Cesare rode through the hunting grounds with two of his favorite greyhounds, Heather and Hemp. Though pretending to hunt, in truth what he truly enjoyed was running with the hounds, and this day he was busy with his thoughts. He envied Juan. His brother could live a full life, a normal life, and look forward to a military career, while Cesare himself was committed to the church, a career he had not chosen and did not want. As the black bile rose in his throat, he felt a mounting hatred for his brother. But as quickly as it had come, he reproached himself for what he felt. A good man, especially a man of the cloth, could never hate his brother. Not only was it unnatural, not only would it make his father unhappy, but it was dangerous as well. Juan, as captain general of the papal army, had more power than any cardinal of the Catholic Church. And another truth remained: even after all these years and all his own efforts to please and excel, it was still Juan, not he, who was his father’s favorite.
Cesare, deep in thought, was quickly brought to full attention by the screaming yelp of one of his greyhounds. As he rode toward the pitiful sound, he saw the magnificent animal pinned to the ground by a spear. When he dismounted to help the wounded hound, he saw the handsome face of his brother Juan disfigured by a fierce scowl. And suddenly he knew what had happened. Juan had missed the scuttling stag and hit his greyhound. For a moment Cesare thought it might have been intentional, but then his brother rode up to him and said in apology, “Brother, I’ll buy you a pair to replace him.” Still holding the dislodged spear in his hand, Cesare looked down on the slain greyhound, and for an instant felt a murderous rage.
Then he saw his father ride up to where a boar was entangled in a net of ropes awaiting the fatal thrust of his spear. The Pope rode past, shouting, “The work of the hunter has already been done with this animal, I must find another . . . ” He kicked hard at his horse’s side then took off to follow another large boar. Other hunters, concerned by the Pope’s recklessness and speed, rode up to protect him; but by then the Pope, still a powerful man, had thrust his spear deep into the side of the boar, inflicting a mortal wound. Twice more the Pope thrust his spear, piercing the dying animal’s heart. The boar stopped his last frantic thrashing, and the rest of the hunters fell upon the carcass and hacked it to pieces.
As Cesare watched his father’s courageous display, and marveled at the strength of the man, he felt pride in his father. If Cesare himself wasn’t doing what he wanted with his life, at least he was doing what his father wanted, and he knew that was a source of joy to Alexander. And as he looked at the fallen animal, he thought it was fortunate for him that he was the man his father wanted him to be.
At twilight, Cesare and Lucrezia walked hand in hand beside the gleaming water of the lake. They were a very handsome couple, this brother and sister; his tall and darkly handsome good looks bore such a contrast to her blond hair and hazel eyes, which often shone with intelligence and amusement. On this night, though, she was upset.
Lucrezia said, “It was a mistake, Cesare, Papa forcing me to marry Giovanni. He’s not a good man. He hardly ever speaks to me, and when he does, he’s gruff and rude. I don’t know what I hoped for. I knew ours was a marriage for political advantage, but I had no idea I’d be so unhappy.”
Cesare tried to be gentle. “Crezia, you know that Ludovico Sforza is still the most powerful man in Milan. Giovanni helped cement our relationship with the family at a crucial time.”
Lucrezia nodded. “I understand. Still, I thought somehow I would feel different. But even as we kneeled on those ridiculous gold footstools at that obscenely lavish wedding, and I looked over at the man who was to be my husband, I knew something was terribly wrong. I couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry when I saw all those purple-robed cardinals, and the grooms in Turkish costumes of silver brocade. It was meant to be a celebration, and yet I felt completely miserable.”
“Was there nothing that pleased you?” he asked, smiling.
“Yes,” she said. “You, clothed in black. And the Venetian gondolas fashioned from the twenty thousand roses.”
Cesare stopped and faced his sister. “I could not bear it, Crezia,” he said. “I could not bear the thought of you in the arms of another man, no matter the reason. Had I been able to stay away and not be part of that fiasco, I would have. But Papa insisted I be there. That day my heart was as black as my costume . . . ”
Lucrezia kissed her brother gently on the lips.
