His Last Duchess (8 page)

There was a moment's uncomfortable silence.

“Well, Alfonso prefers to organise these events himself,” Lucrezia said awkwardly. She did not add the thought, which was loud in her head, that she was longing—
longing—
to be given a role to play in the castle beyond that of “newly acquired artistic treasure,” but that Alfonso seemed determined to prevent her taking any active part in the running of the household.

“Do you mind that?” Giovanni asked, frowning.

“A little, I suppose.” Lucrezia's smile was tight and rather apologetic. “Perhaps it's just that he thinks I shouldn't wish to do it myself.”

“Have you asked him?”

Lucrezia shrugged. It had only been a week since Alfonso had made his opinions on the matter quite plain enough for her not to think of questioning him any further.

***

The
Castello
kitchens
are
bigger, better equipped and far more efficient than the old and well-worn rooms at Cafaggiolo but, to Lucrezia's mind, the rows of stark new red-brick ovens and the almost windowless walls have a great deal less charm. She stands in the doorway, watching the cooks, the vintners, the sweat-soaked scullions, intent upon their myriad tasks. For several moments, in all the noise and the acrid blue smoke-haze, no one notices her. Then a young boy—no more than twelve, Lucrezia thinks—nudges his neighbour and jerks his head in her direction. One by one, like deer at a watering-place newly aware of a possible danger, they look up from what they are doing and stare at her. The activity of the kitchen hangs suspended
.

Lucrezia's face flames. “Please,” she says, “please don't stop what you are doing on my account. I only wished to acquaint myself with my new surroundings. Please, carry on.”

They return to their abandoned tasks, backs bend once more over pots and spits, but one bulky man steps forward, smiles and bows, and Lucrezia smiles too.

“My lady,” he says, “we are honoured to see you down here. Welcome to Ferrara. Is there anything in particular you wanted to see?”

Lucrezia
shakes
her
head. “No—I had just hoped to explore the castle a little further today. And…” She hesitates
.

“My lady?”

Biting her thumbnail, Lucrezia says, “I
am
a
little
hungry…”

The
heavy
figure
stands
with
his
big
fingers
spread
across
his
hips
and
laughs. “Well, if my lady is hungry, we must do something about it straight away.” He indicates with an arm that she should accompany him across the kitchen. They cross the big, crowded room together
.

“Now, what would you like, Signora?” he says, reaching into a bowl. “A peach, perhaps?” He throws the peach up in the air, catches it—one-handed and surprisingly deft—then holds it out to her with a bow and a swirling flourish, like a conjuror completing an illusion. “Or why not have a small bowl of ricotta and honey? We have some lovely sweet ricotta fresh in from the dairy this morning.”

Lucrezia
has
just
begun
to
decide
which
of
the
profferred
foods
might
be
the
most
tempting, when she senses a sudden rigidity in her companion. She turns and sees Alfonso in the doorway she has just left. The disapproval in her husband's face is naked
.

“Madam, a word, if I may,” Alfonso says. It is hardly louder than a whisper, but it carries across the noise of the kitchens with ease. Lucrezia excuses herself, then joins Alfonso, who takes her by the arm—his grip is painful—and shepherds her away. “I am more than a little surprised to have found you in there, Lucrezia,” he says
.

“I've been exploring the Castello.”

“I thought I made it quite plain that any meal requests, any menu planning, should be relayed to the kitchens by way of Guarniero…”

“Indeed you did, sir. I was not—”

“It matters little what you were
not
doing. What concerns me is what you
were
doing.”

Lucrezia's throat tightens. Alfonso's eyes are glittering. She senses a cataclysmic rage hovering behind his closed expression—the air between them almost crackles with it, like unheard thunder on a heavy evening—but his voice, when he speaks again, is quiet, and only the faintest tremor betrays his discomposure
.

