The Borgia Bride. Jeanne Kalogridis

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      ‘Persistent little thing,’ he said. ‘The eyes dissolve when a body is mummified—no way around it. The first ones had shut eyelids over empty sockets. They looked like they were sleeping. I wanted them to hear me when I spoke to them. I wanted to be able to see them listening.’ He laughed again. ‘Besides, it was more effective that way. My last “guest”—how it terrified him, to see his missing compatriots staring back at him!’

      I tried to make sense of it all from my naive perspective. ‘God made you King. So if these men were traitors, they went against God. It was no sin to kill them.’

      My remark disgusted him. ‘There is no such thing as sin!’ He paused; his manner turned instructive. ‘Sancha, the miracle of San Gennaro…it almost always occurs in May and September. But when the priest emerges with the reliquary in December, why do you think the miracle so often fails?’

      The question took me by surprise; I had no inkling of the answer.

      ‘Think, girl!’

      ‘I don’t know, Your Majesty…’

      ‘Because the weather is warmer in May and September.’

      I still did not understand. My confusion registered on my face.

      ‘It’s time you stopped subscribing to this foolishness about God and the saints. There’s only one power on earth—the power over life and death. For the time being, in Naples at least, I possess it.’ Once more, he prodded me. ‘Now, think. The substance in the vial is at first solid. Consider the fat on a pig, or a lamb. What happens to that fat if you roast the animal on a spit—that is, expose it to warmth?’

      ‘It drips down into the fire.’

      ‘Heat turns the solid into a liquid. So perhaps, if you took the reliquary of San Gennaro from its cool, dark closet out into the Duomo on a warm, sunny day and wait for a while…il miracolo e fatto. Solid to liquid.’

      I was already shocked; my grandfather’s heresy only deepened that sensation. I recalled Ferrante’s cursory attitude towards all things religious, his eagerness either to absent himself from or to be done swiftly with Mass. I doubted he ever knelt at the little altar which led to the chamber housing his true convictions.

      Yet I was simultaneously intrigued by his explanation of the miracle; my faith was now imperfect, threaded with doubt. Even so, habit was strong. I prayed silently, speedily to God to forgive the King, and for San Gennaro to protect him despite his sins. For the second time that day, I prayed for Gennaro to protect Naples—though not necessarily from crimes wrought by nature or disloyal barons.

      Ferrante reached with his bony, blue-veined hand for my smaller one, and squeezed it in a grip that allowed no dissent. ‘Come, child. They will wonder where we are. Besides, you have seen enough.’

      I thought of each man within the museum of the dead—how they must have been introduced by my gloating grandfather to the fate awaiting them, how the weaker ones must have wept and pleaded to be spared. I wondered how they had been killed; certainly by a method that left no trace.

      Ferrante held the taper high and led me from his soulless gallery. While I waited inside the altar room as he closed the little door, I reflected on the clear pleasure he took from the company of his victims. He was capable of killing without compunction, capable of savouring the act. Perhaps I should have feared for my own life, being an unnecessary female, yet I could not. This was my grandfather. I studied his face in the golden light: it wore the same benign expression, possessed the same ruddy cheeks with their latticework of tiny broken veins that I had always known. I searched his eyes, so like mine, for signs of the cruelty and madness that had inspired the museum.

      Those eyes scrutinized me back, piercing, frighteningly lucid. He blew out the taper and set it upon the little altar, then retook my hand.

      ‘I will not tell, Your Majesty.’ I uttered the words not out of fright or a wish to protect myself, but out of a desire to let Ferrante know my loyalty to my family was complete.

      He let go a soft laugh. ‘My dear, I care not. All the better if you do. My enemies will fear me all the more.’

      Back through the King’s bedchamber we went, through the sitting room, the outer office, then last of all the throne room. Before he pushed open the door, he turned to regard me. ‘It’s not easy for us, being the stronger ones, is it?’

      I tilted my chin to look up at him.

      ‘I’m old, and there are those who will tell you I’m becoming feeble-minded. But I still notice most things. I know how you love your brother.’ His gaze focused inward. ‘I loved Juana because she was good-natured and loyal; I knew she would never betray me. I like your mother for the same reason—a sweet woman.’ He drew his attention outward to study me. ‘Your little brother takes after her; a generous soul. Worthless when it comes to politics. I’ve seen how devoted you are to him. If you love him, look out for him. We strong have to take care of the weak, you know. They haven’t the heart to do what’s necessary to survive.’

      ‘I’ll take care of him,’ I said stoutly. But I would never subscribe to my grandfather’s notion that killing and cruelty were a necessary part of protecting Alfonso.

      Ferrante pushed open the door. We walked hand-in-hand back into the Great Hall, where the musicians played. I scanned the crowd for Alfonso, and saw him standing off in a far corner, staring owl-eyed at us both. My mother and Isabella were both dancing, and had for the moment altogether forgotten us children.

      But my father, the Duke of Calabria, had apparently taken note of the King’s disappearance. I glanced up, startled, as he stepped in front of us and stopped our progress with a single question.

      ‘Your Majesty. Is the girl annoying you?’ During my brief lifetime, I had never heard the Duke address his father in any other fashion. He looked down at me, his expression hostile, suspicious. I tried to summon the mannerisms of pure innocence, but after what I had seen, I could not hide the fact I had been shaken to the core.

      ‘Not in the least,’ Ferrante replied, with good humour. ‘We’ve just been exploring, that’s all.’

      Revelation, then fury, flashed in my father’s beautiful, heartless eyes. He understood exactly where my grandfather and I had been—and, given my reputation as a miscreant, realized I had not been invited.

      ‘I will deal with her,’ the Duke said, in a tone of great menace. He was famous for his vicious treatment of his enemies, the Turks; he had insisted on personally torturing and killing those captured in the Battle of Otranto, by methods so inhuman we children were not permitted to hear of them. I told myself I was not afraid. It was unseemly for him to have me, a royal, thrashed. He did not realize that he already imposed on me the worst punishment possible: he did not love me, and made no secret of the fact.

      And I, proud as he, would never admit my desperate desire to gain his affection.

      ‘Don’t punish her, Alfonso,’ Ferrante said. ‘She has spirit, that’s all.’

      ‘Girls ought not to have spirit,’ my father countered. ‘This one least of all. My other children are tolerable, but she has done nothing but vex me since the day of her birth—a day I deeply regret.’ He glared down at me. ‘Go. His Majesty and I have matters to discuss. You and I will speak about this later.’

      Ferrante СКАЧАТЬ