Servant to the Borgia

by Elizabeth McGlone

  Next to Lady Lucrezia, who smiled and waved each time the name of Borgia was raised with a cheer, Lord Sforza rode, a black expression on his face matching his dark clothing. Riding without a hat, the sunlight picked out the silver encroaching in his hair. Like a blackbird caught in a flock of songbirds, he glowered, chin tucked close to his chest.

  It was not only the discomfort of the journey which had added to Lord Sforza's anger. Despite being able to walk only a few short weeks after his accident, his recovery had not been complete. Though Lady Lucrezia was still summoned to his chambers regularly, she never returned smelling of his seed. As the weeks progressed, his mood became grimmer. The wine and spirits he had been known to indulge in on occasion soon became his constant source of comfort. Hardly a night passed that he was not helped to bed by his manservants.

  Betta watched as the little white dog returned to their party and began his tricks again, scampering and begging. Pulling on her jennet's reins, the Countess held out her hand to the mongrel, a piece of the dried fruit she had been nibbling minutes before held between thumb and first finger. The sound of her laughter floated above the noise of the crowds, light and free. The return to the city of her birth had raised her spirits.

  Without warning, Lord Sforza spurred his mount forward; the stallion kicked out viciously, one enormous hoof caught the dog in the chest and sent it hurtling through the air. It struck one of the rear wagons with a crunch and remained still after uttering a pained whine. As the wagon pulled past, Betta could see the bloody concave mass of its chest, scarlet like the lady’s gowns, and its panting, shallow breaths.

  The sound of a trumpet tore her attention away from the senseless death. They were approaching the Ponte Sant'Angelo; behind it, the domed facade of the Castel rose, white in the blinding sunshine, the Borgia Bull standard flapping in the breeze.

  Lucrezia gripped the reins in her right hand, grateful that her gloves disguised the white-knuckled grasp. Across the span of the bridge on the road that led up to the Castel, she could see crowds disperse as the guards cleared a path. In the center, three figures rode on horseback.

  Though she wanted to whip her mount forward and fly to greet them, Lucrezia relaxed her grip on the leather strips and took a deep breath, filling her lungs with the air that was as familiar as her own face in a glass. The return to her home enlivened her. Rome, the stink of it, the beggars teeming in the streets, the ruined piles of stone, remnants of the cities past. And the animals. Her mouth narrowed into a frown as she remembered Giovanni's senseless cruelty to the dog. Violence had its place. She had been whipped when her tutors deemed it necessary, and criminals were punished, sometimes even killed. But to run down an animal that had done nothing but beg...

  From the corner of her eye, she looked at her husband. Before they had entered Rome, he had ordered a stop at one of the taverns that lined the road and spent hours filling his cup, slopping the wine down his front like a boar. His doublet, the finest he possessed, suitable for meeting her Holy Father, would have to be replaced. And his hair... The silver did not distress her. When she had first been introduced to the man that would be her husband, she had thought the silver distinguished, a mark of intelligence. The hair surrounding her Holy Father's tonsure was liberally salted with gray, and he was the wisest of men. But that he refused to wash it above occasional wettings most certainly did distress her, as did the scent emanating from his body, the odor like an animal left to die on the side of the road.

  He disgusted her. At first, securing his affections had been a game, a way to while away the hours. But as prey went, his capture had been laughably easy. The mighty tyrant of Pesaro was desperate for love, hungry for it in a way that his body had not hungered for food or women in decades. There had been nights when he had lain his head against her breasts and shed tears, so grateful to have someone he could share his innermost thoughts with, his dreams and concerns. It had taken only praise for his martial prowess from an adoring and innocent wife to chain his will to hers.

  Now she was tired of it. Their trysts in bed had ceased to interest her beyond that first day, when fear of his discovering her deceit had lent spice to their coupling. And his injury had ended even her desultory acceptance of his marital rights. Her lips quirked as she remembered the first time she had been summoned to his chambers after the horse had kicked him. When frantic rubbings had not sufficed to bring his member to tumescence, she had been forced down to her knees to accept him into her mouth. When even that had failed, he had sent her from his chamber with burning cheeks; the laughter had emerged in wild peals then, and she had been forced to stuff her camicia into her mouth to muffle the sound.

