Light on Lucrezia - By Plaidy, Jean Page 0,133
calling a welcome to him, while the fear of him showed in their faces.
Now he rode in unheralded.
When he was installed in the lodgings allotted to him he was told that a visitor had called and was asking to be brought into his presence.
“Is it the Captain?” he asked.
“My lord,” he was told, “it is a lady.”
That made him smile. He guessed who it was, and he had expected her.
She came into his presence and, when they were alone, she threw off the cape and flung aside the mask she was wearing.
Her adventures had not impaired her beauty. There was Sanchia, voluptuous as ever, her dark hair falling about her shoulders, her blue eyes flashing.
“Sanchia,” he cried and would have embraced her, but she held up an imperious hand.
“Times have changed, Cesare,” she said.
“Yet you come hot-foot to see me, the moment I arrive in Naples.”
“For the sake of old friendship,” she said.
He took her hand and kissed it. “For what else?” he asked.
She tore her hand away and he caught her by the shoulders. Her eyes flashed. She cried: “Have a care, Cesare. The Captain is my very good friend, and you do not come this time as a conqueror.”
He dropped his hands and throwing back his head burst into loud laughter.
“The Captain is your friend!” he sneered. “Well, it is what we must expect. He is in command here, and Sanchia must command him. Is it due to you that I owe the hospitality I now receive?”
“It might be so,” she said. “At least it is friendship which brings me here. I have come to warn you.”
He looked disappointed. “I thought you had come to recall—and relive—old times.”
“Nothing of that sort!” she flashed. “Everything of that nature is over between us. I see that though you have lost Romagna you have lost little of your arrogance, Cesare. Times change and we must change with them.”
“That which I have lost, I will regain.”
“You will need to go very carefully if you are to do so, and it is for that reason that I have come to warn you.”
“Well, what are these dire warnings you have to offer?”
“Firstly do not arouse the Captain’s jealousy.”
“That will be difficult to avoid, dear Sanchia. You are as desirable as ever, and I am but human.”
“Your life is in his hands. He is a good man who does not forget his friends in adversity; but you need to be careful. Your only friend in this court is your brother Goffredo.”
“Where is he now?”
“I know not. He and I rarely meet.”
“I see the Captain is a jealous man who will not tolerate husbands!”
She lifted her shoulders. “The court abounds with your enemies, Cesare. Naples did not love you after the murder of my brother.”
“Yet you continued to love me.”
“If I ever loved you Cesare, I ceased to do so then. There was passion between us afterward, but it was the passion of hate rather than love. Do you remember Jeronimo Mancioni?”
Cesare shook his head.
“You would not of course remember such a trivial incident. There have been so many like it in your life. He wrote an essay on what took place during the capture of Faenza. Doubtless it was a true account, but it did not please you. No, of course you would not remember Jeronimo. He remembers you though. His family remember also. Payment was demanded of him for writing that essay—his right hand was cut off and his tongue cut out. Such things are remembered, Cesare, when a man is in decline. I warn you, that is all. Have a care. You will need to walk more warily here in Naples than you ever did in your Roman prison.”
Cesare shrugged aside her warnings.
He would have taken her into his arms, but she would have none of that. He laughed at her playing the game of loyalty to her Spanish Captain. How long would that last? he asked himself. He visualized that before he was ready to set out on the re-conquest of Romagna, Sanchia would be his mistress and all his enemies in Naples would be fawning on him.
Hope had returned. Goffredo was there, with the old admiration shining in his eyes. Goffredo was ready to serve his brother, heart and soul. It was wonderful at such times to recall the devotion of his family. Lucrezia was raising men, selling her valuable jewels, writing letters to influential men begging their help for her brother; and now here was Goffredo. Alexander the great central