Blood & Beauty The Borgias - By Sarah Dunant Page 0,3

he had launched a conspiracy to kill his patron, your own father, and wipe out the whole Medici family. Fortunately you are too young to remember the outrage.’

But not so young that he could ever be allowed to forget. The only thing bloodier than the attack had been the retribution.

‘Luckily, he survived and prospered. Despite the della Rovere family,’ Rodrigo adds, smiling.

‘My father spoke highly of your keen mind, Vice-Chancellor. I know I shall learn a lot from you.’

‘Ah! You already have his wit and diplomacy, I see.’ And his smile dissolves into laughter. The candle on the table flutters in the wind of his breath and his generous features dance in the light. The younger man feels a bead of sweat moving down from his hair and wipes it away with his hand. His fingers come away grimy. In contrast, the Borgia cardinal remains splendidly unaffected by the heat.

‘Well, you must forgive me if I show a certain fatherly affection. I too have a son of your age who needs counsel as he climbs the ladder of the Church. Ah – but of course, you know this. The two of you studied together in Pisa. Cesare spoke often of you as a good friend. And an outstanding student of rhetoric and law.’

‘As I would speak of him.’

In public. Not in private. No. In private, the cocky young Borgia was too closeted by his Spanish entourage to be a friend to anyone. Which is just as well, since whatever money he put on his back (and there was always a sack of it; when he came to dine you could barely see the cloth for the jewels sewn on to it) a Borgia bastard could never be the social equal of a legitimate Medici. He was clever though, mentally so fast on his feet that in public disputation he could cut to the quick, pulling arguments like multi-coloured threads from his brain until black seemed to turn into white and wrong became just another shade of grey. Even the praise of his tutors seemed to bore him: he lived more in the taverns than the study halls. But then he was hardly alone in that fault.

The young Medici is glad of the shadows around them. He would not like such thoughts to be exposed to daylight. If the emblem on the Borgia crest is that of the bull, everyone knows it is the cunning of the fox that runs in the family.

‘Well, I admire your dedication and pursuit of goodness, cardinal.’ Rodrigo Borgia leans over and puts his hand gently on his knee. ‘It will loom large in God’s grace.’ He pauses. ‘But not, I fear, in the annals of men. The sad truth is that the times in which we live are deeply corrupt, and without a pope who can withstand the appetites of the wolves prowling around him, neither he nor Italy will survive.’

While the back of his hand lies thick as a slab of meat, his fingers are surprisingly elegant, tapered and well manicured, and for a second the younger man finds himself thinking of the woman who graces the Vice-Chancellor’s bed these days. A flesh-and-blood Venus she is said to be: milk-skinned, golden-haired and young enough to be his granddaughter. The gossip is tinged with disgust that such sweetness should couple with such decay, but there is envy there too; how easily beauty snaps on to the magnet of power, whatever a man’s looks.

‘Vice-Chancellor.’ He takes a breath. ‘If you are here to canvass my vote…’

‘Me? No, no, no. I am but a lamb in this powerful flock. Like you, I have no other wish but to serve God and our holy mother the Church.’ And now the older man’s eyes sparkle. They say that while Giuliano della Rovere has a temper fit to roast flesh, it is the Borgia smile that is more to be feared. ‘No. If I put myself forward at all it is only because, having seen such things before, I fear that a deadlock could push us into hands less capable even than my own.’

Giovanni stares at him, wondering at the power of a man who can lie so bare-facedly and still give the impression that his heart is in his voice. Is this then his secret? In these last few days he has had occasion to watch him at work; to notice how tirelessly he weaves in and out of the knots of other men, how he is first to