“Giovanni is an arrogant braggart,” she said. “And he is a terrible lover. I barely escaped his clutches except by weeping like a willow. I cannot even tolerate the smell of him.”
Cesare tried to hide his smile. “To bed him is not the joy it is with me?” he asked.
Lucrezia giggled despite herself. “My dear love, it is the difference between heaven and hell for me.”
As they began to walk again, they crossed a small bridge and entered the forest. “Your husband reminds me of our brother Juan,” Cesare said.
Lucrezia shook her head. “Juan’s young. Maybe he’ll grow out of it. It is not the blessing for him it is for me, to have you as a brother.”
Cesare was silent for a time, but when he spoke it was in a very serious tone. “In truth, I believe our brother Jofre is more of a curse to the family than Juan. I have accepted his stupidity, but the household he and Sancia have established is a scandal. Over a hundred servants for just the two of them? Gold dinner plates and jeweled goblets for two hundred guests whenever they choose? It’s mad, and it reflects badly on our family. More important, it is dangerous for the son of a Pope to live so extravagantly.”
Lucrezia agreed. “I know, Chez. Papa is upset by it too, though he seldom acknowledges it. But he loves Jofre less than he does the rest of us, and knowing his weakness and lack of comprehension, he is more forgiving.”
Cesare stopped once more to gaze at Lucrezia in the moonlit sky. Her pale porcelain skin seemed more luminous than usual. Cesare gently lifted her face so he could look into her eyes. But he saw such sadness that he was forced to look away. “Crezia,” he said then, “do you wish me to talk to Papa about a divorce from Giovanni? Father adores you. He might be willing. Would Giovanni consent?”
Lucrezia smiled at her brother. “I’ve no doubt that my husband could easily live without me; it is my dowry he would miss. It was always the gold in his hand, not the gold of my hair, that captured his affection.”
Cesare smiled at her guilelessness. “I will wait for the proper time, and then I will present the problem to Papa.”
As evening slowly descended on Silverlake, Juan set out to show Jofre’s wife, Sancia, his father’s old hunting lodge. It was rarely used now that the new, more elegant lodge had been completed.
Sancia was the same age as Juan, though she seemed far less mature. She was beautiful in a classic Aragonese way, with dark green eyes, long dark lashes, and lustrous jet-black hair. Her entire demeanor was light and impish, which gave everyone the impression of a playful wit. In truth it was a shallow pretension, an overused device to charm the innocent.
Juan took Sancia’s hand as he led her down the overgrown path to a clearing in the forest. There she saw the cottage, of rough-hewn pine with a stone chimney.
“Not the proper place for a princess,” Juan said, smiling at her. For she was after all the daughter of King Masino of Naples and therefore a true princess.
“I think it’s charming,” Sancia responded, still clinging to Juan’s hand.
Once inside, Juan made a fire as Sancia walked around the room examining the many mounted trophies of animal heads on the wall. She stopped and stroked the fruitwood dresser, the headboard of the full feathered bed, and the other pieces of fine country furniture, its golden patina reflecting years of careful use and polish.
“Why does your father leave this place furnished if it’s no longer used?” she asked.
Juan, who was kneeling in front of the fireplace, looked up and smiled. “Father still uses it on occasion, when he has a visitor with wh
om he wishes to be alone . . . just as I do now.” Juan stood and crossed the room to her. He quickly pulled her close, his arm encircling her. Then he kissed her. For a moment she was silent, but then she leaned away, murmuring, “No, no, I can’t. Jofre will . . . ”
Juan’s longing forced him to pull Sancia even closer as he said in a husky whisper, “Jofre will do nothing. He is capable of nothing!”
Juan may have disliked his brother Cesare, but he respected his intelligence and physical skills. For the frivolous Jofre, on the other hand, he had nothing but disdain.
