Poison: A Novel of the Renaissance (12 page)

Vittoro pushed me forward. I stumbled, but he gripped my arm and did not let me fall.

“Tell her,” the torturer said again and twisted the man’s neck so that he howled.

“Innocent! He did it! He ordered your father’s death!”

Drawn by forces I could not resist, I moved closer yet. The stench of sweat and blood and waste almost overcame me. I stared down
into the face contorted in agony and felt . . . nothing? No, that would not be true. Certainly, I felt something, but it was far from the horror and pity that had filled me moments before. Those simple human feelings, the natural response to what I was witnessing, retreated behind the wall that was always there for me. In their place came a dark and howling emptiness that would have terrified me had I still possessed the capacity to feel anything at all.

A glint of gold off to the side drew my eye. Vittoro held a chain up for me to see. A medallion that I knew well dangled from it.

“They took this off him,” Vittoro said, and pressed the medallion into my palm.

I closed my fingers around it and stared down at what had been a man. As though from a great distance, I heard myself speak. “The Pope ordered my father’s death? Is that what you are saying?”

“Yes, yes!” he sobbed. “For pity’s sake, help me!”

I scarcely heard him, for just then a figure emerged from the shadows. Garbed in scarlet and gold, his great shoulders blocking out the light behind him so that all was cast into darkness, His Eminence, Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, prince of Holy Mother Church, smiled.

“Help him,” he said, and having drawn a knife from beneath his robes, he handed it to me.

I do not remember going back upstairs. When next I recalled anything, I was sitting in Il Cardinale’s office, in the same chair I had occupied scant hours before. The medallion was still in my hand, squeezed so hard that it had left its imprint on my flesh.

My other hand was stained with blood.

There was no sign of the knife; it was gone.

Vittoro handed me a glass of brandy. “Drink,” he said, and I obeyed, swallowing it all in a single, long draught.

I felt very cold, which was ridiculous because the night was warm. It must have rained because the terrace beyond the high windows glinted wetly in the moonlight. A part of me marveled that the world had gone on so mundanely while all within me was shaken to the core.

Borgia sat behind his desk. Candles threw his weighty features into high relief. He toyed with a small blade, the kind used for opening the seals on letters. “You did better than I thought you would,” he said.

When I say that I do not remember returning to the world above, that is the truth. However, I have a clear memory of what happened in those final moments in the bowels of the palazzo. I, who hated and feared blood above all else, slit the throat of my father’s killer—only one of them, to be sure, and among the least.

Far greater prey awaited me.

The river of his life had poured out over the rack, onto the stone floor, almost touching my feet, reminding me of the images I had seen of ancient sacrifice. I had only moments to contemplate the stunning sense of satisfaction and relief that exploded within me before Vittoro yanked me back, snatched the knife from my hand, and threw it to the ground. Without waiting for the Cardinal’s permission, he hurried me away.

Now he handed me another glass of brandy, which I took but did not drink. All my attention was on Borgia. If he had underestimated me, I had done the same with him. Never had I imagined how far he would go to secure my cooperation.

“I still prefer poison,” I said with care to conceal the dark emotions
roiling within me. Borgia saw too much as it was. I would not willingly give him more.

“Vengeance is vengeance,” he said, “in whatever form it comes.” The greyhound at his feet raised its head and looked at him before lying back down. It was one of his favorite hunting dogs, the pack kept at his country residence except for a favored few who were always with him. He was a great lover of animals, Borgia was, except for those he liked to see torn apart.

“Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord,” I replied, and thought, for a fleeting moment, that Rocco would be pleased. Yet I could not ascribe to that belief, not while the man who had ordered my father’s death still breathed on this earth.

The Cardinal raised a brow. “A few minutes ago you did not hesitate to take matters into your own hands.”

“God’s justice is for the world beyond. Here we have only what we make for ourselves.”

I looked to Vittoro, who was watching me with concern. “Should we not speak in private, Eminence?” I asked.

