The Lion and the Rose (47 page)

“I had no choice, Leonello! He wouldn’t listen any other way, not to anything I said—it was lie to his face, or lose Laura.”

She sounded very certain, but I was used to reading her expressions. “If you had no choice, then what troubles you? Why do you think you are in danger?”

“Rodrigo looked so
furious
.” Very quietly. “Like he could throttle me on the spot. Many times he’s lost his temper and shouted at me, but—” She gave a little shudder. “I’ve only seen him look like that once before. When he had that poor man at the menagerie masquerade hanged, just for calling Juan a bastard.” She crossed herself. “I took one look at his face and fled the room.”

I had another half-dozen barbs at my lips, but I didn’t loose any of them.

“What will he do to me, Leonello?” Her eyes met mine square. “I never thought in all the world that he’d hurt me or Laura; not ever. He’s no monster to wreak vengeance on a woman and a child, even if they offended him—”

“You aren’t the only one he might decide to hurt,” I pointed out. “What about your spineless little husband? You threw it in the Pope’s face that your husband bedded you, after all, stole you back and fathered a child on you—”

“Orsino is Adriana’s son and Adriana is Rodrigo’s own cousin and ally. He’s
family
, and we all know what Rodrigo thinks about family.” A bitter twist at that. “But I’m not family, and I’ve made it plain Laura isn’t either. So will Michelotto come in the dark for one of us?”

I hesitated.

“Go ahead, Leonello,” she said tiredly. “Tell me I was a fool to say such things to Rodrigo. Tell me I was reckless. Cut me up and down with that tongue of yours; I won’t complain. Just tell me the truth.”

“Truth?” I said, and shrugged. “The truth is that the Pope loves you. He may never hold you in his arms again, but part of him will love you till he dies. So no, he would not harm you or Laura. Men don’t think that way, Madonna Giulia. Women and children are not fitting objects for vengeance. The Holy Father may find some way to punish you, but it will not come at the end of Michelotto’s knife. Not in your heart, at least, or Laura’s.”

I saw the relief well in her eyes at once. Stupid woman, why would she place so much trust in anything I said? I was a killer of men, a stunted little monster with a dark soul and a list of crimes longer than my twisted body. She knew that, so why did she have such faith in my judgment?

“Stay for Lucrezia’s wedding if you must,” I said. “But after that, persuade your stupid, stubborn husband to take you away from Rome as soon as possible. Just get away.”

She reached down and smoothed a lock of hair off my forehead. I recoiled as though she’d burned me, making a snap of my teeth at her fingers.

She snatched her hand back. “Leonello—”

“Don’t touch vipers,” I said. “We bite.”

I turned and left her at the end of the Ponte Sant’Angelo, standing under the crow-picked bones.

Giulia

I
was very late returning to Vittorio Capece’s
palazzo
, so late I knew my host would return home before I did. Doubtless Orsino would be displeased with me for being so tardy; there was a masquerade he wished to attend tonight with me on his arm in one of my extravagant new gowns to be paraded and admired. But I felt too worn and shaky to go back just yet, so I went to the nearest church after Leonello left me. Holy Virgin knows how long I spent there on my knees, praying to Santo Giuliano the Hospitaller, who was patron saint of repentant murderers. I didn’t know if he was patron saint of the unrepentant ones too, and it seemed like something worth begging for on my knees.

Leonello had looked so tired under all his bitter, spitting scorn. Exhausted and drained, as though his dreams were all black and his waking hours blacker, and any hopes he had of the future blackest of all.

I was so late returning, I thought I must have missed
cena
altogether. Hopefully Orsino and Vittorio hadn’t quarreled over the dishes of spiced pears and wild duck. Without my bright chatter for a cushion, my husband could be a trifle uneasy in the presence of a rumored sodomite, and Vittorio could get a shade sarcastic with a houseguest of whom he had every right to be tired. I’d have been tired of us too. Orsino didn’t see any reason why we should move ourselves elsewhere—“Doubtless he’s honored to play host to visitors of our connections, my little rose.” I’d whispered my private apologies to Vittorio for the length of our stay, and he’d patted my arm and said, “Bless you, m’dear, I’d be delighted to have
you
stay with me forever.” Don’t think I hadn’t heard the faint emphasis on
you
.

