Duchess of Milan (54 page)

Pavia, 22 October 1494

Isabella awoke in her own bed, the images of the previous day a nightmare that could not remain behind in sleep. The windows were shuttered, and she wasn’t certain what time of day it was. She remembered that she had been forced to drink a strong sedative and had gone to sleep in Milan. Before dawn she had been driven back to Pavia, still only semiconscious. With sudden clarity she realized she had one last opportunity to stop them.

She did not even bother to dress; she dashed into her husband’s sickroom in her chemise. The room was dark, the windows shuttered. Black damask had been hung all along the walls. The canopied bed looked like a bier, with drawn curtains of black crepe. Isabella threw the bed curtains aside. The bed was empty, covered with black cloth.

“Where is Gian!” she screamed. “Where have they taken Gian!” She screamed at the empty bed as if expecting it to answer: “Where have you taken him!”

Isabella whipped around. Duchess Bona stood in the doorway in her usual widow’s black, a hideous grin on her round face. “Gian has gone riding,” Bona said in a cheery voice. “He has two new horses.”

“Where did they take him!”

Bona blinked. Her lady-in-waiting Giovanna da Maino, also dressed in black, appeared behind her. “Your Highness, your husband’s body has been removed to Milan.”

“By whose order!”

“By order of the Council. To lie in state in the Duomo.”

“By order of the traitors who poisoned him!” Isabella screamed. “By order of his murderers! Now we can never prove it! They are burying their crime, and we will never prove it!”

Isabella’s livid face twitched with fury. Her body shook with two quick spasms. Then her face relaxed, and her head bobbed forward, and she seemed to gag. She fell to her knees. Giovanna rushed to help her, but Isabella flailed with her arm, beating away the assistance. The gags turned into horrifying sobs, like a man with his throat cut gasping for breath. Isabella pounded her palms against the floor again and again. Her sobs became more high-pitched, a continuous keening.

Finally she looked up, her face so distorted and purpled that she appeared to have been beaten. She stared at Bona. “I never wanted him to die,” she said in a hoarse whisper. “I wanted him to be happy. I really did. I never even told him goodbye.” Her head fell and her body convulsed with sobs.

“You really mustn’t cry. Gian will be back this afternoon.” Bona took a careful step forward and stood over Isabella. Slowly she reached out and placed her hand on her daughter-in-law’s head. Then she tenderly began to stroke Isabella’s hair.

Bona looked at Giovanna and smiled warmly. “She really mustn’t cry, you know. Gian has gone riding. His father gave him two horses yesterday.”

CHAPTER 44

Extract of a dispatch of the Venetian diplomat Marino Sanuto
to the Signory of Venice. Milan, 23 October 1494

. . . whatever this man does prospers, and that which he dreams of by night comes true by day. We now see Il Moro regarded as the wisest and most successful man in Italy, and esteemed and revered throughout the world. All men fear him, because Fortune favors him in everything he undertakes. . . .

Sarzana, 31 October 1494

His Most Christian Majesty Charles VIII dined in his silk campaign pavilion, at a table set up on a Persian carpet. He leapt from his seat when Il Moro was announced. “Monseigneur Lodovico, you have returned to guide our Crusade!” He extended his arms and gave Il Moro an eager hug. “But then Monseigneur Galeazz assured me you would.”

Il Moro glanced at Galeazz, who had been sent south a week previously to allay French suspicions. Galeazz had rejoined the French army at Fivizzano, a small Florentine fortified town that had quickly fallen. But now the French army was encamped before the reputedly impregnable fortress at Sarzana, preparing for a protracted siege.

Galeazz stood over the King’s shoulder, his lips pursed and his eyes straining to communicate. He looked as agitated as he had at Isabella’s side in the Sala della Palla. The King’s ever-present advisers crowded around the new arrival, their usual attitude of slouching flippancy replaced by a sneering swagger.

Galeazz bent to Il Moro’s ear, as if translating the King’s greeting. “His Majesty is very happy because he is holding three balls in his hand,” he said in soft, extremely rapid Italian.

Il Moro set his inscrutable face. The three balls was the symbol of Florence’s ruling house of Medici. Apparently the Florentines had suffered some disastrous reversal.

“Your Majesty must tell me what conquests he has made while I have been occupied with the tragic events in Milan,” Il Moro said. His eyes coolly swept the King’s entourage during the translation.

