Blood & Beauty (30 page)

‘Brava,’ he says as behind them the door is flung open and Alexander, all puff and bulk, flings himself into the room with arms outstretched. ‘Let’s hope your eloquence is enough to stop the gossip.’

‘What – not more gossip, Cesare!’ Alexander’s booming voice is filled with love as Lucrezia rises from the table and throws herself into his arms. ‘Your brother spends his life measuring the levels of slime that surround us. But you, my shining daughter, have emerged as white as purity itself today, despite all the grimy slanders of your poxy ex-husband.’

‘Slanders? What slanders?’

‘Oh, we will not speak of them. You are a virgin from a convent and it would make you blush to hear even the words. No, there will be no talk of the past. Come, come, eat, eat. I am starving. You have said grace already, yes? Then I must add a few more words. For we must raise our eyes to heaven to thank God for His care of our good fortune.’

He sits and slaps his big hands together, his elegant ringed fingers entwined as his head bends and the words flow out. When he looks up there is a huge smile on his face.

‘So. You have not breathed a word to her?’ he says to Cesare.

‘No, no. We have spoken of other things.’

‘Excellent. Then it can be spoken of now. Though only between ourselves, in a room full of saints as our witnesses.’ And he waves his hand generously to the ceiling as if to include them all. ‘We have much to celebrate, Lucrezia. Your homecoming – oh how we are happy to see you. The end of your marriage. And a reward for all your patience and suffering.’

He leaves a pause, so they can all appreciate the suspense.

‘I am to have a new husband,’ she says.

‘Ah no, but someone has told you already! Who? Who? It wasn’t that young messenger of ours? No – how could he know?’

‘Your messenger was beyond reproach,’ she says firmly. ‘No one needed to tell me, Father. After night comes day. As it must. May I know the name of the man?’

‘Oh, he is less a man than a young god. Handsome, courteous, educated, gentle, brave, with the finest leg and a reputation as the best dancer.’

She finds herself thinking of Pedro and feels a short sharp pain in her chest. ‘But Father, I cannot marry my own brother,’ she says instead, and is taken aback by her own coquettishness.

‘Alas, no.’ Alexander laughs. What an exquisite pleasure it is to have his daughter home. ‘But you can marry your brother-in-law.’

‘My brother-in-law? You mean Sancia’s brother? Alfonso?’

‘Yes. Yes, the very same. Are you pleased?

‘I—’ She hesitates. She has a vivid memory of the way Sancia’s face lights up every time she talks of him. ‘Is it arranged then?’

‘It is decided, certainly. Cesare did much of the work in Naples and I have come this minute from a meeting with the ambassador. Now you are free the offer is firm, though we will pretend it is not for a while. There will be others making their bids and it is as well to let them think they have a chance. What do you think?’

‘I think that if Spain is lost to us, we must have our heart set on Naples.’

‘Ha. Listen to her, Cesare. Such cleverness in a beautiful woman is hard to find. She is a Borgia to the last drop of her blood.’

‘But… but I don’t see how. I mean, Jofré is married to Sancia, but that gives him no claim, and neither will my marriage to her brother, since both of them are illegitimate.’

‘Ho. You have been practising politics in that convent. Everyone says the best abbesses are as canny as foxes. The fact is that there will be other opportunities for marriage in this new royal family. But all that is in the future.’ And he glances conspiratorially at Cesare. ‘For now you have yet to say if you are pleased. You will most certainly like him, wouldn’t you agree, Cesare? You have better knowledge of him than me.’

‘One would hope so,’ he says quietly. ‘He is a most pretty man.’

‘Then I shall look forward to meeting him. Sancia I know will be pleased. She loves him dearly.’

‘As a good sister should. And so will we all,’ says the Pope, reaching over for another helping of stuffed pasta.

