Epilogue
THE BUDDING
On April 12, 1504, the major strongholds of Borgia’s forces in the Romagna were yielded to Pope Julius, and Borgia was released from his imprisonment. People expected Duke Valentino to flee immediately to his old friend and comrade in arms, King Louis XII of France, but for some mysterious reason, instead he sailed south to Naples, then in the hands of Spain.
On May 26, 1504, the Spanish forces in Naples arrested Borgia. They sent him by galley to be imprisoned at the Castle of Seville and later at the fortress of Medina del Campo.
October 23, 1504
The Vineyard, Mandara
“There’s a messenger waiting for you in the stable yard,” Luigi said sourly. “I suppose this means you’ll let my dinner get cold.”
“Not necessarily.” Lorenzo pushed his chair back from the desk and strode across the room.
“I’ll not keep it hot for you,” Luigi called after him. “I’ll throw it to the pigs.”
“We have no pigs,” Lorenzo shouted back at him.
“And whose fault is that? I’ve told you that we should have pigs. If you will buy no pigs, how can I make pork dishes? Thanks to your miserliness I’ll soon forget all my skills.”
Lorenzo stepped onto the stoop of the cottage and accepted a folded and sealed piece of parchment from a freckle-faced messenger who was little more than a boy.
“Dismount and come inside and refresh yourself.”
The young man quickly shook his head. “I have orders to wait for an immediate reply, Messer.”
Lorenzo broke the seal and opened out the fine leaf. Unsigned, the message consisted of only one line of script.
Is it enough?
“I’ll return in a moment.” Lorenzo wheeled and went inside the house to his desk. On the bottom of the letter he scrawled in bold, decisive script.
It is not enough.
He returned to hand the parchment to the messenger.
He did not bother to watch the young man’s departure as he closed the door of the cottage.
THE FLOWERING
After Queen Isabella’s death, King Ferdinand of Spain decided it would be a brilliant move to release Borgia and take advantage of his military acumen to make him his generalissimo in Italy. However, fate once again intervened to strike down Borgia’s ambitions. The Castle Medina del Campo in which he was imprisoned was in Castile, and under the control of Ferdinand’s daughter, Juana. There appeared to be no reason for her to turn on Borgia with such venom, but she did. On the day Ferdinand asked for the prisoner to be released, she had Cesare indicted on charges that he had conspired in the deaths of his brother, The Duke of Gandia, and Alfonso of Bisceglie, his brother-in-law. On September 4, 1506, Ferdinand finally abandoned his efforts to obtain Cesare’s freedom and set sail for Naples without him.
October 15, 1506
The Vineyard, Mandara
The messenger from whom Lorenzo took the letter this time was not a boy, but a man in his prime who accepted a cup of mulled wine from a grudging Luigi while Lorenzo broke the seal and scanned the contents of the dispatch.
“Wait here.” Lorenzo went into the cottage and straight to his desk. The terse message he had received was exactly what he had expected.
Enough?
The answer Lorenzo scrawled on the bottom of the letter was almost as brief.
Not enough.
He strode back out into the stable yard, gave the letter to the liveried messenger, and sent him on his way.
THE VINTAGE
Six weeks after Ferdinand sailed for Naples, Cesare Borgia escaped from the Medina del Campo and fled to Pampeluna, the capital city of his wife’s brother Jean D’Albret, the king of Navarre. His brother-in-law welcomed him with wild enthusiasm, seeing the chance of using Borgia’s military genius to further his own ambitions. The king spoke of supplying Borgia with new armies to start him once more on the road to conquest. However, Navarre was very poor, and in desperation Borgia sent an envoy to his sister Lucretia in Italy asking her to speed to him enough of the family art treasures to yield three hundred thousand ducats from their sale. The messenger was arrested on Pope Julius’s orders.
Borgia also sent a message to King Louis of France begging him to pay the one hundred thousand ducats owed him as part of his bride Charlotte’s dowry and also the sizeable revenues of his dukedom of Valentinois so that he might regain his former power and affluence. King Louis not only refused to pay either sum, he revoked Borgia’s title, taking away his dukedom of Valentinois and stripping him of royal arms.
