Poison: A Novel of the Renaissance (30 page)

I was not surprised that he found the words to describe his situation not in Holy Writ but in the works of a Roman slave manumitted in recognition of his genius as a playwright. Still, I was startled by his acknowledgment of the seriousness of the matter.

“Truly, you do hold a wolf by the ears,” I said. “Let it go and it will devour you. But Morozzi—”

The Cardinal waved away my concern before I could fully voice it. “I have found,” he said, “that the best way to know a man is to put him under pressure and see how he reacts, don’t you agree?”

“I suppose, but—”

“Morozzi could have declined my invitation. What does it tell us that he did not, that in fact he came as he did, making a show of his insolence? Does it mean that he is vain and overly confident, the kind of man who, given the rope, will find a way to hang himself?”

“Perhaps but—”

“Or does it tell us that he believes he has reason for such confidence? That, in short, he has a plan he believes cannot fail?”

“A plan to kill you?” As the old Romans said,
in vino veritas
. My tongue seemed to have acquired a will of its own.

Before I could regret my frankness, Borgia poured wine into a second goblet and slid it across the desk to me.

“That would seem the logical conclusion,” he said.

My concern for sobriety faded before the implacable truth of what we faced. I drank deeply before I spoke again.

“Morozzi is in possession of a deadly poison.” I had delayed as long as I could in confessing this. To wait another moment would be a dereliction of my duty. Yet the admission cost my pride dearly.

The Cardinal raised a brow. “How do you know that?”

“Because I made it before I went into the
castel
. It was for my own use, if need be, carried in a locket that was a gift from my father.”

“You were willing to kill yourself if you were captured?” He looked surprised, as though he had not considered that I would go so far.

“I reasoned that I would die under torture, but not before I was made to talk. Therefore, it was better to die first.”

Unspoken between us was the specter of medallion man, who had perished in just the manner I had feared.

“A sensible conclusion . . .” Borgia said. “Yet one most people cannot face.”

“Perhaps because they lack familiarity with the means of accomplishing death.” And perhaps because they feared for their immortal souls thanks to the teachings of the Church he himself represented. The same Church so inclined these days to impose its will through torture and terror.

“At any rate, before we went, Morozzi insisted that I show him how I intended to kill the Pope. Rather than tell him the truth, I showed him what was in the locket. When he trapped us, he snatched it from me.”

“When he trapped you and the Jew?”

“His name is David ben Eliezer.” That he had a name, that he was a man, that he mattered, all had to be acknowledged by someone. The task seemed to fall to me.

Borgia shrugged. “I know what his name is and I know what he intends. An uprising in the Jewish Quarter is a lunatic plan.”

That stung, all the more so because I could not deny it. I could only take refuge in the obvious. “Desperate people do desperate things.”

“The Jews are right to be desperate. They stand on the knife’s edge. If I do not become pope, it is likely they will face destruction here and throughout Christendom.”

“Because Morozzi will convince whoever does become pope to sign the edict?”

Borgia refilled both our goblets and drank again before he answered. The wine seemed to make him loquacious.

“The edict against the Jews is only the most obvious sign of something much greater. The world that has existed for centuries, the only world we know, is on the brink of vast change.”

His gaze fastened on me. “That is necessary and good, but there are many who want to keep the world as it is. They see change as a mortal threat and they are right to do so, for it will sweep them away.”

To hear clearly what I had fumbled toward in my own inchoate reasoning was to see a candle lit in darkness.

“How far will they go to protect themselves?” I asked.

Borgia shrugged. “As far as they must. The Jews will be only the first to die. Their blood will cement the mortar that entombs us all.”

Bile rose in the back of my throat. For a moment, I was enclosed in the wall, watching helplessly as the torrent of blood drowned my world.

“What can we do?”

Borgia emptied his goblet, set it down on the desk, and said, “We can make me pope, Francesca. Nothing else will serve.”

“Della Rovere—”

“May have his turn, God help us, after I am dead and gone, but not until then. By heaven, not until then!”

