Sins of the House of Borgia

by Sarah Bower

  I curtseyed. “I am glad to see you on your feet, my lord.”

  “I am feeling a good deal stronger. Come and sit with me. Introduce me to your son.”

  A daybed had been set up for him in a lemon grove overlooking terraces of olive trees knotted like dark fists against the red earth. The leaves of the lemon trees gleamed against a creamy blue sky, though we were too high up here for good lemons and the fruit was still green, its scent acerbic and cleansing. We waited while his servants arranged the bed with cushions and blankets. Girolamo began to grizzle. I tried to soothe him, stroking his downy head and whispering to him, but I was tense, anxious Cesare would lose patience with a crying baby and dismiss us, and my hungry son could smell milk.

  “I shall sing to him,” said Cesare, and cleared his throat. He tried a few words of some nursery song but quickly gave up. “I cannot. My voice is weak since my illness.”

  “It will recover. You sing pleasantly, my lord, as I recall.”

  “Well more pleasantly than that child of yours at any rate. No, two behind my back, boy,” he snapped at the page arranging the cushions. “And put the wine there, where I can reach it,” he added, exchanging a look with the demure girl which I wished I had not seen.

  “I’m sorry. He’s hungry,” I said.

  “Then feed him.”

  I felt myself beginning to blush.

  “Here. If I sit a little further back, there is room for you at the end of the bed. What is it? You think I have never seen a mother nursing a baby before? By God’s merciful ears, woman, stop up his mouth before he deafens me.” He said this as though he was rather proud of the fact that Girolamo was capable of deafening him. “The rest of you, leave us. Master Agapito, prepare the letters we were speaking of and bring them here to me for signature.”

  With a flurry of bows his retinue departed, melted away among the lemon trees as though they had never been there, as though the tree sprites had arranged this bower for us, with its cedar-scented cushions, the books in their jewelled bindings, the silver wine jug, the slender-waisted Spanish guitar leaning beside the bed.

  Cesare watched me with almost the same hungry intensity as Girolamo as I unfastened my bodice and put my son to my breast, and I knew what he was concealing by the self-conscious way he took a book from the pile beside him and opened it in his lap. But all he said was, “My sister’s clothes suit you.”

  “Thank you.” I gave him a smile, yet the look he returned me seemed curiously full of pain. I reached out and touched his foot, and perhaps because of the warmth of his skin through the fine stocking, or because of the scent of lemons, or a bird singing somewhere as if it was spring, or the delicious sensation of my baby’s mouth tugging at my nipple, instead of asking him about Lucia and the cut dancing shoes, I said, “I still love you.” Almost as though he had told me he was no longer fit to be loved, with his disintegrating state, his wasted body and flayed skin and the way his skull showed so white and bony when he pulled off his cap and raked his fingers through the stubble of dark red hair.

  And once the words were out, it was as though all the words that had been knotted up so tight inside me began to unravel, and I could not stop. “Let me stay with you. I wouldn’t ask much, just to see you sometimes. We could have more sons. I’d be discreet; I’d never embarrass you or your wife. I’d marry myself, if that’s what you wanted, someone older, and respectable. I wouldn’t expect you to be faithful, or even to love me, particularly. But I’d like to sleep the night with you sometimes, and wake up next to you in the morning. All I want is to be allowed to love you or I might…I don’t know…stop breathing or something.”

  Girolamo’s mouth slackened around my nipple, his eyes closed, and he began a sweet, soft snoring. Instead of covering myself, I turned towards Cesare, offering him my body, my breasts no longer the shallow pads of rebellious flesh he had caressed in his sister’s orange garden but swollen with purpose, the nipples tender and erect under the teasing touch of the breeze. I was as beautiful as Helen, or as Eve when Adam’s eyes were first filled with her. The memory of Cesare’s touch illuminated my skin; I felt the warm weight of his belly on mine, the sharpness of hip against hip, the sweet pain of him inside me, his tongue in my mouth tasting of rosemary as though it were all as real as it had been then.