I was thinking of myself, of course. The fewer people who knew what I was about to agree to, the better. But I also thought of Vittoro. I could not imagine that he would want any part of what the Cardinal and I intended to do.

Once again, Borgia surprised me. “The captain has my confidence,” he said, and waved Vittoro into the chair beside me. It was a masterful gesture, putting us all on an equal level, as it were. Yet not equal at all, for behind the vast expanse of his marble and gilt desk, in the palatial surroundings he so effortlessly dominated, there could be no doubt that the Cardinal ruled all.

And so we talked late into that dark night. Borgia stressed what I already knew, that Innocent’s death had to appear entirely natural.
I said again that I knew nothing of how my father might have contemplated bringing that about, but promised to do my utmost to determine how it could be accomplished.

“Don’t take too long about it,” the Cardinal said. “I can raise enough questions within the Curia to delay the edict for some little time, but not for very long.”

“Do you have any idea how much time we have?” Vittoro asked. He had been silent until then.

“Innocent’s recent illness has created a sense of urgency,” Borgia replied. “We have a few days at most.”

A few days in which to find a way to induce death that would raise no questions in the minds of the most suspicious and watchful people in all of Christendom, those most likely to see conspiracy in the most ordinary events, among which the death of a pope certainly cannot be ranked.

“That illness,” I asked, “do you know if my father actually caused it?”

Borgia shook his head. “I have no idea, but Innocent must have suspected as much or he would not have ordered Giovanni’s death.”

If
he had ordered it. Do not think me a fool. I understood full well that men under torture will say anything demanded of them. That is why, in my opinion, torture is senseless. I am clearly in the minority in believing this, as it remains so much in fashion.

Why ever the man said what he did, I knew that he had participated in killing my father and in the attack on me. He linked both to the Pope, which might or might not be true but which, along with what I had learned about the edict, certainly pointed in the direction of the Vatican. If I were to reach so high in pursuit of my father’s murderers, I would need Borgia’s help.

“Whether he already had the means to sicken the Pope or not,” I
went on, “my father must have had some plan for getting close to Innocent. But surely he knew that no one would allow him anywhere near the Pope.”

“I have thought as much,” the Cardinal said. “It is possible that your father knew someone in a position to help him—another
converso,
perhaps.”

I let the reference to my father’s supposed status go by without comment and concentrated on the possible usefulness of what Borgia had said. I could not pretend to be surprised. It was well known—or at least rumored—that those most determined to pass as Christians were inclined to take holy orders. Any priest who could not prove his lineage going back generations might be a secret Jew.

“Do you know this for a fact?” I asked.

Borgia shook his head. “I do not. As I am sure you understand, any such person would keep himself extremely well hidden.”

Undoubtedly so, but I had to find him and without delay, at the same time I had to find what my father had sought. And I had to accomplish both before time ran out—for the Jews and for me.

I was suddenly very tired. “It will be light soon. I must consider how best to proceed.”

With the Cardinal’s permission, I withdrew. Before the door closed behind me, I saw him pick up a document and begin to read. It was said that Borgia was tireless in the pursuit of his ambitions, and I believed it.

Vittoro accompanied me to my apartment. On the way, I gathered my courage to ask him what I had to know. “Are you certain you want to be part of this?”

“I am a faithful servant of His Eminence.”

“That’s all very well and good, but what about your soul?”

He stopped abruptly. The young guard carrying a torch to light
our way almost walked into his back. Vittoro took my elbow. Together, we walked a little ahead, enough for privacy’s sake.

“My soul?” he sounded amused. “Do you have any idea how many men I have killed, Donna?”

When I admitted that I did not, he said, “Neither do I. As a young man, I fought in the papal war against Florence and against the Duke of Ferrera when he, too, offended the pope. Later, I fought against the Kingdom of Naples for the same reason. I would have fought against the Turks but they bought Innocent and own him still. I have watched him sell forgiveness for every manner of sin, including the greatest depravity. But then he himself is an expert on such matters. He has whored, stolen, lied, and blasphemed his whole life. The sooner he faces divine judgment, the better.”

