Blood & Beauty (18 page)

Ten days later the French Army enters Naples, to the jubilation of a people who are tired of decades of cruelty and negligence, and remain hopeful, as people so often do, that a new ruler will treat them better than the last.

In the royal palace, where he sets up his court, the King welcomes the first flock of Neapolitan well-wishers, along with their wives and prettiest of daughters, all eager to find favour with a monarch whose patronage might also be described as the spoils of war. He is so delighted by the loveliness of what is on offer that he vows to remember every one of his pleasures in a little leather-bound book, which he keeps under his bed. The recording of history comes in many shapes and sizes.

Spurred on by their king’s example, the French now settle to some serious lotus eating. Their failing memory is not helped by the loss of their second hostage, Prince Djem. He had been in ill health right from the start, his waking hours spent drunk and abusive, picking quarrels with anyone willing to waste the time of day with him. Alexander, who has watched him disintegrate for years, had been right in his judgement: at thirty-six, the man is a lost cause, bitter and ashamed and now in rising fear that he may, after all, have to face a brother who is more able and at least as unforgiving as he is.

The closer they have got to Naples, the more time he has spent comatose. Once settled into the palace, he seldom comes out of his room and then only to complain about the rottenness of the food. One morning he does not wake up at all. His servants, grateful for the respite, leave him to it. By the time they think to check, he is barely breathing. The King, who is already having such a good time that he doesn’t want to be disturbed, sends his doctors, who sniff and probe and poke, a little more violently than they ought perhaps, but then he has been as abusive to them as everyone else. They get no response. By nightfall he is stiff as a plank.

It doesn’t take long for the rumour to spread that Alexander, whose name is now evil incarnate, has had him poisoned to spoil the King’s crusade. When the same rumour reaches Alexander, newly reunited with Cesare and scrutinising each and every dispatch from his spies in Naples, he is caught between fury and celebration at his enemies’ stupidity.

‘See how such men are swayed by their own thirst for scandal! What possible advantage is there in it for us to have the Turk poisoned? Alive he added forty thousand ducats a year to the papal purse – more as long as someone else was paying his bed and board! Ah well! Someone had better tell Pinturicchio. He might want to erase his likeness from the court of Alexandria now.’

Back in Naples, the prince’s possessions are distributed among those nobles who have a hankering for oriental fashion, and his great curved sabre, which once cut the heads off dozens of true believers (or so he claimed), is given to the King. It is clear even now that this is the closest His Majesty will ever come to the Holy Land. The army lets out a sigh of relief. Who needs rough seas and infidels when they are in the land of plenty?

From underneath the skirts of their Neapolitan hostesses (amateurs fast joined by an army of professionals) the lotus petals unfold and offer up further narcotic sweetness.

Three months later, when the French wake irritated by a gross itching in their groin, Spanish ships from Sicily are already docking on the mainland and an anti-French league has been signed in Rome, negotiated with impressive speed by a pope who, for all his reputation for carnality, knows when to put work above women. The sole object of this alliance: to expel the French and cut off their retreat to the Alps.

They move as fast as an army carrying its own weight in booty on the backs of a thousand mules can manage. Charles heads for Rome, hoping to win over Alexander (despite his treachery he remembers him warmly as the father figure he never had). But by the time they get there, the papal court has moved to Orvieto to avoid him. When they reach Orvieto, the Pope is in Perugia. To follow him any further would be to waste time in what is already becoming a fraught retreat. From Umbria, the French make a dash for home.

The two forces meet on a field outside Fornovo, south-west of Parma. The battle lasts all day. Both sides win and both sides lose. Heavy rain soaks the gunpowder so that the famous French artillery cannot fire. They still manage to kill more soldiers than they lose and break through to head north, but their baggage train is left behind and much of that fabulous war booty falls to the enemy, even down to the King’s own chests of treasure, inside one of which is found a little leather-bound book filled with names and dates and coded but pertinent observations.

It is not the only thing they leave behind. Everywhere they have loitered – and in Naples most of all, with its labyrinthine tenements and overflow of humanity – a new disease of the loins starts to spread, to the bewilderment of the doctors called to treat it. Its symptoms, written on the sufferers’ faces with angry pustules – a mark of shame for all to see – come and then go, only to return with no warning months later. It is christened ‘the French disease’, and along with ‘bom bard’ it enters the language as another weapon of war.

