by Sarah Dunant
His words scrape out the lining of her stomach with a burning spoon.
Ill but not dead. Both of them. Ill but not dead.
She calls for her confessor, closing the door against everyone else. By the time he reaches her, she is hunched on her knees like an ancient nun at prayer. Bembo, Alfonso, Ercole, Ferrara, it has all fallen away.
Ill but not dead. Does God watch and judge a family? Could her own carefree behavior somehow have anything to do with this?
“Father, will you hear my confession?”
Within the hour the household is gathered at vigil in the chapel, a host of young women’s voices rising up like the choir of Corpus Domini in deepest intercession for the lives of the Pope and his son Duke Valentine.
—
During the night that follows, great multitudes of swifts, so high on the wing that they are invisible to the human eye, pass over a dozen cities where by now urgent dispatches have been opened and read, and where prayers are also rising into the air; most of them are tipping the scales away from recovery, toward death and revenge.
CHAPTER 44
The Pope’s rally does not last. On the morning of the sixth day, he begins to lapse in and out of consciousness. A few words pass his lips, garbled references to orange blossom and his beloved Mary covered in gold on a throne, but Cesare is no longer mentioned, nor even a thought for his beloved daughter. Rodrigo Borgia has moved beyond family.
The Bishop, a second doctor, the papal treasurer and two chamberlains are all that are left in attendance. Most cardinals flee Rome in summer, and any remaining, even Borgia supporters, are too canny to show their faces. There is some talk about bleeding him again, but no one is willing to take the risk. Their faces speak their fears. Should Duke Valentine survive his father, they would not want to be accused of causing him further weakness.
Better now to leave it to God.
—
Meanwhile, the man who used to be Cesare Borgia is hovering somewhere between life and death. Torella is close to his wit’s end. Four days of pouring sweat have sucked half the duke’s body weight from him. He lies, mouth open, lips cracked, panting slightly, his skin as dry as it was once wet, his heart rate that of a man running for his life. At the end of the bed, Michelotto stands silent sentry, watching, waiting; if death brings the scythe anywhere near, it will have to cut him down first.
When the fitting starts again, the convulsions lift the duke’s body half off the bed, his arms and legs flailing in all directions like those of a man in battle with an invisible devil. Torella watches as they struggle to restrain him. If nothing is done to bring down his temperature, the duke will be dead before his father. There is one possible way forward. It is a decision Torella would prefer not to make alone. He approaches Michelotto. There is no one else and no one better.
Michelotto listens, the expression on his fierce scarred face unchanging. “It might kill him.”
“Yes,” the doctor says immediately. “But this”—he gestures to the body convulsing on the bed—“this will kill him sooner.”
The empty wine barrel is brought up from the cellars, the top sawn out of it, and a relay of servants start moving buckets of cold water up the stairs from the pumps. The process is painfully slow, but gradually the water level rises. Then comes the ice. It takes six men to carry the hessian-wrapped boulder upstairs, water dripping a dark trail on the pale stone behind them. Once the mass is uncovered, men get to work with hammers and chisels, steaming chunks flying everywhere, people running to collect them with bare hands and throwing them into the barrel.
If Cesare were conscious, it would be like a man watching the inquisition lay out the tools of torture. But he does not care. On the bed he lies twitching, eyes closed, breath coming fast like that of a panting dog. Is this too late? Torella is thinking. Is he already dying?
The barrel is finally close to full. Torella tests it with his hand, holding it deep inside until the count of ten, the pain written on his face.
He gestures to Michelotto. “It’s ready. Get him up.”
Two other men stand by, but Michelotto pushes them aside. He leans over the bed, holding Cesare’s head still between his hands and talking in a low, urgent voice. Does the duke hear him? It barely matters: the intimacy between these two men has always been deeper than words.
Now together, he and the men strip the duke of his few clothes. As they lift him up, Cesare snarls and struggles, then falls back barely conscious. Michelotto heaves the body up and across his shoulders as if the duke was a sack of peat or, already, a corpse. They have dragged a chest next to the barrel for better leverage, and Michelotto clambers upon it until he stands above the water. For a second he seems to hesitate.
