The Borgia Betrayal: A Novel (29 page)

Nor was I.

“A Carpathian monk?” I asked, trying in vain to coax my hair back into some semblance of order. “Five hundred years ago? However did you conceive of that?”

Imagine Cesare, if you will, all liquid-eyed with a disingenuous smile, disclaiming all knowledge of whatever mischief he had just committed. Or more likely blaming it on younger brother Juan. The tactic must have worked well for he still pulled it out whenever he was otherwise at a loss.

“What are you talking about? Conceive of what?”

“The book of prophecy. That perfect book that spells out events we cannot fail to recognize, all the while encouraging your father to believe what you want him to believe.”

I had come to the conclusion that the book was a fake while we made our way back from the Mysterium; it had taken that little time to realize what had likely happened. For all their differences of opinion, Borgia had long recognized that his eldest son possessed a brilliant mind. He had ensured that Cesare received the finest possible education, perhaps not entirely considering what that might equip him to do, including connive at a highly skilled forgery.

“Honestly, Francesca, such cynicism is not attractive.”

That from the man who had just drained himself in paroxysms of passion because he couldn’t wait to possess me.

I smirked. “What else is in the book? Something such as ‘The firstborn son shall go forth as he will, following his own star, and reward the bull tenfold with his daring’?”

Cesare could admit defeat with surprising grace. Shrugging, he said, “That’s good. I didn’t put it quite that eloquently but close enough.”

Opening the door a crack, I peered into the antechamber. It was empty. I slipped through and hurried across to the door giving access to the corridor. Cesare followed. Startled clerics moved out of our path, pressing their backs to the walls as they gaped at us. We were barely past when the steady clucking of tongues erupted.

Halfway down the marble steps, Cesare said, “You aren’t going to tell him?”

“Of course not, so long as we agree that Morozzi dies by my hand.”

“It means that much to you?”

The sun had reached its apex while we were below in the Mysterium. The day was warming rapidly; torpid air heavy with the overripe smell of the river barely stirred. Even the pigeons couldn’t be bothered to do much more than hunch in the scant shade, drowsing. The entrance to the Curia was crowded with petitioners, clerks, prelates, and the usual hangers-on of every description, sweat beaded on their foreheads and their heavy black garb hanging like shrouds around them. Heedless of the ado our presence caused, I stopped and looked at Cesare.

“It means everything.”

He met my gaze unflinchingly. “Morozzi must not be allowed to escape again. I’ll give you one more chance but if you can’t take him, he’s mine.”

I won’t say that I liked that but I was honest enough to admit that Cesare was right. I had struck the best bargain I could hope for.

“Fair enough. I have matters to see to in the kitchens but we should meet as soon as possible to decide our course.”

I had to hope that while I inspected the most recently arrived supplies, Cesare would not seize the opportunity to go after Morozzi alone. If he did, I feared he would succeed only in driving the priest ever deeper into the labyrinth beneath Rome and make finding him even more difficult.

“I have business to attend to myself.” Without offering any hint of what that might be, Cesare added, “If I’m free before you are, your
portatore
—Portia, that’s her name, isn’t it?—will let me in.”

I was quite certain that she would, nor could I really blame her. But to assure that he didn’t have the upper hand entirely, I said, “Just take care not to touch anything unless you’re certain that it’s safe, all right?”

We were at the bottom of the stairs by then and about to part. Cesare could not resist having the last word.

“I’ll bring supper. We both know you can’t cook.” He strode off, leaving me hard-pressed not to laugh again, this time at the unexpected domesticity cropping up between us, absurd yet somehow pleasing.

*   *   *

My mood sobered as I worked my way through the piles of supplies that had arrived while I was occupied hunting Morozzi. Mercifully, since the attack on Lucrezia, Borgia had decreed that all wedding gifts and other items meant for her use would be sequestered until such time as I could examine them with greatest care. Given the sheer quantity involved, I had to wonder if the marriage would still be in effect before I was done.

By the time I finished, I was tired, sticky, and regretting—just a little—my excesses with Cesare. Being laid across a desk and thoroughly … is there a polite term for what we did? Never mind. I told myself that the twinges I felt were merely a reminder that I was alive.

