Light on Lucrezia (46 page)

There were whispers
throughout Rome.

“The Pope is dying.”

Outside the Vatican the citizens waited. When the moment came they would rush into the papal apartments and strip them of their treasures. There were usually riots in Rome when a Pope died, and this one was the richest of all Popes.

All through that day they waited, the question on every lip: “How fares His Holiness?”

He was fighting, they heard, fighting, with all his fierce energy, for his life. They were not normal, these Borgias; they had made a pact with the devil.
Clearly the Pope and his son had taken a dose of their own medicine; who could say whether that dose had been intended for them or whether they had taken it by mistake? That was of no moment now. The important matter was that Alexander was dying.

And in his apartments immediately above those of his father, the dreaded Cesare Borgia was fighting for his life.

Great days were about to begin in Rome.

Cesare could hear
the murmur of prayers in the apartment below him. Down there men were praying for the Pope’s life. He was ill, on the borders of death, and even his giant constitution was weakening.

Cesare lay weak with pain, refusing to think of death, wondering what he would do if his father died. He was no fool. He knew that he had been bolstered up by his father’s power, his father’s wealth; he knew that when towns opened their gates to him it was not entirely due to his own military skill or the fear he had contrived to instil; it was the knowledge of the power of the Papacy.

If that power ceased, what would happen to Cesare Borgia? Whom could he trust? He could not leave his bed, but he guessed that even now people were gathering outside the Vatican, that many a man and woman in the city was praying for his death.

Never had he felt so weak as he did at that time, never had he been so certain of all he owed to his father.

There were two men in his room now. He called to them and they came and stood beside his bed. One was his younger brother Goffredo, and it was gratifying to see the anguish in Goffredo’s eyes. Goffredo, whose wife had been Cesare’s mistress, had the Borgia devotion to the family; to him the most important person in the world was Cesare. There were tears now in Goffredo’s eyes, and he was not wondering what would become of himself if Cesare and his father died; he was grieving for his brother.

“Brother,” said Cesare, “come closer. You see me prostrate here when I should be on my feet. You see me sick when I have need of all my strength.”

Goffredo cried: “I will be your strength, brother. But command me and I will obey.”

“May the saints preserve you, Borgia brother.”

Goffredo’s eyes shone with pride, as they always did when he was called Borgia. The greatest insult that could be hurled at him was to suggest that he did not belong to that family.

“Who is that in the shadows, brother?” asked Cesare.

“Your good servant, Don Micheletto Corella.”

“Ah,” said Cesare, “bid him come forward.”

Micheletto Corella knelt by the bed and took Cesare’s hand. “My lord, I am yours to command.”

“How fares my father?” said Cesare. “Come, I would have the truth. Do not seek to soothe me. This is no time to soothe.”

“He is very sick.”

“Sick unto death?” demanded Cesare.

“Were he an ordinary man, one would say so. But His Holiness is superhuman. It is said there is a slight hope that he will throw off the effects of the poison.”

“God grant he will. Oh my father, you must not die.”

“He’ll not die,” cried Goffredo. “Borgias do not die.”

“If it is humanly possible to survive, he will do it,” said Cesare. “But we must be ready for whatever should happen. If my father dies, you must immediately get possession of the keys to the vaults, and my father’s treasure must be carried to a safe place. Brother, my friend, if my father should die, you must get those keys before the people know. Once they have stormed the Vatican there will be no hope of saving my father’s treasures.”

“I will do that, my lord,” answered Corella.

“And in the meantime my father and I must appear to be recovering. Do not tell any how sick we are. Say that we have had a slight attack of fever, probably due to the poisonous August air.”

“Many who were at the Corneto party have taken to their beds. The Cardinal is saying that it is due to the poison in the air, and that the sooner Leonardo da Vinci, your fortress engineer, can do something about his drains, the better.”

“Let them say that. So other guests are afflicted, eh? But not as my father is … not as I am. I find that very suspicious. But say nothing. Tell all that we are recovering. Listen! Who is that coming?”

“Some of the Cardinals from the Sacred College; they come to ask after you and the Pope.”

“Prop me up,” said Cesare. “They must not know how sick I am. Come … we will laugh and chat together. It must be as though in a few days I shall leave my bed.”

