubts I had harbored.

  David spared me a glance, no more. “It doesn’t matter,” he said and with gentle strength, slowly and carefully lifted Herrera into his arms.

  The moment he was free, blood did flow more freely, but not so much that I had to fear we would lose him right then and there. Cesare stepped in quickly to help David. Together, they carried Herrera outside.

  I will not dwell on the journey back to the palazzo except to say that we went as slowly as we dared. By the grace of God, Herrera remained unconscious most of the way, although as we made the final push up the hill toward the papal palace, he was groaning almost constantly.

  Others had run ahead with word of what had happened. Borgia was at the top of the steps, watching us come. He looked grim and worn, as though events had suddenly caught up with him. I could not help but feel the same. Somewhere in the palazzo, “Mother Benedette” was being held. I would have to talk with Borgia about her before too long, but at the moment I had to concentrate on Herrera. Even so, as we passed His Holiness, I said, “If you want to learn anything from her, leave it until I can get free.”

  I needn’t have worried. As much as he had reason to execute her on the spot, Borgia was always able to rise above his private emotions. He merely looked at me through hooded eyes and nodded.