The Vatican Princess

by C. W. Gortner

  His eyes widened. I almost giggled. Did he think me a child who did not recognize what was before her? With a quick shake of his head, he mumbled, “His Eminence and His Holiness—they sent word that I was to look my best and be in the garden by Sext. But, no, I didn’t think we would meet. I was told you would see me from above. That is all.” He went quiet again before he added, “I’ve been here for more than an hour. Look—” He swiped off his cap. Sweat had plastered his hair to his head. He was thinning on top; without the cap, he looked his age. “I thought I might faint from the heat. These clothes are…heavy.”

  “I regret the inconvenience.” I watched him dab his brow. “You mustn’t be accustomed to our climate in Rome. It’s only May. Wait until August, when the heat truly starts. Anyone with a villa in the hills leaves before the fever mosquitoes arrive.”

  “Fever?” He stared at me. “From mosquitoes?”

  “Why, yes. I am not sure how it happens, though I assume it’s from their bite. Only, we have mosquitoes nearly year-round, because of the marshlands, yet not always fever.” I shrugged. “In any event, my father’s physician, Dr. Torella—he’s a Jew who studied medicine with the Moors in Spain, so he’s well versed in such maladies—believes certain mosquitoes carry the fever. Entire quarters have succumbed in the summer and—”

  I came to a halt. He had turned an alarming shade of white. “Are you unwell?” I asked, thinking that perhaps he’d recently been bitten by a mosquito.

  “I—I’ve never heard of such a thing. In Pesaro, we’ve no insects that carry plague.”

  “No mosquitoes?” This time, I could not contain my laugh. “How fortunate for Pesaro! I get welts whenever they bite me; my skin is so sensitive. But it’s hardly plague, only a fever in most cases, and rarely fatal save for the very young or old. Though it can be inconvenient. My brother Cesare caught the fever once and it took weeks before he felt well enough to rise….” My voice drifted off. Not only did I realize I was babbling, but he did not seem placated in the least. In fact, he appeared ready to bolt right back to his mosquito-less city and never return.

  “There is no reason to worry.” I patted his arm. “As I said, it’s still only May and—”

  “We’ll be gone by August.” He pulled his arm away as if he had been scalded. I winced. I’d made a mistake; suggesting a walk was improper enough, but to touch him before we’d been blessed by a priest must make me seem—well, like a Spanish-born foreigner. “Our marriage takes place in June,” I heard him say. “So there is indeed no reason to worry, for by August we shall be residing in Pesaro.”

  “Oh.” It would be inappropriate to inform him that he must be mistaken. Papa would never send me from Rome. He had yet to authorize Juan’s departure for Spain, in fact, citing the Catholic majesties’ delay in sending the requisite patent for the duchy, though everyone knew that in truth Papa was loath to relinquish Juan.

  Giovanni went on, “You will find Pesaro most agreeable. It’s on the coast, near the Via Flaminia; we have several fine churches and piazzas. I dispose of a palazzo, and my castle, the Rocca Constanza, is also commodious, with four strong towers and a moat.”

  “You have a moat? And yet there are no mosquitoes?”

  He stiffened. “It’s dry for most of the year. In the winter, it fills with seawater. We’ve no need for defense in Pesaro, as we owe allegiance to my cousin Ludovico Il Moro, Duke of Milan, who would send an army to protect us if need be. I am pledged to his service.”

  “I see.” Cesare had called him a poor relation, and he had just made the error of calling Il Moro the duke, when in fact Ludovico Sforza did not own the title by right. He merely acted as regent for Milan’s true ruler, his nephew Gian Galeazzo, whom he held in captivity.

  But a first meeting was hardly the moment to remark on these entanglements. Maiden brides-to-be weren’t supposed to be conversant on such sordid dealings as the imprisonment of nephews by their rapacious uncles.

  “I’m certain your city is delightful,” I said. He clearly expected my consent, for his expression lightened and he resumed our trajectory. I kept in step, even as I suddenly wanted the business over with. I longed to return to my palazzo for a nap, with Arancino curled at my side, before I decided what to wear for tonight’s entertainment. That made me think of Giulia: She would want to hear every detail of my encounter. I would have to avoid her until—

  As if on cue, Cesare returned to the garden. “Enough.” He stared at Giovanni. “His Eminence awaits you in the hall, Signore.”

