Porpora, a cantarella fanfic

Title: Porpora
Author: liriaen
Fandom: Cantarella / history
Pairing: Cesare Borgia/Miquel da Corella (a.k.a Michelotto)
Word Count: 2140
Rating: M for mention of murder and non-graphic boysex.
Disclaimer: Cesare Borgia, the Archbishop of Pamplona, Cardinal of Valencia, Duke of Valence and Lord of Romagna always belonged to himself. So did his trusted aide (some would say henchman) Miquel da Corella alias Michelotto. The yaoi is You Higuri's, though.
A/N: Witten for unovis lj's „suit pr0n" challenge – because how could I possibly resist getting my hands on Renaissance men's clothing? Cantarella-fans may wonder because this has relatively little to do with the manga, and more with history. I hope that explains the lack of a spoiler warning. Part I may seem familiar to readers of my German "Cantarella" vignettes; it's been reworked quite a bit, though (and we get Michelotto instead of Taddeo da Volpe, which is always better ). Thank you, kennahijja, for excellent and exacting beta! Any remaining mistakes are entirely my own.

Porpora

The day they buried his brother Juan he chafed in his cardinal's robes, in the purple and black fetters his father had chained him in.

Cesare yawned. He was about to fall asleep on his feet while his manservant dressed him. Arms held wide, he suffered through each layer, from the soft houppelande of white pleated linen to the black tailored gown, fastened with thirty red silk buttons and accentuated by scarlet piping. The glaring red was supposed to be a reminder: of Christ's martyrdom, of blood, of the fate a cardinal was meant to embrace and emulate - the French disease, gout, and hunting accidents notwithstanding.

Cesare felt itchy; it was mid-June, after all. It was hot, and the Tiber already stank to high heavens. Accordingly, his younger brother hadn't looked his best when they'd pulled him from the river. Idly, Cesare pondered what efforts His Holiness's physicians had put into making Juan presentable - with all the bloating, an almost severed head was probably the least of their problems. Cesare's manservant gently lifted his hair from his neck to fasten the short cloak around his shoulders.

Watching Pedro with growing dismay, the cardinal lifted an eyebrow at the additional layer of red silk moiré. "Is that really necessary? I mean... God damn him, it's no high holiday."

His manservant fidgeted. Between buttoning, smoothing pleats and picking imaginary lint off his master's gown, Pedro was positively babbling. "By your leave, your eminence, I've specifically sent word to Monsignore Burcardo to inquire after today's protocol. And Cardinal d'Este's pageboy said the very same thing: a red Mozetta, for the burial."

"D'Este? What are you doing fraternising with the Ferrarese?" Cesare growled. The sudden look of panic of Pedro's face made him laugh, for the first time on this benighted 16th day of June 1497. Dutifully, he held his breath so his servant could wrap the Cingulum around his waist, but now Pedro's fingers were unsure. Fixing the wide sash with needles, Pedro ended up poking him, not once, but twice, and Cesare brushed him off with a grunt.

This entire day was turning into an ordeal. He could have been in Siena, picking out a horse for the Palio, or better still, Michelotto and he could have taken the falcons and gone hunting up near the Aniene, staying the night in Tivoli. But no. He had to stand amid the mouldy walls of Sant'Angelo, half asleep, sweating like a pig, trussed and adorned like an ox.

"Fine then," he sighed, grabbing his hat and the large golden crucifix.

As he stepped across the threshold, Michelotto jumped to his feet, adjusting his sword belt. With a nod he followed the cardinal down the ramp towards the courtyard.

"And," murmured Cesare, "did they mend him?"

Michelotto coughed politely. "As well as was feasible, my Lord. He's wearing a high collar."

Cesare snickered, but his cheeky grin wilted as soon as they reached the yard. Mournfully he put his right hand upon the Crux Pectorale on his breast. Eyes downcast, he assumed his position behind the catafalque, the very image of composed grief. Only Michelotto was close enough to hear him grind his teeth.

II.

The day he wooed his bride, the bride who would have none of it and scorned him like no other, he wore a dashing farsetto in mi-parti, crimson velvet halved with yellow silk.

