Blood & Beauty (11 page)

They arrive without incident. It is still dark when they reach the house, with its small courtyard on the outside. A young woman appears at a second-storey window, as if fresh from her mirror, her tumbling red hair caught in the light of the torches, set further on fire by the wild green of her robe. It is her profession to be awake while others sleep and, while this is by no means her only talent, it is one that suits Cesare particularly well. She lifts her hand in a small wave, and he leaps from his saddle in a single graceful jump and strides inside, leaving the others to settle the mounts.

‘How was it, pup?’ As Pedro turns, Michelotto steps out of the darkness behind him. ‘See a lot of flesh and finery, did you?’

‘It… Ha!… I didn’t expect to find you here. You startled me.’

‘Did I? You should have checked when you rode up. I could have been waiting here with a dagger under my cloak. And you, my friend…’ He pulls him to him and punches him softly up under the rib. ‘What use would you have been to your master then?’

Pedro laughs. He’d like to ask how any villain would have managed to get this close in the first place, unless Fiammetta had invited them. But it is not worth the energy. The rebuke will fade faster if Michelotto is allowed to win. The change of command has put his nose out of joint enough as it is.

‘Look at you. Quite the courtier. Did you get your snout in any ladies’ troughs then?’

‘Dozens,’ he says evenly. He has never seen Michelotto with a woman, though stories about girls who like the feel of scars rather than smooth faces abound in the living quarters.

‘That would account for the smell of you.’ He lets him go and slaps his head casually. ‘You did an all-right job,’ he says gruffly, the compliment as always undermined by the insults that decorate it. ‘Go on. You can get out of here now.’

‘I was told I was to stay and see His Excellency home tomorrow.’

‘Yeah, well, it is already tomorrow and I am here now.’

They face each other for a second, as if it might be worth making an issue of. Pedro bows his head.

‘And watch yourself. The streets out there are dangerous.’

Across the city, Lucrezia sits by her bed, her discarded dress across the chest, its pearled arms jutting out like those of a stuffed doll. Her eyes are glazed with tiredness as her maid coaxes the tangles from her hair, then, closing the shutters against the dawning light, helps her into bed. She has already said her prayers, careful to include in them the well-being of her new husband, with whom she has spoken perhaps twenty or thirty words, none of them memorable, and whose face she can barely recall amid a sea of others.

‘Such a handsome fellow,’ her aunt’s voice had purred into her ear. Yet when she had looked from him to Juan, or Cesare or a dozen other men around her, he had seemed faintly drawn in comparison. In all her fourteen years she has never been in the company of so many men, nor seen her own bright sweetness reflected back in their eyes. She has been flattered and teased and complimented beyond compare. In return she has smiled and curtsied and laughed and clapped her hands and danced and danced and danced more. Her legs ache, her feet are sore and her head is dizzy. It has been the longest and most exciting day of her life. Yet back in her room, she feels little of it now.

‘I look forward to us becoming better acquainted as husband and wife.’ Those had been his last words; polite, inoffensive, more like the settling of an appointment for a business matter. He had taken her hands and kissed her quickly on both cheeks. She can still feel the dry flick of his lips against her flesh. If she was a little older or more experienced she might have been able to understand his nervousness as well as her own. Husband and wife. Did he really look forward to it? Did she? And is she the Lucrezia Borgia who had woken up this morning or the Lucrezia Sforza, Duchess of Pesaro, who is falling asleep tonight? The fact is they are still the same person. Lucrezia Sforza. Her mouth finds it hard to even say the two names together; they collide and trip over each other so. How strange that in the space of one day so much can have changed and yet everything still remain the same.

Inside the Vatican, Pope Alexander VI is already fast asleep. Having married his beloved daughter, he has dispatched his young mistress back to her bed alone tonight, so that he might end this of all days in communion and thanks with the other most favoured woman in his life. For her part, the Virgin Mother of God watches over him from a glowing portrait over the great bed. If she has an opinion on the day, she is keeping it to herself.

