Cesare Borgia (il_valentino) wrote in voicesinmyhead, @ 2007-10-18 16:35:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | cesare borgia, prompt #02 |
Prompt #02: Family.
Character: Cesare Borgia
Fandom: Cantarella/history
Prompt: #02 – Family.
Rating: PG-13
*****
Best pull up a seat; asking a Borgia about family will invariably lead to a lengthy discourse.
Half of which would consist of refuting the libel and slander, but what can you do? Bene, let's stay close to the facts. My family came from Catalonia, originally. My great-uncle Calixt - Alonso de Borja - was from a humble sideline of a caballero family, raised in a mean little tower, Torre dels Canals, somewhere between the pigs and the weeds. It doesn't exist anymore, the tower. But some of the other places around that area still bear traces of our... hm, collective memory, if you will. Mostly around Valencia.
Uncle Alonso. Pope Calixt III. Well. I've never met him; he died before I was born. But judging from paintings I'd say he was a sour old fart. Right pious, too. Very pious, as a matter of fact. The humanists around Rome thought him miserly because he didn't support the arts like his predecessors but spent every lira and soldo and florin in the vain hope of freeing Constantinople from the clutches of Fatih. Mehmet the Conqueror, I mean. If you ask me, Fatih was welcome to it; the place had been doddering anyway, and had its own rinascimento under the Ozmanli line... but listen to me - I'm starting to sound like Jaime here; Cem Sultan, god rest his soul.
These days every little scribbler and selfappointed scholar seems to get away with claiming that my family practically invented nepotism. That's just blatant nonsense. Nepotism, meaning to give highly lucrative and influential positions to one's nephews. Nephews, because a man of the church isn't supposed to have children of his own. Technically. Be that as it may, the practice is ancient.
One thing is true, though: Uncle Alonso was much in favour of his nephew Rodrigo. Rodrigo being an intelligent young prelate, a promising diplomate, a skilled negotiator. Also much favoured by the ladies - which was something he kept well hidden from his uncle. I know, hard to believe: Calixt III wouldn't have tolerated Rodrigo's fooling around. He may have reprimanded him a few times, after which my father kept a low profile.
Never kept my father from enjoying himself, though. He had other children before my siblings and me; my half-sisters Girolama and Isabella, for instance. Untouched by scandal, Isabella was, a grande dame. Honestly. I liked her; a bit boring perhaps, but gentle. Something I can't necessarily claim for myself.
I was the first of four my mother had with Rodrigo: I, Juan, Lucrezia, and Jofré. Jofré may have been a cuckoo, to speak the truth, but nobody held it against him. Well all right, I did. Mostly due to his sheer ineptitude and immaturity, though; he was singularly useless to the family. Complex-ridden, an ingrate, and not very fast in the head. But now my tale is getting jumbled; forgive me.
Where was I.
I, Juan, Lucrezia, and Jofré.
I wasn't Rodrigo's firstborn male heir. My half-brother Pedro Luis came before me. He also went back into the earth before me, but not nearly soon enough, if I'm to be honest. Because you know what happens to the second born son of a family like mine, right? Ecco. He's promised to the Church. And what fun that was. I liked to study, make no mistake about: I studied canonical law and the liberal arts. I had the best tutors in Perugia and Pisa. But all in order to groom me for a career as bishop, then as cardinal. Who knows, perhaps as pope even? Rodrigo would have liked that.
Rodrigo was already Alexander VI by that time, and when I came down from Pisa to congratulate him on his election, he sent me straight back to my studies. Can you imagine?
No, the apple of his eye was Juan. One year younger than me. So when Pedro Luis died in Spain, I was already out of the picture, succession-wise, and Juan became even more of a gem. Father sent him to Gandia, to assume the title of Duke in lieu of Pedro Luis, and so Juan went from vain little Roman Borgia to fucking Duke of Gandia. The little buggering runt. Your apologies. Anyway. It was Juan this, Juan that. Then father needed to teach the Orsini up at Lago Bracciano a lesson, and he called Juan back from Spain. Made him Gonfaloniere.
A title that rightfully belonged to me, had justice been served. Served earlier, I mean. Gonfaloniere, come se dice? Standard bearer? The one who carries the flag. But it's more than that; it's Captain General, really. And Juan fucked it up. He made the family a laughing stock; instead of bringing the Orsini to heel he turned and ran, his tail tucked between his legs.
One summer night, Juan met a violent end. These things happen, I'm sad to say.
Then there was Lucrezia. What a lovely girl. Blond, bright-eyed, delicate, fine-boned, a pert sulky little mouth. A wicked tongue in Roman slang, Catalan, Castellano, and Latin, if needed be. Well-read, intelligent, beautiful. My sister. Did she love me? Probably. Did I love her? Very likely. I have no idea where the Roman gossips got it from, or what prompted them to spread such malignity, but I can safely say she never slept with our father.
In the end, she more or less... fled. I think you could call it that. She was the driving force behind the Ferrarese marriage, the match that took her away from Rome forever. It was her third. Marriage, I mean. And yet it was her, Lucrezia, who did everything to keep the family together when everything was already falling apart. I wish I... I wish I could tell her now how proud I was of her. How much I loved her, the fierce little thing.
Our mother survived us. I don't know whether that grieved her; it probably did. To see one's children go before is the fear of all parents, they say. So there you have it, a very rough outline of where we came from and where we went: from dust, to dust. From the rocky fields of Torre dels Canals to dusty chests in which they forgot our bones.
It was all about family, from beginning to end. It was about dynasty, but all we got was infamy. And what did I get for my efforts? A ditch in front of a Navarrese church where the flea-ridden beggars trudge on to Santiago de Compostela.
Bitter? No, I'm not overly bitter. If you think in terms of family, you concentrate on the bigger picture. And would you believe one of my great-grandnephews went on to be a saint? Yeah, I found that rather funny, too.
Ecco. Family. Can't live with them, can't live without them.