Blood & Beauty (45 page)

‘You look well, Lucrezia,’ he says. It is not his intention to begin with a lie, but her self-possession unnerves him: the loving little sister who used to run into his arms, admiration shining out of her eyes, has gone. In her place sits a calm but distant woman who seems to be standing behind herself, watching how she behaves.

‘Thank you,’ she says evenly. ‘I am… quieter.’

‘Yes. It is exceedingly quiet here.’ He looks towards the window. ‘I am more used to being on the outside of fortresses with the sound of cannon fire in my ears.’

‘And if you were outside this fortress,’ she says, because it seems they must talk of something, ‘how long would it take for you to break down its walls?’

‘Three… four days. Maybe longer.’ Because of course he has thought about it. ‘Da Sangallo did a good job when he rebuilt them, but that was twenty years ago. Our new guns have better range and the north front is vulnerable.’

‘And for those inside? What is it like to be under siege?’

‘People say it is like being in a thunderstorm that rains death and never stops. That you cannot hear yourself speak. Or think. It drives men mad.’ He shrugs. ‘Almost as bad as your crying,’ he says lightly.

She does not smile.

‘Well,’ he shrugs again. ‘Perhaps bombardment would be worse.’

From somewhere in the garden comes the sound of fluttering laughter. No doubt one of her ladies is showing a captain the delights of a country moon; so carefree, the music of courtship. I will never feel that again, she thinks. Then catches herself. Self-pity will get her nowhere. The silence returns. By rights she should be asking about their father: his health, his happiness. There is a rumour that Giulia Farnese is returned to Rome, a widow herself after the roof fell in on her husband in their house in the country. How much crying has she done? she wonders.

‘I see I am not yet forgiven.’

She frowns, as if the question makes no sense. ‘Forgiveness is more God’s business than mine.’

‘I don’t care about God,’ he replies swiftly. ‘I only care about you.’

‘You must not say things like that, Cesare. It is not right.’

‘I can’t help it. I can’t help it. It’s how I feel. I might wish I didn’t, but it would be like asking the sun not to rise.’ He, who spends his life feeling one thing but showing another, is suddenly openly angry. ‘You think I don’t understand what I did to you? You think I don’t know? Ha! I saw you together. I know how happy he made you. But there was no other way. Do you hear me? No. Other. Way. We are too far down the road to turn back. Our future is in the north. Naples is doomed. We must find allies elsewhere or we will be crushed along with it. Your marriage could not have continued. And divorce was impossible. There was no other way.’ He stops, as if it is only now he realises how close to being out of control he is.

‘I don’t believe that,’ she says, quietly, because having looked back unblinking she has seen many things that she might have chosen not to see before. ‘What about Jofré? He is a Borgia too. His union with Sancia is not a happy one and there are no children after many years. Why didn’t Father dissolve that marriage and use Jofré as your tool of alliance?’

‘Because it would have taken too long and because Jofré is an impotent fool and no one of any importance would have him.’

How like Father you sound, she thinks. ‘What? And they would have me instead? Me – the illegitimate daughter of a pope, known throughout the land as a whore and now the widow of a man butchered by my own brother?’ Careful, Lucrezia, she thinks. Careful. Do not cry. If you cry now all will be lost.

‘You don’t need to worry about that. Believe me, sister, there is not a man in Italy now who wouldn’t want to be your husband.’

‘And what if I do not want to be anyone’s wife?’ she says coolly. ‘What if I would prefer to be married to God?’

He smiles. ‘We both know you were not made for a convent.’

‘How do you know that?’ To her consternation her voice is trembling. ‘How do you know anything about me, Cesare? You say you love me, but you know nothing about who I am or what I might want. For you, in the end, I am just a piece on a chessboard to be moved or taken when and where it suits your ambitions.’

‘That is not true. You are my sister and this is no game: it is our future.’

She shakes her head sadly.

‘If Father was to die, how long would you have lasted with Alfonso then?’ he presses on. ‘The French would have chewed and spat out Naples. And you two with it. And when you say I don’t know you, you are wrong. I know you very well. Maybe better than you know yourself. I know you have a sweet soul and find comfort in God, but I also know that you are too hungry for life for that to be enough for you. You are too clever to be thrown away on another… inconsequential union. I know how much you yearn to build a court of your own, poets and musicians around you. But I tell you, as long as Father keeps you with him in Rome that will never happen. Because in Rome you will indeed always be on the chessboard. Regardless of whom you marry, if your next husband is not powerful enough to take you away, you will always be a Borgia first and someone’s wife second.’

