"Your bank accounts in Genoa, Venice and Florence have been impounded by each government." "Can you see?" " Huh?" " Yeah." "Torn." "Fetch me another shirt." "I have started legal proceedings to regain the money, but these matters take time." "Highness, if you are anxious about Pope Julius' intentions, we should cancel your dinner with him." "You've barely recovered from the malaria." "No." "I can do this, but I must always have a means to escape." "I am Cesare Borgia." "There you are." "When I say, do not allow anyone in, the prefect of Rome, gonfalonier of the Church, the pope's dining companion is of course excepted!" "The della Rovere bravi have always been..." "Cardinal Galeotto Franciotti della Rovere." "At your service." "Pope Julius awaits." "My master secretary is barred from entry?" "We wish a private dinner, just the two of us." "See?" "I have even banished my nephew." "Guards have ears, too." "You want the servants gone as well?" "Stop the music." "We realize dining here is unorthodox." "Quite honestly, we are tempted to even sleep on this throne." "Though..." "Can you hear?" "It creaks." " To us." "To you." " To Rome." "Venice reveals herself to be your most insidious of enemies." "In the midst of a papal election, while the Church was beheaded and I slept in my sickbed, the doge molested Rimini, Pesaro and Piombino." "The Venetians do not plan to cease their aggressions." "Uh-huh, but they did not anticipate our alliance." "The best way to combat Venetian advances is outright battle." " I will lead the papal guard..." " We have reviewed the Vatican ledgers." "The treasury is dry." "Rodrigo has..." "wasted or hidden nearly every ducat." "There are numerous ways for a pope to earn more." "We have renounced all forms of simony." "You still have standing armies in Cesena, Pisa, Imola and the numerous other duchies under your control." " Gather them." " They are small, intended for defense." "My attacking army has always been comprised of papal guardsman." "As well as the Spanish and French mercenaries who have since been called to fight each other in the war over Naples." "Ergo, a military campaign by you against Venice is ill-fated." "A second option then." "You make a clear declaration, rewarding either Louis of France or Ferdinand of Spain with the kingdom of Naples." "The chosen monarch will in exchange provide fresh foreign troops to repel Venice." "How do we choose?" "Suppose we side with Spain and France wins." "All we would have accomplished is increase the number of our adversaries." "You request the Holy Roman Emperor to partake in your crusade." "Maximilian is too busy having his portrait painted." "Your request is just for show." "You summon the envoys of the padishah." " You offer Bajazet four chests of gold." " Have we not said there is no money?" " You will never actually give the gold." " There is another option." "We negotiate." "Venice will relinquish control of Rimini," "Pesaro and Piombino to you." "We must simply find out what the doge wants." "What he wants is to seize Northern Italy and supplant papal authority." "In order to negotiate with any real strength, we must ally ourselves with the only other great power in Italy:" "Florence." "You, me and Niccolo Machiavelli, circling the doge with deadly eyes." "Huh." "So complicated, yet so simple." "Brother, I have news." "Giulio has killed two of my guards and freed Rainaldo from his chains." "If we were Giulio, what would we do next?" " Eliminate those who torment us." " Which is why we must act first." "Alfonso..." "I did not come to bed last night because I was hunting owl." "They only appear with the moon." "I am more interested in what you do while I am awake." "Giulio..." " Please do not mention his name." " Look at her eyes." "She knows where Fra Rainaldo is being hidden." "How could she?" "Unless..." "Were you involved in Giulio's plot to free Rainaldo?" " To ask such a question insults us both." " We are busy." "What do you want?" "Please, Alfonso, allow me time to reason out a solution, so that the d'Este family will not lose another generation to the curse of blood." "Fine." "Your Grace, you must intercede in the vendetta between your sons." "Giulio has freed his chaplain from imprisonment." "Now Ippolito and Alfonso will retaliate, unless you act in a loving way." "My sons are my sons." "A point of great pride..." "and great misery for me." "Long ago, I fought a bitter battle with my half-brother's son Niccolo for control of this duchy." "Niccolo died brutally." "A sin I regret." "Yet here I sit." "I must leave my boys free to create their own regrets." "Highness, what a pleasant surprise to see you unannounced." "Cesare Borgia, prince of the Romagna..." "Holiness, I bring tidings from Hell below and Heaven above." "In the south, Spain has repelled an