Duchess of Milan (38 page)

So this was the game: the Signory would excuse their own lack of resolve by claiming that Il Moro had more incentive than the rest to defect from the alliance. Beatrice decided to move off this point by turning the accusation back on the accuser. “It is my husband’s contention that not only Milan but also Venice will be subjected to the same promises and threats.” Beatrice was too caught up in the moment to notice the combative pride with which she brandished the phrase “my husband.” But here in this tiny room, elbow-to-elbow with the most powerful men in the world, she had begun to nurture the idea that Milan, her husband, and their baby had all become enfolded into one indivisible cause.

“Under our agreement as it now stands, the Signory has committed to an alliance of mutual friendship, calling for consultation on matters of mutual defense, with the states of Rome, Milan, Ferrara, and Mantua. Certainly your husband does not question the guarantee provided by the Signory’s stated commitment?”

Beatrice controlled her elation, just as she did when looking at a winning hand in
scartino
or
buttino.
Her counterattack had driven the Signory directly into her trap. “My husband believes that the provision for ‘consultation on matters of mutual defense’ will not sufficiently discourage the King of France. My husband therefore proposes that Milan, Rome, Venice, Ferrara, and Mantua draft and publish a revised agreement calling for the immediate assistance of the entire league should any member state be attacked. My husband further proposes that the league issue a specific warning to the French King that any incursion into Italy by the French army will be regarded as a simultaneous attack on the entire league.”

The silence of a tomb followed. After a moment someone seated to Beatrice’s left whispered and hands motioned to her right, as if the gentlemen were also communicating with signs. The whispering became a generalized low-pitched sigh; Beatrice could hardly make out individual words, much less discern the direction of this unusual policy discussion. The Doge turned to her and smiled wanly.

After several minutes the room became silent again. The nasal voice addressed Beatrice. “Your husband will certainly understand that we wish to consult with His Holiness on this matter.”

Beatrice wanted to shout, “My husband owns His Holiness!” Instead she snapped, “My husband already has the commitment of His Holiness on this. It is your commitment he wishes to secure.”

The nasal voice sounded almost bored. “The Signory will make its own determination of His Holiness’s wishes in this matter.”

Beatrice could not believe that this man, whoever he was, imagined that she had not heard his icy subtext: The Signory will still be making this determination when Louis Duc d’Orleans marches into Milan.

The Doge smiled at her again, his hooded blue eyes only slits of color. Then he stood up, offering Beatrice his hand. When she got to her feet, the realization of what had just happened swiped at her knees and she thought she would collapse. Then the panic vanished, and a cold, brassy sound began to echo, more in her stomach than in her ears. You have lost this hand, it said. And in the game you are now playing, the cost of defeat is war.

Beatrice lay awake far into the night. She had opened the shutters so that she could hear the wonderful liquid murmur of the gondolas and rafts passing by; her first-floor bedroom looked directly over the canal, and occasionally she heard snatches of conversation and laughter so clearly that the boats might have been gliding by at the foot of her bed.

She mentally recited again and again every word of her conversation with the Signory. Count Tuttavilla had told her that the response of the Signory to the mutual defense appeal was much as he had expected, and she had done well to expose their dilatory policy. But while Mama hadn’t said anything, she obviously regarded the audience as a mistake and a grievous failure--which she had communicated by nothing more than a lifted eyebrow and a certain acceleration of her speech in dismissing the matter.

On this point Beatrice agreed with Mama. She had expected so much more; she had even entertained visions of herself as Italy’s foremost stateswoman, the acclaimed arbiter of unity and concord. Now she wanted every word back--to rephrase, to cast a wholly different emphasis, to match the frigid reserve of the Signory with her own implacable calm. Fortune had provided her with an opening, but she had lacked the skill to use it properly. She had charged in and tripped over her own feet.

