Light on Lucrezia: A Novel of the Borgias Read online

  “How are you faring in your battles?” she asked.

  “So well,” he replied, “that soon I shall be in possession of my kingdom.”

  “Did I not always say you would achieve your desires?”

  “You did, sister.”

  “I remember so well how you railed against your Cardinal’s robes.”

  “You see,” said Cesare earnestly, “all such irritations pass. Like grief they loom large when they are close; they are infinitesimal in the distance. Look at the Sabine mountains … nothing but a chain of blue mist from this window. But stand beneath those towering peaks; there is a different story.”

  She smiled in agreement, and he put his hand under her chin and turned up her face to his.

  “Thus it will be with you, sister.”

  She shook her head and would not meet his eyes, and for a moment anger shone in them. “Are you still moping here, Lucrezia?” he demanded. “Oh, it is wrong of you.”

  “I loved my husband,” she answered. “You, who have never loved a wife as I loved him, cannot understand why his death should affect me as it does.”

  He laughed suddenly. “Before I leave here,” he said, “you shall be gay once more.”

  “I heard you say you were staying but one night.”

  “Nevertheless, before I go you shall cease to think of your husband. Stop thinking of him, Lucrezia. Stop now.”

  She turned away. “Cesare,” she said, “you cannot understand.”

  He changed the subject. “We will order food to be brought to us here … here in your room of shadows. Here we shall eat alone, you and I. What say you to that, Lucrezia?”

  “I would rather that than sit down with your men.”

  He began to pace up and down the apartment. “I had pictured it differently … yourself eagerly greeting me … singing for me and my men … giving us a gay and happy evening, a memory which we could carry with us when we go into battle.”

  “I am in no mood for merrymaking, Cesare,” she said.

  Then he came to her again and took her by the shoulders. “Yet before I leave, I swear, your mood shall be changed.”

  She allowed her eyes to rest upon his face. She thought: Once I should have been frightened of Cesare in this mood; now I no longer care. Alfonso, my love, is dead; and when he died, I ceased to care what happened to me.

  The small table was laid in the room which overlooked the Sabine Mountains; there was a silver dish for Cesare, and an earthenware one for Lucrezia.

  Cesare, frowning, called to a servant: “What means this? What is this from which you ask your mistress to eat?”

  The servant was overcome by that fear which Cesare never failed to inspire. “If it please your lordship, it is the wish of Madonna Lucrezia to eat from earthenware as a sign of widowhood.”

  “It is ugly,” said Cesare.

  Lucrezia addressed the servant. “Leave the dish. It is my desire to eat from earthenware while I mourn my husband.”

  “You shall not eat from earthenware while you sit at table with me, sister.”

  “I am a widow, Cesare. I observe the custom of mourning.”

  “It is well to mourn when there is someone to mourn for,” said Cesare. He called to the servant. “Bring a silver dish to replace this hideous thing.”

  “Nay …” began Lucrezia.

  But Cesare had picked up the earthenware dish and thrown it at the servant. “A silver dish,” commanded Cesare with a laugh.

  And a silver dish was brought.

  What did it matter? thought Lucrezia. Nothing could matter again. Could eating from an earthenware dish bring Alfonso back? Could it do him any harm if she ate from a silver dish?

  They sat down and Cesare ate, but Lucrezia could swallow little.

  “It is small wonder that you are looking frailer than ever,” said Cesare. “I shall not have a good report to take to our father.”

  “I beg of you do not disturb him with tales of my ill health.”

  “And I beg you to regain your health and spirits. You will never do that while moping in this place. How can you be content here?”

  “I can be as contented here as anywhere.”

  “Lucrezia, discard your mourning. The boy is dead. There are others in the world. I demand that you eat. Come … the food is good. You have an excellent cook here. I command you to eat. I shall insist, Lucrezia; so you must learn obedience.”

  “We are not in the nursery now,” she said.

  And she thought: No! Those days are far away. And it was as though the ghost of Giovanni, her murdered brother, came and stood at the table with the ghost of Alfonso.

  If she were disturbed by these ghosts, Cesare was not. He had murdered her husband and their brother, yet he showed no signs of any qualms of conscience. It was necessary to Cesare to remove people, and he removed them. When they had gone he ceased to think of them.

  “Then we will pretend we are,” he said.

  She answered boldly: “Then Giovanni would be here.”

  “There were happy days,” he retorted, “when you and I were alone. Let us imagine one of those days.”

  “I cannot,” she cried. “I cannot. When I think of nursery days I remember Giovanni, even as I shall remember Alfonso, my husband, every minute of my life.”

  “You are talking like a hysterical woman, Lucrezia. It is not what I expect of you. Come, be my sweet sister. Lucrezia, I am here. I, Cesare. I have come here with the express purpose of making you forget your grief. Now … we will begin by eating and drinking together. Come, Lucrezia, be my sweet sister.”

  He was gentle suddenly, appealing to her love, and for a while she forgot that his hands were stained with the blood of her husband; and then she marveled at herself for forgetting.

  She began to eat and, with his eyes upon her, she swallowed the contents of her silver dish.

  He filled a goblet with wine and toasted her.

