The Second Duchess (4 page)

Aloud I said, “Nothing has disturbed me, my lord.”

After what seemed like an endless silence, he lifted one hand.

“Enough,” he said. “All of you. There is music in the great salon, and wine and subtleties, and gifts for everyone. The duchess and I will greet you again, come morning.”

In haste, without the customary laughter, toasts, and ribald jests, the gentlemen and ladies scuttled out. The door swung shut. We were alone.

I forced down my impulse to speak first, to say anything to fill the silence.

“What did she say?” He came closer to me, close enough to touch me, although he did not. I could feel the heat of—what? Outraged pride? Fury? Madness?—radiating from his flesh. With vicious intensity he said again,
“What did she say?”

I clenched my fists under the coverlet. “She said your first wife’s hair was longer and more golden than mine, and her breasts were like white peaches.”

To my surprise he stepped back, and some of the ferocity cleared from his eyes. “What else?”

“That she was mad, your first duchess, the last time the girl saw her.”

“That, at least, is the truth. And you, Madonna?” His violence had cooled. His expression was calmer, more appraising. Clearly he had been expecting something else in the girl’s gossip—an accusation of murder, perhaps? That would explain his anger. “What did you say to all this?”

“I dismissed the girl, and directed the rest of the ladies to proceed with undressing me.”

I saw the tiniest flicker in his eyes, something light in the darkness. Appreciation? Amusement, even? “You keep your composure admirably,” he said. “You did the same, in the procession, at the church, at supper.”

“I was brought up to do so.”

“Indeed. Breeding always tells.” He went to the sideboard and poured two glasses of wine, taking his time about it. With his back to me, he said, “We will not speak of this again. You will never mention her, or the whispers about her. Never. Not in my hearing, or out of it. Not if you wish to please me.”

I made two pleats in the coverlet, of exactly even size. “Of course I wish to please you.”

He brought the wine to the bedside and handed one glass to me. I saw him look at the folds I had made in the coverlet. “Good. Are you hungry? You did not eat at supper.”

“No, my lord.” I let go of the pleats and they unpleated themselves. “But the wine is welcome.”

There was a pause. I did not know what else to say. At last he said, “I have little skill at pretty words. Fighting, yes. Sport. Music, even. But there it ends.”

I breathed the scent of the wine for a moment, then took a sip. It was cool and robust, without the honey and spices I had expected.

“Pretty words are unnecessary,” I said. “We are husband and wife. The wine is excellent. Is it your custom not to sweeten it?”

“I prefer the flavor of our fine Ferrarese wine itself, and not some motley of sweetness and spice.”

The fire crackled and popped suddenly, and I jumped. A few droplets of wine lurched from my glass and spattered the silken coverlet. The half-spheres glittered like rubies for a moment, then sank away into the fabric.

“I look forward to the pleasures of your beautiful city,” I said. “Messer Baldassare Castiglione’s
Il Libro del Cortegiano
is a favorite book of mine, with its wonderful descriptions of court life in Urbino.”

“The court of Urbino is well enough, and the Della Rovere are my allies and friends. Even so, I believe Messer Baldassare’s ideal courtier would find himself more at home in Ferrara today, where we enjoy art and music and sport without peer, and manners of unsurpassed elegance.”

Unsurpassed pride as well, I thought. “I am sure that is true,” I said, to placate him. “I was only ten years old when I first tried to read it, you see, and it was like reading about an imaginary land of perfect shining lords and ladies—I wished so passionately I could be in Urbino and not in Innsbruck.”

He drank the last of his wine, put the glass down, and began to unfasten his belt. The damascened dagger glinted in the firelight. “And now you are in Ferrara,” he said. “Tell me, Madonna, have you been prepared for this? You are no skittish child, at least, to be wheedled and coaxed.”

“No.” My own voice sounded strange to me. I took one last sip of my wine and put the glass on the table beside the bed. The spots of wine on the silk coverlet had dried to the color of blood. One was larger than the other, and it made me uneasy. “I am no child, I am not skittish, and I have been quite well-prepared for my wedding night.”

He had stripped to his shirt, and the fine white silk looked even whiter against his swarthy skin and dark beard. His shoulders and arms were as well-shaped and athletic as his legs. He turned to face me again. He was not smiling.

“We shall see about that.”

