Poison: A Novel of the Renaissance (33 page)

She had remained throughout but was no longer standing. Instead,
she was ensconced in a comfortable chair from which she could view the proceedings at a safe distance.

I wasted no time on niceties but went directly on the attack.

“What do you know of how this happened?”

Understand, I had no wish to try to evade my own responsibility. But young as I was, I already knew that the best answers come when the respondent can be taken by surprise and knocked off guard. Whatever she had expected from me—perhaps tearful contrition or a plea for her protection from the wrath of Il Cardinale—this was not it.

“What do you mean?” she demanded in turn, bristling.

“I have checked everything that has come into this house, every morsel of food, every scrap of cloth, every drop of drink. All has been under my seal as it was under my father’s before me.” I thought it did no harm to remind her of the long history of my family’s service to Borgia.

“Something got past me,” I continued, acknowledging the obvious before she could point it out. “I must determine what that was and how it happened. You are
Domina
here. I need you to help me.” Deliberately, I used the title that acknowledged her as female head of the household, with both the rights and responsibilities of same.

A shadow passed behind her eyes, the merest hint of flinching. It startled me. I stared at her harder, trying to determine what had caused such a reaction. Swiftly, the conviction grew in me that Madonna Adrianna was not entirely innocent in this matter. Not that she had caused it in any way, I do not suggest that at all. Only that she knew or at least strongly suspected how it had come about.

“Tell me,” I said.

She was worried, I could sense that, and perhaps more, but she
was still Madonna Adriana and she was not about to be ordered about by the likes of me.

“How dare you—” she began, but I was having none of that. Precious hours had been lost—well spent in the struggle to save Giulia, to be sure, but lost all the same. Morozzi was out there somewhere, hunting his child victim or perhaps he had already taken him. I had to act quickly.

“I will dare whatever I must to find out how this happened,” I told her. “I will look wherever I must and at whomever I must.” Defiantly, I stared at her.

Her face reddened but, to give her credit, she kept a rein on her temper. I took that as a sign of the depth of her fear, that she had to control herself even with me.

Yet still she did not speak, though I could see her jaw working as though the words were struggling to get out.

It was left to Lucrezia, who remained by the bed keeping watch on La Bella but still attending to the scene being played out before her. Softly, she said, “The figs . . .”

I almost ignored her. It is true enough that fresh fruit can be deadly, causing as it will violent runs that rob the body of vital fluids. Washing or better yet peeling before eating seems an effective preventive. This notwithstanding, it is all but impossible to introduce poison into fresh fruit. Any attempt to do so mars its appearance and leaves a bitter taste sure to evoke instant suspicion. Besides, I had checked all the fruit in the house myself and put it under seal.

That close I came to thinking that she was only fumbling around in her young mind, trying to help. But the look on Madonna Adriana’s face stopped me.

“What figs?” I asked.

Lucrezia looked to the other woman to answer. She did but not right away. Instead, she flicked a hand in the direction of the door.

“Out, all of you.”

Servants, midwives, and physicians took to their heels. There was a crush right at the door as each tried to exit first, but finally the physicians—being male, of course—managed to push their way past all but the sturdiest midwives and the rest followed in a ragged stream until finally the last, littlest maid was gone.

“Shut the door,” Madonna Adrianna ordered.

I did so, then turned back to look at her. She had risen from the chair and was pacing the floor near the windows. The air had cooled somewhat and the white curtains billowed around the bottom of her gown as though she walked through clouds.

She kicked them aside, stared at me, and said, “My stepson has done nothing wrong.”

Giulia’s husband, crowned with the cuckold’s horns courtesy of the Cardinal’s lust for his young wife. Orsino Orsini was scion of one of the most powerful families in all Italia, yet he was also singularly lacking in the qualities expected of a man of his position. Had such a nonentity finally dared to raise his hand in revenge for the insult done him?

“He has nothing to do with this,” Adriana insisted. “Surely no one can blame him for caring about Giulia.”

