“From whom?”

“You waste time in asking. You know. He strikes quickly. He is so practiced. No need now to make plans. He merely says, Method number one, or two, or three … and the person who has irritated him is no more.”

“I have not irritated him.”

“You have been my lover. Occasionally Cesare decides that he does not like my lovers.”

Ippolito stood staring at her.

“Ippolito!” she cried. “You fool! Go … go while you have time. Give my love to Lucrezia. Tell her I miss her. But hesitate not a moment. I tell you, your life is in danger.”

Ippolito left her and went down to where his groom was waiting for him with two squires. They were nervous. He saw that. The whole of Rome was nervous, and all those who caused annoyance—however slight—to Cesare Borgia should beware.

Within an hour Ippolito was riding away from Rome.

Pietro Bembo was now recognized as Lucrezia’s court poet. They exchanged letters, cautiously written yet brimming over with love and devotion; they were both careful to keep their relationship on its Platonic footing, both fearing that to change it would in some measure degrade it.

Those were happy days for them both. They lived for each other; and Lucrezia felt that she had never been so peacefully happy as she was at this time.

She could not understand how she, who had taken such delight in physical love, could find this contentment in such a different relationship. Perhaps she missed her family very much; perhaps when she was with one who loved her carnally she remembered them too vividly. She was, after all, still seeking that escape, that opportunity to be herself—and herself alone—which had made her long to leave Rome for Ferrara.

Ippolito arrived and, although she had during the first weeks of their meetings been attracted by him, she was disturbed by his presence at court.

He was determined to be her devoted brother-in-law. All her brothers-in-law were her devoted friends, but Ferrante and Giulio were always busy with their love affairs, and Sigismondo with his religion, so that they had no time to pry into her affairs.

Ippolito however was ready to be very interested, and she feared his curiosity concerning her friendship with Pietro. There was scarcely a person at court who would believe in its Platonic nature, and Lucrezia was aware that there were many who would like to catch the lovers in a compromising situation so that they might explode this story of Platonic love between a poet and a Borgia.

Moreover the Ippolito who returned did not seem the same man as the Ippolito whom she had known in Rome. Nor was he. He had run away from Cesare Borgia and he was ashamed of himself. Always haughty and quick tempered, these qualities seemed to have been magnified by what had happened to him. He was charming to Lucrezia and bore her no grudge because it was her brother who had made him run from Rome, but his conduct in Ferrara was at times rather like that of Cesare himself. For instance when he imagined himself insulted by one of Alfonso’s soldiers he flogged the man so unmercifully that he almost beat him to death. Alfonso was furious, but the harm was done before he could intervene, and Alfonso was not one to make much of what could not be mended.

It seemed to all in Ferrara that the Cardinal must be treated with the utmost respect lest his anger should be aroused and that happen to them which had happened to Alfonso’s soldier; which was exactly the impression Ippolito had wished to create.

Ippolito was now at Lucrezia’s side most of the day, which made it difficult for her to snatch those precious hours alone with Pietro, but Strozzi was doing his best to make communication easy between the lovers; one day he wrote a letter to Pietro in which he described conversations between himself—Strozzi—and Lucrezia, and told of the flattering things which had been said of Pietro. Lucrezia read the letter before it was sent and, because Strozzi had deliberately not signed it, she wrote her name at the bottom so that it should be known that she endorsed all that it contained.

That letter was an admission of the love, bordering on the passionate, which existed between the two.

But Ippolito, always at her side, was making meetings more and more difficult.

There was secret correspondence between them now, and because Lucrezia knew that she was surrounded by spies she signed herself as FF, by which she was to be known to Pietro in the future.

These difficulties and subterfuges were conducive to Platonic love, and Lucrezia’s happiness seemed to flower during those months.


* * *

Strozzi, seeing this love affair, which had been of his making, drifting into a backwater, could not resist trying to change its course.

It was during the heat of August when he came to Lucrezia and found her with Ippolito. He had heard that Pietro Bembo was sick of a fever and he wondered how deep this Platonic love of Lucrezia’s went. Was it an idealistic dream of which Bembo merely happened to be material manifestation; or did she really care what became of him as a man?

It was too interesting a problem for Strozzi to ignore.

So he said in front of Ippolito: “I have bad news, Duchessa. Poor Pietro Bembo is sick, and it would seem that his life is in danger.”

Lucrezia rose; she had turned slightly pale.

“Poor fellow,” said Ippolito lightly, but he was alert.

“I must go to see that he has all he needs to help him recover,” said Lucrezia.

“My dear sister, you should not risk infection. Let some other do what is necessary.”

Strozzi was watching Lucrezia, watching the panic shown in her eyes.

She loves the man, thought Strozzi. Leave them together in his bedchamber and they will forget this elevated talk of spiritual love.

“He is my court poet,” said Lucrezia, recovering her poise. “I owe it to him to see that he has comfort now that he is sick.”

“Delegate someone to visit him,” suggested Ippolito.

Lucrezia nodded.


* * *

The streets were quiet and deserted, the heat intense, as Lucrezia’s carriage made its way to Bembo’s lodgings. Hurriedly she left the carriage and entered the house.

