“What? To Cesare Borgia, the man you cured of the French pox.” He roars with laughter, and this time Michelotto joins in. Their humor is always strangely without mirth. “I had a more prestigious epitaph in mind, Torella.”
“Oh, I do not mean that you are referred to as a patient. No, no. Of course I have learned from your treatment, but in the treatise I call you by another name.”
“Who am I?”
“A young man called Tomaso who contracted the disease in Naples. As you did. Rest assured, no one will recognize you. And it will be medical history, my lord.”
“I shall think about it.”
But before the door closes on the priest, the request is forgotten.
“So?” Cesare turns to Michelotto, who has sat waiting patiently all this time.
“They are all instructed and waiting on the word.”
“Good. And Vitelli?”
“He is eaten up with pain as well as anger.”
“He should find a better doctor. Still, he will feel pleasure soon enough, until it turns to bile. We’re ready then. All that remains is to tie up the loose ends in Rome. Unless you need to rest from your journey?”
But Michelotto is already on his feet, the dust of the road rising off his clothes. “You do not need to be involved in this, my lord,” he says as he straps on his sword. “This is work I can do on my own.”
“Of course it is. But when you give a man your word, Michelotto, it is only fair to be there when you break it, wouldn’t you say?”
Privilege and despair. Like wealth and poverty, they live close together in Rome. But the contrast is at its fiercest inside Castel Sant’Angelo on the bank of the river Tiber.
When the Pope is tired of his rooms in the Vatican, it is here that he comes, padding unobserved along the raised corridor to this fortified mausoleum. The upper floors are luxurious now, newly restored and decorated with a garden on the roof, glass in the windows, frescoes and tapestries on the walls and pomades of burning herbs to sweeten the air and keep the insects away.
In the bowels of the building, the dungeons too have been renovated, dug deeper and darker, a few chambers with water pits in the middle so that the rats can flourish and any guests must cling to a narrow platform for fear of falling in. This building knows a thing or two about rotting bodies since it was once the tomb of Emperor Hadrian. But then he had been dead when he came in.
The cells where the Manfredi brothers are kept are mercifully dry, with thin light from a slanting window, enough to differentiate day from night. There is one room for sleeping and another for living, and these two young men have done what they can to carve out an existence here, in the hope that fortune has not deserted them entirely. Not all prisoners die in their cells, and their only crime is owning something that Cesare Borgia wanted more: the town of Faenza.
In the year they have been incarcerated, their jailers have grown almost fond of them. They have a lute and a few books and keep a manservant, who tastes every meal before they eat it, though not to judge how edible it is. At the beginning they had hopes that they would be released. At the age of sixteen, Astorre Manfredi had surrendered his title as Duke of Faenza on the promise of their lives and an offer to join the Borgia army. His own citizens had advised him against it, but the cannons were roaring and there were no more dogs in the city to be eaten.
No sooner had the Borgia duke shaken hands on the deal than both brothers were in chains.
In recent months the younger one—just twelve—has succumbed to melancholy. He cries often and talks wildly in his sleep. Astorre Manfredi is more resilient. He exercises, walking to and fro between the walls, prays regularly and until they took his writing instruments away, wrote daily to the Pope: not sniveling letters, but simple eloquent ones, pledging loyalty and love of God and asking that they might be allowed to leave the country and live quietly somewhere else.
The Pope, who held no personal grudge against him, found these letters painful to read and so asked that he receive no more. Manfredi now scratches poems on the wall. He has heard of men who beat their heads against the floor as a way of getting out, and he fears that his brother may do that. But he, so far, has resisted despair.
When the door opens on Cesare Borgia that afternoon, Astorre wishes he might have had some way to trim his beard.
“My brother and I are at your command, Duke Valentine,” he says.
He knows, of course, what is coming, but it will be a small victory not to show it.
“We are ready to march with you in unswerving loyalty in the terms of the treaty negotiated between us in good faith fifteen months ago.”
“And I wish I could honor it,” Cesare says carefully. “Really I do. But I can’t. And it is better that I tell you directly. I have waited as long as I can to put this off, but as you of all people will understand, the security of Faenza demands that it have only one ruler.”
“I mount no challenge to you,” Astorre says, gesturing to the prison walls around him.
“But you remain alive.”
Michelotto now enters the room, kicking the thick wooden door closed behind him. In the corner the boy, who had been watching openmouthed, starts to moan, sliding down the wall, his arms clasped around his chest.
“Don’t be afraid, Brother,” Astorre says loudly, never taking his eyes off Cesare. “I will be with you every step of the way. Duke Valentine, Faenza is your city. There is nothing more I can do to save her. Or myself. I have only one request. For the love of God and family.”
He takes a step toward the duke. At the back of the cell, Michelotto lets out a growl, but Cesare silences him with a wave.
Astorre is close now, head down, speaking fast under his breath so that only Cesare can hear him. When he stops he looks up directly at Cesare and boldly puts out his hand. After a moment’s hesitation, Cesare unsheathes his dagger and hands it to him. Michelotto swears softly behind him but does not move.
Astorre turns, concealing the blade at his side, and moves toward his brother, curled and moaning in the corner.
