1

"You will be naked, clean and bloodless again. And mine."

A silence hung in the air, like smoke in a blazing house. Cesare willed his sister to say something, anything, to kill this endless quiet.

"No," she eventually whispered. "Not yours. I can never be yours again."

Cesare dropped the wet cloth in shock. He thought this was what she wanted; the two of them, finally accepting their feelings for one another – even if he didn't know what exactly those feelings were.

"Cesare," Lucrezia sat up and ran her hand along the curves of his face, "If you loved me the way I once thought you did, my husband would not be lying dead next to me. You would have put my heart above the ambitions of our family."

She got up to leave, for the sight of lifeless Alfonso was too much to bear. Cesare called after her.

"Don't you dare will me to stay by your side," she cried. "I thought you were the good brother, the one who would never hurt me. In truth, you are no better than Juan."

The memory of their dead brother brought up in rage in Cesare's stomach – the same rage he felt when he'd forced the knife through his chest. He wanted to fight against his sister's accusation, but in his heart he knew it was true. Still, he couldn't let her leave like this.

"You must tell me where you are going," he called.

"Must I?" Lucrezia glared back at him.

"I need to know that you're safe."

Too weary to argue, Lucrezia conceded. "I will take my son to Squillace to find my one brother who seems to have escaped the curse of Borgia."

"Joffre?"

"I can only pray that he will find it in his heart to take us in. After, I will pray for the forgiveness of myself and everyone else in this wretched family. I will find a new husband, do my duty as a wife and neither you, nor Juan, nor our father, will be able to ruin this for me. You no longer own me, for I am no longer a Borgia."

Looking in his sister's eyes, Cesare could see that she was no longer the innocent child who has unquestioningly wed herself to a monster to please her father. She held herself tall, proud and refused to answer to any man – she reminded him of the tigress now sitting in the Castel Saint Angelo.

A week later, Cesare found himself in the one place he thought he could find solace. Lucrezia had left quietly in the dead of night, leaving no time for explanations or apologies. It killed him inside that he couldn't read her thoughts, to know if her hatred that night was real or just concocted out of grief for her husband. Not wanting to waste away in his Vatican apartments, he had set off on horseback without thinking and gone in search of the one man he knew could guarantee his sister's safety.

Forli was a scattered mess after Caterina Sforza's hasty removal; the paupers in the street feasted on stolen goods with abandon, while those meant to enforce the law simply drank away their wages with no lord, or lady, to tell them otherwise. Cesare spotted a young boy, no older than six, swipe a plum from one of the larger market stalls.

"Get back here!" he called, running after the boy. The thief took him down several winding alleys, until the came to a junction and Cesare could no longer see where he'd gone. He felt a hand gently touch his back and turned around.

"Micheletto!" he sighed.

"I had a feeling I would see you in Forli eventually," Micheletto's face remained straight as he spoke.

"How did I know I would be here?"

"It does not matter, Cesare Borgia. For now, let me take you to my mother's house and we can discuss this over some bean stew."