The Borgia Bride by Jeanne Kalogridis Read Free Book Online Page A

fashion. She was a matron of some forty years, dark-haired and complected; age had not erased her beauty. She spoke, revealing the pretty curves made by the bow of her upper lip, the handsome fullness of the lower.
    ‘Sancha,’ she said. It was familiar in the most insulting way, addressing me without my title, speaking without being spoken to first, sitting without permission, without genuflecting. Yet I was flattered; she uttered my name as if it were a caress. She was not speaking to me, but rather releasing my name upon the ether, sensing the emanations it produced. She savoured it, tasted it, her face tilted upwards as if watching the sound dissolve in the air above.
    Then she looked back down at me; under the veil, amber-brown eyes reflected the lamplight. ‘Your Highness,’ she addressed me at last. ‘You have come to know something of your future.’
    ‘Yes,’ I answered eagerly.
    She gave a single, grave nod. From a compartment beneath the table, she produced a deck of cards. She set them on the black silk between us, pressed her palms against them, and prayed softly in a language I did not understand; in a practised gesture, she fanned them out.
    ‘Young Sancha. Choose your fate.’
    I felt exhilaration mixed with fear. I peered down at the cards with trepidation, moved an uncertain hand over them—then touched one with my forefinger and recoiled as though scalded.
    I did not want that card—yet I knew that fate had chosen it for me. I let my hand waver above the spread a few moments more, then yielded, slid the card from the deck and turned it over.
    The sight of it filled me with dread: I wanted to shut my eyes, to blot out the image, yet I could not tear my gaze from it. It was a heart, impaled by two blades, which together made a great silver X.
    The witch regarded the card calmly. ‘The heart pierced by two swords.’
    I began to tremble.
    She picked the card up, gathered the deck and returned it to its hiding place beneath the table. ‘Give me your palm,’ she said. ‘No, the left one; it is closer to your heart.’
    She took my hand between both of hers. Her touch was quite warm, despite the chill, and I began to relax. She hummed to herself, a soft, tuneless melody, her gaze fixed on my palm for some time.
    Abruptly, she straightened, still clasping my palm, and stared directly into my eyes. ‘The majority of men are mostly good, or mostly evil, but you have within you the power of both. You wish to speak to me of insignificant things, of marriage and children. I speak to you now of far greater things.
    ‘For in your hands lie the fates of men and nations. These weapons within you—the good, and the evil—must each be wielded, and at the proper time, for they will change the course of events.’
    As she spoke, I was seized by terrifying images: my father, sitting alone in darkness. I saw old Ferrante, whispering into the shrunken ears of the Angevins in his museum, staring into their sightless eyes…and his face, his form, changed to become mine. I stood on tiptoe, my firm flesh pressed against mummified leather, whispering…
    I thought of the instant I had longed for a sword, that I might cut my own father’s throat. I did not want power. I feared what I might do with it.
    ‘I will never resort to evil!’ I protested.
    Her voice held an edge of hardness. ‘Then you condemn to death those whom you most love.’
    I refused to acknowledge the terrifying statement. Instead I clung to my naive little dream. ‘But what of marriage? Will I be happy with my husband, Onorato?’
    ‘You will never marry your Onorato.’
    When she saw my trembling lip, she added, ‘You will be wed to the son of the most powerful man in Italy.’
    My mind raced. Who, then? Italy had no king; the land was divided into countless factions, and no one man held sway over all the city-states. Venice? Milan? Unrivalled Florence? Alliances between such states and Naples seemed unlikely…
    ‘But will I love him?’ I