Blood & Beauty The Borgias

Chapter 11



Amid the days of celebration that follow, the only person who manages to contain his enthusiasm is the indefatigable Master of Ceremonies.

Johannes Burchard orchestrates every element with the same attention to detail that he might give to the Second Coming. With no protocol for such an event – popes do not have daughters, even when they do – he fashions one to fit. The guest list is extensive, mixing family, Church, state and a small invasion of foreign dignitaries, each and every one of whose arrival and placing must be choreographed down to the finest inch of precedent and snobbery.

The new papal apartments have been hastily prepared. Pinturicchio and his gang of apprentices have been banished, the painter moaning fiercely, and tapestries brought in to cover up where his brilliance has been interrupted. The Pope’s gilded throne is carried carefully into the main salon, with a lesser seat put in place in the smaller chamber of mysteries so that he may move easily between ruler of Christendom and doting father. Without the religious frescos that will eventually cover the walls, the most powerful image is that of the Borgia family crest: the rising flame, the double crown, and everywhere the bull, potent and warlike.

Things do not begin well. At the hour of the marriage ceremony Alexander sits magnificent on his throne, surrounded by cardinals, ready to receive his guests, when the doors open on the flock of Lucrezia’s gentlewomen who, reduced to starling status again by the thrill of the moment, fling themselves into the room in such high spirits that they forget to kneel at the Pope’s feet before taking their place in readiness for the bride. A look of pure anguish passes over Burchard’s face, as if that very moment he might be struck dead and his body pulled into hell by a troop of devils. Later, the Pope himself is moved to excuse him of any fault. It doesn’t help: it is not the Pope’s feelings he is worried about, but the insult to the office. It will be his punishment to survive the incident with his shame intact.

For the rest, well, it is a wedding like any other between two great families: an exercise in status, ostentation, sentiment and pleasure. Many of the guests have never entered – nor ever will again – the private apartments of the Pope, and there is much nudging and gawping. When they are not judging their surroundings they are judging each other. With so much outré fashion vying for attention, the Duke of Gandia’s fanfaronade entrance – a chest of jewels masquerading as a suit of clothes – is greeted with remarkable good humour. In contrast, the bridegroom’s necklace speaks of both taste and dignity, and Lucrezia’s palpable purity and vulnerability as she approaches to kneel beside him on the velvet cushions, the little Negress a shimmering black sprite at her heels, plays on everybody’s heartstrings.

It is not her fault if the attention of most of the guests is drawn irresistibly towards an even more dazzling young woman with a cloud of golden hair, who, for the first time ever, is presented in public as the Pope’s companion.

Cesare, in formal ecclesiastical dress (unlike his brother he understands the power of watching rather than being watched), stands to the side as something akin to a queue forms close to Giulia Farnese’s chair. While the diplomats’ pens will no doubt be dipped in poison when it comes to describing the scene, there is no mistaking the approval in their eyes now. Ah, it amazes him how grown men suckle so on the teat of scandal. Still, the more they gossip, the less attention they have for more important things. His own future, for instance. There are plans afoot which will have them falling over themselves soon enough, only when it happens it will be his timing and not theirs.

‘Your Excellency. Welcome back.’ He cannot stop a few of the smarter ambassadors from sniffing around him.

Alessandro Boccacio from the city-state of Ferrara stands beaming at him: face like a fish, nose like a bloodhound, a veteran of the fray but also a man with a seriously leaking diplomatic pouch. ‘Ten papacies would not satisfy this horde of relatives.’ Those had been the very words he had sent to his duke. Cesare has been looking forward to this encounter for a while.

‘How Rome has missed your bull-fighting skills! We all pray your archbishop’s robes won’t stop you from entering the ring again.’

‘Happily, Señor Boccacio, I am so busy with Church matters that killing bulls no longer holds the same attraction.’

‘Perhaps that is because so many of them have been elevated to the skies,’ the ambassador replies, and they laugh together at this clever reference to the bulls on the Borgia coat-of-arms, emblazoned over the ceilings. Under one such set the newlyweds sit in their decorated chairs, surrounded by well-wishers, smiling and talking to everyone but each other.

‘I must say, the Lady Lucrezia, your sister, is radiant.’

