The Borgia Confessions

by Alyssa Palombo

  Finally, as the sun had begun its descent, she appeared. She looked weary from her days on the road, though judging by her appearance she had washed and changed her clothes before coming to see me.

  “Maddalena.” I crossed the room to her and took her in my arms, claiming her mouth with mine. Her small sigh nearly undid me, and it took all my self-control not to pull her to the bed.

  Reluctantly I drew away, and led her to a chair, the same one in which she had sat when I had first asked her to take on this task, all those lonely nights ago. “You are back, and safe, praise God,” I said.

  She let out a weary laugh. “I am.”

  I plucked her hands from her lap, taking them in my own. “You did beautifully, Maddalena. Better than I dreamed, my angel of holy vengeance.”

  She made a strange sound, almost a sob. I paused, waiting for her to speak, but when she did not, I continued.

  “Savonarola is being interrogated by the Signoria,” I said.

  She looked up. “Tortured, you mean.”

  “Yes, I suppose so. The Florentines have certain … rather effective methods at their disposal, I am given to understand.” I decided it was best not to describe these methods. She seemed suddenly fragile, as if she were a very different woman from the one who had left Rome. No doubt she was, with everything she had seen, including the siege of San Marco, tales of which were already making the rounds of Italy and would soon move beyond the peninsula.

  Guilt gnawed at me. She is different because of you, Cesare, some little voice inside me said spitefully. She is changed because of what you sent her to do.

  I shook the voice away. I had done what I had to do, and so had Maddalena. She had gone willingly.

  “Already, the Holy Father has sent a Papal Commission to Florence to oversee the interrogation and trial of Fra Savonarola, to make sure all is done in accordance with Church law. Normally a man of the cloth can only be tried and convicted by an ecclesiastical tribunal, but we all appreciate that this is something of an … extraordinary circumstance.”

  “And then what?” Maddalena asked, in a near whisper.

  “He will be executed. For heresy, most likely. For claiming to be a prophet.”

  “It is already decided? Even without a trial?”

  “Of course. That is how matters such as this go.” I frowned. “You knew this, Maddalena. You know that we—that the Holy Father—needed him removed. He could not go on preaching against the pope and the Church. You know that.”

  “I know,” she said quietly.

  “You do not … sympathize with him?”

  At last she looked up and met my eyes. “Certainly he challenged the pope and Holy Mother Church,” she said at last. “But I cannot help but think of…” She drew a deep, shuddering breath and looked away. “I cannot help but think of the desperate poor in Florence, who found such solace in his words, and were seen by him as no one else had ever seen them before,” she said in a rush. “They have lost their protector, their benefactor.”

  “The Church will help them,” I said easily. “They should not have placed their trust in a false prophet.”

  Maddalena was silent.

  I rose from my chair, discomfited by her quiet, subdued nature. “Come. To bed, mia bella.” I moved behind her chair and brushed her loose hair aside, kissing her neck before whispering in her ear, “I have missed you. Let me show you how much.”

  To my surprise, she drew away and stood up. “Begging your pardon, Your Eminence, but I should like to retire,” she said. “I am most weary from the journey.”

  I forced myself to hide my great disappointment. She had been several days on the road, after all. And God only knew what horrors she had witnessed during the siege of San Marco, all for my—the Church’s—benefit. I had waited this long; I could wait another night or two. “Of course,” I said. “Forgive me. Of course, you must rest.”

  Without another word, she turned and left.

  Chapter 75

  MADDALENA

  The day after my return, I was back to my duties at Santa Maria in Portico. No one commented on my absence; I wondered what story Cesare had put about to explain it. I found I did not care.

  I tried to forget everything that had happened in Florence; tried to forget the friar’s words, his voice, his call to be better Christians. I tried to forget what he had said to me when I made my confession, the confession that haunted me still. Because I love him. I tried to forget what had happened to him, what I had brought about. What I had done to the man who had granted me absolution for my worst sins. Who had shown me God’s love and mercy once again.

