The Lion and the Rose

  “But it’s how things are done among the great,” Orsino assured me. “We must think of what’s best for Laura. She won’t be lonely in France, not among other girls of her own age. And we could send her pet goat with her, eh?”

  My pet goat. My daughter. The things I’d brought from Rome when I came back to Carbognano, the things from my former life, the things my husband didn’t really like to look at because they reminded him of painful times. Well, with Laura off in France he wouldn’t have any such reminders left, would he? He could just keep on plowing me until I filled up his castello with little true-born Orsinis instead.

  I shut my teeth on some very hot words indeed. Softly, I thought. Soft and sweet, as a wife should speak to her husband. I forced a smile, murmuring something dulcetly noncommittal, and he chucked me under the chin.

  “That’s my little rose!”

  I did not feel very soft or sweet. And if he called me his little rose one more time . . .

  “Giulia!” Rodrigo beckoned me, his rings glinting. “Where is Laura? We had particularly wished to see her.”

  “My daughter”—I didn’t particularly feel like sharing Laura with either of her rumored fathers at the moment—“is abed. The hour is far too late for a child of four.”

  “Bah, she’ll soon be five.” Rodrigo chuckled, the jeweled crucifix about his neck glittering. “I’ll give her a betrothed for a present. Did Orsino speak of it? ‘Laura, Comtesse de Laval’—how does that sound?”

  “It sounds like something that will never happen,” I said. “Even if I have to fling myself across the road to prevent her taking one step in the direction of France.”

  Orsino stopped breathing, and Rodrigo’s brows knitted together, but Caterina Gonzaga from her perch on the pontifical throne was clearly bored with all this talk that was not about her. “A game of cards, Giulia?” She fluttered an imperious hand at me to show off a clutch of emerald and sapphire rings. “Like those evenings we spent in dull little Pesaro when our dear Lucrezia was first married. Wasn’t there a silly little contest of beauty that I won?”

  “Lucrezia won,” I returned. “But yes, it was very silly.” And my brother Sandro was pulling up a stool beside mine, offering his own deck of cards with a breezy “Thirty-and-one, or primiera?” And Rodrigo gave a chuckle and said, “Giulia, how did you ever talk me into giving this good-for-nothing brother of yours a red hat? He’s the most useless Cardinal in the lot!”

  “But can any of the useful ones make you laugh the way I can, Your Holiness?” Sandro asked cheekily, and a game unfolded as the Venetian envoy joined us and Caterina Gonzaga made a spectacle of herself flashing her rings and her bosom, and Sandro leaned close to my ear as he filled my wine. “Careful, sorellina.”

  “If Orsino and the Holy Father think they can ship Laura off to France—”

  “They won’t.” My big brother’s eyes were unaccustomedly serious over his usual airy smile. “The Holy Father has his hands full arranging Lucrezia’s marriage, not to mention that Cesare’s angling now to get rid of his cardinal’s hat. Wait it out, and the Pope will forget all about this French alliance.”

  I was not nearly so certain Orsino would. “Fight for Laura, Sandro,” I breathed as the cards were dealt. “If the matter is brought up among the men when I’m not there to protest—”

  “Who do you think pops up with a filthy joke to distract everyone as soon as any talk of Laura or her marriage comes up?”

  “Spreading dirty jokes, and you a man of God?” I managed a little smile. “Don’t you take anything seriously, Sandro?”

  “My niece’s future. I assure you I take that very seriously.” Sandro gave my arm a squeeze. “I’ll work on His Holiness, and you take on Orsino. Surely you can wind him around your little finger!”

  Normally, I could. But when my husband’s pride was hurt . . . and even if he enjoyed these intimate little gatherings of the powerful, he surely still heard the snickers that followed him. Orsino Orsini, the eternal cuckold with his soiled wife trailing her bastard Borgia daughter.

  Give him a son, I thought. Give him a son of his own, and he’ll deny you nothing.

