Duchess of Milan (59 page)

Beatrice worked for a while with the clasp and finally removed the heavy ornament. Her husband fidgeted with his hat, and she realized that he had concealed something inside it. He pulled out another dazzling diamond choker, set with fewer gems than the one she had worn but with much finer, more elegantly cut stones. The heart-shaped pendant spelled out the motto “merito et tempore” in letters composed of small diamonds against a background of tiny rubies. As reverently as if he were handling a holy relic, Il Moro fastened the choker around her neck.

He put his hands on her shoulders and stood back and looked at her. “The last person to wear this necklace was my mother,” he whispered, his voice trembling with significance. “She always believed that patience was the highest virtue.” He closed his eyes. “I would give my soul for my mother to be here today. To see the happiness you have brought me.”

She held out her arms to him, and he embraced her tightly. His voice was husky with emotion. “Today I will become the first Sforza ever invested as Duke of Milan. Our son will be the second. God,
amore,
soon everything I have ever dreamed of will be realized. And now, looking back, I cannot believe there was ever a time when you were not part of that dream. I know I lived before I loved you, but I cannot remember it. You are my only life. The only life I have ever had. I begin with you.”

This was the music Beatrice had always imagined, the vast choir of angels and the great singing of the spheres. And yet there was a discordant note she could not ignore, a thin screeching doubt that disturbed the entire magnificent orchestration.

With his acute sensitivity to touch, his uncanny knowledge of a lover’s body, Il Moro felt the faint stirring of his wife’s apprehension. “Don’t worry,
carissima,”
he said. “The French are finished.”

The wail of doubt was now all Beatrice could hear. There was nothing she could do except say it. “I talked to my cousin yesterday. She believes that Galeazz poisoned Gian.”

Beatrice felt her husband’s reaction, a slight tightening of his back. He still held her, his words hot against her ear.
“Carissima,
I had Gian’s body examined for just this reason, to allay any doubts or accusations. Even your cousin’s doctor from Naples was there, and he could find no traces of poison. I am satisfied.”

“But is it possible Galeazz could have done it? Thinking he was protecting us. He knew what Isabella’s plans were.”

He hesitated, nothing more. Then he said, “Galeazz left with me five days before Gian died. It isn’t possible.”

Of course. Galeazz hadn’t even been there. Why hadn’t she thought of that as soon as Eesh mentioned Galeazz’s name? Had her guilt really become that irrational? Yes, she realized. Despite all her efforts to defeat it with reason. But now that she could see so clearly that her guilt was a delusion, perhaps she could finally see beyond it. She was suddenly buoyant with relief.

He pulled away and looked at her soberly. “I think we should allow poor Gian to rest in peace. Now,
amore,
I have something very important to tell you. Today I intend to draft papers designating you as regent in the event of my death or incapacitating illness.”

Her first reaction was an enormous pride, that from all his trusted counselors her husband had chosen her. This was beyond what was required by his love, indeed had nothing to do with love and everything to do with respect. Then she thought of the grim eventuality he had referred to, the dark subtext of his praise. And in an instant she understood what all her absurd doubts about Gian’s death actually disguised, a truth that percolated through her consciousness like a cold, cleansing rain.

You are afraid of this, Beatrice admitted to herself. You are afraid because today you have everything
you
have ever dreamed of.

And now you have everything to lose.

The second investiture Beatrice had ever attended, like the first, took place just in front of the Duomo. The temporary porch of richly carved wooden columns and embroidered awnings was even more lavish than that erected for Gian’s investiture as Duke of Genoa. The French fleur-de-lis had been replaced by the black imperial eagle of the Holy Roman Empire. A select group of ambassadors and officers of state were seated on the porch. They listened while the imperial envoy, the Bishop of Brixen, read the list of properties and privileges attached to the title of Duke of Milan.

Beatrice knelt with a small group of her ladies at the top of the steps. Her stepdaughter, Bianca, was at her side, and they exchanged fond, proud smiles throughout the long ceremony. Finally the recitation of privileges was finished, and the jewel-encrusted ducal sword and scabbard were draped over Il Moro’s shoulders and the gold ducal scepter was laid across his arm. Then the new Duke of Milan came to the steps to receive the acclamation of the huge crowd gathered in the Piazza del Duomo.

