The Family - Mario Puzo [151]
“Chez, do we know that?” she asked. Lucrezia shifted to face him as she spoke, for this subject was important to her. “Is it not an arrogance to decide what is a good and honorable cause? To the Infidel it is good and honorable to slay the Christian, but to the Christian the opposite is true.”
Again Cesare paused, amazed as he often was by his sister.
“Crezia,” he said. “I try never to kill for personal satisfaction, only for the good of us all.”
Lucrezia’s eyes filled, but she tried to keep her voice steady. “Will there be that many more killings, then?”
“Certainly in war there will be, Crezia. But aside from war, we sometimes must take lives for a greater good as well as for our own protection,” he said. Then he described his own decision to hang the chicken thieves on his last campaign in Cesena.
Lucrezia hesitated before responding, for she was not convinced. “It worries me, Cesare, that you may find yourself using ‘the greater good’ as an excuse to eliminate troublesome men. And life is full of troublesome men.”
Cesare stood gazing out at the lake. “It is lucky for all of us that you are not a man, for you tether yourself with doubt, Crezia, and it could stop you from acting.”
“I’m certain you are right, Chez,” Lucrezia said thoughtfully. “But I’m not sure that’s bad . . . ” She was no longer so certain that she understood evil, especially once it was hidden in the shadows of the hearts of those she loved.
As the pink dusk fell over the silvery lake, Lucrezia took her brother’s hand and led him back along the path to the cottage. Inside they lay naked together on the white fur rug in front of the warm fire which crackled and blazed in the stone fireplace. Cesare marveled at the fullness of his sister’s breasts, the softness of her belly, transfixed by how much of a woman she had become and how drawn to her he was by an even greater passion.
Lucrezia spoke in a tender, affectionate voice. “Chez, remove that mask before you kiss me? For with it on you could be anyone.”
The smile fell from his lips, and his eyes lowered self-consciously. “I will be unable to make love to you if I see your eyes fill with pity for my pockmarked face,” he said. “It will keep me from enjoying what may be our last time together.”
“I swear I will not look upon your face with pity,” she said. And then she tickled him as she said, “I may even laugh, and then you will stop this senseless drivel. For I have loved you from the time my eyes first opened, and you stood above me smiling. I have played with you and bathed with you as we were growing up. I have seen you look so handsome that I had to turn away, or give myself away, and I have seen you when your heart has broken and the sadness in your eyes has forced my own eyes to fill with tears. But I have never once thought you less, or loved you less, for some small marks on your face.”
She bent over him then, her lips covering his, her body already trembling. When she lifted her head again, she looked into his eyes and said, “I just wish to touch you, to see your eyelids closed in ecstasy, to run my fingers gently down your nose, to feel your sweet full lips. I wish no barrier between us, my brother, my lover, my friend. For, from this night on, all that is left of my passion will rest with you.”
Cesare sat up and slowly removed his mask.
Lucrezia married Alfonso d’Este by proxy in Rome the following week. With the contract of their marriage he had sent a small portrait, which showed a tall, rather stern-looking man, not unattractive, who held himself with strict reserve. He was dressed in the dark uniform of state, with many medals and ribbons to decorate it; just beneath his long fine nose a mustache tickled his top lip, though it did not make him smile. His curly dark hair neatly capped his head, with no stray strands let