Light on Lucrezia (33 page)

“Love … or fear,” said Lucrezia grimly.

Girolama said: “I hear their voices in my sleep. I hear the chanting: ‘Duca! Duca! Duchessa!’ It goes on and on.”

“They loved you as soon as they saw you,” persisted Angela. “They take one look at you and catch their breath with wonder.”

“Rather is it surprise,” said Lucrezia, “because my hair is not serpents and I have not the eye of the Gorgon.”

“They love you the better because of the false rumors they have heard. You look … angelic. There is no other word for it.”

“You look at me with the eyes of a Borgia, little cousin; and I have come to believe that in Borgian eyes Borgias are perfect. Try looking with the eyes of others.”

Adriana came bustling in.

“Hurry!” she cried. “There is unexpected visitor. Oh … but look at your hair. Take off that robe quickly. Where is your striped morello? Oh, we shall never have time.”

“Who is it?” demanded Lucrezia, terror seizing her. She thought of Carracciolo, furious on account of the rape of his betrothed, vowing vengeance on the Borgias; she thought of Giovanni Sforza humiliated and insulted, determined on revenge.

Adriana was so excited she could scarcely find the words. “I had no notion that this would happen. Come … girls … quickly. Oh dear … oh dear … that we should be caught like this!”

“But Adriana, be calm. Pray tell us who the visitor is.”

“Alfonso is here. Your bridegroom is determined to see you before you make your state entry into Ferrara.”

“Alfonso …!” Lucrezia had begun to tremble.

She was aware of the distracted Adriana, searching for the right dress, of Angela, running a comb through her wet hair.

Then there were heavy footsteps outside the room, there was a deep voice commanding someone to stand aside.

The door was flung open and Alfonso d’Este stood looking at his bride.

He was tall
and broad, his eyes gray-blue in color, his nose fiercely aquiline, and there was about him an air of brutal strength.

Lucrezia hastily rose to her feet and curtsied.

Those watching thought they had never seen her look so fair and fragile as she did beside her future husband.

“My lord,” she said, “if we had had news of your coming we should not have received you thus.”

“Ha!” he said. “ ’Twas my plan to surprise you.”

“You find me with my hair wet. We have but recently arrived here with the grime of the journey upon us.”

“I’m not so shocked by grime as are most.” He took a strand of the hair in his hand. “I had heard it shone like gold,” he said.

“It does so when it is dry. I am grieved that it should be wet when you first meet me.”

He twisted a handful of it and pulled it gently. “I like it,” he said.

“I am glad it pleases you. As
I
hope to.…”

He was looking at her, and she knew him for a connoisseur of women; each detail of her body was considered, and now and again she would hear that short dry laugh of his. He was not displeased.

He looked at Adriana and the two girls.

“Leave me with Madonna Lucrezia,” he said. “I have business with her.”

“My lord,” began Adriana in alarm.

He waved his hand at her. “Have done, woman,” he said. “We have been married, if only by proxy. Begone, I say.” And as Adriana hesitated, he bellowed: “Go!”

Adriana curtsied and went, the girls following her.

Alfonso turned to her. “They will learn,” he said, “that I am a man who likes instant obedience.”

“I
have already seen that.”

He came closer to her and laid his hands on her shoulders. He was not fully at ease in her company; he never was in the presence of well-bred women. He preferred the girls he met in taverns or in the villages. He looked; he beckoned; and because they would not dare disobey—nor did they want to—they came at his bidding. He was not a man who wished to spend a lot of time in wooing.

She looked fragile, but she was not inexperienced, he knew that much. He had sensed that sensuality in her which appealed to his own.

He seized her roughly and kissed her on the mouth. Then he picked her up in his arms.

“It was for this I came,” he said, and carried her through the apartments to her bedchamber.

She was barely aware of the scuffling movement, the hasty departure of the girls, who had been waiting there for her.

All through the house they would be talking of Alfonso’s visit. She did not care. Nor did he.

When Isabella heard that Alfonso had paid an unceremonious visit to the bride she was furious.

