The Borgia Mistress: A Novel (19 page)

It is said that there are places in the Indies where the mad are held to be sacred and are revered as second only to the gods. Here where the god of Abraham holds sway, it is different. The mad are left to waste away their days in babble and frenzy, if they are fortunate. Otherwise, they are condemned as harborers of demons that can only be driven out in the purifying fire.

Standing alone in the alcove, feeling the darkness of night closing in around me, I was certain of only one thing: I would swallow a dose of my own poison before I let either of those fates become my own.

19

I did not sleep that night. As though Cesare’s suspicions of me and my own fears regarding him were not enough to keep me awake, upon returning to my rooms, I discovered that they had been searched. The signs were faint but unmistakable. I had not brought so many belongings to Viterbo that I would be unaware when they were disturbed. My suspicion was aroused first when I noticed that the drawer in the table beside the bed had not been closed entirely. My hairbrush and combs were where I had left them, but they were pushed to one side of the drawer instead of being in the middle. As I investigated further, I discovered that the clothes I had folded neatly and placed in a wardrobe were all slightly askew, as though hasty hands had searched beneath and behind them. My precious books, kept in a small wooden chest on a table, were still in there, but they were no longer in the order in which I had left them.

Worse yet, my puzzle chest had been completely turned around so that the front left now faced the wall, something I would never do. Quickly, I searched for any sign that it had been broken into, but to my relief, I found none. The chest, which my father had said was made by a sailor from the Indies, was of heavy, tough ebony. The weight of it alone would be daunting to anyone thinking of getting inside it quickly.

From all this I gleaned that whoever had searched my quarters had done so in haste, no doubt taking advantage of my absence from the palazzo. As desperately as I did not want to believe that Cesare could be responsible, the shadow of suspicion between us made me fear exactly that.

Hunger for Sofia’s powder stirred within me. In a bid to distance myself from it, I picked up
The City of Ladies
by the extraordinary Venetian Christine de Pizan, who dared to argue that women were the equal of men and deserving of regard. For such heretical notions, she had been libeled in her own time; but she had persevered, never yielding in her defense of the worthiness of our sex. I read her words that night as a consolation to my wounded spirit and for strength against the deep tidal pull of fear that threatened to drag me under and drown me.

Toward dawn, I finally dozed off sitting up in a chair. A knock at the door snapped me back to awareness. I rose stiff and sore to answer it. Did I hope, even in passing, that Cesare had come to make peace and allay my concerns about him? I could confide in him about the search of my rooms. He would have some ready explanation for it or, even better, know nothing but join me in determination to find the culprit.

Renaldo dropped his hand when I opened the door and peered at him. He looked as he always did—harassed, worried, anxious—yet he mustered a smile that appeared genuine. I had no idea how much he knew (to this day I do not), but I was certain it was more than he would ever tell.

“You’re awake,” he said. “Good. The rain has stopped; the sun is out. It’s actually a nice day. Our master has announced his intention to inspect the fortifications between here and Orvieto. We are to accompany him.”

Belatedly, I recalled that the inspection of fortifications was Borgia’s stated reason for making the trip to Viterbo. The fact that his current mistress, the exquisite and very young Giulia Farnese, called La Bella and reputed to be the most beautiful woman in all of Italy, was staying at her family’s estate near Orvieto doubtless played no part in His Holiness’s travel plans.

“When are we leaving?” I asked.

“Hark and you will hear our master bellowing,” Renaldo replied. “Apparently, we should all have been on the road before dawn and would have been but for the fact that he only just thought to mention it a short time ago.”

“I need to pack and—”

Renaldo was shaking his head before I could finish. “We travel light or we do not. Grab what you can and be ready with all speed.” He tossed a pair of saddlebags on the bed. “These and no more,” he said as he hurried off.

Cursing Borgia and his everlasting love of frantic activity bordering on chaos, I made haste. Stuffing clothes into one of the bags, I ignored everything Lucrezia had tried to teach me about how to put together an appropriate ensemble and only hoped that I would be suitably attired for however long we were to be away. Into the other bag I put what I regarded as the bare necessities of my trade—including the very few substances that, provided they are administered in time, can offer some remedy for poisoning.

