Light on Lucrezia Read Online Free PDF Page B

had told her of Pedro’s death had she known such pleasure.
    Alfonso said as they danced together: “This is the happiest night of my life.”
    “I am glad,” Lucrezia told him. “We shall be happy together, you and I, Alfonso.”
    “Whatever happens to us we shall have our happiness to look back on,” he said, sober suddenly.
    “We shall see that it is always with us,” she told him. “There shall be no looking back … only forward, Alfonso.” She smiled at him tenderly. “You were afraid when you heard you were to marry me, were you not?”
    “I had heard tales,” he confessed.
    “Evil tales of me. There are always evil tales of my family. You must not believe them.”
    He looked into her clear light eyes. He thought: Does she not know? She cannot. And how could she understand … she who is so young and innocent?
    “Alfonso,” she continued, “I want you to know that I have been unhappy, so unhappy that I never thought to laugh again. You have heard me laugh, Alfonso, this day. It is the first time for many months, and it is because you have come.”
    “You make me so happy.”
    “You must make me happy, Alfonso. Please make me happy.”
    “I love you, Lucrezia. Is it possible that in three short days one can love so deeply?”
    “I hope so. For I think I am beginning to love you too, and I want to be loved … deeply I want to be loved.”
    “We will love each other then, Lucrezia … all the days of our lives.”
    He took her hand and kissed it; and it was as though they had made a vow as solemn as that which they had taken before the Papal throne.
    The Pope, watching them, chuckled and remarked to one of his Cardinals: “It is a shame to keep them from the nuptial bed. Did you ever see two lovers more eager?”

II
DUCHESS OF BISCEGLIE
     
    T hose Cardinals who had assembled for the Consistory were uneasy. They were wishing that they had followed the examples of their fellows and pleaded some excuse which would keep them from Rome at such a time.
    The Pope, from his Papal throne, had greeted them with his accustomed benevolence, but those who knew Alexander well were aware of the determination beneath the benignity. Once again they would be presented with one of those outrageous demands such as Alexander made from time to time for the sake of his family; they would be faced with the knowledge that they were in honor bound to oppose the Borgia wish, and they knew that they would lack the courage to do so.
    They remembered with chagrin the recent divorce when so many of them had been deceived by the innocent looks of Lucrezia Borgia. They were fully aware that the Pope and his family were going to score another triumph over them.
    Alexander watched Cesare as he took his stand before the assembly, and did his best to subdue the pride within him. Cesare was right. He was the manmade to rule Italy, and he could best achieve his ambitions in freedom from the Church.
    In his slender fingers Cesare held the scroll on which Alexander and he had spent so much time, while he begged his fellow Cardinals to give him their attention.
    Cesare’s voice was gentle. Alexander had warned him to be humble and, astonishingly, Cesare was obeying his father in this respect. Alexander was a man who must have his way but who always sought to have it peaceably if possible. There he differed from Cesare who was so impatient to achieve his desires that he often did not care how he did so.
    “It was not of my own free will that I entered the Church,” he was saying now. “I have never had a vocation.”
    Aware that many eyes were turned upon him, Alexander let his head fall on to his chest in an attitude of dejection as though what his son was saying caused him the utmost pain. In spite of his display of surprise and anguish, all knew of course that it was Alexander’s wish that Cesare should be released, and that he had composed the very words which Cesare was now uttering. They also knew that those Cardinals