Duchess of Milan (24 page)

“Father!” The Marquesa whacked her horse’s rump and galloped to her father’s side. She leaned over, threw her arms around him and kissed him, but he remained so erect and still in the saddle that she might have been embracing a painted equestrian statue. “Father! I cannot believe all of the treats you have brought us. You have brought
everyone.”
The Marquesa looked over the contingent of performers. “What are you going to do for us? Is it the
Cefalo
that Messer Niccolo has been working on?”

Ercole’s lips carved a tight smile. “Plautus.
Cassina.
Maestro Matteo has translated. Are you well?”

“I am marvelous. I miss my husband, of course. Beatrice has been sick. Father, you look exceptionally well. I have never seen that cloth before. Have you heard that I am going to Genoa at the end of the month!”

Beatrice wiped away her tears. She told herself that when Father learned the truth of her husband’s mad ambition, he would understand why she did it. He would weep for her, and as long as he lived the candles would blaze in the churches of Ferrara, in memory of her sacrifice.

She could not ride as closely alongside her father as her sister had, because her legs were swung to the side facing him. “My lord Father,” she said, her voice so high and fragile that it sounded like the finest Murano glass fracturing.

Ercole offered her his grimacing smile. “Your sister says you haven’t been well.”

“I am fine, Father. I think I ate some undercooked venison.”

“Well, you must be more careful. Your mother has given me letters for you.” Ercole turned and looked to the rear of his column; two wagons loaded with vegetables had backed up behind the Ferrarese contingent. “We are holding up some traffic. Why don’t you and your sister ride alongside me? We shall enter Vigevano with an impressive display.”

Beatrice reined her horse about. He is proud of us, she thought, and the pain in her heart was suddenly so intense that she could not breathe.

Ercole d’Este limped slightly as he proceeded down the vast nave of the Certosa di Pavia, his lame foot the result of a wound incurred in battle more than thirty years previously; in winter he often had to use a cane. Oblique shafts of sunlight filtered through the small rosette-shaped windows; the ribbed vaults high overhead, painted deep blue and studded with countless gold stars, were a glimmering false heaven. As he passed the aisle chapels, each framed with an ornate arch and lit with massed candles, Ercole nodded as though personally greeting the enshrined images of the Virgin, various saints, and the crucified and infant Christ. At the fifth chapel Ercole paused to study one of the large paintings. Saint Sirus, identified by the inscription on his marble throne, sat in startlingly lifelike splendor, surrounded by four companion saints in similarly coruscating golden robes.

“Who is the
maestro?”
Ercole asked.

“Bergognone,” Il Moro answered quickly, like an eager schoolboy. He placed his hands behind his back and rocked slightly on his heels. “I believe he is the most faithful to nature of all our painters. And faithful to God as well.”

Ercole nodded again and resumed his progression down the nave. Il Moro, Messer Galeazz, and several other high-ranking Milanese officers of state trailed behind. The semicircular apse at the far end of the church was obscured by painters’ scaffolding. Two craftsmen were working on the choir stalls, installing a decorative panel in the headboard behind one of the richly carved wooden seats. Il Moro directed the craftsmen to clear out and motioned to his retinue to follow them. He and Ercole stood alone beneath the immense hushed vaults.

Il Moro waited while Ercole raptly studied the workmanship of the choir stalls, crowned with elaborate arches and finials. The decorative panels were intarsia, mosaic pictures composed from a variety of inlaid woods; these were so expertly done that they appeared to be sepia-hued paintings. Ercole peered intently at several of the intarsia saints. Finally he turned back to Il Moro.

“A splendid choir.” Ercole’s eyes were not as dark or as opaque as Il Moro’s, but they seemed even harder, as though sealed beneath diamond sheaths. “Do you think Naples will honor any agreement we reach?”

“Why wouldn’t they? They are the principal object of the French desire.”

“I do not trust this Borgia Pope you and your brother have created. Have you considered that Naples might pursue an independent alliance with Rome? If Naples and Rome came to an agreement, Piero would join them.” Piero de’ Medici had inherited leadership of the Florentine ruling council when his father, Lorenzo, had died in April. Lorenzo de’ Medici had been Il Moro’s best friend, but his heir was a whining incompetent whose loyalty to all save his own self-interest was suspect. “Naples, Rome, and Florence could then create their own anti-French league, leaving Milan as Italy’s offering to French martial ardor.”

