A slow throbbing began between my legs, and I swallowed audibly in the silent room. I was damned, I knew I was damned, but I would do it all over again. And again, and again, and again …
Who knew sin would feel so good, so delicious?
Of course it did, I reprimanded myself. That was why it tempted us. If it was not pleasurable, we would not have to work to resist it. That was how Satan entrapped us.
Yet why must pleasure be a sin? Why could it not be a virtue, to seek it out?
Quickly I crossed myself. That was blasphemy, and I knew it.
My mother’s voice arrived unbidden: You went off to Rome and turned into a despicable whore, like I knew you would. What else could become of a girl like you there, with such sin in your heart? But to sleep with a cardinal, a man of God … that is a disgrace not even I could have imagined. Can you feel Lucifer’s fire even now, you filthy slut? For you shall fall into it soon enough …
Tears crept into my eyes. No, I protested, as if speaking to her. I am not a whore. I am not a slut. I did not go to his bed with evil in my heart. For is that not what sin is? To wish to do ill? Why should taking some pleasure for myself be so wrong? Why?
Suddenly I realized there was one thing that did not seem to fit into what I had been taught my whole life: if what I had done was wrong, unforgiveable, why did I feel so happy? Why did I feel as though there was light inside of me, a light that had been kindled where previously there had been none?
Was this what it felt like to finally have something you’ve yearned for, hungered for? Warmth and tenderness and passion?
My mother would say such light was naught but a trick of Lucifer, but did I agree?
A tapping at the door interrupted my relentless thoughts, and a man poked his head in. “Is there a Maddalena Moretti here?” he asked.
I sat up. “I am she.” I glanced over at Isabella; always a sound sleeper, she only muttered in her sleep and rolled over.
The man opened the door wider. He was dressed in Borgia livery, a crest with the bull on his chest. “I am sent to fetch you by His Eminence the Cardinal of Valencia,” the man said.
I didn’t hesitate.
Chapter 52
CESARE
My second night with Maddalena was as pleasurable as the first—more so, as she had shed some of her shyness. “I know something that shall please Your Eminence,” she’d said coyly, having undressed and seated herself on the bed.
I raised an eyebrow at her. “Oh?”
“Yes.” She pushed me down so I lay flat on my back, and before I knew what was happening, she had bent her head and put her mouth on me. “Christ, Maddalena,” I swore, gripping the sheets as her tongue moved over me. “Yes. Christ, yes.”
Afterward, she straightened up, looking pleased with herself. “My husband used to ask me to do that,” she said. “I was always rather disgusted by it until now.”
“Your husband was a sinful man,” I said, trying to catch my breath. “Such things are forbidden by the Church, you know.”
“So is my presence in your bed,” she pointed out.
“Ah. Well, then.” I flipped her onto her back, and she squealed in delight. “For both our sakes, I pronounce you forgiven of these sins.”
The next day, as I walked the halls of Santa Maria in Portico to visit Lucrezia, I stifled a yawn. I might need to forgo the lovely Maddalena for a night or two, lest I lose my stamina. Yet it was true that part of the impetus for my visit to Lucrezia was in hopes of catching a glimpse of her captivating maid.
As I approached Lucrezia’s suite of rooms, all such enjoyable thoughts were chased away by the sight of Sancia of Aragon, coming toward me.
My entire body tensed in anger as she approached, but I refused to acknowledge her. It was best for everyone, though God and all the saints knew what effort it would cost me to do so.
Sancia, damnable woman that she was, could not leave well enough alone. As I strode past her, my jaw tightly clenched, she stared after me. “Not a word for me, then, Cesare?” she called.
I stopped and turned, praying I could keep my temper under control. “You would not like the words I have for you, Sancia,” I said tautly.
“Is that so?” she taunted, like a bullfighter waving her cape before my eyes. “Or are you too much of a coward to face me?”
