Betta read the letter brought by a company of armed guards wearing the livery of the Duke of Ferrara with a heavy heart. Before she had cracked the wax seal on the missive she had known what the contents would say from the faces of the men who waited to accompany her to Ferrara. Despite her scandalous early life Lucrezia was a well loved Duchess who had worked to better the lives of her people and she was now more well known for her piety then her scandalous family. The Duchess had withdrawn more and more from from public life after the death of Rodrigo, Lucia's twin brother, and her last letter had been filled with foreboding as the Duchess faced another difficult pregnancy.
"To Elizabetta de Corella
For your great courtesy attend me at the convent of Corpus Domini. I recognize that the end of my life approaches and before I yield to nature I would see you one last time. In Ferrara the 10 th of June 1519 at the Convent of Corpus Domini. Yours in Christ, Lucrezia Borgia.
Their procession wound its way through the mountains on a journey that Betta had not repeated in the years since the death of Cesare Borgia. The wars that had raged since the passing of Borgia supremacy had left the land scared and filled with desperate people who viewed travelers as little more than possible targets for robbery. Micheletto did not accompany them on this journey. The time that he had spent in the Castle St. Angelo had twisted the bones in his left leg and made travel very difficult for him. The former assassin spent his days looking after the vines and teaching the little boy with red curls that shadowed his every movement. In addition to the escort the Duke had provided Betta and Lucia were accompanied by one of the guards that Valentino had left at her home who had stayed and married Ginevra and become a permanent part of their lives.. When their party arrived in Ferrara they were escorted to the Duke of Ferrara immediately.
A page led them in to the Duke's chamber and left with a bow. The man who rested in a chair before the unlit fireplace was large and blunt looking, with the d'Este coloring but none of the suave diplomacy. He was a man accustomed to getting his own way, Betta could see, and she felt tension tighten between her shoulder blades when his gaze raked over her and then jerked when he beheld Lucia.
When he rose and stood before Lucia the Duke dwarfed her, and his rich garb blazed with gold thread and fine embroidery next to Lucia's simple gray tunic and scapular. He brought his hand to her chin and tilted the girl's head so that her face was fully illuminated by the light from the window.
"So this is the child that was hidden." Betta froze, and her muscled tensed for flight although her face remained impassive. She no longer wore her daggers strapped to her arm and thigh and she felt their absence like a missing limb.
"My daughter, your grace, and your lady wife's goddaughter."
Alfonso snorted and let Lucia's chin slip through his fingers with a final lazy caress of her cheek. Lucia stepped back, her face flaming with color. There was a rough sensuality about his movements that he did not attempt to conceal. "Please do not lie to me, Donna. I have my own sources of information and I have known about this little...secret..for a great many years. My wife did not cover her actions quite as well as she thinks."
"What would you have of us, my lord?" Despite the Duke's cordial manner there was a great danger here, and the trap his words could spring loomed before her like a dark pit. Conflict had torn through Ferrara since the death of the last Duke, Ercole, pitting brother against brother, and although they were no longer the preeminent power in Italy the Borgia name still carried considerable influence that could be used to his advantage.
"I would honor my wife by ensuring that this girl is well provided for in the years to come. My brother is quite enraptured by your daughter's beauty" he placed a subtle emphasis on the word daughter "and I feel certain that we could arrange a suitable marriage for her if that is your desire. The church need not be her prison for want of a dowry."
Betta chose her words with great care. "She has a true vocation, my lord, and has chosen a religious life despite my own objections and numerous offers of marriage."
Even before she had entered her menarche the beauty of the Corella's daughter had become a source of great interest to the young men who had chanced to glimpse her delicate face but Lucia had never wavered from her decision to enter the church. At her instruction Micheletto had rejected proposals from rich merchants and infatuated noblemen from Sienna who must have had some word of the dowry that awaited her should she marry.
The Duke grunted and addressed Lucia directly. "Can you not speak for yourself? Your father." the Duke smirked slightly "was a great friend of mine." His dark eyes roamed over the girl who favored his dying wife so closely with less then paternal interest despite his kind words.
