III. Not one of the servants he met upon his return home told him that he was upstairs, and yet the naked fact was that he was there, standing a few feet away from a disturbed-looking table and an even more disturbed-looking wall, huddled over her like the soul-sucking demon he was. "It hurts", Lucrezia had confessed, and he had responded with: "I know, my love".
Alfonso couldn't help but think that they'd been talking about him. He was almost entirely certain of it, in fact.
Il Valentino turned around now and gave Alfonso an unconcerned and freely arrogant smile. 'Lord d'Aragona,' he said slickly. 'Aren't you a sight for sore eyes.'
Alfonso saw he was holding broken glass, and looked from the Duke to his own wife, who seemed unable to speak but otherwise radiated health.
'What have you done?' He asked in spite of this first glance. He stepped across the threshold.
Valentino looked from him to the shard in his hand. 'Oh, that? I dropped my cup. It was empty.' He shrugged to himself before he snapped his head back up to pin his sinister gaze on Alfonso. 'What of your cup tonight, my Lord? Was it empty?'
Alfonso gritted his teeth. 'I have returned from Ostia, where I met with the Lord Ettore d'Aragona. I expected to return sooner, but there was an oxen cart stuck by the Northern gate. I had to turn around.'
Il Valentino gave a slow and exaggerated nod, implying, no doubt, that Alfonso had just made up a name and a cousin, that he would be so pathetic as to do that.
Alfonso wasn't going to deign to speak to the man any further, not in his own house, with his own food on the table and his own wife in her nightgown, for God's sake!
'Lucrezia?' He asked.
'Oh, yes. Lucrezia?' The hated Duke echoed.
Lucrezia didn't know where to look and then avoided the dilemma altogether by tightening the cord of her robe around her waist. She seemed unwilling to leave her brother's side, or didn't know that it would be proper in this situation. Maybe both. The notion of what was proper was largely lost on Borgias, anyway, and Alfonso had no reason to exclude his wife from that gene pool. It was one of the things they'd told him about her family before he went to Rome to vie for her hand, and he hadn't known what they'd meant by proper.
Lucrezia came forward to embrace him, by which point it was too late. Still he let her, to spite the Duke, and for an instant, when her lips grazed his, he considered pressing his lips firmly on hers and not letting go until the Duke became visibly agitated – but no, that was lecherous. Even the thought of doing something like that was repulsive to him.
'You brought me flowers?' Lucrezia asked.
'I picked them myself.'
She nodded and took his flowers. 'You're sweet. Ippolita, will you put them in some water?'
Ippolita came forward and took the flowers. 'Where would you like them, my Lady?'
'In the bedroom, on the dresser top, please, so we can look at it,' Lucrezia said, and then gave him a meaningful smile.
She wanted another child. He supposed he wanted a child, too, but he tried not to think about it, especially when they spent the night together. At night he sometimes dreamt that that large bedroom was full of people, all gathered around his wife's enormous belly and praying for a strong boy. Then a baby boy would come into the world and everyone would start laughing at him, Alfonso d'Aragona, Prince of Bisceglie and Duke of Salerno.
He'd pissed himself once after that dream, but he'd been really drunk.
He was almost entirely certain that his wife and the Duke Valentino had been talking about something like that before he'd come in, but there was no way to prove it.
'You must be hungry after your journey. All the delays. I had the kitchen prepare a few things, but only desserts,' Lucrezia said, and laughed. She had a beautiful laugh, he just wished it was for him.
He followed the movements of Valentino from the corner of his eye; the Duke had gone around the far side of the table to fetch his cloak and gloves and swing them over one arm, apparently with the intention of leaving the room without any decorum. Il Valentino didn't need to be excused, he just left.
'Alfonso?' Lucrezia asked.
'Hm,' Alfonso replied, and he looked back at her. 'Dessert?'
She smiled again, then frowned upon seeing his face. 'Does that not please you?'
'It would please a child,' he replied with obvious disdain, though the disdainful tone was a mistake, as it was primarily directed towards her brother.
Lucrezia's face dropped. Ippolita came in with a vase, forcing the Duke to take a step away from the door and back into the room. Lucrezia took the opportunity that this slight distraction provided to break away from Alfonso and ask Ippolita to please clean the table.
'Would you like me to bring something else?' The girl asked.
'Eh, no, nothing, thank you,' Lucrezia said, very quietly. Alfonso recognized now that he'd hurt her, and that she had not given him a real reason for it, which meant he had screwed up.
He blamed that on Il Valentino, who, he noticed, had failed to leave and was instead looking back into the room as if to check if he'd taken everything. His invasive gaze lingered on Lucrezia.