With that, I snapped. I charged toward her, grabbed her arm, and hauled her off to the nearest empty room—a largely unused receiving room of some kind, though not, thankfully, that particular room—and slammed the door behind us. Once we were alone, I whirled on her, advancing toward her slowly. “You would dare call me coward, after what you have done?” I demanded. “Going behind my back to Juan’s bed?” I laughed mockingly. “Or to whatever room where he can pull your skirts up fastest, I see. No doubt he has not the stamina for much more.”
“How dare you,” she spat. “I need not answer to you.”
“I think that you do,” I said, moving closer. She did not back away; instead she raised her chin and glared back at me, defiantly. I was impressed and it only infuriated me more. “You were mine, Sancia. We both said as much, the night you first came to my bed. We loved each other. Or so you said. Was that another of your lying whore’s tricks?”
“How dare you insult me so,” she said. “You knew of my past when you first bedded me. I take my pleasure where I find it, and—”
“Your past was none of my concern,” I interrupted. “It still isn’t. It was your future that mattered to me.”
She laughed bitterly. “And what future would that be, Cesare?” she demanded. “Your fantasies of leaving the Church, of marrying me, of conquering Italy? You need not have spun such tales to win me; I was already in your bed. You cared more for your ambition, for what you saw in your dreams, than you did for me.”
“They were not fantasies,” I snapped. “I meant every word.”
“Then you are an even bigger fool.”
“Why, you—”
“We took our pleasure together. It need not be more than that,” she said. “I did not need, want, or expect more.”
“You knew there was more to it for me than that,” I bit out, my anger growing with everything that she was forcing me to admit. “And you acted as though there was more to it for you, too.”
“There was not,” she said.
“You are a lying, deceitful bitch.”
“Why, because I will not bend to your every whim, Cesare Borgia? Because I will not be your slave? Juan does not want nor expect anything from me other than bed sport, and that is how I prefer it.”
“Don’t you dare say his name to me,” I said through clenched teeth. “Two Borgia brothers was not enough for you, Sancia? You needed the third as well?”
“Oh, listen to you,” she said scornfully. “So high and mighty, as though you did not immediately take a serving wench to your bed after learning about me and Juan.”
An almost deadly stillness settled over me. “What did you say?” I asked, almost calmly.
“You heard me,” she said. “I know what you did. So you can refrain from your holy, moral recriminations. You are no better than me.”
I’d be damned; was that hurt I saw in her eyes? As though she had any right to be hurt if I fucked every woman in Rome. And maybe I would, just to spite her. “I do not see how you could possibly know who has or has not been in my bed, since you are no longer in it,” I said.
“I have my ways. I have my own eyes and ears in the Vatican.” She laughed harshly. “To think. A servant girl. And you think me disgusting? At least I do not choose my bedmates from the slums.”
“In fact, that is exactly what you’ve done, Sancia.”
Her hand snaked out and slapped me across the face. My head snapped to the side, and my cheek stung where her palm had struck it. “I dare you,” I spat through gritted teeth, “to strike me again.”
“I know exactly which little bitch it is, too,” she went on, as though she had not heard me. “She serve
s Lucrezia. One of your own sister’s maids! Maddalena. A fitting name, I suppose, for a woman who has come to a man who thinks himself Christ—”
“If any harm comes to Maddalena, Sancia,” I cut her off, “rest assured that I will know who to blame. And you will be sorry.”
“I am not afraid of your hired thug Michelotto,” she flared.
I took a step closer, and this time she took a step back. “Perhaps not. But you should be afraid of me.”
This time I was ready. As her hand lashed out to strike me again, I caught her wrist in a tight grip, and I saw her wince in pain. “Now, I am going to see my sister. I suggest you make yourself scarce.” I released her.
“Perhaps I shall go see Juan,” she spat.
“Do that. I care not whether you go to his bed or directly to hell.”
“Enjoy your low-class slut,” she sneered. “No doubt she knows lots of whore’s tricks.”
“No more than you, Sancia.”
With a scream of rage and frustration, she yanked the door open and left the room, slamming it behind her.