Lucia's voice was low and melodic, huskier then was normal for a woman. She had little in common with her grandfather except for that beautiful voice, which was as compelling and mesmerizing as his had been. "I have always known that I was destined for the church, my lord, and despite the generosity of your offer I must decline the many kindnesses that have been offered by your family."
Alfonso roared with laughter. "A politician, I see! Praise God that women are not allowed to be clerics or I fear we would have another Borgia pope! Very well but keep it in mind should the need every arise. Now come, I will take you to her." Alfonso sobered as they walked out of the castle towards the rose colored convent. "She has been a good wife, and given me many fine sons. I will miss her when she is gone."
"Is there no hope for her recovery?"
"She no longer cares to live, I think."
When she was shown into the Duchess's room Betta did not at first recognize the wasted woman in the bed as her mistress. Repeated pregnancies and rich living had thickened her body over the years but the extra weight was gone now, drawn away by the fever that burned in hectic patches of color on her cheeks. Lucrezia Borgia had aged significantly in the years since the death of Cesare, and she looked more like a grandmother then a woman who had just birthed another child. After that initial moment of shock the two images merged and Betta could see the beautiful lines of her face that were unchanged. Betta tried to keep silent but a soft sob escaped her as she saw that death was indeed near, brought on by fever and a profound lack of interest in continuing the struggle for life.
Lucrezia's eyes fluttered open and when she saw Betta she smiled. The Duchess dismissed her other attendants with a wave of her hand and motioned for Betta to come closer. Betta sat on the bed and took her hand.
"How dare you appear before me as slim as a girl." Lucrezia croaked. Betta smiled.
"My hair is far grayer then yours, my lady." Lucrezia reached up and racked her fingers through her shorn locks. Her hair had been cut in an effort to curb her illness and brown curls faintly streaked with gray rioted around her face and clung to her temples. Lines marched around her eyes and mouth, and although her gray eyes were lovely they were tired and utterly sad, sunken into dark sockets. "It hardly matters now."
"My lady." Betta begged, no longer able to stem her tears. "Fight. This need not be the end. Think of your husband and children."
"No, my friend." Lucrezia lifted her hand and wiped away the wetness that flowed down her face. "He is not here to save me this time. I am tired, and have buried too many that I love. I welcome the coming darkness. But come; tell me of your life. You have a son now?"
Betta dashed away the remnants of her tears and smiled as she thought about Nico, her unexpected miracle. When her belly had begun to round almost ten years ago she had been oblivious to the possibility of a child. The crone who had ended her first pregnancy had assured her father that she would never be able to carry another and the shard of ice from that wound had lodged so deeply in her heart that she had ceased to notice its persistent weight. It had taken her sister, now gray haired and soon to be a grandmother, to suggest that the roundness which had begun after Micheletto had returned from prison might be something other than stoutness. She had cried for joy the first time she had felt the babe moving inside of her, and Micheletto had been so shocked when she had told him that he had been unable to speak. He had spent the duration of her pregnancy in a state of white knuckled terror and only her delivery of the child who had emerged with waving fists and fiery curls had alleviated his anxiety. He watched over the children with a single minded ferocity and his vigilance had been justified on more than one occasion. A group of marauding soldiers had once attempted to capture Lucia while the girl walked the fields with her father on a cold, midwinter morning before anyone else was about that might have come to their aid. The soldier's companions had discovered three rotting bodies buried to their necks in the surf near their camp, which effectively dissuaded any further attempts to harm the girl. Betta shared this tale with Lucrezia, and others about the red headed boy in the house by the water that they had filled with love and the laughter of children.
"I gave you the life he spoke of once, did you know that? He wanted to marry me and run away." Lucrezia plucked at the blanket that covered her chest. "How I have envied you all of these years." Spots of color were burning in her cheeks.
"My life has been more blessed then I could have hoped for, my lady." Betta laid her forehead against Lucrezia's hands. She tried to find the words to tell Lucrezia how much she had meant to her but they seemed hopelessly inadequate to express her gratitude to the woman who had given her both a child and a wonderful, happy life. Lucrezia understood for she touched Betta's wet cheek and smiled.
"The end of our long journey together approaches. How glad I am that you were there with me." Her eyes scanned the room." Is she here?"
