The Vatican Princess

by C. W. Gortner

  “I promise. You must promise me in return that you will not worry.”

  “I’ll stop worrying when I see you both on the road to Naples,” she replied, and she went to the door. “Rest now. I will return for you later.”

  “Not too early,” I called out. The door clicked shut after her. I gazed upon Rodrigo. His eyes were closed, his arms flung over his head in the same way I’d seen Alfonso do in his own sleep.

  Determination overcame me. For Rodrigo’s sake, we must go. But before we did, there was one thing I must do. Throwing on my cloak, I called for Murilla to accompany me.

  —

  “HE IS QUITE well, as you can see,” said Vannozza. “A strong and healthy boy.”

  We sat outside on her flagstone terrace under the trellised jasmine, its fragrance clinging to everything as I watched my two-year-old son run about, rattling his toys as he lifted and discarded them with impetuosity. His robust, taciturn nursemaid sat on a stool close by, intent on his every move. He barely paid me mind, enduring my kisses for a few moments before he tried to get away, his light-blue-green eyes, which reminded me with a cruel stab of his father’s, darting to his nursemaid, whom he clearly preferred to me, a perfumed and cloying stranger.

  My mother sipped from her goblet. “Children at his age will do as they please. He has quite a will, as you can see. Like a Borgia.” Her smile turned icy as I shot a look at her. “I am raising him to survive in our world.”

  I clenched my teeth. It was not the time or place to confront her with the news that I’d decided to leave him in her care, if she, in turn, swore to me that she would write every week to keep me apprised of him. Nor could I tell her that once I settled in Naples, I would find the right moment to tell Alfonso. This decision lifted a weight from me that I no longer wished to carry; no matter his reaction, henceforth I wanted only the truth between my husband and me.

  As if she could sense my thoughts, my mother added, “We are all very proud of our little Juan.” She paused again, as if to anticipate my eruption at her deliberate use of my son’s Spanish name. When I failed to speak, my hands clenching as I watched Juan squeal and chase after a butterfly fluttering overhead, she added, “Are you going to tell me why you are here?”

  “To see my son, of course.” I drew a steadying breath, to blunt the anger rising inside me. “Is the money I send for his upkeep sufficient?”

  “More than enough. We do not need it. Your father sends a fortune every month for our expenses, and I have my own money. The child lacks for nothing.” She set her goblet on the table between us. She looked older, the afternoon sun highlighting crevices about her mouth, deep pleating at her eyes, and thick gray in her hair. She did not employ any means to prolong the illusion of youth. She had become a matron who was every inch her age, and, to my surprise, I realized she did not mind. A lifetime of seduction and rivalry had left her vanquished yet triumphant. Here in her villa on the Esquiline, under a roof she paid for herself, her coffers filled with coin she earned through her own labors, she had become a free woman, beholden to no one.

  “You have not come to see him in over a year,” she said at length. “Yet now you arrive without prior word. Something must have happened to bring you here, with that dwarf of yours to boot. I hope she knows how to keep her mouth shut.”

  “Murilla can be trusted.” I fixed my stare on her as my mother raised her hands in a mock-warding gesture, as if to remind me that I had thought the same of Pantalisea and look how she ended up. “The reason I’m here,” I said, “is because I am concerned. After Papa’s accident and everything else, I wanted to make sure he was well.”

  “And would this ‘everything else’ you refer to involve your brother?”

  “Why would you say that?’ I said, immediately suspicious. Cesare had always trusted Vannozza, regardless of whatever disparagement he’d uttered to me about her. Did she know something about his plans?

  She shrugged. “No reason. No one tells me much these days, least of all Cesare, but I know he’s had his struggles of late, what with your father nearly being killed and these impossible twists of fate in Milan. One minute Il Moro has fled the city, the next he is back with a Hapsburg army to rout the French, and then, only a few days ago, he was captured. Milan has fallen once more to Louis of France.” She rolled her eyes. “Who can keep up?”

  I heard a slow-building roar in my ears. I did not feel myself move, but suddenly I was on my feet, drawing my cloak from the chair and summoning Murilla. Then I felt a grip on my arm. Glancing down, I saw my mother’s hand detaining me. The skin of her hand was astonishingly smooth, I thought absently, not like her face; only here could the vestige of past vanity be glimpsed.