  “To you, my love! To your future! May it be great and glorious.”

  “And to you, Brother.”

  “To our future then, which is one and the same. How could it be otherwise?”

  He came to stand beside her at the table; he put his arm about her and drew her to him.

  She thought: He is the greatest man in Italy. One day all will acclaim him; and he is my brother, who loves me … no matter what he does to others. He loves me … and no matter what he does to me, how can I stop loving him?

  She was conscious of the old spell, and he knew it even as she did; he was determined that tonight he would carry her across the bridge which spanned the chasm between past and present; when she was safely over, he would make her look back and see that the past was vague and as shadowy as the Sabine Mountains seen from the castle of Nepi.

  They sat talking after the meal was over.

  He wanted her to return to Rome. This was no place for her. She was young—only twenty—and was she going to spend the rest of her days pining for what could never be?

  “I wish to stay here for a while,” she told him. “Here I have solitude.”

  “Solitude! You were meant for company. Go back to Rome. Our father misses you.”

  “He does not like to see me with my grief upon me.”

  “Then he shall see you without it. He yearns to see you thus.”

  “He cannot. So I will remain here where I may nurse my sorrow as I wish to.”

  “You shall no longer nurse a sorrow for a worthless man,” cried Cesare.

  She rose, saying: “I will not listen to such words.”

  He barred her way. “You will,” he said. He took a strand of her hair in his hands. “It is less golden that it was, Lucrezia.”

  “I care not,” she said.

  “And this gown,” he went on, “is like a nun’s habit. Where are your pretty dresses?”

  “They do not interest me.”

  “Listen, my child, you will have a new husband soon.”

  “Do you think to tempt me with husbands as you
would tempt a child with sweetmeats!”

  “Yes, Lucrezia. And speaking of children, where is this child of yours?”

  “He is sleeping.”

  “I have not seen him.”

  There was fear in her eyes. Cesare noticed it and exulted. He knew now that if he could not bend her through anything else he would through the child.

  “You have no interest in the child,” she said quickly.

  Cesare’s eyes were sly. “He is the son of his father.”

  “His grandfather … adores him.”

  “His grandfather’s affection can be blown by the wind.”

  “Cesare,” cried Lucrezia, “do not attempt to harm my child!”

  He put his hand on her shoulder and grimaced as it touched the black stuff of her gown. “So ugly!” he said. “So unbecoming to my beautiful sister. Have no fear. No harm shall come to your son.”

  “If any tried to kill him, as they killed his father, they would have need to kill me first.”

  “Nay, do not excite yourself. Alfonso was a traitor. He sought to take my life, so I took his. But I do not concern myself with babies. Lucrezia, be serious. Be sensible. You will have to come back to Rome; and when you return you must be our merry Lucrezia. Let joyous Lucrezia come home and leave the weeping widow behind her.”

  “I cannot do it.”

  “You can.” Then insistently: “You shall!”

  “None can force me to it.”

  His face was close to her own. “I can, Lucrezia.”

  She was breathless; and he was laughing again, quietly, triumphantly. The fear of years took on a definite shape; she clung to fear, loving fear even as she loved him. She did not understand herself; nor did she understand him. She knew only that they were Borgias and that the bonds which bound them were indestructible while life lasted.

  She was almost fainting with fear and with anticipated pleasure. In her mind two figures were becoming confused—Cesare, Alfonso; Alfonso, Cesare.

  She could lose one in the other and, when she did that, she would lose the greater part of her misery.

  She was staring at Cesare with wide-open eyes; and Cesare was smiling, tenderly, passionately, reassuringly, as though he were taking her hand and leading her toward the inevitable.

  He had gone and she was alone.

  Everything had a different aspect now. The landscape was less harsh; she gazed often toward the misty Sabine Mountains.

  Cesare had ridden away to fresh conquests. He would go from triumph to triumph, and his triumphs would be hers.

  There were times when she wept bitterly; and times when she was triumphant.

  How could she have thought that she could stand alone? She was one of them; she was a Borgia, and that meant that she loved the members of her family with a passion which she could give to no other.

  Yet she was afraid.

  She passed through many emotions. She washed her hair and ordered that her beautiful dresses might be brought to her: but when she examined her face in the mirror she was shocked by what she saw. She thought she saw secrets in her eyes and they frightened her.

  She wanted to be in Rome with her father. Cesare would return to Rome some day.

  She thought of their family relationship as something infinitely tender, yet infinitely sinister. She longed to be bound so tightly by those family ties that she could not escape; and then she was conscious of a longing to escape.

  There were times when she thought: I shall never be at peace again unless I escape. I want to be as other people. If only Alfonso had lived; if only we had gone away together, right away from Rome; if only we had lived happily, normally!

  She would tremble when she contemplated the future. Cesare had come to her at Nepi; he had disturbed the mournful solitude, the sorrowing peace.

  With a shock she would remember that he was not only her brother; he was the murderer of her husband.

  Then she knew she must escape the web into which she was being more closely drawn. She felt like a fly who has been caught on those sticky threads, caught and bound, but not so securely that escape was impossible.