Now, Juan pulled his brother’s wife to him again. Moving his hand beneath her loose white skirt, he caressed her inner thigh, moving his fingers upward slowly until he felt her respond. Then he pulled her toward the nearby bed.
Within seconds they lay together. Lit only by the fire’s flickering glow, Sancia’s long black hair spread across the pillow made her look exquisite, and her skirt lifted high flamed Juan’s desire. Juan quickly moved atop her. As he thrust into her, and then slowly withdrew, he heard her moan. But she didn’t resist; instead she kissed him hard on his open lips again and again, drinking from his mouth as if with an unquenchable thirst. Juan began to push harder, thrust after long powerful thrust, sliding deeper and deeper into her, driving from Sancia’s head all thoughts of “no” and of Jofre—spiraling her into a mindless oblivion.
That evening the Pope and his family ate a late dinner in the open air on the shores of Silverlake. Colored lanterns hung from the trees, and flaming torches flickered on tall wooden poles all along the shores. The game they had slain made a great feast, enough to feed the more than one hundred members of the Pope’s entourage with plenty left over for the poor in the nearby towns. And after the jugglers and musicians had entertained them at the banquet, Juan and Sancia stood up and sang a duet.
Cesare, sitting alongside Lucrezia, wondered when the two had found time to practice together, for they sang very prettily. But Sancia’s husband seemed pleased and applauded. Cesare wondered if Jofre could be as dense as he appeared.
Pope Alexander enjoyed good conversation as much as hunting, food, and beautiful women. After the evening banquet, when the comedy of actors and the dancing began, Alexander discoursed to his children. One of the actors, in a fit of daring common to those eccentric folk, had given a dialogue in which a poor suffering nobleman questioned how a merciful God could inflict natural misfortunes on faithful men. How could He permit floods, fires, plagues? How could He let innocent children suffer terrible cruelties? How could He permit man, created in His image, to wreak such havoc on his fellow man?
Alexander took up the challenge. Since he was with friends, he chose not to draw upon the words of Scripture to make his point. Rather he answered as a Greek philosopher or a Florentine merchant would.
“What if God promised a Heaven achieved so easily, and without pain, here on earth?” he said. “Heaven would not seem such a prize. What reason would test man’s sincerity and faith? With no purgatory, there is no Heaven. Then, what inexhaustible evil would men engineer? Man would dream up so many ways to extinguish each other, there would not even be an earth. What is achieved without suffering is worthless. What is achieved easily is of no account. Man would be a trickster, playing the game of life with crooked dice and marked cards. He would be no better than the beasts we raise. Without all these obstacles we call misfortune, what pleasure would Heaven be? No, these misfortunes are proof of God, of his love for mankind. As for what men do to each other, we cannot blame that on our God. We must blame ourselves and do our time in purgatory.”
“Father,” Lucrezia asked him, for she was his child most concerned by the matters of faith and goodness, “but then what is evil?”
“Power is evil, my child,” he said. “And it is our duty to erase the desire for it from the hearts and minds of men. That, the Holy Church can do. But we can never erase the power of society, in society. Therefore we can never erase evil from civilized society. It will always be unjust, it will always be cruel to the common man. It is possible that in five hundred years, men will not cheat and murder each other, oh, happy day!”
Then he looked directly at his sons Juan and Cesare and continued. “But it is in the very nature of society that, in order to hold a people together for their God and their country, a king must hang and burn his subjects in order to bend their will. For mankind is as intractable as nature, and some demons don’t fear holy water.”
Alexander raised his glass in toast then, “To the Holy Mother Church and to our family. May we flourish as we spread the word of God throughout the world.”
They all raised their glasses now and shouted, “To Pope Alexander! May God bless him with health, happiness, and the wisdom of Solomon and the great philosophers.”
Soon, most of the company retired to their quarters, settling into the lakeside cottages, each flying the charging red bull of the Borgia banner. Fires burned to give light, and many flaming torches fastened to wooden arcs sparkled on the shores of Silverlake.
