Light on Lucrezia (66 page)

It was a dream which was never to materialize. Alfonso was too good a soldier, and his beloved cannon served him well.

Francesco was now dead; he had died at the beginning of this year and Isabella was at last triumphant. But how short-lived was that triumph as her son Federico soon showed his determination to rule alone, and the death of her husband for which she had longed brought no power to Isabella.

Lying back in her bed Lucrezia thought of all the unhappiness which need never have been. She thought of the malice of Isabella and the murder
of Strozzi and the chaplain. She thought of her love for her young husband, Alfonso of Bisceglie, and of his wanton murder by one whom she had never ceased to love, more she believed than any she had ever known.

It might have been so different. She had wished to live happily and serenely, away from violence, but the milestones of her life were stained with blood.

She was in pain again and with pain came flashes of a memory which seemed to impose itself on the present; she saw the handsome face of Pedro Caldes and remembered the anguish of the love they had shared in San Sisto. There had been many reminders of that love when she had had Giovanni Borgia, the
Infante Romano
and son of Pedro, brought to her in Ferrara. Alfonso had at last relented and allowed her that, although Roderigo, the son of Alfonso of Bisceglie, had never been allowed to come to her. Poor Giovanni, he had been a wayward boy and she feared he would never make his way in the world. As for Roderigo she would never see him again; he had died some years before.

“Why should you grieve for him?” Alfonso had demanded. “Have you not healthy sons in Ferrara?”

But she did grieve. She grieved for the past, which had been so sad and might have been so different.

Pain had seized her although the child was not due until August. She called to her women, and they came hurrying to her bedside.

That night a seven-months child, a daughter, was born; the child sickly, refusing to take nourishment, was hurriedly baptized.

Lucrezia lay in
a fever.

Her long rippling hair hung heavily about her shoulders. She lifted her patient eyes to those who watched her, and implored them to alleviate her pain.

“Your hair, Madonna,” they murmured, “it is so heavy. Shall we cut it off? It would mean great comfort to you.”

She hesitated. She could not clearly remember where she was. She thought of long afternoons, lying on a couch in a Moorish shirt, her hair damp about her; she remembered washing it with Giulia Farnese whose hair had been similarly golden.

Cut off her hair, of which she had been so proud? She would not have believed that she could ever consent to such an action.

But the heat was unendurable, the pain intense and she was so tired.

She nodded slowly, and lay quietly listening to the click of the scissors.

Alfonso came to look at her, and she saw the alarm in his face.

I am dying, she thought.

Alfonso had moved away from the bed, and was beckoning to the doctors. “What hope?” he asked.

“None, my lord. She cannot survive. She is dying now.”

Alfonso nodded slowly. He stared at that once beautiful head now shorn of its golden glory. Lucrezia … she was thirty-nine; it was young to die. She had given him the future Duke of Ferrara, and in time had become a good and docile wife, but he had never understood her, he had never wanted an elegant lady. He thought of his Laura, grown rich and plump under his protection, Laura the bonnet-maker’s daughter who was the mother of two children. Laura whom he had called Eustochia, the good conceiver. Laura, earthy and passionate, a woman whom he could understand and who could understand him.

He wanted a steadier life now; he wanted a wife who could be both mistress and mother of his children.

Watching the life slowly leave Lucrezia’s body he thought: I’ll marry Laura.

He went back to the bed. Lucrezia’s eyes were glazed and, although she appeared to look at him, she did not see him.

She was thinking of all those she had loved and who had gone before her; her mother, Vannozza who had died last year, her brother Giovanni, her father, Cesare, Pedro, Alfonso of Bisceglie—those people whom she had loved as perhaps she had never loved any others. Three of those six people had been murdered, and by one hand. Yet she had forgotten that as she slowly slipped away from this life.

I am going to them, she told herself, I am going to my loved ones.

Her lips moved, and it seemed to some of those watching at her bedside that she murmured: “Cesare.”

A hushed silence had fallen on the apartment.

Lucrezia Borgia was dead.

I
t was cold in the castle, and the woman who stood
at the window looking from the snowy caps of the mountains to the monastery below thought longingly of the comfort of her house on the Piazza Pizzo di Merlo sixty miles away in Rome.

Yet she was content to be here for it was Roderigo’s wish that their child should be born in his mountain castle; and she could feel nothing but delight that he should care so much.

She turned her back on the majestic view and looked round the room. The bed was inviting, for her pains were becoming more frequent. She hoped the child would be a boy, since Roderigo could do so much more for a boy than for a girl.

Already she had given him three handsome sons, and he doted on them, particularly, she believed, on Cesare and Giovanni; but that was because Pedro Luis the eldest had been sent away. It was sad to lose him but it was a wonderful future which would be his: education at the Spanish Court, where he was to receive the dukedom of Gandia. And there would be equally grand opportunities for the others—for Cesare, for Giovanni, and the unborn child.