  Giovanni went still. Before Cesare could repeat his dismissal, I turned to him. “It has been an honor, my lord. Thank you for the conversation and the walk.”

  He bowed over my hand. “My lady, the honor was all mine.” Then he slipped cautiously around Cesare and hastened off, his boot tops flapping.

  “ ‘The honor was all mine,’ ” mocked Cesare. “Besides his insufferable poverty, evidently he also lacks any original sentiment.”

  “Or fever in his city,” I mused.

  Cesare glanced at me. “Why do you say that?”

  “No reason.” I yawned. “I am tired. Can you fetch Pantalisea and see me home?”

  He took me by the hand, leading me into the house. “I’ll have your escort readied and—” Suddenly he halted. “You haven’t told me what you feel now that you’ve met him.” His gaze was unblinking, probing, as if he might divine something I intended to keep from him.

  I hesitated. What could I say? Cesare seemed determined to hear me disparage Giovanni of Pesaro, when in truth I found no reason to do so. He might not be particularly handsome or engaging, but he did not seem cruel or idiotic, either. I could fare worse, I thought, recalling Ferrante of Naples and his cellar of corpses, and once we wed, Giovanni would of course be told that leaving Rome was out of the question. Papa would laugh at the very thought of me going away to watch some moat fill with seawater.

  “He’s to be my husband,” I said at length. “I hardly think feelings matter.”

  Cesare regarded me for a moment before a wry chuckle escaped him. “Naturally. How foolish of me. He will indeed be only your husband. And husbands mean nothing.”

  Less than a month later, as June cast powdered gold over the Tiber and the fruit trees in our gardens shed tattered blooms, I stood at the portico with Giulia and my attendants as Giovanni Sforza rode in cavalcade to the palazzo to formally greet me.

  It was supposed to be our first encounter, though I did not see any reason for the pretense. Kept at a distance from Giovanni, I smiled decorously as he bowed from the saddle of his charger—one of five my family had loaned him—and swept off his cap in a rehearsed gesture. Once again, he wore expensive finery, all paid for on credit—as Giulia did not hesitate to inform me once I was swept back into the palazzo to prepare for the marriage ceremony in the Vatican.

  “Everything he wears is borrowed; that ruby-and-gold pendant is a Gonzaga heirloom, sent by his former father-in-law, His Grace of Mantua,” she said, plucking stray hair from her sleeve. Now fully recovered from her lassitude, she wore luxurious nectarine brocade slashed with purple satin, fitted to her figure. “And I hear Il Moro had to take a loan from his bankers to cover the cost of Giovanni’s retinue and such.” She let out a troubled sigh. “I do hope he won’t have to hire himself out as a condottiere just to maintain your household.”

  “He won’t,” retorted Adriana, from where she directed Pantalisea and my women to dress me in my elaborate wedding gown. She had returned from Monte Giordano as soon as the proclamation of marriage was made, determined to reassume her charge of me. “He’ll have more than sufficient income now that he’s a member of the family. His Holiness has even granted Signore Giovanni his own well-paid commission in the papal army, and Il Moro will uphold his current condotta in the Milanese army, as part of the nuptial agreement.”

  “Oh?” Giulia smiled. “That could prove awkward should we end up at war with Milan.”

  “Hush your tongue! Would yo
u cast bad luck upon this day? You might not take the sacrament of marriage seriously, but to mention war on such an occasion—it’s blasphemous.”

  As Giulia laughed, I resisted stamping my feet in disgust. This squabble between her and Adriana had plagued us for weeks, with Adriana set on having me outshine my father’s mistress and Giulia likewise resolved to turn my wedding day into her triumphant public return to society.

  For weeks she’d been sequestered behind closed doors, subjecting herself to a variety of beautifying procedures, even as Adriana had me suffer repeated washes of ash and lemon juice to bring out the gold in my hair and subdue its coppery tint. I had nothing to worry about as far as my complexion was concerned, she assured me; but, just in case, she forbade me to set foot outside the palazzo without a veil and preferred that I not go outside at all. Most of my visits to the Vatican had therefore taken place via the passage into the Sistine. The one time I threw aside caution along with my veil to take to the gardens, suffocated from being cooped indoors for days, Adriana had a fit.

