14

ON THE DAY Cesare Borgia crowned the king of Naples, he received an urgent message from his sister. It was brought by her secret messenger and handed to him when he was walking alone on the castle grounds. He was to meet her at Silverlake within a few days, it said, for she must speak to him before either of them could return to Rome.

Cesare spent that evening at the lavish coronation celebration. All the aristocracy of Naples was there to meet him, including many beautiful women, fascinated by his good looks and easy charm, who surrounded him in spite of his cardinal’s robes.

He visited with his brother Jofre and sister-in-law Sancia, and noticed that Jofre seemed to be walking with a different, surer step since Juan’s death. He wondered if anyone else noticed. Sancia, too, had changed. She was still flirtatious, but seemed more willing to please, a little less spirited than she was before.

It was Jofre who, during the evening, introduced him to a tall, handsome young man who would impress Cesare with his intelligence and courtliness. “My brother, Cardinal Borgia, this is the duke of Bisceglie, Alfonso of Aragon. Have you met?”

When Alfonso reached for Cesare’s hand, Cesare found himself intrigued by the look of the young man. He had an athletic build, but his features were so fine and his smile so radiant that one could no more keep from staring at him than from studying a beautiful painting.

“It is my honor to meet you,” Alfonso said, bowing, and his voice was as pleasing as his appearance.

Cesare nodded his head in acknowledgment. And for the next several hours the two men excused themselves from the crowd to walk through the gardens and become familiar with each other. Alfonso’s intelligence matched Cesare’s own, and his sense of humor was refreshing. They discussed theology, philosophy, and of course, politics. By the time Cesare said his farewell he felt a certain fondness for the young man, and so as they parted, he said, “I’ve no doubt you are worthy of my sister. And I am certain she will be happy with you.”

Alfonso’s blue eyes glittered. “I will do all in my power to see that it is so.”

Cesare found himself looking forward to meeting his sister at Silverlake. It had been months since he and Lucrezia were alone together, and now that she had recovered from childbirth he found himself thinking about making love to her again. He wondered, as he rode as quickly as he could, what it was she had to tell him. He had not heard a word from his father or Duarte in recent weeks, and so he suspected it was something more personal than political.

Arriving at the lake before she did, he took a moment to stand back and gaze upon the clear blue of the sky, enjoying the peace of the countryside before going inside the cottage. There, after bathing and changing his clothes, he sat, sipping a goblet of wine, and reflecting on his life.

So much had happened of late, and yet he knew even more was meant to happen in the near future. He was determined, once he had returned to Rome from Florence, to ask the Holy Father to relieve him of his duties as cardinal. He could no longer bear the hypocrisy that the cardinal’s hat imposed on him. He knew that convincing the Holy Father would be a formidable task, that it would add tension to their already strained relationship. Since Juan’s death, instead of growing closer, his father had seemed to be drifting away from Cesare.

Cesare was filled with ambition and passion; he wanted to live his life to the fullest. And yet he felt thwarted. Now that his sister was to be married again, he found himself struggling. Alfonso was an honorable man, one he liked, and though he wanted the best for Lucrezia, he found himself feeling jealous. Now his sister would have children she could love and claim as her own. As a cardinal, his children would be denied—or worse yet be bastards, as he was. He tried to calm down, to talk himself out of his feelings, chastising himself for his shortsightedness. Cesare reminded himself that Lucrezia’s betrothal to the son of the king of Naples was a great alliance for the church and Rome. Yet he grew impatient, full of frustration that the course of his life had been decided by mere accident of birth.

The Pope, too, had always enjoyed his life; he felt genuinely fulfilled by his mission in the church, and the saving of the souls of humanity. But Cesare struggled with believing, and felt no such passion. Spending his nights with courtesans rarely brought him pleasure; all at once he found he wanted more. Jofre and Sancia seemed happy, with their material luxury and commitments to court life. And even his brother Juan had certainly had a good life—one of freedom, riches, and distinction—until at last he was defeated by the death he deserved.

By the time Lucrezia arrived, Cesare was sullen. But once she rushed into his arms and he smelled her hair again and felt her warm body against his, all his discontent began to disappear. It was only when he pushed her back to look at her, to see her face, that he noticed she’d been crying.