At the last moment, I hesitated over the puzzle chest. This time I would be away not for a few hours but at least overnight and well into the following day. A determined searcher would have time to pry his way into the chest no matter how difficult that task. Of course, it would be impossible to conceal such an effort, but that might not be as great a concern as was finding proof of my alleged guilt. With that possibility in my mind, I went through the sequence of movements needed to unlock the chest and withdrew the knife that had killed the Spaniard, returning the weapon to my pouch. I hesitated over the various poisons contained within the chest, as well as the ground diamonds intended to kill della Rovere, but there was a limit to how much I could carry; and besides, I doubted that I was dealing with a mere thief.

Having secured the chest once again, I flung a bag over each shoulder and hurried as best I could along the corridor, down the steps, and through the great hall. Outside in the piazza, I could hear Borgia booming.

“I am away! Cesare, to me! The rest of you sluggards, lie abed as you will, being good for nothing else.”

Glancing back over my shoulder, I saw the upper windows of the palazzo crowded with an assortment of befuddled prelates and their entourages, all caught unawares by Borgia’s intentions. No doubt exactly as he had planned.

Which is not to say that His Holiness was alone. Vittoro was there, along with at least a hundred men-at-arms. Cesare was already mounted beside his father, accompanied by Herrera and a bevy of the Spaniards. Frantically, I looked around for Renaldo, spying him finally on a sturdy gray, his traveling desk strapped to his chest. With one hand he controlled his own horse, and with the other he held on to mine. Apparently, in snatching a mount for me, the steward had not considered my dislike of riding, far less my general ineptitude. The chestnut mare pawed the ground and snorted even as she rolled her eyes in my direction.

“Away!” Borgia shouted and set his spurs. With no choice whatsoever, I threw the saddlebags over the mare and launched myself onto her. She bucked; I held on with fierce desperation, and too quickly found myself rattling down the same road where I had almost been trampled by Cesare and the Spaniards. Down we went, dogs barking, trumpets blaring, townspeople scattering. In the blink of an eye—or so it seemed—we were through the market and out past the gate. The mulberry and gold banners of Il Papa streamed out in the wind as we turned north onto the continuation of the old Via Cassia, in the direction of Orvieto.

At some point, I finally managed to breathe. So, too, I was able to adjust myself in the saddle at least so much that I no longer felt as though I was about to be thrown from it. The mare ran full out, apparently determined to keep to the front. All my efforts to persuade her otherwise were ignored. I could only hold on and hope that before too long Borgia would moderate his pace.

By the time he finally did so, we were well away from the town, trotting along the tree-lined road. Renaldo came up beside me. The steward was flushed and bright-eyed, apparently exhilarated by the sudden adventure.

“Our master never does anything halfway, does he?” he asked, grinning.

Given that my posterior felt like it was being pounded against an anvil, the jarring motion traveling all the way up my spine to make my teeth rattle, I think I responded with admirable calm.

“A little moderation would not necessarily be a bad thing. What hornet stung him that he should take off like this, do you know?”

“Something in the dispatch bag, I think. It arrived just before he announced that we were going.”

“But you have no idea what it was?”

“I didn’t say that, did I? As it happens, there is a possibility that His Holiness has a scheme up his sleeve that surpasses even his usual cleverness.”

We were riding close enough together that Renaldo could keep his voice very low. I did the same. “What scheme? What is he plotting?”

“I dare not say, it is that audacious. But if it comes to pass, we will have a better understanding of why he left Rome in the first place and why he has just abandoned all those prelates who came with him to Viterbo.”

“Renaldo—” I was torn between remonstrating with him for his coyness and pleading with him to satisfy my curiosity. But the steward would not be swayed.

“Just keep an eye on the Spaniards,” he advised. “If what I suspect is true, they are in for a nasty surprise.”

That cheered me just enough for me to hold my tongue. The miles passed in a blur as the morning wore on and the air warmed. Up ahead, I could see Borgia, who looked to be in high good humor. Not so Cesare, who appeared watchful and subdued. I had to wonder if he was aware of what his father was planning or if, like the rest of us, he had been kept in the dark.

