His Last Duchess (18 page)

As Lucrezia crossed the drawbridge, several men she did not recognize, but who she realised obviously recognized her, were crossing in the opposite direction—away from the Castello.

“Signora.” One of them swept his woollen cap from his head and touched a hand to his forehead. The others followed suit. Lucrezia nodded in acknowledgement, hoping desperately that she did not look guilty. She lifted a hand to her hair; the hasty knot she had fingered into place only moments before was already loosening and several long wisps were falling around her face. She tucked them behind her ears. There were frankly inquisitive expressions on all their faces, but Lucrezia felt sure they would not think to question their duchess.

She hoped their curiosity was no more than momentary.

Feeling exposed and vulnerable as she passed them—as if, Lucrezia thought, she had not only no clothes but no skin either—she forced herself to walk calmly up through the Castello. She realised that she was shivering; it might not be purely the excitement of the night, she thought—her dress and shift were both damp—and by the time she reached her chambers she felt chilled through.

Catelina was already up and dressed, and was busy mending the hem of one of Lucrezia's night shifts. She lifted her head from her work as Lucrezia banged open the door to the little studio, her eyes asking the questions she was evidently restraining herself from uttering.

“Good morning, Lina,” Lucrezia said.

The eloquent curiosity in Catelina's gaze did not falter. She tucked the needle carefully into the lawn of the shift and laid it on her lap.

There was a moment of silence.

Then Lucrezia felt her face pull itself outwards into a smile, a smile that became a breathy little laugh, perilously close to being a sob. She put her hands over her mouth.

“Oh, Signora!” Catelina crossed to her and put her arms around her. A moment later she stood back, frowning. “But, my lady, those clothes are wet. Let me help you out of them right away.”

***

The sun had passed its midday height. Franco Guarniero held the door open as Lucrezia walked into the small reception chamber behind the chapel. She flicked her heavy skirts to one side and sat down in an ornately carved, cross-framed chair.

“I am so sorry to inconvenience you, my lady,” Guarniero said. His black eyes were anxious, and he ran long fingers through the shock of white hair that was now standing up like a bird's crest. He said, “Were my lord not absent, I should not have dreamed of bothering you, but…” He tailed off, both hands held up in apology. “The gentleman arrived unexpectedly, and he has particularly requested a moment's audience with the Signore. My lord is not yet returned, and I have had no word from him as to a date for his arrival…”

“Don't worry, Franco,” Lucrezia said, struggling to maintain an impassive expression. Her features seemed possessed of an animation quite separate from her own intentions; she was fighting her mouth's wish to keep stretching itself into a smile, and she wondered if the strange sensation around her eyes was a physical manifestation of the fact that they might be “sparkling.” Having had little more than an hour's sleep, she knew she must be tired, but rather than the expected heaviness of fatigue, she felt instead lightheaded and uncomfortably restless. “Do you know what he wishes to talk about?” she said.

“I am afraid not, my lady. The gentleman is a priest, though.”

“Well, we will soon discover what he wants. Show him in, Franco.”

Guarniero disappeared, and returned some moments later, accompanied by a thin young man in a black cassock. Lucrezia rose to her feet and held out her hand. Guarniero bowed and retreated, closing the door behind him.

“I am so sorry to inconvenience you, Signora,” the young man said, in a thin voice, taking the proffered hand and lowering a rather wet mouth to her knuckles, “but I was asked particularly to speak with the Signore, and told most specifically not to deposit a letter or to leave a message with a servant. But as my lord is not here…”

“Please, do not distress yourself. It is no trouble,” Lucrezia said. Beneath what she hoped was a semblance of outward composure, her mind was on Jacomo. She eyed the young man before her, and began listing comparisons. This man was bony, where Jacomo was lean; he had thin, pale, nervous fingers, where Jacomo's hands were strong and square and brown—her nipples contracted at the thought; this man's colourless hair was neatly limp, in poor contrast, she thought, to the untidy tangles through which she had laced her fingers last night. And he was a priest! What could he know of the joyous world she had discovered a few hours before, the extraordinary wild country to which she had been taken in company with her painter?

“…and I have been sent here straight away with the news, Signora,” the young priest was saying.

Lucrezia started out of her daydream. “I'm so sorry, would you explain that again? I want to make quite sure I understand the message properly.”

