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The Borgias S3E10
Pt. 36 A Promise
"This is a dream," she gasped between the few seconds that his hand left her mouth and was replaced with his lips; lips that she yielded to and found familiar; lips which, finally and very reluctantly, released hers.
"Did that feel like a dream, sis? Does this?" he murmured against her throat before he took hold of it roughly and then gave it just the graze of a bite.
"Cesare? What...how..." she struggled to get the words out as well as to free herself from his grip.
"Don't trouble yourself over the what and the how of it—I needed to see you—we need to talk, do we not? Stop it, Lucrezia!" he ordered her angrily through gritted teeth as he easily subdued her struggle against him.
"I am tired of this tactic—I do not appreciate it, at all!" she railed against him.
"Tired? It has been tried before, then, by another who was not myself—who was he! The Duke? Your amorous Cardinal? Who!" he demanded.
"Have you lost your very mind, Cesare?"
"Who was it!"
"Lower your voice before you bring attention to my door," she hissed at him.
"I pay this convent enough to keep attention from your door..." he hissed back at her; Lucrezia recoiled within his grip.
"Let me go, Cesare, I do not want this," she said finally, as her eyes glowered at him in the flickering candlelight.
"That is a lie that I not only see, but can feel, sis..." he leveled at her then as he loosened his grip, but only a little.
"Why do you toy with me, Cesare? You tell me that you love me, no matter what or whom; you betroth me to another and then abandon me to him; you come back to Rome, back to our home, unannounced, and ignore me—the night before I leave to attempt do that which you and father want of me and to reconcile myself to another—rub your abandon in my face—now this? You come to me like a rapist in the night and expect to be received with my open arms? You certainly ask much of me—or do you even know what you are asking of me? Where is your mind? I will not say it again: let me go."
Cesare yanked her so forcefully closer back to him that it took Lucrezia's very breath away and she gasped against him.
"Where is my mind? That is a good question, my love, for I ask it of myself daily...search for the answer in my dreams—dreams, always, filled with you; of you, about you. Where is my mind? Consumed...with guilt; over my own cowardice. Yes, I abandoned you, because I told myself it was the right thing to do to set you toward your truest freedom and on to your life; but that is a lie. I left you the morning Alfonso came to Rome because I could not bear to see his influence upon your sweet face; could not bear to see even a hint of the love you may in time feel for him—not even the contemplation of it! So I ran like a coward, away from you, called it a necessary sacrifice; and all I found was my own crushing heartbreak! That I've managed to think straight enough to command armies and continue my campaign is a miracle in and of itself.
"I came to you last week, came to your very door in the midnight hour, and was too much the coward—still—to move my hand to knock upon it; for, even unbeknownst to you that I was there, I could feel your wrath emanating from your room...palpable...deadly...more frightening than my staunchest enemy or any foe I've faced on a battlefield; so I ran like a coward again, away from you rather than find the light of your love for me extinguished in your eyes...in your heart..."
"So, you come to me like a truer coward, then? A thief in the night who comes to take what he wants under the cover of darkness? We have both done many abominable things, Cesare, but never one against the other—until now. You will unhand me."
Cesare felt the sting of her words as if he had been bitten by a venomous viper and was helpless not to obey her; he released her and rolled away from her.
Lucrezia rose from the bed to light more candles; she went to the adjoining room where Giovanni lay in his crib to make sure that he was undisturbed and found that he was still fast asleep; she tip-toed out and brought the louvered doors quietly shut and returned angrily to her brother, who was sitting then on the edge of the bed and watching her intently; as she reached him he held a tentative hand out to her; she stopped in her tracks and gave him a look of total contempt before she began to pace the floor before him.
"Lucrezia..."
She stopped and faced him again. "Do not speak, Cesare; do not," she warned him as she took to pacing again. "I find it difficult to assemble all of my hurt now into even one cohesive word, let alone a sentence—do you understand me?"
"Lucrezia..."
"Say my name again and I shall scream out, Cesare, I mean it—do not speak," she said through clenched teeth and closed eyes as she stopped pacing again, this time with her back to him.
Behind her Cesare clamped his mouth tightly shut and physically put a hand to it, more than undone and waiting with bated breath to hear what she would finally say to him, fearing that he had lost her for good.
Lucrezia composed herself and finally turned to face him again. She took in the sight of him properly before she spoke, allowing herself just a moment to savor him looking handsome and tantalizing as ever, shirtless and barefoot, wearing only his black leather breeches. She comported herself then to say what she needed to say. "I would plunge a dagger into both of our hearts right now if it would end this torment, once and for all, if I did not have a child and this one on the way to love and care for—do not doubt that, Cesare Borgia. But as we are so cursed to live this life as siblings we must make a choice, here and now: to either end this torment or endure it, without spilling blood, either way.
"If you truly mean to seek release for and from me, then you will do it now—tonight—and never come to me again in such a way as this, Cesare..."
Cesare tore his hand away from his mouth and stood to face her, blinking at her through tear-filled eyes as he approached her slowly.
