The Vatican Princess

by C. W. Gortner

  When the fever finally broke, he lay inert, as though he were already dead. In desperation, I had little Rodrigo brought, cradling him as he giggled and burped, oblivious to his moribund father. I tickled his plump ribs and kicking feet, making him chortle, all the while watching Alfonso for a sign that he heard our child’s laughter, that it would rouse him from death’s insistent grip.

  One night I fell apart like a child myself, arms wrapped tight about my midriff as if my guts might spill out, rocking back and forth on the stool by his bed and sobbing, begging him to wake. Sancia had staggered out moments before to relieve herself and to empty our overflowing privy pail, to see the sullied cloths we used to cleanse his wounds burned and fetch us clean garments. The chamber reeked of our confinement; it had been three weeks since the assault, and Torella had suggested moving him again so that the room could be aired. I flew at the doctor, screaming that moving Alfonso would be his end; he barely held on to life as it was. The doctor retreated with a resignation that rent me asunder. He had given up hope. He had done everything he could and Alfonso had not regained consciousness. Everyone believed it was already over.

  It was then, as I wept alone at his bedside and felt my own being cave in, as the grief I had fought so hard against rose up to drown me, that I heard his voice. At first I thought I imagined it. I went still, tears sliding down my face as I blinked back the haze to stare at him, full of doubt.

  His brow creased. I let out a gasp, leaning closer. “Alfonso?”

  Slowly, he opened his eyes. For a long moment he regarded me, the intense amber of his gaze piercing me to my very soul. Then his fingers twitched, curling outward, and with a strangled sob, I reached for his hand.

  “I…I love you,” he whispered. “Do not…leave me….”

  “Never.” I kissed his hand. He sighed, his eyes closing again. I froze, thinking it was the end, the final rally before—

  I felt his hand tighten. His eyes opened again. He moved his lips. This time, he did not have enough strength to give his word voice. But I heard it nonetheless, like the howl of a wolf in my mind: “Cesare.”

  —

  BY THE FOLLOWING week, he could sit up. Soon after, he was well enough to rise. Every day I helped him from the bed so he could limp across the room. He was weak, complaining his leg hurt “like a hundred devils.” I knew the pain was almost unbearable, because he would clutch at me, digging his fingers into my arm, swaying as though he stood on shifting ground. But he gritted his teeth and forced himself to keep walking, until he crossed the short distance between his bed and the window on his own. I refused to abandon his side, sleeping on a trestle near his bed, bathing and changing in the anteroom, until one morning he successfully made his painstaking walk. A few moments after I had assisted him back into bed, sweat from his efforts beading his brow, Sancia arrived with his midday meal. As I went about arranging the piles of books Alfonso had insisted she fetch from the library to relieve his boredom, she began to speak to him in a low voice. He suddenly growled, “He said that?”

  I paused, glancing at them. Sancia perched at Alfonso’s side, a tureen of soup poised in her hands. “What is it?” I asked.

  “Your father,” replied Alfonso. He shifted, wincing. I rushed to him as he let out a sharp cry of pain. “Damn this leg!” Blood spotted the linen bandage under his smock.

  “You overexert yourself.” I pressed him against his pillows to check the bandage. “This linen needs changing again. Let me fetch a new binding—”

  His hand caught my wrist. “You must hear this. Sancia, tell her.”

  His somber expression brought me to a halt. We had not spoken of what he uttered upon waking, though it had settled between us, a feral reality we would have to face. Nor had he mentioned the reason behind our estrangement on the night of the assault, though he now knew Cesare had misled him, seeking to drive us apart. I had told myself it would serve little purpose to give voice to the undercurrent surrounding us; the most important matter was for Alfonso to fully recover. Now fear roiled to the surface as I directed my gaze to Sancia.

  She sat still, hesitant.

  “Go on,” said Alfonso. “She deserves to know.”

