Madonna of the Seven Hills (34 page)

Her eyes were wide. “One of the family must go into the Church,” she went on. “It should have been little Goffredo. Why should it not be Goffredo?”

He knelt on the bed beside her; he took her by the shoulders and looked into her wild blue eyes.

“Yes,” she said. “Here is the answer. There should be a divorce. Little Goffredo should wear the Cardinal’s robes and Sanchia and Cesare should be man and wife.”

“By the saints!” cried Cesare, “it is a good plan.”

Then he seized her and kissed her wildly.

She laughed. “I trust my lord likes me no less because I might one day be his bride. They say the gentlemen of Rome find the mistresses they discover for themselves more to their liking than the wives who are found for them.”

“Have done,” he said fiercely.

“First,” she cried, “you must declare that you wish to be my husband.…”

She fell back laughing, and they struggled for a while.

“Cesare,” she murmured blissfully, “you have the strength of ten men.”

Lucrezia begged
audience of her father.

Alexander studied his daughter anxiously. She looked pale and unhappy.

“What is it, my dearest?” he asked.

She lowered her eyes. She hated lying to him, yet she could not bring herself to tell him the truth.

“I feel unwell, dearest Father,” she said. “There is plague in the air of Rome, and I think it affects me. I have suffered from a slight fever these last days and nights.”

His cool jeweled hands were on her forehead.

“My blessed one,” he murmured.

“I crave your pardon,” said Lucrezia, “because I am going to ask something which I know you will not be anxious to grant me. I feel I need a change of air, and I would go for a short while to Pesaro.”

There was silence.

Her husband would be there, thought the Pope; and he was becoming increasingly dissatisfied with his daughter’s marriage. But Lucrezia looked wan, and he longed to make her happy.

She let her eyes linger on the red velvet cushion on which she knelt.

She felt that she was a strangely bewildered girl, who did not understand herself. She hated Sanchia—Sanchia with her bright blue eyes, wild laughter and deep, deep knowledge.

Sanchia treated Lucrezia as a child, and Lucrezia knew that in worldly matters she would remain a child while her emotions were such as she did not understand. She only knew that she could not bear to see Sanchia and Cesare together; that she hated the complaisance of Goffredo, the giggling of those three women who served Sanchia.

Often she had thought of Pesaro during the last weeks, when she had gone to Sanchia’s apartments because she knew that Cesare would be there and that if she did not go she would miss seeing him that day.

Pesaro, that quiet little town with the hills which formed a semi-circle about it and the blue sea washing its shores, Pesaro, where she could live with her husband and behave as a normal wife. In Pesaro she had felt herself to be as other women, and that was how she wanted to be.

Her father’s fingers were caressing her hair; she heard his voice, very gentle and tender, as though he understood: “My dearest, if it is your wish that you should go to Pesaro, then to Pesaro shall you go.”

Alexander met his
son in the Papal apartments.

“I have news for you, Cesare,” he said.

Alexander was uneasy, but the news had to be broken soon, and Cesare was deep in a love affair with Sanchia which was proving to be an absorbing one. Alexander had no doubt of that. Therefore with Cesare satisfied, this was a good moment to tell him that which he had long wished to tell and which could not much longer be kept a secret from him.

Cesare answered: “Yes, Most Holy Father?”

“Giovanni is coming home.”

Alexander quickly slipped his arm through that of his son; he did not want to see the blood rush into Cesare’s cheeks; he did not want to see the angry red in his eyes.

“Yes, yes,” said Alexander, walking toward the window and gently pulling Cesare with him. “I am growing old and I shall be a happy man to have all my family about me once more.”

Cesare was silent.

No need yet, thought Alexander, to tell Cesare that Giovanni was being brought home to conduct a campaign against the Orsini who must be punished for going over to the French without a fight during the invasion. No need to say, When Giovanni comes I shall make him commander of the Papal forces. Cesare would have to know … but later.

“When he returns,” said Alexander lightly, “we must recall little Lucrezia. I long for the day when I have every member of my beloved family sitting at my table, that I may feast my eyes upon them.”

Still Cesare did not answer. His fingers twitched as he pulled at his Cardinal’s robes. He did not see the piazza beyond the window; he was unaware of Alexander, standing beside him.

All he could think of was that Giovanni, the envied, the hated one, was coming home.

