Madonna of the Seven Hills (45 page)

“Yes, yes,” said the Pope impatiently. “But do not waste time. Tell me what you know of my son.”

“I know this, Holiness, that on the night when the Duke of Gandia disappeared I saw a man riding a white horse, and on this horse he carried
what could well be the body of a man. There were two other men, holding the body as the horse came down to the river’s edge. When the horse came to the water the rider turned so that the horse’s tail was to the river; then the two men pulled off that which could well be a body, Holiness, and it fell into the river.”

“Can we trust this man?” demanded the Pope. He was fearful. He did not want to believe him. While the man had spoken he had visualized that limp body on the horse, and it was the body of his beloved son.

“We have no reason to doubt him, Most Holy Lord,” was the answer.

“Holiness,” said Giorgio. “I can tell you more. The body slipped into the water, and it was held up by what seemed to be his cloak, so that it floated and began to drift down stream. Then the man on the horse said something to the others and they began throwing stones at the floating cloak. They pitched the stones on to it again and again until it sank with the weight and disappeared. Holiness, they stood watching for some time and then they rode away.”

“You saw this happen,” said Cesare, “and you told no one! Why not?”

“Why, bless Your Eminence, I live by the river, and living there see countless bodies thrown into the water. There seemed nothing especial to report about this one, save that it happened on the night about which the gentlemen were asking.”

The Pope could bear no more. A terrible melancholy had come to him.

He muttered: “There is nothing to do but drag the river.”

Thus they found
Giovanni. There were wounds in his throat, on his face and his body; the mud of the river clung to his fine clothes on which the jewels still remained; his purse was full of ducats, and his rings, brooches and necklace, worth a fortune, had not been taken.

When Alexander was told he went out and stopped those who carried the corpse as it was brought into the castle of St. Angelo. He threw himself on to the body, tore his hair and beat his chest, while he cried out in his grief.

“To those who have dealt thus with him, so they shall be dealt with!”
he cried. “Nothing shall be too bitter for them to endure. I’ll not rest, beloved son, most beloved of all, until I have brought your murderer to justice.”

Then he turned to those who carried the ghastly corpse and said to them: “Take my beloved, wash him, perfume him, put on his ducal robes; and thus he shall be buried. Oh Giovanni, oh my beloved son, who has done this cruel deed to you … and to me?”

He was washed
and dressed in his ducal robes, and at night by the light of one hundred and twenty flares he was carried from Castle St. Angelo to Santa Maria del Popolo.

The Pope did not accompany him, and as he sat at the window of Castle St. Angelo, looking down on the winding cortège lit by those flares, he could not contain his grief.

“Oh Giovanni, Giovanni,” he moaned, “best loved of all, my dearest, my beloved, why have they done this to thee and me?”

Pedro Caldes came
to the convent to see Lucrezia. He was very agitated when she received him, falling on his knees and kissing her hands.

“There is news, terrible news. You will hear of it before long, but I wished to break it gently. I know how you cared for him. Your brother …”

“Cesare!” she cried.

“No. Your brother Giovanni.”

“He is ill?”

“He disappeared, and now they have discovered his body. It was in the Tiber.”

“Giovanni … dead!”

She swayed uncertainly, and Pedro put his arms about her.

“Madonna,” he murmured, “dearest Madonna.”

She sat down and leaned against Pedro.

She lifted her eyes to his face; they were bewildered and filled with misery. “My brother Giovanni … but he was so young, so full of health.”

“He was murdered, Madonna.”

“Who …?”

“None knows.”

She covered her face with her hands. Giovanni, she thought. Not you. It is not possible. She saw him strutting about the nursery, asserting his rights, fighting with Cesare. Fighting with Cesare!

Not Cesare, she told herself. It could not be Cesare who murdered him.

Such thoughts must not be spoken.

Pedro kept his arms about her. He told her the story, beginning with the supper party at Vannozza’s vineyard, while Lucrezia stared blankly before her, picturing it all.

Cesare had been there, and the masked person had lurked in the bushes. Evil thoughts kept coming into her mind. Who was the masked person?

“Did they discover the masked one?” she asked.

“No. None knows who it was.”

“And my father?”

“He is overwhelmed with grief. None has ever seen him so distressed, so unlike himself.”

“And … my brother, my brother Cesare?”

“He does all he can to soothe your father.”

“Oh Pedro, Pedro,” she cried, “what will become of us?”

“Madonna, do not weep. I would die rather than see you unhappy.”

