Sins of the House of Borgia

by Sarah Bower

  I turned to Ser Taddeo. “Forgive me. I am very fond of dancing but I have…sprained my ankle. It is most frustrating.”

  “I am not much of a dancer myself,” he replied. He sounded defensive, prickly. I became aware of Donna Lucrezia’s eyes upon me from the opposite side of the room. Who else was watching me? Cesare had his spies everywhere; probably Donna Lucrezia had not written to him about me because she had no need to; probably the girl who could count to four, and ensured the piles of clean cloths appeared in my clothes chest each week I was due to bleed, was in his pay; possibly even Ser Taddeo, already. I had made my choice when I fell in love with Cesare; there was no other.

  “I am sure a man of affairs such as yourself has far more serious things to think about.” I smiled, and my lips did not crack, though perhaps my heart did, a little. He responded to my invitation by telling me he was, indeed, a busy man, dividing his time between his estate on the banks of the Po, where he grew vines and nurtured ponds full of pike, and his duties as secretary to the Savi, the governing council of Ferrara, of which his good friend, Ser Strozzi, was a member. He was, he was quick to inform me, a widower with three grown children, a daughter of twenty years and two younger sons. The youngest of these enjoyed the patronage of Cardinal Ippolito and was destined for a career in the Church.

  He was perfect in every way, I could not deny it. He could give me a good name and a comfortable home. With two grown sons and a marriageable daughter he had no need to importune me for an heir, but would appreciate whatever dowry madonna might settle on me to provide a marriage portion for his own girl. Doubtless, also, putting a roof over the head of the pope’s grandchild would not hinder his younger boy’s ecclesiastical ambitions. As for my lover, Occhiobello would turn a blind eye, unless he wished to be left with nothing but blind eyes to turn. I smiled and nodded, nodded and smiled, and Donna Lucrezia turned away, satisfied, to watch the gentlemen perform a galliard.

  After the galliard and before supper was served, Strozzi announced a second intermezzo. Ser Taddeo fell silent and we waited. My stomach grumbled. I hoped Ser Taddeo would not notice it. My lover’s hunger seemed to be growing in me apace with his child. We waited for a chorus, for the musicians to shuffle their places, to make way for virtuosi, for actors, for an ingenious machine which would represent the movement of the heavenly bodies, or Leda turning into a swan. Nothing. Nothing but a small man dressed in scholar’s black, stepping into the centre of our expectant circle with a whisper of soft shoes on the polished floor.

  A murmur of excitement began to buzz about the room. Bembo. It’s Bembo. Is it Bembo? Question answering affirmation responding to question as though a dance of words echoed the dances of music and feet. Strozzi hobbled to the centre of the circle of onlookers and raised his free hand for silence.

  “Dear friends,” he began, “it is my unique honour to present Ser Pietro Bembo, the finest poet of his generation. Ser Pietro has been shut away for many months, as my guest or that of his grace,” and here Strozzi executed a bow in the direction of Duke Ercole, “working on his dialectical verses on love which he titles Gli Asolani. Finally, he assures me, he feels some parts are fit to be heard by an audience and has graciously agreed to favour us with a recitation this evening.”

  We applauded as Strozzi stumped off to sit beside Donna Lucrezia and Bembo cleared his throat, pale and slender as a lily. Good, I thought. However great a poet, Bembo was just one small, softly spoken man. His recital would give me time to think about my new situation without the distractions of music or dancing or mechanical ingenuities. I knew Donna Lucrezia would seek my opinion of Ser Taddeo as soon as she called us to prepare her for bed, and I must find a way to show my appreciation for her choice. I wanted to talk to Angela, to rehearse with her a suitable form of words.

  I looked up, seeking her out among Bembo’s audience. Tall candelabra had been drawn forward to light him, so my eyes were dazzled by banks of tiny flames reflected almost to infinity in mirrors and goblets and jewels, but I picked her out eventually. She still stood among the group of women where Giulio had left her at the end of their torch dance, but now he was close to her once more, standing just behind her. Her head seemed to be resting against his shoulder, her throat extended, lips apart. A silver punch cup was poised halfway to her mouth. She was as still as the frozen fountain in Strozzi’s courtyard, unblinking, scarcely seeming to breathe, her attention fixed on the poet.

