Blood & Beauty The Borgias

Chapter 5



Not for a man, perhaps. But for a woman, the growing of hair can be the work of a lifetime.

The first time Rodrigo Borgia had taken Giulia Farnese to his bed she had stood nervously in front of him clothed only in her hair, her breasts and pubic bush peeking out from the sweeping golden curtain. How could a man resist?

The Pope’s mistress’s hair: such a rich topic for gossip. And why not? When holy men lived on the top of columns to worship the Lord, the length of their hair was proof of their devotion. For Mary Magdalene it was both the cloak that covered her shame and the cloth she used to dry the tears in which she washed Our Saviour’s feet.

For Giulia Farnese, though, it had always been the key to glory.

At her birth the midwives had been astonished when, cleaning the blood slime from her head, a set of damp dark curls had sprung forth. By the age of one they had ripened into a yellow harvest, snaking around her ears. By three the locks were on her shoulders; by seven halfway down her back. When had they realised it was to be her fortune? Certainly the household was in thrall to its demands early: the washing, the lightening, the oiling, the rinsing, the drying, and the brushing. The endless, endless brushing. While her brothers learned Latin and practised jousting, she sat immobile, neck muscles braced against the force of the brush, unable to read, unable to sew, unable to do anything but study the weave of her dress in her lap. By the time she started to bleed, her hair, this seventh veil, this river in spate, this golden shroud was down to her knees, and the news of it and her beauty was no longer confined to the house.

Once she was in Rome it had taken no time at all. Everyone knew how much Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia loved women. They also knew that his second cousin Orsino Orsini was of marriageable age, and that despite his pedigree, a boy with eyes going both ways at once would not find himself targeted by the great beauties of the day. From there it was just a question of the right ‘chance’ encounter in someone’s house, orchestrated to the last detail, she and her hair sitting in the afternoon sunlight as others moved around her. He – not Orsino, of course; the pup was held on business by a friend of the Farnese – had made straight for her, charming, solicitous, his admiration beaming out of him, but kind: a man who listened as much as he expounded. As she had risen to leave, he asked – with such a twinkle in his eye that who could refuse? – if he might touch her hair. He had placed himself behind her, and lifted it up, as if weighing it for purchase, and she had felt his breath on her neck, and then his hands resting oh so lightly on her shoulders and telling her in a whisper how lovely she was and how he would so much like to see her again.

‘You are not to be alarmed.’ That first night it had been brute winter and he had warmed his hands before so that as he reached inside her his touch would not shock. ‘I promise I will do nothing to hurt you.’

It was not a promise that anyone could make, least of all a man of his power. Still, she had been reassured that he had said it. There were many who would not have bothered.

Later, he had arranged her locks across the pillows and over the bed, like a giant sunburst pulsing out from her head, and later still he had coaxed her into riding on top of him and letting it fall and sweep over his chest and face. In all this he was a courteous and fulsome lover, delighting so much in his own delight that it had been impossible to be frightened of him.

Yet she had been afraid. Not just of her own power (because by now she had some understanding of that), but because this silky wonder that she carried with her would stay perfect only when left alone. Once the sweat and suck of skins took over, it began to snag and tangle. Then there were the moments when he would roll over on to it, and her head would be caught by his weight. Of course she did not cry out. For it was her and she was it, and together they were his mermaid and his Venus and his very own Mary.

After the first five or six encounters, the daytime house rang out with the sounds of her yelps. By now the matting and tangling had set fast and however gently the house slave pulled at it, however wide-toothed the comb used, Giulia could not stop herself from crying, so that after a while neither she nor they were sure it was her hair or her life that she was weeping over, for so much had changed in so short a time.

In the end, she had had to tell him. He had been surprisingly understanding; her desire to please was so touching and, truth be told, he too had been finding it somewhat tiresome, negotiating this third lover in the bed. Together they agreed to its imprisonment. From then on when they made love it was held inside a heavy rope plait. Which in its way did as good a job, for when she stood naked it hung down over her buttocks into the crack between her legs. Now as he entered her he scooped it up and looped it once, then twice, around her neck, as if it was a heavy gold necklace. Or a noose. And she, because she was a fast learner, threw back her head and groaned as if he was indeed strangling her and the experience was as exciting as it was fearful.