“Does he care for her still?” Already, I suspected the answer, but I needed to hear it from Adriana’s own lips. “Are they in contact?”

“Letters,” she said, biting out the word and only adding more with utmost reluctance. “He writes to her, sweet little letters asking after her health and telling her about his activities in the countryside.”

“Does she reply?”

“Of course she does. She has no wish to hurt him any more than
can be avoided. She sends a note back with the messenger. It is all very innocent.”

“So Borgia knows of it?”

“No, he does not,” Adriana said, not hiding her contempt for what she must have regarded as a truly stupid question. “Why ever would we trouble Il Cardinale with such an unimportant matter?”

The Cardinal’s mistress and her husband had been exchanging secret letters under the nose of the cousin he had trusted to watch over both Giulia and his daughter. And truly, it had not occurred to either of them that he would want to know?

I shook my head at their idiocy but plunged on, anxious to get as much from her as I could. “What did he send besides letters?”

She pressed her lips together and refused to meet my eyes.

“By God,” I said, “there is no time for this! Tell me or I swear I will go straight to the Cardinal and implicate you in everything that has happened.”

“How dare you—” she began yet again, only this time with such fury that I thought she meant to strike me.

Before she could do so, Lucrezia leaped away from the bed and put herself between us.

“Stop!” she exclaimed. “A baby is dead, for pity’s sake, and Giulia almost died as well. Francesca is only trying to help. We must tell her everything.”

Adriana looked away, refusing to speak, but neither did she forbid Lucrezia to do so. With quiet earnestness, Borgia’s daughter told me what I needed to know.

By the time she finished, I understood how poison had reached into
il harem
and done its terrible work. I also knew that I faced an enemy even more determined and resourceful than I had dared to believe.

“Letters?” Borgia repeated slowly. “They were exchanging letters?”

He had returned to the palazzo from the Curia and had gone directly to his office. Not waiting to be summoned, I followed him there. Despite the late hour—it was after matins—his secretaries still trailed after him. They tried to stop me but he heard my voice in the antechamber and called out for them to let me enter.

Only a few lamps shone in the inner office. Shadows arched up the walls but left most else in darkness. Almost, I regretted forcing my way into Borgia’s presence. Still dressed in his ecclesiastical robes, he looked like an old, stooped man weary in body and soul. But as soon as I began to speak, some of his usual energy returned. He gestured the secretaries out, threw off his heavy robes, and sat down behind his desk to hear what I had to say.

I had the sad duty to tell him that the child was lost but at least
I could reassure him that Giulia would recover. Having done so, I explained what had happened. I made no attempt to exonerate myself but I did hope to deflect the worst of his anger from the young woman who had suffered enough already for her ill-considered actions.

“I have the impression,” I said carefully, “that they were merely friendly letters and that La Bella’s responses were intended only as a courtesy.”

In fact, I had seen Orsini’s letters to Giulia and thought them embarrassing and sad. In them, he fretted over her well-being, confided his hopes that they would be together again soon, and went on and on about the hunting, which seemed to be his only activity in the country, and his loneliness. This from a man who had the means to do far more in his life than most of us could ever dream.

Her responses to him were not available since apparently she had not kept copies. But I did see the little gifts he sent her—a bolt of embroidered cloth as yet unused, a book of poems that looked as though no one had ever opened it, and most recently, a box of figs preserved in honey, a particular favorite of hers.

The poison was in the figs. Wearing gloves, I examined the fruit carefully once I got back to my rooms. At my worktable, under the brightest light I could manage with candles and oil lamps, and with the help of lenses my father had commissioned that had the effect of enlarging anything viewed through them, I carefully removed several figs and pried them open. Small flecks of white shone within the fruit, but so closely mixed with the seeds as to be invisible to all but the most discerning eye. Looking very carefully, I also found traces of a finely ground brown powder, which I suspected was the tansy.

