The Family - Mario Puzo [104]
She covered her face as he shouted, “A sin? Our love, a sin? I will never accept that. It was the only true thing in my life, and I forbid you to make less of it. I lived and breathed for you. I could live with Papa loving Juan more than he loved me; I could live with Papa loving you more than he loved me, for I knew you loved me above all things. But now that your love for another is greater than for me, how do I make that right with myself?” Cesare began to pace.
Lucrezia sat on his bed and shook her head. “I don’t love another more than I love you. I love Alfonso differently. He is my husband. Chez, your life has just begun. Papa will ordain you captain general of the papal army, and you will have great battles to fight, as you have always dreamed. You will marry and have children you can claim as your own. You will be master of your own house. Cesare, my brother, your whole life is before you, for finally you are free. Don’t allow me to be the cause of your unhappiness, for you are more special to me than the Holy Father himself.”
He bent to kiss her then, a gentle kiss, the kiss of a brother for his sister . . . and some part of him turned hard and cold. What would he do without her? For until that night, whenever he’d thought of love he always thought of her; whenever he’d thought of God he always thought of her. Now he feared that whenever he thought of war, he’d always think of her.
18
CESARE SPENT THE following weeks dressed in solemn black, pacing the halls of the Vatican, sullen and angry, as he waited impatiently for his new life to begin. Each day he anxiously marked time as he looked forward to an invitation from Louis XII, king of France. He was restless and wanted to escape the familiar landscape of Rome, to leave behind all memories of his sister, and his life as cardinal.
During these weeks his night terrors returned, and he was reluctant to fall asleep for fear he would wake in a cold sweat with a half-scream upon his lips. No matter how hard he tried to banish his sister from his heart and mind, he was possessed by her. And each time he closed his eyes to try to rest, he imagined making love to her.
When the Pope, with great pleasure, informed him that Lucrezia was pregnant again, he spent the entire day riding through the countryside almost mad with jealousy and rage.
That night, as he tossed and turned in his sleep, a bright yellow flame burst forth in his dreams. Suddenly the sweet face of his sister appeared, and he saw it as a sign, a symbol of their love. It had warmed him, then burned him, but still it burned bright. He made his commitment during that dark night, that he would wear that flame as his personal insignia and place it alongside the Borgia bull. From that day forward, in peace or in war, the flame of his love would now flame his ambition.
Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere had been the most bitter enemy of Pope Alexander for many years. But following his exile to France—after the failed and humiliating attempt to unseat the Pope and align himself with the unfortunate Charles VIII—della Rovere discovered that his contentious attitude had brought him nothing but misery. A man like himself was much more comfortable in the cramped and crowded passages of the Vatican, where he could make subtle plans for his own future and assess his position while speaking directly to both his friends and enemies. There, in an expression of a face or an inflection of a voice, he could learn more than from all the written agreements.
Once della Rovere determined that his stance against the Pope no longer served to his advantage, he was quick to attempt a reconciliation. The opportunity had come with the death of the Pope’s son Juan, when he penned a letter