The Second Duchess (44 page)

My taste for Carnival gambolings was also dampened by the ghastly death of Tommasina Vasari, which was still vivid in my dreams. I concealed my distress as best I could and engaged myself earnestly in the pleasures of my ladies and of the court. They, after all, had not seen the
parruchiera
’s thumbs broken. They had not seen her hanging in her cell.

Of course, I could conceal nothing from Katharina.

“You look troubled, Bärbel,” she whispered as she crouched in front of me, arranging the gilded baskets so they would be easy for me to reach and fussing with my glittering skirts and train. I never could sit in such a way that the fall of my skirts pleased her. “All will be well. Rest here on the dais and watch the dancing, and I will fetch you some wine.”

I looked out over the courtyard and tried to imagine what this night would have been like if I had never disobeyed the duke, never suffered his displeasure, never heard Nora’s laughter or listened to Messer Bernardo’s insinuations in the cold, bare chapel. Would I feel queenly and serene, like the luminous Duchess Elisabetta Gonzaga in
Il Libro del Cortegiano
, after whom I had so longed to model my life? Would I offer my gifts to the court and the people with a light heart and a confident spirit?

It was too late. My first Berlingaccio was corrupted by my own hand.

“Your wine, Bärbel.”

I took the cup. “Katrine, do you ever wish you could go back and do something over again?”

“Of course I do. What is this, melancholy on Shrove Thursday? For shame. You must smile and be joyous for your people’s sake—you are the duchess and they look to you.”

I could not help but smile. Only Katrine would dare say such a thing to me. “You are right. Let the petitioners approach. Crezia first, as she has the right of precedence.”

I sipped wine as the crowd of women sorted themselves out by rank. Then Crezia stepped forward, sumptuously dressed in the blue and white of the Este, wearing only a narrow ribbon of silver and a few feathers as a mask so there was no question who she really was. She swept a regal curtsy.

“I beg a favor of the duchess, on the night of the Berlingaccio.”

She pronounced each word clearly and impeccably, and I realized she wanted this first gift-giving to be perfect so as to instill me with confidence. From that moment, for all her pride and peculiarities, I truly loved her as a sister.

I answered with the prescribed response: “Whatever you desire will be granted, by Saint George and the House of Este.”

“I desire a red lacquer casket.” She had pitched her voice to carry, and the women’s side of the courtyard had gone suddenly silent. “Painted with white unicorns and blue flowers, and filled with sweet chestnut cakes soaked in honey and rolled in cinnamon.”

I looked at the basket on my right. At the very top there was just such a casket, and I had every faith that when it was opened, it would indeed reveal honey-soaked, cinnamon-covered chestnut cakes. I reached over and picked it up, flicked the latch, and put back the lid with a flourish. I had been right about the cakes. I offered the casket to her.

“What you ask is yours,” I said.

She took the casket and curtsied again. As she straightened, she flashed me a conspiratorial smile.

“I thank you on this Berlingaccio, and forever swear my loyalty to the House of Este.”

“So be it. Go in peace.”

She turned and held out the casket for all the women to see. Someone cheered. The others joined in. The hum of talk became excited and good-natured, as it should have been from the beginning. Katrine handed me another goblet of wine.

Perhaps, I thought, my first Berlingaccio would not be so terrible after all.

THE REVELS CONTINUED, and little by little the basket emptied—feathers, paste jewels, bits of lace and embroidery, poppets dressed with tinsel and spangles, gloves, filigree fans, carved figures brightly painted. Elisabetta Bellinceno was there—I knew her by the green-and-blue dress and Turkish stones she wore, despite her naiad’s mask. She begged her favor with her customary exquisite grace and correctness, and when I handed it to her—a tiny gilded loaf of Ferrara’s famous
pampepato
cake—I clasped her hands for a moment and smiled encouragingly into her eyes.

Half-a-dozen women in Carnival costumes played lutes and dulcimers, and court ladies danced with washerwomen, becoming more and more boisterous as the evening wore on. Although it was only the middle of February, the courtyard soon grew hot with what must have been a hundred torches and twice as many women, and my costume grew heavier and more stifling with each favor I granted.

Katrine and Domenica brought me wine, again and again. Even the wine was warm, and sweet, too sweet. I would have to ask them, I thought, to mix water with it, or even stop bringing it altogether.

“I beg a favor of the duchess, on the night of the Berlingaccio
.
”

I knew her voice from her very first word. She had not been in the courtyard to take her rightful place after Crezia, and I had hoped against hope she had chosen not to attend the revels at all. Had she waited deliberately, to call more attention to herself?

It was, of course, my enemy, my nemesis, the duke’s younger sister Nora.

She was magnificently dressed, all in red, the worst possible color for her unhealthy complexion. Her dress was a mass of blazing flame-scarlet skirts; its low, square bodice was sewn with rubies and pearls. Unlike Crezia, she wore a real mask, a fanciful golden creation with slanting eyes like a faun’s and a cockscomb of crimson feathers.

