The House of Borgia, book 2

CHAPTER 10

“Who is the lady next to the Duke of Alfaro?”

Cesare voiced the question to Rossano Erfredi, one of his followers. His eyes gazed up to the nearby stand where the Duke, a pompous, condescending old fellow, was surrounded by his wife, a band of men and ladies-in-waiting and a very attractive, fair-haired girl with pale, blue eyes which sparkled occasionally like sun-flecks on a shallow, Mediterranean sea.

“I've never seen her before, Sire?but I can find out in no time.”

“She appears to be alone?she's a beauty, isn't she?”

“Indeed, Sire, worthy of any gentleman's attention, grinned Erfredi.

“I'm glad our views concur,” smiled Cesare. “Go and see what you can find out.”

With Erfredi gone, Cesare turned back to where the village champion was in the act of eliminating yet another of his wrestling challengers. The man was stocky and over-muscular, probably the village blacksmith. So far he had won all his contests against his fellow villagers and foreign rustics by sheer brute strength. He was certainly dangerously strong, Cesare reflected, but he'd have to use more than brute strength if he wanted to keep his title this year.

The crowd was excited, as much by its own effervescence as the spectacle and the cheering and encouragement was considerable. It had not escaped their attention that there was a stranger in the field this year who looked a force to be reckoned with, but their money was on their local celebrity.

“A moronic mountain,” one of Cesare's lieutenants whispered at his elbow, “but one would have to be careful if one got in close with him.”

“I have his measure? I trust.”

“If he looks like breaking one of your bones I'll put an arrow through his arm.”

“You want us to be lynched from the trees over yonder?no, I have his measure, I say,” Cesare replied.

While his bulging adversary had been breaking bones and spirits in dealing with his challengers, Cesare had, himself, come gently through the earlier rounds, with well applied pressures, to a less spectacular but just as efficient entry into the final bout which he was destined to have with the champion.

Already, the ladies had remarked his tall, slim-hipped figure with its supple muscular chest and arms which were in such contrast to the bulky power of the favorite. Many a feminine heart had already felt a twinge of desire and of curiosity as to who this handsome young man might be.

“There should be fun tonight,” Cesare said to another of his lieutenants. “The whole place is swarming with pretty women and you can see their eyes gleaming with hope for a bit of freedom.”

“Aye, Sire, I've made up my mind to have four in turn tonight?at least four.”

“What a gourmand, Enrico, you'd better mind you don't break your neck in the races.”

“It's something else I have to mind I don't break.”

Cesare chuckled. “Well, Enrico, I'm a gourmet, and I've made my single choice already.”

“Indeed, Sire?might one ask…?”

“Over there in the stand. There's only one I could mean.”

Enrico gazed discreetly towards the aristocrats' shelter.

“Ah, yes,” he sighed. “I'd reluctantly put thoughts of that away. She's much too well chaperoned by the Duke and Duchess?might even be their daughter.”

“The better she's chaperoned, the more determined she'll be to escape them once the idea's in her,” Cesare said, with a grin.

“Well, good luck, Sire?perhaps the result of the wrestling will be an omen.”

“Ah, Rossano, you must have intelligence in every village in the north to be so quick?who is she?”

Rossano Erfredi was a little out of breath with hurrying to obey his chief's command. He spoke quickly, his words punctuated by little gasps which seemed, somehow, to enshroud the object of his inquiries in an exotic urgency.

“Her name, Sire, is Dorotea Caracciolo. She is the wife of Gianbattista Caracciolo, a captain of foot with the Venetians. She's here as a friend of the Duke and Duchess of Alfaro.”

“And her husband?where is he?”

“In Venice, Sire?the lady is quite alone.”

“Well done, Rossano?I'll save you a piece of the lady's garter for your pains.”

There was a gust of laughter which died away as one of the sports officials came to say that the champion was ready for his final challenger. Across the greensward, his muscles more extended than usual from his limbering efforts with earlier adversaries, the champion strutted in an orgy of self-congratulation from which it was clear he saw no likelihood of losing his crown.

“I wish you'd let me take him, Sire,” Rossano Erfredi said quietly. “He's an ugly looking brute and I could more easily afford to break a bone or two than you.”

“You don't trust my strength, Rossano? Come, is that worthy from a lieutenant to his captain?”

“Oh, Sire, forgive me, no!” Erfredi was covered with confusion. “It's simply that… if there were any risk?and I don't suppose for a moment there is?I'd sooner it were me than that you should risk a strain…” He was embarrassed now that he'd said anything which could be taken ambiguously when it had merely been an automatic statement of his devotion to the Duke of Valentinois.

