Ostia surrendered to Cordoba and his forces on March 9, after a short struggle. Juan was of little help in the final outcome, or so my spies reported back to Michelotto.
You would never know it, I thought bitterly as I watched the triumphal parade enter the piazza in front of the Vatican, by the way Father carried on, and the way Juan—very much alive and well—was being honored. Since we’d received the news, Father had crowed about the victory to anyone within hearing, and about Juan’s (practically nonexistent) part in it. “The French are finally gone from Italy, Excellency,” he said to Girolamo Giorgio, the Venetian ambassador. “You have no doubt heard about the triumph we have effected at Ostia, where our son, the Duke of Gandia, took it back from the last of the French troops.” Or the day before, when he’d met with the Mantuan ambassador: “We expect our son, the Duke of Gandia, home tomorrow. He’s just won a great victory at Ostia. You will be present at the triumphal parade, yes?”
Father’s explanation that Captain Cordoba was the true leader of the expedition, with Juan attached to it simply as a means for the Borgia family to score political points, had been a good one, much as I hated to admit it. It spoke of sound political strategy, which any other use of Juan in a military situation did not. Yet it was as if he had forgotten his reasoning altogether, and genuinely believed Juan to be responsible for the capitulation of the French at Ostia.
Judging by Gonsalvo de Cordoba’s face as he rode beside Juan into the piazza—beside him, not at the front of the procession, as the commander had every right to do—he had heard at least some of what Pope Alexander had been saying.
The two men reached the Vatican steps and dismounted, walking side by side up to where the pope waited, enthroned with much of the Vatican court around him. Lucrezia was there, beaming in our brother’s direction. Her feckless husband was also part of the procession, due to his presence at Ostia, and she would be reunited with him soon. Beside them stood Jofre and Sancia. Jofre had leaned in to whisper something in Sancia’s ear, and while she was nodding attentively, her eyes wandered over the crowd. She caught my eye and let a slight smile spill onto her lips, winking at me. My blood heated at her small gesture, but it was not the time to lose focus. Later tonight, while I was inside her, I would tell her how I felt looking at her in that gown with its low-cut bodice, trimmed in fur, and how even before all of Rome I was hard-pressed to stop the stirrings in my cock … damn, Cesare, pull yourself together. As if knowing the danger I was in, Sancia’s eyes left mine and fastened on Juan as he and Cordoba approached, reminding me where my attention ought to be. I refocused just as the Holy Father rose from his throne, and they knelt.
The pope spoke words of welcome and praise, speaking highly of Cordoba’s skill as a soldier and a commander. Next he spoke of Juan’s skills as a leader and in all matters military, and I watched the pride on Cordoba’s face vanish into stony anger. For the love of all the saints, Father, stop, I thought beseechingly in his direction. The man has won us a victory, and you would antagonize him so?
It got worse at the banquet held in the Vatican after the procession. Juan was seated in the place of honor at the pope’s right hand, with Cordoba beside him. Father pronounced many toasts as the night went on, to victory, to the glory of God who had granted such a triumph, and to Juan by name. Gonsalvo de Cordoba, the true hero of Ostia, was never explicitly mentioned, and though he tried to maintain a pleasant and grateful demeanor, it was clear as the night wore on how further injured his pride was. Father did not notice in the least.
“What news, Michelotto?” I murmured as he came up toward the end of the feasting. With the return of the army, he had gone to speak to his spies, wanting to find the latest information.
“Nothing much of import, Eminence,” he said quietly. “There was a rather violent disagreement during the campaign between the Duke of Gandia and the Lord of Pesaro. Some matter of pride and strategy, apparently, and the two men nearly came to blows.”
Our eyes moved to seek out Giovanni Sforza, seated farther down the table beside his wife. Lucrezia was laughing with Sancia on her other side, while Sforza simply sat and stared stonily, arms crossed over his chest. His wine goblet was empty and there were some traces of food left on his plate. He looked to be wishing the festivities were at an end.
“Perhaps that is why he is so surly,” Michelotto commented.
I smirked. “No doubt it is not that he is offended over the slight to Gonsalvo do Cordoba’s honor.” I took a swig from my goblet, eyes fixed on Sforza. “No, he always looks like that, Michelotto. At least when he is around us Borgias. He acts as though we are beneath him, even his wife, instead of thanking God for his good fortune each time he even thinks about touching her.” I took another sip of wine; I had consumed more than usual this evening, and it was making my tongue loose. “Ah, well. No matter. He will not be around much longer in any case.”
Sancia came to my rooms that night, and despite all the drink I’d had, I was ready. I practically threw her on the bed and plunged into her immediately, with no preliminaries. Her cries and urging told of her equal desperation for me. We reached our pleasure quickly, and the force of my climax nearly stopped me breathing. Never had it been like this for me with any other woman. Never would it be again.
“It is torture, night after night, when we are all together, to watch you and know you are mine in all the ways that count, but not in the eyes of God and the law,” I said to her afterward, once we had caught our breath. “I wish things were different,” I whispered against her neck. “I wish you were my wife and I need not ever be apart from you or see you with another man.”
“Or see me dance with Juan?” she teased, referring to earlier that night.
Fury ignited in my breast, but I tamped it down. I had just cut open my heart for her, and she responded by teasing me? “Yes. That is a sight I need never see again.”
“He is a fine dancer.”
“I mean it, Sancia,” I said. “Do not try to make me jealous with him. I speak in earnest. If … if I were someday free, free to marry, would you agree to be my wife?”
“What about Jofre?”
I waved aside her words and my guilt. “We will have your marriage annulled. He was so young when you were married—is still so young—that no one would find it hard to believe it was never consummated.”
She was silent, her eyes wandering over the ceiling above the bed, as though she could see the future I painted for her. “And I would be at your side as you ride out to conquer Italy?” she asked. Her habitual seductive, teasing tone was still there, but lesser now, and filled with more wonder, as though she were as enamored with the idea as I.
“Yes. I will make you a queen.”
She smiled. “And I would consent to be queen.”
I kissed her fiercely, kissing my way down her body, using my mouth and tongue on every inch of her until she was writhing beneath me and nearly screaming my name. Just as I liked her.
God Almighty, what rotten turn of the wheel of fortune had made me the eldest Borgia son, instead of the youngest, the one married off without a care to Sancia of Aragon? For if I could not achieve the destiny that I had been born for, what more did I need than this?