  The crowd ahead of them cleared enough to allow her to see the riders dismounting their horses before the start of the bridge. Two were as she had expected, one she had not; her Holy Father, garbed in shining white, Cesare, who had exchanged his hunting leathers in favor of the scarlet robes of his office and berreti, and Juan. The last surprised her and sent her heart thundering with fear. Juan had returned from Spain.

  He had yet to relinquish his liking for the strange Turkish garb. Beneath his white turban, a robe of beautifully embroidered silk flowed into full breeches. From his hip there hung a curved Turkish sword. The years had added a beard to his clever, handsome face. Lucrezia thought it must have appealed to him, growing a beard when the church dictated that Cesare must remain without. The hot Spanish sun had lightened his hair. It hung in golden brown waves beneath his turban. His eyes remained unchanged, however. They were cold, making her shiver, as did the memories of his cruelty.

  They were close enough to the end of the bridge that she could read the expressions on each of their faces. She schooled her own; welcoming and joyful, but elegant, without the excessive displays of emotion in women that distressed her father. His nature held no such reserve. Tears ran unashamedly down his cheeks. He looked well, she decided, healthy for a man of his years. The time apart from his mistress must have refreshed his spirit.

  She had saved the most painful for last. Through the leather, she could feel her nails piercing, trying to dig into her palms. Cesare, her Cesare, standing deferentially behind their father, face tamed into a smooth, expressionless mask. With a half laugh, she realized that his face was the mirror of her own.

  "What’s so funny?" her husband asked from the corner of his mouth, keeping his voice pitched low.

  "Nothing, my husband," she purred, "Only...my brothers seem so very young compared to you." She extended her hand to him. "It gladdens my heart that you are by my side."

  His eyes searched her face; his expression softened, lips twitching as though he might smile. Pulling back on the reins, he slowed and then dismounted in the smooth manner of one born to the saddle. Lucrezia followed suit, stopping her jennet and holding her hands out to the Lord of Pesaro.

  "Come, we will walk from here."

  When he helped her from the saddle, Lucrezia softened her body, allowing it slide against his form. There was a hitch in his breath as he set her on the ground. Cesare was watching. Lucrezia could feel his gaze, burning her where it touched, her gown, her hair, the ruby jewels Giovanni had given her to mark their marriage.

  Watch, then, Lucrezia thought. She turned, tucking her arm through Giovanni's. Together, they crossed the bridge. The crowd of guards was silent around them, eyes moving back and forth. Giovanni stopped when her father opened his arms and stepped forward, unwilling to wait any longer to greet them.

  Lucrezia relinquished his arm with a loving smile, then hurried forward, traveling the stone path from the bridge to the rise leading to the Castel in only a few strides. The smile on her face was not feigned. Her father's obvious love washed over her. Time and distance had allowed her to remember the father that had always loved her despite his failings; she had forgiven him that one terrible mistake.

  Though he would have embraced her immediately, Lucrezia knelt on the ground, reaching up for his hand and turning to kiss the immense
golden ring adorning his finger.

  "I greet his Holiness," she said, pitching her voice so that all those surrounding them could hear. Then she stood, amused at his shocked expression. "And now I greet my papa," she whispered, throwing her arms around his neck.

  He held her close for a moment, and she was surrounded by him, drowning in the thousand memories of her girlhood, when her father had been the most splendid man in all of creation, wise and handsome and loving. Time had shown her that he was only a man, but she loved him still. His chest heaved, and she felt his tears falling on her hair.

  She pulled back, patting his cheek. Later there would be more words between them, all that she had learned during her travels to Pesaro and from the loose lips of the man that was her husband, but for now, there was only joy. At their sides, she was dimly aware of her brothers, silently watching. With another bright smile, she turned, clasping her hands in front of her chest.

