Duchess of Milan (68 page)

“I suggest we have some sport with them,” Il Moro said.

“Your Highness, you do realize that I am taking your daughter--my wife--into my home in less than a month?” Galeazz said, pretending to be nonplussed.

“I’m not suggesting that we select a brace or two and trot them off into the woods. We will engage them in an innocent flirtation. Remember, Galeazz, flirtation is like flattery. Both are meaningless yet essential to the functioning of any court. We must do our part.”

The ladies were busy admiring a hunting cheetah with a diamond-studded collar. They were far too accomplished to make a fuss over the two most desirable men in Italy. Instead they delivered curt little nodding bows accompanied by grudging, bored smiles.

“Who owns the cheetah?” Galeazz asked.

The owner gave Galeazz a slight affirmative nod. She wore her blond hair in ringlets, a Venetian fashion. Her blue eyes were tinted violet. She had a small waist and full breasts traced with faint veins. “If you will send your beaters into that wood, you can see him run,” she said. Galeazz noticed a subtle carnal buzz in her clear, resonant voice.

Galloping across the meadow, Galeazz shouted for the game wardens to organize a beating party. Within a short time men on foot could be seen entering the woods, armed with wooden staffs.

Il Moro rode to the side of the cheetah’s owner. She introduced herself as Madonna Dorotea, one of the new additions to the Duchess of Milan’s corps of attendants, another bauble for a court that had become increasingly extravagant following the war.

“My husband gave me this cheetah,” Madonna Dorotea said. In the Milanese liturgy of seduction, such an immediate reference to the husband wasn’t intended to deter an advance but instead established at the outset that the husband was amenable to his wife’s taking a lover.

“They’re quite a splendid sight in full pursuit,” Il Moro said. “It’s a pity that they so quickly tire. The chase is over within seconds. That’s why I prefer falcons. They can glide for an hour, then plunge with sudden fury. Perhaps it’s more exciting. Not knowing when they will select their prey. But then I must confess that I am not an avid huntsman. My wife is quite the better of me at this sport.”

Madonna Dorotea snapped her head up slightly. Had he mentioned his wife to signal his availability? She had set her sights on Messer Galeazz and had never even considered the notoriously faithful Duke of Milan. Still, there were rumors that Il Moro had not slept with his wife for months--and had done so only infrequently before her pregnancy. She decided that she had nothing to lose by encouraging him.

“If Your Highness will forgive me, I think it is unfortunate that as hard as you work, you are so reluctant to provide yourself with recreation.”

He shrugged his shoulders and gave her a subtle smile. “Well,

I am enjoying myself today. Perhaps I will become an enthusiast. Ah, madonna, look. They have flushed some hares.” Ears streaming back, the rabbits streaked across the grass. “But I presume you are waiting for larger game.”

“He can take down a buck,” Madonna Dorotea said. She motioned to the handler holding the cheetah’s leash to remove it. More hares darted across the meadow, fleeing the phalanx of beaters thrashing their way through the woods.

Two does popped out of the line of trees. The cheetah strained at the hands on his collar. Then a small stag bounded out. “Wait!” Madonna Dorotea commanded the handlers, giving the stag a lead. “Now!”

The kill was not pretty. Racing after the stag with astonishing speed, the cheetah swatted its hindquarters, slowing it, then ran it down on the second pass. The cheetah was ripping out the stag’s throat by the time a handler raced up with a bowl of fresh pig’s blood to entice it away from its kill. The spectators arrived to find the cheetah greedily lapping blood and the stag still twitching.

Madonna Dorotea was hardly winded from the gallop. Her face and shoulders had a fresh, vivid flush. She looked astutely at Il Moro, who had not even directed a glance toward the cheetah or its victim. “I can see that this demonstration has not kindled your enthusiasm,” she said.

“Perhaps not.” Il Moro smiled. “But as I told you, I prefer a more leisurely pursuit.” He nodded politely and turned away from Madonna Dorotea and her blood-spattered pet. As he did, he noticed that one of the ladies had dismounted and was bent over with her hands on her knees. Suddenly she convulsed and vomited into the grass.

“Per
Di’o,” Madonna Dorotea muttered disgustedly.

