by Sarah Dunant
“Blood and seawater. I am arrived from Piombino.”
“You did not swim all the way, I hope.”
“Only some of it. It was a small shipwreck.” He waits, pleased by the alarm that crosses her face. “Don’t worry. No one died.” And he shivers a little, because even Cesare Borgia cannot breathe underwater, and he now knows that panic that comes when the sea grips you and somersaults you down and over and over in darkness.
“You look tired,” she says, a little flattered that he has chosen her after such danger and aware yet again of that vast other world out there, good and bad, that she will never, ever, be allowed to experience. “I will call for food and have the fire rebuilt.”
“No. Don’t call anyone. I will do it myself.”
He gets up, putting a few large logs into the grate, then squatting in front of it, like a servant, using the bellows. After a while the flames leap eagerly and he sits back, warming himself. In the brighter light she sees the cuts on his face, like the mark of a tiger’s claws down one side.
“The sea has women’s nails,” she murmurs, putting up a finger to touch them.
“My God, it was like coupling with Medusa,” he says, thinking how the reef had risen from the seabed out of nowhere, colliding with the waves to capsize the boat and tangle them in its ropes, pulling them under. Even as they struggled free, the current had raked them along the rocks, opening up fissures of flesh they weren’t aware of until they had crawled their way up onto the beach and saw one another, laughing crazily, streaked and streaming with blood. “She is a jealous mistress toward anyone who tries to get away.”
“I will get some salve,” Fiammetta says, smiling at such unaccustomed poetry. “And then you must rest. How long have you been on the road?”
He shrugs as if the question is too difficult.
“You need to sleep.”
“That’s why I came: for someone to sleep with.” He intertwines his fingers through hers, pulling her toward him.
“My lord,” she says firmly, “you cannot do this.”
“Do what?”
“Disappear from my bed for months and then walk back in expecting me to disrupt my regular clients to accommodate you.”
“Yes, I can.” He laughs. “That’s what I have always done, remember?”
“Well, not this time. I have an archbishop in my bed.”
“Ha! Then give me his name and I will get him a cardinal’s hat before the end of the month. Look at me, Fiammetta. I nearly died yesterday. And I have been bereft without you.”
“That’s not what I hear.”
“Spoils of war, that’s all. Duty as much as pleasure. You know my bird would peck your fig over all others any day.”
The slang of the familiar court game makes her laugh. Birds pecking figs: how coy the world is for those who can afford courtesy, children knocking at the gates of an adult world. But there is no childhood in a courtesan’s life.
The first time she met him she had been warned by those who knew: cocky and insufferably arrogant, yet able to charm the seeds up out of the ground in winter when he chose. When she looked back later, it had not been his compliments, for they had been no less clichéd than a hundred others. No; it was something more unsettling: a recognition that here was a man who flirted with risk as much as she did, appreciating how fear could bring its own pleasure. She had known then some of the things he had done, and each new victory brings more tales of outrage. But whatever he does to others, he has never treated her badly. On the contrary, he has shown her favor, at times even fondness, though it lasts only as long as the encounter. Everyone knows that the only woman with a place in his heart is his sister, Lucrezia. However, now he is here she will not turn him away. They both know that.
“What shall I do?” she says, more to herself.
“Tell him that Duke Valentine, ruler of Piombino and all the cities of the Romagna, has come to sleep with his favorite whore. And he can piss off and find himself another.”
She shakes her head. “I think such a speech would do neither of us any good. Don’t you have enough enemies, Cesare?”
“Never.” He puts his head back and closes his eyes.
And yet there is something else here now, some tremor of vulnerability in all the bravado. Could it be that death actually touched him out there in the middle of the sea? He, who is never afraid and will never die. The pulse of desire in her has been replaced by a quieter feeling. She is beguiled, perhaps even a little moved. Ah, she berates herself. How can a businesswoman be so stupid?
“Give me a while.”
