pregnant Lucrezia awaited him. They spent a full month there, and I cannot blame them; they had a freedom and safety that they could not enjoy in Rome.
As soon as I had freshened up from my long journey, Jofre arrived, beaming, at my chamber. ‘Sancha! Each time I set eyes on you, I realize I have forgotten how beautiful you are!’
I smiled at him, grateful for his warm, loving welcome under such awkward circumstances, and embraced him. ‘I have missed you, husband.’
‘And I you-terribly. There is so much news to speak of, but we will save it for supper. Come, let me take you to Father and Cesare. I know they will be eager to see you.’
I smiled kindly and did not share with him my doubt.
He led me proudly on his arm, oblivious to the strained political situation my very person represented. As I walked with him from the Palazzo Santa Maria through Saint Peter’s Square, I realized I had missed the scope and grandeur of Rome. It was dusk, and the fading sunlight painted the white marble of the papal palace and Saint Peter’s a glowing pink; surrounding the great buildings were the glorious gardens, still in bloom. Even the broad curves of the winding Tiber, gleaming quicksilver, held a certain charm.
I clung tightly to Jofre’s arm as we entered the papal palace and its profusion of gilt and eye-dazzling paintings. This time, when I entered Pope Alexander’s throne room and bent to kiss his satin-slippered foot by way of greeting, I was received with far less enthusiasm than I had been upon my first arrival in Rome. Cesare, standing beside his father dressed in the uniform of the Captain-General, watched the gesture with hawk-like intensity.
‘Welcome, my dear,’ Alexander said, with a forced little smile. ‘I trust your journey was an uneventful one. Forgive us if we cannot sup with you tonight; Cesare and I have much strategy to discuss. Jofre can share with you all the affairs of the family.’
He dismissed me with a little flick of his fingers. As I turned from him, Cesare stepped forward, took my hands, and planted a formal kiss upon my cheek. As he did so, he breathed into my ear: ‘You will learn from him that you made a mistake in rejecting my proposal, Madonna. Time will serve to underscore your foolishness.’
I showed no reaction, only smiled cursorily at him, and he back at me.
At supper, which I took with Jofre in his chambers, my husband was brimming with news, and spoke so excitedly and at such length that he scarcely touched his food.
‘Father and Cesare are making plans,’ he announced proudly. ‘It is all secret, of course. Cesare will lead our army into the Romagna. It is a good move not only for the papacy, but for the House of Borgia…’ He leaned forward across the table and whispered conspiratorially, The entire Romagna is to be made a duchy for Cesare. Father has issued a bull to those rulers who have failed to tithe regularly-almost all of them. Either they surrender their lands to the Church…or face its army.’
I set down my goblet, suddenly unable to eat or drink. Memory transported me back to the moment I lay naked on Cesare’s bed and watched him gesture sweepingly at an imaginary map on the ceiling, at the great area that lay northeast of Rome. ‘Imola,’ I said suddenly. ‘Faenza, Forli, Cesena.’
Jofre shot me a curious little glance. ‘Yes,’ he affirmed. ‘And Pesaro-especially since its lord, Giovanna Sforza, made such vile accusations against Lucrezia and Father during the divorce.’
‘They will all fall easily to Cesare and his army, no doubt,’ I said. My eyes narrowed slyly. ‘Especially now that King Louis has supplied him with troops.’
My husband swallowed his wine too suddenly, which provoked a fit of coughing. I watched in silence. I had come to rely on Donna Esmeralda and her network of servant-spies for a great deal of information; from her, I had recently gleaned a most unpleasant truth: Cesare had been planning, ever since his marriage to Charlotte d’Albret, to trade his military services in Milan for French help in achieving his long-dreamed-of conquest of Italy. He had said, on the night he traced the map on the ceiling, that all he needed to fulfil his goal was an army strong enough to defeat France; perhaps he had realized that such an army would never materialize, for he had turned to the enemy itself for help.
