Sins of the House of Borgia (72 page)

“When we met again, we tried to be as we had been before but it didn’t work. I took no joy in him because I felt guilty about Alfonso, and then guilty about him because I had hurt him. After France, he found our ways silly and parochial, he said. He would sit among us like a raven in his black clothes and bore us all senseless with his plans for his court at Cesena once it was established and how it would all be French this and French that. And the more he extolled the virtues of France, the more convinced I became he loved his wife and the more I cleaved to my husband. What do you make of this?” She riffled through the satchel and pulled one of the letters back out of it; I marvelled at the sure way she had distinguished it from the rest, as though she knew every curlicue, every crease in the parchment the way a mother knows her child.

I find myself thinking about Charlotte, though I can scarcely remember what she looks like. Do you know what won her to me? My knowing the names of wild flowers. By the time I left France, I had only to whisper in her ear the Italian name for coltsfoot or mallow and she would be all over me like a clambering rosa gallica. I never told her that I know wild flowers because their presence or absence can tell you the nature of the terrain you are marching into. A politician must read men’s faces, a soldier must consider the lilies of the field.

“It seems very…true, madonna.”

“Yes. There is something about it that troubles me. Well, I have all the time in the world to wonder about it now, don’t I? Where were we? Ah yes.

“You know, of course, how everything came to a head between our family and that of Aragon? It was not only Alfonso and Sancia who rankled with Cesar, but the fact that their sister, Carlotta, had refused to marry him and her father had done nothing to make her. His pride could not endure it, even after King Louis gave him Charlotte, who was just as well born and much prettier. He was inconsolable, and terribly lonely, everywhere surrounded by people who were getting on with their lives. He was getting on with his too, of course, but he had so much less patience than the rest of us. He could never wait for anything to take its course but must be hurrying it along.

“Suddenly he had decided my marriage to Alfonso was an obstacle to his alliance with the French because of their rival claim to Naples. Or so he said. I knew he was jealous, not just of Alfonso but of all of us and the cosy family party he believed we had become without him. He thought Sancia had seduced Papa and was trying to undermine his position with his own father.

“Then the roof fell in, literally.”

I remembered this. During a particularly violent summer storm, a chimney on the Vatican roof had been blown through the ceiling of a room where the pope was sitting. For several hours, it was believed he had died, until his guards managed to dig him out of the rubble, unscathed except for a cut on his head.

“After that,” madonna continued, “there was no longer any reasoning with Cesar. It was as though he had but one thought in his mind and that was of the need to secure his future while our father still lived. He was seventy years old by then. Anything might have happened. Cesar didn’t even bother to discuss his plans with me any more. He never sought out my company for any reason. Slept with that whore of his, La Fiammetta, because he said it was easier to pay than to waste his effort charming women into bed. I wasn’t surprised that he sent Michelotto to finish off Alfonso, but I was horrified by his callousness and scared witless by his brazenness.

“They say I went to Nepi to grieve for my husband, and I did, but it was more complicated than that. I was grieving for two loves, for Cesar as well as Alfonso. And I had to think. Clearly Cesar could not be trusted any more where my future was concerned because of this jealousy of his, yet my future was vital to his, and to our son’s. Thinking of Giovanni, I had a sort of epiphany, you might call it. You know Heraclitus?”

I nodded. I had heard of him, of course, but knew little of his philosophy.

“He was a great favourite of Cesar’s. ‘Nature loves concealment,’ he said, which might have been written for Cesar. He also speaks of a
logos
which gives order to chaos but is comprehensible only to a very few. Well, at Nepi, for a kind of philosophical second, I understood it. I saw what we had to do with absolute clarity. I wrote two letters, one to Cesar, begging him to come to me at Nepi and ask my forgiveness for I felt my grief so severely I feared I would not live. He was not the only one who could tell pretty lies, you see, or make them believed.

“The other letter was to Ercole d’Este, proposing myself as a wife for Don Alfonso. I know. Breathtaking boldness, but I knew my father had already opened tentative negotiations, and the stakes were very high for me. And Giovanni. My father was old and enfeebled by his accident and my brother apparently unhinged with jealousy where I was concerned even if the things he did in the rest of his life made sense. Who else had I to rely on but myself? And a marriage into a family as distinguished as the Este would make me safe, part of the establishment. Regardless of Cesar, that was the best way open to me of securing Giovanni’s future.”

We were interrupted by a discreet scratching on the door.

“What is it?” madonna snapped.

“The cardinal sends to know if you will dine with him tonight,” replied a disembodied voice.

“Please thank the cardinal and tell him I do not yet feel well enough. I will dine in my room.”

We waited in silence as soft footsteps padded away. “This is not a conversation I would wish overheard,” said madonna.

“I should like to have seen Duke Ercole’s face when he received your letter.”

“His reply was very prompt and courteous. I had written to him at length about my religion, and my interest in the stigmata, as well as reminding him I had proved my ability to produce a healthy son,” an ironic laugh here, “and to administer my property in my own name. Oh, and I might have touched on my brother’s territorial ambitions and his recent military successes. He could not help but listen to what I had to say.”

“And Cesare?”

“He came, as you know. He was on his way to join his troops for an autumn campaign, and stopped a night with me. Yes,” she said, intercepting my glance, “a night.

“How strange it is that secretive people are often also histrionic. He entered the hall of my castle in full armour, with his head bare, looking for all the world like a figure from a novel of chivalry, and without saying a word, fell to his knees at my feet and kissed the hem of my dress. D’you know, Violante,” her voice became remote, “I have asked myself over and over if that is the last sound he heard.”

“What?”

