Blood & Beauty (33 page)

In France, Cesare’s courtship of Naples has only just begun.

Princess Carlotta of Aragon is a particular young woman. Born on the right side of the blanket to a strict father, there had been no running wild in the palace kitchens for her. She laughs less than her tearaway cousins, and when she does she cups a hand in front of her face, a coquettish gesture in some, but in her case more to hide her teeth, a set of crooked tombstones fighting with each other to fit into her mouth. Of course Cesare is courting royalty, not beauty, but one cannot help noticing such things. She is tall, head and shoulders above the Queen’s other ladies-in-waiting, and her face is long and rather flat. Though not as flat as her chest. All this he has taken in across crowded court gatherings. Now, face to face for the first time, his overriding impression is of a piece of dough that has been rolled too thin. The French word ‘crêpe’ comes to his mind. Duke Valentino and his pancake princess. He smiles to himself. Ah, the price a man pays for family.

‘Princess. I have ridden day and night, crossed rough water and stony ground, spurred on by the promise of our meeting. But seeing you now in front of me, I would do it all again for the pleasure of this moment.’

There is a grain of truth in his pomposity. It has not been an easy journey. The sea crossing from Ostia was bilious and an early winter had soaked and then frozen the French roads. Disembarking at Marseilles, they were met by the King’s agent with warm words of welcome and a demand for the letter of annulment so it could be sped to Paris, where the King was waiting impatiently to divorce his wife. Except Cesare doesn’t have it. Alexander, a stickler for canon law when it is to his advantage, had calculated that a delay in this trump card might concentrate the King’s mind on his side of the bargain: the softening up of the princess for the attentions of his son. It is a rare miscalculation on the Pope’s part. By the time their next letters cross, the document is already halfway across the Alps.

In the papal state of Avignon, the city comes out in celebration. It is a party to rival any that the Borgias used to throw. Waiting to greet him at the steps of the old papal palace stands their oldest and greatest enemy, cardinal and now papal legate of France, Giuliano della Rovere.

‘Valencia and the Sacred College have lost a fine cardinal but gained a finer warrior,’ he booms, arranging the features of his hatchet face into a smile.

The last time Cesare had been in della Rovere’s company was at the banquet in the town of Veltri, the night he slipped his hostage reins. They had hated each other then and the years in between have done nothing to improve matters. But both of them know that if della Rovere has any hope of becoming a player in time for the next papal conclave he cannot afford to sulk any longer in voluntary exile. His first overture, a letter of condolence after Juan’s death, had been well received. Now he offers something solid: as a friend of the French Crown, he will use all his influence on behalf of the Pope’s son. With both sides watching their backs, it may work for a while. Cesare’s return smile is prettier but equally insincere.

‘You do our Holy Mother Church proud, cardinal. Avignon shines under your government.’

‘It was once the seat of popes.’ The irony of his rejoinder is lost on neither of them. ‘One has a duty to the past.’

‘And to the future.’

Though the cardinal has aged in exile, he remains an imposing figure. If one did not know better, one might think they were father and son. Certainly they have the same appetite for life and the same ruthless desire to drink it dry. They share something else as well.

Gaspare Torella notices it straight away: the telltale purple buds decorating their faces and hands, disappearing up inside the folds of their clothes. The doctor in him is already measuring out the mercury, the priest is more resigned: Lord, how these Roman cardinals do love their ladies.

As they set off for the King, they are besieged everywhere they go, people flooding in from the fields and villages, shouting, openly gawping at the spectacle the duke’s entourage presents. Nobles bejewelled like kings, pages dressed like nobles, horses so decorated in precious metals that it’s a wonder they don’t shit gold. France has never seen anything like it and people don’t know whether to cheer or jeer. What passes for sophistication in Rome evidently conveys a different message outside it. In the cities, the more educated can barely conceal their ridicule. Mon Dieu! How can any man carrying a French title exhibit this level of crassness and vulgarity? If Italy breeds such parvenus then it is no surprise that she is fresh meat to foreign conquerors.

