“Your Excellency,” the guard grunted as I was hauled through yet another set of wide doors. “The dwarf you wanted to see.”
“Put him down, Michelotto.”
I was dumped onto another very fine carpet and had to bite back a scream as my legs protested. The guardsman faded back against the wall, and I gave him a cordial nod before turning my attention to the figure slouching behind the desk. “You will pardon me, Your Excellency,” I managed to say politely. “I fear I must remain seated for a moment, or else fall over when I try to rise.”
He looked at me with a thoughtful gaze as I began to rub my knotted thigh muscles. The same boy I remembered from just before my fall into unconsciousness: a lean amused face, auburn hair, a pair of black and penetrating eyes. Up close I could see he was perhaps seventeen, but he lounged back in his carved chair like a man grown—like a man who was master of all before him.
He continued to inspect me, top to toe, like a spavined horse he was nevertheless considering for purchase. “Fascinating,” he said at last. “How in the name of God the Father did someone such as yourself manage to murder one man, wound another, and then chase him halfway across the city?”
“Did you see the men afterward, Your Excellency? The man I killed, and the man I tracked?” No point in denying it; I’d been squarely caught.
“I saw them,” he returned.
“Then surely you know how I did it.”
“I wish you to tell me, which is entirely different.”
My turn to inspect him top to toe. He gazed back as calm as a leopard, not offended at all by my scrutiny. He wore an ornate silver cross over a bishop’s purple robes, but I saw nothing of God about him other than his clothes.
“I killed the first man by a knife through the throat,” I said at last.
“You are not tall enough to reach his throat.”
“I threw the knife.”
“From a distance, in the dark? Impressive.”
“Yes,” I said. It was impressive. Even the guardsman against the wall, a colorless sort of fellow with eyes like wet slate, had pursed his lips in a silent whistle. “The second man I hit in the hip, when he turned and stumbled,” I said. “It slowed him enough that I could pursue him.”
The young Bishop steepled his fingertips. “And what did you mean to do when you caught him?”
“Ask him a few questions. Then cut his throat.”
“Even if he gave you the answers you wished?”
“Yes.”
“What questions did you want answered so badly?”
I remained silent. He grinned, a flash of white teeth in a swarthy face.
“It was about money, or a woman. It always is.”
“A woman,” I said.
“He stole her from you, I suppose.”
“No. She was just a common tavern maid. But three men decided to kill her, including Don Luis and Niccolo the good guardsman, so I decided to kill them.”
“Why?”
Why, indeed? Murder, imprisonment, the gallows: so much trouble for a woman I didn’t even love. It would make a better tale if I had loved her—songs of brokenhearted men and the revenge they wreak for lost love are always popular in taverns. But I hadn’t loved Anna, or she me—in another year, I doubted I’d remember what her face looked like. There were so many faces like hers, overtired and ill-used and quickly forgotten.
“Why?” the young Bishop asked again.
“Because she mattered,” I said. “Tell me, what has happened to the guardsman? Niccolo.”
“The wound in his hip was very deep. It suppurated, despite the surgeon’s best efforts. He is raving now, and sinking fast. Did you poison the blade?”
“No.” Sometimes even a dwarf could simply come up lucky. I smiled.
“So, you bagged two of three killers.” The Bishop noted my smile. “Is that worth your current imprisonment?”
“Had I managed to kill all three, yes.” I saw no point in lying to him. My end on the gallows would come regardless of whether I groveled or swaggered, whether I spat rude words or fawned at his feet. I managed to rise, wincing as my tingling legs protested, and rubbed my chafed wrists together inside their rope.
The Bishop continued to watch me thoughtfully. “These men weren’t your first,” he said at last. “You’re accustomed to killing. I know the look.”
“From your own mirror, Your Excellency?”
He laughed. “You have a viper’s tongue. I’m surprised no one’s cut it out before now.”
“I’m surprised myself.”
“How many have you killed?”
“Four or five.”
