She would inform the priora of Nicola’s vow immediately, Sister Beatrice decided. Searching for a cutpurse from inside a convent was bound to lead the child into doing something strange.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the bells of the campanile, signaling that Sister Annaluisa’s funeral was about to begin. She rose to her feet. “I must join my sisters, Nicola. Go now to the back of the church, and sit with the students. The front pews are for family.”
Rustling like wind in the cedars, the white-habited nuns were moving from the second story of the cloister into the nun’s choir, their private space over the main door at the rear of the church. Nicola walked slowly toward them down the center aisle, passing plain wooden pews that were filling with curious parishioners. Pausing to inhale the comforting scent of incense, Nicola memorized the faces of the strangers moving past her to the front pews. Sister Annaluisa was the only child of a simple country family, she had said. That fit the older man and woman, faces lined with sorrow, who led a gaggle of black-clad family towards the coffin. Nicola was confident she would know all of them again, if she ever saw them. She could memorize anything she saw, including whole pages of writing. Faces were easy.
The resinous smell of incense now permeated the ancient space, built by the heathen Romans and dimly-lit by small openings at the roofline. Nicola glanced up at the simple frescoes of San Sisto and other martyred saints, long since darkened by incense and torch smoke. The frescoed saints had body parts missing, but they didn’t bleed much, or look like they were in pain. The nuns said not to fear death and she didn’t, mostly. She was just curious about it-- another reason she wanted to look into the coffin, where she hoped to see a familiar friend.
The sound of weeping drew Nicola’s eyes up to the nun’s choir. Sister Gerolama, an older nun, was crying openly. She was too old to be a friend of Sister Annaluisa. What did it mean?
Behind her, the rustle of silks caught Nicola’s attention. She turned to see Lucrezia Borgia and her ladies sweeping into the church through the side door nearest the guesthouse. The pope’s daughter was swathed in black that hid her face and famous golden hair. Why wouldn’t she show her face? Nicola waved at Lucrezia, who didn’t seem to see her. The pope’s daughter did look up at the weeping Sister Gerolama, though. She then put her palms together, gesturing that she was praying for the grieving nun.
Lucrezia must know that Sister Gerolama is her half-sister, Nicola decided. She felt vaguely relieved. She had been tempted to tell Lucrezia that Sister Gerolama was a much older daughter of the pope. But it was a great secret that Nicola wasn’t supposed to know it herself. Happily the half-sisters had found each other, somehow.
But did they both know Sister Annaluisa? Annaluisa had sometimes gone with Nicola to hear Lucrezia’s ladies read from Dante. So Lucrezia knew her slightly. But Sister Gerolama was old, and never left the cloister. She and Annaluisa were unlikely friends, Nicola concluded. The whole exchange between the pope's daughters puzzled her.
“Nicola! Stop dawdling,” hissed La Greca. Startled, Nicola realized she had reached the rear of the church. She slid into her appointed seat among the students.
* * *
Lucrezia Borgia led her ladies to seats in the transept, close to the altar. From there, she could look back at the nun’s choir, where Sister Gerolama still wept. She kept still and quiet, knowing she should show no emotion at the funeral of an unknown nun.
Guilt sat like a stone on her chest. Had she not fled to this convent, the father of her unborn child would still be alive. As would Sister Annaluisa.
“We are here to mourn the passing of Sister Annaluisa, one of the youngest nuns,” the priest announced from the pulpit. “Though she was new to her vocation, she was friendly and helpful to young and old alike, and well-loved by all. The students loved her from her time in the schoolroom. But she did not limit her kindness to the young. In fact, she brought a ray of sunshine to some of our older sisters. She will be sorely missed.”
Lucrezia liked this kindly priest. He had told her when she arrived that she was right to flee to San Sisto. The divorce her father demanded was shameful, he agreed. Worse, her husband had offered to prove his virility by having sex with her in public. She could not obey them both. Any decent woman would flee from such a prospect, he had said.
