Blood & Beauty The Borgias

Chapter 18



To her credit, when the time came, she had left her house and her vines without fuss or question. She accepted the modest accommodation given inside the Castel Sant’ Angelo and asked for no privileges. Though da Sangallo has been at work for near-on two years trying to turn a mausoleum into a home, the deathly chill of stone is everywhere and in the middle of winter the tapestried chambers feel mildewed.

If Giulia Farnese is anywhere close, she does not see her. Neither does she see the Pope. Nor request to see him. She spends her mornings on estate business (she has brought her account books with her) and the afternoons sitting looking out over the city she has lived in all her life. From her window high in the fortifications she has a clear view of her two-storey tavern on the other side of the bridge. In her mind’s eye she can see herself standing in one of the bedrooms, staring out on the castle itself. There is no better location in the whole of the city. During feasts and holidays the bridge is so thick with pilgrims on their way to the basilica of St Peter’s that you might think there was no stone supporting them, that it was instead a miracle bridge made up of human souls surging on towards God. Many sleep in the piazza or on the steps of the great old church, their backbones and their budgets assuaged by using pallets hired by the night from vendors who line the route. But those who come to God with a slightly bigger purse can make themselves comfortable in one of the six rooms (four beds to a room) that Vannozza’s house offers. The doors open at dawn and close soon after sunset, though late travellers who knock politely and pay up front will be welcome if there is a place. In the morning, they can drink watered wine or goat’s milk before they head off on their next stage of pilgrimage round Rome’s seven great churches, and (if they are not fasting) return every evening to roasted carp and baby pig. In the fifteen years since she bought it from the sale of the jewels given to her by a still-loving cardinal, it has quadrupled its value, and she turns down offers every other month for its purchase. Of course, it is commandeered by the French now. She tries not to imagine the havoc. Two years before, a freak flood took out the ground floor of the tavern, with beds floating down the Tiber, one with a pilgrim who had drunk too much the night before still hanging on to it. The French, like another flood tide, will do their damage and pass on.

When he visits her that afternoon, it is not only because of what he must tell her, but because he wants to see her. Though Giulia’s flesh is still as soft and willing as ever, in the midst of crisis he has been thinking of a different kind of constancy, one with – how can he put it? – more sense of a lived life to steady the way the earth is rising and falling beneath his feet.

He was never good at breaking bad news. For all his power, he likes to please more than disappoint, especially women. She, who reads him better than many of his own advisers, knows what he has come to say before he opens his mouth. She listens without speaking, nodding her head once or twice to show she understands. She has not cried for many years and she will not do so now, not in his presence.

‘Ah, well,’ she says at last. ‘Rome is an occupied city. I am sure I am not the only one to be counting my losses.’

He does not tell her that he thinks she was targeted specifically because of her connection with him. But then he does not need to, because she will know that too.

‘They will be brought to justice, Vannozza. Of that you can be sure. And any damage that has been done will be made good before you have to return.’

‘You are too kind, Holy Father.’ Though there is nothing else she can call him, they both register the inappropriateness of the term on her lips.

He shuffles uncomfortably on the spot. ‘You are looked after well enough here for now?’

‘Oh yes, indeed.’

‘Good.’ He looks around. He hovers. There is nothing more to say. Or too much. To leave or to not leave. It was a familiar pattern in their past. ‘I am glad you were not there when it happened,’ he says.

They look at each other. He does not want to go, she thinks. He has so much to do and for a while he does not want to do any of it.

‘I… I brought some of my own wine and olive paste to keep me company away from my kitchens. You probably eat and drink much better fare, but if you wanted to sample some of it…’

‘Well, yes… that would be fortifying.’ He nods. ‘It is a hungry business, saving Rome from Christians.’ He smiles.

She clears her papers from the chair to make a space for him and digs into her chest, removing and arranging things, taking out the glasses, wiping them, uncorking the flask. He watches her move. She has spread over the years, a matron as much as a woman, though her shoulders and neck are still lovely. Her breasts are like great pillows. They would overflow in a man’s hands.

She places an engraved-glass goblet down and pours, holding a kerchief to catch any drips. The wine is a ruby red. He imagines her serving men at a great table, one of them moving his hands towards her skirts. Outside, the French King will soon be loading his artillery to send salvoes into the walls of the castle, and here he is, playing with fantasies of tavernmaids. Well, even a pope must have some quiet time.

‘You look… well, Vannozza.’

‘For my age, you mean?’ she says cheerfully. ‘Yes, I am.’

‘Of course, I am much older.’ He waits. But she does not pick up the bait.

‘I wonder – would you say the same of me?’

Ah, Rodrigo, she thinks, how little you have changed; never a jot of modesty, particularly when in search of a compliment. She studies him. While there is still an energy within him, the flesh falls slack on his face and what was once a generous stomach has become a gross one. He is corpulent. No other word for it. He is digging his own grave with his teeth. She wonders what Giulia Farnese thinks as she manoeuvres her body out from under the weight of him. Does he know?

‘You are a man of even more substance,’ she says, smiling. ‘Though you look a little tired.’

‘Well, I carry the weight of the Church on my shoulders,’ he mutters, patently disappointed in the level of appreciation.

‘Oh, you should not worry. It suits you.’

He smiles, better pleased.

Ah, men. However old, however powerful, they still have the boy in them.