  "My brother!" she told Juan. "The Virgin heard my prayers for your speedy return!"

  His tight, close-lipped smile grew wider as he turned his head, looking from her to Cesare, still standing silently behind. The gleam in his eyes flared, and he opened his arms. Without pause, she embraced him, pressing her cheek close against the embroidered front of his tunic. When she could stand it no longer, she pulled back.

  "How splendid you look, Juan. The years in our homeland were kind!" Her hand reached forward as though to touch the sword at his side.

  He drew back and winked at her. "Careful, sister. Such things are sharp."

  She looked up at him from under a long fan of eyelashes. He could see through her, Lucrezia realized. The knowledge of her deception was in the mocking twist of his lips. No matter. He was content to play along if it caused Cesare a moment of discomfort.

  "And how goes your wife? I trust that you have not neglected your duties there?"

  Behind them, Cesare coughed, trying to cover a laugh.

  "Soon to be delivered of another son, in addition to the twins she has already borne me," Juan said, voice smooth. "Pay no mind to our brother's levity, sister. A cleric can little understand the joys of welcoming a legitimate child and the comforts of a beautiful wife even though he has scattered his bastards through half the fleshpots of Rome."

  Lucrezia laid her hand on his sleeve, not rising to the bait. "I shall add your wife and children to my prayers." With a last squeeze of his arm, she turned from Juan, bracing herself against the ache.

  His face. There had been days when she had been unable to bear the sight of mirrors, his face was so plain to be seen in her own visage. Older, as she was, the softness worn away into sharp angles of cheekbone and chin. And his eyes. Though his face was a polite mask, she could read the sadness and hope there as easily as she could decipher the words on a page.

  She did not look down as she crossed the half dozen steps that separated them; she felt the happy joyfulness of the last moments slip away with each step that she took.

  "Your Eminence," she whispered, and standing on her toes, she pressed a dry kiss against his cheek. For a moment, it almost broke her, that she could feel his head turning, trying to prolong the contact as she pulled away. The hurt on his face, the pain he could not keep from her... It was balm and food and drink, raising her spirits more than the finest wine.

  She turned from him and held out her hand to Giovanni. "Come, husband, and greet my family."

  Chapter 45

  The leather and urine stench of Trastevere greeted Betta like a lover's embrace as she picked her way through the winding streets. She breathed it in, letting the fetid air settle in her lungs. Strange that the fish smell of Pesaro had been an assault against her lungs while the stronger odors of her home settled around her mind with a relieved sigh.

  From one of the wine shops, a young man tried to catch her eye. She ducked her head and smiled, then looked up and winked, making the other men at the table howl with approval.

  Had she ever been so young? Betta wondered, quickening her steps until their voices faded, becoming only the memory of a light-hearted moment, a flirting glance that in anyone else could have been the beginning of a romance, or a courtship. They had started with less. One of the other chambermaids, the younger daughter of La Napolitana, had stayed in Pesaro, marrying one of the city guards after her rounded stomach betrayed the nature of her walks every evening.

  A lover. A husband. Children. Those were not for her.

  Her eyes caressed the curving paths, the darkened corners where feral cats hunted rats and the tiles that stretched over uneven roofs fell and shattered in every storm. The poverty of her home struck her; she examined the street with new eyes, the ones that her service to the Borgia family had given her.

  Poor, and growing poorer. It was obvious in the crumbling stone facades of the houses, the wooden shutters hanging sideways from the windows, latches broken and never replaced. When she had been a child, the street had been a prosperous one, full of master leather workers and busy with the bustle and hum of business. But the shops had moved on towards the wealthier areas of the city. Only the bodega run by her stepfather remained. From a street away she could see the open door, and an orange cat lazing on the steps outside.