“What is it?” he asked her. “What is it, my love?”

“Papa killed Perotto,” she said. She hadn’t called him Papa for years, since she’d been a child.

“Perotto is dead?” Cesare said, stunned by the news. “I instructed him to hide until I returned.” He took a deep breath, and asked softly, “Where was he found?”

Lucrezia held tight to her brother. “In the ghetto. In a tavern in the ghetto. A place where he would never go.”

And Cesare realized that even as he tried to help Perotto, he was already too late. They talked together then about the sweetness of the man, his willingness to sacrifice himself for love. “He truly was a poet,” Lucrezia said.

“His goodness makes me feel ashamed,” Cesare said. “For were it different, I could not count upon myself to make the choice he did, though I do love you.”

Lucrezia spoke with clear-eyed certainty. “There is justice in the heavens, I’ve no doubt. And his courage will be honored.”

Hours passed as they walked by the lake, and more hours as they talked by the roaring fire in the cottage.

Later they made love. And it was better than ever before. They lay together for a very long time, before either of them was willing to break the bond of silence, and then it was Lucrezia who spoke first. “Our baby is the most beautiful cherub I have ever seen,” she said, smiling. “And he looks just like . . . ”

Cesare leaned on his arm and looked into his sister’s clear blue eyes. “Just like who?” he asked.

Lucrezia laughed. “Just like . . . us!” she said, and laughed again. “I think we will be happy together, even if he is your son, and can never be mine.”

“But we are most important,” Cesare reassured her. “And we know the truth.”

Lucrezia sat up then, wrapping a silk robe around herself, and slid out of bed. In a voice both hard and cold, she asked, “Cesare, do you think the Holy Father evil?”

Cesare felt a shiver run throughout his body. “There are times I’m not sure I know what evil is,” he said. “Are you always certain?”

Lucrezia turned and looked at him. “Yes, I am certain, my brother. I know evil. It can’t disguise itself from me . . . ”

The following morning Lucrezia left to return to Rome, but Cesare could not. It was too soon for him to face his father, for he was filled with both anger and guilt. And now that young Perotto was dead, there was no reason to hurry.

Disguised in the plain clothes of a peasant, Cesare rode up to the gates of Florence. It had been so long, it seemed, since he’d been to this city. As he rode alone, his entourage left outside the gates, he remembered his first visit to Florence. He had gone there from school, when he was just a boy with Gio Medici. And then it was so different . . .

There was a time when Florence had been a proud republic, so proud that it had forbidden anyone of noble blood to take part in the government. But the Medici family, with its great banking house and its monies, actually ruled Florence through its influence with the elected officials. It did so by making rich those who formed the ruling committees elected by its citizens. And so Gio’s father, Lorenzo the Magnificent, had cemented the Medici family power.

For young Cesare Borgia, it was a new experience to live in a great city where its ruler was almost universally beloved. Lorenzo was one of the richest men in the world, and one of the most generous. He gave poor girls dowries so they could be wed. He gave painters and sculptors money and facilities in which to work. There the great Michelangelo lived in the Medici palace in his youth, and was treated as a son.

Lorenzo Medici bought books from all over the world, and had them translated and copied at great cost so that they could be made available to scholars in Italy. He endowed chairs of philosophy and Greek at Italian universities. He wrote poetry that was acclaimed by the severest critics, and compositions for music to be played at the great carnivals. The finest scholars and poets, artists, and musicians were often guests at the Medici table in the palace.

When Cesare was a guest there, though he was only a boy of fifteen, he was treated with exquisite courtesy by Lorenzo and the other men in his company. But Cesare’s fondest memories of Florence were the tales he was told of the Medici family’s rise to power—especially the story Gio told him of his father Lorenzo’s narrow escape from the coils of a great conspiracy when he was a young man.

At the age of twenty, on the death of his own father, Lorenzo had become head of the Medici family. By this time the Medici family was banker to the Pope and various kings, the most powerful financial institution in the world. But Lorenzo saw that unless he wanted to jeopardize that position he would have to consolidate his own personal power.