“No.” He lies back on the carpet, pulling her hand with him.
“I will be back,” she says firmly.
—
She instructs the kitchen to prepare some food and gives notice that her majordomo is to wake the archbishop if she is not returned by the time he must leave.
But when she comes back, he is fast asleep, sprawled out on the carpet, heavy legs falling wide and head lolled to one side like some sated Adonis. She sits next to him for a few moments, marveling at the vulnerability of his abandonment. She has a vision of Delilah with her scissors set to change the course of history. She smiles, then bends down and starts to unfasten his doublet.
If this is to be business, then business must be done.
CHAPTER 4
“My dear ambassador, I still don’t see what this ‘complaint’ has to do with us.”
Inside his apartments, Alexander has been back barely long enough to dry his clothes before he is firefighting.
“With respect, Your Holiness, the man was a citizen of Venice, residing in Rome under the jurisdiction of the Roman government, which makes his treatment an offense against both cities. I am instructed to bring it to Your Holiness’s attention, so that some redress may be found…”
The ambassador has worked himself up into a righteous frenzy waiting for the Pope’s return. Alexander shifts his bulk delicately on the papal throne, sniffing loudly. His head is stuffed and he can feel the mounting pressure of a sneeze. With God’s help he might calm the boiling seas, but he can’t stop his nose filling up with snot. He should be enjoying a hot poultice in front of the fire, not listening to the moans of an inbred Venetian aristocrat.
“…I must remind you, Your Holiness, of the details. Not only were this man’s right hand and his tongue cut off, they were then exhibited, nailed to the window of the prison. His screams could be heard all over the square.”
“Hmmn. That does sound quite unpleasant. And you’re sure this was the work of Duke Valentine?”
The ambassador throws up his hands involuntarily. “It is common knowledge,” he says, unable to keep the disbelief from his voice.
On the other side of the room, the Pope’s Master of Ceremonies, Johannes Burchard, has found a spot on the brightly tiled floor and is studying it intently.
“Well, be assured we shall talk to him about it. However—” The sneeze mounts. He stops, frozen in waiting, before it subsides again. “However, Ambassador, this ‘citizen’ of yours is hardly blameless. From what we gather he was marching through the streets shouting out the most outrageous vitriol against the Holy See, not only the duke’s name but also our own.”
“But…!” the man splutters. How much saliva of outrage has been sprayed around this lavishly decorated room? “The contents of the letter he was reciting were known to all. Even in Venice we have heard them.”
“You amaze me. I would hope the government of your great state had better things to do than to listen to foul slander.”
On the table nearby, the latest dispatch from Ferrara sits newly delivered, no doubt informing him of his daughter’s arrival into the city. And later he is called to say mass in Santa Maria Maggiore to celebrate its new gilded ceiling, on fire with the first shipment of gold to arrive in Rome from the new world. Evidence of God’s favor is everywhere, yet here he is dealing with this sordid little “incident” from weeks before.
“Let u
s be clear here, Ambassador. This ‘letter’ as you call it, everyone knows to be an anonymous forgery, an act of sedition. I would venture that had such…such excrement been written about your own doge, you would have already lit a pyre under any man who repeated it publicly. It pains me even to refer to it again, but—since you insist.”
His cold smile now takes in his Master of Ceremonies, who still sits blank as a new gravestone. What an asset Burchard is on such occasions; the perfect dignified witness to the drama and bad behavior of Church diplomacy. Alexander has recently thought about having him sculpted. Then he could be in two places at once, sitting here in marble stillness while busy elsewhere orchestrating a dozen different Church ceremonies, the protocol of each one remembered down to the smallest detail; the man is a miracle of memory! He would like to see Burchard’s face were he to suggest such a thing, although of course it would probably show nothing. Like now, as he sorts through his papers, selecting the relevant page to offer to the Pope.
“No. No, you read it, Johannes. I cannot even bear to hold the scurrilous object in my hands. Start with the bit about the Carthaginians.”
