I felt my husband let out a silent breath. Rodrigo looked at me a moment longer; I could feel his gaze as tangible as a touch, and more whispers went up along the Sala del Pappagallo. But I went on gazing serenely at the floor, and I heard Rodrigo sigh. “The little one,” he said, his gaze moving to Laura. “She has grown.”
I had coached my daughter for this moment, and she advanced with great gravity in her small gray satin gown, which was an exact copy of mine. “Your Holiness,” she piped, and curtsied as though she had never seen him before in her life, had never squealed with delight when he gave her a string of seed pearls for a present, had never looked at him in his horned mask and inquired if he was the Devil. But she smiled at him, and Rodrigo smiled back, and perhaps it was because I’d not seen them together in almost half a year, but I saw it. Holy Virgin help me, but they had the same smile.
Don’t see it
, I prayed, and felt a cold shiver run down my back.
Don’t see it, Rodrigo.
Once I’d wanted nothing more than for him to believe Laura was his daughter in truth, but now . . .
He threw his head back and laughed as Laura continued to look up at him fearlessly. “What a pretty little thing you’re growing up to be,
Lauretta mia
. You’ll be pretty as your mother in a few years’ time. Come, come—”
And I saw the men craning to look with speculation in their eyes: envoys from Naples and ambassadors from Milan and couriers from Ferrara, sniffing like interested hounds around my daughter as Rodrigo turned her for inspection. I should have known. The Sala del Pappagallo was where the Pope received his ambassadors, the men who brokered brides for their Neapolitan masters or their French masters or their Florentine masters.
“So the little Orsini is a Borgia after all,” I heard the Milanese ambassador say professionally to an envoy from Venice as they looked my daughter over. “Too young to breed for a good ten years, but a betrothal might be worth something in the interim.”
“No firm amount set for the dowry yet, I suppose . . .”
“Lucrezia Borgia will bring the next husband forty thousand ducats. The little Orsini will be worth more,
and
a virgin . . .”
I saw little Burchard taking his notes as usual.
One Borgia daughter for sale; opening bids accepted from Milan, Ferrara, Naples . . .
My eyes flew up at Orsino, but he was gazing at the floor, not a glance for Laura. The Pope had not addressed a single word to him, and the tips of his ears had gone scarlet with humiliation. I took my hand from his elbow and bent to recapture Laura as she twirled in her satin dress, laughing now to be the center of all eyes. “If you will pardon me, Your Holiness,” I said evenly. “My daughter is too young for such excitement. She needs her bed.”
“Yes, yes.” Rodrigo looked at me fondly. Remembering, no doubt, the bed we’d shared to create Laura. “We will talk more of her later, Madonna Giulia. Of her future.”
No doubt.
The next petitioner came forward, launching into his prepared speech, and Orsino and I were allowed to press back through the crowds. Laura looked up at me, questioning. “Did I do well?” she said, and I swept her up to my hip and hugged her close, crushing the gray satin dress.
“Yes,
Lauretta mia
. You did very well.”
“She looks like Lucrezia did at her age.” I heard the cool voice behind me, knowing it at once. “I used to carry her about like that too. Juan called me Nursemaid, but I did not mind.”
“Your Eminence,” I said with another small curtsy. Cesare Borgia, looking as out of place in his red clerical robes as he ever did.
“Giulia Farnese,” he returned, without even a glance for Orsino hovering nervously at my side. “I have missed you.”
“I doubt that, Cesare. You have never even liked me.”
“I like Caterina Gonzaga less. She’s arrogant, and she’s grasping, and since my father is bedding her now instead of you, I see a great deal of her.”
“Caterina Gonzaga?” The wife of the Count of Montevegio, a very pale and very proud beauty indeed who had always made eyes at Rodrigo. I could feel Orsino’s gaze on me. “I hadn’t heard,” I murmured, and cast my eyes down.
“You are surprised?”
“Your father intended so many . . . reforms.” To purify himself, and the church with it. A lifetime’s work, and I’d seen him filled with its terrible, bowed resolve after Juan’s death. A transmutation of sorts: Rodrigo Borgia into Pope Alexander VI.
“What did I tell you?” Cesare gave a lazy shrug. “His fits of reform never last long. He wanted you back within the month, didn’t he? The council he’d appointed to head all these great changes was gone shortly after.”
