The Second Duchess (31 page)

When Nicoletta and the puppies had departed, the duke and I looked at each other.

“If we are to learn the truth,” I said, picking up the thread of the thought I had begun just as the puppies interrupted us, “we must try to find out how it was she truly came to die. My lord, I suggest we interview your physician. And I also believe Sister Orsola must be questioned again.”

“I agree.”

I straightened and brushed the dust from my skirts; as I did I felt a sharp twinge in my lower back and a throe of exhaustion such as I had never felt before. “I would like to rest now,” I said. “And with your leave I shall not come down for supper. Later I would like to come here again and examine the large coffers.”

“You are welcome to come when you like.” I must have looked surprised and dubious, because his expression darkened. “You do not believe me? I assure you I am quite sincere. I will even leave it to you to search for hidden compartments, and perhaps find the missing book.”

And to my astonishment, he took the golden chain with its keys out of his pouch again and dropped it into my lap.

 

 

I myself was surprised when Tommasina brought it, because she was only a poor
parruchiera
and it was covered all over with gold and jewels. I asked her where she got it, and she told me a long story about it being a present from a rich merchant’s wife who seduced her lover with the beautiful hair-coloring Tommasina had concocted for her. Any fool could tell it was all a lie.

I never finished telling the story of how they found me dead, so I’ll tell the rest now. Alfonso called for a priest. The one who came was young and looked frightened at being rousted out of bed; he was even more flustered when he realized it was the duke he’d been brought to, and the supposedly not-quite-dead body of the duchess. It turned out later he was an itinerant Franciscan who was only spending the night at the monastery, which was lucky for Alfonso—what would he have done, I wonder, if Mother Eleonora had turned up with Frà Pandolf? How would I have felt, I wonder, to have that
figlio di puttana
touching my flesh again, to give me the holy rites?

She’s clever. I’m beginning to think she may find out who murdered me after all. I’d like that, I think. I’d like to have my revenge, and have it soon, because no matter how hard I try to stay in the world, I can feel myself slipping away. Even hating Alfonso isn’t enough. Even wanting revenge isn’t enough. Hell is yawning beneath me, calling me, and I won’t be
immobila
much longer.

I
was in Innsbruck, in one of the small plain chambers in the Hofburg I shared with my sisters, stitching silken tapes on hundreds of pure white cloths. They were to go in my bride-chests. The chests themselves stood before us, carved and gilded, painted with birds and animals, fruit and flowers and foliage; the center of each lid was embellished with the letters
A
and
B
intertwined. To my astonishment, the top of the largest one suddenly swung open and Lucrezia de’ Medici emerged, holding a gilded leather-bound book in one hand and with her other arm around the neck of a milk-white unicorn.

“You must never speak his Christian name,” she said. Her voice was prickly and glittering, like the points of pins. “If you do, he will shut you away from everything living and beautiful.” She put the book into a painted box—where had it come from? It had not been there before—and took out a basket of crimson cherries, the fruit glossy-ripe and tempting. She ate one, and laughed, and handed one to me. I put it in my mouth and bit down, and it dissolved into a silver liquid as bitter as death.

“You may go.”

It was the duke’s voice. For a moment I was frightened. What was he doing in Innsbruck? What would he do if he knew his first wife was still alive? Then I realized I was not in Innsbruck at all, but in Ferrara, in my bedchamber in the Palazzo della Corte, in my bed. It was dark. Morning? Night?

“Yes, my lord. I wish you a good night, my lord.”

A polished, subservient male voice. In the background, ladies’ voices as well, whispering.

Night, then. I sat up. Holy Virgin, I was thirsty. Hungry, too. I still could not remember why I was here, what had happened before. Standing beside my bed was the duke in the flesh, wearing a night-gown of black velvet corded and frogged with gold. Something did not seem right about him, and after a moment I realized he was not wearing the damascened dagger. But of course he would not be. He was in his night-gown.

“What hour is it?” I asked.

He lifted his eyebrows. “Past compline. In the tower you said you were tired and did not wish to come down to supper.”

The tower. The tiny secret room. The bride-chests, the white cloths, the jeweled flask. Before that—the hunt, the fall, confinement at Belfiore, terror for Katharina and capitulation. Confession in the icy Primavera garden. I knew it all had happened, but it was jumbled together and I could not quite put it in the proper order. I remembered exhaustion crashing down upon me as a golden chain of keys had fallen in my lap. Yes, now I remembered my plea to be excused from supper and the evening entertainments. I had come here to my apartments instead, I had refused food and drink, I had kept myself on my feet barely long enough for my ladies to undress me before I collapsed into the bed.

