Late Summer 1500–Spring 1501
XXXV
I was escorted to the Castel Sant’Angelo. Don Micheletto walked alongside me, and soldiers kept their distance both ahead of us and behind us, as if they had come merely to provide for my safety.
The entire event possessed an air of unreality, as though it were a dream; everything seemed false, illusory, save one single fact: Alfonso was dead.
Nevertheless, I reminded myself that I was a royal of the House of Aragon, and moved with grace and pride though surrounded by my captors. The guards blocked the gaping pilgrims and shoved the more curious ones aside as we marched through Saint Peter’s square, then onto the great bridge that led to the forbidding stone keep of Sant’Angelo.
I did not turn to look back at the Palazzo Santa Maria; my life there was slipping away from me, along with my sanity, like a hand being withdrawn from a glove. I was naked, bare. Alfonso was gone, little Rodrigo was gone, the trust I had put in Lucrezia was gone. Even my husband—who had impressed me earlier with his apparent loyalty—had abandoned me.
We walked along the bridge over the curving Tiber, leaden, fouled by the unseen corpses of Borgia victims. I prayed that I would soon join them.
Beside me, Micheletto spoke, his tone gracious and deferential. ‘His Holiness thought that a change of scenery might help ease your grief, Your Highness. We have arranged new quarters for you, which I hope you will find suitable.’
My face twitched with hatred. ‘Tell me, sir, is that a spot of blood upon your hand?’
Unwittingly, he actually lifted his hands and spread the fingers out, examining them; only after a glance at my expression of grim gloating did he lower them and attempt to hide his embarrassment at taking my question literally.
‘I thought so,’ I said. ‘Did Cesare have you kill my brother yourself, to make sure the deed was properly done?’
His smile faded; he made no further attempt at conversation until we arrived at our destination.
I had never before visited the Castel Sant’Angelo, and knew only of its infamy as a prison. I suspected I would be deposited in a filthy little cell with a bed of straw and chains upon the bare walls, and rusting iron bars in place of doors.
Don Micheletto and I strolled past well-tended gardens to a side entrance; there, he signalled for all but two of the guards to remain behind. I was led through corridors that reminded me of the palace where I had so long resided.
At last my guide opened the finely carved wooden doors to my ‘cell’. Inside lay my new apartments; in the antechamber, I recognized a chair which had been taken from my suite in the Palazzo Santa Maria; the floors were covered with my fur carpets. In the inner chamber on the bed was my brocade coverlet, and my drapes, and the silver sconce upon the wall. Beyond was a small balcony, overlooking more gardens.
I observed this dully, without comment. I would have preferred more brutal surroundings to reflect my grief. I found no comfort in this luxury, this familiarity.
I turned to find Micheletto smiling at me.
‘Donna Esmeralda will be joining you, of course,’ he said. ‘She is gathering a few more of your things. Please feel free to request whatever you wish. Given the recent terrible events, all we ask is that, if you wish to stroll the grounds, or visit your husband at Santa Maria, you request an escort.’
‘Who arranged this?’ I demanded.
A corner of Micheletto’s mouth quirked even higher. ‘In all confidence, Your Highness: Don Cesare. He regrets the demands of politics, and any sorrow they have caused you. He has no desire to cause you further despair.’
Be kind to Sancha, Lucrezia had said. Cesare, she claimed, still loved me.
But I did not want his kindness. I wanted but one thing: revenge—and barring that, oblivion, if I could find within myself the courage to seek it.
Donna Esmeralda and a group of servants arrived bearing more of my belongings, as promised; I endured the commotion in silence. Meanwhile, I determined to take my life with the canterella that very night, to protest my brother’s death—though I knew it would separate me from him forever, if the stories about the afterlife were true. He was surely in the highest circle of Heaven, while I, a suicide, would be consigned to Hell.
I did not know what quantity of the poison would be needed, how many men my little vial was capable of putting to death; therefore, I decided to ingest the entire container. Perhaps that way I would go swiftly, without too much of the legendary suffering the powder produced. I would have to wait until Donna Esmeralda was distracted, and I could block my actions from both her and the guards’ view by going out onto the balcony.