She touched his face lightly. “Sweet Pedro,” she murmured. “Sweet and gentle Pedro.”

He took the fingers which caressed his cheek, and kissed them frantically.

“Pedro, stay with me,” she begged. “Stay here and comfort me.”

“Madonna, I am unworthy.”

“There was never one more gentle and kind to me and therefore more worthy. Oh Pedro, I thank the saints that you came to me, that you will help me bear my sorrows, that you will help stay my fear, for Pedro, I am desperately afraid.”

“Of what, Madonna?”

“I know not, I only know I am afraid. But when you put your arms about me, dear Pedro, I am less afraid. So … do not talk of leaving me. Talk only of staying with me, of helping me to forget these evil things which happen all about me. Pedro, sweet Pedro, talk no more of unworthiness. Stay with me, Pedro. Love me … for I love you too.”

He kissed her lips this time, wonderingly, marvelling, and she returned his kisses.

There was a wildness about her.

“Pedro, I keep seeing it. The pictures come to me. The party … the masked figure … and my brother … and then Giovanni. Oh Pedro, I must shut them out. I cannot bear them. I am frightened, Pedro. Help me … help me, my loved one, to forget.”

Alexander had given
orders that a search was to be made to find the murderers of his son, that they might be brought to justice, and there were rumors implicating various people, for Giovanni had had a host of enemies.

It was said that Giovanni Sforza had planned the murder; that he resented the affection between his wife and her family; and Giovanni Borgia had shared that affection with her brother Cesare and her father.

Giovanni Sforza and other suspects quickly established their innocence; there was one name, however, which none dared utter.

The Pope was too unhappy to voice his fears; nor would he face them. He was shut in his rooms alone because he feared someone might give voice to the terrible suspicion which at this time he was unable to face, even in his own thoughts.

This was the greatest tragedy of Alexander’s life and when, a few days after Giovanni’s body had been discovered, he stood before the Consistory, he mourned openly for the death of his beloved son.

“A worse blow could not have fallen upon us,” he declared, “since we loved the Duke of Gandia above all others. We would give most willingly seven tiaras if we could bring him back. We have been punished by God for our sins, for the Duke did not merit this terrible death.”

To the astonishment of all present, Alexander went on to declare that the way of life at the Vatican should be reformed and there should be no more pandering to worldly interests. He would renounce nepotism and begin the reforms in his own household.

The Cardinals were aghast. Never had they thought to hear Alexander make such utterances. He was a changed man.

Cesare sought audience with his father afterward, and looking at that stricken face he was filled with sharp jealousy as he asked himself: Would he have felt such grief for me?

“Father,” said Cesare, “what meant you by those words you spoke before the Cardinals?”

“We meant exactly what we said,” replied the Pope.

Cesare felt as though icy hands were gripping his body, realizing that his father would not meet his eyes.

“Then,” pursued Cesare, who could not leave this subject, once he had started it, “do you mean that you will do nothing to help me, to help Goffredo, Lucrezia and the rest of our family?”

The Pope was silent.

“Father, I beg of you, tell me what is in your mind.”

The Pope lifted his eyes to his son’s face, and Cesare saw there what he had dreaded to find. They held an accusation.

He suspects! thought Cesare. He knows.

Then he remembered those words which the Pope had spoken when he heard of Giovanni’s death. “To those who have dealt death to him so shall they be dealt with. Nothing shall be too bitter for them to endure.”

“Father,” said Cesare, “we must stand together after a tragedy such as this. We must not forget that, whatever happens to any of us, the family must go on.”

“We would be alone,” said the Pope. “Go from us now.”

Cesare went uneasily.

He sought out Sanchia. “I would Lucrezia were here,” he said. “She might comfort our father. But he did not ask even for her. He does not seem to want any of us now. He thinks of nothing but Giovanni.”

But Cesare could find no peace with Sanchia. He must go to his father once more. He must know whether he had read aright the accusation in those eyes.

He went to the Pope’s apartments, taking Sanchia and Goffredo with him, and after a long delay they were admitted.

Sanchia knelt at Alexander’s feet and lifted her beautiful blue eyes to his face. “Father, be comforted,” she said; “it is double grief to your children to see you so.”

The Pope looked at her with cold eyes. He said: “They quarrelled over you—he and his brother. Go from me. I am arranging that you shall leave Rome. You will be departing shortly, with your husband, for Squillace.”

“But Father,” began Sanchia, “we would comfort you in your bitter loss.”