“For money? Or on behalf of some other tavern maid?”
“For protection. Men who sought to rob me and thought they could kick a dwarf about in safety.”
“Most men think that. You killed them for it?”
“Men of normal size don’t have to kill when they are attacked by drunks or thieves.” I felt very numb but oddly pleased at how conversationally my words were coming out. “They use their fists; they make a few lunges with a dagger; they kick and wrestle. That can make an attacker think twice and maybe retreat with a few bruises.” I gestured down at myself. “I can put a knife through a man’s eye at a distance, but once he closes the gap I am helpless. I cannot hit him, punch him, wrestle him, bruise him, or in any way stop him from doing what he wishes. A man moves to attack me, and I must make the decision to kill him at once or let him do whatever he likes to me.”
“You could wound rather than kill.”
“Ineffective,” I said. “Wound a man, and he’ll be so angered at being bested by a dwarf that he’ll report the attack, either to the constables or to his friends. I have a distinctive appearance. I’m not likely to remain unfound if someone unfriendly is looking for me.”
The young Bishop regarded me another moment. “If you still had your freedom, little man, what would you do? What is it you most wish for?”
Books, I thought. To be tall. To matter. “I’ll settle for the woman’s third killer,” I said.
“To put a knife through his throat, as you did with poor Don Luis?” The Bishop leaned forward between two elaborate branches of beeswax tapers, taking a dagger from his belt and laying it down on the desk with its hilt toward me. “Perhaps you would favor me with a demonstration.”
“No,” I said.
“I don’t like being refused.” His tone was mild, but his brows met over the bridge of an eagle nose.
“And I don’t like demonstrating my skills with an inferior blade.”
“It’s Toledo steel.”
“It’s a dagger. Fine for a street fight, but not for throwing.” I was starting to feel lightheaded. Hunger, fear, or danger? I wasn’t sure. “Give me my own knives.”
He looked at me for another moment, then tilted his head at the expressionless guard still standing before the wall. The man fished in his doublet and handed over my set of slim finger knives. “These?”
“Those.” Only two of the four, but I suppose two had been lost in the nighttime chase. I held up my bound hands. “Well?”
“You are a rude little man.” But the young Bishop nodded, and his guard cut my hands free. I took my time flexing my fingers, working the blood back into my tingling palms and massaging my aching wrist where the colorless guardsman had struck me with the pikestaff. The Bishop looked impatient.
“I’m a busy man,” he began.
“And I’m a dead one,” I told him. “Of the two of us, I think my time is the more valuable.” With that I picked up the first of my knives and whipped it past his ear close enough to stir his auburn hair. It bedded itself in the tapestry behind him with a soft thrum.
He never moved. I sent the second knife whizzing after the first, burying it deep in the wall. He turned to look and saw that I’d thrown them so close together that he couldn’t have passed a sheet of vellum between the two blades.
“Impressive,” he said. “Where did you learn yo
ur skills?”
“As a child, from a mountebank’s show,” I said. “They wanted me to tumble and juggle. I joined the knife-throwing act instead.”
“More dangerous than juggling.”
“But less humiliating.”
He picked up something from his inlaid desk, and I saw my weathered volume of Cicero. “Unusual for a man of letters to work a mountebank’s show. You read Latin?”
“Poorly.”
“You did not pick up that from a knife-throwing act.”
“No, from school. My father wanted more for me than a mountebank’s show; he thought book learning might get me a post someday as a secretary or a tutor. Pity he was wrong. Why all the questions, Your Excellency? No matter where I learned my skills, flight is not among them, and so I am still bound for the gallows.”
“Maybe not.” He rose and began tugging the knives free from the wall, and my pulse leaped in sudden violent hope. “Do you know who I am, little man?”
“No.”
“I am Cesare Borgia, Bishop of Pamplona. My father is Rodrigo, Cardinal Borgia.”
“Father?” I raised my eyebrows. “Isn’t it traditional to pretend he’s your uncle?”