Her women were hovering. Madonna should lie down now, they advised, for the child would surely soon be born.

She smiled, wiping the sweat from her forehead, and allowed them to help her to the bed. One touched her forehead with a sweet-smelling unguent which was cool and refreshing; another put a goblet of wine to her lips. They were eager, these women, to serve Vannozza Catanei, because she was beloved by Roderigo Borgia, one of the greatest Cardinals in Rome.

She was a lucky woman to have become so dear to him, for he was a man who needed many mistresses; but she was the chief one, which in itself was something of a miracle since she was no longer young. When a woman was thirty-eight she must indeed be attractive to hold the attention of such a one as Cardinal Roderigo Borgia. Yet she had done it; and if there were times when she wondered whether he came to see their children rather than for the purpose of making love to her, what of that? Sons such as Pedro Luis, Cesare and Giovanni could make a stronger bond than passion; and if, in the future, there were younger and more beautiful women to charm him, she would still be the one who had given him his favorite children.

So she would be contented—when the pains were over and the child born; she was sure the baby would be healthy and handsome; all her children were. They had all inherited her golden beauty and she hoped the new child would, for it delighted their father. So she must be pleased that he had insisted on bringing her here to his castle at Subiaco, even though the journey had been long and tedious and the wind was fierce in the Apennines. He wished her to have their child in his palace, and he wished to be near her when it was born. That would have been less simple to achieve in Rome, for Roderigo was after all a man of the Church sworn to celibacy, and here in the mountain fastness of the Subiaco castle he could give way to his joy with an easier mind. So she would soothe herself while she waited by thinking of her beautiful house on the Piazza Pizzo di Merlo in which, due to the bounty of Roderigo, she lived so graciously. She delighted in the Ponte quarter in which there was always so much going on. It was one of the most populous districts of the city, and merchants and bankers abounded there. It was favored by the most notorious and prosperous of the courtesans, and dominated by the noble family of Orsini who had their palace on Monte Giordano, and whose castle, the Torre di None, was part of the city’s wall.

Not that Vannozza considered herself a courtesan. She was faithful to
Roderigo and regarded him as her husband, although of course she knew that Roderigo, being a Cardinal, could not marry, and that if he had been able to he would have been obliged to look for a wife in a different stratum of society.

But if Roderigo could not marry her he had been as considerate as any husband. Roderigo, thought Vannozza, was surely the most charming man in Rome. She did not believe she was the only one who thought this, although a man such as Roderigo would certainly have his enemies. He was made for distinction; his eyes were on a certain goal, the Papacy, and those who knew Roderigo well would surely feel that he had an excellent chance of achieving his ambition. No one should be deceived by those gracious manners, that enchantingly musical voice, that attractive courtesy; they were so much a part of Roderigo, it was true, but beneath the charm was a burning ambition which would certainly carry him as far as he intended it should.

Roderigo was a man whom Vannozza could adore, for he had all the qualities which she admired most. Therefore she prayed now to the saints and the Virgin that the child which she was about to bear should have charm and beauty (for Roderigo, possessing the former to such a degree, was very susceptible to the latter) and that should she, herself a matron of thirty-eight, fail to arouse his sexual desire she could continue to bask in his gratitude for the children she had borne him.

How long would the children be kept under her roof? Not long, she imagined. They would depart as Pedro Luis had departed. Roderigo had fine plans for the boys; and Vannozza, beloved of the Cardinal though she might be, had little social standing in Rome.

But he would remember that part of her lived in those children, and she would continue in her charming house, the house which he had given her. It was the sort of house which was possessed by the nobles of Rome, and she delighted in it. She had enjoyed sitting in the main room of the house, the whitewashed walls of which she had decorated with tapestries and a few pictures; for she had wanted to make her house as luxurious as that of the great families—the Orsinis and the Colonnas. Her lover was generous and had given her many presents; in addition to her tapestries and paintings she had her jewelry, her fine furniture, her ornaments of porphyry and marble, and—most treasured of all—her
credenza
, that great chest in which she stored her majolica, and her gold and silver goblets and drinking vessels. The
credenza
was a sign of social standing, and Vannozza’s eyes shone every time she looked at hers. She
would walk about her beautiful house, touching her beautiful possessions and telling herself in the quiet coolness she enjoyed behind its thick walls that she had indeed been a fortunate woman when Roderigo Borgia had come into her life and found her desirable.

Vannozza was no fool, and she knew that the treasures which Roderigo had given her were, in his mind, as nothing compared to those she had given him.

Now the pain was gripping her again, more insistently, almost continuously. The child was eager to be born.