  But I didn’t want to give him a son. I didn’t want to, no matter how willingly I made myself lie under him whenever he wanted me. I kissed him and caressed him because it made him happy, because it was my duty, because I felt sorry for him—but that didn’t stop my private little prayer every time he spilled inside me: Please don’t let him get me with child. Every time I prayed it, and every time I stowed the sin away for my confessor because it was a wife’s duty to want sons. When I was a virgin bride reciting my vows to Orsino, I’d assumed I’d bear him whole batches of sons, and I’d even looked forward to it because I was supposed to. But things had not turned out that way, and I had only the one golden daughter, and I had no intention of shipping her off to France so she wouldn’t get in the way of some chinless little half brother who didn’t even exist yet.

  “Giulia?” At my other elbow, Orsino sounded anxious and showed me his cards. “Which should I play, my little rose? The deuce? Or—”

  “The deuce,” I whispered back, and tried not to sound irritated. Living in the Borgia household beside all those decisive men really had ruined me, hadn’t it? Rodrigo, Cesare, Leonello—even Juan Borgia may have been an illiterate cat-killing despoiler of virgins, but at least he could decide what card he wanted to play. I ask you!

  Orsino laid down the deuce with a flourish, looking about him with a pleased air, and my irritation changed to the more familiar pinch of guilt. “I’m a bad wife, Sandro,” I whispered to my brother on my other side as the turn passed to him.

  “Not anymore.” Sandro tossed his own card out carelessly. “You’re very well-behaved and boring these days, I assure you.”

  “But it doesn’t come naturally to me anymore. All these wifely things our mother taught me, the things I used to take for granted—”

  “Oh, sorellina.” My brother looked a little sad. “None of our lives have turned out quite as we planned, have they?”

  “No whispering!” Rodrigo called out. “I get enough of that in my formal audiences. Caterina mia, your draw—”

  But a man’s shriek broke through the companionable chatter of card-play.

  Orsino started so violently he dropped his goblet. The wine spilled across Caterina Gonzaga’s sleeve and she cried out, but the cry was lost in another shout from just outside the chamber. “No, I beg you—”

  Sandro had already shot to his feet, thrusting me behind him, but over his protective arm I saw the handsome young man who staggered into the chamber leaving a trail of blood droplets across the patterned marble floor.

  “Your Holiness,” he gasped, staggering toward Rodrigo on his throne, and the papal guards moved but Cesare was there first, disappearing from his dark-haired beauty and her chessboard, and reappearing with sword drawn at the foot of his father’s throne. “Perotto,” he said in some exasperation, and I recognized the young man then. I’d seen him about the Vatican often enough these past months, when he hadn’t been occupied running the Holy Father’s messages to Lucrezia in her convent. One of Rodrigo’s papal envoys, a young Spaniard who had endeared himself to the Holy Father with wit and swagger and charm. Handsome as well as charming, so I’d been careful never to look at him because Orsino saw all handsome men as rivals. Pedro Calderon, nicknamed Perotto, his charm all gone now, his mouth a dark agonized hole as he clutched at his shoulder. A shoulder with a knife hilt in it, I saw with glass-sharp clarity, and for the first time in my whole healthy life I thought I might faint. My knees buckled, because I knew that knife with its damascened hilt. I’d seen it quivering in the center of practice targets; I’d seen it core apples and crack nuts and whittle wood. Once I’d borrowed it to slash through a knotted lace on my sleeve. And I’d seen it snuff the life out of three brutal-faced French pike-men.

  “Apologies, Your Eminence.” I heard a familiar deep voice from the doors. “He was warier t
han anticipated, and I’m afraid a good deal too fleet for my short legs.”

  The whole chamber seemed deathly frozen, looking at the small man standing in the doorway. A small man in black, gently tapping another damascened knife against one thigh as he flicked a speck of blood off his collar. The Holy Father was agape. Only Perotto moved, gasping and trembling at the foot of the Holy Father’s throne.

  “Your Holiness,” he began, and Cesare turned in one casual movement and ran him through.

  Caterina Gonzaga gave a faint moan as the long blade went in and out again, unhurried as a serpent’s tongue. Sandro tried to block my eyes, but too late. I saw the droplets of blood like a trail of rubies trickling from Perotto’s doublet. I could hear one of the women behind me begin babbling a prayer, hear Perotto’s small, astonished mew like a dying cat, but I couldn’t take my eyes from that trail of red drops. I followed it back to Leonello, bare-headed and scarlet-handed in the door. Not really scarlet-handed, I suppose. His hands looked quite clean as he sheathed the knife at his waist. But his nimble, double-jointed fingers looked red to me, red, red, red. He glanced up and for a moment I met his eyes.

