is referring to.
CHAPTER 31
It might have been easier if Cesare had killed his brother. Then he would have had some plan ready in the wake of the chaos that now surrounds them. As it is, he must make it up as he goes along.
Fate. For him it has always been a more compelling deity than God. When did his allegiance to one overtake the other? If asked, he would probably not be able to remember. Even as a child the passivity of prayer – the humility of the asking and accepting – had felt not so much unhelpful as unnatural, and with adulthood, privately it had fallen easily into disuse. While others gained comfort and guidance by appealing to a force outside themselves, Cesare found everything he needed inside himself, and the shift from thinking to action came so naturally that it fast became who he was: in argument he would use his wits, with women his charm, and in the hunt or the bullring physical agility and strength. What the world sees as confidence, bravery, even arrogance, is, for him, simply being Cesare. God has nothing to do with it.
Given the whirlwind of gossip, it is inevitable that some will ask the same question that he has just put before his father. Did he kill his brother because he stood in his way? Except Cesare knows it is the wrong question. The more accurate one would be, why did he not do anything to stop it?
Over the eleven months since Juan had set foot in back in Rome it had become clear that he would almost certainly kill himself. His dalliances, his violence, his military incompetence were all bound to incite revenge, while his vanity and Alexander’s fawning love had made them both blind to the increasing danger he was in. Why else would Juan have allowed himself to become the willing servant of a masked man? To go with him after dark into Rome’s murky streets with only a single groom for protection? That night by the bridge, as the dinner-party guests had parted company, Cesare had come the closest he could to protecting him when he had offered Michelotto as a bodyguard. But Juan, eager to be seen as wilder and braver than his brother, of course had refused.
To be given so much, only to throw it away. No wonder Fate had turned against him. When the news came through of his horse found with one slashed stirrup it had been anger not grief that Cesare had felt: anger at the stupidity of such a degrading end. As Alexander lay battered by the winds of grief, leaving Cesare to police the city and try to fashion some tactics to go with this new reality, his fury had grown. How dare his brother have so unmanned his father, have brought such humiliation on the family?
By the time Cesare walked into the Pope’s bedroom that morning he had forged a strategy of sorts. He must somehow coax his father back from the quicksands of grief, for nothing can be done without his energy and consent. In time the crime will be avenged, but the first priority must be to address the damage.
With Juan’s death, so die the family’s dynastic and territorial ambitions in Spain. If they are to survive, they must now find a similar foothold in mainland Italy. If Cesare had an army at his back, the papal states would be where he would go. He has studied each and every one of them and most are ripe for the picking, cities ruled by petty tyrants with no allies of any size to protect them. If Juan had been a better commander or been more careful with his wooing. If… well, there is no use in ifs now. They must work with what they have. And what they have is a stake in Naples: a state reeling from invasion and once again dependent on papal support to crown its new king, Federico. Jofré’s marriage has already bought titles and lands there. The faster Lucrezia’s ties with the Sforzas are severed the faster she too can be woven into the dynastic web. In a perfect world he would go one step further. Federico has a daughter, Carlotta, of marriageable age. If she were to become Cesare’s wife, Naples would be closer for the taking. Except, of course, cardinals cannot marry.
One enemy at a time. As for the rest – he will wait for Fortune, which has taken such cruel