The Second Duchess (20 page)

There was much murmuring in agreement. My anxiety receded, but in its place I felt an odd sensation—as if I were no longer present in the room. “Barbara, Duchess of Ferrara” had become the iconlike figure captured in Frà Pandolf’s paint for the duke to possess and the court to admire. The duke stepped very close and examined the brushwork; the ladies and gentlemen made flattering remarks about the lifelike presence of the figure, the subtlety of the eyes, the dignity of the expression. I petted Isa’s ears again and again, and I felt her squirm with pleasure against my whalebonestiffened stomacher. At least she knew I was still there.

“And you, Madonna?” the duke said at last. “What do you think?”

I jumped, lost as I was in my strange thoughts. “I think—it is remarkable.”

“As do I. Very well, Frà Pandolf, I accept the portrait. Please deliver it to Messer Giovanni Pigna and apply to him for your fee.”

The Franciscan bowed. He had not looked at me once or acknowledged my presence in any way. I wondered if flesh and blood became meaningless to him once he had transferred their essence to canvas. But no, he had painted the duke, and the duke as his patron was still very much alive to him. Perhaps just my flesh and blood—female flesh and blood. It was a disturbing thought, and one that made the painter even more distasteful to me.

“Thank you, Serenissimo,” he said. “My brushes and colors are at your service forever.”

“In fact,” the duke said, “I do have another commission for you. I desire you to create a series of panels illustrating the life of the Holy Virgin, to be placed in the chapel here in the Castello. The duchess finds its present classical style of decoration not to her taste.”

The Franciscan rubbed his hands together; his foxy redbearded face lighted up with an artist’s pleasure at the thought of new creations. “A wonderful idea, Serenissimo. God will reward you for your piety. I can see them now, the Blessed Virgin at the knee of Saint Anne, and then the Annunciation—”

“Sculptures as well. Bronzes, I think, of the Virgin, Saint Anne, and Saint Elizabeth. Both the duchess and I admire the work of Claus of Innsbruck, although you are to make it clear to him that the statues are to be done in an ecclesiastical and not a classical style. Draw up a list and submit it to Messer Giovanni with your account for the duchess’s portrait.” The duke’s tone was one of clear dismissal. “Madonna?”

I put Isa down and handed her leash to Christine, then rose and put my hand on my husband’s wrist. Frà Pandolf bowed yet again, then straightened and gestured to the boys to draw the cover over the painting.

“He has captured you to the life,” the duke said to me as he led me out of the gallery. The courtiers followed at a distance. “As much as I dislike his manner, the fellow is a genius.”

“He certainly has an unusual talent.”

“There is something about the eyes. I had not truly grasped it until I saw it set down in paint. I believe you have depths, Madonna, you have not shared with me.”

I kept my steps even and my hand steady. “Depths, my lord? We have been married barely a month, and I suspect you also have depths you have not shared with me.”

To myself I damned the toadying Franciscan’s acuteness, and the duke’s discernment as well. I could feel my hand beginning to tremble, so I stopped, pretending I wished to take the puppies’ leashes from Christine.

“It is an illusion of the paint, my lord,” I said, taking great care with the looping of the scarlet leathers around my wrist—two loops for each, no more, no less. “That is all.”

“Perhaps,” he said. “But I do not care to think my wife is deceiving me.”

My knees went weak and my chest tightened. I remembered my conversation with Messer Bernardo Canigiani in the very chapel to be decorated with the work of Frà Pandolf for my sake. I remembered my determination to pursue the truth of Lucrezia de’ Medici’s death, so as to use it against my husband. I remembered my conversations with Mother Eleonora and Sister Orsola. I remembered the exchange with Nora.
Ask him then about the tournament at Blois. . . .

A litany of deceptions. What was one more?

“I am not deceiving you,” I said.

The duke did not look at me—a fortunate thing, because if he had, I might have lost my courage and confessed everything. “Oh, not in the common manner,” he said. “I grant you that. You have hardly had the chance, and in any case, you have a sense of your position and a decent dignity before the court. But there is something disturbing in that painting.”

We walked on in silence for a minute or two. I could hear the gentlemen and the ladies whispering behind us. Tristo tugged on his leash, his little claws clicking and scratching against the marble parquetry. “I assure you, my lord,” I said, half-expecting the devil to rise up and snatch my tongue away, “that I shall always make every effort to be completely straightforward with you.”

“Every effort?” His voice was cool, and something about it reminded me uneasily that he had secrets of his own. “Somehow, Madonna, I doubt that.”

Just then, Nicoletta Rangoni came running from the Saint Catherine Tower, and without so much as a curtsy or a proper address to either one of us, blurted out that Paolina Tassoni was dead.

 

 

I wonder if Nora’s somehow got hold of the truth, and there’s no life in his seed. He can wield his
cazzo
strongly enough, that’s for certain, but now that I think of it, he’s got no bastards. Don’t all great princes have bastards? If Alfonso does, he’s kept them so secret no one’s ever heard of them. And no one can ever keep bastards that secret.