I spent the rest of the day sitting in the chair in the antechamber, stroking the soft blue velvet of my brother’s slipper while the servants put my rooms in order. At dusk, a fine supper was delivered to my door. I could not eat, despite Esmeralda’s coaxing; she had what she wanted of my portion and her own, then servants bore the platters away.
But I asked for wine, and kept a flagon and goblet beside me. As she had each night since Alfonso’s death, Esmeralda beseeched me to come to bed; as always, I refused, saying I would come when I was tired. Fortunately, she was weary after all her work, and fell asleep early. When I heard her rhythmic breath, I knew my hour of opportunity had come.
I filled my goblet and rose casually, mindful of the guards outside my door, then slipped through the bedchamber where Esmeralda lay sleeping. She had left a candle burning for me; I took it out onto the balcony, and set it upon the ledge so that I could see in order to accomplish my final task.
I set my goblet down as well, then with trembling fingers found the vial of canterella hidden in my gown. I drew it forth, and held it up to the light.
The glass glinted brilliant and green as an emerald; I stared at it for a moment, transfixed, overcome by the gravity of what I was about to do.
And as I stared, an image formed within the glass, tiny but perfect and complete in detail.
It was my father’s corpse, hanging from its medallion-laden noose.
I screamed. I cast the vial from me; it clattered to the ground without breaking, and rolled away. My surroundings whirled: arms flailing, I fell to the floor, in the process knocking the taper over the ledge, so that I was suddenly in total blackness.
And in that blackness, my father’s corpse loomed larger than life. It swung before me, there on the balcony; its cold, stiff legs brushed against my shoulders, my face, and I scrabbled away on hands and knees, sobbing.
Once backed into a corner, I cringed and tried to shield myself with my hands. ‘You must promise me, Alfonso!’ I shrieked. ‘We must take a solemn oath never to be apart again…for without you, I will go mad!’
Before me stood my brother, just as he had been the day he came to Rome to marry Lucrezia, young and handsome and smiling, dressed in pale blue satin. ‘But Sancha, your mind is perfectly sound.’ His tone was matter-of-fact. ‘With or without me, you need never fear madness. You have simply tried to kill the wrong man.’
I screamed again, and ran staggering back into the dark bedchamber; a stout figure caught me. I struggled to break free until I realized it was Donna Esmeralda, shouting:
‘Sancha! Sancha!’
I sagged against her and sobbed; she clutched me with fierce tenderness. ‘I tried to be a murderess,’ I gasped into her soft, sturdy shoulder, ‘and instead, killed my own brother.’
‘Hush,’ Esmeralda commanded. ‘Hush. You committed no crime.’
‘God is punishing me…’
‘This is foolishness,’ Esmeralda insisted. I could not see her face in the night, but my cheek lay against her collarbone, and I felt the vibration of her firm voice within her chest, the solidity of her conviction. ‘God loved Alfonso. He knows it is not fair that your brother should die while Cesare lives. Judgment is coming for the Borgias, Donna. Do not weep.’ I calmed at her words; she paused, then spoke her mind. ‘Savonarola was right…this pope is the Antichrist. Alexander alw
ays intended to let Cesare kill Alfonso; he knew it even when he came to the Hall of the Sibyls and swore otherwise. He is as guilty as his son—perhaps more so, for he could have stopped all this evil at any time.’
She led me to the bed, and tucked me in, fully dressed as I was, then lay down beside me. ‘Here. I shall not leave your side. If you grow frightened, simply reach for me. I will be here. God is with us, Donna. He has not forsaken us.’
After she fell asleep, I sat up in bed, terrified, convinced I was a girl back in Naples, and that the surrounding darkness held the mummies of my grandfather’s museum. I shivered beneath the covers as an image formed before me: that of the leering, leather-faced Robert, his painted marble eyes gleaming, a thin hank of auburn hair hanging from his puckered skull, as he gestured sweepingly.
Welcome, Your Highness…
I wept. I wanted no welcome; I did not want to enter Ferrante’s grisly kingdom of the mad and the dead.
