Note- I am planning on one more chapter, as well as a bonus chapter containing a few scenes that I will publish separate from this so that it can keep its current rating.
Betta looked up from placing an enormous basket of fresh bread on the table set in the courtyard to see a small company of men baring the banner of the Duke of Ferrara riding towards her home. Around her the sounds of spring planting filled the air as the workers hurried to finish planting the fields before the rain that darkened the skies overhead arrived. Betta braced herself for more bad news, as all the news of the past years had proven to be. First the death of the Pope. Then the defeat and imprisonment of Cesare Borgia. And from Micheletto there had been no news at all for over a year.
The man that dismounted to greet her was young and of middling height, with dark hair and eyes and features that were pleasant but unremarkable. When he spoke his words were curiously accented, as though he had spent a great deal of time away from his homeland.
"I am Cardinal Ippolito d'Este. I come at the behest of my brother Alfonso." Betta poured him a glass of wine from the table and motioned for him to continue. "We have lately had word that the Duchess's brother, Valentino, was killed in Navarre. He was found naked upon the battlefield, stripped of his armor after a skirmish. The duchess is...inconsolable. We fear her reason has fled."
Betta dashed away the tears from her cheeks. Dead. She remembered Cesare Borgia as she had last seen him, sad but still driven and full of vigor, kissing her until her knees had turned to water. She wished fiercely that she had taken him to her bed, simply to have the memory of him with her always.
"The Duchess has spoken of you to me and called you her dearest friend. Would you accompany me to Ferrara and try to provide some solace to her in her bereavement? We fear that she will take her life. Her wits seem to have left her entirely. Over and over she says "The more I try to please God the more he vexes me." Ippolito frowned and paced around, his robes flapping around his ankles in the dusty courtyard. "I do not understand this. She worked for his release, yes, as it was only appropriate that she do, but the interests of the duchy were at odds with that of Valentino. She would not have sided with her brother against her husband, especially after the death of her father and my brother was gracious enough to keep her as his wife. She never spoke of Valentino, even to me, and I would not flatter myself overmuch by saying there is no one she is closer to in Ferrara. "
Betta understood it, only too well. The genius of the Borgia family was that they could present so many faces to the world, and each person implicitly believed whatever they were shown. Lucrezia was at heart only a Borgia, no matter what her husband's family believed, and if she had worked quietly to further the interests or secure the release of her brother then it was only what Betta would have expected.
"Of course I will accompany you." Despite the danger there was a question she had to ask. "Your Eminence, what news of Valentino's henchmen Micheletto? We had a passing acquaintance many years ago." Betta asked. The names that Lady Lucrezia had provided them with had kept them hidden and she prayed that the Cardinal would not think her question warranted any further inquiries.
"The assassin?" Ippolito snorted. "That villain has been imprisoned in Rome for almost a year. He was captured by Gianpaolo Baglioni when he was trying to reach his master. I am sure his stay in the Castle St. Angelo will loosen his tongue eventually."
Tortured. That was what the Cardinal meant. Micheletto had been imprisoned and tortured for his knowledge of the Borgia family. Betta could not imagine the things he must have endured at the hand of the new Pope's servants. And he must not have revealed their existence or soldiers would have already come to collect Lucia that she could be used against her father. Which was no longer a possibility because he was dead. As Micheletto might already be, for how long could even his remarkable strength last on the rack? Betta dug her nails into her hand until the black spots that threatened to occlude her vision faded. She could afford no sign of weakness now. If the Cardinal saw how this news affected her he might think to look closer into their lives. Let Lucia stay in the fields, Betta silently begged. Please do not let this man who could be an enemy see her Borgia face.
It was too much to hope for. Drawn by the noise of the unexpected visitors, many of the field workers had returned to the house and the children followed close behind. Lucia came running into the courtyard with her cousins, the enormous black dog, Tiberius, at her heels. Ippolito watched as the child ran to Betta and embraced her. He smiled and then froze, stunned realization on his face as he took in the golden brown curls, sun kissed skin, and delicate features that were so familiar to him. Betta's heart leapt into her throat for she knew that the resemblance to Lucrezia was too great to be denied. But the memory of Cesare Borgia in her arms had placed a convenient truth on her tongue.
