never forget,” said Lucrezia, “that it was you, Juan, who persuaded King Federico to allow my husband to come to me at Spoleto.”
“I was merely the ambassador of His Holiness.”
“But you worked well for us, I know, dear Juan. Do not slip away without saying good-bye to us; and when you say good-bye I shall want you to promise that you will not stay long away from us.”
He kissed her hand. “I promise that,” he said.
That day Cesare came home. He was eager to raise more money for his campaign, and spent long periods shut in with the Pope discussing his plans.
He came to see Lucrezia, told her that she looked wan, and was curt to Alfonso as though he blamed him for Lucrezia’s fragility; and he scarcely looked at the baby.
It was reported to Lucrezia that he had cut short the Pope’s eulogies on his grandson.
“He is jealous,” said Alfonso to Lucrezia, and she noticed that the fear was back in his eyes and that when Cesare was near he was a changed man. “He is jealous of my love for you and yours for me, of your father’s love for you and our child.”
“You are wrong,” soothed Lucrezia. “He is over-anxious because I have taken so long to recover from little Roderigo’s birth. We have always been such an affectionate family.”
“An affectionate family!” cried Alfonso. “So affectionate that one brother murders another.”
She looked at him with that hurt expression in her eyes which made him hasten to soothe her. “I spoke without thinking. I repeated idle gossip. Forgive me, Lucrezia. Let us forget I have spoken. Let us forget everything but that we love and are together.”
But how was it possible to forget those fears when a terrible tragedy occurred two days later.
Alfonso heard of it and came pale-faced and trembling to Lucrezia.
“It is Juan Cervillon,” he stammered; “he will never go home to Naples now. His wife and children will never see him, as they hoped. He was stabbed to death late last night when leaving a supper party.”
“Juan … dead! But it was only yesterday that he was with us.”
“Men die quickly in Rome.”
“Who has done this terrible thing?” cried Lucrezia.
Alfonso looked at her but did not answer.
“They will bring his murderers to justice,” Lucrezia said.
Alfonso shook his head and said bitterly: “People recall the death of your brother, the Duke of Gandia. He died after he left a supper party. Juan has already been buried in Santa Maria in Transpontina in the Borgo Nuovo, and it is said that none was allowed to see his wounds.”
Lucrezia covered her face with her hands. Alfonso went on almost hysterically: “He was heard, shortly before he died, talking scathingly of the affair of Sanchia and your brother Cesare, and it is said that he knew too many Papal secrets to be allowed to take them out of Rome.”
Lucrezia kept her face hidden. She did not want to see the haunting fear in her husband’s.
The death of Juan seemed to be the beginning of a new terror. There were several deaths—from stabbing, in alleys after dark; some bodies were recovered from the river; and there were many who passed mysteriously away and in such a manner that none could say how they had died. They were attacked by sicknesses of varying symptoms; some seemed to become intoxicated and die in their sleep. There was one fact which was the same in the cases of many mysterious deaths; those who suffered from them had supped at the Borgia table not long before their deaths.
The Borgias had a new weapon; all Rome knew what it was: Poison. They had their special apothecaries working for them, compounding and perfecting from their poisons recipes, it was said, which they had brought with them from Borja, their native town on the borders of Aragon, Castile and Navarre; and these secrets they had learned from the Moors. Spanish Moors and subtle Italians, a formidable combination, and from it was concocted Cantarella, that powder which was becoming feared by all whose daily life brought them into contact with the Borgias.
Ferninando d’Almaida, the Portuguese Bishop of Ceuta, was the next victim of note. He had been with Cesare in France, and it was said that he had seen Cesare humiliated more than once. He died mysteriously in camp with Cesare.
Meanwhile Cesare’s military operations were going forward with the utmost success, and he was now ready to turn his attention to Forlì which was in the hands of