The Borgia Bride

by Jeanne Kalogridis

  I greeted the other guests. When the time arrived to make our way to the table, Vannozza took my arm and said firmly, ‘Here, Sancha. I have chosen the places for everyone.’

  To my dread, she sat me directly between Juan and Cesare.

  Fortunately, at the beginning of the dinner, we were all distracted by toasts, led by the matriarch, Vannozza. Juan was saluted first. ‘To the Captain-General,’ Donna Vannozza proclaimed, with gusto, ‘who shall bring us all peace and prosperity.’

  This brought cheers from Juan’s grooms; he bowed grandly, like a gracious sovereign.

  ‘To the wise and scholarly Cardinal of Valencia,’ Vannozza proclaimed next. There were some polite murmurs, and then came the final toast.

  ‘To the Prince and Princess of Squillace.’ This was greeted with silent smiles.

  Dinner, though interminable, did not go as badly as I had feared. Juan said not a word to me: he addressed himself to Cardinal Giovanni Borgia, who sat on his right. As for Cesare, he occasionally caught my gaze, his own dolorous, pleading. Once he tried to speak in my ear while the others were distracted, but I gently pushed him away, saying, ‘The time is not right, Cardinal. Let us not cause ourselves further pain by speaking of our situation.’

  He pressed back, and whispered, ‘Look at you, Sancha—your face is drawn, you have grown thin. Admit it: you are as miserable as I. But I see how you cling now to Jofre; do not tell me you would let something as ridiculous as guilt destroy our love.’

  I looked at him, stricken. I could not deny my sorrow—but its cause went far deeper than Cesare suspected. I turned from him.

  We said nothing more to each other. At last the sun set, and the tapers and torches were lit.

  It was at this time that a stranger joined our group, a tall, lean man, his face entirely covered by a ceramic mask painted brightly in the Venetian style. With holes for the eyes and a slit mouth, it displayed a solemn expression; its forehead was inscribed with the symbol of the scales. His hair and body were draped in a full hooded cloak, further hiding his appearance. Our visitor knew everyone in our group, and greeted them by name, but he disguised his voice by deepening it; intrigued, we tried to guess his identity. It was the time of Carnival, with many masquerade parties being thrown in the city; we all assumed our guest had come from such a function.

  Vannozza welcomed him to the table, and the servants brought a chair for him; I was delighted when it was placed between me and Juan, further separating us.

  Juan was quite taken by our surprise visitor, and spent a great deal of time questioning him in an effort to guess his identity. The stranger completely charmed him, for as the night wore on, the two put their heads together and I overheard them making plans for further adventure after the party. At one point, Juan left to relieve himself of an overabundance of wine, and Jofre and I chose to make our farewells and return home.

  But before I stood, I turned to the unknown man beside me and asked, sotto voce, ‘I am leaving, sir. I am curious: will you confide in me your name? I promise, I will tell not a soul.’

  He glanced over at me, and I saw an odd light flicker in the dark eyes behind the mask. ‘Call me Justice, Madonna,’ he replied in a soft voice. ‘For I am here to put things aright.’

  His answer evoked an odd chill in me. I regarded him in silence, then rose and hurried to my husband’s side. As we embraced and kissed Vannozza during our leave-taking, Juan returned to the table and decided it was time for him and his mysterious friend to go in search of amorous women.

  As the two left abruptly, without saying farewell to their hostess, I turned and glanced at Cesare.

  The cardinal was just lifting his goblet to his lips, but I could see his eyes. They were focused on Juan and the stranger, with the same detached intensity they had directed at the corpulent body of Antonio Orsini, swinging from the olive tree.

  None of us—His Holiness included—noticed Juan’s failure to return the following morning. It was his habit, when he woke in a strange woman’s bed, to wait until cover of evening to return to the Vatican.

  But evening turned to night. Jofre and I had been invited to sup with the Pope, and listened to Alexander’s worries. While we were at table, Juan’s captain appeared, and announced that the Captain-General had failed to attend to pressing business that day.

