Blood & Beauty: A Novel of the Borgias

by Sarah Dunant

  With one brother taken, the next follows swiftly. Vice-Chancellor Ascanio Sforza, excommunicated as a traitor, is also imprisoned, his palace and his cardinal’s assets forfeited to the Church. Sforza. Who would have that name now? In Pesaro, Giovanni spends his life in the privy, his bowels turned to water in panic, while in Rome, Caterina is escorted by soldiers from the Belvedere Palace to less salubrious rooms in Castel Sant’ Angelo that might concentrate her mind better on the signing away of her birthright.

  Cesare, his temper much improved by the news, takes to the bullring with public displays of strength, dispatching seven bulls in a series of bloody fights. Rome falls in love with him all over again.

  It is not long before the French ambassadors arrive, smiles on their faces and the word ‘Naples’ on their lips. A few days later a Spanish contingent joins them. In the Pope’s receiving-room old enemies now shake hands and exchange compliments. The conquest of southern Italy is such a great undertaking; surely it would be better for the balance of Europe if it could be shared rather than opposed?

  Of course, nothing can be done without the blessing of the Pope. The crown of Naples sits in his hands and his own warrior son will be part of the conquering force. Not quite yet though. First Cesare has his own war to finish, for which the French King will gladly furnish part of his own army to knock down any walls that withstand him.

  Political stitch-ups do not come much tidier or more cynical than this.

  Amid such satisfying developments, the news from France that the lovely Charlotte d’Albret Borgia has safely given birth is diplomatically underwhelming. The opening words say it all. A baby girl. Alexander dispatches best wishes and presents. Cesare, in contrast, finds himself unexpectedly touched, but nothing either of them can do will shift the fact that his wife is rooted in France, where King Louis seems determined to keep her.

  Alas, even a pope as creative as Alexander cannot find a way to put asunder this marriage. It is unfortunate, because Cesare would be a great catch on the Italian marriage market now. And as he keeps telling his father, the new state they are building will need a key Borgia alliance to protect it.

  ‘Naples will not fall for at least a year. The sooner Lucrezia is free the better, Father. You have always said yourself that Fate favours those who act without waiting for tomorrow. You are almost seventy, and—’

  ‘Sweet Mother of God, not this again. Look at me! Do you see a man who is about to die? I have never felt better, as everyone but you is telling me.’

  It is true: Alexander does have more energy these days. A few months before, when the world was filled with business and strife, he had given Giulia permission to visit her husband in the country, but now success has increased his appetite in many things, so that recently his eye has started wandering over one or two of Lucrezia’s prettier ladies-in-waiting. ‘We will come to it when the time is right, Cesare. Let us at least enjoy a little sunshine before negotiating another storm.’

  Cesare, whose faith in Fate grows greater with each passing year, will remember the choice of words for some time to come.

  June 29, late afternoon of a blazing hot day. Rome is bursting with pilgrims and the Pope is seated on his throne in the great Sala dei Papi, with his personal chamberlain in conference with a Spanish cardinal, the windows thrown open wide to let in a welcome breeze from across the river.

  It is a common enough marvel, the way a summer storm in Rome can arrive out of nowhere: a sudden rising wind shunting in fat-bellied clouds and letting loose such sheets of rain that within the half-hour it might last there can be flash floods in the streets or rivers gushing down chimneys.

  Today, the force is furious. First comes rain, then hailstones, big as nails, driven sideways by the gale. The cardinal and the chamberlain rush to the windows, struggling to secure them as the thick circles of glass rattle in their metal frames. As lightning tears a jagged hole in the sky, a thunderclap arrives at exactly the same moment, exploding directly overhead. It is so loud the cardinal cries out at the sound. On the roof, the bolt scores a direct hit on the chimney breast, bringing down the whole stone fireplace in the room above and smashing through the floorboards into the salon below.

  As the two men turn from the window, the room is a dust storm. Most of the ceiling has gone. So has the Pope: man and throne engulfed by an avalanche of wood and plaster.

  ‘Holy Father!’ the chamberlain calls out hoarsely. ‘Holy Father?’