“Now.” Torella’s voice is urgent.
He throws the body off his shoulders into the barrel.
“One, two…”
The duke’s screams rend the air as his burning flesh hits the icy water.
“Three, four.” Torella is counting.
Cesare is thrashing furiously, jolted back into consciousness by the shock.
“Aaaaaaagh. Aaaaagh.” The shock and the pain.
“Five, six.”
Ice water is everywhere, the duke’s cries lost for a second as his head goes under, then comes gasping up for air. The men are exchanging worried glances. Is he going to drown?
“Seven, eight.” Torella’s voice is shaking. They should get to ten, but he doesn’t have the courage.
“Nine. Get him out. Get him out now!”
Michelotto is already there. With the help of the others, he manhandles the duke out of the freezing water, his body rigid, almost catatonic with shock. His skin is mottled purple, his eyes wide and mad, too stunned for pain, too stunned for anything.
“On the bed. Get him covered.” Torella is like a general on a battlefield.
Cesare is barely breathing now, the look on his face sheer terror. Maybe those staring eyes are seeing something. Faces of all the men he has killed, or the furnaces of hell. They wrap him round in a bolt of silk, like a great child in swaddling. He is shaking like a mad dog, but when Torella feels the pulse in his neck, it is no longer racing, and after a while the duke drops into what seems like a deep sleep.
Torella would like to remove the wrapping, but he does not want to disturb the healing stillness. Eventually, they unwind him gently; the skin is blistering, and strips of it peel off stuck to the silk. This body, once so perfect that it might have been a model for some newly unearthed Roman sculpture, is now pitted with the pox and scalded by ice and fire. But he is not dead. Not yet. That is the best that can be said.
As they open the windows to allow in some fresh air, Michelotto hears the sound of men’s voices chanting from the floor below. Though Cesare remains unconscious, he does not need the order to be given again. What he must do next has been discussed and decided long ago.
Though Cesare’s screams send shivers through the doctors and priests around the bed, Alexander remains unmoved. Within that huge frame there is now barely a flicker of life. Earlier he had regained consciousness enough to mumble a last confession—no place for detail, just a general plea for forgiveness—and received absolution, after which they anointed him with holy oil as the ceremony of extreme unction was conducted over his bed.
Later, the world will be full of stories of this moment: how the chamber had been invaded by seven cavorting demons, poking and prodding the body, reminding him of the pact he had made, selling his soul to the devil to rule Christendom for eleven years, and that now he was four days overdue. And he had screamed and begged for mercy, promising all manner of evil if he could be given just a little more time. More time…
But for those who are with him, Rodrigo Borgia’s passing is an altogether gentle affair. Whatever matters there are to be settled between him and God—or the other—must wait until later. The bishop sits closest, every now and then pressing a damp cloth across the mighty forehead, but the gesture goes unnoticed.
When the day is moving toward its hottest, Rodrigo lets out a small cry and opens his eyes wide, staring up into a ceiling crowded with gilded crests of the Borgia bull that has rampaged its way through Italy. But there is no sign that he recognizes them or anything else, and when his eyelids shut he does not move again.
His breathing now is stuttered and harsh, as if each gasp of air must be fought for, held on to for fear that it will be the last before finally reluctantly released. Silence. Until it starts again. Time passes. Venosa starts the prayers, and their voices meld into a melodious hum, to help the Pope on his way.
When the end comes, it is almost unnoticeable: a final constricted intake of air, held and then exhaled so gently on the longest sigh that it takes time to realize there will not be another. How long must they wait? At last, Venosa raises himself from his knees and, from a silver box by the bed, lifts out a white dove’s feather that he holds directly under the Pope’s nose, watching carefully as the fronds remain undisturbed in the still air. After what feels like a small lifetime, he takes the feather away and replaces it in the box.