  “What is it?” she said. “You look as if you’ve just seen Lucifer himself.”

  “Milan. You said the French have captured it again….”

  She frowned. “Cesare told me in confidence, though I’m quite certain the news will spread within the week. It is hardly your concern. He only mentioned it because he has spies in Il Moro’s court, so he hears everything first. He says this time Il Moro will spend the rest of his days in a French dungeon, which is what every Sforza deserves.”

  I pulled from her grip. “I have to go. I—I am already late.”

  —

  THE SUN SLIPPED past the horizon, shedding its coralline skin, tinting the stones of the streets with crimson as I hastened to my palazzo. In St. Peter’s Piazza, pilgrims prepared to bed down in corners and nooks under the colonnade, even spreading threadbare blankets on the steps to the Apostolic Palace, where stern guards watched from their posts. Usually, such disrespect for the Vatican’s sanctity would never have been tolerated, but Papa had given special orders to allow anyone without other quarters to sleep there because of the jubilee, though their very presence attracted footpads and vermin.

  Hurrying into Santa Maria in Portico, I told my guards to bolt our gates for the night and raced up the staircase to my rooms. I prayed Sancia had ignored my request to not arrive too early and I would find her here, waiting impatiently. As I went into my antechamber, Nicola broke free of my other women and whispered, “The signore is in your chamber. He has been here well over an hour. He had me take Rodrigo back to his rooms.”

  Alfonso! I’d forgotten that he said he would return to dress for tonight. Thrusting my mantle at Nicola, I moved into my bedchamber.

  “I have urgent news,” I said as I burst past the half-open door. “Milan has fallen.”

  He stood at the window overlooking the piazza. He had lit a few tapers, their warm light welcome as the room began to darken. For a long moment, he did not look at me, bringing me to an uncertain standstill.

  “Alfonso? Did you hear me? I was just visiting my mother. She told me Milan fell to the French; King Louis holds Il Moro prisoner. Sancia was not exaggerating. My brother must indeed be plotting. He kept this news from us for a purpose.”

  “I knew already.” His voice was low. “Cesare is not the only one with spies. Of course, he did not tell me, but neither did he endeavor to keep it from me. Every informant in Milan has been reporting it.” As he turned about, I saw shadows on his face, hollowing his bearded cheeks and diminishing the luster of his eyes. He had trimmed his beard; it was cut close to his jaw.

  “But you did not mention it earlier,” I said, taking an uncertain step toward him. Something about his stance, an indefinable remoteness, stoked my anxiety. “Sancia was just saying how we could be in danger, and surely this is reason enough to—”

  “Why did you not tell me?”

  I froze in mid-step. “What?”

  “You know what.” His voice drove at me. “This child you bore, the son—why did you not tell me about him?”

  My mouth opened but no sound came out, my throat locking on itself as he stared from across the space between us, which suddenly widened like an abyss.

  “Is it true?” he asked.

  My hand reached out, trembling. Tears scorched my eyes. The
pain in his face was visceral, imploring; yet I could not say what he needed to hear until he lowered his head with a moan and sank his face in his hands.

  “Yes. I have another son,” I whispered. “God forgive me.”

  “God?” He wrenched his face up. “What about my forgiveness? You lied to me. You betrayed me.”

  I staggered forward, tripping over my hem. “I did not mean to. I was so ashamed, humiliated, and frightened—I did not know where to turn. They told me I must keep it secret, for the sake of the annulment from Giovanni Sforza and—”

  “For their sake, more like it,” snarled Alfonso. “For the family’s sake. How they must have laughed at me: the Neapolitan fool, lured into the snare while you and Cesare reared a bastard, born of your foul love.”

  Horrified understanding flooded me. He had confronted Cesare—and my brother had told him a monstrous lie. “That is not true. Whatever he said to you, it is not true!”

  “Oh?” He came within inches of me. His gaze was searing, his face scored by grief, as if he had aged years. “It never ends, does it? The lies upon lies, the deception and treachery—you Borgia revel in it. You are everything they say—monsters who can only love each other. I am well rid of it. I am well rid of you.”

  Striding past me, he threw the door wide open.