Seven months in a convent and the world has changed in all manner of ways. Returning home to the palace of Santa Maria in Portico, she finds its wealth disconcerting after the simplicity of an enclosed life. The parrots that decorate the frescoed walls of the receiving-room, their bright green plumage growing out of the pink and ochre patterns of branches, are too noisy now. Would she really prefer the silence of bare walls? Adriana is noisy too, but then she goes everywhere accompanied by the tap-tap-tap of a stick. ‘Inside my knee little bits of bone have come away. Ah – how they grind and throb. I should rest, but how is one to live sitting down with so much to do?’ Though, as always, she enjoys the complaining.

And Giulia? Well, Giulia, it seems, is too ill to take visitors at all.

‘What? Does she have the contagion? You said nothing in your letters?’

‘No. More a problem of digestion. We would have told you, but we did not expect you home so soon.’

‘Well, I am back now, aunt, and of course I will see her.’

‘Haaah…’ Adriana’s protest dissolves into a great sigh. ‘Very well then – we are family after all.’

Giulia, curled lazily on a day bed under a mound of velvet with a fire spitting sparks into the freezing air, looks rosy, one might almost say plump, with health.

‘Alas, I cannot embrace you, dear Lucrezia. As you see, I am confined to bed.’

‘What is it? What do the doctors say?’

Giulia shrugs, registering Adriana’s sharp warning glance. ‘Oh, let it be, Mother. Whom will she tell?’ She sighs, leaning back against her cushions. ‘There is no need of doctors for what ails me, Lucrezia.’

‘Oh!’ She stares at her, her face still serious. My, how life does go on. ‘So on what date do you think you will be well, my dear cousin?’

‘God willing, towards the end of March.’

And now their laughter rings round the room. Adriana starts to shush and hush, but Giulia waves her away. ‘How much more secret can we be? Counting my maidservant, there are five people in the world who know, and three of them are in this room now. I have been lying on this bed for what feels like half of eternity. I think I deserve to laugh sometimes.’

‘And the fifth person?’ Lucrezia says slyly.

‘Ah, well, let us say it is not my husband.’

‘But…’ Lucrezia shakes her head. ‘March?’ The mathematics is not hard. ‘I mean… everyone said that…’

‘That the Pope was in despair and dedicated to reform. You are right. And he was. In
such
despair. And his penance was real. No, I am afraid in this business I must bear the blame. I was the temptress,’ she sighs. ‘I think it must sound strange to hear it, yes? But you were not here, Lucrezia. His grief was terrible. It would have broken your heart to witness it.’

‘Yes indeed, terrible.’ Adriana supplies the chorus. ‘Terrible. There was nothing anyone could do. We feared for his sanity.’

‘Some did, yes. But I knew it was his heart and not his mind,’ Giulia says quietly. ‘At first he would not see me. Imagine that. I sent messengers every day: a token, a few words, my prayers. And then, finally, one afternoon, he came. And though he cried I also made him smile. I don’t think – ah… Ah, oh, feel!’ She grabs Lucrezia’s hand and pulls it under the cover, placing it over the well-concealed rise of her belly. ‘There, there! Do you feel him?’

And she does, the thrust of something hard, like a unripe peach or an apple, sliding up and under her fingers.

‘Oh, he is always so busy! He moves quite differently to Laura. So restless and forceful. Ha!’

‘What? You know it is a boy?’

‘Yes, I do. I can feel it about him. And it would be a fine thing, don’t you think? A boy to help replace the loss of his beloved Juan. That would be a gift such that God might forgive me a little for the act itself.’

‘Oh, I don’t think God would damn you, Giulia. You are a good woman.’

‘That’s not what the scandalmongers would say if they got hold of it. You have not been here, Lucrezia. Since Juan’s murder the city is all Borgia tittle-tattle. You of all people are most lucky to have been in the silence of the convent.’

‘What do you mean? Has something been said about me? What is it?’

‘I wouldn’t bother with it. Gossip is a pauper’s entertainment: the people who pay are those who are slandered.’

‘Not in God’s eyes,’ Adriana jumps in, busying herself with the covers and calling for the servant to add more wood, as the winter wind whistles in around the fabric of the windows. ‘In God’s eyes slander slanders those who produce it. And we will have none of it here.’

