The Marlowe Conspiracy (56 page)

The reaction of most noblewomen to such news would have been a giddy mixture of shock and pleasure. Yet I wasn’t struck by the honor of such a powerful match, only by a profound sense of loss. I didn’t want to leave Rome, to live in Spain or Naples, or to lose the close company of my father and brother.

“Does my husband have a name?” I said, becoming slightly flustered. “I don’t think it’s legal to marry an entire household.”

“Your future husband will be the honorable Alfonso of Aragon, Duke of Bisceglie. The duke is the natural son of Alfonso II, the late King of Naples.” He watched me closely. “Well, my child, feel at liberty to express your gratitude.”

I sneezed at the nearby dust.

Alexander fell back in his chair, mortified. “How dare you, Lucrezia! Oh, my nerves, my poor elderly nerves! Such loudness! You’ve taken a year from my life, I swear it.”

“Could I have a description of my future husband?” I said sharply. “Or will it be a surprise for my wedding day?”

He didn’t answer and lay slumped in his chair, fanning his face. To my astonishment, Cesare strode over to me and put his hand on my shoulder.

“Don Alfonso is seventeen,” he said. “Same age as you.”

I twisted towards him. “You knew about it, you knew before I did?”

“Yes.”

“And you never mentioned it? What about the investigation? Did you know all about that, as well?”

He ignored the question. “We think he’ll be a worthy match. The duke is known to be a handsome man.”

“And what about his mind? Is he clever, too? Or is he just a pawn of his family, like me?”

Cesare rolled his eyes and walked back to the window. Finally, Alexander recovered enough strength to speak. He put his skull cap on again:

“Lucrezia, don’t be so unkind to your brother. We only desire what is best for you. As I’m sure you know, our family’s current power will be gone when I’m deceased. Unlike other titles, the Papacy isn’t an honor that a son can inherit. To secure our future now, we must establish sources of power outside of the church. If not, the light of the Borgia dynasty will soon fizzle-out.” He put a hand on his barrel chest and looked at me with sorrow. “I’m sure that you don’t wish to defy me over the matter of your engagement. I’m sure I have a loyal and dutiful daughter; a daughter who’s willing to help empower the House of Borgia. Am I correct in thinking this?”

Despite my protests, it was useless to resist. Marriage makes sense, not love –I’d known that from a young age – and this marriage did seem a wise decision, at least from my family’s perspective. I wasn’t pleased about it, but I knew the arrangement would proceed regardless of whether I consented to it or not. My father’s wish and my family’s future would prevail over all other concerns, even my own happiness.

“I’ll agree,” I said glumly. “I’ll support the betrothal. What other choice do I have?”

Without another word, I stepped out of the room, making no attempt to hide my displeasure.

As the door shut behind me, I closed my eyes and fantasized about unleashing a scream down the deserted corridor. More than the shock of the cancelled investigation, more than the surprise of the marriage arrangements, I was hurt by the fact that my father and brother had plotted my fate so readily. They didn’t seem to care about abandoning me to an unknown duke, in an unfamiliar court, faraway in Naples. And why did Cesare know so much about it all? Almost overnight, he had leapt from the status of a forgotten son, to my father’s innermost confidence.

While I stood by the door, a raised voice sounded from inside the room: Cesare’s gruff timbre. I decided to eavesdrop and find out why. Once I felt satisfied that no palazzo chamberlains, squires, or prelates lurked nearby, I bent my head closer to the door and listened to the conversation within.

Cesare’s voice seethed with scorn. “Not good enough! It’s already been done for Lucrezia.”

“There is no need to fret, my son,” replied Alexander. He sounded a little scared. “I’ll have you married into the House of Aragon, too, but these things require planning and patience.”

“Give me a date.”

“As I’ve stated, it will occur at the appropriate moment, in the fullness of time when everything has been properly–”

A heavy object inside the room crashed into the wall and interrupted Alexander. I guessed it was a chair.