He seemed a little surprised, but smiled and said, “As I told you, Archbishop Verdi has managed to secure the audience with His Holiness requested by the duke, and he wanted the message relayed to the Signore as quickly as possible. If the Signore would care to present himself in Rome during the first week of September—perhaps just after the feast of Saint Gregory,” the young man said, “His Holiness will be anticipating his arrival, and, I am told, looks forward to discussing the issue raised by the Signore when he met Archbishop Verdi in Firenze two weeks ago.”

Lucrezia's thoughts raced. Issue? What issue? Alfonso had, as usual, said nothing of his reasons for travelling to Firenze. Was he in search of an annulment? Was this what lay behind the increasingly frequent trips away from Ferrara? Until this moment she had thoughtlessly presumed him to be in search of something…well, something rather more physical. Her heart skipped a beat and she took in a long, steadying breath. “Thank you for coming so quickly to pass on so important a message, Father,” she said. “And I can quite understand His Grace's wish for confidentiality.”

The young man rose to his feet and bobbed a nervous bow. “My lady, I should not wish to detain you any longer than I must. Thank you for your gracious attention.”

He stopped abruptly, his bony back still bent, as Franco Guarniero appeared. Franco, Lucrezia thought fleetingly, must habitually listen at doors, as he always seemed to appear exactly when needed. The young priest straightened, patted his limp hair still flatter, and smoothed the creases from the front of his cassock.

“
Mio
padre
, if you are ready to leave, perhaps you would care to accompany me,” Guarniero said.

The thin, black-clad figure nodded self-consciously and, with another brief bow to Lucrezia, followed the steward from the room.

Lucrezia began to pace the floor like a caged animal. Alfonso was seeking an audience with the Holy Father. What other reason could there be but a request for an annulment? Might this be what she so longed for? Was she to be legitimately released from purgatory? She stood still for a moment, as her thoughts tumbled over each other, then she crossed the room in a couple of strides and began to run, past the chapel towards the North Hall. Within sight of the closed door to the hall, though, she stopped. Jacomo had said to stay away today; he was not expecting her until tomorrow. She had no idea who was in the hall—if she surprised Jacomo and he was not alone, he might unwittingly, she thought now, react in such a way as might arouse suspicion. She stared at the closed door for a moment, then turned back, and made her way up through the castle to her chambers, walking slowly now, her thoughts frantic.

Catelina was nowhere to be seen when she arrived. She crossed to her bed and lay down upon it, pulling a blanket over herself. Fatigue swept over her as she curled up on her side; her legs were leaden and immovable and her eyes dry. A tangled mess of feelings—of euphoria, of exhaustion, of chaotic curiosity and a vertiginous sense of precariousness—swirled around her like water around a breached dam. She could grasp none of it. It began to slip away from her and she slid into dreamless sleep.

***

“My lady?”

Lucrezia opened her eyes. Closed them again.

“My lady?”

Catelina was crouched on her heels beside the bed, one hand stroking the hair away from Lucrezia's forehead. “You've been asleep for hours, my lady. I was beginning to worry about you—I thought you might have caught a chill from that damp dress. But you're not hot. I don't think you have a fever.”

Lucrezia sat up.

“I brought you a bit of food, my lady. I thought you might prefer not to have to venture downstairs after everything that has happened.”

Lucrezia took her hand and squeezed it. “Oh, Catelina, I bless the day you tripped in that kitchen! You can help me eat this, and I'll tell you everything that happened last night. Franco interrupted us this morning before I had had a chance to tell you much at all. Well…” She stopped, remembering a number of things that she might perhaps
not
share with her waiting-woman.

Catelina laughed. “You just tell me what you would like to tell me, Signora.”

They walked through into the studio and Lucrezia leaned into the deep window recess. She took out the candles that stood ready to be lit as the light faded, and opened the casement. The sun was reddening. “Come up here with me, Lina,” she said.

Catelina waited while Lucrezia climbed into the recess, then passed up the platter of sliced meat, dried figs, ricotta cheese and grapes. Lucrezia held the plate while Catelina scrambled up to join her. They sat with their arms around their knees, heads together, gazing out at the slowly dropping sun. And, only now realising how very hungry she was, Lucrezia ate a few mouthfuls and then began to tell Catelina
almost
everything.