In his book-lined study on the other side of the Vatican palace, Johannes Burchard, Master of Ceremonies, his face set like rigor mortis, dips his ink in the well on his desk and notes down every detail.

‘This is important, Juan.’

‘I know, I know, Papà. I have heard it already. Cesare spent half of yesterday lecturing me – as if he knows anything about marriage and behaviour! He treats me as if I am a… a halfwit.’

It is early morning; the summer sun slicing through the open windows and painting columns of golden light across the Room of Mysteries. The walls are still half finished, but the floor is vibrant with new tiles, the emblems of the Borgia crest marked out in hot Spanish blues, so cleverly laid in geometric shapes that they seem to move and shift under one’s feet. Any visitor with his eye to the ground and the sound of Spanish dialect ringing in his ears might think he had entered some Moorish or Byzantine palace, rather than the home of the Pontiff of Rome.

‘I’m sure that’s not true. He is your brother and you are as dear to him as you are to me. But Spain is not Rome. How you live here is not how you can live there. They do not look lightly on foreigners who take liberties with their culture.’

‘But… we are Spanish. That’s what you always tell us.’

‘By blood, maybe. But you were born into Italian ways and unless you are vigilant those ways will let you down. The fact is, you go not just as a husband, not just as a Borgia, but as an ambassador for the papacy itself.’

‘Oh, they’ll know that fast enough.’ Juan grins. ‘By the time we reach Barcelona for the wedding, the whole country will be talking about us.’

‘Yes, but there is talk and there is talk. And what impresses here does not always impress there.’

‘What? You want me to live like a pauper?’

‘There is little chance of that!’ Alexander retorts, allowing his exasperation to show. ‘We have four ships already loaded to the waterline at Civitavecchia. And I gather you have bought up most of the jewels in Rome.’

He scowls. ‘This is Cesare’s sour tongue.’

‘No. The tongue is everyone’s.’

‘I’m the Duke of Gandia, Father,’ he protests. ‘You’ve told me often enough I have a whole palace to fill in Valencia. The gifts for my wife were your choice.’

‘And I am sure she will be delighted to receive every one of them. Just be careful how you deliver them. Your new family will not applaud ostentation in the way that Romans do.’

‘Purrh.’ The scowl collapses into a pout. He has never taken criticism well, this pretty young man. But then he has not been used to receiving much of it, especially from his father. ‘I thought Spain was interested in riches now. Everyone says her ships will be using gold as ballast soon.’

‘Yes, the country will be rich. But it will take time for that to sink into its soul. Spain has not embraced the rebirth of art and learning in the same way others have. They have no appetite for… well, what they see as frivolities. For them the world is about God and the united monarchy, and both have stricter standards than you are used to. You’ll find the court most pious in its religious observations. You should go to church daily, without fail. You must give up gambling and all such games of chance. And when it comes to your wife, there must be respect and discretion. I cannot say this clearly enough, Juan. There can be no running round the streets, bringing contamination back to the marriage bed.’

The young man groans, sinking into his chair and picking a piece of fluff off his sleeve. ‘I think I would rather stay at home and marry Jofré’s betrothed. She sounds more fun.’

And now the Pope laughs. Because, for all his faults, he adores this high-spirited young man, who is so handsome, with such an appetite for life, and for women. And they for him.

‘I heard that she had tutored her proxy as to how to behave at the betrothal,’ Juan grins, seizing the advantage to turn the talk away from lecturing.

The memory has them both laughing. With wedding fever in the air, the King of Naples has made his peace with the Pope and negotiations over Jofré’s marriage have reached the betrothal stage. Such ceremonies are invariably dry affairs, the stand-ins for the participants acting like lawyers rather than lovers. But with Jofré so young – at eleven, it is his first official appearance – this one had an air of mischief from the start. So that when the young noble from Naples, standing in for the bride, fluttering his eyelashes and sending simpering little looks from behind his kerchief, had raised his voice falsetto high for the all-important ‘I do’, the whole company had been reduced to gales of laughter. ‘If he’d been wearing a dress I would have made him an offer myself.’

