I do not own the Spanish and Catalan Madrigal "Dindirin"
I own nothing.
The Borgias S3E10
A Home At The End Of The World
Ch 4 Of Love And Murder
Cesare Borgia was no fool; he and Diego Ramirez had made amends, but still did not trust the man as far as he could throw him; and even though he had happily opted out of Governor Nicolás de Ovando's ball, Micheletto surely went stealthily in his stead, to spy upon the events, and especially, Diego.
It was a night of high tension for Cesare as Lucrezia gave him nothing but her silence and a cold shoulder; they would set sail the following morning and, though the hour was late, the only ones getting any sleep at that point were the children.
Cesare sat up, fully dressed, and studied the maps that charted their course to Tortuga for the hundredth time; it was a half-hearted venture, for what was really on his mind was his sister, and how to heal the rift between them. He dared to throw his maps aside and leave his lonely bed to find her and attempt a conversation with her. He went downstairs and found her in the kitchen with Fati Ba, packing provisions for the voyage.
"Fati Ba, it is late—please go and get some sleep, I can manage the rest, yes?" Lucrezia smiled at the woman, busy cleaning ginger roots in a basin.
"I stay, La Doña," the woman said simply as she continued at her task without even looking up. Seconds later, Fati Ba felt the soft touch of Lucrezia's hand upon one of hers.
"To bed, Fati Ba..." Lucrezia urged her sweetly as she firmly took over the wet root in the woman's hand; Fati Ba smiled her acquiescence and left the kitchen, passing her amused Lady's brother at the archway leading out of the kitchen, leaning against it with his arms crossed, smiling at them both.
"Buenos noches, Don Ramirez..." the woman said as she hurried past him and away.
Lucrezia heard Fati Ba address her brother and a scowl grew upon her face immediately, but she did not turn around to level it at him. "Do you have nothing better to do, brother, than spy on me?"
"I'm not spying on you, Sis, I came to talk to you."
"Well, brother, I must tell you that you are wasting your time with such an endeavor, I have nothing to say to you."
"What are you doing there, Sis?"
Lucrezia rolled her eyes hard in her head at his question, and insistence upon annoying her.
"Preparing ginger root for the voyage, and focaccia bread; I suffered greatly with sea-sickness on the trip here and this is a remedy suggested by Dorotea; it helped to keep me from jumping overboard to end my suffering, if you must know. After all that has transpired of late, it seems that I have should have followed my first mind, in that regard."
"You don't mean that."
"Don't I brother?" Lucrezia snapped back at him, still engrossed in her task at the basin.
"You do not..." Cesare said as strode across the wide divide between them, his voice a soft reprimand at her. "Lucrezia..."
Lucrezia heard the slow saunter of his feet and could see him in her minds eye; the lead-off on his right foot and then the lazy sway of his hips, caused by his left foot crossing over the path of his right; his chest out, and probably partially bared under an unlaced and crisp white chemise; his shoulders back and his arms only barely at rest, as if he was at the ready to draw his sword against an enemy.
I am your enemy, now, am I not brother? At least my heart is. "Do not come near me, Cesare."
Cesare ignored her and continued his advance, then was finally upon her, his body only a hair's breadth away from her own. "And what do you do with that, then? The ginger root..." he asked her as if he seriously wanted to know; Lucrezia did not need to face him to confirm the smirk that was upon his face at her,
"If you must know, you suck on it; the flavor quells a restless stomach."
"Hmm...you suck on it? Lucky ginger root."
Lucrezia felt the gentle tug on a lock of hair at the back of her head as Cesare twined it around a finger and then give it kiss before he released it; she whipped around to face him, finally, pushing him angrily way from her as she did so.
"For the last time, get away from me Cesare!"
"I want to talk to you, Lucrezia," he responded calmly at her.
"I know what you want, and talking is not the truest part of your desire..."
"You are correct, Sis. But I wish to talk with you, nevertheless," he smiled at her.
"I have no time or patience for your buffoonery, Cesare Borgia..."
Cesare's smile faded. "Lucrezia, we must not take this quarrel along with us to our new home; can we speak, finally, to this thing that has divided us? Part and parcel to my thoughtless tack against you..."
"It pleases me, brother, that you are so aware of yourself...and your attempt at a reconciliation..."
Cesare stood taller before his sister, hopeful and hanging upon her every word, threatening another smile at her.
"—does not move me."