‘The wine is good,’ he says.

‘And the olive paste?’

‘Perfect. Simple. Just as I like it.’

He pats the cushion next to him as an invitation. My God, she thinks, is he trying to seduce me? She stays busy with her things.

He registers the hesitation. He gives a large sniff. ‘So, Cesare says you are a grand businesswoman. As indeed you always were. I am glad you are not… unhappy.’

‘Far from it. I have everything a woman of my age could want.’ But the sentence does not quite end. And she lets it hang. Well, her house is trashed and her vineyards trampled, and something in her is not willing to play the game in the way she once did.

‘You pause. There is an “except” there, perhaps?’

She shakes her head.

Except for me, he thinks. She would still want me. ‘Vannozza, you know… I could never have done this had we still been together.’ He smiles, gesturing to the surroundings.

‘Oh! I did not mean you.’ And her laugh is so immediate that he is taken aback.

‘What then?’

The unspoken word shivers in the air as it has for so many years.

‘Ah, you mean the children.’

She looks at him steadily for a moment, and then shakes her head. Even now she does not quite have the courage. She has not become the woman she is by being broken by things she cannot have.

‘You know I would have had you at Lucrezia’s wedding. But Burchard was adamant—’

‘Yes, yes. I know. And of course he was right. Tell me, Rodrigo, how is your gout these days? Does it trouble you much?’

‘Cesare visits you. And the others write.’

‘Ho! Out of formality. Not love,’ she adds before she can stop herself.

‘Of course they love you; you are their mother,’ he says crossly.

‘Don’t shout at me, Rodrigo. We are not lovers any more.’

‘Well, what is all this anyway? I have a great deal on my mind.’

‘Then go and think about it.’

‘I am telling you, your children love you.’

‘Oh! Cesare is kind to me and cruel to others. Juan – at times – recalls his duty, and the other two were too young. They barely remember me.’ She pauses. ‘Or I them, sometimes. I am not criticising you, I am simply saying how it is.’

‘Nevertheless…’ he remains flustered. ‘You will be mother of a pope, a duchess and two dukes. Many women would give their eye teeth.’

‘And how would they chew their meat then? Of course, I am overwhelmed by all the honours I have been paid. I always was.’ And she holds his eye now, to show him the argument is over. ‘So, let us not quarrel. Would you like some more wine?’

‘I… No, no.’ He gets up, smoothing his silken skirts. ‘I must go.’ Yet he does not move. ‘They were good times between us, Vannozza,’ he says. ‘Weren’t they?’

‘Yes. Very.’

‘And. And you were always pleased to see me.’

‘You were usually a great pleasure to see.’

‘Ha!’ He feels happy now, secure enough to take the risk. ‘And I always satisfied you, didn’t I?’

She looks at him for a moment, trying hard to keep the laughter from her eyes. ‘Like a bull, Your Excellency,’ she says evenly, choosing the words she would once have used to tease him as they thrashed together in bed. ‘But we were both much younger then.’

‘Humph,’ he says, as if to show how wrong she is. Except that is not what he wants to say. What he came here for. I grow tired in bed, that is what he would like to say. Sometimes I think I might disappoint her, sometimes… since she came back, well, I am almost not interested. There is so much else to do. Christendom, the challenges of work. You told me once that I am happier with the fight than the conquest. You were right. The fight never tires me. I can always get it up for a fight. Will you be there at my death? he thinks. Then wonders why he should have such a thought.

‘We have come a long way, Vannozza dei Cataneis.’

She looks around.

‘I do not think you have stopped moving yet.’

And so it happens that the next day the Pope defies the King of France and His Majesty Charles VIII rolls his artillery cannons across the bridge and sets them up outside the walls of the fortress of Sant’ Angelo. Truth be told, he feels more than a little uncomfortable standing there, a would-be crusader against the infidel, about to shell the sanctuary of the Holy Father of Christendom. The first few half-hearted salvoes fail to reach their target, shaking the ground like a small earthquake. The artillerymen regroup and push the guns closer. But as they are reloading noisily, as if in anticipation of the violence, a small stretch of wall further along falls in of its own accord, to the screams of the guards stationed behind it. Mayhem and embarrassment collide. The architect da Sangallo will find his portrait erased from among the spectators to Santa Caterina’s disputation if he can’t do better than this. Outside, the King, who could order a direct attack now, waits while they retrieve the mangled bodies. Half an hour later, the Pope sends out a messenger, agreeing to most of the key demands and welcoming the King into the Vatican, where he will meet and entertain him himself.

That night, della Rovere growls objections into the King’s ear, but the young man is already too busy picking his outfit and taking lessons in papal protocol: when to walk one way or the other, when to bow, when to kneel and when and how often to kiss the Holy Father’s feet. It will be a meeting of historic importance for his young Majesty and he does not want to get it wrong. He is still practising walking backwards when della Rovere leaves the city in disgust. When news reaches Alexander he is heard to give a yelp of joy. He puts on his ceremonial robes and waits to welcome the King.

A week ago, one would have been hard pressed to find a man to take bets on his survival. Now he savours this moment as one of the sweetest. Instructions go out to the kitchens to prepare a great feast for his visitors. It is one of Alexander’s great talents: how much he can enjoy life and how, when things are going well, he is happy to invite others to enjoy it with him.