by Sarah Dunant
Like a slow avalanche, they envelop everything in their path. For the first few hundred miles the only conflict is whether they’ll find enough food and wine to fill their bellies on the way. In the city of Asti, where the rivers run with sweet sparkling wine, the King falls sick with a bout of smallpox. Though no one would notice a few more eruptions (even those who admire him agree he is one of the ugliest men ever to ascend a throne), he rests for a few days. It’s here that news arrives of the decisive French victory over the Neapolitan fleet at Rapallo. By the time the army reaches Milan it feels as if they have already won the war.
In Rome, Alexander’s peace of mind is starting to fracture. He sleeps badly, pacing his bedchamber at night while his servant keeps his eyes propped open, ready for the next demand. With the lack of sleep his temper grows shorter so that everyone, even Burchard, who is usually impervious to moods, tiptoes around him. It is understandable: the kind of behaviour one might expect from a man under severe strain. Yet it has little to do with the invasion of the French. No, for Alexander this is more a crisis of the heart.
A few weeks before, his golden-haired Giulia had left Pesaro for her family home, north of Rome, where her eldest brother had been taken gravely ill. The news comes so fast that she is already on the move by the time the Pope learns of it. A dying man’s need for a last goodbye: what possible objection could the head of the Church have to such a mission of charity and duty? Only one: the Farnese estate is within easy access of Bassanello, the home of her husband, Orsino Orsini.
The brother dies, the family mourns and time passes. Alexander bombards her with requests to come home. She answers pliantly enough but does not leave. He demands again. She resists. Away from Rome, the taste of independence is unexpectedly sweet. And while her husband’s eyes may not always point in the same direction, they are nevertheless full of love for her. Adriana, who has accompanied her, is now also caught between feelings for her son and obedience to the Pope. The situation grows tense. It is made more complex by the fact that while Adriana is a Borgia, her son is also an Orsini. The Orsini’s loyalty to Naples means that for once they are the Borgias’ allies, and their support is vital to the war. It is, in all kinds of ways, a delicate situation. Even Giulia’s own brother, Alessandro, who owes his cardinal’s robes to the petticoat connection, stands firm, suggesting mediation rather than confrontation and warning Alexander against the possible public scandal.
Plagued by his political impotence, Alexander starts to smell conspiracy everywhere and it incenses him further. God’s emissary on earth, he is at the mercy both of an invading army and a recalcitrant mistress. He diverts his frustration from one into the other. He will have Giulia back or the devil take them all. Treacherous and thankless Giulia. His letter explodes into her lap. We cannot believe that you would act towards us with such ingratitude and perfidy, risking your life by going to Bassanello with the purpose, no doubt, of surrendering yourself once more to that… that stallion… From Adriana he demands penance and threatens excommunication. He is, after all, the Pope.
Still the two women do not set out for Rome. Within weeks he is ready to excommunicate them all. He calls Burchard to start the proceedings. Burchard listens, takes notes and does not say a word.
Cesare, watching from the wings, becomes too exasperated to stay silent any longer.
‘You know the gossip among the diplomats, Father?’
‘No, I don’t,’ he says bluntly. He is tired and in no mood to be lectured by his son. ‘Nor do I care.’
‘That Rome is about to be attacked, but that all the Holy Father cares about is getting back his whore. They don’t even need to embellish the truth to make it sting. It is a gift of ammunition to della Rovere and he will use it against you sevenfold.’
‘What, you think he hasn’t had women enough of his own? You ask your mother about his poxy cardinal’s appetite.’
‘My mother?’
‘Ah!’ He makes a dismissive gesture. ‘Everyone knew about his roaming prick.’
‘At least he didn’t mix it with politics.’
‘This is politics!’ he roars. He knows, of course, that he is behaving badly. That it is neither clever nor dignified for a man of his age to suffer such heartache. But for reasons he barely understands himself, this… this passion for Giulia has become almost a passion for life itself, so that without her he fears that his energy might be draining away. ‘My authority is questioned and I am being mocked. How could she prefer that monkey to me?’
