The Serpent and the Pearl (A Novel of the Borgias) by Kate Quinn Page B

before me. The hand of Madonna Adriana’s august cousin the Cardinal, who had so generously hosted my wedding feast. What was his name? I’d been introduced to him half a dozen times, but all cardinals looked alike to me: just a flock of unctuous scarlet bats.
    “Your Eminence,” I managed, and sank into a curtsy on the marble step.
    “No, no.” He raised me up. “Age must bow before beauty, and I see here a man thoroughly old and a girl thoroughly beautiful.”
    He made a graceful bow, more suited to a man in doublet and hose than one in clerical robes. When he straightened I saw he was taller than I, even though I stood two steps above him. To match that majestic height he was built like the bull on the emblem above his door, a bull with an eagle’s nose and dark eyes that gleamed with some inward amusement. His words had a Spanish burr.
    “Come,” he said again, and drew me down into the mossy space of garden. “I suppose you wonder why Madonna Adriana sent you to me?”
    “To thank you for hosting my wedding feast,” I hazarded. He was leading me on a deliberate promenade, through banks of May-blooming flowers and marble statues in niches twined with vines. A fountain splashed in the garden’s center, a stone nymph pirouetting through the splash of water. “It was a beautiful banquet, Your Eminence,” I said truthfully enough. It was only what came after that had been so utterly unsatisfactory. Orsino and I should have been parading around this fountain right now, laughing a little, and I would have plucked one of the spicy gillyflowers growing from that marble urn and tucked it behind his ear, and if he’d had a drop of gallantry in his soul he’d have kissed it and given it back to me . . .
    “I am glad you enjoyed yourself.” The Cardinal’s voice was deep, sonorous, made to reverberate around dimly lit cathedral vaults. No wonder he had gone into the Church. “I confess I had another motive for hosting your wedding banquet.”
    “Do you know why my husband is gone so suddenly?” I couldn’t help asking.
    “To that I also confess.”
    “What?” I stopped, hand still resting on his. “
You
sent him away?”
    “I did,” the Cardinal said frankly.
    I opened my mouth to say—well, Holy Virgin knew what. But—
    “Is this her?” a boy’s voice said behind me. I turned to see a tall auburn-haired youth only a year or two younger than me, his loose shirt and hose wrinkled as if he’d slept in them. One of my younger guests last night, I vaguely remembered, though I hadn’t been paying attention to callow boys now that I had a husband of my own.
    “Juan,” the Cardinal said mildly. “Go away.”
    “What? I just wanted to see the new concubine.” Juan looked me up and down with a leer fit for a lecher of fifty. “You can come whore for me if you don’t want His Eminence my father,” he told me with another smirk.
    “Juan,” the Cardinal said much less mildly, and the boy straightened.
    “Just wanted a look! I could have a concubine too, you know. I’m old enough!”
    “You are sixteen, and a nuisance. Leave us.” The Cardinal turned back to me, nonchalant, as the boy mumbled something that might have been an apology and beat a hasty retreat. “I hope you will pardon my son,
madonna
. He is young, and inclined to be rude in the face of beauty. A form of awe you must be well acquainted with.”
    I barely heard him—the bottom had just dropped out of my stomach. “Forgive my slowness, Eminence,” I said at last. “I’m just a stupid girl, so I didn’t realize—you sent my husband away so you could have me yourself.”
    “Yes,” the Cardinal said cheerfully.
    The bottom fell out of my stomach, and a great tremble went through me. Astonishment, disbelief—but mostly rage, and without stopping to think, I slapped him. A good hard slap, too—I could snap a man’s head around like a whip with one of those.
    The Cardinal was rocked clear back onto his heels. He looked at