  Perhaps the worst part was how often I succeeded in forgetting. I went about my usual tasks and forgot about the peace I had felt in Fra Savonarola’s presence, about the fear and love of God his sermons had stirred in me. And, when I remembered again, it seemed like a travesty that I had ever forgotten. Yet I could not go about my life serving the Borgia family if I did not forget.

  I longed to confess my confused feelings to, of all people, Cesare. Especially after he had trusted me with his own anguish, his own secrets. And yet I knew he was the last person I could tell. He would never intentionally hurt me or cause me harm, but I knew—on a deep, instinctual level—that for me to remain safe in this world, I could not give him any more power over me than he already had.

  I was more lost than I could ever recall feeling, even after Federico’s death.

  When I heard, a few weeks after my return, that Fra Savonarola had been burned at the stake in the Piazza della Signoria, along with two of his brother monks, I pleaded illness so I might be released from my duties and slipped out to the church of Santa Maria in Trastevere. I spent the day on my knees in prayer for Fra Savonarola’s soul and for my own forgiveness, though I doubted such a thing could be accomplished. I had assisted in bringing about the death of a man whose voice, forever after, would sound in my head as the voice of God. I knelt beneath the glorious mosaics depicting the life of the Blessed Mother and beseeched her to hear me, to take pity on me as a flawed and mortal sinner. She knew the hearts of women, and if she could not understand and forgive me, who could?

  * * *

  I returned to Cesare’s bed, for I had never planned to do otherwise. I had greater sins on my soul than this, so I might as well take solace and pleasure where I could find it. I did not feel capable of saying no to him. Even after everything, I did not want to.

  Because I loved him.

  A few nights after my return, when I arrived in his rooms, he had a gift for me. “Open it,” he said, presenting me with a velvet box.

  Smiling in anticipation, I opened it and gasped to behold a gold cross set with diamonds and rubies and threaded through a gold chain. “You … you cannot mean to give this to me,” I whispered, raising wondering eyes to his.

  He grinned. “I surely do.” He removed it from the box and spun me around, so he could clasp it about my neck. “It is to replace the one those thugs in Florence took from you. Yet this one is better and more beautiful still. It befits your own beauty, mia bella Maddalena.”

  I smiled, sighing as he kissed my throat, now adorned with jewels the likes of which I had never so much as dreamed of owning.

  What Cesare Borgia did not understand—could never understand—was I could never wear such a thing, ever. I was a maid; my employers or fellow servants would assume I had stolen it and punish me, or I would be robbed should I wear it in the street. I did not have a litter and armed guards to take me about Rome, after all.

  But I did not say any of this to him. That night, he made passionate love to me, and I wore nothing but the jeweled cross.

  PART SIX

  DEADLY SINS

  Rome, November 1497–March 1498

  Chapter 76

  CESARE

  Autumn came to Rome, and I returned from my errand of crowning King Federigo in Naples. Yet I returned to the prospect of a very different life than the one I had left.

  Thing
s in Italy had changed. Things for the house of Borgia had changed. And so, things for me would change. At last. At long last.

  “Carlotta of Aragon,” Father said, leaning back in his chair. “Federigo’s daughter. And you think he would give her to you in marriage?”

  “He was quite coy,” I admitted. “He said he could not discuss the matter while I am still a cardinal.”

  “Hmph,” he said. “And I suppose you assured him that that would soon no longer be the case?”

  “I did, but he refused to discuss it until such time as I am in a secularized state.”

  “I do not like removing your cardinal’s hat without the assurance of a good marriage and an estate,” Father said.

  “Is it not worth the gamble? Carlotta will be heiress to the Kingdom of Naples. And if she were my wife, I would be king.” I had to fight a thrill of pleasure at the words.

