Blood & Beauty: A Novel of the Borgias

  The runners are already spreading into the city. At the Ponte Sant’ Angelo moored boatmen slip their oars into the water and cut a rapid line towards the island and Ponte Sisto, broadcasting the news as they go. Others cross the river then span east into the thoroughfare of the bankers, the ground-floor trading houses still boarded up against random violence, or south into the busiest part of the city, where rich and poor live separated by alleyways or open sewers, all huddled inside the great protective curve of the Tiber.

  ‘ALLESSANDEER.’

  In a second-storey bedroom in a palace on Monte Giordano, a young woman wakes to the sound of men, rat-arsed on gossip and booze, careering their way down the street. She flips over in the bed to where her companion lies sleeping, one shapely arm flung across the sheet, thick eyelashes laid on downy pale cheeks with lips like peach flesh, open and pouting.

  ‘Giulia…?’

  ‘Hummm?’

  They are not usual sleeping companions, these two young beauties, but with the nerves of the house all a-jangle, they have been allowed to keep each other company, listening for the shouts of the mob and teasing each other with stories of chivalry and violence. Two nights before, a man had been running through the streets howling, begging for his life, a gang at his heels. He had thrown himself against the great doors, hammering to be let in, but the bolts had remained in place as his screams turned to gargles of blood and the girls had had to put their heads under the pillows to shut out the death rattle. Come the dawn, Lucrezia had watched as a band of friars in black robes picked up the body from the gutter and placed it on a cart to be taken, along with the rest of the morning harvest of death, to the city morgue. In the convent she used to dream sometimes about the wonders of such work: seeing herself swathed in white, a young St Clare aglow with poverty and humility, eyes to the ground, as the howling mob parted to greet her saintliness.

  ‘G… IA… HABEMUS BORGIA.’

  ‘Giulia! Wake up. Can you hear them?’

  She has never liked sleeping alone. Even as a small child, when her mother or the servant had left her and the darkness started to curdle her insides, she would steel herself to brave the black soup of the room as far as her brother’s bed, creeping in beside him. And he, who when awake would rather fight than talk, would put his arms around her and stroke her hair until their warmness mingled and she fell asleep. In the convent she had asked to share the dormitory rather than the privilege of a single cell that was owed to her. By the time she came out, Cesare was long gone and her aunt impatient with what she called such nonsense.

  ‘And what will you do when you are married and sent off to Spain? You cannot have your brother with you then.’

  No, but the handsome husband they had promised her would surely guard her instead, and when he was out at war or business she would keep a group of ladies around her, so they might all sleep together.

  ‘AALESSANDER. VALEEEENCIA. BOOORGIA… YEAAAH.’

  ‘Wake up, Giulia!’ She is upright in bed now, pulling off the anointed night gloves that she must wear to keep her hands white. ‘Can you hear what they are shouting? Listen.’

  ‘BORGIA, ALEXANDER.’

  ‘Aaaah.’ And now they are both shouting and scrambling, clambering over each other to get from the bed to the window, the nets slipping off their heads and fat ropes of hair escaping and tumbling down their backs. They can barely breathe with excitement. Lucrezia is pushing at the shutter locks, though it is strictly forbidden to open them. The great bolts jump free and the wooden boards snap apart, flooding the room with the light of a white dawn. They dart their heads quickly to look down on to the street, then pull back as one of the men below spots them and starts yelling. They slam the shutters again, convulsed with laughter and nerves.

  ‘Lucrezia! Giulia!’ The voice of Lucrezia’s aunt has the reach of a hunting trumpet.

  She is standing at the bottom of the great curved stone staircase, hands on stout hips, plump face flushed and small dark eyes shining under black eyebrows which grow thicker and closer together the more she plucks them: aunt, widow, mother, mother-in-law and cousin, Adriana da Mila, Spanish by birth, Roman by marriage but first, last and always a Borgia.

  ‘Don’t open the shutters. You will cause a riot.’

  Later, she will bore the world and its wife with the story of how she herself learned the news. How she had been woken in the dead of night, ‘so black I could not see my hand in front of my face’, by what felt like the stabbing of a dozen needles in her mouth. Such a vicious tooth pain that it was all she could do to pull herself out of bed and make her way to the great stone staircase in search of the bottle of clove wine. She had been halfway down when her taper had gone out. ‘As suddenly as if someone had put a snuffer cap over it.’

  It was then that it had happened: something or someone had passed by her in a great wind. And though she should have been in terror for her life, for the city was full of burglars and brigands, instead she had felt warmth and wonder filling her whole being, and she had known, ‘known – as certainly as if they had stopped and whispered it in my ear’, that her cousin, Vice-Chancellor and Cardinal of Valencia, was chosen as God’s vicar on earth. The pain had disappeared as fast as it had come and she had fallen on her knees on the stone steps then and there to give thanks to God.

  As the city stirred she had dispatched a hasty letter and woken the servants. Theirs would soon be one of the most important houses in Rome and they must be ready for a deluge of visitors and feasts. She had been about to rouse her charges when she heard the girls’ voices and the crack of the shutter frame.

  ‘If you are so awake, you had better come down here.’

  Her command is met by a tumble of laughter and voices, as the two young women throw themselves out of their room, across the landing and on to the stairs.

  A stranger seeing them now might well think they are sisters, for though the elder is clearly the star – her adult beauty too arresting to brook comparison, while the younger is still closed in the bud – there is a camaraderie and intimacy between them which speaks more of family than friendship. ‘Borgia! Valencia! That’s what they’re calling. Is it true, aunt?’

  Lucrezia takes the last flight so fast that she can barely stop herself from colliding into her aunt at the bottom. As a child it was always her way to greet her father thus, launching herself into his arms from the steps, while he would pretend to stagger as he caught her. ‘It is him, yes? He has won?’

  ‘Yes, by the grace of God, your father is elected Pope. Alexander VI. But that is no reason to parade round the house like a half-dressed courtesan with no manners. Where are your gloves? And what of your prayers? You should be on your knees thanking Our Lord Jesus Christ for the honour He brings upon the family.’

  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 wrest
le 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.

  CHAPTER 3

  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 th
e 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: