The Second Duchess (11 page)

“Would you like some bread sopped in your wine, Bärbel?” Katharina had gathered the pearls in a handkerchief and looked—well, not contrite exactly, but a little less prickly. “You have had no supper.”

“No, I think not, but thank you. What entertainments are arranged for tomorrow?”

“A hunt in the morning after Mass, and a performance of the duke’s consort of singers after supper.”

“I shall not hunt.” It was, of course, ludicrous to imagine myself in the saddle, and mercifully both of them managed to keep straight faces at my pronouncement. “Sybille, go at once and tell the duke I shall not see him until supper tomorrow.”

“Yes, Serenissima.”

She curtsied and went out. Katharina prepared my wine in a long-handled copper warming-pot over the fire. In deliberate defiance of the duke’s preference for unspiced, unsweetened wines, I directed her to stir in generous pinches of cinnamon and cloves and a good deal of grated white sugar. While I drank it, she gathered up the pieces of the scarlet wedding dress, bodice, sleeves, skirts, and mantle, smoothing their wrinkles and creases and folding them with the tender care of a mother.

“Would you like a lotion, Bärbel?” she asked me at last. “I will make it myself, with bayberry oil and marjoram and honey, and you may do as you wish with it in private.”

I put the wine-cup down. My eyes felt dry and hot. “Thank you, Katrine,” I said. “Yes, please. I would like the—marks—to disappear as quickly as possible.”

She nodded. “And this,” she said, tilting her head to the heap of heavy scarlet silk in her arms. “I will repair it, so it is just as it was. No one will ever know.”

I could not help but laugh. “Do your best,” I said. “But I assure you, everyone knows already.”

 

 

EVEN AFTER KATHARINA had made up the lotion, even after Sybille had returned and banked the fire and reposed herself on the pallet at the foot of my bed, I could not sleep. At first I was afraid the duke would send for me, and if he had, God alone knows what I might have done. Fortunately, he did not. I rolled over, curled up, rolled over again, trying to find a comfortable position. It was cold in the room, even with the banked fire. I heard bells somewhere out in the city, bells from convents and monasteries in every direction ringing the hours. I counted them. Finally when they rang the third vigil of matins, I whispered a prayer to Saint Monica, the patroness of unhappy wives, promising her a novena if my pains and fears might be eased. After that I slept at last.

I awoke late, heavy-eyed and aching. Domenica Guarini and my dear Christine fussed over me until I wanted to scream, pressing bread and wine upon me to break my fast, sponging me with warm water, massaging my flesh with more of Katharina’s lotion, dressing me like a child’s poppet. The lotion had achieved its end, or perhaps the duke’s strokes had not been so cruel as they seemed in the heat of the moment—there were a few faint red marks on my buttocks and thighs, but no bruising or broken skin.

“Has the hunt begun?” I asked Christine as she brushed out my hair.

“Yes, Serenissima, they left an hour ago, directly after Mass.”

“And you are certain the duke was among the hunters?”

“I saw him myself, all in black and gold like the devil he is. May he burn in hell.”

“Shush. He will only be further angered if he hears you have said such a thing.” I glanced sidelong at Domenica. Christine was quite clever enough to take my meaning; she said no more, but pressed her soft lips together and bent her attention to braiding my hair with a chain of amethysts.

“You need not fear I will repeat what you say, Serenissima
.
” Domenica sounded sincerely hurt. “No, nor what Christine says, nor anyone in your household. There may be spies around every corner in Ferrara, but I swear to you—” She looked around, and her dark eyes alighted on Tristo, who was sniffing and circling in the corner the way all puppies do when they need a walk in the garden. “By the little dog of San Domenico himself, I am not one of them.”

“There is no need for such vows,” I said. Her earnestness touched me even through my fog of humiliation and misery. “Now fetch the dogs’ leashes, if you please, and my mantle. We will take some air in the orange garden, and then we will go to the chapel. I have promised a novena to Saint Monica, and I wish to begin it at once.”

