Madonna of the Seven Hills (14 page)

Later the Pope gave a dinner-party in the pontifical hall and, when the company had feasted, the dancing began.

The bride sat beside her husband, who glowered at the dancers; he disliked such entertainments and was longing for this one to end. Not so Lucrezia; she longed for her husband to take her hand and lead her in the dance.

She glanced sideways at him. He seemed very old, she thought, very stern. “Do you not like to dance?” she asked him.

“I do not like to dance,” he answered.

“But does not the music inspire you to do so?”

“Nothing inspires me to do so.”

Her feet were tapping, and her father was watching her; his face was a little flushed with so much feasting and merry-making, and she knew
that he understood how she was feeling. She saw him glance at her brother Giovanni, who had interpreted the glance. In a moment he was beside her.

“Brother,” he said, “since you do not partner my sister in the dance, I will do so.”

Lucrezia looked at her husband, thinking that perhaps now she would have to ask his permission; she was a little apprehensive, knowing that neither of her brothers would allow any to stand in the way of what they wanted to do.

She need not have worried. Giovanni Sforza was quite indifferent as to whether his wife danced or stayed at his side.

“Come,” said the Duke of Gandia. “A bride should dance at her wedding.”

So he led her into the very center of the dancers and holding her hand, he said: “Oh, my sister, you are the fairest lady of the ball, which is as it should be.”

“I verily believe, dear brother,” she said, “that you are the handsomest of the men.”

The Duke bowed his head and his eyes gleamed at her, amused and passionate as they had been in the nursery days.

“Cesare would be beside himself with envy if he saw us dance together.”

“Giovanni,” she said quickly, “you should not provoke him.”

“ ’Tis one of the joys of my life,” he murmured, “provoking Cesare.”

“Why so, Giovanni?”

“Someone must provoke him, and everyone else, except our father, would seem to be afraid to.”

“Giovanni, you are not afraid of anything.”

“Not I,” said Giovanni. “I would not be afraid of your bridegroom if he, being jealous to see his bride look so lovingly at me, should challenge me to a duel.”

“He will make no such challenge. I fancy he is glad to be rid of me.”

“By the saints, then perhaps I should run him through for his neglect of my lovely sister. Oh, Lucrezia, how happy I am to be with you once more! Have you forgotten the days in our mother’s house … the quarrels, the dances? Ah, those Spanish dances. Do you remember them?”

“I do, Giovanni.”

“And do you not think them more inspiring, more full of meaning than these of Italy?”

“Yes, Giovanni.”

“Then we will dance them, you and I.…”

“Giovanni, dare we?”

“We Borgias dare anything, sister.” He drew her to him and there was light in his eyes which reminded her of Cesare’s. “Do not forget,” he went on, “that though you have married a Sforza, you are a Borgia … always a Borgia.”

“No,” she answered, and she was breathless with sudden excitement. “I shall never forget it.”

One by one the other dancers fell away from them, so that after a while there was none dancing but the Duke of Gandia and his sister. The dances were those of Spain—throbbing with passion, the sort of dances which a bride and bridegroom might have performed together, portraying love, desire, fulfillment.

Lucrezia’s long hair escaped from its net in the abandonment of the dance; and there were many who whispered: “How strange that the sister and brother should dance thus while the bridegroom looks on!”

The Pope watched with benign affection. These were his best-loved children, and it did not seem strange to him to see them dance thus: Lucrezia expectant, on the brink of womanhood, and Giovanni with the light of a demon in his eyes, and a malicious glance over his shoulder for the dull bridegroom—and for another perhaps, another who wished he was present to watch this almost ritual dance with their sister.

Giovanni Sforza yawned in his indifference. Yet he was less indifferent than he seemed. Not that he had any deep feelings for the golden-haired child who was his wife; but it had occurred to him that the Borgias were a strange family, alien to Rome; their Spanish blood made them that; and he felt faintly uneasy sitting there, and although he was in a semistupor through too much food and wine, too much heat, too many celebrations, he was conscious of a warning voice within him: “Beware of these Borgias. They are a strange, unnatural people. One must be prepared for them to do anything … however startling, however strange. Beware.… Beware of the Borgias!”

LUCREZIA MARRIED

T
hose weeks which followed her wedding were
full of pleasure for Lucrezia. She saw little of her husband, and her brothers were constantly with her. The old rivalry was revived and, although Lucrezia was aware that there was now an even more dangerous element in this than there had been in nursery days, she could not help being stimulated by it.

It was an unusual situation; the bride and bridegroom indifferent to each other, while the bride’s brothers strutted before her, as though they were trying to woo her, each trying to persuade her that he was a better man than the other.

The brothers invaded Lucrezia’s apartments day and night; each planned spectacles in which he played the leading part and Lucrezia that of honored guest.

Adriana protested, but Giovanni ignored her, and Cesare’s eyes blazed with anger. “The insolence of the woman is beyond endurance!” he cried, and there was a threat in his words.

Giulia remonstrated with Lucrezia.

“This is a strange mode of behavior,” she declared. “Your brothers attend you as though you were something more than a sister.”

“You do not understand,” Lucrezia explained. “We were together in the nursery.”

“Brothers and sisters often are.”

“Our childhood was different. We sensed the mystery which surrounded us. We lived in our mother’s house, but we did not then know who our father was. We loved each other … we were necessary to each other, and then we were parted for so long. That is why we love more than most families.”

“I would rather see you take a lover.”

