Light on Lucrezia: A Novel of the Borgia - By Jean Plaidy Page 0,57

not. Why do these men seek my hand in marriage? Have they not yet learned that my husbands are unlucky men?”

“You are so beautiful, so infinitely desirable,” said Alexander.

“No,” she answered; “it is simpler than that. I am the daughter of the Pope.”

“Soon,” went on Alexander, “Cesare will be home again. It makes me happy to have my children about me.”

Cesare will be home! Those words rang in her ears. She thought of Cesare’s return, riding at the head of his men, the gay condottiere who would conquer all that lay before him. She felt that she was firmly caught in the web; and she could see no escape from it.

But perhaps there was one way of escape. If she married a ruler of some distant state she would be forced to leave her home and live with her husband.

It would be a bitter wrench, but she would be free, free from the Borgia might, from the Borgia stain; she would be free to be herself, to forget, to live as, deep down in her heart, she knew she had always wanted to live.

Thus it was that, when the name of Alfonso d’Este was mentioned as a possible suitor, she listened with some eagerness.

Alfonso d’Este was the eldest son of the Duke of Ferrara, and if she married him she would leave Rome and live with her husband in Ferrara, which as his father’s heir he would one day govern.

That way lay escape.

IV

THE THIRD MARRIAGE

When Ercole, Duke of Ferrara, heard of the Pope’s desire for a marriage between Lucrezia and his son Alfonso, he was incensed.

The old Duke was an aristocrat, and he considered this plan to foist a bastard on to the noble house of Este was an impertinence.

Now that he was sixty he knew that he had to contemplate that day when his son Alfonso would be head of the house, and he did so with a certain amount of misgiving. Ercole was a man of taste; he was deeply religious, and had at one time been a friend of Savonarola; he extended hospitality to the religious and the misconduct of the Borgias had filled him with horror.

He wished Ferrara to be apart from the rest of Italy and he had made it a center of culture. He encouraged literature and art, and his passions were music and the theater. He had offered hospitality to the great architect, Biagio Rossetti, and the result was apparent in the streets of Ferrara.

There was only one favorable aspect of the proposed marriage as far as Ercole was concerned; The Borgias were rich and, if he should ever demean himself and his family by agreeing to the match, he would be able to demand an enormous dowry. Ercole was a man who enjoyed hoarding money and hated to spend it.

Not, he brooded, that his son Alfonso was one who would be perturbed by the evil reputation of the family which was planning to marry into his. Alfonso was a coarse creature, and it was beyond Ercole’s comprehension how he could have begotten such a son. Alfonso seemed to have no desire but to spend his days in his foundry experimenting with cannon, and his nights with women—the more humble the better. Alfonso had never cared for ladies of high degree; he preferred a buxom serving girl or tavern wench; his adventurers in low company were notorious.

Apart from a love of music which he had inherited from his father he did not seem to belong to the Este family. His brother Ippolito would have made a better heir; but Ippolito, as a second son, wore the Cardinal’s robes, and in this he had something in common with Cesare Borgia—he hated them.

Where was Alfonso now? wondered Ercole. Doubtless in his foundry, testing his cannons. Perhaps one day they would be useful in war. Who could say? Perhaps he should go to Alfonso and tell him of this monstrous suggestion. But what would be the use? Alfonso would grunt, shrug his shoulders, and be quite prepared to spend half the night with the girl and doubtless soon get her with child, as he did half a dozen mistresses.

Duke Ercole decided he would not be able to discuss the matter with Alfonso.

His children, he was beginning to realize, were becoming unmanageable. Was that a discovery which must be made by all old men? Ippolito, elegant and handsome, was chafing against his Cardinal’s robes. Ferrante, his third son, was wild, and he could never be sure what