She sits stock-still, her gaze concentrated on her hands entwined in her lap. Everything he says is true. She has known it even when she couldn’t bear to think about it.

‘No, to get what you want – what you deserve – the next marriage must be another kind of union; a legitimate ruler with real power, from a family with roots deep enough to withstand the gales of history. That is the only way forward. And it will give you more life than burying yourself in a convent cell. So tell me now that I don’t know my beloved sister or have her best interests close to my heart.’

She closes her eyes. Alfonso is cold in the ground barely six weeks, yet if she is to have any say in her future, she must leave him behind and move on.

‘You have come to make me an offer,’ she says quietly. ‘Very well, brother. I am listening.’

He stares at her for a moment. Perhaps he is hoping for something more; some kind of conciliation, a hint of forgiveness. It does not come. It would seem that whatever sweetness there is in her, she is more a Borgia than she might choose to be.

‘By the end of the winter, I will have all the main cities of the Romagna in my power. And after I help France take Naples, King Louis will look favourably when we expand further. Perugia, Bologna, maybe even Florence. They are all weakened and vulnerable. Within two years and with a fair wind, we will have a Borgia state in the middle of Italy to rival almost anything around it.’

‘What about Venice?’ she says, because even in her grief she remembers how her first husband was always looking over his shoulder to the north. ‘Venice will surely try and stop you.’

‘Of course she will. Which is why we need an ally to stand between her territories and our own. A state with its own history and confidence to stand firm between us. We need Ferrara.’

‘Ferrara?’ Her voice shows her amazement. ‘You want to marry me into Ferrara!’

‘And why not? Duke Ercole d’Este is an old man and his heir, Alfonso, is a widower with no legitimate children. He needs a wife who can give sons to the Este family. A wife who will go on to become duchess of the state, to preside over a great court and a greater city.’

‘Ferrara.’ She says it again and laughs, though it is hard to tell whether from excitement or disbelief. ‘You’ll never do it. Este is one of the oldest houses in Italy. They could have anyone they wanted. They will never take me.’

‘Oh yes they will, Lucrezia. That I promise you.’

As winter closes in, the household at Nepi packs up its one hundred chests and heads back to Rome. The Pope has forgiven his daughter and is in love with her all over again. He is also busy negotiating offers for her hand. He has already welcomed a cousin of the French King, as well as an Orsini duke and a Spanish count. Cesare was right: she may be notorious, but with the power of the papacy and an armed brother behind her, Lucrezia Borgia is still an attractive prospect on the marriage market.

Alexander has no real interest in any of the suitors, but the more who are seen to ask and be refused, the more likely Duke Ercole d’Este will realise how desired the Pope’s daughter is. In such things Alexander plays his hand like the political veteran he is: charming to those who must be charmed and quietly ruthless when they are no longer needed. In November, when the Spanish and the French sign their ‘secret’ treaty divvying up the spoils of Naples in advance of its fall, he makes his wishes known to the French ambassador.

The response is perfect. ‘I am sure that King Louis will be only too pleased to give any assistance that he can.’

When the first overtures reach Duke Ercole in Ferrara he does not bother to hide his disdain. The d’Este family was ruling Ferrara when the Borgias were still scraping the earth in Valencia, and nothing the Spanish interlopers have done since then has made them worthy of anything more than contempt. It had been Ercole’s diplomats who brought back the rumour of a baby born to Lucrezia nine months after her stay in the convent, a baby whose father might even have been the Pope himself! No, this offered bride is an insult: damaged goods from a parvenu family. Ercole huffs and puffs diplomatic excuses, while sending secret letters to the King of France begging that he find another more suitable bride for his son to save the family from the embarrassment of direct refusal.

Louis himself, whose natural expression these days is two faced, is torn. He would actually quite enjoy shoving the knife into the Este family – it would pay them back for their support of Ludovico Sforza in Milan, and he knows that without the Pope’s blessing he will never have the crown of Naples. On the other hand, he is not bringing down the houses of Aragon and Sforza only to replace them with Borgias. He tells both sides what they want to hear and waits to see how the wind blows.