  I began to listen.

  Now Love has bent the pathway of my life;

  That happy time and those unclouded days

  Which never knew the bitter taste of tears

  Have faded into black, tormented nights…

  No Ovid or Petrarch, this Pietro Bembo, but there was a quality in the way he delivered his lines, in a quiet yet lucid voice which carried clearly above the background scuffle of silks and shoes, the chinking of cups, the whispered laughter of the few inattentive listeners. I felt as though he had reached into my heart and ordered its confusions into Petrarchan rime. And, just as you might find a lost letter or forgotten pair of shoes when you tidy out a deep chest, he had discovered a truth, not new, but long buried. I could see Angela felt the same, and shifted my gaze.

  ***

  Madonna did not ask me about Ser Taddeo that night, though she talked much of Bembo and the excellence of his verses.

  “Though I think it is in the delivery more than the construction,” she told us as we prepared her for bed. “One cannot believe anything less than perfection could issue from such pretty lips. The great Platonic deception.” She looked very pretty herself, her eyes shining and cheeks flushed even after she had removed her cochineal paste.

  ***

  Neither she nor Don Alfonso had yet risen when the messenger arrived from Senigallia, full of breathless apologies for his lateness, his yellow and scarlet quartered livery barely distinguishable beneath the mud of the road. Hardly aware what I was doing, I led him straight to the door of madonna’s bedchamber where I gave a loud cough, though I could scarcely hear it myself above the hammering of the blood in my ears, before entering the room to announce the messenger’s arrival. Only bad news travels fast, I told myself, only bad news travels fast.

  “He is outside now?” asked madonna in some amazement. Her hair was loose, her breath a little short, the sheet she clutched barely covering her breasts. Beside her, Don Alfonso looked like some great farm boy, the skin of his chest and arms ruddy from the hours he spent stripped to the waist in kiln or foundry, the backs of his hands blotched with burns in various stages of healing.

  He scowled at me, but madonna spoke with gentle exasperation when she said, “I cannot receive him until I am somewhat clothed, Violante. Perhaps you will return to dress me in a few minutes, to give my husband time to retire.”

  “Yes, madonna. I’m sorry, madonna.” I curtsied and retreated, my cheeks scalded with shame as I closed the doors on a sudden burst of laughter from Don Alfonso and his wife.

  Yet I had not even had time to find a slave to take the messenger to the kitchens to wash and refresh himself before the Dalmatian came padding after me to let me know, by a combination of signs and the guttural grunts that passed for language with her, that madonna wished me to return.

  “Where is he?” she demanded as soon as I entered the bedchamber. She was still in bed, but wearing a chaste nightgown with a high neck and long sleeves, and a cap on her head into which she had bundled most of her hair. The covers were smooth, the pillows where Don Alfonso had rested plumped. The Dalmatian crouched in front of the fireplace with flint and pine spills.

  “Waiting outside, madonna.”

  “Well fetch him, then. I am decent enough, aren’t I?”

  “I suppose so, madonna.” Our eyes met. He will report everything, they told one another, it must all be just as Cesare wishes it to be. Donna Lucrezia stuffed a few more stray hairs beneath her cap. I arched my spine, so my belly protruded just a little more than usual. Madonna gave a smal
l frown, then shrugged, then smiled. “Enter,” she called to the messenger.

  He brought in with him the smells of mud and snow and horses. As he knelt to madonna, and I watched the letters C E S A R stretch and contract across his bent back as he breathed, I wondered if he would take back with him in his report the scents of tuberose and lavender, of conjugal bed linen and hot pine resin. At first I thought it was the odd conjunction of smells turning my stomach. I had not yet broken my fast, and hunger made me queasy. I put my hand over my belly to quell its fluttering.