My heart squeezed again. I’d known my former lover would not find such a transformation easy—I’d received his letters, after all, begging me to come back to his side. But I hadn’t thought—
“Jesu.” Cesare looked almost amused, looking at me. “I’d not thought to see you
disappointed
.”
“Very.” No transmutation of Rodrigo Borgia after all. Base metal would remain unchanged, not turned to gold. Yes, it disappointed me.
Less noble, perhaps, was the small outraged part of me that thought,
Caterina Gonzaga?!
“Your Eminence,” Orsino attempted, pink-faced with chagrin to be ignored yet again, but an authoritative voice overrode him from behind us.
“The Milanese envoy wishes to meet with you, Your Eminence. I’ll wager he can tell you if Lord Sforza is finally ready to sign his wife away.”
I whirled around, hearing that voice. But Laura had looked first, bored with all this adult talk over her head, and I saw her eyes go wide with delight as she saw the small figure in black and cried, “
Leo!
”
My eyes flew over my former bodyguard. He stood small and proud, holding a place of his own beside blank-faced, stone-eyed Michelotto, who had always given me the shivers. Leonello looked every bit as hard, head thrown back and boots planted, fingers drumming along his dagger hilt as he looked me over with casual eyes. I saw a court lady glance at Michelotto, glance at Leonello, and cross herself with a surreptitious little shiver.
Laura had wriggled down from my arms, running to him with her skirts bunched in her little hands. “Leo, Leo, I can
read
now, I can read anything, I told you I’d learn!” But he disengaged her without even a glance.
“Back to your mother, little one.” His deep voice was as cool as I remembered—and on his black sleeve, I saw he wore the badge of Cesare Borgia. Just like Michelotto. “I am no fit company for children.”
I was moving toward him, disengaging my hand from Orsino’s arm, but Leonello slid into the crowd and vanished.
Leonello
I
am no Latin scholar, but I can tell you one thing about the language of ancient Rome: it does not pair well with weeping. Latin is clipped, masculine, cool. Blubbering and wailing your way through terse Latin cadences, no matter how beautifully worded, is no way to impress anyone with your declamation.
“Try again,” I heard Cesare Borgia say patiently as Lucrezia broke down in her oration with a fresh welter of tears. “Take it up from the next line.”
“Why do I have to bother?” Lucrezia wailed from inside the chamber. When she was unhappy she was piercing, and her voice penetrated clearly through the half-open doors of her chamber to where I leaned against the wall of the stairwell outside. “My husband gave his testimony, he finally signed it before witnesses the way you wanted him to, so why do I—”
“You will confirm his testimony before the court when they hear the petition of annulment.” I could hear the smile in Cesare Borgia’s voice. “My pretty little sister with her lovely accent in Latin—the canonical judges will be moved.”
“I’m too ill to be dragged all the way to the Vatican!” I could see a flash of the Pope’s daughter through the half-open door: all but buried in her bed under a mound of furs and lap cushions, her eyes swollen from crying. She had not even risen to greet her favorite brother when he arrived like a dark arrow shot into the convent and sent all the nuns into a flutter. “Can’t you just read my testimony, Cesare?”
“It will look better coming from the Countess of Pesaro herself.” I heard the bed settle as Cesare put an arm about his sister. They were speaking Catalan, which the family always saved for private moments, but after serving them five years, I had picked up enough of it to understand. “Though you’ll soon be much grander than a mere countess, of course. Did I tell you the Duke of Gravina is sniffing for your hand?”
“He is?” Lucrezia sounded less damp and more interested.
“Ottaviano Riario as well, though he has that Sforza bitch for a mother, and I think we’ve had enough of Sforzas.” Another rattle of paper. “So, try the oration again.”
The sonorous Latin began, punctuated by periodic honks as the little Countess blew her nose, and I wandered away down the stairs. My head throbbed with every step. Perhaps from the wine I’d drunk to forget the recent things that needed forgetting. Perhaps from the memory of the last time I’d descended these steps, at a dead sprint away from Giulia Farnese’s stunned and pitying eyes.
I had not seen what look she had in her eyes when we came face to face in the Sala del Pappagallo. I’d slipped away too swiftly to see, bowed and threaded back into the thickest part of the crowd. Though I’d seen that little Laura had grown taller, in her months in the country sun. By the time the Pope made up his mind on a French husband for her or a Milanese one, she’d probably top me in height.
