Madonna of the Seven Hills (18 page)

She waited apprehensively. “You have been with his Holiness?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“I guessed it. Your radiant looks tell me and I know how matters stand between you.”

“Between my father and myself?”

“The whole of Rome knows that he dotes upon you,”

“The whole of Rome knows that he is my father.”

Sforza laughed; it was an unpleasant laugh, but mildly so; everything was mild about Sforza. “It is because all Rome knows him to be your
father that this affection … this more than doting … is so strange,” he countered.

She stared at him, but already he had turned and was striding out of the apartment.

Cesare came to
the Palace of Santa Maria in Portico. He was in a strange mood, and Lucrezia was unsure what it implied. Was he angry? Certainly he must be. Giovanni was now to be a legitimate father, and that was something, Cesare would be telling himself, that he could never be. How sad, thought Lucrezia, that the happiness of her father over Giovanni’s wife’s pregnancy must be a further cross for Cesare to bear.

She knew that he had never forgotten the vow he had made before the Madonna to escape from the Church; and she knew that he was as determined now to fulfill it as he had been when he had made it.

So now when he strode in, she wondered what could be the meaning of that glittering expression in the eyes, that tight tension of the lips.

She had heard rumors of his life at the universities. It was said that no vice was too degrading for Cesare to indulge in, if only experimentally. It was said that his father’s money and influence had enabled him to set up a little court of his own and that he ruled his courtiers like a despotic monarch; one look was enough to subdue them and, if any failed to do his bidding, accidents quickly befell those people.

“Cesare,” said Lucrezia, “has anything happened to anger you?”

He took her by the neck and bent back her head. He kissed her lips lightly. “Those beautiful eyes see too much,” he murmured. “I want you to come riding with me.”

“Yes, Cesare; with the utmost pleasure. Where shall we ride?”

“Along by the river mayhap. Through the city. Let the people see us together. They enjoy it. And why should they not? You are pleasant enough to look at, sister.”

“And you are the handsomest man in Italy.”

He laughed. “What,” he said, “in my priest’s robes!”

“You add dignity to them. No priest ever looked like you.”

“A fact which doubtless makes all the Bishops and Cardinals rejoice mightily.”

He is in a good mood, she thought. I was mistaken.

As they rode out another rider joined them. This was a lovely red-haired girl, magnificently, indeed over-dressed, glittering with jewels, her long red hair falling about her shoulders.

“Fiametta knows you well, sister,” said Cesare, looking from the red-haired woman of the world to the golden innocence of Lucrezia. “She declares that I speak your name far too frequently when I am in her company.”

“We are a devoted family,” Lucrezia explained to the girl.

“Indeed it is so,” said Fiametta. “The whole of Rome talks of your devotion—one to another; and it is hard to say who loves Madonna Lucrezia more, her brothers or her father.”

“It is comforting to be so loved,” said Lucrezia simply.

“Come,” said Cesare, “we will ride together.”

He rode between them, the sardonic smile playing about his lips as they went. People in the streets walked past them with lowered eyes but, when they had passed, stopped to stare after them.

Cesare’s reputation was already such that none dared give him a hostile or critical look which he might see; but they could not help staring at him, riding through the streets with his sister and the other woman.

Cesare knew full well that he was shocking them by riding in daylight with one of the most notorious courtesans in Rome together with his sister; he knew that an account of this would be taken to his father and that the Pope would be displeased. It was what Cesare intended. Let the people look; let them gossip.

Fiametta was enjoying the jaunt. She was delighted that the citizens should know that she was the latest mistress of Cesare Borgia. It was a fillip to her reputation; and the longer she remained in favor with him, the better, for surely that must show that she was superior in her profession to her fellows.

They rode to the ancient Colosseum which never failed to fascinate Lucrezia and yet to fill her with horror as she thought of the Christians who had been thrown to the lions and killed for their faith.

“Oh,” she cried, “it is so beautiful, and yet … disturbing. They say that if one comes here at night and waits among the ruins one hears the cries of the martyrs and the roar of the wild beasts.”

Fiametta laughed. “ ’Tis a tale that is told.”

Lucrezia turned questioningly to Cesare.

“Fiametta is right,” he told her. “What you would doubtless hear would be someone taking away the stones and marbles to build him a house. These stories of ghosts are told in order to keep those away from the Colosseum who might disturb the thieves.”

“Perhaps that is what it is. Now I no longer feel alarmed.”

“But I pray you,” said Cesare, “do not come here at night, sister. It is not for such as you to do so.”

“Would you come here at night?” Lucrezia asked Fiametta.

Cesare answered for her: “At night the Colosseum is the haunt of robbers and prostitutes.”

Fiametta flushed slightly, but she had learned to show no anger to Cesare.

Lucrezia, seeing her discomfiture and understanding its cause—for she realized to what profession Fiametta belonged—said quickly: “Pope Paul built his palace from these blocks of travertine. Is it not wonderful to contemplate that all those years ago the same marble, the same stone, was used and, although all the people who built it and lived in it are dead, fourteen hundred years later houses can still be built of the same material?”

“Is she not enchanting, my little sister?” said Cesare, and threw a kiss to her.

They galloped among the ruins for a while and then turned their horses back toward the Palace of Santa Maria in Portico.

Cesare told Fiametta that he would come to visit her later that day and went into Lucrezia’s palace with her.

“Ah,” he said, when they were alone—and whenever Cesare visited Lucrezia, her attendants always understood that he wished to be alone with her—“now you are a little shocked, confess it, sister.”

“The people stared at us, Cesare.”

“And you do not like poor Fiametta?”

“I liked her. She is very beautiful … but she is a courtesan, is she not; and should she have ridden in our company through the streets?”

