Duchess of Milan (58 page)

The wait seemed long, the game becoming serious again. Please, Bel, she silently pleaded. Her horse began to jitter and prance, and suddenly she was aware of how easily he could leap over the wooden balustrade. Please, Bel. I have to win this. I have to beat Fortune at this one silly game. If I can just see you, everything will change.

And then her sister came out, her hair like spun gold in the sun, her crimson
camora
as brilliant as a ruby. The Marquesa waved and blew kisses, and then they both waved and blew kisses for many minutes, until Bel was nothing more than a fading red speck in the distance.

CHAPTER 48

Extract of a dispatch of Philippe de Commines, Lord of Argenton, Councillor to His Most Christian Majesty Charles VIII and Ambassador Plenipotentiary to the Republic of Venice, to Guillaume Briconnet, Cardinal of Saint Malo and Chief Superintendent of Finances for the Kingdom of France. Venice, 2 April 1495

. . . and as His Most Christian Majesty has disregarded all of my previous warnings concerning the great diplomatic conclave that has been taking place here, I have deemed it appropriate to risk dispatching this news to you in addition to those letters that I have already had conveyed by courier to His Most Christian Majesty as well as the Duc d’Orleans. As you indeed know, His Most Christian Majesty, because of his youth, must rely on the prudent counsel of his advisers. . . .

Yesterday morning the Signory sent for me at an earlier hour than usual. I was shown into the great salon with almost all the members of the Signory present, and no sooner had I taken my seat than the Doge informed me that in the name of the Holy Trinity the Serene Republic of Venice had entered into an alliance with Our Holy Father the Pope, the Emperor of the Germans, the King of Spain, and the State of Milan. When I asked the reason for this league, the Doge answered that it was intended to defend Italy and preserve the sovereign territories of the member states. I retorted that it seemed that these states had joined in league to prevent His Most Christian Majesty from returning to France. To this the Doge responded, “Far from that. Every one will offer him free passage, the Signory foremost, and we will even supply victuals for your King’s return journey. And if he does not care to risk the journey by land, we will provide him thirty-five galleys to carry him off by sea.” In the Italian fashion, this assistance was offered in all earnestness, though from the insolent spirits of the men seated before me I could discern a yet more devious intent. . . . Upon leaving this council I encountered the Neapolitan ambassador, attired in a fine new gown and very gay, and indeed he had reason to be so. . . . That evening I went out in my boat and was rowed past the houses of all the ambassadors of the league, where there was great banqueting . . . there were extraordinary fireworks upon the turrets, steeples, and chimneys of the ambassadors’ houses, and multitudes of bonfires were lighted, and throughout the city cannon fired. The entire city glowed as if our Lord had cast down the fires of the Last Days, and I prayed for the safe return of our King. . . .

... I have also warned the Duc d’Orleans that he can expect to be attacked at Asti by the armies of Milan, and I have written the Duc du Bourbon that
he must send reinforcements to Asti immediately. . . .

. . . you cannot emphasize strongly enough to His Most Christian Majesty how urgent it is that he depart for France immediately. The fury of the entire world is about to come against us ...

Extract of a dispatch of Galeazzo di Sanseverino, Captain General of the Armies of Milan, to Lodovico Sforza, “Il Moro,” Duke of Bari. Annona, 19 April 1495

. . . by afternoon the troops under my command had driven the forces of Louis Duc d’Orleans back into the city of Asti. I have learned from some captive French soldiers that Orleans does not have sufficient forces at hand to attempt to break out of Asti, although we do not currently have enough men to effect a blockade of the entire city. . . .