“I am thirsty,” I said. “May I have some wine?”

“Of course.”

He went to the table and poured wine into two glasses. I had a brief, vivid flash of my wedding night, and I thought, that is why he is here. He has come to bed with me. Too many things had happened, too many things had changed, and he meant to reassert his power over me. The thought frightened me, and at the same time gave me a feeling of—what was it? Expectation? Eagerness, and at the same time a sort of liquid languor? Whatever it was, I had never felt anything quite like it before.

He handed me one of the glasses of wine and drew a chair to the side of the bed for himself. Again, it was a strange mirroring of the events of my wedding night. He sipped his wine. I drank mine in deep swallows. I remembered wishing, on my first night as his wife, I had drunk more than a sip or two of wine. This time I intended to remedy that omission.

“I was dreaming,” I said. “I thought I was back in Innsbruck.”

I expected him to disregard my words. Instead, to my amazement, he took another sip of his wine and said calmly, “I am interested in your life in Innsbruck, before you came here. It made you what you are. Tell me about it.”

“I—I do not know how to begin,” I said. His interest made me uneasy. Had that scalding half-hour of honesty between us in the garden at Belfiore changed everything in some unexpected way? “It was very different from your life here. My sisters and I lived apart from the court most of the time, very quietly. We were taught prayer was more important than amusement.”

“Your devotion is obvious. I would like you to instruct our own children in a similar fashion—I wish to improve my relations with the Holy See now that there is a new pope, and as part of that effort I want no more heresy in Ferrara.”

I crossed myself. “God forbid,” I said automatically. A question about the tournament at Blois rose to my lips—
I would like you to instruct our own children
—but I did not have the courage to ask it.

“And yet even with your pious life, you were educated,” the duke said. “You are literate, and you have an appreciation of music and art.”

“We were taught languages and history and a little mathematics, along with music and dancing and riding and other courtly accomplishments. My father always intended me for marriage and not the cloister—several matches were discussed over the years.”

And came to nothing. I did not say that aloud. The ugly archduchess Barbara of Austria was refused or jilted, a half-dozen times and more. How else did she come to be twenty-six, ten years past what little bloom she had, when you at last selected her as a weapon in your battle with Cosimo de’ Medici for the Precedenza? And why are you asking me these questions now? Is it yet another way to possess me, to make my childhood self your own as well as the woman who is now your duchess?

“I was not always happy,” I said. It was not entirely a lie. “I told you that as a young girl I was much struck by Messer Baldassare Castiglione’s book,
Il Libro del Cortegiano
.”

“You did.”

“My language tutor gave me the book when I was ten, to help me learn Italian—my older sister Katharina had just married the Duke of Mantua, and there was some talk of making a match for me with the duke’s brother.”

I paused and took another sip of the wine. He said nothing, but drank his own wine and waited for me to continue.

“I had to puzzle my way through the book at first, but as I became more fluent in Italian and read it over and over, my heart was fired with desire to be like the courtiers of Urbino, particularly Duchess Elisabetta. She was so gracious, so witty, had such a refined and cultivated circle of friends. I was only ten, you remember—I was filled with dreams, and the book made the dreams more real.”

“Books will do that.”

“The Mantuan match came to nothing—Katharina’s husband died within the year, and his brother chose to marry my sister Eleonora rather than me. After that, I must confess I hid my precious copy of Messer Baldassare’s work in my prayer-book and read bits of it in the chapel where no one could see.”

He laughed. “I would never have guessed you would do something so deceitful.”

I took another swallow of wine.

“I would like to know about your life as well,” I said. My voice shook a little. I was not sure why turning the subject frightened me, but it did. Perhaps it was because I was not really sure whether I wanted to know too much about him.

“That will have to wait for another time,” he said. “Are you more yourself now?”

“Yes. Thank you.” I drank the last of the wine.

“Good. Loose your hair.”

A pang halfway between pleasure and pain stabbed me low in my belly. I handed him the empty glass and reached up to take off my night-coif. I said, “I have been using the apricot scent you suggested.”

“So I have noticed. It is difficult to assess the full effect unless your hair is loose.”