The Borgia Mistress: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

recriminations spewing from his son, Borgia had put him to use by sending him ahead to Viterbo, ostensibly to keep him safe from the plague rumored to be stirring in Rome but really to rally the local nobility and strengthen the garrison. In his absence, my bed had grown cold.
    “Cesare’s attitude toward becoming a cardinal hasn’t improved at all, has it?” Renaldo prompted. “He remains unreconciled to his father’s will.”
    “Did you imagine it would be otherwise? He has dreamed his whole life of winning great victories on the field of battle. To be bound in a red cassock and chained to a desk in the Vatican is unbearable.”
    “Even so,” Renaldo said, “the touts are giving five to two against there being a falling-out between them anytime in the next year.”
    I was not surprised. Romans will bet on anything—the number of bodies pulled from the Tiber on a given day, the sex of a cardinal’s next bastard, the longevity of a pope, all are fodder for the spinning wheel of fortune upon which our lives are balanced and where, on occasion, there is money to be made.
    “And if there is war?” I asked. “How go the odds then?”
    “Three to two that Il Papa will prevail.”
    “Interesting … considering that he has virtually no army in comparison to the French and that the support of the Spaniards is more vital than it is certain.”
    Renaldo did not disagree, though he did point out what I knew to be true. “But he has such brio, such a sense of his own inevitability. He’s like a force of nature. Who really wants to bet against him, especially when the alternative is that old stick, della Rovere?”
    I laughed despite myself and won a smile in turn from the steward. We were passing along an aisle framed by beech trees, approaching the inn at Ronciglione where we were to spend the night. An army of carpenters, glaziers, and painters had worked ceaselessly for the better part of a week to assure that His Holiness would be properly housed for the single night he intended to stay at the inn. Wagonloads of servants, furniture, wall hangings, artwork, and other necessities had been brought from Rome. The entire upper floor had been set aside for His Holiness’s use, leaving the ground floor to accommodate all the prelates and their staffs. Dismounting, I heard grumblings about the arrangements, but there was nothing to be done for it; Borgia loved his privileges and loved even more to make lesser men accept them as his due.
    He also had a fondness for generating chaos, or so it seemed by the level of activity ever swirling about him. I stepped aside quickly as a troop of men-at-arms went by at a run, only just missing trampling me. A wagon driver bellowed in anger as another blocked his way. Pages and kitchen boys scurried about, helping to unload a steady stream of boxes and barrels when they weren’t tripping over their own feet. Anyone would have been pardoned for thinking that the papal court was settling in for a month or more rather than for a few scant hours.
    Next to the inn a large, unadorned building of raw wood planks had been thrown up to house the traveling kitchens. Fires had been lit, spits were turning, and delectable smells filled the air. I sniffed appreciatively. The mundane truth of my profession is that most of it involves food; and with good reason, for nothing is easier to poison. Grains of arsenic can be slipped between folds of beef, cheese can be wrapped in poisoned cloth that will transmit its deadly properties, and so on. With the proper tools, it is even possible to introduce poison into a fresh egg still in its shell. As a result, I not only inspected every item that Borgia might ingest with the greatest care, I also made sure that my presence was felt where it could do the most good.
    Having bid Renaldo farewell for the moment, I had walked only a short distance through the well-churned mud toward the kitchens when my way was blocked by a dour-faced condottiere wearing the