  “A private matter, Your Holiness.” Cesare sheathed his sword calmly, giving a nod to the papal guards. “A family matter. No need to concern yourself. Take him,” he added, and two stone-faced guards seized a limp, gasping Perotto under his arms. He opened his mouth as though to scream as they hauled him up, but only a trickle of a moan came out, like the trickle of blood from the fists he’d clamped over his stomach. Not a very large wound, really, to turn a vigorous young man into this broken puppet.

  “No need to concern yourself, Your Holiness,” Cesare repeated as Perotto was dragged out. Rodrigo gave a nod; he no longer looked so gray about the mouth.

  “Not so publicly next time, Cardinal Borgia,” he chided, and held his cup out. A wide-eyed page boy had to be nudged twice before he scurried forward to pour the Holy Father’s wine.

  Cesare’s eyes found Leonello, still standing quiet in the doorway with his boots apart. “You heard him, little lion man. More discretion in future.”

  Leonello bowed. “Apologies,” he said again, and when he turned I saw the frisson of horror that rippled through the crowd of guests, how they flinched away from even looking him in the eye. They flinched like that for Michelotto, Cesare’s human sword with the dead gaze. For Cesare himself.

  I wasn’t aware I was following Leonello until Sandro seized my arm. “No, sorellina,” he hissed. I jerked my arm away, but Leonello was already gone. There was half a bloody boot print on the marble where he’d stood, and as Cesare curtly ordered the guests out I saw how superstitiously they skirted it. As though lightning would strike them if they trod on that bloody print.

  “Giulia,” the Holy Father called as Orsino took my arm and tried to lead me out. “Stay with Us a moment.”

  All I could do was nod mutely. “I should stay too . . .” Orsino ventured, but Rodrigo gave a little flick of his fingers and Orsino trudged out with a resentful glance but not another word. Sandro hesitated a moment longer, looking at me, but I nodded and he too departed with reluctance.

  “Rodrigo,” I began with a deep breath as the doors closed and left me alone with the Holy Father. But he was sweeping down from his throne with a fond beam.

  “A moment,” he said, taking me by the shoulders and dropping a kiss on my forehead. “I see you’re cross with me, and you should be. Just as well you didn’t bring Laura this evening, eh? That’s nothing for a child to see.”

  “It was nothing for any of us to see! Rodrigo, what has happened?”

  “A spot of tidying up. Hardly important.” My former lover brushed that away. “I kept you behind so you could congratulate me, mi perla. Lucrezia has given me a grandchild.”

  All the breath left my lungs in a frozen rush. “What?”

  He placed a finger to his lips, eyes twinkling. “Cesare will be very cross with me for telling you. He’s gone to great lengths to protect our Lucrezia’s reputation, of course. But you’re hardly an outsider, are you? You’ll be pleased to know Lucrezia is in good health.”

  “But Perotto—” I said stupidly. I couldn’t seem to think of anything else but that dying young man with his stunned eyes.

  Rodrigo misunderstood me. “Did Perotto father Lucrezia’s child, you mean? No, it seems not. That was Sforza. Lucrezia really was rather unwise there, but she is very young, after all, and her lapses can be forgiven.”

  “Of course,” I echoed. The lapses of the Borgia children were always forgiven. A pregnant wife branding a decent man with the charge of impotence, under holy oath no less? Just a spot of tidying up; hardly important.

  The Holy Father laughed. “I will say, I can appreciate the irony of it all.”

  Irony was not the word that occurred to me. I sat down, and luckily there was a cushioned chair behind me. “So why was Perotto attacked?” I managed to ask. “What has he done to deserve this?”

  “It is Our plan to wed Lucrezia to Alfonso of Aragon.” Rodrigo tossed off the rest of his wine, moving with all his old energy. “Sancha’s younger brother, you know, so he’s bound to be a handsome fellow. Lucrezia will like that, and their marriage will shore up my alliance with Naples very nicely. And since he’ll expect a virgin bride, well, a virgin bride is what We shall give him.” A small shrug. “Regrettable about Perotto, but he was Lucrezia’s envoy. He knew.”