He entered Chinon on a Wednesday, the 18th day of December 1498, mounted on one of the famous Gonzaga corsieri, the most coveted destriers ever bred in Italy. The horse was decked out in a splendour that equaled its master's, caparisoned with red satin and cloth of gold, sporting embroideries of gems and pearls.

Cesare's bonnet sparkled in the winter sun. It bore double rows of rubies and jewels and his collar with the pendant of diamond was worth a good thirty thousand ducats, or so they said.

However, neither trappings nor scented paste of almond and white jasmine could quite hide Cesare's rash, that unfortunate sign of the mal francese, but compared to Giuliano della Rovere riding next to him, Cesare at twenty-three still looked the epitome of youth and vigour.

He was rid of the cardinal's porpora, and he was free to show his family's wealth: unabashed, unashamed, worldly through and through.

The French barons giggled behind their gloves. Who did he think he was, this parvenu? They smiled condescendingly at his vibrant silks dyed sky-blue, sunflower, and deepest emerald, snickered at the Italian fashion of slashing the sleeves to show off clouds of muslin, of wearing ornamented belts to girdle the unseemly mass of wraps and capes and tunics. "Vulgar," Cardinal d'Amboise said disapprovingly. "Nouveau riche," Louis XII nodded and piously folded his arms over his chest.

When the first Carlotta, Cesare's intended, disdained him for having been a cardinal, he gritted his teeth, again, and took the other Carlotta, the second-rate, ugly one who seemed willing enough. She was long of nose and dour of mien but what she lacked in charm she made up in connections.

Consequently it didn't matter whether Charlotte wore her French nunnery rags for the wedding or one of the dresses he'd brought from Rome; once they got naked it was all the same, and the court was mostly interested in the sheets.

Besides, he didn't much care for women.

III.

The day he brought down Caterina Sforza like the rabid bitch she was, he wore black. On the days he had his brother-in-law assassinated, and seduced Astorre Manfredi, the young lord of Faenza, only to have the mangled body thrown into the river, he wore black. When Ramiro de Llorca was garrotted and beheaded, and the Orsinis, Vitellozzo, and Oliverotto da Fermo all lured into a trap, he wore black, of course; a habit he had copied from the French. Filthy sons of whores though they were, they certainly had flair.

His return to Rome in early 1500 gave the Romans pause: they were used to fireworks and cavalcades, musicians and jugglers to accompany the unending train of horses and mules laden with artillery and spoils, but this? Seemed an oddly muted affair.

More than anything else it looked like a funeral: black drapings covered the baggage wagons, and the troops were turned out in black, just like the Gonfaloniere.

A simple robe of black velvet covered Cesare's knees above the boots, his only piece of jewellery the gold collar of the Order of Saint Michael. Looking up Via Alessandrina, the road his father had had built for the Holy Year to ease the passage of pilgrims to Saint Peter's, he knew the envoys and spies to be watching from their appartamenti, furiously scribbling dispatches: the freshly minted Duke of Valence and Lord of Romagna had come home greatly changed, they wrote. Confident and serious, shriven of frivolity, he was the new, the one, the only force to be reckoned with, with or without the Pope's backing.

Not everyone was alarmed by his lengthening shadow, though.

"You look good," Michelotto smiled into his hair, as they dragged each other across the master bedroom in Cesare's palazzo of San Clemente. "Campaigning seems to agree with you. So, who died?"

Cesare pulled off his kid gloves. "Who died?" he purred and let his hands wander underneath the hem of Michelotto's well-worn giornea. "Nobody of consequence, I believe."

He pulled his friend close, slipping the brown surcoat over his head, letting his fingers roam over Michelotto's backside. Gods, he had missed this, having to work his way through Michelotto's clothes, because the pretty little ephebes Da Vinci set him up with were loose and dropped their shifts the second he looked at them. And while it had been entertaining to tear through Caterina's gowns and keep her privates accessible at all times, it had only been to put the bitch in place.

