Light on Lucrezia by Jean Plaidy

brother is in immediate danger?”
    Ascanio nodded slowly. “He will be when it is known that I have left for Milan. The Pope knows of our meetings; it would be impossible to keep them secret from him. He has his spies everywhere, so he will know that we are on the alert. From the moment I leave Rome, Alfonso’s danger will be increased.”
    “Then the wisest thing would be for him to leave at once for Naples?”
    “Try to persuade him to leave without delay.”
    “It will not be easy. He’ll find it difficult to tear himself from Lucrezia.”
    “As you love him,” warned Ascanio, “bid him fly for his life.”

     
    Lucrezia was lying on her bed while her women combed her hair. She was nearly six months pregnant and was easily exhausted.
    But she was happy. Three months, she told herself, and our child will be born. She was planning the cradle she would have.
    “Is it too soon?” she asked her women. “Why should I not have the pleasure of seeing it beside me when I wake, so that I may say to myself: ‘Only eighty-four days … eighty-three days … eighty-two days.…’ ”
    Her women hastily crossed themselves. “It would seem like tempting Providence, Madonna,” said one.
    “All will be well this time,” Lucrezia said quickly.
    Then she was back on one of those unhappy journeys into the past. She saw herself six months pregnant as now, dressed in the voluminous petticoats which Pantisilea, the little maid who had attended her in her convent, had provided for her, standing before the Cardinals and Envoys and swearing that she was
virgo intacta
in order that she might be divorced from Giovanni Sforza.
    “Perhaps,” she told herself, “I am unlucky. My first child unknown to me, being brought up in the care of some woman in this city! (Holy Mother, make her kind to my little one.) And then that little one who was lost to me before I knew whether it was girl or boy.”
    But this was different. This child should be given the greatest care. It was alive within her—lively and strong; and everything indicated that this was a healthy pregnancy.
    “My lord is late,” she said. “I had expected him before this.”
    “He will be with you before long, Madonna,” she was told.
    But she waited and he did not come. She dozed. How tired this healthylittle one within her could make her feel; she touched her swollen body lightly and smiled tenderly.
    “This time all will be well. It is a boy,” she murmured, “certainly a boy. He shall be called Roderigo after the best and most loving father a woman ever had.”
    She heard voices in the ante-room, and sat up to listen. Why was it possible to tell by the tone of voices that something was wrong?
    “The Madonna is sleeping. Wait until she wakes.”
    “She would want to know at once.”
    “No … no. She is happier in ignorance. Let her sleep out her sleep.”
    She rose and putting a robe about her went to the ante-room. A group of startled people stared at her.
    “Something has happened,” she said. “I pray you tell me quickly.”
    No one spoke immediately, and she looked appealingly at them.
    “I command you to tell me,” she said.
    “Madonna, the Duke of Bisceglie …”
    Her hand went to the drapery of her throat, and she clutched it as though for support. The faces of those people seemed to merge into one and recede, as one of her women ran to her and put an arm about her.
    “He is well, Madonna. No harm has come to him,” the woman assured her. “It is merely that he has left Rome.”
    Lucrezia repeated: “Left Rome!”
    “Yes, Madonna, he rode out with a small party a few hours ago; he was seen riding South at full speed.”
    “I … I understand,” she said.
    She turned and went back into her room. Her women followed.

     
    There was a letter from Alfonso.
    It was brought to Lucrezia an hour after she had heard the news of his departure. She seized it eagerly; she knew that he would not willingly have run away from her without a