Duchess of Milan (50 page)

“Carissima,
that was just Briconnet crowing like a
gallo.”
Il Moro smiled at the pun; the Italian word for a Frenchman,
gallo,
also meant “rooster.”

Beatrice stared abstractedly into the darkness. “Serafino has collected reports of the things people have seen all over Italy. In Apulia three suns appeared at night, in the midst of the most tremendous thunder and lightning. In Arezzo clouds in the shape of armed men on enormous horses passed through the sky for days on end, with a thunder like drums and trumpets. Statues sweating blood in a dozen churches. Monstrous births everywhere. Of all the portents of disaster known throughout history, only a comet is lacking.”

“Well, no doubt the peasant women responsible for these
in-venzione
will soon see dozens of comets.”

“You believe in the stars.”

“That is science, calculated with great precision by learned men. Your father is certainly no fool, and he believes. So did your mother. But these portents you are talking about are created by the confluence of rumor, country wives, and too much wine.”

“I believe the things I feel in my soul. The stars are somewhere else, cold and indifferent.”

Il Moro propped himself on an elbow. “I will not say that the stars rule us. But they guide us just as they do a sailor at sea. The vast and complex movement of the heavens reflects the complex movement of our own fates. There are times when the alignment of the celestial bodies bodes well, and times when those aspects bode ill. The same can be said for the alignment of earthly affairs. If we choose the moment when that alignment favors us, Fortune will favor us.”

“Perhaps Fortune chooses for us. She chooses any moment she pleases, and fools us into thinking that it is the moment we have chosen.”

“Perhaps. But if we act wisely, Fortune will choose wisely.”

“I don’t believe that the Frenchmen are going to leave. The rains will come before the advance guard of their army reaches Florence. The main body of the army will winter here. And Louis Duc d’Orleans has no intention of leaving Asti.”

Il Moro stroked Beatrice’s belly again. “No,
carissima.
Not only do I believe that the King is going to leave ...” He sat up with sudden animation. “I had wanted to save this until the Frenchmen were gone, but this time seems most appropriate.” He paused, and his eyes gleamed in the moonlight.
“Amove,
today I received something from the Emperor of Germany. The authorizing papers for my investiture as Duke of Milan. It is done. He only asks that I delay their publication until December, which suits me entirely because no one must know of this until the French are well south of here.”

Beatrice silently recited the title. Duke of Milan. Lodovico Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan. And then she thought: Duchess of Milan. Beatrice d’Este da Sforza, Duchess of Milan.

“Everything is aligned for us,
carissima.
Everything. Florence will blood the French before they even reach Naples, and then Naples and France will blunt their swords against each other. By next summer the French will count themselves fortunate if they are permitted to go back over the mountains. And then three great powers will remain in Europe: ourselves, Germany, and Venice. Germany and Venice are rivals, whereas we are now allied to both. We will be the arbiters of everything. Everything.”

He took her face in his hands.
“Carissima,
I thought this dream was gone, vanished while I looked on as helplessly as a man watching ashes blow away in the wind. Now I dare to hold it in my hands again, resurrected, whole. I do not mean to pain you when I say that this is the fulfillment of the dream that Cecilia for so long held for me. Because I never could have achieved it without you. Not because you have given me a son. But because you have restored my soul. You have given me the courage to confront my own doubts. To defeat my greatest enemy. Your love has set in motion the entire mechanism of my fate. You are my Fortune,
amore,
you are my stars. There is no other lady who rules my destiny. Only you.” He kissed her softly. “Only you.”

Duchess of Milan, Queen of Europe . . . She had already begun to assemble vague, fantastic images for this dream, the pageants and the palaces, watching her son crowned Emperor of the mythical realm of Everything. . . . And then a fear punched at her stomach, a pain too sharp to be a fetal kick. There was one fundamental, primal obstacle to that dream. Eesh. She would have to snatch her dream right out of Eesh’s hands. And she hadn’t even had the courage to stand in the same room as Eesh. She had lived in terror since she’d been told four days before that she would have to go on to Pavia with her husband and the French King.