‘And that, my son, is exactly the kind of talk that will not go down well in Spain,’ Alexander says with severity, though his heart is no longer in it. ‘I don’t say these things just to hear my own voice. Sancia Aragon is an illegitimate daughter of the house of Naples: good enough for a political alliance but not for a royal dynasty.
You
carry the future of the family on your back, Juan. It is worth a little chivalry when you get into bed. As for the country – if you just open your eyes and feel the sun on your skin, you will understand its beauty soon enough. Come. We have little time left. Let’s not spend it bickering.’

The Pope and his second son embrace. In the last few months, Juan has grown taller than his father. He is doing his best: he has given up his Turkish robes and his lip is clean-shaven, though his body still has the gangling awkwardness of youth about it. While it will break Alexander’s heart to see him go, even a besotted father can tell when the wine is too young in the barrel. Spain and the dictates of a fiercer court will help him mature and the boy he sends out will return a man.

When they say their final goodbyes two days later and Juan rides out past the Vatican palace and St Peter’s at the head of his troop, the crowd that gathers is smaller than he might like, but appreciative enough of another Borgia show. His boyish good looks attract as many catcalls from the women as the men, and he plays to the gallery, his pages throwing flowers and hand-kisses as they go. The Pope stands on the balcony watching, tears flowing unashamedly down his face. There is no crime in loving one’s children. Nor in having a favourite son. In all his seventeen years, Juan has never been away from home. Alexander is gripped by a sudden anxiety. The world holds so many dangers. The journey to Spain may not be a voyage to the edge of the world, but it is far enough, and who knows when – or if – he will come back?

As soon as the procession is out of sight, he returns to his chamber. Looking out over the gardens and the lines of orange trees which offer their own reminder of Spain for a man who has not seen his birthplace for half a lifetime, he writes a letter, dispatching it with a fast rider to intercept them at the port of Civitavecchia.

He has said it all before. Still, it takes away some of the ache of missing; the idea that, while his voice will die away, a letter might find its way close to his beloved son’s heart.

Meanwhile, Lucrezia’s marriage to Giovanni Sforza is not going well.

It is not for want of effort on her part – or indeed his. Almost every day since the ceremony the Duke of Pesaro has come dutifully from the house where he has taken temporary residence to visit his wife in the palace of Santa Maria in Portico next to the Vatican. Together they have shared meals, played games, even entertained sometimes. Their conversations have been full of topics: his home in Pesaro, his cousin the duke, her family, books, stories, all manner of fashions and fancies. She has smiled and laughed at things he says, most of which are not so funny, and he has complimented her on every new outfit she has worn, of which there are a great many.

Perhaps within a more traditional courtship, where marriage was yet to take place, all this might have been fruitful: a gradual move from shyness to glimpses of enjoyment, to the promise of something more… well, more physical. Alternatively, had there been enough magnetism between them to make obeying the rules as intoxicating as breaking them…

But this, alas, has not happened. Whatever the unconventional nature of her childhood, as an only daughter Lucrezia has grown up coddled and cosseted, her innocence a state of grace to be protected for as long as possible. While she has seen enough evidence of a woman’s sexual power, she is still at the stage where trying on clothes is more exciting than taking them off. Alone with a man, she has no idea how to encourage him further, even if she thought such a thing was her role. No. She assumes the very fact of her presence is enough. It is not an assumption based on arrogance. Far from it – she is nervous underneath, but about what exactly she does not know.

There are men, of course, who would find this level of innocence enticing, its own aphrodisiac. Juan, for instance, has a reputation for coaxing virgin flesh out of fortress clothing. Sadly, Giovanni is not such a man. As the illegitimate child of a father who largely ignored him and relatives who only notice his existence when they want something out of him, he is no more the natural rake than she is the natural coquette. Like many men of breeding he was introduced to such matters by professional women, who knew what they were doing. His marriage had brought an early pregnancy, where his wife had suffered such chronic sickness that it was hard for her to be safely affectionate for more than a few minutes at a time, and after her death, which had affected him more than he would like to admit, he had lost the zest for conquest and more often than not had found solace in his own company.

