Light on Lucrezia

by Виктория Холт

  “Brother,” said Cesare, “come closer. You see me prostrate here when I should be on my feet. You see me sick when I have need of all my strength.”

  Goffredo cried: “I will be your strength, brother. But command me and I will obey.”

  “May the saints preserve you, Borgia brother.”

  Goffredo’s eyes shone with pride, as they always did when he was called Borgia. The greatest insult that could be hurled at him was to suggest that he did not belong to that family.

  “Who is that in the shadows, brother?” asked Cesare.

  “Your good servant, Don Micheletto Corella.”

  “Ah,” said Cesare, “bid him come forward.”

  Micheletto Corella knelt by the bed and took Cesare’s hand. “My lord, I am yours to command.”

  “How fares my father?” said Cesare. “Come, I would have the truth. Do not seek to soothe me. This is no time to soothe.”

  “He is very sick.”

  “Sick unto death?” demanded Cesare.

  “Were he an ordinary man, one would say so. But His Holiness is superhuman. It is said there is a slight hope that he will throw off the effects of the poison.”

  “God grant he will. Oh my father, you must not die.”

  “He’ll not die,” cried Goffredo. “Borgias do not die.”

  “If it is humanly possible to survive, he will do it,” said Cesare. “But we must be ready for whatever should happen. If my father dies, you must immediately get possession of the keys to the vaults, and my father’s treasure must be carried to a safe place. Brother, my friend, if my father should die, you must get those keys before the people know. Once they have stormed the Vatican there will be no hope of saving my father’s treasures.”

  “I will do that, my lord,” answered Corella.

  “And in the meantime my father and I must appear to be recovering. Do not tell any how sick we are. Say that we have had a slight attack of fever, probably due to the poisonous August air.”

  “Many who were at the Corneto party have taken to their beds. The Cardinal is saying that it is due to the poison in the air, and that the sooner Leonardo da Vinci, your fortress engineer, can do something about his drains, the better.”

  “Let them say that. So other guests are afflicted, eh? But not as my father is … not as I am. I find that very suspicious. But say nothing. Tell all that we are recovering. Listen! Who is that coming?”

  “Some of the Cardinals from the Sacred College; they come to ask after you and the Pope.”

  “Prop me up,” said Cesare. “They must not know how sick I am. Come … we will laugh and chat together. It must be as though in a few days I shall leave my bed.”

  The Cardinals came in. They had visited the Pope, and the disappointed expressions on their faces made Cesare feel exultant; it seemed that Alexander too had realized the importance of impressing them with the belief that he and his son were suffering from a slight malaise from which they would soon recover.

  * * *

  Such was Alexander’s strength of mind and body that, only two days after he drank the poisoned wine, he was able to sit up in his bed and play cards with members of his household.

  Cesare in the rooms above heard the laughter below and exulted.

  Never before had he realized the greatness of this father of his; and the sweetest sound in the world, to Cesare that day, was the laughter which came from the Pope’s bedchamber as the cards were played.

  Corella and Goffredo came to him to tell him what was happening.

  “You should see the faces of some of them,” cried Goffredo. “They can’t hide their disappointment.”

  “I trust you noted who they were,” said Cesare. “When I rise from this bed they shall be remembered.”

  Cesare lay back and, ill as he was, he smiled.

  None can overcome the Borgias, he was thinking. No matter who comes against us, we will always win.

  It occurred to him that the poison had not affected the Pope as much as it had himself. Yet the Pope had drunk the wine undiluted, and he had weakened his with water. Perhaps this foul disease, which had dogged him since his early youth, was largely responsible for his condition.

  When he was well enough to visit his father—although it seemed that his father would probably be the one to visit him—he would show him more tenderness than he had of late. He would insist that the Pope must take greater care of his health. Alexander was that strong stem from which the Borgia power had grown. That stem must not be broken yet.

  He could have made merry with his brother and his trusted captain if he did not feel so ill.

  * * *

  Alexander woke in the night.

  He cried out: “Where am I?”

  His attendants hurried to his bed.

  “In your bed, Holiness.”

  “Ah,” he said, “I wondered.”

  Then he murmured something which sounded like: “I have come to see the children, Vannozza. You too … and the children … and Giovanni … Giovanni.…”

  The attendants looked at each other and whispered: “His mind has wandered to the past.”

  He was a little better when morning came. He heard Mass and received Communion.

  He then muttered: “I feel tired. Leave me, I beg of you. I would rest.”

  Goffredo and Corella heard that the Pope was resting and did not seem so well as he had the day before. They did not tell Cesare, who had had a painful night, as they did not wish to worry him.

  That day the atmosphere in the Vatican was oppressed by gloom which did not seem entirely real. It hid expectancy and perhaps hope and some jubilation.

  The Pope was seen to be very weak and listless; the alertness seemed to have vanished from that vital face; he had changed a great deal in a few hours, and now that the veil of vitality was removed he looked like a very old man.

  One of his attendants bent over him to ask if there was aught he wished for.

