Servant to the Borgia

by Elizabeth McGlone

  The blade dropped from numb fingers. He would kill her now, she thought. He would…

  Bernaldino turned and left the room, red droplets trailing behind him.

  Chapter 39

  Warm water lapped at Betta's ankles, caressing the sensitive skin between her toes as the water receded. Fascinated, she bent, watching the sand drift away, only to return a moment later when the foam made her lift her skirts to avoid the spray.

  "You will ruin your gown," Lady Lucrezia's voice emerged from the pile of large boulders where she sat, delicate skin shaded by a wide-brimmed hat and gloves. The air was sweltering, but Lucrezia seemed unaffected by the heat. Her skin glowed pale ivory touched with rose, the wispy curls at her temples fluttering in the breeze.

  "I think not, my lady," Betta murmured, careful to keep her eyes downcast. "Salt can be washed out, and I own nothing so fine that it would need to be cleansed with verjuice." Or urine. The idea of it made her smile. Cloth such as Lady Lucrezia wore, edged with colorful embroidery, was soaked in vats of urine to remove stains. Something sharp brushed her toes. Betta stooped, catching the shell uncovered by the shifting tide between her fingers. The water was cloudy with sand, but further on, past the churning surf, it hung as clear as one of the jewels in her lady's strong box.

  Betta shook the shell in the water, dislodging the remainder of the sand, then brought it up. "A fine one, my lady. Good size."

  Lucrezia held out her hand. "Bring it to me."

  Betta walked from the water, holding her skirts up until only the warm sand tickled her toes. Fanning the shell back and forth, she removed the last of the sea water.

  Lucrezia plucked the shell from her fingers, turning it back and forth to examine it. The largest she had found that afternoon, it was a perfectly formed dark fan, the underside a rosy pink that matched the tone of her skin.

  "Sharp," she murmured, rubbing her finger along the edge. With a sigh, she placed the shell on top of the pile and returned to breaking off tiny pieces of bread and throwing them upwards to the gulls that hovered in a cloud, filling the air with their raucous cries.

  "Another one, my lady?"

  "If you please," she said, her attention diverted by the sound of approaching riders heading along the coastal path into Pesaro.

  "Is it the count, my lady?" Betta asked, masking her disappointment at the interruption of their quiet interlude. They had come down to the shore an hour before, accompanied by an escort of half a dozen soldiers who lounged on the rocks nearby, out of sight but not out of earshot. Lady Lucrezia had stated with an imperious lift of her chin that she wished for solitude, and the guards had obliged.

  "No, one of his deputies." With a sigh, Lucrezia settled herself back on the rock, turning so that her face was fading from the sun as it climbed the horizon. "Perhaps he will ride himself to exhaustion this morning." There was a hopeful note in her voice.

  Betta made a noise in the back of her throat and waded out further in the water. After the first bite of cold that had run in a shiver over her skin, it had become warm, like a bath. What use her lady had for the shells, Betta had no notion. All that she knew was that this was freedom, freedom from the stifling, enclosed rooms of the palazzo and the watchful eyes of those who would glory in a misstep, in a mistake that would allow someone else to take her place at the Countess’s side. Thinking of the pinched skin around her lady's eyes this morning, she wondered if that was what she sought as well.

  Scanning the water, Betta bit back a sigh of disappointment. They would be forced to leave soon, that the Countess could be prepared for cena, and she wanted another shell. She looked westward to the collection of jagged rocks where the guard waited. They could not see her. She pulled her skirt far upwards and twisted it into a tight rope. Tucking the knot of fabric beneath her armpit, she waded out even further until the water lapped at her waist.

  A laugh danced across the water. "You will fall."

  Betta did not look up. The push and pull of the waves required all of her attention to stay upright and safeguard her gown; her hips moved, and Betta was struck by their whiteness beneath the blue water. The skin of her face and arms was an unappealing bronze, but her hips and stomach were the white of bone or the undersides of the shells that she had captured from the waves.