By March 1507 Cesare Borgia at the age of thirty-one was ravaged by the swiftly progressing and debilitating French pox and was without power, money, or land. Shortly after he received word from his steward, Don Jaime de Requesnez, of his loss of Valentinois, Borgia was ordered by the king of Navarre to subdue the rebel lord, Don Juan, count of Beaumont at Viana. Borgia was heading a garrison at Viana when an alarm was sounded that the garrison was being attacked. He jumped out of bed, dressed, and giving no orders to his men, flung himself on a horse and rode alone through the city gates. It was said later that Borgia was screaming and cursing and appeared completely mad. He rode alone into the enemy camp in a ravine nearby and attacked them, still shouting wildly and uttering oaths.
At dawn Borgia’s soldiers rode out of the city and soon found Cesare Borgia’s naked corpse hacked and pierced with twenty-three bloody, hideous wounds.
April 7, 1507
The Vineyard, Mandara
I grow impatient. What more could you desire? Enough?
Lorenzo’s gaze lifted from the letter to the window across from his desk through which the scarred and blackened city walls of Mandara could be seen.
Then, with a faint smile on his lips, he picked up his pen and scrawled a single word at the bottom of the parchment.
Enough.
May 21, 1507
Bourges, France
Lorenzo strolled down the long, gleaming corridor, his gaze lingering in admiration on the splendid paintings on the wall of the gallery.
The liveried page stopped and looked reproachfully back at him over his shoulder. “Please, Monsieur Vasaro, His Majesty is most anxious.”
Lorenzo nodded, but his pace failed to quicken. “His Majesty has many fine paintings. Is that a da Vinci?”
The page nodded. “His Majesty admires Monsieur da Vinci very much indeed. However, there are many more beautiful objects in His Majesty’s private apartments.”
The page threw open the tall, beautifully paneled doors at the end of the corridor. “Monsieur Vasaro, Your Majesty.”
King Louis hurried forward. “Mon Dieu, Vasaro, you took your time about it.” He stared eagerly at the chest Lorenzo carried. “Is that it?”
Lorenzo nodded as he crossed to a Carrara marble table and set the chest on it. “Yes.” He unfastened the chest and opened the lid. “As I promised.”
He started to lift the Wind Dancer out, but Louis forestalled him. “No, let me.” With reverent care Louis took the Wind Dancer from its velvet nest. “Ah, it’s as exquisite as I remembered. I thought perhaps anticipation might be playing tricks with my memory.” He cast Lorenzo a resentful glance. “Your obstinacy in this matter did not please me. Three years is a long time to wait.”
“For me, also, Your Majesty.” Lorenzo smiled. “But a bargain is a bargain.”
“You could have relented. You didn’t have to have everything to your exact specifications,” Louis said peevishly. “I did what you asked. I told Borgia he would not be welcome here and forced him into Spanish hands. That should have been enough for you.”
Lorenzo was silent.
“And do you know how difficult it was for my envoy in Juana’s court to manipulate her into turning against Borgia? The woman is now tottering on the verge of madness.”
“But he managed the task.”
“Because I told him I would have his head if he didn’t.” Louis carried the Wind Dancer across the r
oom and set it on a black marble pedestal. He took a step back, looking at the statue appraisingly. “I had this pedestal carved two years ago for the Wind Dancer. How do you think it looks?”
“Superb. You have exquisite taste, Your Majesty.”
Louis was silent for a long time, staring at the statue. “Do you know that the soldiers at Viana who saw Borgia ride out that night think he meant to end his own life?”
“Then he’s effectively barred his way to heaven, if he had not done so before.”
“You would condemn his soul to hell as you did his body to the grave?”
Lorenzo did not answer.
