The Mistress

Chapter 1. The Borgias

Me and Cesare sit under a tree together, a big willow tree that has hanging branches. Cesare takes out his dagger that his father gave him as a present. "What are you doing Cesare?" I ask. "Hold on." he says while taking the dagger to the tree. When he is done it reads "Cesare & Lena." I blush. "Promise me that nothing will come between us?" I ask Cesare.

"I will not let anyone separate us." he takes my hand. "So it is settled then."

"What is?" I ask.

"We will be married so that nothing can come between that."

I laugh at the thought "Cesare we are children we can not marry."

"We must wait then, until we are older." I giggle. Cesare always had a wild imagination "We will run away together and live in a small village so no one will find us." He jokes and I laugh.

"Promise?" I ask.

"I promise." he goes into his pocket and pulls out a gold ring. "I found this in the Vatican." he says.

"Well it belongs to someone Cesare."

"Yes you." the ring is to to big for my finger so I put it on my thumb. I giggle at the large ring that is loose around my thumb.

"Cesare!" We heard Juan call out for us. I hear Cesare scoff when he sees his brother running for us.

"Come on, I don't want him to be with us." Cesare takes my hand and pulls me up. "He always wants to do what I do." Cesare complains. He wasn't incorrect. Juan was so needy and he can never be himself. He lived in Cesare's shadow even if their father didn't see it that way.

"Why don't we just let him Join us?" I ask. It was a stupid question if we are being honest.

"Remember what happened last time?" I nod to him because I do remember. Juan said that he would show me this cool trick he learned where he could kick an apple off my head. Cesare didn't like the idea of Juan demonstrated his new trick on me but I agreed to it so I wouldn't start an argument. Juan told me where to stand and to close my eyes. Cesare stood on the side and watched. When Juan asked if I was ready he didn't even wait for me to answer and he pushed me into the fountain in which I was standing in front of. He laughed at me as Cesare helped pull me from the fountain. He couldn't even stop himself from laughing as I walked away from him crying. Just as before Cesare got back at him though he never told me what he did. It was the only time I was not there when Cesare punished his brother which is strange but maybe it was best I didn't know what happened.
"Then let's go, I want to show you something anyway." He pulls me away from the tree in which we were sitting under and we went into the nearby forest. He moved so fast it felt as though he was dragging me, my legs didn't move as fast as Cesare's. My skirt didn't help either as my feet kept kept getting caught up.
"Cesare our fathers said we couldn't go in there without an elder with us." Who knows what could be in there.
"What they don't know won't hurt them right? and besides do you really want to play with Juan?"
"No." I say lamely. My attempts to avoid Juan have gotten more and more extreme.

"Then come on." We go off into the forest as we hear Juan call after us. "He is catching up." I hurry up faster behind him. As I look back I see the opening we came in become smaller and smaller. But I could still hear Juan calling after us, his voice annoying me.

"What is it you wanted to show me Cesare?" I ask.

"It's here." He stops at the base of a large tree and he looks up at it.

"It's just a tree." I point out as I am unsurprised.

"This isn't it, it's up there." he points to the top of the tree and before I can even respond Cesare starts climbing up the tree. He turns back around to me and puts out his hand. "Come on."

"You want me to climb the tree?" If running through the woods isn't easy because of my dress, climbing wouldn't be either.

"Yes. it's worth it trust me." I hear Juan's echoing voice getting closer so I grab Cesare's hand and he pulls me up. I follow him as he climbs up the tree and he keeps looking over his shoulder at me and smiling as if he is happy I am still following behind him. Just as I thought this would not be easy. My skirt kept getting in the way and a couple times my foot slipped due to this. The tree was tall and I feared falling. But Cesare constantly checking that I am still there made me feel safe.
We reach a large branch and Cesare sits down on it and let's his feet hang over. He takes both my hands and helps me up to where he is and I sit down next to him. I keep a tight hold to his waist because we are high up and I have no wish to fall. Juan runs under the tree and calls out for us.
"Shh" Cesare whispers to me. Juan looks all around but he can't seem to find us. He runs off into another direction; me and Cesare snicker together. We have done a similar thing before, except while hiding we would throw things at him and laugh when he couldn't find us.
"What is it you wanted to show me?" I ask.

"This." He takes the branches that were in front of us and pulls them out of the way. He reveals a beautiful view overlooking the lake, the sun was going down and it was shimmering on the lake like diamonds. The sunset turned the hills shades of pink and orange. what I was looking at reminds me of paintings I have seen.

"It is beautiful." I remark. "I wish I could stay up here with you forever." I rest my head on his shoulder.

"I don't know about staying up here but we will be together forever."

"Promise?"

"I promise."

But what we didn't know at the time was how much things could change.

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