“I never pretend anything,” said Cesare Borgia. “And my father will be Pope after Innocent dies, and can do what he likes.”
“Last I heard, he was running a distant third in the pools.” If the young Bishop wished to banter, by all means, let us banter. For a chance at life, I’d talk papal gossip till the sun rose. “Behind Cardinal Sforza and Cardinal della Rovere, I believe.”
“My father has already bribed Sforza,” the young Bishop said. “Four mules loaded with silver.”
“Christendom comes cheaper than I thought.”
“Fortunately for my father. I’ve come from Pisa to aid His Eminence in angling for the votes he needs while he attends the Pope’s deathbed. He had time today, before returning to the papal chamber, to give me a few instructions. He wants me to hire someone.”
I laughed. “Surely not me!”
“I am to use my discretion. My father has enemies. They will not be able to reach him once the Conclave begins, but they might try to reach his family instead. My brother Juan and I can look after ourselves, but we have another brother not eleven years old.” His face softened briefly. “And a sister.”
“Dio,” I said, “His Eminence your father has been busy.”
“My family is vulnerable. We have guards, but visitors ushered past guards can turn out to be assassins in disguise. My father wishes a bodyguard who will stay close to the family, as a last defense. Someone easily overlooked.”
“You might want to choose a taller man than me.”
“I would,” Cesare Borgia said coolly. Outside the leaded windows, I heard the distant pealing of a bell. “But my father also wants his mistress protected. He’s making a fool of himself over a girl of eighteen, and he doesn’t want a strapping young guardsman trailing her footsteps day and night. A stunted little man like you will suit him far better where she is concerned. And your skill with knives”—tossing my blades to the desk with a clatter—“will suit me very well. No one who comes looking for my sister or my father’s mistress will look twice at you, not as anything more than the jester who makes Lucrezia laugh or the attendant who carries Giulia Farnese’s train. They’ll think it until the moment they have a blade in their throat.”
“Well, well.” I found my mouth suddenly dry. The tolling of bells was louder now, as though another bell tower had joined in. “This task you offer me—will it save me from the gallows?”
“If you perform it satisfactorily. There may even be lasting employment for you, past the election of the new Pope. I have no objection to hiring murderers, and neither does His Eminence my father.” Cesare Borgia scooped my knives up in one hand, careful of the sharp edges. “Useful souls.”
“We are.” The nicely calculated set of odds I’d constructed around the likelihood of my death went tumbling down. Outside, the clamor of bells had risen to a storm, but nothing could match the storm of emotion raging inside me. Who knew hope could be such a violent thing when it surged in the chest like this? “Oh, we are.”
“What is your name, little man? You would not tell my guards. Even Michelotto, and he has a frightening way about him.”
“I am Leonello, and no one frightens me. What in the name of God are those bells pealing for?”
“Those?” Casually, Cesare Borgia crossed the room and flung open the leaded windows. The mad cacophony rushed in, assailing my ears. Surely every bell in Rome was ringing. “I imagine the Pope is dead, God be praised. Which means my father has a funeral to attend, and I have a Conclave to bribe.” Turning to face me in a swirl of purple cassock, he proffered my knives back to me in a hilt-first steel nosegay. “What do you say to my offer, Leonello?”
“I have a condition.”
His brows drew together. “You are hardly in a position to name conditions.”
“This house you speak of, for your sister and the mistress,” I said, ignoring him. “Does it have a library? And can I use it?”
He laughed. “Yes. And yes.”
“Then, Your Excellency”—I gave my most elaborate courtier’s bow, taking my knives back from his hands—“I am your man.”
CHAPTER SIX
Habemus Papam.
—OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT UPON THE ELECTION OF A NEW POPE
Carmelina
Roast peacock,” Marco told me dreamily. “With a flaming beak and a gilded breast. And a sugar subtlety for a sweet afterward, molded in the shape of a bull—the Borgia bull, you understand?—dyed red . . .”