  For a moment he was still; everything was still except my heart banging in my chest and the light dancing among the lemon leaves. Then he whispered, “No,” and held up his hands to ward me off. “Do you really think this is what she had in mind, the woman who did her duty but spoke to you of love?” His eyes held mine with the fastidiousness of a monk.

  He learned to listen, his mother had said, to the click of a beetle crossing a paving stone, to the thin screech of my shame crawling across my skin. I turned my back on him, hunched over my nakedness as I attempted to rearrange my clothing, but my hands were shaking so badly I fumbled all the hooks and laces. “Forgive me.”

  “Give me the child,” said Cesare, not without kindness. He imagined, I suppose, that it was his forgiveness I was asking.

  I turned just far enough for him to be able to take Girolamo from me, but I kept my face averted. “I usually…”

  “I will unwrap him,” Cesare announced. “I wish to be sure his limbs are straight.”

  “…unwrap him,” I finished, and the coincidence made us laugh. “Shall I do it?”

  “I can manage.”

  This I doubted, and watched anxiously as he pulled one of the cushions from behind his back, smoothed it over his lap, and lay the baby on it, then began to unwind his swaddling clothes. He completed the task with great assurance, and never a murmur from Girolamo who kept his eyes fixed on his father’s face then, free of his bindings, gave a little shriek of delight and pissed all over the cushion.

  “Oh no.”

  “It’s all right, he has a true aim. He managed to miss my clothes and his,” said Cesare, lifting Girolamo’s testicles with the tip of his finger then running a hand down his legs as if testing the soundness of a horse. “Nothing like a good piss in the open air, eh, Girolamo?”

  “You are very patient with him, my lord.”

  “Oh well, there were always a lot of babies around. You get used to it.”

  “It is not the way in which you are generally seen, my lord, as a great patriarch.”

  “I was not head of my family until recently,” he replied quietly. Then he gave a brittle laugh and scrubbed at his chin with the knuckle of his free hand. “And now I really need it, my doctors have even deprived me of my patriarchal beard.”

  “I think it was a little neater than Moses’. And it is growing again. By the time Girolamo has his front teeth, I’m sure your beard will be the envy of Italy.”

  “Just my beard, you think? This election worries me, Violante. Della Rovere must be a contender and he is the one man whose wit I fear. And he will never be my ally. What he wants is too close to what I want.”

  “Whoever is pope needs a good gonfalonier. There is none better than you.”

  “But alas, I have shown my hand. Everyone knows my ambitions extend well beyond collecting the vicars’ taxes to fill Saint Peter’s coffers. Della Rovere would as soon put a scorpion in his shoe as give me an army. Besides, he’d probably rather do the job himself. Aside from Ippolito, he’s the only cardinal I know who is more comfortable in armour than scarlet silk.”

  “Ippolito?” I could not conjure an image of Ippolito in armour.

  “Don’t be deceived by his smooth manners. He loves the machinery of war as much as Alfonso; he’s just better at hiding it. Young men must dissemble to get on in the world.”

  “As you dissemble with me?”

  “I have dealt with you as straight as I know how.” He sounded hurt.

  Girolamo whimpered.

  “I think he may be getting cold. Give him to me and I’ll dress him.” Cesare handed him back to me, and as I dressed him, I bent over to kiss his forehead, breathing him in, his scent o
f sour milk and vanilla and linen dried over smoky fires. “Then who is Lucia?”

  “She is no one, a figment.” His answer was too quick, too pat. He was not even attempting to disguise his lie. It made me angry to think I did not deserve even a pretence of truthfulness, a pantomime of puzzlement and casting about in his memory for the name of some half-forgotten paramour.

  “A figment you called on in your delirium. I found the shoes, Cesare, hidden among Donna Lucrezia’s things. The soles were cut just the way you cut mine.”

  Now he did look confused. “What?”

  “You took my shoes, when you were in a fever, and cut the soles to ribbons. Like this.” I carved the air in front of me into diamonds with the edge of my palm. “And there is a pair in the wardrobe just the same, with Donna Lucrezia’s things.”

  “Well I’m not surprised. It’s a trick of hers to stop her losing her footing when she dances. It helps the shoes to grip the floor. Surely you have seen others of hers cut that way, or are you such an inattentive lady in waiting?”

