Light on Lucrezia

III THE CASTLE OF NEPI

The cortège made its dismal way to the little church in the shadow of St. Peter’s. It was dusk and the light of twenty flares showed the way to Santa Maria delle Febbri. Mingling with the shuffling footsteps of the friars were their low voices as they chanted prayers for the soul of the dead man.

The apartments of Santa Maria in Portico were filled with the gloom of mourning. Red-eyed servants spoke in whispers, and silent-footed slaves passed one another with downcast eyes.

And in the rooms of Madonna Lucrezia there could be heard the sound of weeping voices as she and her sister-in-law reproached themselves while seeking to comfort each other.

Sanchia, her beauty impaired by the signs of her sorrow, paced up and down Lucrezia’s apartment, storming with rage one moment, collapsing on to Lucrezia’s bed in misery the next.

“How could we have been such fools!” she demanded.

Lucrezia shook her head. “We should have known it was a trap.”

“All the care we took … cooking his meals, watching over him, never leaving him for a moment without one of us with him … and then … to be such fools!”

Lucrezia covered her face with her hands. “Oh Sanchia, I have an unhappy feeling that I bring tragedy to all who love me.”

“Have done with such talk,” cried Sanchia. “They would not have dared, had we not left him alone. It is not some evil luck you must curse, but your own—and my—stupidity.”

“It was such a short way to go.”

“But we left him long enough for that brute to put his fingers at his throat and strangle him.”

“He said that Alfonso suffered from a haemorrhage when he got up too quickly as they entered the room.”

“Haemorrhage!” cried Sanchia. “Did we not see the bruises on his throat? Holy Mother, shall I ever forget?”

“Don’t, I beg of you, Sanchia.”

Loysella came hurrying into the apartment, fear in her eyes. “Il Valentino comes this way,” she cried. “He will be with you, very, very soon.”

Loysella dropped a curtsey and hurried out. She no longer had any wish to watch with coquetry the coming of Cesare Borgia.

“That he should dare!” cried Sanchia.

Lucrezia was trembling. She did not want to see him; she was afraid her feelings would get beyond restraint when she must look at this beloved brother—this once-beloved brother?—whom the whole of Rome knew as the murderer of her husband.

There was the sound of soldiers’ footsteps on the stairs and, when the door was flung open, two of them stood on guard as Cesare came into the room.

Lucrezia had risen. Sanchia remained seated, her blue eyes flashing hate and scorn.

“Cesare …” stammered Lucrezia.

He looked at her coldly, marking the signs of her grief with distaste.

Sanchia cried out: “Murderer! How dare you come here to violate our grief?”

Cesare was looking at Lucrezia, talking to Lucrezia. “Justice has been done.”

“Justice?” said Lucrezia. “That murder of one who did no harm to any!”

Cesare’s voice was more gentle. “That he did no harm was no fault of his; he tried hard enough. He acted so that it was clear that it should be my life or his. I had no alternative but to make sure that it was not mine.”

“He would never have hurt you,” said Lucrezia. “He would never have hurt me by hurting you.”

“You are too gentle, sister. You know not the ways of ambition. Why, shortly before he died he attempted to take my life. I saw him at his window, the cross-bow in his hand.”

“He but shot idly to amuse himself and test his strength,” said Lucrezia.

“Little thinking,” cried Sanchia, “that it would give you the excuse you sought.”

Cesare ignored Sanchia. He said: “There have been plots … plots against me … plots against the Papacy. Dearest sister, you have been an innocent dupe. They have been concocted in your own apartments; while you chatted of art and music, of poetry and sculpture, your late husband and his friends made their plans. His death was just.”

“You admit to the murder?” said Sanchia.

“I admit to the justifiable killing of Alfonso of Bisceglie; and so shall die all traitors. Lucrezia, I come to you to say this: Dry your tears. Do not grieve for one who was your family’s enemy, who plotted against your father and your brother.” He came to her and took her by the shoulders. “Many members of your household are being placed under arrest. It is necessary, Lucrezia. My little one, do not forget. Have you not said that, whatever else we are, we are Borgias first of all.”

He was trying to make her smile, but her expression was stony.

She said: “Cesare, leave me. I beg you, I implore you … go from me now.”

