Madonna of the Seven Hills (51 page)

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.

“But he is so young. Far too young for me.”

“He is sixteen now.”

“But I am twenty-one and he still seems a child to me. You know he has never been a husband to me.…”

Sanchia’s voice was low but penetrating. She was aware of the listening women. She wanted them to hear her; she wanted the news spread throughout Rome that her marriage had not been consummated. It was not true, and unfortunately for Sanchia, that consummation had been witnessed by the King of Naples and a Cardinal. However, Sanchia’s thoughts were on divorce, and she knew that if it was declared firmly enough that the marriage had not been consummated then such declaration could be accepted.

“Poor little Goffredo,” said Lucrezia.

Sanchia dismissed the subject abruptly. “How brightly your hair shines. Smile, Lucrezia. It would seem that you are contemplating a funeral rather than a wedding.”

“It is because she has not yet seen the Duke,” said Loysella.

“When you have seen him you will be enchanted,” Sanchia told her. “He is very like his sister in appearance.” Sanchia laughed. “Now you are hoping that our resemblance is in appearance only. That’s so, is it not?”

“Oh Sanchia,” said Lucrezia, and she put out her hand and touched that of her sister-in-law. Sanchia looked at her in alarm. Poor Lucrezia! she thought. She has suffered too much over that affair of Pedro Caldes. She must stop brooding. Alfonso will be here perhaps this day: he must not find a sad Lucrezia brooding on the death of her murdered lover.

“I would talk to Madonna Lucrezia alone,” she said on impulse.

“Alone!” Loysella, Francesca and Bernardina looked at her reproachfully.

“Yes,” Sanchia told them firmly, “I mean alone.”

Sanchia, illegitimate daughter of a King of Naples, could suddenly put on the dignity of royalty, and when she did this her intimate women knew that she expected immediate obedience, so they rose and left the apartment, Lucrezia’s attendants following them.

“Now,” said Sanchia, “they are gone and we can speak freely. Lucrezia, stop grieving. Stop grieving, I say.”

Lucrezia shook her head and said in a broken voice: “How can one … at will?”

Sanchia ran to her and put her arms about her. “Lucrezia, it is so long ago.”

“Three months.” Lucrezia’s smile was a twisted one. “We swore to be faithful forever, and you say three months is long.”

“All lovers swear eternal fidelity,” said Sanchia impatiently. “It means ‘I will be true to you as long as our love lasts.’ That is the most that can be expected.”

“Our love was different.”

“All loves are different. Had your Pedro lived, you would have forgotten him by now. It is because they murdered him … because they made a martyr of him … that you remember.”

“I would remember him all my life, no matter what had happened.”

“Lucrezia, he was your first lover. That man they married you to—Giovanni Sforza!” Sanchia wrinkled her nose with disgust. “You never loved him.”

“It is true,” said Lucrezia. “I never loved him, and now … I think I hate him.”

“He is no friend of yours. Who could expect it? He is branded as impotent. He’ll never forgive you that, Lucrezia. He’ll be your enemy for life.”

“I lied,” said Lucrezia. “I signed the document because they insisted and I was weak. Perhaps God punishes me because of the lie I told.”

Sanchia shook her head impatiently. “You had no alternative but to
sign the document. Had not His Holiness and Cesare determined that you should sign?”

“But I should have stood out against them. Our marriage was consummated … many times.”

“Hush! It is something we know but never mention. And you are divorced now, sister, free of Sforza. Never say aloud those words, never admit your marriage was consummated. But Lucrezia, do stop grieving. Pedro is dead; nothing can bring him back, and that is an episode which is over. Learn to forget. He was your first love, I know, and you remember. But when you have had many lovers you will find it hard to remember what he looked like.”

“You forget—you, Sanchia, who have had lovers since you were a child, who have known so many that you cannot remember them all—you forget that we planned to marry, that we have a child.”

“You should not grieve for the child. He will be taken good care of.”

“Don’t you understand, Sanchia? Somewhere a baby lives … my baby. Some strange woman feeds him and soothes him when he cries. He is my baby … my own son—and you ask me to forget him!”

“You should not have had the child, Lucrezia.” Sanchia laughed suddenly. “I cannot help it. I think of you, standing before the dignitaries, solemnly swearing that your marriage to Sforza had not been consummated, and as a consequence you were
virgo intacta
, when actually you were pregnant … and in three months’ time your child would be born.”

“Do not speak of it, Sanchia; it is more than I can bear.”

“Dear sister, it is because you are young that you suffer so deeply. I tell you this, that when my brother comes it will be a different story. Oh, why is he not here! Shall I weary you with the stories of his many virtues, and how he and I were such good friends when we were very young? Shall I tell you how we escaped to the island of Ischia at the time of the French invasion? But I have told you of these matters before. I will tell you something else, Lucrezia. Yes, I will talk of myself, that you may forget your own sorrows. I and Goffredo are to be divorced.”

“That cannot be so.”

Sanchia’s blue eyes sparkled. “Oh, but it is! That is why I sent the women away. It is not yet the moment to let them into this secret.”