Extract of a letter of international traveler and raconteur Benedetto Dei to Leonardo da Vinci, military engineer at the Court of Milan. Rome, 20 May 1495

. . . We are told by traders and diplomats just returned from Naples that His Most Christian Majesty, welcomed only three months ago as a deliverer from the Aragonese tyrant, will depart for France this day or the next, with the populace biting their thumbs to his face and spitting at his feet. I am of the opinion that His Most Christian Majesty went there with the most earnest intentions of bringing Christian justice to that benighted land, but unfortunately he was distracted by the wealth and luxury of
bella Napoli
and did not impose order on his troops, who have inspired the hatred of the entire city with their drunkenness and moral license. We are told that the French take their lodgings in whatever houses suit their fancy, seating themselves at the table attired in clothes purloined from the
guardaroba,
commanding the occupants to serve them their best foods and wines, and then selling the rest of the stores--and should the women of the household escape with only the loss of their jewelry and other valuables they are deemed lucky. In an effort to inspire order among this mob he commands, the King hanged six of his own troops, but shortly after this act of penance, His Most Christian Majesty was introduced to a daughter of the Duchess of Melfi, said Duchess contriving to retrieve some lands confiscated by the invaders. The Duchess of Melfi’s daughter is a comely young woman with a reputation as an equestrienne of unusual proficiency, and after displaying her remarkable command of an extremely mettlesome courser in the presence of His Most Christian Majesty, “la Melfi,” as she is known, apparently demonstrated to His Majesty her facility in a different sort of riding (this done bareback) and has thus become the King’s constant companion. . . .

. . . the armies of the League of Venice, which are under the command of the Marquis of Mantua, are said to number forty thousand men. The mission of the League armies, as we understand it here, is to block the French King’s retreat from Naples and destroy the French army so that it can never enter Italy again ... we hear that Orleans has been reinforced in Asti. . . . Perhaps you can confirm what we have heard here, that a suite of imperial ambassadors has been dispatched to Milan and that as soon as they arrive, your lord Il Moro will be invested as the Duke of Milan. . . .

CHAPTER 49

Milan, 25 May 1495

“Your Highness.”

Had there been even a note of sarcasm or bitterness in Eesh’s greeting, Beatrice wouldn’t have been so chilled by the tone of her cousin’s voice. But this was the most haunting sound she had ever heard, a voice inflected with nothing, words without life. The voice of the dead.

Beatrice looked around the room. The bed, chairs, and walls were still draped in black. Eesh had pulled aside the black velvet curtains to let in the morning light, but the illumination seemed to harden rather than lessen the darkness, as if coating the room with glossy black lacquer.

Eesh’s face had filled out again, but she was shockingly, spectrally pale. Beatrice returned her curtsy and forced herself to look into her eyes. The color of Eesh’s irises confirmed what she had heard in Eesh’s voice. Instead of the opalescent depths of the Bay of Naples, Beatrice imagined a dull film of scum over a shallow stagnant pond. The color of decay. Even as her flesh revivified, Eesh was rotting inside. Suddenly Beatrice realized that Eesh was no longer mourning the death of their love or Gian or even the fall of Naples. Perhaps she never had been. She was mourning for herself.

Isabella gestured for Beatrice to sit on the bed beside her. Beatrice sat half an arm’s length away.

“You know that the investiture is tomorrow,” Beatrice said. The ceremony had been put together so hurriedly that the exact date had not been set until two days previously. Beatrice regretted that none of her family would get word in time to attend. But she just wanted it to be over.

After an uncomfortable pause Isabella said, “Did you come for my blessing?”

Beatrice really didn’t know why she had come. Perhaps to ask for forgiveness. Perhaps to forgive. Perhaps merely to look her rival in the eyes before she plucked them out. She only knew that she could not become Duchess of Milan without doing this.

Finally Beatrice offered, “I came to tell you that I never wanted this for myself. But I must be honest with you and tell you I wanted this investiture for my husband. For my sons and our people.”

“I think you want it more than he does,” Isabella said in a dry monotone. “Life for you has become an endless circle of desire and deception, acquisition and apology. I have stepped off that wheel, and you are still spinning. You can’t see it. We do not know our own souls. That is the only truth to life. We do not even know our own souls.”

I do, Beatrice thought. My soul is with my husband and my little boys.

Then Eesh said, very softly, without emotion, without accusation, “I think you came here because you believe that someone poisoned Gian.”

Gian wasn’t poisoned, Beatrice told herself, the argument she had waged a hundred times in the still of sleepless nights. What I saw was not what I thought I saw. What I saw was death, nothing more. Natural death. A thing terrible enough. Gian’s body was examined in Milan, and not a trace of poison was found.