As the sky lightened before dawn, I crept out to the balcony and recovered the vial of canterella, then hid it with my jewels before Esmeralda woke. Soon, I told myself. Soon, I would be strong enough to use it.
I remained in a state of perpetual twilight. During the days, followed at a courteous distance by a guard, I wandered through the labyrinthine gardens until I reached a state of exhaustion. At night, I sat in a chair out on the balcony and stared hard into the darkness, at times overcome by panic because I could not see Vesuvio. I told Esmeralda I dozed outside in my chair—but I slept not at all, and my mind took on the frightening clarity and swiftness of a madman’s.
I was frantically pacing through the gardens one day when I heard the bells of Saint Peter’s toll…and at once, Donna Esmeralda’s words seized my fevered consciousness and would not let go. At that moment, I received a divine revelation, the knowledge of how to bring judgment down upon the Borgias. But subterfuge was called for. I stopped in mid-stride and waited for my panting guard to catch up to me.
‘I shall go up to the loggia now,’ I said sweetly. ‘I should like to look out at the city.’
I made my way quickly back into the building and up the stairs, until I reached the great loggia that overlooked the Castel Sant’Angelo Bridge. The broad street was filled with pilgrims and merchants, all of them close enough so that I could easily toss something for them to catch; they were well within earshot.
‘Citizens of Rome!’ I cried, leaning over the balcony’s edge. ‘Pilgrims to the Holy City! Hear me! I am Sancha of Aragon, whose brother Alfonso was murdered by His Holiness, Alexander VI, at the hands of the Captain-General, Cesare Borgia! This pope is the Antichrist, just as Savonarola said: he is an adulterer and murderer many times over! He killed his own brother to obtain the tiara, permitted the murder of his own son, Juan, and now he has killed Alfonso, Duke of Bisciglie, husband of Lucrezia—’
A guard caught me by a wrist and attempted to drag me away; I laughed, and with a lunatic’s strength, broke free.
‘Pilgrims! Romans! God calls for you to bring Alexander down! Go now! How many must die? How many must be killed before he is punished for his crimes?’
Men and women on the street below gathered, and stared up in amazement at me. An old nun, veiled in summer white, crossed herself and uttered a prayer; a black-frocked young priest gestured to his companion and pointed up at me. Commoners stopped, some with brows furrowed, others laughing.
Why did they not take action? I wondered. Why did they not rush at once to the pontifical palace, and drag Alexander out into the streets? My message was so clear, so indisputable…
I continued my ranting for some time; at last, a pair of soldiers managed to restrain me. I looked into their eyes, hurt, bewildered. ‘Have you not heard what I have been saying? Can you not see the evil? You have arms—use them!’
But they wielded no weapons against the Pope; instead, they dragged me, cursing and kicking, to my chamber. Afterwards, I vaguely remember Donna Esmeralda’s troubled face, and a doctor’s, and being forced to drink a draught that left me stuporous. At last I slept.
When I woke, Jofre appeared. From that day on, he visited me every evening—more often than he ever had when my presence at the Vatican was welcome. He brought me small gifts—jewels, keepsakes. One night, he smuggled me a miniature portrait of Alfonso that had belonged to Lucrezia, which she had not been permitted to take with her to Nepi.
Donna Esmeralda stayed by my side constantly. I was no longer allowed out on the balcony at night, but was compelled to lie in my bed beside her after drinking the bitter sleeping draught. I was compelled, too, to eat at least a bit of food each time it was brought, and so I regained partial composure. I learned to interact pleasantly with Esmeralda and Jofre when required, and to maintain while with them the appearance of sanity, even if I did not entirely possess it.
So I spent my days idly, roaming the gardens accompanied by a sentry. Only then, away from my husband and Esmeralda, did I allow full reign to my madness: I muttered under my breath with each step, holding long conversations with Alfonso, my father, and most of all, with the deceitful strega.
The heart pierced by one sword: this was what I possessed now, but my efforts to wield it against Cesare had failed. I felt that sword within me as one feels a thorn; it pricked and rankled me. ‘Why was I not permitted to kill him?’ I asked the strega, and the only answer I received, again and again, was:
At the proper time…
At night—despite the doctor’s potion—I dreamed: nightmares of Alfonso’s white, slashed body being carried away from me by laughing soldiers.
