Sins of the House of Borgia

by Sarah Bower

  I picked up the dog and pressed my hand over his nose to silence him, though I never managed this trick as effectively as Cesare had been able to. I fancied Gideon’s shoulders relaxed a little as the thud and splash of the oars became the dominant sound in the room.

  “My concern is only to serve you, duchesa.” He shifted his gaze to the deck, but I did not think he sounded as contrite as madonna would have wished.

  “A pretty phrase, but I had heard many prettier before I was out of the nursery. I have been surrounded by flatterers all my life.”

  “Then you will know I do not flatter you. I am no courtier, duchesa...”

  “That you are not.”

  “…but I do have skills I believe would be pleasing to you.”

  “And these are what, exactly? Trickery? Subterfuge? Spying? Reading other people’s private letters? I could have stones tied to your feet and have you tossed into the river like so much kitchen waste for less.”

  His hand moved to his scrip, which was fastened to his belt next to his knife. Donna Lucrezia flinched. “Violante, what is he doing? Where are my guards?”

  “I do not think he means any harm, madonna.”

  “I wish only to show you some demonstration of my skill, duchesa.” He was teasing her, I realised, with a mixture of shock and admiration. No one teased madonna, not even Duke Alfonso. Well, almost no one.

  He withdrew a sheaf of papers from the scrip, and handed them to me. “If you would do me the honour of looking at these, duchesa. They are sketches for a commission I undertook for the Marchesa of Mantua in the last year of your illustrious father’s pontificate.”

  I glanced at each sheet before placing them, one by one, in madonna’s lap. I saw faces, strangely familiar, despite the fact that each was scarred with ruled lines and scribbled over with jottings of angles and lengths of measurement. Here was a turbaned potentate and here a whiskered cat. A curly-haired cherub followed a slant-eyed mandarin. The final sketch showed a skull with a roguish grin and a diamond set into one of its teeth.

  “I think I know these,” said madonna in a tone of suppressed excitement which let me hope the danger was past. She had recognised talent in Gideon’s work, and scented the possibility of wresting him from Donna Isabella. “These are some of the masks made for my brother, are they not? As a gift from the marchesa?”

  “Yes, duchesa. She commissioned twenty-five masks in gold and twenty-five in silver. I was to do the silver, but then my master got sick and could not afford to delay. The cost of the gold, you understand. So I did the designs and the casting myself under his supervision.”

  “They are cast, not beaten?” asked madonna, shrewd as a housewife testing the quality of bedlinen or the freshness of fish.

  “These are all cast, duchesa. Some were beaten, as the design demanded.”

  “And who was your master, boy?”

  “Sperandio, duchesa.”

  “Ah yes, I know him, I think. He once cast a medal of my noble father-in-law, I believe. And is knowledgeable on gunmetal.”

  “He died last year, duchesa. He had attained nearly eighty years.”

  “May God have mercy on his soul.” Donna Lucrezia crossed herself, and Gideon looked at me to see if I would do likewise.

  “So you are now your own master?”

  “I hope one day to have my own workshop. For now, I will take work where I can get it.”

  “And you do not fear making images of men?”

  “The masks do not represent the living, duchesa. They are only masks.”

  “Well, perhaps we will make a Christian of you, Ser d’Arzenta. Your sister is a most pious woman.”

  At that he made a small bow, but there was a mutinous set to his mouth which made me think it unlikely he would ever follow Fidelma’s path to Christ.

  “I have a challenge for you, then. You will cast a medal, with my image on the face and a design of your choosing on the reverse, to commemorate my first full year as Duchess of Ferrara. So it must be ready before the beginning of Lent next year.”

  “Thank you, duchesa. You will not regret your confidence in me.”

  “Do you know for what purpose the marchesa commissioned the masks?”

  “Everyone knows it, duchesa.”

  “Then I would remind you what happened to those men who conspired against my brother at Senigallia. In case you are ever tempted to do anything to make me regret my confidence in you.”

  “I understand, duchesa.” He bowed and backed out of the cabin, and winked at me as he turned to set foot on the companionway.

