Duchess of Milan (55 page)

“Apparently the Emperor has seen some of Bona’s accusatory letters,” Il Moro went on. “Today I received a letter from the Bishop of Brixen on behalf of the Emperor, asking me to assure him that nothing untoward took place in Pavia. I can protest my innocence until the Day of Judgment, and I will never entirely be believed. But my claims would have immediate credibility if your cousin Isabella were to corroborate them.”

“What possible reason would she have to help you in that way?”

“I sent Galeazzo Pusterla to Pavia, simply to look in on Isabella now and then and keep me informed as to her state of mind. He reports that Isabella has been making conciliatory overtures toward us.”

“With her usual sincerity. Obviously she hasn’t abandoned her ambitions.”

“Her present ambition, I believe, is to save her father.”

“And she would expect us--” Beatrice broke off. A flush spread over her shoulders. “Dear God, Lodovico, are you now so frightened of the French that you would even consider reconciling yourself to Alfonso?” Her face glowed, and she spit her words with rapid, sibilant fury.
“Cacasangue,
he is the man who tried to poison you and my son. In the name of God, you cannot mean this. We can never be safe as long as he lives.” Her eyes filled with angry tears.

“I would offer Alfonso support only as needed to prevent his complete collapse. Obviously he has urged his daughter to make overtures to us, which shows how desperate
he
is. If Alfonso can simply last the winter, the French will run out of money. Then we could arrange a negotiated settlement in which Alfonso would be forced to take an oath to the French King, which would corrupt his authority. Alfonso’s people would rise up against him as soon as the French left. What now seems a bitter medicine would soon rid Italy of two plagues.”

“So we would use Isabella to convey these assurances of assistance to her father.” She paused, and the tears welled up again. “That is obscene.”

Il Moro’s voice remained quiet, but his cadence slowed to a suggestion of restrained anger. “Was it obscene when you told the Signory of Venice that the Emperor had agreed to my investiture, when in fact he had not? That was the moment when you of your own volition decided to play this game. Now that you don’t like the cards you are holding, you find the rules of play objectionable. Fine. I will not insist that you remain at the table. Simply do not interfere with those of us who have no choice but to continue to play.”

Beatrice heard a ringing in her ears. Her husband had not spoken to her in such a hostile, patronizing tone for years. But what stung her most was the implication that the game had now surpassed her level of skill.

Beatrice’s eyes suddenly had that diamond-hard Este gleam. “What do you want me to do?”

Il Moro spread his hands in his “very little” gesture. “When your cousin comes here, I simply want you to welcome her and talk to her. With civility, nothing more or less. You do not have to offer her undying friendship.”

Milan, 6 December 1494

A half hour after passing through Milan’s southern gate, Beatrice ordered her carriage parked just off the gravel path that ran beside the canal from Pavia. She pulled aside the window drapes and watched the barges drift past in the late afternoon twilight, decks loaded with livestock, bags of grain, and barrels full of wine, cheeses, and oil.

The early darkness was the only sign of approaching winter; the air was dry and pleasantly cool. Warning lanterns began to appear on the barges. A few transport wagons crunched by on the cart path, hurrying against the night.

When the date had been set for Isabella’s return to the Castello, Beatrice had decided to meet her cousin here, outside the city, before stone walls and formalities prevented all but the most superficial contact. Her agenda for this meeting was curiously ill-defined, however. On the surface she was pursuing her husband’s diplomatic objectives, to which she had reconciled herself. But she also was haunted by the terrifying ferocity of Eesh’s ambition and the threat that ambition might still pose to her husband and son and unborn child. So perhaps she intended an element of maternal confrontation, a warning to Isabella to leave her family alone. And perhaps she was pursuing something even deeper and more profound. Something articulated only by whispers in her mind that did not make sense, fragmentary, middle-of-the-night thoughts that now seemed to awaken her at every hour.

The night settled like a velvety fog. The solitary lanterns on the barges drifted by in the darkness. Beatrice watched one light wink into view far to the south and then followed it until it disappeared in the direction of Milan. When she finally lost sight of the lantern, her feeling of sadness was suddenly so profound that she had to fight the urge to sob. She could imagine everything, her life and everyone she loved, passing by like that tiny, flickering point of illumination.

She had begun to follow another lantern, when one of her coachmen called out to someone on the road. The muffled reply from the other carriage indicated that the meeting was at hand. Beatrice waited until a coachman came down to open the door; he helped her to the ground. She was light-headed and breathless, and the air seemed cold. For a moment she distinctly saw Eesh and herself on a balcony high above the Bay of Naples, and then the shattering snowball of her beautiful doll’s porcelain head.