"Cesare Borgia left behind many children, even so far away as Grosseto." And she smiled enigmatically, daring him to inquire further. Cardinal d'Este nodded, but his gaze returned to the girl again and again as they made ready to leave. "A beautiful child." he ventured.
"Yes. The Duchess is her godmother and benefactress."
"Have you given thought to her future now that her father.."
Betta smiled sadly, seeing the road before her sweet child laid out as though by a divine hand. Lucia had lately begun to speak often of becoming a bride of Christ despite Betta's objections. It was not what she wanted for her daughter, and Betta felt her heart ache as the dream she had cherished of golden haired grandchildren withered and died. "She has expressed a desire to devote herself to the service of God, your eminence. If you could perhaps advise the best course.."
Storm clouds blew up from the water and seemed to follow them as they rushed to the Duchesse's side. A great amount of time during the journey to Ferrara was spent with the cardinal expounding on the various religious orders and the benefits to each for Lucia's career in the church and the cardinal graciously offered to serve as her patron in the years to come. Betta's relationship with horses had not improved with time and although she was capable on horseback she was glad of the distraction that the cardinal offered, and the respite it provided for her turbulent thoughts. Micheletto imprisoned and tortured. Cesare Borgia dead and left naked on a battlefield. Lucrezia Borgia driven out of her mind with grief. Micheletto tortured. The thoughts swirled around in her mind until they blotted everything else out and she wished that she were at home, where she could have gone down to the cliffs and screamed until her throat was raw and no one would have heard her over the pounding surf.
When they finally reached the city on the banks of the Po river it was the screams that she heard first as they approached the enormous, blocky structure of the castle. Peeling shrieks that echoed across the stone courtyard and seemed to fill the empty spaces with their desperate sound. The faces of the guards were white and strained, and they frequently glanced upwards to see if the Duchess as finally taken flight as they all feared. Above them on the covered balcony a lone figured paced back and forth, calling her sorrow down with the wind that had begun to howl.
The cardinal lead her through the maze of the castle and brought her to the heavy door of the Duchess's apartments. He motioned her forward, closing the door behind her. Betta sent the other ladies scurrying without effort. "Out." She commanded, and enough of them remembered her face and reputation that they grabbed their companions and fled the haunted rooms and the Duchess they had already consigned to the grave.
No candles had been lit to dispel the darkness of the Duchess's chamber. The room, once richly appointed, lay in ruins. Tapestries ripped from the walls hung in tatters to the floor, broken pottery shards littered the rugs, and jeweled ornaments and gowns lay scattered as though they were nothing more than rags. Every one of the precious mirrors that had been part of Lucrezia's dowry were shattered.
Betta picked her way through the rooms looking for her mistress. Lucrezia had stopped pacing and stood looking down at the stones of the courtyard which called to her with a siren's song. Betta waited silently, watching the weeping and screaming as the storm that had followed them from Grosetto had finally erupted with a shower of ice cold rain. The wind and rain buffeted Lucrezia's long hair until it swirled around her in a tempest. It was no longer as golden as it had been, and the soaked brown strands were tangled into a wet mane that fell past her waist. Weeping scratches ran the length of her arms and across her face, and the nails on her hands were bloody and cracked.
Betta had tried to prepare herself for seeing Lucrezia again but the shock of it was like a blow. Betta recalled a woman who lived close to her family in Rome that had lost each of her five children in one season of fever. The woman had not cried when they buried her last daughter but her face had turned to stone and remained so until they found her floating in the Tiber. Lucrezia's face reminded her of the woman's silently screaming, dead face. Lucrezia drew close to the edge and would have climbed onto the wall had not Betta grabbed her arm and yanked her backward with a violent motion. Lucrezia Borgia looked at her but there was no recognition in the shattered grey eyes and another wild scream began to erupt from her throat. Betta slapped her viciously, the force of it sending Lucrezia's head cracking against the stone wall.
