The Borgia Mistress: A Novel (11 page)

I hoped that he was right and also that the mysterious deaths would stop. But as I left Vittoro to see to the interment, I had to wonder what could be gained by killing a kitchen boy and a laundress. And if they really had been murdered, who would be next?

11

Pausing at the top of the broad steps leading down from the palazzo, I sought a measure of calm, without great success. The ray of sunshine I had so briefly glimpsed had vanished. Rain threatened once again. Resigned to a day that seemed bleak in every respect, I hastened across the piazza. Santa Maria della Salute was empty when I entered. The air inside the old stone walls felt dank. I drew my cloak more tightly around myself and looked down the shadowed length of the apse.

Not seeing the abbess, I sat down on the stone bench near the altar to Saint Clare. I waited long enough to begin to wonder if, after an opportunity for reflection, Mother Benedette might have thought better of befriending me. Just as I was debating whether I should try to find where she was staying in the town, she appeared, a little out of breath and walking hastily.

When she reached my side, she said, “My apologies. I was delayed by the dear sisters at the convent where I am staying. They mean well, but even so…” She broke off and looked at me. Something of my impatience must have communicated itself to her because she said, “I hope you haven’t been waiting long?”

“Not at all,” I assured her as I moved over to make room for her on the bench. My relief at her presence erased all else, and was exceeded only by my eagerness to hear more of what she had to say.

I am sure that she sensed my need, for she smiled slightly as she took her seat and said, “We have much to speak of. But first, I have something for you.” She drew a small basket from beside her and offered it to me with a smile.

I lifted the wicker lid and peered inside. Nestled within a white linen cloth were half a dozen small loaves shaped like little cylinders. The aroma rising from them was enticing.

“The bakers of Milan vie to produce the finest bread of this sort, which they call
panetto,
” Mother Benedette said. “Your mother had a particular fondness for it.”

I had never heard of the little breads, but the gesture touched me. “Did you bake these?”

The abbess nodded. “To be frank, there is very little to do in the convent where I am staying until the road north clears and we can continue on our pilgrimage to Assisi. The sisters there are very kind, of course, but I am accustomed to being busy.” She gestured at the basket. “Adriana and I used to make these together. It has been so long that I wondered if I would remember the recipe, but it seems that I did.”

Sitting beside her, I lifted the lid again and breathed in the aroma of the little loaves. The thought of my mother baking filled me with an odd feeling, at once yearning yet oddly nostalgic. For a moment, I saw a woman behind a fire, singing softly to herself as a smell, such as lingered in the air now, filled a snug room. In the next breath, the impression was gone as though it had never been.

“This was very kind of you,” I said. Courtesy has many uses, but among them is that it gives us certain responses we can make without thought to conceal what is truly in our minds.

“Oh, I confess to loving them myself. I cannot remember when I last had one.”

“Let us remedy that,” I said and held the basket out to her.

With a smile, she took one of the little loaves; I helped myself to another. As Borgia had no fondness for sweets, few were prepared in his kitchens. I had not felt the lack, but when the first bite of the still-warm bread flavored with honey and raisins touched my tongue, a sigh of pleasure escaped me.

“This is delicious,” I said. “What did you call it?”

Mother Benedette wiped a crumb delicately from the corner of her mouth. “
Panetto
. Some bakers add other fruits or even nuts, but Adriana liked them just this way. I thought you might, too.”

“I do; they’re marvelous. You are a wonderful cook.”

The abbess laughed softly. “Best my dear sisters in Anzio not hear you say that or they would be wickedly amused. I swear that I was made abbess in order to keep me out of the kitchens.”

When I laughed and insisted that could not possibly be the case, she said, “I exaggerate, but not entirely. There are a few dishes I do well enough, mostly because I learned them from Adriana. She loved to cook, and she was forever finding interesting ingredients to combine in novel ways. I won’t say that all her efforts were equally successful, but quite a few of them were very good.”

I thought of myself, forever experimenting with ingredients for new poisons, and grimaced.

“Is something wrong, child?” the abbess asked.

“Not at all; I’m just regretting my own lack of domestic skills. I can cook a little, though I usually only inflict the results on myself.” I had cooked for Borgia when he smuggled me, disguised as a boy, into the conclave that elected him pope. But that was only because he trusted no one else to keep him safe while he was locked away with his fellow cardinals.

“My father did his best, but he raised me alone and there are some things that I never learned.” Also a great deal that I had, but I saw no reason to dwell on that.

“I was very sorry to learn of your father’s death. He was a good man.”

My throat tightened. As always, it was difficult for me to hear anyone speak of my father, although the more time that passed since his death, the fewer there were who seemed to remember him. Even I sometimes had difficulty remembering his face, except in my dreams, in which he figured often. My father was a great walker, and from time to time I dreamed of him walking with me through a particular neighborhood of Rome that we had both enjoyed. On such occasions, I longed to talk to him of the troubles that beset me and receive his wise counsel, but he never spoke, and inevitably when I tried to press him, I awoke. I had been left to figure out matters for myself despite feeling ill equipped to do so.

“He gave his life trying to protect others,” I said. “His murderer remains at large.”

“Surely, with all his power His Holiness could…”

I did not want to speak of Borgia’s response—or lack thereof—to my father’s murder. Had my father succeeded in killing the loathsome Pope Innocent VIII, who sought to prolong his dissipated life by taking mother’s milk and drinking the blood of young boys who suffered horribly for his sake, he would have cleared the way for Borgia to assume the papacy. Instead, he had died for his efforts, leaving me to complete his work. I still had no idea whether Innocent had perished by my hand or from natural causes, and I cannot say that I cared. That could wait until I was held to account for my sins in the world beyond, assuming there was any such place.

