Late that night, just before the vigilia secunda, Niccolò returns to the Rocca. There are still men working on the site next door, even at that hour, illuminated by torches. For the most part, the city walls look as though they have been repaired. He notices that the workers have planted even longer wooden poles in the center section of the worksite, and they are laboring around them. It looks as though they have already laid some cross beams and a portion of a roof. Whatever this building will be, it clearly needs to be finished with great urgency.
Niccolò enters the stronghold and goes up the stairs to the Palazzetto del Paradiso. Once again, Corella pats him down, especially carefully in the area where he keeps his money pouch, this time by pretending to dust off Niccolò’s robe. Then he leads him into the grand hall where flames from the fireplace brighten the room.
Dianora is not there. Valentino is busy examining a number of papers tucked inside a red leather folder stamped with his coat of arms. He’s wearing a doublet and ivory colored shirt, and still has on his black gloves. Niccolò wonders why. A heavy pouch rests on the stone table under the window.
Don Miguel Corella takes it and hands it to Niccolò. “This is an advance for your work,” he says courteously. It’s heavy. “Open it,” don Miguel says. Borgia pays them no mind, he’s absorbed with other matters.
Niccolò unties the cord of the pouch and peers inside. Gold florins sparkle in the firelight. This is the first money he will have earned solely from writing. He doesn’t try and count how much is there but he can tell from the weight that it’s a significant amount.
“Thank you,” he says.
“No need for thanks. It’s payment for your art.” Corella lights a candelabra that is sitting on the stone table, pushes the libelous writings up against the wall to make some room, and invites Niccolò to take a seat. “Is this enough light for you?” he asks considerately.
“Yes, it is.”
Then don Miguel sets down some ink, paper, quill pens, and the portrait of a young man whom Niccolò has never seen before, after which he leaves the room.
Niccolò looks around, his eyes gradually becoming accustomed to the shadows. He notices that the corridor that leads into the palace actually ends in a bedroom. Sitting on the bed, illuminated by the flickering flames of another fireplace, is Dianora. She’s peering at him carefully. Perhaps because he now knows what has befallen her, it seems to Niccolò as though her eyes are begging for help. I must find a way of speaking to her, he thinks, but how? And what could I possibly say to her? It’s hard to imagine what she might be feeling and experiencing. He will need to be very delicate with her; he doesn’t want to wound her any further. He will find a way of taking one small step toward her and will then wait for her to take a step in his direction, if she so desires. In the meantime, he peers closely into the room. Suddenly, a thin, elegant, and almost spectral woman dressed in black appears. She glares at him and walks over to close the door. Dianora continues to look at him, even more intensely than before, until the door shuts and she disappears entirely from his view.
Niccolò turns to Valentino, who is walking toward him with evident pleasure on his face, holding the red folder close to his chest. The duke gestures for Niccolò to sit down at the stone table. He also takes a seat and leans in.
“We will call it Res gestæ Cæsaris,” he says. “A Latin title is always convincing.” He sees a look of surprise cross Niccolò’s face. “After all, it’s my story, and I am Cesare.”
“But by saying Res gestæ Cæsaris, people will inevitably think of Julius Caesar.”
“That’s exactly what I want. You will write it in the third person. It must appear to be an objective account of my achievements.”
“Like De Bello Gallico, which everyone knows Julius Caesar wrote.”
“I won’t mind if people think I wrote it,” the duke says with a smile. “You have the responsibility of making me look good. I will tell you what I went through, but it will be up to you to turn it into literature. You can take all the time you need. We will work on it at night, since during the day I am busy with endless other matters.”
He takes a piece of paper out of the folder and hands it to Niccolò.
It’s a brief list of six paragraphs, each one beginning with a year, from 1497 to 1502. The words and numbers have been written emphatically, the ink markings are heavy.
“This will be the order of the chapters,” he explains.
“We will divide the narrative into years?”
“Yes, to make it easier to read. You will begin with 1497, when the most odious fact attributed to me took place.” Cesare points to the portrait of the young man. “They brought back the body of my brother Giovanni, Duke of Gandía, to the Vatican, on June 15. He had been stabbed nine times. I was desperate, we all were, especially my father, whom I had never seen in such a state. He loved Giovanni the most, he was the first-born, and he forgave him all his misdemeanors. My brother’s body had been thrown into the Tiber by his killers. After floating in the water for so long, his body was swollen, the most ghastly color, filthy with mud, and covered in horrendous wounds, the worst of which practically severed his head from his body.”
“Forgive me if I ask, but when he was found, is it true that he was carrying a pouch of golden ducats in his pocket? That’s what people say.”
