#then giulia is not really doing anything except trying to GET IN THERE EXCEPT CESARE IS LITERALLY NOT LOOKING AT HER OR MINDING HER AT ALL

[i-am-borgia]

I wanted to do a sweet Ces/Crezia hugging-meme because I felt like it but then I noticed Rodrigo standing in the corner like

[cesarborjas]

“we get dark, only to shine” - chapter one

I’ve been thinking for awhile about posting a cleaned-up version of wgdots, and … I’m in a Renaissance place right now, so it seemed like a good time!

title: we get dark, only to shine verse: wgdots (1/lol) length: 168k, so far (shh) characters: Cesare Borgia, Lucrezia Borgia; Cesare/Lucrezia stuff that happens: Lucrezia, anxious about her forthcoming marriage to Giovanni Sforza, takes her concerns to Cesare.

PART ONE: PESARO

CHAPTER ONE

Lucrezia twirled, laughing as her skirts unfurled around her, a blur of pink and white. She could hear the rustle of the silk, feel her hair swinging out, caught by the breeze. Only a rush of light-headedness stilled her.

“What do you think, brother?” Lucrezia demanded, turning to sit by the fountain. She staggered, a little, dizziness making her graceless as little else did. Elsewhere she might have feared some damage to her dress, but Cesare caught her around the waist, as she had known he would. She smiled up at him, feeling very bright and beautiful. “Well?”

“I think you nearly tipped yourself into the water,” he said, guiding her to the stone rim of the fountain.

Lucrezia pointed imperiously at the place beside her. When Cesare sat down, his red robes settling around him, she tilted her head up to the sun.

“Tell me!”

“What shall I tell you, my love? That your hair is tangled, or that you have a lost a pearl, or—”

Lucrezia wrinkled her nose at him. He laughed, then relented, as he always did.

“You look very, very pretty. If Giovanni Sforza is not pleased, he must be a fool indeed.”

She could see his good humour dimming as he spoke of her betrothed, mouth tightening. But he had never wished her to marry, and she had an idea that he was unhappy over some particular of the betrothal. The husband, perhaps. Still, the affection in his eyes did not fade with his smile.

“But what of my dress?”

Cesare caught a corner of her skirt between his thumb and forefinger, then let it drop, uncreased. “It is lovely, sis.”

She reached out to grasp his hand between both of hers, pressing the long curl of his fingers between her own small ones.

“What is it?” he said.

She glanced down, from his eyes to his mouth, frowning in concern, and back again.

“You will think me ridiculous,” she said.

“Never.”

“I—I am a little afraid.”

“That is not unusual at all,” he said, frown shifting to a sympathetic smile. “You are to leave Rome, to join your life to a stranger, to be mistress of an unfamiliar household—”

“You are not helping.”

Despite themselves, they both laughed.

“Well,” he said, “it is perfectly natural to be afraid—that is all.”

Lucrezia turned that over in her mind. She had worried over those things, but she would not call them fears, exactly. “It is common, you mean. But I am a Borgia. I should not be afraid of anything.”

“Nonsense,” said Cesare. “I fear dozens of things, myself.”

“You?”

“And so does the Holy Father,” he added. He squeezed her fingers. “Why should we not? Della Rovere spreads his plots through all Italy, perhaps beyond. Our father’s papacy hangs by a thread. You are to leave our protection, and I fear most of all for your happiness. I shall not be able to ensure it from so far, no matter how kind your husband.” His lips pressed together. “You must promise to write to me, sis, if there is anything you require, anything I can do. And if he is not kind—”

I shall cut his heart out with a dinner knife, he’d assured her before, long frame bending over her, the curve of his mouth making it a jest, and yet not. Lucrezia had felt less comfort than delight, his blood-red robes draped over her, her heart pounding and eyes drifting to the mouth that had formed the words, as if they still rested there. She almost kissed him, the affectionate sister’s kiss she had hundreds of times pressed to his cheek or lips; and yet she did not. Something stifled the impulse, even with warmth prickling over her skin and her blood running quick in her veins. Instead, it made her fling her arms about his neck, pressing her face into his shoulder.

