The Second Duchess (7 page)

“If you think I am going to drink that concoction,” I said, “motherwort or no, you are madder than you look.”

“ ’Tis good for you,
Austriaca
. Drink it up and go to the duke, and you’ll be with child by Lady Day.”

“Or dead by morning.”

She laughed, showing her toothless gums. “Nay, not you. You’re safe enough. The other one, now, that’s a different tale.”

I stared at her, not quite sure I had heard her correctly. “What other one?”

“The Costabili wench, o’ course. She’d best take care what she eats and drinks, off in the cloister where they’ve sent her to kneel on stone floors for her sins.”

“That is ridiculous. A thrashing, perhaps. Banishment from the court. But poison? For nothing more than a few impertinent words?”

“I’d poison her myself, for disturbing the duke’s peace. Sure as bark on tree she was bribed or threatened—I hear she’s deep in debt for card-playing.”

“Then the person who coerced her should suffer.”

The old witch cackled. “Easy to say. Could have been anyone, wanted your wedding night spoiled and the duke angered. Everyone knows he hates any mention of that little Medici slut and her—”

“Enough. I do not wish to hear it.”

“Delicate imperial ears!” she jeered. “Confess it,
Austriaca
, you’re thirsting to know more about the duke’s first wife.”

“I am not.”

“Liar. No better than she should have been, that one. Duke Ercole was mad as a bag of loons to make that marriage, and sully the blood of the Este with pawnbrokers’
palle
.”

I had seen the arms of the Medici embroidered all over my sister Johanna’s bride-goods: a shield with seven mysterious circles, the
palle
, said by some to be coins representing the family’s origin as bankers and pawnbrokers, and by others to be pills characterizing their background as physickers. Rich and powerful the Medici may have become, but the old woman was right: in blood they were far inferior to the Este, who had been feudal lords since the tenth century and were much intermarried with French and Spanish royalty.

Was this, then, how the duke’s first wife had died, by means of an old nurse’s potions? Or had the old nurse herself—

“No better than she should have been,” the old woman was saying. “
Stupida!
Laughed and asked me for love potions instead of my good
infusione
of motherwort.”

“Love potions!” That took me aback, and I could not help myself. “But she was young, beautiful! Surely she did not need love potions to excite the duke’s interest.”

Maria Granmammelli gave me a sly look. “Wild teasel and mandrake, ginger and cinnamon. It made her hot, and as for who she lusted for and what came later, that’s another tale. Mayhap I’ll tell you another time. Drink my potion first, if you want to loosen my tongue.”

I did not want her witch’s brew, but how could I help but wonder who Lucrezia de’ Medici had lusted for and what had come later? The duke, manlike, thought forbidding me to speak of his first wife would eliminate her from my thoughts; the result, of course, had been exactly the opposite.

Red clover, motherwort, and lady’s mantle. Harmless enough, if that was really all that was in it. I deliberated for a moment and then I said, “Give it to me.”

She yanked the stopper from the bottle with her teeth—or perhaps her toothless gums, who knew? The less thought about that the better—and poured the potion into the cup. It was clear and greenish, with flecks of red and green. Clover petals and motherwort leaves? One could only hope. I took the cup from her and sniffed it; a sharp, cold scent made my eyes water. The old witch had infused her herbs in aqua vitae, then. Diluted, I hoped.

Mentally I crossed myself, and drank it down.

Holy Virgin! It was enough to make a goat gag. I gulped and coughed; my eyes watered and my head swam. It was not diluted, not diluted at all. I could feel bits of herb in my mouth and the numbing burn of pure spirits.

“Katharina!” My voice was little more than a whisper. “Sybille! Christine! To me! Water!”

All of them burst in with exclamations of surprise and concern. Sharp little barks and then the characteristic baying howls indicated Tristram and Iseult—already shortened to Tristo and Isa—were hot on the scent to my rescue as well. There was chaos for a moment as water was fetched, the puppies were recaptured, and recriminations were exchanged between the Austrian ladies and the Ferrarese. In the course of it all, Maria Granmammelli slipped away.

“Enough, enough,” I managed to gasp, as Sybille, Christine, and Domenica all pressed cups of water on me at once, and Katharina scolded me—although I knew it was her way of expressing her concern—over water-spots on the silk of my skirts. “I am well enough. I am not poisoned, I promise you all.”

“You cannot know that for sure, not yet.” Sybille pushed Domenica Guarini aside and pressed her cup of water upon me again. “Drink some more of this. Send the rest of them away, Bärbel—we-three, Katrine and Christine and I, we are all you need.”

The collective name they had always called themselves, from the days when we were children together, gave me a pang of loss so bitter it brought tears to my eyes. I could not send the Ferrarese ladies away. The duke would be displeased. The days of we-three were gone forever.