‘She most certainly is.’

‘And your brother, Duke of Gandia. Well… he succeeds in dazzling us all.’

‘Yes, he does catch the sun particularly well today.’

‘He will make a fine bridegroom himself. Which lucky woman will that be, we all wonder? I see the Spanish ambassador has a big smile on his face. Of course, he has a lot to celebrate. They say it is a whole new world that Their Majesties’ ships have bumped into. If I was the ambassador for Portugal I would be most worried about that smile.’ The Ferrarese ambassador pauses again. Not that he expects anything now, but he is enjoying the rhythm of his own music. ‘You do not yearn for it at all yourself, Your Excellency?’

‘What? Sailing?’

‘I was thinking more of marriage.’

‘Ah, as you know, I am betrothed to our Holy Mother Church. She sustains me in all my desires.’

Except those that are dealt with by a certain young courtesan called Fiammetta, a professional hostess who runs an elegant establishment near the Sant’ Angelo Bridge. The silence is long enough for them both to conjure up a pleasurable image of her.

‘Your uncle looks well in his cardinal’s robes.’

‘He does.’ Though in fact Juan Borgia Lanzo, new in the job but old in years, does not look that well at all.

‘We have great hopes that more new blood will find its way into the College. You yourself would make a fine cardinal. Were such a thing to be considered.’

Ah, thinks Cesare, so this is what all this probing is about. Even now no one quite dares to bring it up directly: how his bastard status will disqualify him from a cardinal’s hat.

‘You think so? I think I am too old already. It seems the rush is on to promote ever younger blood. Your own duke’s young son, Ippolito d’Este, has barely celebrated his fifteenth birthday, I hear.’

‘Ah, but he is a young man of exceptional virtue and acumen. You cannot imagine how he yearns to serve the papacy. The Este family are holding their very own celebrations today in Ferrara, such is their love and support for the Pope.’

‘And His Holiness is well aware of it. The heir apparent, Alfonso, brought a whole chest of it when he visited my sister. She says he is a most handsome man.’

‘And he in turn was overwhelmed by her modesty and beauty.’

‘The two of them spoke Italian together, I trust?’ Cesare says casually.

‘I am sorry?’

‘I would not like to think my sister welcomed him in… Spanish.’

‘Spanish? No, no, why…’ he says, evidently flustered.

‘Good. It is only… well, Boccacio, it seems that rumours persist about how we Borgias lean towards Spain and are besieged by those who demand our favours. Some even say that “ten papacies would not satisfy this horde of relatives”.’ And he plays with the last phrase to show off its quotation marks.

‘Oh! That is perfidious gossip indeed!’

Ambassadors, of course, do not blush. It is a requisite of the job that they can sustain any manner of insult without any visible change at all to their face.

‘I shall personally do my best to make sure it is not repeated.’ He gives a smart little bow. ‘It is, as always, Your Excellency, a pleasure to spend time in your company.’

Which, refreshingly, is meant exactly as it is said. To his credit, Alessandro Boccacio is good enough at his job to know when he has failed in the doing of it. As he drifts away, he is already sifting through the chain of command for the weak link in his postal service. Or how, perhaps, he might exploit it. Either way he has been proved right in his assessment that the Pope’s eldest son is a man to be reckoned with.

Cesare watches him go. He is thinking about Pedro and his own informant network, first started to keep lines open between Rome and Pisa, and now sewn up as tight as a nun’s vagina. No man in his service would ever open his mouth or his pouch. The rewards are too great. And the punishments too awful. People know what Michelotto can do when he is angry. Anger. He thinks of Lucrezia’s description of that face. Except anger is not the right word. No, Cesare knows very well that Michelotto’s power springs from a darker, colder well. Even as a young boy – one of a group of Spanish children brought in to act as a buffer between the young Borgia and the rest of the world – it had been there: this mix of unquestioning loyalty, bred in his Spanish bone, and the more personal satisfaction of violence. It had started with brawling, a bloody nose for the casual insult (strange how when Italians look at Spaniards so many of them see ex-Jews). But with the family’s advancement the fights had quickly grown more serious. Sometimes Cesare joined him. More often he left him alone. He had only known him once bettered: a man in Perugia had taken a dagger to his teenage face in a revenge ambush outside their house, when he was returning home alone one night. The wounds, for which he would accept no salves, had taken months to heal. Cesare had been present when he thanked the man later, as he lifted him up and skewered him on his sword. ‘People will remember me better now before they die, don’t you think, sir?’