"You Borgia bitch. How dare you insult his memory by trying to kill yourself." Betta's voice was low and fierce. "He gave up everything to save your life and you would throw it away?" All of the anger and jealousy she had repressed for years came screaming to the surface and she suddenly furious. "Did his sacrifice mean anything to you?"
The slap cleared some of the feverish light from Lucrezia's eyes and Betta could see that Lucrezia at last recognized her.
"Dead. He is dead."
"What of your children and your husband. Do they mean so little to you that you would consign yourself to hell?"
The light of madness shone from her eyes, terrible and beautiful as the storm that raged about them. "Nothing ever mattered to me except for him!" Lucrezia shrieked, and her voice cracked and was gone as she began to weep once more. When she spoke again at last her voice was a tiny, croaking whisper that seemed to come from far away. "While he was alive there was a reason for me to live. Some day he could come back to me. While he was alive I could forget that I have been dead inside since he left. I was only ever alive in his arms and now I can't even look into a glass without seeing his face!" She brought her nails up and dug deep rivulets into her skin where the tears had made wet tracks. Betta grabbed her wrists to stop her. Lucrezia's despair was a phyical presence between them exposed like the bones on a battlefield.
Betta held her tightly, as she would have held her daughter when the child woke from a nightmare. "You have been far more lucky then I, my lady, for all that he is dead. All of my life I have wanted someone to look at me the way that Cesare looked at you. It might have been a sin but you were loved so much that part of me has always hated you for it." Betta said. "Never had I thought that you were a coward, Lucrezia Borgia. Would that I could return to the night where he bargained with God to save you so that I could tell him it was not worth it for you are not strong enough to live without him." She let go of Lucrezia and collapsed against the stones at her back and sat, exhausted.
"What?" Lucrezia croaked.
Betta laughed. "He never told you the reason why he cut himself off from you?" Betta shook her head. "Of course not. He would have protected you from that knowledge as well."
Lucrezia focused on her with a hungry light in her eyes. She crawled to where Betta sat. "Tell me. Every word." Her voice was horse, the delicate muscles in her throat shredded by the days of screaming. She gripped Betta's arms with her hands so tightly that there would be bruises the next day. And Betta told her of that desperate night when Lucrezia lay between life and death, and all of the words that Cesare had spoken which had refused to leave her memory no matter how much she wished to banish them. Words of passion, and longing as he held her dying body in his arms and bargained with God that she might live.
That was, Betta realized as she talked for hours, her role in the saga of the Borgia family. She was the watcher, the keeper of the memories of their bright and shining lives, and the only one that could tell the story in all its complexity because she had been there from the beginning. She was there when Rodrigo Borgia was nothing more than a Cardinal with monumental ambition and drive, when Vannoza had been the lover more than the mother, and when the children were beautiful innocents waiting to be sullied by the lives of those around them. Lucia could hear this story from her lips, and she was the only one that could make their daughter understand that the love her parents had born one another had not been wrong. The world around them was so corrupt that the love of Cesare and Lucrezia had been the only thing of worth that they could cling to, their island of tranquility in a dark, storm tossed sea.
When that tale was done she told Lucrezia another story, and then another. Of all the times she had watched them together when they were growing up, and how beautiful they were together, and how their daughter surpassed the loveliness of her parent's in every possible way. Betta told her of the loveliness of her child, who had the Borgia face but none of the darkness and seemed instead imbued with a transcendent grace. She told her lady of the visit she had had from Cesare Borgia and the artist, who had left a sheaf of drawing in her possesion that she cherished. "Lucia has told me that she desires to be a nun, can you fathom it? The daughter of the Borgias raised by two accomplished killers wishes to devote herself to good works and..."
Betta froze as an idea presented itself. There was a way that she could bring her mistress back from the brink, a task that she could give Lucrezia. "Penance." she whispered. "You must do his penance, my lady. Take his sins upon yourself and do penance for his sins as well as your own. He died unshriven, yes? Would you condemn him to hell when you could save him as he once saved you?"
