“You think my brother is in immediate danger?”

Ascanio nodded slowly. “He will be when it is known that I have left for Milan. The Pope knows of our meetings; it would be impossible to keep them secret from him. He has his spies everywhere, so he will know that we are on the alert. From the moment I leave Rome, Alfonso’s danger will be increased.”

“Then the wisest thing would be for him to leave at once for Naples?”

“Try to persuade him to leave without delay.”

“It will not be easy. He’ll find it difficult to tear himself from Lucrezia.”

“As you love him,” warned Ascanio, “bid him fly for his life.”


* * *

Lucrezia was lying on her bed while her women combed her hair. She was nearly six months pregnant and was easily exhausted.

But she was happy. Three months, she told herself, and our child will be born. She was planning the cradle she would have.

“Is it too soon?” she asked her women. “Why should I not have the pleasure of seeing it beside me when I wake, so that I may say to myself: ‘Only eighty-four days … eighty-three days … eighty-two days.…’ ”

Her women hastily crossed themselves. “It would seem like tempting Providence, Madonna,” said one.

“All will be well this time,” Lucrezia said quickly.

Then she was back on one of those unhappy journeys into the past. She saw herself six months pregnant as now, dressed in the voluminous petticoats which Pantisilea, the little maid who had attended her in her convent, had provided for her, standing before the Cardinals and Envoys and swearing that she was virgo intacta in order that she might be divorced from Giovanni Sforza.

“Perhaps,” she told herself, “I am unlucky. My first child unknown to me, being brought up in the care of some woman in this city! (Holy Mother, make her kind to my little one.) And then that little one who was lost to me before I knew whether it was girl or boy.”

But this was different. This child should be given the greatest care. It was alive within her—lively and strong; and everything indicated that this was a healthy pregnancy.

“My lord is late,” she said. “I had expected him before this.”

“He will be with you before long, Madonna,” she was told.

But she waited and he did not come. She dozed. How tired this healthy little one within her could make her feel; she touched her swollen body lightly and smiled tenderly.

“This time all will be well. It is a boy,” she murmured, “certainly a boy. He shall be called Roderigo after the best and most loving father a woman ever had.”

She heard voices in the ante-room, and sat up to listen. Why was it possible to tell by the tone of voices that something was wrong?

“The Madonna is sleeping. Wait until she wakes.”

“She would want to know at once.”

“No … no. She is happier in ignorance. Let her sleep out her sleep.”

She rose and putting a robe about her went to the ante-room. A group of startled people stared at her.

“Something has happened,” she said. “I pray you tell me quickly.”

No one spoke immediately, and she looked appealingly at them.

“I command you to tell me,” she said.

“Madonna, the Duke of Bisceglie …”

Her hand went to the drapery of her throat, and she clutched it as though for support. The faces of those people seemed to merge into one and recede, as one of her women ran to her and put an arm about her.

“He is well, Madonna. No harm has come to him,” the woman assured her. “It is merely that he has left Rome.”

Lucrezia repeated: “Left Rome!”

“Yes, Madonna, he rode out with a small party a few hours ago; he was seen riding South at full speed.”

“I … I understand,” she said.

She turned and went back into her room. Her women followed.


* * *

There was a letter from Alfonso.

It was brought to Lucrezia an hour after she had heard the news of his departure. She seized it eagerly; she knew that he would not willingly have run away from her without a word.

She read it.

He loved her. His life had no meaning without her. But he had been forced to leave her. News had reached him of plots to take his life. He knew that if these plots succeeded they would bring the greatest unhappiness in the world to her, and he was more concerned for the unhappiness his death would inflict on her than for anything else, since if he were dead of what consequence would anything be to him? He was unsafe in Rome, as he had always known he must be, but he had allowed his happiness to blind him to his danger; now that danger was so close that he dared wait no longer. It broke his heart to leave her, but they should not long be separated. He implored her to ride out from Rome, as he had done, and join him in Naples. There they would be safe to pursue their idyll of happiness.