‘That “monkey” is her husband.’
‘Only because I arranged the marriage. He would never have had her otherwise. Giulia Farnese is mine. I found her and she has always belonged to me.’ He waves his hands extravagantly. ‘You are too young to understand the power of the connection between a man and a woman.’
And you are too old to still suffer from it, Cesare thinks. Or at least to let it show so brazenly.
From somewhere outside he hears the noise of movement. Though they argue in Catalán, instant translations are making it on to the streets.
‘With respect, Holy Father, we have more important things to do than row about women,’ he says quietly, moving across the room. ‘You give sound advice about not acting on anger. I simply offer it back to you now.’ And he opens the door quickly to find Burchard standing directly on the other side, a sheaf of papers in his hand and behind him a few open-mouthed apprentices supposed to be grinding paint for the half-finished walls. In his cups, Prince Djem boasts of a tradition in the sultan’s palace, where the tongue is cut out from any man who has access to the Sultan’s inner chambers. He is a mischief maker as well as a storyteller, Djem, but that does not mean he doesn’t sometimes tell the truth. Cesare takes a step towards the boys and they scatter like startled deer.
‘Your Excellency Cardinal of Valencia,’ the German says, impassive as ever. ‘There is news from Florence. I thought it important enough to—’
‘Interrupt us. And I am sure it is.’ Cesare switches loudly into Italian to greet him. ‘Your Holiness. Would you like me to leave you?’ He turns, bowing to the Pope. It is a thin veil of formality, but one they take care to adhere to in public.
‘No. Your presence is still required. Whatever the news, our closest cardinals must be kept informed.’
Alexander takes the dispatch and reads for a few moments in silence. When he looks up his face is grave, but alive once more. ‘It seems Florence is no longer an ally. Piero de’ Medici has fled and the government is in the hands of the monk, Savonarola. He has given the French leave to pass through the city on their way south.’
The two other men drop their eyes to the ground. Without Florence, all that stand between them and the French army are the castles of the Orsini. If the Pope’s mistress doesn’t get back soon, she may not get back at all.
Alexander shakes his head. ‘God save us from the treachery of mad monks. The messenger is waiting, yes? Tell him there will be a reply within the hour. And I will need other riders too.’
‘The scribe is outside. I will send him in now.’ Burchard looks, if possible, impressed.
‘You are dining with your mother, tonight, yes?’ Alexander says as soon as the door closes.
Cesare nods.
‘Tell her to have her things packed and ready. There will be rooms put aside for her in Castel Sant’ Angelo. I will send an armed guard when the time comes.’
‘And the other women?’ he asks quietly.
‘We will see them safe home before it starts,’ he says firmly. ‘Sweet Mary, Mother of God, will grant me that much, I am sure.’
The light is starting to fade by the time Cesare and Michelotto ride into the courtyard of his mother’s estate in the south-east of the city. It does not stop her from showing her favourite son around her vineyard. It is a long-established welcome between them.
‘Well, what do you think?’
He takes another sip from the goblet he has been brought. She stands waiting for his judgement,
the last rays of the sun bathing her broad, open face, its age lines written in laughter rather than distress.
‘It is good, Mamma. Though still a little young, perhaps.’
‘Young! We sell that for eight ducats a barrel.’ She cuffs him affectionately. ‘You are young in your taste, more like.’ She slips her arm into his. ‘Come. It is growing cold. Let’s go inside. Dinner will be ready.’
They walk together past the neat lines of the vines cut back ready for the worst of winter. He wonders what will happen to her precious homestead if the French come. Whatever arrangements have been made for her safety she will not want to leave. He must be careful how he tells her.
‘I had hoped you would come wearing scarlet,’ she says after a while.
‘If you ride as a cardinal, everyone knows who and where you are. One does not need an army to visit one’s mother.’
‘Still, a mother would like to see her son in his finery,’ she chides. ‘So, we will eat first and then you can tell me what is worrying you.’
‘There is nothing.’
‘Of course not. But we will talk of it anyway.’
