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Hours pass and night falls, and with the darkening of the sky comes the dawn of music, the bright sunsets of silken gowns and plush slippers, and the deepest strains of lusts and desires surfacing after being so heavily restrained in the sunlit hours of court. Cesare is a stark figure amongst the whirls and wisps of coloured silks about him. His doublet is black velvet with crimson slashings on the chest and arms, studded with rubies, his hose black; colours of blood and death. His unruly dark hair curls about his handsome face, and his eyes are ever more luminous above his soft black beard. He feels the eyes of half a hundred noble ladies in the dresses of whores fall upon him.

"Giovanni Sforza," says Pope Alexander beside him on the dais. "He's over there, the back of the hall. Looks like an ass, and brays like one too." His father coughs. "Well, his cousin does, but it's his cousin we need, except the bastard's married so we have to pick the older one. A shame, but necessary." He nods, as if finalising his own thoughts.

Cesare looks up, and spots Sforza in an instant. Middle-aged, tall, his figure running more to fat than muscle, a cruel mouth, black stringy hair and blood-shot green eyes, dressed elegantly enough but with a look to him that makes Cesare shift uncomfortably in his delicate gold-edged throne beside his father's grander chair. He watches as Sforza picks up a goblet, raises his fist to his mouth and drains it, before mopping a trail of escaped wine from his bearded chin.

"What of him?" asks Cesare, although he suddenly knows at once.

"Lucrezia's betrothed," replies his father, drinking from his own glass. "We brokered the deal last eve, they're to be married in the summer."

"You'd wed our Crezia to a petty duke?" fires Cesare, before he can stop himself. "As your daughter she deserves no less than a prince!"

"A prince of where, Cesare?" snaps the Pope, his voice venomous but quiet. "You know as we speak our enemies move against us. Naples, France . . . they're allying now, I can tell. My whisperers pour more poison in my ear every day."

"What will Pesaro buy us?"

"One secure kingdom for my grandchildren to inherit." His eyes are bright grey and sparkling in the wine-heavy candlelight. "A place for Lucrezia to flourish away from court, away from her mother, and away from you."

At this Cesare's head snaps up and he glares at his father. "From me?"

"Don't pout at me, Cesare, I know your heart," warns his father. "Lucrezia is all your mother is, and more." His hands move now as he speaks, clutching at the air one minute and fanning it the next with ringed fingers. "She is beautiful, beguiling, a woman grown with the figure and the wits to match. All the men at court go weak at the knees for her, stiff-bearded cardinals turn to water when she smiles, I've seen it." He looks to his son now and his eyes are kindlier. "You are not immune to her charms, you her brother, you most of all."

"What are you saying?" he asks, with suspicion in his gaze.

Rodrigo rests his hand on his son's head of midnight curls. "You seek to protect her, and save her from all the wiles and pitfalls of the court of Rome. But it is more than that. You love her, Cesare, more than anyone."

"She is my sister, Holy Father," he says evenly. "I love her with a passion other men do not have. She is my blood, as you are, and I protect my family."

"By protecting her you ruin her, Cesare," says his father sharply. "She needs to know who is good and who is bad. Who will help, and who will ruin. She must know, in order to survive. You are a man of the church, Cesare, you will not be here beside her forever. She won't be beside you either, she's off to Pesaro in the summer, and you can't be with her on her wedding night to make sure Sforza treats her gently any more than you can watch them day and night in his house." He flicks his wrist to dismiss his son, with the words, "If you truly want to protect her, you must let her go."

He finds her giggling with some girls in the corner of the hall, pretty ringlets and painted lips laughing behind frantic feathered fans as they chuckle at the men before them. They stop as they watch the lean figure of Cesare Borgia making his way toward them, and their fans flutter anew as they observe his muscular chest, his arms straining against the velvet, and his face strong and handsome and brown from the sun. Only his sister steps forward from her fan and smiles at him.

"Sister." He holds his hand out as she curtseys, her crimson skirts spilling out onto the gleaming floors like blood.

"Brother." She takes his hand and follows him to the crowd of dancers. Soon they are swept up in a stately dance, slow and steady, with measured steps and many turns. His hand comes to rest easily on her laced waist, whilst the other touches along the length of her palm held delicately between their chests as they bob and weave gracefully. "My friends are in quite a frenzy," she whispers to him as they turn.

He smiles, and looks over his shoulder to see the hastily-averting eyes of Lucrezia's ladies in their cloud of gowns and fans. He leans down to her ear. "Mayhaps their husbands are not . . . satisfying them."

Her eyes glow up at his. "Oh, Cesare, you sound exactly like our dear Juan." Her gaze skims sideways mischievously and light on their brother who is meandering about the dancefloor, plushly-dressed as always in lurid silks and velvets, a lady draped on either arm, his lips busy at one's ear. Younger than Cesare but nearly as handsome, in an arrogant, self-assured way. "Though I wonder if he is as capable of . . . satisfying other men's wives as he says he is."

Cesare snorts at that. "Oh sister, when one visits only brothels, one only knows how to service whores." He dips his lips to her ear again. "Though, oft it is the other way around." He watches as Juan leaves the hall with his ladies and raises his eyebrows.

"Poor, poor Cesare," says Lucrezia, cupping his cheek in her palm. "Married to the cloth, to God, and destined to sleep always in a cold, empty bed."

She laughs at him then, and Cesare laughs too, and catches her hard in his arms, spinning her across the floor. He looks down at her as they twirl through the swathes of dancers, and smiles anew at her beauty so fresh and awake this night; her pale, soft skin, her perfect face and sapphire eyes, pink lips and white teeth so bright in laughter. He catches a skein of her golden hair and rubs it between his fingers and breathes deep that scent of her that lingers at her neck, of flowers and powder and heady smell of Crezia and Crezia alone. If you truly want to protect her, you must let her go. His father's words hound his mind, but he looks down at his sister and knows he can never let her live without him.

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