“We can never know why Annaluisa chose to leave us the way she did,” the priest continued. “All we can do is pray to God to forgive her and any among us who may have caused her pain.”
“Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine,” he sang in a rich, melodic baritone, signaling the beginning of the funeral mass.
‘Give them eternal rest, Lord,’ Lucrezia translated to herself. Were the souls of her lover Perrotto and Sister Annaluisa in Purgatory? Surely her father had performed last rites for Perrotto, after her brother Cesare stabbed him as he clung to her father’s ankles, begging for mercy. But there had been no last rites for Sister Annaluisa. She died alone.
“Quando Judex est venturus,” the priest sang, looking deliberately around the church, and briefly at Lucrezia.
'When justice is come.' Lucrezia wondered how strict God’s justice would be. She shouldn’t have listened to Annaluisa. And she shouldn’t have seduced Perrotto when the pope sent him to coax her from the convent. But he was so handsome and charming, and she was so bored in this too-quiet place. She had just turned seventeen--wasn't she entitled to a little pleasure? Her father and brothers always had women, and they were sworn to celibacy. How could they expect her to be celibate? And after four childless years of marriage, how could she possibly have anticipated her pregnancy? Or, that her brother would kill Perrotto because of it?
She put a gloved finger to her lips, to silence the whispers of two of her ladies. These were her friends, yet she felt increasingly distant from them. Her cares and her pregnancy had aged her, somehow.
“Supplicanti parce, Deus,” the priest sang, again catching her eye. Would God forgive her? Two people were dead because she fled to a convent instead of quietly accepting her divorce. And she had actually gotten pregnant in a convent. What had she been thinking? Had she been thinking at all?
“Lacrymosa dies illa.” The priest’s deep voice was dramatic now, the melody a dirge.
‘The day will be one of weeping.’ And it was. Sister Gerolama was still crying, as were many others. Nicola was particularly noisy, from the back of the church. Some of Sister Annaluisa’s family were crying—the mother and father and two others, probably Farnese cousins. So many tears, for someone young and unknown. Who had cried at Perrotto’s funeral? Had he even had one?
Lucrezia permitted her own tears to flow, hidden behind her veil, as the mass drew to a close. She decided she would ask her father for an indulgence for Sister Annaluisa, to send her straight to heaven. If only she dared ask for one for Perrotto, as well.
As she headed for the guesthouse, Lucrezia felt a small hand in her own. Though Nicola’s face was dirty and tear-stained, her smile was cheerful.
Lucrezia found herself smiling back. “I am very sorry you lost your friend, Nicola.”
“Did you know her, Madonna? Do you know why she ran away?”
Lucrezia hesitated. “I cannot say, child,” she finally responded.
“But do you know?”
Lucrezia felt a flash of anger. “The nuns need to teach you better manners, Nicola. I am not accustomed to being questioned.”
“They have tried to teach me better manners, Madonna. And they won’t answer my questions, either. That is why I was hoping you would. Sister Annaluisa was my first friend. I need to know—“ Nicola’s voice trailed off, as she brushed away more tears.
Moved by the child’s sad face, Lucrezia bent down and hugged her. “I am also your friend. I tell you what: I will invite you to my wedding! Would you like that?”
“Yes! But aren’t you already married?”
“I was, but the pope divorced me from my first husband.”
“But why?”
“When he became pope, he found me a better husband!”
“But that’s not a reason for divorce, is it?”
“My husband signed a paper, saying I was a virgin. That is a reason for divorce.”
“But why?”
“He didn’t want to, at first. He—took it as a personal insult. But my father gave him little choice.”
Nicola’s brown eyes widened, and she grinned. “You are like the Virgin Mary, then!”
Lucrezia winced, reminded that all of Rome now joked about her miraculous virginity. But Nicola meant no harm, and her quick return to good spirits was infectious.
“I am not nearly as good a woman as the Virgin Mary, bambolina,” she replied with a smile. “But I am a better woman than many people think.”
