The Vatican Princess

by C. W. Gortner

  “Nor should you. Under that carefree air, you always were astute, my Lucia.” He suddenly raised his chin, looking past me. “We have company.”

  I reeled about to see Juan striding toward us, bulling his way through shafts of moonlight. Cesare stepped forth. “Brother, such an unexpected pleasure.”

  Juan’s eyes were slits. He reeked of overindulgence, as if he’d dunked himself in a wine vat. “Djem told me Lucrezia saw you in the hall. I didn’t believe him at first. You are fortunate Papa sent me rather than one of his retainers to fetch her. He’d be furious.”

  “Who?” Cesare lilted. “The retainer or Papa?”

  “You know what I mean! Or did you not receive Papa’s message to stay in Pisa?”

  “Oh, I received it. But I saw no reason to deprive myself of a visit, given the occasion.” Cesare’s smile cut across his mouth. “You certainly have cause to rejoice. Our father is now pope and I understand you’re soon to be made duke of Gandia. Congratulations. Does this mean we can look forward to the privilege of seeing you to Spain?”

  “Who told you that?” Juan demanded. Then, as he took in Cesare’s unblinking stare, he sneered, “Mama. She never could keep her mouth shut. Yes, I’m to be made duke once the deed arrives from Castile. What of it? Are you here to challenge me?”

  As Juan squared his shoulders, I had a sickening recollection of him hacking the man outside Adriana’s palazzo. He was taller, brawnier, than Cesare. My brothers were not so evenly matched anymore when it came to sheer strength; indeed, Cesare looked undernourished next to Juan’s robust build. But what Cesare lacked in heft, he made up for in stealth.

  Just as I began to anticipate one of them yanking out a weapon, Cesare said quietly, “If Papa has seen fit to give you the honor, who am I to question it?”

  I saw at once that his words only increased Juan’s suspicion. Juan might be indolent, slow to grasp a certain kind of wit, but he knew as well as I did that the duchy of Gandia was Cesare’s last hope to escape the priesthood. With its vast estate near Valencia in Spain, seat of our family’s roots, the duchy would make whoever claimed it a wealthy grandee.

  Juan worked something between his teeth. He spat a bit of gristle at Cesare’s feet. “Do you think me a fool? Gone are the days when you could point out all the errors in my grammar. I don’t believe for a moment that after all these years you’re prepared to relinquish Gandia.”

  “Believe what you like,” said Cesare. “I hardly see a need to explain myself to you.”

  As they locked eyes, I interjected nervously, “You mustn’t fight.”

  “I have no intention of fighting,” said Cesare. “I’d not wish to be the cause of any disturbance in our family, not at this glorious time.”

  “As if a cleric in skirts could disturb anything,” sneered Juan.

  “I’m not in skirts yet.” Cesare turned to me. His lips were cold as he kissed my cheek. “Good night, Lucrezia.” He looked at Juan. “I trust you’ll see our sister safely back?” He didn’t await a response. Tugging his cloak about him, he walked away, disappearing into the shadows.

  Desolation overcame me. He was alone, without a servant or even a torch to light his path as he journeyed back to our mother’s home on the Esquiline, through the city teeming with drunkards, thieves, and ruffians. Concern for him sharpened my voice as I whirled to Juan.

  “I hope you are satisfied.”

  He gave me a befuddled look. “What?”

  “You heard me. I hope you’re satisfied now that you’ve humiliated him with that duchy. Is it not enough that he’s forced to become a priest, and must slink around instead of being invited into the Vatican to be with us as he should?”

  “How is that my fault? I didn’t order him to stay away; it was Papa’s decision. He thought Cesare would seize the opportunity to renounce his studies at the seminary.” Juan gazed toward where Cesare had vanished. “I must admit, he took it well. Maybe our proud brother has finally realized that, like the rest of us, he must do as he is told.”

  I resisted rolling my eyes. As usual, Juan was oblivious. No matter how it may have appeared, Cesare had not taken it well. Indeed, I feared that their encounter marked a new turn in their rivalry, but my worries faded when Juan abruptly shifted his gaze to me. My skin crawled. His eyes were cold; he suddenly did not seem drunk at all.