“That clash of his armour as he fell from his horse. And if it reminded him, if he was thinking of…well, never mind, that is idle speculation. One part of me knew it was an act. Clearly he had not ridden all the way from Rome in full armour. He must have stopped just outside Nepi to put it on. But the other part, the part that was his, could think of nothing but that he was here, alone with me, with all his beautiful hair spread out around my feet like a lake of fire. I knelt and put my arms around him, and for a moment that could have cost us everything; I believed we could just stay that way forever, locked up in the old fort, hidden from the world, living on love.”

I was suddenly, strangely, moved to take her hands in mine, to show her it was not just our looks we shared, but our wild dreams as well.

“I led him to my own chamber and helped him out of his armour myself so we wouldn’t be disturbed. He thought…what men always think, but I told him no, I had important things to say to him. He prevaricated, insisted he wanted a bath, told me I could talk to him while he bathed, and I could wash his hair because I always washed it better than anyone else. The bath was filled. He undressed in front of me as if he were a whore and I his client, and his beauty there, in the firelight and the steam from the water, nearly broke my heart. As he knew it would.

“But he had underestimated me this time. So he bided his time and took his bath quite meekly and I washed his hair, and told him what I had brought him there to tell him. That he had gone too far by murdering Alfonso and that, however much we loved each other, we must never again allow ourselves to be driven by our passion. Because we had to think of Giovanni, always Giovanni.

“I told him I knew he and Papa had discussed the possibility of marrying me next to Alfonso d’Este, so I had written to the duke myself and assured him he would find in me an eager, pious, and loyal daughter-in-law who would always put her husband’s will ahead of that of her father or her brother. I had hinted that my presence in Ferrara would curb any designs my brother might have upon that state, for surely Ferrara would become his ally in the circumstances. I told him he must carry on building his state and that my presence in Ferrara would secure his northern border and keep Venice out of his affairs until he was strong enough to take her on. One day, I said, our son would be King of Italy.

“Cesar began to shiver. I held a towel for him as he climbed out of the bath and wrapped it around him as if he were a child and told myself the feel of his body beneath the cloth meant nothing to me. I tried to make my heart as hard as the old stones sheltering us, but I failed. I had intended to make him leave straight away, but I couldn’t resist him with his skin all scrubbed and smelling of soap. So we…and then I combed his hair while it dried by the fire and the night drew in.

“When I awoke next morning, he was gone, so I knew he had understood. That was our last time. From now on we could not think of ourselves, only of Giovanni and the state we would build him.

“Now do you understand why I was so furious about Urbino? It was a rash act; it jeopardised what we had given up so much for. It betrayed our love. It made a mockery of everything I had sacrificed for him.”

I stared at her. I no longer knew what to think. There was something of the cosmic jest in the revelation that the great Valentino, scourge alike of Italy’s tyrants and Italy’s women, had given his heart and his obedience all along to his little sister. Yet at the same time, her power over him put me in awe of her. I fiddled with the letters, unsure if I should feel honoured by her confidence or hurt by her utter disregard for my own feelings.

And picked up a rough square of what appeared to be bed linen, on which were scrawled, in blotchy ink the colour of brick dust, the words which made up my mind:
Pio tells me Girolamo shows spirit and a sharp intelligence. Keep him close, Lucia, and do not let him forget Giovanni is my heir.
My son was all I had left now, all that was made of Cesare and me and what had been between us, just us, not mediated or manipulated by Donna Lucrezia. Why should he, like me, pass his life as second best? I would take him from Don Alberto and go away, far away, where the name of Borgia meant nothing. Angela would help me, and in the end Donna Lucrezia would see it was for the best. It would ensure Giovanni had no rival for his father’s inheritance.

I found Angela in our old room with her maid, packing for her return to Sassuolo. As I came in she turned to me, holding the black and white striped bodice I had taken from Nepi up to her chest.

“Darling, can I take this? It would look so nice if…” Her words died away as she saw my face. Dismissing the maid, she said, “You know, don’t you? She’s told you. I wondered if she might…now. Come and sit down. This is terrible for you.”

I shook off the hand which pawed at my sleeve. “I haven’t time. She’s waiting for me to fetch Giovanni, before his bedtime.”

Angela looked aghast, her face pale and sharp in the candlelight which still shivered a little in the draught of my arrival. I looked away, at the open chests and boxes strewn about the room and the emptiness beneath.

“She’s not going to tell him, is she?”

“Of course not. He’s just another excuse for her to go on about Cesare.”

“You’re upset. Take a little time. I’m sure Giovanni’s bedtime can wait, in the circumstances.”

“Oh stop trying to be kind. It’s a bit late for that now. You knew about…them, Cesare and…,” but I could not bring myself to link their names out loud, “all the time. Why didn’t you tell me? What sort of friend are you?” The image of Giulio, his bright hair blowing across his scarred face, seemed to give me my answer.

“I tried,” she shouted, “I tried a thousand times but you would never listen. You were as blind as that revolting old dog of his where Cesare was concerned.”

“Well I’m listening now. Help me get Girolamo back. Tell me how I do that and I’ll never trouble any of you again.”

I might as well have asked her to steal madonna’s jewellery or seduce Duke Alfonso. “She’d kill you before she’d let you have him. It’s impossible. You don’t think just because Cesare’s dead she’s given up her ambitions for him? She’ll keep those two boys closer than ever now. Your only hope of seeing Girolamo is to carry on here as if nothing had changed.”

“No. How can I? I’ll take him away. It’s Giovanni she’s interested in anyway. Girolamo and I can just…disappear.” I thought of Gideon’s letter, and suddenly knew why I had kept it despite its insolence, despite the risk. “I know how. I have a plan.”

Angela made a great play of covering her ears with her hands. “Don’t tell me. I really can’t be part of this.”

“No, of course you can’t. You never could. Have a safe journey. I shall probably sleep in the nursery tonight so I don’t expect I shall see you before you go.”