Free The Borgia Betrayal: A Novel by Sara Poole

pained Renaldo to disperse it. Of late, he seemed to have suffered more than usual.
    “To someone in particular?”
    The steward shook his head. “A host of someones. Argus had fewer eyes than does our master.”
    I smiled at the reference to the many-eyed guardian of Greek legend. But at the same time, I wondered whom Borgia was watching—and why.
    “He had a visitor this morning,” Renaldo said. “Before he was even out of bed, one of his ‘eyes’ came to report. La Bella was disgruntled, so I heard. Word has it she is with child again.”
    I had not known that and was grateful for the information, not to mention simply glad to hear it. La Bella had lost a baby the previous year and I held myself partly responsible, although I had managed at least to save her life.
    “What was so urgent?”
    Renaldo leaned a little closer. He spared a quick glance over his shoulder to make absolutely certain that we could not be overheard, then murmured, “Il Frateschi are in Rome.”
    I restrained a shudder. The “Brotherhood,” as it was known, was a group of fanatical followers of the friar Girolamo Savonarola, the scourge of Florence who had appeared in that city three years before and had not stopped ranting since. According to reports Borgia received almost daily, the fiery Dominican’s sermons were attracting ever larger crowds drawn by his ravings against the rich and powerful, whom he blamed for every evil under the sun, and the Jews, who he claimed were allied with them. In particular, he decried the glory of the Medicis and their golden city where art and tolerance reigned supreme, calling it the Devil’s crucible. Their inability to silence him thus far only added to his aura of divine authority.
    Most important, from my perspective, Savonarola and his frateschi were fierce enemies of everything to which we of Lux were devoted. Should they ever prevail—God and all the Saints forbid it—we would be the first to go to the stake.
    “Surely they would not dare to come here.” Even as I spoke, I weighed the likelihood that I was wrong. If Savonarola believed that Borgia might truly be on the verge of being deposed, he might well want his followers to be as close as possible to the seat of papal power, the better to assure that one of their own would claim it.
    And that would mean the end of everything—most particularly of any chance that the light of knowledge would lift humanity out of the mud in which we had been mired for so long. We would sink back into the darkness, possibly never to emerge again. For all his failings—and I was only beginning to suspect how vast those were—worldly, rapacious Borgia was our strongest bulwark against that.
    Moreover, as much as Il Papa suspected that his rival della Rovere might be behind the attempts on his life, Il Frateschi could also be responsible. There was no telling how far such fanatics might go or what assistance they might acquire.
    “Who knows what they dare?” Renaldo replied. “I know only that our master is beset by many challenges, some of his own making to be sure but others pure villainy by lesser men who would bring him down the better to prop themselves up.”
    I could not have put it better myself. Truly, Borgia created many of his own difficulties, but his enemies were too often men who would see the world in ruins, if only so that they could harvest the wreckage.
    “Then we must make sure they do not succeed, Master d’Marco.”
    For all that he went about twitching like a nervous ferret, Renaldo had a spine. He straightened, looked into my eyes, and said, “Indeed we must, Donna Francesca. He depends on us.”
    “Speaking of—” I dropped my voice another notch, causing the steward to lean closer. “Do you have any idea,” I asked, “where His Holiness has been going?”
    “I’m not sure I follow you—”
    “His secretaries have reported that there are times when he slips out of his office and effectively disappears.”
    “La