The Vatican Princess

by C. W. Gortner

  Heedless now of the filth spattering her skirts, Giulia clutched one of the papers in her hand. My mother and Adriana peered anxiously over her shoulder as she unfolded it and read aloud, “We have for our pope Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia of Valencia, known as Alexander the Sixth.”

  “Deo Gratias!” cried Adriana. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Around me, the square must have erupted in acclaim, but I did not hear the frantic jostling of the crowd for the remaining papers, the whimpers of pain as hands were trod upon and fingers crushed.

  Then, in a sudden rush of sound, I heard the chanting: “Deo Gratias, Roma per Borgia!”

  The ecstatic cries scattered roosting pigeons from the basilica’s eaves. As I looked about in bewildered amazement at the sound of my family name ringing out, Giulia gasped, “Look! There he is, at the window!”

  Our servants edged closer as the crowd roared at the sight of Papa’s strong figure silhouetted there. He lifted a hand in benediction. The people went to their knees. Beside me, my mother and Adriana went down, too, murmuring prayers of gratitude. Giulia tugged at my hem, saying, “Lucrezia, you must kneel and show your devotion!”

  Deafened by the acclaim that greeted my father’s first appearance as Pope Alexander VI, our new Vicar of Christ, I stumbled to my knees, a thrill surging in my veins.

  “Roma per Borgia! Rome for Borgia!”

  The people’s throaty shouts overflowed the piazza, reverberating into the city, until I was sure everyone in Italy must hear them. I wanted to laugh aloud; although I couldn’t see Papa’s face as he stood at the window with his hands raised, I knew he too must be holding back his laughter.

  He had triumphed.

  Moments later, the clangor of iron-shod hooves reached us. We hastened to our feet as a group of men in the mulberry and saffron of our Borgia livery galloped into the piazza, a group of hired men, or bravos, following on foot. The people veered as the rider at the group’s head charged straight through them, oblivious to their frantic scrambling to get out of his way and avoid being trampled.

  He reined to a halt before us, whipping off his cap to let loose a cascade of dark-auburn hair. With a cry of recognition, my mother ran to him. “Juan, mio figlio! We have won this day!”

  My brother Juan shot her an insolent grin, his blue-green eyes gleaming in his swarthy face. At sixteen years of age, he was a man, his velvet doublet straining across his muscular chest. With his aquiline features and strong nose, he exuded a raw virility; physically, he most resembled our father.

  “We may have won this day,” he said, “but you’ll not see the end of it if you stay. Papa thought you might have come here, despite his order that you remain indoors. He sent me to tell you to make haste to the palazzo before this rabble gets out of hand. By nightfall, there won’t be a place in Rome they haven’t shat upon or looted. Already they gather about his palace to strip it bare.”

  I was horrified. “Not his palazzo!” Built on the site of an ancient mint, our father’s house on the Via dei Bianchi was famous for its splendor; he had filled each of its frescoed rooms with exquisite tapestries from Flanders and antiques dug up from the Forum and had entertained ambassadors, cardinals, and visiting kings there. He often said that, after his children, the Borgia Palazzo was his most treasured possession.

  Juan shrugged. “It cannot be helped. We’ve dispatched retainers to contain the excess, but it’s customary to allow the mob free rein. The Holy Father has no need of worldly vanities; he is God’s servant now, and all he owns must return to his flock.” He cast a disparaging look over the crowd, none of whom dared approach. “Such a waste. This miserable lot will turn it all into kindling or swaddling for their snot-nosed brats.”

  “Oh, no.” Adriana turned pale. “My house: We must go at once.”

  Juan pointed to his men. “They will escort you. I’ll take one of you on my horse.” As Giulia eagerly shoved past me toward him, his eyes narrowed. “Not you.”

  She froze at his icy tone. He crooked a finger at me. “Lucrezia, come.”

  Juan and I had never been close. In our childhood, he taunted me mercilessly, stuffing worms into my shoes and live frogs under my pillows, until I was afraid to put on my clothes or go to bed. Our brother Cesare said that Juan resented the attention lavished on me, as he had always been Papa’s favorite.