  Giulia added to the tumult by contriving to undermine Adriana at every turn, until the house crackled with antagonism and I had to interfere.

  “Isn’t my wedding supposed to be cause for celebration?” I said one afternoon, eyeing Giulia as she reclined naked on unbleached linen, a sheen of rose oil on her skin. Supposedly, the precious attar imported from France at an extraordinary price revived the flesh.

  “Why, yes,” she said. “Why do you ask?”

  “Because Adriana told me that your women confiscated a shipment of Alexandrine silk yesterday that was intended for my nuptial bed.”

  She flicked a crumpled rose petal from her breast. “She must be mistaken. Rodrigo purchased that silk from Venice for me. I inspected the bill of sale myself.”

  I could tell she was lying, but it was not worth fighting over. Silk could be reordered. However, given the situation, I had to find her something useful to occupy her time, lest she provoke Adriana to an extreme.

  “Very well. Yet as Adriana is doing so much already, perhaps you might help me sort through my gifts? They’re piling up in the hall. I worry the servants might be tempted.”

  As I hoped, Giulia immediately agreed. The only thing she coveted more than my father was evidence of prestige, and there was indeed a pyramid of presents awaiting my inspection. Oversight of the other details of my wedding had so overwhelmed Adriana, she’d let this important task slip.

  Thus I sat with Giulia in the evening while Murilla helped us unwrap an astounding variety of treasures sent by Europe’s crowned heads. And it was there, as we inspected gold spoons from the sultan of Turkey, twin silver chalices from the king of Poland, and tooled stirrups from Their Majesties of Spain, when I finally allowed myself to voice the one question that until now I had not dared ask.

  “Will it hurt?”

  Giulia paused in her examination of embroidered hand towels from Paris. “Hurt?” She went quiet before she said, “I imagine it will. But if he knows what he’s about, not too much.”

  Though I did my best to conceal it, anxiety quickened my voice. “How much?”

  She shooed Murilla out of earshot. “It depends,” she said in a low voice, “on how long it takes him to do whatever he must. Men can have strange appetites.”

  I contemplated her. “I thought you knew.” I did not add that by now I was no longer completely ignorant of what was required of a wife—there was too much gossip around me for complete innocence—but the details, and my expected role in such, had thus far eluded me.

  “Of course I know. But I hardly think Rodrigo would want me to—” She stopped. “You. List this as a gift from the queen of France,” she barked at Murilla, clearly forgetting, or not caring, that my dwarf could neither read nor write. She wiped her hands on one of the cloths before she thrust them at Murilla, reaching for the next item. “Besides, it’s not important.”

  “It is not?” I was dubious.

  “No. Such questions are unnecessary. Your betters have it in hand. God in heaven,” she said, flipping open a velvet box, “what has Adriana been doing all this time, if not instructing you?”

  “She’s been overseeing my nuptial chamber, my gown, my retinue of ladies.” I was loath to let the subject lapse, not after I’d finally mustered the courage to broach it. “What do you mean, ‘Your betters have it in hand?’ I don’t understand—”

  Giulia squealed, waving diamond-and-topaz earrings before my nose. “Oh, look at these! Are they not exquisite? From Isabella d’Este, Marchioness of Mantua; everyone says she has the most impeccable taste.” She clasped the gems to her ears. “They’re obviously not right for you: Your neck is much shorter than mine. What do you think? Do they suit me?”

  I sighed. It was pointless to continue my inquiry. “Perfectly. You must keep them.”

  She probably had decided those pearls about her throat suited her more than me, as well; they looked suspiciously like the same pearls sent by the king of England. But I was too agitated to care. I would gladly have let her ransack my entire dowry if she would only answer my questions. With the hour fast upon me, that indifference I’d cultivated was starting to fray, and after that evening I grew so worried that I asked Pantalisea, who, after much badgering, reluctantly told me something of what I needed to know.

  “But,” she added, as I sat appalled by what she described, “I hear it’s not entirely unpleasant. And once you’re with child, it stops, at least until after the birth. No gentleman would dare visit such indignity on his pregnant wife. That’s what women like la Farnese are for.”

