Chapter 5 - Cesare

Cesare was startled by the sound of something hitting the floor. He had accidentally pushed the golden letter opener off the table, he realised. When the young man bent down to pick it up, he noticed that the fall had fractured the golden seal on its hilt right down the middle.

"I know he betrayed our father, sis," he said at last, "and make no mistake, he will pay for it."

He walked across the room, and sat down beside Lucrezia.

"But if he has hurt you," and rage flared within him, even as he caressed her soft cheek, "if he has slighted you in any way… I have told you already - I will cut out his heart, and I will - "

She broke away from him, and walked to the other corner of the room.

"And I have told you already, brother, that nothing happened until he found out. Truly, nothing."

Even her voice was different, heavier than it used to be. She tried to wield it, to seem commanding, but it burdened her, weighed her down.

Cesare walked over to her and took her hand. Lucrezia didn't resist his touch, but it didn't rejuvenate her like it used to, as if he was a stranger, and not her own brother.

"But you won't even look me in the eye, sis!You won't even look at me!" She didn't react. "There's a lot you're not telling me. Not for the sake of sparing his life, I hope?"

"It was just empty talk, brother," she responded, staring blankly at the floor. "Besides," she added, and, for the first time ever, Cesare heard resentment and bitterness in her voice, "my family would never let me be mistreated. And you will, for the love of me, remind him of that fact."

He wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake the truth out of her, but then he imagined how her head would flop to and fro, still looking away from him, still saying nothing. It was all useless. Her heart was closed off to him.

"I will ask you again," he continued, "and then I will ask you no more." He gently guided her chin around until he could look into her eyes, and drew her to the window.

"Would you really have me spare him?" he whispered. "Because if you would not, say the word, and I will not waste another second. I will go upstairs right now and cut his throat, and bring you his beating heart!"

Lucrezia chuckled bitterly. "What would be the point, brother?" She moved his hands away, and lowered her voice too. "What would it change? If Giovanni Sforza dies, our father will sell me off again like a prize cow, to a new husband who may prove just as cruel as this one." She opened the window, and looked out towards the shore where Cesare had landed two days earlier. "I prefer the devil I know."

She took a shallow breath, drawing up to her full height. "Can I at least have that choice, brother? If I am to be traded like cattle, can I at least choose the colour of my yoke?Will you at least leave me that choice?"

Cesare couldn't even imagine what it would be like to live in a world where his sister did not trust him. This couldn't happen. He had to get her back.

"So you want him to live. But tell me - will you go home will me? At least for a while, until the baby comes?"

"I am already home, brother. For better or worse, this is my home now. I have made my choice and, because you love me so, you will respect it."

"Why?"

Tears were shining in her eyes when she finally looked up at him, her anger and resentment plain like never before.

"You know why."

"I do not, sis. Tell me. Oh, tell me, whatever it is! I will reverse it, I will undo it!"

Lucrezia's façade fell away, and she was shrouded again in her former innocence. He saw her first heartbreak, her first grief, from that day fifteen months ago, the day when he sat with her for hours and reassured her that it was not marsh fever she was ill with, and told her that their father needed no outside help to pay for her dowry. He saw again her pain, her sadness - but this time, it was directed at him, and he wanted to run from her, far, far away, but to hold her close, too, to shelter her inside his heart from what was already done, from what could not be erased.

There was no running now. The past was upon him. Its echoes reached him from the caverns of her eyes, and knew in him their creator. They answered him.

"Djem, brother." Lucrezia's voice came quiet but certain, like hands moving apart the damp earth of the grave. Her stare was still empty, hollow, but her lips were moving, as if animated by a restless spirit to give vent to some ancient grudge. "What happened to Djem."