Three years on she has a husband who cannot see straight and a lover who is now raised from cardinal to Pope. And while Alexander’s passion has not abated (if anything it has grown), the constant drive for copulation has lessened somewhat, so that there are moments now when that weight of gathered hair is as much a pillow as a sex aid as he buries his head, or nuzzles – yes nuzzles, no other word will do, even for such a great man – into it.

What deep comfort she brings him. Sometimes after they have mated he will put his head between her breasts and rest there, until his breathing moves into a heavy snore while she lies caressing his ox shoulders with their sprinkling of coarse black hair. Only when she is sure he is deeply asleep does she gently, but firmly, push him off, for she cannot breathe properly when his dead weight is upon her.

Later in the night he may stir and slip his hands between her legs or run his fingers down the curve of her perfect back, but as often as not it is a gesture of ownership rather than a call to lust. It is an onerous business running Christendom, and though he is famed as a man of wondrous stamina in the world at large, it is not always so when it comes to bed, and this too she has grown to understand.

He still strives to give her pleasure in the way he uses his fingers to play with her, parting her pubic hair and slipping and hooking deep into the back of her, which to her surprise she finds can make her breathless in a way she does not need to pretend. And how he smiles then, because for all his grandiose power Alexander is a man who likes as well as loves women, and it is important to him that they like him too.

Having moved her first into the family house through marriage, he has recently moved the family house next to his. And though he works all hours of the day and night at being Pope, it gives him a special joy when he picks up his skirts and strides through the secret passages from the Vatican to the palace of Zeno, knowing that the whole household will light up in welcome at his arrival.

It is most wonderful when he visits unexpectedly: Giulia’s face never fails to glow with pleasure, the faithful Adriana overflows with twittering admiration, and the children – ah, the children… Lucrezia still flings herself at him whenever he walks in the door, Jofré still treats him like a climbing frame and Juan – well, on the rare occasions when Juan is there, he is cocky and proud as a young lion. Juan with his mane of red-brown hair and a nose as straight as his own is beaked. Juan, so fresh and smooth that there is almost a girl’s prettiness to his face. But at nearly seventeen, there is nothing feminine in his behaviour. Such boundless energy, such outrageous confidence. Where others see vanity, Alexander sees only promise. A young man roaring and chafing at the bit, ready to take on the world. And why not? When did life ever reward those who cowered in its corners?

Alexander had had a brother once, as wild and impatient as Juan. Oh, how he had loved him. When their Uncle Calixtus was Pope he had made him prefect of the city, earning him the scalding hatred of Rome’s old families. His downfall and death had cut deep into Alexander’s heart, hardening into a desire for revenge that has yet to be assuaged. But it also taught him what one should show and what one should hide. Cesare, with his strange, cold heart, had been born with the talent. It is something the ebullient Juan has yet to learn. Well, it will come…

What a family he has been blessed with. How much energy they give him, all these beautiful, powerful young people; he sucks in their vigour like great lungfuls of fresh air, so that he becomes stronger and more potent in their presence.

Slipping his arm from under Giulia’s sleeping body, he pulls himself upright to address the numbness in his fingers. There is a knot of indigestion in his chest. He is impatient with such aches and pains, he who has always had the constitution of an ox. Or a bull. It will pass. These last months there has been too much rich food. A pope must wine and dine so many others, and a level of magnificence is expected. For all his wealth, he is a man who likes simple fare and country wine. How many times has he attended banquets where people bellow their status through an endless procession of roasted meats and thick sauces until all they can do is fall, gorged, on to their cushions, letting half-secrets drop from their slackened tongues? No one ever came away from the Borgia house nursing their gut, nor carrying gossip that they were not meant to have learned.

He studies her hollows and curves. The swell of her abdomen is obvious now. It must have happened before the conclave, an auspicious moment for a new Borgia child, even if it will take time for him (of course it will be a him) to be acknowledged as such. No matter. With Adriana’s supervision and the right seamstresses the pregnancy can stay hidden for as long as necessary, after which Giulia will suffer a short illness which will empty the house of visitors until she is ready to receive again.

