It was not until some three weeks after the French departed—at the insistence of the Holy Father, who counseled caution—that Giulia and Adriana moved the household back into the Palazzo Santa Maria in Portico. It meant a flurry of activity for us maids, packing everything up from our quarters in the Castel Sant’ Angelo—honestly, why had these ladies brought so much with them to essentially be imprisoned?—and seeing it all transported back to the palazzo, where everything needed to be unpacked again and put in its proper place.
It was clear the soldiers and mercenaries had been through the palazzo, but they would have found little of value: all the valuables kept here had been transferred to the Castel Sant’ Angelo along with the papal treasures. The French had made off with some cheaper tapestries and furniture, as well as a few statues from the garden, but nothing Adriana was troubled to lose. However, soldiers had tramped through the palazzo with muddy boots, had spilled their wine about, and had even urinated in the halls, making for quite a mess that we servants were obliged to clean up.
We were busy for several days, between cleaning and unpacking and brushing out gowns and seeing to the washing of linens. And the whole time, even as I was hauling linens to the laundry or gossiping with Isabella or putting away jewels, my mind was racing like a horse in the Palio, and I, just like one of the bareback riders of that race, tried desperately to cling on.
Ever since I had watched Cesare Borgia, Cardinal of Valencia—whom many Romans had taken to referring to by the Italianized version of his title, Valentino—ride away with the French army, my mind had been scampering about ceaselessly. It did not even pause when I slept, for I was once again dreaming of him, dreams no good woman should have. I would wake up in a sweat, certain parts of me throbbing for him. Eventually I would fall back asleep, only to dream of the cramped dark space of the confessional, and of speaking aloud the sins of which I dreamt and that I carried in my heart. I would awake again, in the early light of dawn, relieved that it had been only a dream, knowing I should confess such things but also knowing that I never would. I could not bear it.
And so my mind continued to churn, both sleeping and waking, one state bringing me my heated desires and fears and another bringing me cool reason and duty. I could not seem to escape either.
Mixed into all these desperate thoughts was Federico. I had not had a moment free to seek him. Part of me hoped he might come to me instead and take me away from this den of sin I had built for myself.
But I did not wait in suspense long. A few days after we returned to Palazzo Santa Maria in Portico, a messenger came for me, telling me that the Cardinal of Valencia wished to see me.
Isabella and another maid were in the hall where the messenger gave me my summons, and both gaped at me. “Our paths crossed in the Castel, and he offered to help me find Federico,” I explained. “I assumed he had forgotten.”
It would not have surprised me if he had. By then word had spread throughout Rome of Cardinal Valentino’s exploits in escaping French captivity, and it was repeated by all with a measure of awe. The pope’s dashing son had outsmarted the murderous, rapacious French! He had become something of a hero since his recent return to the city.
Isabella recovered her wits first. “You had best go, then,” she said matter-of-factly. “I’ll give your excuses if you’re missed. Go! No doubt he has found your man!”
As I followed the messenger to the Vatican, I tried to tell myself that this was the only reason for my pounding heart: I was finally to learn what had become of Federico. Yet even that had the ring of a lie.
The messenger led me to a room not far from those occupied by the Holy Father, knocked on the open door, and stepped inside. I followed hesitantly. “Maddalena Moretti, as you requested, Your Eminence,” the man said, bowing.
Cardinal Borgia rose from behind an ornate wooden desk and walked around it, handing a coin to the messenger. “Eccellente. Grazie.”
The messenger took the coin, bowed, and left.
“Maddalena,” he said, turning to face me.
I swept a curtsy. “Your Eminence,” I murmured, wondering if he could hear my pounding heart.
“No doubt you have surmised why I’ve called you here,” he said. He motioned to a bench that had been cut into the window across from the door. “Sit, please.”
I moved across the room to sit, and to my surprise he sat beside me, as though we were equals. The stone bench was large enough that we were not touching, as was proper, with not even the whisper of clothing brushing clothing; yet my body sprung into awareness at his close proximity.
“I would guess, Your Eminence, it is to do with Federico Lucci, my betrothed,” I said.
“Indeed.”
“I am surprised Your Eminence remembered,” I said. “Much has passed since last we saw each other.”
“Yes, a great deal. But I made a promise, did I not?” I glanced up and found his eyes locked on mine, steady and serious. “I am not a man who goes back on his promises, Maddalena.”
“I … I did not mean to imply you were,” I said hastily. “It is simply that…”
He waved my clarification aside. “I have taken no offense,” he said.
Silence fell, and when I could bear it no longer I asked, “If it please Your Eminence … what have you learned of Federico?”
“Ah,” he said. “I suppose I am hesitant because, well, I do not have good news, I’m afraid.”
Cold spread through my limbs, even as my mind rushed to find some way out of the darkness they implied. “Please,” I whispered, through lips that felt numb, “I would know the truth.”
He sighed and clasped his hands in his lap. “I will get to the point, then,” he said. “I’m so sorry, but I’m afraid Federico Lucci was killed by French soldiers during the invasion.”
I closed my eyes, as though to keep out his words. “He … he is dead?” I whispered. I could not tell if I meant it as a question or a statement.
