With Luclayia. Borgia and Alfonso. The marriage contract of Este was established, Ferrara was no longer a problem for Borgia, and Pope Alexander VI and Caesar. Borgia began to plot their next move – a Romagna was certainly not their final target.

But before that, Caesar. Borgia also had to fulfill their covenant with King Louis XII of France, and it was not easy to take Fort Saint-Elmo, which was besieged by the French, Spanish and Borgia mercenaries, and the good wishes for a quick victory turned into a long tug-of-war, and the stone projectiles and iron pellets of artillery passed slowly but surely, like human life—Caesar. Borgia did not just sit in such a daze, he managed to get some small cannons from the Spaniards that he had seen from the Florentines (for which he had returned to Rome and dug out thirty thousand gold florins from the pocket of the Holy Father), and further increased his mercenary force, which now cost him nearly ten thousand gold florins a day on the soldier's salary.

With so many soldiers, except for the siege of Fort Saint-Emmo in Naples, it was certainly impossible to spend precious wheat and wine in vain, and Caesar wrote a letter to the Duke of Urbino, in which, in addition to thanking him for the timely rescue of his sister Lucleia, he asked him if he could pass through his territory if he was going to conquer Camerino, for he had transferred them from Pesaro.

The Duke of Urbino certainly had nothing to do with this, and he even asked Caesar. Borgia, Duke of Romagna, wrote a groveling letter in which he claimed to be the most humble servant of the Holy Father, and an admirer of the Duke of Romagna, and with the letter came a hundred horses and the same number of mules, a staggering number, and in any case, after the attack on Lucrecia, he also replaced the mules and horses that had died under the bows of the Venetians—a gift that the Duke of Romagna accepted with joy, and the Duke of Urbino's gesture of surrender.

The Duke of Urbino received Caesar. Borgia was relieved when he replied, he was not a bold man, nor was he good at military affairs, and he had heard that Borgia was a combination of a viper and a hyena, but let him say that one must also admit that Borgia had possessed all of Romagna, had become an in-law with Ferrara, and had the support of the Spaniards and the French, and even if he could not get a complete Italy, half of the Italian king was just around the corner, and there were many lords like him who bowed to him, and he was not the first, nor the last, What is there to be ashamed of.

At that time, Urbino was at the end of May, the cold wind had passed, and the heat was coming, and it was the best time of the year, and although his wife was far away in Venice, the Duke of Urbino, who had long since grown tired of this woman, was very pleasant, and after Lent he moved from the empty castle to the palace in the city, and gathered his officials and hundreds of prostitutes to sing and dance all day long, and to taste the freshest berries and women.

The same was true today, when the Duke of Urbino woke up in the soft embrace of a prostitute, his room still filled with the foul smell of burning spices, volatilizing wine, and the ambiguous smell of the human body, and he gasped deeply and was about to have the woman beside him pour him a large glass of wine. But the jugs around them were empty, and the prostitute had to leave the room to find the servant, who left in a hurry and returned quickly.

"Your Excellency!" She exclaimed, "My lord! Check it out! She shouted, "It's all Borgia soldiers outside!" ”

Duke Urbino's chaotic mind was still a little unclear, "Borgia? He muttered, "What's so strange? I allow them to pass through my realm - but why are they in my palace? ”

The prostitute, probably the most daring one the Duke had ever seen, rushed to the table, grabbed the peony from the heavy copper bottle and threw it out, and poured cold water on the Duke of Urbino with the copper bottle in both hands: "They are all armed with weapons!" My lord! ”

Now the Duke of Urbino's drunkenness was finally gone, and he trembled all over, not knowing whether he had been stirred up by the cold water, or whether he realized that he had made a great mistake, and he staggered out of bed, ran to the window, and looked down from above—he saw at least a hundred soldiers chasing and searching for prey like wild beasts in his courtyard, overturning and killing atrocities if they were women, and killing them immediately if they were men—the officials he favored, like the most humble peasants, He pleaded and wailed weakly, but he couldn't escape the sword that shimmered with cold light.

One of the soldiers looked up, and when he saw the Duke of Urbino, he immediately raised his crossbow, but a man who looked like a captain pushed his arm, and the bolt lost its sight and thrust into the window frame less than half a foot from the Duke's head. The duke immediately understood, it must be Caesar. Borgia had ordered them to capture him alive, and after losing his territory and exploitable value, his fate was no different from that of the young lord of Faenza, and he did not want to sink at the bottom of the Tiber with a large stone around his neck—he jumped back into the room without hesitation, closed the door, moved the suitcase and the cupboard, and when he reached the door, the prostitute saw it and immediately came to help—The Duke of Urbino looked at her and changed his decision: "Take your things and come with me." He said.