He did so by financing great festivities as entertainment for the people. He staged mock sea battles on the river Arno, and financed musical dramas in the great Piazza of Santa Croce; he sponsored parades of the cathedral’s holy relics, with a thorn of the crown Jesus had worn, a nail from his cross, and a fragment of the spear that had been thrust into his side by a Roman soldier. All the shops in Florence were decorated with the Medici banner, its three red balls recognizable throughout the city.

Lorenzo was both bawdy and religious. On carnival days, gaily decorated floats carried the prettiest prostitutes of the city through the streets; on Good Friday the Stations of the Cross—portraying the life and death of Christ—were reenacted. Life-size figures of Christ, the Virgin Mary, and various saints were carried to the cathedral, and captive white doves were released and floated through the air like angels. There were beauty pageants for young women of respectable families, and processions of monks to warn people of hell.

Lorenzo was perhaps the ugliest man in Florence, but because of his wit and charm had many love affairs. His younger brother and best companion, Giuliano, on the other hand, was acclaimed the city’s most handsome man in a festival held in his honor, on his twenty-second birthday in 1475. Little surprise that he won: his costume for the event was designed by Botticelli and his helmet by Verrocio, at the cost of twenty thousand florins. It delighted the people of Florence to see the ugly but generous Lorenzo embrace his brother without a trace of envy.

But at the height of Lorenzo’s power in Florence, at the height of his happiness, the Medici family became the target of a powerful conspiracy.

The trouble began when Lorenzo refused to grant a huge loan demanded by a previous Pope, the monies to be used to purchase the strategic town of Imola in the Romagna. Pope Sixtus was enraged by this refusal. This Pope, too, was devoted to his family; he had already given seven of his nephews each a cardinal’s hat, and he had wanted the town of Imola for his natural son, Girolamo. When Lorenzo refused the loan, the Pope in retaliation turned instead to the Pazzi family, the great rivals of the Medici.

The Pazzi family and its bank gave the fifty thousand ducats to the Pope with utmost speed, and then applied for other accounts with the papacy, especially the account of the alum mines of Silverlake just outside of Rome. But this the Pope was not willing to do, perhaps because Lorenzo had sent him rich gifts to placate him. And yet the friction between Lorenzo and the Pope still festered.

When the Pope nominated Francisco Salviata as archbishop of Pisa, a Florentine possession—violating an agreement that all such posts would be subject to approval by officials of Florence—Lorenzo barred the archbishop from taking up his post.

The Pazzi family had much older roots in Florence, a longer lineage of fame, than the Medici. And its leader, Jacopo, a much older and more sober man, hated the young Lorenzo.

The Archbishop Salviata and Francisco Pazzi also burned with ambition and hatred. These two men engineered a meeting with Pope Sixtus and convinced him they could overthrow the Medici. He gave his approval. This convinced the old man, Jacopo Pazzi, a ruthless and mean-spirited man, to join the conspiracy.

The plan was to kill Lorenzo and his brother, Giuliano, as they attended Sunday Mass; then, Pazzi supporters and troops hidden outside the wall would swarm in and take over the city.

To get everyone into the church at the same time, it was arranged that the unsuspecting Cardinal Raphael Riario, the seventeen-year-old grandnephew of the Pope, would pay a visit to Lorenzo. As expected, Lorenzo planned a great banquet in the cardinal’s honor, and accompanied him to Mass in the morning. Behind them were two priests named Maffei and Stefano, who under their vestments had each concealed daggers.

Upon hearing the sound of the sacristy bell ringing for the elevation of the Host—when all the faithful in the church would lower their eyes—the priests were to pull their daggers and commence their unholy act. But Lorenzo’s brother, Giuliano, was not there, and the conspirators had been instructed to kill both. Francisco Pazzi rushed to Giuliano’s home to hurry him to church; on the return trip he poked at Giuliano’s torso as if in fun, in order to confirm that he wore no armor beneath his clothing.

In the church, Lorenzo stood at the far side of the altar. He saw his brother Giuliano enter the church with Francisco Pazzi behind him, and then he heard the sacristy bell ring. To his horror he saw Francisco draw a dagger and plunge it into Giuliano’s body. At that very moment, he felt a hand grab his shoulder. He recoiled as he felt cold steel touch his throat, drawing blood. But instinctively his body flinched away, and now he threw off his cloak and used it to repel the thrust of the other priest’s dagger.