"Why will you not hear me out? I could explain myself quite—"
"You've already explained yourself well-enough, brother—or has your desire changed to something new? Or possibly...back to the original one, then? That led us here in the first place?" Lucrezia's question was an honest one, but dripping with condescension.
"Well, no...but, please—"
"Then we have already spoken to the matter, and I—"
Just then they were both interrupted by the loud and jovial entry of the Ramirez', back from the ball and making their way through the house upon Diego's drunken rendition of a lively madrigal.
"...Ruyseor, le ruyseor,
facteme aquesta embaxata,
Y digalo a mon ami:
que je ya s maritata, dindirindin.
Dindirin danya, dindirindin!"
"Alright, enough, Diego, enough, now—you'll wake the children..." Dorotea tried to shush her husband.
"Oh, my love, so right...quietly then..." he whispered back at her. "Dindirin danya, dindirindin..."
"Diego, hush...come on, to bed with you, you've only a few hours left before we must rise..."
"I...am awake my love, and could sing all night! I could dance you all the way to Jamaica and never get our feet wet!"
"That's lovely, husband, but I would rather my seat on our Rosa Bianca, if you don't mind..."
"Good evening, friends—do you need assistance up these steep stairs?" It was Micheletto who had appeared, as if out of thin air.
Diego looked his surprise and then beyond the man to see Cesare and Lucrezia entering the great room from the kitchen.
"Does no one sleep tonight?"
"The babies, my friend, but not much longer if you keep this up, hmm?" Micheletto nodded at him.
"You astound me, Micheletto, the way you get about with that cane—" Diego huffed at him, put off by Micheletto's interference and seemingly unscathed virility, which was assaulting his own, at that moment.
"The upside of torture, then, which encourages one to master new abilities, yes?"
"I am quite able to make this little climb on my own, thank you. You all missed an exquisite time, did they not, Dorotea?"
"It was an exquisite time, my love, and I am exquisitely tired...up with you, now..."
"And up with you, my love, but I don't think you'll be getting to sleep anytime soon..." Diego leered at her.
Dorotea gave an exasperated sigh at her husband and made away without him. Diego stood on the stair landing and surveyed the three assembled in their separate corners of the great room, then laughed out loud.
"So I am not the only one too excited to sleep tonight."
"Apparently not, my friend," Cesare managed a smile at him. Go to bed, already, we have things to discuss, here.
"A few hours to the rest of our lives. Goodnight to you all, then."
"Goodnight, Diego," Lucrezia smiled at him and spoke for her two men, who each gave him their silent nods. At the bottom of the landing Micheletto waited for Diego to disappear from sight, and then to hear the close of his bedroom door.
"Alright, then—to the back porch for a drink, yes?" Micheletto suggested when the coast was clear.
"So he said nothing?" From Cesare.
"He never even had an audience with Ovando; the dancing was lively, and so too, the music; it was not a night for politics—upon the ballroom floor."
"Elsewhere, of course," Lucrezia smiled her intrigue at him.
"Of course. The Governor's very private quarters; trying to encourage investors in the gold trade here—a fruitless endeavor, as he has it planned, and brought to his attention by a Taíno chieftain, whom he happily had murdered."
"I don't understand..."
"There is gold here, Lucrezia, but no true gold mines that will yield any real profit; many natives have been killed over that fact, alone—greed and misunderstanding—and a total lack of caring for any accountability. Blood will continue to flow here—innocent blood, more than anything else."
"As is always the way of things, it seems," came her disgusted reply.
"So then Diego was no threat; I did not have to worry with him at all, really—it was Dorotea that kept him drinking and dancing, and distracted from having any coherent audience with anyone or anything but his over-flowing goblet of wine."
Cesare and Lucrezia both shared a conspiratorial and appreciative chuckle over their Dorotea; but it was short-lived, as her thoughts went back to what the fast-approaching sunrise meant for them all. Without another word she got up from her seat and left the two men abruptly.
"You've not worked out a truce between you, I take it?"
Cesare gave Micheletto a sour look.
"I see."
"She will not listen to me...will not give me the chance..." Cesare reached his hand across the table for Micheletto's, but Micheletto withdrew it quickly from beyond his grasp.
"No."
"What?"
"Cesare Borgia, I will tell you now what I told you so long ago: I am clear about my feelings—for you both—and there needs to be clarity for the both of you, as well; I will not have our pleasure at the expense of hers."
"What? So now everyone must feel unloved?"
Micheletto found Cesare's little outburst to be almost comical; a little boy throwing a tantrum over his favorite toys, snatched up to be locked away; that's what he was at that moment; almost comical, but not enough to laugh at; for his selfish endeavors and the rush to his own happiness had wrought the foreseeable and inevitable predicament that he had forced them all into.