Now she interrupted him. “There is something I would ask, brother.”

“Ask and it is yours,” he said. She was staring at their joined hands, not his face, but she could hear the sudden smile in his voice. “Within reason.”

“I may not know very much about marriage, but I know a wife should please her husband.” Lucrezia bit her lip and looked up at him. If he had smiled before, he did not now; a familiar unhappy expression had settled over his face. “And I know that, for my dear father’s sake, it is of the utmost importance that I please mine.”

“Lucrezia, the Sforza arms are already promised to us,” said Cesare. “It does not depend on your husband’s—pleasure.” His mouth twisted at the word.

“But promises may be broken. Is that not so?” She lifted one of her hands to touch his cheek, anxiety and affection alike thrumming a steady beat under her ribs. “Do not bother trying to deceive me. You cannot hide things from me, brother.” Lucrezia gave an unsteady laugh. “I see them in your eyes. We both know it will be better for his Holiness, for our family, if I … if my husband …”

“Then speak to our mother,” he said at last. Something, perhaps distaste, tugged at his mouth. “Or Giulia Farnese.”

Lucrezia, briefly distracted, tipped her head to the side. “You do not like Giulia?” The idea had never crossed her mind.

“I neither like nor dislike her,” said Cesare. “I am, however, fond of our mother.”

“As am I! But I cannot ask her how to kiss a man!”

They stared at each other. Cesare, seeming only then to recall that his hand still lay in her lap, drew it quickly back.

“And why should you? You have kissed men hundreds of times—even thousands.”

Lucrezia’s mouth dropped open. “I have done nothing of the kind!”

“Father, Juan, me.” He paused. “Prince Djem, perhaps.”

“I never kissed him,” she said, and felt rather than heard his sigh. “And for the rest, that is not the same at all!”

“Exactly,” said Cesare. He tapped her nose. “You cannot learn how to kiss a husband from your brother, my love—your brother who will never be any woman’s husband, no less.”

“Well, I don’t see why not. It is not as if you are celibate.”

He made a strangled sound. Lucrezia grinned, smug, as a flush crept up his cheeks.

“You know what men and women do together,” she persisted. “You know what pleases a man, what—”

His finger pressed against her mouth.

“There lies your first mistake. I know what pleases me. Men do not share all our tastes. I could not guess—do not wish to guess—what pleases our brother, or my manservant, or Giovanni Sforza.”

“I suppose,” said Lucrezia, not entirely convinced. “Juan does prefer dark ladies, and I know you do not particularly. Perhaps—”she brightened—“Lord Sforza will be like you.”

“This is not a conversation a man wishes to have with his sister,” Cesare said, grimacing.

She dimpled. “But I thought all men were different.”

“Not that different!”

She could see him realize his mistake almost as soon as the words left his mouth. Before he could correct it, she said blithely,

“Then you can teach me.”

He released a breath. “I cannot believe I am even considering this.”

Lucrezia’s smile turned triumphant.

“Is there no one else?” he demanded.

She tilted her head inquisitively. “Is there a man you would rather instructed me?” Then she laughed. “Really, is there another man you would permit to touch me? To even remain alone with me? Juan? Should I ask him instead?”

“No!” Cesare scrambled to his feet, skirts billowing out. He glanced around the courtyard, as if Juan—or worse—might emerge at any moment. With a tug of her hand, he pulled her into their mother’s villa: dragged her, Lucrezia might have said, had she not followed so readily that it was more like walking hand-in-hand. They clattered around into his bedchamber.

She perched on the edge of his bed and watched, intrigued, as Cesare latched the doors and closed the window. He was really being very dramatic about all this.

“Well,” she said, “tell me what to do.”

He settled beside her, finally meeting her eyes. “You know how to give a chaste kiss.”

Lucrezia nodded, then smiled and quickly touched her mouth to his, as she had so many times before.

“That is not how I shall kiss my husband.”