She stormed into Alfonso’s apartments and demanded to know how he could have committed such a breach of etiquette.

“How!” cried Alfonso, who saw everything literally. “By taking horse and riding there.”

“But you are expected to greet her standing by the side of our father at the ceremonial entry.”

“I shall do so.”

“But to go ahead like some lovesick apprentice!”

“All men have some curiosity about the woman they are to marry, whether they are dukes or apprentices. If you want to blame someone for this, blame yourself.”

“Myself!”

“Certainly yourself. If you had not painted her so dark, made such a monster of her, I might have been ready to wait. As it was I had to satisfy my curiosity.”

“And, knowing you, I imagine it was not only your curiosity which was satisfied.”

Alfonso burst out laughing. “Would you have her fancy she had another Sforza for a husband?”

“Sforza was not as the Pope made him out to be.”

“He should have proved otherwise.”

“What, before witnesses?” Isabella laughed. “You would not have been diffident about proving your manhood, I am sure, no matter how many witnesses were mustered.”

“It is hardly likely that mine would have been in question.”

“Indeed not, when half the children in Ferrara have a look of you!”

“The people like to know a man is a man.”

“You are almost licking your lips.”

“She was adequate.”

“As any woman would be, for you.”

“Not any woman. I would not fancy one who sought to rule me as you rule Francesco.”

Isabella angrily flounced out of the apartment and went to ask her father’s permission to go ahead of the main party to greet Lucrezia.

“It will be a courteous gesture,” she explained. “Alfonso has already been to see her. Now your daughter should go. For, as you have no wife, your daughter must act as hostess.”

Ercole agreed because he knew it was no use doing otherwise.

“I will take Giulio with me,” said Isabella, “since she should be met by one of your sons. And as Alfonso has already behaved like a yokel at a fair, and Ippolito is a hostage of the Borgias, and Ferrante and Sigismondo are with the travelers, there is no one but Giulio.”

“Giulio will enjoy the journey, I doubt not,” said Ercole.

Lucrezia stepped on to the barge which was to carry her along the river into Ferrara. This was the flat land, the land of mists in the valley of the Po. Ercole had followed his ancestors in draining much of the land and making it fertile; there were no hills, and the climate was cold compared with that to which Lucrezia was accustomed. Many times she had been grateful for her fur-lined cape and remembered her father’s instructions to protect her face and body.

It seemed that when the wind was not blowing there were the fogs to contend with. There was a great deal in this new land to which she would have to resign herself.

But she had met her husband. She smiled, remembering that encounter. Few words had been exchanged. Alfonso made it clear that he had not come to talk. There was something brutal about him; the consummation with him had been quite unlike that with either of the other two husbands. With Sforza it had been shuffling and shameful because that was how Sforza had thought of it. With her first Alfonso, the Duke of Bisceglie, it had been a romantic fulfillment; with the man who was now to be her husband it was a quick and natural animal desire which without finesse or forethought must be immediately satisfied.

She believed she would satisfy him.

As she stood on the deck of the barge peering at the river bank, there was a cry, and looking ahead she saw a great golden galley coming toward them. It obviously belonged to some very rich person as it was decorated with cloth of gold.

Adriana came running to her.

“It is the
bucintoro
of the Marchesa of Mantua. She has come on ahead to welcome you to Ferrara.” Adriana’s eyes were anxious. She knew of the
enmity which Isabella d’Este felt toward Lucrezia, and she wondered whether she should warn her charge.

The barges were tied and Isabella came aboard. She had scored the first victory as Lucrezia had not yet put on the ceremonial dress in which she intended to greet the old Duke of Ferrara. And there was Isabella, catching every eye and dazzling it, in green velvet ablaze with jewels and a long cloak of black velvet lined with blonde lynx.

Lucrezia bowed and Isabella took her into her arms and kissed her cheeks; there was patronage, resignation and hatred in those kisses, and Lucrezia was shocked by their vehemence.

“Welcome to Ferrara,” said Isabella.

“I am honored by your coming to see me.”

“I wished to see you,” said Isabella. “My brother has been misguided enough to visit you already, it seems.”