  He put out a burning hand and murmured: “I am ill, my friend. I am very ill.”

  All the light had gone from those once-brilliant eyes and the man in the bed was like the ghost of Alexander.

  Night came and the Cardinals were at his bedside.

  “He should be given Extreme Unction,” it was said; and this was done.

  Alexander opened his eyes. “So I have come to the end of my road,” he said. “There is no earthly path open to me now. Farewell, my friends. Farewell, my greatness. I am ready now to go to Heaven.”

  Those about his bedside looked at each other with astonishment. There was no fear in the face of this man who many had said was one of the wickedest who had ever lived. He was going, so he believed, to Heaven where he appeared to have no doubt a specially warm welcome would be waiting for him. Was he not Roderigo Borgia, Alexander VI, Christ’s Vicar on Earth? He did not see the ghosts of the men whom he had murdered. He saw only the gates of Heaven open wide to receive him.

  Thus died Roderigo Borgia.

  * * *

  Those about the bed were startled when the doors were flung open and soldiers under the command of Don Micheletto Corella came in.

  “We come to guard His Holiness,” said Corella. And turning to the Cardinal Treasurer, who was at the bedside, he cried: “Give me the keys of the Papal vaults.”

  “On whose orders?” demanded the Cardinal.

  “On those of the Lord of Romagna,” was the answer.

  There was silence in the chamber of death. The Pope could no longer command. In the room immediately above, that tyrant, his son Cesare, was lying near to death. There was one thought in the minds of those who had been disturbed by Corella: The Borgian reign of terror is over.

  “I cannot give you the keys,” answered the Cardinal Treasurer.

  Corella drew his dagger and held it at the throat of the man whose eyes involuntarily turned to the ceiling. Corella laughed.

  “My master grows nearer health each day,” he said. “Give me the keys, Eminence, or you’ll follo
w His Holiness to Heaven.”

  The keys dropped from the man’s fingers. Corella picked them up and made his way down to the vaults to secure the treasure before the mob entered the Vatican.

  * * *

  Cesare lay on his bed cursing his sickness.

  He knew that the servants were already stripping his father’s apartments of rich treasures. Corella had secured that which was in the vaults, but there was much that remained.

  Throughout Rome the news was shouted.

  “The Pope is dead! This is the end of the Borgias!”

  All over Italy those lords and dukes who had had their dominions taken from them to form the kingdom of Romagna were alert.

  Cesare was not dead, but sick in his bed, unable to be on his guard; and, if ever in his life he had needed his health and strength, he needed it now.

  There would be change in Rome. They must be ready to escape from the thrall of the Grazing Bull.

  Cesare groaned and cursed and waited.

  “Oh my father,” he murmured in his wretchedness, “you have left us alone and unprotected. What shall we do without you?”

  If he felt well he would not be afraid. He would ride out into Rome. He would let them see that when one Borgia giant died there was another to take his place. But he could only groan and suffer in his sick bed, a man weak with illness, the greatest benefactor a man ever knew lost to him, his kingdom rocking in peril.

  * * *

  The delights of Medelana were suddenly shattered.

  Lucrezia was being helped to dress by Angela and some of her women, when one of her dwarfs came running in excitedly to tell her that a distinguished visitor was arriving at the villa, none other than Cardinal Ippolito.

  Lucrezia and Angela looked at each other in dismay. If Ippolito stayed at the villa it would put an end to that delightful intimacy between Medelana and Ostellato.

  “We should send a message to Pietro immediately to warn him,” whispered Angela.

  “Wait awhile. It may be that my brother-in-law is paying a passing call.”

  “Let us hope he has not come to spy for Alfonso.”

  “Hasten,” said Lucrezia. “Where is my net? I will go down to meet him.”

  But Ippolito was already at the door. He stood very still, looking at Lucrezia; he did not smile, but his lips twitched slightly; it was as though he was desperately seeking for the right words, and in that moment Lucrezia knew that some terrible catastrophe to herself had occurred.

  “Ippolito,” she began, and went swiftly to his side.

  There was no ceremony; he laid his hands on her shoulders and looked into her face. “My sister,” he began. “Oh my dearest sister, I bring bad news.”

  “Alfonso …” she began.

  He shook his head. “The Pope, your father, is dead.”

  Her eyes were wide with horror. It was impossible to believe that he who had been more alive than any other could now be dead. He had seemed immortal. She could not accept this dire calamity.

  Ippolito put his arm about her and drew her to a chair. “Sit down,” he said. She obeyed mechanically, her expression blank. “He was after all,” went on Ippolito soothingly, “by no means a young man. Lucrezia, my dearest sister, it is a terrible shock, but you will understand that it had to happen some time.”

  Still she did not speak. She looked like a person in a trance. It was as though her mind was refusing to accept what he said because to do so would bring such grief as it would be impossible to bear.

  Ippolito felt that he had to go on talking. Her silence was unnerving, more poignant than words would have been.