There was a muffled commotion audible somewhere below in the Castello, but Lucrezia was so involved in her story that she took little notice of it. Voices were raised, feet rushed hither and thither, dogs barked and doors banged. The door to the little studio opened and Lucrezia looked around. Perhaps it was because she had been discussing Jacomo that she half-expected it to be him in the doorway. Certainly she was smiling warmly, and her cheeks were glowing as she turned to see who had come in.

But, of course, it was not Jacomo.

Jacomo never wore black.

It was Alfonso.

Returned from Firenze at last.

He was clearly not pleased to see her. He seemed, she thought, taller than ever. His eyes were huge and black and they glittered in the low yellow light from the window. His face had been coolly expectant, but had darkened menacingly when he saw what she was unable to prevent: the fading of her smile.

Alfonso looked at his wife. A sweet spot of colour had risen in her cheeks and her hair was disordered, as though she had been asleep. Sleeping in the daytime? He wondered briefly if she were unwell. That would solve everything, he thought, imagining her untimely demise and his consequent—counterfeit—grief. Would it be counterfeit, though? Would he mourn her?

The entrancing smile that had so prettily lifted the corners of Lucrezia's mouth and shone in her eyes as she had turned towards him had vanished as she recognized him, and the pictures in his mind disappeared with it, pushed from his head by the surge of a black anger that tasted of blood. He looked from his wife to the little Cafaggiolo slut who sat beside her, hunched with anxious embarrassment, her eyes wide and wary. Jerking his head towards the door, he said to the girl, in barely more than a hiss, “Get out! Wait in the other room!”

He watched as she scrambled untidily from the window-ledge and disappeared into the bedchamber.

Lucrezia jumped down to stand with her back pressed against the wall.

“Exactly what do you think you are doing?” Alfonso said.

She tried to smile again. “I was watching the sunset,” she said.

“With a
servant
?”

“Yes. When did you arrive? Have you been back long? Are you—”

Alfonso cut through her questions. “Have you no sense of propriety at all?” he shouted. He saw her flinch, knew he had never raised his voice to her before. His eyes stung—it was as though he had forgotten how to blink.

“Does the antiquity of the name of Este mean absolutely
nothing
to you, Lucrezia, despite having been a part of it for nearly two years?”

She said nothing.

“I have lost count of the number of times I have told you that fraternizing with the menials who are paid merely to keep us in bodily comfort is…is…
inexcusable
!” Alfonso could hear his voice growing in volume. His face felt as though it were swelling. “Whether it is the head cook, the stewards, the courtiers or your uneducated whore of a waiting-woman.” He paced the room, feeling the iron studs in the soles of his boots catch on the floorboards, then stopped, facing away from her, one hand gripping the back of a chair. “I cannot tolerate a liaison such as I have just witnessed. She will go.”

“No!” There was panic in Lucrezia's voice now. “No—you cannot—”

He turned slowly to face her and she fell silent. “Oh, I think you will find that I can, madam,” he whispered. The colour drained from her face. Her breathing was shallow and rapid—almost panting. He watched the upper curve of her breasts rise and fall for a moment, and then she said, her voice cracking, “Please, Alfonso, don't do this. Please—let her stay.”

He ignored her. “The first time I laid eyes on her I saw that she did not know her place—I was astounded that your parents had allowed you to bring a raw, inexperienced
kitchen
girl
as a waiting-woman—and this merely confirms that neither she nor you have any sense of what is and what is not acceptable.” Alfonso glared at Lucrezia, a muscle in his jaw twitching. “Not only has she always been an utterly unsuitable attendant for the mistress of the House of Este, it seems now that you see this vulgar little slut as a more intimate confidante than you do myself. It cannot continue. She goes tonight.”

Lucrezia's eyes were big and dark. She stared at him, not speaking, stifling jerky little sobs and biting her lip. After a moment's silence, he heard her say in an almost soundless whisper, “Please, Alfonso, please let her stay.”

“A replacement will be found. For tonight, at least, you shall have no one. Except myself.” He paused, and then, remembering a snatched conversation with Guarniero some moments before, he said, “Franco tells me you received a visitor earlier today. What did he want?”

Lucrezia did not answer.

“Who was he and what did he want, Lucrezia?”