Il Moro swung off his horse and went to help, putting his hands on the young woman’s shoulders to steady her. She retched once more, then spit to clear her mouth. He pulled a linen handkerchief from his doublet and helped her wipe her face. She straightened up and looked at him and shook her head miserably.

“You’re very kind,” she said. Then she realized who had come to her assistance. “I’m terribly embarrassed, Your Highness,” she said in a voice that was incongruously self-possessed. “This is my first week in your wife’s suite, and already I have humiliated myself. I’m afraid I don’t have the stomach for this sport. I hate to see anything killed.”

Il Moro handed her the handkerchief, and she dabbed at her mouth. She was slightly taller than Beatrice, small-busted, with a straight nose that was too long and thick and a mouth that seemed too small. Her eyes were large and wide-set.

“I will share a secret with you,” Il Moro said. “I would like nothing more than to put my hands on my knees and join you in your critique of this form of recreation.”

She smiled weakly, and her face changed entirely, though it was impossible to say how.

“If you like, I will have you driven back to the
castello
in a chariot. I don’t think you should ride.”

She nodded. “Thank you so much, Your Highness. You are truly very kind.”

“I’m afraid I don’t have a name with which to properly address you,” Il Moro said earnestly.

“I’m sorry, Your Highness. I am Lucrezia Crivelli.”

“Well, Madonna Lucrezia, let me find someone to accompany you back to the
castello.
And please don’t feel obliged to return the handkerchief.”

“Your Highness, if this is an inconvenient time . . . ,” offered the Marchesino Stanga.

“No, Marchesino.” Beatrice motioned the Minister of Public Works to a chair set at an angle to hers. The room she now used as an office allowed a view of the sun-drenched labyrinth and the templelike, gleaming white pavilion at its center.

“I was concerned because it isn’t like Your Highness to miss a hunt.”

“I didn’t have a good night, so I spent the morning in bed. And now I have an opportunity to read the diplomatic dispatches.” In fact the night had been terrifying. Beatrice had been awakened by pains, and when she lit her lamp she’d found a few spots of blood on her sheets. She had been certain she was about to lose the baby. But after the morning passed without incident she decided to resume her preparations for the Emperor’s visit. She was entirely at ease with her knowledge of Italian politics, but the new league against the French now included Germany, Spain, and England in addition to all the major Italian states except Florence. So she was poring over the dispatches, wanting to be apprised of any situation in the rest of Europe that the Emperor might introduce into their discussions--particularly since her policy would be at odds with her husband’s. Il Moro was intent on employing the Emperor’s army to liberate Pisa from the Florentines, which he believed would not only punish Florence for rebuffing the League but prove to the French that the Emperor was serious about his commitment to his Italian allies. Beatrice believed that the last thing Italy needed was another “liberator” marching across the mountains. She was convinced that a stay-at-home German army, poised to march into Paris should the French army embark on another Italian campaign, would be the most effective deterrent to French aggression.

“Your Highness, I must observe that seeing you with these dispatches, I am reminded of your mother, may God keep her soul. She devoted so much of herself to the business of state. I don’t see how your father makes do without her.”

Beatrice smiled warmly, flattered to be compared to Mama. She had never appreciated it when she was growing up, but in retrospect she could see that Mama had virtually run Ferrara, shut up in her rooms with all the tedious administrative work while Father led his singers from church to church. And added to that, Mama had entirely supervised the household and the education of her children. Now Beatrice could understand the sheer physical energy required for such a regimen, not to mention her mother’s intellectual drive. But that admiration also inspired a certain fear. Mama was dead, this great edifice of a woman taken as suddenly and vehemently as a sickly infant. Mama’s death was proof that the living were all just wanderers in a labyrinth, never certain when their path would come to an end.

“Your Highness, I would like to speak frankly.”

“I consider you an old friend, Marchesino.”

“Thank you, Your Highness.” The Marchesino clasped his hands together tensely and leaned forward. “Your Highness, last week His Highness your husband brought me a new agenda of public works projects. Quite an extensive agenda. After estimating the cost of these projects, I went to the treasury to ascertain if these moneys were available, because, frankly, I did not think they would be. And indeed I was correct. But I had not imagined the extent of the deficiency. Your Highness, by the time the Christmas
feste
are over, we will have nothing.”