He slips his hand under her belly, as if weighing up the new life growing there. He finds the ripening of a woman’s body an aphrodisiac in itself: a living reminder of his own potency. He remembers Vannozza’s first pregnancy when she was carrying Cesare: the way her breasts swelled, how the line of dark fuzz thickened from her navel to the pubic bone, how he would rest his head on her stomach to try and feel the push. Except even in the womb Cesare had been sly, always a flip or a kick when you didn’t expect it. How he had come out fighting, fists knotted, a pent-up energy already on his squashed little face. Not like Lucrezia. Aah, she has been a tiny goddess from the start, so small, so perfect that he could hold her in the palm of one of his hands. Never had there been a baby more beautiful.

His fingers idle down from under Giulia’s belly to the neat moist pleat beneath, and this time she stirs.

‘Are you awake?’

‘Mmmm.’

Her voice delights him. ‘It is almost dawn.’ He pushes aside the great net of hair and kisses the nape of her neck. ‘I must leave soon.’

Though he never says a word, the omnipresent, ever-reliable Burchard, his master of ceremonies, knows when the Pope does not wake in his own bed. The censorious German thinks that he keeps his feelings to himself. Alexander smiles. He must be a man who never looks in a mirror, for if he did he would find that disapproval was etching itself ever deeper into the lines on his face.

She shifts over on to her back, dislodging his hand and curling herself into him. He draws himself up on one elbow and looks down at her face, the perfect skin, pearly, like moonlight in the dark.

‘Did you sleep well, my lord?’ she says, her voice husky with sleep.

‘I sleep with a goddess. How could I not?’ He traces a few strands of hair that have come loose.

She gives a small laugh and a sigh. ‘Before you go…’

‘Before I go?’

‘I… I have a favour to ask.’

‘What could you possibly desire that you don’t already have, Giulia Farnese?’ he says indulgently. She receives so prettily that he gets even more pleasure from the giving.

‘Oh… it is a nothing. A silly thing. Not for me really.’

‘Then it is granted already.’

‘After the baby… I mean, when things are settled here… I would… I would like to visit Orsino.’

The pause tells her what she already knows. That this is not a nothing after all.

‘It would not be for long. He has been in the country for almost a year now. And he will hear about the baby. However secret it is kept, I think it would be right if I was the one to tell him.’

Whatever some people may say to the contrary, Alexander is not a man without a conscience. Of course, he has given some thought to his unfortunate young cousin with his crossed eyes and cuckold’s horns pressing hard out from his forehead. Unlike some men he knows, he takes no great pleasure in other people’s pain. On the contrary, he would like Orsino to be content, has tried to make him so, with gifts of lands and benefices. But when faced with a direct challenge between their two opposing states of happiness, he finds it remarkably easy to ignore the discrepancy and for that reason does not like to be reminded of it.

‘His mother will tell him all that he needs to know when it is right. He understands the situation well enough. He is a Borgia and respects his family.’

‘But he is also a man, Rodrigo. And not a happy one.’

‘Man is not born to be happy,’ he says portentously, his voice booming now. ‘Does he press his distress upon you through letters?’

‘No. No. But it is not something I need to be told.’ She smiles winningly. ‘I love you, my lord. Not him. You know that. And I would not go for long. But he is my husband.’

‘And I am your pope.’ He surprises himself by the ferocity inside him. ‘I will give you anything, but not him.’ As he says it, he knows how fully he means it. No, he will not give her him. And she is not for the giving either. Not to her husband or to anyone else ever. It is as if, without her by his side, warming his bed and his thoughts, he risks no longer being the man he is, the force that he needs to be in the world.

‘Ask me something else instead,’ he says, pulling himself back on to dry land. ‘And it shall be given.’

She shakes her head but in the dark it is hard to read her eyes. ‘There is nothing else, my lord.’

They stay still for a moment. Then, gently, she takes his hand and guides it back to where it was before. And as his fingers connect with her moistness she gives a little sigh.

‘You are all I want,’ she murmurs, shifting her hips to accommodate him better. ‘Before you go…’

And because he wants to believe her, he does.

It is a strange sound, harsh, high-pitched, like a fox or some other animal in pain. In the gardens and lands surrounding the castle at Subiaco where they stayed as children to get respite from the summer plagues, she would hear something like it in the night and it always made her think of death.

