A Borgia Daughter Dies

by Maryann Philip

  Sister Beatrice stared at Nicola, who had just arrived, breathless, to perform her after-school chores. The girl looked frightened.

  “What are you talking about, Nicola?” she said sharply. “And what has happened to your wrist?”

  Nicola stared at the blood dripping from the loose sleeve of her black camorra. “A shard must have hit me. I felt it, but I didn’t know I was bleeding.”

  “Come here. We will wash and bandage it. Now, tell me again: what happened?”

  Nicola, still breathing hard, held out her forearm to display a gash. “I was walking next to the campanile, and a big stone fell from above. It almost hit me. This is the second time. I didn’t think much about it, the first time. I promise I won’t walk next to the buildings anymore. And I will only eat from the common platter.”

  “This is a nasty cut,” Sister Beatrice commented as she washed it. “What is this about the common platter? Are you saying that someone is trying to poison you?”

  “Maybe. There were these figs in a basket, at the bottom of the tree where I sit. But they looked nasty, so I threw them away. Now, I wonder—were they poisoned? Maybe I am being silly.”

  “Nicola, why would anyone try to hurt you?” Sister Beatrice murmured, using the soothing voice she reserved for agitated patients.

  “Because I am asking too many questions about Sister Gerolama?” Nicola’s voice was tentative.

  Sister Beatrice was startled. She thought for a moment, while working on Nicola’s bandage. “No one in the convent would do such a thing, Nicola,” she said firmly. “But it is true that you are annoying some of the sisters with your questions about Sister Gerolama. You are causing pain, without any good to show for it. Perhaps you should stop.”

  “But the priora asked me to do it!” Nicola protested.

  Sister Beatrice finished Nicola’s bandage. “You have learned nothing of value, Nicola. Sister Gerolama obviously became separated from the group. No one saw anything. No one was with her, until she was dying.”

  “No one who will admit it, anyway.”

  Sister Beatrice washed her hands in the basin next to the bandages and medicines. The whitewashed infermeria was scrupulously clean, and redolent of the drying herbs hanging from the rafters. Four cots--only one with an occupant—took up most of the room.

  “I need to go see the priora. I will ask her if you should continue with these questions. While I am gone, you can strip the lavender from the branches. Give Sister Serena her tonic if she wakes up.”

  “Si, Suora.” Resignation in her voice, Nicola flopped down on a stool beside the dried lavender, and started her work.

  Sister Beatrice crossed the convent courtyard on the way to the priora’s office, stopping briefly in the cloister garden to inspect the medicinal herbs. She wondered if she should even mention Nicola’s imaginings. The convent buildings were old—stones did fall. And surely there was nothing frightening in a basket of figs.

  Beatrice found the priora with the convent financial officers and their assistants. “Welcome, Beatrice!” the priora said. “Can it wait for a few minutes? We were just about to get started.”

  “Si. Nicola is with the patients. I will be glad to get off my feet.”

  “You trust that child to take care of your patients?” Sister Amelia‘s voice was skeptical.

  “There is no one seriously sick, at present. Nicola is perfectly capable,” Sister Beatrice responded, trying not to sound irritated. Sister Amelia managed the convent’s finances, but wanted to manage everything, it sometimes seemed. She was a perfect bursar, because she took no nonsense from tenants, and kept impeccable books. Beatrice sometimes wished she were a little gentler with the nuns and students.

  Since her brother Virgino’s death in the pope’s prison, Amelia had aged visibly. Her long, patrician face was no longer tear-stained, so perhaps she had left off her excessive grieving. Beatrice thought about offering her a tonic.

  “Aren’t you afraid Nicola will talk your patients to death?” said Sister Francesca, smiling broadly. Wrinkled and sunburned, Sister Francesca supervised the peasants who farmed the convent’s lands and cared for its livestock. The urban nuns tended to look down at her because she wore mud-stained habits, and smelled vaguely of chickens. Beatrice found her bluntness refreshing, and respected her skills.

