by Sarah Dunant
‘Not everyone approves of the idea of war against a woman. We will win more support with magnanimity than revenge now.’
‘Except it’s not finished. She must renounce her claim on behalf of her children, and living in luxury gives her no incentive to do it.’
Amid the madness of celebrations, it is days before father and son find themselves properly alone together.
‘So, we will use the threat of the dungeons to persuade her. By then she will be forgotten anyway. Come, let us not argue over details. You have made me the happiest man in Christendom. Tell me, what can this loving father give you in return, oh Duke of half of Romagna?’
‘The means to take the other half.’
‘Ah, you are on fire still.’ Alexander beams with delight. ‘And you shall have it. You will be Gonfaloniere and the Captain-General of the Church within the month. Burchard is already drawing up the papers.’
‘And the army to go with it? We need to raise more soldiers and artillery.’
‘I know. But we have time.’ This warrior son of his is so impatient. ‘Nothing can be done until Milan is settled.’
‘No. That is the whole problem, Father. As long as we depend on the French, we are not in command of our own destiny. I know that now. I tell you, for this to work we need our own army made up of our own mercenaries. Spanish if possible, so their loyalty is set. The rest we can draw from inside the Romagna.’
‘What about Vitelli, the Orsini and the others? They fought well for you.’
‘Well enough. But at root they are like everyone else. Their first loyalty is to themselves. And if we are successful in the taking of the cities – and we will be – eventually we will be looking at theirs too. The Orsini won’t know what’s hit them.’
‘Ah – listen to the ambition!’ He has been waiting for this moment for months; to taste the victory and make it his own. ‘I believe war has changed you. Even your face is more soldier than courtier. You know, when I was young, I used to look a little like you. Gladiator chest and shoulders. Ah, how women love a warrior. Sweet Mother of God, we are a family to be proud of, with such triumph to celebrate.’
‘So when do we start?’
‘Start what?’
‘Recruiting. It is the perfect time.’ Cesare gestures to the window. ‘Half of Europe is pouring tribute into the Church.’
‘What? You are Pope as well as Captain-General now?’ he laughs. ‘I should remind you there are a few other… meagre demands on the papacy. Venice is calling for a crusade: pirate infidels are plundering her ships halfway to the Indies.’
‘Then we can use the demand to make her give us something in return.’
‘You think I am not working on it already? By the time you are back on the road she will have withdrawn all support from the cities of the Romagna. Aaah! You young pups think it is all done with clashing steel and boom-bard cannonballs. The battles I fight here demand at least as much strategy. Now do me the favour to stop pacing like a wolf in the forest and relax for a moment. Sit, will you!’
Cesare does as he is told, finding his old chair and throwing his body into it, his feet sprawled halfway across the arms.
‘I hear that there is a most lovely courtesan in Rome who has a parrot that swears in Latin. And that the same bird squawks your name while its mistress is busy murmuring other men’s. I wonder who gave her that?’
‘Father, we are talking of armies, not women.’
‘No. We are talking of life.’ The Pope sighs, as if giving up on him. ‘Or have you given up everything for war? Maybe it is the Virago who changed you. Wore you out, perhaps. My – you have no idea what stories reached us here.’
‘Gossip is not truth,’ Cesare says baldly. He has felt a recurring disgust at the memory of the encounter, not all of it directed towards her. Yes, it is true that he had caught a glimpse of Fiammetta at her window as they paraded past. But by the time he crossed the bridge he had forgotten her again. If he dwelt on it, he too might find it strange, how inside all this driving energy of victory there has been little obvious sexual desire. At times he has found his thoughts turning more to his modest, pliant wife, now fat with child. Her expressed delight at the Venetian silks and glass that he has sent to her speaks of different affection; a fondness born of admiration rather than lust. It is a long time since he has felt such female warmth inside his blood family.
‘What about my sister?’ he says sharply. ‘Is she still besotted with Naples?’