Lorenzo drew his own sword then and fought both of them off, jumping over the altar rail and running to the side door. Three of his friends had gathered around him. He led them into the sacristy and pulled the heavy doors closed behind them. For that moment, he was safe.

Meanwhile, outside, the Archbishop Salviata and the assassin, Francisco Pazzi, ran out of the cathedral to shout that the Medici were dead and Florence was free. But the populace of the city ran to take up arms. The archbishop’s troops in the square were overwhelmed and slaughtered.

Lorenzo emerged from the sacristy to the cheers of his friends and supporters. He first made sure that no harm had come to the young Cardinal Riario, but he did nothing to stop the execution of the archbishop and Francisco, who were hanged from the windows of the cathedral.

The two priests, Maffei and Stefano, were castrated and beheaded. Jacopo Pazzi was hunted down, stripped naked, and hanged beside the archbishop. The Pazzi family palace was looted, and all members of the Pazzi clan were banished from Florence forever.

Now, as Cesare returned to the city so many years later, in place of that city of justice and luxury he found a completely different Florence.

The streets themselves were in complete disorder, with filth and sewage flowing freely. Dead and rotting animals lay in the alleys; the smell itself was worse than Rome’s. It was true that the plague had been found in Florence—but only a few cases; still, the very spirit of the people seemed to have been overcome by disease. As Cesare rode the streets, he heard fierce arguments and watched vicious stick fights while angry shouts rather than church bells filled his ears.

When he stopped at the most respectable inn to find a room in which to rest until nightfall, he was reassured that the innkeeper didn’t recognize him—even tried to turn him away, until Cesare forced a gold ducat into his grasping hand.

Once he had done so, the innkeeper was polite and indulgent. He led Cesare to a room where, though the furniture was sparse, it was clean and of good quality. From the window Cesare could see the square in front of the Church of San Marcos, and the monastery of the prophet Savonarola. He determined to wait until evening before he walked out into the streets to see what he could discover.

Moments later, the innkeeper returned with a large carafe of wine and a huge platter of fresh fruit and cheese. And so Cesare rested on the bed, and dreamed . . .

It was a disturbing dream, a nightmare in which crosses and chalices, holy vestments and religious objects swirled around him, just outside his reach. A thunderous voice overhead instructed him to take hold of a golden chalice, but when he grasped for it he found a pistol in his hand. Though he tried to control it, it seemed to fire on its own. Then, as in all dreams, the scenery changed, and he was at a celebration, seated across from his father, his sister, and her newly betrothed, Prince Alfonso. The smile on his face turned to a grimace, and the golden pistol went off and shattered the face of either his sister or Alfonso—he could no longer see well enough to tell.

Cesare awoke, drenched in sweat, to hear the voices and shouts of the citizens in the square beneath his window. He got out of bed, still shaken, and looked outside. There, on a makeshift wooden pulpit, stood the preacher, Savonarola. He began with a fervent prayer to the Lord, his voice trembling with passion, and followed with a hymn of holy praise. In the square, the voices of the citizens were raised in adoration. But within a short time, the preacher began his fiery invective against Rome.

“Pope Alexander is a false Pope,” the friar shouted, and his voice was rich and filled with passion. “The minds of the humanists can twist the truth and make sense out of nonsense. But as there is black and white, there is good and evil, and it stands to reason: that which is not good is evil!”

Cesare studied the man. Thin, ascetic, and clothed in the brown hooded robes of the Dominican Order; his features coarse, yet not unpleasant. His tonsured head moved with conviction, and his hands spoke parables as he waved them to punctuate his words. “This Pope has courtesans,” he shouted. “He kills and poisons. The clergy in Rome keeps boys, and steals from the poor to feather the beds of the rich. They eat from golden plates, and ride on the backs of those who live in poverty.”

The citizens continued to gather, and Cesare found himself strangely fascinated by this man, entranced, as though he didn’t know the people the friar was railing about.

