Sins of the House of Borgia (51 page)

Whole carcasses of beef and boar, shoals of fish of all kinds, and flocks of fowls were swallowed up in the maw of the kitchens. A papal tiara materialised, made from almond paste set with jewels made from tiny pieces of crystallised fruits, and a giant pyramid of gilded duck eggs containing spice
bottifacci,
which had to be constructed in the dining hall, despite the presence of carpenters working on the ceiling bosses. I dare say as many woodshavings as leaves of gold found their way into the confection, though in the end, as things turned out, it was probably eaten by the kitchen staff, who would not have complained.

A chef who suggested oil flavoured with truffles in which to stew hares was summarily dismissed, as Cesare had declared he would never eat truffles again since the death of Tiresias. A new chef was hired who brought with him a small wooden spice box which he never let out of his sight; the spitboy who took his fancy said he even slept with it fastened across his chest by a leather thong, “just like a Jew with his boxes of spells on his head and arms.” A rumour began to spread that it contained the beans of the cocoa plant, much prized by the savages of the New World and used by them in their religious ceremonies. This was followed by a darker rumour that Cesare aimed to conceal a poison in the beans, for as no one would know how they should taste, no one would be able to say they tasted strange.

Cesare had never looked less like poisoning anybody. He directed the operations of his household with gusto and good humour, mediating with all his old diplomatic skill between bickering chefs and quarrelsome painters. He auditioned musicians and inspected new recruits to the papal army, and spent hours cooped up with Don Jofre and a jug of the strong wine from Avignon that was his particular favourite, devising spectacles to entertain and astonish his guests.

Suddenly we were all sent for to witness one of these. We assembled in the dining hall, crammed in awkwardly around scaffolding poles, work benches, and paint pots, while Cesare and his brother mounted a platform suspended by pulleys from the ceiling which was then winched up a little way so everyone had a clear view. They had with them a shallow dish set over a brazier and several rabbit carcasses, already gutted and stuffed. Girolamo, caught by the buzz of excitement in the room, squealed and wriggled in my arms like a little piglet; I had by now given up trying to swaddle him for he would simply scream until he was unbound. Monna Vannozza, who might easily have returned to her own house now Cesare had been confirmed as gonfalonier but had chosen to stay at San Clemente, frowned in our direction before her own sons’ antics captured her attention.

Jofre laid one rabbit in the dish. The onlookers fell silent. The rabbit began to sizzle and a smell of frying meat mingled with odours of paint and sawdust and unwashed bodies. A murmur of conversation resumed and grew louder, like a tide coming in. Jofre turned to Cesare, who looked puzzled, then vexed, passing a hand repeatedly across the dense, dark cap of hair which now covered his head. He muttered something to Jofre, who took up a pair of tongs and was about to lift the rabbit from the dish when gasps from the front of the crowd made the rest of us jostle and crane our necks for a better view. Clutching my baby firmly under one arm, I used the other to steady myself as I stepped up on to a low cross pole and looked out over the others’ heads.

The rabbit flipped in the dish like a landed fish, its belly convulsed with ripples and tremors which increased in vigour until the legs were lifting and falling in a mad parody of running. Jofre let out a great whoop of laughter and did a little jig which set the platform swinging and spilled a few embers into the crowd. Cesare, hanging on to the pulley rope to steady himself, wore a grin like that of a small boy absorbed in pulling the wings off a fly.

Then there was a loud bang. A woman screamed and Girolamo began to cry. Both men leapt backwards and Cesare’s free hand flew to the pommel of his sword. Jofre lost his footing and fell into the arms of the buxom woman who had charge of the laundry, and then looked happily inclined to stay in her embrace as he watched Cesare regain his footing and peer cautiously into the now empty dish.

“What happened?” called Jofre.

“Damned if I know.”

“Well I do,” called a voice from the floor. “The rabbit exploded. I’ve got half-cooked meat all over me and…silver rain drops?”

