The Vatican Princess

by C. W. Gortner

  Sancia came to say goodbye a few days later, finding me in my rooms, where my belongings were secured for my journey. My women retreated, leaving us alone.

  “What will you do now?” I rose from my crouch by a chest, pushing damp hair from my brow. I had thrown armfuls of clothing into the cassone; I had no idea what I packed, if I would reach Nepi to find myself with a surfeit of furs and silks and no undergarments. I did not care. Already the palazzo felt like a tomb.

  “I leave for Naples.” Sorrow incised her face, bruising the beautiful pools of her eyes and slashing her cheeks. “They do not want me here, and I do not want to stay. Gioffre will come with me, or so they claim. We shall see when the time comes.”

  “He loves you,” I said. “He is not like…them.”

  “I’m far more concerned for you. They will never let you go, no matter how far you run. Already there is talk of another marriage—”

  I held up my hand. “It is not important. Come.” I held out my arms; as we embraced, I whispered, “I love you as if you were my sister. Never doubt it. You are as much a part of his son as you are part of him. Should you ever find need of me, you must send word.”

  She clung to me before she drew back. Wiping tears from her cheeks, she started to turn away. Then she paused. From within her cloak she pulled out the stiletto, which I had dropped during our struggle to save Alfonso.

  “This is yours.” She set it on a nearby table. “Use it to avenge him.”

  Without another word, she left.

  —

  ESCORTED BY MY women and men-at-arms, my son bundled in fleece and borne in a litter by his nursemaid, I rode from Santa Maria under a remorseless sky wiped clean of clouds, its blue so vivid it was like the hem of the Virgin’s mantle.

  I did not turn to look at my palazzo as I departed, riding past the balcony of the Vatican with its scarlet tapestry, where my father had assembled with his cardinals to bid me farewell. I rode with my spine erect and head uplifted, as though it were my triumphal exit, as if I were still the beloved wife who knew where her place was.

  Not a cheer came from the crowds gathered at the sides of the road. Instead, the fickle populace of Rome, as apt to show their contempt by tossing obscenities as to celebrate with flowers and song, regarded me with pity, the men doffing their caps, the women lifting rosaries twined in their fingers as they beheld my black veil and gown, upon which not a single jewel showed. I still wore my gold wedding band under my gauntlet; I could feel its chill, narrow width about my finger.

  I wanted to believe I left nothing behind, that Rome, with its savage entanglements and lethal secrets, held no more power over me.

  But that would have been a deception, and I’d learned to never again lie to myself.

  GRIEF IS SELFISH. It enshrouds us, clutches us to its desiccated breast like an anxious mother. It does not want us to leave, though we know we must if we are to survive. Only madness lies ahead for those who cannot escape it, for grief will consume those who have nothing else to live for.

  I had my child; in the isolation of Nepi, I devoted myself to him. Every day I held him in my arms, singing silly refrains of the nursery, tickling his feet, and basking in his gleeful laughter. Everything about him reminded me of his father.

  “You will know him,” I promised, pressing my lips to his soft cheek. “You will take pride in him, because I will tell you who he was—the bravest, most noble man I have ever known, who loved you with all his heart.”

  I suffered every night as darkness encroached, after the servants cleared dinner from the table and then heaped kindling on the fire, to keep the cold at bay, before finally leaving me with the castle dogs at my feet. I fell into the past. I made myself remember, no matter how much it hurt; I wanted to feel every moment, from that day I first saw him on the road, when he accompanied his sister, his smile resplendent, dazzling all who beheld him. I closed my eyes and felt our first tentative kiss in the library, the way he held himself back, as if I were a fragile gift he must not squander. I rejoiced at our wedding, laughing in our chamber as he peeled off my clothes and I cried out in ecstasy at his touch. They had seemed to go on forever, those days when we loved, yet when I stopped to relive them, I realized they had amounted to only two years.

  A brief respite in the desolation that now stretched before me.

  Yes, I suffered. Only God knows how much.

  Yet I also waited, preparing for the one I knew must soon arrive.