  “You shouldn’t have come after him. Papa may choose to lodge you with his whore for the time being, but you are still his daughter. What would your betrothed think if he knew you roamed the Vatican gardens like a stray cat?”

  “There was no harm in it,” I retorted. “Besides, I no longer have a betrothed.”

  “Oh? Papa may no longer deem a noble of Valencia suitable, but you do indeed still have a betrothed. His name is Giovanni Sforza, Count of Pesaro.”

  I went still. “I…I have not heard that.”

  “Because no one knows yet, except Papa, me, and that Farnese bitch, I suppose. It was part of the agreement we made with Cardinal Sforza, in exchange for his support in the conclave. He cast the deciding vote for Papa. We must return the favor.”

  I was stunned. Was this what Giulia had meant?

  “Until I’m told otherwise, I am still not betrothed.” I lifted my chin. Juan always delighted in bullying me; I could still remember the day he’d crushed a newborn kitten under his heel in front of me just to see if I would cry. Cesare had thrashed him until our mother came running; Juan still bore the scar above his left eyebrow from where Cesare split the skin with his knuckles.

  Juan guffawed. “I think our precious virgin sister thinks rather highly of herself.”

  I tried to move around him. He shifted, blocking my way. “Though I’m starting to believe you’re less virginal than we think. You enjoyed watching me kill the other day, didn’t you? It must have excited you: all that blood…”

  All of a sudden he seemed enormous, a barbican of flesh standing between me and the palace. Even as I thought we were alone, far enough away that my screams would go unheard, I knew any display of fear would only provoke him.

  “Papa is waiting for me. He sent you to fetch me, remember?”

  “Let him wait.” He set himself before me, hands on his hips. “I saved you from the mob, so you owe me a reward. Cesare always asked for a dance. Well, I demand a kiss.”

  Despite his intimidating stance, I was relieved to hear familiar petulance in his voice. It was more of the same, yet another point to be scored in his ongoing rivalry with Cesare. I was not about to concede. “You’re a boor.” I turned about. “I’ll go by myself.”

  I felt him lunge at me from behind, grabbing my shoulders and forcing me around. “A kiss,” he snarled. “Or I’ll tell Papa that Cesare was here and you indulged him.”

  I glared at him. “I most certainly will not. Go kiss a serving maid, if you have such need.”

  His hands tightened on me, his teeth bared. I had seen that look on his face before—most recently, just before he slaughtered a man. Thinking I’d rather submit than endure this vicious squabble, I gritted my teeth, rising on my tiptoes to kiss his cheek. But he swerved, pressing my lips with his wine-soured mouth. I yanked away from him, enraged. Without thinking, I struck him across the face as hard as I could.

  “Beast! If you don’t leave me alone this instant, I’m the one who shall tell Papa.”

  The imprint of my fingers reddened his skin. I braced for his rage, but he only stepped aside with a callous bow. As I inched past him, he said, “You shouldn’t feel too bad for our brother. Once Cesare takes his vows, Papa is going to grant him his own cardinalship of Valencia. We cannot keep it now that he’s pope, and we need someone in the family to retain its revenues. Perhaps we’ll be seeing Cesare off to Spain instead.”

  “He doesn’t need to go to Spain to be a cardinal,” I replied icily. “Papa never did.”

  Without another word, I proceeded to the palace. Though I did not glance back, I could feel Juan’s stare following me and hear his coarse
mocking laughter.

  I hoped he was wrong. I hoped he would be the one sent to Spain.

  And I hoped he would never return.

  “Donna Lucrezia, you must stand still. How can we get this bodice fitted if you don’t stop fidgeting?” The head seamstress let out a frustrated sigh as she motioned to the two apprentices beside the footstool where I perched in my shift, each of the girls armed with sections of my half-finished bodice and little satin cushions bristling with pins.

  “Yes.” Giulia sighed. “Do let them finish. I have a headache.” She occupied an upholstered settle, the nursemaid nearby suckling Giulia’s two-month-old daughter, Laura. Since the birth in March of the new year—after a seemingly interminable gestation—Giulia had fallen into a lassitude that kept her confined in Santa Maria, waiting for Papa to visit, though his schedule was so full that he often could only send tokens of love in his stead, belts and shoes and sleeves and jewels, which she left lying about the palazzo, making Adriana glower.