  There is no sound. Nothing. No living soul could have withstood such a weight of masonry.

  ‘The Pope!’ both men scream as the doors open. ‘Help! Help! The Pope is dead.’

  The dreaded words fly down the Vatican corridors, even as the papal guards rush in, throwing themselves onto the pile, tearing at the rubble with their bare hands, causing more debris to dislodge and fall, until the captain arrives and shouts for them to halt. ‘Slowly! One piece at a time. More men. Get more men.’

  In the open doorway Burchard stands, his thin sculpted face without expression. He turns to a servant behind him and nods, the man disappearing like a rabbit down a hole.

  ‘The Pope is dead!’

  In Santa Maria in Portico next door, Sancia is visiting Lucrezia; they, their women and baby Rodrigo are now gathered in the main salon, driven from the garden by the storm. They hear the shouting but not the words, but it is enough to send them, skirts flying, through the secret corridors into the palace beyond.

  ‘The Pope is dead!’

  Cardinal della Rovere is halfway through a dispatch to France when the messenger arrives. He drops the pen and is out of the door. He will find the inkblot spreading when he returns.

  By the time Cesare gets there (how Fate adores this young man: it is one of his rooms, which he had left barely an hour before, that has taken the brunt of the damage) the chamber is filled with soldiers, cardinals and doctors. In the centre, edges of the throne are now visible while men work methodically, lifting chunks of masonry and wood, some of it decorated with the Borgia coat-of-arms. How could God be so cruel? To kill a pope using the weapon of his own name. And every few minutes the captain of the guards shouts for silence, then calls: ‘Holy Father. Your Holiness, can you hear us?’

  It is at the tenth time of asking, with a sense of theatre that Burchard himself could not match, that a wavering voice replies.

  The whole room erupts in a cheer, and the guards go at it even faster, clearing the surrounding debris until at last the Pope is revealed, bolt-upright in his seat, his right arm caught under a lump of wood, head covered in plaster dust and a slice of blood across one cheek, but palpably alive: a fortuitous collision of two beams meeting over his head and taking the weight of what should have crushed the life out of him.

  ‘Holy Father. You are saved!’

  ‘Yes,’ he says, as he takes in the waiting, stunned crowd. ‘Yes. I am.’ And that famed Borgia smile cracks from ear to ear.

  Cesare backs out of the door to find Burchard standing outside and, coming swiftly towards them down the corridor that links the public rooms to the papal apartments, the tall, gangling figure of Giuliano della Rovere, his cardinal’s robes like lapping waves around him. Vultures, Cesare thinks. In Rome it is the ear rather than any sense of smell that has them gathering.

  He moves to block his path. During their months of enforced cohabitation at the French court the two of them have perfected a tone of sincere insincerity. But since their arrival in Rome they have studiously avoided each other.

  ‘My lord duke.’ Della Rovere is breathless. ‘I came as soon as I heard. I—’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Cesare interrupts loudly. ‘The most terrible accident. The ceiling of the room above has fallen directly on to the throne where he was seated.’

  ‘Oh, may Jesus Christ Our Lord have mercy on us all. Our beloved Holy Father? He is badly hurt?’

  Cesare makes a stiff little gesture, as if he cannot speak.

  ‘No, oh – no – he is not dead?’

  Cesare t
astes the honey in the timing. ‘No, he isn’t. That is the wonder of it. He is very much alive.’

  Della Rovere, for a second unsure how to proceed, crosses himself and pulls his hands together in prayer. ‘Praise be to all the saints.’

  ‘And how good of you to come to his aid so fast, cardinal. You must have men of great prescience around you.’

  Della Rovere’s smile barely flickers. Behind them, Burchard is already moving back to the Pope’s chamber. Cesare’s voice reaches after him.

  ‘Is there anyone else we should disinform?’

