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Beneath her feet, the pale flagstones finally begin to grow warm as the sun rises in the east and casts pink light and shadow across the papal gardens. All morning Lucrezia has wandered the gardens, touched flowers damp with dawn-lit dew, listened to the clamour of the city rise around her and to the jolting toll of bells ringing the hour. Now she seats herself at a stone bench and watches silently as all around the servants begin their days, the washerwomen clutching their half-laden baskets, the pageboys and squires and scribes. From the chapel she hears soft Latin words begin to rise, followed by the highest tones the choirboys can keen. Rome has awakened, she thinks quietly, and with its dawning it does away with dreams.
"You should not be out your bed, sis," comes a voice she recognises in a heartbeat. She feels her own heart rise with half-forgotten joy, but she does not turn.
"Surely it is good for a wife to rise before the dawn," she says, her voice a fraction from a whisper but she feels the smile slip from his face.
There is perfect silence between them for a stretch that feels like an eternity. Around them, the noise and bustle continues, grows louder and more intense. As Cesare comes to sit beside her on the stone bench, she rises from it and walks two steps to stand beside the roses.
"See how full in bloom they are, dear brother?" she says, her eyes fixated on the ripe red petals, her fingers travelling along the bobbing heads. "Things in bloom must always be plucked, mustn't they, Cesare?" Her hand closes on one of the roses, and she feels the velvet crush beneath her palm.
"He told you," is all Cesare says, his voice flat and toneless.
"Yes," she replies, turning at last to look at him with tears blurring her eyes. "He summoned me last night, told me of my fate." Her voice tails off to a choked sob. Her brother makes to rise but she waves her hand at him. "I am to marry Giovanni Sforza, our Holy Father has decreed it, and I must obey."
"Yes – " begins Cesare.
" – I must," finishes Lucrezia, but her eyes rise up and bleed into his and suddenly her face changes. "By God, it is all so terribly unfair. Both you and Juan cavort about bedding whoever you please – and could take any woman you wished to wed. I've seen you press another man's wife against the walls of the city when you think you have no eyes watching you. Even our gracious father sleeps and lives with ladies of the night in God's own house!" Her lips tremble terribly, her nostrils flare, her eyes are huge and blue. "And I must bow to the will of the pope and join hands with an old, cruel man because that it what my family wills? I must be pressed down – " At this she sees the alarm in Cesare's eyes and drops her voice. "I must be pressed down every night by a stranger who I detest, forced to bear his children and tend his house." Tears rake her cheeks. "I am thirteen, brother, thirteen years of age and have already been given such a miserable lot in life."
He sits there in silence and stares at the ground beneath her feet. She strides over to him as calmly as she can manage, her skirts a quaking storm about her hips. Her hand reaches out to grasp his chin and she heaves his face up, lifts his eyes from the stone floor to meet with her own.
"Will you say nothing?" she whispers, disbelief and rage filling her voice. "Will you say nothing at all, my dear Cesare?"
She drops his chin as if his skin burns her fingers, turns on her heel and rushes in a storm of threatening tears toward the door leading to the Borgia chambers. She hears his footsteps behind her, but she pushes past the serving-girls blocking her path and flees through the heavy doors.
"Lucrezia," he says, slipping through a moment after her and pushing the doors closed. "Lucrezia, there is nothing I – " He falls silent as he watches her fists clenching, her shoulders shaking.
"Papa would have me marry an old man." Her eyes are shining with tears, and the pearls tremble at her throat. She raises those damp eyes from the ground now and meets him with an accusing stare. "And my dear Cesare will stand there and let it happen." Her lips harden into a thin line, full but devoid of their rosiness, and she gives an angry shuddering breath. "My sweet brother, who would protect me from the world, now ignores my pleas in my saddest hour." She spins from him and makes for the stairs.
"Lucrezia!" he cries, thundering up the stone steps behind her. She takes them two at a time, bounding upward, her thick skirts trailing behind her in swirls of bruised violet. He grasps a handful of silk once, twice, but each time she takes a twist in the spiralling staircase, and the fine cloth slips through his fingers. "Crezia!" he implores as she tears through the grandly carved doors into her chamber. "Sis, please!" The doors shut but he puts his boot swiftly in the way and shoulders them until he hears her cry again and the doors shudder. He bangs into her chamber and slams the doors shut behind him. "Lucrezia."
"What?" she snaps, trembling with anger before him. Her pale face is flushed with fury, her lips parted now, her golden curls awry about her face, the plait half-undone trailing her hips, and her breasts heaving rises above the stiff neckline of her bodice. "What other poisons have you come to pour into my ear?" She takes a step toward him, fists clenched. "Do you speak with Papa's voice now?" He grabs her wrist at that, wrenching her to him. "And with Ursula's tongue still thrust down your throat?" She cries out as he shakes her hard.
"I'm not Papa," he spits, "But I am your brother, Lucrezia, and you'll talk to me as such."
"You won't be my master soon," she seethes.
Her hand sings against his cheek. His head reels back from the blow, but suddenly his arms are tight around her, holding her to him. She buries her face in the familiar warmth of his chest and sobs. His hands run through her hair and down her back a thousand times, and he feels anger course through his veins as he listens to her cries and knows it is only their own father who is to blame.
"Oh, my love," he whispers into her ear.
"I am so afraid, Cesare," she murmurs, looking up finally from her storm of tears.
"Afraid of what, my love?" he says.
"Of marriage . . . of him." Her eyes search his, her hands gently trace the jewels at the collar of his doublet. "What . . . what if my husband proves ungallant?"
His eyes darken then, and she feels a thrill of fear rush along her spine as he dips his head close, his forehead coming soon to rest against hers.
"I shall cut his heart out with a dinner knife," he whispers, his jaw tight. "And serve it to you."
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