Cesare Borgia: Topic: Mothers
He expects this will end any time soon. He expects it might as well... go on forever. Nothing in this place is right, and life has been restored to him, so why not youth, too? Because nothing lasts, you idiot. And while he likes his new un-heavyness, the gangly limbs and boundless energy, his elder self already sneers at him for taking such puppyish delight in things that will - will - pass again. How fleeting is youth. Take joy in today, for tomorrow remains... uncertain. Lorenzo de' Medici knew all about that, didn't he. Old before his time, and bent twice as fast.
Nervously, Cesare looks up, cradling the juice-and-something Dora sneaked between his hands. "My mother was a very enterprising woman," he says, half-proud, half-shy. "I hear you can still visit some of the places she owned in Rome. Not all of them, no. But a few. The Vacca - that was a tavern - at the corner of Campo de' Fiori; it's a bakery now. And on the other side of the market, there's the Albergo del Sole. That was hers, too. The walls were all wonky!" he laughs, and elder Cesare chokes with apoplexy that he's using such a stupid word. "Not a single beam at straight edges. That's because they built it into the ruins of Pompei's Theatre. Where Caesar was killed. Not me. I mean, Giulio Cesare. The Imperator. My mamma had an inn there. Funny, no? And she owned other places, too."
"They say she - mamma, I mean - they say Vanozza de' Cattanei survived most of her children." He swallows, blinks, then quickly, hastily empties the glass.