by Sarah Dunant
‘Oh, there is none safer, Your Most Reverend Lord Cardinal.’
‘And the duchess herself. She seems well to you?’
‘I… I think so, yes.’
‘She is recovering from our brother’s death.’
‘I… I believe she has found some solace. She is a lady of the greatest heart and sweetest soul.’
He stops, but Cesare has seen the light in his eyes. Poetry, eh?
‘I had rather hoped that as our go-between she might have confided in you. She speaks so highly of you in her letters.’
‘She does?’ Since the abbess’s intervention his visits have been shorter and more careful, but this has done nothing to dampen his longing. If anything the marvel of the unobtainable has increased.
‘I wondered if she might have opened her heart to you a little?’
‘No, no, my lord.’ And Pedro now feels himself suspended above the ground, dangling on a hook. For a moment the shock overwhelms the pain. ‘I am simply a messenger.’
‘Still, as my messenger I would like to think you might have offered her some comfort.’
‘I… have done my best. It is my life’s work to do my lord service.’
‘And my lady also?’
‘My lady… I mean the duchess? Yes, of course,’ he murmurs, each response now digging the hook in deeper.
The door opens quietly and Michelotto slides in with a quick bow and an easy wave, as if he has always been expected. Pedro bows back and looks up into his wide smile. The sight is ghastly.
‘Well, I must thank you for your loyal work over these few months. And tell you that there is good news. We will not need your services any more. The duchess is called to give evidence before the Church court and will leave the convent soon to prepare herself.’
‘Oh, so the annulment will go through!’ And for a moment he cannot keep the excitement out of his voice.
‘Yes.’
‘The duchess will be… be most happy to hear it.’
There is a pause. Which turns into a silence. It is unclear who is waiting for whom. Cesare is smiling. On the hook Pedro is now in so much pain that it seems almost a relief to move. Until he does. ‘I would be… I mean, it would be a privilege for me to take this last news to her. I know that she will be delighted to receive it.’
‘Yes. However, it will not be necessary. The letter gives her only a date when she is to be collected. So it has no need of a reply. Michelotto can take it and give it to the watch sister. They will probably find some solace in each other’s faces.’
And now there is a large laugh from both of them.
Pedro Calderón bows to take his leave. As he reaches the door, Cesare calls.
‘How long is it that you have been in my service, Calderón?’
‘Five years and three months now, Your Most Reverend Lord Cardinal.’
‘And in that time you have always served me faithfully.’
‘With my life.’
‘Then we must look for some reward for you.’
After he has gone, Cesare sits with one hand on the table, the fingers playing restlessly over the surface. ‘I need to know what has been happening inside the convent,’ he says at last.
‘Inside the convent? How?’
‘There are ways. It is stuffed with the daughters of noble families and I dare say they all squawk like magpies at visiting hour.’
‘Why not ask the abbess?’
‘Because, my dear Michelotto, if she is any good at her job, she will be truthful with God and double-faced with everyone else.’
Michelotto stares at him. ‘You don’t think—’
‘I don’t think anything yet. But I will.’
It is close to Christmas when Lucrezia appears before the dignitaries of the Church court. She travels from San Sisto the week before and is housed within the Vatican, where she spends the time memorising the composed address that she must give and deciding which outfit will offer the best message of purity. Whatever heartache she might suffer about lying in front of God’s tribunal is now overcome by the fear that she might not do it well enough. Her marriage is ended and there is no going back. Alexander, who inspects her before she enters the court, sheds tears as he embraces her. ‘Ah, you are a sight for the sorest of eyes. Like a virgin saint standing out before torture to reach God.’ Since his recent brush with religiosity he has become accustomed to a certain flounce of language. But the idea appeals to the fantasies she once indulged in as a girl, and she enters the room head held high.