I glanced over my shoulder. The young guard hovered far enough away that we would not be heard.

“And you believe Borgia is different?” I asked.

Vittoro answered thoughtfully. “He is . . . practical. That’s the word for him. Certainly, he likes his pleasures, what man doesn’t? But you saw him just now when we were leaving, he was going to work. That’s what he’s like. Go full out and get the job done, that’s his attitude. And that’s what we need. Rome, Christendom, all of us. He’ll see us right.”

“He tried for the papacy before and lost,” I reminded him.

Vittoro nodded. “And he’ll lose again if he has to wait much longer. Once that edict is out, it will be too late. He needs the Jews’ money.”

And he needed Innocent dead.

Innocent who, it was very clear, Borgia was determined to set me on as the hound to the hare.

Vittoro left me at my door. In my rooms, I stood for a
few moments, looking at the bed with its covers tossed back in haste. I had left it one person and returned as another. It was not only the act of ending a life without the distance poison afforded, it was also what I had discovered about myself.

While my father lived, I was a loving daughter, sharing his interests, learning from him, ultimately far surpassing his abilities but always protecting him from loneliness even as he protected me from the harshness of the world. Since his death, I had lived to avenge his murder, as surely it was my duty to do. But something else was stirring in me now, watered by the blood I had shed that night.

I had killed the Spaniard out of need, to attain the position that had to be mine.

I had enjoyed killing the man on the rack. Were it possible, I would have killed him again and again. There was something in the stroke of the knife I wielded and the spurt of blood that followed it . . . something that made me feel a sense of power and, strangely, peace that I had never experienced before. Were I to sleep just then, I understood in a flash of insight that the nightmare would not come.

The thought drove me to the basin set on the table beside the bed. The water had cooled long ago, but I scarcely noticed as I scrubbed the blood from my hand and kept on scrubbing until my skin was raw and red. It did not matter. The fingers that had curled so eagerly around the knife would never truly be clean again. No amount of prayer or absolution could wipe out the sin of what I freely and knowingly intended to do.

“The die is cast,” the Cardinal had said. So, too, I feared, was my soul into the pit of damnation.

It is a curious thing to think oneself damned. Fear fades away, doubt dissolves. There is a strange, exhilarating sense of liberation. On the cusp of it, I went out into the bloodred dawn rising over Rome.

Sofia was bandaging a festering wound on the leg of an old man when I arrived at the apothecary shop. Nothing seemed to have changed since the previous day—as many sick and dying people as before were lined up waiting for help while the pile of bodies out in front was as high as ever.

She looked up, saw me, and gestured toward the workroom at the rear.

“Wait for me in front, if you will,” I told Vittoro, aware as I was that Sofia would not speak in his presence. He nodded, shot me a quick look that I interpreted to be a reminder of the need for caution, and went to take up his post.

Before he did, he placed the supplies we had brought in my arms. I walked to the back, behind the wall that separated the workroom from the rest of the shop. The battered table was cluttered but there was just enough space to set down my burdens. When I had done so,
I took a moment to look around more carefully than I had been able to do on my two previous visits.

Despite her desperate circumstances, I saw that Sofia maintained a sense of order and cleanliness. Everything was neatly labeled—salves, ointments, and balms on one shelf, pills and suppositories on another, and raw ingredients on several more. She had basic surgical instruments—scalpels, pincers, cauterizers, and the like—and a better than decent pair of scales. Overall, I was surprised that a simple apothecary would be so well equipped.

I was still thinking about that when the back door opened and Benjamin peered in.

“Signorina,” he said, beckoning to me with a smile.
“Viene prego.”

“What is it, Benjamin?” I asked. But he was already backing out of the shop, still gesturing to me to follow. I went with some exasperation, uncertain what he wanted or why he would imagine that I could go with him just then. Surely he understood that I was far too busy for childish games?