Servant to the Borgia

by Elizabeth McGlone

  “Oh, my lady!” Clarita wailed.

  “It does not matter, ‘Rita. I’ve something else to remember him by.”

  Chapter 41

  15 March 1495

  To the Most Illustrious Lady of Pesaro

  How long will you continue to harden your hearts against my entreaties? A year and half another has passed since your removal from Rome, and I have not received a word from your hand. Even Juan, that tormentor, has written of his missives from you, while I, who rocked you in your cradle and soothed your tears from the time of your birth, remain in a barren wasteland, separated from your good graces.

  Enough. What happened between us need have no import on the years to come, and I yearn for a return of the closeness which we once shared.

  As you are doubtless aware, the armies of France, seeking to invest their monarch with the crown of Naples, came to the gates of our city, preparing to do siege. Though preparations had been made to resist, our Father, following the dictates of his own thoughts, threw open the gates and allowed them to pass. The home of our mother was sacked during the entrance of the French forces into the city, and many precious possessions lost. On my insistence, she then left that abode and took up residence in the Castel San’Angelo, where she would be safe from further injury. The act which drove her there has been repaid in kind by one who would not see his mother dishonored, the villains meeting their just end.

  Though the Vice Chancellor and other Sforza allies spoke of calling a grand council to see the Holy Father removed from his most holy office, it was not to be. Through his sagacity and cunning mind, His Holiness triumphed, and Charles left Rome with nothing save the friendship and good will of the Pope instead of the crown of Naples, forcing him to continue his campaign onward. The King of France required my accompaniment of his good grace when he quit Rome as an assurance of future fidelity, but through the means of adopting the garb of a groomsman, I was able to leave his care. The castle of Spoleto has housed me since then, and eagerly do I await word from His Holiness that I may return.

  Other news you have doubtless heard from your communication with our brother, whose company you once fled. Having done his duty and gotten his wife with child once again, Juan has decided to quit our homeland and return to Rome, too late to be of use during the recent conflict. The impending return of his favored son pleases the Holy Father greatly, and he had made plans to name him the Gonfaloniere of the Church, a title for which he neither possesses the skill nor the training.

  Chapter 42

  Lady Lucrezia bid her husband farewell with a perfunctory kiss before as he set out for a neighboring village. Though his Uncle, the Duke of Milan, had invited the invasion and offered the French shelter, the Count had loudly proclaimed his loyalty to the Borgia family in their fight against the invaders. Riding each day for long hours with his hounds and drilling the soldiers he commanded took the count far from the Palazzo Ducale, which improved Lady Lucrezia’s humor. As the preparations for their return to Rome began, he ranged further afield, gathering men and equipment to aid in defense of the Papal States.

  The dishes from pranzo had been cleared away when word came from a breathless page that Lord Sforza had been injured.

  Lady Lucrezia rose from her needlework and snapped into action. "Send a cart to retrieve him and have the physician summoned."

  Taking the time to assure that her hair remained confined in its perfect coiffure, she strode into her husband's chamber. Turning, she allowed her eyes to rest upon the curtained bed carved from dark wood and hung with Florentine velvet. The room reeked of horses and dogs, the same scents which clung to Lord Sforza.

  "Strip the coverlet and hangings from the bed and change them," she said.

  "My Lady?" Pantasilea asked, her face puzzled.

  "I will not have them stained if the fool should arrive home covered in blood," she replied, tone even as the servants bustled into the room, bringing water and bandages. When the shout came, the room emptied, the servants scurrying to the rails to better gauge the extent of Lord Sforza's injuries.

  Two men arrived, carrying the count in a sling fashioned from a piece of heavy canvas; Betta could not immediately understand the source of his injuries. Lord Sforza writhed on the canvas bed, turning back and forth until he nearly crashed to the ground, his face a rictus of agony. A low, guttural moan emerged from between his clenched teeth. From across the room, Betta looked for blood, for the bolt of a stray arrow or the weeping gash of a wound. It was only when one of the soldiers bearing him moved, finally depositing the Count on the bed that Betta began to understand the source of his injury. Lord Sforza had both hands cupped between his legs.