“Mercury,” said Cesare. “You put mercury in the belly of the rabbit, then cook it, and it leaps as if it’s still alive. I wanted to see if it worked before trying it out on my guests.”

“Oh really,” said Monna Vannozza, turning to leave, the throng parting before her. I looked at my baby’s tear-stained face and wondered how long it would be before he was contriving jokes and I was failing to see the humour of them because all I could see was the danger, the awful fragility of his life.

“Is he all right? I’m sorry if he was frightened.” Cesare’s voice, close now. I looked down from my vantage point at his upturned face, both remorseful and amused. He held out his hand and steadied me as I jumped down. “I had no idea mercury did that when it got hot. I’ve only come across it warmed before, in the baths Torella prescribed for me.” He cleared his throat. “The pills…? They are working?”

“I am quite well, thank you.”

“Good. Yes, I remember Sandro Farnese, you know, Giulia’s brother, telling me he’d seen this trick done with chickens and I’d always fancied trying it.” He grinned his boy’s grin, and kept hold of my hand so I had no option but to go with him as he left the dining hall. I felt the eyes of the household on my back, jostling me with their speculations, and wrestled against the temptation to whirl around and shout at them.
This means nothing,
I would say.
I am no different from any of you. Leave me alone. Stop giving me hope.

But I said nothing. I loved the warmth of his hand and its firm grip, and the whisper of my shoulder brushing his upper arm, and how I matched my steps to his as we walked. At the foot of the stairs leading up to his private apartments he paused and said, “I have work to do now, but I was wondering. After the party, will you have supper with me? Privately?” He nodded in the direction of the upstairs rooms. My throat squeezed shut with excitement. Unable to speak, I tried to smile, uncertain if my body would obey me even that far.

Cesare gave me a quizzical look, eyebrows raised. “Is that a yes?”

“Yes,” I managed, in a strangled squawk, and fled before I would be obliged to say anything else.

***

There were to be no women guests at Cesare’s party, in deference to the cardinals he had invited he said, wearing his new piety on his sleeve like a lady’s favour.
Because there is hard business to be done
, was what he meant.
Because Pius is old and feeble and Della Rovere still prowls around my house like a hungry wolf.
My own preparations, however, were as intense and frenetic as though I were to be the guest of honour.

A suitable gown was my most pressing requirement. The skirt and bodice I had taken from Donna Lucrezia’s discarded wardrobe at Nepi were showing signs of wear, the skirt hem frayed and dusty, the bodice milk-stained. But I had neither time nor money to acquire anything new. The memory of all the dresses and jewels I had left in Ferrara nagged at me, made me ache for a while with impotent frustration before I shook myself free of my inertia and set about begging and borrowing what I could from the other women in the household. I pretended it was simply a matter of needing a change of clothes while I cleaned and mended those I had brought from Nepi, but no one was fooled; they had all seen Cesare holding my hand; they had all seen us talking at the foot of his private stairs.

Some sulked and refused to help; others caught my excitement and together we set to work with needle and thread and what we could scrounge from our own resources, barter for in the markets, or steal from owners sunk in self-pity. Since the death of Tiresias, Cesare had ordered his leopards confined to their cages once more, so on fine days a group of us would sit in the garden, with Camilla and Girolamo, and sometimes Giovanni, playing on a rug in the centre of our circle as we stitched and gossiped. A taut, singing thread of possibility bound us. It was easy to tell what the others were thinking from the fever in their eyes and the flights of fancy in their conversation. I might have my turn this time, but what about the next, and the time after that? Their sultan had signified his intent to visit the harem, and they had begun jostling for position like pigeons in an overcrowded loft.

I did not mind. I could afford to be generous. One afternoon, Fatima offered to read my fortune from the
tarocchi.
As everyone else then began to clamour for their own reading, she kept it simple, using only the Major Arcana in a three-card spread. She turned up first The High Priestess, with her Torah in her lap, second The Lovers, and finally The Emperor; you did not need to be an expert to see what was signified. So I scarcely listened to her interpretation; I refused to see the look in her eyes as she spoke of choices and dualities and the fine line between wisdom and madness, and how power cannot always be controlled.