As a large crowd began to form, there were angry shouts, but the moment the friar began to speak again there was such silence that a star could be heard as it fell from the sky. “The God of heaven will cast your souls to hell for eternity, and those who follow these pagan priests will be damned. Give up your worldly goods and follow the path of Saint Dominic.”

Someone shouted from the crowd. “But in the monastery you have food donated by the wealthy! Your plates are not of wood, and your chairs have plush cushions. You dance to the tune of the fiddler who pays!”

Savonarola shuddered, and made a vow. “All money from the rich will be refused from this day forward. The friars in San Marco will only eat what the good citizens of Florence provide. One meal a day is enough. Any more shall be given to the poor who gather in the square each evening. No one will go hungry. But that will care only for your body! To preserve your souls you must renounce the Pope in Rome. He is a fornicator; his daughter is a prostitute who sleeps with both her father and brother—and poets as well.”

Cesare had witnessed enough. Once the Pope heard of this, he would not only excommunicate Savonarola—he would accuse him of heresy.

Cesare found his own reaction to the man confounding. He believed the man had vision, but also that he was crazy. For who would martyr himself in this way, knowing the outcome? Still, he allowed, who can know what images and icons spill within the brains of others? Despite all his logic, he knew the man was dangerous, and something must be done about him. For the new Signoria in Florence could be influenced, and if they forbade Florence from joining the Holy League, his father’s plans to unite the Romagna would be thwarted.

This could not be allowed.

Cesare dressed quickly. Outside, as he was moving among the crowd in the street toward the square, a thin, pale young man in a black cape, a head shorter than he was, came up beside him. “Cardinal?” the young man whispered.

Cesare turned, his hand already poised on the sword hidden beneath his robe.

But the young man bowed his head in acknowledgment. “My name is Niccolò Machiavelli. And we should speak. There is danger in the streets of Florence for you at this time. Come with me?” Cesare’s eyes softened, and so Machiavelli took him by the arm, and led him to his apartment away from the square.

Inside, the well-furnished rooms were cluttered with books; the desks overflowed, and papers were scattered on the chairs and floor. There was a small fire burning in the stone fireplace.

Machiavelli cleared off one of the chairs and offered it to Cesare. When Cesare looked around the room, he found himself strangely comfortable. Machiavelli poured a glass of wine for each of them, and took a chair opposite Cesare.

“You are in danger, Cardinal,” Machiavelli warned. “For Savonarola believes he is entrusted with a mission, a holy one. In order to fulfill his part in it the Borgia Pope must be dethroned, the Borgia family destroyed.”

“I am aware of his religious objections to our pagan ways,” Cesare said, sardonically.

“Savonarola has visions,” Machiavelli warned. “First there was a sun falling from the sky, and Lorenzo the Magnificent was dead. Then there was the swift sword of the Lord, from the north, striking the tyrant, and the French invasion followed. He holds power over our citizens; they fear for themselves and their families, and believe this prophet has the gift of sight. He tells that the only mercy will come with angels in white robes, after the destruction of the wicked iniquities, when the souls of the good hold to the rule of God and repent.”

Cesare recognized in Savonarola this spark of truth. But no man could endure the visions this friar claimed and still live in the world. Once he chose to speak, if he had vision, he must be able to predict his fate. To Cesare these visions could never be his truth, for they would deny free will. If destiny always held the winning hand, then what part did man play? It was a fixed game, one in which he would take no part.

Cesare turned his attention back to Machiavelli. “The Pope has already excommunicated the friar. If he continues to inflame the populace he will be put to death, for there will be nothing else the Holy Father can do to silence him.”

Late that night, back in his room at the inn, Cesare could still hear the voice of Savonarola sounding through his window. The friar’s voice remained strong. “Alexander Borgia is a pagan Pope who looks to the pagan gods of Egypt for inspiration! He fills himself with pagan pleasures, while we of true faith bear the suffering. Each year, to enrich their own chest of riches, the cardinals in Rome impose heavier burdens on our citizens. We are not asses, to be used as beasts of burden!”

As Cesare began to drift into sleep, he heard the friar’s passionate voice, and its words of doom: “In the early church the chalices were made of wood, but the virtue of the clergy was of gold. At this dark time, with the Pope and the cardinals in Rome, the chalices are of gold, and virtue of our clergy is of wood!”