Blood & Beauty The Borgias

Chapter 51



‘How it is possible for something that does not kill to hurt so much, Torella? I’ve had bull-horn injuries that have been easier to bear.’

‘My lord, it is one of the mysteries of the disease. How it seems to enter into the bone itself.’

‘And to come so suddenly? One day I am in perfect health, then— And don’t dare to tell me it is a mystery. You are a man of medicine. If I wanted to hear about mysteries I would employ a magus.’

‘If I may speak, my lord?’

‘Haaaa!’ Cesare is on the bed, his legs stretched out at strange angles as if bent iron bars are running through them. The agony is almost continuous, as it has been for the last two days, and his face is grey with pain.

‘I would say that its arrival is not so sudden. Since our return to Rome you have suffered certain…’ he feels for the right words, ‘certain changes of mood.’ He glances towards Michelotto, who sits assiduously studying the floor tiles. When the news of Ludovico’s retaking of Milan had come through a week ago, Cesare’s tantrum had broken two chairs, one of them narrowly missing the messenger’s head. It had been then that Michelotto had noticed the blotches starting to rise on his master’s face and called for the doctor.

‘What – my temper is also the disease now!’

‘It seems there may be some relation between the two, yes.’

On Torella’s desk sit letters from the city of Ferrara, where it appears half the court is infected: descriptions of smitten men chased by the dogs of depression or in thrall to such moods and furies that at times they have had to be restrained. Like the blotches and the pains, the devil comes and goes.

‘So do something. What about the ointment that the doctor gave that old cardinal?’

‘My lord, he was a Portuguese quack! Cardinal Bertomeu died of it! And for every moment of relief, he suffered tenfold as it wore off. I stake my reputation that is not the way to treat it.’

‘Then what is?’

Torella sighs. ‘I do believe…’

‘All right, all right. I will try your damn steam barrel. But it had better work, Torella. I am a man with wars to fight and I cannot – aaaghh!’ He breaks off as the next spasm thrusts a sword through his body.

It is Torella’s great experiment and he is set to make a small fortune on it. He had perfected the design during the stay in France and had the whole thing built, then dismantled and carried home in the baggage carts. It is housed inside an old oak wine barrel, with a door for the patient to enter and leave, a bench seat and a small fire grate where the coals are kept red-hot, liberally doused with drops of his special compound: quicksilver, myrrh and secret herbs mixed in secret quantities. The naked patient sits inside for two to three hours, working up a ferocious sweat, which allows the worst of the humours to be expelled at the same time as the infused steam enters through the pores and the airways. In this way the bad humours of the disease are chased out and the remedy flows in. As long as the patient can stand the heat, after three or four sessions the skewering within the bones subsides and the blotches start to fade.

Cesare, who must always be the best at everything, even suffering, emerges parboiled after a second gruellingly long session and, with Torella’s help, sits gasping in a chair, nodding grimly.

‘The stabbing is less. Definitely. It is a good cure, Torella.’

From outside the door there are raised voices; a man’s followed by another lighter tone, plus the sound of screeching.

‘Well?’ Cesare says as Michelotto puts his head around the door. ‘What? What are you staring at?’

‘Nothing. Except that it is a wonder to see you upright again.’

But that is not what Michelotto is thinking. He is thinking, ‘beetroot’: the doctor has boiled the duke to the colour of beetroot.

‘Who is it? I said I would see no one.’

‘It is… it is the Duchess of Bisceglie. She has been here for some time.’

Cesare looks at Torella. The doctor shrugs. ‘If you have the energy.’

‘How do I look?’

‘Like a man who is no longer in pain,’ the doctor says mildly, judging this rebirth of vanity as a healthy sign in itself.

Cesare lifts himself a little higher in the chair. ‘Get me a towel.’

In the antechamber, Lucrezia keeps her distance from Michelotto. Over the years nothing has happened to make his face any more attractive to her, but there is no doubt that he, like her, cares greatly for her brother.

‘The duke will be pleased to see you now.’

She nods at him haughtily as she passes.

‘Duchess Bisceglie, if I may…?’ She stops, but still does not look at him directly. ‘If he asks you how he looks… don’t tell him.’

At least she is prepared. ‘Oh, my sweet brother!’ It is hard to know what is strangest – the flayed colour of his body or the wooden contraption that sits in the middle of the room, steaming gently.

‘It is Torella’s health machine. Men go in ill and come out well. Though they roast a little on the way.’

She comes straight up to him, sitting close and laying a hand on his forehead. ‘You are so hot, but—’

‘It is the fire, not the fever.’

She glances at Torella, who looks on appreciatively as this pretty young woman becomes the instant nurse, soaking a sponge in the bowl of water and using it to dab and soothe the patient’s face.

‘You can leave us now, Torella,’ Cesare mutters.

