A Note- Sorry about the delay but I am about one chapter away from completing another project and it has been taking a lot of my time. You can private message me for details because it is very definitely Borgia inspired. And thanks for the kind reviews. You guys are the best

I was raised in Grosseto, which is close to the sea.

Rain never seemed to fall on the sand colored villa that rested on a small hill which sloped down to a rocky shoreline. The small square building would blaze with pink and gold radiance in the morning and when the sun slipped into the west it would turn the groves into labyrinths of shadow. War did not exist, or disease, or sadness, for my mother and cousins worked together to maintain a wall of protection that insulated me from the turbulence that characterized those years. All that I can remember of my childhood is the sweetness of the figs and the grapes that I plucked, still warm, from my father's vineyards, the smell of the bread when it was removed from the ovens and the strength of my mother's arms when she would clasp me to her after a day spent playing in the fields. And as real as all of these things was the presence of God in my heart.

From my earliest days I could sense Him in the pounding of the surf upon the rocks and the wind as it blew through my hair, whispering secrets about the sanctity of creation and the divine force that animates life. God was present for me in all things and I spoke to him and his angels as though they were the closest acquaintances, the dearest confidants of my heart.

Two events are noteworthy from a childhood that was marked by little more then the profound happiness of the innocent. The first occurred as I approached my seventh year of life. In that place we did not mark the passing of the seasons by a calendar or a glass, but by the rhythms of the earth, which had not changed since ancient times. It was a cycle of planting and harvest, plenty and then the mild chill of the winter. Fish from the sea were bountiful and during the bustle of harvest time the children would be sent into town to retrieve fish that were used in the pots of stew that fed the workers. My eldest cousin led us down to the water near town and in my inattention I became separated and wandered like a small bird among the rocks, examining the pockets of water that had been left by the receding tide. A silvery fish flopped in one of the puddles, close to death as the water that is its life sank into the sand slowly like grains through a glass. I caught the fish in the skirt of my shift, becoming hopelessly wet, and carried it in my arms tenderly as a babe to the water and watched it swim away.

"Why did you do that?" A deep voice asked. The man sitting on the rock stood and pulled back the hood of a gray monk's robe, revealing a harsh face bracketed with the lines of skin that has spent much of its time in the sun.

"God did not want the fish to die." I said, too innocent to realize that my words were dangerous.

"He did not wish a fish to die? Then why was it cast up on the shore?" His voice was a deep baritone which thundered and echoed. The water wherein I stood, deeply aquamarine and warm, teamed with life and it swirled and eddied around my toes, which dug into the wet sand beneath them. Under my foot a small white seashell was revealed by the shifting sand and my curls trailed in the water like golden snakes when I stooped to pick it up.

"So that I could rescue it." I said, and the voice of my cousin Vitello sounded in the distance, calling my name frantically. I placed the newly discovered treasure in the man's hand and he watched me leave with a contemplative expression. In the days that followed the strange man's face haunted my thoughts and I begged my cousin to return with me to the beach.

"Back again, oh savior of fishes?" The friar asked without a glance in my direction. I ignored his question and asked one of my own.

"Who are you looking for?" I climbed up next to him on the rock, a pitted boulder whose rough texture tore at my hands. Profound sadness hung about him, as though he had lost something precious.

The man made a noise in the back of his throat, halfway between a growl and a laugh. "God."

I sat close to him on the boulder that was his perch, ignoring the dropping of birds who had liberally splattered his robe, and told him about God, the comforter, who sent his angels to watch over me and who sang such beautiful melodies in my ear. The friar wept, and his tears fell into the pink center of the scallop shell that rested in his hand. A symbol of baptism, he said through his sobs, and faith renewed through the belief of a child. He returned the shell to me, saying that its purpose had been served.

Two figures were walking towards us on the beach. The slim, elegant form of my mother, clad all in black, and my cousin Vitello, who had a bright red patch like a flag on his cheek. I ran to her, and for all that I was filthy she picked me up and hugged me tightly.

"My dearest one." She murmured, stroking her hand through my sand stiffened curls. "Stay with your cousin for a moment while I speak with your new friend." Her gentle words were at odds with the dark fire in her eyes and I was suddenly afraid. Vitello held my hand tightly while my mother walked to where the friar sat, and there was a new fluidity to her stride, a quiet purpose and coiled strength. The friar must have sensed the danger as well, for his words were rushed.

"Dona, your daughter.." And then he stopped, and looked closely at my mother. Surprised recognition clouded his senses."I have seen your face before. " He looked deeply disturbed.

She stilled. "Where, good friar? I have a common enough face."

The friar laughed but there was no humor in it. "Untrue. I thought you beautiful. And deadly."

"Where, good Friar?" She repeated, and her voice was a sibilant whisper.

"Nepi. I watched as you entered the city with the Borgia whore.. And this girl, she looks...so like her. There were rumors..." My mother had something in her hand and she stood very close to the friar. He looked at where I stood and a horrible change came over his face, fear and revulsion and betrayal. "Borgia." He whispered, and it sounded like a curse. My mother moved like a striking snake and then retreated, and the friar pressed a hand to this neck where a crimson stain bloomed like a rose on his gray robe.

"She has been graced by God, Dona." He whispered as he leaned against the boulder for support in the last glimpse that I had of him. "He will claim her."

I did not know what the Friar meant until I reached my womanly flowering at the age of thirteen. My mother and father, for he had returned after many years away, spoke to me the very evening the blood which is the curse of Eve appeared on my thighs. I learned from them the story of my birth, my true name, and the sad and beautiful love story that they had born witness to. They sat together, my father's arm around my mother's shoulders, lending her his strength as she prepared to let me go. I remember it so clearly, as if the events only happened a year before, not close to seventy years, and all those I loved now dead. My mother, Betta, straight backed and slim as a girl with white beginning to streak through her hair like lightening. And my father, the Borgia assassin Micheletto, with his hair turned to ash and his dark blue eyes full of love and the pain which never left him. I was offered then the choice of determining my own fate, and only time has shown me how precious a gift that truly was, hard won and bought with the blood and sacrifice of the woman who had given me life. There was a dowry in wait that would allow me to marry anyone, and documents that named me the daughter of Duke Valentino. Already my father had received inquires from father's interested in an alliance and I knew that this was the dearest hope of my mother's heart, that I should marry and bear her many grandchildren.

My brother Nico, with his mop of red curls, played at my feet as my parent's waited for me to speak. Life stretched out before me like a magnificent tapestry, full of paths that might be trod, adventures that waited to be savored and experienced. But the course of my life had been set, and I embraced it. The sacrifice of my mother sounded in my ears, and the tragedy of my dead father and the crimes of my family, whose sins I could now atone for with a life of service.

"I shall enter a convent."

"Did it shock you to learn that your parents.." Marietta trailed off, unsure of how to continue.

The nun on the bed laughed. "Did it shock me to learn that my parents were Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia, infamous incestuous lovers and children of the pope who was called the Antichrist? " Sister Maria Lucia's left eyebrow rose until her forehead was a canvas of lines and hollows. The sarcasm was gentle, but evident.

Marietta laughed. Verily, it was a silly question.

"It was a tragedy that they could only ever love one another. Love is a great gift from God, my young sister, but it seldom appears as we would wish it. As I soon discovered to my peril." Sister Maria Lucia handed the white shell to Marietta, who stroked the delicate ridges before she placed it back in the chest. The elderly nun then removed the two finely made daggers, which rested in leather sheaths whose leather was dry and cracked with age. " I had set my heart on the path of the Lord, but my mother and father insisted that I should also learn the way of the blade."