"No one here is unloved, most especially, you. Fix it all, Cesare; or simply fix what you can—with Lucrezia, first and foremost." With that Micheletto left him.
Cesare found that, as ever, there had been no rebuke or unkindness in Micheletto's voice, but he felt the sting of his words acutely, nevertheless.
Dawn arrived much too quickly for Lucrezia and Dorotea; as Diego promised, Dorotea found no respite in sleep, but he also promised that a newly installed and sumptuous bunk outfitted for a queen awaited her on the Rosa Bianca. Neither Cesare or Micheletto had gone to bed, which was an activity they were much accustomed to. Only Lucrezia laid her head down upon her pillow for a few brief hours before they were to set sail.
By sunrise the two families were assembled at the port, saying their goodbyes as their belongings were being loaded onto their separate ships.
"We shall make it a point, Lucrezia to see each other at least every Christmas, a standing tradition between us, yes?" Dorotea proclaimed through her delicate tears.
"Wherever in this world that we may be," Lucrezia replied through a strong hug, "Wherever we may be..."
"Yes..."
The men were busy supervising the deck hands but eventually the time came for them all to board their caravels; Lucrezia looked around the bustling port and saw an influx of new slaves, whom her heart went out to; new colonists, whom she did not envy in the least; and the multitudinous traders and merchants loading and unloading their own wares; she would miss none of it other than her Taíno servants, whom she had come to love and would miss, and fear for under continued Spanish rule.
"The time has come my love..." Diego said as he approached the two women with Cesare and Micheletto at his side. A last round of kisses and hugs between the women and their rosy-cheeked cherubs ensued, then more tears. Finally they were herded away, waving at each across the decks of their ships, moored beside each other, Lucrezia port-side and Dorotea, starboard; Dorotea gave a final wave and the blow of a kiss before she disappeared with Maria to lay her tired bones down upon her bunk below.
"And so now into another unknown," Lucrezia mumbled at no one in particular before she wiped away her tears and gathered Rodrigo and Giovanni, then headed below to her own cabin, where Fati Ba had already provisioned a waiting supply of ginger root and focaccia bread.
Cesare and Micheletto stood silently as they watched her go and then turned their attention to the river leading to the open sea.
"I would go and see after her, but she still has no words for me," Cesare said as he stared doggedly ahead. Just then a mate interrupted them, with a map in hand and a question.
"I'll leave it to you then, and go see about her, hmm?"
Cesare turned and looked his friend in his loving blue eyes. "Thank you, Micheletto."
There was a knock upon her cabin door.
And still he tries to make his case with me. Damn him. "Go away, Cesare," she called out her irritation at him.
"It is Micheletto."
Micheletto?
"Are you feeling alright? May I come in?"
"Yes...certainly...come in..." Lucrezia sat up to receive him; Rodrigo was asleep beside her and Giovanni was taken up with Princess on his own bunk nearby.
"Tio Micheletto!" Giovanni jumped up to give the man a hug.
"Shh, Giovanni, we don't want to wake your brother..."
"Sorry, mama..."
"Let Tio Micheletto settle you back upon your bunk, yes? Princess misses you..."
"Yes, mama."
Micheletto settled the boy and gave a kiss to the top of his head before he joined Lucrezia.
"Are you feeling sea-sick?"
"Amazingly, no; but I have my remedies at the ready."
"It is a short voyage; maybe, hopefully, you will feel no ill effects at all; you are a seasoned traveler, after all."
"I can only hope, Micheletto."
"May I sit? And may we speak, Lucrezia? About the thing that aggrieves you most at this time?"
"Parting from my Dorotea, you mean?"
Micheletto found her evasive strategy cunning and dropped his head, in what Lucrezia thought, was a proprietous show of respect, resignation, and resolve to let sleeping dogs lie; but when he raised his head and smiled at her, she knew instantly that she had read him most-incorrectly.
"Yes, Micheletto, please sit."
He took his seat on the edge of her bunk. "Cesare told me what you said before you left Italy; that you knew that I loved him. How did you know that?"
Lucrezia gave an unbelieving look at him, but found that she was not truly offended by his directness at her. As is your way, right into it then? Alright..."Because you looked at him, often, as if with my own eyes, Micheletto."
"How did that make you feel?"