  CHAPTER 2

  FERRARA, NOVEMBER 1505

  This morning a mirror was brought to me, good polished silver, and I saw my face for the first time in I don’t know how many months. What kind of gift was that meant to be, I wonder?

  By the time we returned to Ferrara, at the end of Strozzi’s hunting party at Ostellato, madonna had been churched, and there was no doubt in my mind she and Don Francesco had somehow contrived to consummate their passion, even though both Duke Alfonso and Ippolito had been among the guests at Strozzi’s country villa. While it was more than possible the duke was too taken up by the competition to take the biggest bag to notice what his wife was up to, I marvelled that they had been able to deceive Ippolito. To me, it was so obvious, though Don Francesco could not have shared her bed, nor she his, and I supposed they must have seized whatever opportunities were offered by the grottoes in Ser Ercole’s gardens, or his woodland rides, or the boathouse where he kept his sumptuously appointed river barge. But there was a hectic animation about Donna Lucrezia which I had not seen since before her father’s death, and Don Francesco, whose sexual appetites were notorious and indiscriminate, was recklessly attentive towards her. They exuded lust like horse sweat, and I felt like a starving woman standing down wind of a bakery.

  So although madonna became peevish and intolerant once we returned to Ferrara for the winter, and Don Francesco went back to Mantua to await his wife’s confinement, I was relieved to be back. I looked forward to the quiet weeks of Advent, the firelit evenings when we sewed vestments for the cathedral and our own Christmas party gowns, entertaining ourselves with low gossip and exalted readings both equally aimed at preparing us for the coming season. I found serenity in the fact that neither faith nor flirtation mattered to me, and cherished the little things, the scent of burning applewood, the sound of rain on window shutters in the middle of the night, a spider’s web sparkling with dew. This was the compass of my thought and I wanted nothing more.

  Visits to Sister Osanna were also a feature of Donna Lucrezia’s Advent preparations, though conditions at Santa Caterina were less spartan than they had been. Rumours had begun shortly after the old duke’s death that Sister Lucia da Narni was a fraud, who had inflicted the stigmata on herself and kept the wounds open by poking at them with a sharpened stick in the secrecy of her cell at night. Within weeks she had been confined to that cell permanently, not even allowed out to attend services in the chapel, and Sister Osanna’s stock had soared as the only authentic bearer of Christ’s wounds in Ferrara. She quickly revealed a hitherto well-hidden liking for sweet food and upholstered furniture, and a capacity like that of a tyrannical child for getting her own way.

  A visit was planned one late November morning of still cold, the river’s breath hanging over the city in a low mist and condensing on the castle walls behind the tapestries which had been hung up for the winter. But madonna awoke complaining of a headache and chills in her limbs, so she sent me to Santa Caterina in her place, bearing scented beeswax candles and morellos in syrup as gifts of contrition. The candles, she told me, were to be used to make prayers for Cesare’s liberation, and I smiled, and nodded my assent, and felt as though I were a rich tapestry with the cold sweat of winter running behind it.

  My journey took me past Giulio’s palace and I decided on a whim to stop and pay a call on Angela. I had scarcely seen her since our return, and a break in even my short rid
e to the convent was welcome for my joints were aching cruelly in the damp air. I was sure the apothecary who had taken on the responsibility of manufacturing Ser Torella’s pills for me must have got the recipe wrong.

  There were already several horses in the courtyard, and a mule whose scarlet caparison told me he was a cardinal’s mount. A shiver went through me which had nothing to do with the cold weather. Since the Rainaldo affair, Ippolito and Giulio had not exchanged a civil word; Ippolito’s presence in Giulio’s house could not bode anything but ill. Even before the house slave threw open the great double doors of the piano nobile, I could hear raised voices.

  “Where is he?” demanded Ippolito. “You might as well tell me. I have men searching the house and grounds. They’ll find him.”

  “Take your hands off me,” Angela shouted. “Giulio isn’t here and I know nothing about your wretched singer one way or the other. And care less.” Though her words were defiant, her voice sounded strained and fearful.

  The slave hesitated, his white-gloved hands hovering over the silver-gilt door handles. I urged him on with a nod.