“No, no, and no,” I said firmly. “Cardinal Borgia doesn’t care for elaborate meals at the best of times, and this is hardly the best of times. You’re cooking for a Conclave, not a wedding!”
But Marco was full of dreams, not listening to me at all. Cardinal Borgia, in the insane rush of preparing for Pope Innocent’s massive funeral and the papal Conclave to follow, had suddenly found himself in need of a cook to provide his meals during the protracted voting. And having far too much caution to hire a strange cook when his own grew ill, he had asked his cousin Madonna Adriana if he could borrow her cook: Maestro Marco Santini.
“Think of it!” Marco was striding up and down the kitchens, waving his arms. “Cooking for the College of Cardinals!”
“Just one cardinal. Everyone else in the College will rely on his own cook too, to guard against poison.” Except for those cardinals who announced their faith in God, prayer, and the integrity of his fellow churchmen, and trustingly ate the food that came from the papal kitchens. In other words, those cardinals who had no chance of being elected Pope and were thus in no danger of being poisoned by anybody.
“—dining with Cardinal Borgia after the votes are cast every evening, everyone admiring my roast peacock—”
“All of them far too busy scheming and dealing to pay any attention to your roast peacock.”
“—noticing how delicious my hot sops are—”
“I wouldn’t count on your sops being very hot, considering they’ll have to be passed through who knows how many sets of gates and servants and tasters. Cold meats, Marco, chilled salads, and sauces that won’t form a skin when they cool!”
“And afterward if just one remembers my name and the food I served . . .” Marco’s eyes glowed as he punched a big fist into his other palm. He could see it now, I knew: cook not only to a cardinal’s cousin but to a cardinal himself. Maybe even the future Pope, whoever that would be. The Conclave, locked together for a day or a week or a month or however long it took to form a majority, would decide. I put my chin on my hand, looking at my cousin ruefully.
“Stuffed croquettes with sturgeon.” Marco snapped his fingers. “Carmelina, the recipe, let me see it. Is it mint, sweet marjoram, and burnet in the filling?”
“I like to add a little wild thyme too.” I flipped to the folded page in my father’s collection, d
eciphering the coded lines (page 227, Chapter: Pastry). “And be sure to roll them up like wafer cornets, see here . . . Sturgeon croquettes, though, far too rich. I’d just serve a good roast fowl.”
Marco was dreaming far too large to hear me, though, and I couldn’t help but catch his enthusiasm as we spent the night poring over my father’s recipes and packing the requisite dishes, supplies, spices, and utensils he’d be able to take along in Cardinal Borgia’s entourage. The Conclave would not convene for another ten days at least, not until after the mourning period for Pope Innocent was traditionally concluded, but Marco was to join Cardinal Borgia’s household now. “You’ll look after the kitchens for me here, won’t you?” Marco asked me as an afterthought. “Keep the apprentices in order? It will just be Madonna Adriana, Madonna Giulia, and the children to cook for . . .”
“I think I can feed four in your absence.”
“That you can.” Marco laughed. “Good thing you’re not a man, little cousin, or I’d be worried you’d steal my place here.”
“If I were a man, I would,” I told him. I could tease him now without seeing resentment flare in his eyes. Marco might not have liked the way I’d thrust myself into his life, but in the end he was far too good-natured to hold a grudge for long. “You really should go now, Marco. Cardinal Borgia has the funeral rites to get through before he even starts thinking about the Conclave, and he’ll want a hot meal tonight.”
Marco rose, stretching. “Remember,” he said, taking my face between his hands and giving it a playful shake for emphasis. “Count all the spices twice or Madonna Adriana will dock your pay.”
“I don’t get paid.”
“She’ll dock mine, then.” He stood, still holding my face between his hands. “You know, Carmelina, I’m glad you’re not a man. I like you better this way. I should have paid more attention to you when you were running about underfoot in your father’s kitchens. Skinny little thing you were.”
“Still am,” I pointed out. “My sister used to say I looked like a basting needle.”