Slipping through an archway next to the kitchens, I passed through a short tunnel before coming out into the Piazza San Pietro. By then it was mid-afternoon. The day had turned even sultrier, the air hanging wet and limp. Most anyone with an ounce of sense had taken shelter out of the sun, as I intended to do myself.

Even so, the square was crowded with pilgrims moving like schools of gap-mouthed fish. Several, seemingly attached to each other at the hips, walked into a ruddy-faced priest who clearly did not relish being out and about in the heat. He dropped his ledgers and emitted a stream of invective that appeared to impress them mightily.

I dodged around the priest and his new admirers while avoiding a pile of manure fresh enough to still be steaming. I had it in my mind to pay Nando a visit, and perhaps enjoy a goblet of Donna Felicia’s excellent homemade cider, when I stopped suddenly. Up ahead, no more than fifty or so feet in front of me, a tall, slender friar in a hooded robe emerged from a side door of the basilica. Something in the set of his shoulders … the way he moved … his haste despite the heat and the general languor of the hour caught my attention.

A group of visitors from the Low Countries in their distinctive peaked hats and tasseled capes stepped into my path. I went right, then left, then right again before I was able to evade them. By the time I had done so, the monk had vanished. Telling myself that I was jumping at shadows, I was continuing on toward the barracks when I caught sight of the same man near the main gate leading out from the Vatican. The distance separating us was greater by then, being easily a hundred feet or more, but when he turned his head in my direction, there was no mistaking the gleam of golden hair beneath the hood of his habit.

My breath left me in a rush. For a horrible moment, I froze, uncertain of what to do. If Morozzi really had penetrated the precincts of the Vatican, I could not let him escape. But what if he was not alone? His accomplices among Il Frateschi could be nearby, going about his bidding unrecognized. I had promised Rocco that I would keep Nando safe. Where was the boy?

I looked around frantically, hoping to spot Vittoro or one of his lieutenants but although more guards than usual were present throughout the square, they were all common soldiers unlikely to understand my concern, much less respond to it. Any time I spent pleading with them would be wasted.

I had two choices—go after the monk myself or find Nando. Before I could decide, a two-wheeled carriage, the roof and sides of sturdy leather unmarred by any insignia, drew to a stop just beyond the gate. Without pause, the monk opened the carriage door and stepped in, shutting it behind him. The vehicle, connected by ox-hide straps to the wheeled chassis, bobbed with his weight. Before it could settle, the driver lashed the pair of horses. The carriage disappeared rapidly in the direction of the Ponte Sisto.

I had no illusions about the clergy’s fondness for luxuries but I knew full well that it was not the custom of monks to ride about in carriages, such comfort being reserved solely for the wealthiest and most powerful, or those who enjoyed their patronage. Any doubt I had as to the identity of the man I had seen vanished.

Gathering up my skirts, I raced for the barracks, heedless of the startled, censorious looks that followed in my wake.

24

I found Vittoro near the stables and gasped out what I had seen. Mercifully, he did not doubt me but instead barked an order that sent a dozen men running hard in the direction the carriage had gone. I nurtured little hope that they would find it. Bent over, my hands on my knees as I struggled to regain my breath, I said, “Tell me Nando is safe.”

I take it as a measure of his intrinsic honesty that rather than offer reassurances he feared might be false, he grasped my arm and, supporting me, moved swiftly in the direction of his residence. I held fast to him, weighed down by dread that threatened to crush me, but sometimes God truly is merciful. Before we reached the tidy house, we caught sight of Nando. He was sitting out in front, his tousled head bent over a flat board holding a sheet of paper. He was busy sketching.

I took my first full breath since glimpsing Morozzi and gathered up the shreds of my composure. With a smile I could only hope looked genuine, I approached the child.

“What is that you are drawing?” I asked.

He glanced up and, seeing me, smiled. Holding up the notebook, he said, “Moses receiving the Commandments. It’s supposed to look like the one in the Chapel but it doesn’t really, does it?”