  I felt nauseous. I could not imagine lying supine while Giovanni Sforza did…that to me. I almost wished I could consult with my mother. Having borne several children, she must have found some fulfillment in it. But I knew Vannozza would only guffaw in my face.

  Now, days later, I stood on the threshold of an unknown future. After today, I would no longer be just His Holiness’s daughter: I would be Giovanni Sforza’s wife, Countess of Pesaro, and the expected mother of his heirs.

  I would belong to him.

  “Lucrezia, you look ill,” Giulia said. “You could use some rouge. I warned you, crimson satin isn’t the right shade for your complexion.”

  “Rouge on a bride?” Adriana scoffed.

  Before they started arguing again, I staggered forward. The result of hundreds of hours of work, not to mention thousands of ducats, my gown weighed on me like armor, the crimson and gold-banded stomacher studded with rubies, my slashed sleeves sprouting like wings from my shoulders, my chemise made of a sheer, scratchy silk. My hair hung in a braid to my waist, adorned with a pearled caul. As I ignored the pinch of my unyielding new slippers, the tears that filled Adriana’s eyes made me realize that, while I might feel as though I were encased in plaster, the outward appearance was pleasing.

  “Shall we proceed?” I said to Giulia. As my matron of honor, she would lead my escort into the Vatican—another bone of contention with Adriana, who in the end had to submit after Papa commanded it. Giulia’s impatient nod made me smile. Envy from her was my reward for all the endless fittings, facial unguents, and hair rinses I’d endured.

  Today, all eyes would be upon me.

  Giulia swirled to the door, our women bustling into position. Adriana tugged down my veil. Sentries clattered into rank on either side of us as we swept in bejeweled splendor into the palazzo corridors, Pantalisea holding up my train to keep it from dragging on the floor. It was early afternoon; outside, the June sun evaporated the last of the spring rain, but I had not been outdoors in days, and so navigating our way into the Vatican proved an exercise in endurance. But once we reached Papa’s apartments, where frankincense wafted from braziers, I had a brief respite for last-minute adjustments to my person.

  In his quest to exalt our family’s status, Papa had spared no expense. During one of my infrequent visits, I’d watched in awe as a battalion of artists overseen by Maestro Pinturicchio raced to complete th
e majestic frescoes now adorning every surface. Giulia had laughingly commented about the elder cardinals’ disapproval, their muttering of paganism upon viewing Isis and her sibling-lover, Osiris, frolicking among rampant bulls on the ceiling and our emblem of the bladed rays encircled by Moorish arabesques. She had not helped matters, either, by insisting on modeling for a depiction of the Virgin with Child, complete with halo and cherub.

  Regardless of what the cardinals said, Papa had taken care to represent the traditional. Ten somber popes stared at me from the walls of the Sala dei Pontefici, including the righteous Nicholas III, founder of the Vatican. Beyond, interconnecting suites displayed scenes from the Testaments; one chamber was reserved for our family portrait, that most traditional of customs, in which we would appear in saintly guise. I had already posed for Pinturicchio with an unwieldy crown on my head. Juan and Cesare had, too, though Cesare rolled his eyes and later told me that in his eagerness to satisfy Papa, the maestro exceeded his limited talent.

  I wished I had time to wander these rooms and delay the inevitable, but my women were spreading my train behind me, preparing me for my entry into the Sala Reale, where the papal court awaited. Only my brother Juan was missing. He was supposed to bring me into the hall.

  Without warning, a Turk strode in.

  As Adriana yelped and the women gasped in dismay, I scowled through my veil. It was Juan, of course, already styling himself as His Grace of Gandia, though the patent for his duchy had not arrived. Only now he was not clad as a Spanish grandee or even an Italian nobleman; rather, he sported a new beard to complement his outlandish ankle-length tunic of cloth-of-gold, complete with egret-plumed turban and massive gold-and-sapphire collar.

  “For the love of God, Juan,” I said. “What are you wearing? This isn’t Carnival.”

  He waved my women aside, taking me by the arm. “You should know this collar alone cost eighty thousand ducats, more than your entire dowry.”