by Sarah Dunant
When the Cardinal of Valencia stands for the last time in front of them, he is surprisingly nervous. The papers he holds tremble slightly in his hand. There is a certain irony in the fact that some of what he says comes from his heart.
‘It is a difficult thing that I ask of you today, but I would have you bear in mind that not only is the honour of the Holy Mother Church at stake, but also my soul. I was taken into the Church young. It was not my choice. The vows I said at that time were from my mouth but not from my heart. Though I have tried hard to adapt myself to its demands I have never had a vocation for the religious life and I stand before you now, begging permission to give off my vows and, for the sake of the salvation of my soul, return to the lay estate.
‘Should my request be granted I intend to dedicate my life to the service of the Church by other means. My first act will be to travel to France to intercede with the King so that he should not bring an army into Italy, and in the future I will do everything in my power to protect papal interests.’
In the short silence that follows no thunderbolts crack through the roof, no demons rise out of the floor to hook their pitchforks into his dress. The cardinals vote (their mumbled yeses have never come so fast) to refer the matter to the Pope and an hour later Cesare leaves the Consistory a layman. He walks straight into a meeting with the French envoy, who has arrived that very morning carrying letters of patent to invest the now ex-Cardinal of Valencia with the title of Duke de Valentinois, along with forty thousand gold francs a year and the secret promise of troops – lance and cavalry – whenever and wherever he might need them.
So Valencia becomes Valentinois, the words so similar that they slide together on the Italian tongue. And thus Duke Valentino is born.
There is no time for celebration. Both King Louis and Cesare are men eager to get married. At the French court Carlotta is still holding out, but then she has yet to meet Duke Valentino. On the off-chance that his charisma may not be enough, he invests in a little luxury. Rome hasn’t witnessed such a Borgia shopping spree since his brother Juan set off for Spain. But for Cesare, the best of all is the parade sword he has made for himself. Meticulously engraved with the Borgia coat-of-arms and scenes from Roman history, it is imperial, in both design and intention. Julius Caesar’s exploits are everywhere. Caesar and Cesare. Not a letter to separate them. The River Rubicon that Caesar crossed from Gaul, against the will of the Roman Senate but to his own glory, still runs across the north-east of Italy, only now it is inside the papal states, where the right soldier might forge a new empire if he had the backing of the Pope and an army to go with it.
‘The die is cast.’ The inscription works for both men.
Cesare’s future is irresistible. How upsetting, then, when a week before he is due to leave he wakes with his legs in spasm and his skin erupting again. Not pustules this time, but blotches, like a rash of raspberry birthmarks all over his face. ‘Get me Torella!’
The doctor is out of bed and in attendance within minutes.
‘I thought you said it was over. That I was cured.’
Gaspare Torella, who has been busy with correspondence and notebooks on this very subject over this last year, shakes his head. ‘I had hoped so, my lord, but it is such a new disease, we have yet to understand its journey through the body. It first appeared in cities where the French army went, though some say the men who brought it had been in the service of Admiral Columbus in New Hispania. I have made a study of it and—’
‘Forget the history,’ he interrupts. ‘How do I get rid of it?’
‘It comes in phases. The first is the open sores and the second these… these flowery blotches. Steam baths and mercury have been shown to help. I have made up new herb compounds in differing strengths.’
‘And then what?’
‘Then we do not know exactly. For some it seems to go away entirely.’
‘Then I shall be one of those. You’d better bring me the unguents.’
‘It is not so bad, my lord,’ he says cheerfully. ‘At least there is no breaking of the skin.’
‘Not so bad! My legs scream as if they are on the rack and I am going to woo a wife. Would you sleep with this face?’
‘May I ask, is there anything further down?’
‘God’s blood, Torella, just get rid of it, will you?’
‘I shall do my best.’
‘How long?’
He hesitates. It is always hard, judging the gap between what he knows and what a patient wants to hear. ‘When do we leave for France, Your Lordship?’
‘The week after next.’
‘It cannot be postponed?’