  “Monna Violante,” he announced with a perfunctory bow, and scurried away. Ippolito had hold of one of Angela’s wrists. He dropped it like a firebrand as soon as he saw me. She rushed to embrace me, and I felt her body shaking against mine, her lips parched against my cheek. She remained at my side, gripping my hand, while Ippolito stood with his back to the fire, fists clenched, his scarlet silk strained across his chest. He had begun to gain weight, to grow as compact and powerful as a good fighting bull, and his anger seemed to fill the room.

  “I was on my way to Santa Caterina,” I said, my voice sounding small and muffled. “I thought I’d…” Just then the door opened once more. I felt Angela relax, then tense again as she realised it was not Giulio but one of Ippolito’s men at arms.

  “Nothing, excellency,” he said, clicking his heels together smartly. “We have looked everywhere, even the ice house.”

  “All the domestic offices? The cave behind the waterfall? The Temple of the Graces?”

  “Yes, excellency.”

  Forcing the breath down his nose in vexation, Ippolito strode to stand in front of us, so close I could smell wine and clove oil on his breath and a whiff of camphor from his clothing. Staring at Angela as though I were invisible, he asked, “Why do you suppose the little bastard wants everything that’s mine?”

  “I am not yours, and nor is Rainaldo. God gave each of us free will.”

  “You dare to speak to me of God, hussy?” He raised his hand as though to hit her, but she stood her ground, her neat chin tilted up at him in defiance, and he lowered his hand. “What can he give you that I cannot, Angela? I have greater wealth, I have power, and you cannot pretend I do not know how to please you.”

  “You cannot define love by wealth, power, and expertise in the bedroom, Ippolito,” she said, not unkindly but with the weary patience of an adult talking to a persistent child. “I love him. One look from his eyes means more to me than anything you could give me. I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry?” he repeated. “You don’t know the meaning of the word.” He paused, breathing heavily. “But you will.”

  Shouting for his men at arms, he left us, and Angela sank into a window seat, leaning her back against the open shutter. I sat beside her and waited in silence while she looked out over the garden, her gaze mirroring the restlessness of the fountain below us, whipping about in the breeze. Then she recollected herself, smiled at me, and seized both my hands.

  “I’m pregnant,” she announced. “I think I must have been for ages, but I thought it was just, you know…since the abortion. But the other evening I felt the baby move. I mean, I thought it was indigestion. There had been a particularly rich macaroni at dinner, but Giulio said he’d rub my belly for me, and he realised.” She pressed one of my hands against her midriff. “There. Feel.” Though her belly was not very large, it was quite rigid, and after a few seconds I felt the flutter of a new life under my palm.

  “How many months, do you think?” I asked, making my voice sound pleased and excited.

  “Five, six maybe. Isn’t it wonderful? They must let us marry now.”

  “I hope you didn’t tell Ippolito.”

  “You’re the very first person I’ve told. If you hadn’t come today, I would have sought you out even before Lucrezia. Be happy for me, Violante.”

  I smiled, and hoped my smile placed a convincing poultice over the wound in my heart. I wanted to share in her joy; I could not cure myself of the loss of my own child by resenting her happiness. And after a while, its warmth began to thaw me. We moved from the window seat to an upholstered settle beside the hearth. A slave stoked the fire and brought a tray of crostini and little salads, and some deep fried rabbits’ ears which Angela refused for fear of giving her baby a hare-lip. We talked of the need to eat hot, bright foods to make a boy child, of rest and exercise and names, and how Angela would furnish her lying-in room. She hoped I would be able to stay with her during her confinement and told me Giulio was already composing songs to soothe her in her labour. The door to the birthing chamber would be open, she explained, with only a curtain across it for decency, and Giulio would sit just outside with his beautiful voice and his musicians. We gossiped about Donna Lucrezia and Don Francesco Gonzaga, and the frequency of their correspondence. Madonna said Don Francesco was helping her in her efforts to secure Cesare’s release from prison, and perhaps he was. It would be the surest way to her heart.

