The Borgia Bride. Jeanne Kalogridis

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       Prologue

      The canterella, it is called: a poison powder so deadly a mere sprinkling of it can kill a man, strike him down in a matter of days. The effects are ghastly. One’s head aches as if in a vice; the vision blurs; the body quakes with fever. The bowels release a bloody flux, and the gut clamps tight in an agony that makes the victim howl.

      Rumour says only the Borgias know its secret: how to compound it, store it, administer it so as to hide the taste. Rodrigo Borgia—or shall I say, His Holiness Alexander VI—learned the secret from his favourite mistress, the fiery-haired Vannozza Cattanei, when he was still a cardinal. Rodrigo’s elder brother, Pedro Luis, would undoubtedly have been elected pope…were it not for subtle and well-timed administration of the canterella.

      Being generous parents, Rodrigo and Vannozza shared the recipe with their offspring—at the very least with their sweet-faced daughter, Lucrezia. Who better to lull the wary into carelessness than she with the demure smile and the soft voice? Who better to murder and betray than she who is hailed as Rome’s greatest innocent?

      The ‘Borgia fever’ has decimated Rome like the plague, thinning the ranks of prelates until every cardinal with land and a bit of wealth lives in terror. After all, when a cardinal dies, his riches go at once to the Church.

      And it takes a great deal of wealth to fund a war. A great deal of wealth to amass an army large enough to capture every city-state in all of Italy, and declare oneself leader not only of things spiritual, but of things secular. This pope and his bastard son, Cesare, want more than Heaven; they will have Earth, as well.

      In the meantime, I sit in the Castel Sant’ Angelo with the other women. From my chamber window, I can see the Vatican nearby, the papal apartments, and the Palazzo Santa Maria where I once lived with my husband. I am allowed to roam the grounds and am accorded courtesy, but there is no more status, and I am under guard, a prisoner. I curse the day I first heard the name Borgia; I pray for the day when I hear the bells toll for the old man’s death.

      But there is freedom to be had. At this very moment, I hold the vial up to the bright Roman sun that streams into my generously-appointed apartment. The container is Venetian glass, emerald-coloured, shining like a gem: the powder inside is drab bluish-grey, opaque.

      Canterella, I whisper. Beautiful, beautiful canterella, rescue me…