“Yes, Sire,” another lieutenant added. “I wish you'd let any of us take him. He's not worth your trouble.” Cesare laughed.

“It's no trouble, Enrico, I assure you, and it's only reasonable that I should lead our spearhead into the sports. Rossano, I don't forget a man's concern for my skin. It's the highest tribute anyone could ask.”

A slight hush, broken with odd shouts, guffaws and other noises of movement and early tipsiness, had clouded over the green. Few doubted that the champion would be champion yet again. But the stranger provided a little more interest than was usually taken in a foregone conclusion. The fact was, that Cesare's victories had been so easy that they had lacked the impressive cock-strutting dazzle of his opponent's.

“Here's to the omen for the fair lady,” Cesare said, as he moved out, away from his little band of disguised officers, and walked alertly toward the approaching champion.

Both were dressed in tights. Cesare in shoes and the champion in boots. The muscles in their torsos contained no shadows from the dying sun, but veins stood out on them like marks traced heavily around the highland on a map.

They approached each other slowly, cunningly, surrounded at a distance by a crowd of several thousand villagers and countryfolk above whom the Duke of Alfaro's party looked on from the height of their perch.

Both men reached a point just beyond each other's reach and circled for a moment, sizing each other up. Then the champion, a man of uncomplicated reactions, who wanted a quick and spectacular victory to make him the undisputed wrestler of all time in his village, rushed in. Cesare caught his fist as he came, ignoring the other arm which reached out triumphantly for his neck. As the champion's fingers, all in a second, grazed his skin, he gave a quick twist to the fist he held. With a gasp, the champion jerked over off his balance and landed with a breath-shattering thud on his back. It was not for nothing that Cesare had had a Turkish instructor during his student days.

Quickly, Cesare was in with a full nelson on his opponent. The astonished referee counted according to the village rule, while the champion fumed and strained at the vise-like pressure on his neck, trying to jerk his shoulders from the ground. When Cesare released him at the end of the count, he got up slowly, easing his neck. The cheers of Cesare's lieutenants hailed over the green, followed, rather uncertainly, by cheering encouragement from the crowd.

The champion was furious, his eyes were the sparking color of red-hot coal in his blacksmith's furnace. He had not yet realized his danger. This was an accident. Some insolent, quick-moving stranger had taken him off his guard. Perhaps he'd been just a little too confident. But now he knew what his opponent was up to he'd crush his insolence out of him?but quickly before he lost face in front of his countrymen.

He came in again, caught Cesare's arms which came out to meet him and felt vague astonishment that his progress was completely checked. Those arms were as stiffly strong as the barrel of a cannon. For a second or two they stood there, leaning forward slightly, arms on each other's biceps and then the blacksmith swung Cesare and felt him going, sideways, apparently off-balance. He moved in to get his bear grip around the man's neck and suddenly, Cesare seemed to have righted himself. As the champion came to close quarters a sharp ankle blow knocked his legs together painfully and an even sharper jab under his chin sent him crashing on his back for the second time. There were fresh cheers and sounds of triumphant merriment from Cesare's little band of lieutenants. The rest of the crowd was hushed in something like awe.

Cesare leapt onto the heaving, almost deflated chest of his opponent, bent over him, so that their faces were close together and slipped a stranglehold around his neck with both arms. The champion flailed for a moment, grabbed at Cesare's shoulders, arms and then his hair, but sudden, sharp tightenings of the asphyxiating grip on his neck made him release his hold each time with squeals of pain.

“Lie still or I'll strangle the life from you,” Cesare gritted. Half-conscious only, with tears of strain in his eyes, the champion lay back, hardly knowing what had happened to him. The referee counted, slowly, it seemed, as if he could hardly credit the possibility of the title-holder being out for the second time in such a tiny space and with so little resistance.

When Cesare sprang to his feet, lithe as a gymnast, his opponent lay where he had fallen for a moment. Then he rolled over on his side and looked dazedly at Cesare with something like real fear in his eyes. He didn't move and the crowd began to shout for him, a shouting which slowly turned into a barracking as he turned a white face around the field as if he'd like to run for it.

“Had enough, my friend?” Cesare taunted. “Do you want to hand the title to me on a platter?”

A momentary gleam of hatred chased the fear from the blacksmith's face. All his dominance, all his respect in the village was dissipating. He had held a sure place in the set-up in this part of the world. Everybody knew who he was, what he was, how strong he was, what he could do to a man who questioned his position. And now, this fellow, this devil incarnate had arrived from nowhere to make what should have been a splendid, strength-displaying sports day into a farce in which he couldn't even seem to get near his opponent.