“Montjoie,
Monseigneur Lodovico!
Montjoie!
We have persuaded the good King of Medici to join us in our Christian venture. He came to us yesterday under safe-conduct with Monseigneur Briconnet and has given us what we must have for our campaign!
Montjoie!
We shall parade our army through Florence, welcomed as comrades.”

Galeazz hurriedly translated: “Piero de’ Medici came here yesterday and all but threw himself at the King’s feet. He has surrendered Sarzana and given the French army free passage through Florentine territories. He has promised loans as well. The French were stupefied by Piero’s largess. He gave them things they never would have thought to ask for. You should hear them ridicule his cowardice. I am humiliated to be an Italian.”

Il Moro smiled indulgently at the King, an expression not lost on the arrogant royal entourage. “Well done, Your Majesty. But do not allow the Florentines to use these concessions to lure you away from their greatest prize, the city of Pisa. It is their seaport, and it will be essential to your resupply of Naples. The Pisans have long chafed under Florentine rule, and I believe that if Your Majesty were to go to Pisa and meet with the noblemen of that city, Your Majesty would be welcomed as their deliverer.”

King Charles’s jaw dropped, and he wheezed contemplatively. “Of course. One of the objects of our quest is to liberate the people of Italy wherever they suffer the oppression of tyrants. Certainly I must deliver these good folk of Pisa.”

The King abruptly turned to his advisers. “Peeee-zuh,” he announced.

The King’s entourage began to gesture in spirited debate of this new objective. Il Moro made a perfunctory exit and drew Galeazz outside the King’s pavilion. They stood in the dust, looking up at the massive brick fortress on the rocky promontory behind them, framed by a Tuscan sky so blue it seemed to pulsate.

Il Moro gave a delicate, sardonic smile. “Once I made the mistake of overestimating Piero de’ Medici as a friend. Now I have made the mistake of overestimating him as an enemy.”

“He lost his nerve,” Galeazz said. “Perhaps you don’t know what happened at Fivizzano. They broke down the walls and stormed it in a quarter hour. Then the King sent the Swiss in, and they slaughtered the garrison and half the townspeople before they were pulled back. I didn’t need to go in. I could hear it. I could smell it.”

Il Moro’s right eyelid fluttered. He turned slightly. “Fortune is a slippery bitch.”

Galeazz pursed his lips. “What will you do?”

“Well, the liberation of Pisa may distract His Most Christian Majesty for a week or two. Perhaps by then we will have the rains.” Il Moro squinted dubiously into the cloudless sky. Heavy autumn rains were usual; this had been the driest fall in memory. “The Florentine people may not accept Piero’s concessions on their behalf. He is unpopular enough as it is. There could still be trouble here.”

“And if not?”

“Yes. I must begin preparing for that.” Il Moro jutted his chin and looked out over the silk and canvas roofs of the huge French camp. Brightly colored pennons fluttered from the crowns of the tents. “It is never too soon to prepare for the worst.”

Extract of a dispatch of the Venetian diplomat Marino Sanuto to the Signory of Venice. Sarzana, 3 November 1494

... I do not know whether to make good or ill of this and will leave it to the collective wisdom of the Signory to divine the meaning in what I report. This morning Il Moro departed for Milan. I do not know what argument Il Moro made to the Most Christian King to persuade him to acquiesce in this defection. I do know that Il Moro agreed to leave Galeazzo di Sanseverino in attendance on the King and rendered His Majesty an immediate cash payment of 30,000 ducats. However, in exchange for this payment, Il Moro obtained the papers of investiture for the Duchy of Genoa, formerly granted to his late nephew. In Milan the week last, the people were saying, “God and Moro alone foreknow whither these winds of war will blow.” I would submit to you that now even God does not know what Il Moro’s intentions are. . . .

CHAPTER 45

Milan, 2 December 1494

Il Moro and Beatrice looked up into the nearly finished dome of the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie. Two painters worked from scaffolding high above, their light provided by a ring of round windows encircling the drum of the dome. The artists were painting a second, illusionistic ring of oculi, as believable as the real ones.

“They will be done in two weeks, Your Highness,” offered the architect, Maestro Donato Bramante, a rugged-looking man with a high forehead and furiously intelligent, deep-socketed eyes. “That is assuming we continue to have dry weather.”