  My lips felt very dry. “And now I know.”

  “But for all your prattle, Giulia, you know how to keep secrets. Unlike envoys and maidservants, who trade in gossip.” Rodrigo turned to look at me, hands clasped behind his back, and his face was very serious now. The candle flames danced merrily over the jewels in his robes, the pontifical throne with its gilding and carving, the cards and wine cups left behind by the frightened guests. “Mi perla, I know you don’t like the idea of a French husband for Laura. No mother wants to see her daughter sent far away to a strange land. But marriage is a matter of state and must be considered without a mother’s vapors. A French alliance would lay the foundation for Our future with France, and—”

  “The French took me captive, Rodrigo!” I erupted onto my feet. “They took me captive and held me ransom and could easily have had me raped or murdered. You said you would have the French King’s head if he’d touched even the hem of my dress—and now you want to give them Laura? Ship her off to be raised in the French court instead of by her mother—”

  “Now, now, Giulia. I wouldn’t leave you bereft like that.” He clasped my shoulders again, and my heart eased a little. “There’s another matter to consider, and that’s my grandchild. The baby has been sent to the country with a wet nurse for the time being, but that will not do for much longer. The child needs a mother.”

  “The child has a mother,” I couldn’t help pointing out acidly. “And a father!” Foolish Lucrezia—

  “Lucrezia cannot keep the baby, and she knows that. So you will raise my grandchild, Giulia. Raise it as your own.”

  My lips parted, but at first I could think of nothing to say. “Do you think anyone will believe Lucrezia’s child is mine?” I scrambled after the old lie I had written. “I am carrying my husband’s child even now!”

  “I think you may have been fibbing about that.” He pinched my chin in reproof, giving a glance to the voluminous skirts I’d been wearing for months to cover my flat belly. “I’ve seen you pregnant before, you know. If you were carrying his child, you’d be round as an apple by now! Still, the rumor will be useful for when you return home with a baby. I’ll draw up a private papal bull for its parentage, dictate that the baby is yours and mine. My grandchild will have a mother, and you’ll have another baby to raise if Laura goes off to the French court.”

  “What—I—” I wanted to put my hands to my temples to keep my head from splitting. Rage choked in my throat like a plug of hot molten wax. “What do you think I am, Rodrigo? A ewe? You think you can take one lamb away and just give m
e another to suckle because I’ll never know the difference?”

  “Bah, you’ll love the new baby like your own, mi perla.” Rodrigo cupped my face in his hands. “A fine healthy child, as rosy and noisy as Laura at that age.” He gave me a fond little shake. “So, what do you say? A French comte for Laura, and another child for you?”

  I saw all the old softness in his dark Spanish eyes. Caterina Gonzaga could strut and preen all she liked; if I wanted my old lover back I had only to say so.

  But I took a deliberate step back, shaking his hands away. I had a moment’s fleeting pity for Lucrezia’s inconvenient child and its uncertain future, but I had my own child to protect. And I was done covering for Borgia sins and Borgia secrets.

  “Your Holiness,” I said, and my fury chiseled every word out sharp as new ice. “I am taking my daughter home, away from this murderous pit of vipers you call a family. If you attempt to take her away from me, or marry her off to some poxy Frenchman, or otherwise ruin her future the way you have ruined Lucrezia’s, I shall scratch your eyes out. And if you think I will raise Lucrezia’s bastard for her, you are dreaming.”

  But he was dreaming, of course. The Borgia dream, a family atop the world, united and perfect. Always perfect; never in any way wrong. Rodrigo looked like he’d been waked from that dream by a rude slap as he looked down at me.

  His smile disappeared. “How dare you speak to Us in such a fashion, Giulia Farnese? You will not dictate to the Holy Father. As for Laura—”

  “Laura is not your daughter,” I hissed. “She is Orsino’s, she has always been Orsino’s, I have lied to you for years.” Holy Virgin, help me lie now.

  “Nonsense,” my former lover said. “We see Our face in hers—”