  But in this moment, I was more anxious to escape the crowd and so didn’t resist when one of Juan’s bravos picked me up as though I weighed nothing and set me on my brother’s saddle. The horse was enormous, a war destrier; as I gingerly wound my arms about Juan’s waist, settling myself as best I could (I had little experience on horseback), he whispered, “Better hold fast, sister,” before he yelled at his men, “Put my mother and Donna Adriana in a litter! Djem, you see to la Farnese!” I heard our mother’s delighted cackle and saw the color drain from Giulia’s cheeks.

  The Turkish prince Djem emerged from those surrounding Juan. He rode a smaller Arabian steed, his head swathed in his signature turban and a contemptuous grin on his lips. He might have been handsome in his dark angularity, with his astonishing pale-green eyes, had his vicious reputation not preceded him. Having arrived in Rome as a hostage, after his brother the sultan exiled him and agreed to pay a stipend to the Vatican to keep him away, Djem had scandalized Rome with his outlandish garb and penchant for the disreputable. It was rumored he’d killed several men in brawls and then spat upon their corpses; he was also Juan’s favorite companion, never far from my brother’s side.

  Giulia was aghast. “You would entrust my safety to this…this heathen?”

  “Better a heathen than the rabble,” Juan retorted.

  He swerved his horse around. With a loud whoop and dig of his spurred heels, he took us galloping from the piazza, forcing bystanders to throw themselves bodily from our path.

  As we flew past crowds that now swarmed in anticipation of rapine, I glanced over my shoulder to see Giulia immobile while Djem circled her, like a picador baiting a helpless calf.

  It was my first taste of that incipient power Giulia had said I would soon possess. I was the pope’s daughter now, while she was but the wife of an Orsini.

  Much as I didn’t want to admit it, I rather enjoyed the sudden change.

  Juan and I reached Adriana’s palazzo before the others, arriving to find people already amassed outside the stout gates. Juan lashed with his whip, raining blows and wedging his destrier through the crowd. I cringed behind him, pressing my face between his shoulder blades, anticipating violence to befall us at any moment.

  “Marrano!” a man cursed. “Spanish swine!”

  I sensed something fly over my head, hitting the gates with a wet splat. I couldn’t help but look up at the sound. A pig’s head had spattered against the palazzo entrance. After taking a quick glance at the bloodied mess, I turned warily to find a seething mass of ugly faces. It seemed as if a thousand hands strained toward us, eager to rip away whatever they could.

  They were going to kill us. Even as our father blessed the city as Pope Alexander VI, his daughter and son were about to be yanked from this horse and—

  Juan leapt to the ground, his booted feet making an audible thump. As he jerked his sword from its sheath on the edge of the saddle, he shouted, “Who said that?” Sunlight gleamed across the blade as he jabbed it at the crowd. Those nearest to us took a collective step back, stumbling against one another in haste. “Show yourself,” Juan said. “Miserable coward, come here and spew your filth to my face, if you dare!”

  A huge man lumbered forth, wiping hands the size of hams on his leather jerkin. He had a nasty scar down the side of his jaw, his close-shaven head pitted with lice bites. “I said it,” he growled. “And I’ll say it again, to your face or your filthy arse. No Catalan Jew is fit to be pope.”

  I grappled for the horse’s discarded reins as Juan’s entire countenance darkened. “We are not Jews,” he said in a dead-quiet voice. “We were never Jews. We are of noble Spanish blood. Our kinsman, Cal
ixtus the Third, was pope before us, you ignorant turd.”

  The man guffawed. “Calixtus was a Jew-loving swine like the rest of you. Just because your family thinks they’re noble doesn’t mean they are. You are filth. A beggar’s pus-riddled cock is more suited to dangle from the Holy See than that of any Borgia.”

  The mob bellowed raucous approval, though most had already moved back to form a barricade behind the man, affording enough distance to ensure that whatever happened, they’d have the chance to flee.

  Juan said, “You will regret that. Whoever paid you to say it will regret it.”

  Even as the man sneered, I saw his hand shift toward his jerkin. “Paid me? No one pays me to speak the truth, you bastard son of a—”

  My voice erupted: “Juan!”

