The Second Duchess (19 page)

“Serenissima.” It was Nicoletta Rangoni, who had been left on duty in the Jupiter chamber. “Forgive me, Serenissima, but there is a lady here to see you.”

“Who is it?”

She shrugged, one of the surpassingly expressive gestures of the Ferrarese. “She would not say, Serenissima. She is masked and wrapped up in a cloak and hood, and speaking in such a way as to disguise her true voice—but from the quality of her silks and furs, she is a lady of the court.”

I did not think to be afraid, not here in the heart of the Palazzo del Corte; I was only torn between annoyance and curiosity. “Very well,” I said. “Katharina, you may go. Nicoletta, tell your mysterious visitor I will see her. Then go to the Saint Catherine Tower and fetch news of Paolina.”

They went out, and after a moment a woman came in, dressed all in black, masked and heavily veiled, with a hooded cloak wrapped about her. It was almost too much, as if she were affecting some sort of theatrical costume. Nicoletta was right about the quality of her garments—the black gown was silk, the black veil silk as well, and the black velvet cloak was lined with gleaming sable. She was a lady of the court, and a highly placed one at that.

“What is this mummery?” I said.

She put back the veil and removed the mask. To my astonishment, it was the duke’s younger sister.

“Madonna Nora! What—”

“Hush!” She cut me off crossly. “Why do you think I am wrapped up in mask and cloak and veils as I am? I do not want anyone to know I am here. Particularly Alfonso.”

“But you are always perfectly welcome to come here openly, and I cannot imagine why the duke would object.”

Her dark eyes narrowed; she had used belladonna, I was certain, to make them look larger and more brilliant. She needed no vermillion on her cheeks, as her natural color gave her an unhealthy flush. “Alfonso objects to everything I do. And in any case, if I came here in the ordinary way, I would have half-a-dozen ladies with me, and your ladies would be crowding around as well, listening to every word. I want to speak with you privately.”

I could not help but think her dramatic entrance swathed in black was more likely to create whispers than an ordinary visit, ladies or no. She was playing some game, and I wondered what it was. “Of course you are welcome. Please, seat yourself, be comfortable. I suppose you do not wish me to call for refreshments?”

She threw off the fur-lined cloak and like a sulky child left it lying on the floor. “No, nothing.”

“Very well.” I seated myself in one of the two gilded leather chairs arranged in front of the window and gestured encouragingly for her to take the other. “Now tell me your secret.”

She did not sit, but began to pace about the room. Her flesh and clothing must have been drenched in her perfume of orange blossoms, roses, and musk, because the scent was chokingly strong each time she came close to me. “I suppose you noticed I was not present for the Festival delle Stelle.”

More and more mystifying. “I did. I hope you were not ill?”

“Ill!” she burst out. “No, I was not ill. I was locked up at Villa Belvedere, and it was Alfonso who arranged it, and I hate him. I would kill him if I could.”

Holy Virgin. Even sisters were not wise to say such things about reigning dukes, and I knew to my sorrow there were secret passages and silent listeners everywhere. “Madonna Nora, guard your tongue, I beg you. Sister or no, if you say things like that where anyone else can hear, you will find yourself locked up for good, and in much less comfortable circumstances than the Villa Belvedere.”

“Why do you think I am saying it only to you? He wants to keep me away from Tasso. He told me a few days of solitary fasting and prayer would tame my flesh. Do you know why he has not arranged a proper marriage for me? He thinks I am too frail, too often ill, to be a proper wife. And then he dares say to me my flesh must be tamed.”

I remembered her whispers and laughter, that morning in the orange garden. “Perhaps,” I said, with an unseemly but irresistible sense of satisfaction, “he only feared there would be talk. Laughter, perhaps, behind your back.”

I might have saved myself my sin of vengefulness, because she did not even hear me. “And then!” she went on. “And then he told me he could not trust me to act with decorum at the Festival delle Stelle. And meanwhile Tasso is spending all his time with that little slut Lucrezia Bendidio. Oh, I
hate
him.”

It wasn’t entirely clear whether she hated the duke, the poet, or both—probably both. I said cautiously, “I understand you are distressed, Madonna Nora. What I do not understand is why you have come to me.”

She threw herself in the chair beside me and grasped my wrist. I flinched back, but she held on, her fingers bony and cold as a merlin’s claws. “To hurt him in return,” she said. “Emperor’s daughter! Emperor’s sister! He dared to marry you, and it is nothing but a mockery. Do you know what they whisper about him?”

“Madonna Nora, repeating gossip to me will not harm him.” I struggled to free my wrist, panicked and at the same time feeling a sort of sick eagerness to hear what she was going to say. “It will give you no revenge, only—”

“He is not a whole man, they say. He will never father a child.”

I stared at her. I was not sure I had heard her correctly.

“The great Duke of Ferrara!” she went on scornfully. “Soldier and horseman and athlete! Has he managed to consummate his splendid imperial marriage, Serenissima? Some even whisper he is incapable, ever since—”

“Be silent at once.” I found my voice at last, and my strength as well; with one violent twist I wrenched my wrist from her grasp and rose to my feet. “How dare you, Madonna Nora? The duke is your brother and the reigning prince of Ferrara. No matter what he has done to antagonize you, it is treason and lèse-majesté for you to impugn him in such a despicable way. I will hear no more of it, Madonna—you may go.”

She smiled like a satisfied cat and stood up, stretching slowly and sinuously. “Reigning prince,” she mocked me. “Lèse-majesté. Fine words. Just tell me, my proud new Habsburg sister—is your marriage a complete one?”

A sweet is always improved by the addition of a little spice.
...

“I will not dignify that question with an answer,” I said. “I have asked you to leave.”