The Master of Ceremonies clears his throat.
“The perfidy of the Scythians and Carthaginians, the bestiality and savagery of Nero and Caligula, all are surpassed in the palace of the Pope,” he reads flatly. It is a joke among his peers that he could make the Song of Solomon sound bureaucratic. “Rodrigo Borgia is an abyss of all vice, a subverter of all justice.”
The Pope raises his eyes. “An abyss of vice. Nero and Caligula. I ask you. Is that fair? Even the emperors might have objected.”
The ambassador drops his eyes. He has said what he came to say. The rest is theater. His job now is to remember everything that is said so it can be transcribed as soon as he gets out of the room.
“Leave out the next bit. It is all more of the same.” Alexander gestures to Burchard. “Read the words about Cesare—Duke Valentine. That, I think, is the matter in hand.”
“His father, the Pope, favors Cesare because he has his own perversity and his own cruelty. He lives like the Turks surrounded by a flock of prostitutes, guarded by armed soldiers. At his order or decree men are despoiled of all possessions, wounded, killed, thrown into the Tiber.”
There is a short pause. The Pope sighs. Of course when the letter had first come to his attention, he had been angered by it. Its timing—the date of Lucrezia’s betrothal to Ferrara—was vicious, but it had done nothing to spoil the celebrations of marriage and the sweet send-off of his daughter. Until Cesare decided to take revenge.
“You see, my dear ambassador, in the murky waters of Roman politics, such slander is part of life. If we were to retaliate against all those who attacked our good self, we would need to repopulate half the city. We should have had our own vice chancellor killed a number of times, for God knows he schemed against us violently,” he says, warming to his subject. “And that reprobate Cardinal della Rovere, who lost the papacy to us, has never been able to open his mouth without poison issuing from it.”
Burchard is still staring at the page, but blinking in a most unstatue-like way.
“But, as befits the head of the Holy Mother Church, we have cultivated a gentler disposition. However, it is true that my son, the duke, though he is a good-hearted man, cannot endure insults. Something about the way he is. You know about his remarkable escape from the storm at sea, yes? Being such a man of action, I suspect he finds the repetition of insults…well, rather cowardly.”
What reply can the ambassador give? Should he talk about the number of bodies pulled out from the Tiber, count the stab wounds, name the names? To do so would also be to repeat the gossip. And he must be careful, because although wrong has been done, he is unsure how much the Pope knows of the provenance of the letter itself.
“So where does that leave us? You with your outrage and us with ours. I could try to do something for this dumb, left-handed citizen of yours, but I fear his future is limited. Because as you may be aware, the letter was not sent from the army camp in Naples as it claims, but—and we have this on excellent authority”—he pauses, readying himself for the climax—“from Venice, where certain members of the Orsini family now reside. With our own daughter now duchess of your close neighbor, Ferrara, and many of the cities of the Romagna ruled by our beloved duke, it pains us most deeply to think of your great state harboring enemies with such vile imaginations.”
—
“Well?”
The room has been empty for a while but Burchard remains silent.
The Pope blows his nose noisily. His head is stuffed with wet sand. “Come come. I know what is behind that stone face, Johannes. You think I should have told him his precious citizen is dead. Well, a man without a tongue or a hand is no use to anyone, and it’s quite possible the poor soul threw himself into the Tiber as a measure of his despair. With luck he won’t find out for a while. I haven’t the stamina for another scene. Beh! Children! You cannot imagine the headaches they can cause.”
“No, Your Holiness.”
“You know, had the duke not been such a strong swimmer, he would have died that day at sea. Indeed for the longest time I thought he had. Such worry he causes me. It seems young men cannot be brave without being reckless. My own father used to scour the streets looking for me, and I was barely a child then. Did you ever cause your parents such distress, Johannes? No, I imagine not. Well, I had better see the boy. Send a messenger to his apartments.”
“I—I believe Duke Valentine is not at home at the moment.”
