Thankfully, I got back into Santa Maria in Portico without being detected, and after quickly washing up and brushing the wrinkles from my clothes, I went about my duties attending to Madonna Lucrezia and reattaching the lace on a set of her sleeves. If anyone noticed the small, quiet smile that refused to leave my lips, no one remarked upon it.
Later that night, though, things felt somewhat different as I lay on my pallet, seeking sleep, which was not inclined to come. I tried not to toss and turn, so as to avoid waking Isabella. But now, in the dark, while the rest of the world slept, I was forced to confront what I had done.
When I had followed Cardinal Borgia—Cesare—to his rooms, I had known that I was committing a number of sins, foremost among them that he was a prince of the Church and therefore sworn to celibacy. Did that not make what we had done his sin, though? No, I certainly shared in the blame, for woman was always a temptress, just as Eve had tempted Adam to taste of the apple in the Garden. I was certainly guilty of the sins of lust and fornication, of wantonly going to a man’s bed and letting him have me …
I turned onto my back and stared at the ceiling. Sin though it had been, I could not help but relive what it had felt like to be in his bed, to feel his hands and lips on me … even now I could feel the weight of his body on mine, the length of him pushing inside of me …
A slow throbbing began between my legs, and I swallowed audibly in the silent room. I was damned, I knew I was damned, but I would do it all over again. And again, and again, and again …
Who knew sin would feel so good, so delicious?
Of course it did, I reprimanded myself. That was why it tempted us. If it was not pleasurable, we would not have to work to resist it. That was how Satan entrapped us.
Yet why must pleasure be a sin? Why could it not be a virtue, to seek it out?
Quickly I crossed myself. That was blasphemy, and I knew it.
My mother’s voice arrived unbidden: You went off to Rome and turned into a despicable whore, like I knew you would. What else could become of a girl like you there, with such sin in your heart? But to sleep with a cardinal, a man of God … that is a disgrace not even I could have imagined. Can you feel Lucifer’s fire even now, you filthy slut? For you shall fall into it soon enough …
Tears crept into my eyes. No, I protested, as if speaking to her. I am not a whore. I am not a slut. I did not go to his bed with evil in my heart. For is that not what sin is? To wish to do ill? Why should taking some pleasure for myself be so wrong? Why?
Suddenly I realized there was one thing that did not seem to fit into what I had been taught my whole life: if what I had done was wrong, unforgiveable, why did I feel so happy? Why did I feel as though there was light inside of me, a light that had been kindled where previously there had been none?
Was this what it felt like to finally have something you’ve yearned for, hungered for? Warmth and tenderness and passion?
My mother would say such light was naught but a trick of Lucifer, but did I agree?
A tapping at the door interrupted my relentless thoughts, and a man poked his head in. “Is there a Maddalena Moretti here?” he asked.
I sat up. “I am she.” I glanced over at Isabella; always a sound sleeper, she only muttered in her sleep and rolled over.
The man opened the door wider. He was dressed in Borgia livery, a crest with the bull on his chest. “I am sent to fetch you by His Eminence the Cardinal of Valencia,” the man said.
I didn’t hesitate.