The Borgia Mistress: A Novel (24 page)

I followed. We met up around a corner of the stables. He was leaning against a wall, seeming at ease, but I sensed otherwise. The finely drawn lines around his eyes suggested that he was both tired and worried.

“Call off your nun,” he said as soon as I appeared.

Taken aback, I dodged. “She’s hardly ‘my’ nun.”

“Don’t prevaricate, Francesca. It’s beneath you. Herrera thinks he can use her to bring you down. That’s the only reason he’s tolerating her.”

“She had to make him believe that in order to get close to him. That business about the convent—”

David waved a hand dismissively. “I’m not talking about that. He’s told his men that you’re responsible for all the deaths that have occurred, starting with the kitchen boy, and that with the abbess’s help, he’ll be able to prove it.”

“That’s ridiculous. Where would he get such a notion?”

“From her? How do you know what she’s told him or why? For that matter, what do you know of her?”

Anger rose in me. David was not the only one working under great strain and living in the shadow of disaster. He had no right to speak to me in such a way.

Stiffly, I said, “I know that she was my mother’s friend.”

“That must have been years ago. What does it matter now?”

“Because she alone told me the truth about how my mother died. Do you have any idea what that means to me?”

Holding my gaze, David said, “No, I don’t, and I won’t pretend otherwise. But it isn’t like you to give your trust so easily.”

Or to give it at all, although I would not say that to him. I worried that Borgia’s meeting with the French might have been the signal David was waiting for. Yet Herrera still lived.

“Is Mother Benedette making it more difficult for you to stay close to the Spaniard?”

“She is, yes. He doesn’t need a jester around when he’s conspiring with a holy woman.”

Was that the root of the problem, then, or was he genuinely concerned about the abbess’s actions? I had no way of knowing. But I could at least try to find out.

“I will see what can be done, but in the meantime, you will have to tolerate her presence.”

It was not the answer he wanted, as he made clear when, without another word, he turned and stalked away. Alone, I sagged against the wall of the stables and tried to gather my thoughts. I might even have managed it had not the world intruded yet again.

A pale, wide-eyed page approached me but stopped a good six feet away. Head down, clearly wishing himself anywhere else, he said, “Your pardon, donna. His Holiness requires your presence.”

I rubbed my hands over my face, took a breath, and went.

24

“Help me to understand,” Borgia said. “You thought this was a good time to introduce into my household a woman whose presence prompts reflection on the sinfulness of my papacy and the need for some sort of purification. Is that right?”

“That was never my intent, nor do I believe it to be hers.” At least, I most profoundly hoped that it was not. “With all respect, Your Holiness, I’m not even aware that is happening.”

His face darkened. “That’s because you don’t have to listen to my prelates prattle on and on.” In a singsong voice, he recited, “I’ve done too much to advance my own family at the cost of everyone else’s. I should temper my ambitions, make peace with the French, be seen to say Mass more often, and—oh, yes—put La Bella aside or at least be more discreet about her. Next they’ll want me in a hair shirt flagellating myself!”

The image of Borgia, who was the most worldly man I knew, behaving in any such way tempted a smile from me. With difficulty, I suppressed it and said, “Is it really fair to ascribe all that to Mother Benedette’s influence?”

In fact, I knew that it was not. Borgia was listing the litany of complaints about him that had existed since the day his pontificate began. His recent advancement of Cesare and Juan had merely exacerbated matters. But if he wanted to blame the abbess, there was little I could do about it. Except, perhaps, to remind him of what he already knew.

“Mother Benedette offered her assistance and I accepted. You yourself thought having her here was a good idea.”

“Because I thought the plan was to rehabilitate you so that you could get on with the job of protecting Herrera and, more important, me. Instead, you seem to have turned that task over to a nun and a jester.”

“You know that David isn’t—”

“All right, a nun and a troublemaking Jew. Is that better? Should I sleep more easily in my bed knowing that the two of them are looking after the man who is key to preserving my alliance with Spain?”

“At least you sleep.” I spoke before I could think, and I regretted it immediately. The single decent night’s rest that I had enjoyed had done little to smooth the rough edges of my temper or soothe my jangled nerves. Worse yet, the craving for Sofia’s powder was greater than ever.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said—”

“Sit down,” Borgia ordered. When I had done so, he stared hard at me and said, “What’s wrong with you?” Before I could reply, he provided his own answer. “Do you want absolution for killing those men? You don’t need it, but if it will make you feel better—”

“Can you absolve me for being able to kill them?”

