A Borgia Daughter Dies

by Maryann Philip

  Da Vinci smiled gently at her. “I think it was me, Suora. And the man in black was not the Devil, but Lord Valentino.”

  “Who is Lord Valentino?”

  “My patron. Why were you in the hallway that day?”

  “I needed to talk to the priora.”

  “Did you see anyone you recognized? I mean, any person that you recognized?”

  “No, Signor.”

  “Did you see anyone, other than Lord Valentino and myself? Or, God and the Devil, if you prefer?”

  “Not unless you had servants with you. That, I don’t remember.”

  “Why did you need to see the priora?”

  “I help to inspect our rental properties. There were repairs that needed to be discussed,” she explained. She seemed less fearful now, da Vinci noticed.

  “Thank you for your help, Suora,” he said. She bobbed her head briefly, and hurried away.

  Her name and Spanish accent reminded Da Vinci of Joanna the Mad, the only child of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain, now locked away in a remote castle. She had been driven mad, it was said, by her obsessive love for her deceased husband, whose tomb she habitually opened to embrace his rotting corpse. Da Vinci knew he shouldn’t make assumptions, just because this nun was also Spanish, and named Joanna. Was it possible that all nuns saw men as gods and devils? It seemed unlikely—or if they did, they were all a bit mad. There was certainly something odd about this one.

  While da Vinci ruminated about the nature of madness, Sister Joanna thought about how easy it is to feign it. She isolated herself deliberately, because she had many secrets. Not even the priora knew her most basic one: though a Christian in her heart, she came from a Jewish family. She kept this secret not from shame, but from fear.

  Sister Joanna knew full well who Lord Valentino was: the bastard son of the pope who had falsely accused her father of heresy, and killed him.

  As a cardinal, Alexander VI had named her father, a converted Spanish Jew, as head of his household. Joanna, his favorite child, had accompanied him to Rome, then taken the veil at San Sisto. After becoming pope, Alexander had seized her father’s considerable fortune, removed him from his post, and thrown him in the Castel Sant’Angelo, where he soon died mysteriously. His supposed crime: the secret practice of Judaism.

  Joanna now worried that the rest of her family would suffer the same fate. Hoping for her father’s protection, they had fled to Rome when King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella banished Jews from Spain. Though Alexander welcomed Spanish Jews, he allowed them few privileges unless they converted to Christianity. Now, her family barely kept alive in the improvised ghetto emerging amongst ancient Roman tombs, just outside the city walls. They refused to convert, fearing heresy charges like those that had killed her father. Such charges were impossible to disprove, and often simply an excuse for seizing Jewish assets. Or so her family believed.

  Sister Joanna visited them secretly, whenever she could. Because of her work inspecting convent properties around Rome, she could manage these visits without being seen. She was also able to embezzle a little money now and then, to assist them. She prayed daily for forgiveness for her thefts, and for the immortal souls of her relatives, doomed to Hell by their refusal to convert to Christianity. She also asked God to make her the instrument of His vengeance against Alexander VI, for the death of her sainted father.

  Chapter 34—And Even More Poison

  True to her word, Madonna Paleologus returned to the guesthouse later in the day, bearing a basket of cats. With her were three nuns and two servants, the latter carrying buckets of water and brooms.

  Leonardo had been amusing himself by displaying drawings to Caterina Biaggi and Pia Orsini. “Thank you, Madonna, for your prompt help,” he said. “Can I do anything to assist?”

  “What is happening?” Pia asked, watching as the servants poured the water into a large cauldron that was sitting next to the fireplace, setting it over the fire to heat.

  “We have discovered rat droppings in one of the rooms off the dormitories,” Leonardo replied.

  “Mouse droppings, not rat droppings. We are just making sure there is no infestation in the dormitories,” explained an embarrassed Sister Patienza. “I must supervise the servants,” she called behind her as she followed them into the women’s dormitory. There they could be heard, moving furniture and throwing things on the floor.