He dropped his hands, and turning walked abruptly from the room.

The Pope sent for his daughter, and received her with a certain amount of reserve; her blank expression and the marks of grief on her face vaguely irritated him. Alfonso was dead; no amount of grief could bring him back. She was twenty, beautiful, and he was going to see that a worthy marriage was arranged for her. Why should she continue to grieve?

He kissed her and held her against him for a few seconds. The gesture was enough, in Lucrezia’s emotional state, to set her weeping.

“Oh, come, come, my daughter,” protested Alexander, “there have been tears enough.”

“I loved him so much, Father,” she cried. “And I blame myself.”

“You … blame yourself! Now that is foolish.”

“I had sworn to watch over him … and I left him … I left him long enough for my brother’s murderers to kill him.”

“I like not such talk,” said the Pope.

She cried out: “It’s true, Father.”

“Your husband, my child, was a traitor to us. He received our enemies and plotted with them. He brought his own death upon himself.”

“Father … you can say that!”

“My dear, I must say what I believe to be true.”

“In your eyes Cesare can do no wrong.”

He stared at her in amazement.

“My child, you would criticize us … your brother and your father … and all because of this infatuation for … a stranger!”

“He was my husband,” she reminded him.

“He was not one of us. I am shocked. I am amazed. I never thought to hear you talk thus.”

She did not run to him and beg his pardon, as she would have done a few months before. She stood still, her expression stony, caring little for the disapproval of her family so great was her grief, so overwhelming her sense of loss.

“Father,” she said at length, “I pray you to give me leave to retire.”

“I beg of you, retire at once, since it is your wish,” said the Pope, and never before had he spoken so coldly to his daughter.

Alexander was growing more irritated. The position was a delicate one. The King of Naples was demanding to know how his kinsman had died. All the states and kingdoms were considering this matter of the murder of the Bisceglie. The murder of Giovanni, the Duke of Gandia, was recalled. “Cesare Borgia has murdered his brother and now his brother-in-law,” it was said. “To whom will Il Valentino turn next? It would not be safe to enter that family.”

And, mused Alexander, it is now necessary to find another bridegoom for Lucrezia; but this will have to be delayed until some of the more virulent rumors have died down.

But who would ever forget that disgrace of Lucrezia’s first husband, the murder of her second?

The old Alexander would have blamed Cesare for his rash action in having had his brother-in-law murdered in such a way that it was obvious who was the murderer. The new Alexander did no such thing; he used his shrewd mind to fabricate excuses for his son.

He called Cesare to him, and they discussed the matter.

“We are being watched by every state and kingdom in the land,” he began. “It is being said that there was no plot against us, and the murder was one of spite and hate, and that Alfonso was an innocent man.”

“What care we for their opinions?”

“It is always better to lay a cloak of benevolent intentions and sound good sense over one’s actions, my son. Alfonso was a foolish boy but he was a Prince of Naples.”

Cesare snapped his fingers. “That for Naples and their bastard princelings!”

“We have the future to think of, Cesare. Do not let it be said that a Prince of Naples … or Milan … or Venice … may visit us here in Rome, displease us in some way, and then lose his life. That may mean that, when we wish to receive such Princes in Rome, they will be chary of coming … which could be an inconvenience. No. These people must understand that Alfonso was plotting here against you … and you merely had him killed before he could kill you. You have imprisoned members of his household?”

“They are in Castel St. Angelo now.”

“There let them stay. Now you must make an inquiry into these plots and send some account of it to Naples … to Milan. Circulate it throughout Italy.”

“The matter is done with,” growled Cesare.

“Nay. No such matter is ever done with while there are men and women to remember that it took place.”

“Very well. I will do it … in good time.”

“That is well, my son. And do it promptly, for before long you will be leaving us to rejoin your armies.”

Cesare stood up suddenly and began hitting the palm of his left hand with the clenched fist of his right. “And to think,” he said, “that my own sister should be making this more difficult for us!”

“She is a wife who loved her husband.”

“She loved our enemy!” cried Cesare.

“It is sad to contemplate that she can forget our interests in her grief for his loss,” admitted the Pope.

