The Second Duchess (28 page)

W
e were to return to the Palazzo della Corte for supper, and the duke’s presence was required for matters of state in the meantime, so he sent me back to my apartments—with two of his gentlemen-ushers at my heels, looking rather mystified—to rest and make my own arrangements for the move. We would continue our conversation, he said, once we were back in the Palazzo and I had collected myself. I was not sure if he was deliberately drawing out the agony of my complete confession so as to take further vengeance on me for my deceptions, or if he was genuinely showing mercy upon my distress.

In the duchess’s apartments at Belfiore—and as beautiful as they were, I would never feel at ease in them again—I changed out of the creased and tear-spotted russet brocade and into a dress of serviceable blue camlet. Nicoletta Rangoni and my kindly Domenica Guarini asked no questions, and I hoped they would not spread the tale of my mysterious tears. The russet dress would be sent off to the wardrobe-women once we were back at the Palazzo; my face could not be so easily exchanged for another. I touched up my swollen eyes and reddened nose as best I could with a little tinted ceruse and some powder.

“I will take charge of the puppies for our ride back to the Palazzo della Corte,” Nicoletta said. She had Tristo under one arm and Isa on her scarlet leather leash at her feet, and as always seemed happiest in their company. “They can ride in their basket, strapped to my saddle where they will be safe.”

“Everything else is packed, Serenissima,” Domenica said. “Would you rather rest here, and perhaps have some wine and cakes, or would you prefer to go straight back to the Palazzo now and rest in your own apartments there?”

“Let us go now,” I said. “I wish to be home.”

I said the word without thinking. Was it only in contrast to the shock, fear, and humiliation of Belfiore that the Palazzo della Corte suddenly seemed like home to me? I was well into my second month of marriage, and both the simplicity of Innsbruck and the rigid ceremony of Vienna seemed far away, in time as well as distance. In any case, I wanted to be away from Belfiore, and the sooner the better.

With Domenica, Nicoletta and the puppies, and the duke’s gentlemen-ushers making a motley train in my wake, I went through the loggia and into the courtyard, where our horses were waiting. Not my beautiful Tänzerin; she had not been blamed for my fall, as horses sometimes were, but with her Arab and Iberian blood she was not an animal to be ridden through city streets. Not Conradt, either—a Ferrarese groom I had never seen before stood holding a placid white mule equipped with an old-fashioned side-saddle, looking like nothing so much as a green velvet padded chair with a footrest towering disproportionately over the animal’s back. I mounted sedately—there was no need to gather up the reins because there were no reins for me, only for the groom who would lead the animal—wondering if I would ever again be allowed to ride in the hunt as I loved to do.

It was a sunny afternoon and late enough in the day that the perpetual winter fog of Ferrara had burned off. As we clopped along through the spacious and geometrical new city of the duke’s great-grandfather Ercole I, we came upon a building entirely faced with white marble blocks, veined with rosy pink, set and carved in pointed pyramid shapes. I had never seen such stonework before; it gave the whole building a strange granulated aspect.

“It is the Palazzo dei Diamanti, Serenissima,” Domenica said, guiding her own mule up beside mine. She was allowed reins of her own. “See, the stones are carved in the shape of diamonds—the diamond was one of the first Ercole’s devices, and he was even called Il Diamante, some say for his hardness.”

However she might chatter to distract me, I remembered the name.

“This is where my Austrian ladies and gentlemen are being kept, is it not?”

“Yes, Serenissima, all but Donna Katharina.”

“And you say she is at the Castello?”

“Yes, Serenissima.”

“Domenica? ”

“Yes, Serenissima?”

“I wish you to call me by my Christian name in private, as Katharina and Sybille and Christine do. I hope—I pray—the duke will allow them to stay, but in the meantime there is no one to call me by my name, and I miss the sound of it.”

She looked surprised and uneasy. My practice of calling my ladies by their Christian names, and allowing some of them to address me in the same way in return, was generally considered a breach of etiquette; in Austria it drove my protocol-conscious brother and sister-in-law mad with exasperation. The duke had made no comment. But of course as he had told me scornfully in the matter of Frà Pandolf’s portrait, manners were freer and more modern here in Ferrara.

“I am not sure—what of the others, Serenissima? Will they be affronted?”

“If they are, I will speak to them. Please, Domenica.”

“Very well, Serenissima. Barbara.” She smiled warmly. “You give me a great privilege, and I swear to you I will value it with all my heart.”

I smiled in return. It was good to hear someone say my name; it gave me back some sense of myself as an individual and not solely the Duchess of Ferrara. “You will be my personal court poet,” I said. “The cardinal may have young Messer Torquato Tasso, and the duke may have his singers, but I shall have you.”

She laughed and blushed. My heart lightened a bit. But as the Palazzo dei Diamanti was left behind us, I did not forget we-three. Sybille and Christine would be safe enough for the moment. Once I was back at the Palazzo della Corte—once I was home—I would go straight through the covered walkway to the Castello and at least satisfy myself that my dear Katrine was being held in comfortable circumstances, as befitted her rank.

 

 

AS IT TURNED out, I did not have the opportunity. I had barely arrived in my apartments at the Palazzo when one of the duke’s gentlemen appeared with a message.