The Borgia Pope, Alexander VI, is dead.
CHAPTER 45
The news is formally announced just after four o’clock in the afternoon.
On the status of the duke there is only a silence as deep as death. Every gate and road out of Rome is now choked with dust from horses’ hooves. There will be madness everywhere soon, with every man looking out for himself and some who already have. But there is one notable exception.
Ceremonies: the life of a pope is full of them, complex choreographies of tradition, status, precedence, detail. And after life comes the business of death. The bells of St. Peter’s are striking the hour, and Johannes Burchard is deep into his books on the other side of the Vatican, checking and double-checking details he already knows, when he hears footsteps approaching. It is not his role to be there at the passing of the pontiff, and work has kept his mind clear of any thoughts he might have, but for a while he has been aware of a rising level of noise.
“How long ago?” he asks as two armed guards enter, clearly confused and hurried.
“We were told to fetch you only now,” one of them mumbles.
“Then you are in breach of papal rules. When a pope dies I should be the first to be informed.”
The urgency and speed with which they escort him through the back corridors toward the Borgia apartments increase his anxiety. There is always an element of chaos after the death, even a low level of plundering by the Pope’s own household. But nothing has prepared Burchard for what he finds now.
Every room in the papal apartments has been ransacked: chairs, tables, cushions, tapestries, curtains, ornaments of any kind, all gone; the chest where special vestments and papal jewels were kept is overturned and emptied, strongboxes prized open, or missing altogether, silver and gold chalices removed, all manner of sacred objects, anything and everything of value gone! Even the papal throne. The papal throne! Sacrilege as well as anarchy, and not a single culprit in sight.
“Where are the bishop and the chaplains? Where is the papal treasurer?”
And for a man who never raises his voice, it is sword sharp.
“It is an outrage! Who did this?”
The two guards lift their hands in surrender, as if it is impossible that he doesn’t know. “The duke’s soldiers, my lord.”
The Pope had barely been declared dead when Michelotto and his men smashed down the doors, holding a dagger to the treasurer’s throat and threatening to slice his head off if he didn’t open the chests. Burchard can see the old cleric’s eyes popping with terror as he fumbled for the keys. Corruption is a breeder of cowardice. But would he have done any differently with a knife at his bulging vein? He glances nervously upward to the apartments. “And the duke himself?”
They shrug.
“What does that mean?” he snaps.
“No one knows, my lord. They left soon after. All of them. There was a stretcher covered by a sheet but…” They trail off.
A sheet for a corpse, or to cover an invalid who no one must recognize? He does not need to ask where they have gone. When a pope dies, the safety of the Vatican palace dies with him. But Castel Sant’Angelo is a fortress with barricades and cannons, and the overhead corridor that leads to it is protected from the outside world. He can still recall the edge of panic as the Pope and his chamberlains had rushed through it when the French army invaded the city ten years before. He has a vision of a clumsy procession: men laden with stolen papal gold and jewels, keeping pace with stretcher bearers, Michelotto, sword drawn, at the back. God will do with them as He sees fit. They are not Burchard’s concern anymore.
“And His Holiness’s body?” he asks, steadying himself for further horror.
They are only too eager to show him. The bedchamber, like every other room, is denuded and deserted, the air sticky with the sweetening smell of death, but the body at least remains untouched, its only wealth, the rings on his fingers, protected by bulging flesh.
For a moment Burchard is struck dumb. He has seen dead men before, is accustomed to the intangible sense of loss when the soul vacates the body, but this, this somehow is more disturbing. A few sheepish souls are now returning. He rouses himself, barking out orders: pails of water and sponges for the washing and anointing, the ceremonial vestments, prepared and stored long ago in another part of the palace. Once the bier has been delivered, he locks the doors, stationing the soldiers outside.
“If you let in anyone, anyone—” He hesitates. So many threats over so many years. “I will find you a place in my own household if you keep the room secure,” he says drily. It is time for the violence to stop.
