The Family - Mario Puzo [37]
But Lucrezia was inconsolable. She stood now, her usual soft eyes blazing. “I would prefer to die a Black Death in Rome than live with Giovanni Sforza in Pesaro. He is impossible. He never looks at me, rarely speaks to me, and when he does it is all about himself, or to order me to do something I hate.”
Pope Alexander drew her into an affectionate embrace and tried to comfort her. “Have we not spoken of this before? Of the sacrifices we each must make in order to maintain the well-being of the family and the power of God in the world? Our dear Julia has told me of your admiration of Saint Catherine. Would she object, as you are doing, to the call of the Heavenly Father? And is not your papa the voice of the Heavenly Father on earth?”
Lucrezia stood back and looked at her father. With her lower lip still in a pout, she said, “But Catherine of Siena is a saint; I am but a girl. It is not necessary for girls to do as saints do. For being the daughter of a Pope should not make me a martyr.”
Pope Alexander’s eyes lit up. Only a rare man would have been able to resist his daughter’s passionate argument, yet he found himself enchanted and amused by her reluctance to leave him.
He took her delicate hand in his. “Ah, your papa too has to sacrifice for the Heavenly Father, for there is no one in this world whom I love above you, my child.”
Now Lucrezia looked at her father coyly. “Not even Julia?”
The Pope made the sign of the cross over his chest. “With the Lord as my witness, I say again, there is no one I love above you.”
“Oh, Papa,” Lucrezia said, throwing her arms around his neck and breathing in the scent of incense from his golden garments. “Will you promise to send message after message without ever stopping? And will you promise to send for me whenever you see I cannot bear it any longer? For if not I will fade away from despair, and you will never lay eyes on me again.”
“I promise,” he said. “Now gather your ladies-in-waiting, and I will inform your husband that you will be leaving immediately for Pesaro.”
As Lucrezia left she bent to kiss the Pope’s ring, and when she lifted her head she asked, “Shall I tell our Julia or will you?”
The Pope smiled. “You may tell her,” he said, pretending seriousness. “Now go . . . ”
On the last day of their five-day journey to Pesaro, the rain was falling in heavy sheets, drenching Lucrezia, Julia, and Adriana, as well as all their servants and supplies.
Lucrezia was disappointed, for she had hoped to look her very best on her arrival; after all, she was their duchess. With the pride and excitement of a child pretending, Lucrezia wanted to enjoy the admiration and affection she hoped to see on the faces of those people who now would be her subjects.
A caravan of horses carried their precious cargo in peasant carts as they journeyed through the beautiful countryside along the rough dirt road. Though Michelotto and several of his armed men accompanied Lucrezia and her company to protect them from the dangers of attack by bandits, and the hazards of robbery, they were still forced to stop each night when darkness fell. But there were few accommodations along the road from Rome to Pesaro, and often they had to set up an encampment.
Several hours before they arrived, Lucrezia asked her envoy to put up shelter so she and Julia could prepare themselves. They had been on the road for many days now, and her fresh young face and clean hair had wilted with the weather—to say nothing of the mud caked on her shoes and gown. She asked her ladies-in-waiting to take down her hair, dry it with new cotton cloths, and apply balm to her tresses to give the gold a special sheen. But when she slipped out of her gown to put on another, she suddenly felt dizzy. “I have a chill,” she told her lady, and then reached out to grab the shoulder of the girl in order to steady herself.
Adriana looked concerned, for