Holy Virgin, why couldn’t we just go home? Why did Orsino have to grow stubborn
now
, of all times?

But for once, I didn’t dare press him. Even if the French match had blown away on the wind, well, Orsino would still be perfectly within his rights to send Laura for fostering elsewhere, “for her education.” Somewhere she couldn’t return too often to disturb his peace of mind with thoughts of the past. No, I had to keep my husband charmed and bedazzled and far too besotted to think of upsetting me by sending my daughter away. If he wanted to parade me on his arm tonight for everyone to admire, sparkling and beautiful and all his, then so be it.

I was trying to muster some sparkle when I came back to the
palazzo
, but everyone was in an uproar. I saw a cluster of maids sobbing in one corner of the long
sala
, and rough-shod workmen clumped up the stairs with tools in hand. “What—” I began, and Laura’s nursemaid hurled herself wailing into my arms.

“Oh, Madonna Giulia!”

“What is it?” An icy finger of dread began wandering down my spine. “What’s happened?”

She was sobbing too hard to answer. I looked over her heaving shoulder and saw Vittorio Capece running toward me, white as rice.

“Giulia, my dear,” he said, and his words stumbled over each other. None of his usual elegant drawl. “I don’t know how it happened. It was while we were all gone at the execution. Half the servants slipped out too to see—some strange man begged entrance, one of the maids said. Some excuse about visiting your Orsino, but Jesu knows the
palazzo
was half empty, he could have wandered about anywhere, he could have had something to do with it—”

“What man? Who?”

“—because I swear to you, the ceilings have always been perfectly sound!”

“What’s happened?”

“The ceiling came down.” There were tears in his eyes. “Only part of it, the arch over the doorway to your
sala
, but—Giulia, be brave.”

I was already running up the stairs, screaming my daughter’s name.

Carmelina

Y
our cousin is here to see you,” Suora Teresa came to tell me, and I thought I was dead for certain. My skin crawled and for a moment I thought it was Marco waiting for me down in the convent parlor, Marco dead and stabbed through half a dozen times, staring at me accusingly in a cook’s apron all stained with red, because he’d never have gone to work for Juan Borgia and thus met his death if I hadn’t taken his post. It wasn’t fair, but ghosts didn’t care for fairness, and ghosts seemed much closer in a convent than they ever seemed in a busy kitchen. Maybe because the sisters all seemed like ghosts from a distance, gliding along the stone halls in their anonymous black and white. Who was to know if the veiled figure preceding me to Mass was really Suora Teresa or Suora Cherubina or Suora Paolina? Maybe it was some long-dead nun who was still tramping off to Mass every day because she didn’t realize she was dead. Within these walls, I couldn’t see much difference between being dead and being alive. Ghosts seemed entirely possible, especially at midnight prayers.

But it wasn’t midnight now, it was bright afternoon and I was elbow deep in almond paste making little
biscotti
for the choir nuns who were ensconced in the visiting parlors with their noble mothers or sisters or aunts who came to visit, and who of course would expect sweetmeats to be passed through the grilles along with the gossip. Almond paste. I never wanted to see an almond again, and I blew a short curl of hair out of my face with a vicious muttered oath as Suora Teresa came bouncing into the kitchens and told me my cousin had arrived.

“
Cousin
, eh?” She winked as my skin crawled. “Come all the way from Venice, he says, and he’s a handsome one. Doesn’t look like you, not with that hair, but I won’t tell if he’s not really your cousin. Not if you sneak me some of those
biscotti
before you take the plate up—”

“As many as you want.” The frightened squeeze of my heart as I thought of bloodied Marco coming to accuse me had eased, only to squeeze up again in an entirely different way. I stripped off my apron and crammed a few frizzy tendrils of hair back under my wimple, emptying half the plate of
biscotti
into Suora Teresa’s greedy hands and flying up the worn stone steps into the parlor.