“Perhaps,” he says, “it would be best if you continued to leave the minutiae of domestic organisation to me. Familiarity such as I have just seen displayed will inevitably lead to inefficiency, and to liberties being taken by the staff. You need not concern yourself with the running of the kitchens.”

The look he gives her is frightening: blank and unreadable. His gaze flicks to her mouth, rests for a moment upon her breasts, then returns to her face. He says coldly, “I do not expect to see you in the lower regions of the castle again, Lucrezia.”

***

She turned back to Giovanni, her thoughts in fragments, as a gust of wind rattled the leaded lights of the bedchamber window.

***

The crowds cheered as the armour-clad figure pushed up his visor and smiled at Lucrezia. He tilted his lance upwards and held it out towards where she sat in the gallery. Lucrezia reached forward, a long green ribbon in her hand, and tied her favour in a bow around the end of the lance. To her surprise, this felt embarrassingly intimate, and a flush dragged colour into her cheeks. Seeing this, the knight's smile broadened, but then Lucrezia saw him glance towards Alfonso. The slow-blinking gaze was fixed impassively upon the knight's face; his smile faded and he reined back, the lance now horizontal, the handle end tucked in against his hip.

“Why did you choose him?” Alfonso asked quietly, as the knight neck-reined the big grey horse round to the left and jogged noisily back towards the far end of the tiltyard to a ripple of applause, the little green ribbon fluttering cheerfully at the tip of his lance. “Why him, and not any of the others?”

Lucrezia was unsure how to answer. Still hurt by Alfonso's continued dismissal of her attempts to establish herself in the castle, she now found herself fighting not to let her resentment show in her voice. “I liked the look of him,” she said. Would her answer anger him? She lifted her chin a fraction of an inch and added, “And I liked his horse better than the others.”

Alfonso's mouth twitched. “As good a reason as any, I suppose. What say you, Signore?” He turned to Giovanni.

“Crezzi has a good eye for a horse, sir. That Percheron is quite something.”

“It certainly is. And Zudio is a spectacular tiltsman—I've seen him on several occasions. You chose well,” Alfonso said to Lucrezia. She managed a smile.

The combatants edged their horses into position, one on either side of the striped railing at the two furthest ends of the tiltyard. The great animals sidestepped and snorted; one pawed the sand like an angry bull, tossed its head and snatched irritably at its reins. Their riders shifted position and edged their weapons into place.

To one side of the yard, halfway between the two combatants, a small podium had been draped with the Este colours. On this stood a boy. In his hand was a flag—the Este arms—raised up as high as he could reach.

The crowd's murmur died to silence. Each combatant lowered his visor.

Lucrezia's fingers were so tightly interlaced they were aching.

The boy's face puckered into a grimace of determination as he swept the flag downwards.

Both horses began to move. Picked up speed. Their hoofs thudded into the sand, both lances now lowered to the horizontal. As they neared the centre, Lucrezia found herself hunching her shoulders and screwing her eyes into slits, pushing her body back into the seat as though to protect herself from the collision.

She gasped as Zudio's lance found its target, shattering upon impact; his opponent lurched backwards, but found and held his balance. A surge of noise mushroomed upwards from the crowd. Lucrezia clapped. Giovanni whooped. Alfonso said nothing, but leaned forward and rested folded arms along the edge of the gallery.

The riders jogged back to their positions and readied themselves once more. Someone reached up and tied Lucrezia's green favour to the end of Zudio's new lance and he shifted the weight of the weapon, edging the handle back against his hip. The big Percheron's front feet left the ground and hung in the air for a second. Lucrezia held her breath. Seeing the great arched neck and the muscled legs as the hoofs thudded down, she was suddenly awed by the horse's power, sensing the vigour and energy and raw
maleness
in the scene before her, that maleness that was still so tangled and confused and distressing in her bedchamber. As Zudio and his opponent charged again, it seemed to Lucrezia that their outstretched lances were mocking her and Alfonso. Was her husband thinking the same as she was? His eyes were bright, his gaze riveted on the two combatants. The hot, hooking thread slithered down through her belly as she wondered if this exhilarating exhibition of such uninhibited, thrusting power might finally break through her husband's inexplicable barrier. Perhaps this would be enough to—

Giovanni whistled and whooped again.