His question caught her by surprise, but her answer came honestly and unchecked. "Curiously...quite detached, at first, I think; they way I had felt about all of Cesare's lovers." Lucrezia looked over at Giovanni to make sure that he was still engrossed in play with Princess and lowered her voice as she went on. "I used to watch him, you know, when I was a little girl; before I knew what it all really meant—I knew what he was doing, basically—but not that his women were...were..."
"Substitutes for you."
Lucrezia gave that a thought and then looked her honest question at him first before she spoke again. "But were they all, Micheletto? The Tigress wasn't; Charlotte certainly wasn't."
"But you did not see him with them, hmm?"
"No, but I heard firsthand how enamored of them he was; Caterina because she was his equal; Charlotte because she was independent and practical about her desires, like a man—"
"No...like a French woman, yes?"
They both laughed lightly.
"No, like a man and therefore his equal, as well."
"Do you not feel as his equal?"
"As a Borgia, yes: a murderer; a plotter; as a negotiator; as an ambassador to this family when my father was alive—a worthy Borgia sibling? Most definitely. As a woman? No. I do not. Even though I am a woman in my own right; a woman with children of my own...but with Cesare...I always feel like the little girl he fell in love with and did his best to protect...from the cruelties of our particular world; a love that grew into the obsession you see before you now."
"Obsession? You doubt his love?"
"I do not. I simply still feel like a little girl...in my own head."
"You do not behave as such—you are a woman through and through, Lucrezia, and Cesare loves you thus; he will love you when you are both old and grey."
"And where is your grey head in such a future, Micheletto?"
"Nearby and at peace, if God deems it to be so. And you."
There was another knock upon her door.
"Doña Ramirez, I come to take Giovanni to...galley..." It was Fati Ba, speaking the foreign word carefully through the door.
"We shall have to rename ourselves soon, I think...a moment, Micheletto..."
Micheletto stood up to allow Lucrezia her careful exit off of the bunk as she tried not to rouse Rodrigo; she opened the door and then readied Giovanni to go and have a proper breakfast; she sent him off with a kiss, then took her careful place back upon her bunk.
"What is it about women, Micheletto, that you do not like?" she asked when he took his seat again.
Her abrupt change of subject, while amusing, took him aback nonetheless; she was like her brother, the way her mind moved from one thought to the next; Micheletto knew that he would learn her rhythm, just as he had with Cesare, and that one day their very thoughts would seem as one, where words would be few and almost unnecessary.
"I like women. I loved my mother—and yours; I love you."
"I mean carnally."
"I would not say that I do not like women carnally..I simply enjoy men better...in that way."
"You have been with women?"
"Yes."
"But you like men better...why? What is it about men, then, that is so much more desirable? And when did you know this about yourself? At what age?"
"I knew it as a child..."
"As a child? You had carnal relations as—"
"No, of course not. I was enamored of someone...like you were...with Djem."
"Ah...Djem; he was so handsome; so other-worldly; his culture so barbaric; but he was so gallant," a blush rose to her cheeks at Djem's memory. "He was so tender with me; so unlike the husband he described himself as, who could kill any of his many wives as he pleased; I admit that he was the first man that I had such feelings for, that made my heart race and my cheeks burn red at the thought of having him lavish upon me the attentions that Cesare lavished upon his lovers...he was so tender with me..." she repeated wistfully, thinking back to their little tête-à-tête in the loggia off from her father's office at the Vatican, listening in on the round of suitors vying for her hand during the consideration of her first marriage. "I felt so sinful..." Lucrezia blushed anew.
Micheletto gave a little tweak to her nose and brought a smile to her face. "And so, I too, had just such an experience."
"With a man..." she smiled sweetly at him as she came fully out of her little reverie and gave him her full attention again.
"Yes, with a man."
"I called Giovanni's father 'Narcissus'..." Another sweet blush accompanied an ever sweeter smile as she looked away from him and into the distance; just as quickly it faded as she dropped her head slightly then gave a quiet little harrumph at herself.
The abrupt change of subject threw Micheletto again, not amusing at all, at that moment, as his heart broke a little along with her own; she had truly loved the boy, and he had truly loved her. Damn you, Juan. He said nothing as he waited patiently for her to come back to herself.
"My Narcissus. He was so beautiful; his soul was beautiful. But he was no Narcissus, for he loved me—and I looked nothing like him, hmm? Was the man you fell in love with at so young an age your Narcissus, Micheletto? Was he as beautiful as yourself?"
"More. Much more. And I think that I know what you are getting at. My attraction to him had nothing to do with his looks in that manner; it was the exquisite sameness of his general male physique—you've seen such specimens, on Grecian urns depicting the Olympians at play in their games..."
