Blood & Beauty (35 page)

‘Very well. I will try.’

She refuses the silk-lined palanquin the Pope has arranged for her to ride in, and does much of the journey on horseback. She knows the road; it is the one she once took to Pesaro and she loves the way the landscape, at first wooded and dense, gives way to a long fertile plain with spectacular hill-towns poking up their stone-clad heads in the distance on either side. Wherever they stop people flood out to greet her. The sins of the Pope’s daughter are ripe gossip and those who meet her are amazed to find her such a gracious, modest figure. Her belly is big now, catching the light on the silk of her gowns, and women in particular press to get close to her, many in the hope that her fertility may pass to them. Others bring flowers or amulets to have her hold and bless. On the road into Narni, with its sculpted Roman bridge and rippling river water, a bent old woman shouts from the front of the crowd.

‘A boy, the duchess is carrying a boy! I can see him, my lady, swimming in your waters.’

‘She should know,’ someone else yells. ‘She’s delivered hundreds and never got it wrong.’

The crowd roars its appreciation and the baby rolls and slides inside her as if in answer.

The castle of Spoleto sits perched like an eagle above the hill-town, the great viaduct below a memory of ancient splendour. Once inside the fortress, the gates are bolted behind them. As she is helped off her horse, she can feel her heart beating hard against her chest. She has no illusions about the velvet trap her father has set for her. A pope’s daughter governing a city cannot be a wife running off to join her husband in exile. But Alfonso is safe and she is in that blessed stage of pregnancy when many healthy young women find themselves filled with unexpected energy and well-being. While the post may be a prison as much as a privilege, she is exhilarated by the challenge.

The household is still unpacking, flinging open windows and doors to ventilate the stifling chambers, when Lucrezia welcomes the dignitaries of the town and starts taking petitions and hearing complaints. She can do this. She is a Borgia.

The archer’s upper arm trembles with the stretch of the bow. The arrow, a high whine of wind, hits the great horse’s left ear full on, shattering it on impact. The shot is greeted with a howl of approval, then one of derision as the next narrowly misses the other ear. A dozen others follow, slamming into the animal’s neck and flanks, and sending chunks of clay flying, crashing, smashing everywhere.

‘Ssssforza, Ssssforza,’ the archers chant and cheer as they load and reload until the air grows dark under the onslaught.

‘Poor old da Vinci. Ludovico should have employed him to design weapons rather than statues.’ From a window high in the Sforza palace, Cesare stands watching the carnage. Before long the horse’s tail is severed from its body. ‘Look at them. Even pissed stupid they shoot better than most Italians. Well, they had to sack something.’

Beneath the plinth, servants run head-down around the hooves and under the belly, dodging the falling debris to gather up the used arrows and return them to the archers. Three months on the road and when the army finally reached Milan, itching for a fight, they had found the gates of the city open, waiting for them to march in, Ludovico Sforza having fled with his tail between his legs and a cartload of treasures behind him.

Another cry goes up as the stallion’s head takes a series of direct hits, the sculpted nostrils splintering and crumbling. Cesare leans out of the window and shouts something in French. The captain looks up and yells back. A few of the archers raise their hands in salute: Cesare is now the darling of the troops as well as of the King.

He turns from the window. In dark silhouette, with the Milan sky the colour of a dirty sheet behind him, he cuts an impressive figure. It is not just the light. Cesare Borgia, Duke Valentino, now dresses only in black: black cap adorned by dyed-black feathers, black cloak, black hose and black doublet, with just the barest sliver of gold silk ripping down through the sleeve. The man who left Italy in blazing colour has returned dark as the devil. How well it suits him.

‘So, gentlemen,’ he says, moving back into the room. ‘We have a deal?’

A fast murmur of assent goes round the table. There are four of them sitting there, hard weathered faces incongruous above the soft velvet of court robes. They are fighting men all of them, condottieri with mercenary troops at their beck and call. In peacetime, you would not trust them to cut a pack of cards without sliding an ace out of their sleeve, but when it comes to war they are loyal to the highest bidder. And right now, no one is offering more than Cesare Borgia. He has picked carefully. The small wiry Vitellozzo Vitelli is the nearest that Italy comes to having its own artillery expert. Next to him, Oliveretto da Fermo is a hungry thug but a well trained one; while across the table sit two Orsini brothers, Paolo and Francesco. Orsini. Cesare would as happily string them up as employ them, but between them they hold a small army of men and until he is ready to take his revenge it is better to have them fighting with him. And while his father is still on the papal throne, each and every one of them is happy to lick his hand and do his bidding.

‘You have a question, Vitelli?’

‘How many men will you field besides ours?’

‘How many men?’ Cesare repeats, smiling. He knows it is what they have been waiting to hear. On the triumphant entry into Milan King Louis and his Duke Valentino had ridden side by side, and since then they have been publicly joined at the hip, hunting, feasting and entertaining. Anyone in any doubt that the history of Italy is being written between them has only to look at the language of their bodies: bent heads, whispers, shared laughter, more like brothers than ‘dear cousins’.

