Duchess of Milan (62 page)

“Count Landriano has come to see you, Your Highness.”

Isabella laughed. “Has he come to remove his daughter from her service as one of my ladies-in-waiting? I would think he has more pressing matters to concern himself with. But send him in.” Isabella had hardly forgotten how Count Landriano had ridiculed the notion of her regency before the entire Council of Nobles. To see his distress would be a nice farewell.

She watched as Count Landriano advanced with the casual, almost lazy gait of a Milanese courtier artfully disguising his urgency. He wore a black steel breastplate and had a sword strapped around his hip.

“Count Landriano,” Isabella said with husky-voiced sarcasm. “I’m surprised you aren’t in full armor. It is indeed, as you recently said, ‘a dangerous season.’ I’m certain that the people of Milan are grateful to you for providing them a duke with such
sforza
in the face of this adversity.” She smiled wryly at the pun on Il Moro’s family name and its meaning, strength. “Certainly my little boy couldn’t have responded with such resolution on hearing that his incompetent Captain General has let the French into Novara.”

“How well informed is Your Highness as to Il Moro’s condition?” Landriano asked in his piping, earnest voice.

“I know that he is in no condition to assume the burden you so confidently placed on his shoulders.”

“Just so. Your Highness, I couldn’t help but notice that you are packing for a journey.”

“How astute. I’m going to Abbiategrasso.”

Landriano shifted uncomfortably at Isabella’s flippant belligerence; Abbiategrasso was halfway between Milan and Novara, hardly the direction any sane person would choose to travel. “Your Highness, may I address you in all candor?”

“You may. The question is whether you can.”

“Your Highness, I will admit that I egregiously overestimated the capabilities of Il Moro. But you will recall that
I
only urged him to assume the title of Duke. The Emperor has made Il Moro Duke of Milan. But the Emperor is not here to defend his feudatory, and thanks to the Emperor’s intemperate meddling in Italian affairs, Milan is now a headless state.”

“The Duchess of Milan now heads the state.”

“Your Highness, most of us who sit on the Council of Nobles do not believe that the Duchess of Milan is a suitable choice to lead us against the French. In all sincerity, Your Highness, we believe that you, acting in the name of your son, have the qualities required in this crisis.”

Isabella immediately perceived the scheme behind Landriano’s almost sarcastic “sincerity.” She had never felt so clearheaded.
“Cacapensieri,”
she snapped, curling her lip. “You think that I have the qualities required to go to the French and hysterically beg them not to burn the houses of Milan’s noble families. Do you think Louis Duc d’Orleans would allow my boy to remain Duke of Milan, even if the Council of Nobles had the power to give him the title?”

Now it was Landriano’s turn for a smug, patrician smile. “Your Highness, you are aware that the Venetians have an army of forty thousand men in the field. The Emperor is sending thirty thousand men over the mountains. Yes, Louis Duc d’Orleans will conquer Milan before these forces can rescue us. But we believe that if we do not resist, the French will treat us fairly. Certainly you and your children will not be harmed, particularly if your son has been designated Duke. The French have been very generous to heads of state who have capitulated to them without a fight. It is only when opposed that they are dangerous.”

“I have already seen to it that my children will be safe.”

“Of course, Your Highness. But let us just assume, for the sake of argument, that you permit the Council to designate your son as Duke of Milan. The French march in and confine you and your son to the Castello with all the privileges that you are currently enjoying.” Landriano shrugged theatrically. “And then, when in a matter of days, weeks at the most, the forces of the League chase Louis Duc d’Orleans out of Milan, your son will still be Duke of Milan.”

“My son will not have been invested by the Emperor.”

“Do you think that the Emperor will refuse the opportunity to make another profit on the same title he sold Il Moro?”

“And of course the Council will designate me as my son’s regent.”

“Of course.”

Isabella’s eyes were like polished jade. “I will give you my answer when the Council meets at nine o’clock this evening, Count Landriano.”

“Your Highness.” Vincenzo Calmeta whispered in her ear. Beatrice’s secretary had come into her husband’s bedchamber so quietly that she had not even heard him. She turned. Her eyes were adjusted to the dim light, and she could clearly see Calmeta’s gray, anxious face. “How is he, Your Highness?”