If no one will tell her, then she must find out herself. Her fear, of course, is that it is to do with Pedro. If Cesare suspects something (but what? and how?), then might others? She has risked her soul declaring a virginity she no longer possesses. How would it be then if she were damned as a whore for something she has not actually done? It is not long before the news finds her.

‘No! But why? Why would he say such a thing?’

‘I cannot tell you why, mistress.’ Pantisilea has barely had to walk the streets to hear it. ‘Only that he said it more than once, so now everyone is saying it.’

‘I have known her an infinity of times and the Pope has only taken her back for himself.’ How could he be so cruel? She thinks back to the last time she saw him, trembling in front of her, fearful of his own shadow. ‘You must go now, Giovanni.’ Who knows what might have happened if he had stayed? They had not been happy together, certainly, but she had cared for him as best she could. God knows, without her intercession he might well have found himself dead in a ditch somewhere with the imprint of Michelotto’s hands around his neck.

Her father wants her for himself. Is that what people believe of her now? When she welcomes ambassadors – as she will again – will it be in their minds when they kiss her hand or make small talk about the world? That same afternoon when she sees the agent of the Duke of Gravina, who is sniffing around for her hand in marriage, there are moments when she cannot help but blush at what he may be thinking. Yet there is nothing in his face but kindness, and what feels like a genuine appreciation of her courtesy and good humour. That night she spends longer at her mirror: if it was true, then surely it would show on a woman’s face. Of course such things happen. The world is full of stories. Everyone knows that in Rimini old Sigismundo Malatesta, whose name is still a byword for evil, kept both his daughter and his son for his own enjoyment. She thinks of her father’s bear-like embrace, the pungent smell of his body inside his clothes, the slap of his fond kisses. But that is all they are – fond kisses from a fond father. How dare anyone think otherwise? Then she thinks of Cesare’s fierce love and the probe of his tongue. What? Is there perhaps something in her family that loves differently from others? Is it a Spanish way?

‘Slander slanders those who produce it.’ She hears Adriana’s voice in her ear. Fine words. But she and Giulia are still concerned enough to be concealing a belly full of secrets. The fact is, it is not what you do or don’t do, but how convincingly you can be accused of it.

Over the next few weeks she keeps to the house. There is little opportunity for diversions anyway as the winter is abnormally foul. After days of torrential rain the banks of the Tiber break just before dawn, sending a giant wave of water through the town, taking the contents of cellars and stables with it, so that days later horses are found wandering miles from home and farmers wake up to full barrels of wine washed up on to their farmland. And downriver near the city gates a body is found with two heads and five legs. Or that is what they say around town, for no one who repeats the story has actually seen it, though everyone knows someone who knows someone who has. The wonder and horror of nature. She and Pedro had talked about such things in their stories. Pedro. It has been almost two months and still she has heard nothing. But when she sends for Pantisilea to find some news of his whereabouts, the young woman shakes her head.

‘I don’t think that is a wise thing to do, madam.’

‘What do you mean?’

She shrugs. ‘Just that – well…’

‘Well what? Is there something you haven’t told me? Because—’

‘It is not my fault, madam. I never said a word to anyone, I swear it on my mother’s grave.’

‘You may say that, but how can I know if I believe you unless you tell me?’ she says fiercely. ‘What have you heard?’

‘That he has been put in prison because of things they say he did with you.’

‘Things? What things?’

‘I don’t know.’ The girl gives a hopeless shrug. ‘People say that Lady Adriana has started looking for midwives. However hard you try, you can’t keep that kind of thing secret for long.’

Cesare and her father are in conference together in the papal throne room when she demands that Burchard announce her. The door is barely closed behind him before she speaks.

‘Whatever you have heard about Pedro Calderón and myself is slander and calumny. He was a good friend to me when I was in need and has done nothing that deserves prison. I want you to release him.’ She realises she is trembling and tries to still herself.

‘I told you she would be upset,’ the Pope says mildly.

Cesare, lounging close to his father in the leather-backed chair that he has made his own, says nothing at all.

‘Come, come, my dear. These are not things that should concern you.’