  “Yes, yes,” said madonna testily, waving at the man to rise. “Get on with it. What have you for me from my lord duke?”

  “He sends you his compliments, madam.”

  “Oh for heaven’s sake, hand me the letter.”

  The fluttering persisted. My belly felt as though it was full of butterflies, that if I opened my mouth they might fly out. I watched the letter, wrapped in an oil cloth, pass from the messenger’s leather glove to madonna’s plump, white fingers. She slid one neat nail under the seal binding the cloth and broke the wax. The butterflies had folded their wings now, and were trampling my bowels in lead-soled boots. Only bad news travels fast.

  The letter ran to several pages. How long must it take her to read it? How could I bear to wait? Unable to stay still, I fidgeted with perfume bottles and cosmetic jars, jewel cases and underlinen, telling myself I was tidying up. Just tidying up.

  “Stand still, girl. How can I concentrate?” Madonna peeled off three of the pages and lay them on the bed beside her. “For Duke Ercole. For my husband. And Ippolito.” Only one page was hers. I felt shaky with relief.

  “Yes, madonna.” I stood beside the bed, my hands folded in my sleeves, gripped to my forearms to prevent their trembling. The messenger waited on his knees, in case there should be any reply. The butterflies fell still.

  Madonna gasped. “Oh my God,” she exclaimed, then again, “dear God.” Then she smiled, then gave a muted laugh, a mere forcing of air through her throat and down her nose, then, finally, she handed the letter to me. “Well, Violante. It seems you were right.”

  Most Excellent Lady, I read, dearest sister,

  Well, the snake is scotched, the Magione conspirators no more. Now, at last, I can tell it. You must forgive my closeness, but absolute secrecy has been of the essence. I did not even divulge my plan to our father until the day of its completion, for you know how, whatever dissembling words he may use, his face and demeanour give him away. He has been calling me all sorts of names unfitting for a lady’s ear, I am told, because I have written him no letters, spent all his money and—he says—done nothing but pass my time playing calcio, and other games involving balls (forgive my indelicacy—I merely quote His Holiness) at Cesena. As always, this is true and not true.

  It goes back to Ramiro, no, further, to the rebellion of San Leo, for that gave the traitors the confidence to show their hand. They thought it would distract me, but in actual fact, it served only to focus my attention. As I told the grovelling castellan when he arrived in Venice to report his failure, by losing San Leo he had already made sure of its recovery.

  Ramiro I had long suspected of complicity with the Orsini and the rest of the Magione curs. Three months ago I had to deprive him of his position as governor of the Romagna because his corrupt administration was undermining my authority there. I spoke to him at great length on the night before his execution (thereby denying myself the favours of Marescotti’s wife, who had been put in my way at a ball hosted by her husband, and she is a pretty enough girl). I reminded him how he had been in my service since I was fourteen and sent to school in Perugia, how we had been friends as well as master and man, fellow Spaniards far from home, who should stick by one another in our exile. We both wept, though he with more passion than I, and finally, he told me what the conspirators had planned for me. That they intended to entrap me at Senigallia, making sure Doria, its castellan, would only surrender the rocca to me in person, then turning on me once I was in the town, surrounded by the troops they had billeted there.

  God grant me cleverer enemies, beloved sister! It was the simplest, most beautiful deception in the world. I sent away all my French officers and their men. This served a dual purpose, both giving notice to Louis that I no longer need him and will go my own way in future, and lulling the conspirators into a false sense of security. Just to make certain of the latter, I dispersed my troops south from Cesena in small groups, by varying routes, and made believe they had been released for the holiday. I then waited for the message I knew was coming from Doria. You might have seen I was nervous but I would defy anyone else to detect it, until, at any rate, I set out for Senigallia wearing full battle armour, even though I was, on the face of it, merely going to formally accept a surrender already given, from a man surrounded on all sides by my loyal troops. I debated the wisdom of this briefly, but quickly decided it made no sense to risk the very skin I was setting out to save by going unarmed.

