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.”One of her narrow white feet slid into a satin slipper.Her feet looked soft as her hands, as if she never walked on them.“Ferrara,” she said.The other foot stroked lightly over the floor, hunting its shoe.“What is it like, the city?”“I have never been there, Madonna.I am told it is a fair city.But it is not Rome.”She tossed her head, giving out a burst of brittle laughter.“That tells it all, doesn’t it? To a Roman.” For an instant her eyes met Nicholas’s; her eyes were bright as if with fever.She looked unhappy.Swiftly she lowered her head again, away from Nicholas’s scrutiny.“And my husband to be? What does rumor say of him?”“He is a soldier, Madonna.” Nicholas looked down at her foot, still groping over the floor for the shoe, which was some inches away under the table.He knelt and took the shoe and slipped it onto her foot.“He is much enamored of the new light field artillery.” He stood up, putting his hands behind his back.“Really,” she said.“Iron rivals.” She laughed again, her eyes lowered.“Thank you, Nicholas.”“Madonna?”“For putting my shoe on.Greetings, Cesare!”Nicholas twitched his gaze around to the doorway, where Valentino was crossing, the threshold.He put out his hands to his sister, and she rose to embrace him; their hands met and then their mouths.Nicholas, withdrawing as fast as he could, saw them kiss and thought he saw their lips part and Valentino’s tongue slip into her mouth.He bent down in a bow, to avert his eyes from that, and left them alone there.In the late autumn came news of the betrothal of the Pope’s daughter to Alfonso d’Este of Ferrara.Nicholas was a witness to the leave taking of the princess to her father, when Lucrezia left Rome to journey north for her wedding.The Pope led his daughter by the hand to her horse.Both, shed tears.They kissed each other many times, and the old man spread his arms around her and held her fast a moment.She mounted her horse, a trumpet played a flourish, and she rode away.A swarm of courtiers accompanied her, Angela Borgia among them.Behind them in the square of Saint Peter they left a small horseshoe of observers around the aging Pope.Alexander spread his arms again and pressed his hands again to his chest, embracing the air where she had been.The gold of his robe was spangled with tears; he turned back to the entrance to his palace, and his back seemed bowed; his feet shuffled heavily over the pavement.It was winter.For three days a steady rain had been battering at the streets and roofs of Rome.Wrapped in two coats, Nicholas still shivered, standing on the icy marble floor in the public room of the Torre Borgia, far from the fire.The hearth of the fire was the only place where it was possible to stay warm, and greater men than Nicholas had taken possession of it.Nicholas paced up and down the cold floor at the other side of the room, his hands tucked under his arms.Outside in the rain a bell began to toll.“It’s late,” said one of the men by the fire.The other men grunted.No one spoke more.Nicholas pulled his coat higher on his neck.He watched the three men by the fire through the sides of his eyes.He knew them by looks and by repute, although he had never spoken to any of them.They were three of Valentino’s condottieri, each one a lord in his own right: Oliverotto, the short squat man who had remarked on Valentino’s lateness, was tyrant of the tiny city of Fermi, and the other two men were both of the great Roman family of the Orsini.Lean and pale, dressed in the newest fad of Roman fashion, their sleeves dagged and hooped and trimmed with gold braid, the two Orsini stood as far from Oliverotto as they could without leaving the warmth of the hearth.Nicholas had seen the tyrant of Fermi walk in, shambling along on widespread feet, his gait as much as his poxy face a sign of the French disease that rotted him alive.While Nicholas watched, Paolo Orsini took a gold comb from his purse and stroked his perfumed hair into place.The outer door opened.Circled by hurrying pages and servants, Valentino strode into the room.The three men by the fire wheeled like swifts to face him.He greeted them, not pausing in his stride; he did not notice Nicholas.He went on through the public room to the small chamber in the back, and the door shut behind him.A moment later a page came out again and summoned Oliverotto and the Orsini into Valentino’s presence.Left alone in the public room, Nicholas made for the hearth.He opened his coats and spread them to let the warmth in.A puffing, servant brought in a hod of wood and built the fire higher.Nicholas rubbed the stinging rims of his ears.Again the outer door swung open, and another man came in, trailed by followers.Nicholas backed away from the fire.The newcomer, who was Gianpaolo Baglione, went up into the glow of the hearth.He and Nicholas had met.The tyrant of Perugia nodded and Nicholas bowed.Nicholas pulled his coats around him again.He began to pace up and down, trying to keep warm.Gianpaolo gave his coat to a lackey.He stood taller than his men.His face was shaped like Stefano’s, the wide setting of the eyes and the flaring battler’s jaw, or perhaps Nicholas only wanted to see a resemblance.The hair was the same color.Gianpaolo noticed him watching.Nicholas bowed; the prince turned his back.A page looked into the public room from the chamber where Valentino was holding his court, saw Gianpaolo, and withdrew.A moment later he reappeared to summon the condottiere into the council.All Gianpaolo’s men went in with him [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]