  Alexander, his right arm badly bruised and with various cuts and scratches to his head and face, is carried gently to his bedchamber. The word ‘miracle’ is already starting to whisper its way around the Vatican palace as Cesare walks out into the gardens that adjoin the Borgia apartments. The torrential rain has stopped as fast as it arrived and the sky is already clearing. The gravel and the flowerbeds are soaked and as the sun comes out it picks out trembling diamond drops of water on the leaves of the Seville orange trees that the Pope loves so much because they remind him of the Spanish home that he no longer quite remembers from his childhood. The hailstones have knocked some of the riper oranges to the ground: an early harvest for the Vatican kitchens, their pulp strong, slightly bitter to the taste. Borgia fruit. Della Rovere would no doubt have them all dug up and replanted. How fast it could all come apart, Cesare thinks: coats-of-arms covered up or chipped away, new apartments fashioned for a new papacy. He pushes the nightmare further: what future would there be then for a Borgia son with no army and just a few cities, still half owned by the papacy, in his grasp? No, if the Borgias are to survive, then the rest of Romagna must be secured and buffered by states in order to give it muscle against the belligerence of any new pope. And it must happen fast. Another campaign will take the cities he needs, and the fall of Naples to the French will cushion him in the south. To the north one state has long been the obvious choice. Ferrara. But to persuade the proud house of Este that they need an alliance with the new Duke of the Romagna will take the combined weight of a French king, a Borgia pope and a high-level marriage to formalise the good will.

  Once again Fate, this time in the form of a summer storm and a fallen chimney breast, is his mentor.

  CHAPTER 53

  In his chamber, Alexander is soon enjoying the status of a man cradled in the hand of God. He holds court in bed, a doctor for each wound, offering salves and potions until he shoos them away in favour of another kind of healing. The door opens in a rush of perfumed silk on a flock of colourful birds: Lucrezia and Sancia with all of their ladies, bearing fruits and flowers and twittering welcome. He sits, his great tonsured head bandaged and his florid face bathed in smiles, as they arrange themselves around the bed. They stay from morning till night, feeding and amusing him with chatter and word games. The infidel Turkish potentate, it is said, keeps a whole house of women just for himself. Well, they cannot be prettier or more solicitous than these dear things. Ah, to be so loved! Someone had better tell Vannozza and Giulia. They will surely be beside themselves with worry and want to visit too. It is almost worth injury to gain such love and attention.

  Two weeks later. Midsummer’s twilight, the kind of sky that has Pinturicchio crying into his palette with envy: a blood-orange sun dipping behind banks of cloud washed with such riotous, rapturous shades of colour that one almost expects Our Lady and all the angels to rise out of them into the heavens above.

  Below are the steps of the Basilica of St Peter, old majesty crumbling under the weight of history, a place which has given sustenance to persecuted Christians over the centuries, but whose portico now offers something more humble, a stone bed for those pilgrims who cannot afford the price of a room.

  A group of them lie huddled near one of the pillars, not far from the gates of the Vatican. Given the clemency of the weather one might have expected more people to take advantage of the spot. Certainly the night watchman who passed by a few moments earlier had been surprised to find the steps so empty. If he had looked closer he would also have noticed that these men were far from destitute: their boots are of good leather, their cloaks have a rich weave. Not that that in itself is so strange. For every ten pilgrims who sleep on stone out of necessity there will be a few who do so out of choice: a deliberate espousal of austerity in their journey to get closer to God. These fellows here are possibly a fraternity of cloth or leather merchants travelling together on a vow of poverty. They must be very tired now, for they have wrapped their cloaks around their heads as well as their bodies to keep out the glorious sunset. Ah well, waking to dawn on the steps of St Peter’s will be its own reward.

  As the light dies the gates to the Vatican, to the right-hand side of the portico, unbolt and open just enough to let out three men, hats pulled down over their eyes and well dressed, though one of them more so, with pleats of gold edging to his velvet doublet. They all have swords swinging by their sides.

  They take in the view around them, noting the sleeping pilgrims and the empty piazza, then move quickly down the stairs and across their side of the square towards the building next door, where there is a side entrance hidden in the shadow. They could have used the back way inside the two palaces, but that would have involved a long trek through corridors and secret doors and the great chapel of Sixtus IV into the downstairs chapel of Santa Maria in Portico. It is a fine enough route in rain or cold, but in summer the passages are stuffy and with such a gorgeous sunset who would not want to step outside and see the sky, even if only for a few moments?