  “But you…” Kissed me, I was going to say, but the words stuck on my tongue. If I spoke of his kiss, it would dissolve in the air the way perfume does, or morning mist in sunlight.

  “No wonder she sent you away.”

  “She didn’t send me away, she…”

  “Yes?” He linked his hands across his belly and waited. What could I say? What was the point of saying anything as he already knew the answer? I rose. I was going to leave. I would take a horse and leave Nepi this very day. I would return to Rome and cast myself on Eli’s mercy, renounce my conversion, and never again set foot among Christians. Cesare might be thrown into the Tiber like his brother Juan, or be elected Holy Roman Emperor, it would make no difference to me. They could live and die as they pleased, him, his sister, his mother, Angela, all of them with their cold glitter and their fatal charm.

  Suddenly there were footsteps running towards us, thudding along the packed sand path. A voice shouting for Cesare.

  “Where are you, brother? It’s over. Habemus Papam.” Don Jofre, flushed and out of breath, wiping the sweat from his upper lip with the back of his hand. A messenger, whose face was a mask of white dust, skidded to a halt behind him and bowed.

  “Who is it?” asked Cesare. His tone was calm, but a tic started up in his left eye and his fingers tightened their grip on one another. I suppose it must only have been seconds before Don Jofre replied, yet I stared at Cesare’s hands and thought of all they knew, of how to excite pleasure or tighten a garota, coax a horse, write a sonnet or sign a warrant of execution, and it seemed as though hours had passed before Don Jofre said, “Piccolomini,” and I realised I had been holding my breath.

  We all looked to Cesare, awaiting his reaction, but he hesitated, seemed uncertain.

  “What do you think, Jofre?” he asked finally.

  “Me?” Jofre’s cheeks turned as pale as they had been scarlet. “Well, I…”

  “Cardinal Piccolomini is a scholar,” I said quickly. I remembered him as a frail, serious man who had taken an interest in my conversion because my father’s agents had on occasion negotiated for him in the purchase of rare polyglot Bibles. “I do not think he will be concerned to change things on the temporal side as long as they run smoothly. I believe he will reinstate you, your grace.”

  Cesare looked relieved; I might almost have imagined grateful. “Yes. And his uncle, Pius II, was indebted to my father for his election and preferred him in many things. What name will he take?”

  “Pius also,” said Jofre.

  “Good, good. Then I will write and remind him that he can emulate his uncle in more practical ways than merely by taking his name. How did the vote go?”

  Jofre clicked his fingers impatiently at the messenger, who produced a letter from his satchel and handed it to Jofre. Jofre broke the seal and scanned the contents. “Della Rovere came out ahead on the first ballot.” Cesare snarled. Jofre hurried on. “So D’Amboise and Ascanio Sforza joined forces on the second to propose Piccolomini.”

  “Then Agapito made a felicitous blend of my directions and his own initiative and advised them well,” said Cesare. “No one can object to Piccolomini. He has no political interests, no family looking for advancement. But we need to act fast. My enemies will be whispering in his ear in no time, trying to persuade him I threw them out of their vicariates illegally. I must make sure of his heart before others gain sway over it.”

  “He’s not in good health either, by all accounts,” added Jofre happily. The possible implications of a short papacy held no threats for him if Cesare had rediscovered his characteristic decisiveness. “He suffers terribly with the gout.”

  “Then,” said Cesare, picking his way cautiously through his words, “he will look sympathetically on my own predicament. Come, Jofre, give me your arm, there is much to be done.” Jofre helped him to his feet, but he set off ahead of his brother at an energetic limp which reminded me of his father. Then suddenly he stopped, so abruptly Jofre had to take a smart step aside to avoid colliding with him. “Oh, I almost forgot,” he said to me, fishing in a pocket concealed among the quilted panels of his doublet. “Here.” He tossed me a small box, and nodded his appreciation as I managed to catch it in my one free hand. It was the gold and enamel pill box given him by Ser Torella for his lozenges against the pox. “I noticed…a little scarring when you…” He sought for discreet words to use in front of his brother and the messenger from Rome, but finished by resorting to a vague gesture of his cupped hands in front of his chest. “You must be sure to guard my son’s health.”

