The House of Borgia, book 2

CHAPTER 17

When some days later Lucrezia Borgia rode north with her young husband it was as if the lucky star of the Borgia family had left with her. Ominous clouds were gathering to change the fortunes which never seemed to have been so high as at this moment with Cesare, Duke of Romagna and the Pope on good terms with Louis and Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain.

Cesare's dreams at this time were centered on the consolidation for himself of a kingdom which would comprise all of central Italy. Vaulting ambition was already beginning to o'erleap itself in his heart. He glimpsed in those dreams of his a conquest even further which would eventually drive both the Spanish and the French from Italy, leaving the whole peninsula in his hands. And then perhaps? Who could say that the glory of the Roman Empire was dead forever…?

At first it seemed that his campaign might succeed. He accomplished what amounted to almost the total subjugation of the Camerino in the space of a very few weeks. But the very fact of his growing power was breeding him more and more enemies? and more and more powerful enemies. Tuscany, Venice and Florence were all worried by the enlarging weight of his mailed fist and agreements were come to between them in preparation for future action. Milan, too, joined the league and rumor had it that the only thing that kept Louis XII himself out of Italy and a containment of the Borgian realm, was that he still needed the Pope's favor in connection with Naples? where the spoils of war were being violently disputed, between the victorious contestants.

Rebellions were provoked among Cesare's mercenaries, by his enemies, for offered reward. He found himself moving hither and yon over Italy crushing first one and then another, growing weary and uncertain in the process.

Although he returned eventually to Rome with a semblance of order in his territories, he knew that powerful Venice was stayed from attacking him only by doubts as to which side the King of France would take in the event of war.

A short time after his return to Rome both Cesare and the Pope fell ill of a mysterious fever which, it was thought, may have been the result of poisoning deliberately designed by their enemies.

The beginnings of their sickness could be traced to a dinner given in the Vatican by the Pope for a number of his cardinals.

So corrupted was the Church from earlier ideals that it was not beyond the bounds of possibility that one of his own ambitious and envious cardinals had contrived to slip some poison into the wine that was drunk and had intended Cesare to be affected also as his temporal power was sufficient to “arrange” the next papacy should his father die.

Father and son both lay for a week between life and death in their rooms in the Vatican. The old man, being of less robust constitution, fought vainly against the inevitable.

Late one evening, with Cesare still tortured by the fever in an adjacent apartment, Pope Alexander? the Cardinal Roderigo that was? feebly summoned his cardinals to his bedside. For a long time they stood in his presence watching his deathlike face, waiting for words which did not come.

When his voice broke through lips which hardly moved, his words seemed to come from some other place than the room in which they stood.

“For years,” he murmured? and they moved softly forward the better to hear? “I have bargained with the devil.” He raised his half-closed eyes with an effort to take in the faces of those around his bed and a trace of a smile flickered over his visage.

“A full… and devilish… life and I'm not afraid to pay. The devil is not unkind to his disciples…”

There was a deathly hush in the room. All were aghast, but none dared interrupt this voice coming from the verge of death. There was a flutter-like movement among them as, with a superhuman effort, the old man raised himself up and gazed beyond his bed, but the flutter died into petrification.

“I am coming,” he breathed. “I am coming… it is just…”

He lay back on his pillow. He was dead.

Those present crossed themselves. Nobody said a word. Each was thinking of his own end, his own life, strayed from the paths of righteousness.

It was only after they'd left the quiet room and were on the broad marble steps which led down, that one whispered to another: “Whom was he talking to? What was just?”

“It was not God in the room with him,” the other replied.

Within a few days, the body of Alexander, after exposure on a catafalque in full pontificals in St. Peter's, was removed to the Chapel of Santa Maria delle Febbre.

It was a sweltering day and the poison in the Pope's body aided his obesity in the quick decomposition of his body so that his face had become almost black and looked like some macabre creature from the underworld.

Those who gathered to watch the corpse pass saw in the blackened, grotesque features the entry of the devil himself into the body.

“That's what happens when you fuck your daughter,” declared some peasant bystander, who'd heard the rumors which had sounded all over the kingdom and beyond.

“Then you'd better have your carcass burned as soon as you go,” retorted his neighbor.

There was a roar of laughter which seemed to infuriate the first speaker. It was true he had a reputation for initiating his 11-year-old daughter in the rites of love and he was touchy on the point. Rounding on his tormentor he dealt him a lusty blow on the jaw. This brought the intervention of another of the crowd and in no time a battle royal was being waged along the side of the road.

The bearers of the body tried desperately to keep a straight and steady path, but as the crowd swarmed and fought around them, one of them lost his balance and the catafalque, body and bearers found themselves rolling in the dust amidst a mob of flailing legs and arms.

It was the lot of Pope Alexander to be embroiled in violence right to the very coffin.