In Rome, where as yet the population remains smooth-skinned, there is more to celebrate. The Pope has seen off not just an army of conquest but also a direct attack on himself and the papacy by two of his greatest enemies. Cardinal della Rovere slips back to France to lick his wounds and bide his time, but in the south, Virginio Orsini, arch-traitor to the papal cause, is captured by the army of the returning King of Naples and thrown into a dungeon deep inside Castel dell’Ovo on the edge of the sea: an ignominious fate for the head of one of Rome’s most powerful families.

In her vineyard, Vannozza is back over her account books, her house and gardens restored. She doesn’t ask what happened to the men responsible for their destruction, though she cannot miss the gossip that circulates. It was the misfortune of the Swiss Guard to be left behind by the French King to protect his quarters in case of return. The very day after the league of opposition was signed, a group of them were taking the evening air in Piazza Navona when a wave of Spaniards came crashing out from the side streets and set upon them. Outnumbered ten to one, it is not what anyone would have called a fair fight, and by the time it ended there were some three dozen corpses leaking Swiss blood on to the cobblestones, many of them falling at the hands of two swordsmen, the first in a mask, the other disfigured by scars.

One enemy at a time. The Cardinal of Valencia is a quick learner.

As revenge and celebration mix, the Pope sends instructions for all his children to join him. The family is about to be reunited.

‘Oh, it’s magnificent. Turn again, faster. Ha! See how the colour changes as you move.’ The young woman pirouettes, her skirts flying out around her, the deep red of her dress breaking into a dozen different shades as her diaphanous over-shift catches and filters the light. ‘How do you get your tailors to pleat the over-dress in a way that gives it such lightness?’

‘It’s made from the same silk as my chemise.’

‘What? You wear your undergarment over your dress! What do you have underneath?’

‘Another one, of course. It is all perfectly respectable. Well, as long as one keeps them on.’ Her laughter is like a waterfall of gold coins. ‘In Naples it is all the fashion. Or at least it was until those clod-hopping French came in. Do you know they kidnapped our best tailors and took them back with them to France!’ She shrugs. ‘Though not mine or Jofré’s. We took them with us when we fled to Sicily.’

‘How was Sicily?’

‘Oooh. Grim. Too hot, too cold and full of wild men and women. I couldn’t wait to get home. But then when we got there… Oh!’

‘What? What did you find?’ Lucrezia, who has spent the war in Pesaro, caught between boredom and anxiety, is hungry for horror stories that she can imagine herself into.

‘Uuush, it was awful. Awful. Everywhere stink and filth. You would not believe what they did. They took everything – tapestries, pottery, linen, bedheads, the front of carved chests, anything of value that they could fit on to their stupid mules. Even plants. Imagine. Our delicious Arab garden – oh, it was paradise on earth – they ripped the flowers and trees out of the ground. For what? To die in their saddlebags? The King, my half-brother, cried when he saw it. Really. I mean, we were not supposed to notice, but he couldn’t help himself.’ She shivers theatrically. ‘Still, they are whipped home now and Naples will rebuild herself. That is what he says. Though I don’t know how it can happen with him still fighting rebels everywhere.’

‘We must thank Our Lord that you are saved from it now. Rome will be a good home until you can go back.’

‘Oh, I think Rome will be a good home for longer than that.’

‘What? Even though our fashions are so dull?’

‘Not any more. We still have our tailors with us. You wait – we will have your husband’s eyes popping out of his head with your beauty soon enough.’

‘I don’t think he cares much for my clothes.’

‘No? Well then it is him and not your clothes that are the problem, because you are quite lovely. As I am sure you know. In which case we will have to find others to admire you.’

Though they are the same age, Lucrezia’s new sister-in-law is older in all manner of ways. Naples, long before the French, was a city of heat and moist passageways and its court had a reputation for excess. Anyone born into it gains a broad education fast. With royal blood flowing through her veins, Sancia, illegitimate but much loved, has been indulged from an early age. She has a dark, fiery beauty developed from a collision of bloods: olive skin, fine nose, full lips and shining, dark, almost black eyes. She has been using it to get her own way for as long as she can remember, the choice of her adolescent Borgia husband being the only exception.

Their arrival, accompanied by what felt like half the court of Naples, has sent shock waves through Roman society. The ambassadors who rode out to greet them, alongside the cardinals and the Pope’s family – for this was a political as well as a family affair – had been seduced long before formal introductions, by the flamboyance of Sancia, with her flashing eyes and pert little smile and the overt charms of her ladies riding in fan formation behind her, all laughter and painted faces, such slaves to fashion that they appeared to have chosen their horses to complement their dress: pale silks spread across black flanks, dark velvets splashed over dappled greys. Pinturicchio, who is already up another scaffold for another patron (always a man for work rather than dalliance), will eat his heart out when he hears, for they make a perfect scene for the arrival of the Queen of Sheba, which is one of his favourite themes at present.

