Leonardo's Swans (8 page)

Just a few hours later, all the lords and ladies of the land had lined up to welcome her to her new home, and Beatrice was marking the morning’s embarrassing behavior as her last act of childhood.

Ludovico’s entourage carried his flags and standards bearing his symbols, the head of a Moor and the mulberry tree, blooming in a remarkable shade of violet. As the horsemen turned the standards to the crowd, the shouts of approval for Il Moro amplified. What a great prince she was to marry, Beatrice thought. He looked at her so pleasantly as they rode side by side through this city of his ancestors, the great Viscontis, as if nothing could please him more than having her at his side; as if, had he known how lovely she was, he would have not postponed their rendezvous.

A convoy of knights wearing Ludovico’s colors of scarlet and blue awaited the procession at the end of the street, in front of the old Certosa. One in particular, whose curls pranced as he trotted toward them, rode ahead of the others on his white steed. He was younger than Ludovico and, if possible, much more handsome. A great white smile cut across his olive skin. He radiated light, or so it seemed. If the rest of the city was in midwinter, he alone looked as if he was living in an eternal summer.

He descended from his horse, bowing to Beatrice. “Galeazz di Sanseverino, madam. At your service and your command. From this day until the end of my life, no favor, no courtesy, no feat is too great for you to ask of me. There is nothing I will not do for you.”

He looked up at Beatrice, his golden eyes dancing. Galeazz di Sanseverino: son of a great knight; one of twelve brothers renowned for their mastery of the arts of war. But this one was the most famous of all, the finest jouster and equestrian in all of Italy. He was undefeated, or that was his reputation. She did not know how to respond, but respond she must. And yet nothing came from her mouth.

“Your reputation precedes you, sir,” Isabella said, walking her horse to the front of the procession and diverting the knight from Beatrice.

As Galeazz switched his attention to her sister, Beatrice felt all the air go out of her body. Yet it relieved her of the burden of speaking to him.

“As does yours, Marchesa,” he answered. “Though for once, the wagging tongues have been too modest in describing your beauty.”

“I wonder if that is true of yourself,” Isabella said, her voice suddenly sweet with honey and seduction. “Are you the master of the lance, as they say? Like the knights of old in the days of Charlemagne, knocking all contenders to their deaths, thrilling the ladies with their jousts?”

Galeazz stood up straight. He was tall and cut a fine figure, broad at the shoulder, narrow at the waist, strong at the calf. “Madame, in those days jousts were held with rude bats and stubs. I will soon enough show you contest with a lance, the length and breadth of which you shall never forget.”

His impertinent eyes made his meaning clear, and Beatrice expected a haughty retort from her sister. Instead, Isabella returned his suggestive tone.

“I am looking forward to that unforgettable moment,” she laughed. “They say you are unrivaled.”

“I am unrivaled at many things,” he added.

Beatrice could not believe that her sister, a married woman, was inviting these implications from a courtier she had just met. She wondered if she had misunderstood the reference, or if this was simply the way that married women joked with men. Maybe the marriage bed changed a woman. But so quickly? She had never heard her mother utter such words, but then perhaps one hid these tendencies in front of one’s children. She must learn quickly these subtleties of womanhood before she gave Ludovico, or this marvelous Galeazz who has offered her his service, a reason to think her childish. She must watch her sister for clues, and think on her as a mentor, not a competitor. That was the old model. Now she could observe Isabella quietly and steal her tricks.

“Captain general of my army. And my son-in-law,” Ludovico said proudly and dryly, presenting the cavalier. Galeazz was betrothed to Ludovico’s daughter, Bianca Giovanna, by one of his early mistresses, though Ludovico doted on the girl. She was only three years younger than Beatrice. Galeazz was waiting for her to come of age so they could marry, but in the meanwhile, he had adopted Ludovico’s surnames, Visconti Sforza.

“But he is more like a son to me,” Ludovico finished.

“No one believes that, Your Excellency,” Galeazz retorted, and Ludovico assumed a hurtful look. “Because you are far too youthful to be the father of me.”

“And now that I shall be married to one who is the essence of youth and all its charms, I will be even more mistaken for a young man.” Ludovico addressed his words to Galeazz but directed them at Beatrice, as if thanking her for performing this miracle of reducing his age.