  Caterina and Pia looked at one another. “Hadn’t we better see to our things?” Pia asked. Wordlessly, Caterina disappeared into the dormitory, Pia behind her.

  Madonna Paleologus then introduced Leonardo to the two other nuns who had accompanied them, Sister Elena and Sister Paolina. “They will be watching your young men,” she explained. “You had best look for the short one,” she said to Sister Elena, who bowed and exited. The other seated herself on a bench against the wall, taking up her rosary beads and her vigil over Salai.

  “The guesthouse is now off limits to our students,” Madonna Paleologus explained. “Unfortunately, we do not enjoy the same controls over your young men. So, we will watch them.”

  Leonardo smiled, amused at the thought of his apprentices being dogged by nuns. “Salai knows how to be courteous, but I can’t vouch for Carlo,” he responded.

  “What is all this?” Sister Patienza demanded, as she emerged from the dormitory to see a series of drawings tacked to the opposite wall. “Do they need to be there?”

  “Si, Suora, I am afraid they do,” da Vinci responded. “I assure you, they will not attract mice,” he added solemnly. “They are sketches for paintings commissioned by Lord Valentino: maps of the fortifications in the various cities he has conquered in the past year or so. My task is to portray the fortifications, then suggest changes and improvements.”

  “I see now,” she said. “And I suppose you need these easels, too.”

  “Definitely. Again, they will not attract mice.”

  “I did not think they would,” responded Sister Patienza with irritation. Her name should be Sister Impatienza, da Vinci thought to himself.

  “Why are they making such a fuss about mice?” asked Caterina, who had just emerged from the dormitory. “They are everywhere. What of it?”

  “Nuns do not like mice,” Pia said, as if this explained everything. “They are fussy about a lot of ridiculous things.”

  The servants were now emerging, each dragging a straw mattress to be emptied and burned. The straw from the large mattress that Salai and Carlo had dragged out of one of the private guestrooms earlier in the day was already aflame, in the middle of the small field outside the guesthouse. Seeing this, Madonna Paleologus hurried out the door with her basket of cats.

  “Go, Logos. Go, Lambda. Go, Beta,” she called to three of them, setting them on the ground to chase the mice that were now emerging from the burning straw. The cats sprang to work, chasing the mice away from the building. Madonna Paleologus returned to the guesthouse.

  “This is Alpha,” she announced as she set a pure white cat on the guesthouse floor.

  “Let me guess,” said da Vinci. “This ginger-colored one is Omega.” He stooped to pick it up, delighted to have a pet of sorts, after so many months with only his horse for animal company.

  “Theta,” she responded, smiling slightly in acknowledgment of his joke. “Omega lives in Girls’ House. Alpha and Theta will stay here until we are sure there are no longer problems with rodents,” she announced, setting bowls for their food and water next to the fireplace.

  “I remember Omega,” said Pia fondly. She took Theta from da Vinci and sat down to stroke the cat’s ears. “Nicola and I tamed her in the barn, by offering her bits of our breakfast. I still have scars where she scratched me. I am glad she is still alive.”

  She nodded toward Madonna Paleologus, who was again headed out the guesthouse door. “She always named the cats for the letters and numbers in the Greek alphabet,” Pia explained. “She said it helped the girls who were allowed to learn Greek, and gave a little usef
ul knowledge to the others.”

  “Some girls are not allowed to learn Greek?” da Vinci asked, puzzled.

  “Oh, of course,” Pia responded seriously. “An over-educated woman does poorly in the marriage market. I was not allowed to learn Greek, or Latin, either. I warned Nicola about this, but she has insisted on learning both.”

  Madonna Paleologus, returning hastily, interrupted them. “Maestro, please come with me. There is something I think you should see.”

  He followed her to the opposite end of the guesthouse, where Sister Patienza had unlocked the door to the remaining private guestroom. Unlike the guestroom they had emptied earlier in the day, this one was immaculate. However, Sister Patienza was handling one item with evident disgust: a small leather purse, which she held at arms length, gesturing to da Vinci to take it.