The Cardinals came in. They had visited the Pope, and the disappointed expressions on their faces made Cesare feel exultant; it seemed that Alexander too had realized the importance of impressing them with the belief that he and his son were suffering from a slight malaise from which they would soon recover.

Such was Alexander’s
strength of mind and body that, only two days after he drank the poisoned wine, he was able to sit up in his bed and play cards with members of his household.

Cesare in the rooms above heard the laughter below and exulted.

Never before had he realized the greatness of this father of his; and the sweetest sound in the world, to Cesare that day, was the laughter which came from the Pope’s bedchamber as the cards were played.

Corella and Goffredo came to him to tell him what was happening.

“You should see the faces of some of them,” cried Goffredo. “They can’t hide their disappointment.”

“I trust you noted who they were,” said Cesare. “When I rise from this bed they shall be remembered.”

Cesare lay back and, ill as he was, he smiled.

None can overcome the Borgias, he was thinking. No matter who comes against us, we will always win.

It occurred to him that the poison had not affected the Pope as much as it had himself. Yet the Pope had drunk the wine undiluted, and he had weakened his with water. Perhaps this foul disease, which had dogged him since his early youth, was largely responsible for his condition.

When he was well enough to visit his father—although it seemed that his father would probably be the one to visit him—he would show him more tenderness than he had of late. He would insist that the Pope must take greater care of his health. Alexander was that strong stem from which the Borgia power had grown. That stem must not be broken yet.

He could have made merry with his brother and his trusted captain if he did not feel so ill.

Alexander woke in
the night.

He cried out: “Where am I?”

His attendants hurried to his bed.

“In your bed, Holiness.”

“Ah,” he said, “I wondered.”

Then he murmured something which sounded like: “I have come to see the children, Vannozza. You too … and the children … and Giovanni … Giovanni.…”

The attendants looked at each other and whispered: “His mind has wandered to the past.”

He was a little better when morning came. He heard Mass and received Communion.

He then muttered: “I feel tired. Leave me, I beg of you. I would rest.”

Goffredo and Corella heard that the Pope was resting and did not seem so well as he had the day before. They did not tell Cesare, who had had a painful night, as they did not wish to worry him.

That day the atmosphere in the Vatican was oppressed by gloom which did not seem entirely real. It hid expectancy and perhaps hope and some jubilation.

The Pope was seen to be very weak and listless; the alertness seemed to have vanished from that vital face; he had changed a great deal in a few hours, and now that the veil of vitality was removed he looked like a very old man.

One of his attendants bent over him to ask if there was aught he wished for.

He put out a burning hand and murmured: “I am ill, my friend. I am very ill.”

All the light had gone from those once-brilliant eyes and the man in the bed was like the ghost of Alexander.

Night came and the Cardinals were at his bedside.

“He should be given Extreme Unction,” it was said; and this was done.

Alexander opened his eyes. “So I have come to the end of my road,” he said. “There is no earthly path open to me now. Farewell, my friends. Farewell, my greatness. I am ready now to go to Heaven.”

Those about his bedside looked at each other with astonishment. There was no fear in the face of this man who many had said was one of the wickedest who had ever lived. He was going, so he believed, to Heaven where he appeared to have no doubt a specially warm welcome would be waiting for him. Was he not Roderigo Borgia, Alexander VI, Christ’s Vicar on Earth? He did not see the ghosts of the men whom he had murdered. He saw only the gates of Heaven open wide to receive him.

Thus died Roderigo Borgia.

Those about the
bed were startled when the doors were flung open and soldiers under the command of Don Micheletto Corella came in.

“We come to guard His Holiness,” said Corella. And turning to the Cardinal Treasurer, who was at the bedside, he cried: “Give me the keys of the Papal vaults.”

“On whose orders?” demanded the Cardinal.

“On those of the Lord of Romagna,” was the answer.

There was silence in the chamber of death. The Pope could no longer command. In the room immediately above, that tyrant, his son Cesare, was lying near to death. There was one thought in the minds of those who had been disturbed by Corella: The Borgian reign of terror is over.

“I cannot give you the keys,” answered the Cardinal Treasurer.

Corella drew his dagger and held it at the throat of the man whose eyes involuntarily turned to the ceiling. Corella laughed.

“My master grows nearer health each day,” he said. “Give me the keys, Eminence, or you’ll follow His Holiness to Heaven.”