‘She is happy, yes, and in great excitement at your return.’ Alexander, as always, lies with admirable gusto.
‘And our traitor in-laws, the Aragonese? How are they?’
‘Ah, my son, don’t be so harsh. Their name is as much a burden to them as it is to us.’
‘Nevertheless, we—’
‘And before you say more.’ He talks over him now, his voice more forceful. ‘Until Milan is taken and there is an army heading for Naples that matter will not be spoken of between us. We shall enjoy a little harmony alongside the fruits of victory. Is that understood?’
Cesare bows his head in obedience.
‘Good. Since you are more interested in work than diversion, let us talk cardinals. Four deaths mean four vacancies in the college, but since there are at least two dozen contenders with open purses, perhaps we might appoint more. A few fellow Spaniards will work well for our future. You can start to pay for your army from there. I shall send you a list. And now we shall drink wine and play at war, you and I. You will show me how you took Forlì. I have had them put extra condiments on the table and a set of new silver French forks so we will have enough to designate each part of the army. See… just like it was all those years ago in the Palazzo Borgia. Ah, what a journey it has been.’
And as he says it two fat tears of joy start their way up and over the flesh foothills of his craggy cheeks. What depth of fatherly love. Impossible to resist. As the two men settle over the mustard pots, forks and pasta spoons, with the south wall of the fortress of Forlì a thick napkin propped against a goblet, a spike of pain shoots up through Cesare’s leg, deep into his groin. It is the second time in a week that he has felt it. God’s wounds, he thinks. Not again. Not now.
CHAPTER 51
‘How it is possible for something that does not kill to hurt so much, Torella? I’ve had bull-horn injuries that have been easier to bear.’
‘My lord, it is one of the mysteries of the disease. How it seems to enter into the bone itself.’
‘And to come so suddenly? One day I am in perfect health, then— And don’t dare to tell me it is a mystery. You are a man of medicine. If I wanted to hear about mysteries I would employ a magus.’
‘If I may speak, my lord?’
‘Haaaa!’ Cesare is on the bed, his legs stretched out at strange angles as if bent iron bars are running through them. The agony is almost continuous, as it has been for the last two days, and his face is grey with pain.
‘I would say that its arrival is not so sudden. Since our return to Rome you have suffered certain…’ he feels for the right words, ‘certain changes of mood.’ He glances towards Michelotto, who sits assiduously studying the floor tiles. When the news of Ludovico’s retaking of Milan had come through a week ago, Cesare’s tantrum had broken two chairs, one of them narrowly missing the messenger’s head. It had been then that Michelotto had noticed the blotches starting to rise on his master’s face and called for the doctor.
‘What – my temper is also the disease now!’
‘It seems there may be some relation between the two, yes.’
On Torella’s desk sit letters from the city of Ferrara, where it appears half the court is infected: descriptions of smitten men chased by the dogs of depression or in thrall to such moods and furies that at times they have had to be restrained. Like the blotches and the pains, the devil comes and goes.
‘So do something. What about the ointment that the doctor gave that old cardinal?’
‘My lord, he was a Por
tuguese quack! Cardinal Bertomeu died of it! And for every moment of relief, he suffered tenfold as it wore off. I stake my reputation that is not the way to treat it.’
‘Then what is?’
Torella sighs. ‘I do believe…’
‘All right, all right. I will try your damn steam barrel. But it had better work, Torella. I am a man with wars to fight and I cannot – aaaghh!’ He breaks off as the next spasm thrusts a sword through his body.
It is Torella’s great experiment and he is set to make a small fortune on it. He had perfected the design during the stay in France and had the whole thing built, then dismantled and carried home in the baggage carts. It is housed inside an old oak wine barrel, with a door for the patient to enter and leave, a bench seat and a small fire grate where the coals are kept red-hot, liberally doused with drops of his special compound: quicksilver, myrrh and secret herbs mixed in secret quantities. The naked patient sits inside for two to three hours, working up a ferocious sweat, which allows the worst of the humours to be expelled at the same time as the infused steam enters through the pores and the airways. In this way the bad humours of the disease are chased out and the remedy flows in. As long as the patient can stand the heat, after three or four sessions the skewering within the bones subsides and the blotches start to fade.