attack by General Yves d'Alègre at Cerignola." "De Cordova lost 500 men, the French, four times that amount." "I will be home by Christmas." "In the north, my governor, Dionigi di Naldo, has successfully driven back the forces of Venice." "Imola remains your suffragan." "Your service remains invaluable." "With one hand, your cousin pushes you off your perch," " with the other, he feeds Cesare." " My seat next to you is temporary." "Odd that you would know of such events before even His Holiness does." "As gonfalonier of the Church, prefect of Rome, prince of the Romagna, should I not be kept apprised of military maneuvers?" "Perhaps now is the perfect time to haggle with the Venetians." "I sent word to Giustiniani, but was rebuked." "Then he will have to face the wrath of God." "Bring us ambassador Giustiniani." "My brother would not be happy to learn that his wife leads into a bordello." "Sometimes God's work must be done in the Devil's own house." "Heavenly." "I recognize the voice." "Fra Rainaldo." "I have led you to his hiding place." "Why do you trust me such knowledge, or is this an ambush?" "You have a monastery in Capri, a monastery with an esteemed choir." "Oh." "You are going to propose that Rainaldo add his voice to my choir, living out his days in Capri, far away from Giulio." "In exchange I am to end the dispute." "Rainaldo causes the tension in the d'Este family." "Remove the cause, the wound will heal." " Giulio would never agree." " He already has." "I will order my composer to pen an oratio." "An homage to Lucrezia of Ferrara, who knows men better than they know themselves." " Mm." "Giustiniani." " Most Holy Father." "Venice rejoices that the most righteous of men sits in Saint Peter's chair." "The doge is fraught with remorse for delaying to send his commendation directly to you." "Do not worry." "At Imola, God showed the world with blood-stained swords, that He loves His pope." "I did not realize that Cesare Borgia would be present at this meeting." "Ambassador, let us speak of Venice's intentions and of our future together." "Venice's expansion has nothing to do with the bishop of Rome." "You stampede through our Papal States." "Venice sees no difference between her actions and Il Valentino's..." "We see a sizable difference." "The prince conquers in the name of God's blessed Church." "You conquer in the lust of economic gain." "A matter of semantics." "No." "We decide who is right, and we say Venice is in the wrong." "You are dismissed." "Exeunt." "I want your banks to release my ducats, at once." "Antonio, would you walk with us?" " I will miss you, good friend." " My every song will be sung for you." "Your wife is to be cherished, Alfonso." "Never forget that." "I will not." "She is beauteous, wise." "This has been a difficult year for you." "Difficult years are what make us worthy of the prosperous ones." "I have in recent times tried to compensate for my sins." "Fasting, collecting nuns, building convents." "But I have..." "I have not compensated you." "And for that I am..." "Father!" "In taking Giustiniani aside, you undermined me." "No." "We thought the ambassador might be more receptive to negotiation if granted a private audience." "But the doge remains belligerent." "Then this is the moment to strike." "Our papal forces are currently reduced, but I have won victories with as few as 10 men." "Unleash me." "I will defend your throne and vanquish Venice." "We trust in you." "Verbum incarnatum." "His Holiness, Pope Julius, the second of that name..." "Enough, Burchard." "Our business is too urgent." "We send our gonfalonier to Ostia." "We assign him full command of our papal navy, which will transport him to Genoa." "From there, he will launch a dazzling force against the enemies of Christ and be triumphant." "Five papal ships will dock tomorrow, to accommodate us to Genoa." "Ships for which I paid and christened seven years ago." "I look forward to watching Ostia and Rome glide away." "The salt air already extracts the worm burrowing in my brain." "Tonight we reside at della Rovere's seaside palazzo." "Goffredo, within the next hour, present me with three, no, five potential strategies" " to reconquer Rimini." " Five?" "Cesare, I..." "We must devastate the occupying Venetians quickly and completely." "I need to show Julius that he has made no mistake in trusting me." "I act like a young lass wooing a potential husband." "Exhilarated when I have his favor, desolate when I fear I am losing it." "All I truly need are French troops and francs." "The word from Naples?" "Louis prepares for a siege on Gaeta." "Shit." "What is he thinking?" "A siege takes too long." "His troops will be inaccessible to me for months, if not longer." "And weary." "Or dead." "Pope Alexander's love was unconditional." "Kyrie eleison." "Christe