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But my dreams
They aren't as empty
As my conscience seems to be
I have hours, only lonely
My love is vengeance
That's never free
"My love is vengeance..." That's quite the mouthful, isn't it? The divine Aquilano once said my blood was poison... which just goes to show that there are no limits to poetic licence, I suppose. Such hyperbole is the spittle-licking writer's prerogative - after all it earns him his dinner, his velvet caps and his silks and mules. When I think of all the things they've written about me... Déu, what flattery. Aquilano overshot by leagues, of course, but he never understood how close he got to the truth either.
As for my conscience... that is only for the Lord God to know. A worthy subject for the confessional if ever I choose to go.
But I do have this one recurring dream.
The one in which I run away from home after overhearing Father and Juan. It's always sunny, always late spring. Flora is just on the cusp of revealing her splendour, but I have no eyes for it. I'm in the Forum, scrambling past Santa Maria Nuova and via Sacra, already half way up the Palatine. I've left my horse at the foot of the hill and am running up the slope. I cannot see much, and I falter and stumble a lot because I am crying too hard.
Yes, I know. Little Cesare. Isn't it sad. The poor neglected runt, ferried back and forth between mothers and aunts and tutors, given a good thrashing for his every effort to please. Children are really easy to break, aren't they?
So I'm still clambering over mossy marble when I see one of Orso's mercenaries, the one I've sparred with, the one who's defended me against Orso when they... well, when they had me on my back with my hose down. And I run over and cling to him, quite the stubborn little crab rubbing snot all over his doublet, sniffling how they don't want me and don't love me and how they've... gambled away something that wasn't theirs to give. My soul. Such a small matter when the prize is the triple crown of Saint Peter's, don't you think?
And I just never see the sword. In some of the dreams I see a gleam, the sun sparking off something, but I never realise it's a blade until I feel it in my gut. And then... then it's not even Marlone anymore, not the mercenary, no. It's Chiaro.
The first thing I see, really see, is his hand. He's got one arm wrapped around my shoulder, but his other hand is still on the hilt. He isn't wearing gloves. I always notice that because there is blood spilling over his fingers, a warm stinking rush of it that floods over his hand.
Does it hurt? Yes. Yes, it does. The wound doesn't close, not like it did then, and it hurts beyond belief. But Chiaro doesn't let go. He pulls the blade up, a handspan perhaps, up against ripping cloth and flesh, which at this point I can hear more than feel. When he finally lowers me into the grass I sometimes think I can hear the bees buzzing, but it's probably only the loss of blood.
In those dreams, it... it all ends there and then. We could have been free, you know.
As for the rest of your quote? I don't know what to make of it. Whoever wrote it, I wouldn't have given him a single soldo. Poets should write to please.
They aren't as empty
As my conscience seems to be
I have hours, only lonely
My love is vengeance
That's never free
"My love is vengeance..." That's quite the mouthful, isn't it? The divine Aquilano once said my blood was poison... which just goes to show that there are no limits to poetic licence, I suppose. Such hyperbole is the spittle-licking writer's prerogative - after all it earns him his dinner, his velvet caps and his silks and mules. When I think of all the things they've written about me... Déu, what flattery. Aquilano overshot by leagues, of course, but he never understood how close he got to the truth either.
As for my conscience... that is only for the Lord God to know. A worthy subject for the confessional if ever I choose to go.
But I do have this one recurring dream.
The one in which I run away from home after overhearing Father and Juan. It's always sunny, always late spring. Flora is just on the cusp of revealing her splendour, but I have no eyes for it. I'm in the Forum, scrambling past Santa Maria Nuova and via Sacra, already half way up the Palatine. I've left my horse at the foot of the hill and am running up the slope. I cannot see much, and I falter and stumble a lot because I am crying too hard.
Yes, I know. Little Cesare. Isn't it sad. The poor neglected runt, ferried back and forth between mothers and aunts and tutors, given a good thrashing for his every effort to please. Children are really easy to break, aren't they?
So I'm still clambering over mossy marble when I see one of Orso's mercenaries, the one I've sparred with, the one who's defended me against Orso when they... well, when they had me on my back with my hose down. And I run over and cling to him, quite the stubborn little crab rubbing snot all over his doublet, sniffling how they don't want me and don't love me and how they've... gambled away something that wasn't theirs to give. My soul. Such a small matter when the prize is the triple crown of Saint Peter's, don't you think?
And I just never see the sword. In some of the dreams I see a gleam, the sun sparking off something, but I never realise it's a blade until I feel it in my gut. And then... then it's not even Marlone anymore, not the mercenary, no. It's Chiaro.
The first thing I see, really see, is his hand. He's got one arm wrapped around my shoulder, but his other hand is still on the hilt. He isn't wearing gloves. I always notice that because there is blood spilling over his fingers, a warm stinking rush of it that floods over his hand.
Does it hurt? Yes. Yes, it does. The wound doesn't close, not like it did then, and it hurts beyond belief. But Chiaro doesn't let go. He pulls the blade up, a handspan perhaps, up against ripping cloth and flesh, which at this point I can hear more than feel. When he finally lowers me into the grass I sometimes think I can hear the bees buzzing, but it's probably only the loss of blood.
In those dreams, it... it all ends there and then. We could have been free, you know.
As for the rest of your quote? I don't know what to make of it. Whoever wrote it, I wouldn't have given him a single soldo. Poets should write to please.
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