"Yes, my lady. Shall I bring her?" The Duchess nodded and Betta went to the door and motioned the girl forward. Lucia knelt next to the bed and clasped her mother's hand, which was adorned with a gold ring set with a large pearl. The simple gray robes of a novitiate did little to disguise the girl's beauty. "Take off your veil. I would see your face more clearly" Lucrezia rasped.
Lucia removed the wimple from her head. Her hair had not yet been cut to signify her marriage to Christ and the light brown curls that fell to her knees were bound back in a simple braid. The expression was as familiar to her as her own and pain sliced through Lucrezia as she saw the smile that crinkled the edges of familiar gold and hazel eyes. It was his face, the one that had haunted her dreams all the years since he had been gone, but her own as well, made still more beautiful with radiant goodness and purity. Lucrezia greeted her shyly, as though she were afraid of disappointing the daughter she had never known.
"Did she tell you..all of it?"
"Yes, my lady. I know who my father was."
"Does it horrify you?"
Lucia took her mother's hand and Betta was struck by how much they resembled one another. Despite the differences in hair and eye color their elegant bone structure and facial features where identical. Seeing them together it was impossible to mistake them for anything other than mother and daughter.
"My mother has told me your story, my lady, and that of my father. The laws of man may say that the love you bore one another was wrong but in my heart I know that such love is a gift from God. How could it ever be wrong in his eyes? " Lucrezia began to sob, great heaving convulsions that shook her frame. "Be at peace. "
Lucia held her mother and continued to whisper words of comfort until her sobs had quieted and she could motion Betta forward. "Chest." she whispered, pointing to a small carved box that stood on a table next to the narrow window that let a single beam of afternoon sun illuminate the room.
Betta remembered this box. Carved from a dark, fragrant wood, Lucrezia kept her most precious possessions in the locked confines. She tried to struggle into a more upright position but her strength had deserted her and Betta gently lifted her higher up on the pillows. Lucrezia seemed feather light in her arms, wasted by the ravages of fever and a difficult pregnancy that had ended with another dead child. The Duchess took out a sheaf of papers tied with a ribbon and a heavy golden ring that was set with an enormous black pearl.
"His ring." she whispered, caressing the luminous pearl as though it were alive. "The twin of my own. It was brought it to me..after." Even now she could not speak his name. She untied the papers. "Our private letters, yours to do with as you wish. And..." Lucrezia's voice trembled as she drew out the last item that remained in the chest. It was a sketch done in red chalk, and Betta immediately recognized the work of the artist who had visited her home so many years before. "This was sent it to me."
Master Da Vinci had caught Valentino in a moment of intense contemplation, staring out at some point in the horizon. His hair fell to his shoulders in a riot of curls and the features were the same ones he had passed on to his daughter. The finely carved cheekbones, generous mouth, and the shape of the slightly slanted eyes were perfectly rendered. Betta wished that there was more to the drawing then the simple head and shoulders that must have been drawn hurriedly, for Cesare Borgia had never been able to stand still long enough for a formal portrait. Perhaps if the master had painted it, using all of his considerable skill, his daughter would have been able to see some of the enormous vitality that had colored her father's every movement. The sensuality of his walk, and the roughness of his hands that had been better suited to handle a sword then a pen. Betta suddenly could remember his eyes exactly, flecked with gold and shining. And of course the artist had not seen Cesare with her mistress so he could never have witnessed Cesare as Betta always pictured him, rolling with laughter and playful, passionate devotion with Lucrezia in his arms.
The duchess fell back against the pillows, exhausted, and the fever came again. It drenched her clothes and the room, which was kept far too warm, began to stink with sweat and the faint smell of decay that Betta knew was the smell of approaching death. Lucrezia fell into a restless slumber that was broken by the words she spoke through the fever haze. "Never more beautiful than in his eyes." She opened her eyes and stared straight ahead. "The betrothal ball. We danced too close, always too close." And his name, which had not crossed her lips for years. "Cesare. Cesare." Her arms reached forward, trying to clasp something that was eternally out of reach.
Lucrezia opened her eyes and it was apparent that her reason was still gone for she stared at an unoccupied part of the room and began to speak in Latin, which Betta could not fully understand. "Satis? Satis?" She asked again and again, imploring in a voice that was as dry as autumn leaves.