‘Ha! Someone better get me a mask.’
He props the bone-handled mirror in front of the window. The black velvet covering his face is as soft as skin. His eyes, in contrast, are bright: young man’s eyes, blazing with life. The mask looks well on him, suggesting a certain insolence along with the mystery. When he wears it during Carnival he winds in women like a ball of wool. But it is not carnival season now.
He slips it off and looks back into the mirror. How do ugly men make their way through life? He thinks of Michelotto. When he walks down the street men take half a step back from him. But he, Cesare, wields a different power. His face has always been his first weapon. Look at me, it says. I am what you see: easy on the eye, strong to the taste, a man with substance, someone to admire, for how can beauty this natural lie? But now… What will they make of him now? Even if this is not a plague from God, everyone knows the soil these flowers grow from: those moist, corrupt places where careless appetite is king and honour has little to do with anything. A man with this face may not keep his promises. A man with this face is not the kind of husband that a good king would want for his child. A man with this face might not even like himself.
Well, it will not last for ever. The sea voyage will take the best part of two weeks and then there is the journey from Marseilles to meet the King. If that is not long enough he can always wear more jewels to dazzle their sight. He chooses not to think of Juan and the arrogance that goes along with such behaviour.
Back in his room, Gaspare Torella’s pen scratches rapidly across the page.
Second stage. Return of pain and rash of purple flowers.
Records are essential to the understanding of the body’s ills: what, when, for how long and the effects of what treatments. He is writing a treatise on this new plague and has been exchanging letters with doctors and scholars from Ferrara and Bologna, where the universities have the best medical men in Europe. This contagion has spread further and faster than any they have heard of before, bar the great plague itself. It appears to transmit through intercourse and its symptoms attack more men than women. Some say that the Jews brought it to Naples, others that it has travelled from the New World, others still that it comes direct from God as punishment for an age of fornication. Yet one scholar has discovered its symptoms in the works of Hippocrates, and another has recorded the disease in young virgins and old, sexless men. For many the answer is blood-letting or the use of hot irons applied to the back of the skull to release the build-up of bad humours. Torella himself thinks blood-letting is of little use and recommends mercury, but only in small quantities. Too much and the cure is worse than the disease. The fact is, no one knows. Some men die fast, the stages of agonies and eruptions coming within months of each other, followed by a kind of mania until their brains seem to boil and they lose their minds. Others hold it at bay for ever, or at least for as long as their records show.
It has been over a year since Cesare Borgia was first afflicted. Before the first attack, Torella had never known a young man so healthy or so strong. It was as if illness itself was afraid of him. With such a disposition, and good treatment, he might well die in his bed with his grandchildren around him. Or… well, that is not for him to say. While Torella is a scholar he is also a priest. In Dante’s inferno there are doctors herded in with the soothsayers, their heads twisted on their bodi
es so they walk into eternity backwards, their bitter tears falling into the clefts in their buttocks. No one predicts God’s future but God.
He puts his books aside to prepare more salves for the journey.
CHAPTER 38
A great household on the move is like an army without weapons. It is still night when the Vatican gates open. After the first bodyguards rides Duke Cesare himself, surrounded by nobles, Spanish and Roman, his doctor, his secretaries and all his household officers. Then come cohorts of grooms and servants like foot soldiers, then the pack mules, heads down as if in resigned despondency at the hardships to come, and bringing up the rear an endless line of loaded baggage carts thundering over uneven cobbles. Those few Romans who are up, or woken by the noise, watch amazed; it looks as if half the Vatican is on its way to France. The hour is deliberately unsocial: the throwing off of his vows and this ‘affair’ with the French King is not to everyone’s liking and it is best not to draw too much attention to it. The stealth suits Cesare as well, for his face is still in full bloom. It is a shame, since his natural colouring goes well with the red and gold of his new livery, and with his nobles and pages all dressed the same, once the sun comes up they will be on fire against the dirt and drab of the streets.