“You may, sometimes,” he said. “That kiss speaks of affection. It is for company, and when there is no chance of anything else.”

“And when there is?”

She saw the shudder in his throat as he swallowed. He tilted his head down, towards hers, until their foreheads leaned together and she could feel his nose to the side of hers, his breath on her mouth. That was not new, either, but nevertheless something in her belly fluttered. Lucrezia smiled uncertainly.

“Close your eyes, my love,” he whispered, words but an inch from her.

She obeyed, though she couldn’t help saying, “But I want to—”

Cesare’s lips pressed against hers, lingering a moment, shifting to kiss her again from a different angle, his mouth brushing over hers between kisses. The fluttering deepened to a heavy shiver, radiating out and up her spine, until she was warm and shaking. Like a fever, she thought dimly, except fevers were wretched and this, this was wonderful. Even the skin of her neck prickled pleasantly, though he did not move the hand that rested there. Out of nowhere, she wished he would, slide his hand down her throat or neck—and she wanted to do something with her hands.

He broke away. Lucrezia did not feel any cooler, but her eyes opened in protest. Cesare, she saw, was flushed, too, his eyes very bright.

“What does that one speak of?” She sounded at once breathless and strangely loud.

“Promise,” he said, and nudged her nose. “But you must do your part.”

“Oh! I forgot!” She glanced down at his mouth and then back up. “But where do I put my hands?”

“Anywhere you like,” said Cesare. He added, “On my shoulders or behind my neck, generally.”

Lucrezia gave a solemn nod and set her hands on his shoulder. She dutifully closed her eyes; when he kissed her again, she kissed back, feeling his lips give way—just a little—under the pressure. Excitement burned through her veins once more. She tried to mimic the slow press of his lips, her fingers digging into his shoulders. Her heart was pounding. Then his thumb ran down her throat, almost to her collarbone, and Lucrezia gasped against his mouth.

Should she be …? The thought dissolved with a slide of his thumb against the hollow of her neck. Her mind was empty of anything but his name echoing around and around, Cesare, Cesare, Cesare. And more. She shifted her hands to his face, then locked them behind his neck, holding him as near to her as she could; his leg was already pressed against hers. It wasn’t good enough. She wanted—she wanted—

He stopped again. No, Lucrezia thought dimly, not even bothering to open her eyes; she pressed lingering kisses all along his mouth. In reward, she felt his arms around her waist, hands at her back, holding her close: familiar and new both. But he seemed to be trying to say something. Lucrezia didn’t want to talk. She caught his bottom lip between hers.

Before she could even decide what to do with it, she was tipping backwards onto the bed, Cesare sprawling over her, pressing quick, open-mouthed kisses into her parted mouth. One moment she felt the glide of his tongue over her lip, the next his teeth biting down, and she could only kiss him back, his hair caught in her right hand. She felt the line of his leg trapped between hers, though between her skirts and his she could do little but stir restlessly. 

Yet the propped-up weight of his body was more familiar than the robes under her fingers. It shouldn’t have felt like all the other times, the two of them lying together in the courtyard, the gardens, laughing together on this very bed—but it did. It felt exactly like that.

Cesare lifted his mouth, but only to press the same kisses down her throat. Dazed, Lucrezia could only wish there was some way of wrapping herself around him, of—of anything. When his teeth nipped at the skin where her neck met her shoulder, she nearly sobbed.

“Cesare,” she whispered instead.

He instantly froze, then buried his face in her neck. Lucrezia, thoughts a little more coherent, realized that his breath was panting against her throat, his shoulders shaking. She opened her eyes.

“Cesare?” Her voice sounded hoarse. She cleared her throat and he lifted his head, staring at her as if he could not quite believe his eyes.

“Forgive me,” he mumbled.

Lucrezia frowned. “For what? I thought that lesson went very well.”

Her brother shifted off her, lying on his back. It was only then that she realized his cross had been digging uncomfortably into her torso.

“Ah,” he said. “Well, yes.”