In front of a bank of gold-embroidered elderly clerics, her youth (she is yet to celebrate her eighteenth birthday), natural grace and word-perfect Latin work their charm. What might have been a grimy duty becomes, for many, a pleasure, and there are those in the room who feel a sense of outrage that a young woman so fresh in body and spirit should be the target of such monstrous slander, while at the same time remaining intrigued by the idea. After the interrogation comes the examination: a small chamber where two nervous midwives lift her skirts and probe gently in the direction of her most private places, though never quite stepping over the threshold.
When she returns to the court, it takes no more than a few moments for the verdict to be announced: she is virgo intacta and her marriage to Giovanni Sforza herewith annulled.
That night they dine in the Room of the Saints inside the Pope’s private apartments: she, Cesare and Alexander. When she arrives, the table is laid and the room lit by dancing candles, illuminating the brilliance of the lunettes on the vaulted ceiling. Each saint is placed inside a different landscape, bursting with life and colour. Never have the tribulations of martyrs seemed so vital, so contemporary. With Alexander still in conference, it is Cesare, still in full cardinal dress from the court proceedings, who greets her. Cesare, whom she has not seen face to face for seven months. And whom, of course, she cannot but love all over again.
‘Ah, sweet sister, what a performance. The judges are comparing you to Cicero, with him the worse for the comparison. Convent life clearly suits you.’
‘I think it is divorce that suits me,’ she says gaily, the exhilaration still coursing through her. ‘I can hardly believe it is over, Cesare. And you? You have crowned a king since we were last together. Imagine that!’
He shrugs. ‘It was not such an imposing head.’
‘Not like yours, you mean.’ She reaches out to touch a small scar on the run of his cheekbone. ‘What is this? You have not been fighting?’
‘It’s nothing: a leftover from a fever I caught in Naples.’
‘Oh – how was it?’
‘Hot.’ He laughs. ‘And the convent?’
‘Quiet.’
‘And the messenger we chose for you? He was faithful to the task?’
‘Oh yes. He did his job admirably,’ she says lightly. ‘How was it with Father? Please tell me. It must have been terrible. I spent so many hours in prayer over Juan.’
‘Just as long as you did not feel in any way neglected.’
‘What?’
‘In the convent. I would not have wanted you to feel unloved in any way.’
No one else would spot it. But then no one knows her brother as she does. ‘Unloved?’ She repeats the word with an open smile on her face. In the lunette above him, Santa Barbara stands sweet-faced, golden hair streaming out, freed from her prison by the miracle of God’s grace. As long as one’s heart is pure. ‘On the contrary,’ she smiles. ‘I was exceedingly well cared for. The abbess is a wise woman and you remember that San Sisto was once my school.’
Of course she has wondered, worried, about Pedro’s unexplained absence. But with it had come the news of the court hearing and there has been no time to dwell on it. So much has taken place since brother and sister were last together. Their letters had never referred to that last meeting in her chamber, so that now it is almost as if it had never happened. She can barely remember the touch of his tongue between her lips, replaced as it has been by the feel of another. Does he someho
w suspect? No, no, how could he? The abbess is an honourable woman, and anyway, what is there to be guilty about? Heaven knows there were moments in her marriage when she felt more shame than she does now. Thinking back to the stone seat in the convent garden, she can already detect sadness inside the pleasure.
‘Your Excellency?’ The knock on the door is followed by the sight of Burchard’s granite face. ‘Ah, Lady Lucrezia.’
Lady Lucrezia. No longer the Duchess of Pesaro. His is the first public tongue to confirm the change. She feels a small thrill pass through her. ‘Signor Burchard. It is good to see you again. I hope you have been well.’
‘Yes, my lady, quite well. I… the Holy Father says I am to tell you that he will be with you soon, but that should you be hungry, dinner can be served without him.’
‘Is he with Naples or Spain?’ Cesare asks.
‘Naples, I believe.’ He turns to go, then stops. ‘It is a pleasure to have you safely returned.’
‘My, you have stolen even the lizard’s heart,’ Cesare says drily. ‘Perhaps I should go to a monastery for a while.’
‘Ha! Heaven help all women when you come out.’