With such competition, Jofré never stood a chance. He rode close to his wife, shorter than her by a good head, and while he was dressed to impress with a ruby-red brocade jacket and contrasting tabard, his hose had been laced so tight to his doublet to favour the shape of his leg that he was having trouble gripping his saddle tightly enough. It was a gift to the satirists among the onlookers: a boy husband who cannot mount his own horse properly. Well, not to worry. It seems his wife rides well enough without him.

The snide jokes are all over Italy within the week. It is not that politics have been forgotten (innuendo is a time-honoured weapon of diplomacy) but that there is another, simpler pleasure to be had. Rome has lived through an occupation and the threat of destruction. Those who have weathered the crisis feel both relief and that sense of anticlimax that follows a period of sustained tension. The same ambassadors who now poke fun at the licence of the newcomers are themselves craving distraction. Peace, they hope, will now be as interesting as war.

‘Though when your father first summoned us, I didn’t want to come at all. A city of churches. Goodness knows, we have enough priests in Naples. But Jofré was so excited and Alfonso said we must go because Rome was now a great city for fashion and fun.’

‘Alfonso?’

‘My brother. Oh, and he was right. He would love it here. And you would love him. Every woman does. He rides like the wind, knows every dance and has the finest leg in all Naples. Everyone says we make the perfect couple when we dance the pavane.’

‘You must miss him.’

‘Of course. Though I think your brother is almost as handsome.’

‘Jofré?’

‘No!’ she laughs gaily. ‘Cesare. I am sure you missed him when you were away.’

Oh, and so she had. The first time Lucrezia had seen him again it had been like the sun coming out after a long winter. Since his triumphant return to Rome he had taken over Prince Djem’s rooms in the Vatican directly above the Borgia apartments, and he had been standing there at the window as she and Giovanni had ridden into the gardens. As soon as she saw him she could not stop smiling. He had blown her an extravagant kiss, which she had flung out a hand to catch. The pleasures of theatre and chivalry had been missing from her life and she was gleeful at their return.
How I love my family
, she thought. And yet, though she had been consumed with excitement at the idea of returning home, after a few days she had felt… what? Happy, of course, but also strange. There were times, as she basked in the compliments about her new beauty and grace, when she couldn’t help but be aware of another Lucrezia sitting next to her: a young woman who had also been away for a long time, and who had missed her family too, certainly, but who had survived without them. Yes, she had cried through some nights, but she had also got up and lived through the next day. And all the ones that followed. She had been the mistress of a ducal palace and had met and been admired by all manner of people. For the first time in her life, this Lucrezia had been more than just an adored daughter and sister. And…

‘And is it true that he escaped from under the nose of the French army disguised as a groom?’

‘What?

‘Cesare? That is what people say about him.’

‘Yes, yes, he did.’

‘Oh, that is so… so thrilling. If I was a man I know I would have done the same thing. They also say he keeps a courtesan. Fiammetta, that is her name, yes? Have you met her?’

‘No.’

‘I am sure she is very beautiful. Though Jofré says she is not as pretty as me.’

‘How does Jofré know?’

‘He says Cesare took him to meet her.’ She wrinkles her nose. ‘But then sometimes he says things just to impress me. Isn’t that sweet?’

‘What else does he say?’ Lucrezia asks, caught between curiosity and a slight sense of the inappropriateness of the conversation. She is used to being the darling of the court, and the arrival of this mischievous, apparently shameless creature has made her feel a little boring in comparison.

‘Oh, you know Jofré… He is such a boy. Says anything to get attention. I adore him. We all do. Really. Though he can have a temper sometimes.’ She grins. ‘As I suspect can Giovanni. I must say at that banquet the other day he looked so… so stiff and frowny. Like he had eaten something that monstrously disagreed with him.’

Lucrezia smiles. For all her ebullience and daring, there is much that the lovely young Sancia doesn’t know and shows no interest in finding out.

The truth is that life in the Borgia court is not so easy for either of their husbands. Jofré has been the baby for so long, adored and neglected by turns, that his pouting and tantrums are fast developing into adult character traits. He is not helped by his wife, who plays with and discards him like a toy, or his father, who can find his pimply insecurity so irritating at times that he has been known to join in the teasing rather than defend him.