* * *
That night my cock prevailed over my wisdom and I sent for Maddalena. I made love to her hard, fast, urgently, thinking not of her pleasure but only of my own. I wanted to erase every last trace of Sancia from my body, to burn her from my flesh. And Maddalena, as if knowing just what I needed, as if we had been lovers for years, drew me in and held me tightly within her body, meeting me and moving with me until ecstatic oblivion claimed me.
Chapter 53
MADDALENA
Lucrezia’s divorce soon became common knowledge, at least among those associated with the Vatican and the Borgia family. It was an open secret that the pope was seeking to annul her marriage to Giovanni Sforza, and this had become a great source of distress to Lucrezia, who hated the gossip as much as, if not more than, the idea of her marriage being annulled.
“I don’t understand how Papa can do this to me,” she wailed to Donna Adriana as a few other maids and I assisted with her bath. “Does he not know what people will say about me?”
“What could they possibly say? What would anyone dare say about you?” Donna Adriana asked. “You are the pope’s daughter.”
“You know perfectly well what they will say, pope’s daughter or no,” Lucrezia huffed. “That I am a bad wife. I could not make my husband happy. I am a failure as a woman. They already speak ill of us because we are Catalan, and—”
“Psh,” Donna Adriana scoffed. “The ignorant with nothing better to do will say such things, perhaps. But anyone who matters knows that marriages among families like ours are about politics, and nothing more. Wifely virtue does not signify.”
I had to hold back a snort. Who better to know such things than Adriana de Mila, whose son was sent off to the country just after his own wedding with cuckold’s horns affixed to his head at the behest of the man who would become pope?
Donna Lucrezia went on about marriage in the sight of God and duty, but I was no longer listening. I yawned, trying my best to hide it as I washed Donna Lucrezia’s long tresses. I had not been getting much sleep of late.
Yet as tiring as my nights were, I would not trade them for anything. Sleep was for the girl I had been, who had needed to dream of such things as now happened to me in my waking hours. To be desired by a man such as Cesare Borgia, to revel in his touch and watch how he thrilled at mine … it was worth any sin. It was worth the exhaustion, and the looks of wrath and disgust I fancied Madonna Sancia had been sending my way of late. Each time I caught her glaring in my direction, I would simply lower my eyes but keep my chin up. Even if she somehow knew that I had taken her place in Cesare’s bed, what right had she to be angry? She had cast him off. And there was nothing she could do to me in any case, not while I was effectively under Valentino’s protection.
I pushed aside thoughts of Sancia and returned to much more pleasurable recollections of my lover. Why, the night before, he had …
“Maddalena?”
I started and looked up to find Donna Lucrezia and Donna Adriana both looking at me questioningly. Donna Lucrezia looked somewhat irritated, as though it were not the first time she had called my name.
“My apologies, Madonna,” I said. “I … I did not hear you.”
She raised her eyebrows. “I asked you to get the cloth, so I may step out,” she said.
“Of … of course.” I hurried to grab a clean length of cloth and unfurled it, holding it out for Madonna Lucrezia. She rose from the tub, wet hair streaming down her back, and stepped out. I wrapped the cloth around her, proceeding to help dry her. Once she was dried off and dressed, she would sit out in the garden for a few hours to help her hair dry. It was all quite an ordeal.
She resumed her conversation with Donna Adriana, and I was free to fall back into my dreamy, preoccupied haze.
* * *
“Where were you last night?” Isabella hissed later that night, once we were relieved of our duties and heading down to the kitchens to find something to eat. “I awoke in the middle of the night, and you were not in your bed.”
“Donna Lucrezia needed something,” I said.
“A fine attempt, Maddalena, but I know better,” Isabella said, folding her arms across her chest. “You have been out of your bed several nights of late. Madonna Lucrezia is not that demanding, especially given that Pantasilea sleeps just outside her bedchamber.”
I sighed. I had been dying to tell Isabella the truth, but was not sure if I should. Now that she had found me out, I might as well. “Very well. But you must not tell anyone.”
Her eyes sparkled at this hint of something salacious. “I promise!”