eleison." "Kyrie eleison." "He hated the rain." "All hail the new duke of Ferrara, Alfonso the First." "But you voted for della Rovere on the promise that you would be vice chancellor." "He signed a contract." "Which he burned before my own eyes." "By appointing his own nephew, Julius duped me, Riario-Sansoni and the many other cardinals to whom he offered vice chancellor." "How is it that Cesare, Cesare, Rodrigo's own son, has managed to curry favor with his father's enemy, yet you cannot?" "Cesare is a military genius who lives a charmed life." "My sole weapon is your pussy." "Perhaps we could use the Marecchia River to our advantage." " Agapito?" " Messages from Faenza and Rome." "Faenza?" " What of Faenza?" " The city has fallen to Venice." " From Rome?" " Pope Julius believes" " you should surrender Forli." " Surrender?" "Surrender Forli?" "What is he..." "To whom?" "Venice?" "Why would I surrender Forli?" "To appease the Venetians and diminish their aggression." "Their aggressions would be diminished solely because they have one less territory to annex." "What was the point of my coming to Ostia, the papal navy?" "I thought della Rovere was as towering as a mountain, but he is a pebble." "Cesare, the navy will not be docking tomorrow." "The papal troops here in Ostia have been called back to Rome." "They have already left." "Halt!" "The first man I ever killed was a Colonna bravi who attacked me." "I stabbed him in the gut and his blood poured on me." "I felt nothing." "No, as he died, I felt alive." "I strangled a strega, crushing her windpipe between my fingers, because she reneged on a promise she made." "Cardinal Briconnet's rapist son was the next to die at my hand." "Then at least three French troops met my blade and I don't know how many died in the munitions fire I set." "I ordered a man dismembered, while he wasted away in a dungeon." "I whipped a lady-in-waiting to death for a crime no worse than being enamored of me." "I pierced my sister's lover through his heart in front of the consistory." "The monks Savonarola and Domenico I hanged and burned." "Cardinal Zeno feasted upon my poison." "My dogs tore out the heart of an actor who dared insult my pride." "Caterina Sforza's bravi, Simon d'Auxerre," "Guglielmo Farnese and his mutinous cardinals, Galeazzo Sforza," "Achille Tiberti, Bernardo Grammante, Alfonso di Calabria," "Tommaso Albanese, Annibale, Piero and Vincenzo and Pandolfo Malatesta," "Ramiro de Lorqua, Astorre Manfredi, the dukes Vitelli, Bentivoglio, Baglioni, Fabrizio Giglioli, the entire population of Capua, all rot dead because of me!" "Do you actually think that you will escape?" "Do you think my memory so short, my capacity to forgive so large?" "No!" "You will follow me into victory or your name will be added to my list." "A death too horrible to imagine." " Turn!" " Turn!" "Turn!" "Forward!" "Forward!" " Madonna Giulia Farnese." " Giulia Migliorati." "La Bella of the Borgia." "Our nephew is still learning whom to accept into our presence." "She holds an interesting proposition." "My daughter Laura would make an excellent bride for your nephew Niccolo." "You desire your young brother to marry a Borgia?" "Not a Borgia." "Laura's true father is my dear deceased husband Orsino Migliorati" " of the House of Orsini." " But Rodrigo..." "Never officially acknowledged her." "Why?" "He knew the truth." "There is no Borgia in her blood." " He loved the girl?" " Yes." "And so if he knew she was betrothed to your nephew he would die a second death." "We should kiss your ring." "Let the wedding bells chime." "Now, perhaps, we could talk about the future of my brother." "Cesare, are you certain?" "A forced march?" "Yes, we'll march north through the night and arrive in Pesaro in three days." " Pesaro?" " Yes." "We must attack Pesaro." " But before you said Rimini." " Rimini, yes." "No, Pesaro." "The pope has threatened our troops with excommunication if they do not return to Rome at once." "Yet another reason to move with the velocity of lightning." "He summons you back to Rome as well." "Before the attack, we will hire scribes to pen hundreds of notes, saying that our fight is with the Venetians, and so the populace of Rimini should rise up against their occupiers." " Rimini or Pesaro?" " Rimini." "Stop saying Pesaro." "We will load our catapults with the papers and flood the air over the city." "Venice can be beaten, no matter our numbers, but victory will come through guile." " Then, father will see..." " Father?" "I mean Julius." "The Pope." "Cesare, are you certain that you are...?" "Do you feel capa...?" "Perhaps I ought to lead our forces against Venice." "You should remain stationed here, close to Rome." "Ready to announce your triumph to the pope." "Yes." "Yes, you are right." "But, Goffredo, be honest, as if our lives depended