We had come to the foothills surrounding Lake Bolsena, which I had heard of but never seen before, at least not so far as I knew. It was possible that my father and I had traveled along its shores on our way to Rome when I was a child, but as that time is lost to me in darkness, I had no recollection of the area. I did, however, have the sense to appreciate the beauty of the landscape that unfolded before me. Rolling hills flowed down to the shores of the immense oval-shaped lake in which two small islands nestled comfortably. At the southern end of the lake lay a small, pretty town set beside a broad river that flowed out of the lake and away toward the sea. A villa lay a short distance beyond the town. We appeared to be heading for it.

“Are we stopping here?” I wondered out loud, on the off chance that Renaldo would relent and reveal why he was looking so puffed up and pleased with himself. As for me, I welcomed a chance to put distance between my posterior and the mare, if only temporarily. However, I saw no sign of the fortifications that Borgia had supposedly come to inspect.

The steward gestured toward the river. “That’s the Marta. Pretty name, don’t you think? A very useful river. It runs all the way from this lake to the port at Corneto. An enterprising traveler, wishing to avoid Rome for whatever reason, could put in there and avail himself of one of the wherries that ply the Marta in both directions. Oh, look, there’s one of those now docked just beside that villa.”

I observed the low flat boat equipped with oars at the same time as I said, “Enough, for pity’s sake! What traveler?” A sudden suspicion surfaced in my mind. Surely it wasn’t possible that—

“Has Borgia come here to meet someone?” I demanded.

To my utter astonishment, Renaldo smiled and in a singsongy voice that mocked my ignorance said,
“Il vaut mieux être marteau qu’enclume.”

I speak very little French and that badly, so I had no real idea what he had said, although it was something about a hammer. However, that scarcely mattered. It was the French itself that counted.

The French.

The Spaniards’ great rival, their sometime enemy, whose bellicose young king had his eye on Naples and whom Borgia’s most dangerous rival for the papacy, Cardinal della Rovere, was counting on as his ally.

And, quite possibly, the signal that we had entered the end game. Whatever was to happen was hard upon us, and I still had no idea from which direction the danger would come.

I dug my spurs into the sides of the mare and clattered after Borgia as he made for the villa with all speed. Behind me, I was aware of the Spaniards, still in Cesare’s care and, from what I could see as I went by, with no notion of what was happening.

I dismounted in front of the villa moments after Borgia did the same. A woman stood on the stone terrace overlooking the lake. She was young, exquisitely beautiful, and visibly pregnant. I recognized her in an instant, as, I am sure, did the rest of the company. Giulia Farnese, justifiably known as La Bella, was considered to be the greatest beauty of our age. At nineteen—with long, golden hair, a complexion as pure as cream, and a slender but curvaceous form—she possessed the ability to turn the most stalwart man into a besotted fool.

Borgia was no exception; he adored her and cosseted her in every way. His decision a month or so before to send her from Rome to the comfort of her family’s estate outside Orvieto had been taken as a sign that His Holiness did not regard the city as entirely secure for his mistress and their unborn child. Now here she was in the villa beside the Marta, seemingly overwhelmed with joy to see her lover.

For his part, Borgia bounded up the steps to her with all the eagerness of a much younger man. Taking both her hands in his, he kissed them passionately before embracing her. They were cooing to each other when a man I had never seen before walked out of the villa onto the terrace.

As though caught by surprise, Borgia startled. Looking down into La Bella’s lovely face, he asked loudly enough for all to hear, “Who is this?”

She gave a charming little laugh and replied, “A visitor from the French court, my lord. Only just learning that you were about to arrive, he asked if he might stay to greet you. I hope I did not do wrong to tell him that he could?”

For just a moment, Borgia looked at her sternly, but then, as any man could be expected to do, he yielded. Releasing his beloved, he turned to greet the Frenchman. Together, they went into the villa. La Bella, whose smile had begun to waver, took a breath and sagged a little.