Cesare Borgia (il_valentino) wrote in voicesinmyhead, @ 2007-10-27 22:30:00 |
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Entry tags: | cesare borgia, prompt #17 |
Prompt #17. What is the best -- or worst -- advice you have ever received?
Character: Cesare Borgia
Fandom: Cantarella/history
Prompt: #17: What is the best -- or worst -- advice you have ever received?
Rating: PG
*****
Granted, it wasn't one of my more splendid ideas. Machiavelli was raging. Michelotto just... stared at me.
And while Niccolò could go about his business unheeded, unobserved, with his usual bug-eyed, see-all, hear-all unobtrusiveness, Michelotto was stuck with me, and there wasn't a day we didn't fight over this. Even when he tended to me, helped me out of bed, fed me, dressed my sores, we fought, and when I was sick of listening to him, I turned to the wall and let him rant and rave.
Of course he was right. As was Machiavelli. How could I trust Giuliano, a Della Rovere, a sworn enemy? How could I be so stupid? What sort of a brain-sick idiot was I, Michelotto snarled, that I considered signing away the votes of the Spanish cardinals?
Machiavelli was a little more diplomatic, at least when face to face with me, which doesn't mean I didn't hear him hawking in disgust once he was out the door. He laid it all out to me, figures on a chess board, factions, parties, supporters, enemies, moved them around and told me I was choosing death if I chose Della Rovere.
I remember Michelotto sitting by the window, whittling a piece of wood, probably to keep his hands from flying at me; shaking his head. "It's no good, Niccolò," he said. "Look at him. Can't even get up to take a piss. If he thinks Giuliano will keep a single promise, he's sorely mistaken, but fuck, look at him."
"What would you have me do," I croaked. "Don't think for a second we're anything but Giuliano's prisoners! What forces do I have, with what money will I pay them?"
He shrugged.
"Ecco. Thank you." With that I turned back to the wall. I heard their furious whispers, heard Machiavelli depart, and curled back into the sheets, hoping Michelotto would come to me. I hoped he would sit by my side and watch over me, but he returned to his place by the window. I couldn't blame him; I stank.
"All I'm saying is, don't," he said sourly. "Don't do it. He can't proceed without the Spanish votes, Cesare, so don't give them to him."
"He's given me his word of honour," I mumbled into the pillow.
Michelotto laughed, sharply, cruelly. "That's a good one. Listen to him," he yelled into the cortile, "his word of honour! - Very funny, Cesare. Especially coming from you who hasn't kept a single word of honour, hasn't fulfilled a single treaty in the course of the last four years."
I didn't know what to reply. He was right, of course.
Finally he came to sit beside me. He wiped my brow with a wet cloth and gave me watered wine. "I don't know what to do with you," he whispered. "Why can't I talk some sense into you?" Smoothing my hair back, he muttered, "Niccolò thinks you're going to your grave. And I'm afraid he's right."
I nudged his hand and held onto it, too feverish to think straight. "Just... just be here," I begged. "Stay with me. Say you'll stay with me."
He let out a long-suffering sigh. "Of course I'll stay with you, you silly thing." He kissed my brow, and then I slept a while.
The next day I sent word the congregation of Spanish cardinals to cast their lot with Della Rovere.