  "What happened?" Lady Lucrezia asked, voice equal parts concern and wifely solicitude. Only long acquaintance allowed Betta to see the humor dancing in her eyes as they focused on the cause of his agony.

  The soldier who had carried the front of the litter shuddered, body trembling from neck to foot. "A horse, my lady. As Lord Sforza approached. No warning, kicked back as though the Count were a rival stallion. Caught him square in the..."

  A horrible noise emerged from Lord Sforza's throat, a scream constrained behind clenched teeth.

  Lucrezia crouched over him, smoothing back the hair which had fallen in a messy tangle in front of his eyes.

  "My poor husband," she crooned. As though seeing a vision that comforted him, he turned his face to the sound of her voice. "I shall pray that St. Joseph will intercede and bring you a speedy recovery."

  As she turned and left the room with the other servants to make room for the physician, Betta reflected on Lucrezia's choice of saints to offer prayers to intercede for her husband; St. Joseph, who lived with the Virgin Mary in a chaste marriage.

  The inhabitants of the Palazzo Ducale spoke of Lord Sforza's injury in the same way that they might discuss an occurrence of the plague: with hushed voices and pronounced flinches, especially from those men who could not speak of it without wincing.

  "His stone swelled like a gourd!" his body servant whispered, a bit of information that was soon repeated through the length and breadth of the palace. "And twisted clean about!"

  The screams continued for a night and a day and into the next until their ears rang with it. Opium, brought from a nearby monastery, provided some relief, but Lord Sforza's agony was such that it was only after weeks had passed that the topic of a return to Rome could again be broached.

  That the injury could have affected Lord Sforza in another way became clear soon afterward. On a night many weeks later, Lady Lucrezia returned from her first summons to Lord Sforza’s chamber after only a quarter of an hour with a strange, amused expression on her face.

  "Limp as a wet cord," Lucrezia told her later during the moments of privacy when the white cream was smeared onto her thighs, removing the hair. Pantasilea, counting under her breath, marking the time, gasped and looked up, her mouth hanging open unattractively.

  "Perhaps he will recover in time," Betta said.

  Lucrezia lifted a shoulder. "It hardly matters. The Sforza alliance that my father sought has crumbled like sand beneath his feet. The French king concerns himself only with spilling his seed in every Napolese whore, and the nobles already grumble against him. My father writes that Charles will not long retain that crown, and if he is defeated, my father will look to bind himself closer to Naples. Without a child in my belly..." She looked at her stomach, a soft plain of white. She shifted, growing uncomfortable, and Pantasilea moved to wipe the cream from her thighs. "Who knows how long this marriage will last."

  Chapter 43

  Rodrigo Borgia leaned back in his chair, enjoying the feel of the warm fire at his side and the jerez that Juan brought back from Spain. The earthy bite of the vintage brought to mind his youth in Jativa, golden afternoons, and his brother’s face as they sparred or chased after women. Clever boy, Rodrigo thought, fondness for the handsome young man sitting opposite the fire suffusing his entire being. It was astute of him to r
ecognize his father’s longing for home.

  The private sala in the palazzo that Juan occupied was ornate, Rodrigo noted, catching the gleam of gold leaf in the candlelight. The strain made a dull pain lance through his eyes. Though it was midafternoon, the shutters covering the window were pulled closed, and only two oil lamps lit the room. The interior was so dim that he could scarcely see the table, which had been laid out with a selection of fresh fruits and cheeses in addition to the jerez. He had rejected the food, of course. Appetite seldom troubled him, and he preferred to eat in the papal apartments, where there was always adequate light.

  Rodrigo dismissed his momentary annoyance. Juan had been gone for so long, he could not know that his eyes had begun to fail, that he often ordered extra braces of candles brought in on those occasions he could not rely on a secretary or notary.

