Madonna of the Seven Hills

THE SECOND BRIDEGROOM

Lucrezia was being dressed for her wedding. Her women stood about her, admiring the dress, heavy with golden embroidery and sewn with pearls. Rubies glittered about her neck, and the design on the dress was the mingling arms of Aragon and the Borgias.

It was but a few months since she had given birth to her son, yet now she had recovered her outward placidity; and as she stood in her apartment while she was dressed in her finery, she appeared to have no thought for anything but the ceremony about to take place.

Sanchia was with her.

Lucrezia turned slowly and smiled at her sister-in-law. Who would have thought that it should be Sanchia who would bring such comfort in her misery?

It was Sanchia who had talked of her numerous love affairs, who had explained that in the beginning one felt so intensely. Did not one remember one’s first ball, one’s first jewels? Thus it was with love affairs. Did not Sanchia know? Was not Sanchia a connoisseur of love?

Sanchia had talked of her little brother. He was gentle; he was beautiful; and all loved him. Lucrezia would bless the day that she had taken Sanchia’s brother, Alfonso Duke of Bisceglie, to husband.

Sanchia was excited at the prospect of her brother’s arrival in Rome, and inspired Lucrezia with that enthusiasm. Oh, thought Lucrezia, how glad I am to have Sanchia with me at this time!

She was a Borgia. She must not forget it. Everywhere she looked she was confronted by the emblem of the grazing bull. We must not dream of simple love and marriage, she told herself. That is for simple people, people without a great destiny.

She was the beloved of her father and brother. It was as though they had forgotten she had ever attempted to defy them. Somewhere in Rome—perhaps not even in Rome—a little boy was being brought up by his foster-parents, and in a few years he would come to the Vatican. He was all that remained of that brief idyll which had given him life and brought such suffering to his mother, and death to two who had loved her dearly.

As a Borgia one did not brood. The past was as nothing, the present and the future all-important.

She was ready now to go to her bridegroom.