  “This was locked in that cabinet,” she said, nodding toward a sturdy closet built into the wall, evidently intended to hold guest valuables.

  “It seems to contain poisons,” said Madonna Paleologus.

  Leonardo took the purse outside, so he could examine the contents. It contained a number of small paper packets, each closed with a wax seal. Several of them additionally had a black symbol, evidently an ink stamp: a skull, he realized.

  Da Vinci opened one of the marked packets, which contained a white powder. No need to ask what it was: on the inside was written, “arsenico.” He closed it carefully.

  “Who has keys to this room, and that cabinet?” he asked.

  “I do, of course,” said Sister Patienza. “The priora. The bursar, Sister Amelia. And the housekeeping staff. And of course, the guests who stayed here.”

  “Where does the housekeeping staff keep their keys?”

  “Hanging on the wall in the kitchen.”

  Da Vinci groaned inwardly. Everybody in the convent had access to poison, then—but of course, only if they knew it was there.

  “This could have been left by a guest, who was too embarrassed to retrieve it. It could have been left during the Jubilee—or even before the Jubilee,” said Sister Patienza.

  “Do you remember when you last cleaned out that cupboard?” inquired da Vinci.

  “It has been years. I had no reason to look into it before—this is the first time we have had mice in as long as I can remember.”

  “I am not attacking your housekeeping, Suora--just trying to understand where these things could have originated. Do you have a list of the guests who have occupied this room?” he continued.

  “Not as such, but I can probably create one from our guest records,” she replied. “One I do remember, who was in this room a long time: Madonna Leonora Sforza, who was here when Sister Gerolama died.”

  And Sister Beatrice’s favorite suspect, Leonardo remembered from his private discussion with the priora. Interesting.

  “Lucrezia Borgia was in this room, too. Do you remember?” Madonna Paleologus said to Sister Patienza.

  “Zoroastro!” da Vinci called to his servant, “Come here! I want you to look at something.”

  The man who approached was short and broad-shouldered, dressed in a long black linen tunic and a floppy velvet berretta. He had enormous ears and a clownish face. In Milan, he had been known as a magician and clown, often assisting Leonardo with the theatricals he produced for Il Moro.

  “Look at this, Zoroastro. Could it be arsenico?”

  “It says it is,” he commented, examining the packet. “Some arsenico is white. But I have never made a study of poisons, you know, Maestro. I cannot say for sure.”

  His eyes brightened. “If we could catch some of the mice these nuns are determined to exterminate, we could feed some of it to them. Or perhaps I can find some lizards. . . “

  Da Vinci was always uncomfortable when Zoroastro experimented with living things. He did not share his servant’s confidence that gold could ultimately be created from other metals, much less from animal flesh. Neither did he share Zoroastro’s fascination with magic and the occult. In fact, da Vinci had forbidden his servant from dabbling in anything that might open him to accusations of witchcraft. Zoroastro was wise to stay away from poisons, he realized.

  “Let’s assume it is what it says, until shown to the contrary. Can you identify anything else in these packets?”

  Zoroastro began opening them. All were labeled on the inside; most were medicinal. “This is definitely sage, just as it says,” he commented, after rubbing one packet’s content between his fingers and smelling it. “The nursing sister would know most of these. Perhaps she would know about the poisons, too. I do not.”

  “I will ask her. More important to understand is where they came from.”

  “I can take this arsenico to the chemist where Maestro Rudolfo buys his saltpeter,” Zoroastro offered. “Perhaps he can identify the chemist who made these packets from the mark of the skull.”

  “Do that,” da Vinci ordered. “And ask any other chemists whose shops you pass along the way, too. You had better let me take this bag, Suora.” he said, placing the remaining packets inside it.

  “I am grateful, Maestro,” responded Sister Patienza. “I will inform the priora that you have taken charge of it.”

  “We have done all we can here.” announced Madonna Paleologus. “Now, Maestro da Vinci: you wanted to talk to me?”