Cesare looked artfully at his father. A short while ago Lucrezia was his favorite child, and Cesare could have sworn that she had enjoyed more favor at the Vatican than any. Now the Pope was less pleased with his daughter. It was strange that Cesare should have had to commit a murder in order to oust his sister from first place in their father’s esteem. Foolish Lucrezia! She had ruled by her love for her father—her gentle disinterested love. Now she had been unwise enough to show that her grief in the loss of her husband overshadowed her love for her father; and Alexander, who always turned from the unpleasant, disliked to see the grief of his daughter, and was irritated at the signs of tears on her face.

“This husband of hers, it seems, bewitched her,” went on Cesare. “We were of little consequence to her when he was alive. Now that she has lost him she mourns him so bitterly that all Rome knows it. She has not appeared in public since it happened, but servants carry tales, and it may be that passers-by have seen her in loggias or on the balconies—a white-faced grieving widow. The people—the stupid sentimental people—are ready to weep with her and cry vengeance on those who rid Rome of a traitor because in so doing they brought tears to his widow’s eyes!” Cesare’s voice had risen to a scream. “Sanchia and she … they are together all the time, talking of his perfections, lashing each other to more displays of grief, crying out against his murderers. And this, oh my father, is Lucrezia Borgia—my sister, your daughter—so far forgetting that she is one of us that she—if only in her secret heart—calls down vengeance on her brother.”

“She would never cry for vengeance on you, Cesare. She loves you dearly … no matter what passing fancies afflict her.”

“I tell you at this time she has no thought for any but her dead husband. Separate them, Father, because they brew mischief. Send Sanchia back to Naples. And Lucrezia—send her away from Rome. No good can come of keeping her here.”

The Pope was silent for a few seconds.

He was thinking: There is good sense in this. Let her go away from us. Let her quietly brood on her sorrow. She is a Borgia at heart. She is one of us. She will not long mourn him who cannot be brought back, however many tears are shed. A short stay in a quiet place, and she will pine for the pleasures of Rome, the affection of her family. Has she ever been happy for long without them?

Then he spoke: “You are right, my son. Sanchia shall go back to Naples. As for Lucrezia, she also shall leave Rome. I think a short stay in the castle of Nepi would be beneficial to her health.”

So Lucrezia came out of Rome and traveled north along the Via Cassia through Isola Farnese, Baccano, Monterosi, to the dismal castle of Nepi.

Nepi, bleakly situated on a plateau surrounded by deep ravines through which flowed little streams, seemed the appropriate place in which to nurse a sorrow. Lucrezia however was unimpressed by its air of aloof solitude; she had no wish but to be alone.

From the peperino casements she would be able to look out across that strange country from the city walls of dark red tufa to the rushing water in the deep chasms, to the oak forests, black and forbidding on the horizon. From the topmost turret of the castle she could see the great volcanoes and the mountains of Viterbo; she could see Soracte and the sloping plateau which led down to the gleaming Tiber; and beyond, in a mist of blue haze, the Sabine mountains.

There was one comfort in her life now—her little Roderigo; and she rejoiced that he was too young to appreciate his loss.

All her attendants who accompanied her to Nepi were subdued, and behaved in accordance with the Spanish custom of mourning, which was more ceremonious than that of Italy.

Lucrezia dressed herself in black and took her meals off earthenware plates. She would shut herself into her apartment for hours and mentally reconstruct those happy two years which she had spent with Alfonso, reliving little details—the first time they had met, their wedding ceremony, the birth of Roderigo. And all the time she was trying not to remember that horrifying moment when she and Sanchia had returned from the Pope’s apartment to find him lying across the bed … murdered.

But how could she shut out the memory? It was ever present. She would wake from sleep, thinking he was beside her. She would call his name and put out a hand to feel for him. The loneliness was unbearable.

The sorrow was with her every waking hour, and when she signed her letters she called herself The Unhappy Princess of Salerno.

Giovanni Sforza was watching the march of events with horror. He knew that what had happened to Lucrezia’s second husband might so easily have happened to her first. Disgruntled as he was, continually cursing the Pope, who had placed upon him the stigma of impotence, he realized that he had some reason to rejoice, for at least his life had been spared.

But even so, it was in danger.

