wrong with that?’
‘Everything.’ Cesare will not let it lie. ‘You were in a convent to keep you pure while your arsehole husband went round slandering you to anyone who would listen. Your defence was to be seen to be without stain.’
Without stain! How many women have you bedded in the last six months? she thinks. She almost wants to say the words out loud, but there is no point. Every woman who walks through the world knows there are two roads: a wide, triumphal route for the men, and a second mean little alley for women. Freedom is so much men’s due that even to draw attention to it is to make them angry.
‘Cesare, Cesare…’ Her father’s voice is gentle. ‘I know how much you care for your sister. But she has been through a great deal and I—’
‘I love her more than anything in the world, Father,’ he says brusquely. ‘As she well knows.’ It seems he is enough the adviser now that he can interrupt both his father and the Pope. ‘But that is not an excuse for her offering herself up to some Spanish stable boy.’
And now it is there in his voice for all to hear. Oh sweet Mother of God, he is jealous, Lucrezia thinks. My brother is jealous. This is what this is about. Oh, but I should have realised! She glances towards her father. But he seems oblivious of the confession that his eldest son has just let slip.
‘Ah, Cesare, listen to you,’ she says lightly over the pounding pulse in her ears. ‘You sound almost as rabid as the gossipmongers you condemn! Better you should believe your own sister than the rabble, for why would she, who loves you above all things, lie? That “stable boy” is a man that you yourself picked as a safe courier and I tell you, he respects and admires you more than life itself. Whatever you seem to think he has done.’
Now she turns away from him to Alexander himself. ‘To defeat this scandalous suggestion, surely it would be helpful for me to be seen by the world more. Perhaps a dinner with the Neapolitan ambassadors? So they can be reassured I am without child. Otherwise when the baby is born and Calderón is still in prison, everyone will be encouraged to think it is mine.’
‘Yes, yes, indeed, it is already in our minds. Don’t worry. As for the baby, there may be a flurry of gossip, but it will die down as soon as there is nothing to stoke the flames. I will own paternity when the moment is right. Let us only get through this marriage and the business with your brother.’
‘What business is that?’
There is a small silence. The two men look almost shifty.
‘I think if I am family enough to risk blame for a child that is not mine, I might have the right to ask about my brother’s future.’
The Pope laughs out loud. Given that women’s path is narrow and mean, she knows it is a risk being so forward, but Alexander has always liked his women to speak their mind. As long as they love him.
‘When the time is right, Cesare will give up the purple. He will leave the Church to free him for marriage.’
‘Ah!’ She stares at her brother. And now he smiles. It has something close to coyness in it. It does not suit him.
‘Can it be done?’
‘With God’s will and a little politics, yes,’ Alexander says. ‘Though once again you are joined in family confidence here. It would not do for it to get out.’
‘And this is the union that will take Naples?’
‘The hopes are high, yes.’
‘Well, then we shall be related in yet another way. How close can we be, brother?’ And she comes up to him and kisses him on both cheeks. It is hard even for her to know how much she is pleased and how much play-acting, such is the nervous exhilaration in her. ‘I must say you have always looked more the bridegroom than the cardinal.’
He rises and pulls her to him. She feels the hardness of the body underneath the velvet. The Pope beams. It is so painful for there to be discord when there can be happiness! The embrace continues, then, gently, she releases herself.
‘I shall look forward to my new sister-in-law,’ she says gaily, as if they are already reconciled, with or without his agreement. ‘And, since the matter is now resolved,’ she adds lightly, ‘when it has