Poison: A Novel of the Renaissance (43 page)

This notion had been in my mind before, but I had given it no real attention. Now I forced myself to do so, turning it this way and that as the conviction grew in me that what separated the two men was at least as important as what united them.

The Cardinal peered at me. “What are you saying?”

I stared not at but through him and saw the dark and twisting labyrinth I had followed from the first day I met the mad priest and tried to divine his intentions. As though from a distance, I heard myself speak.

“Della Rovere wants to be pope, but he will settle for electing a surrogate who he can control. Morozzi, on the other hand, wants only to assure the election of a pope who can be convinced to sign the edict against the Jews. That could be anyone—not just della Rovere or his surrogate, anyone at all except you.”

“I fail to see the difference. Both are determined to stop me from becoming pope.”

“True, but you said yourself that Morozzi is not della Rovere’s creature. Yet surely he has led the cardinal to believe otherwise or della Rovere would never have brought him into the conclave.”

As I spoke those words, the final piece fell into place and the puzzle opened before me, revealing all it had concealed.

I turned, moving quickly, no longer thinking, knowing that every moment counted and dreading that I might already be too late.

Borgia followed me. He admitted afterward that he thought I had truly gone mad, all the more so when I burst into della Rovere’s apartment, pushing past his attendants who had opened the door on my claim that I carried a message of vital importance. Once in, I lunged for the inner chamber, heedless as my hat flew off, and found his Eminence at his dinner.

“Don’t,” I screamed, but it was too late. He was already chewing.

“Spit it out,” I ordered, and would have grabbed hold to force him to do so had not one of his secretaries tackled me from behind, thrown me to the floor, and sat on me.

With my chest all but crushed and the last of my breath almost gone, I cried out. “Morozzi doesn’t need to kill Borgia! He only needs to make him unelectable!”

Della Rovere gaped at me. Around the morsel still in his mouth, he managed to say, “A woman? You are a woman!”

Sweet lord, you would have thought the gates of Hell had opened and a thousand demons had poured forth. In the uproar that followed the discovery of my sex, I managed to regain my feet despite the blows rained on me by the attendants and della Rovere himself, who rose expressly for that purpose and did not stint.

Only Borgia’s bellow of outrage as he waded into the fray stopped the worst of it. He yanked me behind him and confronted his hated rival. Color flooded his face as he berated della Rovere.

“Did you not hear her, you fool? We know why you brought Morozzi here but he is not your creature, he never has been. He couldn’t get to me but it serves him just as well to get to you!”

Della Rovere opened his mouth, no doubt to deliver a scathing reply, but no words came. His eyes widened hugely as he put a hand to his throat. A look of pure terror overcame him in the instant before he convulsed.

If there was chaos before, now there was pandemonium. Both of Borgia’s secretaries had followed us. With della Rovere’s two attendants, there were seven of us in the room. Only Borgia and I had kept our heads and of the pair of us, only I had any notion what to do.

“Get him onto the floor,” I ordered and, after a moment’s hesitation, I was obeyed. Terror over what was happening overcame all else, even the terror of women that seems to lurk in so many men. Della Rovere was breathing with great difficulty. His skin already felt chilled to my touch. Flecks of white shone at the corners of his mouth and his entire body was stiff, his back arching as another spasm went through him.

Yet he was still fully conscious, as the terror in his eyes made clear.

That reassured me that he could not possibly have ingested very much of the compound I had made.

“Loosen his clothes,” I ordered one of his attendants. To one of Borgia’s secretaries, I said, “Go back to the apartment. There is a brown leather bag in the small room. Bring it here
quickly.
”

The man sprinted off. When he was gone, Borgia leaned down close to me. With a slight nudge, he drew my attention to what he held nestled securely in the palm of his hand. My locket.

“How?” I mouthed the word.

He inclined his head in the direction of the table where della Rovere had been eating. Very quietly, he said, “Under there. Rather obvious but found beside a dead cardinal, it would have been effective.”

“Morozzi—?”

