Write something on the theme of betrayal.Betrayal. Inganno. Not the
bellissimo inganno, no. Just the base and hurtful kind. You could ask my friend Miguel here. He could tell you a thing about
betrayal but I doubt he'll... I doubt he'll comply. He finds the topic painful. Perhaps because he's not so inured to it, used to
flexible truths as I am. Miguel's heart was true, and I loved him for it. So much so that when he betrayed me, I never saw it coming, and a part of me didn't live through it.
Let us catalogue more fruitful
betrayals then.
Such as when our Neapolitan relatives had become liabilities. When Alfonso wouldn't stay away and had to be taken care of. When Astorre became inconvenient. When Don Flores' and Troches' affiliations turned. When father asked Guidobaldo for free passage for my artillery at Cagli, only to find my cannons pitched against Urbino a day or two later. When it proved useful to keep Machiavelli about like a trained monkey, feeding on whatever grapes and morsels I'd pass him. When Ramiro had reached the end of his leash. That was when they started betraying me wholesale, didn't they? Yet I only needed to croon sweet nothings into Paolo Orsini's ear to have him by the short hairs, him and his miserable gaggle of co-conspirators. Shame the Baglioni got away, though; Gianpaolo would laugh in my face, later, and turn the tables again. But the look on Vitelli's face that day... priceless. Worth the drunken sod's weight in gold.
Betrayal. When Giuliano promised to honour my station and sold me to Spain. When Gonsalvo closed the doors behind me and had me dragged to the
forno of Castel dell'Ovo until I gave up the passwords to the Romagnol castles. When I rode out one morning and found out, too late, that there was no-one to have my back. Perhaps you'll be surprised when I say that by that time, though, betrayals had stopped smarting. I must have grown a callus where most men feel disappointment and hurt - a most remarkable thing, thick and scaly like a barnacle.
Why? Because nothing has or will ever hurt as much as losing Miguel. To my sister, of all people. How's that for betrayal?
Nothing grand, of course. Unsurprising, surely. Such a small thing for the Borgia, you'll say. All in a day's work, you'll say, and still the scales of "betrayer" and "betrayed" would lean heavily, tipped by my infidelities, lies, schemes, and treachery, earning me a sentence in Hell. Perhaps. At this point I cannot even bring myself to care.
Perhaps I'm still holding my breath for the greatest betrayal of them all.
![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}