  “He was well,” said Ippolito, “until a few days before his death. He went to a supper party with your brother on the 10th August. It was in the vineyards of Cardinal Corneto. Two days later he was taken ill. It was thought at first that he would rally, and he did for a while. But there was a relapse, and he died on the 18th. As soon as the news came I rode over to tell you. Oh Lucrezia, I know of the love between you. What can I say to comfort you?”

  Then she spoke. “You can do nothing to comfort me because there is no comfort now that life has to offer me.”

  She sat idly staring ahead of her.

  Ippolito knelt beside her, took her hand, kissed it, told her that he and his brothers would care for her, that though she had lost a father she had others who loved her.

  She shook her head and turning to him said: “If you would comfort me, I pray you leave me. I can best bear my grief alone.”

  So Ippolito went, signing to her women to leave her also. She sat alone staring ahead, her blank expression slowly changing to one of utter despair.

  * * *

  She crouched on the floor. She had wept a little. “Dead,” she whispered to herself. “Dead, Holiness. So we are alone. But how can we endure life without you?”

  There had never been a time when he had not been there. She had sheltered beneath his wing; he had always been benign, always tender for her. He was an old man, they said, but she had never thought of his death; she had subconsciously thought of him as immortal. The great Cardinal of her childhood whose coming had brought such joy to the nursery, the great Pope of her adolescence and early womanhood, feared by others, loved so devotedly by herself, and who had loved her as it seemed only a Borgia could love a Borgia! “Dead!” she murmured to herself in a bewildered voice. “Dead?” she demanded. It could not be. There could not be such wretchedness in the world.

  “I should have been there,” she whispered. “I would have nursed him. I would have saved him. And while he was dying I was here, making merry with a lover. He was dying, dying, and I did not know it.”

  Pietro Bembo seemed remote. This Platonic love, which had blossomed into passion during the summer weeks of his convalescence, what was it compared with a lifelong devotion, a deep abiding love of Borgia daughter for Borgia father?

  I should have been at his side, she told herself again and again.

  Now she must think of the last time he had held her in his arms. That room in the Vatican when he had held her as though he would never let her go; outside, the snowy street, the impatient horses champing their bits and pawing the ground. The last farewell!

  How could life ever be the same again?

  * * *

  They were afraid for her. They did not know how to comfort her. She would not eat; she would not sleep. She remained in her apartments, crouching on the floor, looking back into the past, remembering; her golden hair falling loose about her, just as it had been when Ippolito had brought her the news.

  When Pietro Bembo came riding to the villa her women were relieved. Here was one who might comfort her.

  He went to her and found her crouching on the floor.

  “Lucrezia!” he cried. “My love, my love!”

  She burst into wild sobbing then, and buried her face in her hands.

  He knelt and put an arm about her shoulders. “I have heard,” he whispered. “I have come to share this grief with you.”

  But she shook her head. “It is mine,” she said. “Mine alone. None can share it or understand its depth.”

  “My dearest, to see you thus, so steeped in wretchedness, breaks my heart. Do you not see that it is I who am in need of comfort?”

  She shook her head.

  “Leave me,” she said. “I pray you leave me. There is nothing you can do to help me but leave me with my grief.”

  He tried again to comfort her, but there was no comfort for Lucrezia. There was none who could understand the depth of her grief. There was none who could realize the height, the depth and breadth of that love of Borgia for Borgia.

  VIII

  DUCHESS OF FERRARA

  T hose weeks which followed her father’s death were like an evil dream to Lucrezia. She could not escape from the memory of her loss; she grew pale and thin, for she still could eat little and her nights remained sleepless. Often she would sit crying quietly, and sometimes she would talk of her father, recalling
every incident which proclaimed his devotion to her.

  “Something within me has died,” she said. “I shall never be the same again.”

  There was no sympathy for her from Ferrara. Duke Ercole openly rejoiced. The court, he declared, should not mourn one who had never been a true friend to Ferrara; and he added that for the honor of the Lord God and benefit of Christendom he had often prayed that the scandalous Pope should be removed from the Church. Now God had seen fit to answer his prayers, so there was little for him to mourn about.

  It was Pietro who provided the comfort she needed. It was natural that he should. To whom else could she turn?

  He would present himself at the villa each day, waiting for her to ask for him; and at length she did ask, and there he was waiting to offer comfort.

  He was the one person to whom she could talk of her grief. He listened tenderly; he wept with her; he told of his undying love, and he wrote verses to commemorate it.

  “Oh Pietro, Pietro,” she cried. “What should I do without you?”

  * * *

  Ercole Strozzi arrived at Ostellato one day.

  He came to Medelana with Pietro. He had not seen Lucrezia since he had heard the news of her father’s death, and he kissed her hands tenderly and commiserated with her.

  “But I come,” he said, “to give warning. Alfonso intends to visit you here. It may be that he has heard of Pietro’s visits and the friendship between you two. It would be wise if Pietro left Ostellato before Alfonso arrives.”

  “He does not care who my friends are,” said Lucrezia.

  “My lady Duchessa, I beg of you take care. The death of your father weakens your position and it will be necessary to act with the utmost caution.”