That simply isn’t possible, Beatrice thought. The state produces enormous revenues. I know the figures. That is the one thing we will never have to worry about in Milan. Our supply of revenues is inexhaustible.

“I don’t see how that could be, Marchesino.”

The Marchesino proceeded to enumerate the expenses of the last two years: the defaulted loans to France, the payments to Germany, the cost of military operations, the costs of diplomacy with all its attendant pomp and extravagance. “Your Highness, we have raised taxes three times this year. Have you noticed that when your husband rides through the streets, you no longer hear so many shouts of ‘Moro’?”

“But we are taxing the big agricultural concessions, the armorers, the banks, the most affluent merchants--the people who have benefited the most from our state expenditures. And from our prosperity.”

“Exactly. They are always the most ungrateful. And because we have made them so powerful, they have the means to make their displeasure known. I’m sure you understand the danger there. Your Highness, we cannot tax our way out of this. We must undertake the necessary economies. Immediately.”

“Have you brought this to my husband’s attention?”

The Marchesino sat back and closed his eyes. “Many times, Your Highness; so many times that he will no longer hear me on this.”

Yes, I understand that, Beatrice thought. Just as he refuses to hear me on the Pisa issue.

“Your Highness, I have come to you with considerable reluctance. But I think if you will review the figures you will see that the situation requires your intervention. I think you are the only one of us who can convince His Highness of the seriousness of the situation. This is like a rot, Your Highness. We can continue to assure ourselves that we see no signs of decay, until one day the entire structure collapses.”

“Thank you, Marchesino,” Beatrice said, feeling a twinge of pain. “I wish my husband were surrounded by more men like you. It takes a very good friend indeed to tell us something we don’t want to hear.”

When the door had been closed behind the Marchesino, Beatrice pulled her legs up and wrapped her arms around her knees, hoping that the brief pain would not recur. She realized that the Marchesino’s revelation shouldn’t have surprised her. Like a rot. Like her marriage. As partners in the business of state, she and her husband had drawn closer since the war--at least until the Pisa issue arose. But as intimate partners they had become steadily estranged since the French had left Italy the previous autumn.

There were as yet few outward signs of the decay. By all appearances, her husband had reached his apotheosis. He was, as he had predicted, the arbiter of all Europe, the idol of the ambassadors who came to him in an endless pilgrimage, the favorite subject of adoring poets (“In the heavens, one God; on earth, one Moro,” was a typically modest paean), the cynosure of the almost daily
feste
that celebrated Milan’s Golden Age. But the rot was there. Beneath this splendid, dashing exterior was a man whose doubts had become more obsessive, who could hardly step out of his rooms without consulting his wife or his astrologer. Yet as desperately as her husband solicited her advice, he often obstinately rejected it; as much as he needed her, he seemed to resent that need. Their lovemaking had become torturous, the distance between them growing with each struggle for intimacy, every attempt to reach him somehow pushing him away. Gradually the pain of trying had become greater than the pain of not trying. The night on which her baby had been conceived had been the first time they had made love in six weeks--and they had not made love in the months since. She was disquieted by the unlikely happenstance of her baby’s conception, and in her darker moments saw Fortune’s malice at work. But now that the baby had become more physically present inside her, she could feel the love growing, replacing the love that was dying. She prayed that this baby would be a girl. Especially with Bianca leaving her in just a few weeks. A daughter, her own little girl.

Beatrice looked out into the labyrinth, its geometry etched in the hard summer light, and saw the path before her. Without peace no other dream had meaning. She was determined to persuade the Emperor to bring peace to Italy, not another war. When the Emperor had left, then she would deal with this dreadful fiscal rot the Marchesino had exposed. She would bring her little girl into the world. And then, perhaps, she would try to see if there was anything left of the dream that had once been her marriage.

Il Moro motioned to his chamberlain to leave him alone with his guest. He shook her hand quickly and politely. Though he had dined alone in his rooms, he was dressed fashionably enough for a
festa,
in a high-collared blue silk tunic embroidered all over with meticulous little representations of compasses, clocks, astrolabes, and various other scientific instruments. A chain of heavy gold links draped his collarbones.