Cesare realises fast enough how badly he has misjudged the situation. But what is to be done? He can hardly strip the gold leaf off his horse’s saddle, or send back all the clothes and the jewels. That would have them laughing behind their hands ever louder. In such an atmosphere, his charm becomes unctuous rather than winning, and by mid-December, when he reaches King Louis’s court, he is a sullen, angry man.

He decides to brave it out, marching into the city of Chinon, where the King is holding temporary court, in full splendour. Louis watches the performance from a tower inside the city walls. ‘My, my,’ he is heard to remark when the city gates finally close behind them, ‘… altogether too much, one thinks, for a little Duke of Valentinois.’

When the gossip reaches the Pope’s ears back in Rome his much-vaunted tolerance dissolves into rage. ‘What makes the French so superior, when everyone knows it was their troops that soiled Rome’s sheets because they don’t wipe their arses properly?’ he yells. ‘How dare such poxy men mock my son?’

The insults are about nationality as much as family; the Spanish and the French have long fought a war of manners, finding each other crude or affected by degrees. It touches Alexander more deeply than he might choose to admit, because underneath his pragmatism he is still a Spaniard at heart, and this new alliance with France is making him anxious in ways even he does not quite understand.

With the annulment of his marriage now in his hands, King Louis is instantly transformed into a more gracious host. The ‘little duke’ becomes the Pope’s beloved son and his dear cousin, a man to be royally entertained day and night. As to the business of Cesare’s courtship with Carlotta, well, there is no time for it just yet. As lady-in-waiting to Louis’s future queen, Carlotta is too busy preparing her mistress for the wedding.

‘Don’t worry, dear cousin. Let her feast her eyes on you for a while. That will get the juices going.’ And the King nudges him in the ribs. He has good reason to be so sunny. Anyone with the wit to understand politics can see he has scored a double victory: he now has the Pope’s son as semi-permanent guest, and a wife who carries part of a kingdom between her legs.

Cesare, who sees it too, takes his impatience out on the hunt. The royal forests are groaning with game and there is no one who can ride or throw a spear to match him. Smooth-skinned now, with his falcon on his arm alert to his every whisper, he knows that once again he is a man to be watched and admired. And when he has ridden and killed to his fill, there are court games to be played, with pretty ladies eager to partner him in the dance. By the time the princess is ready to meet him, he is the talk of the court. What a fortunate young woman she is.

‘I would do it all again for the pleasure of this moment. I look forward to a long and fruitful acquaintance between us,’ he says, slipping into intimate Spanish as his smile widens to greet her,

‘That is most kind of you to say, Duke Valentinois,’ she replies in formal French. ‘However, I did not ask you to make such a journey on my behalf.’ Her long thin face shines like a waning moon in the candlelight. ‘I know you to be a very busy man and I do not want to waste your time.’

‘Perhaps you should let me be the judge of that.’

Over her shoulder he sees the broad, intelligent face of Anne, Queen of Brittany, and now again Queen of France, watching him carefully.
Who exactly am I wooing here?
he thinks.

‘It seems she is in love with someone else.’

‘Who?’

‘Some Breton nobleman, kinsman to the Queen, I gather,’ the Pope murmurs, lifting his eyes to the ceiling.

‘Oh, Papà. He is nobody compared to Cesare.’

‘Less than nobody. But the lady is unshakeable. I gather she is as forthright as she is plain.’

‘It could be that Queen Anne supports her in this. The princess is in her care and the man is a kinsman.’

‘Ha! Your brother is of the same opinion. In which case the King should tell his wife to keep her nose out of it. Alliances of state are men’s business.’

‘Nevertheless, Papà, women – plain or pretty – do have feelings,’ Lucrezia says gravely.

‘Indeed they do. Still, I did not come to burden you with such things. How are you?’

She is lying on a day bed in the receiving room of her palace, lovely though a little paler than usual. ‘Oh, you do not burden me. It is good to have something to take my mind off things. Anyway, I am better. Only a little sad now and then.’

