“Why would you ask me that?” she said sharply.
“I don’t know. The way he behaved toward you in the piazza, I suppose.”
She made a moue of distaste. “He might. Rodrigo may have told him. And it would certainly explain why he behaved like a boor, leaving me to the care of that savage Turk of his. Your brother is a jealous man; he wants your father to love only him. He even once made advances to me and I refused. I don’t think he’s ever been denied before—by a woman, that is.”
She turned back to my mirror. As she stood there, straightening her spine to inspect her belly—which to me looked flat as ever—all of a sudden I realized I didn’t like her.
“But Adriana must know,” I persisted. “She must, if she called you a blight.”
“Yes, she knows.” Giulia didn’t sound the least bit perturbed. “She helped arrange it, in fact. She sent my husband, her son, to live in their family estate in Basanello soon after our wedding.” She laughed. “Rodrigo insisted on it. He said he didn’t want any squinty-eyed husband getting in the way of his—”
“Stop it.” My voice turned cold. “Stop talking about him like that. He is our pope.”
She turned to me, a hand at her hip. “Oh, my sweet child. The pope is still a man. Rodrigo isn’t going to change just because he now wears the papal ring. On the contrary, he told me he intends to move us to a new palazzo by the Vatican, so he can visit us whenever he likes.”
“Us?” I echoed.
“Yes. Us. As in you and me. I told you, you’ll be the most sought-after woman in his court, but if I am to be the mother of his child, surely I deserve my own palazzo, at the very least.” She gave me an appraising glance. “You should rest. You are quite pale, and we have the celebratory feast to attend tonight. You must look your best.”
She went to the door. “Oh, and that Spanish betrothal of yours? You mustn’t give it another thought. Some minor noble of Valencia will never do now, not for His Holiness’s daughter. Already, every noble house in Italy prepares to bid for your hand. Sought after, indeed. You’ll be a bride before you know it.” Her smile showed a hint of teeth. “Just imagine what a wedding it will be! Do wear your green silk tonight. Rodrigo loves to see you in that color.”
I stood frozen as she walked out.
She had seduced my father. I had thought I was the center of his life, his beloved daughter, soon to be the princess of his court, but she had stolen him away. She would bear his child; she would overshadow my every step. It didn’t matter if I wed the Valencian or not. She would see to it that I trailed at her heels until another alliance was arranged for me.
Helpless fury uncoiled inside me. I was indeed still a child, as powerless as ever.
Only now I was beholden to a woman I no longer felt I could trust.
Flambeaux licked the evening air, their citrus-scented smoke dispelling the hordes of mosquitoes that were the bane of our summers. Remnants of lamb roasted in herbs, of peacock and boar and venison, along with enough wine and marzipan to sate a legion, were being cleared from the tables; the once-pristine but now stained Venetian linens spread on long trestle tables in the atrium had been gathered up by the servants, to be dunked in vats of boiling urine for cleaning.
The guests had begun to arrive at Adriana’s palazzo shortly after sunset, a veritable onslaught of cousins and relatives I’d never heard of, let alone met, along with many nobles eager to partake of our family’s fortune. Now they reclined on cushions in the loggia, basking in the cool breeze that wafted from the Tiber, or strolled down the garden pathways.
Despite my resentment of Giulia, I took her advice and wore my green silk camora and paired it with yellow satin sleeves. Pantalisea styled my hair in ringlets about my face, its heavy length held back by a filet with a single pearl. She told me I looked beautiful, as was her duty; regarding my reflection in the glass, I decided to believe her. While my cheeks were too plump and my mouth too wide, my body still round with childish fat, without discernible breast, I took comfort in the fact that I was well proportioned for my age and my attire complemented me.
Assuming my place beside Adriana in the hall, I greeted all the guests. Juan had stood to Adriana’s left, scrubbed clean and clad in black velvet with a gored skirt and gold tasseled belt, from which dangled an ornamental dagger in the Turkish style. He too accepted the guests’ effusive praise, charming them with his ready smile, as he could when he had a mind to, as if he hadn’t hacked a man to death outside our gates only hours before.