Il Moro motioned casually with his hand. “You are certainly correct about Piero. But Ferrante and Borgia will never come to an accommodation.”

“But Ferrante’s son and Borgia might find a common objective, regardless of their personal animosity. Satan in his pit does not require amiable companions.”

“Ferrante is in good health,” Il Moro said, lifting his hand again. “I do not think the Duke of Calabria will become the King of Naples for quite a few years.”

“Fortune may decide otherwise. In the event of Ferrante’s death, any agreement we have with Naples would be worthless.”

“Of course. But in that event everything would change.”

Il Moro’s last statement, delivered with an offhand, gradually fading inflection, had the contrary effect of amplifying rather than muting his intentions. Had Ercole been a woman, this would have been a carnal invitation.

Ercole nodded stiffly. “Yes. In that event we would have a new equation to consider.”

Il Moro took one step toward his father-in-law. His voice dropped. “In that event we might find it in our interest to encourage King Charles in his adventure.”

The two men’s eyes locked. Ercole’s voice was a whisper. “What would you do about Orleans?”

“I could, with the proper inducement, enlist the German Emperor to distract the Duc d’Orleans. Of course I would have to offer the German Emperor a surety.”

Ercole nodded. “Go on.”

Il Moro’s eyes fired, an eerie opalescence. “I would have to seal any agreement with the Emperor by allowing him to invest me as the Duke of Milan.”

Ercole’s blade-thin lips remained drawn, his eyes unblinking, his reaction measured only in the forced moment of silence before he said: “The people of Milan will not allow that until you can offer them a secured succession. The present Duke of Milan offers them an heir to the Sforza dynasty. You can currently offer them only the chaos that followed the death of Filippo Maria.” Filippo Maria had been the last Visconti Duke of Milan, whose bastard daughter Bianca Maria had given her husband, Francesco Sforza, a legitimate right to the title only after a brutal siege of Milan. That Francesco Sforza had subsequently proved an enlightened, even a visionary ruler had only deepened Milanese fears of another rupture in their ruling dynasty.

Il Moro lifted his chin as if his manhood had been challenged. “I can assure you that Messer Ambrogio and I have been exerting ourselves mightily. His calculations have been most exacting, and I have followed his schedule rigidly. Were Beatrice more attentive to her own health, we might find conception easier.”

Ercole’s face shifted in minute contractions. It was hardly lost on him that his other legitimate daughter, the Marquesa, had failed to conceive in over two years of marriage and that Il Moro was with reasonable justification suggesting that Ercole had peddled defective merchandise. “Yes. Beatrice did not seem well when she rode out to greet me this morning. Perhaps she is taking too much exercise.”

“Well, that is enough of that.” Il Moro pursed his lips. “I am sending for Messer Ambrogio. I have repeatedly warned her of the dangers of immoderate activity and have been resolutely ignored. Perhaps you could speak with her. She certainly did not learn these habits in Ferrara, and we have done nothing to encourage them here in Milan.” The obvious inference was that Naples was the source of the corruption.

Ercole lifted, his left shoulder slightly, his version of a more demonstrative man’s shrug. It was not unusual for a father to administer postnuptial discipline; many good marriages--not to mention alliances--had been saved by such intercession. Then his icy eyes lifted to the vaults high overhead, flecked with gilded plaster stars. “I envy an architect. Once he overcomes the resistance of brute stone, he can be assured that his creation will never mutate from his original vision. But we, as architects of the state, must fashion our constructions from human virtues and frailties, materials even more intractable but far less dependable.”

Il Moro took his father-in-law’s arm. His lips relaxed with subtle amiability. “That is why, my lord Father, the state is the ultimate work of art.”

“Don’t you keep her up all night with your gossip and whatnot.” Polissena’s ancient head bobbed furiously between the Marquesa, who stood beside her sister’s bed, and Beatrice, who lay beneath the satin bedclothes, her head inclined forward by several plump silk pillows. “It is nothing less than a national scandal how the Duchesses of Milan and Bari go racing about whither they will on their horses every day, and that both of them have fallen ill is far more warning than our Lord will usually give such prodigal behavior. I’ve seen many a fair lady waste and perish before my eyes from far less strenuous pursuits.” Polissena’s head attacked the Marquesa exclusively. “And don’t think you are exempt, Your Highness. You used to have the most beautiful milk-white skin, but since you have taken up your sister’s pursuits, the sun has given you more color than a painted Roman prostitute. When your husband sees you again he will think he has married a
negre
from Libya.”