‘Indeed. And if I may, madam? He must also drink.’

‘Yes, yes.’ Lucrezia lifts up the glass of water and helps hold it to his lips. ‘Come,’ she says sternly as the door closes behind her. ‘Do not make that face. You must do as you are told for once.’

Cesare, a stranger to being weak in female hands, sits back, unexpectedly calm. ‘How did you know I was ill?’

‘Ah, there are no secrets in this palace. You should know that. Thank the Lord you are safe now.’

As the high colour in his skin begins to fade his semi-nakedness becomes more powerful: there is an old duelling scar, a pale ridge running halfway across his chest, and his upper arms are knotted with muscles.

‘I was never in any danger,’ he says gruffly. ‘What? Are those tears? You are not crying for me. I am strong as a bull.’

‘But… but you might not have been. There has been so much fighting, Cesare. What if you had been wounded? Or even killed.’

‘How sad would you have been then?

‘How can you ask that?’ she says angrily. ‘You are my brother.’

‘How can I ask it? Perhaps because it has been a while since I have seen you show any love for me.’

‘And whose fault is that?’ she shoots back, almost too fast. The fact is that, though she is crying for him, she is also crying for other things. ‘I have missed you sorely and sent invitations by the barrelful for you to join us since your return. But you have ignored them.’

‘Us,’ he repeats. ‘To join “us”.’

‘Yes, us. Because though it seems to cause you nothing but anger these days, as well as your sister I am also a married woman.’

When she set out from the palace hours ago she had not felt so brave. What had she come for? In fear of his health? Or to try and placate his aggression against the House of Aragon? The news from Milan has the French army and Ludovico Sforza ready to meet in battle, each side rich with Swiss troops, men who, it seems, will kill even their own brothers if someone pays them enough. What a foul thing is war. Whoever wins, someone loses. And in this battle she, Lucrezia, who does not fight anyone, stands to lose more than most.

‘Cesare, I am your loving sister and I would ask you to listen to me.’ She lifts up the sponge to mop his face again so that he cannot but look at her. ‘We both know this marriage to Naples was not of my choosing. The decision was yours and Papà’s. I did as I was told. Just as when I married Giovanni Sforza. Then, when it was Papà’s wish, for the good of the family, I allowed – no, no, I helped – to have him put aside. But Giovanni was a traitor. You said so yourself. He betrayed us. Alfonso is not like him. He is a man of honour and the father of my son, a Borgia child.’

‘He is from the House of Aragon and they are our enemy,’ he says flatly.

‘Only because you have made it so. If Federico had given you his daughter as you wished—’

‘It has nothing to do with his hideous daughter,’ Cesare yells: even more than his father, he does not like to be reminded of failures.

‘I agree.’ She realises her mistake fast. ‘Oh, I agree. You have a much better wife now and another alliance to bring the family even more greatness. You are Duke of half of the Romagna already and will surely take the rest. Naples is not important.’

‘Is this what you are come for?’ he says sourly, pulling away from her ministrations. ‘To plead for your husband?’

‘No.’ And she is surprised by her own firmness. ‘No, I am not here to plead.’

Because why should she? She has done nothing wrong. In all her life she has done nothing but love and obey her family. Except perhaps for once… but she does not like to think of Pedro Calderón; there is too much guilt woven in with the suffering. Is that what she is paying for now? If so, then surely it is God’s business to punish her, not anyone else’s. ‘I am come to see my brother. But as his sister, not a supplicant. I am a Borgia too, married, before God, to a man who has done us no wrong. And I ask you to respect that.’

‘Bravo, sister.’ The battle between displeasure and admiration is over too fast for it to be read in his features. ‘Such spirit suits you very well.’ He leans over and takes her face between his hands, staring at her, studying her approvingly. Ah, but she is lovely indeed. ‘I have missed you too. I did not realise how much until this moment.’

For a second she thinks that he might try to kiss her and she stiffens involuntarily. But instead he releases her, a broad smile on his face. As he does so there is a great commotion next door, a squawking and then a swearing.

‘God’s blood. Michelotto? What is that racket?’

The door opens. ‘My lord. Do you need Torella?’

‘No! My sister has cured me. But I don’t need bloody murder going on outside my door.’

Michelotto throws up his hands. ‘Once its hood is off you can’t stop it.’

‘Stop what?’

‘The damn bird! The note that came with it called it a messenger with a cherry-red tail.’

‘Ah yes! And what does it say?’

‘Valentwah.’ Through the open door the screech is audible to all. ‘Forlìììì. Forlìì. Valentwah.’

Cesare laughs. ‘I will answer it later.’

But when he turns back to her Lucrezia is still looking at him, waiting for some kind of response.

He takes her hand and kisses it. ‘My beautiful Borgia sister, hurting you would be like hurting myself. What more can I say?’