Lucrezia smiled gently; she was too good-hearted to tell Giulia that she understood the reason for her concern; the Pope still doted on her and she remained his favorite mistress, but all lovers of members of the Borgia family must be jealous of that family’s feelings for its own members. Giulia was thinking that, now Cesare and Giovanni were in Rome, the love their father bore them and his daughter far exceeded that which he had for herself, and she was frankly jealous.

Lucrezia was fond of Giulia; she understood her feelings; but the bond between herself and her brothers could not be broken by anyone.

Meanwhile the weeks passed. She would go to the Campo di Fiore to watch Giovanni joust; then Cesare staged a bull-fight in that same spot, himself acting as the brave matador. He arranged that there were crowds to watch, and in the place of honor, where she might miss nothing, was Lucrezia, to tremble when she saw him face death, to exult when she saw him triumph.

All her life Lucrezia would never forget that occasion; the moment of fear when she saw the bull charge and heard the deep sigh of the crowd; she herself had almost swooned with fear, in one terrible second visualizing a world without Cesare. But Cesare was supreme; light as a dancer he had stepped aside as the angry bull thundered past. How handsome he looked! How graceful! He might, thought Lucrezia, have been dancing the old
farraca
, that dance in which a man mimed his play with the bull, so unconcerned did he seem. She would never dance the
farraca
herself nor
see others dance it without recalling this moment of fear and exultation; she would always remember the hot sun in the Campo di Fiore and the realization that Cesare was to her the most important person in the world.

She had sat there seemingly serene, yet she was praying all the time: “Madonna, keep him safe. Holy Mother of God, do not let him be taken from me.”

Her prayers were answered. He killed his bull and came to stand before his sister, that all present should know that it was for her he fought.

She took his hand and kissed it and her eyes had lost their mildness as she raised them to his. She had never seen him look quite so happy as he did then. He had cast aside all resentment; he had forgotten that he was an Archbishop and Giovanni a Duke. The crowd was acclaiming him, and Lucrezia was telling him of the depth and breadth of her love for him.

Lucrezia planned a ball in honor of her brave matador.

“And what of the hero of the joust?” demanded Giovanni.

“For him also,” said Lucrezia fondly.

She wanted them to be together; it was only when she was conscious of their intense rivalry that she could feel she was back in her childhood.

So at the ball she danced with Giovanni while Cesare glowered, and with Cesare while Giovanni looked on with smoldering jealousy. Often the Pope would be present on such occasions and there was astonishment among the spectators that the Holy Father could look on smiling while his sons and daughter danced the strangely erotic Spanish dances, and that he could witness the jealous passion of these two brothers—and the sister’s pleasure in it—with such tolerant amusement.

Lucrezia would be seen riding between her brothers to Monte Mario to watch the noblemen trying out their falcons, laughing, laying wagers as to which of the birds would win the prize.

As for Giovanni Sforza, he lived like an outsider in this strange household. The marriage was not yet to be consummated. At that he shrugged his shoulders. He was not a man deeply interested in such pleasures, and his needs could be supplied by the occasional summoning of a courtesan. But there were occasions when he resented the continual presence of those two overbearing young men, and on one of these he ventured to protest to his wife. She had returned with her brothers from riding and when she went to her apartment he followed her there; he turned and waved a
dismissal at her attendants. They obeyed the signal and did not enter the room.

Lucrezia smiled tentatively at him. Wishing to live on good terms with all, she was always polite to her husband.

Sforza then said to his wife: “This is a strange life you lead. You are constantly in the company of one of your brothers—or both.”

“Is it strange?” she asked. “They are my brothers.”

“Your conduct is talked of throughout Rome.”

Lucrezia’s eyes were wide with surprise.

“Do you not understand what is being said?”

“I have not heard it.”

“One day,” said Sforza, “you will be my wife in very truth. I would have you remember that that day must surely come. I would ask you to see less of your brothers.”

“They would never allow it,” said Lucrezia. “Even if I wished it.”

There was a sound of laughter from without and the brothers entered the room. They stood side by side, legs thrust apart, and it was not their obvious strength and vigor which sent a twinge of alarm through Sforza. He felt then that there was something to fear which was as yet unseen, and that any normal man who made an enemy of them must certainly go in fear of his life.

They were not scowling, and Sforza felt it might have been better if they were. They were smiling, and Lucrezia and her husband might not have been in the room, for all the notice the brothers took of them.

Giovanni said, as his hand rested lightly on his sword: “This man our sister has married … it has come to my ears that he resents our presence in her house.”

“He should have his tongue cut out if he has made such a monstrous suggestion,” drawled Cesare.

“And doubtless will,” added Giovanni, half drawing his sword from its sheath and letting it fall back again. “Who is this man?”

“A bastard son of the tyrant of Pesaro, I have heard.”

“And Pesaro, what is Pesaro?”

“But a small town on the Adriatic coast.”

“A beggar … little more, eh? I remember he came to his wedding in a borrowed necklace.”

“What should we do to such a one if he became insolent?”

Giovanni Borgia laughed softly. “He will not become insolent, brother. Beggar he may be, bastard he is, but he is not such a fool as all that.”

Then they laughed and turned to the door.

Lucrezia and Sforza heard them shouting and laughing as they went out. Lucrezia ran to the window. It was a strange sight to see the Borgia brothers walking together like friends.

Sforza was still standing where he had been when the door had opened. During the time when the brothers had been speaking he had felt unable to move, so strongly had he been aware of an overwhelming sense of evil.

Lucrezia had turned from the window and was looking at him. There was compassion in her gaze and the compassion was for him; for the first time since she had seen him Lucrezia was aware of some feeling for him, and he for her.

He knew that she too was conscious of that evil which had seemed to emanate from her brothers.