  I braced myself. Her reticence could only mean she had heard something horrible. “Our ambassador from Naples,” she said, her voice flat, as if she had stripped it deliberately of any emotion. “He told me that he asked His Holiness if there was any truth to the rumor that Cesare had ordered this attack. His Holiness replied, as he has before, that he believes your brother innocent of wrongdoing, only this time he added that if Cesare was responsible, he must have had his reasons.”

  I could not speak, could not find enough air to draw into my lungs. Then I heard myself whisper, “He must have misunderstood. Papa would never say such a thing….” My denial faded into silence. I remembered how Papa had sent Giulia to entertain Juan and my husband, how he ordered the deaths of Pantalisea and Perotto. I had told myself that Giulia lied, that the deaths of the servants were necessary to protect me, but I could no longer deny the horrifying truth, no matter how much I wanted to; nor could I find refuge in memories of my childhood, when Papa had dominated my entire being. He had done terrible things in the name of power. He had plundered his way to the papal throne and sacrificed our well-being to his ambition.

  Now he had given Cesare the freedom to do the same.

  Alfonso turned thunderous. “I will not wait for them to strike again. I have been thinking over that night: I cannot say for certain who the culprits were. It was dark; they came at us from under cloaks that they had laid on the steps and pretended to sleep under like beggars. I could not recognize any faces, because they wore masks. But they must have had horses nearby, an escape route planned, for they fled as soon as the guards came. They were waiting for me; they knew my route. I confused them at first because, when I left Santa Maria, I took the passage through the Sistine. Otherwise, I’d never have reached the sala or had words with Cesare.” He paused. “His Holiness will do nothing to save me. My life is still in mortal danger.”

  “Then we must strike first.” Sancia turned to me. “Cesare deserves death for everything he has done and will yet do, if he is not stopped.”

  Beware the man who covets.

  As if my brother had whispered in my ear, materialized out of the thudding fear in my heart, I heard his words—no, his warning—and understood. The one thing Cesare had coveted most in this world, more than power or respect, more than even Papa’s adulation, was me. He sought to kill Alfonso for the same reason he had murdered Juan, because he could not bear for anyone else to have me.

  I forced my voice up out of the coiled knot in my chest. “You and Sancia must stay here. You cannot venture outside for any reason. Let me speak to Papa. Let me gain his promise to ensure our safety. I am his daughter. He will not refuse me.”

  Alfonso shook his head. “If you do that, it will only forewarn them. They will double the guards at our door and then we’ll truly be trapped.” He struggled against his sheets, trying to rise. “I must be the one to go. Perhaps if His Holiness can be assured that I have no desire to stay in Rome or challenge Cesare, he will think twice about—”

  I started to tell him it was no use. No matter what he promised, I was the one whom Cesare fought to keep, whom he feared to lose. He would strike again at Alfonso for taking me away. I was the only one he had ever loved. I had to be the one who put an end to his madness, but sudden voices outside the door cut short my protest.

  The tureen dropped from Sancia’s hands, clattering to the floor. I heard shouting, a staccato reply of barked orders. Before I could cross the chamber, Sancia thrust something into my hand. I did not have a chance to look at it, but as I closed my fingers about the gem-studded hilt, I knew it for her stiletto, which she had wielded against Giovanni Sforza. It felt like a child’s toy as the door crashed open to reveal a figure looming on the threshold.

  He inclined his head. “Madonna.” His mouth twisted in a gr
imace, pulling at the ugly scar across his upper lip. “I trust you are well.”

  “What—what are you doing here?” I kept my back to the bed, where my husband struggled to rise as Sancia said urgently, “Alfonso, behind me. Stay behind me!”

  “His Holiness requests your presence.” Michelotto’s eyes flickered. “He wonders how long you plan to remain in this chamber, when you have your duties and son to attend to.”

  “My son is safe,” I said, “while my husband is not, as His Holiness well knows.”

  “Nevertheless, I am ordered to escort you to His Holiness and have this room searched. We have reason to suspect a plot against my lord.”

  Behind me, Alfonso cried, “The plot is against me, not him!” and I lifted my chin.