Cesare, who must always be the best at everything, even suffering, emerges parboiled after a second gruellingly long session and, with Torella’s help, sits gasping in a chair, nodding grimly.
‘The stabbing is less. Definitely. It is a good cure, Torella.’
From outside the door there are raised voices; a man’s followed by another lighter tone, plus the sound of screeching.
‘Well?’ Cesare says as Michelotto puts his head around the door. ‘What? What are you staring at?’
‘Nothing. Except that it is a wonder to see you upright again.’
But that is not what Michelotto is thinking. He is thinking, ‘beetroot’: the doctor has boiled the duke to the colour of beetroot.
‘Who is it? I said I would see no one.’
‘It is… it is the Duchess of Bisceglie. She has been here for some time.’
Cesare looks at Torella. The doctor shrugs. ‘If you have the energy.’
‘How do I look?’
‘Like a man who is no longer in pain,’ the doctor says mildly, judging this rebirth of vanity as a healthy sign in itself.
Cesare lifts himself a little higher in the chair. ‘Get me a towel.’
In the antechamber, Lucrezia keeps her distance from Michelotto. Over the years nothing has happened to make his face any more attractive to her, but there is no doubt that he, like her, cares greatly for her brother.
‘The duke will be pleased to see you now.’
She nods at him haughtily as she passes.
‘Duchess Bisceglie, if I may…?’ She stops, but still does not look at him directly. ‘If he asks you how he looks… don’t tell him.’
At least she is prepared. ‘Oh, my sweet brother!’ It is hard to know what is strangest – the flayed colour of his body or the wooden contraption that sits in the middle of the room, steaming gently.
‘It is Torella’s health machine. Men go in ill and come out well. Though they roast a little on the way.’
She comes straight up to him, sitting close and laying a hand on his forehead. ‘You are so hot, but—’
‘It is the fire, not the fever.’
She glances at Torella, who looks on appreciatively as this pretty young woman becomes the instant nurse, soaking a sponge in the bowl of water and using it to dab and soothe the patient’s face.
‘You can leave us now, Torella,’ Cesare mutters.
‘Indeed. And if I may, madam? He must also drink.’
‘Yes, yes.’ Lucrezia lifts up the glass of water and helps hold it to his lips. ‘Come,’ she says sternly as the door closes behind her. ‘Do not make that face. You must do as you are told for once.’
Cesare, a stranger to being weak in female hands, sits back, unexpectedly calm. ‘How did you know I was ill?’
‘Ah, there are no secrets in this palace. You should know that. Thank the Lord you are safe now.’
As the high colour in his skin begins to fade his semi-nakedness becomes more powerful: there is an old duelling scar, a pale ridge running halfway across his chest, and his upper arms are knotted with muscles.
‘I was never in any danger,’ he says gruffly. ‘What? Are those tears? You are not crying for me. I am strong as a bull.’
‘But… but you might not have been. There has been so much fighting, Cesare. What if you had been wounded? Or even killed.’
‘How sad would you have been then?
‘How can you ask that?’ she says angrily. ‘You are my brother.’
‘How can I ask it? Perhaps because it has been a while since I have seen you show any love for me.’
‘And whose fault is that?’ she shoots back, almost too fast. The fact is that, though she is crying for him, she is also crying for other things. ‘I have missed you sorely and sent invitations by the barrelful for you to join us since your return. But you have ignored them.’
‘Us,’ he repeats. ‘To join “us”.’
‘Yes, us. Because though it seems to cause you nothing but anger these days, as well as your sister I am also a married woman.’