  My army met me near Fano, and I sent word ahead to my condottieri to have them evacuate the town so I would be able to billet my own troops there. I wish you could have seen their faces by the time I arrived, dearest sister. Each was the image of panic, pale as the corpses they were destined to become, sweating freely despite the cold. Paolo Orsini could not speak except in a squawk like a parrot, but Vitelozzo was the best. He was so sick of the pox he could not ride unaided, and wore a green cloak which made him look even more bilious. For myself, I was the embodiment of charm. I kissed them all; if I lick my lips now, while writing this, I fancy I can taste the salt of their fear, and God, is it sweet.

  As we entered the town, its single gate was locked behind us, shutting my troops in and theirs outside. I bade them accompany me to a house Michelotto had found for me, where a meal was laid in a room perfect for its purpose, on an upper floor, with but one door and the windows barred. A last supper of sorts. But I can see you shaking your head and clucking your tongue with disapproval for fear I should blaspheme, so I will take the analogy no further.

  I talked to my guests for a while, feeding them a great deal of nonsense about how much I must rely on them now King Louis had recalled his troops, and how I rejoiced in that because they were the loyalist and bravest captains a man might find this side of the Alps. Oliverotto da Fermo even laughed once, and Vitelozzo took a little wine, though I feared he would vomit it back up again.

  Then I excused myself to answer a call of nature, and Michelotto barred the door behind me. I heard a few screams, the scraping of furniture and a clatter of overturned tableware. Oliverotto and Vitelozzo, after generously giving details of the extent of the conspiracy to my attentive Michelotto, were garrotted next morning, blaming each other to the last for their unchivalrous conduct and calling upon our Holy Father for his absolution. The three Orsini I have sent to Rome. I shall be on my way back there myself before long; I allowed my soldiers some licence in Senigallia and it quickly ceased to be a comfortable place to stay. I shall enjoy Carnival all the more for the thought of those three sons of whores locked in Sant’Angelo awaiting whatever fate our illustrious father will devise finally to avenge the murder of Juan.

  You see, dear sister, given the occasion, I knew well how to use it. Our brother can rest easy now, and I have, I hope, finally proven myself a worthy successor to his title as gonfalonier of the Church. My only regret is Vitelozzo. He was the finest gunner in Italy in his day.

  From your brother who loves you as himself,

  Cesar

  My eyes devoured the familiar, cursive script, marking the transition from conscientiousness to chaos as his thoughts began to race ahead of his pen. As I read the butterflies started up again. By letting me see this letter in its entirety, I felt Donna Lucrezia had admitted me to the very heart of her family. Noticing me press my free hand to my midriff, she asked me if I was quite well.

  “A little unsettled, madonna, that is all. So much excitement before breakfast.”

 
“Come closer.” I stepped forward and she laid her palm against my belly and gave a little squeal of delight. “It’s our baby, Violante. Dancing for his clever papa.”

  The butterflies seemed to rise in a cloud from my belly to my throat. Surely now she would tell him; now there could be no doubt the child was real and growing strong. Surely soon he would come to lay claim to it.

  “I feel Dame Fortune is about to begin smiling on us at last,” she said.

  CHAPTER 2

  FERRARA, JANUARY 1503

  My life isn’t over, is it? So soon?

  Perhaps Dame Fortune had no option than to smile on us, with Cesare twisting her arm up her back, but, whether sincere or otherwise, her smiles all have the same effect. Within days of receiving the news of Cesare’s “beautiful deception,” Duke Ercole finally relented over the last of madonna’s bride money. This meant my marriage to Ser Taddeo could go ahead and my pregnancy be acknowledged. I could put off my corset so my baby need no longer dance in a cage of boiled leather and wooden stays.

  A greater cause for private rejoicing, however, was Angela’s happiness. She was convinced the duke must now acquiesce in her marriage to Giulio. It was the final dose of physick she needed to restore her completely after her fever of the previous summer, putting the bloom back in her cheeks and igniting the old spark of mischief in her smile. Her nocturnal disappearances resumed, and this time, I was certain, it was not Ippolito’s bed she was going to.