He slammed his fist down on the desk so that the goblet and flagon both jumped from the force. As, for that matter, did I.

“Is Morozzi his creature?” I asked when I had caught my breath.

“So della Rovere believes, but he is wrong. Morozzi is the Devil’s own and no one else’s.”

A breeze blew through the windows, setting the lamps to flickering. Light moved across his face, receded, and returned again.

“Another of his kind comes nigh,” he said. “Are you aware of that?”

“Torquemada.” The name scalded my tongue.

Borgia nodded. “I want you to go to the Jews and convince them not to do anything foolish. They must wait with patience and with faith. I will prevail, I swear it. But if they allow Torquemada to provoke them, they cannot look to me for help.”

“I will try—”

“You must do better than that, and Francesca . . .”

I waited, bracing myself for whatever more was to come.

“Had you told me that Morozzi was your contact in the Pope’s household, I could have warned you of him. You chose to keep that small bit of information to yourself and that almost led to disaster. You must never do anything of the sort again.”

He was right, of course. I had no defense, although I did try to muster one.

“Without Morozzi, I would have had no way to reach Innocent. Surely, it was worth the risk?”

“Does that mean you killed him?”

Had I slain God’s anointed Vicar on earth, the heir of Saint Peter and Moses, a small, despicable man set on perpetrating a great horror? Or had I not? Having acted to kill him, did it make any difference whether I had succeeded or failed? Was I damned either way?

“I don’t know.”

“And that matters to you?

The mockery I thought I heard pricked me. “Of course it matters! I believe I found a way to kill that would appear entirely natural. I tried to expose Innocent to it. Of all that, I am truly guilty. But whether I brought about his death or not, I just don’t know. It is possible that he would have died when he did without my interference.”

“It is also possible that you did God’s work. Has that occurred to you?”

“No,” I said honestly. “God has a thousand ways . . . a hundred thousand . . . to strike down a man without involving me.”

“And you would prefer not to be involved?”

“Of course I would prefer it! Have you no care at all for my soul?”

Even then I knew the question was absurd. A few old men might cling to their mitres and mumble their prayers, but they were a dying breed. It was the new men like Borgia who were the Church now. They had transformed it into a mimers’ play filled with posturing and pretense, a performance to distract the rabble while they went about their worldly business out of sight.

Where was the shepherd to stand against such wolves?

Borgia sighed deeply. “Do you want absolution? If that is it, you have only to say so.”

“You cannot—”

“Of course I can. I am a prince of Holy Mother Church. I have the power to wash away sin. Or do you not believe that?”

If I did not, I was a heretic.

“Only say the words and you shall be forgiven.” He looked at me closely, waiting.

“I cannot—”

“Why not, Francesca? Why can’t you?”

Why could I not kneel before him, repent of my sins, and receive the blessing of God’s forgiveness?

Ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis, in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. Amen

“Because I am not sorry. Afraid, yes, for my soul’s sake, but I cannot ask God to forgive me for what I truly do not regret.”

He nodded, as though I had given him the answer he wanted. But he was not done yet. “Is there any other reason?”

Only one that I could think of and that was the darkest of all. My eyes burned. I blinked back tears. “Because I will kill again.”

“Morozzi?”

I nodded. For my father, for David and Sofia and Benjamin, for the madness he wanted to unleash on all of us, I could not rest until the priest was dead.

“Morozzi for certain but others as well. God knows who they are. I do not, at least not yet.”

“And this troubles you?” Just then, Borgia sounded almost like a priest. Certainly, he had drawn a confession from me that I had never intended to make.

“Yes, Eminence, it troubles me greatly.”

He sighed again and leaned forward. “Kneel, Francesca.”

Confused, I stared at him. He pointed to the floor in front of his chair. “Kneel and accept God’s mercy. He loves us more than you know.”

It was the wine. It was the hour. It was my heart, heavy as a stone dragging me down.

I knelt, my face wet, and lifted my head to see Borgia make the sign of the cross above me. As though from a great distance, I heard him.