Michelotto, who has been walking at some distance behind them, now takes his place in a chair by the door. He will eat later.
The food is good and Cesare, who has better things to do in life than compliment his chefs, is careful to compliment her. But then she has always run a fine kitchen. When he and Juan were children, she would often dismiss the servants and his father would sit in his cardinal’s finery watching her as she stood tasting and putting the finishing touches to the dishes. Looking back on it now, he is alert to what was clearly an element of eroticism in the domesticity.
She had been old – thirty – when Rodrigo Borgia first set eyes on her, with a ripe body and an unconscious grace, like a cat on the prowl for the best place to settle in the sun. ‘You have the body of a courtesan and the soul of a housewife,’ he had once told her, as they bickered casually over some domestic arrangement. It had not been without a certain guile on her part. In a city full of professional women, she had remained unaffected by the threat of competition: never questioning when he left, or when he might return, always offering the same broad smile of welcome when he did. She had understood early that while this lover of hers could have almost any woman he wanted, part of him yearned for the peace and normality of a domestic hearth. She simply gave him what he desired, in all senses of the word. For ten years she excelled in the business of handling Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia and when it was over she grew adept at handling a business of her own. At almost fifty, Vannozza dei Cataneis is a contented woman.
Cesare, who desires women but finds no peace in their company, is, as ever, relaxed in her presence. No doubt that is why, while he keeps no confidant but Michelotto, he comes back so often to visit her. It is a connection that goes deeper than he realises: the stillness that marks him out to both enemies and friends is a quality inherited from her, though in his case it works to hide rather than reflect what is actually there.
‘And business?’
‘Oh, business is good. The hostel near Ponte Sant’ Angelo is still the most profitable, of course, though unlike some pirates we do not over-price ourselves. There are more pilgrims every year and even the poorer ones can’t all sleep on the steps of the church. The centenary jubilee will see a flood of them. The only worry is this war. Is that what you are come to talk about?’
‘Partly. Papà says—’
‘That if there is trouble, I must come inside Castel Sant’ Angelo.’
Cesare smiles. ‘Yes.’
‘I’m not going anywhere. I didn’t build all this for a gang of dirty French soldiers to soil my sheets and drink my profits.’
‘We will see. If it comes to it, I will come and get you myself.’
‘They have reached Milan, yes?’
‘Yes. And Florence will be next.’
‘Hmm. Is it true what I have heard – that King Ferrante’s granddaughter Isabella threw herself at the French King’s feet to try and get her husband back his rightful title?’
‘Yes.’ And it is also true that she was dragged away by Ludovico Sforza’s guards, her screams echoing down the great corridors of the castle of Pavia.
‘Poor child. She and her husband have been most ill-treated by her uncle.’
‘Ludovico should have had them killed long ago.’
‘Cesare! What a thing to say. The boy is the rightful duke.’
‘All the more reason. Ludovico Sforza will never be secure while he’s alive. His very existence will be an excuse for rebellion.’
She shakes her head. Ah, young men and their ways. Across the room Cesare glances at Michelotto, who is both listening and not listening. It is something they have talked about before; how such an act might take place.
‘Miguel,’ Vannozza calls out to him brightly. ‘I think we are safe here now. No poison in the food or assassins behind our curtains. Perhaps you would be so good as to leave us. I would like to spend some time with my son alone.’
‘I try every time, but I still cannot find it in myself to like him,’ she says as he shuffles out of the room.
‘You are not meant to like him, Mamma. He is here to protect me.’
‘Perhaps he might learn to do it with a smile on his face.’
‘Oh, you wouldn’t want to see Michelotto smile.’
‘Well, it is your business. I know only about wine and hostels. So, if you did not come for war, then it must be love.’
‘You are a wise woman.’ He smiles.
‘I am an old one. And delighted though amazed. Who is she?’
‘Oh no, no. Not me. No. It is Papà.’
‘Your father? And the Farnese girl? She is still in Pesaro with Lucrezia, yes, and he craves what he cannot have?’
