Chapter 1: The accident
The treacherous Livilla was starved to death by her own mother. Caligula's female relatives were raped and slaughtered after his downfall. Sejanus' daughter was defiled, to ensure a virgin's blood was not spilled for the crimes of her father.
He couldn't do anything to the bastard child - that much was certain. The outrage would be too great. But its mother was a different matter. He could do whatever he wanted to her - and Giovanni imagined doing a lot of things.
Constructing Biblical fantasies of revenge and punishment was gratifying - but he didn't actually want to go through with any of them.
Lucrezia Borgia wasn't worthy of a grotesque punishment.
She didn't deserve a death that would be recorded in history and remembered for centuries to come.
Only noble women were worthy of such deaths - and she wasn't noble.
What she deserved was a degrading punishment, a punishment that was reserved for peasant women who gave birth to children out of wedlock. A punishment that would make her understand her place in the world.
To be sure, as the daughter of the Pope, she wasn't technically a peasant. Italian society, he knew, certainly did not see her that way. But to him, the difference was negligible - and, by the time he was done with what he was planning for her, he hoped everyone else would see her like he saw her.
What mattered to him the most was his household's attitude towards his wife. He was their master, and their lord, and he was entitled to their loyalty before anybody else and yet, he did not have it. They were not loyal to him.
They feared him, certainly. They bent their heads low and rarely dared to look him in the eye, and made every effort to stay as far away from him as possible when he didn't need their services. There was no warmth, no friendship in his household before his wife entered it - and until now, he thought that he preferred it that way.
But it was different with Lucrezia Borgia. He couldn't quite understand it, but he could see it in their eyes.
He never thought, for instance, that any of his servants would ever presume to ask him about his personal life, and he considered it beneath him to discuss it with them as if they were his equals. So why was he so jealous to see the warmth in Francesca's eyes when his wife was prattling on about what a beauty Giulia Farnese was, or whatever other nonsense she had on her mind?
They feared him, certainly, but they loved Lucrezia Borgia. Her father used to sell vegetables in the streets of Barcelona, before bribing his way to the throne of Saint Peter, while her mother traded in sex. She had no proud lineage to boast of, no kings or military leaders as her ancestors. She didn't grow up in a castle, with royal suitors travelling from all over Europe to ask for her hand. And yet she was their mistress, and they wanted it to be that way. He was the Lord of Pesaro and Gradara, heir to the noble and distinguished Sforza lineage - but they loved her, and they hated him.
Everyone loved her. And her baby, when it was born, would love her too. Giovanni knew that even if he separated them, and left the child on the doorstep of a church or an orphanage, it would always love Lucrezia - even if it never knew her.
A public flogging would be a good start. It was a punishment for peasant women - Giovanni had never heard of a noble woman being whipped in the town square for adultery. It would be perfect. It would remind everyone about the cost of going against him - and his wife was overdue for a reminder.
It wasn't that she had ever disrespected him, or challenged his authority, her recent crime notwithstanding. She never disobeyed him, never talked back, even when he said things to her which, he understood in retrospect, were unwarranted. She acted like she understood that he was her superior, the highest authority over her save God Himself.
But it was obvious that she didn't really believe it. Not in the way he wanted her to believe it. She only gave him the respect that was expected of her - but she never showed herself to be conscious of just how inferior she was to him.
A public punishment would make her understand the hierarchy - as would being made to live and work like a servant. This was a particularly good idea. No one would dare object to it, as it wasn't violent or cruel, and, as her husband, he was well within his rights to make her do menial duties. Having servants to look after her clothes and attend to her needs was a privilege that a wife enjoyed, not an inherent right. She was expected to attend to his needs, just like the servants were. Naturally, her primary duties were the bearing of his heirs, the marital bed, and any other spheres where he needed emotional support - but there were no prohibitions against making her carry out household chores and cleaning, especially if she was unable to lie with him.
The real question would be - how far would he be able to go before her family objected? But it was too early, and, perhaps, futile, to worry about that. They sold their daughter to him, knowing full well that he considered the match to be beneath him and an insult to his dignity, and surely appreciating that he resented his young wife and would not be inclined to show her any respect. Would they really care if he exercised his rights as a husband and punished her, as long as he continued to offer the support he had pledged?
He should not have been in such a rush to see the mayor. It would have probably been best to wait until morning. He had spent two hours in the forest, two wonderful, precious hours, looking at the stars, at the moon entangled in the tree branches, the Beaver Moon as it was called, and going over everything that happened, and it was much too cold, much too dangerous, to cross the forest now. Giovanni knew that returning to the castle and getting some sleep would be a wiser course of action.
