“In the three years that are sped since the Holy Father entertained such plans for the temporal advancement of his nephew Ignacio, the fortunes of the House of Borgia have so swollen that what was then a desirable match for one of its members is now scarcely worthy of their attention. I do not think,” he concluded, “that we have the least reason to fear a renewal of that suit.”
It may be that I am by nature suspicious and quick to see ignoble motives in men’s actions, but it occurred to me then that the Lord Filippo would not be so greatly put about if indeed the Borgias were to reopen negotiations for the bestowing of Madonna Paola’s hand upon the Pope’s nephew Ignacio. That swelling of the Borgia fortunes which in the three years had taken place and which, he contended, would render them more ambitious than to seek alliance with the House of Santafior, rendered them, nevertheless, in his eyes a more desirable family to be allied with than in the days when he had counselled his sister’s flight from Rome. And so, I thought, despite what stood between her and the Lord Giovanni, Filippo would know no scruple now in urging her into an alliance with the House of Borgia, should they manifest a willingness to have that old affair reopened.
On the 29th of that same month of October, Cesare arrived in Pesaro. His entry was a triumphant procession, and the orderliness that prevailed among the two thousand men-at-arms that he brought with him was a thing that spoke eloquently for the wondrous discipline enforced by this great condottiero.
The Lord Filippo was among those that met him, and like the time-server that he was, he placed the Sforza Palace at his disposal.
The Duca Valentino came with his retinue and the gentlemen of his household, among whom was ever conspicuous by his great size and red ugliness the Captain Ramiro del’ Orca, who now seemed to act in many ways as Cesare’s factotum. This captain, for reasons which it is unnecessary to detail, I most sedulously avoided.
On the evening of his arrival Cesare supped in private with Filippo and the members of Filippo’s household—that is to say, with Madonna Paola and two of her ladies, and three gentlemen attached to the person of the Lord Filippo. Cesare’s only attendants were two cavaliers of his retinue, Bartolomeo da Capranica, his Field-Marshal, and Dorio Savelli, a nobleman of Rome.
Cesare Borgia, this man whose name had so terrible a sound in the ears of Italy’s little princelings, this man whose power and whose great gifts of mind had made him the subject of such bitter envy and fear, until he was the best-hated gentleman in Italy—and, therefore, the most calumniated—was little changed from that Cardinal of Valencia, in whose service I had been for a brief season. The pallor of his face was accentuated by the ill-health in which he found himself just then, and the air of feverish restlessness that had always pervaded him was grown more marked in the years that were sped, as was, after all, but natural, considering the nature of the work that had claimed him since he had deposed his priestly vestments. He was splendidly arrayed, and he bore himself with an imperial dignity, a dignity, nevertheless, tempered with graciousness and charm, and as I regarded him then, it was borne in upon me that no fitter name could his godfathers have bestowed on him than that of Cesare.
The Lord Filippo exerted all his powers worthily to entertain his noble and illustrious guest, and by his extreme, almost servile affability it not only would seem that he had forgotten the favour and shelter he had received at the hands of the Lord Giovanni, but it confirmed my suspicions of his willingness to advance his own fortunes by breaking with the fallen tyrant in so far as his sister was concerned.
Short of actually making the proposal itself, it would seem that Filippo did all in his power to urge his sister upon the attention of Cesare. But Duke Valentino’s mind at that time was too full of the concerns of conquest and administration to find room for a matter to him so trifling as the enriching of his cousin Ignacio by a wealthy alliance. To this alone, I thought, was it due that Madonna Paola escaped the persecution that might then have been hers.
On the morrow Cesare moved on to Rimini, leaving his administrators behind him to set right the affairs of Pesaro, and ensure its proper governing, in his name, hereafter.