Lucrezia turned her head to the side, her hair loose around her brushing her cheek. Cesare looked almost bewildered.

“Did our father kiss our mother thus? And Giulia Farnese, now?”

The solemn set of his mouth turned, quick and easy, to a laughing smile. He tapped her nose.

“I think you know perfectly well how our father kisses women,” he said, with a meaningful glance at the window.

“I do not spy on Papa,” she said, repulsed, and Cesare laughed aloud.

“You reserve that honour for me?”

“Yes,” said Lucrezia, snuggling comfortably against him. She pushed the cross aside.

Cesare drew a deep breath.

“Will my husband kiss me thus, brother?”

“Perhaps,” he said. His expression went grave again. “Perhaps not. He may not be very interested in—niceties. He is a Sforza, after all, and he does not love you as I do.”

“That may be for the best,” said Lucrezia, “for I shall never love him as I do you.”

Cesare just sighed and stroked her hair.

“You will come and visit me? We are not to be separated forever?”

He hesitated.

Lucrezia felt panic welling in her chest. She pushed herself away, lifting horrified eyes to his. “Cesare?”

Cesare bit his lip. Then with a reckless look, he said, “Of course I shall.”

[cesarborjas]

“we get dark, only to shine” - chapter eight

title: we get dark, only to shine verse: wgdots (8/?) characters: Cesare Borgia, Lucrezia Borgia; Cesare/Lucrezia stuff that happens: Cesare and Lucrezia squabble about the present and plan for the future. chapters: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven

CHAPTER EIGHT

Lucrezia, Lucrezia.

Cesare just managed to hold himself still, legs at awkward angles, while Lucrezia braced herself against him, one hand on his shoulder and the other grasping his shirt. He adjusted his grip on the small of her back, feeling her sway under his fingers. It was uncomfortable and it was impossible to care.

I should not—

The thought dissolved at a clutch of Lucrezia’s fingers, nails digging into his shoulder. Yet their mouths hardly touched, hovering a hair apart, brushing together, parting again, the kiss as much in their mingled breath as the graze of their lips.

Cesare pulled away, opening his eyes. Lucrezia’s face was still tilted up, lips parted, eyelids lifting heavily. She looked as if she had just found more pleasure than most did in the beds of their lovers. Her lips curved, slow and contented.

In that moment, Cesare would have laid more hearts than Giovanni Sforza’s at her feet, had she wanted. Entire cities. Empires. Anything, anything at all, as long as it kept her smiling.

But there was nothing new about that. He smiled back.

“I should not be here,” he said.

Lucrezia looked even happier. “No. You should be in Rome.”

Helpless, he drew her close, pressing their foreheads together, hand still curled about her neck. “Shall you send me away? Back to the Vatican?”

“No,” whispered Lucrezia. She raised her eyes. “Are we falling, Cesare?”

Into sin? Love? Was there any difference?

“I don’t know,” he said, scarcely hearing his own words. He leaned down to kiss her properly, slanting his open mouth against her upper lip. Lucrezia, with a small humming noise, pressed herself closer. Her arms slid about his neck. She was kneeling between his legs, her hands in his hair again, and when she caught his lip between hers, his mind fell into a white-hot blank. Cesare couldn’t think. He could scarcely breathe. He licked into her mouth, fingers tightening in her hair at the scrape of her teeth.

“God,” he whispered, despite himself. “My God, sis.”

Dimly, it occurred to him that he should not say … should not … something. But Lucrezia pressed kisses over his face and then there was nothing but her.

“Cesare.” Lucrezia ran her fingers over his hair, his cheekbones, too frantic for him to catch her mouth. He kissed her where he could and stroked her neck down to the collar, her skin soft and hot under his own shaking fingers. “Cesare. Cesare.”

Her body was pliant in his arms and her mouth urgent and still he craved more. He felt fever-mad with it, with her. His skin must be as warm as hers, Lucrezia burning him up, both of them burning each other up. She could take him. Right here, right now. Nobody would know. Sforza—

Sforza. Cesare’s hands, already at the laces to her gown, stilled.