  Sister Domenica chuckled at Francesca’s joke. “Nicola is sometimes quiet,” she commented. “That is when you have to worry.” The rotund teaching nun had arrived behind Sister Beatrice. She was now vigorously fanning herself. Her round face was reddened and beaded with sweat, though the day was cool.

  “Nicola is obsessed with death,” Sister Bernina anounced.

  “Why do you say that?” asked Sister Beatrice.

  “She keeps asking me about Sister Gerolama—how she died; what she looked like before it happened; what she looked like after it happened.”

  “She has asked me about Gerolama too,” Sister Amelia added. “You need to teach her better manners, Domenica.” Sister Domenica’s face reddened even further, a sure sign she was irritated.

  “Her manners were fine when she talked to me about Sister Gerolama,” Sister Francesca interjected. “She is interested in violence, like all children. She just talks too much.”

  “She is busy, that one. I just bandaged a nasty cut to Nicola’s arm—a stone fell from the bell tower. She says it has happened before. You had best have someone look at the stonework, Priora, before someone else is hurt,” Beatrice responded.

  “This is the first I have heard of this. I will ask Father Testa to inspect the campanile,” the priora responded. “It is his responsibility, because it is part of the church. Now excuse us; we have much to plan.”

  She gestured to a servant, who served honey cakes and watered wine. Sister Bernina, the procuratrice, began a discussion about purchases she had made—building materials of some sort, Beatrice gathered. Whatever they were building needed to be kept secret from the pope, and they were debating how to do it. The discussion dragged on.

  “We will have to see the priora later,” Sister Beatrice commented to Sister Domenica when the church bells began to ring. It was time for Vespers. The call to prayer silenced the nuns, who rose automatically from their chairs and headed for the church.

  Sister Beatrice decided she would say nothing further to the priora about Nicola’s imaginings. No one in the convent would hurt the child, she was sure.

  Chapter 20—Abduction

  Convent of San Sisto, Rome

  May, 1500

  Nicola watched as Leonora Sforza strode to the front of the class, announcing to Mortuos that she was returning to her home in Pesaro. She seemed inclined to chat, but Mortuos would have none of it.

  “I am teaching now, Leonora. Safe journey. Addiò.” After a wave and a perfunctory peck on Leonora’s the cheek, she faced the class again, the look on her face abruptly stopping all whispers.

  Visibly annoyed, Leonora marched for the door. She halted suddenly to speak to Nicola.

  “What is your name, child?” she demanded.

  Nicola was startled. “Nicola Machiavelli, lady.”

  “Come with me, then. I want to talk to you.”

  Nicola followed her out the door, where Madonna Sforza took her arm, tucked it firmly under her own, and began walking her rapidly through the expanse of orchard that separated Girls’ House from the guesthouse. Striding beside them, suddenly, was one of her menservants.

  “I have a surprise for you, child,” she said. “I am going to take you back with me, to become one of my ladies in waiting. How do you like that?”

  “Not at all,” Nicola pronounced, attempting to extract her arm. “I don’t want to be one of your ladies in waiting. Let me go.”

  “You surely do, child,” Leonora responded soothingly, holding firmly onto Nicola’s arm. “You just don’t know it yet. Listen, you will have beautiful clothes, and all the sweets you want. And sweethearts, too. A girl as pretty as you does not belong
in a nunnery. . . .”

  “I don’t want to go!” Nicola yelled. “Let GO of me!” She kicked Leonora in the ankle, then wrestled herself free.

  “Grab her,” Leonora directed her manservant. When he tried to, Nicola kicked him, too. He slapped her hard across the face, then bundled her under one arm, like a sack of wheat.

  Nicola struggled, kicked and screamed. “Let me go! You can’t just take me like this!”

  “Who is to stop me?” Leonora demanded, as they approached the stables.

  “We will stop you!” said a firm voice. Nicola looked up, into the grim, weather-lined face of Sister Francesca, who was holding a pitchfork. Beside her another nun brandished a hoe.

  “We will stop you!!” shrieked a voice from behind. Someone grabbed the man, who dropped Nicola.

  “Run, Nicola! Run for the cloister!” screamed Sister Francesca. Nicola ran.

