Blood & Beauty The Borgias

Chapter 55



When does her sorrow become strategy? Not for a while. No. For those first endless days and nights she envelops herself in suffering as a means of survival. As long as she is crying it is not over. The rest of the world may walk around as if his death has not changed anything, but she will never let that happen; as she weeps, her body in spasm, her head glue-sticky with tears, he is still alive inside her.

For the first few days she returns to the room itself, sitting where she sat with his body, Sancia and a few women with her. The Pope, never at his best with women’s tears, allows it, hoping it will provide a catharsis. But it soon becomes apparent that, far from abating, the emotional storm is growing in power.

‘Is she still crying?’ he says one morning, though the question is surely rhetorical.

‘Either the duchess or some of her ladies.’ His chamberlain is anxious. He has seen the Pope buried under a ton of rubble, but never have his master’s nerves been quite so frayed. A house of men besieged by women’s tears: it is a novel form of warfare.

‘Don’t they ever sleep?

‘I think not all at the same time, Your Holiness.’

What is a man to do? One cannot gag two duchesses. Alexander tries to be kind. When he visits her she rises and throws herself into his arms, sobbing. He dismisses the women and sits with her on the bed, stroking her hair, murmuring. ‘Yes, yes, it is dreadful. I pray constantly to Our Lady, who understands better than all of us the death of a beloved, to intercede to bring you rest. Like her, you must find peace in God’s greater plan. You are young; you will find another life, this will not be your only love.’

But she does not want peace, or another life. Most of all she does not want another love.

‘What? You will marry me again and I will kill someone else. Because I will. I am like that – that spider of death, which once it has mated destroys its own husband.’

The Pope is quite struck by the image. He himself has little time for poetry, but it is known that Lucrezia likes to gather men of culture around her. Do they encourage such fancy hyperbole? Too much romance can be unhealthy for febrile female minds.

When sympathy does not work he tries other strategies.

‘It is painful, yes, but we are surrounded by enemies. This plot that your brother uncovered – what would have happened if he himself had been killed?’

‘Oh! How can you believe such nonsense! Alfonso was weak as a baby. He could barely pick up a spoon to feed himself.’

‘You would be surprised by the strength of a desperate man.’

But he, in turn, is surprised by the naked contempt in her eyes. How could you be so fooled? it says.

No. It is clear enough that his daughter does not want to be comforted.

He has the room sealed off with guards outside. ‘It is not good for you to be so reminded.’

They transfer their grief next door. With all the Vatican doors and windows closed it might be possible to block it off, but it is summer and the rooms are unbearable without a breeze. The ululating continues, poisoning the very air, so that all who hear it feel out of sorts.

The Pope grows fractious. Not only does it personally upset him, but this excess of grief is fast becoming public gossip. While he is talking treaties and crusades, the diplomats are hearing it too. ‘Such remarkable sorrow, Your Holiness.’ ‘It must be hard to bear.’ ‘A dreadful tragedy, to be sure,’ they say, thus drawing further attention to a scandal that it would be best for everyone to pass on from.

How can I run Christendom when I cannot even hear myself think? Alexander says to himself after a while. Sorrow is one thing. Madness is another. No one sees fit to remind him of those days when he too could barely breathe from the stranglehold of grief.

‘Enough now, daughter.’

It is twelve days since the murder and when he visits he orders her women upstairs to a room where they must close the door. ‘I want this to stop. It can only be of harm to you now. What about the care of your son?’

‘My son is left fatherless,’ she says in a dead voice.

He sighs. The fact is, he is growing less fond of this stricken young woman with eyes that are either cold or overflowing. She must have stopped eating, for her face is gaunt, her skin blotchy and tired. His pretty, charming daughter is turning into a harrowed widow in front of his eyes. And worse, this death is splitting the family. It cannot be allowed to continue. Not when they are close to such spectacular success.

‘I order you to stop this mad grief, Lucrezia. If not – if not, I shall send you away! Such madness can only harm us all.’

‘How can I stop? It is a wife’s duty to mourn her husband.’

‘And it is a daughter’s duty to obey her father,’ he says, raising his voice in just the way he promised himself he would not do. ‘I will not have it. Do you hear?’

She stares at him. Then, after an exquisitely timed pause, her eyes fill up and the wailing starts again.

‘Aaah.’ He leaves in frustration.

Lucrezia, though she would probably deny it if it was suggested to her, is discovering disobedience. She, who has been brought up to honour her family and to do everything she is told. She, who has asked only for two things directly in her life: that the two men for whom she felt affection should be spared, only to see both of them slaughtered. She, who has been so good for so long, is being good no longer. And though her rebellion will not bring back her husband, it is keeping the blood flowing in her veins.

A few days after their encounter, she asks for an audience with her father.

‘I seek your permission to leave Rome, Father,’ she says, head high, eyes temporarily dry.

‘Leave? To go where?’

‘To my fortress in Nepi.’

‘I would prefer you here. People will think that—’

‘Very well.’ She begins to cry.

‘Ah – wait. Why Nepi?’

‘Because it is not far. But it is not here,’ she says in a small but determined voice. ‘I believe at Nepi I might stop crying.’

‘Well, God be praised for that.’ He fiddles with his fisherman ring. In the last few years it has started to embed itself into his flesh. ‘It has been a difficult summer for all of us. You have my permission. When will you leave?’

‘Tomorrow. And if you allow, I will take Sancia with me.’

When the news of her departure leaks out, rumours fly.

‘Donna Lucrezia used to be in the Pope’s good graces,’ says the Venetian ambassador, who is an inveterate gossip but has the Pope’s ear these days, for Alexander needs Venice’s good will in Cesare’s campaigns. ‘But now it seems he does not love her so much.’

Or perhaps it is the other way round.