“It is as we feared and expected,” Father said.
I had just reported to him what was in Maddalena’s letter, and he was as displeased as he was unsurprised. “It was only a matter of time before he returned to the pulpit.”
“Do none in Florence fear the power of Holy Mother Church? Of the damnation they could be cast into for disobeying us?” Father ranted, pacing angrily across his private chamber. “We are the pope. We are the representative of Christ on earth. Not some fanatical Dominican spouting doomsday prophecies!”
“Your commission looked into this,” I pointed out. “Everything he has preached is technically in line with the Bible.”
He rounded on me. “You would take his side?” he spat. “You would prattle on about technicalities? Next you will become one of those sniveling Piagnoni—”
“I merely point out,” I interrupted calmly, “that if we wish to take down the little friar, heresy may not be our strongest argument.”
“Then find me another one!”
“I will,” I assured him, soothingly. “I need more information as yet from my spy in Florence, and then we shall know how to proceed.”
Maddalena was doing an excellent job, better than even I had expected. She was just where I needed her to be, doing just what I needed her to do, and yet there were times when I had to stop myself from picking up a pen and writing her two simple words: Come home. By which I meant, come back to me. Come back to my bed.
It took me a few nights after her departure to remember I could not summon her easily from nearby Santa Maria in Portico; she could not come to me whenever my whim demanded it. She was indeed the perfect person for the task I’d set her. This fine logic, however, did not make it any easier at night, when I ached for her touch, for her body beneath mine.
I went with Michelotto to what had formerly been my favorite brothel in the city. There was a woman there Michelotto favored, and so I told myself I was merely seeing to it that he was able to enjoy himself. He certainly deserved it. The woman the proprietress had chosen for me, though beautiful, simply did not captivate me as Maddalena did. I bedded her, of course—it would not do to have rumors get out about my supposed lack of prowess—but I did not enjoy it. All I could think was how her hair was too dark, not the reddish auburn of Maddalena’s, and that she was a bit too thin, without Maddalena’s soft, enticing curves.
Still, there was other work to be done as I waited for Maddalena to report back. Lucrezia’s divorce remained the principle item on the pope’s agenda, and therefore mine. I threw myself into that; it was not, after all, in my nature to sit about like some lovesick swain and pine for a woman.
I met with Ascanio Sforza in my rooms at the Vatican in early July to discuss the matter further with him. As I had predicted, he had been relieved to have himself and his relations publicly cleared by the pope of any involvement in Juan’s murder. He was eager indeed to get back into the Holy Father’s good graces, for both his sake and his family’s. It was plain he knew his cousin’s marriage to the pope’s daughter was a lost cause, and though he made token attempts at trying to preserve the alliance, it was all too clear that both he and his brother Duke Ludovico were most willing to facilitate the divorce in any way they could.
Ascanio Sforza had never liked me much, nor had he made any secret of it; therefore it was immensely entertaining to watch him battle between that dislike and his nearly desperate desire to accommodate the pontiff in whatever way possible.
“And the grounds, Your Eminence?” Ascanio asked, his nose wrinkled with disgust as he addressed me by my title. “Infidelity, I suppose?”
I arched an eyebrow at him. “What is it precisely that you are implying of my sister, Cardinal Sforza?”
“Not on her part, of course,” he hastened to assure me. “No, on my cousin’s part. What with being on campaign with his men here and there over the years … well, he is a man, with a man’s needs, as I no doubt do not need to explain to you. Certainly there were other women along the way.”
I leaned back in my chair, allowing myself a smile. “Were there? The problem with infidelity as grounds for divorce is it is damnably difficult to prove. Not to mention that such might set a precedent that men across Christendom will hardly thank us for.”
Ascanio’s smile was strained. “What did Your Eminence and His Holiness have in mind, then?”
“Granting divorce on the grounds of non-consummation will be easiest for everyone.”
Ascanio nearly choked on the sip of wine he had taken. “Non … non-consummation?” he gasped, once he’d ceased his coughing. “Surely not. Certainly the marriage has been consummated.”
I spread my hands in a gesture of doubt. “Has it? Several years of marriage, yet my sister has never conceived. It would seem Giovanni is … unable.”
“Unable?” Ascanio asked incredulously. “His first wife died in childbirth, as you know well. It was the pope himself who decreed my cousin could not consummate the marriage for some months. And may I point out that he and his wife have been apart for a good deal of their marriage, partially because he was … unwelcome in Rome.”
I chose to ignore the last bit. “Yet they dwelled together in Pesaro for some time,” I pointed out. “My sister is young and healthy, and of fine stock. If he was frequently exercising his husbandly privilege, why did she not fall with child?”
“Does she say that he did not consummate the marriage?” Ascanio demanded. “I cannot believe it to be true.”
“She will swear to it.”
That did not quite answer the question, but it was all Ascanio needed to know.
“My cousin will not agree to this,” Ascanio said, shaking his head. “This will be the equivalent of declaring himself impotent in front of all of Europe.”
“I do not expect him to agree to it straight off,” I said equably. “After all, that is why you are here, Your Eminence. You—together with your esteemed brother Duke Ludovico—must persuade him that this course of action is best for all of you. For the House of Sforza.”
With my last statement, I had summed up everything that was at play here but that neither of us would speak outright. The pope and the Curia were far more useful and valuable allies to the Sforzas than Pesaro. An alliance with us was worth the shame of a cousin who ruled an insignificant principality on the Adriatic coast.
Cardinal Sforza rose. “Your Eminence has made your meaning plain,” he said. “I will relay this to my brother, and we shall convince our cousin Giovanni to see things our way.”
I raised my wine glass to him. “Most wise of you. His Holiness will be most grateful and appreciative.”
With the Sforzas in line, things could finally move ahead. All that was needed now was to inform my sister of the happy news and get her out of that blasted convent.