He struggled to his feet. He would make this effort. One more throw and hold and he was finished. The fellow was slippery, but he must be stronger. He must be stronger. Nobody could question that. If he could get the fellow before he had any chance to perform one of those dirty conjuring tricks, he'd have him crying out for mercy and then they'd see if they hadn't decided a little too early to flout his authority, to decide that if this fellow could beat him he wasn't so strong and wonderful after all.

On his feet, he moved slowly, carefully. His neck hurt with a searing pain when he moved it, but his eyes had cleared and the breath had come back to fill his big body. This time he'd keep hyper-alert for a nuance of a movement, ready to counter it.

Cesare knew, he knew what was going on in his opponent's mind and in his own the little warning that always came when things seemed to be going almost too much his way, spoke out. “Don't relax for a moment,” it said. “Don't assume that you've won just because if you keep your head it's a cakewalk. First you have to keep your head.”

So Cesare, too, moved slowly, hyper-alert, rather than dulled into carelessness by his near-victory.

Silence had come on the crowd again. They seemed to sense the desperate plight of the local champion, for whom no love was lost, certainly, but for whom there was a certain feeling of kinsmanship in that he was born and bred in the village in which they all lived and worked and made love.

During several seconds they circled each other, hands taut and moving slightly, arms taut and waiting. The blacksmith was unwilling to rush in this time and waited for Cesare to make the first move.

It came, suddenly. Cesare moved in, catching his opponent's fist again. But this time, the blacksmith flung himself in at the Duke's waist, not quick enough to avoid the knee which caught him a searing blow in the chest as he came in, but quick enough to get his great arms around his adversary's body so that, like a boa constrictor, he could slowly squeeze the life out of him.

There was a gasping rustle of excitement in the crowd. Cesare's men fidgeted, hands on the daggers in their belts.

Cesare was too late to resist. He felt the backbreaking grip around him and let himself go limp, suddenly, reaching behind at the same time with both hands. He found the little fingers as the breath began to heave and choke in his chest, and tugged at them sharply. The blacksmith gave a cry of pain and released his grip, his hands hanging limp as Cesare seized an arm, levered with his hips in the man's groin and threw him heavily again to the ground. There were gasps which resounded all over the field as if every member of the assembled multitude had had the breath knocked out of him by the fall.

Although strained, the blacksmith's fingers had not been broken. Cesare had not applied all the pressure he might have done. After all this was not war to the death. But in the mind of the champion it might have been. Winded, his fingers smarting, he nonetheless managed to seize Cesare's foot as he came in and twisted him off his balance so that he in turn slipped onto his back. He was up in an instant, however, and the blacksmith, slow, cumbersome and opening his mouth to get his breath, was not able to follow tip his momentary advantage. The two men faced each other again, circling, chests heaving, muscles sliding in their arms and shoulders as they moved.

Cesare knew he would be wise to exploit the other's temporary exhaustion and injury quickly, but, having felt the strength of those great tree-trunk arms around him, he was cautious. The champion's eyes were afire, but mingled with the fire was a recognition of defeat staring him in the face. When his gaze met the cool, unyielding look of his unknown adversary he felt that he was up against some strange presence against whom he could do little.

Suddenly Cesare moved in and the blacksmith's arms went out in mingled defense and attack. But with a speed which took his still half-winded opponent completely by surprise, Cesare had ducked under his arms, seized his widespread legs with each hand and pulled upwards as he thrust up with his shoulders in the man's crotch. The blacksmith was bewildered by the lightning thrust and unable to do anything but flail his arms in the air as he found himself flung into the air and then crashing on his face. He had not time even to roll over before Cesare was on him from behind and gripping him in a leg hold which brought tears of pain to his eyes. He scratched at the ground with tensed hands and tried to unseat his opponent with his buttocks, but Cesare was unmoveable. He simply applied more pressure until the blacksmith was bellowing in pain and beating on the ground in surrender.

A great roar of appreciation went up from the crowd. Their champion had been well beaten by a man who was immeasurably his superior. There were no hard feelings and it would take the cocky blacksmith down a peg or two.

Among Cesare's officers nobody could understand how they'd ever even considered that he was running a risk in taking on this adversary. Their chief was invincible.

“Who is that man?” Dorotea Caracciolo's pale blue eyes were sparkling in their depths with admiration.

