Duchess of Milan (47 page)

“Do you believe that my husband and I are in danger?”

The ambassador furrowed his ruddy brow. “I suspect we are all now in danger. I would advise you not to leave Pavia until you have received instructions from your father.”

Isabella pressed her hands together at her waist and straightened her shoulders. “Thank you for telling me, Messer Antonio.”

Milan, 24 March 1494

“Refuse her.”

The unctuous chamberlain stood by the door, transfixed by Beatrice’s curt command, his mouth seemingly arrested between syllables. “Ah,” he finally said. One of Beatrice’s ladies-in-waiting emitted a ladylike gasp.

The chamberlain made a little leap of alarm as the Duchess of Milan elbowed past, as broad-shouldered as an armored knight in her big white sable
cioppa.

“You cannot refuse me,” Isabella told Beatrice. “I am the Duchess of Milan.” Her eyes swept the half-dozen ladies-in-waiting who had gathered in Beatrice’s rooms to hear a recitation of verse. “Get out.” Beatrice’s ladies performed anxious, hopping curtsies and scampered out the door. “Get out and close the door,” Isabella commanded the chamberlain. The chamberlain continued to mouth inchoately but bowed and pulled the door shut behind him.

Beatrice stared at her cousin. The two women were about two paces apart. Beatrice’s face was white, blank, punctuated by eyes like black beads. Then her face flushed. She pounced forward and her arm swung in a frantic marionette arc and the back of her hand cracked into Isabella’s face. Isabella wobbled and then fell so hard that her feet left the floor.

Shaking her head, her satin headband loose and her hair disordered, Isabella sat up. Blood trickled from her nose onto her pale lips and chin.

“I read your letter, bitch!” Beatrice screamed at the top of her register. “You are the reason your father sent that man to poison my baby! Your lies tried to kill my baby! If you try to get up I will kill you!”

Isabella dabbed at her nose. “You are listening to your husband’s lies. My father wouldn’t do that.” She stared at the blood on her white leather glove. “I came to ask you not to send Galeazz to France. If you invite the French in, we will all be ruined.”

Beatrice’s forced laughter sounded like a shriek. “If we do not bring the French in, your father will kill us.”

“No.” Isabella shook her head. “I just wrote that letter to my father to frighten Il Moro into giving Gian more say in things. I knew our grandfather wouldn’t let my father attack Milan. But even with Grandfather gone we can all still arrive at an agreement. Gian would have a greater role in governing, but your husband could still be his regent. I just want things better than they are for Gian and Francesco and me. I don’t want war. If we have war, there will be nothing left for my little boy or your little boy.”

“Who is the father of your little boy?”

Isabella’s stunned wide eyes narrowed, the corners as sharp as blades. “I don’t want to hear that slander again.”

Beatrice’s voice quavered with fury. “Before I offer to negotiate over what will or will not fall as your son’s inheritance, I want to know who Francesco’s father is.”

“Gian. Of course Gian is his father.”

“Liar.”

Isabella sprang up from the floor, seized Beatrice by the shoulders, and sent her sprawling backward. They wrestled for a moment before Isabella emerged on top. She straddled Beatrice and pinned her arms to the floor.

“Listen to me,” Isabella said, leaning over Beatrice. “I don’t care who you or your husband believe is Francesco’s father. It is indisputable who Gian’s father was. Galeazzo Maria Sforza was the Duke of Milan. Gian is his rightful heir. I am begging you not to listen to your husband’s self-serving lies. I am begging you not to send Galeazz to France. I am begging you to stop this before it can no longer be stopped.”

Beatrice grimaced up at her cousin. “The father of your little boy is going to France to save the life of my little boy.”

Isabella’s face went so white that she looked like an alabaster bust splashed with red glaze. She let go of Beatrice’s arms and stood up. She stepped back from her still-supine cousin and with angry, self-absorbed motions stripped off her blood-stained gloves. She rolled them up and tossed them on the floor.

“I have done what I have done,” Isabella said, showing Beatrice her bare palms almost like a saint displaying the stigmata. “But there is no blood on my hands. When the Frenchmen cross the mountains, your own blood will be on your own hands. The entire world will be stained with your blood.”