“He had a bad fall, jousting in Blois,” she said. She lingered over every word, savoring each one. “It was spring, April, oh, perhaps ten years ago when he was a young man. He was galloping in the lists before a tournament, and his horse fell with him—fell full upon him and crushed him. The king of France himself rushed to his aid, they say. You know the king of France is our cousin.”

I was so angry, my hands were shaking. “One would think a king’s cousin would not lower herself to such contemptible innuendos,” I said. “And—”

“Alfonso wrote to my lady mother at once and claimed it was nothing,” she continued. It was as if she were part of a ghastly dream from which I could not make myself awaken. “But it was one of those injuries men never speak of, except in whispers. And even knowing he cannot breed an heir, he has dared to marry, not once but twice! You will be a childless wife, Serenissima, and I tell you now—the fault will not be yours.”

“I do not believe you.”

“Ask him.”

“Are you mad? I will say to you one more time, Madonna Nora—be silent and go. If you do not, I will call my ladies and my guards, and all your secrecy and disguisings will have gone for naught.”

She laughed—and why not? She had achieved her purpose of revenge upon her brother by casting an unthinkable slur upon him. She had not dared to do it publicly, but was it not almost as good for her to plant the poison of doubt in his wife’s breast? For one endless moment I hated her so much, the air shimmered before my eyes and my hand came up, as if—But no. I would not strike her. That would be lowering myself. And I would not hate her. I would pity her. Tasso would never love her, and even if he did, the duke would never permit her to take the poet as her lover.

And my marriage was a complete one. Were the marks of the duke’s passion not clearly visible to her upon my face, in my heavy eyes and reddened lips? I longed to say as much to her, but stooping to defend the duke’s capability would only give substance to her claim.

“Go,” I said. There was nothing else to say.

Quite casually she gathered up her fur-lined cloak from the floor and replaced her mask and veil. “I want you to hate him, you see,” she said. “Who is he to think he has the right to love, when he denies it to me?”

“You are a fool to listen to those who whisper against your brother, Madonna Nora.” Even as I said it, the irony of my words did not escape me. Was I not listening to every whisper I could find about the duke and his first duchess? “And I assure you, nothing you say will make me hate my husband.”

“We will see.” She went to the doorway with much rustling of silk and another overpowering waft of musky perfume. “In a year or two, when you are still childless and he throws it in your teeth that the fault is yours, remember what I have told you. Ask him then about the tournament at Blois.”

MY LADIES WERE abuzz with curiosity, of course, but I forestalled their questions as they dressed me. I went to Mass, where the duke greeted me publicly with his customary chill courtesy. I felt awkward at first, remembering what had passed between us in the night and Nora’s bitter accusation, but the duke’s unruffled calm helped me summon up my own self-possession. This, then, was something else I would be required to learn as a wife—the separation of the night from the day, secrets from public things, darknesses from daylight.

After dinner, we collected our perpetual train of courtiers and made our way to the portrait gallery—not the hidden niche where the glowing portrait of Lucrezia de’ Medici dreamed away the days behind its velvet curtains, but a long gallery in the upper level of the Castello. We found Frà Pandolf there already, with two boys in the habits of Franciscan novices holding a canvas. It was covered. How like the fellow to arrange a dramatic unveiling.

“Good day, Frà Pandolf,” the duke said. He took his seat in one of the two chairs provided, and gestured to me to take the other. Our households remained standing, clustered behind us: two of the duke’s secretaries, several gentlemen, my ladies Sybille and Domenica, and Christine with Tristo and Isa on scarlet leather leashes.

The Franciscan did not look at me but bowed like a dandy to the duke. “Good day, Serenissimo, and I thank you for the privilege of waiting upon you. Such a pleasure it was to execute your commission—the hours flew by.”

“I am sure they did,” the duke said. “Your conversation with the duchess on the subject of your previous commissions must have particularly sped the time.”

I sat still, looking straight ahead. Frà Pandolf, sycophant that he was, only laughed. “Oh, yes, so it did,” he said. “I am honored—”

“Enough.” The duke held up his hand. “You could paint as well as ever, I think, if your tongue were to be cut out. Show me your portrait of the duchess.”

Frà Pandolf appeared to take the duke’s threat as a fine jest. Perhaps he thought his genius gave him license. Perhaps he and the duke had sparred in such a way before. In any case, he laughed again and gestured to the boys holding the canvas. They lifted it higher, and he drew away the covering with a flourish.

He had finished it perfectly, every detail and jewel of my wedding dress faithfully represented. Katharina had worked for hours repairing the damage it had suffered. I felt humiliation burning in my cheeks; the duke did not move or say anything, and when I looked at him sidelong, his dark face was expressionless. The ladies all gasped and whispered with excitement, and even the gentlemen murmured among themselves. Tristo and Isa, catching the excitement in the air, began to bark.

“Quiet the dogs.” The duke’s voice was cool but not unkind, considering he had just threatened to cut out Frà Pandolf’s tongue. I took Isa up into my lap, and gestured for Christine to take Tristo.

“Step back,” Frà Pandolf said to the boys. “Allow the Serenissimo to take in the long view.”

“No.” The duke rose and stepped closer to the painting. I watched him, trying to calm myself with stroking Isa’s velvety russet ears, measuring their length one against the other. What would he see in the face of the woman painted there? Would he see the secrets in her eyes, the calculation behind the soft convexity of her lower lip? Would he denounce me instantly for daring to pursue the truth?

“You have caught the color of her hair precisely,” he said. He moved to one side and looked at the canvas from another angle. “The composition is excellent. The light appears to shine through the paint, and the tones of her skin are perfect.”