VICENTE FOUND Fra Ludovico in the little yard behind his cell, where he was keeping watch over a kettle. He was boiling up berries and bark, which Vicente remembered was the basis of some unsavory potion famous for the stupor it induced. The foul smell was comforting in its familiarity.
“Are you the mad priest or the quiet sage today? Be the coherent one, if you can; I have to hear someone making some sense.”
Fra Ludovico seemed less interested in conversing with Vicente than in governing the flame and making sure sediment didn’t scorch on the bottom of the pot and ruin the batch. But he said, “Sit, sit, my friend,” and Vicente squatted, upwind of the drift of vapors.
“I left you in charge,” he began.
“You didn’t leave me in charge,” said Fra Ludovico. “In charge of la Borgia? I can’t even get up on a donkey anymore without a ladder, a hoist, and a week of fasting. The notion of asking me to govern a Borgia! But I did my part nonetheless, you know.”
“Yes. You played the part of a blithering fool. What for?”
“A canny disguise. So I might be considered harmless, and not need to be disposed of. So I might protect my position and protect your daughter.”
“But you didn’t protect her.”
“I did what I could. If you’re going to blame me for the way things happen in human affairs, you’re wasting your breath. Have a drink instead. It isn’t ready but it’ll burn your tongue and stop your nonsense.”
Vicente asked Fra Ludovico for more information about the disappearance of Bianca. He wanted a more certain sense of when the disaster had happened. The old priest—for by now he was old—shook his head and tried to remember. “It was close to the time that Primavera’s grandson disappeared,” he said at last. “And she will know exactly when that was. She will know,” he added, “though she won’t say, of course. She can’t.”
“But how many years ago? Your cheek has gone hoary, and I can’t escape the sad eyes of Primavera. I gather I’ve been away about a decade, but when in that span of years did Bianca disappear? And what prompted it?”
“I measure time by the seasons of the Church,” began Fra Ludovico, “and every year begins anew, with Advent; it’s the same year, over and over, indistinguishable one from another—”
“I’ll turn you out on your fat old behind, you pious fool—”
“About six years, more or less.”
This was clearer but hardly a comfort. “But why? What happened? How had she changed?”
“She changed only as every child changes, no more, no less. I appreciate your sorrow, but you must understand: Had I seen signs that she intended to flee I would have intercepted her. She was still docile enough, still a timid child in her way. Well, you’d never let her meander—”
Vicente gave him a look. “I’ll say what I will,” said the priest. “I blame you no more than I blame myself, Don Vicente; facts are as they are. You rarely took her as far as the village.”
“She was a child.”
“And she grew up while you were gone. Or began to, anyway.”
“Was she threatened here? Soldiers sniffing around?”
“We enjoyed the customary blight of daily life. We delighted in tedium.”
Vicente could sit no longer. He strode back and forth, stroking his beard. “Have you blessed what you can of her spirit? In the event she has died? Have you performed the offices of the dead?”
“She was blameless,” said Fra Ludovico. “About that you can rest assured. I’m no theologian, Don Vicente, but I can’t bring myself to worry for the state of her soul in the afterlife. She was too pure a child to need serious pardoning.” He stirred more vigorously. “Besides, I used to note that you didn’t take much stock in my feeble efforts.”
“Who are you to deny a child spiritual benefit because her father is a doubter?” Vicente overturned the pot, scalding the priest’s bare toes. Fra Ludovico yipped in pain and irritation. “Are you a pope, to determine who deserves forgiveness for their sins? You have no right to deny my child sanctity. You have no way to see into her heart.”
“You’ve been changed by your adventures, I see. I suppose I might as well get used to it. Now look. I have my convictions. Maybe they are born of a little too much liqueur in the colder days, but they are convictions just the same. And I don’t sense that Bianca has departed this life.”
“What are you saying?”
“Nothing more than what I’ve already said. No hunting dogs have found her body in the woods. Villagers, whose gossip and conjecture often signifies, have been as mystified as we at Montefiore are. Primavera insisted on augury after augury, trying to learn the truth, and she could read no sign of Bianca’s demise in any entrails. That was when the old sow could still speak, of course, though her tongue became detached shortly thereafter.”
“If she’d been subject to that punishment for blasphemy, she’d have been mute since she was three.” He continued. “Maybe Bianca escaped over the hills to Ravenna. Maybe she found a little convent somewhere and offered herself to Christ. In any case, I’ve more to do than say the Mass of the Dead for a healthy young girl who lights out on her own.”
Vicente hugged his elbows. “You didn’t go after her.”
“Maybe she went after you,” said Fra Ludovico, scowling at the hickory bark and sanguine berry slopped on the ground. “She was growing up, you know; she couldn’t help it. You can’t fix a child in time.”
“If I find her corpse, or hear word of her death, you will bless her spirit?”
“I bless her spirit daily. I’ll bless yours too, if you take to wandering the woods and fields looking for evidence. And I’ll not say the Mass of the Dead until I know one or the other of you have died.”
Vicente had to smile despite himself—weakly, affectionately. “You’re as superstitious as Primavera, in your own way,” he said.
“Now that’s blasphemy.”
Vicente wandered through the airy chapel and out into the stable yard. The gooseboy was settling his flock behind their brambly hedge, and fixing what passed for a gate with a twist of moldy rope.
“You never know which goose you will lose and which goose you will find,” he was muttering to himself.
“Fidelio,” said Vicente. “Fidelio, is it? Or Paolo? I can’t remember.”
“Michelotto. Everyone seems to want to know today.”
“In your wanderings, lad, have you come across anyone who could tell me the whereabouts of Bianca? Your friend from those years back—you must remember her? With the skin so fair, and the black, black hair—”
The gooseboy twisted his face as if trying to remember. He opened his mouth to speak, but another voice cut through the air first, calling him away from Vicente. Lucrezia Borgia stood at a window, her beautiful hair falling to one side, an ivory comb in her hand. “Michelotto,” she called. “Michelotto, my boy. It’s time to brush my hair. Come and give your poor mother some attention.”
The gooseboy shrugged at Vicente and raised his eyebrows, and went to do as he was told.
Vicente made his way at last to the kitchen. He found Primavera squatting upon a stool in the middle of the floor, sifting through a bowl of lentils. When she came upon an occasional stone, it went skipping out the door into the lettuces.
He didn’t know what he was after, nor could he bear to plague the old nonna with questions when she had no way to answer. But he sat down on a bench along the wall, and she put aside her work and looked at him with eyes gone nearly glassy with milky film. She reached out and held his hands. She squeezed them again and again, as if there was a signal in the pattern of her grasp, but he could read it no better than he could read the comments of clouds scrawled against the sky.