From the moment his uncle had spoken the dreaded name Alfonso had known no peace. There had been many evil rumors concerning that family, and his future bride had not escaped them. All feared the Pope. It was said that he was possessed of supernatural powers, and this must be so for at sixty-seven he had the vigor of a young man. His mind was alert and cunning as it had ever been; and it was rumored that his mistresses were as numerous as they had been in the days of his youth. But it was not the Pope’s vigor or diplomatic skill which was to be feared.
Rumors concerning the mysterious deaths of those who crossed the Pope’s will were continually being circulated throughout Italy. He and his son Cesare had formed, it seemed, an unholy partnership, and whenever their names were mentioned, men lowered their eyes and were afraid, for it was said that as little as a look could bring down the wrath of the Borgias, and that wrath could mean the assassin’s knife, a final plunge into the Tiber, or what was perhaps even more dreaded, an invitation to sup at the Borgia table. Those who lived within the shadow of the Borgias could never relax their vigil; they must be continually on the alert, watching, waiting and wondering.
It was to this shadow that his uncle was condemning young Alfonso, and not to its edge where he might exist in a certain amount of obscurity, but to its very heart.
His new brother-in-law would be that Cesare Borgia whose hands were so recently stained with his own brother’s blood. There were rumors concerning his relationship with Lucrezia, and it was said that he loved her with a love which went beyond what a brother should feel for his sister. The rumor added that he hated all those on whom his sister’s affection alighted, and sought to destroy them; so Cesare’s cold vicious eyes would at once and inevitably be directed toward Lucrezia’s bridegroom.
And Lucrezia? How did this young bridegroom picture her as he rode toward Rome?
A bold and brazen woman. The stories concerning her relationship with her father and her brother were shocking. Giovanni Sforza, her divorced husband, had many a tale to tell of the wicked and incestuous woman who had been his wife. Giovanni Sforza, it was true, was an angry man because the Pope had branded him with the stigma of impotency. It was natural, Uncle Federico had said, that Sforza should want his revenge, and how could he better take it than by slandering the wife whose family had insisted she divorce him? But was it true that Lucrezia, when she had stood before the Cardinals and Envoys in the Vatican declaring herself to be virgo intacta, had really been six months pregnant? Was it true that the child she had borne three months later had been smuggled out of the Vatican, her lover murdered, her faithful maid, who had shared Lucrezia’s secrets, strangled and thrown into the Tiber?
If these stories were true, what manner of woman was this to whom his uncle was sending him? At the moment the Pope and his terrifying son were eager for the marriage, but what if in time to come they found it not to their liking? Giovanni Sforza, it was said, had escaped death by running away, but he had escaped with his life, only to be branded as impotent.
What fate was in store for the newly made Duke of Bisceglie?
Nearer and nearer they came to Rome, and as the distance decreased so his fears grew.
Those fears would have been allayed in some measure if he could have seen his future wife at that moment. She was in her apartments with a piece of needlework in her hands, her golden hair, freshly washed, damp about her shoulders. She looked very young and immature; she was pale, and in the last months had grown thin, and there was a look of intense tragedy in her expression as she bent over her work.
Her women who sat with her were chattering together, trying to disperse her melancholy thoughts. They were talking of the imminent arrival of the Duke of Bisceglie.
“I hear he is a very handsome man.”
“Madonna Sanchia is beside herself with pleasure at the thought of his arrival.”
Lucrezia let them talk. What did it matter? Nothing they said could make her happy. She did not care if he was the handsomest man in the world. There was only one husband she wanted, and he would never be hers. Three months ago they had taken his body from the Tiber.
“Pedro, Pedro,” she whispered to herself, and with a supreme effort she prevented the tears falling from her eyes.
How could she break herself of this unhappy habit, this preoccupation with the past? Until recently she had had the gift, inherited from her father, of never looking back. Now when she saw one of her father’s chamberlains in the apartments of the Vatican, or perhaps from the window of this Palace of Santa Maria in Portico, she would believe for one ecstatic second that it was but a nightmare which haunted her, and that it was truly Pedro whom she saw, Pedro, young and beautiful as he had been in the days when they had loved and dreamed of a life they would have together. When she saw a woman carrying a child, or heard the cry of a baby, the anguish would return.
“I want my baby,” she whispered to herself. “Now … here in my arms … I want him now. What right have they to take him from me?”
The right of might, was the answer. She had been powerless in their hands. While she lay helpless they had lured Pedro to his death; she, a woman weak from childbirth, lay exhausted, and they had stolen her baby from her.
There was a commotion without and one of her women said: “It is Madonna Sanchia coming to visit you, Madonna.”
And there was Sanchia with her three constant attendants, Loysella, Bernardina, and Francesca; Sanchia merry and vivacious, Sanchia from Naples who snapped her fingers at Roman etiquette.
Lucrezia never looked at Sanchia without astonishment, for Sanchia was the most arrestingly beautiful woman Lucrezia had ever seen. Lucrezia with her golden hair, pale eyes, delicate skin, serene expression and that slightly receding chin which gave her a look of perpetual innocence, was considered to be a beauty, but beside black-haired, blue-eyed Sanchia she seemed colorless. It was said of Sanchia that she dabbled in witchcraft, and that was why she was possessed of that extraordinary beauty which men found irresistible. Lucrezia could believe that Sanchia would be capable of anything.
But during recent months there had grown a bond between them, for it was Sanchia who had comforted her as no one else could. Lucrezia had found it strange to discover unsuspected depths in Sanchia’s character. Sanchia, who had a host of lovers, could smile at Lucrezia’s tragic relationship with Pedro, and her advice was: “Take more lovers. That is the way to forget.”
They were different though. Sanchia must understand that.
Sanchia was now frowning at the needlework in Lucrezia’s hands.
“You sit there stitching, when at any moment my brother may be here.”
Lucrezia smiled gently. “One would think it was your husband who was coming, rather than your brother.”
Sanchia grimaced; she sat on one of the high-backed chairs and her three women drew up stools and sat at her feet. Lucrezia’s women had withdrawn themselves, yet hoping that they would not be dismissed for Sanchia’s conversation was invariably racy and indiscreet; so if Lucrezia forgot to dismiss them—and she had been absentminded of late—they might stay and garner much interesting news.
“Ah, my husband!” said Sanchia. “Do not mistake me, dear sister. I love your brother, my little Goffredo, but I am a woman who asks more of a husband than that he should be a pretty little boy.”
“My brother is happy to be your husband,” murmured Lucrezia.