Cesare’s going brings an immediate change of atmosphere in the Vatican. Without his restless dynamism the Borgia apartments feel heavy, almost sleepy; as if the air itself has to readjust to the lack of him. The Pope finds it hard to propel himself into business and there are moments, reading dispatches or preparing to quiz ambassadors, when he misses the certainty of his son’s quick mind, the instinctive cat-pounce onto unsuspecting prey.
But the feeling passes and as he relaxes so do others around him: churchmen, palace officials, servants, even the indefatigable Burchard all feel a little less harried, more appreciated and therefore more appreciating.
The change is most noticeable inside the family. With less male strut and banter, the hush of silk skirts and the sweetness of women’s laughter expand to fill the Pope’s private rooms. His two darling daughters (for that is how he also sees Sancia since her return) both let go of the breath they are not even aware they have been holding, and take advantage of their position in the court. Together they arrange dinners, entertainments, music, concerts and dancing, fussing around their father like handmaidens, delighting in his delight. Giulia, who has never been at ease with the Pope’s eldest son, joins them sometimes, with young Laura and the baby at her side; because of course she is family too. Jofré, always in awe of Cesare, finds his own voice again, and Alfonso, who has had no option but to match his brother-in-law’s aggressive good humour towards him, is allowed to be more himself. Despite the onset of winter, the Vatican seems a warmer place than it has done for years. Without naming or in many cases even knowing it, they come to feel how much tension there is inside Cesare’s insistent energy and how their world is a gentler place without him.
Lucrezia in particular, though she shed tears at his departure, is soon dancing on air. But then Lucrezia is a happy woman. She is also a lucky one, for she is that rare thing in a world of arranged marriages: a bride who loves her husband.
In the end it was quite simple: a young woman yearning for love marries a handsome, lively young man with a proclivity for pleasure and a soft spot for women with pale skin and fair hair. Any fear this Adonis might have had about penetrating a pope’s daughter had been allayed the minute he set eyes on her. The mind behind those startling blue eyes has little interest in politics or even malicious rumour. He simply likes what he sees. The attraction is immediate, and though he does his best to be chivalrous, in the weeks leading up to the wedding he cannot help but let it show.
Lucrezia, still nursing guilt that it is she who led Pedro Calderón on, is excited and nervous by degrees. She is not used to men outside the family being so open and at ease with her. For the first few days she watches him as closely as he does her, so that often they can’t help but catch each other’s eye and have to laugh to avoid embarrassment.
Alfonso laughs a lot. She likes that; likes how easily he enjoys himself, how he and Sancia are so relaxed and playful together. It reminds her of how it used to be between her and Cesare. Cesare: he is her other fear, of course, though she will not let herself admit it. His bonhomie towards Alfonso feels real enough. And yet… it is almost as if she cannot allow herself to become too fond in case Cesare will then become less so.
But as France beckons, Cesare has his own life to lead and even he cannot be in all places at once. With Sancia and Jofré as their unofficial chaperons, the courting couple is given enough space to let the attraction flower and the anticipation grow.
In the marriage bed that first night, he is so full of desire that he asks if they might keep the lamp burning as she removes her embroidered nightshift so that he might see her properly. She blushes deeply, fumbling with the ties, until he takes her hands away and undoes them himself. Her nerves act as their own aphrodisiac.
‘You are very lovely,’ he says thickly, laying his hand on the pale rise of her stomach.
She laughs. ‘Am I?’
‘Oh yes… yes you are.’
‘So are you,’ she replies.
Because he is. She has long been smitten by the wonder of his leg – such a test of a man and in him the perfect union of strength and line. Naked, however, his beauty is more shocking: the tension of muscles running through his calves, the long powerful pull of the thigh reaching high into the torso, framing his rising penis. Above, his chest is a thicket of curls. Nervously, she slides her fingers in among them: rich and dark. As dark as she is fair. The flesh beneath is firm, almost hard. As hard as she is soft. He smiles down at her and in the lamplight his eyelashes are as full as a girl’s.