“Lucrezia,” he managed to say, voice low and hoarse, scarcely audible even to his own ears. He cleared his throat. “Lucrezia!”

“Brother,” she murmured.

Cesare winced. Then she rocked back on her heels to gaze at him, her lips red and swollen, a deep flush high on her cheeks and a few locks of white-gold hair falling over her face. He not only forgot to be embarrassed, he might have forgotten his own name if it were not also hers.

“I …” His mind cooled enough to grasp that she’d been kneeling the whole time. “You …”

“Hm?”

He gathered a few shreds of reason. “Sit down.”

Lucrezia pouted and shifted around to sit without moving much backwards, her folded legs now pressed directly against his calf. Cesare shut his eyes, trying to think of anything else.

Et ne nos inducas in tentationem, sed libera—

“Why, Cesare,” said Lucrezia sweetly, “you don’t look comfortable.”

He flicked her cheek, then pulled both his hands away from her and clasped them together. “You are a fiend, my love,” he said.

She grinned.

“But we must speak.” He sobered, laced fingers clenching. “About your husband.”

Lucrezia frowned. Dropping her eyes, she reached a hand up to his collarbone and toyed with the loosened laces of his shirt. “Must we? You cannot kill him, you know.”

“Oh?” Cesare glanced at her shoulder, covered by its sleeve again. It didn’t matter. He would never forget. “I would gladly cut his throat, if it were not too easy a death.”

“No,” she said. “We need the Sforza arms, Cesare. You understand that as well as I do.”

“I don’t care. He defiled your innocence, your happiness. I shall see that he pays for it.”

“Perhaps,” said Lucrezia, “but not yet.”

“You sound like our father.”

“And you sound like Mother,” she retorted.

“Mother? What has she to do with any of this?”

Lucrezia stared at him. “Have you forgotten already? It was our mother who gave Cardinal della Rovere cause to depose Papa!”

“You mean it was our Holy Father who gave him cause,” said Cesare. “Unless I have grossly misunderstood the situation, it was not Mother who committed public lechery with Giulia Farnese!”

They both glowered at the ground. But a moment later they lifted their eyes, sheepish, and laughed.

“Can you imagine it?” she said.

He shuddered. “I am trying not to. Mother would die first.”

“Well, perhaps if Papa—”

“Lucrezia, no.” Cesare gave her the sternest look he could manage, in the circumstances. “As far as Mother is concerned, this conversation never happened.”

Lucrezia giggled. “But really, Cesare, you must see that marching into the Vatican and storming at him in public created a great many difficulties.”

“What I see is that this affair, in itself, made a great many difficulties, of which that was but one,” said Cesare. He was conscious, in some remote corner of his mind, that a man sprawled out in a forest glade with his sister sitting between his legs probably had little room to judge, but he persevered. “He took a new mistress at the worst possible moment. That was his doing.”

“How can we blame him?” said Lucrezia. She laid her hand against his cheek, rubbing her thumb over the bone, gazing at him with her impossible mix of steady, companionable affection and rapture. Cesare turned his face into her hand, repressing temptation to do anything but kiss her palm. She shivered nonetheless, withdrawing her hand to her lap.

Her voice thick, she added, “We cannot help where we love. You and I must understand that better than anyone.”

“He could help where he—” Cesare bit off the end of the sentence. Leaning back on the heels of his hands, he said, “We understand the need to maintain your reputation. We understand staying out of the sight of prying eyes. We understand restraining ourselves for months. The Pope has not shown half the restraint and discretion we have. Do you see? Even if he does love Lady Giulia, he did not have to claim her as his mistress the moment the whim took him. He did not have to flaunt her all over Rome. If you had not told Mother, she would have heard of it from someone else, and probably someone less careful than you were.”

She caught her lip between her teeth, worrying it. Through sheer force of will, he kept his eyes on hers except for one brief downward glance, fingers digging into the grass.