‘Not concern me? A man is in prison because of me, Father.’

‘My child, it is more complex than you know. This is a most delicate time for the family. With God and fortune on our side, this marriage of yours to Naples will be the stepping-stone to much greater things for your brother. However, King Federico is a man of strict beliefs and the character of his new daughter-in-law is important. I am sure your dealings with Pedro Calderón were innocent enough – but somehow or other petty gossip has trickled out and to prevent it going further your brother thought it would be circumspect to remove him from the scene.’

‘Really! If we’re talking gossip, I’m surprised anyone thought it was worth noting, given that most of Rome seems to think I am a young woman who is best loved by her father.’

Alexander scowls and swats the words away like a fat fly. ‘Oh, no one believes that. It is simply the poisonous dribblings of an idiot.’

‘And the rumour of a pregnancy in our palace?’ she says, quietly.

‘Ah, yes; it seems we are hostage to timing there. It had been our hope to keep the secret at least until sometime after the birth. It is unfortunate that such gossip has leaked out so soon after your return to Rome.’

‘In which case by arresting Pedro Calderón, you will make it seem that the slander against me is true.’

‘If we don’t take him off the streets, someone else will,’ Cesare says quietly, watching her all the time. ‘And then who knows what stories he might tell about what the two of you have been doing together?’

She turns, staring directly at him. Out of Church robes he is the consummate man about town: his velvet doublet sculpted to show off his chest, the purple hose over his legs as fine as another layer of skin. All he needs are more jewels sewn into the cloth and he will be flaunting it as richly as Juan. She thinks back to the abbess with her shift and sandals. ‘I have told you already, brother,’ she says. ‘I have done nothing wrong.’

‘You also told the judges that your husband had never touched you.’

‘No! No.’ And suddenly the injustice of it all is too great. ‘Don’t listen to him, Father. I was unhappy and alone and in distress. Pedro Calderón was a courtier towards me. Kinder and gentler and more honourable than any that I have come across in a court yet. Yes, I enjoyed his company. What is wrong with that?’

‘Everything.’ Cesare will not let it lie. ‘You were in a convent to keep you pure while your arsehole husband went round slandering you to anyone who would listen. Your defence was to be seen to be without stain.’

Without stain! How many women have you bedded in the last six months? she thinks. She almost wants to say the words out loud, but there is no point. Every woman who walks through the world knows there are two roads: a wide, triumphal route for the men, and a second mean little alley for women. Freedom is so much men’s due that even to draw attention to it is to make them angry.

‘Cesare, Cesare…’ Her father’s voice is gentle. ‘I know how much you care for your sister. But she has been through a great deal and I—’

‘I love her more than anything in the world, Father,’ he says brusquely. ‘As she well knows.’ It seems he is enough the adviser now that he can interrupt both his father and the Pope. ‘But that is not an excuse for her offering herself up to some Spanish stable boy.’

And now it is there in his voice for all to hear. Oh sweet Mother of God, he is jealous, Lucrezia thinks. My brother is jealous. This is what this is about. Oh, but I should have realised! She glances towards her father. But he seems oblivious of the confession that his eldest son has just let slip.

‘Ah, Cesare, listen to you,’ she says lightly over the pounding pulse in her ears. ‘You sound almost as rabid as the gossipmongers you condemn! Better you should believe your own sister than the rabble, for why would she, who loves you above all things, lie? That “stable boy” is a man that you yourself picked as a safe courier and I tell you, he respects and admires you more than life itself. Whatever you seem to think he has done.’

Now she turns away from him to Alexander himself. ‘To defeat this scandalous suggestion, surely it would be helpful for me to be seen by the world more. Perhaps a dinner with the Neapolitan ambassadors? So they can be reassured I am without child. Otherwise when the baby is born and Calderón is still in prison, everyone will be encouraged to think it is mine.’

‘Yes, yes, indeed, it is already in our minds. Don’t worry. As for the baby, there may be a flurry of gossip, but it will die down as soon as there is nothing to stoke the flames. I will own paternity when the moment is right. Let us only get through this marriage and the business with your brother.’