Even after Juan’s funeral procession, Father stayed locked away, refusing to eat or drink or see anyone. I had tried multiple times to gain admittance to his chambers and was turned away every time.
“He must be made to eat, Your Eminence,” Burchard said to me at one point, peering owlishly up at me from his small height. “We all understand his grief, but he cannot put his health in jeopardy like this.”
“I agree, Burchard, but what would you have me do? He will not see even me.”
“If I may be so bold, Your Eminence must continue to try. If he will not listen to you, I do not know that he will listen to anyone.”
Despite the circumstances, this pleased me—I had become known throughout the Curia for being the one man whose counsel the Holy Father sought. I had finally become indispensable, as I had always hoped to be.
And if I were not yet, I soon would be.
As another day passed and still he did not emerge, I began to wonder in earnest if I should tell him the truth. But I did not know with certainty who had laid the trap. All I would really be able to tell him was that I had watched my own brother be murdered and had done nothing to stop it. And what would be the point of that?
Still I could not stop thinking about telling him, and I realized that for the first time in my life I felt the urgent need for confession and absolution. Yet this was a sin no one could absolve me of. I had known that when I had weighed my options in the alley and decided to walk away. I did not deserve absolution.
Juan’s desperate cries—Brother, help me!—would echo in my ears until the day I went to my own grave.
And yet if I had the choice to make again … God forgive me, I would not have chosen any differently.
I went to see my sister, who was devastated. As she wept in my arms, I felt the guilt truly eat at me. But I also became angry that someone as useless and cruel as Juan should be mourned so. He had not been worthy of Lucrezia’s love, of our father’s love. Yet they wept for him all the same.
I stayed with Lucrezia late into the night, wanting to comfort her as much as I was able. One thing was clear: she must never know what I had done.
As I was leaving, I came upon Jofre returning home. He was drunk, swaying on his feet. He’d taken up with a band of young ruffians of late. Father had been most disapproving—why such behavior had been forgivable in Juan but not in Jofre I did not know—but recent events had distracted Father from the reprimand he’d been planning to deliver to the youngest Borgia. Jofre roamed the streets unchecked, for now.
“Brother,” I said, steadying him. “You do not look well. Shall I help you to bed?”
He wrenched away from me, stumbling back. “Don’t need your help,” he said sullenly.
I shrugged. “Very well,” I said. “I bid you good night, then.”
I turned to go, but he called out to me. “Wait!” he called. “I have to tell you something, Cesare,” he slurred. “God help me, I must tell someone.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“You must promise not to tell anyone.”
“Very well, I promise,” I said. Surely Jofre’s big confession would be no more than visiting some whores, and he did not wish Sancia to know. As if Sancia cared.
He glanced around to make sure we were alone and said softly, “I did it.”
“Did what?”
“Juan. I had Juan killed. It was me.”
I took a step back in surprise. “You … did what?”
“I hired the assass-assassins,” he said, stumbling over the word. “I sent them after him. It was me.”
“If this is a jest, it is a poor one.”
“It is no jest,” he snapped petulantly, and began to giggle. “You all, none of you,” he said through his drunken laughter, “none of you see me as a true Borgia. I am not one of you, not really. You do not believe I could do it, do you? That I could have my own brother killed?”
I did not believe it, did not want to believe it: that the boy Juan and I had wrestled with and taught to play chess, the boy Lucrezia had read stories to, would order the assassination of his own brother. But there was a hardness in Jofre’s gaze, a coldness I had never seen before. He was telling the truth.
There had always been a rumor that Jofre was not a Borgia, that he was the perfectly legitimate son of our mother and her husband. But Father had never said so and had seen to it Jofre was raised just as we were. Yet it was plain he thought of Jofre only after Juan, Lucrezia, and me. I knew all too well how it felt to be treated second best, but perhaps not in the same way that Jofre knew it.
What have we done to you? I wanted to scream at him. What did you let us do to you?
What had ambition and lust for power done to us all?
