“No. Your wounds are healing. You are very healthy, they tell me. Your blood is good. Few would have recovered as quickly as you have. It will not be long now. Think of it, Alfonso. Think of it all the time.”
He did think of it; and when he slept there was a happy smile on his lips.
Alfonso was now able to walk about the apartment. He would sit on the balcony overlooking the Vatican gardens, and feel the warm sun on his face. The doctors said that he would soon be ready to sit his horse.
He was longing for that day.
Sanchia or Lucrezia had first held his arm as he tottered about the apartment, and it was a great day when he walked unaided to the balcony.
“Soon,” Lucrezia whispered.
“We must wait,” Sanchia said, “until he is strong enough to endure a long journey.”
So he took exercise, and waited, and longing began to take the place of fear in Alfonso’s blue eyes.
The little hunchback, whom he had befriended and who was ready to give his life for him if need be, was constantly in attendance and one day, when he, Alfonso, was sitting on the balcony, he called to the little fellow to bring him a cross-bow so that he could discover whether he had strength to shoot a bird in the gardens.
The cross-bow was brought, and he tried it.
He missed the bird and sent the hunchback down into the gardens to retrieve the bolt.
Cesare was walking in the gardens with Don Micheletto Corella, one of his Captains, when he saw the hunchback running swiftly across the grass to retrieve the bolt.
“Is that not the servant of my brother-in-law?” he asked.
“It is indeed, my lord, and do you not see your lord-ship’s brother-in-law at the window now, the cross-bow in his hands?”
“By all the saints!” cried Cesare. “We have narrowly escaped death.”
The Captain returned his master’s smile. “Had the bolt pierced one of our hearts, my lord, we should indeed not be alive.”
“So … he would attempt my life!”
“None could blame your lordship if, in the circumstances, you demanded his.”
Cesare laid his hand on the man’s shoulder; they smiled. It was the opportunity they had been waiting for.
It was afternoon and many were sleeping in the August heat. Alfonso was resting on his bed. The exercise of the morning had tired him. Lucrezia and Sanchia sat on either side of the bed. They were dozing lightly.
Suddenly there was a commotion outside the room, and Sanchia went to see what was happening, Lucrezia following her. At the door they saw soldiers arresting the guards.
“What is this?” demanded Sanchia.
“If it please the Madonna,” explained Captain Micheletto Corella, “these men are all accused of a plot against the Pope.”
“It is not possible,” cried Lucrezia.
“These are my orders, Madonna,” was the answer.
“What is this plot?” demanded Sanchia.
“I do not know, Madonna. I merely obey orders.” He looked at them with respectful kindness, as though he were disturbed to see two such beautiful ladies in distress. He went on: “His Holiness is but two doors away. Why do you not go to him and ask him to release these men, if you are so sure of their innocence?”
Lucrezia and Sanchia ran toward the Pope’s apartments.
He was not there.
Then suddenly they looked at each other and, without a word, ran back as fast as they could to Alfonso.
They were too late.
Alfonso lay across his bed. He had been strangled by the cruel hands of Micheletto Corella.
III
THE CASTLE OF NEPI
The cortège made its dismal way to the little church in the shadow of St. Peter’s. It was dusk and the light of twenty flares showed the way to Santa Maria delle Febbri. Mingling with the shuffling footsteps of the friars were their low voices as they chanted prayers for the soul of the dead man.
The apartments of Santa Maria in Portico were filled with the gloom of mourning. Red-eyed servants spoke in whispers, and silent-footed slaves passed one another with downcast eyes.
And in the rooms of Madonna Lucrezia there could be heard the sound of weeping voices as she and her sister-in-law reproached themselves while seeking to comfort each other.
Sanchia, her beauty impaired by the signs of her sorrow, paced up and down Lucrezia’s apartment, storming with rage one moment, collapsing on to Lucrezia’s bed in misery the next.
“How could we have been such fools!” she demanded.
Lucrezia shook her head. “We should have known it was a trap.”
“All the care we took … cooking his meals, watching over him, never leaving him for a moment without one of us with him … and then … to be such fools!”
Lucrezia covered her face with her hands. “Oh Sanchia, I have an unhappy feeling that I bring tragedy to all who love me.”
“Have done with such talk,” cried Sanchia. “They would not have dared, had we not left him alone. It is not some evil luck you must curse, but your own—and my—stupidity.”
“It was such a short way to go.”
“But we left him long enough for that brute to put his fingers at his throat and strangle him.”
“He said that Alfonso suffered from a haemorrhage when he got up too quickly as they entered the room.”
“Haemorrhage!” cried Sanchia. “Did we not see the bruises on his throat? Holy Mother, shall I ever forget?”
“Don’t, I beg of you, Sanchia.”
Loysella came hurrying into the apartment, fear in her eyes. “Il Valentino comes this way,” she cried. “He will be with you, very, very soon.”
Loysella dropped a curtsey and hurried out. She no longer had any wish to watch with coquetry the coming of Cesare Borgia.
“That he should dare!” cried Sanchia.
Lucrezia was trembling. She did not want to see him; she was afraid her feelings would get beyond restraint when she must look at this beloved brother—this once-beloved brother?—whom the whole of Rome knew as the murderer of her husband.
There was the sound of soldiers’ footsteps on the stairs and, when the door was flung open, two of them stood on guard as Cesare came into the room.
Lucrezia had risen. Sanchia remained seated, her blue eyes flashing hate and scorn.
“Cesare …” stammered Lucrezia.
He looked at her coldly, marking the signs of her grief with distaste.
Sanchia cried out: “Murderer! How dare you come here to violate our grief?”
Cesare was looking at Lucrezia, talking to Lucrezia. “Justice has been done.”
“Justice?” said Lucrezia. “That murder of one who did no harm to any!”
Cesare’s voice was more gentle. “That he did no harm was no fault of his; he tried hard enough. He acted so that it was clear that it should be my life or his. I had no alternative but to make sure that it was not mine.”
“He would never have hurt you,” said Lucrezia. “He would never have hurt me by hurting you.”
“You are too gentle, sister. You know not the ways of ambition. Why, shortly before he died he attempted to take my life. I saw him at his window, the cross-bow in his hand.”
“He but shot idly to amuse himself and test his strength,” said Lucrezia.
“Little thinking,” cried Sanchia, “that it would give you the excuse you sought.”
Cesare ignored Sanchia. He said: “There have been plots … plots against me … plots against the Papacy. Dearest sister, you have been an innocent dupe. They have been concocted in your own apartments; while you chatted of art and music, of poetry and sculpture, your late husband and his friends made their plans. His death was just.”