Il Moro extended his hand to his kneeling wife. Beatrice looked up at him with surprise--this hadn’t been included in her instructions. He mouthed
“Amore”
to her and motioned with his fingers for her to rise. A subtle, wry twist of his lips seemed to say: We can do whatever we want now. She stood up, entirely at ease with this improvised protocol, feeling almost that she was alone with her husband, sharing a moment of intimacy that would have been hard for anyone else to imagine. When he took her hand, the first instant of contact was stunningly sexual. After that she could not even feel his hand; there was no distinction between her flesh and his.

Beatrice looked out over the Piazza del Duomo. She had a moment of supernatural clarity, a feeling that she could distinctly see every face of the hundred thousand before her, see each emblem on the flags flying from the surrounding rooftops, count each pomegranate that flecked the ivy wreaths hanging from the balconies and loggias. Huge banks of thunderclouds piled up to the north, towering behind the
palazzi
like some fantastic celestial architecture. The chorus of “Moro! Moro!” began, joined by “Duca! Duca!,” the two rallying cries no longer in competition. The acclamations exploded with astonishing force, as if warning the French that their mighty cannons were nothing next to the power of Il Moro, who could make his enemies vanish with a wave of his hand.

Listening to her own music, the massive chords of a pipe organ driven by light rather than air, Beatrice saw among the dignitaries standing just beneath her her sister’s husband, Francesco Gonzaga, the Captain General of the Armies of the League of Venice, who had coincidentally been in Milan for consultations. Francesco’s inelegant yet curiously charismatic face--he was bearded, with squashed, almost impish features and intense dark eyes--reminded her of the faces she did not see. Bel and Father. She vowed she would not conjure Gian, because she had at last put him in his grave. And Eesh. She was done grieving for Eesh. It had been Eesh’s choice to live with what Fortune had given her, or to bury herself with regrets for what was no longer possible. Eesh had chosen to die.

At that moment Beatrice realized the meaninglessness of her own regrets and fears, saw how urgent it was that she accept the magnificent gift Fortune had offered her. She looked into the sun. It had just begun to slip behind the advancing storm, sending spectacular shafts glinting around the ragged edge of the thunderclouds. She immediately recalled an image from the first canto of the
Paradiso,
when Beatrice and Dante had stared into the brilliant sun above the heights of Purgatory and in an instant had been transported to the golden vastness of Paradise.

The earthbound Beatrice called up one final face among the missing. I wish you were here, Mama, she silently told that ghostly yet indelible image, at first with a feeling of anger and then with a terribly bitter regret and loneliness. And then it was all gone, all pain and regret, everything that bound her to earth. She clutched her husband’s hand tightly and let the music of his fame lift them into the limitless sky.

CHAPTER 50

Vigevano, 14 June 1495

The sun played hide-and-seek among the clouds. The dry winter had been followed by a wet spring, and the patchwork of irrigated fields in the Ticino River Valley lay under flat, shallow sheets of water; here and there the elusive sun lit the exposed tips of the grain sprouts and rice shoots, creating swatches of shimmering green brocade. The network of irrigation ditches and canals, swollen with the runoff, crisscrossed the landscape in a thick silver grid.

Il Moro stood in his stirrups and looked out over the valley. “It would be interesting to build one of Leonardo’s cities and see what kind of revenues it produced,” he idly told his riding companion, the Marchesino Stanga, Milan’s Minister of Public Works.

“Currently, Your Highness, we could use several dozen new cities to replenish our treasury,” the Marchesino said dryly. “We have paid the French handsomely to come over the mountains, and now we are paying the Germans and the Venetians handsomely to send them home.”

Il Moro smiled in grudging appreciation of the Marchesino’s wit.

“In all seriousness, Your Highness, I suggest that the schedule of projects you have given me be substantially reduced. The same men who insisted that you assume the title of Duke are beginning to complain about their taxes.”