They make small talk while the manservants bring the dishes: winter-bean soup, cut meats, stuffed pasta, the Pope’s favourite simple fare. After they have said grace, she pulls the conversation towards Juan and the days that followed his death. ‘Tell me everything. The convent was full of stories about Father’s grief and his renewed faith. How was he? Is the Church much reformed under his zeal?’
‘Ah, a few corrupt officials imprisoned. A council to discuss reform. Everyone agrees until it’s their own job under scrutiny and then suddenly they lose interest.’ He shrugs. Above the door of the room, a naked Saint Sebastian writhes under a hail of arrows, his sacrifice almost dull compared to the athletic youths in fashionable dress who load and dispatch their crossbows. ‘It will take more than zeal to clean these Augean stables.’
‘And Father?’
‘He is… he is more himself now. And you, beloved sister, how has it been for you?’
‘You know it from my letters, I think,’ she says, picking her words more carefully now. ‘They were dark days at first, but with God’s grace I found peace.’
‘And did God also make you laugh?’
‘What?’ She frowns, deliberately not understanding.
‘I have heard there was laughter.’
‘Ah, men have strange thoughts about convents, Cesare. They can be quite happy places, you know. I may well have laughed. There were tears enough for laughter to be its own relief.’
‘And poetry. Was there poetry?’
‘Poetry?’ Not the abbess. She would never have betrayed them, surely? So who? ‘Why do you ask about poetry?’
‘Just a brother caring for his sister’s well-being. Did you entertain in your cell?’
‘Entertain? How could I? My only visitors were the abbess and your messenger,’ she says hotly, though inside she is cold. ‘How did you hear such strange things?’
‘Oh… a few birds flying overhead.’
‘Then I must tell you that their eyesight was malicious.’ Even as she says it she amazes herself with her confidence. ‘I am your dear and loving sister as I have always been. I have wept and prayed for my brother and in the end, through God’s help I have found a way to smile again. I have given my evidence in court and thrown off my husband and been declared pure by the Mother Church. What more would you ask of me, brother?’
‘Brava,’ he says as behind them the door is flung open and Alexander, all puff and bulk, flings himself into the room with arms outstretched. ‘Let’s hope your eloquence is enough to stop the gossip.’
‘What – not more gossip, Cesare!’ Alexander’s booming voice is filled with love as Lucrezia rises from the table and throws herself into his arms. ‘Your brother spends his life measuring the levels of slime that surround us. But you, my shining daughter, have emerged as white as purity itself today, despite all the grimy slanders of your poxy ex-husband.’
‘Slanders? What slanders?’
‘Oh, we will not speak of them. You are a virgin from a convent and it would make you blush to hear even the words. No, there will be no talk of the past. Come, come, eat, eat. I am starving. You have said grace already, yes? Then I must add a few more words. For we must raise our eyes to heaven to thank God for His care of our good fortune.’
He sits and slaps his big hands together, his elegant ringed fingers entwined as his head bends and the words flow out. When he looks up there is a huge smile on his face.
‘So. You have not breathed a word to her?’ he says to Cesare.
‘No, no. We have spoken of other things.’
‘Excellent. Then it can be spoken of now. Though only between ourselves, in a room full of saints as our witnesses.’ And he waves his hand generously to the ceiling as if to include them all. ‘We have much to celebrate, Lucrezia. Your homecoming – oh how we are happy to see you. The end of your marriage. And a reward for all your patience and suffering.’
He leaves a pause, so they can all appreciate the suspense.
‘I am to have a new husband,’ she says.
‘Ah no, but someone has told you already! Who? Who? It wasn’t that young messenger of ours? No – how could he know?’
‘Your messenger was beyond reproach,’ she says firmly. ‘No one needed to tell me, Father. After night comes day. As it must. May I know the name of the man?’
‘Oh, he is less a man than a young god. Handsome, courteous, educated, gentle, brave, with the finest leg and a reputation as the best dancer.’
She finds herself thinking of Pedro and feels a short sharp pain in her chest. ‘But Father, I cannot marry my own brother,’ she says instead, and is taken aback by her own coquettishness.
