Title from "She Walks in Beauty" by Lord Byron.
This fic has been sitting on my computer for a little while now. I decided to just embrace the lovely disjointedness of the scenes and post them as separate chapters instead of trying to make it one big one-shot. Canon divergent from 3x06. Enjoy!
"I would ask you to marry me."
"As you wish. My word is my word. We shall run away, change our names perhaps, live out our days in some small fishing village by the coast where no one will ever guess who we once were."
In this life, the enterprising Cardinal Constanzo disregards the words of the Borgia bastard and instead delivers the Sforza peace offering to Pope Alexander VI. Jacob's ladder had long since reincarnated itself within the walls of Rome, and he intends on climbing it.
By the time word reaches Cesare in Milan of his father's illness, the bells in Rome have already tolled his death, and Pius III has taken the mantle of Christ's Vicar on Earth.
However, it is Julius II who meets him outside the gates of the city, looks down his nose at Cesare's dusty clothes and grief-stricken face, and tells him to ride on; that the murderous, illegitimate son of the Whoremonger of Rome would never again be welcome inside the gates of the Holy City.
"I would ask your permission, Holiness," Cesare grits out, "to collect my mother and her household—"
"Your mother was escorted from the city days ago," della Rovere tells him, spitting the words out. "She went south, to Naples. I'm sure you will be…welcome there." Della Rovere smirks and Cesare knows that there is another gambit afoot, one more boot swinging towards the Borgias while they already lie wheezing on the ground.
He sets his heels to the side of his horse and wheels it around. "To Naples," he says to Micheletto, and they speed away from the Papal entourage without any further adieu. Rome recedes behind them, and Cesare can feel the tug of the city on his soul, calling him back to its streets, to its dark corners, to the gardens of its palaces. He allows himself to rein up at the top of a hillock and to cast one last look on the glittering dome of St. Peter's, where his family had tasted power, had rolled its spicy sweetness over their tongues and hungered for more and more. Cesare's heart clenches bitterly in his chest. He had been on the cusp of true greatness in Milan and some lackwit Cardinal had ruined it all.
Micheletto's horse prances anxiously, sensing the mood of the men. "Were I an only child I would be headed back North, to Milan, to beg for a position in the French army." Cesare remarks lightly, his lips lifting into a sardonic smirk.
"You are not an only child, though, my lord," Micheletto replies, and Cesare exhales heavily through his nose.
"No," Cesare says, urging his horse forward again, "I am certainly not."
Their horses gallop south toward Naples, and Cesare matches the four beats of his horse's hooves to the only word that matters.
Lucrezia.
Lucrezia.
Lucrezia.