‘It is merely a trade,’ Jofre said at last, wiping his eyes on his sleeve. ‘Cesare helped them in Milan; now they are helping him in the Romagna. But they have made it clear they no longer have any designs on Naples. Even if they did, Cesare would never permit it.’
‘Of course,’ I replied, not even trying to sound as though I believed a single word.
This dampened Jofre’s enthusiasm; our supper continued quietly, and we took care to speak of things other than politics.
By the time Alfonso and Lucrezia made their way back to Rome in mid-October, the bull had been promulgated-and Cesare moved into the Romagna with his army, which now included almost six thousand men given him by King Louis.
All of us in the household-Lucrezia and Alfonso, Jofre and I-were forced to listen every night at the supper table to Cesare’s most recent exploits. Unlike his predecessor, Juan, Cesare had a keen mind for strategy and was a brilliant commander, and Alexander was unceasingly vocal in his praise of his eldest son. He could scarcely contain his joy on those days when the news from the front was good, and could not contain his irritability and temper on those days when it was bad.
In the beginning, the word was good. The first ruler to fall was Caterina Sforza, a Frenchwoman, regent of Imola and Forli, and niece of the vanquished Ludovico. The city of Imola surrendered immediately without a struggle, overwhelmed by the size of Cesare’s army. Forli, where Caterina ensconced herself in the fortress, held out for three weeks. In the end, Cesare’s soldiers stormed over the walls; Caterina’s attempt at suicide failed, and she was taken prisoner.
His Holiness left out part of the tale of Caterina’s capture, the part that I learned from the lips of Donna Esmeralda.
‘She is a brave woman, the Countess of Forli, even though she is of French blood,’ Esmeralda proclaimed later that evening, when we two were alone in my bedchamber. ‘Braver by far than the bastard who captured her.’ Her lips thinned briefly at the thought of Cesare, then she returned to her tale. ‘Bravest in all the Romagna. When her husband was murdered by rebels, she led her own soldiers on horseback to the killers, and watched as every member of the group was slain.
‘And she is beautiful, with hair of gold and hands they say are soft as ermine. So courageous was she that, when Cesare and the French came, she stood on the city walls of Forli, undaunted by the smoke and the flames, and directed the defence herself. She tried to take her life before she could be captured-but Cesare’s men were too fast for her. She demanded to be turned over to King Louis…and the French soldiers so admired her, they wanted to set her free. But Don Cesare…’ She grimaced with disgust, and stared hard at me. ‘Did I not try to warn you, Madonna, that he would bring only evil? He is possessed by the Devil, that man.’
‘You did,’ I replied softly. ‘You were right, Esmeralda. Not a day passes that I do not wish I had heeded your words.’
Mollified, she continued her tale. ‘The swine wanted her for himself. She travels with him everywhere, Madonna. During the day, she is held prisoner, then at night, he has her brought to his tent. He treats her like a common whore, coercing her into the most depraved acts, forcing himself upon her whenever it pleases him. And she a woman of noble blood…They say that even King Louis is upset, and personally scolded Cesare for such despicable behaviour towards a female captive.’
I turned my face away, trying to hide from Esmeralda my fury and pain. Cesare had proven himself to be as brutal a soul as the brother he had murdered. I closed my eyes and recalled that horrible moment of helpless rage when Juan thrust himself inside me, and wished suddenly to weep for Caterina. Towards Cesare, I felt unspeakable contempt, and anger towards myself, that I should also feel stirrings of jealousy.
‘Pesaro is next,’ Esmeralda continued. ‘And there is no hope for its people, since that coward Giovanni Sforza abandoned them long ago. Cesare will take the city easily.’ She shook her head. ‘There is nothing to stop him, Donna. He and the French will march through all of Italy, until there is nothing left. I fear for the honour of every woman who lives in the Romagna.’
There was, however, one cause for happiness in our strained household: Lucrezia was due to give birth any moment, and both she and the child-who kicked vigorously in her belly-were robustly healthy. Alfonso and I clung to this solitary source of joy and hope, for a grandchild of both Borgia and Aragonese blood would predispose