Valentino nods. “Yes, he was not robbed; he was murdered. Of course, he did have countless enemies.” He picks up a piece of paper from the ones on the table and hands it to Niccolò. “This is a list of the names of people we suspected during the investigation. I want you to include their names, every single one of them. The night before his death, we attended a dinner that our mother had arranged for us in a vineyard we own, near the church of Santi Silvestro e Martino ai Monti. Have you ever been to Rome? No? Well then, you don’t know the place. It’s in a beautiful position, up on a hill, cool on summer evenings thanks to the breeze that blows in from the sea. Many of our friends were there. Late at night a man in a mask arrived, and went to speak with Giovanni. I saw them talking together, but there was nothing hostile in their conversation. I can still recall his gait; if I ever see that man again, he won’t get away from me. It all seemed very normal because my brother was the heart of a band of merry-makers. I was sure they were talking about women, or some secret rendezvous planned for later that night. When the party was over, I was not surprised to see the man ride off with Giovanni, on the same horse. Giovanni’s groom was the only one to accompany them.”
“I don’t want to bring up unpleasant memories, but what kind of mask was the man wearing?”
“Simple. Black. No frills or decorations. Why do you ask?”
“Details like that stay with readers even more than the actual story; they make the reader feel present.”
“Very true. Use them. The man was dressed all in black. Even his hair was black, although I can’t tell you how long it was because it was tied back, and he wore a leather hat, which was decorated with a peacock feather. After dinner, we went back to our lodgings at the Vatican. But Giovanni continued on to Piazza degli Ebrei, where he told the groom to wait for an hour, and if he wasn’t back, he should go home. Giovanni then went off with this mysterious figure. None of us were alarmed until late the following morning. We started searching for him. That afternoon they found the groom in an alley that leads to the river, practically dead, unable to speak. A man who slept in a boat docked on the river’s edge to guard a shipment of wood told us that he had seen a small group of people lead a white horse down to the river, and that a lifeless body lay across its saddle.”
“Was your brother’s horse white?”
“No, it was bay and it, too, disappeared into thin air. According to the witness, the people threw the cadaver into the water but its cape kept floating up to the surface, so they threw rocks at the body until it sank. We had the Tiber dredged and searched until Giovanni’s body was found, but by then the current had already dragged him out of the city.”
Valentino hesitates and takes a deep breath.
Niccolò glances at the page with the names on it.
“I know the guilty party is one of those people,” the duke continues. “Write about the branch of the Orsinis that has always been hostile to the Borgia family: I always thought it was them. But, because people love to gossip, a rumor started that said I had the most to benefit from my brother’s killing.”
“We’ll write that this is not the case.”
“Yes, but be sure to leave a hint of doubt in the reader.”
“Why?”
“Because fear is stronger than all cannons.”
“But then you’ll create an image of yourself that is cruel . . . You said our narration would speak of reality.”
A smile crosses Valentino face. “Half of reality is image; maybe even more.”
Niccolò is shocked, he had never thought about things like that.
Borgia goes on. “Believe me, it’s just the way things are. To reign is to have people believe.”
To reign is to have people believe. The duke certainly has a unique mind, Niccolò thinks to himself as he walks out of the Rocca, the church bells ringing midnight. He explained things in a way that had never crossed Niccolò’s mind before.
He is glad he has accepted to write for Valentino. He would have done it for free if he had known that he would learn all these hidden facts. He holds the money pouch tightly and feels even more enthusiastic because of its tangible weight. A few soldiers sit around a bonfire in the corner of a small piazza. In the light from the flames he sees three prostitutes standing in the doorway of a two-story house.
He doesn’t hesitate. He’s attracted by the biggest and tallest of them, a woman with thick thighs and a prosperous bosom, a direct gaze, and long, dark hair. She’s laughing about something. Now, thanks to Valentino’s money, he can afford to do as he pleases. He doesn’t even negotiate with her. He’s certain he’s being watched and imagines that tomorrow morning Borgia will know all about it, but it won’t be considered odd. Actually they say that Cesare and his father regularly invited prostitutes to dinner at the Vatican, and that his sister even enjoyed watching them.
He follows the woman upstairs to a small room with a narrow bed. Her name is Licia and she comes from a small village not far from Cesena that surrendered to Valentino two years earlier without even fighting. The army had been led by Corella. Besides requisitioning food and livestock, the men behaved quite decently, she tells him.
She decided to follow them to Imola because they paid her well, just as Niccolò had. Rivers of money flowed among the soldiers because the duke was always generous with those who fought to protect him. She was making the kind of money that would have taken her years of backbreaking farm work to earn. Once she saved a little more, she’d quit that line of work, move to a quiet town, far away from everyone she knows, find someone to marry her, and settle down.
He tells her that he hopes she succeeds and he keeps her talking. He does it artfully, because everyone knows that prostitutes and constabulary guards are in cahoots, managing to get her to talk about Borgia and how the people of Romagna feel about him. She has only good things to say: Valentino brought order where before there was none. Prior to his arrival, her region was controlled by a number of capricious lords who imposed outrageous taxes. Today the taxes are lower and everything is decided by law. It’s all very clear.
As he listens to her, he thinks back to Dianora’s pained gaze and the story of her awful suffering.
He points out that the duke also brought war and that cities and castles are now battling each other to death.
Well, some people always go looking for trouble, don’t they? Licia replies.