In addition to the honey, the figs were flavored with saffron, cinnamon, and chopped almonds. It made for a delectable combination,
which I had enjoyed myself on occasion. The combined flavors would have been sufficient to mask the taste of the poisons. Judging from the empty space in the box, Giulia had eaten three of the figs. Had she eaten more, I had no doubt that she would not have survived.

“And he sent gifts?” Borgia asked.

“Small things, no jewels or anything else extravagant.” Don’t ask me why I was trying to spare his feelings but it was not merely to avoid his anger. I truly felt sorry for him at that moment. His expression of deep melancholia and the way his hands trembled when he poured wine for us both suggested to me that he cared for Giulia in ways that went beyond the carnal pleasure of her body. To discover that he might have a rival for her gentler feelings, and that man her own husband, who had a moral and legal claim on her, must have disturbed him greatly.

“And yet,” Borgia said, “you don’t believe Orsini is responsible?”

This was the crux of it. The Cardinal was depending on support from the Orsinis to help him gain the papacy. If they were betraying him, he needed to know it quickly. By the same token, if one of them had gone rogue and struck out for his own reasons, Borgia needed to be aware of that as well.

But I was convinced that neither was the case.

“It is an attempt to drive a wedge between you and the Orsinis,” I said with confidence. It was also an attempt to drive a wedge between Borgia and me, but I was not ready yet to mention that. Indeed, I hoped the Cardinal would reach that conclusion on his own.

“Orsini sent a letter to Giulia at least once a week,” I said. “They were always delivered by a messenger wearing his livery. Anyone who had a watch kept on the palazzo would have known of this. The letter that came with the figs appears to be genuine but makes no
mention of the gift. I believe the poisoned fruit was added by the same man who took the messenger’s place.”

“And that would be—” Borgia prompted.

“The maid who received the letter and the gift from the messenger is a very young girl, rightly terrified by the circumstances. It took some time to calm her down enough to tell us what she remembered.”

In fact, it had taken the better part of an hour and the application of a stiff dose of brandy before she stopped weeping enough to answer my questions sensibly.

“She describes a tall, blond-haired man who she says was very handsome.”

Borgia sat back abruptly in his chair. His eyes were hooded but I glimpsed the light in them. Despite the warmth of the evening, I shivered.

“Morozzi,” he said, not a question but a statement of inescapable fact.

I nodded. “So it appears. I think that if we were to search between the Palazzo Orsini and their country estate, we would find the body of the real messenger.”

I was not suggesting that we actually do so, the area being far too large to hope to accomplish anything useful. But Borgia took my point and nodded.

“For him to do this,” the Cardinal said, “he must have planned well ahead.”

“Indeed, but your relationship with La Bella is not precisely a secret, nor was her pregnancy. It would not have been difficult for Morozzi to discover where you were vulnerable.”

Such vulnerability being the reason why he had sent me to the household in the first place. I waited for him to remark on that.

“You have no doubt that the figs are the source of the poison?”

I assured him that I did not, then added, “No one else ate from the box and no one else was stricken.”

He stared off into space for several moments before he said, “Lucrezia likes figs.”

I understood what he was thinking. In a single attack, Morozzi could have killed both Borgia’s mistress and his only daughter. And he could have pointed the finger of guilt at a member of the same family whose support Borgia had to have in order to gain the papacy. Truly, the plot was brilliant.

“We have underestimated him,” the Cardinal said quietly. He raised his eyes and looked at me. “How is it that you did not know of this?”

There it was, the question I had feared. Despite all my efforts to safeguard those precious to Borgia, how had I not learned that Giulia was receiving gifts from her husband? How had they gotten past me?

“From what I can gather,” I said carefully, “La Bella did not want you to be disturbed by the knowledge that her husband was in communication with her.”

“She wanted to keep it a secret?” Borgia was a man of secrets, keeping his own counsel to an extent I have rarely seen in another. But for everyone else the rules were different. He regarded the effort to keep anything from him as a betrayal and responded accordingly.

“So it seems,” I said. “She knows the Orsini family is loyal to you and I’m certain that she never imagined there could be danger in the little gifts he sent.”