  "You are very slender," Lucrezia said, startling her. Betta looked up to see that Lucrezia had left off her feeding of the birds and was now watching her, an expression of quizzical surprise stamped on her face. "And you have no hair between your legs. I did not think common women followed that fashion."

  Betta could feel the red flush creeping on her cheeks. Her tongue stumbled, trying to explain. "Pantasilea...she uses me to check the mixture."

  Lucrezia nodded but did not remove her eyes, which were firmly fastened on Betta's middle. "Does the lye burn you?" she asked, displaying knowledge of the ingredients of the depilatory cream which was smeared onto the skin of her thighs each week, removing the pale blond curls.

  "Sometimes," Betta said, turning so that her back was to the Countess. In the water two passes deeper, she could see the spiny edges of something dark, sticking from the sand.

  "Do you have a lover?"

  Betta stiffened at the words, shock stilling her tongue so that her instinctive denial hung at the back of her throat like a fish.

  Undeterred by Betta's silence, Lucrezia continued. "You are very pretty, and I know that one of the guards…"

  "My lady!" As though in answer to prayer, the withdrawing tide had exposed more of the shell, revealing a wedge shape longer than her hand. She bent over, face almost touching the water. "My lady, it is so large!"

  "What is it?" Lucrezia's voice pitched higher in excitement, her questions of a moment before forgotten.

  "A shell, but large, as big as my hand!"

  "Get it!" Abandoning her rock, Lucrezia scampered to the shore, coming to the very edge of sand colored dark by the water.

  Without hesitation, Betta let go of her dress and dived into the sea. She had grown up swimming in the Tiber, the muddy stink closing her eyes as effectively as a blindfold. For the first moment, she kept her eyes open, astonished at the clarity of the water, the fish she could see only a few paces off. Then the burn of the salt closed her eyes, and she made her way forward by feel, searching with her hands until her lungs burned. Sand, sand, shifting, delicate sand pulling at her, trying to drag her back, tugging at her skirts. A sharpness grazed her fingers, and she caught at it.

  Holding the shell, she rose from the water. She rubbed the salt from her eyes, blinking to clear the film, and saw Lucrezia dancing on the shore, hat and shoes forgotten and dripping with wet. Though she kept her skirts up, her stockings were soaked as she rushed forward, taking the shell from Betta's hands as soon as she had come close enough.

  "What is it?" she asked, turning the shell over and over. Unlike the others she had found that day, it formed a tight fist, spiny and armored against the ocean.

  "An oyster," Betta said, remembering the lessons with Messer Bartolomeo, who had taken her to market and showed her every crustacean and fish to be bought, exclaiming over the tastes and textures of the flesh.

  Lucrezia pried at the lips of the shell with her fingernails. Betta placed a cautionary hand on her arm. "That will need a knife, my lady, a good sharp one."

  "I shall have Messer Antonio open it when we return for cena," she said, wrapping her fingers around it. "Perhaps it will have a pearl like this one," she waved her hand, displaying the ornate gold ring inset with the enormous pearl gifted by her father.

  "Yes, my lady," Betta agreed, trying to wring out her skirts.

  Lucrezia waved off the guards who had left the sanctuary of the cliff, venturing close to determine the cause of the Countess's excited shouts. "I do hope that Giovanni doesn't wish to rut again. It has been the most marvelous day."

  Wooden daggers were tucked beneath her pallet when she returned to the Palazzo. Two weeks had passed since she had carved the lin
e of red into Bernaldino’s skin; she had grieved during those days, thinking her lessons were at an end. For all his harsh words, she had enjoyed their time together. In that room, she had felt strong, not a child who could be hurt.

  The long hall attached to the kitchen where the servants and guards took their meal was a chaotic jumble of men in breastplates and the colors of the Sforza livery. More arrived each day.

  “An hour?” she whispered into the Spaniard’s ear as he bent over, filling his cup with wine. Whiskers tickled her cheek.

  He nodded.

  The day was hot, the sun beating down on the pale stone blocks of the palazzo. By the time Betta had reached the upper room, Bernaldino had stripped off his heavy leather doublet, leaving only a linen shirt. Though the garment had been washed, there was a rusty stain on the forearm and a long slash in the fabric.

