Madonna Lucrezia paced restlessly in her bedchamber, still dressed in her night things, though it was past noon. She had refused to get dressed, refused to leave her bedchamber, and refused to eat or drink. Early that morning she had received the news of her brother Juan’s death, and she was devastated.
“Who would have killed him?” she cried as Donna Adriana tried to take her hand to soothe her. “And why? Who would have wanted to kill Juan?”
For once, Lucrezia’s innocence grated on me instead of charming me. He was her brother and she loved him, I understood that, but did she truly not know what kind of man he was? He had no shortage of enemies in Rome, from political opponents of the Borgia family to men he had personally offended or had quarrel with. The only ones likely to miss the Duke of Gandia, aside from His Holiness, were in this palazzo.
The door burst open to reveal Sancia of Aragon. Her eyes were red, and tears streaked down her face, but unlike Lucrezia she was at least dressed in a day gown. “Have you heard?” she wailed. “Oh, it is so awful!”
Lucrezia nodded, her tears starting anew, and she opened her arms for her sister-in-law, who rushed into them. The two young women held each other, sobbing.
Lucrezia did not approve of Juan and Sancia’s romance and worried over the harm it was causing to her brother Jofre. Yet in this moment of grief, she had put aside her judgment and was happy to comfort and be comforted by someone else who had loved him—however unworthy I thought him of that love.
I would never say so aloud—not even to my confessor—but the Duke of Gandia had gotten what he deserved. God had finally seen fit to punish him for his sins, his evil, and though it might cause pain to a few, justice had been served. I had no doubt of that.
My mother’s voice piped up: And what will you say when God decides to punish you for your sins? Lust, fornication, seducing a man of the Church …
The difference between Juan Borgia and me is I have not sinned with evil in my heart, I argued. I have not hurt anyone, nor have I sought to. I had repeated this to myself so many times I was at last starting to believe it.
Something more pressing was troubling me: who had been the hand to wield God’s justice unto the Duke of Gandia? Would any of us ever know? And what if the day came when I found that what I suspected was correct?
I was no fool. By now everyone knew precisely upon what night he had been slain. And so a possible explanation for Cesare Borgia’s strange behavior on that night had been presented to me.
Isabella sidled into the room after her mistress. She caught my eye and gave me a look, full of weight. She had something to tell me. Fortunately, Donna Adriana noticed the two of us. “Maddalena, Isabella, please go fetch some bread and broth. These ladies must eat something.”
We curtsied and departed. Making toward the kitchens, Isabella pulled me down an empty hallway, looking around to make sure no one was near. “What is it?” I asked her.
“I know you’ve been with Madonna Lucrezia all morning, but there is much talk in the streets, and among the servants, about the Duke of Gandia’s murder,” she said.
“As I would expect,” I said. “Perhaps now they can stop gossiping about me.”
Isabella gave me an exasperated look. “You do not know what they are saying.”
“I can guess.”
“Can you?” She arched an eyebrow. “I will tell you anyway. The opinion of many is that the Duke of Gandia was murdered on the order of his brother, Cardinal Valentino. That their hatred for each other, and the cardinal’s jealousy, drove him to have the duke killed, so the duke would no longer stand in the way of his ambitions.”
“That … does not surprise me,” I admitted.
“And?” she demanded. “Is it true?”
“How would you expect me to know?” I asked. “Do you think that, if he indeed sent assassins after his brother, he would tell me?”
“But you…” She drew back. “You believe that he did.”
It was what I had been trying to avoid thinking all morning. Yet I could not do so any longer, not when Isabella was forcing me to confront the question.
The fact remained that I was glad Juan Borgia was dead. I was glad I did not need to attend him when he came to visit his sister, that I need no longer become so rigid with tension in his presence that I felt I would crack into a thousand pieces. That I would never again need to look at his hands and remember them holding me so I could not escape, feeling violated all over again as I remembered how he had touched me.
God and His Son taught us we must forgive, but I was no divine being; far from it. I had never forgiven Juan Borgia and never would. Given the depth of my other sins, this one troubled me not at all.
“And what if he did?” I replied, finally. Isabella’s jaw dropped open in horror. “I do not know if he had his brother killed or not, but it makes no difference to me.”
“Maddalena,” Isabella said, her voice hushed with horror. “You cannot mean that.”
“Can’t I? Did I never tell you, Isa, how I came to work at Santa Maria in Portico?”
I told her the whole sorry tale, and this time when she looked on me with horror and shock, it was mixed with sympathy. “Oh, Maddalena,” she said. “I didn’t know. Why did you never tell me?”
“I was afraid,” I confessed. “I knew you would not speak of it if I asked you not to, but I did not want word getting back to the duke that I was talking about him. I did not even want him to know I was here. So I said nothing. But now he is dead, and it matters not.” I wanted to spit on the marble floor. “And good riddance.”
“I am so sorry,” she said, hugging me quickly. “Yes, I am glad that he is dead, too, after hearing this. But…” She looked at me pensively. “To kill one’s own brother is no small thing, even so. Does that not … scare you, if it is true?”
Why did Isabella have such a knack for asking the questions I did not want to ask myself? “Cesare would never hurt me,” I said. “And however it happened, I am glad the Duke of Gandia is dead.”