‘Have you dismissed the maidservant yet?’

‘It was not her fault, Papà. I was the one who fell. I was just feeling so… so full of the joy of it.’

Happiness has its drawbacks. It had been one of those tender days towards the end of winter when the sky is a bolt of blue silk and no one can bear to be inside any more. On the spur of the moment she had arranged for herself and her ladies to ride into the country along the riverbank. After eating, they had been playing and she had started to run, because her energy had returned and she no longer felt sick, because the day was so beautiful, because she was eighteen and in love and going to have a child and wanted to celebrate all of it. Long skirts, muddy grass, tree roots. At any other time it would simply have been a tumble and the girl behind falling on top of her a cause for breathless laughter. At the moment it happened they had indeed laughed, but she had registered the flash of worry in the girl’s eyes and by the time they were on their way home there was a gnawing pain in her abdomen and everyone knew something was wrong.

It was too early to tell the sex. Too early to tell anything in the clump of black blood that she passed later in the night. Such things happen all the time, both the doctors and her women assured her. A clean expulsion. Nothing to prevent the next one. But she had been taken aback by the desolation that followed, and even Alfonso’s brightness could not bring back her laughter. Her father’s bear hug and the very smell of his love had brought more comfort, so that over the last weeks, when the worst of business is over, he has taken to visiting and sharing the gossip of politics with her.

‘What about King Federico in Naples?’ she asks. ‘What does he say about this other man?’

‘Nothing.’ The Pope scowls. His moods these last weeks have been much affected by the news from France. ‘He buries his head in the diplomatic sand and says nothing at all. The fact is he wants this marriage as little as she does, but he doesn’t want to say it out loud. Which makes him twice the fool.’

‘I am very sorry to hear it. You know Alfonso has written to him many times telling him what a fine man Cesare is and what a great match it would be.’

‘Hmm.’ He nods distractedly. While he enjoys his new son-in-law’s company head and shoulders above that of the idiot Sforza, not least because he has made his daughter so happy, the Duke of Bisceglie’s grasp of politics has proved disappointingly superficial.

‘Perhaps you should bring Cesare home and find him another wife,’ she says. ‘Cardinal Sforza has a number of suggestions for the right bride.’

‘I can imagine. You see more of my vice-chancellor than I do these days.’

It is true that, since Cesare’s departure, the Milanese faction have taken to using Lucrezia as a way of trying to get their voices heard by the Pope. Ascanio Sforza’s letters to his brother Ludovico talk of a sharp mind inside her studied graciousness.

‘He says nothing disloyal, Father. He is simply worried about the future of Milan.’

‘Then he should have thought about that five years ago when his brother invited in the French in the first place.’

The Sforzas are not the only ones complaining. Since Cesare’s departure Alexander’s audience chamber has become like a fish market with so many raised voices. The Spanish ambassador has gone so far as to accuse the Pope of compromising the independence of the Church with this reckless alliance. As the Pope roared his response, the ambassador exited so fast that he almost hit the hovering Burchard in the face. Tales of the row had been halfway round Rome the next day.

‘Papà?’

‘What?’

‘Are you all right? You look so angry.’

He smiles. ‘Yes, yes. Just thinking about business.’

‘Can I help?’

‘You do already, just by being here. I must go and you should rest.’

But at the door she calls him back.

‘If this courtship does not work, you will find him another fine wife, yes? I mean… whatever happens, Alfonso and Sancia will still be family, won’t they, Father?

‘You are not to worry about such things, Lucrezia,’ he says, because he does not want to think about it either. ‘Just get well and give me that grandchild.’

The truth is, Alexander would like nothing better than to bring the duke home and find him another wife. But Louis has no intention of letting him go. He has given away a prime piece of French real estate to unite the houses of Orléans and Borgia in this great enterprise of Italy, and the last thing he wants is for his dear cousin to return to Rome, where who knows what political pressure might be brought to bear on the Pope to make him question his support for the invasion?