  Alexander wrung his hands. ‘Where can he be? Why would he want to cause his poor father such worry? If something has happened…’

  Jofre rose from his place and put a hand upon Alexander’s shoulder. ‘Nothing has happened, Father. You know how Juan is when he has found a new woman. He simply cannot deny himself another night of love…but I am sure he will return come morning.’

  ‘Yes, yes…’ Alexander murmured, eager to seize upon such comfort.

  I said nothing, but could not erase from my thoughts the image of the masked stranger called Justice.

  With His Holiness sufficiently calmed, we retired and went to our separate beds. Some hours later, I was summoned from sleep by an armed soldier and led to the Vatican. The Pope was not sitting on his throne waiting for the traditional greeting of a kiss on his slipper; he was pacing, glancing out the window at the torches in the piazza below. I did not know it then, but these were the Spanish guards, patrolling the streets in search of their missing commander. Jofre stood beside Alexander, trying to keep an arm on his restless father’s shoulder by way of comfort.

  Only later did it occur to me that Alexander had not called on Cesare to console him.

  ‘What is it, Holiness?’ I asked; the situation did not lend itself to formality. ‘What has happened?’

  Alexander turned his face toward me, his great, broad brow deeply furrowed. Unshed tears shone in his eyes. ‘Juan has disappeared. I fear the worst.’

  ‘Father,’ Jofre soothed, ‘you have made yourself sick with worry. Juan has simply forgotten himself with a woman—as I said, he will certainly be home by morning.’

  ‘No.’ Alexander shook his head. ‘I am the architect of this. I struck out foolishly at Ascanio Sforza’s guest—I should never have had him hanged. God is punishing me by taking my favourite son.’

  To his credit, Jofre did not even wince at his father’s last two words.

  A cold certainty settled over me. Juan was indeed dead, but not for the reason Alexander believed.

  I struggled to find compassion in myself: Alexander had summoned me here for comfort. Lucrezia was no longer here to provide the soft, feminine presence that soothed his soul; and Jofre was gentle, unlike Cesare. How could I do what I had been called to do?

  Following my husband’s lead, I set a hand softly on Alexander’s other shoulder. ‘Your Holiness, this is now in the hands of God. Worry is fruitless; we will know Juan’s fate when the time is right. Jofre is right: we must not be concerned until morning.’

  He turned toward me. ‘Ah, Sancha. I am glad I called for you; you are most wise.’ He clasped both my hands inside his great ones. Tears spilled from his eyes onto my skin.

  ‘Perhaps we should pray the rosary for Juan’s sake,’ Jofre suggested quite seriously. ‘Whether harm has come to him or not, it can only do his soul good.’

  Both the Pope and I regarded him with scepticism; I realized, studying Alexander, that he believed no more than I in the efficacy of prayer. Yet such was his desperation that he hugged his son. ‘You pray on my behalf, Jofre. My heart is too troubled, but it will do me good to hear you.’

  Jofre gave me a questioning glance. I gave him a look that made it clear I did not wish to join him. Even if I had been a good Christian, I could not have engaged in the hypocrisy of praying for the likes of Juan; a part of me still desired revenge against the man.

  Upon realizing that no one wished to join him, Jofre produced a rosary from his tunic—a fact that surprised me—and began to pray in all earnestness:

  O Vergin benedetta, sempre tu

  Ora per noi a Dio, che ci perdoni

  E diaci grazia a viver si quaggiu

/>   Che’l paradiso al nostro fin ci doni.

  ‘O blessed Virgin, always pray for us, that God might forgive us and give us grace to live so that we might be rewarded with heaven upon our death.’

  The situation was too grim for me to show any astonishment, but I was surprised to hear my husband repeat the Vergin Benedetta preferred by the common people, rather than the Latin version, Ave Maria, gratia plenia, which had been approved by his own father as the ‘correct’ version. Unlike the Pope, Jofre apparently believed in God; the prayer had obviously been taught him by a pious servant, and he had chosen it over the one he had been required to learn during his study of Latin.

  If Alexander noticed the difference, he did not show it; he walked back over to the windows and continued to pace.

