Leonardo's Swans (18 page)

“He’s terribly jealous, and if a man even talks to Isabella, much less corresponds with her regularly as you do, he takes great offense. At any rate, in my dream, the French do not come to your rescue, and the armies of Italy demolish Milan.”

Beatrice waits quietly. Does he see through her ruse? She realizes that a better woman would have confronted him directly with Isabel of Aragon’s accusations, and with his clandestine lust for her sister, but this is as direct as she can be. Her mother has a saying about attracting flies with honey, but at this moment, she cannot remember it, only its moral.

Ludovico does not jump to his own defense, but speaks with measure. “Surely you know that your sister depends on me for advice. The marquis leaves so many functions of government to her, and she is barely eighteen years of age.”

“Oh I understand that, my lord, and I would die rather than deprive my sister of your good counsel. But there is no controlling the thoughts of a man like Francesco. He is not in possession of good reason when it comes to his wife.”

“That is what they tell me,” Ludovico sighs. The mocking she had expected in his voice is not there. “That is quite the terrible dream. Did I die?”

“I do not remember, exactly,” she goes on, now more confident that her tactic is working; he is neither yelling at her, nor laughing at her, nor walking away from her in anger or disgust. “But after the armies captured the Castello, they took you away and left the city to Gian Galeazzo and Isabel of Aragon, with my uncle Alfonso as governor. It was what Isabel wanted all along, to get rid of you so that she could be the true duchess. She kept saying in the dream that you would collude with the devil himself to become the Duke of Milan.”

“And you believe that, Beatrice? Either in your dream or in your waking state?”

She waits. She knows that when she is playing a good hand of cards—good, but not infallible—she must choose precisely the right moment to call the opponent’s bluff. Because if he pulls a trump on her, she loses all. She wants no surprise from Ludovico laid on the table. She speaks slowly, trying her best to appear nonchalant. “No, my lord, I do not. Because I know that you are an intelligent man, and if you were truly intent upon becoming the official Duke of Milan, the first person you would enlist as your ally is your wife. Since you have not seen fit to make me your partner and ally in any real sense, then you could not possibly truly wish to become Milan’s duke. I do not believe what they say; I believe you are perfectly satisfied being Gian Galeazzo’s regent.”

Beatrice cannot believe what has come out of her mouth, but she is quaking with excitement. Could her fall really have awakened a courageous and eloquent part of her brain that has lain dormant all her life? She keeps looking at Ludovico, trying to read his thoughts.

“Let us say, for the sake of argument, that this were true; that my ambition was to become Duke of Milan. Why, exactly, would I require my wife as my partner and ally?”

“Because, my lord, there is no one else in Italy who would not betray you for his own gain but me. Many people respect you; even more fear you. But the greatest number would like to see your ruin.”

“And why are you not among that number?”

“I promised my father that with our marriage, the Houses of Sforza and Este would be forever united. That is my duty to my family.”

“Are you such an obedient daughter?”

Her mask crumbles. She can no longer dissemble. She makes her hands into small fists and pounds on the bed. “No, my lord, I am not obedient at all! Why can’t you see that I love you and want to be your wife?”

She puts her shamed face in her hands and begins to cry. Now he is free to laugh at her if he must. Instead, she feels his arms go around her. He holds her close, but as if he does not wish to hurt her with too much pressure.

“I see, I see,” he says. “Little one, you must rest. The day’s events have shaken your emotions. This dream seems to have confused you, Beatrice. You should sleep. Perhaps in the morning your good cheer will have returned.”

She is about to protest that he is wrong, that it is her love for him that moves her, when he continues, “The astrologer says that in a fortnight, the stars will again be aligned for me to sire a son. That is how you can be my partner. Rest now, and get well so that you can give us children.”

Is he just trying to get away from her again? She has not been successful. He does not fear her alliance with Isabel of Aragon or with Naples; he does not see her as woman, wife, and partner, but as a birthing machine. If she is not that to him, then she is nothing.

“My good cheer will not return, my lord, unless you begin to treat me as a wife.”

“But you have everything you desire,” he protests.

“I have everything I desire but my husband. I may as well return to my father’s house. I think you would like that.” She rubs the tears from her eyes and looks directly at her husband. She realizes that she has shifted from astute political player to whining child in these last moments, but she is no longer in control, so she hurls angry words at him. “I believe that would please you. I believe that I will have Messer Trotti go to my father tomorrow morning with the news that Ludovico Sforza does not care for Beatrice d’Este. Then you may fight all of Italy on your own, with your beloved French at your side, as if they will be loyal to you once they have finished with you. I hope everything in my dream comes to pass. Then you will see what you lost by not loving me!”

She tries to get up. She is sore from the fall, but she is also young and strong, and she wills herself to roll away from her husband. She stands up, staring across the bed at him, but she has risen too quickly, and she feels the blood rush to her head. Steadying her legs against the side of the bed, she uses all of her strength to stay lucid and erect.

“Your Excellency, I have seen you handle the bow, and I assure you that I do not wish you to be against me,” he says.

“Are you back to mocking me, my lord?” she asks.

“Never.” He is smiling at her now, beaming, actually. There is no mockery in his face. “You are wonderful, Beatrice. You are bold and brave. One moment, a courageous woman, the next, a pouting girl. You are—oh, I don’t know—you are my tiny Amazon.” He rises slowly and walks to the other side of the bed. He takes her in his arms. She feels unsteady, and she leans against him for support. She wishes that they might remain this way forever.