But it is not an animal and it is not dying. Lucrezia knows that well enough. It is the sound of her father in bed with Giulia. She turns her head further into the pillow to muffle it. It comes again. She waits to hear if Giulia’s voice will join in; she makes a sweet warbling noise sometimes, a songbird rising out of a tree. It is love, not violence, she is hearing. She knows that too. She has seen the two of them together, felt the tenderness as well as the desire. But she also knows that what they are doing is forbidden. That Giulia is another man’s wife. That by the rules of the Church this is a sin. Yet the man is her father. And her father is the Church. More than that: without this same sin she would not be here. Not her, nor Cesare, nor Juan, nor Jofré. For their mother had been married to someone else as well. Does that make all of them sinful too, they who are loved so much and treated so well? Or does that mean that sin itself changes, depending on who commits it?

Lucrezia thinks about these things more since the convent. Before, when she was a child, everything that happened around her was simply life; she barely remembers her mother – maybe the warmth of a body or a broad smile – but her father she has always adored, always known to be a great man who served God in ways that meant that sometimes he was with them, and at others not. All this was normal. When Cesare talked back with icy insolence to his tutors, or Juan walked around the house howling at anyone who disagreed with him, she thought it was the behaviour of boys. In contrast, she learned early that sweetness would bring her everything she wanted. Which was not such a trial, since so much of what she might want she had anyway, and it was her natural disposition to smile rather than scowl.

‘Come – let me see my burst of sunshine’ was how her father would greet her when he arrived back weary from whatever tasks God had given to him. What else could she do but smile for him?

Cesare had once put it differently. It was before he was sent away to study and already there had been a fierce rivalry between him and Juan: Cesare provoking with quick clever words and Juan responding with fists, a fight that the younger would always lose. Adriana would deal with Juan, a mix of comfort and bribery, soothing his pride along with his bruised flesh. But Cesare, even in victory, held on to the anger for longer, as if it was a splinter festering in the skin. At such times she would go and sit with him, slipping her hand into his and waiting, like a dog at his side, until he was ready to notice her. Which he always did.

‘I think there is some alchemy inside you, ’Crezia,’ he had said as she coaxed a smile from him. ‘Where others have poison, you have balm.’

Except she seems less full of balm these days, more plagued by doubt. Recently she has started bleeding and with it have come storms of feeling over which she has no control: a sudden crossness, or impatience with the world, tears for no reason. Even her skin, once down-smooth, erupts at times, as if these small fountains of pus are the only way to let such things out. Adriana follows her round the house with ointments and special drinks, bitter to the taste. It will pass, she says. It will pass. I know that, thinks Lucrezia, even more angrily. Why does everybody still take me for a child? In the convent such things were happening all the time. There were days in the month when the smell of stale blood was everywhere, swirling through the cloisters, leaking out around them in the chapel at night.

It had not been compulsory for the boarders to attend the night service of Matins. The convent was their school rather than their life and they had privileges that the novices and nuns were denied. Lucrezia, however, had always had trouble sleeping. When Cesare left home, she had substituted God as her companion in the night, so she had found it comforting to be with others who were even more in love with Him. It was a venerable place, San Sisto, centuries old and close to the site where St Paul himself had been martyred, the abbess recounted when she addressed them during those first days. If they emptied themselves in preparation for God’s grace they might catch the echo of his last prayers. The convent was filled with the daughters of Rome’s most powerful families, all of them rich, most of them waiting for husbands either promised or yet to be decided. They would exchange smuggled trinkets or sweetmeats, whispering and laughing in the night, tales of love and scandal. It was there, when the gossip turned cruel, as it must between young girls, that she was made aware of some scandal in her father’s household; the hint of sin in her own birth. The nun in charge of the boarders had found her in tears, so inconsolable that she had taken her to the abbess.

‘You are not to let such things muddy the love of God that I know you have, Lucrezia,’ she had said, with such kindness and passion that Lucrezia had been hard pressed not to fall in love with her too. ‘He understands everything and His capacity for forgiveness is boundless.’

It is only recently that she wonders how many other young boarders might have needed the abbess’s same words of comfort.

The house has fallen silent. She is wide awake now. It is close to dawn: she can feel it in the air. She is struggling with other thoughts, and it would be good to be more directly in God’s presence when she addresses Him. She slips from her bed and, lighting the taper, braves the darkness to make her way downstairs.