  —

  HE CAME WITH the winds of autumn, breathing war across the plains, the thunder of his ten thousand soldiers scattering peasants from his path. He was returning to the Romagna, secure now in his might, armed with the papal title of gonfalonier and defender of the faith, along with enough cannon to destroy any resistance.

  A messenger brought me advance word. By dusk, he was riding up to the castle with his select companions, through the raised portcullis into the courtyard.

  I dressed in my widow’s weeds and stood in the hall. His booted footsteps were soft as a cat’s on the flagstones. He would see me alone at least, without the insulting company of his men.

  “My lady sister.” Cesare bowed, his figure limned by firelight. He wore black, as I did, but his was of exquisite cut, tiny silver points sparkling on the lacings of his sleeves, his shapely legs caressed by leather hose. He did not attempt to embrace me as I extended my hand to him, with the polite indifference I might show to any uninvited guest.

  “You must be hungry,” I said. “Shall I have a meal prepared?”

  His smile was taut, revealing a hint of teeth. “Later. Only wine now, if you would?”

  I turned to the decanter on the sideboard, poured him a goblet. As he took it from me, his eyes flared slightly, as they had that day in the villa above Pesaro, when I gave him a draft. Unspoken suspicion shivered between us. Then he deliberately, without taking his eyes from me, raised the goblet to his lips. I almost laughed. Did he think me so clumsy as to employ poison?

  I watched him divest himself of his cloak, draping it over a chair near the hearth. He paced to the fire, stood for a moment contemplating the flames. “I would not have you hate me,” he said at length. “I realize I may hope in vain.”

  I did not reply. I saw no reason. He was not asking me a question.

  He sighed. “Papa is concerned. He’s written several times since you left, and not once have you answered.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Do you hate him, as well?”

  “What I feel doesn’t make any difference,” I said, gathering my strength. Despite his stated purpose, I knew why he had come, but the fury I anticipated failed to engulf me. Even that meager refuge of anger and thwarted guilt, of shame that I’d let it happen almost as much as he had planned it—because I had not recognized the threat he truly posed—had turned to cinders inside me.

  He nodded, as if he accepted the inevitability of my statement. “I bring more of his letters,” he said, motioning to his cloak. “We have proposals.”

  “Oh? So many that he felt compelled to send you to pander to me?” I preempted him. “You can spare us the inconvenience and tell His Holiness that I have no desire to wed again. Lest it has escaped his notice, both my husbands have been unlucky.”

  His arid chuckle raked up my spine. “Indeed. But you will find that, regardless, many are still eager to call themselves thus, including one you have met before.”

  I went still.

  “Alfonso d’Este, Duke of Ferrara,” he said. “Do you remember him?”

  “I have never met…” I faltered as the memory surfaced: an evening in my new palazzo and a somber ducal son who’d presented me with a hooded falcon as a gift, his attentions provoking Giulia Farnese to unleash her hair before him like a sylph.

  There can be no moon without the sun.

  “I see you do,” said Cesare. “He is a widower, his first wife having died in childbirth. His family is also one of the most influential in Italy, his own sister the esteemed Isabella, Marchiones
s of Mantua. Marriage to him will bring considerable rewards.”

  “To whom? Me or the family? Or are we still one and the same to you?”

  He looked back to the fire. “We were once, not long ago.”

  “Not now.” I had heard enough.

  I had turned to exit the chamber when he said, “No one will force you. We simply ask that you take some time to consider it. You are only twenty, not so old that this tragedy will not wear thin after a while. And even if it should not, you still have your sons to care for.”

  Slowly, I turned back to him. “Is that a threat? Would you use my own children against me?”

  “I never said that. They are our blood—or at least one of them is. The other one”—he grimaced—“concerns me less. But they still require some normality, if they are to avoid our—”

  He did not have time to finish. My hand whipped out, cracking hard across his face. “Monster,” I breathed. In my gown pocket, Sancia’s dagger dug against my thigh. “Try to harm my sons in any way and, I swear on my soul, you will die for it. I will kill you myself.”

  He did not lift a hand to his cheek. “Mama warned us. She told you we would be each other’s doom. I only seek to spare you such a fate, seeing as I failed to spare you anything else.”

  “You have spared me nothing. You did this to us—you, and no one else.”

