Rome, September 1493
The two papal bulls sat on the table in front of me. I let my eyes listlessly wander over the Latin text, though I knew what they said. I’d always known this day was coming, had known it since my father was elected pope—since before then. This was what he had always wanted for me, and he was only a step away from making it so.
The first bull declared me the legitimate son of Vannozza dei Cattanei and Domenico da Rignano, my mother’s husband at the time I was born—a necessary fiction for me to be made a cardinal. Illegitimate sons are not eligible to receive a red hat.
The second bull, to be issued in secret but no less official, countered the first one, naming me the son of Rodrigo Borgia and Vannozza dei Cattanei. My father, proud man that he was, could not bear the thought of issuing a proclamation that I was not his son without correcting it, even if no one would know the latter had been issued and everyone knew the former for the falsehood it was.
Foolish, really—could not a man such as my father see that the means are irrelevant if the end is in sight? But apparently, in this, he did not. It was all done, and in consistory a few days hence he would name me a cardinal, along with several other men who would be beholden to him for their investiture and therefore keep Borgia interests close to their hearts.
I could feel my father beaming across the table from me. “Soon it shall be done,” he said. “You are staring your future full in the face, Cesare. How does it feel? Does it not feel glorious?”
Slowly I raised my head and looked at him. I had fought a long, raging, anguished battle with myself over what I was going to say at this meeting, ever since he had told me last week that the bulls were being drawn up. I did not want to enrage him or alienate him when he was finally beginning to fully trust in and rely on me. Yet this was my last chance, futile though it might be, to convince him he was wrong, that this was not what was best for me or for our family. All too soon there would be no going back.
“It does not feel glorious,” I said slowly. “It cannot, when I am on a path contrary to the one in my heart.”
Instantly Father’s good humor vanished. His face set like one of the marble statues in the basilica. “What is in your heart is of no use to me, nor to this family,” he said coldly. “It is what is in your mind that will serve us, and what I intend to make use of within the Curia.”
“Do you not think a mind is needed to serve us on the battlefield? To create strategy and tactics and to run an army?” I demanded. I laughed shortly. “You must not think so, if your hopes for a general are pinned on Juan.”
Father slammed his hand down on the table, and though I was startled I remained still, staring back at him impassively.
“We have been over this again and again since you were a boy, Cesare,” he growled. “And you are still a boy, clearly. Which is why I make the decisions for this family, and you obey, as a good son should.”
“Do you not see that I am not suited for a cleric’s life?” I asked, raising my arms as if to draw his attention to my purple robes. “My strengths do not reside in quill and parchment and whispered negotiations in back hallways. I—”
“You speak as if I mean to make you a parish priest, burying plague victims and hearing villagers’ confessions,” he spat. “I am placing you on a path to power, to true power, to the most respected power in Europe.”
“Is Rome really so?” I shot back. “How can we be without an army? If Charles of France decides to come, he can lay waste to all of Italy with his troops and weaponry, let alone Rome. True power is won at the point of a sword—”
“You speak like a foolish child,” he said, derision dripping from every syllable. “Like a boy who knows nothing of the world, nor of how battles are really won. You will learn. I will teach you, and despite your fantasies of becoming the next Giulio Cesare, someday you will be the third Borgia pope. My uncle Pope Calixtus III made me a cardinal, and I as a pope do the same for you. Someday you will sit on St. Peter’s Throne, and make a son or nephew a cardinal. And so it shall go on throughout history, and the Borgia family will have our own dynasty within the Church.”
“But my talents would—”
“Your talents are much the same as mine, for the politics and negotiations you show so much disdain for,” he snapped. “I need you here. This is where you will be of most use to me.”
“It seems you do not know my true talents,” I said. “And why should that surprise me, when you insist on seeing myriad talents in Juan when he possesses none.”
“If you were still a child I would send you to your nursemaid to be thrashed,” he snapped. “I’ve half a mind to do it myself. You’ll not speak ill of your brother, and you will not forget that it is I who sits on St. Peter’s throne.”
Silence. My face burned with shame and anger at his words, at his condescension. I would always be naught but a boy to him, someone to be lectured and taught the error of his ways. He claimed to value my counsel, but when it most mattered—when it most mattered to me—he would not hear it.
“Do I get no say in my own future?” I asked at last, my voice soft.
“No.” The single word was low and terse. “You will do what is best for your family, as we all do. As I did, when I went into the Church, and when my uncle made me a cardinal. And you will come to see in time that I was right.”
There was so much more I wanted to say, but all of it was ill-advised. Instead I turned and left his chambers without another word or waiting for him to give me leave. He did not call me back.
On September 20, my elevation was put to a vote in consistory. And thus—over the loud objections of Giuliano della Rovere—I would be a cardinal.
“Credo in unum Deum, Patrem omnipotentem.”
I spoke the words softly—almost as softly as I was able—in unison with the men on either side of me, all of us dressed in new crimson robes, our heads bare. We knelt before the altar of St. Peter’s Basilica, reciting the Creed and professing our faith in God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. I kept my eyes cast down in a show of piety so no one would see the misery on my face.
When the prayer ended, we rose, and I caught sight of my father, seated on the papal throne and wearing the immense papal tiara. Tears of pride had sprung in his eyes. The ugly words we had exchanged a month ago had been forgotten, by him, at least. But he could afford to forgive me. He was getting what he wanted.
Eventually I would silence this voice within me that screamed for a different fate. I would become resigned to this life, this life of quietly wielding power. I would come to revel in it. I would perhaps even come to love it.
But that day had not come yet, and I both yearned for and dreaded it.
We recited the oath of obedience to Pope Alexander VI and his successors, and then, one by one, each man stepped forward and had his biretta—the three-cornered red hat—placed upon his head by the Holy Father.
I was somewhere in the middle, no doubt to draw the least amount of attention to the fact that Pope Alexander’s eighteen-year-old son was being made a cardinal. I stepped forward and knelt, and the hat was placed on my head. When I rose, I was a cardinal.
I met my father’s eyes. They had gone cold, calculating. Pride was there still, but also a determination to finally wield this weapon that he had forged in ways only he could know.
I stepped back into my place in line, now Cardinal Borgia, and kept my eyes locked on his until the next man stepped forward and his attention shifted.
I would forge my own weapons, whatever weapons I could. And by God and the devil, I would learn to wield them.