The gentlemen in charge of each lady’s small contingent of guards met and conferred. Paolo Bilia, one of Gian’s chamberlains, came over to verify that Beatrice was who her escort had said she was. He went back to Isabella’s carriage and knocked on the door. When the door squeaked opened he stuck his head in. A moment later he waved for Beatrice to come over. When she came close she could see the black mourning streamers tied to the gilded finials of Isabella’s carriage. Paolo assisted her into the cabin.

The darkened interior was vaguely lit by the guards’ torches. All she could see was a white face and an indistinct black-clad form. Almost as soon as she had settled herself into the cushioned seat opposite Isabella, the coachmen shouted and the carriage lurched off. “Your Highness,” she said, her voice immediately striking herself as far too loud and fearful.

Isabella said nothing in reply. She turned her head to the side. That movement in the weak light gave a sudden definition to the indistinct pallor of her features, almost like a swimmer’s face emerging from a muddy river.

Something pulled in Beatrice’s chest. She could not believe it. Eesh was nothing. Her face was so gaunt that her eyes and cheeks were grayish hollows, her nose seemingly a sharp blade of white bone. Her hair had thinned dramatically. She might have been a corpse, except that her skeletal features lacked the serenity of death.

Now Beatrice’s agenda became clearer to her: she had come to absolve her guilt. A guilt she could not define; she didn’t believe that she or her husband had done anything wrong. And yet she felt the need to apologize, if only because Fortune had rewarded her at Isabella’s expense. “Eesh . . . You have to believe I didn’t want this to happen to you,” she said almost desperately. “I didn’t want any of this.”

Isabella gave a small, hideously dry laugh, a sound like an old hinge. “I warned you, you know. I warned you before all this started.”

“You started this as much as I did, Eesh. You started it when you wrote to your father.”

“I was forced to. Once you had a son, it was the only thing I could do.”

“No, Eesh. Even then there was still time to stop him.” Her words, the abstract reference to her husband as “him,” shocked her; she felt as if she had uttered some obscene heresy. That was another Beatrice speaking, she realized, the Beatrice still lost in the labyrinth with Eesh. The Beatrice she had chosen to leave behind. And as she looked back at that Beatrice, her guilt came into sudden sharp focus. She wasn’t sorry for Eesh, or even for Gian. The best choice she had ever made was to embrace “him” and his dreams, to give her husband her heart and soul. To say she didn’t want any of this was a profound lie. Perhaps she hadn’t wanted Gian to die, but she wanted everything else, everything that had happened because Gian died. That was what awakened her at night.

Isabella slumped against the cushions. Her movements did not have even the languid grace of exhaustion but exhibited a desperate, jerky nervousness. “Fortune started this,” she said. “Fortune played us against one another. The contest was inevitable. And I have lost. I have lost!” She offered a death’s-head smile and settled back again, her next words infinitely weary. “So it really doesn’t matter anymore, Toto. I am finished.”

For a moment Beatrice wondered if the whole display, the use of her pet name Toto, wasn’t another masquerade. She forced herself to search Eesh’s shadowed, ravaged face. But there was no guile there. There was hardly even life.

“Toto, you know why I have come back to Milan, don’t you?”

“Yes.” No matter what, Beatrice vowed she would always hate Eesh’s father.

They sat silently for a while in the gently rocking carriage. Then Isabella said, “A construction of lies. That is all the world is now. A construction built by the Signory and the Frenchmen and your husband and His Holiness. My father too. I know that. And us. We helped them build it. Perhaps we are even more guilty than all of them. Lying is a craft they were bred to practice.” She sniffed sarcastically. “Lying is their native tongue. But you and I once shared the truth. We truly loved one another. Once we did.”

Now another truth stared back at Beatrice. Eesh’s grief was genuine. And so once was her love.

“You don’t know what it’s like, Toto. In here. In the darkness. It is so dark that often I cannot breathe. Sometimes the air is like an atmosphere made of blades. If I even open my mouth to breathe, my lungs are sliced to ribbons. I want to help my children, but I cannot move. My children need me, but I cannot ...”

The authenticity of Eesh’s need and remorse overwhelmed Beatrice. She could hear the ugly clicking of the metallic, deadly air Eesh was trying to breathe. She could feel the pain in her own throat. Tears came to her eyes. “I will make certain your children are safe and cared for while they are in Milan, Eesh. I promise you that.”