“Dry weather,” Il Moro said absently.

“Leonardo says we will pump the Ticino River dry by January if we don’t have rains before then,” Bramante added.

“What is the name of the Florentine priest who says that God has sent the Frenchmen to purify the Church?” Beatrice asked.

“Fra Girolamo Savonarola,” Il Moro answered.

“Perhaps Fra Savonarola is right,” Beatrice said. “God has sent the French, and he is giving them perfect marching weather.”

“The Florentines are certain enough that God has sent them Savonarola,” Bramante commented sarcastically. “He has engaged quite a following in recent months. He decries everything modern as a ‘vanity,’ be it a painting by Fra Angelico, whose Madonnas he likens to prostitutes, or a printed volume of ‘pagan’ poetry by Virgil. Savonarola’s disciples are urged to surrender these vanities, which they burn in the piazza in huge bonfires. You know, Your Highness, since you are sending Caradasso to Rome to acquire antiquities, perhaps you can have him spend some time in Florence. He could offer to relieve Fra Savonarola’s penitents of their vanities without the labor of carting them to the piazza.”

Il Moro laughed and then began to discuss seriously with Bramante the kinds of Roman statues he was hoping to add to his collection. Suddenly Bramante looked up at the painters working in his dome and began shouting curses at them in his usual uninhibited style.

“I’m going to have to go up there and take the paintbrush myself,” Bramante said. He scrambled up the towering, creaking scaffolding.

Bramante’s sudden ascent left Il Moro and Beatrice standing alone directly in front of the black onyx railing of the high altar. Il Moro looked down at the marble pavement and tapped it with the tip of his velvet slipper, his expression absorbed and enigmatic, thoughts moving across his face as subtly as faint variations in the light coming from high above. He remained silent for some time.

“Here,” he finally said very softly, still looking at the floor. “Here is where we are going to be buried. Side by side. Looking up into the light.”

Beatrice took her husband’s arm. She imagined her bones beneath that floor and wondered what she would see when she was dead. What did Mama and Gian see now? A sunlit dome or the black underside of a marble slab, screaming souls or singing angels? Anything? But she could not deal with that now. She could only tell herself that her husband wanted to sleep beside her forever. She moved closer to him, letting the touch of his body deny his vision of death.

“Dispatches came this morning from Florence,” Il Moro said. “His Most Christian Majesty marched out of Florence two days ago. The Florentine Senate agreed to a treaty of friendship with the French, offered them free passage, and paid them 120,000 ducats to be on their way. In return the French agreed to let the Florentines banish Piero de’ Medici. Now that Piero is finished, Fra Savonarola has suggested that the Florentines allow Christ to rule them. One wonders how many ducats His Most Christian Majesty would demand to free Florence from Christ’s tyranny.” He shook his head. “Not at all the sort of campaign I had hoped for. And still no rain.”

Il Moro looked back up into the brightly lit dome. He squinted and turned his head from side to side. “I want to bring your cousin back to Milan.”

“You mean so that you can keep her under closer watch?” They had already discussed the possibility that Isabella might flee to Asti and in her desperation appeal to Louis Duc d’Orleans to restore her son’s birthright.

“No. The King’s position isn’t as yet so secure that he can permit Louis Duc d’Orleans to go after his own prizes. That will come after the King has conquered Naples.”

“Then why bring her here?”

“We need her.” He paused and looked up again. Bramante was painting, gesturing at his assistants, and cursing, all at the same time. “We need her friendship.”

Beatrice bemusedly cocked her dark eyebrows. “I’m certain there is logic to this. I simply fail to see it.”

“Duchess Bona has partially recovered her wits, such as they were,” Il Moro said. “Enough so that she has dispatched letters to her daughter in Germany, making the usual allegations about Gian’s death.”

Beatrice felt the visceral tinge she had whenever the subject of Gian’s death came up. But she no longer believed that Gian had been poisoned. Her husband had ordered Gian’s body examined in Milan by a half-dozen physicians and even several ambassadors, and no sign of poison had been found. Probably what she had seen on that terrible dawn had been only a quirk of the light. And even if somehow Gian
had
been poisoned, her husband clearly hadn’t had anything to do with it. He had made every effort to investigate.