Lucrezia gave me another of her sidewise, faintly mocking glances. You of course know the Spanish fashionor do they not teach that in the south?
I am a princess of the House of Aragon, I answered, not kindly.
We joined hands. And as the Pope clapped from time to time with delight, and the musicians played, we performed the steps of an old-fashioned Castilian dance.
At that moment, I was glad to have been raised by my father, to have learned that men and women could behave with apparent courtesy, yet retain a talent for duplicity; I sensed Lucrezia was one such person. And so, as we made polite conversation during our little dance, I kept my wits sharp. Indeed, the instant came when Lucrezia intentionally skipped a step in the dance, and held her foot out precisely so that I would trip and embarrass myself.
I was ready. Perhaps I should have been kind, and simply avoided stumbling, pretending she had made an unintended move; but my fathers ire and haughtiness rose in me. I deliberately brought my foot down upon hers.
She let go a little cry and turned to me sharply; though we continued through our movements, we shared the candid look of two opponents in a duel.
She let go a little cry and turned to me sharply; though we continued through our movements, we shared the candid look of two opponents in a duel.
How shall we play this, Madonna? I asked mildly, though my gaze was hard. I did not come to Rome willingly; certainly I did not come to make an enemy. I have no wish to be anything other than a good sister to you.
Mindful of those watching, she smiled prettily; it was the coldest, most terrifying expression I had ever seen. You are not my sister. And you will never be my equal, Your Highness. Mark that.
I fell silent, not knowing how to ease her jealousy.
During our dance, servants appeared with trays of dainty chocolates. Alexander made a great show of feeding one to Giulia, then she fed one to him. Just as our dance was ending, and our audience applauded politely, Alexander-with a great boyish grin-hurled one of the chocolates some distance, hitting Cesare.
The dark-frocked young cardinal reacted with consummate grace; he smiled without surprise, retrieved the chocolate, and ate it with a relish that pleased his laughing father.
Then Alexander, with an exaggerated gesture, dropped a chocolate down Giulias bodice.
For an instant, a look of consternation crossed the girls face. She did not want her expensive gown ruined.
I caught the sharp gaze Adriana Mila shot her: it was a warning, a threat.
At once Giulia smiled, then giggled with a degree of sincerity only a man smitten by love could have believed. The Pope giggled too, like a naughty schoolboy, and fished his hand deep into her bodice between her snowy breasts, taking an inordinate amount of time and waggling his eyebrows with an expression of prurient delight calculated to entertain the crowd.
Those gathered roared with laughter.
Abruptly, Adriana went to Alexanders side, and whispered something in his ear; he nodded, then turned to Giulia and, taking her lovely face in his great hands, kissed her on the lips and murmured a promise to her. I suspected a tryst was arranged, and wondered whether a rumour I had heard was true: that the Pope had ordered a passageway constructed between the Palazzo Santa Maria and the Vatican, so that he could secretly visit his women whenever he wished.
Giulia nodded, her face bright, and left along with the unhappy Orsino, the two of them led by Adriana.
This was a signal to the guests that I did not understand: at once, a line of cardinals formed at His Holiness throne, bowing and bidding him farewell; most of the nobles followed after.
The night was still early, but the celebration was now reduced to close family-and the unknown, unattended, extravagantly-dressed women.
Whores, I realized with sudden discomfort, even before His Holiness hurled yet another chocolate, which buried itself in the décolletage of the most buxom female present. The harlot laughed. She was an attractive young girl, golden-haired, but there was a hardness in her eyes despite her drunkenness. She leaned forward, the better to reveal her bosom, and half-ran, unsteady on her feet, toward Alexander.
He sat, ready for her. And the moment her brocade-covered breasts appeared before him, he thrust his face heartily between them and began searching for the hidden sweet like a dog hunting a morsel dropped from the masters table.
She laughed shrilly, pressing him hard against her with a hand at the back of his head. At last he withdrew, triumphant, his face smeared with chocolate, the candy between his lips.
Cesares expression was reserved, noncommittal, as he stared down into his goblet. Obviously, this was something he was accustomed to, if not approving of.
I looked at once to Jofre; my little husband was laughing, himself quite intoxicated, and waved to one of the servants to bring a tray of sweets. I forgot myself: I failed to entirely hide my disgust.
