Leonardo's Swans (28 page)

Sleep is a gift; dreams are light and forgettable. She can’t remember where she is or what she is doing when she hears dozens of horses’ hooves pounding against the brick courtyard of the Rocchetta just outside her window. She is torn, wanting to remain where she is, wherever she is, because it is so pleasant, like the color pink or soft summer air. That is all she can hold on to of her reverie as her eyes pop open in the dark against her will and she is ripped out of her dream state. She pulls the blanket high up around her chin as a defense against the clamor. She had gone to bed past midnight and has been asleep for hours, she is sure. Could some army have invaded the Castello in the early-morning hours? The walls are high, the moat is wide, and Ludovico’s forces eternally vigilant. The Rocchetta is the private sanctuary of the family. Many a soldier would have to meet his death—or be bribed—before an intruder could enter this part of the Castello.

Just the same, Isabella finds her wrap in the dark. Her eyes begin to adjust, identifying forms—the tall fat posts of the bed, the long table on which her hats sit in a row like ladies at cards, and the outlines of the vaulted windows high in the walls. She hears men in the hall, low, desperate voices coming toward her. She throws her arms around her chest, pressing her back against the bedpost. She has to struggle for a breath.

Isabella’s earliest memory is this: rebels bursting into the palace quarters of the Este family in the dark hours while Duke Ercole was far away from Ferrara. Her mother, long, wavy hair and nightgown flying behind her, plucked the children from their nursery beds and took refuge in the fortress. The would-be kidnappers were on their heels as they fled capture, killing all who were helping the duchess and her children escape. Mother and children spent three terrifying days protected by a small guard until Ercole reached Ferrara with his soldiers and put the rebels down. Isabella still remembers running along the dark hall, her tiny sweaty hand clutching her mother’s silky gown, trying to keep up with Leonora, who held little Beatrice in one arm and her infant son in the other. The sounds and images are never far from her conscious thoughts; the shrieks of the servants, the clash of armor as their guards tried to hold back the rebels while the royals escaped, the cries of people dying as she ran away, and the terror of letting go the piece of silk in her little hand, her only lifeline in that black tunnel of a hall.

Gasping now for a breath, she forces herself to stretch one hand before her like a blind man. With the other clutching her shawl to her chest she makes her way to the door, cracking it open. The shadow of a torch dances along the wall, undulating toward her like a snake on its belly. Above the din and clatter, she recognizes the voice of Ludovico, shouting orders. Relieved, she rushes into the hallway to intercept him.

He looks like a giant in his riding clothes. Black feathers plume from his broad-brimmed hat; a cloak of wool trimmed in thick fur hangs on his wide shoulders, swishing about him as he strides forward. The men surrounding him are cloaked too, but their garments are flung back around their necks and their hands are on their swords, slung low at the waist. Are they under attack?

Isabella stops running when she sees Beatrice, arms held by two servant girls, step into the hall from her chamber. Beatrice is bloated and awkward and falls like a rag doll into Ludovico’s arms. One of the girls explains that the duchess has taken a potion for sleep.

“I was so worried,” she mutters, looking up at her husband. “No letter from you yesterday.”

“Go back to bed, my darling. All is well.” Ludovico looks down the hall, spotting Isabella as he pets his wife. “Look who is awake! Isabella will share a cup of wine with us and hear our gossip.” Ludovico kisses Beatrice tenderly all over her face as he speaks to her. “You must rest. Your time is near.” When he lets her go, he leaves an imprint of the dust of the road on her pale blue shawl. Beatrice looks relieved, falling back into the arms of her attendants.

Ludovico motions for Isabella to follow the men down the hall and into his study. She walks in the wake of their scent—the sour sweat of men and horses clinging to their heavy clothes. They must have ridden long and hard, she thinks, to have mustered this odor.

The silent machinery that runs the Castello has sprung to motion. Everyone but Isabella is dismissed at the door. Valets hold out their arms to catch Ludovico’s heavy coat and hat before rushing the garments to the laundry staff. Inside, wine has arrived, and with it, tubs of water and fresh towels to cleanse the grime and dust from his face and hands. Lamps are already lit, along with a great fire, softening the hard edges of Ludovico’s heavy furnishings, and illuminating his face, glowing with sweat and what looks like fury.

Isabella keeps her distance. Ludovico’s foul smell and foreboding arrival invite no outstretched arms, no tender, familiar kisses. She stays on the other side of the room, arms folded about her chest.

“Damn that pock-faced lying hunchback shit-sack of a French king.”

Ludovico wipes the back of his neck with a towel and throws it on the floor.

“And that pale, quivering Florentine eunuch. A disgrace to his father. May they both keep Satan company for eternity.”

Isabella waits for him to elaborate.

“Betrayed, manipulated, lied to, deceived. Done in by an idiot and a conniver.” Ludovico takes a long drink of wine. A tiny stream of red liquid trickles from the corner of his mouth into his long hair. He freezes, back arched, dropping his goblet, crying out in pain. “Oh, my back, my legs!” His throws his hand into the curve of his lower back. “I cannot ride the way I used to, Isabella. Help me to my chair.”

Isabella allows Ludovico to lean on her shoulder as she guides him to the big leather chair into which he sinks.

“Are you ill?” she asks.

“No, just pinched in the back and bowed and stiff in the legs. We have ridden day and night all the way from the Tuscan hills.”

Isabella notices that Ludovico has grown heavier. His belly spreads out about him as he leans back, stretching his feet in front of him. She sits directly opposite, looking into his face for clues of what has happened. He narrows his eyes and licks his lips, and she thinks for a moment that he looks like a great black snake.

