A servant appeared, and when Cesare removed his mask the man bowed low.
“Your mistress is here?” asked Cesare.
“Yes, my lord.”
“Conduct me to her at once.”
He was led to a room which was typical of many such rooms, furnished with a canopied bed, wooden chairs with carved backs, and the statue of the Madonna with the lamp burning before it.
A very beautiful young girl, tall and slender, who had risen at Cesare’s entry, fell on her knees before him.
“My lord,” she murmured.
“Rise,” said Cesare impatiently. “My brother is not here?”
“No, my lord. He comes two hours from now.”
Cesare nodded.
“The time has come for you to fulfill your duty,” he said.
“Yes, my lord?”
Cesare looked at her shrewdly. “You are beloved by my brother. What are your feelings for him?”
“I serve one master,” she said.
His fingers closed about her ear. It was a gesture both tender and threatening. “Remember it,” he said. “I reward those from whom I demand service, and the reward depends on the nature of their service.”
The girl shivered, but she repeated firmly: “I serve one master.”
“That is well,” said Cesare. “I will tell you quickly what is required of you. You will present yourself at the vineyard of Vannozza Catanei at midnight on a date which I shall give you. You will be cloaked and masked as usual when you ride with my brother. You will leap on to his horse and ride away with him.”
“Is that all, my lord?”
Cesare nodded. “Except this one thing. You will insist on taking him to an inn which you have discovered, and where you will tell him you have planned to stay until morning.”
“And this inn?”
“I will give you its name. It is in the Jewish quarter.”
“We are to ride there after midnight!”
“You have nothing to fear if you obey my instructions.” He took her face in his hands and kissed her lingeringly. “If you do not, my beautiful one …” He laughed. “But you will remember, will you not, that you serve one master.”
* * *
Vannozza, still a very beautiful woman, greeted her guests in her vineyard on the summit of the Esquiline. The table was heavily laden with good food, and the wine was of the best. Carlo Canale was beside her to do honor to the distinguished guests.
“You think we shall be merry enough with only your sons’ cousin, the Cardinal of Monreale, and a few other relations?”
“When my sons come to me they like to escape from all the pomp which usually surrounds their daily life.”
Canale kept sipping the wine to assure himself that it was of the very best; Vannozza nervously surveyed her table and shouted continually to the slaves; but when the guests arrived she gave all her attention to them.
“My dearest sons,” she murmured, embracing them; but the embrace she gave Cesare was longer than that she had for Giovanni, and Cesare would notice this.
The warm summer night was enchanting; they could look down on the city, while the cool sweet air and the scent of flowers from the meadows about the Colosseum wafted up to them.
A perfect night, thought Vannozza.
Conversation about the table was merry. Cesare teased Giovanni in the pleasantest way.
“Why, brother,” he cried, “you expose yourself to danger. I have heard that you ride among desperadoes with none but a groom to protect you—you and your masked friend.”
“None dare harm my father’s son,” said Giovanni lightly.
“Nay, but you should take care.”
“I have taken most things in my life,” laughed Giovanni, “but rarely that.”
“Yes, my son,” said Vannozza, “I beg of you take greater care. Do not go to those parts of the city where danger lurks.”
“Mother, I am a baby no longer.”
“I have heard,” said Cesare, “that he was seen riding in the Jewish quarter late one night. That is foolish of him.”
“Foolish indeed, my son,” scolded Vannozza.
Giovanni laughed and turned to Canale. “More wine, Father. ’Tis good, this wine of yours.”
Canale, delighted, filled his stepson’s goblet, and the conversation turned to other matters.
It was past midnight, and they were preparing to leave when Cesare said: “Why look, who is that lurking among the trees?”
The company turned and looking saw that cowering in a clump of bushes was a slender masked figure.
“It would appear that your friend has called for you,” said Cesare.
“It would appear so,” answered Giovanni, and he seemed to be well pleased.
“Must your friend come even to our mother’s house?” asked Cesare.
“Perhaps,” laughed Giovanni.
“This friend is very eager for your company,” said Cesare. “Come, we will not delay you. Farewell, dear Mother. It has been a night I shall long remember.”
Vannozza embraced her sons and watched them mount their horses. When Giovanni was in his saddle, the masked creature sprang up behind him in order to ride pillion.
Cesare was laughing and calling to the few attendants, whom he had brought with him, to follow him; and he broke into a song, in which the others all joined, as they rode down the hillside and into the city.
When they reached the Ponte district Giovanni drew up and told his brother that he would be leaving him there. He called to one of his grooms: “Hi, fellow, you come with me. The rest of you … go to your beds.”
“Whither are you bound, brother?” asked Cesare. “You are surely not going into the Jewish quarter?”
“My destination,” retorted Giovanni arrogantly, “is my own concern.”
Cesare lifted his shoulders with an indifference which was unusual.
“Come,” he said to his followers and to those of Giovanni’s servants who had not been commanded to accompany him, “home to the Borgo.”
So they left Giovanni, who, with the masked figure riding behind him, and the groom a little distance in the rear, went on into the narrow streets of the Jewish quarter.