  Regret for the injury squirmed through her. “I will mend the shirt for you.”

  “I’d rather you sucked my cock,” he teased, smiling. At her flinch, his face hardened. “That’s how it is, eh? Pretty thing like you, easy to see.” As she watched, the fingers of his hand clenched on his hip, turning the fingers white. “Get caught in the streets at the wrong hour? Or did you have an uncle too fond of you?”

  “Neither.”

  “Your father, then.”

  “He is not my father,” she snapped. Wishing the conversation to be done with, she attacked, using the anger, the rage that bubbled just beneath the surface to lend speed to her strikes. When he shifted to the side and tore the knife from her arm with a blow that numbed it from shoulder to wrist, she did not admit defeat. Kicking out with her legs, she aimed for his knee with the wooden heel of her slipper. He caught it and twisted, throwing her on her back as easily as a piece of wood.

  “Better,” he said, kneeling over her. Sweat darkened the edges of his hair; the linen shirt clung to his chest. “I watched you in the water.”

  “What?” Shock made the words loud even as he pressed against the floor; she rose up, trying to stand. A booted foot in the middle of her back held her in place, and she grunted, unable to draw in a breath with the heavy weight of him pressing down.

  “Skirts about your waist, hair falling down. Been hard since then, thinking of it.”

  His words frightened her in a way that his blows and flashing knives never had. The foot on her back began to lift. In a moment of reckless daring, Betta spun, rolling out from beneath his feet and slashing upwards with the wooden knife. The dull blade caught him high on the inside of the thigh in the place where the blood ran close to the surface.

  For a moment, his face froze in shock, then he began to laugh.

  “I am a dead man,” he chuckled, bending down so he could offer her a hand. “Again.”

  She dreamed that night.

  Betta seldom dreamed. Only snatches of memory stalking her sleeping hours, happy memories, or the whispers of those long dead. Less often did she remember the dreams, but the hint of this one remained with her throughout the day, trailing her every moment.

  She walked through the waves, feeling the caress of them upon her ankles. The water was warm, the temperature of the water that she heated for her lady’s bath; as it rose up her legs, the heat of it flooded her skin, rising higher and higher. It curled along her calves, finding the hollow between her thighs. As it reached the place where her legs met, she was no longer in the water; instead, she was riding a horse through the dark night, and Micheletto was behind her. He placed his hand on her stomach, and the same warmth that had risen with the waves filled her body. When she woke, she was trembling.

  The night was crowded close with stars and the salt breeze that swept in from the sea, ruffling the tapestries that hung from the walls. A dreamless, bright night, where the darkened horizon seemed to stretch on, past Rome, past all of the known world.

  The straw slid beneath Betta's back as she moved. Though fresh, she could detect an unpleasant odor hanging about it, the same that clung to every inch of the town of Pesaro, the smell growing stronger at night. Fish stink, she thought of it, remembering the lessons of Master Bartolomeo. Moronella, her nose finally identified the smell. Sturgeon covered in salt and placed in a barrel but stored too long so that the brine had begun to ooze.

  Betta swung up from her pallet on the floor. There would be no sleep this night, not with the smell of moronella in her nose and too many thoughts buzzing around her head, filling it until it seemed as though there would never be an escape from the press of worry.

  The breeze outside called to her, free from the stench of fish. The same breeze that her sister enjoyed, safe in Ostia.

  Ginevra would be twelve now, and in the years since they had parted, she would have made the last strides into womanhood. It would be a full, blooming womanhood, freed from terror and starvation. If nothing else, Betta was proud that her sister had grown up removed from the ghosts that crowded around her so closely. Let her stay there, Betta thought. Let Ruberto's family nurture her as their own. Let there be a young man who takes a fancy to her and is willing to overlook the lack of a dowry in exchange for a bright fall of dark red hair and nature made to please. Please, she prayed.

  A soft noise sounded from the outer chamber, the creaking of the door to the terrace opening. She was not alone with her wandering thoughts this night. Crossing to the shelf where her garments were kept, Betta wrapped a light woolen shawl around her shoulders. It was a beautifully made thing of sapphire color even when stripped of the silver embroidery that had once edged the hem, and the heavy wool wrapped her in an embrace.