“I will take the puppies outside to the garden,” Domenica Guarini said. She had not mastered the court trick of hiding her emotions behind a smiling mask; her hurt feelings were clear in her eyes, but her voice was steady. “Paolina, come with me. I will need your help. We must manage leashes and cloaks and pattens—it is quite cold. By your leave, of course, Serenissima.”

The other Ferrarese girl was reluctant, but Domenica picked Tristo up off the floor and thrust him into her arms before she could protest. Then Domenica herself collected Isa, and with puppy-laden curtsies the two young women left the bedchamber.

How good of her to give me a few minutes more of my dear we-three, despite her own disappointment! I promised myself I would remember.

“I have your night-gown warming here by the fire,” Katharina said. “We will just get you out of that dress. I can remove the water-spots, I think. You must have slippers, too, Bärbel. These floors are horribly cold.”

“Don’t cry.” Christine gave me a hug, something she did only in private—princesses and duchesses were far above hugs, or for that matter, touches of any kind, according to imperial etiquette. “Some of the Ferrarese ladies seem good and kind, and as long as we-three can stay with you here in Ferrara, we can manage having them about as well.”

“You perhaps,” Sybille said. “Not I. That old witch tried to poison Bärbel.”

“I am not poisoned,” I said. “Although I do feel strange—I am a little dizzy, and my lips feel numb.”

“There, you see?” Sybille began taking down my hair, freeing it from its braidings, twistings, and jewels. Holy Virgin, it felt good to have it loose. She combed her fingers through it and then rubbed my scalp, as only she could do. “Stay here tonight,” she whispered. “We will send word to the duke that you are indisposed.”

“I wish I could, my Sybille, but you know I cannot. Just run a comb through my hair, and help me out of my dress—he will be wondering what has become of me.”

Even I was surprised at the matter-of-factness of my words. Just last night I had been apprehensive at being put to bed with the Duke of Ferrara. Today, during the gift-giving, I had hated and feared him. Now, all of a sudden, I felt nothing but a strange combination of light-headedness and bravado.

They undressed me. Katharina folded the pieces of the dress away, smoothing the creases, putting the laces and gems in their boxes, while Sybille wrapped me up in the warmed night-gown and Christine tied fur-lined slippers on my feet.

The slippers were hardly necessary; I went to the duke’s private apartments as if I were treading a hand’s span above the marble of the floors. I had never drunk pure spirits before, and so it was only the next morning, when I awoke with a thundering headache, that I realized how much of my dreamlike boldness had been due to Maria Granmammelli’s potion.

 

 

What can I see of her? Mostly just her hair—much as I hate to admit it, Maddalena Costabili was lying when she said my hair was more beautiful than the
Austriaca’s
. Hers is so bright it almost glows in the dark, and it’s spread over the pillows like spilled apricot brandy. Her arms—she’s not embracing him, because he has twisted her arms back against the bed. One leg is drawn up, ghostly white, jolting each time he thrusts into her. She’s drunk—that’s what she is—after swallowing that old witch’s potion all in a gulp like she did. Even I knew better than that.

Tommasina finally came to my aid, just as she’d always done. She was my
parruchiera
, my hair-dresser, and she was my friend, too, the only real friend I had in Ferrara. Her father was my father’s favorite alchemist, Messer Tommaso Vasari, and she had been given her place in my Ferrarese household as a favor after her father created a secret formula for my father. One story said it was a poison even better than the famous
cantarella
of the Borgias, quick, sure, and undetectable. I always thought it was probably an aphrodisiac.

I think I’ll call the
Austriaca
la Cavalla, because she has a face like a horse. Poor la Cavalla. She’ll never have any lovers. At least she’d better not.

“
I
wish to have Frà Pandolf paint your portrait, to mark the occasion of our marriage,” the duke said. “He is wonderfully talented, and has a knack of breathing the very appearance of life into his subjects.”

The evening had begun with the performance of a comedy by Messer Ludovico Ariosto, whose name was known even in Vienna. Afterward, we all withdrew from the great salon so tables could be set out for supper. In one corner of the anteroom, the duke’s consort of viols played softly, entertaining us and at the same time masking our words from those around us. The air was warm and heavy with the scents of fire and perfumed flesh.

“Of course, my lord,” I said. “I had an inventory made of my bridal costume, as you directed. But Frà Pandolf? I have not heard the name before.”

“He is a Franciscan friar, loosely attached to a monastery under my patronage,” the duke said. “A proud and worldly fellow for a Franciscan, and often too familiar for my taste, but a remarkable artist nevertheless. I will make the arrangements.”

I toyed with a comfit of candied angelica. “He will have his work cut out for him,” I said. “I cannot pretend to be a promising subject.”