The crowd burst into applause.

Lucrezia turned her attention back to the tilt.

Zudio was pushing his visor up. His right hand, in which he held a second shattered lance, was held high. The Percheron was once more on its hind legs, and, sprawled on the sand on the far side of the spiral-striped balustrade was the other knight, already pushing himself awkwardly up onto his elbows. His horse, reins flapping loose, was trotting away towards the furthest corner of the tiltyard, where several young men were poised to recapture it.

“A resounding success for the chosen combatant, Lucrezia,” Alfonso said, clapping enthusiastically. He looked sideways at her, his gaze moving from her eyes to her mouth and back. Lucrezia smiled at him.

***

“She's quite a find, Este. In the event, the Medici have done you proud.”

Agnese de Rovigo said nothing as her husband leaned towards Alfonso and thus offered his delighted approval of the new Duchess of Ferrara. Alfonso could see, however, that Agnese's black eyes were fixed upon Lucrezia, who was at that moment happily engaged in conversation with one of the courtiers.

“Not your usual type, Alfonso,” she whispered, as her husband then turned to speak to another guest. “What was it you called her family just before your betrothal? ‘
Nothing
but
a
long
line
of
mercantile
upstarts
,' was it not?”

Alfonso raised an eyebrow. There was, he thought, more than a touch of venom in the remark, and he was forcibly reminded of the relief he had felt some years before, when the unexpected arrival of Francesca had put an end to his liaison with this woman, the admittedly beautiful, but rapaciously demanding Contessa de Rovigo. He did not believe she had ever fully accepted the cessation of the affair—certainly, to look at her now, one would have thought her the wronged wife rather than the discarded mistress she actually was. But, he supposed, as he glanced across at Lucrezia, Agnese was quite right. This boyish, copper-haired, unsophisticated girl—coming from a line of upstarts or not—was indeed unlike any woman he had ever bedded.

Or had at least attempted to bed.

A tangle of images patchworked in his mind: the pounding hoofs of those two horses this afternoon; Lucrezia's small fingers tying the favour around Zudio's lance tip—and her charming confusion upon realising the symbolism of what she was doing; the admiration on the faces of his guests tonight at the sight of his new duchess; the silky skin of Lucrezia's breasts under his fingers; the great curved neck of Zudio's Percheron…the pictures pushed in one after the other. He resolutely refused to let himself think of his discovery of his duchess in the kitchens the other day: she had been smiling up at that great lump of a cook as though she admired him…and at least two of the menials had been eyeing her breasts. It was not to be condoned. But a shameful, childish part of him secretly rejoiced at the thought of bedding a woman he knew was desired by his underlings. Alfonso began to feel a creeping certainty that tonight, at last, in the face of this almost universal approbation of his choice of bride, he would finally be able to overcome the incomprehensible obstacles to consummation that had so far so horribly hindered their union.

Almost universal approbation.

Agnese de Rovigo's naked jealousy was obvious—but this merely fuelled his certainty. He compared Lucrezia to the debauched sybarite who was now positively scowling at him; though he had thoroughly enjoyed the many energetic hours he had once spent coupling with the
contessa
, he had come to understand, as did every man who took Agnese into his bed (and there were many), that despite her beauty, she was at heart little more than an unthinking trollop. Alfonso felt as suddenly proud of his own aesthetic sensitivities as he felt sorry for Agnese's ignorant cuckold of a husband. He turned to the
contessa
and laid a hand on her arm. He felt her flinch but kept hold of her sleeve. Stroking her wrist with his thumb, he said quietly, “You are quite right, Agnese. Not at all my usual type. But, then, one's taste improves with age, so I've been told.”