Chapter 5—Auto da Fé
Florence, Italy
May, 1498
Niccolò Machiavelli watched from the edge of the crowd as priests dragged the body of Savanorola across an elevated platform toward a tall cross surrounded with firewood, their tiny figures dwarfed by the brownstone Palazzo Vecchio behind them. The citizenry of Florence now filled the piazza, waiting for their former leader to be burned at the stake, on the very spot where he had twice ordered bonfires of their books, paintings and other “vanities.”
Niccolò found he was crying, and couldn’t think why. He, as much as anyone, had worked for the downfall of this meddlesome priest. He wiped his eyes with his sleeve, fearful he would be mistaken for one of “the Weepers,” Savonarola’s black-clad followers, when in fact he was one of the opposing “Angry Ones,” who now wore colors more suitable to a wedding than to an execution. It felt like a festa—people were laughing and publicly drinking, something they dared not do when Savonarola was in power. Fortune tellers and street vendors were working the crowd. Judging by the smell, someone nearby was selling—of all things--roasted meat.
“A great day, si?” said a voice behind him.
“Great for everyone but that pious fool they are hanging from the scaffold,” he responded, in a carefully playful voice. The executioners had arranged a chain around Savonarola’s neck and were about to haul him aloft. Far above their heads, the flags hung limp from the crenellations spanning the Palazzo Vecchio, reminding Machiavelli of gritted teeth. The sky was already the color of smoke.
“Is he already dead?” the voice asked.
“For his sake, I hope so! It seems excessive to hang him and then burn him too, don’t you think? Especially since he has already been tortured on the rack. See, his arms and legs are limp as strings. All for the sin of thinking he could control the morals of Florence and the pope, without an army at his back.”
“The Church sees it differently, of course,” said the voice behind him.
“It must,” Machiavelli agreed obligingly. He refrained from adding that the Church was foolish to martyr someone whom many regarded as a saint, when poison was so easy. Best to say little--the fellow behind him had a Roman accent.
A cry went up from the crowd. A bystander had torched the kindling, even before the executioners finished their work. They hoisted their prisoner hastily, and fled. Savonarola’s followers roared their approval as a sudden gust of wind blew the mounting flames away from the monk’s body. “God will save him!” someone shouted.
But the wind changed. Now Savonarola’s enemies cheered and threw rocks, as the flames began licking the monk’s sandaled feet. Then tendrils of flame ran up his brown robe like mice up a wall. As the clothing blackened, Savonarola’s hands rose, as if he were blessing the crowd. The populace gasped.
“Porca Madonna! Is he still alive?” someone asked.
“It’s the heat from the fire,” Machiavelli said, trying not to gag. The smell of wood smoke had already given way to the smell of burning flesh. The rocks thrown at the blackening corpse now spattered entrails onto the flames, like grease from a sausage.
This was too much. Machiavelli turned away, and found himself face-to-face with an old woman dressed completely in black, who looked vaguely familiar.
“You will burn in Hell for what you have done,” she snapped.
“I? Mona, I opposed Savonarola but never called for his death. The Church did that. He is being executed for heresy.”
“For the heresy of telling kings and princes to get rid of the pope, because of his evil ways,” shouted a bystander, raising his wineskin in salute to the burning corpse.
“Blasphemy!” said the voice Machiavelli had heard earlier. He turned—sure enough, the speaker was a priest, who glared as if he would like to add the man and his wineskin to the blaze.
“God have mercy on us. What will become of Florence?” the old woman cried, her eyes gazing upward.
Though the question wasn’t addressed to him, Machiavelli chose to answer it. “Florence will become a real republic again, Mona, for the first time since the Medici came to power.”
Walking away from the crowd, Machiavelli wondered how he knew the woman. Finally, he placed her: she was the self-righteous old hag, one of Savonarola’s earliest followers, who had harassed Caterina for having a bastard child. His bastard child. At the time, Niccolò had blamed the old woman for Caterina’s disappearance. Lately, he hardly thought of Caterina or their daughter. Now he wondered again: was either of them still alive?
