to die…’ She leaned toward me and lowered her voice conspiratorially. ‘Surely I told you what the Venetian ambassador said to me, long ago, about Cesare.’
I smiled politely. ‘We have never spoken, Madonna.’ I could not fault her for her confusion; I was not in full possession of my senses myself.
She seemed not to hear my words. ‘It was some time ago, before he murdered Lucrezia’s last husband. Cesare was busy testing the waters, playing Spain against France, and France against Spain, waiting to see which alliance would prove the most advantageous.’ She laughed softly. ‘He was so inconstant…He actually went to the Venetian ambassador at one point and swore allegiance to Venice. He said that he trusted neither France nor Spain to protect him should anything happen to the Holy Father. And the ambassador told him, most frankly, ‘You would certainly need help, it is true; for if anything ever happened to His Holiness, your affairs would not last three days.’ She laughed again, and directed her attention once more to the torches moving silently through the dark streets of Rome.
I followed her gaze and contemplated the tiny travelling flames, the small black shapes of the grieving that faded into the surrounding night. Born of madness or not, my brother’s ghost had spoken the truth: I had tried to kill the wrong man.
For the first time since coming to the Castel Sant’Angelo, I considered the canterella in my possession not as a means of self-destruction, but as a solution to the problems facing all of Italy. I returned to my rooms and sat brooding for hours. I possessed the weapon, but not sufficient knowledge of its use; nor did I have the means to deliver it to its target. I was watched at all times: I could scarcely walk into the Vatican and offer His Holiness a cup of wine. Esmeralda, too, was closely guarded; she no longer possessed the freedom to contact an assassin.
‘I am ready,’ I whispered to the strega in the darkness. ‘But if I am to fulfil my destiny, you must send help. I cannot accomplish this alone.’
The next day at dusk, as I sat in my antechamber with Donna Esmeralda waiting for supper to be delivered, the doors were thrown open without the usual courteous knock. We turned; the two guards flanking the entrance bowed low as first Donna Maria, then Lucrezia herself, entered.
Donna Esmeralda rose and stared balefully at the two women, her arms folded across her chest in silent disapproval of our visitors.
I said nothing, but stood and studied Lucrezia. She was clad in blue-green silk skirts, with a matching velvet bodice and sleeves; her neck sparkled with emeralds, and diamonds dotted the gold netting covering her hair. She was dressed grandly, in the Roman style, while I had gone back to wearing unadorned Neapolitan black.
But all her finery could not hide her pallor, or put the spark of life back into her haggard, hollow eyes. Sorrow had worn her; any prettiness she ever possessed had fled.
At the sight of me, she gave a small, tentative smile and spread her arms.
I offered no welcome. I stared steadily at her, my arms at my sides, and watched her smile fade to an expression of veiled hurt and guilt.
‘Why have you come?’ I asked. There was no rancour in my tone, only bluntness.
She motioned for Donna Esmeralda and Donna Maria to step outside into the corridor; after they complied, she ordered the guards to close the doors, giving us privacy.
Once assured our words had no witnesses, she answered, ‘I was in Rome.’ Her voice was soft, tinged with shame. ‘But I shall not remain here long. I had to see for myself how you were faring. I have been worried; I heard you were unwell.’
‘It is all true, what they have said,’ I told her flatly. ‘I quite lost my mind. But it returns to me now and again.’
‘And it is all true, what they have said about me,’ she replied, with a trace of irony. ‘I am obliged to marry again.’
I had no reply for such a statement-not when Alfonso’s ghost hovered between us, a silent rebuke.
Lucrezia’s gaze was fixed not on me, but down and away, on a distant spot in the past, as though her explanation were an apology to my brother, not to me. Her face grew taut with loathing and self-disgust. ‘I refused at first-but I am far too valuable a political commodity to have my own way. My father and Cesare…I need not tell you what pressure they brought to bear on me.’ A slight flush coloured her cheeks, as an unspoken memory provoked her anger; she gathered herself, and finally looked directly at me.
‘But I convinced them to let me make the choice, leaving them with final approval. They agreed. I have made it, and they have approved.’ She drew a breath. ‘I chose a D’Este of Ferrara.’
‘A D’Este,’ I whispered. My cousins in the Romagna. Cesare never dared attack them; their army was too strong. He had long ago told me that he would prefer to make them his allies.
‘Cesare likes the arrangement, because he thinks it will bring him more soldiers,’ Lucrezia confided. ‘I was required to visit them, so the old duke, my potential father-in-law, could be assured I was a “Madonna of good character”, as he put it.’ She gave a wry, fleeting smile. ‘I passed old Ercole’s test. But what I did not tell Father or Cesare is that the D’Estes will never be convinced to fight for the papacy. They are good Catholics, but they are wise: they do not trust Pope Alexander or his Captain-General.
‘Duke Ercole insists that I go to Ferrara to wed his son, and live there afterwards, which I have agreed to eagerly. I will never again return to Rome. I will stay with my new husband, surrounded by a strong family and a strong army which cannot be bent to the Borgias’ will.’ Her voice grew laden with emotion. ‘His name is Alfonso.’
It took me a moment to realize that she had uttered the name of her intended groom: Alfonso d’Este, my brother’s cousin.
‘So you see,’ she continued, ‘this is to be our last meeting, Sancha.’ She regarded me with sad affection. ‘If there was only something I could do to help your circumstances…’
‘There is,’ I answered immediately. ‘You can do me one final act of kindness.’
‘Anything.’ She waited, eager, expectant.
‘You can tell me how much of the canterella it takes to kill a man.’
She was utterly startled at first, then composed herself and grew very still. Through the distant look in her eyes, her expression, I watched her travel back to the convent of San Sisto, where she had been pregnant with Cesare’s child, and so filled with despair that she planned to end her life.
I watched her recall the missing vial of poison.
She studied me intently then; our gazes met, both steady. In that wordless exchange, we shared complicity in a plot as solid, as explicit in goal as any hatched by her brother and father.
I was never so sure of her loyalty, or her gratitude.
‘Only a few grains,’ she replied at last. ‘It is extremely potent. It is slightly bitter, so sprinkle it onto food- something sweet, like honey or jam, or directly into wine. That way, the victim cannot taste it.’
I gave a slow nod. ‘Thank you.’
In the next instant, it was as though we had never spoken of such things; her expression changed abruptly. A look of yearning crept into her eyes, a plea. I countered quickly before she could ask the question:
‘Do not ask me for forgiveness, Lucrezia, for I can never give it.’
The last flicker of hope in her eyes died, like a flame extinguished. ‘Then I will pray to God for it,’ she said solemnly. ‘And I will ask only that you remember me.’
I yielded then. I stepped forward and embraced her tightly. ‘That I can do.’
She wrapped her arms about me. ‘Good-bye, Sancha.’
‘No,’ I responded sadly, my cheek against hers. ‘This is farewell.’
Preceding Lucrezia’s departure for Ferrara, there were numerous celebrations in the city. Dorotea and I watched from the loggia on clear nights as all manner of sumptuously-dressed nobles and dignitaries processed through the streets and piazzas to the Vatican, on their way to pay their respects to the bride-to-be. There were fireworks, and cannons; Dorotea enjoyed the distractions, but they only fuelled my hatred.
One morning, as I sat in my antechamber reading, the doors to my apartment opened. I looked up, annoyed at the unannounced intrusion.