  My brother reacted so quickly to my warning, it was almost indiscernible. One moment he was glaring at the man; the next he charged and swiped his sword upward with lethal precision.

  A red fissure blossomed in the man’s throat. He gaped, eyes bulging, blood bubbling out of his mouth. The crowd shrieked as Juan thrust the sword again, this time directly into the man’s chest. With a gurgling cry, he toppled. Juan straddled him, blade raised. With an unearthly howl, he drove the sword into the man repeatedly, spraying crimson arcs.

  Agitated by the fresh-spilt blood, the horse tossed its head, whinnying. It began to buck as I clutched at the reins, straining to get my feet into the stirrups while slipping sideways on the saddle.

  The crowd stampeded into retreat, all thought of insult or thievery forgotten at the sight of Juan hacking at the corpse like a demon. He was drenched in gore when he finally looked up, dazed, as the others of our party cantered up. The arrival of our servants and his bravos on foot scattered the remainder of rabble like vermin.

  The bolts on the palazzo gates were thrown back; our house steward, Tomasso, came rushing out in time to catch me by the waist as I tumbled from the horse. Juan met my eyes; I looked down at the tangled mess at his feet. It no longer resembled anything human.

  Peering from the litter, Vannozza gave a cry. She heaved herself out, hastening to Juan. “What happened?” She cupped his chin, heedless of the blood spattered across his face. She was practically standing on the corpse yet didn’t seem to notice.

  “He…defamed us,” I heard Juan utter, as if the words cost him effort. He was still gripping the sword, which dripped onto the curled tips of his boots. “He called us Marranos.”

  “And he was about to pull out a knife,” I added nervously, though I now doubted if I’d actually seen the man pull out anything. “I…I saw him reaching into his—”

  “Never mind that.” My mother’s voice cut me off. Pulling a handkerchief from her pocket, she dabbed Juan’s face, wiping away the clots. “Someone search that thing,” she ordered.

  The servants eyed one another. From the litter, Adriana called out, “Vannozza, per favore! Can’t it wait until we get inside?”

  “No.” My mother glared at her. “This dog was hired to bark. There might be something on it that can identify its master. Search it, I say.”

  I murmured to Tomasso, “You’d better do as she says.”

  The steward reluctantly left my side. I heard a swish of skirts and half-turned to see Giulia marching toward me, sweat-drenched and pale but resolute. She took my hand as Tomasso bent over the corpse and gingerly peeled back portions of the hacked-up jerkin. Tomasso was grimacing, trying to reach past the jerkin without touching the spilled guts protruding from the dead man’s ravaged belly.

  “Idiot.” Vannozza shoved him aside. Without hesitation, she started to rummage, her black skirts pooling in the bloody mess. I sagged in relief when I saw her toss a thin dagger at Tomasso. She stood with a flourish, brandishing a purse. “Eccola!” She pulled its ties open, upending the contents into her palm—silver ducats, far too many for a common thug.

  “Who?” Juan’s eyes smoldered.

  “Think,” said Vannozza. “We surely don’t need a seer. Who wanted the papacy? Who paid out a fortune in bribes, only for Rodrigo to outbid him? A Borgia has won the keys to St. Peter’s kingdom. Now his enemy will seek vengeance. This filth would not have dared confront you otherwise. This is none other than Giuliano della Rovere’s dog.”

  “Was.” Juan’s smile was terrible, exposing blood on his teeth. “Now he’s dog meat.”

  “There will be others. Curs run in packs.”

  Adriana cried, “Can we please get inside now before the mob comes back?”

  Vannozza’s curt nod initiated the rush inside the palazzo’s fortified walls.

  Only Juan, Vannozza, Giulia, and I remained immobile, until Vannozza jerked her chin at Tomasso. “You: See to this. Throw it into the Tiber along with that pig head. And wash down the road. We have guests tonight. I’ll not have them dirty their hems on della Rovere shit.” She motioned at Giulia. “Take her upstairs and see her bathed.”

