Light on Lucrezia - By Plaidy, Jean Page 0,122

was another to take his place. But he could only groan and suffer in his sick bed, a man weak with illness, the greatest benefactor a man ever knew lost to him, his kingdom rocking in peril.

The delights of Medelana were suddenly shattered.

Lucrezia was being helped to dress by Angela and some of her women, when one of her dwarfs came running in excitedly to tell her that a distinguished visitor was arriving at the villa, none other than Cardinal Ippolito.

Lucrezia and Angela looked at each other in dismay. If Ippolito stayed at the villa it would put an end to that delightful intimacy between Medelana and Ostellato.

“We should send a message to Pietro immediately to warn him,” whispered Angela.

“Wait awhile. It may be that my brother-in-law is paying a passing call.”

“Let us hope he has not come to spy for Alfonso.”

“Hasten,” said Lucrezia. “Where is my net? I will go down to meet him.”

But Ippolito was already at the door. He stood very still, looking at Lucrezia; he did not smile, but his lips twitched slightly; it was as though he was desperately seeking for the right words, and in that moment Lucrezia knew that some terrible catastrophe to herself had occurred.

“Ippolito,” she began, and went swiftly to his side.

There was no ceremony; he laid his hands on her shoulders and looked into her face. “My sister,” he began. “Oh my dearest sister, I bring bad news.”

“Alfonso …” she began.

He shook his head. “The Pope, your father, is dead.”

Her eyes were wide with horror. It was impossible to believe that he who had been more alive than any other could now be dead. He had seemed immortal. She could not accept this dire calamity.

Ippolito put his arm about her and drew her to a chair. “Sit down,” he said. She obeyed mechanically, her expression blank. “He was after all,” went on Ippolito soothingly, “by no means a young man. Lucrezia, my dearest sister, it is a terrible shock, but you will understand that it had to happen some time.”

Still she did not speak. She looked like a person in a trance. It was as though her mind was refusing to accept what he said because to do so would bring such grief as it would be impossible to bear.

Ippolito felt that he had to go on talking. Her silence was unnerving, more poignant than words would have been.

“He was well,” said Ippolito, “until a few days before his death. He went to a supper party with your brother on the 10th August. It was in the vineyards of Cardinal Corneto. Two days later he was taken ill. It was thought at first that he would rally, and he did for a while. But there was a relapse, and he died on the 18th. As soon as the news came I rode over to tell you. Oh Lucrezia, I know of the love between you. What can I say to comfort you?”

Then she spoke. “You can do nothing to comfort me because there is no comfort now that life has to offer me.”

She sat idly staring ahead of her.

Ippolito knelt beside her, took her hand, kissed it, told her that he and his brothers would care for her, that though she had lost a father she had others who loved her.

She shook her head and turning to him said: “If you would comfort me, I pray you leave me. I can best bear my grief alone.”

So Ippolito went, signing to her women to leave her also. She sat alone staring ahead, her blank expression slowly changing to one of utter despair.

She crouched on the floor. She had wept a little. “Dead,” she whispered to herself. “Dead, Holiness. So we are alone. But how can we endure life without you?”

There had never been a time when he had not been there. She had sheltered beneath his wing; he had always been benign, always tender for her. He was an old man, they said, but she had never thought of his death; she had subconsciously thought of him as immortal. The great Cardinal of her childhood whose coming had brought such joy to the nursery, the great Pope of her adolescence and early womanhood, feared by others, loved so devotedly by herself, and who had loved her as it seemed only a Borgia could love a Borgia! “Dead!” she murmured to herself in a bewildered voice. “Dead?” she demanded. It could not be. There could not be such wretchedness in the world.

“I