“I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

I was and I remain a doubter; it is my curse. Yet in that predawn world, I discovered a truth I had not suspected. Whether by my own desperate need or just perhaps by divine intervention acting even through so deeply flawed a man, I found comfort and meaning in the act of forgiveness.

I rose Borgia’s instrument and, I longed to believe, God’s.

After my encounter with the Cardinal, there was no point in going to bed. Instead, I bathed and changed before leaving the palazzo. With Vittoro staying close to Borgia, I was accompanied once again by Jofre, the young guardsman who, having been duly chastised, was released from latrine duty to keep an eye on me. I felt a need to keep an eye on him as well, for, once inside the ghetto, the hand gripping his sword showed a tendency to twitch.

“There is nothing to be afraid of,” I said. Of necessity, we went very slowly. With the edict expelling Spain’s Jews about to go into final effect, the Jewish Quarter was even more crowded than before. The wealthier refugees, those who had managed to smuggle out gold or gems, found shelter behind the discreet walls of the merchants’ houses, but for most the streets were their new home.

“We’re perfectly safe here,” I insisted, and truly I felt that way.
The ghetto was no longer an alien world to me, but beyond that, I knew that amid so many watchful eyes, my association with Sofia and David could not have gone unnoticed. I doubted that anyone would want to raise the ire of either of them by troubling us.

Jofre, of course, had no way of knowing that. He looked at me as though I were a madwoman. When we reached the apothecary shop and he saw the usual crowd gathered there, the color drained from his face. In the hope that the relatively fresher air would keep him on his feet, I set him to wait outside and went to find Sofia.

She was in the workroom preparing herbs. Seeing me, she pulled out a stool from under the table and gestured me onto it.

“You look terrible,” she said.

I sat gratefully. Confession might be good for the soul but it seemed to wreak havoc on the body. Although, to be fair, perhaps a surfeit of rich food and far more drink than was good for me were the real culprits.

“I haven’t been sleeping well.” It was the simplest explanation and the only one I was prepared to give.

Sofia broke off what she had been doing to prepare a tea from fennel, dandelion, and mugwort. She ignored my protestations and set it before me to brew, then took a seat and eyed me narrowly.

“We have won a reprieve. I thought you would be glad.”

Rather than tell her how far any semblance of happiness was from my troubled heart, I said only, “We must make sure that it is not just a temporary one. Do you know where David is?”

“I can make a few guesses. I’ll send Benjamin to find him, if you like.”

“Please. I need to talk with him.”

She rose to see to it but not without a further admonition. “You also need to drink your tea. Don’t let it get cold.”

I drank and, after an initial impulse to retch, I did feel a little better. David arrived a short while later. He took one glance at me and shook his head.

“It was as bad as that?”

“What was bad?” Sofia asked. She busied herself crushing dried shepherd’s purse with a mortar and pestle. I recognized the plant as one of those I had brought at her behest. Applied correctly, it restricts bleeding and can be very useful with wounds.

David sat and stretched out his long legs. He was unshaven and red-eyed, a good indication that he, too, had been up all night. Benjamin settled on his haunches near the door. I suspected he was making himself as unobtrusive as possible so that no one would notice him, but I lacked the will to send him away.

“The Cardinal’s dinner party,” David replied. “He’s wasting no time spending our money.” He looked to me. “Is it true the better part of the College of Cardinals was there?”

“Yes, and so was Morozzi.”

David’s gaze turned cold. “Why would Borgia allow him under his roof?”

“Something about taking his measure under pressure. I don’t think it really matters. There are larger issues.” I took a breath and said, “Torquemada is coming to Rome.”

Sofia and David exchanged a glance. “Yes,” he said, “we know.”

I had expected as much. Borgia had his intelligence service, but the Jews had thousands of exiles streaming out of Spain. Certainly, word of the Grand Inquisitor’s plans would travel with them.

“Borgia counsels patience.” In point of fact, he had ordered it, but I saw no reason to stress that. “He cautions against any action on your part that could play into Torquemada’s hands.”