  Father had not lost his dream of establishing a Borgia dynasty; but with Sancia and Jofre yet to produce any children and Lucrezia unable to pass on the Borgia name, he’d had to reckon with the inevitable: I must leave the College of Cardinals, marry, and take up arms for the Church in Juan’s place. He was still determined to have his third Borgia pope, but it would not be me. Perhaps one of my sons, of which I hoped to have many.

  Juan no longer stood in my way. No one stood in my way. I was close, so close, to having what I wanted. What I had wanted my entire life. And I would have it all.

  Before I could leave the Church, Father had commanded me to keep my post as papal legate to King Federigo’s coronation. And so, at the end of the summer—once the business with Girolamo Savonarola was satisfactorily concluded—I had gone to Naples and done just that. My time in the kingdom had been productive; while there I spoke to King Federigo of a new marriage for Lucrezia and one for myself. For Lucrezia he had pledged his nephew Alfonso, along with the title Duke of Bisceglie, which would make my sister a duchess upon their marriage. He was less eager to pledge to me his legitimate daughter Carlotta, however.

  Still, much business had been concluded, and I’d had time to sample the many delights of the kingdom as well. In the process I had come down with a case of what the Neapolitans called the French pox, a most uncomfortable sickness. However, thanks to my physician—who had prescribed treatments of ointments and hot baths to sweat the disease away—I had returned to Rome with no further sign of it, for which I was grateful.

  “Perhaps,” Father mused. “Perhaps it is worth the gamble. Or perhaps Federigo is merely putting us off and will continue to be obdurate.”

  “Perhaps I might go to the court of France myself, to woo the lady in person,” I suggested. Carlotta of Aragon was currently at the court of Queen Anne of Brittany. I was confident that, should I present my suit to her in person, she would not resist for long, and would surely talk her father around if he continued to be hesitant.

  “Perhaps. The first step is Lucrezia’s divorce. It all must follow from that.”

  * * *

  At the end of November, I went to see Lucrezia in the convent of San Sisto. A church commission had pronounced that the divorce between her and Giovanni Sforza could go forward, due to Sforza’s impotence. Sforza, however, despite my cultivating of his odious cousin Ascanio, was not proving cooperative and refused to put his signature to the document attesting to non-consummation of the marriage.

  “And he will not sign it?” Lucrezia asked, through the grille in the convent parlor.

  “No, damn him,” I said, running my fingers through my hair.

  “But you said all went well with the commission that examined me,” she said. “They have claimed I am a virgin.”

  A virgin who is with child, I thought wryly to myself. But after all, who but churchmen could be persuaded to believe such a thing? “They have, but Sforza is understandably reluctant to sign anything attesting to his own impotence,” I said.

  “As well he might be,” Lucrezia muttered. “As he is not impotent any more than I am a virgin.”

  “Lucrezia, hush!”

  “Why?” she demanded. “I am in a house of God. I cannot tell lies here. And in any case, it does not matter what the truth is, does it? You and Father shall arrange all to best suit your own wishes, as you always do.”

  “I have not come here to argue with you, Lucrezia. It shall happen either way; Ludovico and Ascanio Sforza are finally making themselves useful and are convincing Giovanni to sign the decree. As it happens, I have come to bring you good news.”

  “And what might that be?”

  “Father and I have decided on a new husband for you.”

  She snorted. “I thought as much. You waste no time, the pair of you, do you?”

  “You know your marriage is important for—”

  “For the family. I know.”

  “I have met him, and I think you will be pleased. It is King Federigo’s nephew, Alfonso of Aragon. He is—”

  “Not Sancia’s brother?” she interrupted.

  “Yes, in fact.”

  “I see,” she said slowly.

  “He is a comely man, young, fit, intelligent, and well-read. He seems kind as well. I met him in Naples at Federigo’s coronation. You shall like him, Crezia, I know it.”

  “Well,” she said slowly, “Sancia has always spoken highly of him. She loves him very much.”