  Over and over, Jofre repeated the prayer; it has been said that Saint Dominic recommended one hundred fifty repetitions a day, and certainly, Jofre must have come close to it before he was interrupted. The soothing, monotonous sound of his chanting brought me and Alexander a measure of calm, for at last His Holiness came back to his throne and sat quietly.

  Sadly, it was shattered by the appearance of one of the guards, his uniform smeared with blood. We turned to regard him with horror.

  ‘Your Holiness,’ he uttered breathlessly, and knelt to kiss the pontiff’s foot. Unable to speak, Alexander frantically gestured for the man to rise and give his report.

  ‘We have found the Duke of Gandia’s groom,’ the guard said, ‘in an alley near the Tiber. He has been pierced several times with a sword; he is dying, unable to give witness.’

  Alexander put his head in his hands and slid from the throne to his knees.

  ‘Leave us now,’ Jofre commanded. ‘Come back when you have news of the Duke.’

  The soldier bowed and left, while we two went to the weeping Alexander and tried to wrap our arms about him as he swayed in misery on the steps. I did what was expected of me, as a good daughter-in-law—yet I was surprised to discover that, at the same moment I despised him, I could not help feeling pity for the old man’s genuine suffering.

  ‘This is my doing, O God,’ he cried, in a voice so wrenching, so heartfelt I had no doubt it ascended straight to Heaven. ‘I have killed my son, my beloved son! Let me die now—let me die in his stead!’

  His wailing continued onwards for an hour, until another papal guard entered the room, accompanied by a peasant.

  ‘Your Holiness,’ the guard called out. ‘I have here a witness who says he has seen suspicious activity relating to the Duke’s disappearance.’

  Alexander seized control of himself with a will admirable to behold. He rose—refusing Jofre’s and my assistance—and with consummate dignity, went up to his throne and settled there.

  The witness—a middle-aged man with a dark matted beard and hair, dressed in a torn, dirty tunic whose vile smell marked his profession as a fisherman—removed his cap and, trembling, ascended the steps to kiss the proffered papal slipper. He then descended and, twisting his cap in his hands, jumped when the Pope commanded, ‘Tell me what you have seen and heard.’

  His story was simple. On the night Juan went missing, the fisherman had been in his boat on the Tiber, close to the shore. Half-hidden by fog, he watched as a man riding a white horse approached the river from an alleyway. This was not in itself cause for interest, but what caught the fisherman’s eye was the body thrown across the horse, carefully held in place by two servants. As the rider reached the river and manoeuvred the horse sideways, the two servants took the body and slid it into the river.

  ‘Is it under?’ the man on horseback asked.

  ‘Yes, my Lord,’ one of the servants replied.

  But the body failed to cooperate; the servant had scarcely answered before the corpse’s cloak ballooned with air, and pulled the body back up to the surface.

  ‘Do what must be done,’ the lord commanded. His servants pelted rocks at the body until it at last disappeared beneath the Tiber’s black surface.

  I kept my arms wrapped tightly around Jofre as he listened, horrified. As for His Holiness, he heard all of it with a hardened expression.

  When the tale was done, he demanded of the fisherman: ‘Why did you not report this at once?’

  The man’s voice trembled. ‘Your Holiness, I have seen more than a hundred dead men thrown into the Tiber. Never has anyone shown any concern over one of them.’

  As astonishing as this statement seemed, I did not doubt its veracity. At least two or three murders were committed each night in Rome, and the Tiber was the favourite repository for the victims.

  ‘Take him away,’ Alexander ordered heavily. The guard complied, escorting the fisherman off. When they were gone, the Pope again buried his face in his hands.

  Jofre traversed the steps up to the throne. ‘Papa,’ he said, encircling his father with an arm. ‘We have heard of a murder. We still do not know if it involved Juan.’

  None of us dared mention that Cesare’s favourite horse was a white stallion.

  ‘Perhaps not,’ Alexander muttered. He looked up at his youngest son with a flicker of hope. ‘Perhaps all our grieving is for naught.’ He gave a tremulous laugh. ‘If it is, we must think of a terrible punishment for Juan, for troubling us so!’

  He vacillated between hope and despair. So we remained with him another hour, until a third papal guard appeared.