Isabella’s torso snapped forward, and she reached so vehemently that Beatrice jerked back with racing alarm, certain that Eesh was trying to claw the baby out of her womb. But Isabella merely clutched at Beatrice’s hands, still clasped protectively over her pregnant belly.

Isabella’s hands were so cold and bony that they seemed carved of stone. Her eyes pleaded from within her hollowed skull. “Toto, don’t let them take Francesco from me. Please don’t let them take my little boy. Please don’t let them take my babies.” Her shoulders heaved, and she began to cry.

After a moment, without even thinking why, Beatrice crossed over to Isabella’s bench and sat beside her. Arms locked around one another, the two duchesses cried in the darkness all the way back to Milan.

CHAPTER 46

Extract of a letter of international traveler and raconteur Benedetto Dei to Leonardo da Vinci, military engineer at the Court of Milan. Rome, 1 January 1495

. . . once again we have been treated to the spectacle of the French army marching unopposed into an Italian capital. Yesterday His Most Christian Majesty entered Rome in triumphant procession. . . . His Holiness has taken refuge in the Vatican. Fortunately His Holiness’s lovely mistress, Madonna Giulia Farnese, is at hand to offer His Holiness the deepest spiritual succor. Only last week, while returning from a wedding in Acquapendente, the said lady was taken captive by elements of the French advance guard. These French warriors, being under the command of gentlemen, promptly released the fair Giulia subsequent to His Holiness’s astonishingly swift payment of a considerable ransom. Now, of course, His Most Christian Majesty is in a position to ransom the entire City of Rome and all her occupants. . . .

Extract of a letter of Isabella d’Este da Gonzaga, Marquesa of Mantua, to Francesco Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua and Captain General of the Armies of Venice. Milan, 20 January 1495

My most illustrious and desperately missed lord husband,

I arrived here yesterday, having spent an extra day at Pavia at Messer Ambrogio’s request, as the eighteenth was not considered a propitious date for my entry into Milan. Fortunately I was still in advance of my sister’s child, which they expect within the week. I spent the evening with her at her bedside and amused her as best I could, but she is most apprehensive, and certainly she is justified to be so after the difficulty of her first birth. . . . This morning I visited the widowed Duchess Isabella in her rooms in the Castello. Her room is all hung in black, with only enough light admitted to see one’s hand in front of one’s face, and just enough air to prevent suffocation. She wears a cloak of black cloth so cheap that even an honest monk would disdain it, and a veil that entirely covers her face. They say she takes her meals more regularly now, but to see her you would not know it. I felt such compassion at her lamentable state that I could not keep from crying. After I offered her my sympathies and made condolences in your name, she sent for her children, the sight of whom merely made me weep more copiously. The girl is too young to understand her loss, and the boy looks well, but he complained to me that he is weary of wearing black. . . .

You would not recognize Milan! They have cleaned and widened so many of the streets and built new
piazze
and gardens and parks, and it seems that every building is new or has been restored to a former glory. And you would guess that the city has passed an ordinance requiring every woman who wishes to appear in public to adorn herself with at least ten thousand ducats’ worth of precious gems! The carriages rumble by all day and night, conveying these
belle donne
from one
festa
to the next--and no doubt from the arms of one lover to the next!

I supped the evening last with Il Moro in his rooms, and he showed me the dispatches from Rome confirming that His Holiness has offered the French free passage through his territories and has agreed to sanction His Most Christian Majesty’s coronation as King of Naples. His Holiness has in addition made a cardinal of Briconnet, which does not please Il Moro at all. . . . Il Moro also submitted to me reports from his agents in Naples regarding the fitness of King Alfonso. It seems that Alfonso is much concerned lately with the piety he has disregarded all his life, and cannot spend enough time washing the feet of paupers and weeping over their misfortunes! When I had finished reading these papers I asked Il Moro what changes of policy he intended in response to this unhappy state of affairs. He was full of reproach for the Signory of Venice, avowing he had warned them that a firmly committed league was required to keep the French out and that he saw no reason to enter into such a league now that the French had virtually conquered Italy with a piece of chalk--this being the chalk with which they mark the houses for the billeting of their troops. He says that he is now obliged to counter the French very cautiously, because, to use his words, “Should the King of France win the Kingdom of Naples and then learn that I alone have shown displeasure at his success, would that be to my advantage?” Thus he insists that the key to turning the French back is to persuade Spain to invade France along the Pyrenees. . . . You should advise the Signory to keep their ambassadors in close attendance on Il Moro, and hope that events will soon persuade him to closer cooperation in ridding Italy of this menace. . . .