She had come from Vigevano in a carriage, arriving several hours after the King and her husband, because she’d dreaded that Eesh would be waiting at the
castello
gate to greet the visitors. She had then constructed elaborate defenses, commissioning her servants and ladies to seek out intelligence about Eesh’s movements; if Eesh was expected to attend a supper or theatrical, Beatrice intended to use her pregnancy as an excuse to stay in her rooms. But so far Eesh had remained either in her own rooms or in her husband’s sickroom. The relief Beatrice felt at each reprieve merely heightened her fears of an eventual encounter. Every time her chamberlain appeared in her rooms to announce someone, Beatrice imagined Eesh charging in behind him like a horned demon.

Beatrice looked up at the ceiling, briefly noting that this was the same coffered ceiling she had stared at on her wedding night. “Why do you suppose Isabella didn’t take advantage of the opportunity to turn the French against you? If she had joined Bona in accusing you of poisoning Gian ...” Beatrice shook her head, the speculation too frightening for words.

“She is certainly clever enough to realize that the French have no more respect for her husband’s title than they do for her father’s throne. She needs the French army to move south as urgently as we do. So she very deftly eliminated the best pretext for the French to stay in the north. And of course she was also able to humiliate her mother-in-law. As to her begging for her father, that was done only well enough to convince the Frenchmen. But it certainly distracted them from any further discussion of Gian’s illness. All in all a superb performance. And one that served us quite well.”

“That’s what troubles me.”

“I thought the same at the time,
carissima.
But I don’t think her gift is a Trojan horse. Your cousin is clever, but she is no Ulysses.”

This time the sensation in Beatrice’s womb was her baby’s kick, a much gentler pain than her abstract fear but even more disturbing. You are wrong about Eesh, she silently told her husband. And you are wrong about Fortune too. She still rules our lives. You may achieve everything you have dreamed of and yet find that I am not there to share it with you. Because this time Fortune might decide to let my baby kill me.

Certosa di Pavia, 16 October 1494

“Remarkable.” King Charles’s mouth fell open at something he had noticed in one of the small chapels tucked into the aisle on the right side of the nave. With the spontaneity of a child, he veered off to examine it, Il Moro and Galeazzo di Sanseverino following behind like indulgent parents. Il Moro had been heartened that the King had requested Galeazz as his interpreter on this sightseeing excursion; he presumed that Charles wanted a serious, confidential discussion. A conversation that would most likely reveal whether or not the King actually intended to lead his army out of northern Italy.

The King stopped before the object of his interest, a towering candlelit painting, one of several panels in which the donors of the chapel knelt beside various saints.

“Remarkable,” the King repeated with even greater emphasis. He gaped with astonishment.

The painting depicted Saint Peter standing stoically and grimly in his bishop’s robes, his skull split directly down the middle by a huge cleaver still buried to the depth of a palm’s width; fresh blood streamed from the wound. The improbable scene was painted with such uncanny realism that one could almost hear the gruesome whack.

“Extraordinary. It truly is. I would believe that the saint is present before us. I truly would. Look at the blood. Each drop. Is it real blood which through some magic stays wet? It must be real.” Told that the blood was also a product of the painter’s art, Charles asked the name of the master. Bergognone, Il Moro answered.

Charles studied the painting for several minutes, pausing to feel his skull as if verifying the fine points of anatomy. Finally he turned to Galeazz but glanced shyly at Il Moro. “This Seigneur Bergognone,” he said. “Is he as expert as this in the drawing of the unclothed female body?”

Il Moro listened to the translation, then nodded warily.

“I wonder if Seigneur Bergognone might consider rendering some pictures of my companions. I would like to have pictures so real that I could fool myself into embracing them.” The King honked furious amusement, his hunched back heaving. “I would like that indeed.”

“Your Majesty,” Il Moro said smoothly, “I would like nothing more than for Maestro Bergognone to attend to your companions as you wish. But I have sent him to Rome to paint my brother’s portrait.”

Charles’s huge eyes were virtually grief-stricken.

“Your Majesty, if you were to go south, I could arrange for Maestro Bergognone to meet you in Florence.”