It remains Michelotto’s only sin of pride: too much pleasure in a job well done. But whether it is a matter of justice or revenge, once it starts, mercy shatters like faulty glass. However loyal or favoured you might think yourself to be, it is never entirely a comfortable feeling, turning your back on Michelotto. And since he is so often in the presence of his master, part of that aura has been transmitted to Cesare himself.

Today, however, Cesare has kept his promise to Lucrezia and his henchman’s rearranged face is nowhere to be seen. Instead, the honour of guarding him has gone to Pedro Calderón, who is lucky that his enthusiasm for riding has not yet bowed his legs, so that he makes a fine young courtier, waiting in the courtyard or the back rooms to escort his master home.

This duty marks Calderón’s first public engagement in Cesare Borgia’s service since the household moved to Rome, and during that time his master has done nothing but grow in his estimation. He is amazed by the way he seems to change personality with his clothes: the hunter, the cleric, the athlete, the courtier, with barely a breath in between. Already Calderón knows he would do anything for him. He lies in bed at night imagining the time when Michelotto, for some reason, is absent from his side and there might be an attack so that he could be the one to drive the dagger into an assassin’s heart, even if it meant his own death in the process.

The wedding dinner that follows the public ceremony is an intimate affair, family and special guests only, no personal servants allowed. The retainers are put in a modest undecorated room nearby where they are fed and watered as they wait. The high spirits of the party are impossible to miss. The chamber echoes with gales of laughter, followed by bursts of exclaimed pleasure when the favoured invitees deliver their presents to the bride and groom. Then come music and dancing, and finally waves of such obvious hilarity that everyone hearing it wonders what is taking place.

The news leaks out fast: how, as the servants delivered the mountains of honey and marzipan delicacies, the guests had started to throw them at one another. Or rather the men started throwing them at the women. Or rather the Pope started throwing his at Giulia Farnese, looping them into her lap or, even cleverer, down the curved front of her bodice. So, of course, everyone else followed suit, until a happy mayhem had taken over. The Pope’s mistress, the servants say, was brimming over with largesse and good humour. Not to mention captured confectionery.

But Pedro knows whose lap he would have chosen for his sweets.

Though he has visited their house maybe a dozen times, has smelled her perfume, has heard what he was sure was her laughter once on the stairs, he has not set eyes on her until today. As Cesare’s bodyguard he had been close in the throng as she arrived: a young woman on her wedding day, palest skin against white silk set off by a blush of pearls. He gazed at a perfect heart-shaped face, eyes bright and shining with excitement. And such grace. Head held high, she had glided down the long corridor as if her feet were not touching the ground, a cloud of silk floating behind her. Of course he had been waiting for this moment. Any man in love with Cesare is already half in love with his sister. Now, when he shuts his eyes, he cannot see anything else.

As night turns to morning, he catches another sight of her as she is escorted out from the great chamber on her brother’s arm, followed by her aunt and two of her ladies-in-waiting. Of her husband there is no sign. She seems smaller now, flushed and tired, with a light cape pulled around her. He stands to attention as they pass. Cesare catches his eye and nods, an instruction to wait until he comes back. She, holding tight to his arm, looks up also. He registers grey-green eyes and a small mouth, puckered, almost like a child’s. She gives a nervous little smile, as if they might know each other but she cannot remember how, then looks away and is gone.

Later he and another horseman accompany Cesare out of the Vatican, by Castel Sant’ Angelo and across the bridge to the house of Fiammetta. They pass through winding streets strewn with debris – glass, flowers, torn streamers – with men asleep in the gutters or swaying their way home. Rome has enjoyed its own party. Calderón sits, hawk-eyed for trouble, one hand on his reins, the other on his dagger sheath. Perhaps it will happen now: a hotblood from the Orsini or Colonna clan, or one of Fiammetta’s clients denied access to her bed in favour of her new lover. They will come roaring out of the dark and he will spot them first, launching himself between his master and the sword…

They arrive without incident. It is still dark when they reach the house, with its small courtyard on the outside. A young woman appears at a second-storey window, as if fresh from her mirror, her tumbling red hair caught in the light of the torches, set further on fire by the wild green of her robe. It is her profession to be awake while others sleep and, while this is by no means her only talent, it is one that suits Cesare particularly well. She lifts her hand in a small wave, and he leaps from his saddle in a single graceful jump and strides inside, leaving the others to settle the mounts.