“Don’t give me your honeyed words, old man!” Cesare bellowed. “I want results, not sermons! I’ve earned the right to that much, haven’t I?”

More nervously than before, my father replied: “I’ve made my promise to you and I intend to keep it.”

“Yes, you will. By my sword, I’ll make sure you do.”

Alexander coughed. “The first thing that must be done prior to any marriage proposal, is the removal of your cardinalate. As we converse here, you should know that I’ve already started the process of divestiture with the Sacred College.”

“Good.” Cesare’s footsteps pounded across the hall to the desk. “And after that, you will approach the Spanish Aragons. It’s they who hold the real power. Not the minor branch in Naples. I won’t take less than Princess Carlotta, is that clear?”

“Are you aware that the Spanish have already set very high plans for their princess?”

“Then they’ll have to change their plans, won’t they?”

“In that case, may I ask, how will you gain their consent when you lack the slightest rank or noble title?”

“Louis XII.”

“The new King of France? I’m afraid your strategy is still rather opaque, my son.”

“Louis desperately wants a divorce. He’s already applied to you for it. You’ll agree, but on the condition that I gain a French duchy in return.”

Silence followed. Obviously, the plan surprised my father a great deal. Cesare soon continued:

“We need the French king, anyway. Princess Carlotta lives at his court and he can help to sway her in my favor, especially if I must visit France.”

I didn’t hear the reply, but since no violent explosion came from inside the hall, I assumed my father had agreed. Alexander spoke again, this time soft and weary, his voice tainted with resentment.

“My son, while I applaud your new ambitions, I hope your eye will always stay fixed upon the good of your family, rather than on your own personal glory?”

“You mean, will I stay obedient?” Cesare’s voice turned hard and threatening. “Listen, your Sanctity, I’m not just the first-born son, I’m the only son now. And I’ll let nothing hold me down again. Nothing.”

“Yes,” Alexander replied, almost whispering. “I don’t question it.”

I stood back from the door, growing more and more concerned. As the only living son, Cesare finally had the means to bend my father to his will. He’d always been misplaced as a cardinal, and now he could leave the church and attain both a noble title and a high-ranking marriage. Only a month ago, this situation would have seemed impossible. Juan’s death had certainly opened up a new life for my eldest brother…

Could Cesare have been involved with Juan’s murder? God knows, he had the motive: he’d always despised Juan for the way my father unjustly elevated him and showered him with titles, wealth, and power. It seemed that hardly a day had ever passed without Cesare threatening to kill Juan in some painful manner. I always laughed when he said such things. Maybe that was a mistake.

My thoughts returned to the night of the Carnival and the content of the pamphlet. The eyewitness saw Juan’s body dumped into the Tiber at five o’clock in the morning – around this time, I saw Cesare below the Torre Borgia acting as if he were about to leave the palazzo. One of the men who dumped Juan’s body was a horseman – I heard Cesare’s spurs clink through the courtyard. There were also many ways my brother could gain the use of a white horse. But if Cesare was a suspect, why hadn’t the city officials discovered this already?

Or had they? Was this the true reason why the investigation was so abruptly cancelled? Did Cesare demand that my father end the inquiry when it started pointing to himself?

I hurried away through the Appartamento. Despite my suspicions, it was vile to think such awful thoughts about my brother. No evidence I’d seen could prove his guilt, it was just a series of coincidences, nothing more, and he deserved my support.

Ultimately, the whole matter revolved around the cellar. To ease my doubts, I needed to go to the cellar myself and prove that nothing sinister lay within it. My feet flitted down the stairs of the Appartamento as I ventured off to the courtyard. Although it was daylight, Cesare and Alexander still spoke inside the hall, allowing me the chance to visit the cellar unseen.

Outside, cool river breezes drifted across the yard, and I approached the soaring grey stone column of the Torre Borgia. Tendrils of leafless brown wisteria twined up the tower and climbed to the sky. Directly beneath it lay a tiny cellar door.