‘Don’t worry,’ he murmurs, moving his hand skilfully downwards. ‘It is more fun even than dancing.’
At nineteen, blessed by blood and beauty, Alfonso is a young man overflowing with optimism and confidence. After Giovanni Sforza, it is like being loved by a god.
Later that night, the guard whose job it is to keep watch over the stores and cellars is disturbed by strange noises coming from the kitchen (vermin in great houses often come human-sized). He picks up his staff, fat enough to counter kitchen knives, and, carefully lifting the iron latch, pushes open the heavy door.
The shadows of hanging pots and pans flap like heavy bats around the room, their dance set off by flickering candles. At the great table in the centre of the room an impromptu banquet is taking place: the Duke and Duchess of Bisceglie sit side by side in their nightrobes, hunks of bread, cheese, dishes of preserve and a bottle of cellar wine and metal cups laid out in front of them.
It is hard to know who is more taken aback.
‘Woah. Did we wake you?’ The duke, his bare feet curled over the rungs of the rough stool, is first to recover. ‘We were trying to be quiet, but I dropped the carving knife.’
He waves it in the air and beside him Lucrezia gives an impish smile, her face framed by a cloud of pale, tousled hair.
‘Marriage is a hungry business.’ Alfonso laughs, raising his glass to the man’s stunned look. And she laughs too. So that now the guard can do the same, only nervously; the loss of the cheese and wine will be noticed immediately.
‘Don’t worry. We will wipe away the evidence. And keep a note of everything we eat so that you are not blamed for the loss.’
The man nods, embarrassed but satisfied as he backs his way out of the room and closes the door. What a story. Who will ever believe him?
‘I’d like to see his face when he tells the cook tomorrow,’ Alfonso says. ‘When we were children, Sancia and I did things like this all the time in the palace.’
‘You were allowed?’
‘No allowance needed. We did as we pleased. The cooks grew so used to us they would leave out pickings for “the royal mice”… Ah, what games we played.’
In the half-light she smiles at him. ‘You get on with
everyone, don’t you?’
He shrugs. ‘Why make enemies? Life is too short. My God, wife, you have given me an appetite.’ And he slices off another sliver of cheese, covering it with fruit preserve.
‘I wish Cesare felt the same way about people,’ she says.
‘Oh, your brother is a fine man.’
‘You like each other.’
‘Why should we not? We both care for you and want to see you happy.’
She nods, and her heart feels fit to explode with happiness.
They sit watching the shadows jump, enjoying the transgression of the moment. He eats the cheese and licks his fingers, sticky with the preserve, and then he dips them back into the jam and offers them to her. She slides them in and out of her mouth, all the time watching him watching her. Oh yes, she is eager to learn about love, this sweet young bride of his.
‘We will be content together, don’t you think, Alfonso?’ she says at last, looking fondly at him.
He yawns and stretches out his handsome arms. ‘I don’t see why not.’
By the end of the year she is sick to her stomach and happy as a lark. There will be a grandchild in Italy by the summer. Alfonso d’Aragon and Lucrezia Borgia. Man and woman. Husband and wife. Family and dynasty. As simple as that. In Rome, at least.
CHAPTER 39
In France, Cesare’s courtship of Naples has only just begun.
Princess Carlotta of Aragon is a particular young woman. Born on the right side of the blanket to a strict father, there had been no running wild in the palace kitchens for her. She laughs less than her tearaway cousins, and when she does she cups a hand in front of her face, a coquettish gesture in some, but in her case more to hide her teeth, a set of crooked tombstones fighting with each other to fit into her mouth. Of course Cesare is courting royalty, not beauty, but one cannot help noticing such things. She is tall, head and shoulders above the Queen’s other ladies-in-waiting, and her face is long and rather flat. Though not as flat as her chest. All this he has taken in across crowded court gatherings. Now, face to face for the first time, his overriding impression is of a piece of dough that has been rolled too thin. The French word ‘crêpe’ comes to his mind. Duke Valentino and his pancake princess. He smiles to himself. Ah, the price a man pays for family.