Lucia answered, and her beautiful voice filled the room. "Eta vero, satis est." Her words seemed to reassure Lucrezia for she again fell into a slumber that allowed the fever to gradually subside.
Betta and Lucia remained at the bedside for the remainder of the night, and when the light of dawn began to streak across the horizon Lucrezia opened her eyes and was herself once more. Her hands reached for her rosary and she fingered the beads which had lost their rose scent and become misshapen from years of use.
"Do you think that he would even recognize me now?" she whispered.
Betta smiled. "My lady, if you were in a great hall and all of the lamps were extinguished would you know his hands in the darkness, even amidst a great host of others?"
"Yes." Lucrezia closed her eyes as the tears came again.
"Then how could it be any different for him? You will find him again, my lady. All that you have done in the years since he has gone will make it so. God is merciful." There was a certainty in her heart that the words that she spoke were true. The God that she had come to know through her daughter, who had given her Micheletto and the children, would have mercy on her lady who had paid so grievously for the sins of her family. The sun streaming through the windows now made dazzling patterns that moved across the floor as the hours past and the fever, which moved like the tide, came and left again, sapping still more of the Duchess's remaining strength. Lucrezia motioned her close.
"I would make my last confession."
She spent the next hour closeted with the Cardinal and when Ippolito allowed their return into the room he shot Lucia a look of deepest disappointment, which Betta found unexpectedly hilarious. She stifled a giggle and Lucia drew close and whispered into her ear. "The Cardinal had oftentimes offered to serve in a capacity other than that of my patron."
"Which you declined?"
"Of course. But considering my parentage perhaps my rejection of him seems more incongruous. I am, after all, a Borgia." It was the first time that she had referred to herself thus and Betta could see the change that had come about within these walls. Lucia had finally acknowledged that she was the last true remnant of the family that had once controlled the fate of Christendom. Her grandfather had occupied the chair of St. Peter. Her mother was the infamous beauty Lucrezia Borgia and her father was Cesare Borgia, and she had been born of an incestuous love affair that changed the face of Italy. Lucia de Corella no longer existed, and the world that stretched out before Lucia Borgia was lit with infinite promise. Betta clasped Lucia's forearm and she could feel, under the rough wool of her tunic, the knife strapped there that matched the one tucked into her garter. Betta had gifted the daggers that had seen her through so many adventures to her daughter when the girl had left for the convent. Although Micheletto was no longer an assassin he had trained Lucia in the deadly arts and she knew that the woman before her could defend herself should the need arise on the journey that was to be her life.
When Betta and Lucia returned to the room the end was drawing near, and the moments of lucidity were becoming shorter and shorter as her lady's body succumbed the fever.
"I would ask one last thing of you," Lucrezia whispered.
"Anything, my lady."
"Tell me our story once again until I can sleep and then take her and be gone before my end comes. My husband and children will wish to say goodbye and I...I would have you remember me as I was, not as I am."
And for the last time Betta told the story of the great and terrible love that she had born witness to. The years had not dimmed her memory but it was becoming more like the recollection of a particularly beautiful and vivid dream and only the presence of their daughter, holding her mother's hand for the last time, convinced her of its reality. Their story ended with the kiss that she had carried to her lady and when Betta finished the tale she saw that Lucrezia Borgia was peacefully asleep at last.
The ending of that story had finally shown Betta how she could tell her mistress goodbye. There was a secret that remained, one that she had never spoken out loud although Micheletto, who knew her so well, had always suspected the truth of it. It did not matter to Betta that Lucrezia was not awake to hear this last revelation for it had never been her burden to bear. Betta leaned close, and said, so softly that only the air in the tiny space between them could hear, "I loved you. From the very beginning I loved you." And she kissed her lady's lips and left Ferrara as Lucrezia Borgia had wished.
The Duke graciously allowed the escort to accompany them home. When they arrived at the villa by the sea Micheletto waited for her with strong arms that held her tightly in comfort as he whispered the news that had arrived only hours before. The Duchess of Ferrara was dead, and the term of Betta's service to the Borgia family was over.
Note- To everyone that has read this tale and loved it: Thank you. The telling of this story has given me more joy then you can imagine. And for Becky, my Beta, you have kept me honest and made this story much better then would have been possible on my own. Thank you.