I gripped the handle, but it was locked.

After checking over my shoulder, I plucked my personal skeleton key from a pocket in my sleeve and twisted it in the door. The key should have opened every chamber in the palazzo, yet it didn’t work here. How strange!

If I didn’t have the key for the cellar, then presumably none of the papal staff had one either. In fact, it seemed clear that only one man had the power to undo this particular lock. I shivered in the cold wind. To enter the cellar undetected, I had only one option now: despite the formidable difficulties, the potential for embarrassment, even the possible risks if caught, I must sneak into my brother’s bedchamber tonight and pilfer the key during his sleep. I must steal it from Cesare himself.

VII

The Secrets In The Cellar

A
tranquil evening gradually settled on the palazzo halls, but I waited deep into the night before attempting my theft of Cesare’s keys.

I crept into the corridor outside my bedchamber, checking that none of the palazzo staff were near. Cesare’s room lay only a short distance from my own. I arrived at the entrance and delicately pushed the door open.

Immediately, I entered an antechamber separate from Cesare’s private bedroom. This chamber was used for meetings with friends, business associates, and envoys. I left the outer-door ajar and slinked through the room carefully, worried that I might trip on something in the darkness. At his bedchamber door, the handle creaked stiffly as I turned it downward.

Within Cesare’s bedroom, the air was musty and airless with sleep. I squinted at my brother lying sprawled across his mattress, his body unmoving in a deep noiseless slumber. For a man with such a loud voice, I’d expected him to snore with enough violence that the bedposts would shake. He also rested oddly in his sheets, the quilt pulled up so high I couldn’t see his head, only the long lump of his motionless body.

Ignoring the strangeness of it all, I hunted about for the keys. Mirrors of polished metal hung on every wall and reflected the shadows as I moved about in the gloom. The key-ring lay on Cesare’s bedside table. I collected it with deft hands, cushioned the metal in my grasp, and hurried from the room before he awoke.

Outside the Appartamento, the moon’s shade fell white on the flagstones of the courtyard. I tiptoed up to the cellar door, tried all of Cesare’s keys, and finally opened the lock.

As I pressed back the door, the rusty hinges squealed.

I halted and listened for a response: somewhere in the distance, the voices of papal sentries chatted lowly. A horse rattled its halter chain. No sound was close enough for alarm.

To light my way, I plucked a wall torch from its holder in the courtyard, then slipped past the cellar door and closed it gently behind me.

Torch flames spluttered near my cheeks as I descended a short stairway beneath the tower. At the bottom, I found a cavernous room supported by many pillars. Torchlight illuminated a jumble of scrap objects lying among the columns: chairs with broken legs, coils of rope, slats of wood, and casks stacked to the ceiling. Perhaps this was exactly the place someone might search for crossbow targets, after all?

I explored the room and chanced upon a tiny area almost hidden at the far corner. Unlike the rest of the cellar, here the floor was newly swept and free of clutter. Several neat rows of shelves lined the wall, each one holding a series of labeled pots. Below, on the dented surface of a desk, the buckles of leather-bound manuscripts gleamed back at me. A single roll of parchment lay slanted across them.

At first glance, the area seemed harmless enough, yet I decided to inspect things a little closer. I unfurled the parchment and it appeared blank on both sides. Next, I lifted the torch and shone it across the shelves to read the labels on the dusty pots above:

‘Foxglove’, ‘Monkshood’, ‘Mad Honey’, ‘Mercury Vapor’, ‘Destroying Angel Mushroom’, ‘Cantharidine Power’, ‘Arsenic’.

I recognized the names instantly – they were poisons! The labels listed the fatal dose, the symptoms, and the cure of each venom. The nearest label read:

BELLADONNA

FATAL: 1 leaf

SYMPTOMS: Nausea, Confusion, Suffocation