by Kate Quinn
She lifted her head, and I thought I might see tears on her cheeks. But her eyes were proud and dry, and she met my gaze unflinching. “The one time in my life I’ve ever truly whored myself, Leonello. I didn’t do it for the Pope, or for myself, or even for my daughter. I did it for you. And I’d do it again. I’d do anything to save you pain.”
There was a roaring in my ears, and a vast rage. I could have climbed down and marched on France at that moment, to bury my knives to the hilt in that French general’s eyes. I clutched the rage, welcomed it. Rage was better than the storm she’d lit in me with her words: shame and astonishment, agony and humiliation, and something else that wasn’t possibly hope. It couldn’t be hope; it was far too small and pitiful.
Like me.
“Come back to Carbognano with me,” Giulia Farnese said. “Please, Leonello. Come back with me. Live with me. Love me.”
I put my cup aside with great care, noticing that my hand shook. “I can’t love anyone,” I said, my voice coming from very far away, and I slid down from the bed to my feet.
“You idiot,” Giulia said in a rough voice, and rose to her knees. On her knees she was shorter than I, and she reached her arms up around my neck as though I were the tallest of men, and kissed me.
She kissed me.
She—
Dio.
She kissed me.
Her soft mouth withdrew from mine. Her eyes were enormous, pleading. “Leonello?” she said, and she was still pressed so close against me, her lips brushed mine as they moved.
“I’m ugly,” I whispered. “I’m so ugly.” And as my eyes filled with tears, I wasn’t just speaking of my looks.
She buried her face in my chest, her arms closing about me. My hand twined through her glorious hair, and she smelled of honeysuckle and gillyflowers and light.
“Orsino was handsome,” she said. “Handsome as a dream. But he was gutless, and I’ve no use for a man who isn’t brave. Not after knowing you. You are the bravest man I know.”
“I’m a murderer.” I said it harshly. “I’ve killed men in cold blood, I—”
“Rodrigo is a murderer.” She cut me off. “He has no kindness at all, not anymore. And no desire to be kind, to make himself a better man. Not the way he once did. But you—Leonello, no matter how many sharp words you throw out around you, no matter how many enemies you’ve killed, you can still be the kindest of men. When you want to be.” Her eyes were bright with pleading, terrible with hope. “Please tell me you want to be.”
I closed my eyes and let the tears fall. I felt her cheek turn against my chest.
“You’re not ugly, Leonello,” she whispered. “And you’re not cruel. You are a lion, and you are mine.”
My arms closed around her. We rocked together, my cheek pressed against the top of her golden head, and I wept. I could not remember the last time I had cried, and I had never cried at all where another living soul could see me—but I wept now, my whole body heaving, and Giulia only held me tighter. I felt the dark core in me cracking in the cocoon of her scent, cracking to pieces and fleeing my soul like roaches fleeing the dawn.
By the time the tears passed we were coiled together on the embroidered bedcover, tangled up in her velvet skirts and her loops of silky hair. “See what I mean about the hair?” she whispered.
I gave a shaky laugh. “I don’t care if you leave it, lop it short, or shave it off.” She lay so close on the pillow that her lashes almost brushed my cheek, and she was so beautiful she filled me with despair. “What are we doing, Giulia? I can never marry you—the world would never accept it.”
“No.” Her voice was grave. “And I may need a husband. One who can protect my inheritance, and safeguard Laura’s future.”
“Dio.” I gave a bitter little laugh. “I can protect your body against harm, and Laura’s too—against all the odds, I’m a man to fear when it comes to open attacks. I can lay my life down protecting you and Laura in the flesh, but I can’t do one bloody thing about protecting your inheritance, can I?”
“Then I’ll find a husband who can.” She sat up, cupping my face on the pillow in both her hands, and her eyes were fierce. “No bitterness, Leonello, not now! I can find a husband who will give me his name’s protection, who will keep the wolves away from Laura’s dowry. But I’ll make sure he’s also a man who won’t trouble me, won’t be jealous of me, won’t make me bear his children. I can find a husband like that.”
“Where?” I gazed up at her, feeling my mouth twist. “Every man in Rome looks at you and wants you in his bed—”
“Not the man I have in mind. And I do have one in mind, Leonello. He will have me in public, and you will have me in private.”
“Your stunted secret,” I said, and my belly roiled. “Only in the shadows—”
“Maybe the world won’t be able to know it, Leonello, but I am yours. I promise you that.” She spoke quietly. “Will you accept me on those terms?”
She put up her hand and I matched my own to it, lacing my stubby fingers with hers. My Aurora, I thought, my bringer of light—and that bitterness that had been ready to gather was already leaving me. Orsino Orsini had been jealous, and so had Rodrigo Borgia. They had lost her.
Not me.
Maybe the world won’t be able to know it, Leonello, but I am yours.
I let the last of that dark taste in my mouth trickle away on a seeping breath. “I do not care if the world ever knows, Giulia.” I slid my other hand down the smooth silk of her throat, down the slope of her naked shoulder where her sleeve had slipped down. “As long as you are mine.”