  When she looked back, she saw Pia riding the man’s back and biting his ear, while other girls tugged at his arms. When he topped sideways, Rosetta kicked him in the face, and Violetta cracked him across the temple with a heavy stick. He lay still.

  Sister Francesca, meanwhile, had backed Leonora Sforza into the side of the stable with her pitchfork. “If anyone hurts that child, I will skewer you!” she roared. Two menservants looked on helplessly. Though armed with swords, they did not draw them against the nuns.

  “What is the meaning of this!” said a loud voice that turned everyone’s head. Nicola had never heard the priora shout before.

  “You cannot do this, Leonora,” said another agitated voice. It was Mortuos, visibly and uncharacteristically upset. “What were you thinking?”

  Leonora looked venomously at her half-sister, then down at the pitchfork leveled at her waist. She closed her eyes for a moment, then suddenly smiled—a horrible smile that looked like it hurt. “Peace, everyone,” she called out. “I offered to take the child to Pesaro to be a lady in waiting to me, but she refused me. I was. . .surprised. But I realize now, that I cannot take her against her will.”

  “You cannot take her at all,” the priora responded firmly. “Not without her father’s permission. Your cousin Caterina Sforza asked you to do this, didn’t she? Her father wrote to warn me against her.”

  “Caterina wanted me to take her to Forli, as insurance for the safety of her own children in Florence. What is wrong with that? She would have been well-treated.”

  The priora looked stunned. “Leave this place,” she directed. “Now.”

  Leonora Sforza’s servants returned to their preparations for departure, watched carefully by a large group of nuns and students headed by Sister Francesca, still holding her pitchfork. The priora turned to go back to the cloister. As she approached the door, Nicola confronted her.

  “My father wrote to me, and you didn’t even tell me?”

  The priora was silent for a moment. “You were told to run for the cloister.”

  “I am right next to it,” Nicola replied firmly, patting the wall with her hand. “Priora, you said my father wrote to you. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “You are hurt. Come. We will see to your hurts, and I will explain.”

  A silent nun unlocked the cloister door for them. Nicola followed the priora across the courtyard to the infermeria, where Sister Beatrice was waiting anxiously.

  “I am relieved to see you, child,” she said to Nicola. “I watched the whole thing through the window, after you started screaming. That evil woman. I am sure she killed Sister Gerolama.” She gave Nicola a cold compress for her bruised cheek, and began cleaning the cuts on her hand.

  “Your father did not write to you, Nicola,” the priora began. “He wrote only to me. And he wrote to warn of a danger that seemed absurd at the time, so there was no need to worry you about it. That is why I didn’t tell you.”

  “Has he ever written to you before?”

  “No, nor since. Be glad he showed concern for you, Nicola. It is rare that we hear from the fathers of our students. He may never write again.”

  “He wrote about—Caterina Sforza? The lady who is a soldier?”

  “Si. Caterina Sforza somehow learned of your existence, and he was worried that she would use it against him, somehow. Now I know he was right to worry. Evidently she wanted you held hostage to make sure he protected her children in Florence. She must have contacted her cousin for help. But Leonora Sforza will be gone soon. You are no longer in any danger.”

  “What about Sister Ignacia? She is a Sforza, too.”

  “You cannot think Sister Ignacia would harm you,” Sister Beatrice scolded, as she finished bandaging Nicola’s hand.

  Nicola looked to the priora for guidance. “You are safe, I promise,” the priora said--but her voice lacked confidence, and her face looked worried. Nicola was not comforted.

  * * *

  A month later, a Dominican monk from Rome dropped a letter addressed to Niccolò Machiavelli at the Signoria, in Florence. It read:

  Esteemed Segretaria Machiavelli:

  You requested that I let you know if we were contacted by Caterina Sforza of Forli. Your prediction regarding her was correct. Though she currently a prisoner in the Castel Sant’Angelo, she was evidently able to contact a cousin of hers, Leonora Sforza, who was using our guesthouse. Madonna Sforza attempted to take Nicola with her. Of course, we stopped her.

  Nicola was disappointed to learn that you had written to me rather than to her. She continues in good health, and would be very happy to hear from you.