Inside, the men grunt and swear under their breath as they labor to undress and wash this mountain of dead flesh. Burchard looks on appalled: it is clear that the body is already in rigor mortis, which means the Pope must have died hours ago, lying here alone while the vultures helped themselves to whatever was left. They must move him fast if they are going to move him at all.
Once the body is dressed—pristine white satin robes—Burchard rounds up enough men to push, pull, shift, and heave it onto the bier. Then, under buckling shoulders, they carry it through the apartments to the Hall of the Consistory. How many plots and meetings, feasts and entertainments have these walls witnessed in this last eleven years? For the next few hours the bier will rest here and the Master of Ceremonies will stand sentry over the dead, so that any family, if they so wish, should visit the late Pope. Then the body will be taken to the basilica for a day of public lying in state before burial. This is what ceremony demands and this is how it will be, for he, Burchard, will be there at every stage.
He might have wished for better circumstances, but he is satisfied that all is as it should be now.
He sits alone in a corner of the room reciting prayers for the dead, his eye running over the bier to check the details: the crimson satin cloth that makes up the bed, the flowing robes, the intricate pattern of the antique Persian carpet, which, by tradition, has now been laid over the body.
As the Latin words flow automatically, his mind goes back to that moment when he had first walked in on the newly elected pontiff. His job then too had been to oversee the ceremonial dressing, only Rodrigo Borgia had been too excited to wait. He was already clad in the new silk robes and was leaning over, peering into the surface of a great brass vase, trying to settle the biggest—but on him still small—papal cap onto his tonsured head.
The grin on his face as he turned round had been one of pure joy. He had been so beside himself that for a moment Burchard was terrified he might try to physically embrace him, and so the Master of Ceremonies had fallen to the floor and prostrated himself in order to kiss Alexander’s feet. As ceremony demanded.
As ceremony demanded.
And so it has been for the last eleven years.
We have things in common, you know. We are both foreigners. Both from somewhat hu
mble backgrounds—though yours is more humble than mine—and both masters in our own way: I of the Church in its time of trouble, and you of its rituals and traditions. I always knew we would get on well.
He would not call it well. Though some ceremonies were orchestrated correctly, others Burchard had had to invent: marrying the Pope’s daughter in the Vatican, inaugurating his bastard son as a cardinal, then uninaugurating him a few years later. Never in the history of the Church…And God willing, never again.
And throughout, he had weathered the storms of the Pope’s moods: joy, fury, petulance, love, grief. Such grief. If he closes his eyes now he can still hear the endless wailing coming from the pontiff’s bedchamber, as if along with a broken heart he was suffering disemboweling as well.
Corrupt, venal, vain, carnal: the man now lying in front in him had been all those things. He had bought his way to power and used the papacy as a war chest to enrich his family and carve a state for his son out of what ought to be papal lands. Never in the history of the Church…
And yet, and yet…
Burchard sees him sitting alone at the table with a slab of bread and a plate of marinated sardines, a glass of rough Corsican wine in his hand and a smile on his ruddy face, like a peasant back from the fields.
“Here! Taste it, Burchard,” he had said once, offering him a fillet in greasy fingers. “The sea’s most humble harvest. I think Our Lord might have eaten like this when he and his disciples walked through Galilee. Pope Alexander and Our Lord eating together! Does the idea shock you? I know, I know, I am not a man without stain. But which man is? Would you rather some thin-lipped cleric who never laughed or broke wind? I tell you if della Rovere was in this chair, he would be blasting the world with cold fury. Better someone who smiles as well as rages, eh?”
Giuliano della Rovere. Is that who will come next? Burchard sees again the figure of the cardinal, tall and stringy, marching out of the Sistine Chapel, incandescent with fury when the last vote had gone against him. He would have wrung necks then if he could, one after the other in the same order they had changed their minds. Giuliano della Rovere. There will be no problem with the protocol of ceremonies under his pontificate. Burchard’s own life will surely become easier. Only the thought of it now makes him almost distressed, as if he will miss the madness and anxieties of these last years.
