Duchess of Milan (73 page)

CHAPTER 60

The outer doors to the Duchess of Milan’s rooms were blocked by four guards armed with bladed pikes. When they refused to step aside and let her pass, Isabella confronted the young officer who commanded them. “Her Highness has sent for me.”

The young man removed his cap. “Ah, that may be so, Your Highness, but Messer Ambrogio has instructed me that no one is to be admitted except the Duke of Milan when he arrives.”

“Then let me in to talk with Messer Ambrogio.”

The young man pulled at his cap. “Ah, Your Highness--”

“Very well. I will return in five minutes with my own men, and then you will have to decide if you wish to shed blood simply to avoid obeying the Duchess of Milan’s request.”

The young man pulled at his cap a moment longer. “Ah, then, I will see if Messer Ambrogio will admit you.”

Isabella nodded, and the young man unlocked the doors. As he started to slip inside, Isabella shoved past him and darted into the darkened antechamber. Behind her the officer softly called, “Ah, Your Highness ...”

The bedchamber was stifling. Everything on the bed was tinted by the fire in the hearth: the embroidered white coverlet, the white pillows that propped Beatrice’s head, her white chemise, the plaster-like hand that lay at her side. And her face. Eyes closed, a white marble bust, the blind witness to a final, apocalyptic conflagration.

Isabella approached the bedside, hoping that somehow this wasn’t Beatrice, that this was some cruel jest. Something moved beside her, and she threw up her hands in terror. Messer Ambrogio stepped from the racing shadows.

“She’s dead,” Isabella said.

Messer Ambrogio seemed curiously relieved to see her. He shook his head. “Not dead,” he intoned in his eerie, soughing voice. “But beyond the help of man. Only God can heal her now.”

“What about her baby?”

“Born dead.” Messer Ambrogio wrung his hands nervously. “I don’t know why they cannot find the Duke of Milan. If you will stay with her, I will go see.” Without waiting for a reply, he wrapped himself in his cape and walked off.

Very quietly Isabella sat down on the bed beside her cousin and took her hand. It was shockingly cold, as cold as dead stone. Beatrice’s arm was limp. After a moment her eyelids fluttered and opened. Her eyes were dull, but they caught the glow of the fire.

“Eesh,” she whispered. Her lips formed a slight smile, and only then did Isabella notice their ghastly pale lavender hue. “I told you my baby would kill me. But I never knew I would kill my baby.”

“You didn’t kill your baby. And your baby isn’t going to kill you.”

Beatrice again smiled slightly. “Lift the covers. Look.”

Isabella lifted the covers and shuddered with horror at the same moment that Beatrice shivered violently, apparently from cold. Beatrice’s chemise had been pulled up to her hips. What appeared to be her entire, fully ripened uterus lay in a bloody pulp between her legs. Isabella forced herself to look again. Only then did she realize that the obscene thing wasn’t flesh but a bundle of blood-soaked rags.

“Oh, God, Toto. What have they done to you? Oh, God. I have to change these.” Isabella removed the sopping rags and threw them onto the floor. She looked around frantically and then pulled up her own skirts and ripped big swatches of cloth from her chemise. She packed the improvised dressing between Beatrice’s legs.

“God, Toto. I’m going to send for a real physician. And my midwife. We have to do something.”

Beatrice shook her head with sudden animation. “No, Eesh. They can’t ... I just want them to leave me alone. I’ve been bleeding since the baby came. He didn’t cry. A little boy. A beautiful little boy. But he couldn’t cry. When I started bleeding I knew it wouldn’t stop. Not this time. The priests have been here. I didn’t want them here when ...” She turned her head in agony. “It’s so sad . . . knowing. I’ll never see my little boys again.”

“You will. I’ll get them.”

Beatrice shook her head. “No, Eesh. Please don’t. Please . . . I want them so much. But don’t leave them this memory.” Beatrice closed her eyes, and her face twitched and convulsed. Then her eyes shot open and she looked at Eesh with a final fury. “Eesh. You were right. It’s all a lie. Life ... is a lie. Love ... is a lie. I had to tell you before . . . You were right. Now I know your pain.”