‘Not exactly.’
She sits listening, a half-smile on her face.
‘Poor Rodrigo,’ she says at last. ‘It seems he grows old like every man. It is strange. They say women are the jealous ones, but I have seen more men lose their minds with it. Don’t worry. It will pass. She will come back and he will adore her even more.’ She pauses. ‘Though he may tire of her faster now she has given him cause.’
‘You never felt it, Mamma?’
‘What? Jealousy?’ She shrugs. ‘If I did I no longer remember it.’
Now, he thinks. Maybe he will ask it now. There will be no better time. ‘What about Giuliano della Rovere?’
‘What?’
‘Giuliano della Rovere. Papà said something.’
‘What did he say?’
Cesare shrugs. ‘Something and nothing.’
‘Then we will keep it as nothing.’
She makes a move towards the plates, always her way of closing a conversation. He puts out a hand to stop her.
‘It is not unimportant, Mamma. He spews up bile against us like a blown geyser. Worse now than ever. He hates the Borgias as if our family has already destroyed his. It makes no sense. Unless…’ He lets the words trail off.
‘Ah, sweet Mary, Mother of God, I wonder sometimes what our dear Lord makes of it all. Forgiveness, meekness, poverty, turning the other cheek… the greatest virtues of all, and each one of them is absent from any cardinal that I have ever met.’ She gives a great sigh, as if it is too much trouble for her to go back so far. ‘Very well. There was nothing in it to warrant such fury. For a while he was quite fond, yes, though there were others as well as me. And he was not so easy. He had a terrible temper. Terrible. Any woman near him walked on eggshells. Then I met your father. And he…’ Her face breaks into a smile. ‘And he made me laugh. No eggshells, no need to be anyone but myself. So, I left Giuliano and quite soon I grew pregnant with you. And Giuliano, well, he didn’t like it. His temper was… terrible. But I think it was always more about your father than any contest over me. I had no idea he could hold on to it for so long. Against all of us.’ She shakes her head. ‘And now we will never refer to it again. Or my wine wil
l turn to vinegar in my barrels, you understand?’ And her voice is fierce.
‘However, for now, you may tell your father I will be ready. Though he is not to put me anywhere near this Farnese siren. And before you say anything, there is nothing I am jealous of. Except perhaps her hair.’
Events move so fast now that they become history as they are happening. Near Milan, the corridors of Pavia Castle are once again awash with the anguished sobs of the young duchess, as this time she nurses her husband through a night of sudden illness. By morning he is dead. Something he ate, it seems. She is still screaming poison and bloody murder when the doctors arrive and deliver her a soporific.
‘My nephew was always sickly,’ says Ludovico, who is now in every way the Duke of Milan. ‘Mercifully, he is at rest now.’
In Rome, Cesare receives the news with a sense of grim satisfaction.
With the enemy almost at the gates, the Farnese family can prevaricate no longer. Giulia and the faithful Adriana say their fond goodbyes and, accompanied by a small troop of men, head back towards Rome. It is not the cleverest of timings. They are barely a day’s ride from her home when a group of French noblemen on reconnaissance southwards block the road in front of them. Once they open the carriage and see that lovely face emerging from a rich curtain of hair, they know they have struck gold.
Alexander, as he reads the message, goes white and then purple. He is lucky: while the French may be known for their high living and lechery, in a few noble breasts there still beat hearts that appreciate chivalry. Not only are the ladies safe, but for the sum of three thousand ducats they will be escorted to the gates of Rome and handed over to the Pope’s own guards.
The money is bagged up and returned with indecent haste. Alexander spends an inordinate amount of time on his wardrobe, deciding finally on black velvet trimmed with gold, boots of finest Spanish leather, and a sword and dagger to show that he can be both the soldier and the lover. The handover takes place after dark. He rides his white stallion to the city gates and waits, ready to be wrathful and full of majesty, but in the end his excitement and her tearful, smiling face as she sinks to the ground at his feet, decide the outcome. The prodigals are welcomed home and Giulia spends the night in the papal bed.
