Blood & Beauty (3 page)

But all this only meets with more laughter, and Adriana, who even in stately middle age still has something of the child in her, is won over. She hugs this young woman fiercely to her, then holds her at arm’s length, pushing back the shock of chestnut hair, not so full nor so golden as Giulia’s, but wonder enough in a city of raven-haired beauty.

‘Oh, look at you. The daughter of a pope.’ And now there are tears in her laughter. Dear God, she thinks, how fast it has gone. Surely it cannot be so many years? The child had been not yet six when she had arrived to live with her. What bloody murder she had screamed at being taken from her mother. ‘Oh, enough now, Lucrezia.’ She had tried her best to soothe her. ‘You will see her still. But this is to be your home now. It is a noble palace and you will grow up here as a member of the great family to which you belong.’

But the soothing had only made her sob louder. The only comfort she would take was from Cesare. How she worshipped her brother. For weeks she would not let him out of her sight, following him around, calling his name like a bleating lamb until he would have to stop to pick her up and carry her with him, though he was barely big enough himself to stand the weight. And when Juan mocked her for her weakness, he would punch and wrestle him until the younger one ran screaming to whoever would listen. And then the baby Jofré would join in, until the house was like a mad place and she had no idea how to calm them.

‘Ah, we Borgias always cry as hard as we laugh.’ It did not help that Rodrigo always indulged them so, allowing everyone to yell and climb all over him the minute he walked in. ‘It is our nature to feel each slight and compliment more deeply than these insipid Romans,’ he would say, besotted by whatever incident or story of misbehaviour had just been recounted. ‘They will settle soon enough. Meanwhile look at her, Adriana. Feast your eyes on that perfect nose, those cheeks plump as orchard plums. Vannozza’s beauty is there already. Her mother’s looks and her father’s temperament. What a woman she will become.’

And how nearly she is there, Adriana thinks as she stares at Lucrezia now. Fourteen next birthday and already her name is on a betrothal contract to a Spanish nobleman with estates in Valencia. Her eyes will shine as brightly as any of the gold in her dowry. But then they are all handsome, these bastard children of Rodrigo Borgia. How merciful of God to so readily forgive the carnal appetites of a servant he has singled out for greatness. Had she been a more envious woman, Adriana might feel some resentment; she who despite Borgia blood and an Orsini marriage had only managed to squeeze out one scrawny, cock-eyed boy before her miserable, miserly husband died in apoplexy.

Life had been infinitely richer since his death. No widow’s cell in a convent for her. Instead, her beloved cardinal cousin Rodrigo had made her guardian of his four children, and the status had brought her a pleasure as deep as the responsibility she felt on their behalf. Family. The greatest loyalty after God in the world. For these eight years she has given it everything: no lengths she has not gone to to elevate their name, nothing she would not do for her handsome, manly cousin. Nothing, indeed, that she has not done already.

‘And good morning and congratulations to you, daughter-in-law.’

She turns now to the oh-so-lovely creature who stands nest-ripe and willowy on the top step, and for a second her beauty takes her breath away. It had been the same three years before, when Giulia’s marriage to her son had been first suggested by the cardinal, a man who could make even an act of procurement – for that was what it was – an elegant proposal.

‘Giulia Farnese is her name: a magnificent girl, sweet, unaffected. Not a fabulously rich family, but you may trust me that that will change soon enough. After their marriage, young Orsino will want for nothing. Not now, nor ever again. He will be a rich man with an estate in the country to rival any of his father’s family, and the freedom to do with it as he wants. As his mother – and in many ways the mother of all our family – he will, I know, listen to you. What do you say, Adriana?’

And he had sat back smiling, hands clasped over spreading stomach. What she had said had been easy. What she had felt, she had buried too deep to allow access. As for the feelings of the girl herself, well, they had not been discussed. Not then and never since that day. At the time of the wedding the girl had not been much older than Lucrezia is now, but with a more lovely – and perhaps more knowing – head on her shoulders. In a city of men sworn to celibacy, beauty such as hers is its own power broker, and with the promise of the papacy there is already talk of a cardinal’s hat for one of her brothers. Family. The greatest loyalty after God.