Giovanni Sforza, at least, had expected no better.

The duke and his duchess had returned to Rome to find the gossipmongers with their blades sharpened. In the wake of the war the state of the Sforza/Borgia marriage is an irresistible topic for diplomatic speculation. On the surface, the quarrel between the two families is over. In Milan, Ludovico Sforza, like the spoilt child who gets what he wants only to find it disagrees with him, had deserted the French as soon as the tide turned and joined the papal league against them. His brother, Cardinal Ascanio, has been formally and magnanimously forgiven (‘We wipe away all stain of infamy. Let the past be past and we commence anew’) and is back in his old job, as passionate in his commitment to the Pope as he had been in his treachery against him. If Alexander feels rancour, he does nothing to show it: every pope needs a vice-chancellor to fill his papal coffers, and on the list of families that have offended there are others higher up. One enemy at a time.

‘Ah – look at you. You left Rome a girl and you return a woman.’ The Pope is overjoyed to see her. ‘The separation broke our heart a dozen times, yet you have grown more beautiful on it.’ As she sinks inside the voluminous folds of silk and velvet, breathing in the mix of musk and sweat that reminds her so strongly of her childhood, she can’t help also being aware of Giovanni, standing waiting behind her.

‘And you too, are welcome, esteemed son-in-law,’ he mutters as he finally lets her go. ‘We have missed you both.’

Across the room Cesare’s smile is wide and cold. Whatever the future of their marriage, the bridegroom will be the last to know. Giovanni Sforza’s digestive system, however, has long been as effective as a palace full of spies, and he registers both men’s welcome as knife-thrusts into his bowels. Or perhaps it is conscience where the blade reaches, for most agree that it resides somewhere near the stomach. Either way, such is his level of nerves that during the first weeks he will not eat or drink anything that he has not seen first pass his wife’s lips.

‘Oh, my lord. You will enjoy this, I think. Here, taste the sauce. It has a thick Roman sweetness to it, and goes well with the wine.’

At their first dinner in the papal apartments, Lucrezia feels his discomfort so profoundly that she makes a virtue of feeding him mouthfuls from her own plate, then cupping arms so that they drink from each other’s goblet. His smile, for those who glimpse it, betrays a painful gratitude.

Her kindness reflects the truce that has been reached between them. During the occupation of Rome, their separate levels of anxiety were so consuming that there were days when they barely spoke to each other. But with news of the Pope’s victory and the Sforzas’ change of sides, it was clear that they too must make their peace. In place of affection they had cultivated civility. It was not so hard. As mistress of a court she had seen worse marriages: open displays of disdain or boredom, the careless lust of roaming husbands. He was never like that. Even when things were at their worst he did not directly insult or abuse her. Nor did he in any way – and in one way in particular – force himself upon her. After the war was over and his nerves had steadied, he still did not return to her bed. She did not ask. Neither did she miss him. It was a compromise agreeable to them both, an understanding without words. It has never been in her nature to hold grudges, and at sixteen she is still in love with the possibilities of life and would prefer to be in high spirits rather than low ones.

‘Such a handsome couple. May I take the liberty of raising a toast to welcome them home?’ Cardinal Ascanio Sforza’s nasal voice rises above the hubbub of the room as he lifts his goblet towards the Pope. ‘What a joy to see our families so closely linked in friendship again.’ Across the tables, the envoys scrabble for their wine, amending their dispatches in their heads.

When Cesare quizzes her later, as they sit together waiting for musicians to start the dancing, she finds herself torn between loyalty and a kind of pity.

‘We are well enough, considering.’

‘Considering he is a fool.’

‘Considering I am married to him.’

‘I do not see much affection between you.’

‘Oh, Cesare. Do not make it more difficult than it is.’

‘I am your brother. I want you to be happy.’

‘And I am. I am back with you and Papà. You are both safe and the war is ended. I cannot tell you how that warms my soul. I was so worried.’

‘You shouldn’t have been.’

Across the room the Pope is settling further into his chair, his face flushed with banquet wine and food. He raises a hand towards them and she smiles back. ‘You say that, but Papà looks different. He seems older, more worn.’

‘Fatter, more like. Our mother overfed him during the occupation. She insisted on bringing her own food and wine to the castle.’

‘At least she was safe.’ She pauses. ‘I can’t imagine how it was. Is it true that we came near to losing everything?’

‘Who told you that? Your husband?’ His voice is sharp.

‘Do not jump down his throat, Cesare. He was not the only one.’