  They must be halfway to home when, from the steps of the church behind them, the cloaked huddle rises up like a dark wraith, then separates out to become six – no, seven – figures, flinging off their cloaks and unsheathing their swords. Within seconds, they have the three men surrounded, cutting them off from both palaces and flinging themselves upon them.

  Alfonso of Aragon, his sword already out of its scabbard, turns to meet his attackers. How long has he been waiting for this moment? There had been a time, after Rodrigo was born, when he had hoped that the Pope’s good will towards them all would save him. But since his brother-in-law’s return, he has known that even the fortress of love that Lucrezia has thrown up around them is not strong enough to protect him from Cesare’s murderous rage.

  This good-natured young man, unspoiled by ambition or too much intelligence, has little of the hero about him; yet he has walked towards his fate with his eyes open. Of course he has done what he can: he has given up hunting, because the world is full of stories of hunters who mistake a man’s coat for an animal’s flank; and these days he only leaves the confines of the palaces with bodyguards. But there has been nothing about this evening to arouse suspicion. He had joined his wife in the late afternoon, where she, the Pope, Sancia and Jofré were enjoying a tournament of draughts around the table in Alexander’s bedroom (how well the old man is doing!) and then he had stayed for an early supper. Lucrezia could well have accompanied him home – as she does sometimes – and it would take an insider’s knowledge to know that tonight she does not.

  Well, so be it. God’s portico echoes with a chorus of clashing steel. He dispatches his first opponent fast, forcing the man’s blade high into the air then ramming him backwards with such ferocity that he loses his footing. It is not just for sport that he and his gentleman, Albanese, have returned to practising swordplay. If he is going to perish here then he will take a few with him. He catches Albanese’s eye and they both let out a howl at the same time: the exhilaration of dying. When they bring the news to King Federico, Naples will have reason to be proud of them both.

  ‘Murder! Murder!’ Behind them, his groom is yelling at the top of his lungs as his sword flails around him. ‘The Duke of Bisceglie is attacked! Open the doors. Let us in.’

  It is not long before Alfonso takes the first wound to his arm. Left arm though. Fine, he doesn’t need it. He feels the stab of pain, then nothing. He turns on to the sword t
hat delivers it and as he does so he notices a group of horses in the shadows at the bottom of the steps. By God, he thinks, they mean to take us somewhere else if they cannot dispatch us here. He has a flash of the Tiber, stinking weeds in his hair. Knowing there is no safety to be had in trying to reach the entrance, the three of them are falling back towards the Vatican gates, their shouts and ringing steel a terrible percussion in the night. ‘Murder. Bloody murder!’ Dear God, are the guards all deaf?

  The next blow is to his head. It stuns him and he stands for a second undefended and would go down if Albanese doesn’t step in to save him. They cannot keep this up much longer; there are too many of them. Then a shaft of steel enters his thigh, high up, where the blood runs in rope-thick veins which if punctured can spurt out a life in minutes. He lifts his weapon to take out the man who did it, but he is falling already. On the ground someone is groaning – himself? – then a hand is grabbing his cloak and collar. ‘My lord, my lord!’ and he hears his groom’s voice, frantic, as he is dragged backwards up the stairs to the gates.

  He feels the darkness upon him. I love my wife, he thinks. My wife, my sister, my son. I would die for them if I could. Is that what I am doing? He remembers nothing more.

  Finally, the great Vatican gate clanks open. Albanese is still fighting like a man possessed, but they are already saved. At the first sign of help the attackers take to their heels, scattering across the piazza to the waiting horses. By the time the guards are out and following, they are gone, kicking up dust into the near-darkness.

  In the Pope’s bedroom, Sancia is squeaking at the audacity of some move that her father-in-law has made on the board when the commotion reaches them.

  Without ceremony, the door is flung open by the captain of the guards, and four men stagger in, carrying Alfonso, his head and his leg a mass of red, blood everywhere.

  Sancia screams, the Pope yells and Lucrezia, on her feet immediately, looks at her husband’s body and faints to the floor. It is only later, when she is revived, that she hears the words. ‘He is breathing still. They have not killed him.’