“When he first came to my court I thought him the most charming, the most brilliant man I had ever met.” Louis’s gaze remained on the Wind Dancer. “He would have been destroyed even if I hadn’t aided you, wouldn’t he?”
“Perhaps, but it’s not likely.”
“You’re a hard man.” Louis grimaced. “And as sharp and cutting as a Toledo blade. I have use for you in my retinue. What say you to a post at my court?”
Lorenzo shook his head. “I have a fancy to go to Marseilles to visit friends who have recently been blessed with a child.”
“A boy?”
Lorenzo shook his head. “A girl. They’ve named her Caterina after the child’s grandmother and say she resembles her in many ways.”
“A pity it was not a boy. They must be disappointed.”
Lorenzo smiled. “They don’t appear to be.”
“You are tired of your vineyard?”
“Let us say, it’s time I nurtured something other than grapes. Perhaps I will plant a rose garden.”
“You’ll be disappointed. There is little profit in flowers.”
“We shall see.”
Louis took a few more paces back, frowning with dissatisfaction at the statue. “It does not look as well on the pedestal as I thought it would. The pedestal is not worthy of it. The Wind Dancer overshadows everything around it.”
“So it does.”
Louis fell silent again before bursting out with sudden defensiveness, “I did only what was for the best in destroying Borgia. It’s only right and proper the Wind Dancer should be here at the royal court of France. All of the Italian city-states are fading in power, but France is beginning to shine like the sun. The Wind Dancer should belong to such a nation. Do you not agree, Vasaro?”
Lorenzo gazed at the statue and a curious smile touched his lips. “Yes, Your Majesty, I believe that France is now exactly the right place for the Wind Dancer.”
An errant beam of sunlight streaming through the long windows surrounded the Wind Dancer in an aura of radiance, kindling the emerald eyes to brilliant life and striking the parted lips of the Pegasus at an angle.
And, for the briefest instant, the Wind Dancer seemed to smile.
AN AFTERWORD FROM THE AUTHOR
I have interwoven fiction and fact so closely in The Wind Dancer that I believe clarification may be in order.
The historical customs, costumes, and political events of the day are as accurate as my research could make them.
Actually the black death devastated Europe’s population during the fourteenth century, but there were still isolated outbreaks of plague during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
As for the Borgias, the brilliance, greed, brutality, and ruthlessness of Pope Alexander and his son, Cesare, are well documented. Although there is no record of their sanctioning such an atrocity as occurred at Mandara, it’s certainly not beyond the realm of possibility they would have done so. Both father and son did fall ill on that fateful day in August, and it was indeed assumed they had been poisoned. Many historians still cling stubbornly to the theory of attempted assassination, while others believe the Borgias succumbed to malaria after being bitten by mosquitoes while dining al fresco with Cardinal Adriano Corneto at his vineyards. Medical knowledge and records were so scanty at the time that neither claim can be substantiated.
Cesare Borgia’s bravo, Michelotto Corella, did raid the treasury on the night of the pope’s death. Alexander’s apartments in the Torre Borgia were ransacked by his valets, and his body lay unattended all through the night. It’s entirely possible that someone could have infiltrated the Vatican during that chaotic period.
The oleander is as deadly as I’ve indicated, and it did grow in Italy during the period of the Renaissance. Though, as Lorenzo says, the poisoners of the day were principally bunglers and lacking in skill, a master assassin such as Lorenzo Vasaro might well have discovered and used the plant to his advantage.
So much for fact.
Could the fictional portions of The Wind Dancer really have happened?
The Renaissance was an age of velvet and armor, of abject poverty and untold wealth, of plague and assassination, of saints and sinners, of Michelangelo and Machiavelli. It was a time when the world was being reborn and boldly shaped to fit the needs of the men and women strong enough to conquer and hold it.
Of course this story could have happened.
Storm Winds
ONE
Versailles, France
July 25, 1779
The emerald eyes of the golden horse looked down at her, as if he knew her every hope, her every sorrow, Juliette thought. Lips parted in a smile of fierce joy, filigree wings folded back against his body, the Pegasus stood on a tall marble pedestal in the gallery, deserted now. Juliette could hear the tinkling music of a clavichord and women singing, but she paid no attention to anything except the beautiful golden horse.