Lucrezia caught this at once. Ah, Madonna Sancha, you are provincial. And to prove that she was not, when the tray of chocolates arrived, she dropped one between her own breasts.
Cesare, with a deftness that lacked any hint of impropriety, caught the sweet at once between two fingers, and replaced it on the tray. You must give our new sister time, he said smoothly, without reproach, to come to know us, that she might not be so shocked by our Roman ways.
In response, Lucrezia flushed brightly. She set down her goblet on the tray, took the half-melted sweet, and settled it once more firmly in her bosom.
Without a word, she went over to her fathers throne and gestured for the giggling harlot-who now was sitting on the pontiffs lap, moving her hips in a most lascivious fashion-to leave.
The woman did so, bowing sweetly, though it was clear she resented the intrusion. And Lucrezia took her place.
She sat upon her fathers lap, and pressed his face to her small breasts; by then, Alexander was obviously drunk-but not too drunk to notice that the woman had changed.
As he searched, with lips and tongue, for the candy, Lucrezia turned her face towards mine, her eyes narrowed, filled with both challenge and triumph.
I turned about, skirts swirling, and left.
XII
Esmeralda and a trio of guards followed me as far as the door, but I whirled on them. I will be alone! I demanded, in a voice that silenced even the formidable Donna Esmeralda. Normally, she would have refused to allow me to walk unaccompanied at night, but she was shrewd enough to know that I had reached a level of determination which allowed no argument. Besides, I had no fear; I always carried Alfonsos stiletto.
I stepped alone into the Roman night. The air was slightly chill, the piazza before me dark; the only light came from the moon, gleaming off the marble rooftops, and the flickering golden windows of the Borgia apartments behind me. I lifted my skirts and, as carefully as I could, made my way down the high stairs to the level of the street, and from there, turned and used the dull glow coming from the ground floor of the Palazzo Santa Maria to guide me to my new home.
I was hardly a prude. I had been witness to a certain amount of debauchery at the court of my father-and at that of my own husband. Party games with courtesans were not unheard of. But they were conducted discreetly, in the presence of only a trusted few.
Apparently, this Pope trusted many. Or perhaps no one dared speak. Either way, it was clear that the man who had so scandalized Italian society by accosting several married women in a cathedral garden had not changed a whit since ascending to the papacy.
I could overlook such a thing, though I had expected more discretion. And I had convinced myself, after His Holiness so easily gave up his attempts to pursue me that afternoon, that all I had to do was refuse him a few times and I would be left alone.
I had even been warmed by how Alexander doted on his children; I had longed for such paternal affection, and imagined how my life might have been had my own father been kindly disposed towards me.
But the oddly triumphant look in Lucrezias eyes, as she pressed the Popes face to her bosom, made me yearn instead for the home I had known. I could not hide my revulsion toward such a scene between parent and child-for an instant, in my imagination, my own father took Alexanders place, and I Lucrezias. I could only shudder at the thought of pressing my own breasts to Alfonso Ils lips, of my father groping me drunkenly. So repellent was the notion that I suppressed it immediately.
I now understood, too well, the cause of Lucrezias jealousyand it had nothing to do with my outshining her at social functions.
Her love for Alexander went beyond that of a daughter for her father. The gaze she had directed at me was that of a woman possessive of a lover, and challenging a rival: Leave him; he is mine.
The image of her, her young, white flesh unclothed, pressed against the aged, sagging body of the pontiff, made me ill; I stumbled along the edge of the piazza, drawing in the night air, laden with the marshy smell of the nearby Tiber, as if I could somehow cleanse myself of the memory of what I had just seen.
My instincts said that Lucrezia was a depraved, despicable creature. Her brazen behaviour with the chocolates hinted at a monstrous notion: that she granted her own father-the Pope-sexual favours.
I took a breath and steadied myself. I was a cynic, swift to judge. Away from my brother only a short while, I was already thinking the worst of everyone. How could I be more like Alfonso? I wondered. How would my brother react?
Surely I was wrong, I told myself. The two could not be physically involved; such an idea was too horrible to entertain. Lucrezia had a crush on her father, as some young girls do-and a fierce temper. She was jealous of sharing his affection, and was already forced to do so with Giulia; here was I, another woman who diverted Alexanders attentions from her. And Lucrezia had been so angered by my harsh response to her during our dance that she had lost control of her temper and wanted badly to shock me.