In Rome, Lucrezia’s homecoming has not been easy. In the wake of Cesare’s visit, Nepi’s silence no longer offered balm to the soul, and as the weather grew more inhospitable her return became inevitable. But once back in her palace, there was nothing to cushion her against the pain of memory and the list of lacklustre suitors makes her sick to the stomach. While Alexander accepts her spirited refusals with good grace (such sentiments perfectly echo his own), it is clear that even if she could imagine herself in a convent – and the cells at San Sisto had been chilly even when the weather was hot – he would never, ever countenance such a thing. Once again Cesare is right. Marriage is the only way out.

‘It is not your colour, black,’ the Pope says as the city moves into Carnival season. ‘Why don’t you add some gold or greens to your wardrobe now?’

‘I am still in mourning, Father.’

She has come home to a court full of new fabrics and fashions. Sancia has taken to wearing a silvered voile headdress that brings out the drama of her colouring. ‘I do not think Alfonso would mind,’ she says defensively, before Lucrezia asks. ‘He loved clothes and loved to see women well dressed. We can remember him without having to look like nuns.’

How would such a fashion suit her own hair? Lucrezia wonders. Is that such a terrible thing to be thinking? Nothing she can do will bring him back, and for a young woman of nineteen, six months is a long time to be buried in the past, however tender the pain.

‘Six months.’ Her father seems to read her thoughts. ‘It is long enough. You are a beautiful woman and when the Ferrarese ambassadors come to meet you, it would be good for you to look your best.’

‘The ambassadors? When will that be?’ she asks, for though she does not know it yet herself, the idea of Ferrara, with its poets and music and glittering court, is already germinating inside her.

‘When? Oh, when the duke has had a chance to think about it. I would not have it happen too soon, for then you would be gone from me and how could I bear that?’

She remembers Cesare’s words and her two worst fears now collide: that she should abandon her love for Alfonso, and that deep down her father would prefer an alliance that will keep her in Rome for ever.

‘I know how important this union is to the family, Father,’ she says firmly. ‘And I will do whatever I can to bring it to pass.’

‘Ah! What joy it is to have my Lucrezia back again. Ercole’s son will be the most fortunate man in Italy. You met him once, you know. Years ago when he came to Rome to plead for a cardinal’s hat for his brother.’

‘I… I do not remember him at all.’

‘Well, you were very young. But I am sure you will like him well enough now. Everyone says he is a – a sturdy fellow.’

She smiles gamely, but she does not allow herself to think of the man; only the distance between their two cities.

Alexander, overjoyed at her renewed obedience, wraps her in his arms, so that the old smell of family is once again deep in her nostrils.

Forgive me, Alfonso, she thinks, extracting herself gently from his grip, but there is no other way if I am to get out of here.

As winter progresses, diplomacy stalls. What is needed is someone to push King Louis’s hand. Cesare, whose soldiers he will need if he is to take Naples, would happily oblige, only right at this moment Cesare has problems of his own: a set of city walls that will not fall down.

It had all been going so well. Giovanni Sforza had fled long before Cesare had marched his army into Pesaro and no sooner had he taken up residence in the palace than the nearby city of Rimini offered itself up in his hands. Instead it had fallen to the little town of Faenza to take on this new Goliath, and its defiance teaches Cesare a valuable lesson in statecraft.

Barely a few miles down the road from Forlì, where the Virago has been unseated as much by her own people as an invading army, Faenza is ruled by a sixteen-year-old boy in conjunction with the city council, and a fairer government you could not want for. So fair in fact that its young lord offers to surrender himself to save his city from destruction. But his citizens will not hear of it. As the artillery rolls up the citizens tighten their belts and stuff bits of wax into their ears to keep out the thunder of the cannons.

The weather backs up their bravery. Weeks of torrential rains mean that the powder in the cannons doesn’t light, and then winter roars in, frost hardening the earth and making skating rinks of the mud paths in the camp. The soldiers fall if they move and freeze if they don’t. Cesare, sharing the vicissitudes of his men, and well aware that a successful army is one that is well taken care of, cuts his losses and calls off the siege, leaving a small force to block the supply route into the town.