“Gone, I’m sure.”

And with him any immediate hope I had of avenging my father. For a moment, anguish filled me. Yet I am ever a patient woman. If I still managed to hoist Borgia onto Peter’s Throne, at least I would thwart the mad priest’s dream of death for the Jews and at the same time acquire a formidable weapon to assist me in hunting him. Justice may have been delayed but it would not be denied, not while I had breath.

With a glance at della Rovere, who I was certain could hear us both, Borgia said, “You realize that if you treat him and he dies, you can be blamed for his death?”

Whereas if I stopped right then, all anyone would know was that Il Cardinale and I had made a desperate but futile effort to prevent della Rovere from being poisoned. Borgia’s enemy would be dead and he would be pope.

I will tell you honestly that I hesitated. For della Rovere to die by the very means he had intended to bring about Borgia’s death and in all likelihood send me to the stake seemed just to me. It might even be called divine justice.

And yet—

I am certain that della Rovere knew exactly what was being decided, for he tried frantically to speak. Already he was in such extremis that no sound came from him other than strangled grunts.

Il Cardinale rose and stepped back. A moment longer, he looked at his great enemy, the man who had conspired to bring about his own death. And then he said, “Do what you can for him.”

Do not ask me why he made the choice that he did. In all the years that followed, I never had the nerve to ask him. Suffice it to say that Borgia being Borgia, I trusted that he had his reasons.

I administered enough emetine to empty della Rovere’s gut ten times over. The strain of that on top of what was already happening to him might prove too much for his heart to endure, but I felt that I had no choice. Every particle of the lozenge had to be expelled before it reached deeper into his body and wreaked havoc. Violent, repeated vomiting was the only means to save him.

The details being surpassingly unpleasant, I will say only that della Rovere bore it as well as any man might. The same cannot be said for the attendants who appeared so sickened by the spectacle that I feared they would begin vomiting in turn with no assistance from me.

As for Il Cardinale, when next I had a moment to look, he was gone.

In the early hours of the morning of the eleventh of August, Anno Domini 1492, the fourth and final vote took place. Fifteen votes went to Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, the crucial margin of a single vote being provided by the aged patriarch of Venice who, it was said afterward, told several of his fellow cardinals what great friends he
and Borgia had been when they were both boys all those years ago in Venice. To this day, it remains a mystery whom he actually thought he was voting for.

In a gesture of extraordinary magnanimity so uncharacteristic of him as to occasion great discussion, Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, who it was remarked at the time did not look well, acceded to the motion to make the vote for Borgia unanimous.

At the throwing open of the windows facing the piazza and the shout:
“Habemus Papam!”
the crowd went wild. Rome—and all of Christendom—had been spared the chaos of a long, drawn-out contest for the papacy. The college of cardinals had chosen a man who, for all that he was a Spaniard, had at that time the love of the Roman people, who promptly fell to rejoicing with their customary enthusiasm.

As they did, Borgia was carried into Saint Peter’s Basilica on the
sedia gestatoria,
the portable throne of the pope, and borne to the high altar where, in acclamation of his election, each of the cardinals offered his homage to him. How well della Rovere managed that I cannot tell you, the basilica being no place for a vomit-encrusted page who had forgotten to reclaim “his” hat.

I made my way back to the palazzo through streets filled with celebrants already falling upon the vast amounts of food and wine Borgia had arranged to have available in anticipation of his victory. Not far beyond the Pons Aelius, I happened upon Petrocchio, who was overseeing the event. The Maestro gave me a huge smile and despite my state, an equally enthusiastic embrace.

“He is Pope!” Petrocchio enthused. “Our very own Borgia is Pope!”

Pope he certainly was. As to whether he would ever be able to see beyond the interests of La Famiglia to be “our” Pope, that remained for us to discover.