But the confrontation with his men forced him now to be honest with himself. Even though he was Lord of Pesaro, he could not deny that he was hardly a well-loved figure in the principality. And inside the walls of his castle, the situation was even worse.
By the time he rode out the next morning, the workmen would have already made their deliveries. They would go inside and talk to the servants, hear all the latest gossip – and there could be no doubt that the servants would sympathise with his wife, and portray her as a victim. If even one member of his household had remained loyal to him, she would never have dared to be unfaithful, and would never have managed to hide it if she did dare. Clearly, they were willing to deceive him, and hide her betrayal.
Besides, if the mayor were to receive a visit from the principality's Lord at night, he would be far more pliable, and far less likely to put up any kind of resistance to Giovanni's orders. This would not have mattered several hours ago, but the reluctance of his men to comply with his wishes indicated to Giovanni that other people might be unwilling to obey him as well.
He needed the conditions to be as favourable as possible.
After all his years of hunting in the woods, negotiating the narrow twists and turns of the path came naturally to him, and Giovanni allowed himself to get lost in thought. Abellio took him past the majestic waterfall, and skilfully followed the stream down the side of the mountain, before moving up the path that led back into the forest.
The river slithered below them, too fast to freeze over, but far too cold to drink. Nevertheless, Giovanni contemplated giving it a try - they were still some ways away from the town, and Abellio would benefit from some cold water - but thought better of it.
He climbed down from the saddle, impatient to stretch his legs, and looked around. A large weeping willow crowned the hill that he had mounted, and in its whispering shade the path split in two.
On one side lay the route he knew well, which gradually descended to the sleeping fields below. Although it would take at least twenty minutes of riding along the road that merchants used during the day to get to the city entrance, it was secure and quite safe even at this time of year.
But the path on the left, winding next to the ravine that sloped down towards the river, would take him right to the main gates. And it drew him in like a green flame, glittering in the struggling moonlight, mocking him. There would be one more hill to mount, and then, after ten minutes of negotiating the winding roots and hidden burrows, he would arrive at his destination.
Taking such a risk just to save time was short-sighted, he reminded himself.
But it shouldn't be a risk for him. In his youth he mounted even more dangerous paths with far less time at his disposal. He could do it when he was being chased by entire troops of his enemies, but now that all that opposed him was the treachery of his wife, his servants and his men, he was suddenly incapable of it? That couldn't be true.
He had to remind himself who he was. It was all out of his control now, only now. The shock of his wife's actions tore him away from the man he was, made him realise he had no faithful friends, no obedient servants… but once he got down the hillside, once he entered Pesaro, he would be reborn. Everyone would know his power. He would get it back with blood, sweat and tears - starting with his own sweat.
Abellio flew up the mossy stones and the emerald threads of grass frozen to the earth - and Giovanni was no longer in Italy. He was riding through the sand dunes of Nephtamira, ripping through a multitude of enemies, cutting them down like a ravenous whirlwind, flying and riding high towards the gardens of Perisia, blooming and bloating and heaving under the weight of their bounty.
And the liberated city of Falas was there too, touching the sky with its marble towers. The song of the muezzin called forth the end of the fast, the end of the siege, the end of famine, and the winter air turned into honey in his mouth. One league more, one push more - and the golden door would fly open before him, and he would drown in a sea of grateful faces, waving arms, bowls filled to the brim with juicy meat and tender herbs…
But he never reached the door. Abellio's hoof slipped on the shattered rock piles, and the horse knelt abruptly on the ground on all fours. Giovanni lunged at the pine branches overhead, but they were ripped out of his view, and he was flying over Abellio's neck and over the edge of the ravine.
Giovanni tried to anchor his eyes on the line of the horizon, but the world in front of him was muddy and confused. His fall was boundless, limitless - he didn't even have the privilege of knowing where it was taking him. He couldn't tell if the snapping sounds he heard were dry twigs, or his bones. At last, he shut is eyes, trying to hold back the vomit rising in his stomach.
A great roar, like the sound of an explosion, startled him back into focus. His thoughts were scattered in the air, scalded and frightened, but he was far too stunned to try and recover them. He was forgetting the very concept of a thought - and thinking was becoming painful, like his mind was closed off to him by shards of ice which rose taller and sharper every moment. His clothes unravelled, grew heavy and pushed roots into his skin. He was turning into a beast, sprouting tentacles and howling as his teeth bristled with an agony that echoed through his skull.
He wasn't falling anymore. He was drowning.