I found Carmelina not in the kitchens but in the garden, kneeling alone in the barren patch of earth and grubbing at the dirt. I’d have sauntered right past the anonymous figure in the dark nun’s habit, but I heard a mutter of Venetian invective behind me and turned for another look. “
Signorina Cuoca
,” I greeted her. “Don’t tell me you have renewed your vows?”
“I didn’t have a dress heavy enough for the cold, so—” She gestured at the heavy wool habit, glowering. “How was I supposed to know to pack clothes for winter? I didn’t intend to stay here five
weeks
, let alone five months!”
The coarse black weave turned her olive skin sallow, and even sitting back on her heels in the hard dirt I could see the hem was too short at her shins. “As a costume I prefer the giraffe ensemble,” I agreed, and sat down on a sawed section of log that was the only seat the garden had to offer. November’s first snow had fallen last night; it showed in dirty gray sprinkles over the packed earth. The sky overhead was like beaten pewter—more snow soon, to be sure.
“What are you doing here, Leonello?” Carmelina uprooted a basil plant with a brisk yank, tossing it roots and all into her basket. “I’d heard Madonna Giulia came back from Carbognano, but you’re not in her pay anymore. Not if I know you.”
She didn’t say
why
I would no longer be taking Giulia’s coin, and for that I could have kissed her even though her lips were red and chapped from cold. But she probably would have smacked me. “I work for His Eminence Cardinal Borgia now,” I said, indicating my new livery. Much like the old: unadorned black with plenty of hidden sheaths for knives. Though it missed the subtle tailoring that had made Giulia’s livery a work of art, and me in it almost a handsome man.
“You, working for Cesare Borgia?” Carmelina’s straight black brows flew up. “Don’t tell me you’ve finally learned how to juggle.”
“No.” I smiled thinly. “It’s my other skills he finds the occasional use for.”
“Ugh. Don’t tell me.” Carmelina yanked up another basil plant.
“It’s not as often as people think.” Only one task, in fact, since I had been hired. Of course, that one had been quite enough.
“Still, don’t tell me.” A few sad tendrils of tarragon joined the basil. “So is Madonna Lucrezia still weeping upstairs? She’s been weeping for weeks, even when she heard Lord Sforza agreed to have their marriage annulled.”
“She’s dried her tears enough to butcher the verbs on a very nice little Latin speech written by her brother.”
“Don’t tell me how nice it is. She’ll recite it to Pantisilea and me all week until she knows it. We’ll all have it by heart in the end.”
“Perhaps you can go to the Vatican in a few weeks and give her testimony for her, then. Swear before God, Pope, and all others assembled that the marriage between you and Lord Sforza was never consummated, not once, and that you are still
virgo intacta
.”
Carmelina snorted. “I haven’t been
virgo intacta
for a good many years.”
“Nor has Lucrezia Borgia, but who’s quibbling?”
“Apparently not Lord Sforza.” Carmelina shook her head, yanking out a few sorry-looking threads of chives. What a joke it all was. Consanguinity had not worked as a pretext to annul the marriage, and neither had the excuse of Lucrezia’s two previous betrothals. Cesare Borgia’s solution? Nonconsummation, due to the Count of Pesaro’s prevailing impotence. I’d laughed out loud when I first heard it, and so had most of Rome. The Count of Pesaro impotent, when his first wife had died in childbed?
“It will serve him right,” Cesare had said coolly. “If he wished for a less humiliating end to his marriage, he should have signed sooner under the betrothal excuse.”
But Lord Sforza had stuck his heels in, and for that he would not only lose his wife—he’d be mocked all about Rome as a eunuch. An exquisite revenge, and I was learning what a talent my new master had for that.
“Impotence.” Carmelina let out a short laugh. “I ask you, what kind of man would admit to that? Even if it were true, and we both know Madonna Lucrezia and that husband of hers consummated that marriage on every bed in the Palazzo Santa Maria!”
“But the Borgias say they didn’t. And they have the power to rewrite truth, didn’t you know?” My nails needed trimming, but I had no intention of getting my knife out. I wondered if it still had blood on it. I couldn’t remember cleaning the blade since that recent little task I had performed for my new master.
Carmelina pinched a few dead needles off a chilled-looking rosemary bush. “I wonder how they made him do it. Lord Sforza, I mean. How did they make him sign his own virility away?”