The clever girl immediately understood what the Duke meant, and swept away all the valuable and small things in the room like a whirlwind, and packed them in the small bag in which she stored the rewards, and as she did so, the Duke took the key hidden in the drawer, and opened the secret door hidden behind the tapestry, and by this time there were already soldiers banging frantically on the two heavy carved wooden doors, and some soldiers were trying to climb through the outer wall to the window, and they did not even have time to put on all their clothes, but only put on shoes and coats, one after the other, walked through the secret door into a narrow passage where you couldn't see your fingers.

The prostitute looked back, and could see that the secret door was slowly closing on its own, barely making a sound, and the light narrowed from as wide as the palm of her hand to the thickness of a silk thread, and at last she could see nothing, but groped her way through the passage, and strangely she could still hear the sounds coming from the different rooms, as if they were walking in the mansion. She understood that this was exactly what she had heard from some craftsmen, and that some nobles would set up hidden walls in palaces or mansions in order to save their lives in the event of a sudden encounter with an enemy.

She immediately pursed her lips, and her heart in her full chest beat violently, if she hadn't been with the Duke of Urbino last night, but other officials, she might have died for no reason like the other sisters, but that didn't mean that she was safe...... No one knew better than them what a cowardly and affectionate man the Duke of Urbino was.

He took her away, not for last night's "love", maybe he just needed a helper, or a bait, a shield, these adults, until the last minute, you can't guess what they will do.

The Duke of Urbino had walked with the prostitute for a distance of about three hundred feet, then stopped, and instead climbed down a ladder that was also frighteningly narrow (so narrow that they had to tighten their arms to get through), and when they reached the ground on the next floor, they continued on, and then down another ladder, and this time they had walked a hundred or so steps to the end, and the Duke opened the door, and a cold breath came to his face, which was the end of an underground passage, and they ran along it for ten minutes. Out of the mausoleum of the Church of the Holy Cross - it turned out to be a mess too, and there was not a single person who could still breathe.

The Duke of Urbino's face was cloudy, his hand resting on his dagger and looking at the prostitute behind him, as if thinking about something.

"I can find someone to get us out!" The prostitute almost screamed at this sentence, and it arrived so timely that the duke's face was full of suspicion, but he did not draw his sword: "Can you?" ”

"Little people also have the way of little people." The prostitute said as she cursed in her heart.

How the Duke of Urbino finally escaped from the search of the Borgia soldiers, no one knows so far, some say that he was sent out of Urbino by a thief disguised as a leatherman hidden in the belly of a rotting mule, which the Duke of Urbino categorically denied, and from the moment he suddenly appeared in the Marquisate of Mantua, he insisted that he had broken through the defense line of thousands of Borgia soldiers and galloped all the way to Mantua with his extraordinary martial arts and courage, and he even said that if it were not for Borgia being so shameless and ungrateful, He was so innocently betrayed and deceived that he would have gathered his soldiers and fought him to the death.

Opinions differ about the fall of Urbino, with some leaning towards Borgia believing that it is like Caesar. According to Borgia, Madame Urbino's atrocities could not have been without the duke's indication or indulgence, after all, how could a woman not be afraid of her husband's authority, let alone Caesar. Borgia used his despicable means to take Urbino, but as long as he was victorious, even the slightest flaw did not hurt; Another part of the population believes that Caesar. Borgia's actions undoubtedly broke the established covenant between him and the Duke of Urbino, which was undoubtedly an inferior, disturbing act, because if he could do this to the Duke of Urbino, he could also do it to other lords who followed him.

What is particularly unpleasant is that after trying to lure the Duke of Urbino to relinquish his ownership of the territory with a cardinal's hat and a generous annuity, Pope Alexander VI went to the rumor that the Duke of Urbino was an incompetent man, perhaps in order to prove that the Duke of Urbino was not qualified to rule his domain, but to add insult to injury, the Duchess of Urbino, who was in Venice, actually said that she was willing to be with the Duke as a "sister" for the rest of her life, even if she could not be his wife.

Therefore, after the people wantonly laughed at the Duke of Urbino, they couldn't help but feel sad that the rabbit died and the fox died, after all, his today may be their tomorrow.

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Far away in Ferrara, Luclalesia received Caesar. One of Borgia's letters, in which he triumphantly flaunted his stratagem and prowess, Lucretia didn't even bother to say a word, read it hastily, folded the parchment and set it aside.

"Won't you reply?" Alfonso, the eldest son of the Duke of Ferrara, asked, holding his chin.

Lucrecia shook her head, she was not surprised by this result, and she could guess their intentions from the letters sent to her by the Holy Father and Caesar, without mentioning anything about the Duke of Urbino.

"I thought they loved you." Alfonso said second.

Lucretia gave him a tired smile.

"Lucrea," he asked, "you're not the kind of fool and idiot I often see—so, are you really going to go on like this forever?" ”

"I don't have a choice, Alfonso."

"You have," said the eldest son of the Duke of Ferrara, "you have, Lucresia, and I am willing to give it to you." ”