Cesare Borgia was intent on setting up the Dukedom of Romagna for himself, and one of his strongholds would be the town of Pesaro, of which Giovanni Sforza was the Lord.

He knew, that September day, that Cesare was marching relentlessly forward. He knew that he would be powerless against him. And what would await Giovanni Sforza when he came face to face with Cesare Borgia? Giovanni had been the husband of Cesare’s sister, and Cesare, who had murdered her second husband and had planned to murder her first, would not hesitate when he had that first husband within his power. And what sort of death could he expect at the hands of Cesare Borgia? The tales of the scandalous life led by the Borgias, many declared, had been started by Giovanni Sforza. It was true there had always been murmurings against them, but he had added plausibility to those tales.

If they had branded him as impotent, he had retaliated by branding them with the stigma of incestuous conduct.

Clearly, with Cesare’s armies closing in, Pesaro was no place for him.

Whither could he go?

To Milan? The French had recaptured Milan once more, and his relative, Ludovico Sforza, was Louis’ prisoner. He thought then of the Gonzagas of Mantua, as his first wife had been the sister of Francesco Gonzaga, that Marquis of Mantua who had won the victory at Fornovo which had been responsible for driving the armies of Charles VIII out of Italy after the previous French invasion.

So to Mantua went Giovanni Sforza, and there he was welcomed by Isabella d’Este who was the wife of Francesco Gonzaga.

Francesco was a great soldier who had won renown for his bravery, but his wife Isabella was a strong-minded woman with such a high opinion of her family, the Estes, that she deemed all others inferior to them. She was clever, politically acute, cultured and handsome; but there was in her a cold determination to dominate all who came within her sphere of influence.

When she had married him ten years before, Francesco had adored her. She had seemed to him quite wonderful, combining handsome looks with a clever brain. As for herself, she tolerated him. She considered him far from prepossessing, for although he was tall and had a good figure he bore unmistakably the mark of his German ancestors; and the Hohenzollern features did not appeal to Isabella’s sense of beauty. His nose had the appearance of being flattened out; his eyes looked sleepy; his forehead immense. His charm did not touch Isabella, and she was surprised that other women should be deeply conscious of it.

It was necessary to Francesco to indulge in love affairs outside his marriage as he was a deeply sensual man and, in any case in his time, men who did not so indulge were often accused of impotence.

What did it matter what mistresses he took, Isabella asked herself, as long as she produced sons for the glorification of her family and his?

Rumor had it that when, immediately after the birth of one of her children, she discovered it to be a girl, she rose from her bed and removed it from the elaborate cradle which had been prepared, as she pointed out, for a male child.

She was a strong woman, accustomed to rule, sharp-tongued, witty, elegant, admired and respected, but loved by few.

She had heard much about the women who were beloved by the Pope, and she was envious of them; therefore she was ready to grant asylum to Giovanni Sforza, when he came riding to Mantua to beg it, and received him with as much warmth as he could expect from a woman of her character.

“My dear Marchesa,” he said, bowing over her hand, “I come to you as a beggar, knowing that the brother of my dear dead Maddalena would not turn me away.”

“Certainly he shall not turn you away,” said Isabella. “Certainly you shall have refuge here. There must be some place where those who have suffered at the hands of these outrageous Borgias should find rest.”

“How happy I am that I came!”

Isabella looked at him with some scorn, since he was a weak man and she despised weakness. On the other hand she was looking forward to talking with him at her little court, and drawing from him further scandalous stories concerning the infamous Borgias.

So Giovanni was made welcome, and he found the cultured court of Mantua to his taste. Here wars were not considered of the greatest importance. Literature was discussed; matters of the mind. The Duke, with his military glory, might be an outsider, but let him go to his stables where he was breeding those horses which were fast becoming known as not only the best in Italy but in the world.

There was nothing which delighted Isabella more than to gather about her the wittiest people of Mantua and many of those from all parts of Italy who visited her court. She wished to be known, not as the virtual governor of Mantua only, but as patroness of the arts.

Conversation in her apartments must be witty; and she must reign indisputably queen—she, Isabella d’Este Gonzaga. Her father, the Duke of Ferrara, and her brothers all respected her political genius; they always had; and thus she had habitually visualized herself as the most brilliant member of the most important family in Italy. It was small wonder that she felt piqued to see the rise of another family and the power which the women of that family seemed to possess over its head.