CHAPTER 39

Lyons, 8 April 1494

“Monseigneur Galeazz has presented me with his lance!” His Most Christian Majesty Charles VIII, King of France, Jerusalem, and the Two Sicilies (he had expanded his title in anticipation of his Crusade), with some difficulty brandished the enormous, iron-tipped jousting lance. The shaft, almost as thick as a bower branch, extended virtually across the entire length of the King’s antechamber. Galeazz, standing beside the King in the sweat-stained padded doublet he had worn beneath his jousting armor, looked around at the assortment of royal advisers and cronies playing cards at two tables in the center of the room. To their sour Gallic indifference he offered a smug, sardonic smile.

“Montjoie! Montjoie!”
Charles crowed, awkwardly sweeping the wooden shaft just above his advisers’ heads. “You all saw Galeazz ride in the lists today! Ten men unhorsed, and never for an instant did our brave paladin’s feet leave his stirrups, so steadfast and straight was he! Ten bold knights felled with this very lance! Rise up, O fair and noble warriors of God! Roland has returned to ride among us, to lead us forth against the paynim horde!
Montjoie! Montjoie!”

Louis Duc d’Orleans, slouched at one of the tables in an unlaced doublet, deigned to glance balefully at Galeazz. Next to Louis sat another of Charles’s most influential advisers, Guillaume Briconnet, the Bishop of Saint Malo. Judging from the dark, narrow-eyed cast of his bearded face, Briconnet was no happier than Louis to hear yet another panegyric to the “foremost paladin of Christendom.”

Antonello di Sanseverino, the Prince of Salerno, rose from his chair, nimbly avoiding the sweep of the ponderous lance shaft. He gracefully plucked his cap from his head and bowed. “Indeed, Your Majesty, if my nephew can be compared to mighty Roland, it is only because in Your Majesty he has found a mighty Charlemagne, a Charles the Great who will lead him forth on the Holy Crusade to which he has now dedicated his heart and soul.”

Briconnet leaned next to Louis’s ear and whispered, “Perhaps you had better warn His Majesty that Il Moro is the Charlemagne who has sent forth Monseigneur Galeazz.”

Louis’s restless, caged eyes roamed the room, as if tallying the sentiments of the other advisers. The King had not stopped talking about the wondrous Galeazz since the arrival of the Milanese embassy. For the last three days virtually every royal sentence had begun: “Did you see how Monseigneur Galeazz ...”

“Bravely Roland goes and thrusts up his lance, high in the sky he lifts his lancehead far!” Charles jammed the lance into the coffered ceiling, bringing a shower of gold-painted stucco down on the heads of his advisers. The King gaped at the damaged ceiling for a moment, then announced in his whining, nasal voice, “I wish to introduce our Christian champion to my companions. Where are the pictures?”

The Gentleman of the King’s Bedchamber hurriedly produced a damask-bound portfolio fitted with gold corners and clasps. The sound of the locks popping could be heard in the sullen silence of the room. Apparently this was a signal for the King’s advisers to return noisily to their gambling.

Charles leafed through the portfolio of sketches. They were detailed drawings of various nude women in a remarkable repertoire of sexual positions. Each time the King turned over a leaf he looked up at Galeazz and his receding lower jaw dropped slightly, as if he were awaiting the miracle of the great Roland’s response.

Galeazz examined the drawings with sincere interest. He whispered something to the King, who honked furiously with laughter.

“Would you like her?” Charles asked.

Galeazz nodded. After some additional research, he produced another drawing that interested him, to Charles’s obvious excitement. The King picked a drawing for himself, then returned the portfolio and the selected leaves to the Gentleman of the Bedchamber.

Charles and Galeazz conferred in French for several minutes. The King’s advisers rowdily played on. Finally the Gentleman of the Bedchamber returned, escorting three gorgeous young women dressed in Italian-style gowns so low-cut that they revealed delicate little mauve crescents of areolas. An anticipatory smile crept across Galeazz’s Olympian features, and Charles regarded his hero with impish glee. The Gentleman of the King’s Bedchamber opened the door to that bedchamber, and the King extended his arm and ushered Galeazz and the three women inside.

Briconnet glowered as he watched the King’s exit. When the door to the King’s bedchamber had been shut, he looked at Louis Duc d’Orleans and shook his head with disgust.

Louis shrugged his lithe, athletic shoulders, his usual carefree smirk restored. “This all sits well enough with me. I seem to recall, my good Bishop, that Roland and his men were slaughtered defending their Charlemagne’s rear.”

