The Borgia Betrayal: A Novel (3 page)

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The clouds had drifted off to the east, leaving Rome bathed in the clear, golden light all painters nowadays strive to capture but few ever can. I skirted the crowd and headed for the river, crossing by the Ponte Sisto. At the bankside just beyond the bridge, I engaged a grizzled boatman who, once satisfied that I had the coin to hire him, agreed to take me upriver several miles. Say what you will about Borgia, he had brought a far greater degree of order to Rome than the city had seen in many years. Ordinary women, that is to say without armed escort, could be out and about once again without fear of molestation. Not that there still weren’t problems, no city is entirely free of crime, but all agreed that this was one thing Borgia had done well and for that most Romans were duly grateful.

The house I was bound for lay just outside the northern reaches of the city near the pleasant village of Cappriacolla. I left the boatman at the river’s edge and walked a half mile or so along a lane shaded by oak and linden trees. Brief excursions to the country suit me well enough; I was enjoying the fragrance of wild rose and honeysuckle heightened by a deep note of manure as I came upon my destination.

It was a two-story residence built around an inner courtyard with a gate on one side wide enough to accommodate a carriage or wagon but narrow enough to be secured quickly in case of trouble. The stuccowork and other exterior details were very plain, as had been the style several decades before when the house was built. Overall, a visitor could be pardoned for mistaking it for the home of a prosperous country family content with its fields and vineyards.

As I approached, half a dozen oversized mastiffs ran out, cords of drool streaming from their floppy jowls. Individually, the mastiff can be among the most affectionate of dogs. In a pack, they will not hesitate to tear a strong man apart. The leader, a male who stood as high as my waist, threw back his immense head and barked deeply in warning. I stood where I was and extended my hand with the palm up. After a moment, the leader approached and sniffed me delicately. Satisfied that I was known to him, he barked again, more of a gentle woof to signal the others, and allowed me to proceed.

I entered through the single gate and crossed the courtyard to the ground-floor loggia. In the relative coolness there, I paused for a moment. Several of the floor-to-ceiling windows stood open. I could hear the hum of conversation competing with the somnolent drone of insects in the bushes outside.

Brushing aside the billowing white curtains, I stepped over the threshold into a large, well-proportioned room with a slate floor and a high, barrel-vaulted ceiling. The far wall was dominated by a stone fireplace above which hung a tapestry said to have belonged until recently to King Charles of France. How exactly the tapestry had come into the possession of the house’s owner was a matter for conjecture.

Had I wished to do so, I could have asked him about it. Luigi d’Amico was standing nearby as I entered. He smiled and came forward.

“Francesca, how good to see you!”

It was impossible to doubt the warmth of his welcome or to fail to return it in kind. D’Amico was a big, ruddy-faced man whose gruff good nature masked a brilliant intellect. He had grown up in humble circumstances but early on had shown a knack for understanding the arcane workings of money. On that basis, he had gone into banking and, what seemed like a very short time later, found himself in possession of a large fortune. Whereas most men in his happy situation become art patrons, paying to have themselves immortalized, d’Amico turned his attention to his true passion—natural philosophy. He told me once that he wanted to understand how nature works as thoroughly as he understood money, which would have been very thoroughly indeed.

“How is our dear friend, your employer?” he inquired after we had exchanged the usual pleasantries.

“Tolerably well.” Somewhat to my surprise, d’Amico had never tried to use our association to obtain information about Borgia. There were only two possible explanations for this—that he possessed a character of unique nobility seen nowhere else on earth or that he had sources within the Vatican better than myself. As much as I liked him, I was reasonably certain that the latter was the case rather than the former.

“That is good,” he said as we went to join the others. That day there were a dozen of us. Almost all were men, but with my arrival, the group included two women. We had each made our way separately to the house. It was one of several locations where we met, taking care not to frequent any one place often enough to attract attention.