“Come, Brother, look at me.” He squats down in front of him. “No. Look at me. Good. They will not hurt you, do you understand? I would never let that happen. Come now, stand up. We must get you ready. See, it is just as I promised. You are going to be free from all this. So get up. Good. Good, now, stand straight so we may show these enemies of ours what the Manfredi family is made of.”
The boy does as he is told, pulling his shoulders back, his eyes locked on his brother’s face. Astorre pulls him into a fierce embrace, ramming the blade in fast, up and under the left ribs, straight toward the heart. The boy lets out a constricted scream. Astorre holds him tighter, talking all the time, a litany of whispered words of praise and affection, taking his weight as the boy collapses onto the knife.
Michelotto growls again. This is not his way.
It does not take long. They slide together to the ground, and Astorre cradles his brother in his arms as his gasping agony subsides, the more serious business of dying taking over.
When it is finished the cell is silent, as if they are all equally caught in the gravity of the going. Then Astorre’s voice starts again, words not of consolation but of prayer.
“That’s enough.” Cesare is suddenly angry. “It’s done. You had your wish. If you want God’s forgiveness then you’ll have to die in order to get it.”
It is amazing how a man who was once a cardinal should be so averse to prayer.
All three of them now move at once. Astorre—dagger out proud like a bayonet in front of him—is flinging himself at Cesare, who is already out of range. He never would have reached him anyway, for Michelotto, faster than any of them, is behind him, the wire garrote up and over his neck.
He yanks his head back, kicking feet repeatedly from under him at the same time, straining backward to lift him off the ground. The dagger skitters across the stones. As the young man jerks and gurgles, hands groping desperately for the wire, Cesare picks up
the knife and turns toward him. He stands in front of the flailing body, watching, a half smile on his face.
The garrote breaks the skin as Michelotto yanks again, yelling his own war cry as a necklace of crimson leaks out from under the wire. Manfredi’s head is already falling strangely to the side as Cesare moves in and finishes the job. As befits the end of a dynasty, there is a lot of blood.
“That was too much risk,” Michelotto says, breathing heavily from the exertion as he pulls the bodies into a pile. “What if he had moved faster? Or used the blade on you and not his brother?”
“You have no faith in human nature, Miguel. I could have predicted what he would do from the minute I shook hands with him on the battlefield,” Cesare says, eyes shining, for it is a while since he has been so intimately involved in killing and he has forgotten the heart-thumping exhilaration to be found within it. “If the sea could not kill me, what chance has a boy with a knife? I am cured of the incurable pox, remember. With every step I take I make history.” And he rocks to and fro on his feet fast like a boxer, throwing a fast punch at Michelotto as his laughter echoes round the cell.
In his study Gaspare Torella inscribes the frontispiece of his manuscript in a long looping hand. Pride may be a deadly sin, but there are moments when even a man of God must excuse himself. Eight years it has taken him to finish it: eight years since this flesh-eating plague first erupted out of the city of Naples, leaving the world bewildered and stunned by its violence and speed of transmission.
At first there had been so many theories. A conjunction of the stars with Venus and Saturn in strident opposition. A mad clash of humors—heat and moisture in a city of prostitution invaded by soldiers during a spring of too much rain. Then there were those who saw it as a new disease altogether, brought back from the new world in the loins of soldiers who had copulated with barbarian women. But most majestic of all was the idea that God, angered by the cesspit of man’s corruption, had decided to expose and punish the sins of the flesh by covering men’s skin with weeping itching pustules. As a man of science Torella has studied them all, coming in the end to favor a collision of a number of them: God’s hand played out in fatal coupling in a Neapolitan brothel—like a gross inversion of Adam and Eve; lust, like fire spreading as far as Northern Europe and the coast of Africa within a few years.
He had been one of the first physicians to experiment with mercury as a possible treatment. He had used it with some success on other afflictions of the skin, but the secret was the mix and the quantity. Get it wrong and it could kill with as much agony as the disease. He was trying out various salves (the Vatican had its fair share of sufferers) when the duke had become infected. It was now his life’s work to save him. The idea of fumigation had come to him in France, where a second attack of facial pustules was wreaking havoc with Cesare’s marriage negotiations. Having experimented on himself, Torella had built the fumigation barrel, a traveling hospital for the afflicted. The healing properties of infused steam: it will surely make him famous throughout the medical world.
The effect had been remarkable. After the second treatment the boils had stopped oozing, and when the scabs had formed, the pits they left had been smaller than those of untreated ones. He knows this because his desk is littered with other doctors’ records and their measurements of the wounds. Those same records also recount the agonies men feel, how what starts on the surface soaks inward, penetrating even to their bones. At the University of Ferrara a few years ago, they had dissected the corpse of a sufferer and found that a number of his internal organs had been eaten away. Torella could only pray that the man had received last rites before he died, for if not he must have gone screaming into hell.
Praise be to God it has been otherwise with Duke Valentine.
After three outbreaks of pustules and pain he has been free for over a year.
