The Second Duchess (42 page)

Her face was as purple-black as a ripe plum, swollen to bursting, the mouth fixed in a terrible tongue-thrusting grimace. The smell was ghastly. The light of the gaoler’s torch flickered over her face, and for a moment her eyes seemed to open, her mouth to work. I started back with an involuntary cry, and dizziness overtook me.

I awoke to the duke’s voice, low and cold.
You dared open the door to the duchess without making certain. . . .
Another voice, stammering, frightened, self-exculpatory.
Didn’t know . . . never guessed she would . . .
The gaoler, then. I opened my eyes.

I was lying on my back in a room I had never seen before, with the taste of bile in my mouth. I could smell the sandalwood and amber I associated with the duke’s clothes, and I turned my head, trying to fill my senses. It was the duke’s fur-lined surcoat, spread out over some sort of pallet. Domenica and Sybille were kneeling on the floor beside me, the one with a cup of water in her hands and the other with her rosary.

“I am better.” My voice felt husky, and I cleared my throat. “I am sorry to have caused such a fuss. Help me get up, please.”

They helped me to my feet. Domenica handed me the cup and I drank deeply of the fresh water, rinsing the taste of horror from my mouth. Sybille held my marten-fur mantle for me. I wrapped it close; the room was cold and damp. I was still in the dungeons under the Lions’ Tower, then, in a clean room with one high window, a chair and a table and the pallet; it was probably where the gaoler lived.

“I am better,” I said again. I was not sure if I was trying to convince the duke, my ladies, or myself. “That was Tommasina Vasari, then? She is dead?”

“She is,” the duke said. He did not say,
I warned you, you fool
, and for that I was grateful.

“Dead by her own hand?”

“So it appears. You, gaoler. Tell us everything you know at once, from the moment the
parruchiera
was placed in the cell until the moment we discovered her as she is now.”

The gaoler swallowed. He was a stocky, unwashed fellow with matted hair and a spreading reddish birthmark like a wine-stain on the left side of his neck. I could not help feeling sorry for him, however derelict he might have been in his duty. “She was brought here yesterday about midday, after she’d been questioned,” he stammered. “She was mostly unconscious and had to be carried. The
sergente
ordered me to lock her in a cell.”

I glanced sidelong at the duke. He said nothing. “Very well,” I said to the gaoler. “And then what happened?”

“Nothing, Serenissima. I put her in the cell myself and locked the door.”

“And you were the only one who had the key?”

“Yes, Serenissima.”

I looked at the duke again. This time he said, “You are managing perfectly well, Madonna, without assistance from me. I wonder, however, if your next question will be the same as the question I am presently pondering.”

I gathered my mantle more closely around me. The sick, dizzy feeling was fading, and I found myself left with an odd combination of sorrow for Tommasina Vasari’s unhappy end and resentment of the duke’s disdainful tone.

“Very well,” I said. “Her thumbs had been broken. The slightest movement of her hands would have been agony. As that was the case, how did she manage to twist her veil into a cord, tie it around her neck, and then reach up behind herself and tie it to the stanchion?”

“
Brava
, Madonna,” the duke said softly. “We are of one mind, then.”

I felt a rush of satisfaction, and then shame because I felt it. I could not seem to settle on any one emotion.

“She was mad, Serenissima,” the gaoler said. His voice was high with panic. “That’s the only answer. She was mad with pain and fear, and desperate to escape further agonies.”

“Possibly,” I said. “It is still a very singular thing. Tell me again. You locked her in the cell, and you were the only one with the key, and neither you nor anyone else entered the cell until you opened the door for the duke and me this morning?”

“I locked her up right and tight, Serenissima, I swear it, and I never went back into the cell.” He stopped. Then he said suddenly, “Nor did anyone else, but for the priest, of course.”

“The
priest
?”

The duke and I burst out with it at the same time.

“The Augustinian, Serenissimo, the one you sent because the prisoner had been asking for a priest. He came just as I heard the bells ringing for the first vigil of matins, and glad I was to see him, too, because she’d been crying and moaning and begging for a priest ever since she regained her wits, and it was—”

“I sent no priest, Augustinian or otherwise,” the duke cut in coldly.