Beatrice shook her head and fought the jagged constriction in her throat. She had vowed to herself that she wouldn’t cry until this was over. If she appeared weak, everything would be lost. But her husband was worse. Far worse. His breathing was an ominous, light rattle, and his eyes no longer recognized her. They were alive, perhaps awake, but what they saw she could only imagine. He had retreated to some place on the border between life and death. Now only he could decide in which direction he would journey.

“Messer Ambrogio bled him an hour ago,” Beatrice said. “Perhaps that will bring him back. But I must assume that it is no longer advisable to allow the Council of Nobles to see him.”

Calmeta nodded agreement. “Your Highness,” he whispered. “I just returned from riding to the Duomo and back. If you will come into the antechamber I will tell what I have seen and heard.”

Beatrice lit a lamp in the antechamber, one of Leonardo’s flickerless, water-filled glass globes. The long summer twilight had finally conceded to night. In a few minutes she would have to meet with the Council of Nobles.

Calmeta’s jaw was set with youthful determination, but there was something tragic written on his face, almost like a fine, dark veil that lay over his high forehead and soft poet’s eyes. “Your Highness ...” He stopped and shook his head slightly, incredulously. “Your Highness, it no longer matters whether or not the French attack tonight. We will have blood in the streets of Milan regardless.” Calmeta gestured helplessly with his hands. “Madness. Madness out there. There are rumors that your husband is dead or a prisoner of the French, rumors that he and the Emperor will arrive within hours with a hundred thousand men. The city has split into two irreconcilable factions. The armorers, tradesmen, and laborers want to resist the French, and they are calling on your husband to lead them. The merchants and nobility insist that your husband is dead. They want to open the city to the French in the hopes of preserving their property, and they are organizing an army
of bravi
and thugs to oppose the tradesmen and laborers. Your Highness, the entire city is armed. I have seen a dozen men dead in the streets already. There are fires along the Via Torino. And the night has only begun.”

Now Beatrice understood that Fortune had given her everything in the way a drunken duke might seat his
buffone
in his place at the head of the table, so that everyone could laugh at the clown briefly transformed into a prince. The Bitch of Fate was an overwhelming opponent, mean and capricious when merely left alone, incalculably furious and vindictive when challenged. All Beatrice wanted to do now was to bring her children up here and take them into her husband’s darkened bedchamber and spend the final hours together with her family. That was all that was left of her mythical realm of Everything, all she could hope to preserve. And then she had an irrational thought that to her was entirely compelling in its logic, so much so that it swept her mind clear of everything except fear. I can’t let Mama see me give up. Whatever happens, I can’t let Mama see me be afraid.

The Duchess of Milan entered the Sala della Palla from the double doors on the ground floor. She had come alone, feeling that if she brought along any of her husband’s advisers she would merely offer proof of the argument the Council obviously intended to present--that she was incapable of governing on her own. The surly pages at the doors did not wear red-white-and-blue Sforza colors. Apparently they were the Council members’ hirelings.

The Sala della Palla was inadequately lit by wax tapers hurriedly pressed into the sconces along the walls. Some tennis rackets and balls had been left on the floor. No more than twenty men were assembled in the center of the vast, empty hall. The lighting was too poor to enable her to recognize any of the faces. The quiet sibilance of their discussion drifted into the vaults high overhead like prayers in a cathedral. Even that noise fell away when she started across the floor. The wooden soles of her slippers clattered awkwardly.

Her initial encouragement at the small size of the group quickly vanished. She remembered what Vincenzo had just told her about the nobility organizing an army to oppose the anti-French faction. Obviously most of the Council’s members were preparing to fight their fellow citizens so that they could surrender to a foreign invader. The Council had simply sent a small embassy to announce the change in government. Suddenly she hated everything about them. She wished she had a knife.

For an instant she wondered who the woman was. Then of course she knew. There was something unmistakable about Eesh’s posture, even in semidarkness. She wore a black dress with a high collar and her usual black headband.

