Rome, January 1498
“Soon you shall have your mistress back at the palazzo,” Cesare said to me as we lay in bed. “In a few weeks she shall give birth to her child and be back at home. Then perhaps the gossip will stop.”
“You do not need me to tell you that Romans will always find something to gossip about,” I said, running my hands lazily over the muscles of his chest.
His expression darkened. I had hit a nerve. “Yes. I know it well. But as long as they are not gossiping about my sister, I don’t care what they say.”
There were other rumors circulating of late about Lucrezia and Cesare. I wondered if Cesare was aware of those. Yet that was something I didn’t wish to ask him.
He sighed and turned over onto his back, drawing me against his side. “At least now her marriage is annulled. Soon this whole debacle shall be behind us.”
It had happened in December; Sforza had finally given in to the pressure being applied to him by both the Borgias and his own cousins, Ludovico and Cardinal Ascanio. He had signed the decree attesting to his impotence, and the divorce was made official. I had been sent for to accompany Lucrezia to the Curia the day she appeared there and made a brief speech before the College of Cardinals, in Latin, expressing her gratitude to be rid of her false marriage. Heavy with child, her clothes had been adjusted in the days leading up to her appearance—by me, at the request of both Cesare and Lucrezia—to hide her pregnancy as much as possible. I had done the best I could, and if one did not know the truth one would imagine she had merely gained weight—or so I hoped. Still, there was bound to be gossip and speculation. There was no avoiding it, however much Cesare might wish it otherwise.
“I wish I knew who the father was,” he wondered aloud. “I know it was not Giovanni Sforza, of course, but she never would say who it was.”
“It was not Lord Sforza,” I agreed.
He lifted his head and looked at me. “Do you know who it is, Maddalena?” he asked.
I hesitated. I remembered the letter I had once carried to Perotto Calderon, how secretive Lucrezia had been, how furtive he had been in accepting it. How, the day she had confessed to me she was with child and I had asked who the father was, she had looked at me impatiently and said, Honestly, Maddalena. I am surprised you do not know.
It had to have been Calderon. Who else could it have been? What else could she have meant?
Her divorce was official; her family knew she was pregnant; what difference did it make if I told Cesare who I thought the father was?
Because you are betraying your mistress’s confidence, a voice in my head whispered. She swore you to secrecy when you carried that letter. It is all of a piece.
But was not my first loyalty to Cesare now? Did I not owe him more than I did Lucrezia?
What harm could it do?
“She had me carry a letter to a man for her, once,” I said aloud, my decision made. Cesare went very, very still beside me. “To whom?” he asked softly. “To what man?”
“A groom in the service of His Holiness,” I said. “A man named Pedro Calderon. Called Perotto.”
Cesare was silent. “Only once?” he asked finally.
“I was sent to him the once, yes. She said Pantasilea usually carried messages to him, but she was ill that day, so she had me do it.”
He was silent for so long that I thought he’d fallen asleep. When I sat up and looked over at him, I saw he was in fact still awake, staring up at the bed canopy, thoughts tumbling through his head.
“I did not mean to distress you,” I said softly.
He pulled me to him, kissing me deeply. “You have not distressed me. Not at all,” he said. “Quite the contrary, my Maddalena. Do not think any more of it.”