‘I will lead a force of two thousand French cavalry, three hundred French lancers, twenty-seven artillery guns and four thousand Swiss and Gascon infantry.’ He stops to let the numbers sink in. ‘With the troops that our Holy Father the Pope will send from the Papal Guard, alongside the men you bring, the army will be ten thousand strong.’

Someone lets out a small hissing sound between his teeth. The silence lengthens. The Pope’s son has just become the commander of one of the biggest ever forces to move across Italian soil. Cesare glances towards Michelotto, stationed behind the table like an ugly bulldog, and his henchman pulls a paper from his jacket and spreads it out on the surface in front of them.

‘And this, gentlemen, will be our route of campaign.’

The Via Emilia. Even on the map it stands out: a road as only the ancients built them. Beginning in Piacenza in the north, it moves straight as an arrow south-east through Parma and Bologna, running along the eastern edge of the Apennines and then on as far as the Adriatic coast at Rimini. Exactly when it was first built is conjecture, though it must have been well before the birth of Christ. Its reconstruction under Augustus and Tiberius is better known, for there are dated milestones and a set of the finest bridges in Italy; sweeping arched spans of stone, their surfaces worn and pitted by centuries of feet, hooves and cartwheels, though most of those who walk the stones now couldn’t care less about the history of the ancients or even the name of the great Roman general who crossed the Rubicon river before them. No, like most people they are too busy working to stay alive in the present.

The poets – who work hard in their own way – liken this elegant artery in the body of Italy to a string of pearls laid out on a table of green velvet. It is a fitting simile: the pearls because along its length are threaded a number of city-states, each rich enough to have its own ruling family, greedy, squabbling and committed to lining its pockets at the expense of those it governs; and the green velvet because on its unswerving way to the sea the road runs through one of the most fertile plains in the country. It is said you only have to throw a handful of seeds in the state of Romagna, as it is known now, and within a year you will have enough bread, fruits, vegetables and oil to feed an army.

All this in itself would be enough to tempt a new young Caesar looking to secure himself a place in history. But there is another accident of history that makes this area ripe for conquest and explains why Cesare has had his eyes on it ever since he was old enough to read a map. Because in law these city-states do not belong to the families that rule them: they are rented rather than owned. The landlord to whom they belong sits in Rome presiding over the Holy Mother Church. And Alexander VI has already made it clear that he is intending to evict a number of tenants in favour of his own son.

The first attack has been a spiritual one: a bull of excommunication against five of the rulers of papal states in the Romagna on the grounds of non-payment of tribute to Rome. Robbed of God’s protection and the support of any bigger allies (no one is willing to fight the Pope when he has the King of France in his pocket), these five named towns sit close enough together to offer the foundation for a larger single state: Imola, Forlì, Rimini, Faenza and Pesaro. Though the choice is as much strategic as malicious, everyone in the room knows that the ousting of his ex-brother-in-law the Duke of Pesaro will bring with it a special satisfaction.

‘We will start here.’ Cesare places his index finger on a point on the map. The stones in his rings glitter even in the half-light. Their captain-general is wearing the price of a small estate on one hand. ‘The city of Imola, and then Forlì. Vitelli?’ He turns to the weasel-faced veteran. ‘You are a man who knows your artillery. How many cannonballs do you think we need to blow holes in Caterina Sforza’s fortresses?’

Vitelli grins. ‘I think that will depend on what the lady is wearing at the time.’

When Lucrezia welcomes back her husband, the child is so large inside her that it comes between them as they embrace.

‘Look at you. It has made you even more beautiful. Naples is full of women dark as roasted chestnuts, while you are lilies and thick cream.’

‘Ha! I smell a man who has been indulging in courtier’s talk.’

‘Untrue. There is not a moment when I was not thinking about you. My God, I have missed you, wife.’

And she knows it is true, because she feels it too. She holds his face in her hands, pushing his cheeks together so that his lips, those full fleshy lips, are squeezed and open. She stands on tiptoe to kiss them.

‘We have done it,’ she says, laughing as they break apart. ‘We have brought you home.’

It has taken almost two months and a crosstrail of envoys and ambassadors, with neither side willing to give in: Rome because it has too much to bargain with and Naples because it has nothing.

King Federico had always known that his stand against the Borgias would sever the alliance with the papacy and open Naples to the French, but he had banked on Spain’s outrage to provide him with protection. He is, alas, an idealist in an age of pragmatism. Their Majesties Ferdinand and Isabella, watching the French walk into Milan and realising that Naples is already lost, are already making secret overtures to King Louis.

Such is Federico’s isolation that he feels chilled even when the day is hot. If he is to stand any chance of survival, he would do better to appeal to the Pope’s Spanish blood and give him what his daughter wants most – her husband’s return in time for the birth of their child. And while he is at it, they might as well have Sancia back as well.

When the decision is made, he is, at least, honest about it. ‘I do not like it, nephew. But I have no option.’ His eyebrows are so used to being knotted together in worry that they seem to have fused, so that now he peers out at the world from under an overhang of hair. Some of his courtiers are beginning to wonder how far it is obscuring his vision.

‘I know that.’

