Madonna of the Seven Hills by Jean Plaidy Read Free Book Online

prayers, and consequently Lucrezia believed in those first years in the Orsini palace that her foster-mother was a very virtuous woman.
    Cesare chafed against the discipline, but even he was unable to do anything about it, even he was overawed by the gloomy palace, the many prayers and the feeling that the palace was a prison in which he and Lucrezia had been incarcerated while Giovanni had been allowed to go in pomp and splendor to Spain and glory.
    Cesare brooded silently. He did not rage as he had in his mother’s house; he was sullen and sometimes his quiet anger frightened Lucrezia. Then she would cling to him and beg him not to be sad; she would cover him with kisses and cry out that she loved him best of all … better than anyone else in the whole world, that she would love him today, the next day and forever.
    Even this declaration could not appease him, and he remained brooding and unhappy, but sometimes he would turn to her and seize her in one of those fierce embraces which hurt her and excited her. Then he would say: “You and I are together, little sister. We’ll always love each other … best in the world … best in the whole world. Swear it to me.”
    And she swore it. Sometimes they would lie together on her bed or his. She would go there to comfort him, or he would come to her for comfort. Then he would talk of Giovanni and how unfair life was. Why did theirfather love Giovanni? Cesare would demand. Why should not Cesare have been the one who was chosen to go to Spain? Cesare would never go into the Church. He hated the Church, hated it … hated it.
    His vehemence frightened her. She crossed herself and reminded him that it was unlucky to talk thus against the Church. The saints, or perhaps the Holy Ghost might be angry and come to punish him. She was afraid, she said; but she said it to give him the chance of comforting her, to remind him that he was great Cesare, afraid of none, and she was little Lucrezia who was the one to be protected.
    Sometimes she made him forget his anger against Giovanni. Sometimes they laughed together and remembered the fun they had had on their jaunts to the Campo di Fiore. Then they would swear that no matter what happened they would always love each other best in the world.
    But during those first months the children felt that they were prisoners.

    Roderigo visited them at Monte Giordano.
    In the early days Cesare asked that they might go home, but Roderigo, fond father though he was, could be firm when he felt himself to be acting for the good of his children.
    “My little ones,” he said, “you have been running wild in the house of your mother. But to run wild is for little children, not for big ones. It is not meet that you should pass your time in that humble house. A great future awaits you both. Trust me to judge what is best for you.”
    And Cesare knew that when his father’s face was set in those lines there was nothing to be done about it. He had to obey.
    “Very soon,” Roderigo told Cesare, “you will be leaving this house. You will be going to the university. There you will have great freedom, my son; but first I would have you know how to act like a nobleman, and although there is discipline here such as you have never encountered before, this is necessary to make you worthy of what you will become. Have patience. It is but for a little while.”
    And Cesare was mollified.
    The head of the house of Orsini was Virginio, one of the great soldiers of Italy, and when he was at Monte Giordano, the palace resembleda military camp. Virginio shouted orders to all, and the serving men and maids scurried hither and thither, in fear of displeasing the great commander.
    Strangely enough Cesare, who so longed to be a soldier, had no objection to this stern rule; and for the first time in her life Lucrezia saw her brother ready to bend to the will of another. Cesare rode behind Virginio, straight as a soldier, and Virginio would often watch him and do his