  He bowed his head. “I cannot deny it. I know that I alone brought us to this place. I made us who we are.” He lifted his face; his mouth curved in a chilling smile. “But you must allow that I, too, was once innocent. Papa made sure to excise it from me. He did what fathers have always done, seek his own immortality through his seed. He took on the burden of what we would become before we had the chance to discover it for ourselves. He shaped us with his illusions, his flaws, never once realizing that what he created was only a distorted reflection of his own self. He destroyed us. But your sons needn’t suffer our sickness.”

  “Your sickness. Not mine.” As I spun away once more, he grasped me. I smelled his rancid breath, saw the bloodshot threads in his eyes, and sensed under his camouflage of velvet and leather the toll of the incurable disease consuming him.

  “I know I am dying,” he said, adept as ever at reading my thoughts. “I have heard all the portents that I am not long for this earth. It is no fever I carry, but rather the mark of my death. Until I am gone, I must take what I can. By blade or treaty, scaffold or chain, they will bow to me. They will tremble at the name of Cesare Borgia, the forsaken son, who no one thought would be more than his father’s shadow. There is no one to stop me now, nothing greater than the sword I wield. I will cut through it all. I will break and reshape Italy in my image. It will be my legacy.”

  He leaned to me suddenly, as if to kiss me. Then he paused. Laughter purred in his throat. “Is that Sancia’s needle you hold to my gut?”

  I pressed on the hilt. “You say there is nothing greater than your sword. What about me?”

  He met my eyes. The arrogance in his expression faded. For a paralyzing moment, I saw the visage of the beloved sibling I had adored, the companion of my life, whose existence had been so entangled with mine, the very weft of my days felt incomplete without him.

  “You cannot bring him back,” he said. “Nothing you do can bring him back.” He lifted his chin to expose his long throat. “I give myself in atonement, my blood for his. I once told you that to see you safe, I would die a thousand deaths. To avenge him, you need only one. You have earned this right. It is what we must do to prove our strength. Do it. Show the world what a Borgia you are.”

  Desire overcame me—hot and fierce, rampant as a bull loosed in the arena, charging with horns down, curved and pointed, and oh so sharp. I craved it: the thrust of my blade into him, the heat of his blood splashing my fingers. I wanted to watch the surprise of it, the shock, cloud over his eyes and shutter them forever.

  “Do it, Lucia,” he whispered, and I heard it then, what I had longed for without knowing it: his desperate plea, to be released from what he had become. Only through me could he ever find redemption. In taking away the husband I had loved, he’d chained himself to me until I freed him.

  I flung the knife aside. “I am not one of you. I never will be again.”

  His entire body seemed to fall into itself then, a raw wreckage of bones. He stood without moving as I backed away, tears glazing his eyes as I widened the distance, making it impassable. I left him alone, a scourge that might wreak havoc on the land but never again within my heart.

  When I woke the next morning, my brother was gone.

  I DO NOT know what my future holds. As I seal my letter with my signet and prepare it for delivery to His Holiness in Rome, uncertainty overwhelms me. How will I fare, an exile from my own city, bound for a realm where the sins of my past may be hidden but never forgotten?

  Gazing out the window into the distance, hearing my son rattling a toy on the carpet behind me, I conjure that duchy where I will assume my new incarnation as duchess of Ferrara, second wife of a stranger who once gave me a bird of prey and whose features I barely recall. This is my choice, if such it can be called. Better I accept this than wait for my father to decide for me. Ferrara lies many miles from Rome, though no distance would be great enough. But at least there I may start anew, esteemed as a noble wife, even if I can never escape my memories.

  Will I find love or despair? Will my new husband give me haven or another purgatory to endure? Will I find redemption?

  I cannot know the answers. Only by braving the unknown can I hope to find peace and forgive myself. My father once said, infamy is an accident of fate—but I know better. I know now that infamy is a poison that runs in our blood.

  Yet every poison has an antidote.

  And I am not a Borgia anymore.

  In 1502, two years after the murder of her second husband, Lucrezia married Alfonso d’Este, Duke of Ferrara. The duke did not travel to Rome to fetch his bride. Instead, his brothers escorted her to her new home in Ferrara with all the pomp that Pope Alexander VI was capable of, even as Cesare sowed terror in his quest to subdue the Romagna.