  “Why was I not informed of this beforehand? You will leave at once until I can verify—”

  “I am afraid you are the one who must leave, my lady,” Michelotto interrupted. Stepping aside, he revealed a collection of men behind him. My heart started to pound. They were Cesare’s bravos, the same ones I had seen after the attack on Alfonso. “We will attend to this matter,” Michelotto said.

  “No.” The dagger felt cold in my palm. Glancing behind me, I saw that Alfonso had managed to rise from the bed, gripping the post while Sancia shielded him. “We stay here,” I said, returning my stare to my brother’s henchman. “Search this chamber if you like. We have nothing to hide.”

  Michelotto took a step forward—just one, but the effect it had on me was immediate, rousing the memory of how he had come to me in Pesaro to facilitate my spying on Giovanni, which had ended with the secretary’s execution. With an inchoate roar, I flung myself at him, brandishing the dagger and slashing at his face. “Get out now or I will kill you!”

  He spun away, blood spraying. The men behind him surged at us. I started to scream wildly as three of them neared me, until one knocked my hand gripping the dagger aside with a blow that shuddered up my arm into my neck, agonizing as liquid fire.

  “No!” I shrieked. “NO!” Taking hold of me, they dragged me toward the door as I bellowed, kicking my legs against them, trying to free my hands to rake my nails across their cheeks. They hauled me into the passageway. Four others waiting there grabbed me. I could hear Sancia’s terror, her anguished cries above the crash of furniture being overturned and Alfonso’s outraged shouts. Two more men appeared, hauling Sancia between them. After they pushed her through the door to send her careening against me, they slammed the door shut. Alfonso still railed from within, “I demand to see His Holiness! I demand justice!”

  The men holding me released their grip. I threw myself at the door, yanking at the latch, banging with my fists and crying out his name. Sancia fell to her knees with a heartrending wail.

  To my overwhelming horror, Alfonso’s cries were silenced.

  “No,” I whispered. “Sweet Jesus, no…”

  The door opened. Michelotto emerged. He had blood on his face, pooling into his collar. I had cut him above his old scar; he would bear another one now as my brand, deeper than the first. Arching his brow at me, he swiped his sleeve across his wound.

  I shoved past him, my entire body moving with disjointed awkwardness, my heels crunching on the fragments of a broken chair, across the splayed spines of books, the rumpled carpet, and overturned stools.

  My eyes lifted. The tester curtains were draped halfway across the bed, unraveled from their knotted tassels. The sheets and coverlets hung over the side in crumpled folds, bunched, as if he had clawed at them in his final moments, trying desperately to clamber across the bed.

  One of his arms dangled, its flesh bruised. He was facedown, shoulders and head submerged under a pillow that still bore the imprint of Michelotto’s smothering hands.

  My husband was dead.

  —

  I WALKED ALONE down the passageway, leaving Sancia to tend to the body, not saying a word as she stood stunned, bewildered, in the wreckage. Courtiers, secretaries, and other menials stopped to stare before scurrying from my path, denizens of a world I no longer recognized.

  No one tried to stop me; no one spoke as I took the staircase to my father’s apartments and stepped through his door. Only then, as his manservant swerved from where he busied himself at the sideboard, did I see in the youth’s startled expression the image I must present: my gown torn at the shoulder from where the bravos had handled me, my own palm dripping scarlet beads from my futile exertions with Sancia’s blade.

  Papa sat in his upholstered chair behind his desk, two secretaries hovering nearby as he consulted stacks of official papers, his papal seal on the blotter at his side, his sharpened quills and ink in the rock-crystal holder shaped like a galleon.

  I came to a halt. In the sunlight pouring through the window behind him, which overlooked the Vatican’s private gardens, he appeared faceless.

  “Why?” I whispered.

  He froze, gazing at my disheveled gown spotted with the blood from my cut hand, my hair tangled about my face. Then he gestured and his staff fled the room.