I reached the palazzo to find the servants in a mad scramble to pack Borgia’s belongings for transfer to his new home. Renaldo descended upon me, shocked by my appearance and wanting to know everything. I told him what I could but made short work of it and went as quickly as possible to my quarters. I had no idea where I would be going, but I trusted Borgia to contrive some convenient place to put me. Despite my fatigue, I did not delay securing my belongings, packing them away in my chest, and making sure that the puzzle lock was in place. Only then did I bathe and change into my own clothes.

I had barely finished when a maid knocked timidly at the door. Upon my opening it, she handed me two notes.

“These came for you, Madonna,” she whispered without daring to look at me. Such was my reputation already, born in rumor but fed by truth. Very few people have looked me in the eye since then, at least not willingly. I live with that but I cannot be said to like it.

I opened the first of the notes after she had gone. Standing by the window, I scanned the single line neatly written:

M is making for Florence. I follow. You will hear when I know more. DbE

Florence, golden city of the Medici. What would the mad priest find there and what would it mean for all of us? At least I could count on David to leave no stone unturned in discovering what Morozzi planned next.

The second note was from Rocco. It said only that the apparatus I had ordered were ready and could be collected from his shop at my convenience.

I went there the next morning. I told myself that to fail to do so would be cowardice, but in truth I could not have stayed away.

Nando was playing out in front. He jumped up at the sight of me and ran into my arms. I knelt, clutching him tightly, and struggled
not to weep at the sturdy feel of his small, blessedly alive self. My efforts were only partly successful. I was brushing the tears from my cheeks when Rocco emerged from the shop.

He stood for a moment in the sunlit street surrounded by the bustle of the city that was slowly returning to normal after the excesses of celebration. His face was solemn and his eyes watchful as he drew a coin from his pocket and sent it spinning through the air toward his son, who leaped to catch it.

“Tell Maria I want an especially good loaf,” he instructed, “and get a biscotto for yourself while you’re at it.”

Nando ran off, leaving me staring dry-mouthed at his father. After a moment, Rocco stepped aside so that I could enter the shop. He followed, closing the door behind us.

Just over the threshold, I turned and blurted what was uppermost in my heart.

“I am so sorry.”

He did not pretend to mistake my meaning but nodded. “When I thought of how close I came to losing him, I blamed you.”

So I had seen on his face and so I had believed nothing could ever change. But hope can exist even in one such as myself, if only dimly. Gathering all my courage, I asked, “Do you still?”

He stared down at me and I had the sudden sense that he alone, of everyone I knew, saw me in a way that not even I could manage to do. Saw not the darkness within me that spawned fearsome nightmares and twisted visions I could not begin to grasp but rather the woman I longed to be. A woman of the light.

“You almost died saving him. Whatever else you did, I can never forget that.”

“Morozzi got away. He is still out there—” I had saved the child and the Jews, but ultimately I had failed to avenge my father. The
shadow over my life remained and with it the mystery of why I was as I was.

Rocco came toward me and took my hand. “We will deal with him, Francesca. He is not your enemy alone.”

Not trusting myself to speak, I nodded and was glad when he drew me off to look at the apparatus he had made. I feigned interest in them until he said, “When you came to see me to order these, there was something you wanted to ask, wasn’t there?”

I struggled to think, frankly not caring just then about anything other than what measure of his forgiveness I had achieved and what more might yet be attainable to me. But finally a memory surfaced. I started to dismiss it only to stop when I saw his seriousness.

“I wanted to ask if you knew whether it was true that my father belonged to a secret society of alchemists called Lux. I even wondered if you yourself might be a member.”

“Are you busy tomorrow evening?”

The question caught me unawares. I was not clear how it followed from what I had just said. “I don’t think so—”

“Then come here and you will find your answer.”

Before I could begin to absorb his meaning, a child’s footsteps sounded, running toward the shop. With a smile, Rocco said, “Just don’t be surprised if some of those you meet are already known to you.”

Nando burst in upon us then, bringing warm bread and eager chatter. Over his head, my gaze met Rocco’s. In him I saw calm acceptance of the struggle that lay ahead but also the enduring hope that the future can be better, that light truly can triumph over dark.

Especially when a mistress of the dark wills it to be so.