As the courtship staggers from bad to worse, Cesare, caught like a fly in a dish of preserve, curses himself for not seeing it sooner. He is reliant on Louis, not only for a large slab of money (yet to come), but also for the troops he will need when they return to Italy. He can hardly spurn the King’s hospitality and march his whole household out of France. But neither can he leave without it. There is no slipping out of the tent leaving empty baggage chests this time. The guest is more a hostage than the hostage ever was. It is a mistake he will not make again.

At the beginning of March the King tries once more, organising an intimate meal between the reluctant lovebirds with just Their Majesties as chaperons. It is an excruciating affair: Carlotta does not speak unless spoken to and Cesare stares across the table at her flat face, imagining it as the wall of a fortress town, more suited to cannonballs than compliments. It doesn’t help that his humiliation is so public that the law students of Paris, always an irreverent bunch, are presenting an entertainment on how the son of God cannot find any woman to marry him, poor thing.

‘Lawyers! In any language they smell of other people’s shit.’ Michelotto, never at his best at court, is itching to take it out on someone. ‘Let me take some men into the streets of Paris and every one of them will have higher voices when it comes to pleading their cases.’

If only, Cesare thinks. If only…

Next morning, the King orders the Neapolitan ambassador for an emergency audience. Voices are raised and it does not last long. That afternoon Cesare vents his frustration on the hunt. With his own pack of bay and catch hounds, he breaks ranks from the main party and moves off alone further into the forest.

The dogs plough through the winter undergrowth, tails in the air, noses to the ground for the first good scent. They have travelled all the way from Italy with him and he knows each and every one of them by name. A few of them, the bull-mastiffs and the boxers, he has watched being whelped from bitches that were catching boars when he, Cesare, was still a boy in the saddle. His hunting master says that he has never worked for a man who had such a way with them: that what is skill in some, in him is instinct. Cesare, who has an advanced nose for the odour of flattery, is not so sure. But what he does know is that when his head feels fit to burst with the intransigence and stupidity of men there is always room to breathe out here, where his horse and his dogs, like the best fighters, anticipate the next command almost before he gives it.

Away from the body of the hunt, the only noise is the rustle and snap of the scrub underfoot. The late-winter sun slices in through the canopy of trees, so there are moments when it feels as if he is riding through the nave of a French cathedral, the soaring space lit by arched windows halfway to the sky. Some say God enters a man’s heart differently in such churches; that because the light is so precious the very architecture pulls your head up towards Him. Cesare has spent the winter freezing his balls off inside such places and longs for the comfort of Rome. The Vatican chapel may be big but its walls are alive with battles and stories, most of them so realistic that you might think you could climb into them. He has done some of his best strategic thinking in there.

God’s blood, he thinks, I am tired of this country. I want to go home.

The dogs are howling. The bays have picked something up. With a fresh enough scent, they can outrun the swiftest deer. Boars move more slowly, but their battering-ram bodies can smash through smaller openings and into deeper undergrowth. The chase runs for two, maybe three, miles. He hears the royal bugle calling from somewhere in the distance. The main hunt is nearer than he’d realised, maybe they have picked up the same scent. But this is his kill. He urges his horse on, flattening himself against the saddle as they jump fallen trees and speed under low branches.

The bay dogs are further ahead now, throwing themselves deep into a thicket and suddenly there it is, breaking cover: a full-grown male boar, fat head, stumpy legs and thick bristling body. It is big; 150 pounds at least, with fully grown sabre-curved tusks thrusting out and up from its bottom jaw.

It hurtles faster into the forest, driven by panic, but not fast enough for the bays; within minutes they have it surrounded, harrying and corralling it towards a patch of open ground, the catch dogs ready, straining and howling but holding back until they are called.