  Juan must have seen a flicker of emotion on his face, for he signaled to the servant who lingered at the door. A moment passed before the quiet strains of music which had sounded through the hall quieted; the door was shut, leaving them in silence. Rodrigo kept his face solemn, containing a smile with difficulty, knowing the reason he had been asked for a private meeting was about to be revealed. Perhaps the boy needed money again. His expenditures in Spain had been colossal, as had the gaming debts his agents had been forced to make good less the Borgia reputation be tarnished.

  No matter. What Juan needed, Juan would have. The other children his mistresses had given him over the years... he had loved them, each of them, but Juan required his special attention. The injury he had sustained as a child…Cesare had been a child when it had occurred, of course. It was not his fault. But there had always been the seed of animosity between the two brothers, as there had been between him and his own brother, Pedro Luis. His Lucrezia was an angel, but her worth to him was in the alliances her marriage would bring, producing a string of Borgia allies stretching across the Papal States. Lucrezia was his light, but empires were built upon sons. And sons of his own blood, not those of dubious parentage. Though he relied on Cesare and was fond of him, there was that seed of doubt, the niggling suspicion that entered his mind each time he beheld the boy’s clever, mobile face and watched him practice at arms. He was so very like Della Rovere, who had occupied Vannozza’s bed only a little time before he had claimed her.

  Perhaps it had been as Vannozza had stated, and babes tended to arrive early in her family. Surely there could have been no reason to doubt his attention to Vannozza in those early days, when the scent of her hair and her devious mind had driven him into transports of lust.

  And he needed the children who remained, even those whose paternity was not assured. So many of his children had died as he lived on. Pedro Luis, named after the brother whose death still brought him from sleep into cold wakefulness covered in sweat. His greatest regret. Grief tore through him at the thought of his eldest son, dead from the bite of a bee when the whole of his life seemed so filled with glorious promise.

  "You must wonder why I begged this audience, Holy Father," Juan said, fingers toying with the rim of his glass.

  Rodrigo nodded, then looked up with a smile. "How much do you require, Juan?"

  Juan assumed an injured expression. "Do you think so little of me, Father?"

  Sensing the beginning of a rage at the perceived slight, Rodrigo hurried to assure his son that he was the best of men and that it was only his generous nature which had caused the suggestion.

  Mollified, Juan took up his cup and drained it in a long swallow. Deep red stained his lips, extending to the sides of his mouth, and for a moment, Rodrigo felt a tremor of superstitious fear. As a youth in Jatvia, a companion had drawn his knife across the face of a handsome lad who had smiled at his mistress. The boy's smile had looked much the same before the blood began to pour out.

  Juan was speaking, and Rodrigo tried to concentrate. His mind slipped from matters of this world often, touching on the past. A sign of increasing age that he hid from everyone. He focused on his son.

  "It is I, Holy Father, who has brought a gift for you." Speaking a word, the opposite door opened, and a figure appeared, silhouetted against the candlelight.

  The length of her was swaddled in a cloak the color of smoke hanging in soft folds to her ankles. Her eyes were all that was visible in the dim light, exotically dark and outlined with a thick layer of black winging upwards at the corners. For a single moment they met his, their expression that of a doe caught before a pack of baying hounds; then a long fan of eyelashes came down, creating a smudge on pale cheeks.

  "Who is she?"

  Juan hid his smile behind the brim of a wineglass. He uttered a word in the Moorish tongue, and the girl reached up. In a fluid motion, the veil began to flow over her like silk, revealing a body whose perfection that he had believed only existed in works of art.

  The chains commanded his attention first; a thousand delicate gold chains snaked across her dusky skin, each no wider than a hair, crossing over and circling her hips, her large, straining breasts, the delta of sweet pink flesh between her legs, utterly devoid of hair. Every part of her was perfect, without flaw, as though formed by the hand of a master sculptor. The face was flower-like in its innocence, with the rounded cheeks of a child and the smooth, plush mouth of a woman.

