Betta threw a flirtatious smile over her shoulder as she ducked under the great gate that surrounded the royal palace of Naples. The guard that was posted at the gate was a handsome youth near Betta's age named Bernardino. When she had learned that the young man who gazed at her with naked admiration when he saw her on the grounds was often set to guard at night she began to encourage his affections. He was pitifully eager to please her and in return for a few fumbling caresses and a kiss she had ensured that she and her mistress could leave the palace whenever they needed. In truth Betta wished that she could respond to him, but that part of her seemed dead or never to have existed at all.

"That boy fancies you." Lady Lucrezia told her as they wound their way through the dark streets of the city.

Betta rolled her eyes. "Yes my lady, I know it."

"Is he your lover then? He is not unattractive." Lucrezia had surveyed the young man with his bright auburn hair and blue eyes with an appreciative smile. She cocked her eyebrow at the maid.

Betta shuddered involuntarily as she replied. "No my lady, I take no lovers."

Lucrezia was genuinely surprised. "Do you not like men?" Lucrezia seemed to be in a lighthearted mood, as though finding something to engage her mind had dispelled the lingering cloud of depression that hung over her head. Although her tone and interest seemed to invite familiarity Betta stayed carefully respectful.

"Taking a man as a lover gives them power over you. I will never be under the control of a man again."

Lucrezia laughed bitterly. "How well I know it. And yet love…" she lapsed into silence, and Betta knew that she was thinking of her own life and the perils that were inherent with trusting your heart to another.

"Can be dangerous." Betta smiled at her mistress and motioned her to follow more closely as they left the perimeter of the city and walked to the place where Mother Nucca lived in the deepest part of the forest that bordered the eastern wall.

The cottage that the boy had led her to earlier in the day seemed to be held up by the ancient oak tree that formed one of the corners. The thatched roof was in a terrible state of repair and there were a multitude of birds that seemed to be making their nests among the straw. Two goats were penned in a wattle enclosure near the house and the garden, where all manner of plants grew, was expansive and seemed more than the elderly woman could care for on her own. Someone else comes here, Betta thought.

Mother Nucca was a tiny woman, bent over with age, whose face hung in loose folds around her mouth and eyes. She had a mantle knotted under her chin that threw part of her face into shadow and she smelled of dirt and sweat, as did almost all the inhabitants of this wretched city. Betta also detected the scents of rosemary and sage and other herbs that Betta could not put a name to. If there were any teeth left in the old woman's mouth they were not in evidence as she spoke to Lady Lucrezia in a voice that chewed the words.

"Girl here says you seek to learn from me. Dangerous thing, learning. Can get your feet warmed a little more than you'd like."

Lucrezia Borgia smiled. "I have a powerful family."

"So I understand." Mother surveyed Lady Lucrezia with eyes that were dark and piercing despite their age. "I am no witch, no matter what the people in that stinking town say. I will teach you what I know of healing and herbs but no more. I have no truck with the devil."

"But there are those that do?" Lucrezia inquired.

"None that I would speak of. Best you come inside." Betta ducked her head as she entered the humble cottage, which had plants hanging upside down from every available space. A fire blazed in the hearth despite the relative heat of the night and from a kettle Betta could smell the slightly sour aroma of milk being made into cheese.

Girl," she told Betta, "best you wait outside. Unless you have a powerful family as well."

Betta turned her eyes towards her mistress, who nodded in agreement. Betta slipped out the door with a sigh of relief, glad to be free of air that was cloying with the heat of the fire and the scent of so many plants. Through the doorway Betta could hear the old woman beginning to explain some of the properties of the herbs that she brought down from their place drying on the rafters. She spoke of rosemary, which had a multitude of beneficial uses, and mandrake, which could render someone unconscious, and henbane, which could relieve pain as well as end it permanently. "And this one, wild carrot. Grows everywhere. Take the seeds regularly and it will stop you from quickening with child."

"This one I know." Lady Lucrezia said. "Belladonna. Some women use it in their eyes."

"Fools." The woman spat. "It's poison. There are quicker ways to end your life. Now this one, cowbane, makes a man's cock about as useful as a rope."

Betta walked away from the cottage and the woman's words, which seemed to be putting a spell on the dark night. She gathered some wild grasses that grew along the path and fed them to the goats that looked at her with gold eyes but seemed friendly enough. There was a noise under one of the trees across the clearing and Betta's hand went to the small dagger that Micheletto had strapped to her forearm under her billowing sleeve before they had left the palace. She whirled and saw Micheletto watching her from the darkness and Betta knew that he had only allowed her to see him because he wished it. They shared a nod before he disappeared back under the tree.

The skies were fully dark and a multitude of stars lit the night before Lady Lucrezia emerged from the tiny cottage clutching a pouch that she cradled protectively like a child. The lantern that she held provided a small pool of light that wrapped around them, seeming to insulate them from dangers. Betta waited when her mistress stopped to gather something that grew under one of the trees and she saw Micheletto emerge from the shadows and speak to the Lady with words that were too faint for her to make sense of. The man then escorted them back to the palace, and when Lady Lucrezia was brought safely back to her rooms Micheletto favored her with a rare smile that was almost hidden in the depths of his coppery beard. The next day Betta sought him out while Lady Lucrezia was napping and he showed her how to sharpen her knife. The kinship that developed between them in the days that followed, built on the need to protect a single woman, brought with it unexpected benefits. The assassin began to instruct her when he had a free moment, showing her places that she could strike with a hand that would make a man's arm go numb and how to find the soft spots on a body with the knife that she kept wickedly sharp. And he showed her how to move silently through the dark, finding the deepest shadows to dwell in. He would be leaving soon, they both knew, to rejoin his master and fight in the battles that would surely come and he would not leave the lady undefended.

The days seemed to fly by as her mistress visited the old woman once or twice a fortnight and Betta continued her daily journeys into the town to distribute food. One of the women who begged near the great gate of the city sought Betta out regularly and whispered into her ear about envoys from the great families who entered into the city but where not greeted officially. Betta made sure that she saved loaves of the freshest bread for her. The children had become a network of little informants and nothing seemed to happen in the city that they did not see and report back to her, eager for the sweets she saved for them. She fretted that the little ones would endanger themselves in their eagerness to please her and she cautioned them to never do anything that could bring them to the attention of the city watch. Betta knew that if they had been in Rome her actions would already have been reported but the city was still so empty and reeling from twin assaults of plague and the French invasion that no one seemed to notice the secrets she gathered and reported back to her mistress, who saved the information for later use.

"The king has how many bastard children?" Lucrezia asked, outraged.

"More than a dozen scattered throughout the city. He seems to prefer dark haired women with tits like cows. No wonder he has not had time to get his wife with child." The king's new bride was a tender slip of a girl who had only just entered womanhood

"And he will not let me have my son?" Lucrezia harrumphed in displeasure.

"And the archbishop here is considered a saintly man because he keeps no ladies as his mistress but the young boys who attend him are always exceptionally pretty and well cared for." Betta waggled her eyebrows suggestively.

"That is absolutely disgusting. Those poor boys."

"Most consider it a fair trade for a warm bed and a full belly. Or so I have been told. And they at least fair better than the girls who get sold to the brothels."

Betta was near the well when the great bells of the city began to ring, and as she hurried back to the palace she saw a mangled body being carried on a litter. The king, it appeared, had died in a most horrible manner, and although the servants whispered that someone must have had a hand in it no one seemed overly concerned. Betta, seeing the smile on the face of her mistress when she greeted the assassin after the king's death, made her own conclusions as to his fate and rejoiced that the baby would soon be joining them in Naples.