“Well, if they made me Duke to reduce their taxes, we shall no doubt see them become still more vociferous. And I might remind them that
they
merely made me Duke, while the Emperor has made me Duke of Milan.” The sun came out again, and Il Moro paused and shaded his eyes. “However, let us review the list again this evening and see what we can eliminate. The only thing I insist on seeing to completion is the painting in Beatrice’s rooms here. I want the frescoes finished while she is still in Milan.” He squinted up at the sun. “My wife insisted that I come here to relax, and here I am on my horse in the heat of the day. I’m going back to the
castello
to bathe and sleep.”

Il Moro did just that, and he was annoyed to be awakened from a deep slumber by the knock on his door. He cracked open the shutters and saw that it was still early evening. Putting on a loose
turca
of scarlet silk, he went to the door.

The Marchesino Stanga came into the room and closed the door behind him. The Marchesino usually looked younger than his thirty-eight years; now he seemed to have aged fifteen years in one afternoon. His forehead was glazed with perspiration, and the color he had acquired on his afternoon ride looked like the flush of a fever on a sick man’s pallor.

“Three couriers have come from Novara in the last quarter of an hour,” the Marchesino said, his Adam’s apple struggling. “I questioned each of them separately to make certain that their information was not manufactured.”

Il Moro nodded.

“Your Highness, Louis Duc d’Orleans is in Novara. The Caccia and Tornielli families conspired with him to open the gates and admit his army.” Novara was a satellite city east of Milan, only three hours away for a fast courier riding a relay of horses; it was also only about two hours north of Vigevano. The Caccias and the Torniellis were Novara’s most powerful noble families. They had long protested their taxes and the diversion of some of the local water supply to the projects near Vigevano.

“I assume Orleans escaped from Asti with a small company of a few hundred men,” Il Moro said calmly.

The Marchesino’s Adam’s apple bobbed again before he could speak. “Your Highness, the average of the three couriers’ estimates is twenty thousand men.”

“That simply isn’t possible, Marchesino.” Il Moro’s voice was soothing, as if he were trying to placate a madman. “How could that many men have gotten into Asti right under Galeazz’s nose, much less march undetected to Novara.”

“Your Highness, Messer Galeazzo has been complaining for weeks now of his need for reinforcements from Venice. He has spread his men all over the Piedmont, chasing down the companies of French infantry and cavalry that have infiltrated across the Alps. For ten days he has had scarcely enough men near Asti to post a watch on the city gates.”

From Novara an army of twenty thousand men could be at the gates of Milan by the next morning. Il Moro was quiet for a moment, then asked, “You are entirely convinced that these reports are credible? I think we should dispatch several reliable men to Novara to confirm them.”

“Your Highness, I don’t think we have time to wait for confirmation. Orleans is said to have five thousand cavalry. They could raid Vigevano before dark. If they have already left, they could be here within an hour. Even less.”

Il Moro spread his hands and smiled. “Certainly you are correct, Marchesino. It is best to be prudent. We will send couriers to Milan. I will instruct my wife and my castellan to maintain vigilance there. As to our departure from Vigevano, I think it best that we wait until morning and see how matters stand. Assuming that there are Frenchmen on the road, we are better off here than wandering about the countryside. Would you ask my secretary to come to my room in a half hour? I would like to get dressed and consider our strategy before I send my instructions to Milan. And perhaps by then we will have further news from Novara.”

Mollified by Il Moro’s considered course of action, the Marchesino bowed and left. Il Moro stood beside the door for a moment, completely still, his head cocked just slightly as if listening for something. He went to the window and firmly closed the shutter he had partially opened minutes before. Then he lay down on his bed again, staring up into the fuzzy darkness.

The vision that came to him was not a dream, because although it proceeded with the inexorable narrative of a dream, it lacked the fluid logic and quirky perspective. This was real. Twenty-five years had done nothing to alter it. And dreams didn’t smell, dreams weren’t cold. He was in the dungeons beneath the Rochetta, below the level of the moat, a place of perpetual damp and cold. Beside him stood his brother Galeazzo Maria, the Duke of Milan. In a final instant of contact with the present, Il Moro marveled that his brother was alive. Then he lost himself in the utter lucidity of the vision. He was there. His brother had never died.