He saw her mouth open and close, as though she were trying to speak. At last she said, in a small voice, “He was a priest. I don't remember his name. He brought a message for you from someone called Verdi. Archbishop Verdi.”

Alfonso's scalp contracted. “What…what was the message?” The words pushed out through a throat suddenly tight.

“He said that—that this Archbishop Verdi has managed to secure the audience with His Holiness you had requested. He will see you in Rome during the first week of September.”

“What else did he say?” Alfonso's face was stiff and cold. How specific had this message-bearer been? Did she now know everything? His mind raced—Lucrezia and the little whore on the window-ledge, laughing together about his incapacity, about how she now knew she had the power to bring down the duchy.

It was not to be borne.

He saw her open her mouth to complete her answer, but knew he could not endure to hear it. He strode from the room before she could speak.

The kitchen slut was standing by the bedchamber door, shivering, her face swollen with tears. For a moment he imagined the humiliating revelations that Lucrezia had been sharing with her with such obvious delight just now—pictured the images of his impotent self that must, even now, be in the forefront of this girl's mind as she stared at him—and then, sickened by a wave of shame and a gut-churning anger, he said, “Take your belongings and be gone from the Castello before nightfall, if you value your continued existence.”

His skin crawled as he saw the fear in her eyes, and he turned away from her. He wrenched open the door, and saw Folletto, standing in the corridor outside, ears drooping, tail between his legs. Not even pausing to speak to the dog, Alfonso grabbed the scruff of his neck and, with a snarl, pulled him back and out of his way, kicking out behind him. The wolfhound yelped and cowered as Alfonso's boot thudded into his side.

Alfonso strode away to the staircase, and stood irresolute in the hallway. The blood surged in his ears; he could hear little else. What would best serve to quiet this tumult? Perhaps if he were to go down to the dungeons…

No. It would not do. Not tonight. He had to see Francesca.

He ran down to the stable block and, ignoring the head groom's offers of help, saddled Farfalla himself. He swung up onto her back with such haste that the mare shied, ears flat to her head, her hoofs skidding and slipping on the cobbles. Alfonso reined her in tightly, pulled her head round and kicked her into an untidy trot. Still with no word to any of the stablemen, he and the mare left the yard.

***

Francesca Felizzi stood in her doorway, looking up at Alfonso on his horse.

He said, “Come down to the
villetta
as soon as you can.”

“When did you get back from Firenze?”

“About an hour ago. I'll go to the house straight away. Be there.” He did not wait for a response, but wheeled the horse around and disappeared at a taut canter. Francesca drew a long breath and held it as she watched him leave. Then, puffing it out again, she went back into her front room.

***

As she neared the little house, she pinched colour into her cheeks, and worried her lower lip between her teeth to redden it. Wriggling one hand down inside her bodice, she repositioned her breasts, pulling each one upwards, then tightened the front-fastening laces to hold everything in place.

She paused for a moment on the threshold of the
villetta
. Alfonso's expression had been dark and closed, and Francesca was in little doubt that he would not be in a particularly good humour. She might, she thought, be in for a rough time. It had, after all, happened before. One hand on the latch, she hesitated, then opened the door.

Alfonso was standing by the fireplace. He had lit a fire and was staring moodily at the flames, hands clasped behind his back. The latch clattered as the door closed, but he made no sign that he had heard it.

Francesca took off her coat and laid it over the chest that stood at the end of the bed. She raised her hands to the laces of her bodice and, eyes fixed upon Alfonso, began to undo the knot.

“You took your time,” he said at last.

“I came as soon as I could. I don't have a horse.”

Alfonso made a noise in his nose, but otherwise offered no comment.

“Did you have a successful trip?” Francesca said, flipping the laces out through their eyelets.

There was a long silence. Then Alfonso reached up to the shelf above the fire, picked up a small glass pot, containing a handful of wilted wild flowers, and flung it at the opposite wall, where it shattered. The flowers flew in all directions across the room and droplets of water glittered in the firelight as they fell with them.

“With a servant!” he shouted. “With a damned
servant
! I am away from the Castello for a mere matter of
weeks
and she
dares…
she…” He stuttered to silence, visibly shaking, quite incoherent with a rage Francesca had never even glimpsed before. His face was bloodless, his eyes black pits. If she had been asked, at that moment, she would have said that she thought he looked quite mad and, for the first time ever, she was afraid of him. Deciding that she would probably do well to begin as soon as possible, she moved to stand in front of him and reached for the fastening of his doublet.