  By this time evening was closing in, and when a slave came in to light the candles, I suddenly remembered my errand to Sister Osanna. Angela walked down to the courtyard with me. I mounted my mule and she stood rubbing its nose as we said our farewells and promised to meet again next day when Angela intended to bring news of her pregnancy to her cousin at the castle. Suddenly the street gate crashed open and Ferrante galloped into the courtyard, scattering cats and chickens and almost flattening a kitchen boy who was fetching water from the well. Mourning was still being observed by the family for Duke Ercole, and Ferrante’s untrimmed hair and beard framed his anguished face like wild, sandy snakes. His horse’s heaving flanks were sweat darkened and flecked with spittle.

  “Angela, you must come. Thank God you’re here, Violante,” he gasped, flinging himself out of the saddle.

  “What’s happened?” My first instinct was to resent his abrupt intrusion on our intimacy, but there was something deadly serious underlying the drama that frightened me. Glancing at Angela, I could see she felt it too. I wished I could take Ferrante aside and find out what he had to report out of her hearing, but it was too late for that.

  “It’s Giulio,” he said. “He’s been attacked.”

  “Attacked?” Angela’s voice was a strangled squeak. She swayed and clutched at the mule’s bridle to steady herself. The mule tossed its head and skittered, and while I struggled to control it, Ferrante took Angela’s arm and sat her down on the mounting block. Her terror seemed to calm him.

  “He was ambushed on the Belriguardo road.”

  “He went that way this morning,” said Angela. “Hawking in the meadows, he said. I would have gone but…”

  “I know,” said Ferrante. “you’re with child. He told me earlier. I was with them for a while.”

  “Is he…?”

  Ferrante shook his head, and I found I had been holding my breath. The sudden rush of air into my lungs made me dizzy.

  “They’ve taken him to the castle. I think you should come back with me.”

  “He is badly hurt?”

  Ferrante paused, and I fancied I could almost see his mind putting words together then rejecting them. In the end, you cannot dress up either the best of news or the worst, only the compromises and equivocations in between. “It’s his eyes,” he said, putting an arm around Angela and gripping her shoulder as though he was afraid she would fall to pieces. “Whoever did this tried to put out his eyes.”

  “Then I
know who is responsible.”

  “You do?”

  “It’s Ippolito.”

  “Ippolito? Don’t be absurd.”

  “You must believe me, Ferrante. Don’t ask me how I know, but I do.”

  Ferrante looked up at me in a mute appeal for reason.

  “I’m afraid Angela might be right. But never mind that now. Surely we had better go to him.”

  “I can’t,” said Angela.

  “But he needs you; he’s been asking for you. Come on.” Ferrante tried to lift her to her feet but she refused to budge. He heaved at her as though her body was as heavy as the mounting block itself, then gave up, shaking his head in puzzlement. “Why?”

  “I won’t be able to look at him. What if he’s blind? What if it makes the baby blind?”

  ***

  For two weeks Giulio lay in a darkened room, and though it was clear he would live, his wounds being clean and clear of infection, his sight was despaired of. He was attended not only by his own physicians but by two doctors sent from Mantua by Donna Isabella. Giulio was her favourite brother and she reported herself prostrate with grief at the attack on him. Duke Alfonso and Donna Lucrezia visited him daily, and Ferrante scarcely left his bedside, putting his own eyesight at risk, I feared, by reading to Giulio for hours by the light of a single shaded candle. Even Don Sigismondo came to see him. He blamed the rats for Giulio’s injuries and assured him he was scaling up his offensive against them and would exact retribution. Giulio’s doctors indulged him because he seemed to be the only one who could make their patient smile. Fra Raffaello, on the other hand, who came once at Donna Lucrezia’s bidding, they forbade to come again because his moralising seemed to aggravate Giulio’s distress.

  Two people were conspicuous by their absence: Ippolito, and Angela. Though it was officially put about that Giulio had been set upon by bandits, everyone knew of the bad blood between him and Ippolito, and when rumours began to circulate that those responsible had fled to Hungary, where Ippolito held an archbishopric, two and two were put together with more than the usual accuracy. Yet Duke Alfonso showed no signs of taking action against the cardinal, and even gave him leave to visit Mantua, where Donna Isabella apparently received him kindly despite her grief over Giulio. The court lay under a cloud of disgruntlement and unease which made it a relief even to visit Angela, who remained shut up like an anchoress in Giulio’s palace.