Lucrezia smiled at the memory.

Brazen! thought Isabella exulting. She will soon learn that Alfonso’s passion is for every kitchen slut.

She had seen Elizabetta and turned to embrace her.

“My dearest, dearest sister! Elizabetta! How it delights me to see you!”

“Dear Isabella!”

“And the journey?” asked Isabella.

Elizabetta cast a glance in Lucrezia’s direction. “Exhausting … most exhausting.”

Lucrezia knew in that moment that Elizabetta and Isabella were allied against her. But she had caught sight of a very handsome young man who had leaped on the barge. He came to her, holding out both hands.

“Welcome! Welcome!” he cried. “We could not wait for you to come to us. We must perforce come to you.” She saw the mist on his brows and curling lashes. His enormous dark eyes were the handsomest she had ever seen. “I am Giulio,” he said with a smile. “The Duke’s bastard son.” His smile was so warm and admiring that she forgot the threatening hostility of Isabella.

She said: “These are my cousins, Girolama … Angela.…”

“Enchanted, enchanted,” murmured Guilio.

His eyes rested on Angela, and Angela’s on him.

Why, mused Angela, did I think Ippolito handsome? Only because I had not seen his bastard brother.

Isabella, realizing what was happening, came hurrying forward. They must not forget that she was in charge, so she gave orders that the barge was to proceed, as the Duke of Ferrara was waiting on the towpath a short distance away, to greet his new daughter.

The barge moved slowly forward; then through the mist Lucrezia saw figures take shape on the towpath. The barge stopped and she alighted.

She was led to the old Duke who stood erect to receive her. She fell to her knees on the damp grass; and, looking down on her golden head and wondering what sharp words Isabella had bestowed on her, the old Duke was momentarily sorry for her, she seemed so young and she was among strangers in a strange land.

“Come, rise, my dear,” he said, “you must not kneel on this wet grass.” He embraced her and went on: “We will not stand about; my barge is waiting here.”

But Alfonso was at his father’s side to greet her, and the smiles which he exchanged with her were those of two who had shared an experience after which they could no longer be strangers.

She boarded the Duke’s barge with him, her husband and his attendants. Isabella was not pleased by her father’s courteous care of the newcomer, but there was nothing she could do to prevent it.

She had to content herself with devising the little insults she intended to bestow during the wedding ceremonies.

And so the barge went on into Ferrara, while Alfonso’s cavalry rode beside it along the river bank; and as they came near to the Este villa on the outskirts of Ferrara there was a sudden booming of her husband’s cannon to welcome her.

Alighting, being received by that other Lucrezia, the illegitimate daughter of Ercole, and being conducted to her apartments where she was to spend the night before making her formal entry into Ferrara the next day, Lucrezia felt bewildered, wondering how she was going to fit herself into the new life which lay before her.

The next day dawned fine and bright, which was pleasing to everyone, as there had been much apprehension that the rain or mist would mar the entry into Ferrara.

Lucrezia was dressed in her wedding dress. Adriana was giving flustered commands to Girolama and a very lovely young girl named Nicola, who
seemed more nimble-fingered than Angela, for Angela had fallen into one of her pensive moods since setting eyes on Giulio.

Lucrezia looked beautiful when she was dressed in the mulberry colored satin with the wide gold stripes; the dress did not follow the Spanish fashion of which she had always been so fond, but was cut after the French style. The Pope had impressed upon her the need to show the utmost respect for their French allies as without them Cesare would not have made such a speedy conquest of Romagna, and it was possible that but for French pressure Ercole would have held out against the marriage. Moreover, it had been arranged that the French ambassador was to be her escort at many of the functions which would ensue. She must therefore continually think of placating the French, so it was a pretty gesture to favor their fashion in the most important dress in her trousseau. The wide sleeves, lined with ermine were French; so was the overcoat of cloth of gold. She wore the Este jewels—diamonds and rubies to form a headdress—and for this occasion her hair, seeming more brilliantly golden than ever, was unrestrained and flowed freely about her shoulders.