I took my beautiful lady in my arms, and I felt as tall as a mountain.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Remember tomorrow, for it is the beginning of always.
—DANTE
Leonello
You look ferocious.” Cesare Borgia surveyed me briefly. “What ails you?”
I gave an even blacker scowl. “Nothing.” In truth, I frowned because otherwise I would be grinning like a loon. A grinning dwarf is such a comic sight. Even more comic is a dwarf who capers, dances, and carols love songs, and I felt like doing all three this morning, but I did none of them. I forced myself to scowl, planted my boots firmly, and locked my hands behind my back. “A private word, Your Eminence?”
“I am very busy this morning, as you well know.” Cesare frowned into a glass held up by one of his manservants, giving a twitch to his sword belt about his hips. The wedding festivities for the new Duke and Duchess of Bisceglie had run past dawn, and it was not yet anywhere near noon, but the Pope’s eldest son looked as bright-eyed as if he had slept the night through. His private chambers adjacent to the Holy Father’s were all a-bustle: pages running to fetch wine and sweetmeats, servants holding up doublets and pairs of hose for the young Cardinal’s inspection, squires hovering with basins and towels for shaving, and of course Michelotto blearily cleaning under his nails with a dagger. Cesare glanced at me as he dunked his hands in a basin of rosewater. “What is so important, little lion man?”
Giulia, I thought. Giulia is important. The only thing important on this earth. The warm fragrance of her, the golden ripple of her voice, her velvet mouth as she whispered my name in the darkness. I had been glad of the darkness last night, hardly wanting her to look on me no matter how much I ached for her—and I had felt the heat of her cheeks between my hands and realized she was blushing too. She was one of the most notorious names in Rome and I was one of the most feared, yet the pair of us came together shy as children. The dawn had brought her maids knocking on the chamber door, and me flying up from a sound sleep ready to scuttle under the bed. But Giulia had called through the door for the maids to go away for another hour, and then tossed a loop of her hair about me like a rope and tugged me back down to the pillow. Where we’d lain quietly, braiding our fingers together and unbraiding them again, as the light crept across the bed. By the time the sun reached my pillow I no longer wanted the dark, no longer wanted it anywhere
around me or within me, and that was important.
But to Cesare Borgia none of that mattered, or ever would, and I pitied him.
“What hour will the ceremony be held?” I asked instead.
“Noon.” My master’s scarlet cloak and red hat lay across the wall bench, ready to be put on for the last time. After noon today, Cesare Borgia would be cardinal of the Church no longer.
“How is it done?” I couldn’t help wondering. “If no cardinal has ever resigned his red hat before, then what is the proper procedure? Poor Burchard must have had fits.”
“He did. It was decided I would give a brief speech before the College of Cardinals, announcing my unfitness for a religious vocation, after which the Holy Father will release me from my vows.”
“And then?”
“I meet with the French King’s chamberlain immediately afterward.” Cesare tied the laces of his shirt at the cuff. “He is to make me Duc de Valentinois. He may offer me a French marriage as well, but an alliance with Naples will be more useful once I launch my campaign against Romagna. I’ll take a Neapolitan bride.”
“Sancha of Aragon, perhaps?” There had been rumors that Cesare’s cardinalate would simply be traded to pouting little Joffre, an even exchange of red hat for Neapolitan wife.
“Sancha of Aragon is a bastard-born slattern with the French pox,” Cesare said casually. “I will have a legitimate princess of Naples.”
You want Naples itself, I thought. Romagna first, then Naples—and after that, the world. But I would not be there to help him get it.
“With Your Eminence’s permission,” I said, “I will be leaving your service.”
His hands stilled a moment on his shirt ties. “Interesting.”
“Not very. I would merely rather go to Carbognano than Naples.”
Cesare tilted his head at his servants, his bustling squires, even Michelotto. “Leave us.”
They filed out mutely. Any other servants would have whispered, but Cesare Borgia required perfect silence and perfect obedience from his menials. And they were all far too terrified of their master not to give him exactly what he wanted.
“Leave my service,” he said as the doors closed and left us in the stifling richness, “and you leave by way of the river. Face down.”
“I have done good work for you, Your Eminence.” I saw that the laces of his other cuff still dangled, and crossed the room to do them up for him. He allowed me to make the knots at his wrist. “Not to mention the fact that you rather like me. I would request that you allow me to retire, rather than drown me.”
“Why should I do that? You’d be nothing but a loose thread, Leonello, and I dislike loose threads. They need to be tidily cut off.”
“Who knows how to keep his mouth shut better than a dwarf?” I brought him his cardinal’s robes over the fold of my arm as he gestured for them. “You have nothing to fear from me, I assure you.”
It was the wrong thing to say. His face darkened as though the sun had come down over it. “I fear nothing.”
“Certainly not me,” I agreed swiftly, and took a slow breath as I played the only card I had. “But you do owe me, Your Eminence.”
