Sins of the House of Borgia

by Sarah Bower

  ***

  “Dry your tears, girl.”

  I was unaware I had been crying, though now Monna Vannozza drew attention to the fact, I could feel the moisture cooling on my cheeks in the breeze coming up from the river.

  “They are safe.” Her face, framed by the severe, dark hood, looked old, the skin falling in fine, dry pleats around her mouth and nose. “They are in Sant’Angelo.”

  I felt suddenly weak and shaky with relief, and almost dropped Girolamo before I collected myself. “What happened?”

  “They were forced to retreat, but they managed to get into the Vatican by the door in the basilica and then through the underground passage to the castle. I dare say Pius wouldn’t have known they were there until they were already out the other side.” We exchanged guarded smiles, each no doubt shielding our personal memories of hidden doors and secret passages, cold air saturated with ancient fears and romances. I wondered, briefly, what La Fiammetta was doing now, to whom she had transferred her favours when Valentino fell. “He has negotiated a safe conduct for his family. For us. We are to join him in Sant’Angelo immediately.”

  ***

  The pope died two days later, but already life in the old castle was almost unbearable. Despite improvements made by Cesare’s father, the quarters were still as cramped as Cesare had described them to me in the orange garden in Ferrara, and the cries of the prisoners in the dungeons reached our hearing through the thick walls with an eerie persistence, both distant and immediate. So we allowed ourselves to be infected by the optimism with which Cesare initially greeted the prospect of a new election. He recalled Michelotto from Rocca Soriana, and other troops who had been in service with the French, and the cardinals graciously allowed him to keep them. He had made the last election from his sickbed in Nepi. Now he was fit again, and back at the centre of things, he would make the next one too. The round of embassies began again, with formal processions of retinues across the Sant’Angelo bridge, and hard negotiations in the dank underground passage between the castle and the Vatican.

  Then news began to drift in from the Romagna, messengers apologetic and ragged who begged the duke to understand their position. They had been told he was imprisoned in Sant’Angelo. Della Rovere was bound to win the election; they had heard he had the support of both France and Spain. How could they hold out? What guarantees were there that the duke could protect them? They had to think of their citizens’ welfare. Of course their old vicars were greedy and capricious tyrants, but you remember the old saying: better the devil you know... They beseeched the duke to be merciful. The duke had them thrown into the dungeons or, if he thought the right people were watching, had them garotted and flung into the river.

  When no one was watching, he would sit for long periods sunk in an untouchable stillness, his eyes unfocused, his hands empty in his lap, and I knew his daemon weighed heavy on him then and longed to be able to exorcise it. I hoped he might renew his invitation to a private supper, but privacy was a commodity in short supply in Sant’Angelo except, I suppose, for certain of the prisoners in the dungeons below us. He seemed to take more solace in the company of Giovanni than that of anybody else. His patience with his little brother’s whining boredom made me envious, but also hopeful that when Girolamo was older he would be as happy to teach him card tricks, answer questions about training dogs and what stars are made of and how long it takes to travel to the kingdom of Prester John.

  He even took Giovanni with him to a meeting in the Vatican with Della Rovere and some other cardinals. A change of scene would do the boy good, he said. He was seven years old now, and it was time he started to put his education to some practical use, he said. I watched them ride back over the bridge, Giovanni sitting up in front of Cesare while Cesare led his brother’s pony. Giovanni appeared to be asleep, his cheek lolling against Cesare’s chest. While he waited in the courtyard for a groom to lift the little boy down from the saddle, I saw him bend to kiss the top of the child’s head in a gesture of naked tenderness that made me look away, as though I had caught him out in something secret and shameful.

  Two days later, Della Rovere was elected pope and, with an irony which was lost on none of us, took the name Julius. His predecessor, Cesare seemed to remember from his theological studies at Pisa, had been a saint revered for his role in the resolution of the Arian controversy, but he doubted that was what had moved Della Rovere to take a name most famously paired with that of Caesar. Then, with a thin, hard smile, he disappeared into the little dressing room he used for private audiences, followed by Agapito, sharpening a pen as he went.