Isabella sat silently for a moment. Then she wrapped her blood-smeared fingers around Beatrice’s cold hand. “No. It wasn’t all a lie, Toto. I loved you. I truly did. I don’t regret that love, Toto.” The corners of Isabella’s mouth moved subtly, as if forming a perplexing, bittersweet revelation. “Because I loved you, I finally learned how to love my little girls. I do love them, Toto. In a way I never thought I could.” She leaned over Beatrice’s blanched face. “That is the legacy of our love. A love that will endure after we are all gone.”

Beatrice closed her eyes. “Eesh. Forgive me.”

“I have,” Isabella whispered. She hesitated. “Can
you
forgive me?”

“Yes.” Beatrice attempted a smile. “Forgive her too, Eesh. Your mother.”

Isabella said nothing.

“Eesh. Can you . . . bring me . . . my baby?”

It was a moment before Isabella realized what she meant. “Oh, Toto, I don’t think you should.”

“Please, Eesh. I never held him.”

Isabella squeezed Beatrice’s hand and got up. When she turned she thought Messer Ambrogio had come back in. But the man in the doorway was Il Moro. Isabella looked back to Beatrice. Il Moro walked slowly and silently to the end of the bed.

“Lodovico,” Beatrice half whispered, half mouthed.

“Do you want him to leave?” Isabella asked.

Beatrice shook her head. Isabella and Il Moro looked at one another for a moment. Then Isabella turned and went out.

Il Moro fell to his knees beside his wife’s bed. He clutched desperately for her hand. Then he pressed his face into the covers and sobbed.

Finally Beatrice whispered again, “Lodovico.”

When he lifted his head, Il Moro’s face was violently contorted, as if all the emotions he had suppressed for so many years had been allowed a single hideous expression. “God, I would give my soul to undo what I have done! You were my only love. My one love. God, I was coming back. I promise you I was coming back! I am back!” He gasped for air. “I have pledged to end the liaison tonight. I will never see her again. She was a trinket, a bauble, and to my eternal shame I put aside my true treasure for her. All that has ended. Oh, merciful God, I cannot live without you. Oh, merciful God. My one true love. Oh, merciful God.” Finally his head fell, and he cried into the covers again.

When he had quieted she spoke to him, her voice drawing on some final, deeply hidden resource. “Lodovico. No more lies. Only the truth. However painful.”

He raised his head.

“You knew Galeazz had Gian poisoned.”

He could not look at her. He stared at the fire and whispered his answer. “Yes.”

She closed her eyes and didn’t move; only the pressure of her hand indicated that she was still alive. Finally she marshaled her voice again. “Was any of it real? Did you ever . . . love me?”

He intently studied their clasped hands, his eyes dark and still. “There was a time when you were my own soul,” he said softly. “And I could not live with that.” He looked at her, his features struggling for control and dignity. “Beatrice showed our poet the face of God. But only after Dante had the courage to climb out of Hell. I never had that courage. I was afraid to let you take me to the light. I was afraid that if you saw me in the light you could no longer love me.”

“I still . . . ,” she said with difficulty, “love you.”

“I know,” he said, leaning forward. “I know,
amore.”
His lips brushed against hers.

Il Moro held his wife’s hand until Isabella came back. The baby was wrapped in white linen, so tiny that he seemed scarcely more than a bandaged hand. Isabella placed him on Beatrice’s breast. His face was perfect, white and peaceful, a little alabaster angel.

“I ... have to . . . hold him.”

Il Moro was too inert with grief to release Beatrice’s hand. “Let her go, Lodovico,” Isabella said gently. She arranged the little body in the crook of Beatrice’s free arm.

Beatrice tried to look at her third son, her eyelids fluttering as she slipped toward a timeless sleep. “I’m taking him . . . with me,” she whispered, her words the faintest exhalations. “To see ... the face ... of... God.”

They lay there together, madonna and child, while the flames in the fireplace diminished to glowing embers. For almost an hour Isabella and Il Moro knelt by them silently, knowing the truth but refusing to move, waiting for some miracle.

Finally it came. The dying fire cast a rosy flush across the two dead faces, and for a moment they might have been alive.

Extract of a letter of the Venetian diplomat Marino Sanuto to the Signory of Venice. Milan, 3 February 1497

... I have never before witnessed such an expression of spontaneous grief by an entire people. A city that knew nothing but pleasure has put aside all pursuits save mourning. Remarkable indeed is the widespread conviction here that the Duchess of Milan’s death signifies that Fortune, who looked with such favor on the Milanese and their Duke, has now turned away. . . .

