* * *

Vannozza, still a very beautiful woman, greeted her guests in her vineyard on the summit of the Esquiline. The table was heavily laden with good food, and the wine was of the best. Carlo Canale was beside her to do honor to the distinguished guests.

“You think we shall be merry enough with only your sons’ cousin, the Cardinal of Monreale, and a few other relations?”

“When my sons come to me they like to escape from all the pomp which usually surrounds their daily life.”

Canale kept sipping the wine to assure himself that it was of the very best; Vannozza nervously surveyed her table and shouted continually to the slaves; but when the guests arrived she gave all her attention to them.

“My dearest sons,” she murmured, embracing them; but the embrace she gave Cesare was longer than that she had for Giovanni, and Cesare would notice this.

The warm summer night was enchanting; they could look down on the city, while the cool sweet air and the scent of flowers from the meadows about the Colosseum wafted up to them.

A perfect night, thought Vannozza.

Conversation about the table was merry. Cesare teased Giovanni in the pleasantest way.

“Why, brother,” he cried, “you expose yourself to danger. I have heard that you ride among desperadoes with none but a groom to protect you—you and your masked friend.”

“None dare harm my father’s son,” said Giovanni lightly.

“Nay, but you should take care.”

“I have taken most things in my life,” laughed Giovanni, “but rarely that.”

“Yes, my son,” said Vannozza, “I beg of you take greater care. Do not go to those parts of the city where danger lurks.”

“Mother, I am a baby no longer.”

“I have heard,” said Cesare, “that he was seen riding in the Jewish quarter late one night. That is foolish of him.”

“Foolish indeed, my son,” scolded Vannozza.

Giovanni laughed and turned to Canale. “More wine, Father. ’Tis good, this wine of yours.”

Canale, delighted, filled his stepson’s goblet, and the conversation turned to other matters.

It was past midnight, and they were preparing to leave when Cesare said: “Why look, who is that lurking among the trees?”

The company turned and looking saw that cowering in a clump of bushes was a slender masked figure.

“It would appear that your friend has called for you,” said Cesare.

“It would appear so,” answered Giovanni, and he seemed to be well pleased.

“Must your friend come even to our mother’s house?” asked Cesare.

“Perhaps,” laughed Giovanni.

“This friend is very eager for your company,” said Cesare. “Come, we will not delay you. Farewell, dear Mother. It has been a night I shall long remember.”

Vannozza embraced her sons and watched them mount their horses. When Giovanni was in his saddle, the masked creature sprang up behind him in order to ride pillion.

Cesare was laughing and calling to the few attendants, whom he had brought with him, to follow him; and he broke into a song, in which the others all joined, as they rode down the hillside and into the city.

When they reached the Ponte district Giovanni drew up and told his brother that he would be leaving him there. He called to one of his grooms: “Hi, fellow, you come with me. The rest of you … go to your beds.”

“Whither are you bound, brother?” asked Cesare. “You are surely not going into the Jewish quarter?”

“My destination,” retorted Giovanni arrogantly, “is my own concern.”

Cesare lifted his shoulders with an indifference which was unusual.

“Come,” he said to his followers and to those of Giovanni’s servants who had not been commanded to accompany him, “home to the Borgo.”

So they left Giovanni, who, with the masked figure riding behind him, and the groom a little distance in the rear, went on into the narrow streets of the Jewish quarter.

That was the last time Cesare saw Giovanni alive.


* * *

The next day, Alexander, waiting to receive his beloved son, was disappointed by his continued absence. All that day he waited, but still Giovanni did not put in an appearance.

He sent to Giovanni’s household. No one had seen him. He had not visited Sanchia.

Alexander chuckled. “I doubt not that he has spent the night in the house of some woman, and he fears to compromise her by leaving in daylight.”

“Then he is showing himself unusually discreet,” said Cesare grimly.

But that day brought no news of Giovanni, and toward the end of it, a messenger hurried to the Pope to tell him that the young Duke’s groom, who had been seen to accompany him, was found stabbed to death in the Piazza degli Ebrei.

