Sins of the House of Borgia by Sarah Bower Page A

remarked Cesare as he hunted in the purse on his belt for another key. “It makes them ache just to remember it. You know I was a cardinal once?”
    I did know. All Rome had buzzed with the scandal, and nowhere more than the schoolroom at Santa Clara, when, shortly after the murder of Don Juan, Cesare renounced his religious calling to take up his brother’s post at the head of the papal armies.
    “Such a waste of time,” he added, shaking his head. But before I could ask him what he meant, the second door opened on to another series of stairs and passages, better lit than those in Santa Maria, with marble floors and walls hung with tapestries. I guessed we must be in the Vatican, and sure enough, within seconds we emerged from a first floor window on to a short bridge leading to the stand set up in front of the palace for the pope and his guests.
    As we stepped on to the stand, beside the pope’s chair, the noise of the crowd seemed to slam into my chest, almost knocking the breath out of me. The spectators were packed behind wooden barriers, waiting for the races to begin. A surge opposite the stand caused planks to begin to buckle and splinter and guards in Cesare’s livery to ready their halberds to prevent a break out. Their blades glittered in the hard winter sun. The great square was ablaze with banners bearing the arms of Borgia and Este, hanging from every window and fastened to every roof cornice, silk bulls on the rampage, white eagles hovering over their prey. Above our heads the scarlet and gold striped canopy of the stand snapped and rustled in a stiff breeze, and I rued the fact I had not had time to fetch my cloak.
    Cesare paused to acknowledge the crowd, gripping my hand so I was obliged to remain at his side, aware also of Don Michele standing close behind me, the smell of his garlic breath mingled with the sharp scent of new wood and the perfumes the guests wore to mask their sweat: attar of roses, sandalwood, bergamot, and lavender. I felt awkward and exposed; I had not even kissed the Holy Father’s ring; surely even he would register such a slight, despite his tolerance of all the laxity of the household of Santa Maria in Portico.
    Cesare did not smile or wave or bow, merely stood, his features as composed as the masks he favoured, waiting for the silence he knew would come. I found myself wondering how the bulls had felt, a few days before, when the barrier was lifted and they were goaded into the ring which had now become a race track, and they had come face to face with that potent stillness amid the contrived chaos of his cuadrilla.
    The hubbub died in seconds, only the cries of the hawkers of miracles and roast chickens on little wooden spits still unravelling loose threads of sound across the piazza. Cesare turned to Don Michele and said, “How long to the Campo at a gallop, Michelotto?”
    I did not hear his reply. Michelotto. Of course, I should have guessed. To whom else would Cesare entrust the keys to secret doors than to Michelotto, the Navarrese condottiere known as his left hand, because when Cesare hatched a sinister scheme, it always fell to Michelotto to carry it out? Not least among his victims had been the Duke of Bisceglie, it was said. Even the pope feared Michelotto, because he could not bring himself to fear his son.
    “The boar race will commence in twenty minutes,” announced Cesare, his voice not loud, but pitched to carry across the square, “and in the meantime, to atone for the delay, my servants will come among you with cakes and wine.” At once the crowd began to whirl and eddy around gold and scarlet liveried figures bearing great trays of cakes and earthenware jugs, who seemed to have popped out of the very ground itself, like Jason’s skeletons.
    Only now did Cesare take his place on the cushioned bench beside his father’s chair, a mighty piece of carved Spanish oak upholstered in red leather; the stand beneath it creaked ominously every time His Holiness