A thunder of noise and people crashed through the double doors of the anteroom. A flood of pages and guards and stewards and churchmen suddenly filled the palazzo, all jabbering and gesticulating at once. A pair of handsome young men, both proud and auburn-haired, one in a bishop’s gown and the other in a soldier’s half-armor, stood flanking an imposing broad-shouldered figure in sweeping layers of gold-embroidered white.

Cesare Borgia lifted his hand as Juan grinned, and tossed a flutter of handwritten paper scraps into the air. They had drifted down from the window into the crowd when the Holy Father gave his first blessing:

“We have for Pope, Alexander VI, Rodrigo Borgia of Valencia.”

“I am Pope!” my former Cardinal shouted, his deep voice a bull’s roar of triumph. “I am POPE!”

He started forward with that swift stride of his, embroidered cope fluttering behind him like a conqueror’s banner. Servants, churchmen, relatives, children all converged, but he bulled through them and came to me. I sent my little goat slithering to the floor and rose, mouth dry.

“I am Pope,” he repeated, and grabbed me up in such an exuberant embrace that my feet left the floor and flew out of my slippers. He laughed, a sound like warm bubbling wine, and I laughed with him, lowering my head to kiss him before God and congregation and hangers-on and all. I heard whispers begin to ripple around the anteroom, but why should I care for that? Rodrigo didn’t care, and his opinion was now the only one that mattered.

I pressed my lips against my lover’s ear in the middle of all the tumult. “Your Holiness,” I whispered, and bent my head to kiss his ring.

Part Two

PART TWO

June 1493–November 1494

Chapter Seven

CHAPTER SEVEN

The dishes should be tasty and pleasant to the palate, as well as delightful to the eye.

—BARTOLOMEO SCAPPI, MASTER COOK

Carmelina

Signorina Carmelina!” The assistant steward’s voice bored into my ears, high-pitched and aggrieved. I didn’t answer. I was making a tourte of caravella pears, which I normally could have made in my sleep, but this time I was making a miniature version hardly bigger than my thumb, and it required very close concentration. I’d already grated the pears and cooked them slowly in butter . . . added the almond paste, the candied citron . . .

“Signorina?”

A spoon of filling, just a spoon into a shell of very thin pastry . . . I rubbed my hands briskly up and down my apron. Pastry required steady hands, and I’d need very tiny strips like shutters to seal the tourte up. Then glaze the top with sugar and rosewater . . .

“Signorina!” An insistent finger poked my arm just as I was arranging the last little louvered flap of pastry. The little tourte fell apart in my hand, and I seized a wooden ladle from the nearest bowl and swung it in a short arc as I whirled.