‘You slept well, Giulia?’

‘Until the noise, well enough.’ The young woman’s voice, sweet though it is, is nowhere near as melodious as her body. She pulls back the long strands of hair that have slipped around her face, while the rest falls down her back, a sheet of gold reaching almost to her knees. That hair, along with the scandalous smoke of her marriage, is the stuff of the latest Roman gossip: Mary Magdalene and Venus fusing into the same woman in a cardinal’s boudoir. It is said that the Vice-Chancellor moves his intercessional painting of the Virgin into the hall on those nights, lest the blessed Mary should be offended by what she might see. ‘When should I be ready? When will I be called for?’

‘Oh, I am sure His Holiness will be busy with great business for some days. We must not expect a visit soon. Use the time to be at your toilet, sweeten your breath and choose carefully from your wardrobe. I do not need to tell you, Giulia, the wondrous favour that is now bestowed upon us all. And perhaps most upon you. To be the mistress of a pope is to be in the eye of all the world.’

And a flush of colour rises in the girl’s cheeks, as if she is indeed a little overwhelmed by the honour. ‘I know that. I am prepared. But I… should…’ She hesitates. ‘I mean – what about Orsino?’

Rodrigo was right, as always. Sweetness, and a certain simplicity in her honesty. They were lucky. Beauty such as hers could easily breed malice or manipulation. Adriana gives the tight little smile with which they have all grown familiar. ‘You need not concern yourself with that. I have written to my son already and the letter is dispatched. With God’s grace he will receive it before the news becomes general knowledge.’

‘I… Even so, I should surely add some words of my own… He is my husband… I mean – things will be—’

‘Things will be as they will be. Your husband is as much a Borgia as he is an Orsini and he will be proud for the honour of his family. As you should be for yours. There will be wonders in this for everyone. This house will become an embassy for suitors in search of favours. We will have to ask Rodrigo for a full-time secretary to deal with the weight of petitions.’

Now Lucrezia intervenes, laughing, taking Giulia’s hands. ‘You are not to worry, Liana. Orsino will be happy for you, I am sure.’ She holds her gaze, until she coaxes a smile out of her. ‘And we shall visit him sometimes in the country to cheer him up. But mostly we shall hold court together in the great salon. Aunt Adriana will bring in the visitors and break the seal on the letters, yes? And then you and I will read them and assess each one for its worth. And those we think are worthy we will present their suits to Papà when he comes and he will congratulate us on our judgement, as his domestic ambassadors.’

And all three women are laughing, because the last few days their nerves have been pulled as tight as garrotting wire and the thing that they have most desired, even if also a little feared, has happened.

‘And we will not let Juan or Jofré into the room. For they will all have come to visit
us
, not brawling, spotty boys. Isn’t that so, aunt? Where are they? Do they know? They can’t still be asleep?’

Oh yes they can, thinks Adriana, for after all these years she knows her charges well. Jofré will be curled up with his thumb in his mouth like the ten-year-baby he still is, while Juan too will be in bed, though most likely it will not be his own. Whoever she is this time, she will probably try to charge him more when she learns who he is now become. Or offer it for free… a set of silken handcuffs. Rome. The city of the Holy Mother Church, renowned for being home to as many courtesans as clerics. There have been moments when Adriana has wondered if God is too busy keeping the Turks at bay to notice the exuberance of sins elsewhere. Still, they must all be more careful now. She must get Rodrigo… no, Alexander – His Holiness – what must they call him now when he visits? – she must get him to talk to the children, especially Juan. Make clear the responsibilities of this new status. Sweet Jesus, how the wheel of fortune spins. While they have been sleeping it has taken all of them and flung their lives around in ways that none of them can yet imagine.

As the streets of Rome grow raucous with the news, inside the Vatican palace a transformation worthy of Ovid is taking place: a paunchy sixty-one-year-old is turning himself into one of the most powerful men in Christendom.