 

 

THE ORANGE GARDEN was not, as one might think, in a courtyard on the ground level with the other gardens and orchards of the Castello; it was a hanging garden, a square rooftop terrace jutting out from the great Lions’ Tower, landscaped with small paths and flower-beds with soil in boxes. The orange and lemon and citron trees in their wooden tubs were carried upstairs and downstairs as needed, and in cold weather such as this they were tended indoors like the petted aristocrats from the south they were. Surrounding the garden were parapets over which one could gaze out upon the city with its ancient walls, its marshes, its fields, and the silver branches of the Po, as if floating above it all.

The duke’s younger sister Nora happened to be there when we arrived, with her ladies and gentlemen—including the poet Tasso, handsome, long-legged, and elegantly dressed as ever but looking restless and moody—and her tame astrologer. The astrologer was discoursing upon the absent orange trees’ subjection to the sun and the value of the fruits’ juice in dissolving malignant planetary influences. Naturally, the fellow broke off when I approached, and abased himself; Nora and her ladies curtsied; the gentlemen bowed. Next to young Messer Torquato I recognized the Florentine ambassador, Messer Bernardo Canigiani, by the ostentatious sweep of his hat. I acknowledged the salutes and spoke politely to Nora. The puppies wagged their tails furiously and jumped up for petting, and then I passed on, not wishing to interrupt Nora and her little court any further.

Behind me I heard whispers and a woman’s half-stifled laughter.

Laughter.

How dare they? How
dare
they? Not only were they laughing in the presence of the astrologer, a lowborn fellow and a failed priest from the look of him, but in Messer Bernardo’s presence, too; now he would write to his master in Florence not only that the duke had beaten me, but that the duke’s own sister was laughing behind my back. For a single scalding moment tears blurred my vision; furiously I blinked them away. Domenica began chirruping to the puppies as if trying to cover the humiliating sounds behind us.

We stood at the walls for a while, but I saw nothing of the much-vaunted city view. I ran my fingers over the lines of mortar between the bricks, tracing their symmetrical pattern. At last I could bear it no longer, and without a word we made our way back inside the Castello and across the corridor to the chapel. I was hardly in any state of mind to humble myself, but I managed to say three Paters, three Aves, and three Glorias, and at least begin my petition to Saint Monica, on my knees on the cold marble floor with its polychrome inlay-work. The familiar cadence of the Latin calmed me a little.

The chapel was beautiful, small but with elegant geometric lines and a vaulted ceiling frescoed with images of the four Evangelists attended by their traditional symbols—Saint Matthew’s angel, Saint Mark’s lion, Saint Luke’s eagle, and Saint John’s bull—as well as by the proud white eagles of the Este. There were two or three niches along the walls, with statuary in the classical style. Each piece was beautiful but not to my personal taste—one could hardly tell if they were Christian saints or pagan goddesses. At last I signaled for Christine to fetch me a chair so I might save my knees and think awhile. Saint Monica might indeed intercede for me, but in the meantime it was only practical to assess my situation and decide for myself upon a course of action.

Clearly the duke’s desire to ingratiate himself into my brother’s imperial good graces did not extend to his private dealings with me. And I knew Maximilian well enough to know it would do me little good to write him an outraged letter; he was unlikely to cast aside the duke’s promises of Ferrarese troops against the encroaching Ottoman Empire simply because a husband had corrected his wife. I was married now, he would write back, the duke was my master, and that was the end of it.

Except I was not willing for that to be the end of it.

I could close my ears to whispers about the duke and his first wife. I could even swallow the humiliation of a thrashing, if it had remained a private thing between the duke and me. Although of course that was impossible; of course it would be talked of. Nora had done more than talk. She had laughed, and that meant the whole court was laughing. I could almost hear the scratching of a hundred pens eager to spread the story all over Europe.

I would not be publicly humiliated. I would not accept it. I—

“I hope, Serenissima, you are finding comfort in your prayers?”

I looked up, surprised anyone would dare interrupt me. It was Messer Bernardo Canigiani, the Florentine ambassador; his mobile face was arranged in an expression of sympathy so artless that for a breath or two I was taken in. Then I remembered who and what he was.