In fact, it wasn’t a bad copy, especially not considering the extreme youth of the artist. Yet it troubled me all the same.

“When were you in the Chapel?” I asked. It had been in my mind to take him but the opportunity had not presented itself. I doubted that Vittoro would have thought of doing so.

“This morning.” Nando replied. He continued to regard his sketch critically. “The monk took me.”

As though from a great distance, I heard myself ask, “What monk?”

“Papa’s friend. He said we could go again and you could come with us.”

Vittoro and I exchanged a quick glance. I saw that he was as taken aback as I.

With as much calm as I could muster, I asked, “Do you remember the monk’s name?”

The boy shook his head. Belatedly, he seemed to realize that perhaps something was wrong. “But he has golden hair, like an angel.”

I could say that my blood ran cold and that I was filled with dread. But all that is mere words, incapable of conveying the rage that consumed me. Morozzi had come into this place where Nando—and Borgia—were supposed to be safe. He had moved at will and in so doing, left an ummistakable message. He could strike where and when he chose. We were helpless before him.

“How could this happen?” I demanded under my breath lest I alarm the child. My instinct was to blame Vittoro but the misery writ clear on his face made me reconsider. Without doubt, the condottierre was profoundly shocked. There was no mistaking his misery.

“I don’t understand … I have men everywhere—”

“What were they told? To look for a golden-haired priest? They’d be too busy doing that to see anything else.”

It is the way of people to see only what they expect to see. Most everything else in this vast, roiling world passes by uncomprehended. A monk, not a priest, striding with confidence rather than going surreptitiously would be all too unlikely to draw attention.

“Should I not have gone with him?” Nando asked. His voice was very small and filled with remorse. “He said he was Papa’s friend and he knew your name, too, Donna Francesca.” He ducked his head, staring at the ground. “I thought it was all right.”

Of course he had. No doubt Rocco had warned his son never to go with a stranger, but how to prevent a child from trusting one who seems to be a friend, and moreover a figure of authority?

“It’s not your fault,” I said, trying as best I could to soothe him. A sudden thought occurred to me. “Do you think you could draw his face?”

Nando nodded eagerly. “Yes, of course.” At once, he chose a fresh page in the notebook and went to work. Very quickly, a recognizable portrait of Morozzi began to take shape.

“I will make sure the drawing is shown to all my men,” Vittoro said after we had watched for several minutes. “They will be warned that this devil may come in any disguise.” He hesitated. “Donna Francesca, I don’t know how to tell you how sorry I am. The boy is here on my pledge to keep him safe. If Morozzi had—” The man who was both father and grandfather paled.

What need I had felt for recrimination left me as abruptly as it had come. “You are not alone. I, too, have underestimated him.”

Vittoro glanced around, then gestured to me. We walked a little way from Nando to a place where no one could overhear us.

“I thank you for your forebearance,” the captain said. “Forgive me but under the circumstances, I have no choice but to raise another matter. Will you tell me how you stand with our master?”

“I seem to be forgiven, if only for the moment.”

“I am glad to hear it. His Holiness is hard-pressed on all sides. He needs his friends close to him.”

“He trusts no one outside
la famiglia
.” I spoke without rancor, confident that Vittoro understood that truth as well as I did.

“His trust may be misplaced.”

I looked at him sharply, wondering how he possibly could have learned of Cesare’s deception. But it was not of him that the captain spoke.

“When Senor Juan is drunk, as he often is, his tongue rattles around in his mouth like dice in the hand of a man compelled to risk all even when he knows he cannot win.”

“What are you saying?”

“He hates and fears his brother, believing as he does that Cesare will go to any lengths to take for himself the life that Borgia intends for Juan. Further, he is convinced that you and Cesare are in league against him.”

I shook my head in dismay at my own failure to see the danger Juan could pose. Our few encounters should have given me ample warning.

“You don’t think he would do something foolish, do you? Not now of all times?”

“I have no idea what he might do. I am only saying that he is increasingly agitated and bears watching.”

“Does Borgia know?” Surely, a few of His Holiness’s “eyes” could be dispatched to shadow the errant son?