  The candle was extinguished by the cold wind as soon as the door was opened, but the brief moment of illumination had been enough to confirm the identity of the other wanderer. In the starlight, blonde hair shone with a silvery radiance, the wind painting the white camicia tight against her body.

  Noiselessly, Betta followed, slipping out the door and out of the passage. There was no indication as to the hour, the church bells silenced long since, and no lightening of the sky to signal the incipient arrival of dawn. Except for they two, the household slept.

  She could not imagine what had driven her mistress from her bed that night. Lady Lucrezia had returned from her visit to the master's chambers silent, as was her want, the scent of horseflesh and seed clinging to her and a set, stern cast to her delicate features that they had grown accustomed to in the months at Pesaro.

  Lucrezia stepped out onto the terrace, crossing to the stone balustrade. Like a shadow she stood, body motionless despite the wind that pulled and pushed at the linen shrouding her form. Her gaze was not pointed east, to where a line of dark storm clouds were slowly eating away at the stars; instead, she looked south. To Rome. There was a muffled sound, the crinkling of paper, and a sigh.

  "I know you are there." Lucrezia's tone was flat. "You smell of soap."

  "There are worse things to smell of, my lady," Betta said, stepping out of the shadows. Free from the sheltering effects of the stone, the wind caught at her, biting deep; Betta shivered. Even after a year, she was unused to the cold air of Pesaro, and longed for the heat of Rome.

  "My husband, for one," Lucrezia snorted. “I can still smell his stink on me. It reeks.”

  When Betta made no reply, Lucrezia continued.

  “Do you know how he takes me? Each time, flat on my back with his hands wrapped around mine so that I cannot move, all of his weight pressing against my chest. It is always the same, half a minute of him thrusting like a pig wallowing after a sow, no tenderness, no attempt to rouse my passions."

  "Come then, I will cleanse you."

  Lucrezia made no move to turn toward the passage. "As you did that other night."

  The hair rose at the back of Betta's neck. The countess seldom spoke of the Cardinal, and never replied to the letters which arrived from Rome in a steady stream, all bearing a scarlet seal which melted like blood into rivers when the missives were thrown into the fire. It was as if he had been cut from her l
ife like a poisonous growth.

  "That night, when I awoke to find him gone and you washed the seed from my legs and burned my camicia so that no one would ever know. If I did not have that memory and this...I would think that night was a dream." Lucrezia looked down at the parchment crumpled in her hand. "My secret, one that I cannot bring myself to regret."

  Betta lowered her voice and looked, first to the right and then to the left. She listened, tamping down her awareness of the waves, and the faint rustle of their breathing, searching for another sound, one that did not belong to a night filled with secrets. Experience had taught her that there were no places within great homes that were safe, where whispered words could not be overheard. "I know of no secret."

  "Yes, you do," Lucrezia insisted, her face fierce in the dim light. Wrapped around the parchment, her fingers became claws. "You remember. It happened. It happened." Doubt crept into the words. "Or did it?" Her face drained of color as the doubt crept in. For a moment, she seemed immeasurably fragile, a slim girl barely out of her childhood bearing the weight of a thousand expectations on her narrow shoulders with only memories as comfort.

  "What does your letter say?"

  Lucrezia's eyes cleared. "That he was evil, to have sinned as we did. Am I evil as well, to have done such a thing? To wish for nothing more than to have him again?" The tears that had sparkled on her eyelids fell and her shoulders shook with sobs.

  Betta was beside her, unwrapping the shawl from her shoulders and placing it around her mistress. "Shush, not those words, not here, not ever." Though she was shorter by the widths of two fingers, Lucrezia looked up to her, eyes filled with desperate need. Hands still on her shoulders, Betta turned her so that they both faced the hills. "Dawn will come soon, my lady. Can you see the light in the sky? In the morning light, everything will be different. When the war ends, we will return to Rome. We will return, and then, if you will it, everything changes."