She was the duke’s sister, and I had no choice but to answer her. “Whatever you desire will be granted, by Saint George and the House of Este.”

Domenica handed me a bracelet of twisted and braided silver wires with tiny sparkling crystals caught inside the whorls. I held it up, so she might know what she was to ask for.

“I want you to tell Alfonso,” she said loudly, paying no attention to my gesture, “to withdraw his patronage from Tasso, so he is not forever writing, writing, writing, and paying no attention to me.”

A few of the women laughed, then pressed their hands over their mouths. Nora paid them no attention. To my own surprise, it outraged me that she was not following the correct form—I had denied myself even a few private words with Elisabetta Bellinceno because they would have broken the tradition.

“Nora, not so loudly,” I said. “We cannot talk now, and you know I cannot do as you ask. In the first place, Tasso is in the cardinal’s household, not the duke’s. And in the second place, he is a genius. Other courts are vying for his presence. He will hardly be allowed to leave Ferrara, or asked to stop writing.”

“You have to do what I ask. That is the rule.”

She sounded as if she were about to weep openly, and that was unthinkable. I did not know what to do. I looked around for Crezia.

“You hate me because of what I told you,” Nora cried. “But it is only the truth, and you should not blame me that Alfonso is—”

“Nora, no!”

I cut her off just in time. Holy Virgin, did she intend to shout her lies aloud in the Saint Catherine courtyard with a hundred women of the town looking on and hanging on every word?

“Nora, listen,” I gabbled on, desperate to distract her. “I will ask him, I promise it. Here, look, I have this bracelet for you. See, it has crystals—”

She struck it out of my hand with a cry. “I do not want your bracelet! I want Tasso to love me. I want him to give up his scribbling for me. He says he lives for his art, not for me. He says he will kill me before he gives up his art for me. Is that not enough for Alfonso to send him away? A threat to kill me? Is that not enough?”

She did start to cry. What could I do? She was the duke’s sister, after all, and the townswomen were watching. I stood up and gathered her into my arms to quiet her.

Tasso, poor boy, had probably never said any such thing; it would be the grossest of lèse-majesté. The threat almost certainly existed only in Nora’s fevered imagination.

But. But . . .

I groped for something, some connection I could not quite fit together.

Lucrezia de’ Medici had been Frà Pandolf’s lover. She had been carrying his child. Had she, too, demanded her genius give up his art for her sake?

“Promise, promise, promise,” Nora was sobbing. “Promise you will make him love me.”

Crezia came up to the dais at last, with her ladies and three or four of Nora’s own women. “She has had too much wine, that is all. We will take her to bed. Come,
mia sorellina
, it is sleep you need. You will feel better in the morning.”

I stood there like a statue, transfixed by my thoughts.

“Barbara.
Barbara
. You must finish it. Everyone is watching, and you must make it look as ordinary as possible.”

I came back to the present. Finish it. The ritual, of course. The ritual was important. Everyone was watching me.

“What you ask is yours,” I said. I picked up the bracelet and slipped it onto Nora’s wrist. She had stopped crying and had fallen into a drunken swoon. “Go in peace, my sister.”

They took her away.

 

 

AFTER THAT, I went down into the courtyard. I had to think, and I could bear no more heart-wrenching pleas. I could hear the city’s bells ringing the first vigil of matins. The first array of torches had burned out, and servants were replacing them with fresh ones, the flames rippling and flapping in the air like burning pennants. The smoke was black as the night and smelled like the outer reaches of hell. My costume would be ruined, but opulent as it was, it had never been intended for anything but this single Berlingaccio.

Frà Pandolf was her lover. He was the father of her child. Would he give up his art for cozy domesticity, even with—

“Serenissima, Serenissima!”

There were masked women everywhere, calling me, pulling at my skirts. The scents of smoke and sweat and spilled wine were overwhelming. Dancers jostled me, and I lost one of my shoes. Nicoletta went back to search for it. I could not see Katrine at all. A hulking townswoman in a gray linen dress, with a white wimple and coif caught up and pinned to mask her face, thrust a sheaf of flowers into my arms. Gratefully I bent my head and breathed in their sweet fragrance.

“Thank you,” I said. “A favor—I will give you a favor—”

I felt dizzy. I tried to finish the sentence, but my lips and tongue were suddenly numb.

I went to my knees, I think. I cannot remember. I tried to call my ladies but I could not remember their names, and the crowd was pressing in, swirling, dancing, laughing. I heard a high, shrill voice shrieking, “There she is! The duchess! She is over there, in her white dress!”

Which could not be, of course, because I was here, on my knees in the dust.

I dropped the flowers. And then I thought,
The flowers.
On my wedding day, Tommasina Vasari had warned me:
any piece of fruit, any flower you are offered, might be poisoned.

But Tommasina Vasari was dead.

I tried to push myself to my feet, and fell, and fell, and fell.