Faced with this sweet, exuberant girl, with her hint of double chin, her endless rich frocks and her savagely powerful family, he has found himself almost too… well…
tired
to rise to the challenge.

Of course there have been moments – before Rome grew too hot and his debts started to mount (no consummation, no dowry). The accidental brushing of flesh against flesh at table or over a book, a certain hold in a dance, where her softness encountered his strength and her breathless little laugh made him feel suddenly potent, one particular afternoon when over a game of chess she had leaned forward to place her queen, her tongue caught between her teeth in unconscious, charming thought, unaware of the rising moons of her breasts, and he had suddenly been moved to slip out a hand to cup her head and bring it forward to his own. There, his lips had encountered those same sharp little teeth as an automatic portcullis, but not without the possibility of the gates lifting if pushed a little harder.

Unfortunately, it was this same moment when Adriana had chosen to walk into the room. They had leapt apart as if they had been on fire. It was hardly Adriana’s fault. Her role was to offer them enough privacy to get to know each other while guaranteeing her niece’s vital purity until the Pope himself had agreed it might go further. That afternoon she had not even been spying on them. But the possibility that she might strikes both of them. And no better opportunity presents itself.

Eventually the house starts to feel like enemy territory to Giovanni. It is, after all, also the home of the most lusted-after woman in Rome, who just happens to belong to his wife’s father. However kind or courteous she herself is, Giulia’s presence is a reminder of the potency, in all manner of ways, of his new father-in-law. On days after Alexander visits her, or she has been called to him, her room remains closed until far into the afternoon, after which she emerges, flowing languidly down the stairs into the salon, radiating an aura of deep satisfaction, but also giving off a clear message of
noli me tangere
. Adriana is at her beck and call, as are all the servants, not to mention the wet-nurses, who, giggling and shouting, follow little Laura as she crawls around the house, conquering the world around her with all the cloying sweetness of an adored first child. Santa Maria in Portico is a palace of skirts and there are times when Giovanni feels almost smothered by the weight of rustling silk or the smell of breast milk.

The only respite to this is the occasional visit by Cesare, when, as if by magic, everyone’s behaviour changes: Adriana becomes unctuous, Giulia subdued, almost angry, and Lucrezia lights up like an oil lamp under his wit and attention. Giovanni – bar the repeated mention of the splendour of his wedding jewellery – is ignored.

In late August things reach a quiet crisis. In the suffocating heat Lucrezia is finding it tedious, spending so many hours at her toilet for what seems like so little impact, and Giovanni is wrestling with the outstanding debt of his wedding expenses, alongside the mounting costs of keeping a second home in Rome with no sign of respite. His audience with the Pope, where he asks for five thousand ducats to tide him over, does nothing to boost his confidence. Alexander, busy dispatching Juan with a fleet of ships loaded with riches, has long since forgotten what it is like to run out of money, and finds it faintly distressing to discuss such matters. It is left hanging in the air. Finally, when the inevitable summer fever starts to bite and Giovanni announces that he is returning home to care for his own people, no one does much to stop him.

Once outside the city walls he finds the air much easier to breathe.

Lucrezia spends a few days moping, only to discover that her life is more engaging with the women gathered back together again. She plays with her enchanting baby half-sister, and starts entertaining ambassadors and suitors to the Pope again, men whose blandishments feel as fresh as if they have been minted that very morning by a clever court poet. But though she laughs and feels more alive again, she is plagued by a sense of discomfort, as if she has been tested and found wanting. She spends time in chapel, asking for help from Our Lady and also Saints Bridget and Perpetua, who as married women would understand the tribulations of earthly love. The advice she receives back is the same as she has given herself: that now she is no longer a child she must be ready to embrace the duties of womanhood. And so perhaps it is her fault that her husband does not seem to find her attractive.