On the day before the party, I scrounged a lemon from the kitchens, squeezed its juice into a basin of water, and washed my hair with a sliver of rose-scented soap I had been hoarding because it was of a make favoured by Angela and reminded me of her. I braided my hair while it was still wet to put a little curl into it, then sat before the brazier in the little room Girolamo and I had to ourselves and rubbed the lemon shells over my skin to whiten it while my hair dried. My face and forearms were unacceptably brown from all the riding and walking I had done since leaving Medelana.

On the afternoon of the party itself, while Cesare’s guests arrived in a chaos of shouting grooms, jangling harness, and the thud of litters banged down on the flagstones, I stripped and washed my body carefully with the remainder of the soap. Its musky perfume made me yearn for Angela. How much more fun this would be if she were here with her outspoken advice on the arts of love, her long, strong fingers whose tips were always slightly calloused from her guitar playing riffling through my jewellery box, her way of whirling around the room with different combinations of skirts and bodices, chemises and fichus held up against her while she decided what looked best. I glanced down at the untidy triangle of dark hair masking my woman’s parts and the down on my calves. It was as bad under my arms. I needed hot wax and scissors, but had neither. Besides, if I waxed myself now I would end up looking like a fresh plucked chicken.

“He’d probably make me swallow mercury and put a light under me,” I said to my uncomprehending son, who continued to be engrossed in his efforts to push himself up on his arms.

I managed to tidy my garden a little with the aid of a comb and my meat knife, and consoled myself with the thought that darkness would have fallen by the time he…by the time we… And besides, he would probably be a little drunk. I dressed slowly, to eke out the long afternoon, straightening all the tiny bows on my clean linen, smoothing my silk hose, only slightly worn about at the knees. As I tightened my corset, I paid special attention to the way it pushed up my breasts to show them to their best advantage. Although Girolamo was mostly weaned now, I still fed him myself occasionally at night so my breasts remained full and firm and the nipples nicely defined, carrying in their nerve ends the memory of my lover’s tongue and fingertips and his strange knowledge of the personal letters of Don Cristoforo Colon.

Finally I stepped into my skirt of primrose satin skimped with gold lace panels, fastened my bodice of apple green brocade, front laced so I could manage it myself, put on the peach silk shoes which pinched my toes only a little, and sat down to wait. For what? What would happen next? Would one of his slaves be sent for me? Did Cesare even know where my room was located in this warren of a palace whose shape seemed to shift day by day? How long would his party last? I tried to estimate the number of courses, and how long each would take, and the entertainments between them, and then how long Cesare would have to spend talking to each of these men, thanking his friends and flattering his enemies. Surely it would all take most of the night and then he would be too exhausted to entertain me to supper. Or he would simply forget he had asked me.

I wished I had some distraction, some needlework or a book to read. I had, for once, allowed Girolamo into the care of Camilla’s nurse so I did not even have him to play with or sing to or soothe to sleep as the square of light from my small window dimmed, then flared orange as torches were lit in the courtyard. I got up to light my own candle, pausing by my washing bowl to look at my reflection in the surface of the water as I had no mirror. The water was clouded with a scum of soap so it was like looking at myself through a fog, but even so, even in the flattering glow of my candle and the torchlight from my window, I could see how my features had sharpened and aged in the past few months, how I had come to resemble my mother.

I reared back as though a fist had emerged from the water and punched me. What would my mother think of me, dressed in my low-cut gown and cheap jewellery like a streetwalker. Eli had been right to bar me entry to his house and keep his wife hidden from me. But then again, if my family had not been so eager to exploit my prettiness, I would be a good Jewish wife by now, observing
kashrut
, teaching my children their Torah, lighting my candles on Shabbat. And I was not a whore. I had but one lover, had never so much as glanced at another man, and had given him his only son. To all intents and purposes, and despite his French princess, I was Cesare’s wife.