  Your obedient servant,

  Priora Gerolama Picchi

  As Machiavelli himself not scheduled to return from the court of the king of France for several months, the letter was eventually given a cursory reading by one of Machiavelli’s associates. Concluding it was of little importance, he burned it.

  Chapter 21—Assassins in the Vatican

  Convent of San Sisto, Rome

  September 1500

  The priora watched Nicola and Sister Beatrice as they hurried into her office, startled that they both looked so much older. Sister Beatrice was becoming increasingly frail, and seemed exhausted. Little wonder--it had been a bad fever year. And Nicola—why, the child had grown by a handspan, and filled out. She no longer looked like a child, in fact. She had the figure of a woman, and a beautiful one, at that. And she seated herself gracefully, instead of plopping down like she was trying to squash something with her posterióre. The priora smiled despite herself.

  “Madonna Lucrezia has sent a messenger, requesting that we look no further into Sister Gerolama's death,” she announced, nodding at a beautifully-dressed, sad-faced woman sitting in a chair against the wall.

  “Why?” asked Nicola.

  “I am not sure I understand it,” replied the priora hesitantly, looking again at the woman. “But apparently, Lucrezia fears that her brother Cesare may be responsible.”

  “But he didn't know Sister Gerolama was here,” pointed out Nicola.

  “Cesare knows everything,” said the young woman bitterly.

  “But why would he want to kill his own sister?” asked Sister Beatrice.

  “Why would he want to kill Lucrezia's beloved husband, his own brother-in-law? But he did it. I was there. I saw it with my own two eyes,” said the young woman.

  “It was horrible,” she continued, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief. “Alfonso had been attacked a month earlier by assassins in the street, but Lucrezia had him brought to her apartments and nursed him back to health herself. She stayed with him and tasted all his food.”

  “He was almost well,” she continued. “Then one day, Michelotto—Cesare's capo bastòne -- burst into the room with soldiers. They went directly for Alfonso, beating us out of the way when we tried to stop them. Lucrezia was there. They garroted him in front of our eyes. He died in her arms.” At this, the young woman began to sob.

  “But why did Cesare have him killed?” breathed Nicola, wide-eyed.

  “Lord Valentino suspected tha
t Alfonso was a spy for Naples. Also, Lucrezia fears that her brother has gone a little pazzo, from the French Disease.” She stopped and wiped her eyes.

  “Here is what she directed me to tell you: when she confronted him, they had an argument. She accused him of killing their Sister Gerolama—which he denied. However, he pried the whole story out of her.”

  She sighed, and twisted her handkerchief. “Madonna Lucrezia wanted me to express to you how much she regrets her rash words. Cesare knows how much this convent means to her, and is holding it over her. Lord Valentino says he will tell the pope the whole story unless you stop your investigation immediately. He says he intends to send someone to look into the matter himself, when he has time. Lucrezia said to tell you that she agrees with this decision.”

  “By stopping our inquiries, he is admitting his guilt!” Nicola pronounced triumphantly. Everyone looked at her in horror. “Or maybe not,” she hastily amended.

  “He is doing nothing of the kind, Nicola,” said the priora sharply, crossing herself. For the thousandth time, she wished that she had never taken either of the pope’s daughters into her convent. Now, its very existence was threatened by the greatest villain in Italy, who might send other villains into her convent to force answers to long-buried questions. Or, Dio forbid—suppose he came to the convent himself?

  The priora turned to Sister Beatrice and Nicola. “We are in no position to challenge Lord Valentino,” she told them. “He is a dangerous man. There is no Borgia here whom we need to protect. Giulia Orsini has stopped asking to place her daughter here. We must protect ourselves. You will stop your inquiries immediately, for the good of the convent. Give your promise to Madonna Ginevra that you will do so.”

  “Of course you have our promise,” said Sister Beatrice for both of them.

  The priora looked at Nicola sharply, who nodded, her face woeful.

  “It is for the best, Nicola,” the priora said. “God does not mean us to know everything.”

  “Where is Madonna Lucrezia? Is she safe?” asked Sister Beatrice.