Months passed. The miserable summer turned from autumn to winter. Jofre sent over some of my finest gowns for me to choose from, and I attended Christmas Mass with him at Saint Peter’s, as if I were not a prisoner of the House of Borgia. I passed both the Pope and Cesare, though neither met my challenging gaze or acknowledged my presence. After the Mass, I was not invited to the family dinner, which Jofre was obliged to attend, but banished back to my apartment at the Castel Sant’Angelo.
It was as though I were neither living nor dead, but in a sort of purgatory: as a member of the House of Aragon, I was considered too dangerous to live among the Borgias and be privy to their secrets; at the same time, being the wife of Jofre, who knew so few of those secrets, I was not deemed enough of a threat to kill.
Spring came. I lived numbly, without meaning, the boredom of my days broken only by my conversations with the dead and visits from my husband. Jofre tried his best to lift my spirits, but the moments without the distraction of his presence were dark indeed.
I continued to walk the gardens for hours at a time, trying to exhaust myself so that sleep would come more easily and with it, oblivion. One afternoon, walking along a gravel path flanked by a hedge of roses in full, fragrant bloom, I spied another noblewoman walking towards me, followed at a respectful distance by a guard.
I thought to turn and run. I was in no mood for company or light-hearted chatter; but before I could make my escape, the woman neared and greeted me with a nod and a beckoning smile. She turned to her guard and called, ‘We will walk together a little way.’
Her young soldier nodded and mine seemed not to care; the two men apparently knew each other and were content to walk behind us, conversing quietly.
The woman bowed. She was perhaps twenty-five years of age, with lustrous black hair and the classic, handsome face of an ancient Roman statue. ‘I am the Countess Dorotea de la Crema.’
‘I am the madwoman Sancha of Aragon,’ I said.
She was not at all shocked; her smile filled with irony. ‘We are all Cesare’s madwomen here. I, too, am one of his prisoners.’ Her voice softened with sadness. ‘When he marched his army between Cervia and Ravenna, he killed my husband and seized our estate.’ She fixed her great dark eyes on me. ‘It is said you were his lover.’
After living so many years in the Borgia household, I appreciated her bluntness. ‘I was at one time,’ I answered. ‘But I could
not love a man who proved to be a murderer. I despise him now with my entire soul.’
She nodded, approving. ‘Then we have something in common. After he killed my husband, he took me as his prisoner. Like Caterina Sforza, who is also here, he treated me lavishly, but each night, he raped me. I think, had I been willing, it would not have pleased him as much.’ She looked away, at the muddy Tiber. ‘Now that I am here, he has grown bored with me and leaves me alone, for which I am grateful. But until he is defeated—or until the Pope dies—I am trapped here.’
‘So it is for me,’ I said gently. ‘I am sorry for your husband.’
‘And I for your brother,’ she said. Apparently, Dorotea was privy to all the news concerning me.
We walked quite a distance that first day; over the weeks that passed, we began to confide more in each other. Like me, Donna Dorotea was outspoken, driven to the edge of sanity by the crimes committed against her, and no longer interested in her fate. We spoke openly about the Borgias’ crimes, and our lives. It was a relief to unburden myself of terrible secrets—and amusing to discover Dorotea already knew almost everything that I revealed.
In her, I found a respite from my solitary madness during the days; but away from her company, especially at night, the spectres returned: the mummified Robert, Alfonso, my father, the enigmatic strega. Each day, I struggled to find the strength to face the canterella; each night, I found it lacking.
During this time I received a letter from Lucrezia at Nepi. The wax seal had been broken; I sat in my antechamber for a long time with the letter in my lap, trying to decide whether to feed it to the flame of a nearby taper.
At last I unfolded it and read:
Dearest Sancha,
First, I must beg forgiveness for being a dreadful correspondent and not writing to you earlier; I confess, in the first dark days here, I had not the heart to pick up a quill. But time has had a slight healing effect, and I wanted to tell you, as soon as I was able, how terribly I have missed your company. Without your loyal friendship and good heart, the days are long and lonely.
The Borgia Bride Page 39