“I always find comfort in prayer,” I said. “And I would prefer to do so alone.”

With bland disregard for my rudeness, he made a gesture and a servant appeared beside him with another chair. He settled himself, arranged the folds of his gown, and waved the man away. I could see Domenica and Christine just outside the door, and two or three fellows wearing the red, blue, and gold livery of the Medici. Messer Bernardo and I were not exactly alone, but there in the center of the chapel, with no hiding places for listeners, we were surprisingly well-placed for low-voiced private conversation.

Which was obviously his intent. I wondered why, and rather than call my own waiting-gentlemen to eject him from the chapel, I allowed him to remain.

“How difficult it must be,” he said at last. His mask-face changed from its expression of sympathy to one of sympathy tinged with outrage. “Listening to them laugh.”

That bit of effrontery left me speechless, which was not an easy thing to do. He apparently took this as encouragement, for he leaned closer and lowered his voice even more. “Perhaps you would welcome an opportunity to escape from Ferrara, from the monster who mistreats you so?”

I said nothing.

“Your sister and Prince Francesco were married two days ago. She would welcome you with delight, if you chose to make a congratulatory visit to Florence.”

My first thought was this:
I will throw myself into the Po di Volano before I slink off to Florence with all my dreams in shatters
. My second thought followed hard upon it:
I need not slink. I could travel in state, my train hand-picked so there would be no one to laugh
.

It did not matter how many thoughts I had, of course. The duke would never allow me to leave the city alone, so soon after our marriage.

“That is impossible,” I said.

He leaned closer still. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. Imagine his humiliation. Would it not make a magnificent revenge?”

I would like to leave out what happened next, because I am ashamed of it. But what is the point of telling a story, if one is not completely truthful about one’s own thoughts and actions? There in the cold marble chapel, my flesh still tender from the duke’s chastisement and my anger still smoldering from his sister’s laughter, I heard the word
revenge
and felt a rush of response.
Yes!
my Habsburg blood cried, pulsing in my veins.
Yes!
cried my wounded pride and my lacerated dignity, amid the ruins of the Cloud-Cuckoo-Land I had created in my imagination, in which I presided over the court at Ferrara like the perfect and queenly Duchess Elisabetta Gonzaga—not the real woman, of course, who died before I was ever born, but the heroine of
Il Libro del Cortegiano
, the guide-book and lodestar to all my dreams.

“Magnificent, indeed,” I said carefully. “But you understand, one such as I cannot simply ride off to another city.”

His mien changed, like a fisherman who had, somewhat unexpectedly, hooked a fish. I knew instantly I had been a fool, a hundred kinds of a fool, to encourage him even for the space of a single sentence.

“Naturally not,” he said, his voice unctuous as clotted cream. “But such a matter could be arranged discreetly. It would be like a tale from Boccaccio—you could easily be one of the illustrious ladies of whom he wrote so delightfully. Imagine the joy of sister greeting sister! Imagine the fetes and entertainments! Imagine the abandoned husband gnashing his teeth, repudiated by his imperial bride.”

Repudiated? Holy Virgin. That was taking the fantasy too far.

“I do not care for that story,” I said.

“Imagine further,” he went on, as if I had not spoken, “the newly freed lady seizing the opportunity and speaking publicly, writing letters—oh, let us say, about an evil deed her husband did, before their marriage. Before she escaped she had every reason to be curious, after all. Every right to come and go in her husband’s private chambers, every right to speak with his retainers, look at his papers—”

“For the love of God,” I said through my teeth. “Are you mad, Messer Bernardo? That is treason.”

He leaned back in his chair, his face inscrutable. “Treason? You mistake me, Serenissima. It is nothing but a tale, a work of imagination after the model of Boccaccio. I was told you looked forward to the discussion of literary works here in Ferrara.”

“I do not wish to hear such tales as that.” I could feel my heart thudding and a sweat of fear breaking out under my fine gown. In what net of conspiracy was this man attempting to entangle me? “Nor would the duke.”

He shrugged. “It would make conversation for a cold winter’s night, that is all. Perhaps each person could conceive a different version of the tale, and we could judge one against another.”