“What must we do to make certain that this terrible nightmare of yours never comes to pass?” he asks.

She has no idea if he is softening to her or if he is trying to protect himself politically, but she does not care. She thinks the outcome will be the same: he will learn to love her.

She grabs on to his brocade vest, clutching it, pulling him closer to her. “The fall from the horse has stirred my womb, Ludovico. We don’t need an astrologer’s calculations anymore. Make love to me
now
. You don’t need another woman. I am your wife. And I am telling you that any other woman trying to usurp that office will have to leave the Castello immediately. Otherwise, I will go home to Ferrara, or to Naples, or to wherever I have to go to escape this humiliation.”

“But my dear—”

“Say nothing about it, Ludovico, but act before it is too late. I understand that we must be generous to your child. God knows, my father was kind to his bastards. But I will not have another wife in my house. If she is in the Castello when we return, I will go first to my sister and brother-in-law in Mantua and explain my predicament, and then on to my father’s home. Whether my father chooses to avenge the disgrace I’ve suffered is beyond my control.”

FROM THE NOTEBOOK OF LEONARDO:

On the penis: It has some relations with human intelligence and sometimes shows an intelligence of its own. Where a man may desire it to be stimulated, it remains obstinate and follows its own path. Sometimes it moves on its own without permission from its owner, or by any thought or desire of that person. Whether the organ’s owner is asleep or awake, it does what it pleases; often the man is asleep and his penis awake, or the man is awake and it is asleep. Or the man would like it to be in arousal but it refuses. Often it desires action and the man refuses. That is why it seems that this creature often has a life and an intelligence apart from the greater organism that carries it. Yet it seems that the man is wrong to be ashamed of giving it a name or showing it off. That which those would have him cover and hide he ought to expose with solemnity, with the demeanor of a priest at Mass.

SEPTEMBER 1492; IN THE CITY OF MILAN

B
EATRICE
trots along in her new chariot that Ludovico had specially made for her. Its wood is fine and heavy, but Il Moro had one of the many artisans in his employ gilt its edges. A soft tent, the fabric of which is changed every day to match her outfit, keeps the September sun off of her face as she navigates her way through Milan’s streets.

When she thinks on how her life has changed over the course of one short summer, she wants to sing—not softly and harmonically as one does in churches and parlors, but loudly, bawdily, like the dwarves do late into the evening during their wine-soaked orgies. She would like to take off all her heavy clothes and do handstands naked like Mathilda, showing her dimpled behind to anyone who cares to look. Sometimes she thinks that her small body is not made to accommodate such rambunctious happiness.

She had taken a big risk, but it had paid off. She would never have made good on her threat to leave Ludovico, mostly because the Diamond’s reaction to her running back home would have been to spank her and put her in a convent.

But Ludovico had no way of knowing that.

Instead of being angry at her outburst, Ludovico was moved. Men adore to be adored, her mother always said, and now she had proof that it was true. That night, tears still wet on her face, back so sore from her fall that she could barely stand, she grabbed him by the vest and pulled him onto the bed. She climbed on top of him, kissing him madly, sucking on his tongue so hard that she could feel a pull deep within her womb. She remembered one of Mathilda’s little jokes that had always made her blush.
If you rode that husband the way you ride that steed, all your problems would be solved.
She had always been too embarrassed by the joke to ponder its wisdom. But at that moment on top of her husband, feeling his arousal pressing against her, she decided to test the theory, for no one knows quite as much about sexual matters—or enjoys the activity with as much glee—as the little people.

Finally she understood what all the fuss was about. Men and women talked about, wrote about, sang about, dreamed about sexual passion all the time, and yet this was the first inkling Beatrice had of its power. She had undressed in front of him without modesty and asked him to do the same. Then she climbed on top of him and found that his hard penis slid with eager ease right into her slick wetness.
Velvet
, he had sighed, which had made her even more aroused. She thought of Mathilda, she thought of Drago, she thought of a warm spring day in open countryside, and she began to canter—smoothly and easily until she was sure of the terrain. Then she let go of all control and launched into a spirited gallop, which she continued until she felt her whole body tense. She rode faster and faster, unaware now of the creature beneath her—man, animal, who knew or cared? Finally her womb felt as if it was exploding, but instead of fearing it, she rocked more frantically to quicken her demise. In a burst of sweat and cries, it happened, and Beatrice thought that this must be the kind of ecstasy that devout nuns talk about when speaking of the passions of prayer. But this is not how the nuns advocate achieving it.

For the next months, Beatrice and Ludovico were never apart, hunting and riding every day to exhaustion, exploring every inch of the parks of Vigevano. Game seemed to spring from every corner—hare, deer, and roebucks on the ground, and heron and other river fowl in the skies. Some days they would take a canoe and fish, netting big mackerel and delicate speckled trout from the river. Ludovico took a new delight in everything Beatrice did, whether she made Drago or one of her dogs perform a little trick, or whether she slew a buck with a single well-placed arrow. He laughed without control at her jokes and antics. He bought her surprises—pearl earrings, a rosary with a giant diamond cross, and a young white mare handpicked by Francesco from the Gonzaga stables to eventually mate with Drago. When Galeazz tried to whisk Beatrice away for a day of falconry, Ludovico advised him to start paying more attention to his fiancée and less to Il Moro’s wife. Ludovico said it in good humor, making young Bianca Giovanna blush so hard that she had to hide her face in her hands, but Beatrice sensed that he was serious. Galeazz’s days of distracting Beatrice were officially over.