The Borgia Betrayal: A Novel Read Free Page B

Borgia’s life and always as mercifully as I could, if that counts for anything. I told myself that to kill in defense of His Holiness did not constitute sin, which was not to say that I was without transgression. Relatively smaller offenses aside—fornication, alas on too rare occasion; lying, of course, as is always necessary in our world; working on the Sabbath, if the private studies I pursued for my own benefit could really be considered work—all that aside, the truth was that a day rarely went by when I did not contemplate murder.
    I say contemplate in the sense of taking out an idea, turning it this way and that, considering how better to burnish and refine it, all in an exercise intended to give me some relief from the implacable reality that the mad priest Bernando Morozzi, the true mastermind behind my father’s death and, I suspected, the instigator of the attacks against Borgia, remained very much alive.
    Unsatisfied with the expulsion of the Jews from Spain the previous year, the priest with the face of an angel and the soul of the Devil had plotted to secure a papal declaration banning them from all of Christendom. I had played my role in thwarting his evil ambitions but I had failed to avenge my father’s death. Thus far.
    It would hardly do to explain any of that to some hapless cleric, who would then have to scramble about for an appropriate penance when there was none, since I was most definitely not contrite and I had absolutely no intention of mending my wicked ways.
    Even so, the shadows cast by Peter’s crumbling rock still had the power to make me shudder. I quickened my pace, eager to be gone, if only for a little while, from the Vatican and everything it represented.

2
    The clouds had drifted off to the east, leaving Rome bathed in the clear, golden light all painters nowadays strive to capture but few ever can. I skirted the crowd and headed for the river, crossing by the Ponte Sisto. At the bankside just beyond the bridge, I engaged a grizzled boatman who, once satisfied that I had the coin to hire him, agreed to take me upriver several miles. Say what you will about Borgia, he had brought a far greater degree of order to Rome than the city had seen in many years. Ordinary women, that is to say without armed escort, could be out and about once again without fear of molestation. Not that there still weren’t problems, no city is entirely free of crime, but all agreed that this was one thing Borgia had done well and for that most Romans were duly grateful.
    The house I was bound for lay just outside the northern reaches of the city near the pleasant village of Cappriacolla. I left the boatman at the river’s edge and walked a half mile or so along a lane shaded by oak and linden trees. Brief excursions to the country suit me well enough; I was enjoying the fragrance of wild rose and honeysuckle heightened by a deep note of manure as I came upon my destination.
    It was a two-story residence built around an inner courtyard with a gate on one side wide enough to accommodate a carriage or wagon but narrow enough to be secured quickly in case of trouble. The stuccowork and other exterior details were very plain, as had been the style several decades before when the house was built. Overall, a visitor could be pardoned for mistaking it for the home of a prosperous country family content with its fields and vineyards.
    As I approached, half a dozen oversized mastiffs ran out, cords of drool streaming from their floppy jowls. Individually, the mastiff can be among the most affectionate of dogs. In a pack, they will not hesitate to tear a strong man apart. The leader, a male who stood as high as my waist, threw back his immense head and barked deeply in warning. I stood where I was and extended my hand with the palm up. After a moment, the leader approached and sniffed me delicately. Satisfied that I was known to him, he barked again, more of a gentle woof to signal the others, and allowed me to