Jeanne Kalogridis - The Borgia Bride

For my efforts to save Alfonso by assassinating Cesare had directly resulted in my brother’s death.

I have killed him , I told myself bitterly. I and Cesare . If I had never allowed myself to fall in love with Cesare, had never come to reject his offer of marriage, would my brother still be alive?

‘You lied,’ I told the strega, whether aloud or silently, I do not know. ‘You lied… You said if I wielded the second sword, he would be safe. I was only trying to fulfil my destiny…’

In my imagination, the strega appeared before me-tall, proud of bearing, veiled. Like the sibyls in the glorious Borgia apartments, she remained maddeningly silent. ‘Why?’ I whispered, with the same raw fury I had shown Lucrezia. ‘ Why? I was only trying to save the best and gentlest of souls…’

At last the initial shock of the event wore off and the brutal reality of my brother’s death overtook me. Cesare and my father became intertwined in my thoughts, as the cruel, dark-haired man who had taken Alfonso away-a cruel man I had helplessly loved, and also been forced to hate.

As a child, I had cried when my father separated me from my brother; afterwards I had sworn that I would never again let a man bring me to tears. I had not cried when my father hanged himself, when Juan violated me, when Cesare rejected me. But the grief that welled within me at the knowledge that Alfonso and I were now forever parted was too vast, too deep, too violent to be denied. Involuntary sobs racked me, shook my body; I pressed my face to my knees and wept with a force that caused physical pain. For several hours I loosed the tears held in check for most of my life, until my skirts were soaked through; even then, I continued weeping, as Esmeralda gently lifted me and wiped my face with a cool cloth, then put a towel upon my knees to absorb the dampness.

Alfonso, only my darling Alfonso, would ever have my tears.

Eventually I grew exhausted and spent; only then did I become aware of Lucrezia’s loud wailing. I looked on her with a mixture of pity and virulent hatred; she was like Jofre, weak. Weaker, certainly, than I had judged. In her shoes, I would have struggled to find a solution, to save both husband and child…

But perhaps she had never really wanted to. Perhaps her helpless love for Cesare had been even greater than mine.

Regardless of the truth, all that had given my life meaning had been taken from me. I no longer had the heart or strength to care about Lucrezia’s difficulties. And when she approached me, with the most piteous tears, and tried to embrace me as she begged my forgiveness, I resolutely-but not harshly-pushed her away. I was done with the House of Borgia and its duplicity.

It was dusk when I finally noticed that Donna Esmeralda had gone to the antechamber door, and was entreating the guards. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘Donna Sancha has just lost a brother, and Donna Lucrezia a husband. Do not deny them the opportunity to view the body and attend the funeral.’

The guards were young men, sworn to obey their masters, but not pleased by the injustice of our situation. One, especially, was manifestly distressed by our grieving.

‘Forgive me,’ he replied. ‘It is out of the question. We have specific orders not to allow anyone to leave these chambers. No one in the household is allowed to see the body, or witness the burial.’ And then he flushed slightly, realizing that he might have revealed more than his commander wished, and fell silent.

‘Please,’ Donna Esmeralda pleaded. She persisted until the guard relented.

‘Have them come quickly, then, to the loggia. If they stand out on the balcony, they will be able to see the procession pass by.’

At that news, Lucrezia rose. Wearily, I did the same, and followed the soldiers to stand in the warm night air.

Shadows, that is all I remember of it. Perhaps twenty flickering torches surrounding a coffin borne on the shoulders of a few men, and the silhouettes of two priests. I knew my brother’s body had been treated like those of other Borgia victims: washed hastily and stuffed into a wooden box.

Alfonso deserved a grand funeral, with hundreds of mourners; his goodness had earned him the most beautiful prayers and eulogies, with parades of popes and emperors and cardinals, but he was buried in haste in the dark by men who did not know him.

I decided then that God, if He existed, was the cruellest of them all-more treacherous than my father, than Pope Alexander, than Cesare-for He was capable of creating a man filled only with love and kindness, then cutting him down and disposing of him in the most heartless, meaningless fashion. One thing was true in life: there was no justice for the wicked or the good.

Lucrezia and I watched as the little procession headed not for Saint Peter’s, as was my brother’s due, but for a small, obscure chapel nearby, Santa Maria delle Febbri. There, I later learned, Alfonso was unceremoniously stuffed in the ground, with only a small stone to mark the site.

Donna Esmeralda brought me parchment and quill, and gently prompted me to write a letter to my Uncle Federico concerning Alfonso’s murder; I paid no attention to what happened to it afterwards, for I permitted myself to descend into darkness again at once. I did not sleep, eat, or drink; spent by weeping, I merely sat, too overwhelmed to do anything but sit and stare out from the balcony at the gardens.

Lucrezia was likewise helpless. In the presence of my brother’s love, she had blossomed; when he had been wounded, she had found in herself a will and strength none of us had known she possessed. Now, all of that had died within her, and she had no heart for revenge. She did nothing day and night but weep. She could not even care for little Rodrigo. Morning dawned, and the nursemaid appeared at the door, clasping the sturdy toddler’s hand.

‘He has been crying, Madonna, and asking for you,’ she said to Lucrezia-but the mother lay abed, her face turned to the wall, and would not even acknowledge the boy. ‘He has not seen you or his father today, and he is worried.’

His soft sobbing wakened me from a condition deeper and darker than slumber. I blinked, and rose…then knelt, and opened my arms, for the first time letting go of Alfonso’s slipper. ‘Rodrigo, darling…Your mother is tired this morning, and needs a bit more rest. But Tia Sancha is here, and so happy to see you.’ Some unexpected grace permitted me to smile; cheered, the boy ran to me, and I enfolded him in my arms. As I buried my face in his hair, I understood Lucrezia a bit better; at that moment, I would have sacrificed anything for that child.

But there had to have been a way to avoid sacrificing something equally as precious: Alfonso.

A wave of tears threatened: how like my brother he looked, with his curls and his blue eyes! But for Rodrigo’s sake, I steadied myself, and kept the smile upon my face. ‘Shall we go outside? Shall we play?’ He was fond of races-like his aunt and his mother-and he especially liked me to run against him, since I always let him win.

The guards were kindly; they gave us leave, and one accompanied us at a distance. I led the boy out to the gardens, where we played hide and seek in the hedges; in my nephew’s blessed presence, I found a temporary respite. But when the time came for the boy to return to the nursery, I returned to the palazzo and relentless grief. I found my brother’s slipper where I had dropped it, and once again clutched it desperately to my breast.

For two days, I remained with Lucrezia in her quarters, both of us under constant surveillance. During that time, His Holiness did not come to comfort her, nor did he bother to send his condolences. I heard no word from Jofre.

On the second day after Alfonso’s death, Lucrezia was summoned to meet her brother Cesare at the Vatican.