Poison: A Novel of the Renaissance by Sara Poole Page A

to issue an edict calling for the expulsion of all Jews from Christendom, or, failing that, their deaths.”
    I had not expected him to be surprised and I was not disappointed. Borgia merely nodded and went on. “Anything more?”
    “That was all.” I had to account somehow for the time I had spent alone with Sofia, so I added, “As you may imagine, she went on and on about it.”
    “And said nothing about what your father was doing? About his work?”
    “I am sorry, Eminence, but she knows nothing about my father’s activities. That was very clear.” It was a lie, of course. Sofia knew what my father was seeking. She was an intelligent woman. It would not have been difficult for her to reach the same conclusion that I had. But if I told the Cardinal as much, he would see her for the danger she was, a means of implicating him in the planned murder of a pope. Sofia could be made to disappear with the greatest ease.
    Borgia looked . . . how? Frustrated to be sure, but also in some measure relieved, believing his secrets were still safe.
    Before he could resume, I jumped in. “Eminence, I am puzzledas to how my father learned of the edict.” For certain, no one in the Pope’s confidence would have discussed such a matter with the poisoner serving the great rival for Innocent’s crown.
    I give the Cardinal credit, he did not hesitate. “I told him.”
    “May I ask why?”
    Borgia reclined in a large armchair, stretched out his legs, and regarded me almost benignly. I say almost because nothing involving the Cardinal was ever truly benign.
    “Why do you think I did?” he asked.
    He was playing me, of course, but there was more to it than that. Despite having lived in his household for ten years, I was still something of a stranger to him, at least in my newest incarnation as his poisoner. He would want to test my mettle.
    Slowly, I said, “I think you knew of my father’s friendship with Sofia Montefiore.” Which was certainly more than I had done. “You judged that he would care about the fate of the Jews and would warn them about the edict.”
    “Why would I want them to be warned?”
    Why indeed? Borgia had no love for the Jews. Why would he care if they lived or died?
    The answer came to me in an instant, and when it did, I wondered that I had not seen it sooner, it was that obvious. To survive, much less prosper in the world we know, power is essential. Hadn’t I gone to the greatest lengths to secure what I could of it in order to avenge my father? How much further would one such as Rodrigo Borgia go?
    “The Jews are not without wealth,” I said. The conditions in the ghetto were not the inevitable result of poverty. They came rather from the strict limits placed on where and how the Jews could live and work. Left to their own devices, they were more than able to earn their way.
    Ultimate power, of the kind Borgia sought, required money. A great deal of money.
    “You offered them your protection.” I could not begin to imagine what amount of wealth would have to change hands for the Cardinal to extend his benevolence over so despised a people, but I was certain it would have to be immense.
    “
If
I am pope,” he said. “If I am not, there is nothing I can do for them. With the proper financing, I can buy the papacy.”
    “Once the Pope is dead.” I felt that I had to remind him of this small condition that must be met first.
    Il Cardinale smiled, as though at a student he had feared might be slow but who instead was proving to be apt. “Yes, Francesca, once Innocent is dead.”
    My palms were damp and I was certain that my voice would betray my state. I took a breath, willing myself to steadiness. “It would have been one thing for my father to warn the Jews about the edict. But the death of a pope—”
    Borgia took a sip of his wine and smiled. Without any change in his expression, nothing to warn me, he said, “Your father was
converso
. Did you not know that?”
    I stared at him