I would have paid and sent out the assassins myself, if only to keep Jofre’s hands clean.
“But … why?” I asked, afraid I already knew.
“He was fucking my wife,” Jofre slurred. “I love her, and he took her from me. She went to him willingly. I had to. I could not bear it.”
Dear God. This, too, was my guilt to bear. For I had done the same as Juan, only I had done it first. Juan was dead for a sin I had committed. The only difference was Jofre had never known of my betrayal.
I might as well have killed Juan twice over.
God, but we were like a family of spiders, weaving our webs and entangling one another and devouring each other without a care.
“So now,” Jofre was saying, not noticing the horror-stricken look on my face, “no one can say I am not a true Borgia. I have taken back what was mine, have I not? Is that not what Borgias do? We take what is ours.” He began to laugh hysterically, until he dissolved into tears. He peered up at me, eyes rimmed in red. “You will not tell, will you, Cesare?” he whispered. “You promised not to tell.”
“I … I promise,” I said. It was the least I could do, was it not? Keeping Jofre’s secret, no matter how it weighed me down.
He began to laugh once more. “It does not matter if you tell anyone, come to that,” he said. “Tell the world. Tell them all. Let everyone see that Jofre Borgia is not to be trifled with.”
He did not resist as I helped him up to bed, giving him over to the care of his servants. He was snoring before I could leave his bedchamber. Who knew if, in the morning, he would even remember what he had told me. That he had confessed all.
But I would. I would never forget.
Before I could think better of it, I went downstairs and made my way to the kitchens. I did not know where Maddalena Moretti might be found at this hour, but someone there surely did.
Yet as though she’d known I would come seek her—that I needed her—I entered the kitchen to find her standing beside a large wooden counter, speaking with another maid in low voices. Judging by the crumbs on the counter, the two women had been eating their evening meal.
Her companion was facing the door, and as I stepped inside she caught sight of me, and her eyes widened. “Che?” I heard Maddalena ask, and the woman silently pointed toward me. Maddalena whirled around, surprise flitting across her face.
“I need you,” I said, my voice ragged and cracked. “Come. Please.”
She gave a quick nod and cast an apologetic glance at her friend. The other woman nodded in return. Maddalena hurriedly crossed the room and took my arm, leading me out of the kitchen and down into the secret tunnel.
We did not speak a single word all the way back to my rooms. Once inside, I bolted the door and strode to the bed, intending to rip off my clothes and hers as well, so I could bury myself in her as quickly as possible and forget, if only for a while, the horrors I had learned that night. Yet I did not, could not. Instead I kept walking to the window, before turning and pacing as I always did when I was agitated. I could not stay still, not even for pleasurable purposes. I had not brought her there for sex. Not that night.
Maddalena came farther into the room and stood beside the bed, calmly watching me pace. After a minute or two passed, she finally spoke. “What’s wrong, Cesare?”
I started slightly at the sound of her lovely, melodious voice, though I had hardly forgotten she was in the room with me. “What’s wrong,” I repeated, continuing my pacing. “What’s wrong.” I could feel her eyes closely watching my every movement. “I have committed a great many sins in my life,” I said at last, stopping and facing her. “Which you either know or can no doubt imagine. Yet never before have I truly felt as though I have imperiled my soul.”
She considered this. “What is your sin, Cesare?” she asked softly.
I resumed pacing. “You do not want to know.”
“Did you kill your brother Juan?”
The question came out quietly, but quickly, as if before she could think better of it. Yet when I stopped and looked at her, she met my eyes almost placidly, so that I thought once more what a painting of the Madonna she would make. Her gaze held no fear, no judgment. And I realized why I brought her here: that I might confess. For there was no one else on earth to whom I was willing or able to make this confession.
I crossed the room and knelt before her, taking her hands in mine, and gazing up into her beautiful, serene face. “Yes,” I said. “I as good as killed him. And that is the truth.”
And I told her all. I told her everything.