Now with Giovanni Sforza in her salon she led the conversation to the affairs of the Borgias and declared that Giovanni Sforza, who had intimate experience of that strange family, would be able to tell them whether those tales they heard of the scandalous Borgias were really true.

So Giovanni told the stories which Isabella wished him to tell.

He had been forced to divorce Lucrezia! Why? Because His Holiness was so enamored of his daughter that he could not endure her having a husband. The marriage had not been consummated! Lies … all lies. It had been consummated a thousand times. And the golden-haired, innocent Lucrezia, who had stood before the assembly so demurely and declared herself still a virgin was then truly pregnant. But the child was not his.

The apartments of Mantua rang with laughter. Old scandals were revived; and Giovanni felt his vanity soothed in some measure. He could not fight the Borgias with arms, but he could with his tongue.

Lucrezia, shut in her apartments in the castle of Nepi, bent over the cradle of her child. Each time she looked at him she must be vividly reminded of all the wonderful plans she and Alfonso had made together; and she would weep afresh, telling herself that this little one would never know his father.

Her women had given up trying to comfort her; they wished that Madonna Sanchia were with them. She had been stricken in her grief also; but the two ladies would have done much to comfort each other.

And then suddenly one of the pages came running to Lucrezia’s apartments to tell her that soldiers were approaching the castle.

Lucrezia threw back her hair which was less bright than usual (she had forgotten to wash it so frequently); her gown was black and plain; and she looked unlike the gay Lucrezia who had taken such pride in the elegant garments which she had worn in Rome.

She ran to her window that she might see who these soldiers were who had come to disturb the peace of Nepi.

A brilliant sight met her eyes as she looked down on the advancing men. They were singing as they came; and there was laughter in their ranks. Ahead of them were carried the yellow and red banners; and as she looked the heralds blew triumphal notes on their silver trumpets, and there was in those notes a joyous sound which seemed to shatter the melancholy of Nepi.

And then she saw him; he was riding at their head—the condottiere in his brilliant uniform—and her heart leaped with pride to behold him thus; and, for the first time in the six weeks since the most tragic day, Lucrezia smiled.

Then she hurried down to greet her brother.

He had leaped from his horse, throwing the reins to one of his men; he ran to her, picked her up in his arms and laughed into her face.

She looked at him for a moment; then she took his face in her hands and cried: “Cesare … oh, Cesare!”

But almost immediately it was as though Alfonso was with her, and she recalled that apartment in the Borgia Tower and Alfonso’s limp body lying across the bed.

“Cesare,” she said, “why have you come?”

“A strange question, sister. How could I pass within a few miles of your stronghold and resist the temptation of seeing you?”

“I had thought you would not come here,” she answered dully.

He had put her on her feet and, placing his arm about her, he said: “I am hungry. We are all hungry. Can you not feed us?”

“We are unprepared,” she said. She called to one of the dwarfs who stood watching the scene with astonishment. “Go to the kitchens. Bid them cook all they have. It would seem we have an army to feed.”

The dwarf disappeared, and Cesare turned to one of his captains and gave him orders to look after the men, and find suitable billets in the town. He would stay the night at the Castle of Nepi.

When his captain had departed, he asked her to take him to that room where she spent most of her time, and she did so. They stood side by side, looking out on the awe-inspiring scenery.

“How are you faring in your battles?” she asked.

“So well,” he replied, “that soon I shall be in possession of my kingdom.”

“Did I not always say you would achieve your desires?”

“You did, sister.”

“I remember so well how you railed against your Cardinal’s robes.”

“You see,” said Cesare earnestly, “all such irritations pass. Like grief they loom large when they are close; they are infinitesimal in the distance. Look at the Sabine mountains … nothing but a chain of blue mist from this window. But stand beneath those towering peaks; there is a different story.”

She smiled in agreement, and he put his hand under her chin and turned up her face to his.

“Thus it will be with you, sister.”

She shook her head and would not meet his eyes, and for a moment anger shone in them. “Are you still moping here, Lucrezia?” he demanded. “Oh, it is wrong of you.”