It is true certain “symptoms” remain. Cesare’s moods have grown noticeably unstable, his impatience too often blurring into fury, his energy ricocheting between mania and strange lethargy. Torella has read of a few other cases where the mind seems to have been equally corrupted, but there is too little information to be sure. And this dark prince of his was always a man of unquiet temperament.
What is indisputable is that five years after being infected, Cesare Borgia is alive and in no pain. Therefore he must be cured. It is how he sees himself, and as both a doctor and a priest, Torella knows how important that is: for the patient who believes in his recovery will profit more than one who remains in terror of death. In this wondrous partnership of healing, where man and God hold hands, the spirit is as important as the body. And though Torella has never seen this arrogant young man pray, there is no doubt that his spirit is very strong indeed.
Yes, he thinks. Cesare Borgia is cured.
Who would want to be his doctor if he was not?
—
“You should have changed your clothes.”
“I did.”
“Then you should have washed better,” the Pope growls. “There’s still blood on you. Today is the ceremony of dowry giving to young women in La Minerva, as you should remember well enough. It will not do for me to arrive as if from the slaughterhouse. What will Burchard think?”
“Whatever he always thinks. He never talks to anyone except his precious diary. The Manfredi deaths need to be news anyway. They tell the world that we are on the move.”
“Still, one cannot help feeling pity for them. He wrote such pretty letters, the elder one, filled with poetry and loyalty. I will remember them both in my prayers. It is a burden, being born into a great family.” Alexander says this rather cheerfully, though it’s not clear whether he means theirs or his own. “So, we are ready then?”
Cesare nods.
“What about your man Vitelli?”
“He will do exactly as he is told. His hands are itching anyway.”
“Riddled with the pox, I hear. A most despicable fellow. As are they all. My God, it turns my stomach sometimes that we should be allies with such vermin. Especially the Orsini, murderous snakes with their hands dripping in blood,” the Pope says, unaware it seems of the irony of the comment. “Sweet Mary, Cesare, when I think of Juan’s body—”
“Not now, Father,” Cesare answers quietly; five years on and his brother’s death can still have the Pope crying like a baby. “We will deal with the Orsini in the future. For now we need them, and they wouldn’t dare cross us. Not yet anyway. How is it with Camerino?”
“The Varano family are shouting like deflowered virgins at their treatment. But they are excommunicated anyway and the state is ours for the taking. When the fate of the Manfredi brothers reaches them, they will be falling over themselves to get out of the city before you arrive.”
“And Urbino?” Cesare is prowling the room. Half of him is still in the cell, nerves on fire and blood splattering the flagstones. “None of this will work unless—”
“Yes, yes. It is done. The duke will give you safe passage. Our families are too well connected now for there to be any question, and our dear Lucrezia was such a gracious emissary. Ha! I must say, Cesare, it is a most elegant plan. Masterly. How long will it take?”
“By the end of the month Vitelli’s agents will be in Arezzo fomenting trouble. When the moment is right they will open the doors to his army and Florence will have a full-blown rebellion on her hands. The government will be shitting itself to get ambassadors into my presence to negotiate. We will have a treaty in our favor soon enough.”
“Yes! And I will have the French yelling treachery in my ear again,” Alexander says, grinning broadly, the ceremony of virgins and their dowries slipping away in the exhilaration of the moment. “Ha. I can see the ambassador’s face when he stands in front of me. My dear man, we are as distraught as King Louis over this. Vitelli is a poxy maverick and this is his bilious ambition at play, not ours. The duke would never countenance such action, and if it is discovered otherwise, then I tell you plainly he is no son of mine.?
?? He waves his arms theatrically. “Louis won’t believe a word of it, of course, but he can be mollified later. I will send a special diplomatic mission across the Alps to meet him.”
“You won’t need to. The king will be in Milan by midsummer. I will see him myself.”
“Oh no, you won’t. If this works, half of Italy will be lining up in Milan to vilify you. You would be walking into a lion’s cage. You will stay where you are and I will defend you, remind Louis of our papal solidarity when it comes to his designs on Naples.”
Cesare shrugs. He has it all planned anyway. He could try to tell his father, describe to him the bond that exists between him and the King of France; how if this plan works the lion will welcome him and together they will share the kill. A year ago he might have fought the point, confident that Alexander would see the step beyond the step, note what others regularly miss. But these days he is not so sure.
“Just as long as you are convincing in your outrage, Father,” he replies.
“You doubt me? The beauty of it is that I don’t even have to lie. My God, you have had me running every which way with this new madness. I have a church to govern as well, you know.”
“If you’d let me go for Florence, we wouldn’t be doing this at all.”
“But oh, this is a far, far better plan,” Alexander says gleefully. “I tell you, when we work together no one can beat us. People will be stunned. In awe! I can’t wait to see their faces. I only wish I could go with you. A warrior pope—what a wonder that would be. Ha. Well, another time. And when the dust is settled it would be good for you to see your sister. I still wonder if we should—”
“No,” he breaks in harshly “No one can know. No one. It is the only way it will work.”
“It will cause waves in Ferrara when it happens.”
Cesare gives a bitter laugh. “On the contrary, it will make them treasure her all the more. How else could they be sure of their own safety? How is she?”