Light on Lucrezia (27 page)

“And think, Father, if you successfully oppose the match, in addition to all those ducats you will lose, you will have to pay for the nuns’ journey yourself. You stand to lose, my father, if you do not accept Lucrezia.”

Ippolito was filled with secret laughter as he watched avarice and family pride grapple with one another.

Cesare sought his
sister. She was surrounded by her women, and there were rolls of beautiful material in the apartment. Lucrezia was draping some of this about one of them and indulging in one of her favorite occupations—designing her own dresses.

The brocade of that shade of deep crimson, which had a hint of blue in it and which was called morello, fell from her hands as she saw Cesare. She felt the blood leave her face and she appeared to be without life, unable to move. Every time she saw him, she seemed to sense change in him. She was moved by pity, by fear and by admiration. There was no one like him in the world, no one else who could ever have the same power to move her, to hurt her, to fill her with tenderness and with fear.

“Why Cesare …” she began.

He smiled sneeringly at the fine materials. “So,” he said, “you are preparing for the wedding.”

“There is a great deal to do,” she said. She waved her hand and the women were only too ready to leave her.

“My brother,” she said, “it makes me happy to see you back in Rome.”

He laughed, and touched his face with beautiful slender fingers, so like his father’s. “The reason for my return does not make me happy.”

“You suffer so. I trust the cure has done its work.”

“They tell me it has, but I wonder sometimes whether the foulness will ever leave me. If I but knew who brought it to me this time …” His eyes were cruel, and she shuddered. Stories of his barbaric cruelty to the Neapolitans had reached her and she, who deplored cruelty and whose great desire was to live in peace with all around her, longed for him to curb his violence.

“Well, sister,” he said, “you do not seem pleased to see me.”

“Then it is because I see you not looking as well as I would wish to see you.”

He took her by the arm, and she tried not to show that his grip hurt her.

“This man to whom they are marrying you,” he said, “he is a boor, I
hear. Alfonso. Alfonso the Second! He will bear no resemblance to the first Alfonso … that little one who so delighted you.”

She would not look at him. She whispered: “It is our fate to marry when we are told to marry, and accept the partners chosen for us.”

“My Lucrezia!” he said. “Would to God …”

She knew what he meant but she would not let him say it. She interrupted quickly: “We shall meet often. You shall visit me in Ferrara; I shall visit you in Romagna.”

“Yes,” he said. “That must be so. Nothing should part us, Lucrezia. Nothing shall, as long as there is life in this body.” He put his face close to hers. He whispered: “Lucrezia … you tremble. You are afraid of me. Why, in the name of all the saints? Why?”

“Cesare,” she answered him, “soon I have to leave Rome. Soon … I must go to my marriage.…”

“And you are afraid … afraid of the brother who loves you. Afraid because he is your brother … Lucrezia, I will not have you afraid. I will have you welcome me … love me … love me as I love you.”

“Yes, Cesare.”

“For love you I do, as I love no other. Always, no matter whom I am with, it is Lucrezia I love. All others are dull … they tire me. They are not Borgias. Lucrezia … Lucrezia … I would give so much … years of my life if …”

“No,” she said fiercely, “no!”

“But I say Yes,” he told her.

His hand was at the nape of her neck. She thought in that moment that he was going to kill her because he was imagining her with her new husband, and could not bear to see such images.

Then suddenly he released her. He laughed, and his laughter was bitter.

“The Borgia in you, Lucrezia, is hidden by the gentle serenity of the woman who would wish to be like all others … the gentle Lucrezia who longs to be a wife and mother … meek and mild—Lucrezia who would deny her Borgia blood for the sake of peace. You shall come to my apartments tonight. There shall be a supper party. Our father will be there and others. And this party shall be for your delight.”

“I shall come with the greatest pleasure,” she said.

“Yes, Lucrezia,” he told her, “you shall come.”

In Cesare’s apartments
there took place that night an orgy which would be remembered as long as the name of Borgia would be.

It was of Cesare’s own invention; and his apartments were lighted by many brilliant candelabra and therein he had set up a Papal throne, elaborately covered with the finest brocade. Upon it was seated the Pope, and next to him Lucrezia, and on her other side Cesare himself.

There was feasting, and the conversation was lewd. Cesare set the pace, and he was fresh from the campaign in Naples, during which his barbarism and love of orgiastic spectacle had become intensified. The Pope was expectant. There was nothing he liked better than what he called goodly company, and he was not the man to turn from lewd talk nor from lewd behavior.

Cesare had ordered that fifty courtesans be brought to the apartment, and they came, some of the most notorious in Rome, ready to do whatever they should be asked, providing they received adequate payment; and payment or not, none would dare offend Cesare Borgia.

