Evil is inconsistent. It's everywhere around us and it can show its face at any time in any person.
But only if we let it.
Chapter 7
November 6th 1497
Jane stood in a narrow corridor in the Vatican, anxiously looking around her. She didn't know what she would do if someone was to find her now, but still she had to be there.
A flood of relief washed through her when she heard steps from the end of the corridor and Jane recognized Giulia, her auburn curls trailing down her back all the way to her waist, her body merely covered in a white, thin nightgown and a loose black robe.
"I have to hurry back." Giulia's voice was quick and in a whisper. "Rodrigo would expect me back soon."
Jane nodded and took the envelope from her hands. She opened it quickly and drew out the papers halfway, finding numbers and dates and names listed in three long columns, sometimes accompanied with quickly scribbled notes. "I will take this back to the palazzo."
"Thank you." Giulia's feather light hand touched Jane's shoulder for a second before she turned and walked down the hall again. Jane's gaze went over the papers once more, smiled and pushed them back into the envelope before turning around and walking back in the direction she came from.
She was tucking away the envelope when she suddenly saw light spill out through an open door just down one of the side lying corridors. This caught her interest since it was in the middle of the night and that corridor didn't have any bedrooms. She turned down the hallway, trying to keep her steps as silent as possible.
The door wasn't just open; it was open wide, doing nothing to hide the interior of the room. It was a sitting room, apparently, furnished with thick rugs and couches in deep colors. At the opposite wall, a fire was burning in a fireplace and Jane saw a man sitting with his back to her, looking into the flames. When she looked closer, she saw that he was wearing a Cardinal's cloak and his hair was dark. She knocked lightly on the open door a few times.
When the man turned around, he confirmed Jane's suspicion; it was Cesare. He smiled slightly. "Good evening, Giovanna. Is it not a little late for you to be here?"
Jane smiled back politely and took a few steps into the room. "Yes, but I had a meeting to attend to." Cesare nodded slightly and turned back around. "What are you doing still awake?"
"Troubles sleeping," he said simply.
"Can I join?"
"If you please."
Jane walked around the couch and sat down on a plush chair which was turned with its side to the fireplace. Now that she could see more than just his back, Jane saw that he was holding a glass of wine and his eyes were dark with some emotion that she couldn't derive.
He sudden took a sharp intake of breath as if he'd just realized that she sat down. "Are you ready for leaving tomorrow?"
"Yes. Have you heard that the Holy Father has decided to send with me an escort?"
"Ascanio Sforza was what he told me." Jane nodded and they fell silent. As the silence grew oppressive, Jane found herself desperate to start a conversation with him again. Her eyes fell on the red cloth that covered his body; the same red color as every cardinal's cloth.
"Why exactly are the cardinals' gowns red?"
Cesare looked up from the spot on the floor that had up until that moment been the center of his attention. "You don't know?" Jane shook her head. "It is symbolism; the red of the mantle is colored with the blood that we cardinals are willing to shed for the Holy Mother Church."
"And you… would you be willing to shed your blood for the Church?" Jane fidgeted with the fabric of her gown, genuinely anxious to know the answer.
"I would be willing to shed my blood for my family." He looked down at his hands. "And right now my family is the Church, it seems."
"But God." Jane leaned forwards, just a bit. "Would you shed your blood in the name of God?"
Cesare chuckled bitterly. "God?" His voice was hoarse. That's when Jane realized something.
"You don't believe in Him, do you?"
Cesare looked up, shocked. "Of course I do." His gaze shifted. "Anything else would be impossible, unthinkable."
Jane smiled. "I thought of it, did I not?"
"But that is because…" He trailed off as if he regretted saying what he had begun to say.
"Because of what?"
Cesare's eyes met with hers and in a daring moment he said, "Because you do not." Then his eyes escaped her gaze, looking down again. "I apologize, I should not make such assumptions."
"You needn't apologize." Jane's voice was low but clear. She realized that some things could and should not stay secrets. "Indeed, your assumption is very close to the truth." She hesitated for a moment, fully aware that, even though his gaze was fixated elsewhere, she had Cesare's full attention. "It is not that I do not believe, rather that I doubt. There are simply too many things that speak against His existence."
"Such as?"
"Since you are a clerk, I am sure that you know quite a bit about our Church, and so do I. And form what I know, it appears that the Savior, Jesus Christ, offered himself so that we sinners would have our salvation. Originally, it was believed that this salvation would arrive one thousand years after his birth."
"As you said, those are the original beliefs," Cesare pointed out. "It has later been found that that belief is untrue, and, through closer looks at the Bible, that we are doomed for the flames of the Purgatory, and that they are our salvation."
"It was the people who believed in the first myth that wrote the Bible, Cesare." She bit her lip. "Where is the salvation? It has been almost five hundred years, Cesare!" What he didn't know, of course, was the disappointment that Jane felt after hundreds of years of waiting for her salvation, when the day arrived, the day where the year of 999 turned into a thousand, and nothing happened. When her only hope for happiness, her only light in the dark of her despair in those first many centuries was blown out.
"They were mistaken."