“Why not?”

“Perhaps because you are an Archbishop.”

Cesare brought his fist down upon his thigh in a well remembered gesture.

“It is precisely because I am an Archbishop that I rode through the streets with that red-headed harlot.”

“Our father says …”

“I know what our father says. Have your mistresses—ten, twenty, a hundred, if you must. Amuse yourself as you will … in private. But in public remember, always remember that you are a son of Holy Church. By all the saints, Lucrezia, I have sworn that I will escape from the Church, and I will behave in such a way that our father will be forced to free me.”

“Oh, Cesare, you will make him so unhappy.”

“And what of the unhappiness he causes me?”

“It is for your own advancement.”

“You listen to him rather than to me. I see that, sister.”

“Oh no, Cesare, no. I would have you know that if there were aught I could do to free you from the Church, willingly would I do it.”

“Yet you grieve for your father. You say with such sympathy: ‘He would be made unhappy.’ Not a word about my unhappiness.”

“I know you are unhappy, dearest brother, and I would do everything in my power to put an end to that unhappiness.”

“Would you, Lucrezia? Would you?”

“Anything … anything on Earth.”

He took her by the shoulder and smiled down at her. “One day I may ask you to redeem that promise.”

“I shall be waiting. I shall be ready, Cesare.”

He kissed her ardently.

“You soothe me,” he said. “Did you not always do so? Beloved sister, there is no one on Earth whom I could love as I love you.”

“And I love you too, Cesare. Is that not enough to make us happy, even if we have other trials to bear?”

“No,” he cried, his eyes ablaze. “I know my destiny. It is to be a King … a conqueror. Do you doubt that?”

“No, Cesare, I do not. I see you always as a King and a conqueror.”

“Dear Lucrezia, when we were riding with Fiametta you looked at
those old ruins and you thought of days long ago. There is one man glorious in our history. He conquered great countries. He lived before the Colosseum was built and he is the greatest man who—as yet—has come out of Rome. You know of whom I speak.”

“Of Julius Caesar,” she said.

“A great Roman, a great conqueror. I picture him, crossing the Rubicon and knowing that all Italy lay at his feet. That was forty-nine years before Christ was born, and yet there has never been another like him—as yet. You know what his motto was, do you not?
Aut Caesar, aut nullus
. Lucrezia, from this moment I adopt that as mine.” His eyes were brilliant with megalomania; he was so certain of his greatness that he made her believe him. “But see, did they not call me Cesare! That was no mere chance. There was one great Caesar. There shall be another.”

“You are right!” she cried. “I am sure of it. In years to come people will talk of you as they do of great Julius. You will be a great general.…”

Now his expression was ugly.

“And my father will make a Churchman of me!”

“But you will be Pope, Cesare. One day you will be Pope.”

He stamped his foot with fury. “A Pope rules in shadow; a King in the full light of day. I do not wish to be Pope. I wish to be King. I wish to unite the whole of Italy under my banner and rule … myself and none other. That is the task of a King, not a Pope.”

“Our father must release you.”

“He will not. He refuses. I have begged. I have implored. But no, I am for the Church, he insists. One of us must be. Giovanni has his long-faced mare in Barcelona. Goffredo has his harlot of Naples. And I … I am to be wedded to the Church. Lucrezia, was there ever such crass folly? I feel murderous when I contemplate it.”

“Murderous, Cesare! Against him!”

Cesare put his face against hers. “Yes,” he said grimly. “I feel murderous … even toward him.”

“He must be made to understand. He is the best father in the world, and if he but knew your feelings … oh Cesare, he would understand them. He would see that something was done.”

“I have explained my feelings until I am weary. He loses all his benign
looks then. I never saw a man so set on one thing as our father is when I talk of leaving the Church. He is determined that I shall stay.”

“Cesare, what you have said causes me much pain. I cannot be happy knowing that you harbor such thoughts of our father.”

“You are too soft, too gentle. You must not be so, child. How do you think the world will use you if you continue so?”

“I had not thought of how the world would use me. I think of you, dear brother, and how it has used you. And I cannot bear that there should be ill-feeling between you and our father. And Cesare … oh, my brother … you spoke of murder!”

Cesare laughed aloud. Then he was tender. “Set your fears at rest,
bambina
. I would not murder him. What folly! From him come all our blessings.”

“Do not forget it, Cesare. Do not forget it.”

“I am a man who is full of rage, but not of folly,” he answered. “I revenge myself in my own way. Our father insists that I go into the Church, and I insist on showing how unsuitable I am for that calling. That is why I roam the streets with my red-headed courtesan—in the hope of making our father realize that he cannot force me to continue this life.”

“But Cesare, what of the rumors we have heard concerning your marriage with a Princess of Aragon?”

“Rumors,” he said wearily. “Nothing more.”

“Yet our father seemed to be considering this at one time.”

“It was diplomacy to consider it, child. Naples suggested it in order to alarm the Sforzas of Milan, and our father encouraged it for political reasons.”

“But he gave such a warm welcome to the ambassador, and everyone knew that he had arrived here to discuss a possible marriage between you and the Princess.”

“Diplomacy. Diplomacy. Waste no time on considering it. I do not. My only hope is to show our father how unsuitable I am for the Church, or to find a way of forcing him to release me. But there is little hope. Our father has determined to make me a Cardinal.”

“A Cardinal, Cesare! So that is the reason for your anger.” She shook her head. “I am thinking of all those who bring presents to me and to
Giulia because they hope we will influence our father in giving them the Cardinal’s hat. And you … on whom he longs to bestow it … want none of it. How strange life is!”

Cesare was clenching and unclenching his hands. “I fear,” he said, “that once I am in my Cardinal’s robes there will be no escape.”