"Penance." Lucrezia spoke the word slowly, tasting it as though it had a sweet flavor. The idea seemed to take root in her mind. "I can pray him out of the darkness." Lucrezia was still crying but it was no longer wild sounds tinged with the desperation of madness. She tilted her head to the sky and the fat raindrops mingled with the salt of her tears. "Cesare always thought that he was damned, that he had corrupted me. In truth I was the wicked one. I always knew how I truly loved him, and I corrupted him with my longing. Even as a girl I would watch him with women and long to be in their place. I used to wish that the whole of our world would die so that I could melt to dust in his arms." The tears had finally stopped as the resolve to live replaced the need to die. "And now he lies far away where I can never find him."
They sat together and watched as the storm passed and the sky began to lighten. "He gave me something for you if he should die." Betta said softly, nervous now that the moment she had secretly thought about for years was at hand. The dreams of it had haunted her sleeping hours, and she would awake trembling as the images of the beautiful golden bed at the Vatican faded. In the dreams she lay between them. Cesare and Lucrezia could no longer touch each other so they had touched her, and the scent of their bodies filled the air.
Desperate hope lit Lucrezia's face. "What?" She croaked.
Betta remembered that day out by the sea shore, the last time she had seen Cesare Borgia. His hair tossed by the wind, and she could almost taste the salt spray of his kiss, and how warm he had been. She remembered the heat of his hands on her body. She thought of him, the way that he moved and the sun as it had streaked through his hair, the way he smiled at Lucrezia. Her hands felt heavier, the muscles larger as she reached out and caught Lucrezia's chin in her hand and tilted her head. His essence was in the room with them, living inside of her as she brought her lips to Lucrezia's in a kiss.
She imbued all of the sadness and longing she had felt into the brush of lips that started out gentle but could not remain so. For this time and the endless moments that followed there was another presence in the room, directing her hands, saying goodbye in the only way that was left to him. His scent was there, redolent with the aromas of sunshine and leather and oranges.
Lucrezia returned the embrace desperately. "Cesare. My Cesare." She cried, and the kiss that went on and on was salty with the tears that flowed from their eyes. Throughout the night they held one another, and Lucrezia whispered to her all the parts of the story that Betta had never known. How she had idolized Cesare all the days of her childhood, and desired him before she even knew what the feelings that he aroused in her meant. And she spoke of kisses stolen, and lingering looks, and always knowing that he loved her as she loved him. Of the golden days of her youth, when the world had seemed full of infinite wonder, and the only God that she had worshipped was Cesare.
Betta stayed at Ferrara for the rest of that season caring for her mistress as the lady slowly regained her strength and reason. When the summer roses bloomed they walked arm in arm through the fields gathering the petals into large baskets. As Betta's mother had shown her they cooked the petals down and formed beads that retained the heady scent of the flowers. The beads were strung into a rosary which never afterwards left Lucrezia's possession.
1508
The man that limped down the road was dressed in rags, his hair an almost completely white tangle. The sight him was something Betta had pictured so often that when he finally appeared she could not trust the evidence of her eyes. She had long ago given up hope that Micheletto would return but still she spent part of each day under the tree where she had bid him farewell, thinking of their life together. Shock turned her into a living statue as the man laboriously made his way to where she sat and collapsed at her feet. When he looked into her face all that she could see were his dark blue eyes, unchanged despite the years spent apart.
His smile, once so rare, freed her to move. Betta knelt beside him and made to scream for help but her husband put his finger to her lips and held her as though she were something infinitely precious and lovely. "I thought it was my love for him that would keep me silent." A shudder racked his frame and she held him still tighter until she could feel his bones under the skin. "But yours was the face that I saw when I closed my eyes, when I thought my strength had finally left me. I never deserved someone such as you. But I am here, if you wish it." And all of the words of love that she had longed to hear tumbled from his lips in the days and weeks and years that followed.