"No—stop there, brother," she ordered him forcefully. "We will see each other one last time at my wedding, but only because decorum will call for it, and then we shall not set eyes upon each other again. We will end this now and face to face."
"Or..." he dared to whisper at her through trembling lips.
"Or? Or..." Lucrezia's resolve wavered and she took a step away from him, in a panic at the thoughts running through her head.
"If I do not choose to release you, sis, what then?" he asked her quietly as began to advance slowly upon her again. "If I choose to love you, as I always have, and never forsake you again..."
"Cesare, please..." she backed away from him.
"If I give up this most foolish and impossible endeavor to release you from my heart...where you ever reside and always will..."
"Do not toy with me, Cesare..." she begged him in a whisper as her own tears began to stream down her face.
"You cannot run from me sis, any better than I have tried to run from you..." Lucrezia turned her back to him and cried audibly as Cesare caught her up and took hold of her heaving shoulders. "No matter where I was or what my task, I tried to escape—into my duties in my waking hours and into nothing during my sleeping ones—and still I only ran into you, always in my waking thoughts and in my dreams; I abandoned you, most assuredly, Lucrezia,with my person, my love—but my heart never did..." he brought her into his embrace and spoke softly into her soft, loose, flowing locks. "Never..."
"What I would do, Cesare..." she gasped through her tears, "what I would do...if you truly meant that..."
"Please tell me that you do not doubt it, sis...would I be here now if I did not? You know the answer to that. Look at me and tell me that you know it..." he turned her gently to face him. "Tell me that you know it..." he murmured as he rested his forehead upon hers, his eyes burning into her own.
"You must never do this to me again, Cesare..."
"Never again, sis..."
"For we are back to our original plan, then, and that changes everything about my trip to Ferrara," she said worriedly, more to herself than to her brother.
"You found your favor with him..." Cesare accused her.
"Only because I thought I had lost yours."
"And did he get his hands on you?"
"Please do not do this..."
"Answer me, sis."
"We shared a kiss, Cesare," she admitted uneasily as she pulled away from him.
"No..." he pulled her back to him. "You enjoyed his kiss?"
"Cesare..."
"Did you?"
"His kiss was not yours, Cesare, do not do this to me."
"And now?"
"And now...and now I will endure whatever I must—can only endure whatever I must—as long as I know that I have your love."
"I'm sorry, sis, please forgive me...I am only a man, after all..." he hugged her to himself in apology.
"Cesare, all of these circumstances and people that keep us away from each other—you must never do this to me again...and you must never doubt my love for you...promise me," she ordered him, even as fresh tears rolled down her cheeks.
"I will not ever...I promise..." he said as he slipped her gown delicately away to bare a shoulder and kiss it.
"Cesare, no..." she said uneasily.
He stopped and gave her a questioning look. "He has had an effect upon you, then..."
"No, stop it...it is not that, at all. I am showing now—the baby..." she said awkwardly.
"Ah...you have never been with a loving husband during pregnancy," he gave a teasing smile at her, "therefore you know not that a husband's desire does not wane at such a time."
"And what do you know of being a husband, brother? A question, I'm sure, that your wife must ask daily..." Lucrezia said as she wiped away tears from her cheeks.
"My 'wife' wanted a child more than she wanted a husband—I gave her a child; my 'wife' wanted to stay in Avignon more than she wanted to come to Rome—she is in Avignon; my 'wife' is a beautiful French woman—and not at a loss for handsome lovers, I hear on good authority. Never let it be said that I know not how to husband a wife—even if that wife is one in name only. You are my truest wife; I am your truest husband—you know this."
"Well, this 'wife' is with child, and you know the view of the Church regarding the conjugal bed at such a time, Cesare, regardless of my 'husband's' desire."
"Or your own..." he said as he disengaged from her, took her hand and led her back to the bed where he sat down beside her.
"Cesare, again I ask you, what do you know—"
"You forget that I was once a cleric, my love; I have heard many guilty confessions—from men as well as women—over committing just such a transgression—repeatedly," he chuckled to himself. "It is not unclean and at this time neither is it unsafe, sis."
"But the Church..."
"Damn the Church."
"Cesare!" Lucrezia was completely scandalized.
"The Church says that priests cannot marry; that the Pope should abstain, should have no wife or children—yet here we are, Lucrezia; Rome—the world—is filled with the children of priests and Pope's..." he leaned conspiratorially into her then. "And do you know what else they do, my love?"
"I am afraid to ask."
"They make love on Sunday..." he kissed her hand, "and on feast days..." he traveled it up her arm to her neck, "and all twenty days before Christmas..." he gave a little bite to her neck and then kissed it.
"Imagine that," she replied in a swoon.
"We won't have to imagine it, my love..."
"I'm curious, brother—what penance was required of your guilty flock? The pregnant ones..." she whispered at him as he leaned her back upon the pillows.
"Ah, yes—I told them to say a Hail Mary with every sigh of pleasure and save their confessions for truer sins against Our Lord..."
"You did not!"
"There it is—that smile I so love to see upon your beautiful face," he smiled back at her and his was full of joy. "I have missed it...I have missed you—welcome back to me, sis..." he murmured at her before his lips descended upon hers.