The payment for this night’s work was to be very high indeed, and in addition they had the honor of working for Cesare and entertaining the Holy Father and the bride-to-be.

They began by dancing, and as the music grew wilder, so did their dancing. There was one theme: seduction and fulfillment; and this they stressed again and again. Cesare watched intently. He had placed on a small table a selection of dresses made of the finest silk, leather shoes and hats; and these he said were prizes which he wished Lucrezia to distribute. She must watch carefully, for he wished her to bestow the prizes on those whom she thought most worthy.

The Pope applauded the dances, and laughed with hilarity when the prostitutes began to discard one item of clothing after another.

Lucrezia sat very still, trying not to glance sideways at her father and brother, trying to set a fixed smile on her face.

Brought up as she had been in her particular age she was not shocked to see these naked women. She had seen suggestive dances many times; she had listened to bawdy plays. She could only apply the standards of her age to such; but this entertainment was symbolic. This was Cesare’s way of telling her that
she was one of them; she belonged to them; and that even when she was living with the prudish Este family, she would remember this night.

“Now,” said Cesare, “the contest begins.”

“I am all interest,” said the Pope, his eyes on a plump dark-haired woman who discarded the last of her garments.

Cesare clapped his hands and a bowl of hot chestnuts was brought to them.

“We shall scatter these, and the ladies will retrieve them,” he explained. “And each will hold a lighted candelabrum in her hand as she does so. It will be no easy feat in the state they are in.”

“Your wine was potent. I declare I should not feel inclined to scramble for chestnuts,” said the Pope, taking a handful and throwing them at the dark-haired courtesan.

Now all in the room, except Lucrezia, were rocking with laughter at the antics of the drunken prostitutes. Some shrieked as the lighted candles in the shaking hands of others touched them. Some fell to the ground, and rolled about on the floor in pursuit of the nuts.

This was the sign for Cesare’s servants to gratify that lust which the sight of the women had aroused in them, and at the given signal they proceeded to do so.

The Pope was helpless with laughter, pointing to this one and that.

Cesare laid his hand over his sister’s. “Take good note,” he said. “It is for you to award the prizes to those who get on best together.”

And she sat there, the fear upon her; the desire to escape never greater than at this hour of shame.

She felt that she did not belong to these Borgias and she longed to escape. They terrified her, and yet she was conscious of that strong feeling within her which she had for them and which she could have for no others. Was it love? Was it dread? Was it fear?

She did not know. All she did know was that it was the strongest emotion in her life.

She was tainted, and Cesare had determined that the stain should be indelible. “You shall not escape!” That was what he was telling her. “You are blood of our blood, flesh of our flesh. You cannot wipe the Borgia stain from yourself, because it is part of you.”

It was over at last. She felt sick with revulsion and loathing mingling
with fear. Yet she did as she was bidden. She selected the winners and gave the prizes.

She knew then that she would always do as she was bidden. She knew that the only escape was in flight.

“Holy Mother of God,” she prayed, “send me to Ferrara. Let them come for me … soon … Oh, let it be soon, before it is too late.”

She was waiting
, and still they did not come.

The Pope fumed with rage.

“What now?” he demanded. “What should they want now? An appointment in the Church for the bastard Giulio. Something involving no labor and a goodly income. He’ll not get it. A Cardinal’s hat for his friend, Gian Luca Castellini da Pontremoli? He’ll not get that either. What is he waiting for? For the weather to become too bad?”

Lucrezia was beside herself with anxiety. Cesare was ill, but he would recover. She was frightened; the web was tightening about her.

She wrote to her future father-in-law, telling him that she would with the utmost delight arrange to bring the nuns with her when she traveled to Ferrara.

The letters she received from her future husband were kindly, but still no move was made.

What shall I do? she asked herself. Can it be that they have decided not to come?

It was November and surely the journey would be almost impossible in a few weeks’ time. He was deliberately delaying.

The Pope, seeing her downcast looks, sought to cheer her up and, when two mares were put into the courtyard with four stallions, he insisted on her watching from the windows of the Apostolic Palace to see the excitement below.

Several people had gathered to watch the spectacle, and Lucrezia was seen there with her father; this was talked of throughout the city, and Lucrezia believed that it would most certainly reach the ears of those who sought to defame her in the eyes of the old Duke of Ferrara.

Shall I never escape? she wondered.

Then she marveled that she could have thought of it as escape—leaving the home and family which she had loved so much!

She was determined to please her new family. She was in truth begging them not to close her way of escape.

Roderigo had been a matter of great concern to Duke Ercole; he did not want the expense of keeping a child of Lucrezia’s by another marriage. Lucrezia publicly put the boy into the care of her old cousin, Francesco Borgia, who was now Cardinal of Cosenza, and bestowed on him Sermoneta so that the Este family might have no fear that the child would be an expense to them.