The guard stared at him. “But how could he have lied, Serenissimo, a priest, a man of God? He said he came directly from you.”

“Of course he lied,” the duke said. His voice was harsh. “I doubt he was a priest at all. What did he look like? What did he sound like? Describe him to me.”

“He wore the black robe and pointed cowl,” the guard said. His voice was little more than a whisper. “He was about your height, Serenissimo, and he—and he—I did not see his face. I cannot say. He spoke softly, with few words, as priests do. Oh, holy San Ippolito, forgive me.”

“You will need more than San Ippolito’s forgiveness,” the duke said. “Did you not make sure of your prisoner’s well-being, when you let this so-called priest out of the cell?”

“I did, Serenissimo
,
I saw her, she was lying on her pallet like she was asleep, and I thought he’d given her the holy rites and at least she’d be quiet now instead of that awful moaning.”

“You are lying,” I said. “I still contend she could not have hanged herself. And if she received the holy rites, she would not have taken the sin of self-murder upon her soul.”

The duke looked thoughtful. “I think we should inspect the prisoner’s cell again, Madonna,” he said. “No”—he shook his head when he saw my expression of revulsion—“not the corpse. Just the cell. Gaoler, see to it the corpse is taken down and laid out decently in another room. I shall send my physician to examine it. Do not touch anything else in the cell.”

“Yes, Serenissimo, it shall be done. Excuse me, I beg you. I’ll see to it all.”

He left. I was sure he felt lucky to escape with his life. We waited, and perhaps a quarter of an hour later the gaoler returned. With a fresh torch he escorted us back to the place where Tommasina Vasari had died.

I had not really looked at the cell before, other than to register that it was very small and windowless. With horrible matter-of-factness, the gaoler thrust the torch into the very stanchion from which the poor woman had been hanged and went away. I looked around. The cell was about ten paces by ten paces, constructed of rough stone, floor and walls. The smell had not been wholly eradicated. Against the wall opposite the door there was a pallet.

“There is the answer to the contradiction, Madonna,” the duke said, gesturing to the pallet. “I did not see it at first. But note.”

He stepped closer and prodded the mound of straw on the pallet. “The straw has been heaped here, and a blanket tucked around it. And this piece of black fabric, torn from her skirt, where a woman’s head might have been. It is not a chance arrangement. It was dark, and the gaoler saw what he expected to see.”

“So the Augustinian was an imposter. Worse than that. He was a murderer, and he defiled the holy habit by using it as a disguise.” Automatically I crossed myself, with some thought of warding off the blasphemy of it.

“Indeed. Someone wanted the
parruchiera
silenced, and wanted it badly. Come, Madonna, let us go. Your silkmaker awaits you, does he not? I myself require some hard riding and fresh air, and so I shall hunt this afternoon.”

Hard riding and fresh air. It sounded much better than an afternoon in my apartments being wrapped in silver tissue and stuck with pins.

I said, “I will join you.”

“I think not. It is important that your costume for the Berlingaccio be suitably magnificent, and you have put off the silkmaker twice already. You will keep your appointment with him, if you please. Now come, let us go up.”

I did not have the strength to contend with him again; I would save my protests for another time, another place. I put my hand on his and allowed him to help me up the narrow stone stairway.

“I will see you at supper,” he said when we had reached the top. Either he had no idea how annoyed I was, or he knew and did not care. “Perhaps by then there will be news of the Franciscan.”

 

 

MESSER SALVESTRO GREETED me with ecstasies, probably because he knew he would sell his silver tissue at last. Sybille and the uncongenial Ferrarese woman Vittoria Beltrame set about immediately to strip me to my shift. Katharina argued with Messer Salvestro’s assistants over the weight and drape and sheen of the silk. Tristo and Isa frolicked about, reveling in the scents of so many new people and pouncing on stray ribbons. Domenica Guarini and my dear Christine sat in the window embrasure, singing together to entertain me. Domenica had written the lyric for the song and Christine the music, and I wished I were in a proper frame of mind to appreciate their efforts.