I dragged her out to the garden, and we huddled beside one of the hedges. I lowered my voice to a near whisper after ensuring that we were alone. “I have been with His Eminence. Cardinal Valentino,” I confessed. Now that I had begun the tale, I found I could not stop. It all poured out of me. Isabella’s eyes grew wider and wider as she listened, and when I finally finished, she was silent for a long time.
“Well?” I demanded. “Haven’t you anything to say?”
Isabella shook her head. “I scarcely know where to begin.” She regarded me with a mixture of surprise, wariness, and admiration. “You truly have been bedding Cesare Borgia these weeks past? The handsomest man in Rome?”
I could not help preening at those words. “Yes, he is, isn’t he?”
“But he is a prince of the Church! And I know you, Maddalena, to be a good Christian.”
“I … I am. I try to be.” Indignation crept into my voice. It was one thing for me to wrestle with such guilt and misgivings, but it was a great deal more uncomfortable to hear the same from someone else. “You’ve had no trouble making suggestive comments about him in the past, saying you wished he would have private conversation with you and I know not what else.”
“I was speaking in jest,” Isabella argued. “I never meant to imply … I never truly thought…” She shook her head. “And you had such harsh words about Donna Sancia when that woman at the market—Fabrizia?—told us they were having an affair. And here you go, doing the same thing.” Understanding dawned on her face. “I see now. You were jealous. You desired him even then.”
Blushing, I nodded.
She sighed. “Oh, Maddalena. I … I do not mean to judge, I swear it. I am shocked, is all. I never expected…”
I clutched her arm. “I know. Believe me, I know. But I … you must believe me when I say I am happy. It is a strange and impossible situation, but I am.” My face heated up. “I … sin or no, I enjoy being in his bed. I cannot help it. I have desired him, it is true, and he desires me. That is all there is to it.”
“Oh, Maddalena,” she said once more. “You will take care, won’t you? What you are doing is dangerous. These people, these powerful nobles and churchmen, they are not like us. Their world is not ours. He is dangerous. He would hurt you as soon as he breathes and think nothing of it. And I do not wish t
o see you hurt.”
“I understand,” I said. “I do. And I expect nothing from him, Isabella. Truly I don’t. He cares for me, he does, but I know there can be nothing more to it than this.”
“Hmmm. Mind you remember that.”
“I will.”
“I mean it. There is no more foolish creature than a young woman in love. Take care, Maddalena. Mind that you do not become caught up in their Borgia games.”
“I will not,” I replied.
“Buono.” She smiled. “And so? Is he as skilled in bed as he looks?”
I laughed. “Oh, yes. That I can tell you for sure.”
She giggled. “Well, good. Good that he cares for your pleasure; many men don’t. Take whatever happiness you can from it, while it lasts.”
“I plan on it.”
“But, Maddalena,” she said, her face growing serious again, “you will be careful, won’t you?”
“I will, amica mia. I promise it.”
We embraced, and when we stepped back she had a thoughtful look on her face. “I suppose it all makes sense,” she said. “Madonna Sancia is now bedding the other Borgia brother. The Duke of Gandia.”
I blinked in surprise. “She is?”
“Oh, yes. You hadn’t heard? They are quite blatant about it. He comes into her bedchamber bold as you please, no shame.” She considered this. “So Sancia of Aragon tossed aside Cesare Borgia, and he has picked you up in her stead.”
“I suppose,” I said uncomfortably. “No doubt she broke his heart, and he came to me for comfort.”
Isabella chuckled. “If he has a heart to break. Just mind, Maddalena, that he does not break yours.”
Chapter 54
CESARE
Rome, June 1497
Before long, all of Rome knew Sancia of Aragon and Juan Borgia were lovers. Michelotto said people gossiped about it openly in the streets. He heard no rumors of my and Sancia’s relationship, so at least I was spared the public embarrassment of losing my lover to Juan. That did not mean no one had ever found out; I knew servants gossiped, and there was no telling who might have heard, or seen us. But in the wake of this newest scandal surrounding the Borgia family, my name was not mentioned, and for that I was grateful.
The Borgia Confessions Page 28