Beatrice laughed, but wondered if perhaps they had rehearsed these lines before. Still, she was grateful for the good nature that Il Moro showed with this handsome young man, not to mention the compliment to herself. She liked that he treated his captain general as a family member and an equal. Such a ruler was bound to inspire loyalty—something she had not expected her much-maligned husband to elicit. But between the shouts of the crowd, the assemblage of the nobility come to greet her, the affectionate glances her betrothed threw in her direction, this glorious man before her offering his service and protection, and the absence of anyone known as Cecilia Gallerani, Beatrice wondered if life as Ludovico’s duchess was going to be far from the nightmare she had anticipated.

L
ATER
that day, when the long procession was over, Beatrice looked through the blurry glass of the arched windows of the library, over the snow-veiled lakes, parks, and gardens of the Castello di Pavia, one of her many new homes. The sun was almost down, but she could just make out the iced-over prongs of Poseidon’s trident, staking its claim in the middle of a frozen fountain. All shrubbery, lawns, trees, and intricate pathways were a seamless blanket of white, fading almost to purple with the dying sun. She could feel the temperature drop as she stood by the window. Tomorrow would be colder still. It was beautiful, though, and she could hardly believe that she would be back here in the spring, when instead of this mantle of white, all would be alive and green and blooming with life, and she, mistress of this castle, would be riding through the expansive parks and grounds on the lovely cinnamon mare.

The library was a series of rooms with tall vaulted ceilings, dark mahogany woodwork, and marble columns in the ornate, Corinthian style supporting great arches. Shelved were thousands of precious manuscripts that Il Moro had collected from all over the world, decorated with painstakingly beautiful miniature paintings. He was showing one of these to Isabella and Leonora, who looked with admiration at tiny renderings of the Viscontis of the past smiting horrific dragons and other mortal enemies. Ludovico had assembled, he boasted, as complete a collection of the great works in Greek and Latin as exist in Europe, certainly in a private home.

“Perhaps the Vatican has a few more,” he said, trying, Beatrice thought, to sound modest. “But I spend many days sending letters to those who can make the collection more complete. So much has been carried off in the past, what with wars and the like. They’ve been scattered to convents, monasteries, and dilettantes and such who do not even know what they possess.”

Leonora had already told the duke about her own library in Ferrara, and now was expounding on her husband’s particular interest in translating the knowledge of ancient civilizations into the native tongue.

“A worthy pursuit,” he agreed. “So you see that your daughter will not be deprived of knowledge, even though she is leaving the company of her learned parents. I assure you that I will continue the tradition in which you raised Madonna Beatrice. Her smallest desires will receive my greatest attentions.”

“All that you have shown me here, as well as your assurances, give me great comfort,” Leonora said to her son-in-law, whom Beatrice knew her mother had been prepared to dislike.

“Madonna Beatrice!” Ludovico’s voice called Beatrice to turn around, though she had been enjoying listening to them converse as if she were not present. “I hope you will be able to spend many happy hours here, reading at your leisure and according to your interests, for I know they are many.”

“My sister is the connoisseur of literature,” Beatrice offered, wishing to be seen, if not as lettered, then as generous. She hoped to divert any questions Ludovico might throw at her about some ancient Latin text or another. Let Isabella show off if she must.

“
My
sister is too loose with her compliments,” Isabella replied, appearing even more generous. “When you see her riding a fine horse in the open countryside, you will know that your wife is not only unique but superior among all women in the world.”

“Madame, I am certain of that fact already. Her youthful loveliness overwhelms.”

The three of them stared at her as if she were a pretty little babe in the cradle. Oh, she could understand her mother’s wistful gaze, but Isabella was only one year older than Beatrice, a mere sixteen. Why did she seem so much more the woman? Was it her full breasts to Beatrice’s small chest? Was it the intellect that gave her the confidence of a man in conversation? Whatever the cause, there could be no doubt that Isabella already had a distinguished, mature manner, whereas she, Beatrice, had the more anonymous face of a little girl.

“And now I imagine you ladies will want to rest,” Ludovico said.

