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Cooing as they peck, the doves attack his fingers, hoping for corn. He swats two or three away and gently seizes one, lifting it from the cote and closing the latticed door. It is a large creature, not so plump as its fellows, pure white with speckled grey stalks of legs running to its talons. It chortles uncertainly as he flicks at its talons, and begins to secure the rolled paper to it.
"Why the dove, Cesare?"
He knows the voice in an instant, a heartbeat, before the first word has been spoken. He turns only slightly to regard his sister, golden and glowing in her honey-coloured silks. Making ready his smile, he notices her face for once does not grace one, and so his lips drop too, and he regards warily the petulant sheen of her blue eyes.
"It has a duel purpose, my love," he says, with a wary tone to match his eyes. "Like many things in life." He tightens the scroll about the dove's clawed foot. "It serves as both a symbol and a messenger."
"A symbol of what?" she asks in a voice to match his own.
"The uncorrupted soul." He meets her stare now.
"And a messenger of what?" she asks, her tone suggesting she would like to know entirely what he is about. I was right to be wary, he muses, she is yet half a woman, but still a Borgia.
He flicks the dove's talon. "Corruption."
"You mean to say," she begins slowly, "it bears news of how many votes we must buy in the papal election?"
His lips break into a smile at her sly grin.
"You are criminally well-informed, sis," he says, raising an eyebrow to her. "I trust your soul is still the purest white?"
"How many votes must we buy him, Cesare?" She makes her way up the steps to the dovecote now, her skirts rustling as she moves, and she leans toward him as they speak in whispers in the privacy of their mother's courtyard.
He considers her face for a moment, eyes narrowed above his smile, before he takes a step down onto the lawn. "You know too much already, don't you?"
"You're wrong," she protests sweetly. "I know too little."
He throws the bird upward into the air so suddenly Lucrezia gasps. The dove flaps its wings frantically, and is soon roaring on its way to Rome.
"Cesare – "
He lays his fingers to her lips. "You know too much."
"One day I'll be better informed than you or Papa or Juan, you wait," she says, muffled beneath his hand. "These lips will buy me many secrets."
At that he suddenly blanches and his hand moves swiftly to lock about her chin, angling her face up to his.
"Who told you that?" he demands, anger misting his breath.
She looks up at him, startled, her blue eyes wide, and her pink lips tremulous in the heat of his glare, but he does not let up his grip. Her silence seems to make him angrier, and his hold tightens a fraction.
"That talk will earn you the nickname of whore at court, Lucrezia," he says, forcefully. "I will not have my little sister playing at harlot's tricks to help her Borgia blood." He lets up his grip slightly. "Tell me, who said this to you?"
"I guard my secrets well, dear brother," she says, and quick as a snake she bends down and bites hard into his palm. He yelps and moves backward, and she springs away from him, laughing, trailing her skirts about the courtyard as she runs from him. He laughs and rushes after her, and it happens as it did that morning a week ago. They lie together in the grass until the sun sinks low in the sky and tinges all in its red-gold glow. He traces her jaw.
"I am sorry for those," he whispers, touching lightly the red marks his rings and fingers left on her soft pale skin.
She takes his hand and kisses his palm, her lips brushing over the mark her teeth made beneath his fingers. "And I for this."
Her body is lithe and warm beneath his, and his elbows rest between her arms and her waist, her hands raised and busy curling in his unruly dark hair. He stares down at her, and takes in all her innocence and beauty, and feels his heart sink a little to think that he must share it.
"What you said earlier – " he begins, but falters and stops. Her eyes are on his still, gently searching, and she winds his hair about her fingers, obsidian strands to streak amongst her golden rings. When still he does not speak, she tilts her head to the left slightly in that beloved way.
"What I said?" she prompts.
He slips his hand onto her cheek and smoothes it down into her hair, his thumb caressing the shell of her ear.
"It's true," he whispers. "Secrets are the coin of the court. But – I . . . hearts may yet be broken, Lucrezia." He grips her head fiercely now, and rests his forehead to her own. "But not yours."
"Cesare – " she starts, but he stops her.
"You are my little sister, Crezia," he murmurs, his eyes bright with love for her. "My little golden sister." He raises his face and presses a kiss between her brows. "If anything happened to you – " He does not finish; the fear in his eyes is enough.
"We are family," she whispers in reply, her small hands framing his face as she pushes back the dark curls of his hair. "It is a dangerous Rome we travel to, I know that, I am not the country girl you all think me to be . . . but I trust you, Cesare, and love you more than I could ever love another man." She kisses his nose, and his dark eyes watch her eyelids as they flutter closed. "I know you will do anything to keep me safe, you will protect me, and I will love you. Brother and sister, as we always have been, together, just us in this great wide world; only our smiles are true in that court of lust and filth, and our words are the only ones that carry weight, we are all that is real to each other, I know that as well as you, my dear brother, and I will not sell my kisses to anyone, Cesare, you know that, I will keep my heart true."
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