  He started to stand. “My child, I called for you over an hour ago and expected—”

  I stepped to him. “Why?” Rage seared my voice. “Why did you let Cesare do this?”

  His shoulders twitched, as if he were about to shrug. I could not believe what I was seeing, what I was hearing, as he affected a sorrowful tone, as though he were standing before the Curia delivering a eulogy. “It could not be helped. Rome can be such a lawless place. Our beloved son-in-law was beset by thieves and wounded, his life despaired for. We did everything we could, but he ignored our physician’s advice. His wounds reopened. Corruption set in.” He sighed. “An accident, a tragedy: That is what we shall say.”

  Agony lanced my soul. I remembered how much I loved Papa, how I had anticipated his visits in my childhood, when he took me on his knee and filled me with tales of Spain, of crusader knights and lace palaces upon the hills. I saw him again triumphant at the Sistine window on the day he won the papacy, his laughter rumbling, his boundless enthusiasm and passion for life. I tried to recapture the memory of his love, to seal it within me and keep it from seeping out, so that I could have something to cling to as I drifted upon this churning black sea.

  His Holiness will do nothing to save me.

  It was like trying to embrace mist; it disappeared until I felt nothing but the emptiness of its departure. The trusting child I had been, the doting daughter and adoring sister, who had defended my family against all odds—they had killed her, too.

  Laughter drifted from the gardens. One of the windowpanes was cracked open to admit a breeze. I moved to it, past my father, who sat motionless at his desk. Pausing with my bloodied hand on the sill, I saw two figures below—one lean in black damask, poised among the rose beds, as his companion twirled, bare shoulders swaying within her low-cut silk gown. She was the one laughing—a melodic, artificial display that betrayed her as a courtesan, trained to show delight at anything a customer quipped. As she danced under the window, she lifted painted eyes. She was beautiful, even from a distance, with olive skin and rouged lips, her hair a flowing mane that gleamed in the sun. A hint of surprise creased her face; I saw her turn, beckon Cesare.

  He looked up. His imperturbable gaze met mine, held it for an endless moment. Then it passed through me, as if I were a ghost. Turning from the window, I said, “I wish to leave as soon as he is buried. I will take my son and go to my castle at Nepi—if it is still mine.”

  “Of course it’s yours,” Papa said, with audible offense. “I gave it to you. You may go there whenever you like.”

  “Then I have Your Holiness’s permission?”

  He grunted, lowering his chin. Taking it as assent, I moved past him once more.

  He said softly, “Farfallina,” and I flinched. “You must understand. He plotted against us; he would have done the same to Cesare, given the chance. He was a traitor. Unworthy of you.”

  I regarded him, appalled by his sel
f-delusion. Then I felt a smile break across my lips—bitter as the last dregs of love I had for him. “He was everything to me. Everything, and more. I will never cease to mourn him or forget what you have done.”

  Then I continued to walk to the door. His next words sank like talons into my back.

  “You took Juan from me.”

  I froze. I had to force myself to look over my shoulder.

  His eyes were like obsidian—cold as a serpent’s after it has spat its venom. “You killed him. Juan had to die because of you; that is why Cesare murdered him. I knew it from the moment I learned about your bastard, though I did not want to believe it. I tried to deny it, tell myself it could not be. But there it was—my son’s blood, spilled for you. An eye for an eye, remember? We each must surrender what we love for the good of the family. Consider this sacrifice yours.”

  A shudder went through me. Without a word, I turned from him.

  “You will not make a scandal!” he called out after me. I heard his fist slam on the desk. “Do you hear me? You will mourn as a wife should; hide away for a time to grieve, but then you will return here, to us, where you belong. I’ll not have it said you oppose us. Enough trouble you have caused already.”

  Though only a fragment of my pride remained, a hollow sliver that would bring no comfort, I refused to surrender it by replying.

  That pride was all I had left of the girl I had been.

  He was laid to rest in the chapel of Santa Maria della Febbre near the basilica, under a slab of stone, the funeral Mass and tapers mocking the very faith they purported to exalt.