Lucrezia wears black for five weeks after Alfonso's death.
Cesare washes the blood from her skin and burns her dress that night. He worships her, placing kisses on her naked skin, whispering mine, mine, mine with every thrust. She trembles in his arms, giving in to her love. The halls of her castle are silent except for her quiet gasps. He leaves her in the early light of morning before any can see him go. She weeps then, and she does not know if it is for her husband or her brother. She returns to Naples with her husband's body and a prepared story.
Naples lies in a shroud of black for five weeks, until bells can be heard ringing from within the palace walls. Naples lays in a revelry of wine and joy for three nights with the news of their Duchesses pregnancy. She tells the people Alfonso lives on despite his tragic demise. She will bring Naples a new Duke. She smiles down to the people and weeps once more in her bed chamber, baring the door and breathing in the faded scent of Cesare on her sheets. She says his name in her sleep over and over like a curse.
In France, Cesare cannot sleep. He cannot touch his wife. She hates him for it. He hates himself. He hates his wife for not being her. Two months from his parting with his sister he receives joyous news from his Holy Father. Lucrezia's husband has died, but his son lives on within her. They will still have a Duke in Naples, and his sister and nephew are safe in its treacherous arms at last. He fucks Charlotte that night, hard and fast, his sister's face in his mind. He comes to the memory of her. Three days later his wife flees to the Queen, asking for an annulment. He gives it to her gladly. He drinks himself to sleep that night, dreaming of a child.
It is four months and he outstays his welcome in France. His return to Rome is expected, hers is not. Their meeting is tense, but she throws her arms around him as she always has and is expected to and he can feel between them the slight roundness of her. It burns him and he cannot speak. Her hands tremble in his. Their sins are many, but this is the greatest of them all.
Lucrezia is showered in kisses and joy by her mother and Holy Father. She holds Giovanni in her arms, her hand splayed across her belly. Cesare cannot look away. He drinks and wallows and will not touch her again. Vanozza speaks to him in hushed voice, praying after her son's health. He assures her it is merely the pressures of state. She wonders after his annulment. Lucrezia looks to him at this, asking for it to be a lie. He cannot speak. It seems there are many things he cannot do in regards to his sister.
Lucrezia is unwelcomed in Naples when her daughter is brought into the world. Naples has no use in daughters. Lucrezia weeps, for her daughter, for her failed marriage, for Cesare. He holds the baby as she sleeps. She cannot stand for two days, her legs tremble with the weight. The birth was difficult, the nursemaid marvels they both survived it. Her Holy Father thanks God. Cesare and Lucrezia feel the weight of shame and happiness upon them as they look down on her, their daughter. She is fair and delicate, as Lucrezia was as a babe. She bares none of her late husband's darkness and Lucrezia thanks God for that, and feels the shame in that. She allows Cesare to name her. Lucrezia's daughter is christened Isabella Maria Borgia. She will not give her Alfonso's name now that Naples has turned its back on her.
Cesare does not leave her side. He dictates papal arms with his lieutenants in the gardens of his mother's home. Lucrezia plays with Giovanni and Isabella in the grass nearby. Isabella has all the Spanish temper her brother does not, and she screams often, to Cesare's men's displeasure. He merely shushes the child and turns back to his maps as she quiets. Lucrezia marvels at his disposition. You make a wonderful father. She muses silently in her daughter's hair. Their mother watches from the patio, her face drawn white with dread.
In the night Vanozza confronts him. Speaks in hushed screams and beats his shoulders and head. Stupid boy! She cries. Vanozza weeps then, for her children, for her grandchild and for what has become of her sweet boy, so grown and tainted by sin. He weeps with her, feels the weight of his sins, the weight of Lucrezia. He thinks of Isabella and he weeps into his mother's dress. She holds him, the lamplight flickering around them. She thinks her sins and wonders if this is her punishment, to love so deeply that her own flesh would love themselves into sin. They do not tell the Holy Father. When Vanozza holds her granddaughter, she sees Cesare reflected there, a babe once more. She kisses Isabella, wishing for her son to be that baby boy again, clean and innocent and bloodless again.
Isabella is eleven when she meets her uncle Joffre for the first time. She is grabbed up in her uncle's arms. She laughs and Joffre remarks her likeness to Lucrezia. Her mother smiles at that, uncle Cesare leaning over to place a kiss on her brow. Her grin is as wide as his. Joffre takes Giovanni around the garden, playing at swords. Her brother stands tall beside Joffre, nearly thirteen. Soon he will leave her, to school and then to marriage. Isabella pouts at the thought. Cesare catches her chin, teasing her for ruining her pretty face. She looks up into the eyes of her uncle and asks why they must marry. He tells her, for the good of the family.
Very well, but I will not marry before Giovanni. She pouts again. Lucrezia and Cesare share a look, speaking without words. Isabella runs after her brother, begging for attention, her skirts a rush of blue around her. She has forgotten this moment, but her parents are pale and drawn. They know, but they do not wish it. Lucrezia and Cesare sit, a breath between them. She has refused her Holy Father's every advance of marriage on her, fainting grief, boredom, dangling the lack of success her marriages have brought their family for so long. They will not be able to keep their child from their father's intentions much longer. Two, three years, and she will know her mother's fate as her own. It settles in their gut like a poisonous weed.
Isabella is fifteen when she is married. She blushes in her gown, a pure white dress with delicate purls strung in patterns across the fabric. Cesare's smile is bittersweet. Lucrezia merely beams, enraptured by her daughter's happiness. Isabella had chosen her husband, and he watched her with adoring eyes. Cesare sees the worship in them and is glad of it. His hands have been stained with too much blood to cause his daughter's unhappiness in killing this boy.
Isabella is eighteen when she sees the truth reflected in her father's eyes. The look she shares with her husband is much the same as her mother and uncle. Hands clasp for a moment too long, heads bent, eyes always seeking. She does not weep, as Cesare believes she will. Father. She cries and tucks herself into his chest. He holds her and weeps then. Her name is a prayer on his lips. It seems there is no end to his sins, no end to his love.
Isabella names her first son Caesar, and he is a dark and terrible and beautiful as his namesake. She holds the child to her breast when the news reaches her and her mother of Cesare's death. Killed in battle, without the glory in it. Lucrezia wastes away within a year. Her daughter weeps for them both, holding her mother's cold hands in a room that will always smell of death and lilies. The last word on her mother's lips is mine.