Lucrezia, being Lucrezia, only smiled. “Well, yes. I understand why she was so angry. And you must not think I don’t admire our mother! I can only pray to someday have her beauty and wit and grace.”

Cesare opened his mouth.

“But what she did made everything worse. It was not wise. And that would be nothing to killing my husband! The Pope—”

“Damn the Pope, Lucrezia—”

“No! Listen to me!” Lucrezia grabbed his shoulder again, flushed and almost angry, her jaw set. “You wanted details, Cesare. Very well. You shall have them.”

His throat went dry.

“My wedding night was consummated in the harshest possible manner. Lord Sforza marched into my chambers, scolded me about our family, then ripped my nightdress off and threw me on the bed. You cannot imagine how confused and frightened I was. I … I tried to push him away, to catch my breath, and he grabbed me and held me down and—” Her face crumpled, hand clapping over her mouth, eyes squeezing shut. Tears still streaked down her cheeks, her entire body shaking.

“Lucrezia.” His instinct was to reach out to comfort her, as he always had, but he hardly dared touch her. When she bent her head towards his shoulder, however, he could not help but tug her the rest of his way, curling his arms around her. Lucrezia pressed her face against his shirt; he could feel every tremble of her body, every ragged exhalation, every spasm in her grasping fingers.

Cesare stroked her back, inwardly furious that he could not do more, that he had not done more. He should have done something to prevent this. He was her older brother, her oldest brother. He should have protected her. He should have spoken more forcefully to the Pope, and if that made no difference … he might at least have persuaded him to choose someone else. A Neopolitan, perhaps, or some Medici or Orsini. 

Rage and failure burned in him, coiled about his chest until he could hardly breathe. And Lucrezia, for fourteen years so bright and sunny that she seemed to walk on air—Lucrezia cried into his shoulder.

He had never imagined that her wedding night had been pleasurable, never supposed that it would be, truly, but he had not—

Cesare took a deep breath, pressing his lips against her hair. He murmured something, endearments, he scarcely knew. Sister, sister, my love, Lucrezia ...

Her hands tightened, then smoothed out the wrinkles her fists had left in his shirt, as if he cared. She drew back far enough to lift her eyes to his. 

“Every night, Cesare. It was always the same, except after that, he slapped me if I wept. He beat me if I made him cross about anything, the whole day. Sometimes I didn’t even know what I had done! And I never knew what might enrage him. It could be anything.” She scrubbed at her face. “Or nothing. There was one day when I never even saw him, and that night he took me like a dog against the headboard. I didn’t think anything could be worse than the thrusting, but my head kept hitting the board and I—I think I fainted.”

“No, my love,” he said, voice so raw that he would not have known it for his own. “He beat you into oblivion. There … is a difference.”

I will gut him for it. Bile was sharp and acrid on Cesare’s tongue. Sforza might have killed her, delicate as she was. And he hadn’t been there.

“Yes, I suppose,” said Lucrezia. “Well, he did not beat me constantly. But he always thrusted.” She shuddered. “Do you think I never thought of killing him myself? Or sending for you? Writing to Papa? Sweet Virgin, sometimes I almost wished to die, myself. But I kept my silence for the Sforza arms, for our family. And you would throw that away in a moment’s temper? No! I will not have endured it for nothing, Cesare!”

He hesitated, and Lucrezia’s expression softened, the flash of anger fading as it always did, though she looked no less resolute. She reached for his wrist, her fingers too small to even encircle it.

“I do not ask for you to … to exert yourself in friendship,” she said, almost tripping over the words. “Only to stay your hand until this matter of Cardinal della Rovere blows over.”

He lifted a brow. “Blows over?”

“Resolves itself,” she amended. “In one way or another.”

Cesare drummed his fingers against his knee. He would have Sforza’s blood sooner or later: of that there could be no doubt. Had Lucrezia wished it, he would do it immediately and damn the consequences. But now, at least, he thought through the consequences. 