  At the sight of this soldier’s expression, Alexander let go a howl. Jofre burst into tears; for the dread in the young soldier’s eyes revealed what he had come to announce. He waited until the sounds of grief subsided enough for him to be heard.

  ‘Your Holiness…The Duke of Gandia’s body has been found. They have taken it to the Castel Sant’Angelo, where it will be washed for burial.’

  Alexander would not be restrained, would not listen to reason: he insisted on going to see Juan’s body, even though it had not been prepared for viewing, because he would not believe his son dead otherwise.

  Jofre and I accompanied him. We flanked him as we entered the room where the women were gathering to wash the corpse; they bowed, astonished at the sight of His Holiness, and quickly left us alone.

  Juan’s body had been draped with a cloth; Jofre drew it back reverently.

  The stench assaulted us at once. The body had been in the river a night and a day, at the height of summer.

  Juan was grotesquely recognizable. The water had bloated his body to twice its size; his clothes were torn, his belly bulged out from beneath his tunic. His fingers were thick as sausages. It was hard to see him thus: swollen tongue protruding from between his teeth, eyes open, covered with a milky film, hair plastered to his face with mud. He had been stabbed repeatedly, drained of blood, his skin the colour of marble. Worst of all, his throat had been slit from ear to ear, and the gaping wound had filled with mud, leaves, and bits of wood.

  Alexander screamed and collapsed. The combined efforts of Jofre and myself could not restore him to his feet.

  Because of the heat, Juan was buried as soon as he was washed and redressed. The coffin was carried by members of the Duke’s household and his closest men, followed by a contingent of priests. Jofre and I watched from the papal apartments as the torch lit procession headed for the cathedral at Santa Maria del Popolo, where Juan was interred beside the crypt of his long-dead brother, Pedro Luis.

  The Pope did not attend—but he cried out so loudly that Jofre and I could not hear the other mourners. We stayed with him that night—unable to convince him to eat, drink, or sleep—and we never made any comment, then or later, about the conspicuous absence of Cesare.

  Autumn 1497

  XXII

  Juan’s death prompted an investigation directed by Alexander’s most prominent cardinals, including Cesare, who made a great show of verbally attacking those suspected. The first investigated was Ascanio Sforza, the cardinal whose party guest had insulted Juan and been hanged for the crime. Cesare vilified Sforza, but the cardinal was wise: he did not bri
stle at the accusations, but cooperated utterly, insisting he had nothing to hide—a fact soon confirmed. Cesare grudgingly apologized.

  Other enemies—Juan had earned many—were investigated, but time and persistence revealed no clues.

  Or perhaps they revealed too much; less than three weeks after the crime, Alexander halted the search for the murderer. I believe he knew the identity of the culprit in his heart, and had finally given up trying to convince himself otherwise.

  Wisely, Cesare had left Rome by that time on official business, presiding as cardinal legate at the coronation of my Uncle Federico as the new King of Naples. Under different circumstances, I would have seized the opportunity to visit Alfonso and Madonna Trusia; but Pope Alexander was not the only one immersed in mourning. Jofre was deeply saddened by Juan’s murder, despite any jealousy he felt over his father’s favouritism. I felt obliged to remain with him.

  Jofre did not consider only his own sorrow; he asked me to visit Lucrezia. ‘Please,’ he begged. ‘She is all alone at San Sisto, and I am too stricken to comfort her. She needs the sympathy of another woman.’

  I did not trust Lucrezia; her kindly disposition towards me had not stopped her affair with Cesare, though she knew I loved him. She knew, too, of his ambition to become Captain-General, and may have approved of Juan’s death—or had a hand in it.

  Nevertheless, I went to the convent out of respect for my husband’s wishes. Once again, I greeted young Pantsilea at the door to Lucrezia’s suite; once again, the maidservant’s beautiful olive-skinned features were taut with despair. ‘Taking the canterella away has done no good, Madonna,’ she whispered. ‘Do not look so surprised—I know you took it, for Lucrezia has been near madness searching for it, and cannot find it. So now she is starving herself. She has taken no food for a week, no water for two days.’