“I loved my husband,” she answered. “You, who have never loved a wife as I loved him, cannot understand why his death should affect me as it does.”

He laughed suddenly. “Before I leave here,” he said, “you shall be gay once more.”

“I heard you say you were staying but one night.”

“Nevertheless, before I go you shall cease to think of your husband. Stop thinking of him, Lucrezia. Stop now.”

She turned away. “Cesare,” she said, “you cannot understand.”

He changed the subject. “We will order food to be brought to us here … here in your room of shadows. Here we shall eat alone, you and I. What say you to that, Lucrezia?”

“I would rather that than sit down with your men.”

He began to pace up and down the apartment. “I had pictured it differently … yourself eagerly greeting me … singing for me and my men … giving us a gay and happy evening, a memory which we could carry with us when we go into battle.”

“I am in no mood for merrymaking, Cesare,” she said.

Then he came to her again and took her by the shoulders. “Yet before I leave, I swear, your mood shall be changed.”

She allowed her eyes to rest upon his face. She thought: Once I should have been frightened of Cesare in this mood; now I no longer care. Alfonso, my love, is dead; and when he died, I ceased to care what happened to me.

The small table was laid in the room which overlooked the Sabine Mountains; there was a silver dish for Cesare, and an earthenware one for Lucrezia.

Cesare, frowning, called to a servant: “What means this? What is this from which you ask your mistress to eat?”

The servant was overcome by that fear which Cesare never failed to inspire. “If it please your lordship, it is the wish of Madonna Lucrezia to eat from earthenware as a sign of widowhood.”

“It is ugly,” said Cesare.

Lucrezia addressed the servant. “Leave the dish. It is my desire to eat from earthenware while I mourn my husband.”

“You shall not eat from earthenware while you sit at table with me, sister.”

“I am a widow, Cesare. I observe the custom of mourning.”

“It is well to mourn when there is someone to mourn for,” said Cesare. He called to the servant. “Bring a silver dish to replace this hideous thing.”

“Nay …” began Lucrezia.

But Cesare had picked up the earthenware dish and thrown it at the servant. “A silver dish,” commanded Cesare with a laugh.

And a silver dish was brought.

What did it matter? thought Lucrezia. Nothing could matter again. Could eating from an earthenware dish bring Alfonso back? Could it do him any harm if she ate from a silver dish?

They sat down and Cesare ate, but Lucrezia could swallow little.

“It is small wonder that you are looking frailer than ever,” said Cesare. “I shall not have a good report to take to our father.”

“I beg of you do not disturb him with tales of my ill health.”

“And I beg you to regain your health and spirits. You will never do that while moping in this place. How can you be content here?”

“I can be as contented here as anywhere.”

“Lucrezia, discard your mourning. The boy is dead. There are others in the world. I demand that you eat. Come … the food is good. You have an excellent cook here. I command you to eat. I shall insist, Lucrezia; so you must learn obedience.”

“We are not in the nursery now,” she said.

And she thought: No! Those days are far away. And it was as though the ghost of Giovanni, her murdered brother, came and stood at the table with the ghost of Alfonso.

If she were disturbed by these ghosts, Cesare was not. He had murdered her husband and their brother, yet he showed no signs of any qualms of conscience. It was necessary to Cesare to remove people, and he removed them. When they had gone he ceased to think of them.

“Then we will pretend we are,” he said.

She answered boldly: “Then Giovanni would be here.”

“There were happy days,” he retorted, “when you and I were alone. Let us imagine one of those days.”

“I cannot,” she cried. “I cannot. When I think of nursery days I remember Giovanni, even as I shall remember Alfonso, my husband, every minute of my life.”

“You are talking like a hysterical woman, Lucrezia. It is not what I expect of you. Come, be my sweet sister. Lucrezia, I am here. I, Cesare. I have come here with the express purpose of making you forget your grief. Now … we will begin by eating and drinking together. Come, Lucrezia, be my sweet sister.”

He was gentle suddenly, appealing to her love, and for a while she forgot that his hands were stained with the blood of her husband; and then she marveled at herself for forgetting.

She began to eat and, with his eyes upon her, she swallowed the contents of her silver dish.