Though it is a setback, he is determined not to be set back by it. In his palace in Cesena he uses the winter months to bring in administrators, assess taxes and regulate new courts. Cannons can break down walls, but he needs to build bridges now. He throws a lavish Christmas dinner for the town councillors, and opens his home so that anyone and everyone might see how their new duke lives. He hosts jousts and games of strength in the piazza, and the word goes out around the villages near Cesena that Duke Valentino will take on anyone who thinks he might run faster or be able to wrestle him to the ground. To get one’s hands on one’s own lord, to feel the muscles of the state through grappling with his very body, is indeed a wonder. In every contest, he wins and they lose (however hard they try not to), but it is done with equal grace on both sides and an excellent time is had by all.

‘Is it to become an annual event?’ Ramirez de Lorqua, a Spanish captain and now the city’s governor, enquires as they sit down together when it is all over.

‘Perhaps. Why not?’

‘I… I think they will begin to take liberties. You are known as a great soldier. They expect you to keep your distance.’

‘I think it is better that I am known for doing what is not expected,’ Cesare says carefully. Lorqua has a reputation for severity, not always connected with justice. Among the many things he is doing with this enforced rest is to observe those who are ruling in his absence. How his father would approve. There are times when this brash young man has a surprisingly old head on his shoulders.

When his guns begin firing on Faenza again in early spring, everyone – the French and the Ferrarese in particular – is watching intently.

‘My God, with troops like these I could take the whole of Italy,’ Cesare declares as he sees women standing side by side with men on the barricades, and the news comes that inside the city the rich have opened their cellars to feed the poor. But it is not enough to halt the inevitable. Final victory comes through betrayal when a local merchant escapes the city and shows them a vulnerable place in the defences. Before he moves his cannons into place, Cesare has the man strung up as a traitor for all the town to see.

With the walls breached, the young Manfredi and his even younger brothers surrender. Cesare sends food and supplies and a strict no-plunder order goes out to the troops. That night Manfredi joins him at his table and accepts his generous offer of a place in his army. If there is any other thought in the duke’s mind, he keeps it well hidden.

With the fall of Faenza Duke Valentino is lord of the whole of the Romagna, just as he said he would be that night in Nepi when he had convinced Lucrezia that her destiny lay in marriage to Ferrara. Now he needs to make good his promise that he can achieve it. The great military wheel starts to roll again. Within days the Borgia army is back on the road, but this time marching in the opposite direction. In thirty-six hours they are on the outskirts of Bologna. Thirty-six hours! Bologna, no less! A direct attack is bought off by the offer of another fortress in the Romagna, and the army swerves south – into the territory of Florence this time.

With the wolf in the sheep pen there is instant panic. Both cities are under the formal protection of France. In Rome, the Pope publicly disowns his son and orders him to return home, while privately delighting at the chaos he is causing: it is a strategy between them that is fast becoming an art. Cesare’s army gets to within six miles of the walls of Florence before the struggling government agrees to pay a hefty sum to have the duke as its ally rather than its enemy.

For King Louis, whose own attack on Naples is scheduled to begin in a few months’ time, the point is well made: if the Pope doesn’t get what he wants, his son will get it for him. He remembers that hunter alone in the royal forest, his hands thick with boar’s blood, and the marriage night with so many broken lances. Who would not want to have such a man on one’s side? His daring and his skill make the rest of Italy feel like a bunch of snivelling virgins.

Louis takes up his royal pen and uses it as a knife to cut the rope by which he has had the Duke of Ferrara dangling. If Ercole d’Este really cannot bear the thought of such a match then, when they start negotiations, he should try making his demands too outrageous to be accepted. The King even offers a few suggestions as to what he might ask for.

But as for French brides – alas, there are none available at present.

Ercole d’Este receives the news having come from visiting one of his favourite women – saintly Sister Lucia (he collects visionaries with as much passion as he collects composers and architects, though he tries to get them all cheaply).

‘It seems you will have to marry this Borgia whore after all,’ he says to his son who has had to be extracted from a nearby basement where he runs his own weapons forge. ‘It is the victory of the practical over the honourable.’

‘I don’t really mind that much,’ Alfonso replies, wiping a black hand over an even blacker face. ‘As long as she isn’t ugly and doesn’t need coddling.’

The duke shakes his head. He is the ruler of one of the most sophisticated courts in Europe – and his first-born son only wants to play with guns. Well, he will have the money to build whatever defences he likes when they have bled the Borgias dry.

Ercole starts to compose his wish list.