time to caress. “The curve of your spine is like a string of pearls,” he would muse, and trace his lips over my back until I was vibrating down to my toes. Or he would drop slow tantalizing kisses over every part of my face from my ears to my chin, everywhere but my lips, until I dragged his mouth down against mine. He liked me bold and never accused me of being wanton; he tossed me and teased me, made me laugh and made me cry out—and my husband might have given me to Rodrigo, but Rodrigo had never forced me. “I’ve never had a woman by force, and I don’t intend to start now,” he’d told me, and then stood back in utter confidence to let
me
choose. It’s not often a woman has a chance to choose, let me tell you. And I’d considered my options: the handsome young husband with the clumsy hands, or the ecclesiastical lover of more than sixty years who could curl my whole body up in shudders of pleasure?
Well.
“My papal bull,” I whispered, and felt the rumble of laughter deep in his chest above me.
He slept afterward, his head heavy on my breast, my arms showing pale about his swarthy shoulders in the flickering candlelight, my hair coiling over us both. “Everything will be perfect now,” he murmured, half-asleep. “You at my side, Juan returned,
la familia
reunited . . . the French defeated . . .” A yawn. “God has been kind,
mi perla
.”
Unease twinged at me again, and I didn’t know why. Not until I rose and dressed and tiptoed out, back to the Palazzo Santa Maria so the Pope would be found alone in his bed in the morning by his entourage, as was proper (even if they all knew I’d been keeping him company there). I yawned as I trailed through the darkened papal apartments, and my feet slowed in the Sala dei Santi as I looked again at the finished frescoes all the Borgia family had admired last night at
cena
. I looked past the frescoes this time, Juan as proud Turk and Cesare as merciless emperor and Lucrezia as pleading saint, to the Borgia bull motif repeated over and over in the floors and the walls. Not the placid grazing ox that had been the family emblem when they were merely the lowly Borja of Spain, but a massive defiant beast gazing about with arrogant eyes. In public appearances Rodrigo displayed his papal emblem of the crossed keys, the keys to the kingdom of heaven. But here there were no keys and no heaven either. There were saints on every wall, but it was the Borgias who dominated—the Borgias and their pagan bull.
“God has been kind,” Rodrigo had said.
La familia
united again, as they had not been for years, and the French had been swindled and outplayed by my wily Pope who had played that spotty French King like a harp, vowing eternal friendship and whispering confidential promises, and all the while he had been piecing together a Holy League to oppose them. Rome, Spain, Milan, Venice: all allied against the French, who had found themselves outnumbered and surrounded in Naples. What a victory—and with the French fleeing their shattered campaign, what enemy was there to oppose my Pope and his family?
And last night they had celebrated in these rooms, which might have an Annunciation and a Nativity and a Resurrection painted on the walls . . . but which glorified not God, but Borgia.
Carmelina
P easant food,” I said flatly. “You are joking.”
“Would I joke?” Leonello arched an eyebrow at me. “The Duke of Gandia desires a simple repast for midday
pranzo
when he and his party of friends break their fast here in between hunting bouts. How did he put it?” Leonello fingered the hilt of his knife in that despicably suggestive way Juan Borgia did, and cast a leer at the nearest kitchen maid. “‘Today we hunt, and we will eat like simple peasants, close to the earth and close to God!’”
“Santa Marta save me,” I muttered. “I’ll give him peasant food. Barley porridge and boiled goat,
that’s
peasant food!”
“Send him that, and you will
me
choose. It’s not often a woman has a chance to choose, let me tell you. And I’d considered my options: the handsome young husband with the clumsy hands, or the ecclesiastical lover of more than sixty years who could curl my whole body up in shudders of pleasure?
Well.
“My papal bull,” I whispered, and felt the rumble of laughter deep in his chest above me.
He slept afterward, his head heavy on my breast, my arms showing pale about his swarthy shoulders in the flickering candlelight, my hair coiling over us both. “Everything will be perfect now,” he murmured, half-asleep. “You at my side, Juan returned,
la familia
reunited . . . the French defeated . . .” A yawn. “God has been kind,
mi perla
.”
Unease twinged at me again, and I didn’t know why. Not until I rose and dressed and tiptoed out, back to the Palazzo Santa Maria so the Pope would be found alone in his bed in the morning by his entourage, as was proper (even if they all knew I’d been keeping him company there). I yawned as I trailed through the darkened papal apartments, and my feet slowed in the Sala dei Santi as I looked again at the finished frescoes all the Borgia family had admired last night at
cena
. I looked past the frescoes this time, Juan as proud Turk and Cesare as merciless emperor and Lucrezia as pleading saint, to the Borgia bull motif repeated over and over in the floors and the walls. Not the placid grazing ox that had been the family emblem when they were merely the lowly Borja of Spain, but a massive defiant beast gazing about with arrogant eyes. In public appearances Rodrigo displayed his papal emblem of the crossed keys, the keys to the kingdom of heaven. But here there were no keys and no heaven either. There were saints on every wall, but it was the Borgias who dominated—the Borgias and their pagan bull.
“God has been kind,” Rodrigo had said.
La familia
united again, as they had not been for years, and the French had been swindled and outplayed by my wily Pope who had played that spotty French King like a harp, vowing eternal friendship and whispering confidential promises, and all the while he had been piecing together a Holy League to oppose them. Rome, Spain, Milan, Venice: all allied against the French, who had found themselves outnumbered and surrounded in Naples. What a victory—and with the French fleeing their shattered campaign, what enemy was there to oppose my Pope and his family?
And last night they had celebrated in these rooms, which might have an Annunciation and a Nativity and a Resurrection painted on the walls . . . but which glorified not God, but Borgia.
Carmelina
P easant food,” I said flatly. “You are joking.”
“Would I joke?” Leonello arched an eyebrow at me. “The Duke of Gandia desires a simple repast for midday
pranzo
when he and his party of friends break their fast here in between hunting bouts. How did he put it?” Leonello fingered the hilt of his knife in that despicably suggestive way Juan Borgia did, and cast a leer at the nearest kitchen maid. “‘Today we hunt, and we will eat like simple peasants, close to the earth and close to God!’”
“Santa Marta save me,” I muttered. “I’ll give him peasant food. Barley porridge and boiled goat,
that’s
peasant food!”
“Send him that, and you will
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