“We have been at the camp of the King of France. He lied to us to get what he needed. And we have been betrayed by Piero de’ Medici, son of the late Lorenzo, who is a blight on his family’s name.” Ludovico leans forward, wincing with pain as he signals with his hand for Isabella to come closer. “None of this must reach your sister’s ears. Not yet. Not until she has delivered the child. She is hearty and healthy, but also delicate in her way. She is very excitable.”

“Brother, as of yet you have told me nothing, so that there is nothing to share but some name-calling.”

“That craven idiot Piero de’ Medici, who is unworthy of the title of Prince of Florence, literally threw himself at Charles’s feet, offering him control of Florence, Siena, and Pisa, in exchange for—for nothing! To avoid invasion! Can you imagine? Lorenzo the Magnificent must be vomiting in his tomb.

“I was a witness to it all, Isabella. I could not disguise my horror. You should have seen the looks on the faces of the French. They were stunned. This fool simply handed them a substantial part of Italy, three of its strongholds. Even the arrogant French were hard-pressed for a response.”

“They did not refuse him, certainly.”

“No, they certainly did not. I saw de’ Medici afterward. He came groveling to me, saying that he had tried to meet me on the road to welcome me but had missed me. I was with some French officers, so I could not tell him exactly what I thought of him. I made some excuses to Charles and left Sarzana immediately.”

“But you yourself have sided with the French against Naples. Now Piero is siding with the French against Naples as well. Without Lorenzo to counsel him, perhaps Piero thought he was following your example.” Isabella knows that these incriminating words should not have escaped her tongue, but she could hardly take them back.
Who invited the French into Italy in the first place?
That is what she wants to ask. Why is he so upset that others are simply doing as he did? And yet, he looks confused and vulnerable, like a man whose mind has made too many calculations and cannot believe the numbers he has ended up with.

“I sided with the French to contain Naples’s aggression. King Ferrante was in deep conspiracy with the Borgia pope to trample over the whole of Italy and turn us all into papal states. Surely you understand that. Your own father sides with us. But now Charles has gone too far. It is worse than you know. His nephew, Louis, Duke of Orleans, is sitting near my borders, reminding everyone that his grandmother was a Visconti.
He
is claiming to be the legitimate Duke of Milan. Charles is not agreeing with him—not yet. Nor is he silencing him.”

“What are we to do, Ludovico? Are we to become French?” Isabella is wondering how quickly she can get this information to Francesco; if there is a pair of hands in Milan that she can trust to carry the letter. It seems to her that this is the end of them all.

“From the road, I sent letters in secret to Venice, to your husband and your father, to the King and Queen of Spain, to Emperor Max, and yes, even to the damned Pope, though all of us despise him and pray daily for his demise. I have informed them of the French menace and the latest developments and have proposed that we form an Italian League to protect ourselves. I am under no illusion that these can be permanent alliances, but we must stop Charles. And Louis. And we are going to need our combined armies to do it.”

“But the French are marching on Naples and they believe that you are their ally.”

“We shall let them believe that for the moment. We cannot stop them from attempting to take Naples. I sent letters to Charles and all the French ambassadors congratulating them on their various conquests around the world and assuring them of my loyalty. I wished them good fortune. Charles has no reason to doubt me. At his request, I left Galeazz in his service. He rides everywhere alongside the French king. For show, I suppose.”

“For show?” Isabella knows that Galeazz is loyal to Ludovico, and would pretend loyalty to the French if his prince demanded.

“As you know, they couldn’t have Francesco,” Ludovico says, a little too venomously for Isabella’s taste. “For some reason, a dashing Italian soldier at his side is essential to Charles’s plans.”

Isabella is trying to decide whether a mind capable of these plots is also capable of murder. She knows that she had been taken in by Ludovico; that he had cultivated her affection—she, just sixteen when they had first met—in anticipation of requiring her loyalty, not to mention the loyalty of her husband and her father, at a later date. Oh, she has no doubt that he was attracted to her, as she was drawn to him. They have shared—still share—a love of all things beautiful. She has glimpsed into his soul. It is not black, but full—of ambition, to be sure, but also of the desire to improve and achieve and to make the world more pleasing to live in. Ludovico is a forward-thinking man, as the Magistro once said, a man who believes in the future. How far he is willing to go, or has gone, to ensure that the future belongs to him, Isabella is not certain.

“I have also proposed that Francesco be named captain general of the Italian League’s army. Could you bear it if your husband commanded all the armies of Italy?”

Oh yes, she could bear it, if it served the greater good of all the city-states and not just the ambitions of Ludovico Sforza.

“If the Doge of Venice sanctions the appointment, how could he refuse?” Isabella does not want to get into a discussion of Francesco’s various loyalties. At times, he could be as convoluted as Ludovico in his thinking.

Ludovico tosses back the rest of his wine, gulping greedily. For the first time this evening, he takes a deep breath, relaxing his features. His pinched eyebrows settle back into their perennially amused arched position. He wipes the wine from his lips with his sleeve, revealing a slight grin. It is as if he has suddenly decided to enjoy it all.

“My dear, with the French practically encamped on the doge’s lawn, I seriously doubt he will question my wisdom.”

FROM THE NOTEBOOK OF LEONARDO:

On the cruelty of men: A prophecy

There will be seen on earth creatures fighting each other incessantly, and there will be very heavy losses on both sides. The malice will know no bounds. And by reason of their boundless pride and arrogance, they shall wish to rise toward heaven, but the excessive weight of their limbs shall hold them down. There is nothing on earth or under the earth that they will not have chased, molested, or destroyed. That which is made in one country shall be taken away to another.