The Sforzas would undoubtedly join della Rovere’s cause, the Riarios with them. Others might flock to such a banner. By and large these great Italian families hated each other more than they hated Spaniards—thankfully—but his dubious honours already offended them. A Valencian bastard in the College of Cardinals! The looks on their faces had been his only consolation. If he murdered a Sforza in his bed… 

Even if the Pope were not deposed, his father would never forgive him.

Cesare would risk it, for Lucrezia. But if she did not wish it—not yet—well, it was true that Sforza’s death would render her suffering meaningless. He bit his lip and glanced up. Lucrezia was gazing at him with a peculiar nervous intensity, not at all like her.

“I cannot answer for what I will do if I am left alone with him,” he finally said.

Lucrezia smiled, anxiety dissolving on a sigh.

“And I shall not bear another insult to either of us. I shall not leave you here. If he makes any trouble over it—”

“Thank you,” she said, and kissed him lightly. 

It could almost have been a sister’s kiss, even the stroke of her fingers over his face nothing out of the ordinary for them. But they had never been ordinary, and Lucrezia hovered a breath away, searching his face for something, so close that he could feel the warmth of her blushing face. His heart was pounding all over again—over a trifling kiss! God only knew how he looked right now. To go by her expression, however, whatever she found pleased her.

Unable to resist the satisfaction in her face, he leaned down to kiss her neck, smiling at her small, stifled moan. He only just remembered that he should not mark her, that it was one thing to take their delight in each other’s touch a few steps further, another to expose her to vile gossip. Cesare lingered a moment, feeling more than hearing the thrum in her throat, unsure if he was unwilling or simply unable to tear himself away.

It was a dangerous game they played.

Forgive me, he thought, but lifted his head to see his sister languid, dreamy-eyed, happy: justification enough. The words died on his lips.

He cleared his throat. “We … we should return to the castle.”

Lucrezia looked disappointed, but agreed readily enough, then smiled to herself and began lacing his doublet up. She bent her head as she worked, brow knit in concentration, Cesare holding the sides in place and looking down at the smooth slope of her neck. With a fortitude that surprised even him, he did not touch it, but only tucked the strands of hair he had loosened back into her net, reciting church law in his head.

Hardly speaking, they shook out their cloaks, fastened them, and untied the horses. Lucrezia did not wish to ride, so they led them away on foot; she slipped her hand into his with her old confiding look. Cesare smiled and tightened his hand around hers.

He glanced over his shoulder as they left. The glade still gleamed in the afternoon sunlight, the trees wafting gently in the breeze, the pond glass-smooth and untroubled. They might never have been there. Yet he could almost imagine that shadows of themselves remained by the water, ghosts of their lives until today, gazing eternally at their faded reflections.

Nonsense. Nothing had changed. Cesare’s attention returned to Lucrezia, eyes firmly fixed ahead.

“I do not see any reason for you to spend much time around him,” said Lucrezia.

It took him a moment to remember what they had been talking about. Ah yes—Sforza, and the necessity, however regrettable, of his continued existence.

“Especially,” she added, “if you truly do mean to buy an Andalusian for me.”

Cesare shook his head, bemused. He had not thought his mind that clouded. “What? That is, yes, of course, but—”

“No doubt it will be a great deal of trouble.”

He shrugged. “That is no matter.”

“Well, I should not like you to go to so much effort and expense for nothing. They are fine horses, are they not?”

“Very fine.”

“Yet I am not a great horsewoman,” said Lucrezia thoughtfully. “I should strive to become worthy of such a gift, I think. I must practice my horsemanship, and you must help me! We shall go out riding every day, and leave Lord Sforza to recover in peace and quiet.”

He looked at her, catching her laughing sideways glance.

A dangerous game, indeed.

“Of course, sis,” said Cesare.

Notes

1) Et ne nos inducas in tentationem, sed libera—: from the Pater Noster (Our Father/the Lord's Prayer), "lead us not into temptation, but deliver [us from evil]"

2) reciting church law in his head: Cesare was trained in civil and ecclesiastical law, and apparently brilliant at it. Even his enemies said so; this was during his time in Perugia and Pisa, when he was still a teenager.