Extract of a dispatch of Count Carlo Belgioioso, Milanese ambassador to France, to Lodovico Sforza, “Il Moro,” Duke of Bari and regent for the Duke of Milan. Lyons, 11 April 1494

... in addition to these honors, Messer Galeazz was enrolled in the fraternity of Saint Michel, the King’s own knightly order. At the ceremony His Most Christian Majesty informed me with tears in his eyes that Messer Galeazz has convinced him of the absolute necessity of maintaining cordial relations with Your Highness if his enterprise in Italy is to succeed. . . . His Most Christian Majesty went on to say that the good will of Your Highness and his “foremost paladin” is of such paramount importance to His Most Christian Majesty that he offers Your Highness his oath that he will never allow the territorial claims of his cousin Louis Duc d’Orleans to impinge on the sacred bond that now unites Milan and France. His Most Christian Majesty vows to look to Your Highness for guidance in all things. . . . If I had not witnessed with my own eyes the success of Messer Galeazz’s mission I should not have believed it. ...

Extract of a dispatch of Antonio Stanga, Milanese ambassador to Naples, to Lodovico Sforza, “Il Moro,” Duke of Bari and regent for the Duke of Milan. Naples, 11 May 1494

. . . King Alfonso summoned me to his table, and leaving me standing like a meat carver, he reminded me in front of all his household that the visit of Messer Galeazzo di Sanseverino to Lyons was responsible for the French King’s determination to pursue his adventure against Naples. King Alfonso next instructed me to tell you, Your Highness, that you will be the first to regret the day the French set foot in Italy. After subjecting me to this humiliation, King Alfonso ordered me expelled from his court and his territories, and issued his formal proclamation of war against the state of Milan. . . .

CHAPTER 40

Extract of a letter of international traveler and raconteur Benedetto Dei to Leonardo da Vinci, military engineer at the Court of Milan. Asti, 10 September 1494

My dear Leonardo,

I arrived here a day after the entry of the French King and his army into Asti subsequent to their oft-delayed crossing of the mountains. Upon making inquiries, I ascertained to my surprise and regret that your lord the Duke of Bari had not brought you here with him to study the French ordnance, which is a pity as there is much here to interest you--I am led to understand that your ongoing projects in Milan and Vigevano detain you. In spite of his dilatory progress, King Charles was greeted with news of the first great victory of the war. On 5 September French warships and marine infantry under the command of the King’s cousin Louis Duc d’Orleans turned away a force of several thousand men and a dozen ships dispatched by the King of Naples for the purpose of taking Genoa. . . .

In the course of my conversations I have discovered the cause of the French King’s difficulties in passing over the mountains. It was not the deficiencies of the French gun carriages but rather His Most Christian Majesty’s reluctance to abandon the pleasures of a young woman with whom he became acquainted during his residence in Lyons. I am told that this woman, formerly a courtesan of some standing in Naples, fortuitously lodged herself with the King’s fortune-teller in Vienne (this being a town near Lyons) and by this clever device made her charms known to His Most Christian Majesty. Warned by her associates not to satiate the King’s lust in one sitting, this sublimely beautiful and professionally skilled young woman so starved His Most Christian Majesty’s affections that when he was finally permitted to dine at her table (in a manner of speaking) he found his appetite sufficiently ravenous that it could not be sated for many weeks. Thus His Most Christian Majesty refused to leave Vienne until 22 August. . . . Once under way, the French army moved with admirable efficiency, departing Grenoble 29 August. ... As explicated above,

I did not see the entry of their army into Asti, a spectacle which astonished one and all, though just to see their tents surrounding the city is marvel enough. ... I did have occasion to inspect their siege cannons and can offer you these particulars. . . . Unlike Italian guns, which employ balls made of stone, these are provided with balls of iron, which weigh considerably more, and these balls and a great sufficiency of charges are transported on the gun carriages, so that the rate of fire is vigorous indeed.  .  .  . Their bombardiers claim that they can reduce the walls of the Castel Nuovo to dust in two days, though you know what braggarts the French are. . . .

The number of pilgrims to this new shrine of Asti is already worthy of note. In addition to your own lord Il Moro, we have seen his father-in-law, the Duke of Ferrara, and any number of cardinals. ... Il Moro commands the ear of the King and promises to make His Most Christian Majesty greater even than Charlemagne and to assist him in conquering the Turk at Constantinople if only His Most Christian Majesty will expedite the passage of the French army out of northern Italy. As little faith as your lord Il Moro places in French pledges of friendship while their army is quartered four days’ march from Milan, that paucity of trust is shared by many in the French camp, who suspect that Il Moro intends to turn on them once they have done with Naples. . . .