A convent parlor is something to make most men profoundly disappointed. Devout men want to see a convent’s nuns praying through the grilles with worldly folk who have come to be enlightened by the balm of holy conversation. Perhaps kneeling in prayer with some courtesan in silk who has come to repent of her sinful life. Or the more worldly men have some vision of nuns meeting lovers through the grilles, passing love notes and locked in salacious embrace. Just how salacious anyone can get with a stout metal grille between them is something that particular fantasy never bothers to explain. In truth, a convent’s parlor looks no different (bars aside) from any cozy gathering of women in an ordinary
sala
: nobly coiffed and silk-gowned wives with babies on their laps and little girls in tow, bending heads close to their daughters and sisters and aunts who took a holy husband instead of a mortal one, all of them gossiping their heads off. Convent parlors even see a few men: stern fathers like mine who come to make sure rebellious daughters are settling into their vows, young brothers come to tease a favored sister, or even a few of the swaggering
monachini
: those flashy and bored young gallants who think it great fun to pay court to a pretty nun through the grille. Not that such men ever get very far, at least not in the Convent of San Sisto, where the parlor was presided over by iron-eyed Suora Ursula. Named for a bear and had the temper of one too, and the Bear was casting a great many suspicious glances already at my tall cousin from Venice as he leaned against the grille with his corded arms folded across his chest and a lock of hair falling into his eyes.

“Cousin,” I said, dry-mouthed as I approached the bars.

“Suora Serafina,” Bartolomeo returned gravely, all formality, but his eyes raked me and I had a flush of humiliation. I had not seen him in almost a year. My shins showed below the too-short habit and my hands stuck out bony and chapped from the sleeves. I knew the stark black made me look ugly and sour, and my skin was sun-darkened and wind-hardened after all my hours this winter and spring spading at the stony convent gardens. I felt worn, tired, ill-used and repulsive, at least twice as old as my twenty-six years, and after all his letters I’d wanted him to come, but now I just wished he’d go away again.

“How did you know to ask for me?” I said instead, resisting the urge to tug at the wimple, which squeezed my chin.

“My last two letters addressed to you came back,” he returned. “They said there was no one of your name inside these walls anymore. But if you’d left with Madonna Lucrezia, you’d have come to see me. So, I thought of asking here again, but for your nun’s name.”

“I only told you that name once.”

“I remembered it.”

“I’m not supposed to have any visitors—”

He laughed, drawing glances. “Do you have any idea what the sisters here will do for good food? I brought a hamper—”

I felt a smile tugging at my lips. “You and your hampers.”

“Yes, me and my hampers. Cheese
tourtes
, apple
biscotti
, a
crostata
of fresh summer blackberries, candied walnuts—they fell on everything like wolves on a lamb. Nothing left but crumbs.” He stretched his fingers through the grille toward me, but I withdrew, tucking my own hands into my sleeves.

“You’re angry with me,” he said, and blew out a breath as he pulled his hand back. “Well, you have a right to be. Your cousin, Marco Santini—”

“What? No, I’m not angry, Bartolomeo. I’m just being careful.” I flicked my gaze at the wrinkle-faced choir nun staring daggers at us. “Suora Ursula,” I whispered. “We don’t want to catch her eye, and believe me, she’s always got an eye fixed on any of the young men who come into this parlor.”

“But I do want to explain about your cousin.” Bartolomeo met my gaze squarely. “I wouldn’t blame you if you still blamed
me
, Carmelina. I didn’t mean him to die, but he did. And I had a role in that.”

“My cousin was a greedy fool. That was what killed him, not you.” I felt a knot in my stomach easing. Maybe I couldn’t give my former apprentice much, but he’d at least have peace of mind in this one thing. “If Marco hadn’t given me to Juan Borgia just to get a debt repaid, he’d still be alive today. So don’t trouble your conscience on it any longer, Bartolomeo.” I wished I could take his hand.

“Thank you.” Bartolomeo curled his fingers around the grille bars instead. “I thought, maybe that was why you hadn’t answered my letters.”

“No. Not that, not at all.” I could have laughed, or maybe wept.

“Then what’s happened? Why are you here”—his eyes flickered over my wimple and veil again—“like that?”

I hesitated, because Cesare Borgia had killed everyone else who knew it. “I know something, about the Pope’s daughter. This is how they silenced me.”

“What do you know?”

“Better if
you
don’t. Pantisilea did, and Perotto the papal envoy too, and they’re both dead now.” I crossed myself. “Cardinal Borgia’s men flung them both into the river, God rest their souls.”

“Then you’re lucky,” Bartolomeo said, low-voiced. “They could have killed you, too.”