All Alexander’s serenity vanished. He was frantic with anguish.

“Send out search parties,” he cried. “Examine every street … every house … I shall not rest until I hold my son in my arms.”


* * *

When the search had gone on for several days and there was no news of Giovanni, the Pope grew desperate, but he would not believe any harm had come to his son.

“It is a prank of his, Cesare,” he kept repeating. “You will see, he will come bounding in on us, laughing at us because he so duped us. Depend upon it.”

“It is a prank of his,” agreed Cesare.

Then there was brought before the Pope a Dalmatian boatman who said that he had something to say, and he would say it only to the Holy Father because he believed it concerned the missing Duke of Gandia.

Alexander could scarcely wait to see the man, and he was immediately brought before the Pope who, with Cesare and several high officials of the Court, waited eagerly for him.

His name, he said, was Giorgio and he slept in his boat which was tied up on the shores of the Tiber.

“My duty, Holiness,” he said, “is to guard the wood pile near the church of San Gerolamo degli Schiavoni close to the Ripetta bridge.”

“Yes, yes,” said the Pope impatiently. “But do not waste time. Tell me what you know of my son.”

“I know this, Holiness, that on the night when the Duke of Gandia disappeared I saw a man riding a white horse, and on this horse he carried what could well be the body of a man. There were two other men, holding the body as the horse came down to the river’s edge. When the horse came to the water the rider turned so that the horse’s tail was to the river; then the two men pulled off that which could well be a body, Holiness, and it fell into the river.”

“Can we trust this man?” demanded the Pope. He was fearful. He did not want to believe him. While the man had spoken he had visualized that limp body on the horse, and it was the body of his beloved son.

“We have no reason to doubt him, Most Holy Lord,” was the answer.

“Holiness,” said Giorgio. “I can tell you more. The body slipped into the water, and it was held up by what seemed to be his cloak, so that it floated and began to drift down stream. Then the man on the horse said something to the others and they began throwing stones at the floating cloak. They pitched the stones on to it again and again until it sank with the weight and disappeared. Holiness, they stood watching for some time and then they rode away.”

“You saw this happen,” said Cesare, “and you told no one! Why not?”

“Why, bless Your Eminence, I live by the river, and living there see countless bodies thrown into the water. There seemed nothing especial to report about this one, save that it happened on the night about which the gentlemen were asking.”

The Pope could bear no more. A terrible melancholy had come to him.

He muttered: “There is nothing to do but drag the river.”


* * *

Thus they found Giovanni. There were wounds in his throat, on his face and his body; the mud of the river clung to his fine clothes on which the jewels still remained; his purse was full of ducats, and his rings, brooches and necklace, worth a fortune, had not been taken.

When Alexander was told he went out and stopped those who carried the corpse as it was brought into the castle of St. Angelo. He threw himself on to the body, tore his hair and beat his chest, while he cried out in his grief.

“To those who have dealt thus with him, so they shall be dealt with!” he cried. “Nothing shall be too bitter for them to endure. I’ll not rest, beloved son, most beloved of all, until I have brought your murderer to justice.”

Then he turned to those who carried the ghastly corpse and said to them: “Take my beloved, wash him, perfume him, put on his ducal robes; and thus he shall be buried. Oh Giovanni, oh my beloved son, who has done this cruel deed to you … and to me?”


* * *

He was washed and dressed in his ducal robes, and at night by the light of one hundred and twenty flares he was carried from Castle St. Angelo to Santa Maria del Popolo.

The Pope did not accompany him, and as he sat at the window of Castle St. Angelo, looking down on the winding cortège lit by those flares, he could not contain his grief.

“Oh Giovanni, Giovanni,” he moaned, “best loved of all, my dearest, my beloved, why have they done this to thee and me?”


* * *

Pedro Caldes came to the convent to see Lucrezia. He was very agitated when she received him, falling on his knees and kissing her hands.

“There is news, terrible news. You will hear of it before long, but I wished to break it gently. I know how you cared for him. Your brother …”