upon it, for they do." "Are you certain you can rout the Venetians?" "I am a Borgia, am I not?" "I will ask the wardrobe master to cancel the crimson cloak I ordered for Alfonso's ducal elevation." "How much would that spare?" " One hundred and forty ducats." " Not enough." "Cesare needs money for armaments and mercenaries." "I understand the urgency, gracious lady." "Nonetheless, the citizens of Ferrara expect their duke and duchess to exude elegance and style." "My brother's life is more important to me than a frock." "As duke, Alfonso controls the treasury." "I could ask him for a greater allowance." "Ten thousand ducats is already a substantial sum." "Then my staff." "I can survive with less than 12 ladies-in-waiting." "Those girls need to be in your court." "Here they learn the essentials for women of standing." " How else will they marry?" " You're right." "I should not punish them." "Still, I cannot ignore Cesare's dilemma." "I will convince Isabella to take my handmaidens into her service, so that they will have a proper court, and I will have money for my brother." "May I?" "When I was little, I used to come here to hide from Papa." "Papa still roams these halls." "I have also lost my father." "A god who walked among us." "But now, he is merely a story I tell my children." "A story which they will never truly understand." "For you." "Your mother's necklace." "Gifted to her by your father on their wedding day." "Lucrezia, I appreciate your gesture and your company, but this necklace belongs here with you, in Ferrara." "I have enough treasures." "You are pregnant?" "Why has no one told me?" "You are the first to hear." "Not even Alfonso knows." "This is a sign." "Papa has reached the Heavenly Gates." " Do not cry." " I am overjoyed." "Isabella, I have a request." "My brother Cesare is in need of funds." "Yes, anything." "Now we must go see the doctor." " Your health is paramount." " I am fine." "Alfonso is yet without an heir and has lost too many babies." "If you want to do what is best for Ferrara, then leave yourself completely in my care." "Surrender, Borgia!" "In the name of Pope Julius the Second, we demand you surrender!" " Agapito?" " Yes." "Please, open the door." "Why that tone?" "What has happened?" "Word from the battlefield, from Tuscany." "Tuscany?" "No." "Rimini." "Pesaro." "Tuscany." "Your brother was ambushed by the Florentines en route." "Your army has been destroyed." "A treaty has been struck by the doge, the signory and the pope." "Of course." "Where is Goffredo?" "Captured." " I should have led my own men." " Highness, you have demonstrated on numerous occasions that conflicts are won as much through communication as violence." "You cannot battle Venice and Florence and Rome." "You must make peace with one of them." "I will send a missive to Julius, reaffirming your allegiance" " and pledging to proceed..." " And be betrayed again?" "Send word to King Louis." "He has forgotten how good a strategist I am." "Once I remind him, he will pledge his troops to me." "The war in Naples will prevent France..." "I have been studying my maps." "Louis should abandon his camp near Suio." "Yes, the Garigliano River provides a natural defense, but he has remained stationary for too long." "He cannot allow the Spaniards to settle in to the terrain." "De Cordova must be kept on his feet, or else he will surprise the French." "I will lay out, step-by-step, what Louis should do, and you will convey my words exactly." "Do not lose hope, Agapito." "I will yet succeed." "All of the Spaniards and other cardinals loyal to Borgia have fled." " Yet here you remain, Alessandro." " I am loyal only to Holy Mother Church." "Verbum incarnatum." "His Holiness, Pope Julius the second of that name, calls to order a meeting of the consistory, on this 20th day of May, in the year of our Lord 1504." "By order of the supreme pontiff, Julius the Second..." "The Romagna is hereby ruled by His Holiness' governor," "Bishop Gaspare Sighigelli." " No!" " Previous appointments are declared void." "Any persons claiming otherwise will be prosecuted and excommunicated." " Here, in Imola we already have a leader!" " Yes, his name is Gaspare Sighigelli." " His name is Cesare Borgia." " No, let me read again." "By order of the supreme court..." "No." "No!" "No." "I am a prince of the Church." "Your actions here today will forever be remembered by God!" "If you kill me, the Gates of Heaven will not open for you!" "The ground will swallow your bodies whole!" " You tighten the rope." " No, not me." "Fine." "Hell has saved you." "Greetings, Vannozza." "You swore an oath, Giuliano." "You look so haggard." "We can no longer even picture the beauty of your youth, when you were called La Rosa." "You promised that you would protect Cesare." "You swore that by lying to him, I