I wish to speak with you before supper
, the duke had written. His hand was even and clear, in a cultivated italic style without flourishes. Again the polished and effortless surface, the intricacies hidden from the eye. There was no further explanation and no signature, not even an initial.

I refolded the note, taking my time about it to give myself a few moments to think.

“Tell the duke I shall wait upon him in half an hour’s time,” I told the gentleman. “First I wish to walk in the garden with the puppies. Nicoletta, Domenica, accompany me, if you please.”

They did, as did the duke’s guards. I whispered to Domenica, and she ran off through the Via Coperta to the Castello; within the half-hour she was back with news that she had seen Katharina and all was well, or at least as well as it could be. My true objective achieved, we returned to my apartments and settled the puppies with their doting Nicoletta to mind them. Only then did I make my way to the duke’s
studiolo
, the guards still trailing silently behind me. An equerry admitted me.

“Good afternoon, Madonna,” the duke said. “Come and sit down.” He dismissed the guards and gestured to the gilded armchair next to his own.

I crossed the room with its exquisitely inlaid walls, its magnificent painted and coffered ceiling, its polished cabinets displaying leather-bound and gilded books as if they were objets d’art. In one corner a harpsichord was situated at an angle, its case beautifully carved and the inner surface of its lid painted with a scene of Orpheus and Eurydice. The light was partly slanting late-afternoon daylight from the windows, partly the gleam of candles scented with amber. The equerry poured wine into two Murano glasses, presented them with two formal bows, and left the room.

“So you went to walk with those little hounds of yours before coming to me as I requested,” the duke said. “I would have expected you to be more eager to obey me.”

I took a deep breath. “Is that what you wish, my lord? That I fear you, and creep to your feet in trepidation at your slightest word?”

He took a sip of his wine. “You have courage,” he said. “I will grant you that.”

“Is that not what you want, in your duchess and the mother of your sons?”

He gave no sign he doubted I would ultimately be the mother of his sons. His hand was absolutely steady as he put his glass on the inlaid table between us. I could not say the same for mine.

“Courage, yes,” he said. “Foolhardiness, no. Do not think to push me too far.”

I sipped the wine, swallowed, waited for a moment. Then I said, “I understand.”

“Good. Now, let us discuss your investigations to date. Begin with your—retreat—at Corpus Domini. I suspected at the time there was more to it than prayers for a son.”

I took another sip of my wine. “I spoke with Mother Eleonora, my lord, and with Sister Orsola, the infirmarian. I learned of your visit to the young duchess the afternoon before she died. I learned she was not ill, as was put about officially, but imprisoned at your command.”

“Go on.”

“Earlier I had learned from Maria Granmammelli that Duchess Lucrezia asked her for love potions, and later one of her women asked for another potion, which the old woman described as an abortifacient. Thus I deduced the young duchess had lovers, that she was with child and did not wish to bear it. When I put this together with Sister Orsola’s information, it seemed obvious why you imprisoned her at the monastery.”

“Indeed. Go on.”

“Your sister Crezia also spoke of her lovers—”

“
Vipera
,” he said, cutting me off. “She has always fancied herself as
prima donna
of Ferrara, and would be happiest if there were no duchess at all so she could reign undisputed. I suspected she had nothing good to say when I saw the two of you whispering behind your hands at the entertainments.”

I looked at him steadily. “It gets worse, my lord,” I said. “Do you wish me to continue?”

His eyes narrowed. “Continue.”

“I spoke at length with—a lady, both that evening and the next morning. Her husband was also Duchess Lucrezia’s lover, and it seems she coerced him—”

“You will tell me this husband’s name, if you please.”

I had hoped to protect poor Donna Elisabetta from her husband’s sins. I also hesitated to mention the name of the duke’s great friend. Would he believe me? Crezia had seemed to think the duke knew of his friend’s betrayal, but I was not so sure. I smoothed the blue camlet of my skirt and made a pleat. Then I remembered the garden at Belfiore, the duke’s hand coming down hard over my fingers, and I stopped.

“His name, Madonna.”

There was nothing to do but tell the truth. “It was Messer Sandro Bellinceno, my lord. Donna Elisabetta told me Duchess Lucrezia had some sort of forbidden book she had stolen from your library, and had enticed him to write in his own hand on its pages. With that the young duchess coerced him to rid her of—yet another lover. He cut the fellow’s throat in secret and has been tortured by the memory of it ever since.”

I am not sure what I expected—an explosion of rage? A vow of vengeance? Neither came to pass. The duke frowned briefly when I said the words
forbidden book
, but then continued to sip his wine without expression. “It distressed you to tell me that,” he said thoughtfully, looking at my hands, “because you know Sandro Bellinceno and I are close as brothers? Be comforted—I have known for some time that Lucrezia de’ Medici seduced my friend, although I did not know about the book. I did not blame him for it then, nor do I now. It was her work, not his.”

That absurd pronouncement angered me. Why did men always blame the woman? Although of course men had been blaming women for their sins since the fall of Adam. “He is a man grown,” I said, keeping my voice even. “Surely he must bear some of the responsibility.”

“Oh, he was a fool to be taken in by her, I will grant you that. Now, you are certain Donna Elisabetta described a forbidden book in the duchess’s possession? Can you tell me more about it?”