I stood in the midst of the clamor, holding my arms out from my sides, feeling the same sense of not-being-present I had felt on the afternoon Frà Pandolf had presented my portrait to the duke.
The Duchess of Ferrara, being dressed for the Berlingaccio, the famous night revels of Shrove Thursday
: I might have been a piece of statuary instead of living flesh. All that mattered was that the duchess’s costume was rich enough and the accompanying jewels and headdress suitably magnificent.

At least it turned my thoughts from Tommasina Vasari’s awful death.

When it was over, I sent them all away and lay down with the puppies. I did not go to supper. Vespers had long been rung and compline was drawing on when he sent for me, and as it was a direct order, I could not refuse. Domenica and Katharina helped me into a night-gown and brushed out my hair; I instructed them to scent it liberally with apricot perfume and then made my way to the duke’s apartments. I found him alone in his
studiolo
, seated at his ebony writing-table. Several letters were lying on the table before him. He was looking at one, and his expression was unreadable.

“Good evening, my lord.” The writing-table made me think of another such table, in the duke’s presence chamber in the Castello. I averted my eyes and made the briefest of curtsies.

“Good evening.” He put the letter down and looked up at me. “You were not at supper.”

“No.”

“Has the work commenced upon your costume for the Berlingaccio?”

“It has.”

“Excellent. It is important you make the correct impression. Now, I thought you would be interested in these papers. They were part of the packet of letters in Lucrezia de’ Medici’s silver coffer.”

He was taking possession of the whole business, as he took possession of everything and everyone around him. I felt—what? Relief, yes. But at the same time, anger and resentment. I would have to take care with what I said.

“Has there been news of Frà Pandolf?”

“No. I have, however, had a message from Mother Eleonora—Sister Orsola fled Corpus Domini before my aunt received my message to confine her. The Carnival processions are making the search more difficult, as so many folk are masked and wearing dress they might not ordinarily wear.”

“Has your aunt any idea why Sister Orsola ran away?”

“No. Only that she disappeared shortly after the
parruchiera
was arrested. I suspect my aunt is actually glad the woman is gone—she has written her off as a runaway and intends to make no effort to find her.”

“Does she have a family in Ferrara? Anyone who could be giving her shelter?”

“She is from a family of bakers in Copparo. I have already had them questioned—they have not seen or spoken to her for years, and they know nothing of where she might have gone.”

He put down the letter he was holding and picked up another. Clearly he had nothing more to say about Sister Orsola.

“Do the letters provide any useful information, my lord?”

“A great deal. They are letters—although hardly letters, more scrawled notes on scraps of accounts and sketches—from the Franciscan. Clearly responses to letters she sent to him. He was hardly more literate than she was, but he managed to make several things clear.”

I waited.

“First, she was infatuated with him and he cooled rapidly toward her. Second, she wished to run away with him and he did not wish to go. Third, he was the father of her child.”

“Holy Virgin.”

“Indeed.

“I wonder why he disappeared when he did,” I said. “He could not have known we had seen the painting in the silver coffer.”

“Sister Orsola may have fled to him when she left Corpus Domini. He may have taken fright as well.”

“Particularly if she confessed to him she killed Serenissima Lucrezia for his sake.”

He gathered the letters into a packet again and put them aside.

“I have had the gaoler taken into custody,” he said. “I wish to question him further.”

“Perhaps he will remember some detail that will help us identify the false Augustinian.”

“Perhaps.” He sounded noncommittal.

“Poor Mona Tommasina. I know she wanted to kill me—but what a ghastly way to die. We are agreed she obtained the abortifacient potion from her father?”

“We are. The flask is Florentine work, that much is certain.”

“Florentine work,” I said slowly, allowing my thoughts to run freely. “And her father a favorite of Duke Cosimo. The fact the potion was an abortifacient—perhaps, my lord, Duke Cosimo himself wished you to be proven wrong in imprisoning Serenissima Lucrezia, and even wished to force you to accept her again as your wife. I do not think the mortal sin of providing such a potion to his daughter would concern him.”