  Chapter 35—The Princess

  “So you think I am a poisoner?” Madonna Paleologus said to Leonardo da Vinci, an amused look in her eyes. “I do not like the Borgias, but that does not mean I would try to poison them.”

  They were sitting on a bench outside the guesthouse, Leonardo facing Madonna Paleologus so he could watch her expression. She must have been lovely in her youth, he decided. Even in middle age, her dark eyes, straight nose and high cheekbones were classically beautiful. A sculptor’s dream. She reminded him of the statues he had studied as a young artist in Florence, in the sculpture garden that belonged to his first patron, Lorenzo de’ Medici. Most of the busts were Roman copies of Greek originals, he knew. Studying the woman in front of him allowed him, for the first time, to imagine the white marble women as flesh and blood. Here was ancient Greece personified and brought into the present. He wished he could paint her—though not at this moment. Now, her small mouth frowned slightly, and her posture was stiff, signaling hostility.

  “Please, Madonna, I do not think you are a poisoner,” he responded “I am simply trying to gather facts. Can you remember nothing about the day Sister Gerolama died?”

  They had already been over this. “That was three years ago. Why should I? We all thought she had died of apoplexy, at the time.”

  “Surely you remember who was around you?”

  “Si, that much I can probably tell you. But not who was around her. I could not even see her, that I remember. It was very crowded.”

  “Let’s start with who was around you. What nuns, what students?”

  “Sisters Ignacia and Domenica, of course. They teach the students here. And Sister Anna. And all of the students—we were watching them. That was our function there.”

  Here she stopped, remembering something. “All of the students except Pia Gaetani—she is now Pia Orsini—the one who is staying in the guesthouse. She was missing for a period of time, I remember. We sent Sister Anna to look for her.”

  “Did she find her?”

  The Greek woman shrugged. “They both came back.”

  Da Vinci considered this. “Could she have reached Sister Gerolama?”

  “With determination, anyone could have reached her who knew she was there. It was difficult to move around, but it was not impossible.”

  “Can you remember anyone else who was with you; anyone else who went missing?”

  Madonna Paleologus considered. “Sister Elisabetta was with us, and stayed with us. Pia was the only one we lost track of, and then it was only for a short time.”

  “Sister Anna and Sister Elisabetta are both Orsini?”

  “Yes. And sisters by blood, as well.
”

  “Ah.” Leonardo remembered what he had been told about them. Their father had died when Juan Borgia, the pope’s oldest son, attempted to conquer the Orsini castello at Bracciano, some years ago. Sister Anna was the one who kept orpiment, the yellow paint Leonardo himself used. But did she know that it contained arsenic?

  “Did you meet anyone at St. Peter’s Square?” Leonardo continued, remembering Nicola’s assertion that the Greek woman may have met a man.

  “No,” she replied quickly. Too quickly, he thought. She is hiding something, he realized—but there was no point in calling her a liar.

  “Do you remember anything else that could help me understand what happened?”

  Madonna Paleologus considered. “Sister Elisabetta said that Sister Gerolama had lost her wineskin. I remember wondering at the time whether someone had given her bad water. But she died so quickly, and it was said to be apoplexy, which made more sense than bad water.” She stopped and looked at him. “Are you sure it wasn’t apoplexy?”

  “I am sure of nothing, Madonna. Tell me why you went to receive the pope’s blessing. It is said you are not a follower of the Roman faith.”

  “I like to get out of this place,” she said, gesturing toward the walls. “Also, I knew the nuns would need help with the girls. They are rather naïve about them—that Pia, for one.” She looked up at him and smiled. “They are the only children I will ever have, you see. I like to look after them.”

  This made sense, da Vinci realized. He himself had observed how she watched over her students—and who would not want to escape occasionally from inside convent walls?

  “I believe you,” he responded. “But now you must tell me why you have such strong feelings about the Borgias. Or was it only Lucrezia Borgia?”

  “Lucrezia Borgia was a particular irritant to me, but I certainly did not try to poison her,” she responded. “I would never do such a thing.”