‘Alas, no.’ Alexander laughs. What an exquisite pleasure it is to have his daughter home. ‘But you can marry your brother-in-law.’
‘My brother-in-law? You mean Sancia’s brother? Alfonso?’
‘Yes. Yes, the very same. Are you pleased?
‘I—’ She hesitates. She has a vivid memory of the way Sancia’s face lights up every time she talks of him. ‘Is it arranged then?’
‘It is decided, certainly. Cesare did much of the work in Naples and I have come this minute from a meeting with the ambassador. Now you are free the offer is firm, though we will pretend it is not for a while. There will be others making their bids and it is as well to let them think they have a chance. What do you think?’
‘I think that if Spain is lost to us, we must have our heart set on Naples.’
‘Ha. Listen to her, Cesare. Such cleverness in a beautiful woman is hard to find. She is a Borgia to the last drop of her blood.’
‘But… but I don’t see how. I mean, Jofré is married to Sancia, but that gives him no claim, and neither will my marriage to her brother, since both of them are illegitimate.’
‘Ho. You have been practising politics in that convent. Everyone says the best abbesses are as canny as foxes. The fact is that there will be other opportunities for marriage in this new royal family. But all that is in the future.’ And he glances conspiratorially at Cesare. ‘For now you have yet to say if you are pleased. You will most certainly like him, wouldn’t you agree, Cesare? You have better knowledge of him than me.’
‘One would hope so,’ he says quietly. ‘He is a most pretty man.’
‘Then I shall look forward to meeting him. Sancia I know will be pleased. She loves him dearly.’
‘As a good sister should. And so will we all,’ says the Pope, reaching over for another helping of stuffed pasta.
CHAPTER 35
Seven months in a convent and the world has changed in all manner of ways. Returning home to the palace of Santa Maria in Portico, she finds its wealth disconcerting after the simplicity of an enclosed life. The parrots that decorate the frescoed walls of the receiving-room, their bright green plumage growing out of the pink and ochre p
atterns of branches, are too noisy now. Would she really prefer the silence of bare walls? Adriana is noisy too, but then she goes everywhere accompanied by the tap-tap-tap of a stick. ‘Inside my knee little bits of bone have come away. Ah – how they grind and throb. I should rest, but how is one to live sitting down with so much to do?’ Though, as always, she enjoys the complaining.
And Giulia? Well, Giulia, it seems, is too ill to take visitors at all.
‘What? Does she have the contagion? You said nothing in your letters?’
‘No. More a problem of digestion. We would have told you, but we did not expect you home so soon.’
‘Well, I am back now, aunt, and of course I will see her.’
‘Haaah…’ Adriana’s protest dissolves into a great sigh. ‘Very well then – we are family after all.’
Giulia, curled lazily on a day bed under a mound of velvet with a fire spitting sparks into the freezing air, looks rosy, one might almost say plump, with health.
‘Alas, I cannot embrace you, dear Lucrezia. As you see, I am confined to bed.’
‘What is it? What do the doctors say?’
Giulia shrugs, registering Adriana’s sharp warning glance. ‘Oh, let it be, Mother. Whom will she tell?’ She sighs, leaning back against her cushions. ‘There is no need of doctors for what ails me, Lucrezia.’
‘Oh!’ She stares at her, her face still serious. My, how life does go on. ‘So on what date do you think you will be well, my dear cousin?’
‘God willing, towards the end of March.’
And now their laughter rings round the room. Adriana starts to shush and hush, but Giulia waves her away. ‘How much more secret can we be? Counting my maidservant, there are five people in the world who know, and three of them are in this room now. I have been lying on this bed for what feels like half of eternity. I think I deserve to laugh sometimes.’
‘And the fifth person?’ Lucrezia says slyly.
‘Ah, well, let us say it is not my husband.’
‘But…’ Lucrezia shakes her head. ‘March?’ The mathematics is not hard. ‘I mean… everyone said that…’