“I’m afraid so.”
Tears seeped out from beneath my closed lids. This cannot be. No. Holy Lord Jesus, Blessed Mother Mary, please, tell me it isn’t true, I prayed.
Yet hadn’t I known since I had seen those bloodstains in the wine shop? I hadn’t let myself believe, but I had suspected, deep down. I had known, somehow, when he and I had said goodbye, that it was our last. That that kiss would be our last.
And it was my fault.
It took me a moment to realize Cardinal Borgia was speaking once more. “I had my best man looking for word of him. It did not take him long to determine what happened. Some French soldiers had set upon a shop owned by a friend of his, I believe—were starting to loot it. He was there with the man that day and tried to fight them off. They cut both men down without a second glance. It was very courageous, I must say. I do not know as it is any comfort, but he died a brave man.”
“But a foolish one,” I said softly. I finally opened my eyes and was almost taken aback by his expression: full of compassion and sorrow, almost as though my loss was his own.
“An honorable one,” he corrected gently.
The blood on the wine shop floor … it had been Federico’s blood. I had been there, at the spot where he died. Had the bodies of Federico and his friend been inside still? I let out a choked sob.
“He was given a Christian burial,” the cardinal offered. “I made certain of it.”
I nodded. “I … I thank you for that.” I could not hold back my anguish, my guilt, any longer. I buried my face in my hands and began to sob, only embarrassed in some tiny part of my mind to be carrying on so before Cesare Borgia.
“Ah, Maddalena.” He shifted closer, wrapping his arms around me and drawing me to his chest. “I cannot tell you how sorry I am to have given you this news.”
With my face buried against his shoulder, I let out all my sorrow: for Federico and the death he hadn’t deserved, the one he would not have had if I had not been so selfish and full of lust and pride; for his friend, a man whose name I could not remember but who had been a good man; and for the life I had so foolishly turned my back on and would never have.
And I cried for the remorse I felt, that would never leave me as long as I lived. I cried for how Federico’s death was my fault, as certain as if I had been the Frenchman who had run him through with a blade.
Cardinal Borgia drew me closer, so we were pressed tightly together—indeed, I was nearly sitting in his lap. To my horror, a shiver of pleasure went through me, and my crying stopped as I became more aware of my chest meeting his, his cheek resting on the top of my head as he held me, his breath stirring my hair.
It took me far too long to pull away. But reluctantly I did, pulling one of my handkerchiefs out of my bodice and drying my eyes. “I … I am sorry, Your Eminence,” I said, my voice still thick with tears—and something else I couldn’t, wouldn’t identify. “I have behaved most inappropriately.”
He took my hand, twining my fingers through his. “Not at all,” he said. “You have had a terrible shock. Anything I can do to comfort you…”
Our eyes locked again as his thumb caressed my wrist. He leaned ever so slightly toward me, his lips parted, and I found myself doing the same, as if compelled by some force outside myself.
But I was not compelled, and that was the sin.
Quickly I leapt up, pulling my hand from his. “I … I apologize, Your Eminence,” I said. “I should go.”
“Please, stay,” he said, rising as well. “Until you are less upset. You are surely in no state to make your way home.”
“You have been too generous already,” I babbled. “It was so very kind of you to find out this … news for me.”
His expression was solemn as he regarded me. “I fear it was not kind at all.”
“But now I know,” I said. “I … I needed to know.”
“I am sorry, Maddalena.”
I bobbed him a curtsy, not daring to look at him. “Goodbye, Your Eminence,” I said. Then I whirled on my heel and fled.
I did not get very far. Some hours later I was still on my knees in one of the chapels in St. Peter’s Basilica. I had staggered in and dropped to my knees before the altar. “Why?” I had nearly howled, looking up at Jesus Christ on his cross above the altar through my veil of tears. “Why would you take someone as kind and decent and full of life as Federico? Why? Why?”
I had dissolved into weeping then, and once the tears finally subsided I had risen on unsteady legs to light a candle in Federico’s memory. After, I knelt once more, taking deep breaths to calm myself, and I prayed. I prayed for Federico’s soul, that he might be admitted to Heaven straightaway; I prayed for God to punish those who had murdered him; I prayed for the soul of his friend; I prayed for God to ease my grief; I prayed for the grief of Federico’s family to be eased, after losing a second son so soon after the first.
And I prayed to be forgiven, though I did not see how it could be so.
I could have averted this, and that I must bear the rest of my days. I must bear Federico’s death for the rest of my days. Another sin added to the tally that grew ever larger within my soul.
It was a tally that now included the shameless, wanton way I had acted earlier that day. Cardinal Cesare Borgia, a prince of Holy Mother Church, had told me of the death of my betrothed, and I had cried in his arms, pressing myself against him like a brazen slut. I had taken comfort in his embrace, in the embrace of a man of God. While mourning the death of the man I was supposed to love, I was filled with lust for another, a man forbidden by all laws of God and the Church. What forgiveness could there be for me?
There are seven deadly sins, Maddalena, but lust is the deadliest.
On my knees on the hard stone floor, I gazed up at the crucifix and could only beseech the Lord Jesus to tell me what would become of me now.