  Rodrigo swallowed past the lump in his throat. He had long ago lost count of the number of women that had graced his bed, winsome commoners, the wives of willing aristocrats; twice, he had even bedded a fetching nun. But in all of his years, he had never beheld such beauty. Not even his current mistress, renowned throughout the civilized world for her loveliness, would bear comparison with this creature.

  "Is she a slave?"

  "Of course. Though she is yet a virgin, Safiye has been well taught in all the carnal arts. And, unlike our fair skinned lovelies, nothing to her is profane, nothing is forbidden. She will serve you in any way you should desire."

  "You mean..."

  "She is yours, Holy Father, to do with as you will. Shall I tell you her story?" At his father's nod, he continued, voice as smooth as the silk that had recently covered the girl's body. "The trader that I purchased her from demanded a king's ransom in price for this jewel. She was to be offered to the Sultan of the Turks, our dear D'jems brother, but as soon as I saw the loveliness of her face, I knew that only the greatest ruler in Christendom was worthy of possessing her. The slave trader claimed that she was smuggled from a harem, the daughter of the sultan. Her beauty gives some credence to his lies, for such as she could not have been born in the gutter."

  "Indeed."

  "She speaks no Roman, unfortunately, or any other language save the heathen tongue, but you will find her a willing partner. In fact..." he lowered his voice, "I have heard the women of the harem practice the skillful weavings of their tongues on one another, that they may learn what it is to desire and be fulfilled without being sullied by the flesh of a man."

  "I could not believe it of so innocent a creature.”

  A finger beneath her chin brought the girl's face up, staring into his. The mute appeal he read there, the stirring of interest and the desire to please unmanned him. Lust surged through his veins, potent as a wildfire sweeping over the mountains. He wanted to sweep her into his arms and carry her to the bed so conveniently nearby. Only caution stayed his hand.

  "She follows the faith of the Moors?"

  "Of course." Juan's hand waved in the air, as though brushing the thought aside. It was one of Rodrigo's own gestures, and to see it used by his son... Where had the years gone? It seemed only yesterday that he had been a boy. "If it concerns you, keep the girl here, away from prying eyes. Your visits to her would be viewed as nothing more than visits to your dutiful son." An ironic bow punctuated his words.

  The Pope bit his lip. "It is only... I would give no stones to sling at those who accuse us of being Moroscos, and my dear Giulia would never understand." The Pope of Rome stood and began pulling at the laces of his robes.

  J
uan rose and laid his hand of his father's shoulder.

  "Of course, Holy Father. This shall be our secret."

  Chapter 44

  A dog followed the line of horseman and wagons as they passed through the gates of Rome, a small white mongrel, bright-eyed with a matted tail. As daring as the most skilled condotierre, it made darting passes between stamping hooves, fearlessly searching for scraps of food. During the momentary lulls in their progress, when the cry of "Make way for the Lord and Lady Sforza" failed to clear a path in the mass of people streaming into the city fleeing the French, the dog would rise on his hind legs, begging.

  Betta removed a piece of bread from the bundle of food beneath her apron and tossed it to the dog. It yapped at her, brown eyes sparkling, and then hopped back two steps to avoid the hooves as the wagon jerked forward.

  Rome. Betta released the breath she had not realized she had been holding and sagged against the wooden crate behind. Rome. Strange that she had expected the city to change when it had existed long past the memory of any one man. Beggars still clustered in the market, showing off wounds that were as likely to be the product of artifice as injury. Whores leaned out of the windows in two-story buildings, showing off their wares and noting the dresses on the women who passed through. Betta had heard at least three of the creatures commenting on the gowns worn by her lady and attendants.

  "Bella! Bella!" The cry went up, bringing roses to Lucrezia's cheeks. Her looks blazed in the afternoon sunlight. Her bright yellow gamurra reflected the light of the sun, and over it, a scarlet giornea trimmed with gold thread echoed the colors of the Borgia crest snapping in the wind above the Castel Sant' Angelo. Each of her ladies wore similar colors, red and gold proclaiming their allegiance.