Finally she slept, and dreamed, but not of diplomacy and hard-edged men. She was on the water, a river much like the Po at home in Ferrara, lying in one of the small gondola-like punts that she and her sister had often gone out in. The boat drifted along the bank, sometimes in bright sunlight, at other times in the shadows cast by the huge trees overhanging the river. The water was strewn with flower petals, and she trailed her hand through them. She wore a loose chemise, and the breeze lifted the sheer layer of fabric and stroked her skin. Then a man was with her, his fingers wandering where the breeze had gone, and every touch made her more fluid until she was like a warm river, teeming with sensation. . . .

Something fell on her and threw her into the water, and the brackish, suffocating smell rushed up her nostrils. She was drowning immediately, the water like gummy mud in her mouth, and she looked up and saw the white eyes leering out of the darkness, the dark skin. . . . Too real! She screamed, the sound muffled nightmarishly. Too real! And then: This is not a dream! And more calmly: I am dead. I will never see my baby again.

The thing that had her was a man. A young man. Perspiration glistened on his face, and his white shirt was open. His knees pinned her arms, and one hand clamped her mouth. She could still breathe through her nostrils. “Listen carefully, Your Highness,” the young man whispered, his voice a tremolo of fear, fatigue, and purpose. “I have a letter written by the Duchess of Milan that I’m certain your husband will want to see.”

Beatrice stopped struggling. The man reached into his shirt and took out a folded parchment with a broken seal. “Do you recognize her hand?”

Beatrice could make out only a vague pattern of script. Then she saw the monogram beneath the signature. IX. Isabella. The flourish of the big letters was unmistakable.

“Your Highness, can I trust you not to scream if I permit you to light a lamp so that you can examine this letter?”

Beatrice motioned with her head, and he removed his hand. He quickly stepped back to the window, still holding the parchment. For a moment she hesitated, wondering if she
should
scream, certain that she heard Fortune’s mocking laughter. Then she got up and lit the lamp, unmindful that she was wearing only a chemise.

“Who are you?” she asked. He had three or four recent scars on his left cheek, all in line, as if he had been mauled by a big cat. He was most likely in his early twenties.

“I am a man who will not leave Venice alive,” he said numbly. “I have eluded the minions of the Signory all day, but I fear I have exhausted Fortune’s generosity. I need you to deliver this letter to your husband.” He handed the parchment to her at arm’s length, as if frightened of her.

The intruder’s disclosure that he was fleeing the Signory enhanced his pedigree considerably in Beatrice’s eyes. Then she examined the broken seal and realized that if not Eesh’s, this was an expert forgery. But the handwriting, tight and rapid-looking, left no doubt that the document was authentic. The letter was dated 2 March. It began, “My most beloved and illustrious lord Father ...”

The rest of the letter seemed to bring back the pain of Beatrice’s version, each sentence a malignant hand clutching inside her womb: “You wedded me to Gian Galeazzo on the understanding that in due course he would ascend the throne of his Visconti and Sforza ancestors. Now Gian Galeazzo is of age, has sired an heir, and should be expected to be given full dominion as Duke of Milan. Instead all power remains vested in Il Moro, who has assiduously labored to prevent Gian from assuming any of the duties or privileges of his birthright. . . . His wife behaves as if she is the Duchess of Milan, and the court regards her as such.

Everyone here assumes that Il Moro’s son will succeed to the dukedom, and to that end all the honors of a royal heir were paid to said child at his birth, while we and our children have been treated with contempt, have scarcely been given the bare necessities of life, and have had to flee to the
castello
at Pavia because we fear for our lives. . . . If you have any fatherly compassion and if love of me and the thought of my tears can still move your soul, I implore you to bring your army to our assistance and deliver your daughter and son-in-law from their slavery by ending Il Moro’s despicable regency and restoring to Gian Galeazzo the power which is rightfully his. . . . If you will not help us, I would rather die by my own hand than continue to bear the yoke of Il Moro and his wife. ...”

Beatrice slowly began to slump as she read; when she finished she had to support herself with her hands on her knees. She wanted to be sick. The deeper wound, the brutal death of Eesh’s love, had been as swift as an amputation, and she could not yet deal with it. She had an image of her uncle Alfonso, the dark-faced, scowling demon of her childhood, thundering toward Milan at the head of his army. Bring your army and deliver us ... Everything Father and her husband had said was true. Everything Eesh had told her was a lie. . . . She stared at the letter again. She could not have been more horrified if this man had brought her Eesh’s head on a tray. Finally she looked up and asked “Why?” with a victim’s plaint. “Why have you done this?”