Now he gives the order and they pile in, snarling, snapping, jumping to catch a tail or an ear in their teeth, all the time dodging the tusks. There is a cacophony of sound, barking, squealing. The boar flings itself this way and that to throw off the dogs. Breaking free for an instant, it puts its head down and charges, a tusk catching the underbelly of one of the mastiffs, lifting it off the ground and hurling it to one side. The dog’s high-pitched screams are everywhere. Cesare launches the first spear while still mounted. It embeds itself deep and low in the animal’s back flank. There will be vital organs in there, but the pain will make it mad before it kills.

He flings himself off the horse, the second spear, with a crossbar a third of the way up, already poised as the boar twists and howls. There are twenty, maybe thirty, forty paces between them. He settles his feet into the ground and braces himself. His blood is pumping and he can hear a kind of singing in his ears. The best place will be the neck, but wherever it is, there will be no second chance.

The boar is charging now, moving at frenzied speed, head low so the tusks will get leverage on flesh. He has seen men half disembowelled by the goring if the spear doesn’t hold.

‘Come on!’ he roars at the top of his voice. Even braced against impact, he is thrown off centre as the whole weight of the animal rams on to the spear. For a second both man and beast are staggering. The man recovers first. All those hours of slamming, battering contact with battle swords have run rods of iron through his body and the spear has plunged in as far as the crossbar, so however hard it pushes the boar can get no closer. The tip has entered through the back of the head, deep into the body, and with Cesare at the other end holding firm, the beast can do nothing but squeal and squirm in furious agony. He calls in the dogs again and they hurl themselves upon the trapped body until finally the boar is brought to its knees. Only now does he let go of the spear and go in with the hunting dagger. The beast tries to rise, but it is too wounded. It is lying half on its side now, its great bulk juddering. This time he gets close enough to feel the brush-bristles of the hair. He picks his spot and slams in the long blade, hitting an artery so the blood whooshes up like a fountain into the air, soaking his clothes, spraying his face and hair: the gush-gush of a life extinguishing.

As it lies twitching heavily, its blood pumping out on the ground, he slits open the stomach. The dogs hold back, growling, muscle straining, impatient for their share of the kill. Even the injured one has pulled itself out of the bushes to try to join the pack, half its own innards trailing the ground. He cuts out some offal from the boar and throws it the first piece. As he stands aside to let them in, the dogs go mad with joy.

The chase and the kill. There is nothing in the world to compare to it. He has not felt so present, so filled with life, for months. Like any other man he has a yearning for the snug warm tunnels of women, but if heaven lets in men like him, then his eternity will be spent hunting, not copulating.

The first horses from the main hunt are galloping into the glade, the King, of course, in the lead. He reins in his mount, amazed by the sight of this beautiful young man, drenched in blood. The royal hunt dogs pour in, snapping at each other in territorial dispute over the kill. No one else moves.

Finally the King dismounts, motioning everyone else to stand back. ‘Valentinois,’ he shouts, striding up to Cesare. With the boar still twitching at their feet, he grabs his face between his hands and pulls it towards him as if they are going to kiss, then at the last moment embraces him, holding on until he too is thick with blood. But Cesare is still in communion with death and his laughter is more bestial than courtly. ‘Valentinois,’ the King says again, as if to remind him who and where he is. And now the shout is taken up, like a chant behind him. ‘Valentinois! Valentinois! Valentinois!’

‘Sweet Jesus, you look like a pagan. God help your wife on your wedding night,’ Louis laughs, throwing an arm around his shoulders and turning him towards the hunt, inviting his men to enjoy the spectacle of their bloodstained intimacy. ‘Come, leave the butchering to others. They will reward the dogs and bring you back your tusks and hooves. You and I have work to do.’

Back in the palace, Cesare, bathed and dressed, attends His Majesty for a private dinner in his bedroom. Thick brocade curtains cut out the draughts, and there is a healthy fire in the open grate, the apple wood spitting sparks into the room. As his servants pour the wine, black as boar’s blood in the candlelight, the King can barely take his eyes off his guest.