  “Alfonso,” I screamed. “Alfonso, no!”

  I ran to him, but before I could grasp him, implore him to stay and listen, he said in a voice I had never heard before, so hard and steadfast it was as though he had turned to stone: “Do not touch me. Do not follow me. You will never utter another falsehood to me again.”

  He did not stop, did not turn back, as I crumpled to the floor.

  —

  MY WOMEN GATHERED me up and took me, weeping uncontrollably, to a chair. I perched on it as if it were made of thorns, longing to rip my nails across my face and make myself bleed.

  After what seemed an eternity, I heard the distant toll of bells, announcing the hour of Compline, and remembered we were expected to dine with Papa in the Vatican. Rising to my feet, I said in a mere thread of a voice, “My gown and jewels—fetch them.”

  I stood cold as they layered me in emerald silk, the color my father loved best on me, and affixed the pearled sleeves and stomacher, the diadem about my brow, and earrings to my lobes. Only as they started to unclasp the crucifix at my throat to replace it with a lavish jewel did I resist them, pivoting instead to the glass to regard my reflection.

  The face staring back at me was blotched, white as ash, tendrils of stray jasmine from my sojourn to my mother’s house still caught in my hair.

  “Let me apply some powder and rouge, my lady,” ventured Nicola.

  I waved her aside. “Let them see me as I am. Let them see their beloved Lucrezia.”

  Wrenching at my skirts, I had only just reached the door when the screaming began.

  —

  IT WAS SANCIA in the courtyard, wailing. As I rushed down the staircase, my heart hammering in my throat, I saw she was drenched in blood. With a cry, I rushed to her, calling to my women for help, when she gasped, “Alfonso! You must come at once.”

  —

  HE HAD BEEN taken to an apartment in Papa’s new tower, Sancia said; he, his manservant Albanese, and their squire were assaulted as they crossed St. Peter’s Piazza, by men pretending to be pilgrims. Night had fallen and they were surrounded. They fought to defend themselves but there must have been too many, for the squire had died, while Albanese and my husband suffered grave injury. Separated from Alfonso, Albanese sought refuge in a nearby house. Alfonso dragged himself to the Apostolic Palace, his would-be killers at his heels. They would have finished him there, on the threshold of the papal residence, had the papal guard not emerged, alerted by sounds of confrontation.

  “But why were they outside?” I asked, as we hurried through the Vatican.

  “He was going to find you. He arrived in the sala for dinner and saw you were not there.” She began to cry again. “He had words with Cesare; I could not hear everything they said, but Alfonso was furious. He threatened your brother for lying to him. Then he left. He must have been heading back to the palazzo.”

  A scream clawed at my throat as I said, “Did Cesare…follow him?”

  “No, he went back into the sala.” Sancia’s voice was ragged. “His Holiness was there, too, and several cardinals. We heard the shouting through the windows moments later; His Holiness dispatched the guard, and they—they…” She pressed a hand to her mouth. “They dragged him inside. Oh, Lucrezia, he was bathed in blood. He cannot survive.”

  “Do not say that.” I came to a halt, seizing her hands. “He is young, strong. He will not die. He cannot.” I kept repeating these words in my head, a desperate litany as I hauled her through the torchlit passage into the Sistine, moving through the chapel to the Vatican corridors, barely registering the courtiers gathered in huddles to whisper.

  I was breathless by the time we reached the new tower Papa had recently built, which he had not yet inaugurated, because of his accident. Shoving past horror-struck spectators crowding the doorway, I looked frantically for Alfonso.

  There were men everywhere, members of Alfonso’s household jabbing fingers at a group of sullen bravos surrounding Cesare, yelling, “Assassini!” as my brother looked on with a faint sneer. My father stood among his cardinals, gripping a gold-headed cane, his white cassock limp about his person, the toll of his convalescence showing in his haggard features. One of the cardinals leaned to him; he swiveled to where I stood. Sudden silence descended.

  Streaked blood stained my father’s robe. I forced my gaze past him, terror scrabbling in my stomach as I moved to the settle they had pulled from one of the adjoining salas. Papa murmured, “He is unconscious. He sustained several wounds, but our esteemed Dr. Torella assures me that, with proper care and rest, he will recover.”