“Don't know,” said the Duke of Alfaro indifferently. “Some lout from one of the villages, I suppose.”

“He doesn't look much like a lout, does he?”

Dorotea had caught his tone and she knew what he was thinking. Since the beginning of her stay, the old man had been trying hard to seduce her, a fact that didn't cause her much concern. Except that last night in a flush of desperation he had come into her boudoir in his underclothes, while his wife slept. She had been bathing and had time only to cover herself with a towel before he had seized her and was begging her to yield to him or his life stood for nothing. In half earnest, half bravado he'd actually managed to lay hold of her and pull the towel from her breasts. She'd felt his hand on her buttocks, his panting breath on her neck and his fat body with its hot penis crushing against her before she'd managed to fight him off, threatening to tell his wife if he persisted. Really, such conduct wasn't to be tolerated and she'd informed her hosts that she thought she should leave in two days' time. Although she was more amused than offended. After all, all men were the same at heart and she recognized that he had a genuine heart-aching lust for her which was not unflattering. However it was too boring to have to be subjected to invasions of her boudoir and, who knew, he might take her unawares some time, get her at some disadvantage and actually screw her? rape her. That would disgust her. His hot, fat flesh. Now… if it were the young man on the field…

“Looks a typical country bumpkin to me,” the Duke persisted in a disgruntled tone. “Eh, my dear,” he added a little more loudly for the benefit of his wife on his other side.

“I think he's glorious?looks like a prodigal prince,” his wife said.

Dorotea laughed to herself. Now he was going to be as jealous as hell if he thought she admired this young man.

“How beautiful he is compared to that ogre of a man he's just beaten so soundly,” she went on. “I think he has one of the finest bodies imaginable.”

“Well, you can guarantee he'll have no brain,” the Duke said, eyeing his guest with annoyance. “A beautiful carcass and nothing whatever in his head? probably can't even read or write.”

“Oh, but I thought he used his brain very well during the match,” Dorotea teased, “and I'd sooner take a body like that than what passes for brains any day.”

She pulled her hand away as the Duke tried to hold it on the bench on which they sat.

“Any woman would be proud and happy to have a man like that,” she added, maliciously.

Pangs of envy and frustrated fury skewered through the Duke's breast. He knew how she was tormenting him. But she couldn't be serious?give herself to a common rustic like that when she could have a man of quality. But tomorrow she was leaving. Oh those delicious little white breasts with their pert, pink-rimmed nipples, high, firm, cheeky almost. He had a picture of them ever before his eyes. And the feel of the smooth skin of her buttocks and the animal warmth of her body behind the towel against him. Oh heaven and hell! He would live his life in a dream of what might have been if she didn't yield to him before her departure. Tonight was the only chance. If only he could drug her with wine or something. It wouldn't matter not to feel her responses if it had to be that way. Just to enter in up that moist, warm creek would be salvation. His eyes glanced sideways at her lovely profile, that tremulous, sexy, jutting lower lip, that small nose and firm chin, that high forehead with the sweep of long fair hair back from it? and most of all those pale, mysterious eyes, sphinx-like half the time, dancing with animation the rest. Oh to have that face close to his as her body wriggled?or just lay dead? under his. Better to see those eyes dancing with passion, that jutting lip trembling with emotion and ecstasy as he drove her and himself to fulfillment. Oh, darling Dorotea! A country bumpkin with muscles and straw in his hair! How could she be so ridiculous?or so cruel!

The sports continued, with their closing events. Cesare and his lieutenants had entered separately in only some of the events so as not to attract too much attention. They had won everything they'd undertaken and Cesare closed the day by walking off with the archery contest.

“It was as well, Sire, that we didn't enter for everything or they'd have nothing to show in the village except a mass of long faces tomorrow,” Rossano Erfredi said.

“Oh, they'd have had time to recover their good spirits in the dark corners tonight,” Cesare said with a laugh. “Nothing like a good orgasm or two for a relaxed view of life.”

It was the Duke of Alfaro's privilege and duty to present the awards?hogsheads of wine, great hams and sides of bacon with little silver cups?and the successful competitors, donning jerkins, lined up in the last rays of the sun, with a cool night air beginning to freshen, at the foot of the stand.

Cesare took his place in the queue, smiling at his role of prizewinner in a local fete. And when he looked for Dorotea Caracciolo, he found her eyes were on him.