  Don Jofre sniggered and shifted slightly away from me. He’d be poxed himself, I thought, a furious blush coming to my cheeks, if that Neapolitan whore he was married to ever deigned to share his bed.

  “But do you not have need of them?” I asked Cesare.

  “Oh, I am cured. The French disease cannot live alongside the tertian fever. Torella tells me they make poor neighbours and the tertian fever always drives the other out. Take them, and I will have Torella make you more.”

  “Thank you,” I said, though gratitude was not what I felt.

  ***

  The new pope quickly confirmed Cesare in all his titles, but balked, it seemed, at granting permission for him to return to Rome. He regretted he could not guarantee the duke’s safety, and would never forgive himself if he thought his actions had put his holy predecessor’s beloved son at risk.

  “Yet I am hardly safe here,” raved Cesare, sending the lesser kitchen staff running for cover. He was showing Giovanni how to kill a crayfish, and it was the man who had brought the crayfish, one of a dozen in a barrel of water from the lake at Bracciano, who had told him of the rumour that Guidobaldo of Urbino was trying to raise an army to march on Nepi. He stabbed his knife into the crayfish’s head then turned the creature deftly through the angle of Pythagoras until the knife blade was aligned with the middle of its back. Its claws waved feebly. Giovanni watched with his mouth open and eyes as round as chestnuts. “You have to be quick, you see, or you’ll make a mess of it.”

  “Maybe you should go to Romagna,” I said, picking up on his double meaning.

  He brought the knife down through the back of the fish. “There,” he said to Giovanni, “you clean it. Stomach and any dark bits from the tail. That would be the coward’s way,” he answered me.

  “Or the way of common sense. Build up your powerbase there again, then go to Rome.”

  “Women understand nothing. No, Giovanni, that’s the roe. You’re going to have to learn the difference, boy, or you’ll never get far with your wooing.” He looked at me and chuckled, and something seemed to melt just below my ribs, and I loved his cool head and the way he could always make me laugh, and I knew I was not going to leave him.

  ***

  Pope Pius changed his mind quite quickly in fact, though for us, watching Cesare chafe at Nepi, the wait seemed interminable. He was our sun and moon, and his foul temper affected u
s all like a change in the weather. The autumn remained golden and fair, yet my bones ached with anxiety as though afflicted with a winter ague. I grew impatient with Girolamo, who was teething, and resentful of my attempts to wean him. His crying sliced me so thin I snapped at him then, full of remorse, weakened and let him have the breast. Monna Vannozza told me I should hand him over to Camilla’s nurse. She told me I had become addicted to my child the way some people grow dependant on poppy. I will not repeat the things I said to her in reply for they shame me.

  Then one afternoon when I had been walking in the hills behind the castle, trying to soothe my nerves and distract my mind from my aching breasts, I met Don Jofre at the gate with a bundle of letters. He was always the first to greet the messengers who arrived almost daily from Rome or Ferrara or the court of France, ever hopeful of a letter from the errant Princess Sancia, ever destined for disappointment. But today a grin cracked his narrow face from side to side, revealing his three remaining canine teeth and the gap where the fourth used to be until he lost it in a fight.

  “He’s done it at last,” shouted Jofre, waving a parchment which bore the papal seal. “Cesare’s persuaded the old goat to let us go home.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t read my letters, little brother.” Cesare, naked to the waist and trailing an old, blunted broadsword in the rutted dust of the yard, spoke mildly but fixed Don Jofre with a stare as blank as a snake’s.

  “I…I thought you were probably resting. I didn’t want you to be disturbed with anything unimportant.”

  “I’ve been sparring with Michelotto. Got to get my strength up, now I’m to be gonfalonier again.” His chest still bore the scars of the ice bath, patches of dead white and puckered skin where no hair grew, as though the goblet I had once traced with my fingertips had been smashed and poorly mended. “Give me the letter, Jof.” Jofre handed it to him. He shook out the rolled parchment and skimmed it with his eyes, and a thin smile stretched his lips.