I was relieved that Giulia did not try to engage me, flitting among the guests in her lavish carnation silk gown and diamonds about her throat. Likewise, my mother ignored me; encased in a black velvet gown that was too tight, she elected to lurk in the background and direct the servants, barely acknowledging the appearance of her own husband, Signor Canale, who arrived with my ten-year-old brother, Gioffre.
Little Gioffre’s red-gold hair hung in a blunt fringe above his freckled forehead, his sturdy form in a tawny jerkin and hose. He grinned at the sight of me, and I embraced him fondly in return, keeping him beside me as the guests assumed their seats.
“Is Zio Rodrigo coming?” Gioffre asked eagerly, and I smiled to hide the pang I felt at his words. He still lived with Vannozza, who had not yet informed him that his beloved “uncle,” whom he idolized, was in truth our father. It must have been confusing. He had heard me call Rodrigo “Papa” but never asked me directly why he wasn’t allowed to. He must have suspected, but I assumed Vannozza had told him we shared a mother and had left unexplained who his father was.
“I’m told he will be here soon,” I said. “So I’ll expect you to be on your best behavior. No chasing after Arancino or feeding the dogs under the table, yes?”
He gave solemn assent, but I made sure to seat him by my side, anyway, so I could cut his meat and water his wine. Though I assured Gioffre that Rodrigo was due to appear, by the time the feast commenced, he had not. Instead, Juan did the honor of toasting our father’s health, before giving a long-winded speech about how a new era dawned upon Rome, one in which the corruption of the past would be abolished and Christ’s order restored.
If the sentiment was expected, its delivery was not. Juan passed a threatening gaze over the assembly as he spoke, as if to mark the foes among us. I fancied a few of the guests shuddered, apprised of the rampage outside our gates. Though the road leading to the palazzo bore no evidence, Tomasso having followed my mother’s orders, I had no doubt that if Juan had been granted his way, the henchman’s head would have adorned our table as a grisly warning.
Finally, after hours of feasting, we were excused and I took Gioffre into the gardens, to escape the inevitable gossiping ladies and conspiratorial gentlemen. Toward midnight, as Gioffre and I perched on the rim of the fountain and dangled our hands in the water, playing at trying to catch the speckles of starlight reflected there, a sudden silence fell, like the lightning-charged hush before an oncoming storm.
I stood at once. “Gioffre, quick. Dry your hands.” Wiping my own on my skirts, I started with him toward the house. We had barely reached the outer terrace when a large figure loomed in the gallery, his resonant voice booming: “And where is my farfallina?”
“I’m here!” I dashed forth, Gioffre at my heels. Papa engulfed me in his embrace, exuding the musk of incense impregnated in his clothes, along with the salt of his sweat. I reveled in his nearness, only now letting myself feel how truly frightened I had been this afternoon at the gates. Nothing could go wrong with Papa here. Nothing would dare.
“Oh, my child.” He held me tight, until my bodice dug at my ribs and I gasped, “Papa, I can’t breathe.” He let go reluctantly, furrowing his broad, sun-bronzed brow. He never remembered to wear a hat, even though at sixty-one years of age he’d lost most of his hair, his bald pate speckled like a robin’s egg. His dark eyes were intensely alive despite their small size, examining me as if for visible wounds.
“Adriana told me everything. To t
hink what might have happened…” He clenched his fist. “I’d have torn this city down about their miserable heads.”
“It was nothing.” I forced out a smile. “Juan had it well in hand.”
“Yes, that too I heard.” He scowled. “I’ll have to seek amends with whomever that villain’s family is, not to mention reassure the cardinals of our law courts in the Curia that my son isn’t about to start skewering malcontents at will. A fine to-do this is, on the eve of my election. By the saints, Juan’s too quick with that blade of his. Couldn’t he have shouted the wastrel away?”
“He acted in our defense,” I said, finding it ironic that I was speaking up for the one brother I cared about the least. “That wastrel defamed us. He was about to pull a knife.”