  “He seems to be a fine man. That is why we have chosen him for you.” I put my fingers up against the grille, and she put hers to the other, so tiny sections of our skin might touch. “I want you to be happy, Crezia. Really I do. Now tell me: would you not rather have a handsome Neapolitan prince your own age than Giovanni Sforza?”

  She giggled, sounding like her old self. “I suppose I would.”

  “And so you shall,” I said, rising to leave. “All will be well, Crezia. I swear it.”

  “You have never let me down, brother,” she said. “That I know.”

  “God and His Blessed Mother forbid that I should ever do so.”

  “Does he … does this Alfonso know…” She trailed off uncomfortably.

  “That you are with child?” I asked, a bit of an edge creeping into my voice. “No, he does not, and we will make certain he does not find out.”

  She had still not said who the father was, and I had since ceased to press her.

  Lucrezia sighed and closed her eyes. “You are right, Cesare,” she murmured. “All I want is a fresh start. For this horrible year to be behind me.”

  “I want the same,” I said. “For both of us. I wish I could kiss you goodbye, sister. I love you and will come again soon.”

  “I love you, too, Cesare,” she said. “Godspeed.”

  As I went to leave, a young man in the papal livery came into the visiting room. “Oh,” he said, startled to see me there. He bowed quickly. “Your Eminence. I did not expect to see you here.”

  “And who might you be?” I asked.

  “This is one of Father’s chamberlains, Cesare,” Lucrezia said, from behind the screen. “Pedro Calderon. I am sure you have seen him before.”

  Indeed, he did look familiar. “And what are you doing here, Calderon?” I asked. “What business have you with my sister?”

  “Deliveries, my lord,” the man said, sounding uncomfortable.

  “He carries letters to Papa for me,” Lucrezia interjected. “And brings me anything else I might need, from the outside world.”

  “Indeed,” I said, studying the young man. He nearly squirmed under my gaze. Why Lucrezia could not have someone from her own household accomplish these tasks for her, I knew not. But Father was writing her copious amounts of letters, so I supposed it was easier this way. “Well, good day to you, Calderon. I hope you bring my sister no ill tidings.”

  “To be certain I do not, my lord,” he said. With that, I took my leave.

  * * *

  Back at the Vatican, Michelotto was agitated when he appeared in my chambers. “A word, Your Eminence,” he said, closing the door behind him.

/>   “What is it, Michelotto?” I asked, distressed by the frown on his face, more emotion than he usually showed.

  “Some very distasteful gossip has made its way into the streets of late,” he said. “All due to a very unfortunate comment Giovanni Sforza was heard to have made. I thought it best that you hear it from me first.”

  “I can only imagine what that man has to say about our family,” I said darkly. “Well, out with it.”

  “He was overheard to have said that you and your father are so keen on a divorce for Lucrezia so … so the two of you may have her all to yourselves.”

  I did not understand his meaning at first. Then, slowly, I arrived at their true intent, their malevolence. “He said what?” I asked, my voice low. “For his sake I hope he did not mean what I think he meant.”

  “I am afraid he did, my lord,” Michelotto said. “Or at least his words are being interpreted as such, and they have now spread to the common people.”

  “Incest.” I spat the filthy word. “He would accuse me of incest with my sister. And Pope Alexander of incest with his daughter.”

  “That is how his remarks seem to have been intended, and how they are being understood. He was also heard to say that he has never seen a family so unnaturally close.”

  “He dares!” I shouted. I seized a glass decanter from the table and hurled it against the wall. Michelotto did not flinch at the shower of glass. “He dares speak such disgusting words about me, about my sister, about our family. He is lucky we are merely arranging his divorce and not his murder.”

  “That could be arranged, my lord. And with a great deal less trouble, if I may say.”

  I looked at Michelotto’s calm, impassive face, and knew that if I sent him after Sforza the scum would not live to see another sunrise. And God’s teeth, was it tempting. I could not think of anything I wanted more at that particular moment.