T
he celebrations marking my wedding to the duke fused seamlessly into the festivities of Christmastide. I tried to enter into the spirit of the holiday, but could not throw off my grief and melancholy over Paolina Tassoni’s unexpected death or my fear that I myself could easily die in the same sudden, meaningless way. She had been entombed—too hastily? To me it seemed so—and once her funeral Mass was over, she might never have existed at all. A girl named Vittoria Beltrame, some sort of cousin of the Tassonis, was added to my household to replace her. She was openly the duke’s informer. I did not like her, but I had no choice in the matter.

Paolina had been so pleased over our small secret pact to deceive the duke.
Only let me stay, Serenissima, and I shall be more discreet. I swear it
. I could not forget the light in her eyes at that moment, or the dry texture of her hair as she lay dying, barely two hours later, on her pallet in the Saint Catherine Tower. Nor could I forget Maria Granmammelli’s warning. I struggled to eat the rich Christmas delicacies, the artistic marvels of the duke’s chefs and bakers; I did not always succeed. Katharina, Sybille, and Christine vied with one another to taste every morsel of food before I did. We took care to make it seem accidental so the duke would not see and question.

On Christmas Eve we fasted: we ate no meat, but our supper was made up of dozens of different fish dishes, rice with nuts and spices, sweet pastas, fruits, and a fabulous subtlety in the form of Saint George’s dragon breathing fire, the delicate curling meltedsugar flames painted with cinnamon and saffron and gilt. On Christmas Day we went to Mass; the rest of the day was given up to the performance of a magnificent chivalric fete entitled Il Tempio d’Amore, which featured even more elaborate machinery than the Festival delle Stelle, as well as dazzling verse, music and dancing, and an astonishing pyrotechnical conclusion.

The second day of Christmastide, Saint Stephen’s Day, there were tennis matches—the duke was one of the best tennis-players in Europe, and even in the winter sometimes arranged matches in the large courtyard of the Castello. After supper we gathered to hear Torquato Tasso recite excerpts from his romantical work
Rinaldo
. Crezia was everywhere, whispering with everyone, dancing with her handsome lover, and celebrating the season with a fine goodwill. Nora was present as well, as she had been for all the Christmastide events; apparently she was back in her brother’s favor for the moment at least. She seemed subdued, and she made it a point to avoid me; I wondered if she regretted her visit to me. I did not see her exchange so much as a word with Tasso. Had they quarreled? Tasso was the center of attention, his fine long-legged figure clad in amethyst satin, the color of poets; once again I was struck by the almost visible aura of brilliance and magnetism that surrounded him.

So many secrets. So many shifting loyalties. That night I was dressed in pale blue satin and silver lace, set off by a magnificent necklace of diamonds and sapphires. I seemed to be one with the richly dressed company, but in truth I felt outside it all. The duke, on my left, paid me no attention. On my right, Crezia leaned close, her lily-and-musk perfume so intense it made my head swim.

“See there?” she whispered. “That is Sandro Bellinceno, a great friend of Alfonso’s from his days in France, with his new wife. I can tell you tales about him.”

“He was presented to me at the Neptune banquet,” I said. “But I know little about him, other than the fact that he and his wife are newly wed.”

“He first came to Ferrara when Alfonso returned from France as duke, six years ago,” Crezia went on. “He and Alfonso had been battlefield comrades, and much was made of Messer Sandro transferring his allegiance from France to Ferrara and making his home here. But in less than a year he ran back to France.”

She paused. Clearly she expected me to coax her for details. I was not particularly interested in Sandro Bellinceno, but to please Crezia I said, “And why did Messer Sandro go back to France?”

She took a sip of her wine. “Because he was fool enough to bed with that little strumpet from Florence.”

That caught my attention. The terms she actually used were unfamiliar to me, as my tutors had not thought to acquaint me with the Italian vernacular of the gutter. From the general context, though, I had no difficulty getting the gist of her accusation. I assumed a shocked look and whispered, “No!”

“Oh, yes.” Crezia drank more wine. “He was besotted with her. She was only toying with him, as she toyed with all the men.”

“Does the duke know? If so, I am surprised Messer Sandro dared show his face again.”

“I was surprised as well when he returned. Alfonso welcomed him like a lost brother, however, providing him with another place here at court and even marrying him to a rich wife so he could pay his debts. She was in Lucrezia de’ Medici’s household, the wife— she was so desperate to come back to court, she would have married a goat.”

“The duke could not have known,” I said. “Men will forgive many things, but cuckoldry is not one of them.”

“I am not so sure. Sometimes I think the men Alfonso soldiered with and jousted with in France were more family to him than we are. What is a wife, particularly a wife for whom one feels nothing but disgust, between men who have fought and killed together?”