“I think Galeazz did it,” Isabella said, her voice remaining quiet and flat. “He did it because I told him how Gian planned to abdicate in favor of Francesco. He murdered my husband to punish me. And to prove his love for your husband.”

The fluttering thump of her heart gave Beatrice a terrifying queasiness, as if something alive and autonomous were struggling to escape her breast. “Eesh, even if Gian was poisoned by God knows who, I know my husband had nothing to do with it.” I
know
that, she angrily told herself. My soul knows that.

“Then your conscience can be clear. You are fortunate.” There was no sarcasm in this. Perhaps an inflection of sincere envy. “I never wanted him to die, you know. I tried to make him sick by letting him eat the fruit and giving him wine. I just wanted him to surrender his title to Francesco. Then he would have gotten better. He would’ve been so much happier once he was no longer Duke. I never wanted him to die.”

“None of us did.”

“Someone did.”

“If you would like, I will insist on an investigation.”

Isabella slightly raised her pale, limp hand, then let it drop back on her thigh. “The question requires no answer now. Not for me.”

There was a faint stirring of an emotion in Eesh’s voice that was not exactly malice. A cruel mischief, as mindless as a child’s. What Eesh meant was: The answer does still matter to you.

The blackness around Beatrice was no longer a glossy lacquer; it had become viscous and sticky, a foul pitch she never would be able to remove if she stayed any longer. “Can I provide anything for you and the children?” she asked. “Anything that is in my power to give.”

“We have everything that is in your power to give. We are grateful.”

Beatrice made a quick farewell and hurried into the courtyard. She deeply inhaled the sweet air, scented with the blooms of spring. Bees buzzed around the flower beds and topiaries.

Back in her room, the corners of Isabella’s subtle lips twitched with the merest suggestion of a smile, and for an instant her irises glimmered. Then the expression vanished, and she lowered her blank, unfeeling eyes.

Il Moro graciously requested his wife’s ladies-in-waiting to leave the room. As they curtsied and rustled out, several of the younger women glanced back at him surreptitiously, despite their constant presence at court still awed by the sight of the man said to hold the fate of the world in his hands.

If Beatrice could have had one image of her husband to hold in her heart forever, this was it. He had dressed for the morning’s ceremony of investiture with dramatic simplicity. His
vestito,
a trim-fitting tunic of purple damask, was daringly modern, certain to make a telling contrast to the billowing medieval robes of the clerics and ambassadors. The fabric was embroidered all over with tiny gold motifs, ranging from imperial eagles to mulberry leaves. A thin band of cloth-of-gold hemmed his high collar, leaving exposed a narrow width of white Rheims linen shirt. He held in his hands an indigo velvet cap, a grape-size diamond dangling from the
M
embroidered on the side. Illuminated by the morning light that streamed through the big arched windows, Il Moro was the embodiment of Europe’s new dawn.

His staff-straight posture was the only vestige of the bullying arrogance Beatrice remembered from the early days of their marriage. Otherwise he carried himself with relaxed grace, the bearing of a man who understood his power and accomplishments and had no need to flaunt them. His neatly singed black bangs were slightly mussed, an endearingly casual touch. His smile, intimate and a bit mischievous, rippled through her in a warm wave of sensuality and love.

He paused and looked at her, shaking his head slightly with wonder and delight. Beatrice wore a gold-and-purple-striped velour
camora
with circlets of white silk puffs at each shoulder. Her hair, parted down the middle, fell loosely to her shoulders, where it was gathered into a waist-length, ribbon-wrapped braid. A net woven of gold braid and pearl strands fell like a transparent kerchief from the crown of her head to the nape of her neck; a band of gold satin, studded with rubies and pearl pendants, wrapped around her forehead. She wore a three-tiered diamond choker with a pendant composed of an enormous violet-hued ruby surrounded by diamonds; a longer necklace of white and black pearls fell down across her shoulders and hung beneath her breasts. Beatrice knew she had presented herself in all the splendor her husband’s treasury could provide, but looking into his eyes she could have believed that even in her chemise she was the most beautiful woman in the world.

He made no comment or attempt to embrace her, but simply said, “Take off your choker.” His eyes gleamed.