The Marquesa turned to Beatrice. “Did you hear what happened when Polissena rode beneath the Regisole last week?” The Marquesa allowed herself a comic pause. “When Polissena came into view, this great bronze emperor, a fixture of countless centuries, was suddenly frightened into leaping from his horse and has not been seen since. Everyone is trying to make the best of it by remarking on how nicely the horse has been done, but I don’t think the statue is the same without the emperor.”

Beatrice smiled weakly; she had hardly heard the jest. She had vomited this afternoon and again this evening. She remembered what the mother abbess had told her about taking the abortifacient with wine to keep it from coming back up. How could she expect the abortifacient to work when she could not even keep her food down? The blue phial seemed to scream at her from her storage chest.

Polissena’s head bobbed for a contemplative moment. “You’ll be the next to take to bed, Your Highness, and don’t think your sainted mother won’t hear my views on the foolishness that has corrupted the health of both her girls. I already have composed letters to send back with your lord father.” With that Polissena curtsied and stomped out of the room; the last that could be heard of her was a cawing command that the page shut the door.

“I want to know.” The Marquesa stood over Beatrice, her hands on her hips, just like their mother. “I want to know immediately.”

Beatrice flinched as if she had been struck, and her lips began to tremble. She was certain that she could never do it if Bel found out now.

“I don’t care how long you cry. I intend to stay here until you tell me.”

Tears welled in Beatrice’s eyes, but she obstinately set her jaw and vowed to resist.

The Marquesa moderated her demand. “I know something is wrong, and I want to know what it is.
I
thought you have been behaving strangely ever since I got here, but for the last few days everyone has noticed.” The Marquesa sat on the bed and took her sister’s hand. “You know that if it is something to do with your husband, this is absolutely the best time to tell us. Father will talk to him. It’s so obvious that your marriage is not that of Orpheus and Eurydice. Father is already concerned, but he thinks that your husband is trying very hard and you are the one who is being petulant. If your husband is doing something we don’t know about, you
must
tell us.”

Beatrice shook her head slightly.

“He
is
sleeping with you, isn’t he? He has told father he is. Is he violent? Does he ask you to do unnatural things? In the name of God, Beatrice, you would not believe some of the stories I have heard recently, and from reliable sources. My husband says there is one member of the Signory in Venice who likes to dress like a woman, even plucks his eyebrows, then goes out and opportunes some sailor, brings him home, and requires not only his wife but also his
sons . . .
Well, when you’re feeling better I shall tell you the rest of it. It’s really quite remarkable.”

Beatrice was lost somewhere behind her hazy eyes. The Marquesa snuggled next to her and put her arm around her. “What is it, baby?”

“I love you so much, Bel.” She began to sob, clutching her sister in a desperate embrace, realizing that it was a farewell.

The Marquesa held her sister and rocked her and kissed her.
“Mia unica sorella,
my most special, special love,” she murmured. Then suddenly she drew her head back as if she had discovered she were embracing an impostor. Her eyes were wide and keenly focused. She put her hand on Beatrice’s breast and, before Beatrice could even react, moved the hand to her sister’s belly. She leapt up. “No! I cannot believe I didn’t see it before. ...” The Marquesa had not seen it because she had never for a moment considered that it would happen to Beatrice before her. “Of course, of course, of course.
Per mia fe.
The sickness, the melancholy . . . Oh dear God, oh dear God! Maybe you didn’t know? You must know! You really must know, and you have been hiding it from all of us! God, I’m so furious I cannot stand it! God, I’m going to have a little nephew! God, how will I ever hold my head up again when my little sister has had a baby before me?” The Marquesa fleetingly reflected that perhaps Beatrice would only have a daughter, that she could still be the first to give their father a grandson. She pounced back onto the bed and embraced her sister. “God, you’re going to have a baby! I’m so envious I want to weep.”