He filled a goblet with wine and toasted her.

“To you, my love! To your future! May it be great and glorious.”

“And to you, Brother.”

“To our future then, which is one and the same. How could it be otherwise?”

He came to stand beside her at the table; he put his arm about her and drew her to him.

She thought: He is the greatest man in Italy. One day all will acclaim him; and he is my brother, who loves me … no matter what he does to others. He loves me … and no matter what he does to me, how can I stop loving him?

She was conscious of the old spell, and he knew it even as she did; he was determined that tonight he would carry her across the bridge which spanned the chasm between past and present; when she was safely over, he would make her look back and see that the past was vague and as shadowy as the Sabine Mountains seen from the castle of Nepi.

They sat talking after the meal was over.

He wanted her to return to Rome. This was no place for her. She was young—only twenty—and was she going to spend the rest of her days pining for what could never be?

“I wish to stay here for a while,” she told him. “Here I have solitude.”

“Solitude! You were meant for company. Go back to Rome. Our father misses you.”

“He does not like to see me with my grief upon me.”

“Then he shall see you without it. He yearns to see you thus.”

“He cannot. So I will remain here where I may nurse my sorrow as I wish to.”

“You shall no longer nurse a sorrow for a worthless man,” cried Cesare.

She rose, saying: “I will not listen to such words.”

He barred her way. “You will,” he said. He took a strand of her hair in his hands. “It is less golden that it was, Lucrezia.”

“I care not,” she said.

“And this gown,” he went on, “is like a nun’s habit. Where are your pretty dresses?”

“They do not interest me.”

“Listen, my child, you will have a new husband soon.”

“Do you think to tempt me with husbands as you would tempt a child with sweetmeats!”

“Yes, Lucrezia. And speaking of children, where is this child of yours?”

“He is sleeping.”

“I have not seen him.”

There was fear in her eyes. Cesare noticed it and exulted. He knew now that if he could not bend her through anything else he would through the child.

“You have no interest in the child,” she said quickly.

Cesare’s eyes were sly. “He is the son of his father.”

“His grandfather … adores him.”

“His grandfather’s affection can be blown by the wind.”

“Cesare,” cried Lucrezia, “do not attempt to harm my child!”

He put his hand on her shoulder and grimaced as it touched the black stuff of her gown. “So ugly!” he said. “So unbecoming to my beautiful sister. Have no fear. No harm shall come to your son.”

“If any tried to kill him, as they killed his father, they would have need to kill me first.”

“Nay, do not excite yourself. Alfonso was a traitor. He sought to take my life, so I took his. But I do not concern myself with babies. Lucrezia, be serious. Be sensible. You will have to come back to Rome; and when you return you must be our merry Lucrezia. Let joyous Lucrezia come home and leave the weeping widow behind her.”

“I cannot do it.”

“You can.” Then insistently: “You shall!”

“None can force me to it.”

His face was close to her own. “I can, Lucrezia.”

She was breathless; and he was laughing again, quietly, triumphantly. The fear of years took on a definite shape; she clung to fear, loving fear even as she loved him. She did not understand herself; nor did she understand him. She knew only that they were Borgias and that the bonds which bound them were indestructible while life lasted.

She was almost fainting with fear and with anticipated pleasure. In her mind two figures were becoming confused—Cesare, Alfonso; Alfonso, Cesare.

She could lose one in the other and, when she did that, she would lose the greater part of her misery.

She was staring at Cesare with wide-open eyes; and Cesare was smiling, tenderly, passionately, reassuringly, as though he were taking her hand and leading her toward the inevitable.

He had gone and she was alone.

Everything had a different aspect now. The landscape was less harsh; she gazed often toward the misty Sabine Mountains.

Cesare had ridden away to fresh conquests. He would go from triumph to triumph, and his triumphs would be hers.

There were times when she wept bitterly; and times when she was triumphant.

How could she have thought that she could stand alone? She was one of them; she was a Borgia, and that meant that she loved the members of her family with a passion which she could give to no other.

Yet she was afraid.

She passed through many emotions. She washed her hair and ordered that her beautiful dresses might be brought to her: but when she examined her face in the mirror she was shocked by what she saw. She thought she saw secrets in her eyes and they frightened her.