“Owe you?” He laughed. “For what?”
“For killing your brother for you.”
A small silence fell at that. We looked at each other for a while, and then he shrugged into his scarlet robes.
“I always wondered if you knew,” I said.
“Of course I knew!” He looked offended. “I could have made life difficult for you, little lion man, had I wanted you caught. I could have pointed out to the Holy Father that it was your ‘mishap’ with the guards that saw Juan off to the Piazza degli Ebrei without his usual squires. You never made such a mistake before, and you only did it that night to get my brother alone.”
“I did you a favor,” I said. “The Duke of Gandia was a mad dog. I saved you the trouble of putting him down yourself.”
“Yes, that business with the whores really was getting out of hand,” Cesare agreed. “That girl who was killed with my dagger—who but Juan would steal it to smear my name? The whole scene had his clumsy paw-marks all over it.”
“And you still allowed him to get away with it?”
“I did more than allow him. I covered for him.” Cesare smiled. “The girl who was killed while Juan was away in Spain? You must have wondered about her. Michelotto killed her, on my orders.”
I gave a slow swallow, easing down the lump in my throat. The last piece of the puzzle left unsolved. “Why?”
“You were asking too many questions. You had your eye on me, but if the drought of dead girls had gone on much longer, you’d have started thinking about Juan, off in Spain. I had Michelotto execute a girl, in roughly the same style, when both my brother and I could be accounted for.”
“Why?” I asked again. “A dwarf asking questions; what could that possibly mean to you?”
“I protect my family. Even the ones I hate.”
“So why didn’t you have me killed, when you knew I’d done away with your brother?”
Cesare declined to answer, tilting his head at me. “Tell me something, little lion man. Will you try to kill me for the girl I ordered executed, as you killed my brother for all the others?”
“No.” The word came from me before I could even consider it. “I’m done with vengeance.”
But I would have Masses said for the girl’s soul. Killed not for Juan Borgia’s dark lusts, but because a dwarf had asked questions—and for that, I would always grieve.
I forced the thought from my head and returned Cesare’s dark stare. “See?” I managed to say. “I am no threat at all, not when you have Juan’s death as a sword over my head any time you wish it. If a single rumor leaks from me about any of the things I saw in your service, you have only to loose the Holy Father on me for his son’s murder. Believe me, Eminence,” I added with utter sincerity, “that is more than enough to keep me silent all the rest of my days.”
“Perhaps.” Cesare smoothed his hair over the dent of his tonsure, which had already begun growing in. “But why do you wish to leave my service, little lion man? What is it you wish for?”
The question he had asked when we first met. Books, I had answered at the time, silently. To be tall. To matter.
Well, I had books, books I would soon be teaching a little girl who was almost my daughter to read. And in Giulia’s eyes, I was tall as a giant. Oh yes, I mattered. I mattered to them, the family that by the grace of God or Fortune had become mine, and I’d already vowed that I would spend the rest of my days proving myself worthy of them both. I’d leave my teeming city of Rome for good and make my home in sleepy little Carbognano; I’d roll up my sleeves and help Giulia organize the harvest; I’d keep my lady’s accounts for her, and comb her hair at night, and write out her letters when her eyes were tired. I’d read her poetry in bed and make her laugh by poking fun at it; I’d write her more poetry of my own and maybe not tear every other sonnet to bits. I’d draw up a plan of lessons for Laura, something to get the Latin declensions and the French verbs into a child’s head without deadening her love for books. I was already thinking I’d teach Laura in the mornings, and then in the afternoons when she went off to her dancing master or her music tutor, I’d retire to the cool quietness of the little study I was already planning for myself, a study with a stone bust of Cicero and a desk fitted to my height, and work on translating The Odyssey into Italian. I’d always fancied translation work, but it would take years; it was the sort of job a scholarly nobleman took on for the sheer pleasure of it, and I’d always been too busy surviving to afford such leisurely pleasures. But now I could afford such things; I could work on Homer while Laura shrieked and giggled on the shore of the lake outside my window, and Giulia rolled through the castello laughing and chattering with her maids. And when dusk fell, we would sit at cena around the same table and tell each other of our day, and my account of the hours I’d spent would never again include wo
men staked through the hand, or men dead under my knife, or any spilling of blood at all. That was what mattered.
Cesare Borgia would not care about any of that, either. And he was waiting for my answer.
“I have recently discovered happiness,” I said at last, flippantly. “Or perhaps God.”
He wrinkled his nose. “How commonplace.”
“Is it? I think it rather rare.” It had been enough to take me this morning from the woman I loved more than anything on this wide earth, away from her to come here. “Don’t go, Leonello,” Giulia had warned as I hopped on one foot, tugging up my boots. “Who knows what will happen if you face him? Let’s just climb into a carriage and leave.”
“Not without finishing things here first,” I’d said, and Giulia said, “Men. I ask you!” and stalked off muttering some very uncomplimentary things about the lot of us. Possibly to cover up how white her face was at the thought of me confronting Cesare Borgia.