was rescuing him." "Where is your oath now?" "In the tomb with Rodrigo." "You should not have rejected me so long ago." "You may claim Rodrigo's property, his title, his son." "But you will never be him." "You will always be the one who came after Borgia." "I am happy to go." "Halt!" "Terra Nuova?" "Strip her." "Let us see what the Catalan fucked." "Throw La Rosa into the street." "At least there she can make a living." "Confiscate her villa and her vineyards." "Lord knows Cesare will not be able to help her." "Sweet, sweet and loving Jesus, absolve me." "Absolve me of my sins." "Absolve Cesare." "But first, reach down Your Hand and crush della Rovere like the vermin he is." "Crush him, crush him, crush him." "Please, please, please..." "Sweet wife, how do you feel?" "I am well, except for my concern about Cesare and Goffredo." "Here is chicken in a vinegar of freshly plucked wild grapes." " Isabella chose each grape herself." " And a single glass of diluted wine." "An expectant woman should not be subject to direct sunlight." "Nor be on your feet." "You cannot have picked a more inappropriate time to place your handmaidens under my patronage." "I am barely two, three months pregnant, and Cesare needs money." "I will find the ducats for Cesare." "Banish worrying, focus only on the birth." "My sister has already borne four healthy children." "She knows the ways of nutrition and of nature." " But I have two healthy children." " Lucrezia, please." "I'm so excited for us." "Suffer this and we will be rewarded with a lifetime of happiness." "I cannot be happy until I know that Cesare is." "Your mother has been driven from her home." " Where is she?" " No one knows." "You will go to Rome and find her." "I should not leave your side at this perilous moment." "You have been a good secretary, a better counselor, and the best of friends." "If my end is near, I do not wish for you to die as well, or witness my final defeat." "You will serve me if you find my mother." "Go to Umbria and live in peace." "Now, before you depart, is there any other sad news?" "Yes." "Your sister worries about her pregnancy and you." "Also, the war over Naples is finished." "Louis ignored your advice." "As you predicted, General de Cordova surprised the French." "By what feat could France be surprised, let alone bested by the smaller Spanish army?" "Malaria overran the French camp, and a storm proved the perfect cover for de Cordova." "General de Cordova constructed a makeshift bridge, and his troops crossed the Garigliano River, shielded by the night rain." "The French infantry, Gascon mercenaries, Orsini bravi were, to a man, cut down before they could lower their visors." " Where is King Louis?" " In retreat." "Louis d'Orléans asks for peace." "The kingdom of Naples is once again under the House of Aragon." "I will convince Louis to retreat from his retreat." "Boundaries, they're such a funny thing." "We define them." ""That is your land." "This is my wife." "Do not talk to me in that way."" "And then, when we perceive them crossed:" ""You build on my property, you fuck my wife, you dare yell."" "We fight tooth and claw because..." "Why?" "Highness, your army is more than superior to defeat the Spanish..." "When we define boundaries, we expose the outlines of our souls to others." "We give strangers power by letting them know exactly where to strike us." "But I will say, in many ways, this whole Naples business is a victory for Christians everywhere." "Now, Ferdinand and I can get down to the details of the treaty." "Who gets what, when?" "Bargaining and legalities, that is where I thrive." "I will define Milan as mine in writing." "Our royal families will unite in marriage." "Being trounced is a blessing, really." "Highness, the Papal States, all of them can be yours." "The last time I commanded your army, you took Naples." "Whilst we are still within Italy, we must strike the Romagna." "My friend, you are on edge." "Come to Lyon." "Visit Valentinois, your wife, your daughter." "Take off your armor, Cesare." "The metal weighs you down." "This is not my armor." "This is my skin." " Mon frère, where do you go?" " Ferrara." "You are safe." "Of course I am." " Why are you here?" " A present for a pregnant sister." "A birthing bowl, depicting the birth of Venus." "How wonderful." "The artisans use a glaze of tin to make it shine." "If only you could be here every day for the next six months." "Gracious lady, here are the leeches for your bloodletting." "Isabella insists that depleting my blood will strengthen my pregnancy." " But I hate leeches." " I ask you..." "In whom or what can we place our faith?" "My marriage seemed to involve something other than faith." "Truly think on the answer." "Do not recite a lesson some silly priest once said." "We are born filled with the capacity