He lowered himself into his chair and studied me. “So that’s the problem? You don’t appreciate your own nature even when it keeps you alive? Would you rather go a sheep to the slaughter?”

“As the Lamb of God did?”

Really, I seemed to have no control over my tongue. Who was I to remind Christ’s Vicar of the sacrifice on the cross?

“My apologies, Your Holiness. I spoke without thought. What is it that you wish me to do?”

A great sigh escaped him, like a snort from a bull. For a moment, he looked older even than his years, weighed down by the insatiable appetite of his own ambitions. But in the next instant, he rallied, and said, “I must hold this all together. If I cannot…”

The results would mean disaster for
la famiglia
and all those close to Borgia. I did not need to be reminded of that.

“I will speak with Mother Benedette.” After what David had told me, I had already intended to do so. As much as I did not want to send her away, if she was causing problems, however inadvertently, I would have no choice.

Cautiously, mindful of Borgia’s temper, I added, “However, if you truly are as concerned as you appear to be, there is an obvious solution.”

He raised an eyebrow as though daring me to continue. “Spare us both and do not suggest again that Herrera should have a convenient accident.”

I took a breath, let it out slowly, and said, “I wasn’t about to do so. Take him into custody. Surround him with guards, control everything and everyone that comes near him. The assassin will be unable to do his work, and you will be safe.”

Borgia chuckled. It wasn’t a sound that I was accustomed to hearing from him, and it took me a moment to recognize it. By the time I did, it had become a full-throated laugh.

“By God, Francesca,” His Holiness exclaimed when he was able to speak again. “I had no idea that you had such a wicked sense of humor.”

I was not amused. “I am not joking.”

His good humor fled as quickly as it had appeared. Such mercurial behavior was unlike him. I was unsure what to make of it.

His prodigious brow drawn into furrows, he scowled at me. “But what you’ve just suggested is a joke, and a dangerous one at that. Juan has been arrested and is being held by the Spaniards. You want me to in effect return the favor and arrest Herrera?”

“For his own good, to keep him and yourself safe. That is altogether different.”

“Their Most Catholic Majesties will not see it as such. What will I tell them? That I am powerless before one lone assassin? How long do you imagine it will take them to switch their support to whichever one of my enemies they decide is stronger?”

I could not hide my frustration. “What are we to do, then? Just let Herrera be killed and the alliance die with him?”

Abruptly, Borgia slammed his fist down on the desk. The carved silver inkwell leaped into the air, fell off the edge, and crashed to the floor, showering black droplets in all directions. Red-faced, His Holiness snarled, “Find the assassin! Kill him! Do what I keep you to do or I will be done with you, by God!”

I had seen Borgia in a fury before, but I had never seen him as I did at that moment. The ruthless prince who had clawed his way to the pinnacle of power in all of Christendom, never showing an instant’s lack of certainty or confidence, was … afraid? Truly, genuinely frightened by events that were spiraling out of control. And perhaps by more. Borgia had what everyone recognized as the most formidable spy service in all of Christendom. It was entirely possible that he was receiving information that confirmed the danger he was in while giving no hint of its source. He—who was so accustomed to maneuvering and manipulating his way from triumph to triumph—had no real experience with defeat, but if he truly believed that he faced it now …

Borgia angry, greedy, ambitious, determined, caught within the irresistible force of his own will was dangerous enough. But Borgia afraid? I could scarcely imagine what he was capable of doing in such a state. More important, I had no desire to find out.

Standing on the edge of a cliff, peering into the abyss with which I was becoming all too familiar, I said, “Be assured, I will do my best.”

Borgia being Borgia, he had to have the last word. I was at the door, about to leave, when he hissed under his breath, “It’s your worst that I want, Francesca. Forget about the abbess redeeming you. Better that you remind men of why they feel the cold hand of terror when you pass by.”

I should have brushed that off as no more than an echo of his fear, and I did try. Yet the bitter truth of it weighed on me. I left his presence hollow with sadness yet determined all the same to do what I must.

*   *   *

To that end, I went in search of Mother Benedette. Cesare had taken Herrera off hunting, sparing me the need to seek her among the Spaniards. I found the abbess in the garden, standing head bowed, in deep reflection. When I approached along the radiating gravel paths that ended in a sparkling fountain, she appeared startled, but she quickly smiled.

“I was just going to look for you, Francesca. Are you well?”

Though I smiled a little in turn, the effort fell short. I was too concerned about what both David and Borgia had said to pretend otherwise. “I have been better. Let us sit and talk awhile.”