“I have done this for my father’s soul. And my brother’s. For my mother. I have done this to free my people.” He no longer seemed afraid. “You have a son. Will you swear on the head of your son that your husband will see this letter?”

She nodded yes, unable to tell him that this letter would come as no surprise to her husband, that she was the one person in all the courts of Europe for whom this letter was a knife in the heart.

He watched her for a moment, and she had to meet his eyes. She wondered why and how Fortune had engineered this collision of spinning fates. Then, with no parting, not even a flicker of his gaze, he looked away and climbed through the window. She heard the thump of his feet as he stepped into his gondola and then the soft sigh of a hull parting the water.

The entire universe had changed, the spheres reeling in discord and confusion. And in this new universe there was only one fixed point, a hard crystal of terror, like a diamond that captured darkness instead of light. What would happen to her baby when Alfonso came?

CHAPTER 32

Venice, 29 May 1493

“I must say I was surprised to receive your petition for this meeting.” His Serenity Doge Agostino Barbarigio motioned Beatrice to the chair opposite his. “Though of course I am delighted for another opportunity to visit. I had simply thought you’d had quite enough of old men and their woes. A lovely young woman like Your Highness might better spend her time enjoying the beauties of our city. And in so doing contribute her own beauty to that of Venice.”

Beatrice settled on the edge of her chair and accepted the Doge’s compliment with a gracious nod. His Serenity’s apartments were on the second floor of his palace, beneath the chambers of state on the third floor. He had situated his study--which was as sparingly adorned as the rest of the building--in an outer room, taking advantage of the brilliant morning light reflected off the crescent sweep of the Canale di San Marco and the lagoon beyond. The panorama included Venice’s destructive might as well as the placid expanse of sea and sky; a forest of masts marked the location of the Arsenale, the immense naval yard where fully fitted galleys were turned out as rapidly as mold-stamped terra-cotta Madonnas at a pottery factory.

After an awkward pause the Doge spoke again. “The gentlemen of the Signory were most impressed with the elegance of your address. They all remarked upon how well you spoke and how clearly you presented your husband’s position.”

Yes, Beatrice thought, they were all impressed at how quickly I revealed my hand. Again she did not respond. This time Venice would squirm.

The Doge smiled and motioned with his white, wizened fingers. “I understand your disappointment at the rather ambiguous response you received from the gentlemen of the Signory. But let us wait and see. His Holiness will no doubt have his own views on the matter of mutual defense.”

Beatrice sat back and gave the Doge a look that said: Don’t bother repeating that fiction.

After yet more silence from his guest, the Doge cocked his hoary head curiously. “Why have you come, my daughter?”

“Allow me to be frank. I believe that Your Serenity, being the wisest of men, is more favorably disposed to my husband’s concerns than are the gentlemen of the Signory.”

The Doge nodded ponderously. “Certainly I place great value in the friendship of your husband.” He smiled, showing his stained teeth. “You know, my daughter, it is often said that there are two qualities the Signory most values when electing their doge. The first is the wisdom of a venerable old age, and the second is an absence of personal ambition, a quality that so often blesses old age. I am certain that I at least satisfy my colleagues on the second quality. I do not try to persuade the Signory of anything to which they are not already inclined to be persuaded.”

“And they cannot be persuaded that Venice shares the danger presented by the French.”

The Doge smiled patiently. “My daughter, the French cannot cross the mountains without first having access to Il Moro’s treasury. Without loans from your husband, the French King will not even be able to pay his army’s way to Grenoble. And your husband hardly seems inclined to finance the destruction of his state. On the other hand, should he be so foolish, Venice can hardly expect to benefit from chaining itself to Milan’s folly.”

“My husband will have no choice but to finance the French adventure if he is threatened by attack from Naples.”