Blood & Beauty The Borgias - By Sarah Dunant Page 0,2

lips over a thick neck. You would not, could not, call Rodrigo Borgia handsome; he is grown too old and stout for that. Yet once you have looked at him you do not easily look away, for there is an energy in those sharp dark eyes much younger than his years.

‘After living through the election of four popes I have grown almost fond of the – what shall we call it? – “challenges” of conclave life.’ The voice, like the body, is impressive, deep and full, the remnants of a Spanish accent in the guttural trim on certain words. ‘But I still remember my first time. I was not much older than you. It was August then too – alas, such a bad month for the health of our holy fathers. Our prison was not so splendid then, of course. The mosquitoes ate us alive and the bed made my bones ache. Still, I survived.’ He laughs, a big sound, with no sense of self-consciousness or artifice. ‘Though of course I did not have such a remarkable father to guide me. Lorenzo de’ Medici would be proud to see you take your place in conclave, Giovanni. I am sincerely sorry for his death. It was a loss not just for Florence but for all of Italy.’

The young man bows his head. Beware, my son. These days Rome is now a den of iniquity, the very focus of all that is evil. Under his robes he holds a letter from his father: advice on entering the snakepit of Church politics from a man who had the talent to skate on thin ice and make it look as if he was dancing. Few men are to be trusted. Keep your own counsel until you are established. Since his death only a few months before, the young cardinal has learned its content by heart, though he sorely wishes now that the words were less general and more particular.

‘So tell me, Giovanni…’ Rodrigo Borgia drops his voice in an exaggerated manner, as if to anticipate the secrets they are about to share, ‘how are you holding up through this, this labyrinthine process?’

‘I am praying to God to find the right man to lead us.’

‘Well said! I am sure your father railed against the venality of the Church and warned against false friends who would take you with them into corruption.’

This current college of cardinals is poor in men of worth and you would do well to be guarded and reserved with them. The young man lifts an involuntary hand to his chest, to check the letter is concealed. Beware of seducers and bad counsellors, evil men who will drag you down, counting upon your youth to make you easy prey. Surely not even the Vice-Chancellor’s hawk eyes are able to read secrets through two layers of cloth?

Outside, a shout pierces the air, followed by the shot of an arquebus: new weapons for new times. The young man darts his head up towards the high, darkened window.

‘Don’t fret. It’s only common mayhem.’

‘Oh… no, I am not worried.’

The stories are well known: how in the interregnum between popes Rome becomes instantly ungovernable, old scores settled by knife-thrusts in dark alleys, new ones hatched under cover of an exuberant general thuggery that careers between theft, brawling and murder. But the worst is reserved for the men who have been too favoured, for they have the most to lose.

‘You should have been here when the last della Rovere pope, Sixtus IV, died – though not even Lorenzo de’ Medici could have made his son a cardinal at the age of ten, eh?’ Rodrigo laughs. ‘His nephew was so hated that the mob stripped his house faster than a plague of locusts. By the time conclave ended only the walls and the railings remained.’ He shakes his head, unable to conceal his delight at the memory. ‘Still, you must feel at home sitting here under the work of your father’s protégés.’ He lifts his eyes to the fresco on the back wall of the cell: a group of willowy figures so graceful that they seem to be still moving under the painter’s brush. ‘This is by that Botticelli fellow, yes?’

‘Sandro Botticelli, yes.’ The style is as familiar to the young Florentine as the Lord’s Prayer.

‘Such a talented man! It is wonderful how much… how much flesh he gets into the spirit. I have always thought that Pope Sixtus was exceedingly lucky to get him, considering that three years before