Each man respectfully dipped to one knee. She could smell their perfume. She recognized some faces. Landriano, of course. He was a weather vane. Which way would he point tomorrow? Count Borromeo, father of Isabella’s lady-in-waiting Caterina. He was a vicious opportunist with a hatchet-sharp nose and puckered, fishlike lips.

Isabella curtsied and Beatrice curtsied in return. For a moment she was transfixed by Eesh’s face. Eesh was pale, but her eyes glittered in the candlelight. Her lips were brilliant, rich with color. She was so perfectly composed. There was no trace of anger, no sense of triumph. Just those pure, white, indescribably beautiful features. Beatrice thought, This is how Dante’s Beatrice looked when he found her waiting for him in the Earthly Paradise, ten years after her death. Purified, resurrected, beautiful beyond any memory.

Count Landriano began to speak, his voice fluty and his eyes wavering in the candlelight. “Your Highness, the Council is deeply saddened by your husband’s terrible affliction. You can be assured that countless candles are burning in our churches and chapels this evening in supplication for his eventual recovery. However, Your Highness, your husband is presently in no condition to defend his state, the state that he alone has governed for the past ten years. In the absence of his peerless guidance, we can hardly expect our citizens to resist the most formidable army Milan has faced since the Lombards battered our gates a thousand years ago. Therefore, the Council has determined that the people of Milan will be best served if we negotiate with the French rather than take arms against them.”

“You are talking about capitulation, not negotiation.”

“We are counseling prudence in the absence of the forceful leadership we had expected your husband to provide. The French have already established that they treat fairly with those who do not oppose them.”

“Then apparently you have an curious affliction of your hearing, Count Landriano. It obviously strikes you whenever the atrocities committed by the French in Naples are discussed. There is no one in Italy, with the exception perhaps of the hermits of Saint Jerome, who does not know how the people of Naples have suffered. Particularly the women and children.”

Count Landriano’s face constricted, as if he had encountered a disagreeable odor. “Your Highness, there are always claims of these atrocities. That you choose to believe them underscores the correctness of the decision we have had to make. Your Highness, your clearly stated disregard for the French makes you a poor choice to negotiate with Louis Duc d’Orleans for the safety of the city. We rather think that by designating the son of the late Duke of Milan as our Duke during this time of crisis, we will present to the French a more . . . moderate posture.”

“So we will have two Dukes of Milan. My husband, the Duke invested by the German Emperor, and Francesco, Duke of Milan by order of the Council of Nobles. Of course when Louis Duc d’Orleans arrives, the question will be moot. Orleans already considers himself the Duke of Milan, and once he is in possession of Milan’s treasury, I believe he will be able to purchase his title from the Emperor.”

“I don’t believe that the armies of the League will permit Louis Duc d’Orleans to make that purchase,” Isabella suddenly offered.

Beatrice turned to face her cousin. Now she understood the deal in its entirety. When the armies of the League finally forced Orleans out, Isabella intended to purchase the investiture of her son as Duke of Milan. “So you will be the buyer,” she told her cousin.

Isabella stepped forward, her expression still composed, almost beatific. “You must know that I don’t want this for myself. I want it for my son. For our people.”

There was no sarcasm in her tone, just a sad, strangely sensual resignation. And yet of course it was a lie. Beatrice wondered if she had sounded just as insincere when she had said the same things to Eesh just weeks ago: “I never wanted this for myself. ...” Of course she had. Of course they both had. Beatrice was seized with an impulse to knock Eesh to the floor and settle this between them once and for all. But she was equally restrained by the curious feeling that somehow it would be wrong to disturb Eesh’s beauty, that beneath Eesh’s deceit and terrible ambition was something pure and exquisite that should not be destroyed.

“Fortune is a bitch,” Isabella told Beatrice with a slight, careless tilt of her head. “Tonight she is my bitch.”

Beatrice turned back to Count Landriano. “Does the Council intend to make me their prisoner?”

Landriano seemed truly shocked, even indignant. “Indeed no. You belong with your husband. Your Highness must understand that the Council has only the greatest personal affection for you and your husband. We deeply regret--”