When we had settled on a bench nearby, I remained silent for a few moments, gathering my thoughts. Finally, I said, “I fear that I have asked too much of you.”

“Dear child,” Mother Benedette said, “you worry needlessly. Everything is going as we planned. Herrera finds it useful to allow my presence, which affords me the opportunity to keep watch on him. At the same time, I am doing my best to persuade him to see you in a kinder light, and I think I am making some progress in that regard.”

“Are you? Yet he has decided that I am responsible for the deaths that have occurred within His Holiness’s household. He thinks he is going to be able to prove that.”

“Where did you get such a notion?” When I did not answer at once, her eyes narrowed. “You have someone else close to him, don’t you? Someone who has fed you this nonsense.”

A cuckoo swooped down to take a drink from the fountain, then darted away again. The bird is known for its subterfuge, given as it is to laying eggs in the nests of other birds, thereby tricking them into raising its young at no cost to itself. Yet for all that, it has a lovely song.

“It doesn’t matter how I learned of it,” I said. “My worry is that this is no place for a woman like you.”

Mother Benedette sighed. Drawing her hands from inside the wide sleeves of her habit, she took hold of my own.

“Francesca, when I came here, I had no idea that I was about to encounter so remarkable a young woman. You confront the darkness that surrounds us with extraordinary courage, yet for all that, you remain trapped within it.”

I could have told her that she had it wrong, that the darkness was inside me, but before I could do so she continued.

“Have you never considered that there is a better way? A truer way open to you if only you have the grace to see it?”

“That is a tempting thought, but—”

Her smooth face framed by her wimple became more animated. “It is hard, I know. But there is a means of rending the web of evil to see beyond this world. A way for the truly pure of spirit to find the path out of darkness into the light.”

Was there anything that I desired more than to throw off the shackles of evil that had held me in its merciless grip since I was a tiny child and become the woman I would have been? A woman not of darkness but of the light?

“I wish I could believe you,” I said.

“But you already know the truth of what I am saying,” she exclaimed. “I saw it in you when we spoke of this before.”

I shook my head, uncertain of what she meant. “Spoke of…?”

“Of evil and the nature of this world. You mentioned Augustine, and I said there was another way of explaining the omnipresence of evil, because it is inherent in this realm of physical existence and material obsession.”

She leaned back a little and studied me. “I think you recognized what I was saying and from whence it came, although I admit to being very surprised that you would have such knowledge.”

Slowly, her meaning became clear. Yet even then I resisted accepting it. It did not seem possible that she could … “You know of the Cathar heresy?” I asked.

Her hands tightened on mine. “So-called by the very agents of the evil it defies. But how have you come to know of this? For all the promise you show, you are not one of us.”

I could not have heard her correctly. The Cathars had been exterminated hundreds of years ago. Scarcely the memory of them remained except in the deepest, most hidden recesses of the Vatican, where old enemies were never forgotten.

Mother Benedette smiled. Her gaze, holding mine, was filled with excitement. “Surely there is no need for subterfuge between us any longer—and no point to it, either. I would be fascinated to learn what documents you were able to read and where you found them. Is it possible that the Church of Satan preserved our sacred texts? And if so, to what end? But unfortunately other matters must concern us.”

A low buzzing filled my ears. Against it, I struggled to understand what she was telling me. Though I could hardly claim to know everything the Church had done to assure its supremacy over the long expanse of bloody centuries, I did not believe anyone had received more ruthless treatment than had the Cathars. And yet they had managed to endure despite everything?

“How—?” I began.

“How are we still here, in this world of evil?” she asked. “It is true that the Church of Satan tried to wipe out all traces of our existence in order to keep mankind enslaved in darkness forever. But the
perfecti,
the most enlightened among us, were determined to preserve the path to redemption. To that end, they sent a select group to safety even as all the others surrendered their own lives to make the Church believe that it had won. By that sacrifice, our fellows threw off the last shackles of this world and were freed from it forever. We who are still trapped in Satan’s realm pray to one day follow them.”

From all that I had read, the Cathars had gone to their deaths without resistance, even cheerfully, singing as the flames consumed them. Their executioners had found that deeply disturbing. Some wrote of being haunted by the spectacle, reliving it over and over until they feared they were descending into madness. Several were suspected of taking their own lives, their deaths concealed by the Church with hasty burials far from consecrated ground. In the most secret reports that I had uncovered, a few witnesses even claimed that they had seen the souls of the Cathars rise into the sky on ribbons of silver light. Generally, the Church makes a public show of executing heretics, but next to the names of those witnesses there had been only a single, singularly ominous notation:
Silenced
.