Alfonso bit on his tongue as Valentino made an elegant dash back into the room and to the table, where Ippolita was gathering up desserts on a tray and Lucrezia was touching the flowers in the vase that Ippolita had dug up. Valentino put his free hand, the one that wasn't holding his cloak and gloves, on Lucrezia's waist and firmly kissed the corner of her mouth. She was startled, but not so much so that she forgot to press her lips against his cheek.
'Good night, sis,' he said, squeezed her chin and then turned around.
'My Lord,' he said to Alfonso, before he left the room. Perfectly polite.
Alfonso was left alone with his wife, who offered him a cup of wine like a peace offering, which bothered him all the more because he was the one who should be making peace with her, after his rude remark, and yet she clearly felt like she had to make up for something, too.
He ignored the wine. 'Forgive me, my dear wife, but I have an errand that slipped my mind.'
'An errand?'
He did not listen nor reply but left the room, without having ever taken off his cloak or put his gloves down.
'I did not intend to chase you away, my Lord Borgia,' he said, when he'd overtaken the Duke on the main staircase.
'You gave me no such impression, my Lord of Aragon,' Valentino replied calmly. He was decent enough to stop and give his sister's husband his undivided attention. Alfonso did not at all feel at ease beneath his gaze, though, and longed for a drink, or a couple of drinks.
Valentino sniffed and scratched at his beard, while his eyes moved from Alfonso's forehead down to his boots. 'Do you want to spar?' He asked, but Alfonso didn't hear.
'What? I mean, I did not hear the question.'
'Did you want to spar, perhaps?' Valentino repeated, and then gave him a sardonic smile.
'No. You surely must retain your strength before you march on Imola and Forlì,' Alfonso said, hopeful that Valentino would start to frown and display some worry or fear of dying, or failing.
'Not at all,' the Duke said. 'I make a point of living with as little restraint as possible. One must live outrageously if one wants to live at all, that is how Caesar and Alexander the Great built an empire.' He waited for an answer, which Alfonso was unable to give quickly enough. The Duke then continued down the stairs, again without excusing himself properly. 'And they got to do whoever they wanted besides, so there is that,' he said. 'Good evening, my Lord of Aragon.'
'Whoever?' Alfonso asked. He followed Valentino further down the stairs. The Duke turned around so abruptly that Alfonso almost bumped into him.
He expected the wretched man to look annoyed – but his expression was still one of mild amusement.
'…Whatever,' Valentino said slowly, and then shrugged. 'But yes, whoever, too, I suppose. They were Romans, after all. Are you alright, my Lord? You are sweating.'
Alfonso resisted the urge to wipe his brow. He had to stick to his point and not get distracted by Valentino's manipulative tactics.
'Why did you come?' He asked, and felt proud of his brazenness.
Valentino opened his mouth to respond, but something about Alfonso seemed to make him reconsider. He gave out a short sigh that Alfonso felt personally offended by.
'Your wife is upset. I'm sure she would like you to…' Valentino made a vague gesture towards him. 'Hold her hand,' he decided, and grinned.
'I don't think-' Alfonso started strongly, but then the guilt crept in, and the thought that the Duke was Lucrezia's brother and the son of the Pope of Rome and the leader of the Papal armies, which meant that, at least as far as custom went, he surely had something to say about the condition of the Lady Borgia and her… needs.
A shiver crept past Alfonso's spine. 'She was upset when I arrived,' he said.
Valentino's face screwed upfor the first time, not in anger, frustration or even disappointment, but in pity. It morphed into exasperation soon after that, but Alfonso had seen the pity and could hardly breathe normally for the turmoil this caused in his stomach.
Valentino surprised him by bending to the side and putting his cloak and gloves over the railing of the stairs. Then he straightened his back and joined Alfonso on the same step, so they were on equal ground. Valentino was taller, though, by about three inches.
'Alright,' he said. 'Hit me, then. Let us be done with it and get on with the evening.'
Alfonso frowned. Valentino wasn't smiling, exactly, although one corner of his mouth was raised higher than the other. He was being mocked without a doubt.
Valentino lifted his eyebrows when Alfonso said or did nothing. 'Or step on my toes, I don't care, my good Lord, simply do it and then, please, go upstairs and join your wife,' he said.
'Your sister,' Alfonso said.
He waited for Valentino to burst out laughing or make another clever remark, but he inched closer instead, tilted his head to the side and curled his upper lip back. Alfonso felt the organs in his stomach rearrange themselves.
'Yes,' Valentino said. 'The very same.'
Alfonso tried to hold his ground against the Duke, he really did, but there was a possibility that he hadn't enough alcohol in his veins to deal with this level of insanity, especially not Borgia insanity.
He did what he knew anyone in his situation would have: he closed his mouth, stepped back and left the staircase in temporary retreat. He'd been wanting to go into town tonight, anyway.