Chapter 6—The Man in the Graveyard
Convent of San Sisto, Rome
June, 1498
“Arrivederci, Lucrezia!” Nicola shouted as she watched the last horses in the papal retinue disappear around the bend in the Via Appia, outside the convent wall. “Do you think she saw me, Pia? Do you think she remembers she invited me to her wedding?”
Nicola’s best friend Pia, legs dangling on either side of a large branch, was leaning against the the upper trunk of an ancient fig tree that the two used as their spying-place. “Who knows? She refused to see you for months.”
This had hurt Nicola, but she refused to be daunted by it. “She wouldn’t see anyone for months. She was—praying, the nuns said.”
“Well, it’s what she came for, isn’t it? It was about time she got started,” Pia replied. Her braids and veil were piled atop her head, her thin face sweating in the summer heat. Fluttering the painted fan her mother had sent her, she peered into the distance, pursing her thin lips in the way that always reminded Nicola of a rat. Everything about Pia was now too long, like someone had stretched her. Parts of her, like her hands and feet, seemed to be growing even faster than the rest.
Pia fanned her thin face. “I’m so hot I could die.”
“Read then, and try not to think about the heat.”
“Why should I read? You read too much, Nicola. Don’t you want a husband? And why should I care that some sailor named Cristofèro Columbo thinks that the world is round? Anyone can see that it is flat!”
“The ancient Greeks believed the world is round,” Nicola said tentatively. “And Cristofèro Columbo’s letter says he found India by sailing west. But when Marco Polo went to India, he traveled east.”
“You see, all that reading has confused you!” Pia exploded. “Who cares about the ancient Greeks? As for Cristofèro Columbo--he found some islands. How does he know it was India? Personally, I think the whole thing is a hoax.”
Nicola climbed into the uppermost branches, searching for ripe figs and the right words to say. Pia was her best friend, and the only other student at San Sisto even close to her age. But Pia had gotten moody since turning thirteen. No matter what she said, Nicola always seemed to put her in a temper.
“Nicola, look,” she called out. “A man is going into the nuns’ graveyard! One of Lucrezia Borgia’s attendants, do you think?”
“The graveyard is open to the street. Anyone could go to there.”
“But no one ever does. Look, Nicola, he is stopping at Sister Annaluisa’s grave!”
Pia was right. Nicola began climbing down from the top branches. “Come on. We need to talk to him,” she shouted as she swung herself dow
n from the tree.
“Why?”
Nicola was already running towards the graveyard. “To see if he knows anything about Sister Annaluisa’s death,” she called behind to Pia.
“Nicola, I don’t want to look into the graveyard. There are probably spirits in there--” Pia panted, as she ran to catch up with her friend.
Nicola ran to the tree closest to the graveyard wall. “Help me up.”
After Pia gave her a boost, Nicola worked her way up to a branch that overhung the wall. Then she edged her way outward, until she could see.
The man had already disappeared through the outer gate. The graveyard was empty.
“He is gone, Pia. But he left flowers on Sister Annaluisa’s grave!” Nicola reported.
“What are you doing, girls?” said a familiar, ominous voice.
Nicola froze. The girls’ teachers, Vivos and Mortuos, stood on the orchard path, their hands in their white habits' sleeves, looking up perplexedly. The students’ nicknames for them came from the Latin mass. Sister Domenica was Vivos –“the Living.” Sister Ignacia was Mortuos--“the Dead.”
“There was a man in the graveyard I wanted to talk to,” Nicola explained.
“Now she is climbing trees so she can talk to men!” Vivos exclaimed. “Ignacia, this is more serious than we thought.”
“It is not what you think,” Nicola protested. “He was putting flowers on Sister Annaluisa’s grave. I wanted to see if he had any clues about her death. Who knows, he might even be the murderer!”
“We told you to stop asking questions about Sister Annaluisa. And you thought you should question a man, who might be a murderer? Are you pazza?” scolded Vivos, her voice rising with agitation. Short and fat, she marched closer to the tree, her legs and arms flailing against her white habit, her body expending great effort for little forward motion.
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