Chapter 2: The Wedding Night
He put off going upstairs for as long as he could.
Several hours had passed since Giovanni's arrival in his Pesaro castle with his new wife. He had walled himself up in his study as soon as they got back, throwing an order at the groom not to feed the dogs before the hunt tomorrow.
As day bled into night, and the servants drew the curtains and shuttered the doors, he struggled in vain to get past the first page of Seneca's On the Shortness of Life. He would grip onto the start of each phrase, but by the time he would reach the end, his mind would wander off, and he wasn't able to remember how the sentence began.
At last, he gave up trying to read. He threw down the book, covered his face with his hands, and breathed out a long, frustrated sigh.
An arrogant smirk graced Cesare Borgia's lips as he walked down the staircase, hand-in-hand with his mother, Vanozza Cattaneo. He nodded at his brother-in-law, and Giovanni froze in his tracks, prompting his young bride to turn around.
He should have known his brother-in-law would do something like this. Whatever excuses anyone - even his cousin Caterina - made for this behavior, Giovanni didn't believe for a moment that Cesare was motivated by his sister's happiness. It was surely a political gesture - the younger man was trying to show him just how little he cared about his wishes for his new wife, and about the image Giovanni wanted to maintain.
Lucrezia's mouth trembled. She didn't dare come closer to the staircase, but she leaned forward slightly, towards her mother and brother, and her arms moved just behind her hips, seemingly of their own accord. Giovanni frowned at her, demonstrating openly his disapproval of her display of emotions, but she wasn't thinking about the consequences of showing her feelings. She wasn't even looking at him. She yearned to fly away from her husband's side, and towards her family, but didn't quite dare take the leap, fearful that one word from her father, the Pope, would break her wings.
It was clear that the Pope wanted to order Vanozza out of the hall. But "La Bella" Farnese, the renowned Roman beauty who had been Alexander VI's mistress for almost a year now, leaned in to whisper something in his ear, gently caressing his hand. At length, the Pope's features softened, and he nodded reluctantly at his wife and son. Vanozza smiled at him gratefully, and Lucrezia breathed a sigh of relief. The dancing resumed.
Cesare Borgia wasted no time in introducing Vanozza to Giovanni. He led her by the hand towards the couple.
"Lord Sforza." Cesare's greeting was formal, but warm.
"Cardinal," Giovanni managed, doing his best to maintain his dignity. The papal family was already doing everything they could to disgrace him - there was no need to add to their efforts and draw even more attention to the situation by losing his temper.
"The mother of your blushing bride - Donna Vanozza Cattaneo."
Even her choice of dress seemed inappropriate to Giovanni. His mother-in-law had opted for a deep red gown. Normally he wouldn't have an issue with a color like that, but, given Vanozza's scandalous past, he thought it was outrageously out of place. Had these people no shame?, he wondered. Were they doing this on purpose, to spite him, to show how little his wishes mattered to them?
It took him every ounce of control that he had to bend his head in the direction of his mother-in-law. Without waiting for her to finish curtseying to him in response, he turned to Cesare. "I was under the impression that my Lady Wife's mother would not be joining us. Not for the ceremony, or the reception, or the masque…", he said slowly, his voice firm, and cold like steel.
"Indeed, my good Lord Sforza." Cesare's smirk was driving Giovanni mad. He wanted to reach across the space between them and slap the arrogant cardinal. "But I don't believe we said anything about the feast!" He smiled, and winked at Lucrezia.
Giovanni straightened out, regaining his composure. "Indeed. We did not." He wanted to keep arguing, to start a scandal and make clear to all the muttering, whispering faces around him that he had nothing to do with this, that he did not approve of any of this.
Instead, he pushed his hand out towards Lucrezia, not even turning to look at her. "My Lady."
It had only dawned on him now that he had abandoned his wife in the courtyard when they arrived, leaving her to work out for herself where to go and where everything was. Still, he was sure she would be able to find her way around.
He stomped upstairs, and down the long corridor to his chambers. It was time to get it all over and done with.
Lucrezia was facing the mirror when he walked in, toying with the neckline of her gown, adjusting and readjusting it to expose her exquisite white shoulders just right. She jumped up and turned around at the sound of him closing the door. Wide-eyed she looked at him, a strained smile curving her lips.
She may have wanted to pretend that she knew what she was doing, but he could see that her gestures were inexperienced, awkward, the gestures of a child touching a hot boiling pot to see what would happen. He had not expected this. He was astonished at her clear lack of understanding of what was about to happen.
Giovanni shoved the feeling down. He couldn't walk away now. For months he boiled in his rage, and now he finally had a chance to get it out of him.
She was still smiling at him, expecting him to smile back at her, clearly, like he couldn't be anything other than perfectly elated to see her.
It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that she could still be innocent, and be treated well by everyone who met her, and fall asleep at her own wedding without any repercussions. Not while he had to give up any hopes of marrying a companion who would be his intellectual equal, capable of supporting him and being there for him, and enter instead into a politically motivated union with someone from a family he abhorred. She had no right. She had no right to be innocent.
What were her biggest worries now? he wondered. Choosing a nice dress, playing with dolls, having a second portion of desert without her parents seeing. But she was his wife now, and if he did not know peace, if he had to choose between love and safety, there was no reason why she should not also be touched by the cruelty of the world, no excuse for her not to understand it.