She had caught glimpses of herself in the seventeen mirrors gracing the long gallery as she’d dashed moments ago to the sheltering presence of the Pegasus. How helpless and stupid she looked with tears running down her face, she thought.
She hated to cry as much as she hated to feel helpless. Marguerite, her nurse, liked to see her cry, Juliette had realized recently. When the old woman goaded and tormented until she succeeded in making her break down and weep, she seemed to Juliette to puff up with satisfaction as if those childish tears somehow watered and nourished her. Someday, Juliette vowed, when she was a woman grown like her mother and Marguerite, she would never let anyone see her this helpless or frightened.
She ducked behind the tall pedestal, gathering her nightgown close to her shivering body and crouched on the floor, trying to hide in the shadows. Her breath coming in harsh sobs, she cradled a precious brown clay pot against her chest. She prayed Marguerite wouldn’t find her and soon would stop searching. Then she would run into the garden and find a safe hiding place for the pot in the vast beds of flowers.
She could see only a narrow slice of the long hall glittering with mirrors, the candles shimmering starlike in crystal chandeliers. Juliette had eluded Marguerite in the corridors below, but an army of footmen and at least three Swiss guards would be able to set her nurse on the right path if she stopped to inquire. She peeped cautiously around the pedestal and sighed with relief.
No Marguerite.
“I tell you I did see something, Axel.” A woman’s light voice, very close, faintly impatient. “I looked up from the clavichord and I saw … I don’t know … something.”
Juliette tensed, pressing back against the wall and holding her breath.
“I would not think of arguing with you.” A man’s amused voice. “I’m sure those blue eyes are as keen as they are beautiful. Perhaps it was a servant.”
“No, it was much closer to the floor.”
“A pup? God knows your court seems to abound with them and none of them worth a franc in the hunting field.”
A pair of white satin shoes, diamond buckles gleaming in the candlelight, appeared in Juliette’s line of vision. Her gaze traveled from the gleaming buckles to the hem of enormously wide azure satin skirts decorated with square-cut sapphires set in circlets of violets.
“It was just a glimpse, but I know—Well, what have we here?”
Sparkling blue eyes peered down into the shadows at her. The
lady knelt in a flurry of satin skirts. “Here’s your puppy, Axel. It’s a child.”
Wild despair tore through Juliette. It was clear she had been found by a lady of the court. The rich gown and stylish white wig were so like her mother’s. This woman would be bound to find her mother, Juliette thought desperately. She braced herself, the muscles of her calves tensing to spring, her hands clutching the clay pot so tightly her knuckles turned white.
“A very small child.” The lady reached forward and gently touched Juliette’s wet cheek. “What are you doing here, ma petite? It’s almost midnight and little girls should be in bed.”
Juliette drew back, huddling against the wall.
“Don’t be frightened.” The lady drew closer. “I have a little girl too. My Marie Thérèse is only a year old, but later perhaps you and she could play together when …” The words trailed off as the lady looked down at her damp fingertips that had caressed Juliette’s cheek. “Mother of God, there’s blood on my fingers, Axel. The child’s hurt. Give me your handkerchief.”
“Bring her out and let’s have a look at her.” The man came into view, tall, handsomely dressed in a brilliant emerald-green coat. He handed the lady a spotless lace-trimmed handkerchief and knelt beside her.
“Come out, ma petite.” The lady held out her arms to Juliette. “No one is going to hurt you.”
Hurt? Juliette didn’t care about the pain. She was used to pain and it was nothing compared to the disaster facing her now.
“What’s your name?” The lady’s hand gently pushed back the riotous dark curls from Juliette’s forehead. The touch was so tender Juliette wanted to lean into it.
“Juliette,” she whispered.
“A pretty name for a pretty little girl.”
“I’m not pretty.”
“No?”