She wanted to be in Rome with her father. Cesare would return to Rome some day.

She thought of their family relationship as something infinitely tender, yet infinitely sinister. She longed to be bound so tightly by those family ties that she could not escape; and then she was conscious of a longing to escape.

There were times when she thought: I shall never be at peace again unless I escape. I want to be as other people. If only Alfonso had lived; if only we had gone away together, right away from Rome; if only we had lived happily, normally!

She would tremble when she contemplated the future. Cesare had come to her at Nepi; he had disturbed the mournful solitude, the sorrowing peace.

With a shock she would remember that he was not only her brother; he was the murderer of her husband.

Then she knew she must escape the web into which she was being more closely drawn. She felt like a fly who has been caught on those sticky threads, caught and bound, but not so securely that escape was impossible.

Less than a month after Cesare’s visit to Nepi she called her attendants to her and said: “I have my father’s permission to return to Rome. Let us make our preparations and leave as soon as we may. I am weary of Nepi. I feel I never wish to see this place again.”

When Lucrezia arrived in Rome, the Pope treated her as though her stay in Nepi had been merely a pleasant little holiday. He did not mention Alfonso, and was clearly delighted to have young Roderigo back.

Cesare’s army was achieving its objectives, and the Pope was in a benign mood.

He walked with Lucrezia in the Vatican gardens and discussed the topic which was nearest his heart at the moment.

“My dearest,” he said, “you cannot remain unmarried forever.”

“I have been unmarried a very short time,” said Lucrezia.

“Long enough … long enough. There is something which irks me from time to time, daughter. I cannot live forever, and I would wish to see you happily settled in a good marriage before I left you.”

“A good marriage one week may be an unsuitable one the next, and marriage would seem, from my experience, a very unstable state.”

“Ah, you are young and beautiful and you will have many suitors. Cesare tells me that Louis de Ligny would most willingly become your husband.”

“Father, I would not willingly become his wife … nor any man’s.”

“But, my child, he is a cousin of the King of France and a great favorite of the King’s. His future is rosy.”

“Dearest Father, would you have me leave you to live in France?”

The Pope paused, then said: “I confess that has occurred to me as the great disadvantage of this match. Also the man wants an enormous dowry and makes fantastic demands.”

“Then we’ll have none of him, Father. I’ll stay in peace with you awhile.”

He laughed with her and declared he would snap his fingers at Louis’ friend. He would never consent to giving his daughter to any who would take her miles away from her father.

But it was not long before he spoke to her of another offer. This time it was Francesco Orsini, the Duke of Gravina, who was very eager for the match and had most ostentatiously given up his favorite mistress that all the world should know how seriously he contemplated marriage.

“It is a pity he has given her up,” said Lucrezia. “It was so unnecessary.”

“He would be a good match, daughter. Like others he is greedy, of course, demanding offices in the Church, with good benefices to go with them, for his children by his previous marriage.”

“Let him ask, Father. What matters it? There is no need for you to listen to his demands, for I shall not. Why do these men seek my hand in marriage? Have they not yet learned that my husbands are unlucky men?”

“You are so beautiful, so infinitely desirable,” said Alexander.

“No,” she answered; “it is simpler than that. I am the daughter of the Pope.”

“Soon,” went on Alexander, “Cesare will be home again. It makes me happy to have my children about me.”

Cesare will be home! Those words rang in her ears. She thought of Cesare’s return, riding at the head of his men, the gay condottiere who would conquer all that lay before him. She felt that she was firmly caught in the web; and she could see no escape from it.

But perhaps there was one way of escape. If she married a ruler of some distant state she would be forced to leave her home and live with her husband.

It would be a bitter wrench, but she would be free, free from the Borgia might, from the Borgia stain; she would be free to be herself, to forget, to live as, deep down in her heart, she knew she had always wanted to live.

Thus it was that, when the name of Alfonso d’Este was mentioned as a possible suitor, she listened with some eagerness.

Alfonso d’Este was the eldest son of the Duke of Ferrara, and if she married him she would leave Rome and live with her husband in Ferrara, which as his father’s heir he would one day govern.

That way lay escape.