She was standing next to the Duke of Alfaro, helping him to present the trophies, but her glance had risen from the immediate presentation and traveled along the line of waiting men to Cesare. With a twinge of pleasurable excitement he met her gaze and smiled slowly at her. She pulled her eyes from him and he suddenly remembered that he was a simple rustic. Hardly the thing to be making advances to the wives of captains in the service of Venice. But maybe she liked country pleasures. He chuckled quietly.

The line dwindled and Cesare found himself face to face with the aristocrat of the district and his lovely guest. Now that he saw her close up he felt a flush of eagerness to get on intimate terms with her, to get in intimate postures with her. Her figure, well draped in her dress, was nonetheless visibly exciting and her face was alive with a vivacious fire which sprang out of her eyes in twin points like mischievous children. What an excellent carnival companion she would make.

Solemnly the Duke of Alfaro handed him two cups: one for the wrestling, one for the archery. At his side were a ham and a hogshead of wine, the supplementary, gastronomic prizes. The Duke had not meant to address this rustic. It seemed quite enough to him that the man had already given rise to some conversation?rather uncalled for. But when confronted by Cesare he was reluctantly impressed by the man's presence?and made hostile by it.

“Tell me, my man?you don't belong to the village?” he asked.

“No your Grace. I'm an infantryman with the Duke of Valentinois' troops?on leave at the moment, so please your Grace.”

“You see?he speaks,” Dorotea cut in, laughing lightly and looking first at Cesare's muscular, uncovered forearm and then raising her eyes to his handsome, commanding face.

“Did you think me to be a deaf mute, Madame?” he asked.

The Duke of Alfaro began to expostulate, but Dorotea cut him short.

“We were simply wondering whether such a splendid physique could really be crowned by any brain at all,” she said, with another little laugh.

“It's not unknown for the two to go together,” Cesare said with a smile. “You, Madame, are, I'm sure, a fair example of such.”

“Why you…” the Duke of Alfaro began to splutter, but Dorotea put a restraining hand on his arm while her eyes continued to smile at Cesare.

“I thank you for a very nice compliment,” she said. “I have heard that the Duke of Valentinois is an iron-willed man of great physical strength. If he could out-wrestle and out-shoot you, it would be worth the seeing.”

“Madame, I owe all I know to His Grace,” Cesare replied. “A finer man never lived.”

“Yes, indeed, they say all his men would die for him. Are you visiting all the carnivals and sports you can reach on your leave?”

“No, Madame, I have a feeling that this area has something really delightful to offer. I shall probably stay for a while if I and my friends can find a suitable inn.”

“Well, I hope you are able fully to enjoy the delights of which you speak.”

During their conversation, the Duke of Al-faro had not hidden his annoyance and his obvious irritation that Dorotea should talk so easily with a mere infantryman. But he had restrained his anger not to appear ridiculous in front of the villagers who had gathered in a great throng around the stand, and some of whom could hear the words which were being spoken. Also he didn't want to offend Dorotea, although he was certain she was doing this just to tease him. He still wanted to fuck Dorotea. Fuck Dorotea! Fuck Dorotea! He repeated the words to himself, fiercely and then blushed with desire at the images and sensations they brought forth in his mind.

He refused to have anything further to say to the lout, however, and simply began to lift the hogshead.

“Your Grace,” Cesare said, “if it would not displease you I'd like the village to have the hogshead and the ham?a gesture of friendship from strangers in their midst.”

This sign of gentle manners somehow annoyed the Duke even more. There was something disturbing about this stranger. He actually felt a little afraid of the man although he wouldn't admit it to himself in such terms.

“All right,” he said curtly, “as you wish.”

“Come Benvenuto?a very fine gesture, too,” the Duchess chided from his side.

The Duke of Alfaro was about to add a reluctant word in agreement when his voice was drowned out by a great gust of cheering which thundered out through the quietening night air. The word had been passed back that the carnival victuals of the village were to be reinforced through the generosity of this stranger who had fought so well.

Cesare bowed slightly to the Duke and Duchess and then to Dorotea, whose eyes, glinting with what might have been a light amusement, or something else, continued to watch him as he withdrew.

“What a charming fellow,” the Duchess whispered to her companions. “He hardly seemed like a peasant. Manners and speech are improving in the country.”

“No, he didn't, did he?” Dorotea mused.

“Well, I think he was damned insolent speaking that way to our guest.”

“Oh come, Benvenuto, he was just paying a bold compliment. No lady really minds. Yes, he struck me as a bold man?quite strange.”

A bold compliment? the Duke was thinking. What could have been bolder than my compliment? God! I nearly had her. Just a towel between us?and not even that between parts of us. His loins cringed at the thought of what had been so near and now seemed so far away.