  In wedding Lucrezia, the proud d’Este clan secured alliance with the Borgias, which spared them Cesare’s spleen, though Isabella d’Este, the twenty-eight-year-old marchioness of Mantua and Lucrezia’s new sister-in-law, renowned as the arbiter of all things fashionable in her era, expressed outrage that someone of Lucrezia’s repute and low birth was now part of her family. These two women were destined to be rivals as Lucrezia embarked on a tumultuous final chapter in her life. Gaining respect as duchess of Ferrara, where the distance from her family’s machinations allowed her to display her accomplishments as a patroness of the arts, Lucrezia survived the fall of the Borgias, but her marriage remained one of political convenience. As fruitful as the union was, neither she nor her husband was faithful; Lucrezia had at least three extramarital affairs, including a relationship with Isabella d’Este’s own husband, Francesco of Mantua. Surviving evidence of this affair includes passionate love letters that he and Lucrezia exchanged. It ended when Francesco contracted syphilis, a disease spreading throughout Europe, and from which Cesare Borgia also suffered.

  Lucrezia died in Ferrara on June 24, 1519, at the age of thirty-nine, from complications after giving birth to a daughter, who died soon after. She was buried in the convent of Corpus Domini. Of her seven children sired by d’Este, she was survived by Ippolito II, Archbishop and later Cardinal of Milan (1509–1572); Leonora, who became a nun (1515–1575); and Francesco, Marquis of Massalombarda (1516–1578).

  Cesare Borgia waged a dramatic campaign for power, becoming one of the most feared and brilliant strategists of his age, carving out a domain from the fractious papal states and earning the admiration of Machiavelli himself, whose treatise on Renaissance statesmanship, The Prince, is allegedly based on Cesare. Leonardo da Vinci was also employed by Cesare in 1502–03 as an architect and engineer, overseeing reinforcements and construction in Cesare�
�s territories. Under Borgia patronage, da Vinci built the canal between Cesena and the port Cesenatico, facilitating the transport of goods and weaponry.

  Rodrigo Borgia, known as Pope Alexander VI, died unexpectedly in 1503 of poison. Cesare narrowly escaped the same fate, having ingested the substance that killed his father during a feast. He was bedridden for weeks before he rallied; once he did, Rodrigo’s successor, Pope Pius III, reconfirmed him as gonfalonier. But Pius died after a mere twenty-seven days on the papal throne, and the Borgias’ lifelong foe, Giuliano della Rovere, secured the next conclave. Della Rovere had hoodwinked Cesare by offering support for his military ventures in the Romagna—which he promptly disregarded upon his election as Pope Julius II. Cesare was left to face both Pope Julius’s indifference and the enmity of King Fernando of Spain, who’d never forgiven him for his French alliance. During a campaign in Naples, Fernando’s captain general betrayed and imprisoned Cesare. His lands were seized by the Holy See. In 1504, he was transferred to Spain, first to the Castle of Chinchilla de Montearagón; he was later moved to the more formidable Castle of La Mota in Medina del Campo, a site readers will recognize from my first novel, The Last Queen. Following an extraordinary escape from La Mota, Cesare fled to the Navarrese territory of Pamplona, ruled by his father-in-law, King Juan II. The king was in dire need of an expert commander to thwart Castile’s incursions, and as a condottiere for Navarre, Cesare captured several cities held by Fernando.

  On March 11, 1507, enraged by the resistance of the fortress during his siege on the city of Viana, Cesare chased a parcel of knights only to find himself caught in an ambush. Abandoned by his men, he was killed by a spear thrust. His body was stripped, including the leather mask covering half of his face, disfigured by syphilitic sores. His naked corpse was left on the ground for hours.

  At King Fernando’s command, Cesare was interred in a mausoleum in the Church of Santa Maria in Viana under the epitaph: HERE LIES IN LITTLE EARTH ONE FEARED BY ALL, WHO HELD PEACE AND WAR IN HIS HAND. For centuries afterward, controversy raged over whether the Borgia son who had caused such mayhem and ill will deserved to rest in hallowed ground.