by pity, by fear and by admiration. There was no one like him in the world, no one else who could ever have the same power to move her, to hurt her, to fill her with tenderness and with fear.
“Why Cesare …” she began.
He smiled sneeringly at the fine materials. “So,” he said, “you are preparing for the wedding.”
“There is a great deal to do,” she said. She waved her hand and the women were only too ready to leave her.
“My brother,” she said, “it makes me happy to see you back in Rome.”
He laughed, and touched his face with beautiful slender fingers, so like his father’s. “The reason for my return does not make me happy.”
“You suffer so. I trust the cure has done its work.”
“They tell me it has, but I wonder sometimes whether the foulness will ever leave me. If I but knew who brought it to me this time …” His eyes were cruel, and she shuddered. Stories of his barbaric cruelty to the Neapolitans had reached her and she, who deplored cruelty and whose great desire was to live in peace with all around her, longed for him to curb his violence.
“Well, sister,” he said, “you do not seem pleased to see me.”
“Then it is because I see you not looking as well as I would wish to see you.”
He took her by the arm, and she tried not to show that his grip hurt her.
“This man to whom they are marrying you,” he said, “he is a boor, I hear. Alfonso. Alfonso the Second! He will bear no resemblance to the first Alfonso … that little one who so delighted you.”
She would not look at him. She whispered: “It is our fate to marry when we are told to marry, and accept the partners chosen for us.”
“My Lucrezia!” he said. “Would to God …”
She knew what he meant but she would not let him say it. She interrupted quickly: “We shall meet often. You shall visit me in Ferrara; I shall visit you in Romagna.”
“Yes,” he said. “That must be so. Nothing should part us, Lucrezia. Nothing shall, as long as there is life in this body.” He put his face close to hers. He whispered: “Lucrezia … you tremble. You are afraid of me. Why, in the name of all the saints? Why?”
“Cesare,” she answered him, “soon I have to leave Rome. Soon … I must go to my marriage.…”
“And you are afraid … afraid of the brother who loves you. Afraid because he is your brother … Lucrezia, I will not have you afraid. I will have you welcome me … love me … love me as I love you.”
“Yes, Cesare.”
“For love you I do, as I love no other. Always, no matter whom I am with, it is Lucrezia I love. All others are dull … they tire me. They are not Borgias. Lucrezia … Lucrezia … I would give so much … years of my life if …”
“No,” she said fiercely, “no!”
“But I say Yes,” he told her.
His hand was at the nape of her neck. She thought in that moment that he was going to kill her because he was imagining her with her new husband, and could not bear to see such images.
Then suddenly he released her. He laughed, and his laughter was bitter.
“The Borgia in you, Lucrezia, is hidden by the gentle serenity of the woman who would wish to be like all others … the gentle Lucrezia who longs to be a wife and mother … meek and mild—Lucrezia who would deny her Borgia blood for the sake of peace. You shall come to my apartments tonight. There shall be a supper party. Our father will be there and others. And this party shall be for your delight.”
“I shall come with the greatest pleasure,” she said.
“Yes, Lucrezia,” he told her, “you shall come.”
In Cesare’s apartments there took place that night an orgy which would be remembered as long as the name of Borgia would be.
It was of Cesare’s own invention; and his apartments were lighted by many brilliant candelabra and therein he had set up a Papal throne, elaborately covered with the finest brocade. Upon it was seated the Pope, and next to him Lucrezia, and on her other side Cesare himself.
There was feasting, and the conversation was lewd. Cesare set the pace, and he was fresh from the campaign in Naples, during which his barbarism and love of orgiastic spectacle had become intensified. The Pope