  Giulia led me away, up the staircase to my chamber. As I stepped over the threshold, I felt suddenly faint. With the assistance of my maid, Pantalisea, Giulia stripped me of my garments. “Fetch water,” Giulia told Pantalisea, who raced from the chamber, her soft brown eyes wide as platters. She was just three years older than me, the daughter of a merchant who’d done my father a favor, earning a place for her in my household. She had shared my sheltered existence; she must have seen Juan kill that man, from one of the palazzo loggias.

  With a moan of despair, Adriana came into my chamber. Impatience flared in my voice as I heard myself say, “Zia, there is no need to worry. I wasn’t harmed.”

  “Not harmed?” she echoed, incredulous. “Juan has committed a mortal sin on the very day of your father’s elevation. It’s a terrible omen, another blight on his papacy.”

  “You sound like Vannozza,” I said in exasperation. “That man insulted us and had a knife. Juan was defending our honor. Why should Papa be punished for it?”

  “You do not understand. Your father has—” She stopped herself as Pantalisea returned with a sloshing basin of water. Adriana bit her lip, meeting Giulia’s gaze. I saw something pass between them, an unvoiced message of some kind.

  “Please see Donna Adriana to her rooms,” I told Pantalisea, and she went to assist Adriana, who clung to her as if the world were coming to an end.

  The door closed, leaving Giulia and me alone. She gave me a pensive look as I removed my shift and took up a cloth, scrubbing myself. When I looked down to my feet, I saw that the water in the basin had turned pink. Blood must have sprayed on me, too. How strange. I hadn’t felt it.

  “Your robe,” Giulia said. “It’s there on the bed. Put it on before you catch cold.”

  I was shivering, wrapping the velvet about me. Though the sun blazed outside, spilling through the window in dazzling shafts, I felt doused in ice.

  Silence descended.

  “You were very brave,” Giulia finally said.

  “Brave?” I did not feel as if I had been. “I…I just warned Juan. That man—he was reaching into his jerkin and…” My voice faded as she gave a firm nod.

  “Yet Juan’s horse is larger than anything you’re used to riding,” she said, “and those fiends were all around you. You probably saved his life with your warning, or at least spared him injury. You should be proud of yourself. Few girls would have had the presence of mind to act as you did.”

  I regarded her in silence. Respect, I realized—that was what I heard in her voice. It caught me by surprise. Times past, she would have chided me for being a silly, helpless child.

  “What was Adriana going to say about Papa?” I asked. “What don’t I understand?”

  Giulia sighed. “I’m not sure this is the right moment, Lucrezia.”

  “Why not?”

  She turned to my mirror. “That man called your family Marranos.” She paused, eyeing me in the glass. “Do you know what it means?”

  “Yes, of course. A Marrano is a converted Jew. But we’re not Jews…are we?”


  “No more than any of these so-called nobles of Italy, who can scarcely stand the sight of one another, let alone a foreigner. Marrano is what they call every Spaniard, especially the Borgia, because your father did not content himself to haggle over a meaningless piece of land or dingy castle. He wanted the Holy See and he achieved it. That is why they insulted you: They despise your family’s ambition. Vannozza was right: They run in packs. What they need is a strong hand to bring them to heel. Rodrigo will leash them all soon enough, including Cardinal della Rovere.”

  I sensed she was not telling me everything. “But Adriana called it ‘another’ blight on his papacy. That must mean there is more.” I met her stare, holding my breath as a smile curled her lips.

  “That would be me,” she said at length. “I am the other blight.” Her smile widened. “If I tell you a secret, will you promise not to breathe a word of it to anyone?”

  I made myself nod, though I was not certain I wanted to know.

  “Very well. Rodrigo and I are…” Laughter bubbled in her throat. “We are lovers. And I am carrying his child.”

  I gaped in disbelief. Before I could stop myself, I blurted out, “But you are married.”

  “What of it? Do you think because I have a husband I’m incapable of taking a lover?”

  I hardly knew what to say. She was right, of course; though I had no experience in such matters, I supposed certain married women did break their vows. I’d suspected something like this already, ever since she told me about my father’s machinations in the conclave, a private business she should never have known. But having it confirmed didn’t make it less unsettling.

  “Does Juan know?” I asked suddenly, and a shadow of fear crossed her face.