ROMAN CARNIVAL

T
he two brothers met at the Porta Portuense
. Cesare, as tradition and his father insisted, set out at the head of that procession which was made up of the Cardinals and their splendid households, to greet the brother whom he hated more than anyone in the world.

They faced each other. Giovanni had changed a little since he had gone to Spain. He was more arrogant, more magnificent and the lines of cruelty about his mouth had deepened. Dissipation had marked his features, but he was very handsome still. His dress was more grand than anything Cesare had ever seen him wear before. His red velvet cape was decorated with pearls, and his waistcoat of the same material in a light shade of brown was ablaze with pearls and glistening jewels of all colors. Even his horse was made brilliant by golden ornaments and silver bells. Giovanni was a dazzling sight as he entered the city of Rome, and the citizens were astonished to behold him.

As they rode side by side to the Apostolic Palace, which was to be the
Duke’s home, Giovanni could not help taking sly glances at his brother, letting him know that he was fully aware of the enmity which existed between them and that, now he was a great Duke with a son and another child shortly expected, now that he came home at their father’s request to command their father’s forces, he realized that Cesare’s envy was not likely to have abated in the smallest degree.

The Pope could
not contain his joy at the sight of his best-loved son.

He embraced him and wept, while Cesare watched, standing apart, clenching his hands and grinding his teeth, saying to himself, Why should it be so? What has he that I lack?

Alexander looking toward Cesare guessed his feelings and, as he knew that Cesare must certainly feel still more angry when he understood in full the glory which was to be Giovanni’s, he stretched out his hand to Cesare and said tenderly: “My two sons! It is rarely nowadays that I know the pleasure of having you both with me at the same time.”

When Cesare ignored the hand, and strolled to the window, Alexander was uneasy. It was the first time Cesare had openly rebuffed him, and that it should have happened in the presence of a third party was doubly disturbing. He decided that the best thing he could do was to ignore the gesture.

Cesare said without turning his head: “There are crowds below. They wait, hoping to catch further glimpses of the splendid Duke of Gandia.”

Giovanni strode to the window; he turned to Cesare, smiling that insolent smile. “They shall not be disappointed,” he said, looking down at his bejeweled garments and back at Cesare. “A pity,” he went on, “that the comparatively somber garments of the Church are all you have to show them, brother.”

“Then you understand,” Cesare answered lightly, “that it is not the Duke whom they applaud, but the Duke’s jeweled doublet.”

Alexander had insinuated himself between them, putting an arm about each.

“You will be interested to meet Goffredo’s wife, my dear Giovanni,” he said.

Giovanni laughed. “I have heard of her. Her fame has traveled even to Spain. Some of my more prudish relatives speak her name in whispers.”

The Pope burst into laughter. “We are more tolerant in Rome, eh, Cesare?”

Giovanni looked at his brother. “I have heard,” he said, “that Sanchia of Aragon is a generous woman. So generous indeed that all she has to bestow cannot be given to one husband.”

“Our Cesare here, he is a fascinating fellow,” said Alexander placatingly.

“I doubt it not,” laughed Giovanni.

Determination was in his eyes. Cesare was looking at him challengingly, and whenever a challenge had been issued by one brother to the other it had always been taken up.

Giovanni Sforza rode
toward Pesaro.

How thankful he was to be home. How tired he was of the conflicts raging about him. In Naples he was treated as an alien, which he was; he was suspected of spying for the Milanese, which he had. The last year had brought nothing to enhance his opinion of himself. He was more afraid, and of more people, than he had ever been in his life.

Only behind the hills of Pesaro could he be at peace. He indulged in a pleasant daydream as he rode homeward. It was that he might ride to Rome, take his wife and bring her back with him to Pesaro—defying the Pope and her brother Cesare. He heard himself saying: “She is my wife. Try to take her from me if you dare!”

But they were dreams. As if it were possible to say such things to the Pope and Cesare Borgia! The tolerance which the Pope would display toward one who he would believe had lost his senses, the sneers of Cesare toward one whom he knew to be a coward parading as a brave man—they were more than Giovanni Sforza could endure.

So he could only dream.

He rode slowly along by the Foglia River, in no hurry now that Pesaro was in sight. When he reached home he would find it dreary; life would not
be the same as it had been during those months when he had lived there with Lucrezia.

Lucrezia! At first during those months before the marriage had been consummated, she had seemed but a shy bewildered child. But how different he had discovered her to be! He wanted to take her away, make her his completely and gradually purge her of all that she had inherited from her strange family.