Cesare Borgia, Giovanni Sforza and others in “Unfinished Business”

Cesare Borgia

(sees Giovanni Sforza enter the room, starts and then smirks) My Lord Sforza.

I arrived in the early hours.

Cesare Borgia

You must have. You have... business with your cousin?

Matters of state? Always. (takes some food from the table and nibbles it)

Cesare Borgia

So she requested your presence here.

She told me it would be... appreciated.

Cesare Borgia

Mmm. And, can you tell me why?

To talk of your father's proposal to her.

Cesare Borgia

My father- the Pope?

Mmm- I can only think of him as your father. The father of that... slattern I was tricked into marrying-

Cesare Borgia

(exhales sharply in anger) Be careful, Lord Sforza.

What?

Cesare Borgia

I hold my sister's interests dear.

(smirks) Hmm- I'm aware of that. (pause) You humiliated me, before the whole of Rome. (Cesare smiles thinly)

Caterina Sforza

(enters the room) You shall have your answer, Cesare Borgia.

Cesare Borgia

It is why I am still here, my Lady.

Caterina Sforza

My answer is simple. It is no. (Giovanni smirks, Caterina starts to leave)

Cesare Borgia

Let me be clear. (she stops) You refuse to come to Rome? (Caterina smiles and leaves)

My cousin refuses to debase herself before that... swine that wears the Papal Tiara

Cesare Borgia

(with burning anger) That question was for her, my Lord.

And you have her answer.

Cesare Borgia

Yes- and you will have mine. (he stabs a knife into Giovanni's hand, pinning it to the table-top. Giovanni wrenches it free with a yell of pain; they scuffle, but Cesare quickly gains the upper hand, forcing his knife nearer and nearer to Giovanni's throat) I promised my sister your heart, on a dinner-plate! (finally forces the knife deep into Giovanni's throat, then turns him around and stabs him repeatedly in the belly and lower chest) But I can find no heart!