Rubbing his forehead against Michelotto's shoulder, he fumbled with the strings and buttons that connected the close-fitting hose to the white shirt below Michelotto's tailored farsetto. The cloth whispered under his fingertips, and Cesare hummed, savouring the feel. Like skin, almost. "You know what's remarkable?" he crooned, opening the jacket's neck clasp with a nibble, "you're always so soft and... clean. One would be tempted to think you hardly ever spill a drop of blood."

Michelotto sprawled across the wide window sill. "I don't," he grinned, allowing Cesare to untie his sleeves. "I prefer the garrotte. And if you absolutely need to use a knife," he gasped while his friend shoved farsetto and shirt away, "there are methods to check the spray."

Cesare smirked and freed Michelotto from his underwear. "I am sure there are." With that he pushed him back onto the sill, padded by the giornea of faded velvet, and took him in his mouth.

Michelotto swallowed the "I've missed you" that had been on the tip of his tongue, slipping his fingers into dark folds instead. Soon he clutched the sable lining as if holding on for dear life.

IV.

The day he lost his kingdom, a realm that never was, he wore little. A wide camacia, no longer white, smelling of sweat and imprisonment; underwear that could have borne changing, and a hose of dark wool he was sorely tempted to take off but wouldn't.

The Neapolitan sun was scorching as the summer of 1504 neared its peak. It felt hotter still under the roof of Castel dell'Ovo, the fifth of his many prisons. Cesare had long succumbed to lethargy when the door opened to admit Gonsalvo de Córdoba, his erstwhile ally turned jailer.

Sick and weary, Cesare threw the gran capitán a look of disgust. "You will excuse me if I don't get up. It would be a waste of manners on a host who betrays his guests."

Gonsalvo inclined his head. "You are excused, my friend. Why, I have no inclination to discuss mancanza di fede with you, of all people. I am merely asking that you yield the password to the Romagnol castles."

With that he tossed him a bundle of cloth. It unfolded stiffly, golden brown velvet crackling with dried blood. Cesare controlled the trembling of his hands and shrugged. "What new kind of insult is this, capitán? Queen Isabel deigns to give me a giornea, that I may enter her presence in style?"

"Let us not mince words," Gonsalvo said, sounding strangely grieved. "You can save Miquel. Just give me the password."

As dread twisted his insides, Cesare gripped the garment harder and stared at the wall. "I've offered Della Rovere ten thousand ducats if he lets Michelotto go," he said quietly.

"I'm afraid you are no longer in a position to make such offers," Gonsalvo pointed out. "They've had him since May. And the prison of Torre di Nona is-"

"As nice a place as this?" Cesare gestured at his sweltering cell.

"You're not being put on the rack, are you? And here I thought petulance was beneath you."

Cesare's fingers threaded over the giornea's ripped braiding, traced dark stains across the amber pleats. "What..." He cleared his throat and began anew. "How can you guarantee his safety? Because it will have to be better than your word, which has already... proven itself of small worth."

Gonsalvo grimaced. "The Signoria of Florence has made a bid for Miquel da Corella's services after his release, provided he stays alive. Thus, the matter is in your hands."

"In my hands, you say." Their eyes met for a second, Gonsalvo's pleading, Cesare's contemptuous before they dropped back to the bundle. So much blood. "Very well. Fetch a scribe."

The day Cesare died he wore black again, even if it was not for long and underneath hastily strapped-on armour.

He had spent the night fretting and in pain from an ill-mended, fractured shoulder and the dull longing that was constricting his chest. The leaden skies were looking dismal. There was no point in a sortie, no point at all, yet he rode into the dawn with the fierce impatience of an angered lover. And when death came to claim him on this 12th day of March 1507 near Viana, in a godforsaken Navarrese valley under a castle of no importance, it found Cesare alone and naked.

After having stabbed him some twenty-odd times his killers stripped him of everything. They didn't know who he was; they only had eyes for his splendidly patterned cuirass and the good quality of his doublet. His lips were still moving when they dragged his body across the ravine and left him in the mud.

As his eyes were clouding, an early morning rain began to fall.

It washed the blood from his wounds, and the more it thinned the more it resembled the reddish pink of his cardinal's robes, given to him when he was eighteen.