“His Holiness has much to concern him,” I said noncommittally.

“Yes, of course. Forgive me for speaking as I did. It is just that I remember the great love your father and mother shared. It was clear to anyone with eyes that they were meant for each other.”

I thought of Rocco and of what it meant to care for someone even in the face of seemingly insurmountable barriers. Did I have more of my mother in me than I had ever imagined?

“It must have been so difficult for them,” I said. “A Jew and a young Christian girl of good family. How did they even dare to think that they could be together?”

“At first, your father did his best to deny Adriana, but she refused to be discouraged. She pointed out, reasonably enough, that had he been born Christian, her family would have welcomed him as their son-in-law. Adriana’s father was a middling successful spice importer. He did well enough, but he had nothing like the wealth needed to marry her into one of the great merchant families or acquire her a titled husband. Giovanni was clearly more skilled than the average apothecary and could make a good future for himself. The only problem was that he was a Jew.”

“But he converted,” I pointed out. Whether for love of my mother or from real conviction, I had no idea. Nor did I think it mattered.

“You know conversos have always been viewed with suspicion,” the abbess said. “They are the first to be accused of being heretics.”

“Is that why her family didn’t want her to marry him? Because they feared she would be endangered?”

As hard as that would be, I could understand it. Rocco protected his young son, Nando, fiercely, and even I, surely the most unlikely mother, had risked my life to save the boy. Love of the young and the preservation of their safety had to be among the most fundamental human instincts.

Or so I thought.

Mother Benedette was silent for several moments. Finally, she said, “Your mother’s family did not want her to marry your father because their hatred of the Jews blinded them to every other consideration. I am sorry to say that in the end, nothing else mattered to them. When they realized that Giovanni had converted, and that he and Adriana had contrived to marry without their permission, they declared themselves shamed by her and refused to have any further contact.”

I knew a little of what it meant to be consumed by hatred, but never could I imagine being so ruled by it as to cast out a child.

“At least she and my father were able to make a life together.”

“It is a testament to both of them that they did so.” With a gentle smile, Mother Benedette indicated the basket of
panetti.
“Come, eat a little more and let us speak of happier things. Adriana would not wish either of us to be so cast down. She had an irrepressible sense of optimism that, I will admit, sometimes led us into situations we did not quite expect. For instance, there was the time she enlisted my help in a project to find homes for what she claimed was a litter of kittens but which turned out to be wild lynxes.…”

As she described the antics of the two young girls, the abbess coaxed smiles from me, and finally laughter. By the time I left her, having agreed to meet her again soon, I was filled as much with stories about my mother as with the good
panetto.
As I crossed the square back toward the palazzo, my buoyant mood matched the lightness of my step. Thanks to the abbess, my mother was emerging from the shadow of death to come alive in my mind. Already, it seemed as though I could see her, a young woman filled with love and happiness, hurrying about the business of being a wife as she looked forward to the birth of her child.

There she was, brown-haired like me, wearing a simple white gown beneath a green surcoat, with the handle of her basket tucked in the crook of her arm. She turned her head and smiled in my direction. So vivid was the impression of her that I stretched out a hand and called her name.

“Mamma!”

She did not answer, nor could she, for in the next instant I stared in horror as blood spurted from a dozen wounds that appeared suddenly all over her body. A crimson tide flowed across the cobblestone street, flowing faster and thicker, racing toward me. My mother bent over, clutching herself. She cast me a long last look before she crumpled to the ground.

“Mamma!”

My voice carried on the same wind that blew away the ashes that were all that was left of her.

I staggered back against a nearby wall, clamping a hand over my mouth to hold back my screams. A part of me knew that what I saw was not real. I had experienced such visions in the past—glimpses of a macabre world filled with death and despair. Whether such horrors were phantasms of my disordered mind or warnings of damnation, I could not be sure. But I had become, if not accustomed to them, at least able to fend off their worse effects. This was different.

The sight of my mother’s life flowing from her consumed me with pain and terror unlike any I had ever known. For a horrible moment, I feared that I would lose all control of myself, becoming a spectacle for the avid crowd, who would conclude I must be a witch possessed by demons. Not even Borgia would be able to save me then.

Spurred by nothing more than raw horror and the instinct for survival, I turned and ran across the piazza and up the steps of the palazzo. Bile burned in my throat, and my limbs felt weighted down with irons. My heart pounded so frantically that I thought it must surely burst. At the top of the steps, I paused and forced myself to look back. The usual motley collection of townspeople and visitors was passing through the square. No one appeared to have noticed what I had seen. My mother was gone; no sign of her remained.

I drew as deep a breath as I could manage as I fought for a semblance of calm. Despite the coolness of the day, my palms were wet and slick. The handle of the basket containing the remaining
panetti
slipped in my hand. Hysterical laughter rose in me as I realized that, despite everything, I had managed to hold on to it.

In my rooms, I paced back and forth, consumed with raging energy that could scarcely be contained. Jagged bits of color appeared and disappeared before my eyes. My chest ached from the raggedness of my breathing, but I scarcely noticed. I moved unceasingly for an unknown time, stopping only when I became aware that my legs were throbbing and that the bells were ringing for sext. As soon as prayers were over, the midday meal would begin. If I did not appear in the hall as expected, questions would be raised.

With difficulty, I managed to wash, refashion my hair, and don fresh clothes. Before I was done, my hands were shaking violently. I could not possibly go before Borgia and the others in such a state. In desperation, I took out the vial containing Sofia’s powder. She would be horrified if she knew that I was taking it for any reason other than to sleep. But she had no way of understanding how dire my circumstances had become. Nor was it right that she should judge me from the distance of Rome and its relative safety.