“A knife is no match for a sword. Insults are only words. We can’t start killing people for insulting us.” He laughed drily. “Were that the case, there wouldn’t be a noble left alive in this entire land. Most if not all of them have disparaged us at one time or another.” He sighed. “But the most important thing is no harm was done, or at least none that a few hundred ducats in the right hands won’t resolve.”
I suddenly remembered and turned about, nudging my little brother forward. “Papa, Gioffre is here. He’s been waiting all night to see you.”
My father’s expression went blank as my brother bowed with painstaking care. “Isn’t it rather late for you to still be up?” he grumbled.
Gioffre’s smile dimmed. “Yes, Zio Rodrigo. Only Lucrezia…she said we could walk in the garden until you came, and I—I wanted to…”
“Yes? You wanted to what? Stop stuttering and speak up.”
“I wanted to congratulate you,” Gioffre burst out. “I also wanted to ask if I can live with Lucrezia now. I miss her terribly, and she says she’ll be happy to care for me.”
My father glanced sharply at me. “Did you tell him this?”
I frowned, wondering why he would be displeased. “Why, yes. We rarely see each other anymore, and I reasoned that since I’m to have my own palazzo, there’ll be plenty of room—”
“You reasoned wrong.” He returned his gaze to Gioffre. “It’s out of the question. You are too young to leave your mother’s house. Vannozza would never stand for it. Moreover, Lucrezia will soon have important responsibilities of her own.” He punctuated his words with a lift of his right hand, the torchlight catching on a heavy gold ring on his third finger. It bore the crossed papal keys. I knew that when a pope died, his personal ring was broken and a new one cast for his successor; Papa must have been confident indeed to have a new ring forged before he even won the vote.
He extended his hand to Gioffre, obliging my brother to kiss the ring. “Now,” he said, “run along to Vannozza and see that she takes you home. The streets are not safe, and I’ll not have another mishap.”
Gioffre shot a miserable look in my direction before he bowed again, this time with less care. He ran back into the palazzo with the stumbling gait of a boy desperately trying to stave off tears.
Papa turned to me. “I must ask that, in the future, you not fill the boy’s head with notions. I realize you mean well, but Vannozza will not appreciate having her last child taken from her.”
“He’s your child, too,” I said. In all my life, I had never openly disagreed with my father, but I couldn’t understand why he should treat Gioffre with such disdain. “I see no reason why Gioffre shouldn’t live with me or know he is one of us. It’s not as if she pays him any mind and—”
“Lucrezia, basta.” He reverted to Spanish, our private language. As he did, he looked over his shoulder, where the cardinals of his court assembled on the terrace, a stone’s throw away. “Enough,” he repeated in a low voice. “I’ll not have you gainsay me. I am the pope now and must show caution in my dealings, especially where my family is concerned. I’ve enough to contend with, without indulging a boy I’m not sure is truly mine.”
“Not yours?” I was astonished. “Whatever do you mean?” Even as I spoke, I braced for another unpleasant revelation. This week seemed destined to be full of them.
My father exhaled a troubled breath. “I suppose you’re entitled to an explanation.” With his hand on my arm, he guided me farther down the path to a stone bench. “I’m not convinced Gioffre is indeed a Borgia,” he said at length. “It pains my heart to say it, but your mother was married when she gave birth to him, and by then…well, I wasn’t as enamored of her as I had once been. How can I be sure he’s not her husband’s?”
Was this the reason our mother hadn’t told Gioffre about Papa? Did she also doubt his paternity? I thought of my younger brother, always seeking favor in Papa’s eyes, much as Cesare had at his age, and how Papa only had eyes for Juan. But Cesare had never doubted he was Papa’s son, while poor Gioffre—
“But all you need do is look at him to see he must be a Borgia,” I said. “He looks like me.”
“And you look like your mother. There we have it. I intend to provide for Gioffre as if he were mine, of course; I’ll not see him humiliated. But I cannot put him in your household—” He lifted a finger, silencing me. “Which brings me to another matter.”