Alfonso stepped back from her, and turned away. Francesca wondered if he might have decided to leave—to forgo his pleasures and return to whatever was happening at the Castello—when he wheeled back round without warning and lashed out with a backhanded swipe, with the full force of his arm. It caught Francesca across the side of her head. She staggered and fell to her knees.

Staring at him, she held her burning cheek with one hand, rigid with shock. He might have raised a hand to her many times, slapped her, laid stripes across her buttocks with a belt, but it had always been in play, always in the pursuit of pleasure. He had never hit her in anger before. In fact, she realised, she had never seen him lose control before.

“Why? Why hit
me
? What have I done?” she muttered.

For an instant, Francesca saw a blankness in Alfonso's face, as though he really did not know why he had hit her, but then he spoke. “Your immediate reliance upon the physical mocks me, Francesca. Ever the harlot—you still think you can attempt to solve my problems just by baring your breasts and opening your damned legs. But, I tell you, your wanton lubricity will no longer suffice.
She
,” he hissed the word, “has taken from me now any pleasure I ever took in uncomplicated carnality.”

His voice was not much more than a whisper, but the hairs on the back of Francesca's neck stood up. He caught her by the arm, pulled her towards him and snatched up her other wrist. Gasping, she looked into his eyes and was shocked by the black emptiness she saw there. The glittering, pleasure-seeking lasciviousness she would normally have expected to see had gone.

She was suddenly truly afraid. “Let go, Alfonso,” she said, trying to sound calm, and trying to pull her wrists from his grasp. He did not reply and did not let go. Then, with a stream of oaths, his anger burst over her. Despite her struggles, he walked her backwards to the big bed with ease, and, holding both her wrists in one hand, he pushed her skirts up to her waist and tugged at his laces with the other.

Never before, even at his wildest, had Alfonso overwhelmed her like this. Every time she gasped in a breath, every effort she made to ease her discomfort from under his unthinking, thrusting weight, he hit her. And he was hitting to hurt. Her gasps became incoherent sobs; she struggled for a while longer, but in the end she stopped fighting him and numbly waited for it all to finish.

She had no idea how long it lasted. A minute, an hour—she did not know. But finally, as a guttural cry escaped him, Alfonso was gripped for a moment by what seemed to Francesca to be close to a convulsion. His weight upon her became unbearable—she could not breathe. Fighting again—this time for air—she pushed at his shoulders, arched her back upwards, twisted her hips in frantic panic.

And then it was over.

In one movement, it seemed, he pulled away from her and got to his feet. Released from the suffocating weight of him, Francesca rolled onto her side, bent her knees up to her chest and started to cough, dragging air back into her lungs in ragged sobs. Alfonso stood by the fire, refastening his laces and adjusting the disarranged sleeves of his doublet. He pushed a hand into a pocket in his breeches and brought out a small bag, saying, “Be here tomorrow at noon, Francesca. I will need to see you.”

He dropped the bag onto the chest. It clinked as it landed.

Francesca closed her eyes and turned her head away from him. She heard the door-latch clatter, the scrape of hoofs on the cobbles outside, and then silence.

A log in the fire shifted, crumbled and fell.

She sat up, touched her cheek with the tips of her fingers and winced. Running her tongue along her lip, she tasted blood. Then, feeling giddy and disoriented, as though she had a fever, she rose from the bed, went to the chest and picked up the little bag of coins. She held it for a moment, then with a wordless, yowling cry, she flung it across the room. The contents scattered over the floor.

***

“Have you been crying?”

“Your dress is torn, Mamma.”

“What did you do to your eye?”

Francesca bit the inside of her lip to quell the tears that threatened again, and found a smile from somewhere to reassure her little girls.

“It's nothing—I tripped and banged my face. Has it left a bruise?”

Little fingers gently probed and stroked, and four small arms encircled what parts of their mother they could reach. Francesca felt inexpressibly comforted.

They lit candles, scrambled a fire together and cooked pasta and beans. Food, warmth and the mindless chatter of her daughters finally began to banish the hovering tears, and as the girls played and bickered happily in front of the fire, Francesca reflected on what had happened. She knew that her relationship with Alfonso had irrevocably changed.