Free The Borgia Betrayal: A Novel by Sara Poole Page A

Bella—”
    “He isn’t with her or anywhere else that can be discovered. You understand this is not good for his security.”
    I trusted Renaldo understood that and more. It would not do for Borgia to be involved in anything that we, his faithful servants, did not know about. How then could we assure his comfort and well-being?
    Not to mention our own.
    “I will see what I can find out,” the steward assured me.
    I just had time to assure him of my gratitude before a secretary appeared to summon the steward into the inner sanctum. He bustled off with a proper air of importance. I made my way more slowly back in the direction of the kitchens, where I continued my inspection of the newly arrived provisions. It was all well and good to contemplate how della Rovere could be poisoned, but with the circumstances so dire, I had to take greater care than ever before to assure that Borgia would not be.
    It was late afternoon when I finished. Weary as I was, I considered returning to my apartment for some much needed rest. But my conscience pricked, reminding me that while I lack the instinct for friendship that some enjoy, I make up for it with diligence. Duties too long neglected commanded my attention. With them in mind, I made my way to the Palazzo Santa Maria in Portico.

7
    Lucrezia sat among a nest of jeweled brocade, shimmering velvet, cloth-of-gold, and spun silver, like a glorious bird of paradise in her natural habitat.
    She was crying. Her complexion, normally likened to alabaster tinged with rose, was mottled and tear-streaked. Her golden hair, usually arranged in ringlets around her heart-shaped face, was uncombed and in disarray. Her expression, indeed the entire disposition of her slender form, bespoke acute misery.
    Her ladies hovered nearby in various degrees of anxiousness and ennui. Borgia had decreed that as the daughter of the reigning pope, Lucrezia must be properly attended. The great families had proved reluctant to offer up their daughters, widows, nieces, and so on for such service, but the second tier of social climbers and eager merchant clans had been happy to oblige. So far as I could gather, between them they had not mustered a single female who was useful in even a minor domestic crisis.
    “He hates me!” Lucrezia cried when she saw me. “I cannot bear it! How can he be so cruel, especially just now when he knows how anxious I am?”
    I did not attempt to answer but knelt in the shambles of exquisite fabrics and hugged her. She cried all the harder for several minutes as I patted her back and murmured soothingly.
    “There, there,” I said, or something to that effect.
    If all this strikes you as strange given my nature, let me say that the Pope’s daughter and I had known each other since I was an artless girl of nine years and she little more than a babe. Despite the difference in our social status, we had been drawn together in the shared experience of being only daughters of powerful men who, each in his own way, instilled fear in most people while showing us what we wanted to believe was only love and care. That was a bond that not even the greatest exigencies of our lives ever managed to break.
    At length, her distress gave way to small, hiccupping sobs that fell finally into silence. She straightened a little and stared at me, her eyes swollen and red-rimmed.
    In a whisper filled with bewildered despair, she said, “How can he? Only tell me that.”
    A letter, its red wax seal broken, lay on the floor beside her. I picked it up with one hand and, after a quick glance, crumpled it away into the pocket of my underdress. The few lines I had read angered me greatly, but I was not about to reveal that.
    “For pity’s sake,” I said as lightly as I could manage, “surely you know how Cesare can be? Your brother is as feckless as the fickle wind, blowing hot as Hades until he blows himself out.”
    And in the process scorching all those foolish enough to care about his good