In his quarters Jofre paced, sulking. Sancia had not returned with him that night. When he had approached her earlier at the festivities with his request that she accompany him back to their cottage, she had refused with a snigger and waved him away. As he searched the faces of the crowd around them, he felt the hot flush of embarrassment color his cheeks and sting his eyes.
That day at Silverlake had been a humiliation for him, though everyone else appeared to be drinking and laughing and having so good a time that he doubted they had noticed. He had clapped, of course, and smiled—as was required of him by royal protocol—but the vision of his wife and his arrogant brother, Juan, singing a duet, set his teeth to snapping and destroyed any enjoyment he could find in the sweet sound of her song.
Jofre had returned to their cottage by himself. After trying to sleep and finding himself unable to, he walked outside to quell his restlessness. The humming of the sleeping night creatures in the groves made him feel less alone. He sat on the ground, feeling its coolness, which calmed him. And he thought about his father, the Pope, and his brothers and sisters . . .
He had always known that he was not as smart as his brother Cesare, and no match in physical strength for Juan. But in the deep recesses of his soul, he understood something they did not. That the sins he committed—of gluttony and excess—were not as black as Juan’s cruelty or Cesare’s ambition.
As for a sharp mind, how important could that be in determining the direction of his life? His sister, Lucrezia, was far superior to him in mental ability, yet she had no greater choice in her life than he had. Reflecting on the condition of his family, Jofre concluded that intelligence was far less important than the counsel of a pure heart and a good soul.
Juan had always been the most unkind of his siblings, calling him names from the time he was a small child, and consenting only to play games he knew he could easily win. Cesare was sometimes driven by his obligation as a prince of the Holy Roman Catholic Church to reprimand Jofre for his excesses; yet he did so with a firm kindness, rather than with the cruelty and appetite for humiliation Juan so often showed. His sister, Lucrezia, was his favorite, for she treated him with a sweet and gentle affection, and always made him feel as though she was pleased to see him. His father, the Pope, hardly seemed to notice him.
Now, feeling restless again, Jofre resolved to go in search of Sancia. He would persuade her to return with him to their cottage. He stood and began to walk the narrow path between the trees, which served for a moment to calm him. But just outside the campgrounds, beneath the dark night sky, he saw two dark shadows. He was tempted to call out, to greet them, but something caused him to stop.
He heard her laugh before he saw her clearly. Then the bright night moon highlighted his brother Juan and his wife, Sancia, walking arm in arm. Soundlessly, he turned and followed them back toward the cottage. There he watched as Juan and Sancia stopped to embrace. Jofre felt his lip curl in disdain. He kept himself stif
f and still as he watched his brother bend to kiss Sancia passionately in parting.
At that moment, Jofre found Juan contemptible. But more than that, he saw in Juan some unholy thing. And so, with complete resolve, he condemned him in his heart and vowed to denounce him as a brother. Suddenly he could see with a brilliant clarity; there was no longer any doubt. As the seed of the Christ had been sown in the womb of the Virgin Mother by the Holy Ghost, so the pit of evil can also be planted—unknown and unrecognized—until the time of discovery, when the fruit of the womb is exposed.
Now his brother began to walk away, and in a rare moment of high spirits Juan pulled his dagger from its sheath and waved it in a swift swirling motion. Then Juan laughed as he bragged loudly to Sancia, “Soon I will be captain general of the papal army, and then you shall see what I do!”
Jofre shook his head and tried to restrain his fury. After some time he managed to quiet himself. Then, with an unnatural dispassion, he tried to reason: Senseless battles for political gain didn’t interest him; they were not enjoyable and in fact, they bored him. To use a weapon to take another’s life, chancing eternal damnation for some military goal, made no sense. To risk that, he thought, the prize must be far more precious and personal.
Cesare, too, was restless. His conversation with Lucrezia weighed heavily on his heart, and he found that he could not fall asleep. When he inquired, he found that the Pope had already retired to his quarters. Still, he felt he must speak to his father.