  It was after dark when Cesare emerged. I had settled Girolamo for the night and was setting out platters and cups for the evening meal. There was a curious egalitarianism about our household. Cramped as we were in our few thick-walled, low-ceilinged rooms, we all ate together, men and women, children, soldiers and their officers, and the few servants who had accompanied us from San Clemente. Most of us even shared our sleeping quarters, with blankets hanging from lines strung across the largest room to divide the men from the women and children. Only Cesare and Monna Vannozza had bed chambers to themselves.

  Yet until Cesare came into the hall, I was alone. Camilla’s nurse was watching the babies and Monna Vannozza had gone to collect bread from the kitchen. He said nothing, merely nodded then stood watching me until I felt a hot flush creeping up my neck and cheeks and down to the tops of my breasts. I fumbled my work and dropped a drinking horn on the floor. Stepping forward, he bent to pick it up and placed it in a bracket on the long table. “Leave the rest,” he said, “and come up to the roof. I want to talk to you.”

  Discarding my pile of cups and dishes, I wiped my sweating palms on my skirt and followed him as he ducked through a deep, recessed door and ran up the staircase which wound like a twisted spine through the centre of the old keep. As I struggled with my skirts on the narrow steps, worn ice-smooth by centuries of footfalls, I loved him for his surefootedness. A soldier to his bones, he was at home here, whatever he might say, in this grizzled old fortress whose walls were mortared with stories of heroes.

  He crossed the roof, strewn with rubble and bird droppings, to a firestep facing out over the river and the city, and the Vatican.

  “I come up here to breathe,” he said, resting his arms on the parapet of the wall. As I stepped up to join him, the guards who had been patrolling that sector, seeing their lord was keeping company with a woman, melted away into the darkness. A few lights still glimmered below us, the links of those reckless or desperate enough to be abroad after dark, the spill of lamplight from tavern doorways, the small fires of the people who lived under the bridges, and the braziers of the bargees hove to for the night. The Vatican itself was in darkness.

  The moon shone in fits and starts, between deep furrows of cloud seeded with small, distant stars. There was a thin, penetrating cold to the wind which made me wish I had brought my cloak. Or dared press my body up against his for warmth.

  “I am moving back to the Vatican in the morning,” he told me, fiddling with his cameo ring.

  “Is that your own wish? Or the pope’s?”

  “I am his gonfalonier. His wish is mine.”

  “So you gave him your support in the end.”

  “Did I have any choice? The college rejected D’Amboise and there was no chance of getting another Spaniard elected.” He paused for a second. Perhaps he was hoping I would respond with some flattering platitude about his father. “You will return to the Vatican as my guest,” he went on. “That’s what Della Rovere said. I am to be his guest, he assures me, yet he does not request my company, he commands it. Guest is a word with many interpretations. Context is everything.”

  “You might turn it around,” I said, trying to sound confident. “In Latin, the emphasis comes at the end of a phrase, not the beginning.”

  He gave a grim laugh. “Julius Caesar. How do you think he felt on the Ides? Did he know what he was walking into, or did he trus
t Brutus? Della Rovere has a reputation for being a man of his word.”

  “So did Brutus.” I wish now I had said something different, but at the time it seemed right, and we both laughed, and he praised my wit, saying it was as well honed as a man’s.

  “Well we must hope Della Rovere is a better man than Brutus, or at least more fearful of ending up in Satan’s maw. But Violante…” He turned to face me, just as the moon emerged from behind the clouds, casting his features in marble. “Though we hope for the best we must plan for the worst.”

  I felt a shrinking in my chest.

  “The children will go to my mother’s country house at Caprarola. When I am re-established in Cesena, I will send for them.”

  “Your mother and I have been getting on better,” I said, and immediately I was ashamed of my words, the utter untruthfulness of them, their false, brittle hopefulness.

  “You will not be going with them.”

  The impossibility of this began to well up in me like a hot tide of nausea. How could he continue talking in that calm, decisive tone, as though he were ordering a disposition of troops or planning the details of a carnival prank?

  “There is something else I want you to do for me. You will return to Ferrara, and give my sister this.” As he pulled the cameo ring off his finger, the scream broke from me, a blast of noise which made him step back, lose his footing, and almost fall over the parapet. In a pinpoint of calm at the heart of my fury, I thought of pushing him. Perhaps I did lay hands on him, for the next thing I knew, he was holding me, one arm across my back, the other hand cupping my head, pressing my cheek against his chest so I could feel his heart beating and the gold threads decorating his doublet cutting into my flesh. Like a hawk newly hooded, in the darkness of his embrace I was suddenly docile, helpless, bound to him by blind trust.

  Except that I was not a hawk; I was a woman threatened with the loss of her child. The image of Monna Vannozza with Girolamo in her arms, her face buried in the shadow of her hood, his fiery curls caught between her clawed fingers, rose up between Cesare and I, forcing me out of his grasp.

  “No!” I shouted, ducking under his arm. He grabbed my wrist, but I twisted free and began to run. A guard barred my path with his pike. I heard Cesare, somewhere behind me and a little out of breath, order the man back to his post. The door to the stairs was in sight, still ajar as we had left it. If I could slip through and shut it behind me that would give me just enough time to grab my baby and run. I would go to the river, find a boat bound for Ostia. I would go home to Spain, for there was nothing to keep me here. Better to have my faith tested by the Inquisition than to give up my son. Perhaps I might even steal a barge horse and get out of the city tonight.

  Then a sudden gust of wind banged the door shut. I hurled myself at it, but the moon disappeared among the clouds and I could not find the catch. I scrabbled and pushed, but my fingers were weak and out of control, my weight too slight to make any impression on a hand’s thickness of oak.

  “All right.” He was whispering in my ear, his breath hot on my neck, his hands braced across my ribs. He would break them, I thought, if need be, and think no more of it than of cracking open the carcass of a bird at dinner. Then I realised, with a mutinous sense of pleasure, that he had slid one hand upwards until it cupped my breast. “You win. Your baby is safe. Now, come to bed.”

  Almost as though he had ordered it thus, the moon slid out from behind the clouds and shone on the door latch. Still holding me with one arm, he lifted it with his free hand, kicked open the door, then hoisted me off my feet and carried me down the stairs. Did we pass through the hall that way, under the various gazes of the people dining there? I do not think so. I have an impression still of some narrow, dank passage, unlit and unevenly floored. I feel the magical brush of cobwebs and smell cold stone, and remember opening my eyes on a room as snug and richly decorated as a chamber of the heart of love.

  He laid me gently on the bed, then sat beside me and tugged off his boots. “Do you,” he asked, as he unlaced my bodice and kissed the warm place between my breasts, “still take Torella’s pills?”

  I nodded, unable to speak.

  “Good.”

  ***

  His lovemaking that night was leisurely and generous, as though nothing awaited him in the morning but a late breakfast. His mouth and hands were so sweetly inquisitive, I felt as though I was the first woman whose body he had ever explored, and his touch so wise and responsive it seemed somehow to peel away the ordinary layer of the senses, exposing the raw nerve, the heart of pleasure. And when, finally, I fell asleep, his arms were still around me and his dark eyes still smiling into mine.

  ***

  I awoke with the sense that my sleep had been disturbed. As my mind swam into consciousness, I was aware of the shutters banging and rain gusting through the narrow, unglazed window. I rose, shivering, and cast about the room for something to cover myself with. And realised what else was wrong. Cesare was gone. Not recently risen to visit the privy or shout down the stairs for his valet but utterly vanished, as though he had never been there. Looking at the smooth sheets and plumped pillows on his side of the bed, I began to wonder if I had dreamed the whole of the previous night, though touching my fingers to my bruised lips and feeling the slight, delicious strain in my thigh muscles as I walked, I knew I had not.