When she set out from the palace hours ago she had not felt so brave. What had she come for? In fear of his health? Or to try and placate his aggression against the House of Aragon? The news from Milan has the French army and Ludovico Sforza ready to meet in battle, each side rich with Swiss troops, men who, it seems, will kill even their own brothers if someone pays them enough. What a foul thing is war. Whoever wins, someone loses. And in this battle she, Lucrezia, who does not fight anyone, stands to lose more than most.
‘Cesare, I am your loving sister and I would ask you to listen to me.’ She lifts up the sponge to mop his face again so that he cannot but look at her. ‘We both know this marriage to Naples was not of my choosing. The decision was yours and Papà’s. I did as I was told. Just as when I married Giovanni Sforza. Then, when it was Papà’s wish, for the good of the family, I allowed – no, no, I helped – to have him put aside. But Giovanni was a traitor. You said so yourself. He betrayed us. Alfonso is not like him. He is a man of honour and the father of my son, a Borgia child.’
‘He is from the House of Aragon and they are our enemy,’ he says flatly.
‘Only because you have made it so. If Federico had given you his daughter as you wished—’
‘It has nothing to do with his hideous daughter,’ Cesare yells: even more than his father, he does not like to be reminded of failures.
‘I agree.’ She realises her mistake fast. ‘Oh, I agree. You have a much better wife now and another alliance to bring the family even more greatness. You are Duke of half of the Romagna already and will surely take the rest. Naples is not important.’
‘Is this what you are come for?’ he says sourly, pulling away from her ministrations. ‘To plead for your husband?’
‘No.’ And she is surprised by her own firmness. ‘No, I am not here to plead.’
Because why should she? She has done nothing wrong. In all her life she has done nothing but love and obey her family. Except perhaps for once… but she does not like to think of Pedro Calderón; there is too much guilt woven in with the suffering. Is that what she is paying for now? If so, then surely it is God’s business to punish her, not anyone else’s. ‘I am come to see my brother. But as his sister, not a supplicant. I am a Borgia too, married, before God, to a man who has done us no wrong. And I ask you to respect that.’
‘Bravo, sister.’ The battle between displeasure and admiration is over too fast for it to be read in his features. ‘Such spirit suits you very well.’ He leans over and takes her face between his hands, staring at her, studying her approvingly. Ah, but she is lovely indeed. ‘I have missed you too. I did not realise how m
uch until this moment.’
For a second she thinks that he might try to kiss her and she stiffens involuntarily. But instead he releases her, a broad smile on his face. As he does so there is a great commotion next door, a squawking and then a swearing.
‘God’s blood. Michelotto? What is that racket?’
The door opens. ‘My lord. Do you need Torella?’
‘No! My sister has cured me. But I don’t need bloody murder going on outside my door.’
Michelotto throws up his hands. ‘Once its hood is off you can’t stop it.’
‘Stop what?’
‘The damn bird! The note that came with it called it a messenger with a cherry-red tail.’
‘Ah yes! And what does it say?’
‘Valentwah.’ Through the open door the screech is audible to all. ‘Forlìììì. Forlìì. Valentwah.’
Cesare laughs. ‘I will answer it later.’
But when he turns back to her Lucrezia is still looking at him, waiting for some kind of response.
He takes her hand and kisses it. ‘My beautiful Borgia sister, hurting you would be like hurting myself. What more can I say?’
CHAPTER 52
The power of family. Sforza in Milan. Aragon in Naples. For near on half a century their mutual ambitions have affected the balance between north and south, their dynastic webs spun together with threads of blood through marriage and offspring. Perhaps it is fitting, then, that when one falls the other should be taken down with it.
On the battlefield outside Milan the French army decisively crush the Sforza force. Victory is made sweeter a day later with the capture of a swarthy Swiss soldier, a man with such execrable German and soft, manicured hands that it takes no time for him to be unmasked. Ludovico Sforza, once the scourge of Italy, is put into chains and loaded on to a cart bound for France, where King Louis himself is waiting to welcome him to a royal castle where he will reign undisturbed over a water-soaked dungeon with a court of rats for company.