That was the last time Cesare saw Giovanni alive.
* * *
The next day, Alexander, waiting to receive his beloved son, was disappointed by his continued absence. All that day he waited, but still Giovanni did not put in an appearance.
He sent to Giovanni’s household. No one had seen him. He had not visited Sanchia.
Alexander chuckled. “I doubt not that he has spent the night in the house of some woman, and he fears to compromise her by leaving in daylight.”
“Then he is showing himself unusually discreet,” said Cesare grimly.
But that day brought no news of Giovanni, and toward the end of it, a messenger hurried to the Pope to tell him that the young Duke’s groom, who had been seen to accompany him, was found stabbed to death in the Piazza degli Ebrei.
All Alexander’s serenity vanished. He was frantic with anguish.
“Send out search parties,” he cried. “Examine every street … every house … I shall not rest until I hold my son in my arms.”
* * *
When the search had gone on for several days and there was no news of Giovanni, the Pope grew desperate, but he would not believe any harm had come to his son.
“It is a prank of his, Cesare,” he kept repeating. “You will see, he will come bounding in on us, laughing at us because he so duped us. Depend upon it.”
“It is a prank of his,” agreed Cesare.
Then there was brought before the Pope a Dalmatian boatman who said that he had something to say, and he would say it only to the Holy Father because he believed it concerned the missing Duke of Gandia.
Alexander could scarcely wait to see the man, and he was immediately brought before the Pope who, with Cesare and several high officials of the Court, waited eagerly for him.
His n
ame, he said, was Giorgio and he slept in his boat which was tied up on the shores of the Tiber.
“My duty, Holiness,” he said, “is to guard the wood pile near the church of San Gerolamo degli Schiavoni close to the Ripetta bridge.”
“Yes, yes,” said the Pope impatiently. “But do not waste time. Tell me what you know of my son.”
“I know this, Holiness, that on the night when the Duke of Gandia disappeared I saw a man riding a white horse, and on this horse he carried what could well be the body of a man. There were two other men, holding the body as the horse came down to the river’s edge. When the horse came to the water the rider turned so that the horse’s tail was to the river; then the two men pulled off that which could well be a body, Holiness, and it fell into the river.”
“Can we trust this man?” demanded the Pope. He was fearful. He did not want to believe him. While the man had spoken he had visualized that limp body on the horse, and it was the body of his beloved son.
“We have no reason to doubt him, Most Holy Lord,” was the answer.
“Holiness,” said Giorgio. “I can tell you more. The body slipped into the water, and it was held up by what seemed to be his cloak, so that it floated and began to drift down stream. Then the man on the horse said something to the others and they began throwing stones at the floating cloak. They pitched the stones on to it again and again until it sank with the weight and disappeared. Holiness, they stood watching for some time and then they rode away.”
“You saw this happen,” said Cesare, “and you told no one! Why not?”
“Why, bless Your Eminence, I live by the river, and living there see countless bodies thrown into the water. There seemed nothing especial to report about this one, save that it happened on the night about which the gentlemen were asking.”
The Pope could bear no more. A terrible melancholy had come to him.
He muttered: “There is nothing to do but drag the river.”
* * *
Thus they found Giovanni. There were wounds in his throat, on his face and his body; the mud of the river clung to his fine clothes on which the jewels still remained; his purse was full of ducats, and his rings, brooches and necklace, worth a fortune, had not been taken.
When Alexander was told he went out and stopped those who carried the corpse as it was brought into the castle of St. Angelo. He threw himself on to the body, tore his hair and beat his chest, while he cried out in his grief.
“To those who have dealt thus with him, so they shall be dealt with!” he cried. “Nothing shall be too bitter for them to endure. I’ll not rest, beloved son, most beloved of all, until I have brought your murderer to justice.”
Then he turned to those who carried the ghastly corpse and said to them: “Take my beloved, wash him, perfume him, put on his ducal robes; and thus he shall be buried. Oh Giovanni, oh my beloved son, who has done this cruel deed to you … and to me?”
* * *
He was washed and dressed in his ducal robes, and at night by the light of one hundred and twenty flares he was carried from Castle St. Angelo to Santa Maria del Popolo.
The Pope did not accompany him, and as he sat at the window of Castle St. Angelo, looking down on the winding cortège lit by those flares, he could not contain his grief.
“Oh Giovanni, Giovanni,” he moaned, “best loved of all, my dearest, my beloved, why have they done this to thee and me?”
* * *
Pedro Caldes came to the convent to see Lucrezia. He was very agitated when she received him, falling on his knees and kissing her hands.
“There is news, terrible news. You will hear of it before long, but I wished to break it gently. I know how you cared for him. Your brother …”
“Cesare!” she cried.
“No. Your brother Giovanni.”
“He is ill?”
“He disappeared, and now they have discovered his body. It was in the Tiber.”
“Giovanni … dead!”
She swayed uncertainly, and Pedro put his arms about her.
“Madonna,” he murmured, “dearest Madonna.”