  Then I noticed the cameo ring, lying on the nightstand where he had left it, saying it hindered him in the delicate work his hands were engaged in. I picked it up. The gold must have been of a high purity, for it was soft and had moulded itself to the shape of his finger, but the setting was plain, decorated with nothing more than an engraved motto. The cameo itself depicted the suicide of Lucretia. What motto, I wondered, had he chosen to accompany that? I read, turning the ring slowly as I spelled out the letters: Age debendo quidquid accidet. Then I saw there were more words written inside, this time in Catalan. Un cor, una via. I sat on the edge of the bed, drawing the silk coverlet around myself, and stared at the image of the woman pointing a knife at her breast. What did it mean? My thoughts flew to Nepi. Had they made some pact there, some sad and sinister plan for a future catastrophe that must then have seemed like no more than a dangerous game? And what was my role in all this? Why had he chosen me to carry his bleak instructions to his sister? I wanted none of it. I wanted my son, and the normal round of our day, and to see if any new teeth had broken through his hard little gums during the night.

  But first, if there was poison in the ring, I had to get rid of it. Donna Lucrezia was the godmother who had given me new life and however shaky my belief in her religion, I was certain it would be a travesty to carry her the means of her death. What if the Lord of Vengeance chose to avenge Himself for such an act of betrayal on my son? We were not all Abraham; we could not all rely upon a goat in a thicket. I tried to prise the ring open with a fingernail, but it would not budge. I felt around its edge for some catch or pressure point which would spring it, all to no avail. Perhaps I could find some tool to help me. Cesare’s dressing room would be the place to look. There I might find combs, nail files, razor blades, brooch pins.

  With the ring closed in my fist, I cautiously opened the door to the dressing room. It too was empty, the clothes chests gone, leaving dustless squares on the floor, the table where he had worked swept free of everything except a broken quill and a stub of candle stuck in its own wax. A cobweb strung across one corner of the ceiling shivered in the wind; even that had no spider dwelling in it. The air of dereliction clung to my skin like a succubus, smelling of dust and stone and jasmine. I scarcely dared open the next door, for fear of what I would not find.

  “You’re awake, then.” Michelotto. A smile of relief spread itself over my face. If Michelotto was here, his master could not be far away. I was tired, over-stimulated. One banging shutter and a cobweb and there I was, imagining I had been deserted.

  “I fear I’ve slept late. His lordship must have risen very quietly.”

 
; Michelotto made a non-committal noise in the back of his throat.

  “Well, I had better dress and go and find my son.” The ring pressed into the flesh of my palm; even though Cesare had entrusted it to me, I was reluctant to let Michelotto know I had it. I needed to get away from him, to some private corner where I could examine it at my leisure.

  Michelotto rose from the stool where he had been perched beside the door and stepped in front of me. He was not a great deal taller than me, but his body was broad and powerful, and his demeanour made it clear he was not yet ready to let me go.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “He’s gone.”

  “Who? Cesare? To the Vatican?” I felt foolish, discarded, like a soiled shirt or a pair of torn hose.

  Michelotto shook his head, then seemed to change his mind and gave a curt nod. “Yes. I mean, no. Yes, he has gone, but that’s not what I meant.”

  “Why are you not with him?” I tried to take refuge in a commanding tone, but sounded merely peevish and strident.

  “Because he ordered me to stay here with you.”

  “Did he?” Somehow I could not think of a greater honour.

  “Monna Violante…” He placed a hand on my arm. This seemed over-familiar to me, not an action his lord would sanction were he present, and I shifted my arm. He took the hint and dropped his hand with a sigh. “They have all gone,” he said. “Don Cesar, Monna Vannozza, the children…”

  “No, you’re mistaken. He said…”

  “I am not mistaken. I lifted your son into the carriage myself. They left last night. They will be well on their way to Caprarola by now.”

  “Then we must take fast horses and catch them up.”

  “Violante…”

  “Do not be familiar with me.”

  “Oh for God’s sake, listen to yourself, you silly little strumpet. No, on second thought, listen to me.” He patted the stool. “Sit there, don’t move, and listen to what I have to say. You are going to Ferrara. I am to escort you. You are to deliver…”