  “It’s midday.” As I eyed the babe at the nursemaid’s nipple, my stomach rumbled. “I’m famished. Besides, why should Giovanni Sforza care what I wear? We’re already wed.”

  “Only by proxy. Your actual wedding day is what matters the most. I think you’d want to look your best, if only for your father’s sake. Just think—” Giulia slid her gaze to me. “If His Holiness hadn’t negotiated this new marriage for you with the Sforza, you might have wed one of King Ferrante of Naples’s sons instead and gone to live among the corpses.”

  I shuddered. Tales of King Ferrante’s depravity had flooded Rome the moment the Neapolitan envoys arrived to propose a marriage treaty. The ruling dynasty of Naples was descended from the Spanish kingdom of Aragon and upheld by Queen Isabella and King Fernando, newly titled the Catholic monarchs by Papa. But King Ferrante had supported Cardinal della Rovere against my father in the conclave, betraying himself as an enemy; only now Naples’s bid for reconciliation had so terrified della Rovere that the cardinal had fled Rome for his castle at Ostia—an exodus Papa welcomed. Still, judging by the accounts, Ferrante of Naples was an evil man, who kept the embalmed bodies of his executed foes in a cellar under his castle, where he liked to visit them and gloat. When Giulia had taunted me with the news that Papa was considering whether we’d be best served by betrothing me to Naples, I was so alarmed that I went directly to him, barging into the study where he sat in the afternoon to review his correspondence.

  “I thought I was marrying a Sforza!” I blurted out. “Are you now planning to send me to Naples instead? What if King Ferrante doesn’t like me and puts me in his cellar?”

  Papa laughed. “Oh, my farfallina. Come here.” He patted his lap, though I was too old now for such childish indulgence. I perched on his large thigh, anyway, staring at him as he toyed with my necklace and murmured, “You mustn’t heed common gossip.”

  “But what if that common gossip is true? Everyone says he keeps corpses in his cellar.”

  He sighed. “Has Giulia been needling you again? Women with child: They grow so bored with confinement, they resort to petty amusements. Yes, you will marry a Sforza. I have no intention of sending you to Naples. Heaven forbid. Ferrante is indeed an old vulture, who only seeks our favor because we won the throne, but he’ll turn on us quick enough if he gleans another advantage. You mustn’t fret. I’d kiss Lucifer before I entrusted a child of mine to him. It’s politics. We must seem to welcome his envoys, if only for appearance’s sake.”

  Still, as I now recalled how easily my first betrothal had been annulled, I stood quiescent as the seamstress and her apprentices finished fitting my wedding costume. Better to endure a few hours being poked and prodded than risk becoming King Ferrante’s daughter by marriage.

  Outside the window, spring beckoned. The winter had been mild, even if we’d spent the Nativity season huddled over braziers, as the palazzo fireplaces had turned out to be more decorative than functional. While Giulia hibernated in her lavish apartments, I rejoiced in her absence, as it left me alone to be introduced publicly as my father’s daughter.

  Contrary to my mother’s assertion that a pope could not keep an unwed daughter about, Papa had delighted in seeing me act as his unofficial ambassador. Together with Adriana—who had recaptured her oversight of me as Giulia’s pregnancy advanced—I welcomed envoys from all over Europe and Italy’s city-states, who presented me with gifts and requested my assistance. Sometimes they desired entry into the Church for a second son or a cardinal’s hat for a nephew; for others, it was arbitration over a land or title dispute. Naturally, I had no power to approve anything, but Adriana took careful notes and later presented them to Papa. Soon, word traveled that the gates of Santa Maria in Portico were the portal through which those who sought favor with His Holiness must pass, and my pile of treasures grew to such an extent, it eventually stirred Giulia from her indolence.

  One evening she traipsed into the sala as I entertained Alfonso d’Este, son of the duke of Ferrara—a sullen youth, with a preposterous nose and coarse features, who had brought me a falcon. As I warily beheld the hooded bird perched on a pole held by a page wearing padded leather and gauntlets, envisioning what such a sharp beak might do to my Arancino, I wondered if my lord d’Este realized that while women hunted, girls of my age did not. I’d been entertaining him with conversation, trying to find a polite way of informing him that I could not possibly accept his gift, when Giulia arrived, her belly jutting before her, draped in burgundy velvet, and her hair done up in a jeweled caul.