I closed my eyes. For a moment nothing happened. Then I felt the coverlet pulled aside and the air of the room against my skin. I could hear the fire, and I could almost feel the patterns of light and dark flickering over my breasts and belly. I breathed—breathed. I suppressed my instinct to cover myself. It was cold in the room, fire or no fire. I knew he was looking at me, and I could not stop myself from remembering what the girl Maddalena had said.
Her breasts were rosy and firm, like two white peaches bursting with sweet juice. . . .

“I am cold,” I said. My voice did not sound like my own.

“You will be warm soon.”

His weight made the mattresses sink down on one side. I wanted to show him I was willing, so I turned toward him. He put his fingers through my hair, pulling it from beneath my back and shoulders. Wisps of it crackled and clung to my cheeks; I could imagine it clinging to his hands as well, as if he were taking control of my responses whether I wanted it or not.

“You have beautiful hair. Come closer and put your arms around me.”

I obeyed him.

He kissed my mouth. I could taste wine on his lips. He could probably taste wine on mine as well. No honey, no spices.
I prefer the flavor of the wine itself.
I let myself sink farther toward him; the green scent of crushed herbs made me dizzy. He had taken off the shirt. Skin against skin. My husband, my lord. The cathedral.
Jacta alea est
. I would be the duchess, at the center of the court. I would have children.

“Good,” he said. He twisted his hands more tightly in my hair. “Open yourself to me.”

I opened my mouth and let my full weight press against him. He kissed me again and again, with my hair wrapped around his fists.

“Look at me.”

I tried to turn my face aside, but he held me. I could not look at him. I prayed he would not insist.

He did not. He let go of my hair and pushed me back into the center of the bed; then, slowly and possessively, he moved his hands over my throat, my shoulders, my breasts, my arms. I felt ashamed and awkward at first. He calmed me.
I have little skill at pretty words.
A lie, that. Once he had gentled me, all of a sudden he sank his nails lightly into my flesh, and I recoiled at the shock of sensation. He waited until I had stopped trembling, then began the same slow process again. Caresses, murmurs, more caresses, then—not pain, exactly, but intense sensation. This time I half-expected it and only gasped.

He did it over and over. Each time the sensation was more piercing. He began using his mouth as well as his hands. I could not catch my breath. I was sweating all over, everywhere. I could feel herbs and flower petals stuck to my skin. I tried to keep from sobbing but could not stop myself.

Through it all I kept my eyes tight-shut.

“In time you will look at me,” he said. “Now. This is the rest of it.”

 

 

My father insisted I was too young and delicate for a real
nozze
. He wouldn’t let Alfonso take me to Ferrara after we were married. Alfonso didn’t care—he didn’t want to marry me or go back to Ferrara anyway. Three days after the wedding, he galloped off to France, where he’d been living as a great favorite at the court of his cousin, the French king Henri, leaving me Duchess of Ferrara but still a child under my father’s thumb, and as much a virgin as I’d ever been.

T
he next day at dinner we presided at the high table in the great salon as the Duke and the new Duchess of Ferrara. If one had a penchant for fantasy, we might have been cresting a wave in the midst of the sea, for the room had been transformed, top to bottom, into Neptune’s kingdom.

Stylized waves, with sprays of sea-foam and fanciful plants and shells, had been painted on draperies covering the ceiling; branches of candles were upheld by coiled sea-monsters in silver-gilt. The topmost tablecloths were blue-green silk, swirled and gathered to look like the ocean’s surface, and the napkins were folded to look like fish, with silver spangles for scales. The high table was set apart inside a sea-reef of papier-mâché, painted in gold and blue.

In contrast to all the blue and green, the duke wore dark mulberry-red velvet set off by pleated white linen, fine as silk and perfumed with sandalwood. In his hat there was a pigeon’s-blood ruby the size of a chestnut. I, on the other hand, was a blaze of brilliance in cloth of silver and diamonds. My hair was no longer loose but caught up in a silver headdress embroidered with starfish in pearls and coral, one of the duke’s morning gifts. It was both costuming for the celebration and a symbol of my new status as a married woman.

Behind the bright opulence was the hot rosemary-scented darkness of the night. I could not look at him without remembering. Everything reminded me—the tug of the hairpins in my hair, the sound of his voice, the taste of the wine. He was toying with a fine clear glass from Murano, so thin the golden wine appeared to be floating free in the air. I watched his fingers. I remembered what they had done.

I concentrated on my food. I had not been able to eat more than a bite or two of the wedding supper the night before, and prosaic as it might be, I was hungry.

“You eat with good appetite, Madonna,” the duke said. “I am pleased. My cooks and vintners have outdone themselves in your honor.”