His expression was somber. I perched on the edge of the bench, watching him tug at his lower lip. I could see he was tired. He had dark smudges under his eyes, and his skin was sallow. In his plain black tunic and hose, with his scuffed boots hugging his big calves, he appeared as he always did when not in official regalia, like a frugal tradesman. I always admired how he eschewed personal ostentation. Sighted among the gaudy red-satin cardinals and purple-drenched bishops, he stood out in his simplicity. Yet, inexplicably, I now found his simplicity disturbing, as if I had expected a miraculous transformation following his elevation to the Holy See, some sort of visible change that set him apart from others, his infallibility marked for all to see.
I recalled Giulia telling me a pope was still a man, and I tensed as he jutted out his chin and said, “Giulia told me about her conversation with you this afternoon. She thinks you disapprove. Indeed, she was aggrieved by your tone.”
I bit back the reply that she had no cause for grievance, given her own behavior. Instead, I muttered, “She is mistaken. I would never disapprove of you, Papa.”
“Not me.” He raised his eyes. “She thinks you disapprove of us.”
I went silent.
“I understand,” he continued. “It must have been difficult to learn your father has been named Supreme Pontiff only to hear that Giulia and I, that we…” He paused, the silence straining taut between us.
“Is it true?” I asked hesitantly. “Is she carrying your child?”
He nodded. A sudden joy lightened his features, so that his eyes glimmered as they did when he looked upon me. It brought a knot to my chest. He was happy about this. He wanted this child. It might even be a daughter, a baby girl, another farfallina….
I was so engulfed by this disturbing thought that I almost reminded him that if he was not sure of Gioffre, how could he be sure of Giulia’s child? Though her husband lived far away, it seemed to me that he might still be the father. But I held myself back, because I had the sense that whatever I tried to say would only make him think I sought to cause more dissension.
“I believed you and Giulia were friends,” he said. “She tells me she thinks of you as a sister. It would hurt me if you did not feel the same.”
“I do,” I replied uncomfortably, for I did not like lying to him. “Only when she told me…” I swallowed. It was the most grown-up conversation I’d had with my father. Only days ago, I’d been embroidering a pillowcase for him; now I was discussing his children and love for a woman whom I feared might supplant me in his affections. I longed to halt everything, return to yesterday afternoon on the landing when I saw Giulia enter from her outing, and forget everything I’d learned. I preferred to remain a child, if this was what adulthood entailed.
“Lucrezia, all I ever want to do is to protect you from the harshness of
this world, which no girl should experience before her time,” said Papa. “But Giulia tells me it is time for you to assume your proper station in life.”
“I thought I had. Am I not your daughter?” I couldn’t keep the tremor from my voice. I wanted desperately to hear that he still loved me more than anyone else, that I was his most beloved child. But I heard my mother in my head—Don’t think any of this can change your fate—and it roused a terrible fear in me. What if he could no longer love me as he once had, because he was pope now, and must send me far away to wed a Spanish nobleman?
He looked startled. “Oh, my farfallina, do you think I’d ever stop caring for you?”
I averted my gaze. “I don’t know, Papa. You love Giulia and her baby. Maybe they’re more important now to you.”
He reached over to cup my chin. “You are not as smart as the nuns of San Sisto and Adriana claim if you believe that. I could never love anyone the way I love you.” He smiled. “But I’m not just your father. I am also a man. And men need different kinds of love.”
His echoing of Giulia’s words stabbed through me, keen as a knife. “Aren’t I enough?”
“My child, of course you are. Never doubt it. But our love is pure; it is not the passion of a man for a woman. Giulia gives me that passion and asks for little in return, much like Vannozza did before her. She pleases me. You want me to be happy, don’t you?”
I could not agree. While I didn’t care for my mother, Giulia was nothing like her. I suspected she’d not be content to live as Vannozza did, maintaining her distance for appearance’s sake. Yet I did not voice my thoughts, because I’d never felt this passion he described. All I knew was that he had compelled me to see him in a new light, no longer the immutable protector but someone with needs I did not understand nor could hope to fulfill.
“Giulia told me you’ll refute my Spanish betrothal,” I abruptly said. As he looked away, I held my breath, bracing myself for the worst, the news that he had decided to send me to Spain after all. But then he turned back to me.
The Vatican Princess Page 4