Rodrigo Borgia has said his private prayers: a jubilant outpouring of thanks to the Virgin Mary, Mother of God, his guiding light, his constant emissary and the only woman for whom his devotion is matched by unquestioning fidelity. His cardinal’s robes are now discarded on the floor and he stands naked, barrel chest and sagging abdomen over heavy legs, towelling the sweat off his flesh. In front of him, pressed and ready, sit three sets of papal raiments: three white undergarments, three flowing white silk robes and three caps, each set a different size to accommodate whatever shape of man should now find himself deserving of them. Over the course of his career Borgia has watched four men, at least one more dead than alive, emerge from this room transformed by the power of the robes. Each time he has had an image of himself in their place, while in between his body has grown as substantial as his desire.

He anoints himself with sweet musk oil: his forehead, under his arms and around his groin in an unconscious echo of the sign of the cross, and reaches for the largest undergarment.

From outside, he can hear the sound of the swelling crowd. He is humming to himself, lines from a motet by the Flemish musician whose compositions are becoming all the rage in the papal court. It has been inside him for days, this plaintive sweep of notes. Of course he will need to commission more music now, masses, special liturgies. A new era and a pope must make his mark on everything, from the allegiances of state to the melodies than run around men’s heads. So be it. The Walloon, what is his name? Des Prez? Yes, he will do for the music. Too eager to wait for the help that will come, he struggles with the main robe; a man doing battle inside a sea of silk, marvelling at the softness, which is as great as the weight. Soon he will be putting on the velvet and ermine. He had a coat with the same fur when he was young and vain enough to wear court robes alongside his clerical gowns. Ah, how grand he had thought himself then; stepping off the ship on to Italian soil, an iron-chested young Hercules, puffed up with Spanish confidence and Spanish manners, come to serve his cardinal uncle, soon to become Calixtus III, the first and – until now – the only Spaniard to ever accede to the holy throne.

It had not taken long to register the acrimony: the way accusations of nepotism went hand in hand with the sneers of the established Roman families. He had heard the first sniggers as soon as he walked into the room, noting how the more effete Italian clerics brought up their pomades to their noses and closed their eyes in a theatre of disgust, as if they might swoon at any moment. Though it would have given him more pleasure to punch their noses into the backs of their heads, instead he had done what was necessary, espousing the hygiene habits of his new country so effectively that for decades now he has been able to detect a newly arrived Spanish countryman from the smell that precedes him before he walks through the door. It makes up part of his first words of advice:

‘This obsession with bathing is something that the Romans share with the Arab infidel, but the truth is, brother, if you want to get on in this city…’

And then he flicks open a small pillbox and offers a perfumed lozenge to help sweeten the delivery of the language they must now talk, filled with blowsy open vowels. After so much practice his manners are more Italian than Spanish these days, yet there are those who still call him a Marrano, a Dago Jew behind his back. Except from now on, before they do so, they will have to make sure the doors and windows are bolted and that the company around them is either blood or bought.

And finally the papal cap. It fits awkwardly over the broad baldness of his tonsure. He squints into the shine of the brass vase: his white hair sitting like a ruffle of piped cream around a cake, the great eagle nose jutting out beneath. So, the biggest hat is too small. Well, it will do until there is another made. He stands back, lifting his right arm and bringing it down in a solemn gesture of blessing, the wonder of it all flooding through him, and it is all he can do not to cry out in triumph again.

He notes a flicker in the surface of the brass and turns to see the Master of Ceremonies, Johannes Burchard, standing in the doorway, come, as tradition demands, to help him dress should he require it and to measure the new pope’s finger so that the goldsmith can start work straight away on the papal ring. He has known a couple of cardinals who walk into conclave with their own ready-made fisherman’s ring in their pocket, just in case. But over the years Rodrigo Borgia has grown to have too much respect for God – or perhaps it is that other deity, Fortuna – to take such chances.