Lucrezia read the letter through several times; she wept over it; and she was still reading it when the Pope was announced.

He would not let her rise; he came to her bedside and taking her in his arms, pressed passionate kisses upon her.

He dismissed her women, and then she saw how angered he was by the flight of Alfonso.

“He is a young fool, a frightened young fool,” stormed Alexander; and Lucrezia was aware then that Alexander had lost some of that magnificent calm which had been his chief weapon in the days of his early triumphs. “Why does he run away from a young and beautiful wife like you?”

“He has not run from me, Father.”

“All will say he has run from you. Giovanni Sforza will be amused, I doubt not, and make sure that the whole world is aware of his amusement. And you to have his child in three months! The young idiot has no sense of the position he holds through marriage into our family.”

“Father, dearest and Most Holy Father, do not judge him harshly.”

“He has hurt you, my child, I would judge any harshly who did that.”

“Father, what do you propose to do?”

“Bring him back. I have already sent soldiers after him. I trust that they will soon restore the foolish boy to us.”

“He is uneasy, Father.”

“Uneasy! What right has he to be uneasy? Has he not been treated as one of us?”

“Father, there is trouble brewing. Cesare’s friendship with the French …”

“My little Lucrezia, you must not bother this golden head with such unsuitable matters. It was meant to delight the eye, not muse on politics. This husband of yours has wandered into a maze of misunderstanding because he thought he understood matters which are beyond his comprehension. It is that sister of his and her friends, I doubt not. I trust they have not contaminated you with their foolish notions.”

“Would these notions be so foolish, Father, if there were war with the French?”

“Have no fear. I would always protect you. And I will bring your husband back to you. This is what you want, is it not?”

Lucrezia nodded. She had begun to cry and although she knew that the Pope hated tears she could not suppress hers.

“Come, dry your eyes,” he begged; and as she moved to obey him, Alfonso’s letter, which had been beneath the bed covering, was exposed and the Pope saw it.

He picked it up. Lucrezia hastily took it from him. Alexander’s expression showed that he was a little hurt, and Lucrezia said quickly: “It is a letter from Alfonso.”

“Written since he went away?”

“He wrote it before he went and sent a messenger back with it. It explains why he has gone and … and …”

The Pope clearly longed to lay hands on the letter, and waited for his daughter to show it to him; but when Lucrezia did not, he was too clever a diplomatist to demand it and perhaps be refused. He did not want any unpleasantness with Lucrezia, and he knew now that her husband considered himself his enemy; therefore Lucrezia would be urged in two directions. The Pope was determined to keep his hold on his daughter and knew that he could best do this by continuing to be her benevolent and understanding father.

“I wonder he did not take you with him,” said Alexander. “He professes to love you dearly, yet he leaves you.”

“It is because of the child I carry. He feared that the journey must be made in such haste that harm might come to me and the child.”

“Yet he decides to leave you!”

“He wants me to join him as soon as possible in Naples.”

The hardening of the Pope’s mouth was not perceptible to Lucrezia. Alexander was determined Lucrezia should never be allowed to leave her father for her husband.

He hesitated for a few seconds, then he said: “He cannot be as anxious for your condition as I am. But perhaps he is young and does not realize that child-bearing can be a hazardous experience. I should not allow you, my dearest, to travel so far until your child is born.”

Their eyes met, and Alexander knew then that Lucrezia was no longer a child, and that he had underestimated her. She knew of the existence of rivalries; she was fully aware of the possessive nature of his love for her, and that Alfonso had every reason to mistrust his intentions toward him.

Lucrezia began to cry once more. She could not stop the tears. They were tears of misery and helplessness.

And Alexander, who could not bear tears, kissed her forehead lightly and went quietly away.

Alfonso reached Naples and, in spite of the fact that the Pope demanded that he return at once, he refused to do so; nor would his uncle, King Federico, give him up.

This infuriated the Pope who knew that the whole of Italy would be aware that Alfonso had good reason for being afraid, since he was prepared to leave a wife with whom, it was common knowledge, he was deeply in love.