"And how can you use the texts that they wrote to prove that they were mistaken? It does not make any sense."
"No, but when has God ever made any sense?" He smiled wryly at her.
"My point exactly." He chuckled silently and Jane rose calmly from her seat. "I think I will retire now. Good night, Cesare."
He looked up at her. "Good night, Giovanna." Jane walked past him and noticed how his face once more sank back into the expression from before, his dark eyes looking into the flames and beyond them.
"That is why he chose you." Jane almost jumped; she had made it to the doorway when he suddenly spoke. She turned around when he spoke, but Cesare hadn't moved even the slightest. "Because of that you do not believe; because of the clarity that your doubt gives you. That is why he trusts you."
Jane stood still for a few moments, thinking about his words and trying to make sense of them before finally turning once more. The halls were dark even in comparison to the dim room that she had been in before, but Jane was comfortable with the shadows. In fact, she still relished in them.
While she walked in the streets of Rome, she wondered if it would be needed for her to hunt, but taken that she had hunted the night before she decided not to. Still, it took her a while before she arrived at the palazzo, mostly because of that she had enjoyed being alone in silence – apart from the occasional drunk man or prostitute – that she had taken much longer than expected. When she arrived home it was already past two in the morning, and yet she still saw light inside the window that she believed belonged to Lucrezia's room.
When Jane entered the hall, the house was surprisingly silent. All the servants were asleep and if Lucrezia was still up, she wasn't making a noise. Jane began slowly moving up the stairs, careful to be as swift as possible. When she came to Lucrezia's room, she found the door ajar and used this as an opportunity to see what she was getting into.
The light that Jane had seen from outside came from a small bedside lamp. Lucrezia was sitting in front of a mirror by a vanity table, her hands leading a brush through her long, blonde waves. Jane felt herself relax, even though she hadn't realized she was tense, when she saw this calm sight.
Jane lifted her hand to knock lightly on the door frame and smiled when she saw Lucrezia jump a bit. She turned her head to look at Jane. "What are you doing up at this late hour, Giovanna?" she asked with a smile. Jane stepped inside and walked over to sit on Lucrezia's bed.
"I could ask you the same question."
"I had troubles sleeping." She looked down. "I have had those ever since my marriage." She licked her lips and then looked up at Jane, a new look in her eyes. "Tell me, Giovanna, do you think that they did me justice when the court of the Papacy deemed him impotent?"
Jane shrugged a little. "You got your annulment. 'The marriage is to cease to exist as if it had never happened'," she quoted.
Lucrezia shook her head slightly. "But that is just it. It did happen. And it did take away many of my years and so very much of my happiness." She rose from her seat and began pacing back and forth for a moment before walking over to sit beside Jane.
"I am not sure if I understand," Jane said when Lucrezia had calmed. "How much more justice could they do? And after all he was punished with humiliation, was he not."
Lucrezia nodded. "Yes, but… humiliation does not come close to what was done to me, Giovanna."
"You are right, it does not come close to what you had to suffer, but I am sure that revenge is not the answer." Jane tried to look Lucrezia in the eyes but she seemed to be looking into thin air. "I am sure that you would do better to forget him; as if he never existed."
"But I cannot!" Lucrezia exclaimed, snapping back into reality. "I try, Giovanna, I do, but I cannot. I will not." She was now breathing heavily and frantically as if she had been running. "I will not forget him; that would be naïve. And even though I should, even though God tells me to, I cannot forgive him either. All I can ever think about is revenge."
"There is no way for you to fight him, Lucrezia." Jane shifted to look more directly at the girl. "He has had the punishment that the law dictates and now you must prove yourself."
"Prove myself?" Lucrezia seemed confused.
"Prove that you are a Borgia, the true daughter of Vanozza dei Cattanei and the Pope of Rome. You need not forgive, Lucrezia, but you must show composure and wit in these times." Lucrezia nodded slowly, her eyebrows drawing together in concentration. "You must show the world that you are better than this and that you are as strong and independent as you are. If you do the right things right now I believe that you can achieve the respect of every woman, and even some men."
Lucrezia nodded once more. "But I am not sure if I am that woman."
"I know that you are." Jane reached out and put her hand over Lucrezia's for a second before withdrawing it again.
Lucrezia looked at Jane for a moment, acceptance in her eyes, but then she just her head violently. "But I want revenge; I want him to suffer for what he has done."
"And he will," Jane said and leaned forward to catch the wandering gaze of the young woman. "In time."
"And if I cannot wait?"
"The wait will not be long, I assure you."
Lucrezia's gaze once more disappeared, her eyes still on Jane's but seeing beyond her. Her expression was completely calm, unfeeling, and it almost scared Jane. In this moment there was nothing back of the young Lucrezia that Jane once knew, only the cold shell that had been created during her marriage. "You are right," she said, her voice a match to her expression. "I must wait. That way I can plan and I can be sure that my vengeance will not strike back at me."
She drew in a deep, trembling breath. "But vengeance will be mine, Giovanna." Her eyes were still far away and her bottom lip trembled. "That, I promise you."