The Borgia Bride
This sweeping historical novel tells the dramatic tale of that most intriguing of Renaissance women, Lucrezia Borgia.Incest. Poison. Betrayal. Three wedding presents for the Borgia bride…Italy 1492 Pope Alexander VI is elected. And so begins the Borgia reign of terror.Alexander murders, bribes and betrays to establish his dynasty. No one is immune. Rome is a hotbed of accusation and conspiracy. Every day, the River Tiber is full of new bodies.Sancha de Aragon, daughter of King Alfonso II of Naples, arrives in Rome newly wed to Alexander’s youngest son, Jofre. Their marriage protects Naples against the ambitions of the French King Louis and gains Spanish support for the Borgias. But Rome is very different to her beloved Naples.The debauchery of the Borgia inner-circle is notorious: every lust is indulged and every indiscretion overlooked. Sancha is no innocent: she possesses an indomitable spirit which allows her to survive in the snake-pit, but her ancestors once rivalled the Borgias in cruelty and Sancha’s greatest fear is that blood will out.Lucrezia Borgia’s vicious jealously stings Sancha at first, but gradually the two young women develop a cautious friendship. Lucrezia, adored by her father but used ruthlessly as a political tool, seems deceptively innocent and sympathetic, and their bond strengthens when Lucrezia is married to Sancha’s treasured brother, Alfonso. But when Sancha falls in love with Cesare Borgia, her husband’s enigmatic older brother, she has no idea of how bizarre and internecine are the family's true ties. Alexander is rather more than an indulgent father; Lucrezia not the innocent she appears; and Cesare’s ambition burns wildly. The only safe relationship with the Borgias is none at all: as Sancha, her brother and Naples are soon to discover…
Читать The Borgia Bride онлайн беплатно
The Borgia Bride
Jeanne Kalogridis
Contents
Dedication
Acknowledgements
The canterella, it is called: a poison powder so deadly a mere sprinkling of it can kill a man, strike him down in a matter of days. The effects are ghastly. One’s head aches as if in a vice; the vision blurs; the body quakes with fever. The bowels release a bloody flux, and the gut clamps tight in an agony that makes the victim howl.
Rumour says only the Borgias know its secret: how to compound it, store it, administer it so as to hide the taste. Rodrigo Borgia—or shall I say, His Holiness Alexander VI—learned the secret from his favourite mistress, the fiery-haired Vannozza Cattanei, when he was still a cardinal. Rodrigo’s elder brother, Pedro Luis, would undoubtedly have been elected pope…were it not for subtle and well-timed administration of the canterella.
Being generous parents, Rodrigo and Vannozza shared the recipe with their offspring—at the very least with their sweet-faced daughter, Lucrezia. Who better to lull the wary into carelessness than she with the demure smile and the soft voice? Who better to murder and betray than she who is hailed as Rome’s greatest innocent?
The ‘Borgia fever’ has decimated Rome like the plague, thinning the ranks of prelates until every cardinal with land and a bit of wealth lives in terror. After all, when a cardinal dies, his riches go at once to the Church.
And it takes a great deal of wealth to fund a war. A great deal of wealth to amass an army large enough to capture every city-state in all of Italy, and declare oneself leader not only of things spiritual, but of things secular. This pope and his bastard son, Cesare, want more than Heaven; they will have Earth, as well.
In the meantime, I sit in the Castel Sant’ Angelo with the other women. From my chamber window, I can see the Vatican nearby, the papal apartments, and the Palazzo Santa Maria where I once lived with my husband. I am allowed to roam the grounds and am accorded courtesy, but there is no more status, and I am under guard, a prisoner. I curse the day I first heard the name Borgia; I pray for the day when I hear the bells toll for the old man’s death.
But there is freedom to be had. At this very moment, I hold the vial up to the bright Roman sun that streams into my generously-appointed apartment. The container is Venetian glass, emerald-coloured, shining like a gem: the powder inside is drab bluish-grey, opaque.
Canterella, I whisper. Beautiful, beautiful canterella, rescue me…
I am Sancha of Aragon, natural daughter of the man who became Alfonso II, King of Naples, for a year and a day. Like the Borgias, my people came to the Italian peninsula by way of Spain, and like them, I spoke Spanish at home and Italian in public.
My most vivid childhood memory was formed at the end of my eleventh summer, on the nineteenth of September, the year of our Lord 1488. It was the Feast Day of San Gennaro, patron saint of Naples. My grandfather, King Ferrante, had chosen that particular date to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of his ascension to the Neapolitan throne.
Normally, we royals did not attend the event held in Gennaro’s grand Duomo, the cathedral built in his honour. We preferred to celebrate in the comfort of the Chiesa Santa Barbara, the church enclosed within the magnificent walled grounds of the royal palace, the Castel Nuovo. But that year, my grandfather deemed it politic to attend the public ceremony, given the anniversary. Thus, our large entourage processed into the Duomo, watched at some distance by the zie, the aunts, di San Gennaro, the wailing, black-clad women who pleaded with the Saint to protect and bless Naples.
Naples needed blessing. It had been the site of many wars; my family of Aragonese royalty had won the city through bloody battle only forty-six years prior. Although my grandfather was peacefully handed his throne by his father, the revered Alfonso the Magnanimous, Alfonso had violently wrested Naples from the Angevins, supporters of the Frenchman Charles of Anjou. King Alfonso was beloved for rebuilding the city, for constructing grand palaces and piazzas, strengthening the walls, restocking the royal library. My grandfather was less loved. He was more interested in maintaining a strong hold on the local nobles whose veins held Angevin blood. He spent years in petty wars against different barons, and never came to trust his own people. In turn, they never came to trust him.