He had already announced that despite the rugged, half-starved, sleepless voyage they had just endured, they would only have one day before the marriage ceremony, which was to take place in the chapel at the Castello di Pavia. Then, days later, everyone would travel to Milan for the
feste
honoring the new couple. The duke’s astrologer, Messer Ambrogio, thought by him to be infallible, had singled out the day after tomorrow as the most fortuitous for the wedding.

“Nothing is done here without his advice,” Ludovico said. “Three years ago, I was near my death, and his medicine, administered at the most propitious astrological times, of course, saved my life. They had all given me up for dead. Some had hoped, I’m afraid. But here I am, and I never ignore his counsel.”

The astrologer and medick was not present. He had already been sent to Milan to gauge the timing of all aspects of the marriage celebrations to take place in the capital. Along with him went Magistro Leonardo, who had been studying anatomy and architecture in this very library, but who was in charge of the theatrical decorations and other details of the days of
feste
to come.

“But we have just missed him?” Isabella looked forlorn at the mention that the Magistro was gone.

“He spent the summer and most of the fall here. I gave him access to this library, and also to my scholars at the university. A mistake,” said the duke.

“But how could it be a mistake to allow such a man to study?”

“The man is in my employ as a painter and an engineer. But, oh, to get him to paint! He has a thousand other pursuits that come between himself and his brush.”

“One must be understanding but persevering with the artists in one’s employ,” Leonora said, the voice of experience. “Duke Ercole and I have a game we play with them. He makes me out to be the most demanding of creatures in these matters. Then, feeling sorry for the duke that his wife is so troublesome, they produce the desired thing.”

“Madame, that is a brilliant technique. Perhaps I will be able to engage my own wife in employing it here. Perhaps even on the Magistro, though he is an especially difficult case. I tell you, he would spend all of his time dissecting human and animal cadavers if I left him to his own pursuits.”

“But why?” Beatrice asked. She and Isabella suddenly huddled together, as if it would give them protection from this grisly news.

“Why, to learn of organs and veins! That is what he says. He says that if he had been allowed, he would have devoted his life to learning the workings of the body’s interior and not the glorification of its exterior. Thank God he was born a bastard not allowed to study either law or medicine. If his father had not been an indiscreet youth, this great artist would be lancing sores on the legs of plague victims!”

“He paints the exterior,” Beatrice offered. “Why must he study the interior?”

“He is a medical man at heart, my dear. Oh, he is many things, but especially that. He has spent far too many hours drawing replications of organs, veins, limbs, and even one of a baby dead in the womb, when he should have been giving his mind to making the Castello at Milan a marvel for your eyes at our wedding.” Ludovico smiled at his young bride, giving her a little nod. As he lowered his face, she felt his eyes roam the length of her from tip to toe. It was a suggestive glance, the first indication of romance to come, or so she hoped. “You must see some of these drawings, for they are as extraordinary as they are macabre.”

“I do not think I would like to see such things, Your Excellency,” Beatrice said. She cannot think of what else to call him. When in public and in letters, her parents used such titles with one another as well. “Death comes to too many babies in the womb. It cannot be good luck to look upon such a thing.”

She wanted him to know that she would never jeopardize a child of his in her womb by looking at a dead fetus.

“Perhaps in exploring the interior of the body, he is searching for its essence, that ineffable thing that animates the eyes, the expression, the gestures. Perhaps he is looking for the soul,” Isabella offered.

Ludovico paused, cocking his head to the side, giving Isabella’s idea what seemed to Beatrice like a very long consideration. “Madame, when you meet him and speak with him, and when you see his paintings, I believe it will give confirmation to your theory. He is as much a philosopher as he is an artist or builder or man of anatomy. It would be just like him to open up a body in search of a soul.”

Beatrice did not like the way that Ludovico kept looking at Isabella as if she had just forged some pathway in his mind, had illuminated a road of thought for him that he had been trying to find on his own. Beatrice could see by some uncomfortable change in her mother’s face that Leonora had observed this too. How could this be? There was no Cecilia Gallerani in sight, but it was as if her own sister was trying to usurp her. Just a few hours ago, Beatrice believed that she had captured her husband’s attention, and now it was seeping away, leaving her cold, as if the hot draft that had begun to warm her bones was suddenly redirected toward her sister.