He was lying in his bed, and his heart leaped at the sight of her.

“My Duchessa,” he cried. “But … you should not have come.”

“How could I do otherwise?” She took his burning hands and kissed them.

His eyes, wide with fever and passion, looked into hers.

She sat by his bed. “Now,” she said, “you must tell me exactly how you feel. I have brought herbs and ointments with me. I know how to make you well again.”

“Your presence is enough,” he told her.

“Pietro, Pietro, you must get well. How could I endure my life without you?”

“Take care, my beloved,” whispered Pietro. “There is plague in the city. It may be that I suffer from it. Oh, it was folly … folly for you to come here.”

“Folly,” she said, “to be with you?”

They held hands and thought of the dread plague from which he might be suffering and might impart to her. To pass together from this life in which they had loved with all purity and an emotion of the spirit, seemed a perfect ending to their perfect love.

But Lucrezia did not want to die. She wanted both of them to live, so she refused to consider this ending and busied herself with the remedies she had brought.

His eyes followed her as she moved about his apartment. He was sick—he believed himself to be dying—and he knew that he loved her with a love which was both spiritual and physical. Had he been less weak there would have been an end to their talk of Platonic emotion. His sickness was like a flaming sword which separated them from passion. He could only rejoice in it because it had brought her to his side, while he deplored it; and as he looked into her face he knew that she shared his thoughts and emotions.

“It will be known that you have been here,” he said.

“I care not.”

“We are spied on night and day.”

“What matters it? There is nothing to discover. We have never been what would be called lovers.”

They looked at each other longingly; then Pietro went on: “I shall never know the great joy now. Oh, Duchessa, Lucrezia, my love, I feel our love will remain forever unfulfilled.”

She was startled, and suddenly cried out in an access of passionate grief: “You must not die, Pietro. You shall not die.”

It was a promise. Pietro knew it, and a calmness seemed to settle upon him then; it was as though he were determined to throw off his fever, determined to live that he might enjoy that which so far had been denied him.


* * *

Pietro’s recovery was rapid.

Within a few weeks he was ready to leave Ferrara, and Strozzi was at hand to offer his villa at Ostellato for the convalescence.

Before he left, Lucrezia had decided that she too would leave Ferrara for a short rest in the quiet of the country. Alfonso was once more visiting fortifications; Ippolito had his duties at court; and Giulio was the only member of the family who was free to accompany her. This he did with the utmost pleasure, since Angela was of the party.

So Lucrezia set out for the villa of Medelana, which was close to Strozzi’s at Ostellato; thus during that convalescence the lovers could frequently enjoy each other’s companionship.

There, in the scented gardens or under the cool shade of trees, they could be together undisturbed. Lucrezia would set out for the Strozzi villa with Angela and Giulio in attendance; but when they arrived and Pietro came out to meet them, Guilio and Angela would wander off and leave Pietro and Lucrezia together.

Thus in those golden days of August they mingled the spiritual with the physical, and Lucrezia believed that she had come at last to perfect happiness.

During those warm days in the gardens at Ostellato she lived solely in the present, taking each day as it came, refusing to look beyond it, because she dared not.

She would treasure, as long as she lived, the scents of the flowers, the softness of the grass at Ostellato; she would remember the words he had written for her, the words he spoke to her.

“If I died now,” he told her, “if so great a desire, so great a love were ended, the world would be emptied of love.”

She believed him; she assured him that the love he felt for her was no greater than that she felt for him. Each was conscious that there was so much to be lived through in a short time.

And so passed the happy days of Pietro’s convalescence and Lucrezia’s escape from Ferrara.


* * *

In Rome Alexander was preparing for his visit to Ferrara. He felt younger than ever. He had numerous mistresses and he had proved that he was still capable of begetting children. Never had seventy-two years sat more lightly on a man than they did on Alexander. He was beginning to believe that he was immortal. The prospect of the long and tedious journey did not give him a twinge of uneasiness. He felt that he was at the very pinnacle of his powers.

Cesare came to Rome. He stayed with his father and there were many intimate encounters. Cesare declared that he would remain in Rome that he might join in the celebrations which were to be given in honor of Alexander’s eleventh anniversary as Pope. This was not quite true. Cesare’s relations with the French were not so cordial as they had been. Spain was beginning to play a bigger part in Italian politics. She had been content to look on while Southern Italy was in the hands of the Aragonese, but if they were unable to hold the territory, then the King of Spain must step in to prevent its falling under French domination.

If Spain was to be victorious over the French their King decided that it was imperative for the Borgias to cut their alliance with France—and what more natural than they should turn to the Spanish who were, in no small measure, their own people? In this uncertain state of affairs it might be that Cesare would have to rely on his own efforts to hold the kingdom of Romagna, and he was going to miss French support quite disastrously.

This meant that he was going to need a great deal of money to keep his armies intact, and accordingly Alexander fell back on the old method of creating Cardinals who were ready to pay dearly for their hats. In this way he made a profit of 150,000 ducats in a very short time.