to trust in something else." "Something..." "I was going to say greater, but..." "Perhaps that which controls us is not great." "Perhaps God is something smaller or lesser than we are." "Perhaps faith is not innate, but learned." "What if the silly priest does not only teach us the answer, but also the question?" "Can a priest teach an emotion?" "When I gaze at you, my heart swells." "As long as you exist, I know that there is something other than me." " What do you see when you see me?" " My brother." "Is that faith?" "That what you see and what you believe is not only the same, but is also true?" "If I believe that our father is alive, is he alive?" "If I believe Giuliano della Rovere is dead, is he dead?" " For you, yes." " Well, this is where we differ." "One of these men is definitely alive, and one is definitely dead." "Over time I have placed my faith in God alone, in the Church, in Fortuna, in astrology, in myself, in you." " None seem to last." " I love you and live to see you happy." " Do you not know that?" " I'm not accusing you of anything." " You must consume your own life." " You misunderstand." "You scare me." "I do not mean to hurt you." "I'm sorry, Lucrezia, if I scare you." "I mean that I fear for your life." "I sometimes think..." "that you do not realize you are alive." "I am very much alive." "Then stop being so fickle with your life." "You throw your soul to the wind like a rock, as if the stone will grow wings and fly." "So you would have me, what?" "Surrender?" " Della Rovere reaches you as well." " No." "When I learned of Papa's death," "I realized, given the pattern of our lives, one day..." "I will also learn of your death." "Why not make that many years hence, when we are both gray?" "Lucrezia, I am here now." " Why think of any other moment?" " You are never here, Cesare." "You have been cut in thousands and spread across the sea of time." "At each encounter we have," "I bid and greet farewell to a new part of you, never all of you." "Stop." "Do you think I am unaware of the danger around me?" "Do you think I truly want to die?" "You ask me about faith." "For me, faith is something to be given." "Cesare, even while bedridden, with the help of Alfonso," "I have raised 100,000 ducats for your military campaign." "Lucrezia..." "Lucrezia." "Lucrezia!" "You are my priest, my prophet." "You elevate my being." "You enliven my mind." "Faith must never harden." "Faith must flow and rise and fall and change." "In that I can trust." "I must go." "I must stay." "Does time exist when the two of us are together?" "Promise me that you will surprise me again." "Have faith." "For nearly two centuries, you Swiss have defended the cause of liberty, besting the Habsburgs at Morgarten, and Laupen, and..." "You confuse our purpose." "We are not here to gain glory." "No." "You are paid mercenaries." "You come for the bounty." "And the bounty will be mammoth." "One hundred thousand ducats." "Highness, you must come at once." "Venetians." "Thousands of them." "Cesare Borgia, surrender!" " I know not how." " You are outnumbered." "We have seized your provisions." "Resist us and you will die." "There lies the difference between us and the reason I know that I will live." "To you death is something to be feared." "To me death is the ultimate challenge, the final victory." "But alas, I am not yet worthy of death." "What is your name?" "Giovanni Battista Caracciolo." "My wife is Dorotea Malatesta." "I am sorry the birth of my daughter stretched out your wife's vagina." "Men of Switzerland." "Whatever the Catalan dog has offered you," "Venice will double." "He will give us 200,000 ducats." " I will double that." " Let us see this coin." "I do not have the money at present, but I will within days." "I arrest you in the name of His Holiness, Pope Julius the Second." " No." "No, not my sword." " He sends a message:" "Let your children be waifs and beggars." "No." "No..." "Let them be driven from the ruins of their homes." "You woke this morning thinking yourself an emperor." "Tonight you will sleep in chains." "Franciotti, please, unchain his feet." "Cesare, did they not feed you?" "Did they make you walk barefoot the entire route?" "We gave explicit instructions that you were to be treated as your station demands." "A prince." "Please, leave us." "I can feed him." "You remember when you fed that merchant of Milan?" "Are you my father?" "No." "So that was a lie." "You were never my father." "Why did I think that you..." "Your needs outweighed your intuition." " My whole life." " That is why you have failed." "No." "No, you are wrong." "I wanted to raise our family to the heavens." "Sleep with me, and I will set you free." "I no longer sleep with whores." "Franciotti!" " Take him." " Yes, take him." "There is in God a deep but dazzling darkness."