"Oh, my...he must have been quite something, indeed..."
"He was; and the curve of his muscular thighs...the hardness of his rippled torso...did to me what the swell of a woman's breast breast does to most other men. Do you understand?"
"As a woman would, most certainly...as a man..."
"You do not understand."
"As a man I would dare to say yes—I could feel the same, especially since I've seen such intrigue with my own eyes."
Micheletto raised an eyebrow at her.
"As I've told you, I've a long history of voyeurism, Micheletto; I saw you and Cesare together..." Lucrezia thought back to that morning long before, and of herself crouched atop the stairs watching the two of them kissing. "Yes..I can understand."
"And when was this?"
"The morning that you came home to us. I watched you two share a kiss as sweet and full of love as any that Cesare has ever given me."
"You were not repulsed?"
"How could I be, Micheletto? I was looking upon a beautiful thing—two people in love."
"Honestly?"
"Yes. And just as honestly...I was hurt."
"Lucrezia..."
"Do not apologize. It was going to happen one way or another, Micheletto, aside from the right or wrong of me and my brother—even I cannot hold Cesare. It was a hard lesson, but I am glad that I finally learned it."
"You are wrong, Lucrezia, you are first and last in his heart, and everything in between. I know that; I've always known it; I would never dare to try and usurp you."
"And that is why you have, dear Micheletto—you are both men."
Micheletto looked his confusion at her.
"One thing that took me a long time to learn about men—they never want to be told to do a thing: not cajoled; begged—and God forbid, not nagged; not expected, really; they don't want to be asked, at all; they want to do all things as they will, in their own good time, ever in command, whether it be of their destiny...or their heart. In the meanwhile, we women must wait them out; we must show them, simply, that we need them—all that they really require of us. I learned that with Cesare quite innocently, for he was my hero in all things, all of my life, and was so very easy to need...
"And then I learned that such a tactic could be abused by a woman, in order to hasten getting what she wants, thinking herself masterfully cunning, when all that she is really being is treacherous—and treacheries carry great punishment once they are discovered, do they not?"
A sure bitterness had crept into Lucrezia's soft voice then; a single tear rolled down her cheek with all of the luminescence of an exquisitely cut, yet tiny diamond before it vanished into the fabric of her fine burgundy silk bodice, which absorbed it as an accomplice who pulls a friend quickly out of harm's way into hiding and safe harbor.
"Another harsh lesson, Micheletto, that I learned much to late to employ with my many husbands and have it do me any good—or save them from death."
"Those deaths were well-deserved, Lucrezia, you are much too hard on yourself."
"Two of them, maybe, Micheletto. But I digress—no matter one's better intent, whose heart can truly be held forever?"
Micheletto had no answer for her.
"You see? You know that I am right."
"I know the capacity of your heart. And Cesare's. And my own, Lucrezia."
"Oh," she gave a little snort of disgust at him, "not that, Micheletto. Extraordinary people, their hearts abound—you and Cesare, where your hearts are concerned? I cannot possibly keep up."
"And you think, sitting here, speaking these things to me as you are, that you are not a woman grown? In your head, as well as of stature?"
"I am simply living this thing called my own life, Micheletto."
"Make no mistake about yourself, my Lady—you are most extraordinary."
"Not enough for you."
"Are you sure of that?"
"How could I not be? You do not want me in such a way."
"Again, I ask you—are you sure of that?"
"But..."
"I have wondered about you, Lucrezia, make no mistake about that."
She gave him a look of pure disbelief.
"The only woman I've ever dared to wonder such things about, that did not end with accompanying and satisfying thoughts of murder."
Lucrezia could not believe what her ears were hearing, on so many accounts. Surely I am not hearing this—did he murder them, then? Could not one or two have been...simply experiments in love? Lust? A curiosity satisfied? I can imagine some poor girl in a swoon over him, crushed to find out that she would never be able to cast her womanly spell over him...
"Were there many of these women?" It was the only question she dared to give voice to.
"Many women...faceless...nameless—now, as well as then."
"And what happened to them? The trail of broken hearts must be a long one..." Her pulse was racing and her question was a nervous one.
"No...no broken hearts—broken necks, surely."
Lucrezia let out an involuntary and choked little gasp of a chuckle, horrified at herself that she found humor in his words, at all.
"And I would murder you, Lucrezia Borgia, in a completely other and most exquisite manner—if only you would dare to allow yourself the pleasure."