Charles appeared not to hear, and Il Moro gave Galeazz a meaningful glance. “Your Majesty,” Il Moro said, “we would be only too glad to lodge you here in Pavia for the entire winter. But think of the additional cost in wages for your troops. You must move south now if you are to be in Naples before the rains.”

Charles hung his head and did not look at either man. “Everyone is telling me not to leave,” he mumbled. “Truly. They say I must not turn my back on you.”

“Why, Your Majesty? The Duke of Milan’s own wife has testified that I am not engaged in anything untoward.”

“They say that you have negotiated with the Emperor to become Duke of Milan and that when the Emperor has invested you, you will turn against me. That is what I am told. Truly.”

“I can offer Your Majesty my holiest oath that there is no truth whatsoever to that slander. I swear it in this holy place.”

Charles looked back into the cavernous nave as if expecting verification from a higher power. Galeazz caught Il Moro’s eye, pursed his lips gravely, and shook his head.

Il Moro studied the macabre painting for a moment. Then he fixed his eyes firmly on the King. “If Your Majesty will not have my pledges, then let me offer you this surety. You will not have to turn your back on me. I will go south with you. I will personally escort you to the gates of Naples. I will make myself hostage to my own promises.”

Galeazz’s eyebrows lifted with surprise, and he gave the translation haltingly.

The King’s apparently autonomous head snapped to attention. “You would? You would indeed? Oh, that is very much to my liking. Very much so. That will answer all of them and enable me to continue my Christian enterprise.” The King impulsively stepped forward and embraced his host. “Onward to Jerusalem,” he said brightly.

Pavia, 11 October 1494

The hastily arranged farewell banquet for the French King and his entourage had lasted until after midnight, despite the company’s scheduled departure for Piacenza early the next morning. For the three bathers in the
castello’s
indoor pool, the festivities continued on toward dawn.

Lit to a pale, marblelike sheen in moonlight amply supplied by two banks of big second-story windows, the three figures composed an interesting sculptural counterpoint to the tall, fluted column, crowned with three naked
putti,
in the center of the pool. The central support of this new sculptural group was a man of Herculean stature, the pulsing muscles of his back more complex than anything ever carved in marble or cast in bronze. A naked nymph, no taller than a child, her short but well-shaped limbs trembling with a passion a sculptor could only imply, wrapped her legs around Hercules’ hips and her arms around his back. A second naked nymph, taller than the other and as sinuous as a snake, rode on Hercules’ shoulders, facing him, her legs splayed down his back, her groin pressed to his face. Hercules held her aloft, his hands beneath her armpits and his thumbs pressed against her significant breasts. Her hair, loose and glistening, fell down her back as she closed her eyes and turned her face to the vaulted ceiling.

Without losing its basic configuration, the sculpture grappled, grunted, whimpered, gasped, and made a few shrill cries. The tall nymph’s pelvic motion shifted from a steady undulation to arrhythmic spasms.
“Gesul”
she screamed with terrifying vehemence.
“Gesu!”
Her body stiffened, and she wrapped her arms around Hercules’ head.

“Caterina.” The voice came from the vicinity of the door, which had been locked. The tall nymph shook her mop of wet hair as if clearing her head.

The moonlight revealed a third woman, taller than the other two, with long legs and full breasts. She was as naked as the rest except for a sequined black velvet mask she held to her face like a carnival masquer. The mask created a strange effect in the dull light, the metal sequins occasionally twinkling like stars in the black void of the masquer’s face.

“I waited until you finished, Caterina.” The full-face mask gave the masquer’s voice a hollow, ghostly echo. “Lucrezia will have to resume her work at another time.”

The tall nymph commanded Hercules to set her down, and the other unwrapped herself from his trunk. The two women said nothing as they climbed the steps and moved in silvery flashes to the door. Intrigued, Hercules also remained silent as the masquer walked with shameless grace to the steps. She stopped at the marble rim of the pool. She lowered her mask.

The Herculean figure stood an arm’s width away from her, his glistening erection pointing to his navel, a line of archaic simplicity against the fluid, Hellenistic curves of his body. When he recognized the masquer’s face, his head moved from side to side in tiny, stunned motions, like a man observing a distant catastrophe.