  I barely heard his forlorn voice as I reached the settle, unable to make sense of anything at first as Torella shifted aside, wiping his hands on a soiled cloth, revealing an inert body sprawled there. Alfonso seemed unreal, a wax figurine like those the populace hoisted during Carnival, not my husband at all. Our family doctor had tried to clean him, to stanch the bleeding; his doublet lay in a sodden heap on the floor, along with other pieces of his attire: a rumpled velvet cap, one gauntlet, his belt with its empty scabbard and poniard sheath—all splashed with that same awful shade of red.

  I heard nothing, saw nothing, but him, as I sank to my knees, taking hold of his limp hand. I fought back panic when I felt how cold he was. His eyes were shut, his skin so pale I could see veins under it. The severity of his wounds was beyond my comprehension, jagged punctures already salved with herbs by Torella—a deep gash across his shoulder, another on his head, and one that looked to have almost cut into the very bone of his thigh, the stanching cloth already saturated with fresh blood. As I looked upon him, terrified that Sancia had been right and no man could possibly survive this, I gleaned the slight rise and fall of his chest.

  He was alive.

  I started to cry. Pressing my lips to his hand, I whispered, “My love, I am here. I am with you.” Sancia’s blood-soaked skirts made a damp dragging sound on the floor as she came beside me; I felt her touch my shoulder. I looked up, found that Papa and the others in the room had gone still, some regarding me with pity, some looking anywhere but at me. I searched the averted faces for Cesare, knowing that if he were responsible, I would see it the moment I met his eyes.

  As though he sensed my intent, he remained immobile, fenced by his bravos. I passed my gaze over them, failed to find his favorite, Michelotto, among them. Then I returned to Cesare. In that instant, it was as though the room emptied of its occupants, so that only he and I remained, alone and bound to this hour we had been fated to live since our births.

  He returned my stare, his eyes almost unreadable.

  Almost—but not quite.

  “Leave us,” I heard myself say. Agitated murmur
ing rose among the men; I heard Dr. Torella issue an urgent advisory to Papa, who leaned to me. “Hija, we cannot leave him alone. He needs curing; an experienced physician must keep watch over him. There will be fever. He must be moved to a more suitable chamber for his recovery.”

  “Leave us,” I repeated, without taking my gaze from Cesare. Disgust curled his mouth. Turning on his heel, he flipped his wrist in disdain as he walked out, with his bravos close behind.

  Sancia went rigid. “We will watch over him,” I told Papa, turning back to Alfonso. I eased the matted hair from his brow. “Only we and Dr. Torella are to enter or leave this room. I want guards posted at the door at all times. See to it.”

  —

  WE DID NOT rest. We did not sleep and we barely ate. Had it not been for the platters of bread, cheese, and meat and the flagons of water delivered twice a day at Papa’s command, we would have become desert dwellers, parched and gaunt, as we took turns in our vigil over Alfonso. The world ceased to exist, every waking moment narrowed to this chamber in the private apartment of the tower where I’d had him moved.

  He sank into delirium, thrashing so much on his bed that he ruptured his sutures. We had to hold him down as Torella sewed the wounds anew, dousing him with enough milk of the poppy to ensure we could roll him to one side and change his pus- and sweat-drenched bedding.

  The fevers were terrifying, flaring up at night just as we collapsed onto our chairs in utter exhaustion and tried to fill our stomachs with whatever we could swallow. Sancia stayed by my side, lending herself entirely to the task, but when he began to moan and clench his sheets, perspiration sprouting from him like a humid mist that soaked his chemise, as he muttered unintelligible words and his flesh blazed and turned icy at the same time, she retreated to a corner, helpless, to whisper prayers. I clambered onto the bed and pulled him close, seeking to warm him and stave off the corruption Torella had warned would be his doom. The wounds must not corrupt; fever was a hallmark of this. If I could not thaw him, if his shudders turned to teeth-chattering shivers and he began to whimper, I barked at Sancia, “Quick, help me! We must strip him!” Divesting him of his chemise, ignoring the sight of his thinning, pallid frame, I bathed him in warm wine steeped with thyme and garlic, forcing drafts of willow, birch, and meadowsweet past his arid lips, whispering in his ear: “Stay with me, amore. Do not go.”