Our caution was necessary because we had all committed ourselves to a life in pursuit of knowledge, even when that put us at odds with the dictates of Holy Mother Church. If that is not exciting enough for you, if perhaps you had hoped that I was on my way to an amorous encounter to be described in salacious detail, let me remind you that for our efforts to plumb the secrets of nature we risked being accused of heresy and condemned to the flames burning throughout Christendom. I am all in favor of the moans and even occasional screams that accompany passion’s fury. It is those wrung from the unfortunates condemned to the agony of death by fire that keep me awake at night.

But I digress; it is a habit of mine.

We called ourselves Lux, for the light we hoped to bring into the world. I was the youngest and newest member of the group, to which my father had belonged before his untimely death. The others were gathered around a table at the far end of the room. Only one I had expected to see there was missing—Rocco Moroni, a glassmaker of extraordinary skill who had brought me into Lux. Two years before, Rocco had been so misguided as to my nature as to approach my father with an offer of marriage. He knew me considerably better now, and I fancied he was glad of his escape, but he remained my true friend and the unknowing object of my amorous fancies. Before I could contemplate his absence, my attention was riveted on the large map that was the subject of the group’s scrutiny.

“Juan de la Cosa drew it,” D’Amico said, naming the captain of
La Santa Maria,
the vessel wrecked upon the reef of what Colombo was calling Hispaniola. “One copy is on the way to Their Most Catholic Majesties, Ferdinand and Isabella. The other is here.”

“I will not ask how you managed to acquire it,” I said.

Hearing my voice, a woman at the table looked up. “I think we can all surmise how he did it,” she said with a smile. “La Cosa is said to be very unhappy with the great Colombo’s treatment of him. He is determined to claim credit for himself.”

Sofia Montefiore was a middle-aged woman with a sturdy build and a cloud of silver hair pinned up haphazardly around her plain but pleasant face. She was also an apothecary and a Jewess. We had become friends the previous year, drawn together in part by the bond of both being women working in a man’s profession.

I bent forward as she spoke, studying the map. La Cosa had depicted a coastline that looked nothing at all like the Indies as it was known to those who had ventured so far in search of spices worth more than their weight of gold in Europe. His was an alien shore different from any seen before. If he was right … Mother of God, how much hung on his veracity.

“Is La Cosa in good health?” I asked.

“No pustules,” Luigi responded cheerfully with unspoken reference to the dying Pinzón. “So far as we know. He seems to be in his right mind. Besides…” He dropped his voice, engaging all of us in his confidence. “Let us not forget the cod fishers.”

Therein lay the crux of the matter. I am assuming that you eat cod, are heartily dependent on it for your well-being as is everyone I know, and therefore you understand its importance. But in case you are some species of being unknown to me, let me say that for hundreds of years the fishermen of Portugal have gone out to a vast northern fishery, which they are loath to discuss in any particular, and from there they have brought back cod in quantities sufficient to feed the greater part of Europe.

Some of the Portuguese, in their cups, have claimed to know of landfall west of where they take their cod. Some even claim to have encountered wild Norsemen with tales of other lands still further distant. Lands that it was said had been settled in centuries past only to fall victim to fierce savages who expelled the Norse, a rather startling thought given their own well-earned reputation as marauders and warriors.

None of which would have mattered had not Colombo and his brother been rumored to have made a voyage north many years ago during which it was said they almost froze, ate a great deal of cod, and drank a clear and potent liquor with the Norse, who told them tales of the westward lands, which they claimed stretched farther than a man could walk in many days.

So it was said.

I bent closer still, studying the map. La Cosa had crafted it intricately, showing such isles as he had encountered but setting them apart from what he clearly believed to be a true coastline.

If he was right … how much hung on that.

“It is amazing,” I said. “If the calculations are correct—”

I was referring to the measurements made by the ancient Greek Eratosthenes, his work being well known to the Arabs, rediscovered by ourselves and confirmed many times over. As a result, any intelligent person with a mind to discover it can know the girth of the world. Only a very few, Colombo among them, have insisted that the world is much smaller and the Indies, therefore, must lie within westward reach.