  Alfonso d’Este’s eyes widened. Standing before the rose-marble hearth (one of the few that actually worked), Giulia shivered in exaggeration. “Oh, it is cold! I fear it might snow.”

  It was on the tip of my tongue to remind her that it rarely snowed in Rome, but my voice choked as she removed her caul to let her hair tumble about her shoulders. “I washed it this morning,” she simpered. “But it takes forever to dry.”

  I thought I’d enjoy pushing her into that fire. Sitting nearby in an alcove where she acted as my chaperone, Adriana let out a scandalized gasp. Married women, particularly pregnant ones, did not show off their tresses like courtesans.

  My lord d’Este could only stare. As I observed keen interest overcome his face—like a cat spotting delectable prey—I excused myself. He had come to see me. Bolting upstairs to rummage through my cassones with Pantalisea, I returned within the hour to find Giulia giggling over a goblet of wine with the ducal son. I entered on measured steps, my newly donned violet camora swishing about my ankles, my own thick fair locks loose under a ruby-studded filet.

  He sighed. “There can be no moon without the sun,” he said, with unexpected gallantry, and Giulia glowered. After that, she insisted on attending every visit with me, no matter how tedious, enduring the presentation of everything from bolts of samite from the Holy Land to casks of amontillado from Spain and fresh carp from Lake Garda, until the pangs overcame her and she had to enter her birthing chamber, lest she release her child in full view of our guests.

  “She envies you,” Adriana had told me. “She fears the loss of her beauty and your father’s affection. Now that she’s given birth, she is a mother like Vannozza, while you, my child, remain pure as an angel.”

  A dark glow sparked in me at the thought of Giulia’s envy. But with the announcement of my own betrothal to Giovanni Sforza, Papa had his secretary direct visiting envoys to his office, until I found myself in my current state—perched on a stool, my legs and arms bruised from the overzealous seamstress, while Giulia, despite her lengthy convalescence, showed no sign of having lost a shred of her allure.

  Footsteps coming down the corridor turned my face toward the door. Before he had even crossed the threshold, we all knew who it was, especially Giulia, who managed to snatch her babe from the nursemaid and arrange herself on the settle in time for Papa’s entrance.

  He had ordered a private passage built between our palazzo and the Sistine, so he could visit us no matter
the hour, but it had been weeks since he last used it. His arrival was like a burst of sun-washed cloud—his ermine-lined cape, shoes, cassock, and even his skullcap made of ivory satin, so that the flush in his olive complexion turned ruddy and his eyes gleamed ebony-black. Beaming at the seamstress and her apprentices as they curtsied, he patted Murilla on her turbaned head and then leaned down to kiss Giulia. She thrust little Laura at him—an ill-timed move, for the child let out a wail.

  “She’s grown since you last saw her,” Giulia said.

  “So it seems.” Papa hesitated. I was surprised he did not kiss the babe, making instead a vague blessing motion over her. I wondered at his disinterest, after he’d taken such a stance about his happiness. Did he regret it? Was he disappointed, perhaps, that she had delivered a mewling girl? Much as I hoped so, for it meant I remained his only farfallina, it was still strange; surely Papa must love this child? Not for the first time, I wished Adriana were here to offer an explanation. But she had returned to Monte Giordano shortly after the birth, declaring she had neglected her palazzo but more likely because she was weary of Giulia.

  Papa held out his arms to me. “What? No welcome for your old father?” and I leapt from the footstool into his embrace. “My farfallina,” he murmured. “Look at you: a bride-to-be. How time passes. It seems only yesterday you were playing with kittens.” As he held me, I peered past his bulk to the doorway, where his ubiquitous retainers had congregated. I caught a strange, shared look on their faces. My father’s favorite attendant, handsome dark-eyed Pedro Calderon, whom Papa had affectionately dubbed Perotto, hurried forth to retrieve my robe from where it lay crumpled by the stool. He draped it over my shoulders.

  “Why, thank you, Perotto,” I said. Then, as my father drew back, I saw Giulia staring at me. I pulled the robe closer about me, awkwardly fastening the clasp at my waist.

  I had just touched my father with only my shift between my skin and his sacred person.