Blood & Beauty by Sarah Dunant Page A

be told about Juan that he doesn’t know anyway. With barely eighteen months between their births, they were in conflict before they had the language to express it. Perhaps if Juan had climbed off his father’s lap sooner he might have found a way to stand up to his older brother. There are moments when Cesare wonders if he isn’t still there; it would surely explain his father’s indulgence towards a young man whose bad behaviour makes enemies faster than old meat breeds maggots.
    ‘You should know that the household will be moving soon, Calderón.’
    ‘What! You are called to Rome?’
    ‘Not us. No, the house of Adriana de Mila.’ Cesare glances at Michelotto. The other man purses his lip, as if to show disquiet at the direction of the conversation. ‘They are to live in the Palazzo Santa Maria in Portico. You know it?’
    Pedro nods. He would probably say he did even if he didn’t, but in recent weeks he has made it his business to know all the buildings close to the centre of power. It is one of the newer palazzi, full of sweeping lines fluent in a classical language he does not understand but knows to be all the rage among those rich enough to follow fashion. More important than its architecture is its situation: directly to the left of the Vatican palace, so close that it is rumoured that a person does not need to step out of one to get into the other. ‘It is Cardinal Zeno’s house?’
    ‘Yes. But soon he will kindly offer it to our family,’ he says, and the wording brings a guffaw from Michelotto.
    ‘When will that happen, my lord?’
    ‘When we tell you it has,’ cuts in Michelotto curtly. ‘This is not public information you are being given here, you understand, boy.’
    No. Though it is a piece of gossip worth more than he will ever be paid for galloping halfway across Italy.
    ‘I know that, Signor Corella,’ he says, staring straight back at him. As someone who spends so much time in the saddle he is used to keeping his mouth shut. Too much dirt gets in otherwise. He turns to Cesare. ‘I trust you will be in Rome long before it happens, my lord.’
    ‘Indeed. And when we are I dare say we will need a rider as fast on his feet as he is in the saddle.’ His fingers move a little in his lap and Michelotto closes his mouth on whatever he might be about to say. ‘Perhaps you will know someone we might approach,’ he says lightly.
     
    Cesare has good reason to feel benign. Though his natural state is of a man driven, with only his own will for company, the dispatches from Rome are heavy with promise. They had discussed it before the conclave anyway: how, if his father should be chosen, the first and greatest charge against them would be that of nepotism, the fear of a great flock of foreign birds swooping down into the orchard and picking the trees clean. The archbishopric of Valencia will do him well enough for now. Of course, some will squeal at the wealth that comes with it. But every pope is obliged to hand on the Church offices he held before his election, and if any benefice should stay in the family it is that of Valencia, for the Borgias were born out of its soil, and when it comes to spinning marriage webs to consolidate their power, one of them will surely be with Spanish blood. From his father’s letters there are hints that it may not, after all, be Lucrezia. Barely six weeks in and it seems other suitors are starting to pick up on the scent. Cesare wonders how much Lucrezia herself knows of it all. No – if she knew, he would be the first she would tell.
    ‘What?’ He looks up to see Michelotto frowning at the floor. ‘Don’t worry about it. Calderón knows it is a test as well as we do.’
    ‘We don’t need him. We have enough riders. He’s just young and hungry.’
    ‘I know those who started younger. And hungrier. Let him be for now. We have bigger matters to attend to.’
    With his father’s triumph everything and anything is now possible. His brother’s whoring