She sat down and leaned against Pedro.
She lifted her eyes to his face; they were bewildered and filled with misery. “My brother Giovanni … but he was so young, so full of health.”
“He was murdered, Madonna.”
“Who …?”
“None knows.”
She covered her face with her hands. Giovanni, she thought. Not you. It is not possible. She saw him strutting about the nursery, asserting his rights, fighting with Cesare. Fighting with Cesare!
Not Cesare, she told herself. It could not be Cesare who murdered him.
Such thoughts must not be spoken.
Pedro kept his arms about her. He told her the story, beginning with the supper party at Vannozza’s vineyard, while Lucrezia stared blankly before her, picturing it all.
Cesare had been there, and the masked person had lurked in the bushes. Evil thoughts kept coming into her mind. Who was the masked person?
“Did they discover the masked one?” she asked.
“No. None knows who it was.”
“And my father?”
“He is overwhelmed with grief. None has ever seen him so distressed, so unlike himself.”
“And … my brother, my brother Cesare?”
“He does all he can to soothe your father.”
“Oh Pedro, Pedro,” she cried, “what will become of us?”
“Madonna, do not weep. I would die rather than see you unhappy.”
She touched his face lightly. “Sweet Pedro,” she murmured. “Sweet and gentle Pedro.”
He took the fingers which caressed his cheek, and kissed them frantically.
“Pedro, stay with me,” she begged. “Stay here and comfort me.”
“Madonna, I am unworthy.”
“There was never one more gentle and kind to me and therefore more worthy. Oh Pedro, I thank the saints that you came to me, that you will help me bear my sorrows, that you will help stay my fear, for Pedro, I am desperately afraid.”
“Of what, Madonna?”
“I know not, I only know I am afraid. But when you put your arms about me, dear Pedro, I am less afraid. So … do not talk of leaving me. Talk only of staying with me, of helping me to forget these evil things which happen all about me. Pedro, sweet Pedro, talk no more of unworthiness. Stay with me, Pedro. Love me … for I love you too.”
He kissed her lips this time, wonderingly, marvelling, and she returned his kisses.
There was a wildness about her.
“Pedro, I keep seeing it. The pictures come to me. The party … the masked figure … and my brother … and then Giovanni. Oh Pedro, I must shut them out. I cannot bear them. I am frightened, Pedro. Help me … help me, my loved one, to forget.”
* * *
Alexander had given orders that a search was to be made to find the murderers of his son, that they might be brought to justice, and there were rumors implicating various people, for Giovanni had had a host of enemies.
It was said that Giovanni Sforza had planned the murder; that he resented the affection between his wife and her family; and Giovanni Borgia had shared that affection with her brother Cesare and her father.
Giovanni Sforza and other suspects quickly established their innocence; there was one name, however, which none dared utter.
The Pope was too unhappy to voice his fears; nor would he face them. He was shut in his rooms alone because he feared someone might give voice to the terrible suspicion which at this time he was unable to face, even in his own thoughts.
This was the greatest tragedy of Alexander’s life and when, a few days after Giovanni’s body had been discovered, he stood before the Consistory, he mourned openly for the death of his beloved son.
“A worse blow could not have fallen upon us,” he declared, “since we loved the Duke of Gandia above all others. We would give most willingly seven tiaras if we could bring him back. We h
ave been punished by God for our sins, for the Duke did not merit this terrible death.”
To the astonishment of all present, Alexander went on to declare that the way of life at the Vatican should be reformed and there should be no more pandering to worldly interests. He would renounce nepotism and begin the reforms in his own household.
The Cardinals were aghast. Never had they thought to hear Alexander make such utterances. He was a changed man.
Cesare sought audience with his father afterward, and looking at that stricken face he was filled with sharp jealousy as he asked himself: Would he have felt such grief for me?
“Father,” said Cesare, “what meant you by those words you spoke before the Cardinals?”
“We meant exactly what we said,” replied the Pope.
Cesare felt as though icy hands were gripping his body, realizing that his father would not meet his eyes.
“Then,” pursued Cesare, who could not leave this subject, once he had started it, “do you mean that you will do nothing to help me, to help Goffredo, Lucrezia and the rest of our family?”
The Pope was silent.
“Father, I beg of you, tell me what is in your mind.”
The Pope lifted his eyes to his son’s face, and Cesare saw there what he had dreaded to find. They held an accusation.
He suspects! thought Cesare. He knows.
Then he remembered those words which the Pope had spoken when he heard of Giovanni’s death. “To those who have dealt death to him so shall they be dealt with. Nothing shall be too bitter for them to endure.”
“Father,” said Cesare, “we must stand together after a tragedy such as this. We must not forget that, whatever happens to any of us, the family must go on.”
“We would be alone,” said the Pope. “Go from us now.”
Cesare went uneasily.
He sought out Sanchia. “I would Lucrezia were here,” he said. “She might comfort our father. But he did not ask even for her. He does not seem to want any of us now. He thinks of nothing but Giovanni.”
Madonna of the Seven Hills Page 29