He would make her understand.
"You wanted words," he broke the silence, "I have words."
"Words for what, my Lord?" Lucrezia kept up her timid smile, but her fingers were beginning to fidget with the nightgown around her knees. She began to bite her lower lip, feeling for tiny fragments of thin skin to tear away.
"For that Borgia wedding." Giovanni walked around the bed, and turned to face her. "A farce." He was pleased to see her smile wilt, her fingers folding and unfolding the curlets of lace on her nightgown. "A travesty." He took two steps towards her, and felt a dark glee spark in his chest when she flinched, recoiling from him. "A public humiliation." He reached out his fingers and plucked up a lock of his wife's hair. "An embarrassment."
He stood there for a few long moments, turning it this way and that, looking at how the light reflected in the fine golden strands. He could feel her stare burrow into his hand. Every inch of her body seemed to shift away from him, like she wanted to run away from him and curl up in a corner.
"Well… we're married now." He let the lock of her hair fall on her breast, and moved his hand to the laces that fastened her nightgown, impatient to just have it over and done with already.
The girl's breathing became rapid and shallow. Her chest heaved and trembled, like she wanted to bend in half to avoid his touch. She clearly wanted to back away from him, but didn't dare take a single step. Perhaps she knew that refusing any of his advances could be used as grounds for annulling the marriage that was so important to her father.
He could not lie to himself - this was not the behavior of a woman who was overcome with lust to the point of lying with her male relatives. The child in front of him had no meaningful knowledge of lust, or of men. She was clearly afraid of what was going to happen. Afraid of what he was about to do to her.
"Oh, come now," he lifted his head, wanting her to see his disdain. "Don't pretend you're a virgin. You can't be a virgin and a Borgia, we both know that."
She didn't say a word. But her throat trembled, and her eyes were wide with fear. Giovanni thought that she could not have looked more frightened if he had put his hand around her throat and began strangling her.
"More wine, my Lord?" Cesare Borgia plumped down on the chair next to Giovanni, interrupting the older man's brooding.
"Please."
As the night went on, the debauchery of the wedding festivities escalated. He watched the play unfold, his frustration mounting, each risqué joke and inappropriate jest amplifying his discomfort. He knew it would be wiser to go to bed and prepare for the long journey to Pesaro the next day, but he chose instead to keep staring at the stage and drink more and more wine.
His father- and brothers-in-law, on the other hand, seemed to be having the time of their lives. Juan, the general of the Papal armies, had his head buried in Juno's cleavage. The Pope, of course, couldn't keep his hands off the Farnese woman - even at his own daughter's wedding, he couldn't restrain himself. The ten year old Joffre, too, was shouting at the actors and throwing food at them. Could he understand the lewd undertones and jokes, or did his family just not care that their young boy could see things he was not ready for? Giovanni didn't care. He hoped to never see any of these people again.
But Lucrezia Borgia Sforza? She had fallen asleep, head resting on the table. He had not expected that. He wasn't sure what exactly he had expected. This was totally at odds with what he'd heard about her - what he'd been telling himself. He wasn't sure what to do. Was he meant to wake her up? Let her continue sleeping on the table? Take her to her room?
While he hesitated, Cesare Borgia, ever the watchful brother, swooped in and took his sister in his arms. He carried her out of the noisy hall and down the corridor. This would be the last night she would spend in her room, Giovanni realized. Tomorrow, she would be sleeping somewhere entirely different, somewhere she had never been, away from her family and friends for the first time in her life. Why was he thinking about this now?
"Your wife sleeps."
"Indeed."
"You should let her rest now. This day has been long for one so young. There is time enough for… pleasure."
Giovanni pushed his rage down, and forced himself to nod at his brother-in-law. "Indeed," he muttered, and gulped his anger down with his wine.
"Pleasure, is it? Well, I suppose you would know all about pleasure with her, wouldn't you? With your own sister!", Giovanni had wanted to say then. But now, looking at her and seeing her fear, he wasn't so sure.
He had spent five months angry with this girl who he had never even met, dreaming of the opportunity to take his anger out on her, punish her for the political decisions of his family members. But now that she was finally in front of him, barely clothed and defenseless, with nowhere to run from him, now, when he was stronger than her and could do whatever he wanted to her, his strength dissipated. His anger was too great for her to bear. It would not stick to her, to this child whose only crime was being chosen to be his wife. Her pallor, her trembling, the gentle throbbing of the vein in her neck all glared at him from beneath her skin, screaming at him that hurting Lucrezia was not only unwarranted, but fundamentally wrong.
He wanted to let his anger go, wanted to open the window and let it fly out of the room. But he had invested too much in it, had fed it for too long to just part with it - it demanded another target to leap on, so he had no choice but to hold on to it.
"Don't flatter yourself." He let the ribbons of her nightgown fall. "I wouldn't lie with you even if you were willing." He turned away from her, muttering at her over his shoulder, "I'll seek alternative arrangements tonight. Maybe I'll find some prostitutes to warm my bed."
He walked over to the low table near the fireplace and poured himself a cup of red wine from the glass decanter.
"Do you hunt?", he asked her, keeping his eyes on his drink. "No? That's good. Then we need hardly see each other."
He downed the cup in one go, grabbed the decanter from the table, and walked out of the room, forcing himself not to turn around.
TBC