“Where is he? Still out celebrating, no doubt! Find out where he is and get him back here.” Alexander fumbles for a fresh kerchief in his robes. “So, has anything else vital happened in my absence? And no more bodies, please.”
“The Cardinal of Capua is taken ill.”
“Giovanni Battista? What ails him?”
“He is sick to his stomach. He refuses to be bled or to take any medicine. It seems he does not trust his doctors.”
“More likely he doesn’t want to pay them. I have never known a stingier cleric.” Alexander chuckles. “Still, he has served us loyally. I should visit him. Or offer him the papal physicians.”
“I am not sure that is wise.”
“Why not?”
“I…there is a rumor.”
“Not another one. What? That I had him poisoned so the papacy could take his inheritance? Is that it, Johannes? Do people really think I would have made the Vatican’s most profitable notary a cardinal just in order to dispatch him?”
“Not his doctors, Your Holiness. His doctors are clear that he has a fever.”
“Thank God for men of science; they alone are above the superstition of rumor. Poor Giovanni. He spent so long amassing his fortune, it will pain him greatly not to be able to take it with him.” Alexander drums his fingers on the wood of the chair, lost in thought. “He is at his palace near St. Peter’s, yes? We should have guards ready to close it down and seal off his effects. If he does die there’s bound to be a rush of creditors and it would be unseemly to have a riot on our hands. You will work with his staff to arrange the funeral, of course. I’ll sanction a place close to the altar of our beloved uncle Calixtus for his interment.”
Burchard sits ready for further instructions, but the Pope has fallen back into reverie. He gathers his papers to leave.
“Johannes,” he says as he reaches the door. “I…When it comes to it, you will oversee my funeral too, yes?”
“Of course, Holy Father. That is my job.”
“Good. I mean…” he says, as if making light of it, “I mean I would have no one else.”
The sneeze he has been playing with explodes suddenly into the air, knocking him backward with its force. He waves a hand as he fumbles again for his kerchief.
“And to avoid it happening too soon, tell my chaplains to prepare an herb inhalation before I dress for church.”
—
Once he is alone, Alexande
r’s thoughts soon turn from death to the pleasures of mathematics. How much is Giovanni Battista Ferrari worth? Before he was elevated to the cardinalate he had spent twenty years selling papal offices with a cream off on each one. Thirty, forty thousand ducats at least. A cardinal’s wealth returns to the Church after his death, which is only right and proper, for it is in the service of God that it has been amassed. And then there is the money to be made from the selling on his benefices. It could not come at a better time. Cesare’s army campaigns are a bottomless pit; however much water one pours in, it never seems to rise to the top. Of course people will shout corruption. But that is hardly new. Popes have always feathered their family nests. It goes back centuries. And in his time he has done good work for the wealth of the Church. How easy it is for people to forget that! For thirty years he held the position of vice chancellor; Sweet Mary, he barely had time to worship given all the schemes he was pursuing to bring in more taxes. There was never a word against him then from all those who benefited. As any banker will tell you, it is a sign of a healthy business that income rises rather than falls.
He blows his nose again, but already he is feeling better. If Cardinal Ferrari dies he must also give some thought to who will take his place. With Cesare now outside the Church—he had always made a most unlikely cardinal—there is no direct Borgia candidate for the papacy, and so the college must be weighted up in their favor. It would be a fitting step up for the Master of Ceremonies. Alexander tries to imagine Burchard’s hatchet face under a scarlet cap. Except what would he do without him, this man who sees everything and says nothing? No. No cardinal’s hat for Johannes. Not yet. There will be other opportunities and there is still so much to do.
Oh, but how he loves it, this work of his. Please God, let him live forever.
He levers himself up from his chair and pads his way over to the table to the new dispatches. There it is: the fat seal of the Borgia crest. Before he has to face the intransigence of his son, there is triumph to savor. His beloved Lucrezia has arrived in Ferrara.