If the bony-faced German is pleased or displeased at the Spaniard’s elevation, he doesn’t show it. His job is also his natural talent: to note everything and express nothing. They have things in common these two men: they are both foreigners at the court of Rome, and both skilled at negotiating the right price for the right job. (Ten years ago, four hundred ducats had been an excellent bid for the post of master of ceremonies – it would cost him triple that now.) Yet in the fifteen years that they have known each other they have exchanged no more words than their roles demanded. Now they will be joined together for as long as they live. Before the new pope can speak, the German falls to his knees and prostrates himself on the ground, judging perfectly the distance in order to kiss the other man’s naked, and mercifully clean, feet. The Master of Ceremonies at work.

The Cardinal of Valencia – and it is the last time anyone will think of him thus – feels a deep glow of pleasure rising up inside him. He picks up his skirts and walks out towards the public balcony.

Sixty-one years old. How many years does he have in front of him? By his age four of the five popes he had served were already rotting in their tombs. But the Borgias have more staying power. His uncle, Calixtus III, had survived to almost eighty. Sixty-one. Three sons, a ripening daughter and a sublime young mistress, young enough to drop more fruit. Borgia blood. Thick with ambition and determination. How long does he need? Give him another… ten – no, fifteen – summers and he will have the bull crest emblazoned over half of Italy.

He strides out on to the balcony into the light of a new day. The crowd roars its greeting. But as Pope Alexander VI lifts his hands to offer the traditional blessing, silence falls. The clothes have become the man.

Bought from Mantua, where those who know say the Gonzaga dukes breed better Turkish stallions than the Turks themselves, the Borgia horse and its messenger are making excellent progress.

The journey from Rome to Siena is harder than its distance warrants. Once outside the great walls of the city the route becomes as treacherous for humans as for animals. Before the coming of Our Lord, when men knew no better than to worship an army of badly behaved gods, the countryside around Rome was legendary for its fertility, with well-kept roads filled with carts and produce pouring into the city’s markets. But over centuries of the true faith, it has degenerated into wilderness and brigandry, divvied up between the families of the great Roman barons; men hidden inside castles and fortresses who would prefer to carry on slaughtering each other than create stability together.

Still, to be robbed and murdered, the victim has to be caught first. And this rider, a young man born in the saddle with a passion to make his mark on the ground, stops for no one and nothing. The heat rises with the sun, but as long as he keeps moving the sweat on his clothes stays cool in the wind he creates. The more he sweats, the further he can ride without needing to empty his bladder. It is past ten o’clock when he reaches Viterbo, inside the borders of the northern papal state. The staging-post is one that the Vice-Chancellor’s postal system has used for years, and it has been on standby since the conclave convened. The stable master himself does the handover of horses. No point in trying to read the boy’s face: there is nothing there but grime and exhaustion; when the sealed letter had been given, Pedro Calderón did not know and neither did he ask. It would not do for the cardinal’s eldest son to remain in ignorance while others celebrated or commiserated on his behalf, and those who work for the Borgias learn fast what is to be gained from doing what you are told.

Back on the road, the new mount is skittish at first, but they come to understand each other’s rhythm fast enough. He rides through the furnace of the day and by mid-afternoon he is soaked with sweat as he climbs the curling road up towards the city gates of Siena. From woodlands and scattered hamlets he is suddenly enveloped into a maze of dirt alleys, alive with other horses, some ridden, some being led. In August, Siena is a giant stable filled with snorting pure-breds on their way to the exercise tracks. Carts and merchants, even the best-dressed of men, make way for them. The city is high on the perfume of horse sweat and excrement, the alleys ankle-thick in leftover dung. In less than a week, the best race horses in Tuscany will be stampeding round the great piazza in a storm of dust and straw; a chariot race without the chariots, mowing down anyone or anybody who gets in their way. On street corners money changes hands under long sleeves. The frenzy of the Palio is everywhere. Cesare Borgia, who should by rights be finishing his studies in Pisa, is as mad for hunting and sport as the next rich young man, and has two horses with a good chance of taking the prize.

They are resting in the stables now, enjoying better treatment than most of the human population of Siena. They train each morning at dawn, which fits in perfectly with their owner’s lifestyle, for recently the newly appointed young Bishop of Palomar has taken to entering the day when it is almost over, then working – and playing – through the night while others sleep. And since what is good for the master is also good for his men, the house is snoring when the rider arrives, the only people up and about a few servants and the old stable guard who acts as watchman.