‘The Pope’s bargaining is always the same: he offers you a warm coat, until you put it on and find it has open razors for a lining. I have no power against him. If you go, I must tell you I cannot guarantee your safety.’

‘I know that also.’

The King sighs. In the past he never had much time for his bastard niece and nephew, feeling them to be tainted by the decadence of their father. It had been almost fitting when they had found a place inside an even more corrupt family. But it seems this marriage to the Borgia hussy has given Alfonso unexpected dignity. His own plain daughter is newly married to her Breton nobleman; a man with as little charisma as he has ambition. She will never return to Naples. Well, God grant her a long and happy life. It is more than he has to look forward to.

As soon as it is decided, Alfonso rides north with an armed guard, bypassing Rome and moving straight on to the papal city of Spoleto, where Lucrezia and Jofré have made a home of sorts. While the city has good reason to be grateful for the Pope’s protection (especially when it is being so brutally withdrawn from others), it has also taken her to its heart, impressed by her diligence and grace. Now, with her husband at her side, together they can inspect outlying areas of her governorship.

It is a glorious autumn, balmy after the mad heat, and the forests are starting to take fire. For the first time in their married life they are their own masters. They both know it is a freedom that cannot last, which makes it all the sweeter. They are welcomed everywhere they go: the Duchess of Bisceglie may be a Borgia but she represents a softer face of power and her deliberations in Spoleto have earned her a reputation for fairness. Besides, who can resist such fecundity: a young woman ripe with child and so clearly in love with life itself?

By the time they are summoned back to Rome she is within weeks of giving birth.

Alexander, who sent away his children only to become lonely without them, is bedside himself with pleasure at her return. Giulia, who has been away visiting her family for much of the summer, has become more resistible with time, and there are moments when he feels almost sentimental for a less arduous kind of love. His daughter’s particular beauty fells him completely. In this last stage of pregnancy, she has come to resemble her own mother in her youth. She brings a glow into every room. The baby rides so high in her now that when she walks she must hold herself backwards to accommodate its weight, putting a hand in the hollow of her own back for extra support, and when she sits she gives a slight breathless laugh, as if she can hardly believe her own condition. Such gestures trigger a flood of other memories in Alexander: Vannozza’s full breasts, the sheen on her skin, the sense of voluptuousness in her weariness. When he had experienced it the first time it had been so powerful that he could barely wait for her to drop the child so that they might set about making another. Even Giulia, at her most exquisite, never inflamed him in the same way. It was as if there was something about Vannozza’s beauty that had been bred to make babies, and the force of it plucks at his heartstrings even now. Well, why not? It is good for an ageing man to be reminded of his potency and anyway, God knows, he loves his daughter deeply and it is impossible not to be touched by her happiness.

He is also proud of her. The letters from his representatives speak of a curious and serious mind, a willingness to listen but not to be shaken from her decisions by spurious argument. Of course such observations are inflated with flattery, but even so…

Jofré, on the other hand, affords him little pleasure. Since his brief sojourn in Castel Sant’ Angelo, he is sulky and aggressive, like a pet animal neglected and gone to the wild. He is only bearable now when in his wife’s company, for she has always been partly the mother he didn’t have, chastising and cajoling by turns. Sancia herself, despite all the vicissitudes of life, has retained both her appetite for pleasure and an inability to disguise her feelings. It makes her almost refreshing in a world dictated by subterfuge.

Inside the palace of Santa Maria in Portico, the talk is all of births and babies. The kitchen buys in doves and young calves ready for the knife for the celebrations that will follow. A gilded crib is put into the bedroom under the portrait of the Virgin, the new linen embroidered ready with a space for the first initial. In the morning of October 31 Lucrezia goes for a walk with Alfonso in the courtyard garden. Coming back inside she feels a sharp stab and then her waters break, a flood that soaks her skirts, sending Alfonso running in panic for assistance. The midwives and women swoop in like a flock of birds, shooing him away as they take charge, supporting her to her rooms and closing the doors. After a few hours, when nothing more has happened, the chief midwife starts massaging her belly with scented oils, sliding well-practised fingers up inside her to encourage dilation. By sunset labour has started. Her groans rise up throughout the palace, and the Pope, who is informed of the progress when he comes out of a meeting with the new – and rather more pliant – Spanish ambassador, swears that he feels her pain himself. He refuses all food and drink and orders prayers throughout the Vatican for her safe delivery.

In the early hours of November 1, after a final stage of labour which leaves them all breathless with its speed and intensity, the Duchess of Bisceglie is delivered of a baby boy, in rude health and good voice. After a prolonged suck at the wet-nurse he is put into his mother’s arms, suffused with an air of self-satisfaction.

He is given the name Rodrigo after his esteemed grandfather and, as the winter dawn creeps in, Lucrezia falls asleep safe in the knowledge that she has achieved the one thing that might save her marriage: a male heir for the Borgia dynasty in Italy.

For his part, the Pope is so elated one might almost think he had fathered the child himself. He holds a mass of celebration to thank God and then calls in Burchard. Having presided over two papal weddings, three betrothals and a divorce, it is now his job to orchestrate a baptism. Fortunately, the Vatican has a chapel that will do nicely for the event.