Prompt #10: My life would be better if...
"Oh." He laughs, more in self-deprecation than anything else. "Take a seat. An encyclopedic list of such claims might take a while. But why bore you with a string of ifs? I can't complain, at present: Signora Pellegrini sent me a case of fine Rosso di Montalcino. You are welcome to partake. I realise it's not quite a Brunello, but we can't all have good years, eh?"
It is a good wine, and he's almost loath to share it. Taking the plate of antipasti he's fixed for himself in the kitchen - it's still so spotless; da Vinci would mess it up in no time - Cesare moves over to the window and sits. "Prego, join me. Some artichoke capolini, perhaps? The small, violet ones are good. They only grow on the island of Sant'Erasmo, in the Venice Lagoon. A shame Madonna Isabella won't have any; I fear I'll grow fat if I have to eat them all by myself."
He's careful not to leave greasy fingerprints on the glass as he swirls the content. "Now, how could my life be better? Really... let's not get started. I would have to take you back to a time when I wasn't even born."
"I would have to tell you about the crooked deals my father made to get his hands on the Papacy. I could say, my life would have been better without Juan, and I could have done without Della Rovere, too. My life would have been better without the Mal Francese, and without the Tertian Fever, and if I had a chance to cast my own lot, I'd happily forego my acquaintance with the prisons of Castel dell'Ovo and La Mota. We wish for many things, no? That's only human." Cesare shrugs, torn between genuine amusement at the vagaries of fate and his own sense of entitlement - for entitled he is, and it goes hard, this acceptance of his diminished state. Gazing out at sea, he softly starts to declaim,
"AixĂ com celi qui desija vianda per apagar sa perillosa fam, e veu dos poms de fruit en un bell ram e son desig egualment los demanda...
"I am like a man whom hunger has brought close to death, and who must eat or perish, but then sees a tree on one of whose branches hang two splendid fruits which he desires equally. So, what do I want? Do I wish to return home, and start this litany of ifs again? Or would I stay, and accept the smaller fruit in my hand, not quite kallisti, but a good fruit nonetheless, provided Messer Krycek gets his arse into gear, and the Vatican Bank finds an inexplicable hole in their accounts?"
Tapping his index finger against pursed lips, he reaches for the wine bottle again.