For the two weeks following his wife’s death Il Moro confined himself to a single shuttered room, refusing to admit the light of day into his presence, or even his children, much less his ministers and the ambassadors who desired to convey the condolences of their lords. He emerged on 17 January, but he has commanded his ministers to speak of naught save the business of state, and never to mention the Duchess of Milan’s name in his presence, or make any allusion that might remind him of his recent bereavement. . . . He has shaved his head and wears a cloak of poor black fustian like a monk. . . . The greatest portion of his time is spent at Mass in the church where his wife is buried beside the tomb of his daughter. . . . His grief is beyond understanding. . . .

CHAPTER 61

Extract of a dispatch of Count Carlo Belgioioso, Milanese ambassador to France, to Lodovico Sforza, “Il Moro,” Duke of Milan. Amboise, 8 April 1498

. . . His Most Christian Majesty’s poor health prevented him from taking part in these tennis matches, but as His Majesty was desirous of observing them, he took himself and his Queen to the gallery overlooking the courts. The doorway to this gallery is quite low, and King Charles, who ordinarily has little to fear of such hazards, neglected to lower his head. His forehead struck the stone lintel in such a fashion that the noise was quite audible, but after picking himself up he went on in and observed the matches, talking as if nothing had taken place. An hour later, however, he quite suddenly pitched over backward and lay there, unable to speak. . . . The physicians were summoned but could effect nothing. . . . Shortly after dark he gave up his soul. . . .

... I fear we are more likely to lament the ill fortune that so recently deprived King Charles’s little son of his life. I know of no challenge that will be presented (and legally there is none) to the succession of the First Prince of the Blood, Louis Duc d’Orleans. I am already informed by those who fear Louis’s ambitions that he has declared that his first act as King Louis XII will be the conquest of the Duchy of Milan. . . .

Extract of a letter of the artist Leonardo da Vinci to international traveler and raconteur Benedetto Dei. Florence, 20 April 1500

. . . after fleeing to Como to elude the French, I have finally come here, my peregrinations having in the interim taken me to Mantua, Venice, and Rome. I live like so many in Italy of late, without the sure knowledge of what the next day will bring. . . . Two days ago a prodigious number of my fellow exiles came from Milan, to say that Il Moro has after great exertions to preserve his state and freedom finally been made captive by his enemies. . . . It is remarkable to reflect, my dear Benedetto, that this man who kept faith with no one was finally undone by the treachery of so many: his former allies Pope Alexander and the Signory of Venice, who conspired to divide his territories with the French; his castellan Bernardino da Corte, who so infamously surrendered the Castello to the invader, when it might have resisted for better than a year, so efficacious and ingenious were the bastions I had erected for its defense; and lastly the Swiss mercenaries whom he had employed for his protection, who sold him to his enemies for 30,000 ducats. Thus has Il Moro been deprived of his liberty, his state, and his fortune, and not one of his projects has been brought to completion. . . . Among the others who have suffered is the former Duchess Isabella, whose little son was taken captive by the French, to prevent him from making a claim to the throne of Milan. Il Moro’s two sons have had better fortune, as they have received sanctuary from the German Emperor. ... I say and believe that when Il Moro brought the French over the mountains, he created a breach through which the sea of Italy’s woes now pours in endless and unceasing torrent. The lords of Italy endeavored to build an arrogant and grandiose edifice of their ambitions, but it could not last, for it aspired to the heavens on a foundation of lies. O earth! They should have left for their posterity a monument of true nobility and endurance if they had but sought less with more worthy means, for a small truth is always better than a great lie. . . .

Extract of a dispatch of Benedetto Trevisiano, Venetian ambassador to France, to the Signory of Venice. Lyons, 2 May 1500

Today, before two o’clock, Il Moro was brought into town accompanied by his guard. . . . He looked around him with no expression at all, as though he had determined to reveal none of his feelings despite the catastrophe Fortune had visited upon him. But he was very pale and appeared ill ... and his arms and whole body were shaking. . . .

... he will be well guarded during the coming week, until the iron cage which will be his dwelling day and night is made ready. . . .

All men in high places should heed the miserable fate of this lord, whom many held to be the greatest man in the world. When Fortune sets you atop her wheel, she may at any moment bring you to the ground, and then the closer you have been to heaven, the greater and more sudden will be your fall. . . .