‘You’ll have to come back. We don’t take visitors till after six p.m.’

In answer the great horse snorts in the man’s face, steam rising off its flanks.

‘I am ridden from Rome on urgent business.’

Begrudgingly, the old man hauls open the doors on to a silent inner courtyard.

‘Where is your master?’

‘Asleep.’

‘Then wake him.’

‘Hoa! I am sixty-five years old and want to reach sixty-six. You wake him. No. On second thoughts, even that would have me gutted and fried.’

From the corner a door opens on a short, half-dressed figure, thick-chested and with a latticework of healed wounds on his upper torso and a face so scarred that it looks as if it has been sliced into bits and rearranged carelessly.

‘Miguel da Corella?’ The boy’s voice is hoarse with dust, or it might be trepidation for the man has a reputation more colourful than his scars. ‘I am ridden from Rome,’ he adds hurriedly in Catalán.

‘When?’

‘Just before dawn.’ He slides from the horse, a cloud of dirt rising around him. He thrusts out a gloved hand and they clasp each other by the wrist, once, twice. ‘With no one behind me.’

‘You can ride, boy. You’re Pedro Calderón, yes? Romano’s son.’

Their language is rough and ready, a long way from home with the touch of gang talk. The boy nods, pleased beyond measure that he is known.

‘Where is it, then?’

From inside his jerkin, the young man pulls out a leather pouch, dark with sweat.

‘I’ll take it.’

The rider shakes his head. ‘I… my instructions are to put it into his hands only, Michelotto.’ He risks the popular name, used by those who love him. And hate him.

‘You already have.’ The man holds out his palms. ‘These belong to him, boy.’

Still the rider doesn’t move.

‘Dawn, eh? All right.’ He gestures to a door on the first floor. ‘But you shout before you go in and keep your eyes down. He’s not alone.’

Halfway up the stairs the rider finds his legs buckling. He hauls himself up by the banister, biting back the cramp. Two years in the service of Vice-Chancellor Borgia, two years of cross-country deliveries and the odd piece of thuggery to get to this. Of course he has seen Cesare Borgia, but in company, never to meet directly. He knows something of the others, one Spanish family to another, but this inner circle is something else.

‘My Lord Cesare!’

He lifts his hands to smash on the door, but it is already open in his face, the sword coming so close to his ear that he wonders if he’ll ever hear again.

‘Rome, my lord,’ he squeaks, flinging up his arms in surrender. ‘I bring news from Rome.’

‘God’s wounds. You climb stairs like a bullock, man.’ The other arm grabs him and pulls him inside as Michelotto’s laughter rises up from below.

Cesare takes the offered pouch and turns his back, the door left open for the light, the boy already forgotten. He breaks the seal and unfolds the paper. The room smells of sex, sweet and sour. Pedro stands transfixed. He cannot take his eyes off him: this man who can cleave through a bull’s neck with a single blow and jump between galloping horses. Or so they say. They say he makes Michelotto ram his fist into his abdomen every morning to test the metal in the muscles. They say… But then they say so many things.

In the golden light of the afternoon the body looks as tender as it is strong: the sheen of sweat along the muscles of the upper torso, the scattering of hair around the nipples, the taut stomach and the vulnerable hollow inside the hip as it dips towards the groin and the tucked sheet. With his head bent over the words it is possible to make out the shape of a small, ill-kept tonsure amid the mane of hair. Everyone knows, yet it still comes as a shock. When the angels look down on him, are they equally perplexed to think of Cesare Borgia as a man of the Church? While youth is blithely immune to the threat of age, the thickening flesh, the dulling of the glow, young men judge each other’s bodies with clear enough eyes and they know when they are outclassed. It is not only the athletic beauty; it is the very way he holds himself, aware and unaware at the same time, as if the world exists only to wait on him when he is ready. Power bought or power born? Pedro feels a shiver of excitement even at the question.