“If they are correct, Colombo truly has found Novi Orbis, the New World.”

I looked up at the man who had just spoken. He was in his late twenties, a few inches shorter than d’Amico, with a dark, neatly trimmed beard and mustache. His expression was almost childlike in its innocent curiosity. This despite the fact that he wore the black and white habit of the most feared order in Holy Mother Church, the Dominicans.

Friar Guillaume could scarcely contain his excitement. He traced a finger above the coastline, careful not to touch the parchment, and sighed with delight.

“A new world,” he said. “It defies imagining. Truly, Creation holds far more marvels than our poor minds can encompass.”

If it surprises you that a Dominican should have been a member of Lux, let me assure you that Guillaume was an exception to much of what you no doubt have heard about “God’s Hounds,” those baying hunters of the Inquisition. Recall that for every Torquemada and other lover of the stake and the rack, the Dominicans can also claim to have fostered the likes of Saint Albertus Magnus, who argued that science and faith could exist side by side in accord and, supreme above all, the great Saint Thomas Aquinas, upon whose shoulders the Church can fairly be said to stand. How far the order had fallen from such heights of brilliance into the fevered passions of the Grand Inquisitor I will leave you to judge for yourself.

We lingered a little while longer over the map, which continued to exercise an almost irresistible fascination for us all, before moving on to an early supper. Of necessity, we had to be gone from the house before dark so that we could make our way back to our various homes without undue difficulty.

The meal was, as always when d’Amico provided it, excellent. The conversation ranged from the map to the latest experiments and inquiries being carried out by various of our members. I was able to report on the results of my efforts regarding the precipitation of nitrate of silver from solution. I will not bore you with the details except to say, in all modesty, that the company found my presentation of considerable interest.

We were enjoying a
dragée
of spicy hypocrase accompanied by figs and oranges, intended to close the meal and promote digestion, when the conversation around the table was interrupted by the fierce barking of the mastiffs, followed quickly by the shouts of men.

Attackers!

I can see us still as we were at that moment, frozen around the table in the instant before the full import of what was happening shocked us into action. Luigi leaped to his feet and seized the map, rolling it tightly as he ran. Friar Guillaume acted as quickly, hastening to pull aside the tapestry that concealed a door leading from the hall. A few chairs were knocked over in our haste but otherwise there was no sound save for the continued shouts of the men, closer now, and the howls of the dogs. We had all known such a moment might come and had prepared ourselves as much as was possible. That, as well as Luigi’s sensible precautions, no doubt explained our seeming calm.

Even so, my heart beat frantically as we crowded into the passage that slanted downward, running between walls until it reached the villa’s basement. From there a second concealed door gave access to a low, dank tunnel. Luigi struck a flint, giving us just enough light to see where we were going.

Sofia was right behind me; I took comfort from her presence even as the knowledge of our shared peril propelled me forward. I imagined the men crashing into the hall, finding evidence that we had only just gone, and redoubling their efforts to capture us. If we were caught, a quick death would be the best for which any one of us could hope. Far better that than the torture cells of the Inquisition.

“Hold,” Friar Guillaume directed, raising his hand. We were near the end of the tunnel. Up ahead, I could see a glimmer of fading daylight behind a screen of bushes. Sweat trickled down my back. I reached behind and grasped Sofia’s hand. If the attackers knew about the tunnel … if they had posted men at this end of it …

The friar edged forward cautiously until he came to the grille blocking the entrance. He peered out in all directions before finally stepping back and motioning us forward.

“The way is clear,” he said with a smile. I exhaled in relief as around me, I heard the others do the same. Guillaume eased the grille open and stepped aside. “Go swiftly and with God.”

We went in pairs, Sofia and I together, parting from the others with quick words of reassurance and hasty embraces. As the attackers were likely to have come by the river, we avoided that and struck out across the fields ripe with summer wheat. The setting sun gave us our direction but we went quickly all the same, mindful that it would soon be night.