‘Like you, my great, dear duke, I am a man who does not admit failure lightly.’ Louis is bullish from the start; Cesare’s blood lust is still strong in the room and the King is energised by it. Such virility is wasted on court intrigue; only put him at the head of a cohort of cavalry and this fiery young warrior will shine brighter than any armour. ‘I have done everything I can, but it seems Naples does not want you as a son-in-law. What can I say? Believe me, it will be their loss. But you are our dear ally and even dearer cousin and I will not have you disappointed. I promised you a royal wife called Carlotta. And that is what you shall have. I offer you a toast: to marriage and war.’ He lifts his blood wine and their silver goblets clash together. ‘Now. There is someone I want you to meet.’

Charlotte d’Albret is young and lovely, and the blood in her veins runs as blue as that of her unlovely namesake. She is the sister of the King of Navarre, with a claim on the French throne itself. She has high, melon-ripe breasts, a smile to melt ice, a quietly religious sense of duty and a father whose only concern is the need for some extra cash. Maybe the King has had her waiting in the wings all the time. Who knows?

‘What is Naples anyway but a hellhole of deceit and disease, eh? This way you will have not only French lands but also a royal French wife.’ They walk together through the royal garden, the air growing milder with each passing day. ‘Once married, there will be nothing to stop us marching together and subduing the renegade Milan. With the city taken, my army will be your own to do with as you wish. God help the fortresses you march on, Cesare,’ he says, seeing again the boar’s insides bloody and steaming in his hands. ‘As for Naples… well, there is always our own French claim on it. Revenge, dear cousin, can be taken in many forms.’

Cesare, who has looked in the mouths of many gift horses, knows a good enough mount when he sees it. Back in Rome, Alexander, who has been suffering his son’s humiliation as if it was his own, is jubilant. The marriage is negotiated, signed and celebrated in the Queen’s own chapel at Blois on May 12, barely six weeks after their first meeting.

Cesare’s envoy gallops out when it is still dark. Seven hundred miles and a mountain range separate father and son. He reaches the Vatican four days later. Before he can open his mouth his knees buckle under him and Alexander gives a mere servant permission to sit in his presence. When he starts to talk his larynx is so coated with dust that his voice cracks. Food and wine are brought to help him recover.

Four hours later, when the man is still answering questions, the Pope joins him at the table. No detail is too small, no triumph uncelebrated. His new daughter-in-law is a vision of beauty, her new wardrobe overflowing with Borgia gowns and jewels. Cesare is the most handsome bridegroom the court has ever seen, the marriage breakfast the most sumptuous, and the King of France so enamoured of his cousin that he showers him with even more titles and gifts. As for the wedding night – oh, the wedding night… No sooner has the messenger staggered home to sleep than Alexander invites others in to hear the news all over again. And so it is that Cesare’s sexual prowess enters history: twice before dinner and six times afterwards.

‘My son. My son! Eight lances broken in a single night,’ he reiterates gleefully with each retelling. ‘He has bettered his own father in that!’

It is a family triumph and everyone must rejoice with him.

In the forecourt of the palace of Santa Maria in Portico, the Duchess of Bisceglie orders a bonfire to be lit to commemorate the event. Inside, however, the celebration is muted.

When the Pope visits, the couple receive him in Lucrezia’s bedchamber, a bowl for sickness discreetly stowed close by. As with her brother, family duty is pleasure for Lucrezia these days and the new baby she is carrying will be born in late autumn. Halfway through the story of Cesare’s triumph, her smile starts to tremble and tears slip down her cheeks. She tries to laugh them away, but they will not stop.

‘It is the baby,’ Alfonso says, squeezing her hand. ‘She feels everything most acutely these last weeks.’

Alexander nods understandingly.

But it is not the baby. Cesare is married into France, and Naples is no one’s ally any more.

‘Whatever happens, Alfonso and Sancia will still be family, won’t they, Father?’
 

‘You are not to worry about such things, Lucrezia.’
 

The words, exchanged lightly only a few months ago, now sit accusingly between them. The Pope, who cannot bear to have his joy interrupted by the problems to come, kisses her on the forehead, before making his excuses to leave on further business.