In the grainy light, Alexander, deep in thought, waddling his way back to the Vatican through the little house chapel, is confronted by what seems to be a ghostly floating figure at the altar. He, who has never in his life seen anything that is not flesh and blood, registers a rush in his gut, a sudden fear of the incorporeal; a visitation for a man who has been making passionate and unrepentant love to someone else’s wife.

The figure turns.

‘Lucrezia!’

‘Papà! You startled me!’

‘What are you doing here, child?’

‘Ah – I… I am praying.’

He gives a little laugh to recover himself. He should have known. For years Lucrezia has been the only one of his children who would spend time in church of her own volition. She rises from her seat and he comes to greet her. He takes her face in his hands, studying her in the half-light. Her skin is moist and there are small shadows under her eyes, a hint of the adult that she will soon become, though the cherub double chin remains, reminding him of the baby who had so torn at his heartstrings.

‘It is barely light, carissima. Could you not sleep?’

‘You forget, Papà. In the convent we were up well before dawn. I woke… well, I woke early today. And I… I needed to talk to someone.’

She glances towards the figure of Christ.

‘Ah. Do you think your pope would do instead?’

She smiles and he settles himself next to her. There is a faint sour smell about him, the remains of passion. There has been no time for him to wash. They are both aware of it. He pats her hand fondly. It is too late for it to be any different.

They sit for a moment contemplating the altar: the crucifix with its emaciated body, head hung low in deathly sorrow. Cardinal Zeno, who built the palace, prided himself in being a connoisseur of art and this muscular Christ, especially commissioned for the space, looks real enough for one to take into one’s arms. To the side stands an older, wooden statue of Mary, heavy folds of cloth falling to her feet and pinpricks of woodworm in the rosy glow of her cheeks. He must get someone to come in and look at it. It does not do to have Our Lady pock-marked.

‘How is Giulia?’

‘She is… she is well.’ The pregnancy is still a secret in the house. At least he believes it is so. ‘I was late with business, so arrived when you were in bed.’

She nods, as if to say she understands and that it does not need explaining.

‘So, tell me what troubles you, you who must be one of the most fortunate young women in Christendom.’

‘Oh, I know that, Papà. I remember it every day in my prayers. But still…’ She takes a breath. If God has brought them together in the chapel, then surely He means it to be talked about. ‘Well, I am thinking about my husband.’

‘Your husband! Ha! It seems everyone wants to talk about husbands tonight.’ He gives a little shake of the head. ‘And what is it in particular you are thinking?’

She glances at him to try and read his mood better.

He squeezes her arm. ‘Come, tell me. I am your father and I love you dearly.’

‘I am wondering if he will come from Milan or Naples.’

‘Milan or Naples? What gives you that idea?’

‘Because I have heard… because I have heard that the Spanish marriage to Count d’Aversa will not take place now.’

‘From whom have you heard this?’

‘Oh Papà, people talk. I know that we, well… now that you are Pope things are different. We are now allied to the Sforzas in Milan, yes? Because they helped you in some way. And to keep an alliance in place you need a marriage. But Adriana says – well, not to me, but I heard her talking to others – that Milan and Naples are in disagreement with each other and so I thought that – that you must keep a balance between the two of them which means Naples needs an allegiance too…’

‘My, my.’ Alexander squeezes her hand, laughing. ‘Clearly you are wasted in study and sewing, Donna Lucrezia. You should be in the Pope’s Consistory. You understand more about things than most who sit there.’

‘That is not true,’ she says indignantly. ‘I think that many people understand more about this than me. Really! Two days ago Aunt Adriana turned away a messenger from Count d’Aversa. I could hardly not know, since he made a great fuss at being refused. She said it was on your orders.’

‘What else did your aunt say?’ he says, trying to keep the amusement from his voice.

‘Nothing. But we have many visitors.’

And gossip springs out from between the stitches in their cloth. Sometimes he thinks it is the only real occupation of Rome, listening to whispers: that for all the banking tables and the tanners’ yards, the economy is driven more by chatter than commerce. No wonder they do not grow as rich as Venice or Florence.