‘How was it, pup?’ As Pedro turns, Michelotto steps out of the darkness behind him. ‘See a lot of flesh and finery, did you?’

‘It… Ha!… I didn’t expect to find you here. You startled me.’

‘Did I? You should have checked when you rode up. I could have been waiting here with a dagger under my cloak. And you, my friend…’ He pulls him to him and punches him softly up under the rib. ‘What use would you have been to your master then?’

Pedro laughs. He’d like to ask how any villain would have managed to get this close in the first place, unless Fiammetta had invited them. But it is not worth the energy. The rebuke will fade faster if Michelotto is allowed to win. The change of command has put his nose out of joint enough as it is.

‘Look at you. Quite the courtier. Did you get your snout in any ladies’ troughs then?’

‘Dozens,’ he says evenly. He has never seen Michelotto with a woman, though stories about girls who like the feel of scars rather than smooth faces abound in the living quarters.

‘That would account for the smell of you.’ He lets him go and slaps his head casually. ‘You did an all-right job,’ he says gruffly, the compliment as always undermined by the insults that decorate it. ‘Go on. You can get out of here now.’

‘I was told I was to stay and see His Excellency home tomorrow.’

‘Yeah, well, it is already tomorrow and I am here now.’

They face each other for a second, as if it might be worth making an issue of. Pedro bows his head.

‘And watch yourself. The streets out there are dangerous.’

Across the city, Lucrezia sits by her bed, her discarded dress across the chest, its pearled arms jutting out like those of a stuffed doll. Her eyes are glazed with tiredness as her maid coaxes the tangles from her hair, then, closing the shutters against the dawning light, helps her into bed. She has already said her prayers, careful to include in them the well-being of her new husband, with whom she has spoken perhaps twenty or thirty words, none of them memorable, and whose face she can barely recall amid a sea of others.

‘Such a handsome fellow,’ her aunt’s voice had purred into her ear. Yet when she had looked from him to Juan, or Cesare or a dozen other men around her, he had seemed faintly drawn in comparison. In all her fourteen years she has never been in the company of so many men, nor seen her own bright sweetness reflected back in their eyes. She has been flattered and teased and complimented beyond compare. In return she has smiled and curtsied and laughed and clapped her hands and danced and danced and danced more. Her legs ache, her feet are sore and her head is dizzy. It has been the longest and most exciting day of her life. Yet back in her room, she feels little of it now.

‘I look forward to us becoming better acquainted as husband and wife.’ Those had been his last words; polite, inoffensive, more like the settling of an appointment for a business matter. He had taken her hands and kissed her quickly on both cheeks. She can still feel the dry flick of his lips against her flesh. If she was a little older or more experienced she might have been able to understand his nervousness as well as her own. Husband and wife. Did he really look forward to it? Did she? And is she the Lucrezia Borgia who had woken up this morning or the Lucrezia Sforza, Duchess of Pesaro, who is falling asleep tonight? The fact is they are still the same person. Lucrezia Sforza. Her mouth finds it hard to even say the two names together; they collide and trip over each other so. How strange that in the space of one day so much can have changed and yet everything still remain the same.

Inside the Vatican, Pope Alexander VI is already fast asleep. Having married his beloved daughter, he has dispatched his young mistress back to her bed alone tonight, so that he might end this of all days in communion and thanks with the other most favoured woman in his life. For her part, the Virgin Mother of God watches over him from a glowing portrait over the great bed. If she has an opinion on the day, she is keeping it to herself.

In his book-lined study on the other side of the Vatican palace, Johannes Burchard, Master of Ceremonies, his face set like rigor mortis, dips his ink in the well on his desk and notes down every detail.