  Less than a month after Cesare’s visit to Nepi she called her attendants to her and said: “I have my father’s permission to return to Rome. Let us make our preparations and leave as soon as we may. I am weary of Nepi. I feel I never wish to see this place again.”

  When Lucrezia arrived in Rome, the Pope treated her as though her stay in Nepi had been merely a pleasant little holiday. He did not mention Alfonso, and was clearly delighted to have young Roderigo back.

  Cesare’s army was achieving its objectives, and the Pope was in a benign mood.

  He walked with Lucrezia in the Vatican gardens and discussed the topic which was nearest his heart at the moment.

  “My dearest,” he said, “you cannot remain unmarried forever.”

  “I have been unmarried a very short time,” said Lucrezia.

  “Long enough … long enough. There is something which irks me from time to time, daughter. I cannot live forever, and I would wish to see you happily settled in a good marriage before I left you.”

  “A good marriage one week may be an unsuitable one the next, and marriage would seem, from my experience, a very unstable state.”

  “Ah, you are young and beautiful and you will have many suitors. Cesare tells me that Louis de Ligny would most willingly become your husband.”

  “Father, I would not willingly become his wife … nor any man’s.”

  “But, my child, he is a cousin of the King of France and a great favorite of the King’s. His future is rosy.”

  “Dearest Father, would you have me leave you to live in France?”

  The Pope paused, then said: “I confess that has occurred to me as the great disadvantage of this match. Also the man wants an enormous dowry and makes fantastic demands.”

  “Then we’ll have none of him, Father. I’ll stay in peace with you awhile.”

  He laughed with her and declared he would snap his fingers at Louis’ friend. He would never consent to giving his daughter to any who would take her miles away from her father.

  But it was not long before he spoke to her of another offer. This time it was Francesco Orsini, the Duke of Gravina, who was very eager for the match and had most ostentatiously given up his favorite mistress that all the world should know how seriously he contemplated marriage.

  “It is a pity he has given her up,” said Lucrezia. “It was so unnecessary.”

  “He would be a good match, daughter. Like others he is greedy, of course, demanding offices in the Church, with good benefices to go with them, for his children by his previous marriage.”

  “Let him ask, Father. What matters it? There is no need for you to listen to his demands, for I shall not. Why do these men seek my hand in marriage? Have they not yet learned that my husbands are unlucky men?”

  “You are so beautiful, so infinitely desirable,” said Alexander.

  “No,” she answered; “it is simpler than that. I am the daughter of the Pope.”

  “Soon,” went on Alexander, “Cesare will be home again. It makes me happy to have my children about me.”

  Cesare will be home! Those words rang in her ears. She thought of Cesare’s return, riding at the head of his men, the gay condottiere who would conquer all that lay before him. She felt that she was firmly caught in the web; and she could see no escape from it.

  But perhaps there was one way of escape. If she married a ruler of some distant state she would be forced to leave her home and live with her husband.

  It would be a bitter wrench, but she would be free, free from the Borgia might, from the Borgia stain; she would be free to be herself, to forget, to live as, deep down in her heart, she knew she had always wanted to live.

  Thus it was that, when the name of Alfonso d’Este was mentioned as a possible suitor, she listened with some eagerness.

  Alfonso d’Este was the eldest son of the Duke of Ferrara, and if she married
him she would leave Rome and live with her husband in Ferrara, which as his father’s heir he would one day govern.

  That way lay escape.

  IV

  THE THIRD MARRIAGE

  When Ercole, Duke of Ferrara, heard of the Pope’s desire for a marriage between Lucrezia and his son Alfonso, he was incensed.

  The old Duke was an aristocrat, and he considered this plan to foist a bastard on to the noble house of Este was an impertinence.

  Now that he was sixty he knew that he had to contemplate that day when his son Alfonso would be head of the house, and he did so with a certain amount of misgiving. Ercole was a man of taste; he was deeply religious, and had at one time been a friend of Savonarola; he extended hospitality to the religious and the misconduct of the Borgias had filled him with horror.

  He wished Ferrara to be apart from the rest of Italy and he had made it a center of culture. He encouraged literature and art, and his passions were music and the theater. He had offered hospitality to the great architect, Biagio Rossetti, and the result was apparent in the streets of Ferrara.

  There was only one favorable aspect of the proposed marriage as far as Ercole was concerned; The Borgias were rich and, if he should ever demean himself and his family by agreeing to the match, he would be able to demand an enormous dowry. Ercole was a man who enjoyed hoarding money and hated to spend it.

  Not, he brooded, that his son Alfonso was one who would be perturbed by the evil reputation of the family which was planning to marry into his. Alfonso was a coarse creature, and it was beyond Ercole’s comprehension how he could have begotten such a son. Alfonso seemed to have no desire but to spend his days in his foundry experimenting with cannon, and his nights with women—the more humble the better. Alfonso had never cared for ladies of high degree; he preferred a buxom serving girl or tavern wench; his adventurers in low company were notorious.

  Apart from a love of music which he had inherited from his father he did not seem to belong to the Este family. His brother Ippolito would have made a better heir; but Ippolito, as a second son, wore the Cardinal’s robes, and in this he had something in common with Cesare Borgia—he hated them.