‘People pay suit to us to get close to you. We had the Prince of Ferrara here a few weeks ago! Alfonso d’Este. His father wants a cardinal’s hat for his younger son. Did you know that? We took his gifts but made no promises. We are most proper. Aunt Adriana sees to that. She is very good at it, Papà. Better than Giulia or I.’

As befits a woman who has negotiated the cuckolding of her son for the pleasure of her cousin. Ah. It seems he is to be pursued by such thoughts tonight. Well, what is done is done. Orsino has not fared badly from it. The man wants for nothing. Except perhaps for his wife. He can almost hear Giulia’s voice again in the darkness.

‘I am surprised young Alfonso didn’t ask for your hand in marriage while he was at it.’

‘Are you angry, Papà?’

‘No, no, child. I was thinking of something else.’

‘I am sorry if this is difficult,’ she says with sudden intensity. ‘But it seems to me that if I am old enough to be married then I am old enough to know these things.’

He takes her hand, white as a dove’s feathers. In Spain, under the grill of a cruel sun, they treasure the beauty of pale hands over all else. She would have been so admired in Valencia. But he needs – and he wants – her here now.

‘Very well,’ he says more seriously, making a decision to tell her the truth. ‘It is likely that you will not be married to Don Gaspar d’Aversa.’

‘But we are betrothed! What will he say when he finds out?’

‘He will shout bloody murder. Most of Rome can hear him taking in the breath already. But he will settle for it.’

‘So will it be Milan or Naples?’

‘I can’t say for sure. We are still talking.’ He smiles. ‘Perhaps our holy mother can help us with the answer.’

‘I didn’t have time to talk to her properly. Though… though I know another way to find out.’ She is eager. Since he has become everyone’s father he has less time to be hers alone. And the pleasures of mutual adoration are – well… mutual.

‘And what would that be?’

‘You take a bowl of water, and you draw a circle around it in wax or with the black soot from candles.’ Her eyes are shining now. ‘And then you say some words and stir the surface with a wooden spoon and as it settles you look into it.’ She stops, for effect. ‘And there you will see the face of your husband.’

He must not laugh. ‘I think it unwise for the daughter of a pope to conjure up the devil to see her own future.’

‘Oh, it is not the devil, Papà. Far from it. The words are all good words.’

‘Nevertheless, such superstitions are forbidden. Who taught you them?’

‘I… er, no one,’ she says weakly. ‘I mean, it is only a game.’

‘Not a game that the abbess of San Sisto would approve of, I am sure.’

‘But the convent is where I learned it! The boarders do it all the time.’ Now it is her turn to squeeze his arm. ‘The abbess didn’t know, of course. Ah, you have no idea how boring it can be sometimes with so much worship and so little fun.’

Nuns conjuring up spirits to divine the future! If his life was not so busy pulling the fangs from poisonous snakes in every corner, he might fruitfully add the conduct of convents to the work of being the Pope. Well, it can wait. He looks back into her dancing eyes. Love games. The puppy fat is not simply physical. At thirteen, she is still too coddled, too young for marriage. Whoever the man, there will be a clause on delayed consummation written into the contract.

But he will not come from Spain, that much is clear. Is she disappointed?

She considers the question. ‘I used to want to live there. You and Aunt Adriana told such stories of it: about Valencia, how the sea shone like diamonds under the sun and the breezes came through the town and there were so many churches and palaces and the people there were so… so fiery and friendly and fine. But I want to stay here now. We are one of the great families of Italy. Each of us has a part to play in our future and marriage is the strongest knot that can be tied,’ she says, as if someone had taught her the words along with her catechism.

‘Bravo. Spoken like a Borgia. Don’t worry yourself further. Once it is decided you will be told.’

She rises. ‘Papà. One favour.’

Anything, he thinks. Then remembers. ‘Perhaps I had better hear it first.’

‘I don’t want a really old husband. Juan says they dribble and pass water in the bed.’

‘Does he indeed?’ He stares at her.

‘Oh, I don’t think he means you.’

‘No.’

‘And one more thing…’

He sighs in an exaggerated manner, as if this is far too great a burden to be borne. They both smile.

‘Bring Cesare home soon. He pines for Rome. I can feel it underneath the words.’

‘He will be here well in time for your wedding. That I promise you.’