  The servants at the Palazzo said that clerks had been seen throughout the city, measuring and marking. Roads were soon to be built, connecting the ever-expanding city to the towers of the ancient church. Everywhere, there was talk of building. The roads through the districts were crumbling, too twisty and narrow for the pilgrims who flocked to the city. And the church of St. Peter’s would have to be replaced with another. During each storm, stones fell from the façade of the ancient church, striking those unlucky enough to be in the path, sending them to more intimate communion with God then they would have expected.

  Only a handful of steps away from the bodega. The tide of fear rise higher and higher, threatening to engulf her. She took a deep breath. There was no such thing as spirits, only bad memories, and worse people. Neither of them had the power to harm her any longer. Stepping forward, Betta opened the door.

  A woman was crouched over one of the worktables. She wore a serviceable brown dress; a kerchief bound her hair. The line of the shoulders, slumped yet proud, the slim line of her back. All of it was familiar, a jagged knife that cut through layers of grief and regret.

  Mama. She raised her hand, opening her mouth to speak at the same moment that the rattle of a shutter brought the woman's head around. No, not her mother. The face was similar, with wide cheekbones and a proud chin, the coloring was wrong; dark red eyebrows winged over blue eyes that filled with tears as she rose from the stool.

  "Betta?" The single word was a disbelieving croak. She swayed, reaching out a hand; Betta leaped forward, catching the girl in a fierce embrace.

  "Ginevra."

  It was a long while before Betta could let her sister go so that she could step back and marvel at the changes. At almost thirteen, Ginevra was a woman grown and shouldering a woman's burden from the state of the workshop. Leather, needles, and worn shoes were spread across the tables in differing stages of repair, and in the corner, a metal brazier with a grate held an iron skillet with something bubbling inside.

  "How..."

  "What...?"

  They spoke at the same time, then paused to laugh. Ginevra brushed tears from her cheeks and hiccupped.

  "I am sorry," she whispered. "But when I turned, I thought you were Mama." The tears started afresh. Betta dug into the sleeve of her camicia and removed a handkerchief.

  "I thought the same." Betta blinked away her own tears. "You are a woman now." Though it pleased her to see Ginevra beautiful and grown, there was grief for the years they had missed.

  Ginevra reached out a hand, touching her cheek. "I don't remember her, truly. There were times that I had forgotten what you looked like, but then I saw you, and I remembered." Her tears were coming fast now, raining down her face. "Don't leave me again," she burst out, throwing herself forward i
nto Betta's arms.

  Betta embraced her sister, rocking her as she used to when Ginevra was a baby, making soothing noises while rubbing a hand up and down the line of her back. Hers, she thought. Not Ruberto's, not even her mother's, dead for so long. This was the child of her heart.

  The sun had progressed far across the sky by the time that Ginevra stopped weeping and could begin to tell her the news. Of her removal from Ostia, she would say little. When Betta questioned her, a stilted expression came over her face, and she would say only that her father had retrieved her almost eight months before against the objection of his cousins, who had raised her like a daughter.

  "I hoped you would marry there," Betta said, watching her sister's face and seeing the involuntary frown. Ginevra grasped her forearm. They were sitting knees to knees, huddling around the brazier.

  "I hoped that as well. Simon, Tia's nephew... He was older but kind to me. But Papa would not hear of it when he came to fetch me and without a dowry...." She shrugged her shoulders in defeat. Then her face changed, and the fingers she had wrapped around Betta's arm moved down, tracing a metallic outline. "What..." she began, but Betta drew back and laid a finger against her lips.

  Ginevra took the hint and quieted, letting her question hang in the air between them.

  "Your father?" Betta finally asked. It had been too much to hope that the bastard had died, consumed by vice or drink or a happy accident.

  The fear that had been an undercurrent to her sister's expression the entire time they had been speaking blossomed. They were blue, the same as her father's, but the look in them was one that Betta knew well: they were filled with pain and shame.

  "You should go before he returns." Looking down, Ginevra began to twist the fabric of her gown, refusing to meet her eyes.

  Betta felt her gorge rise. No, not her sister. He would not...