Leonardo's Swans (2 page)

“I’ll tell you a miracle that happened right here in Ferrara that is even better,” Francesco says, sidling his horse right up to Isabella’s so that their legs touch. She knows she should pull away, that her mother would rail against this sort of indiscriminate physical contact, even with leather riding boots providing a barrier to the couple’s much-craved intimacy, but instead, she rides with slow care so that they might continue to brush against one another.

“What miracle is that?” she asks, suppressing a smile.

“That your father agreed that you should be my wife,” he answers.

You have no idea just how miraculous, she thinks. If the timing had been slightly different, he would be marrying the jaunty girl riding ahead of them, but this, he does not know. When the marriage agreements were made nine years ago, Isabella was only six and Beatrice five. Who could have cared at that time which sister married what man, as long as both marriages were politically expedient for the city-state of Ferrara? Isabella wants to tell him the story but she would need him to say that if things had worked out differently, his life would have been a ruin. And he cannot possibly say that in front of Beatrice.

Duchess Leonora had long ago drummed into her daughters’ heads that marriage between noble houses was no whimsical arrangement based on ephemeral qualities of preference or attraction. The peace of Italy depended on these unions, especially at this juncture. The Venetians had become doubly aggressive since the Turks pushed them out of Constantinople. They began to push farther and farther inland into Italy because they needed land for their farms and their citizens. They hired condottieri to take over towns—Verona, Padua, and Vincenza, all near Ferrara. The Venetians wanted complete control over the trade routes and the rivers, as well as the land. Ferrara was venerable and strong, but small. For her to remain independent, she must have strong alliances with the city-states of Mantua and Milan.

“You girls are ambassadors of Ferrara. Its welfare depends upon the success of your marriages. Therefore, you must do nothing,
nothing
, to endanger these alliances. You must do nothing prior to the marriages that may cause the families to renege on the commitments. Your behavior must be impeccable. You are as much the protectors of Ferrara’s welfare as our army or our treasury. You are, in fact, its greatest treasures. And when you enter your husbands’ houses, I expect you to act like it. Your bodies are the very bindings that will hold us all together and stave off conflicts and wars. Do not think that you can behave like the women in fairy tales and poetry. The duke and I will not tolerate it.”

Looking at Francesco now, Isabella thinks that she must be the most fortunate of women. Her fiancé is not handsome, but has a rugged quality that gives an ugly man appeal. Already three and twenty, he will never be tall, and his eyes bulge, a condition that she knows will worsen over time, because she has seen old men with this affliction, and they look like reptiles. Yet he is as solidly built as any man alive, and his courtly manners contrast so thrillingly with the wicked look in his protruding brown eyes. Besides being from one of the oldest noble families in Italy, he already is considered a brilliant student of warfare, destined for an illustrious career in the military arts. Undoubtedly he will lead one of Italy’s great armies to many victories. Isabella feels that Francesco is the perfect man to help her realize her destiny—which is to have a powerful husband and reign with him over a great and enlightened realm.

Beatrice, riding three lengths in front of them, begins to pick up speed. She turns her head to the side, giving the lovers a sprightly profile, before dashing off with the horse.

“We had better follow her,” Francesco says, a look of grave concern coming over his face.

“That will not be easy,” Isabella replies.

Isabella does not like to see any interest in her sister from her betrothed, though she cannot imagine why. With her exceptional qualities, she should not worry one bit. But worry she does. Francesco is from a family famous for breeding horses. Nothing arouses the passions of the Gonzagas of Mantua like a great horse, or a rider who can handle one. Beatrice looks back one more time before guiding Drago through one of the city’s grand arched portals to a road where she can ride faster. Francesco takes up the challenge and speeds after her on his dark stallion, the jewels in his silver saddle catching just enough of the winter sun to sparkle.

Isabella follows, but at a slower pace. It would be extremely unladylike for her to compete with her boyish sister in this game for Francesco’s attention. Besides, she does not want to sweat so badly under her new habit that she will be embarrassed later, when, helping her descend from the steed, Francesco will take her small hand and slyly raise it to his lips. Let Beatrice dismount in her typical disheveled state—damp, stringy hairs hanging about her face, and oozing sweat like the horses she rides into the ground. Isabella settles into a steady canter as the two race ahead of her, first Francesco taking the lead, then Beatrice gaining on him, so close that it looks from this distance as if she is trying to make her horse bite his stallion’s rear end.

If one is to look upon the two sisters objectively, as Isabella prays Francesco does, one has to observe Isabella’s advantages. Isabella has spent all her life at her distinguished mother’s knee, while Beatrice, from the ages of two to ten, was left behind at the court of Naples all the way on the other side of Italy as a peace offering to their grandfather, King Ferrante, whom everyone feared and hated, but who had taken an instant liking to Beatrice. Isabella reads Latin impeccably and can recite Virgil’s
Eclogues
to the satisfaction of her tutors and her father’s eminent guests. Beatrice, on the other hand, has spent the four years since her return to Ferrara being pushed to catch up with her sister in their studies. She can barely spell. She can recite a poem or two in Latin, but Isabella doubts that she has any idea of what she is saying. Isabella plays musical instruments and sings like an angel. Beatrice loves music, but must be sung to. Isabella has studied rhetoric and mathematics and can take either side in an argument over at least one Platonic dialogue. Beatrice enjoys poetry, but prefers that others read it to her. Isabella is the loveliest dancer in all of Ferrara, turning her head elegantly this way and that. Not only does she have the correct timing, style, and balance necessary for the art, she also knows just where to place her smile as she turns, dips, and lowers her head, eyes lingering on their specific target, until the lids fall modestly in time with the music. Beatrice manages at dance, but is no match for her graceful sibling. Isabella has read all of the books in her father’s library and all of her mother’s romance novels about the chivalric days of old. She has watched carefully as her parents commissioned and acquired paintings and other works of art from the most illustrious talents of the age.

In addition to her intellectual accomplishments, Isabella has tumbling blond curls, large, wide-set black eyes, and a slender body. Beatrice shows signs of stoutness, with thick thighs and ankles, though only her sister, her servants, and her husband—should the man to whom she is engaged actually honor their betrothal—will ever know this. She has a round face, a small, uninteresting nose, and dark hair that lacks luster, so much so that she must wear it in a long pigtail down her back. She prefers the outdoors to all pursuits. She is the kind of person Isabella would not find terribly interesting if she were not her sister.

Isabella consistently outperforms Beatrice in all pursuits but this, the equestrian. Now, and in the presence of her betrothed, Isabella fears Beatrice is trying to make her pay for her crimes of superiority.

Suddenly Francesco stops, pulling in the animal, whipping him about so that he is facing Isabella. She realizes that he is looking for her, has stopped this competition with her sister because
she
has entered his mind, even in the midst of the wild ride.

Beatrice, who has bolted ahead, stops too. No longer enjoying the ride without the competitive aspect, she trots back to him. Isabella hears Francesco say, “I wanted you to show me the city’s newest improvements, not race me to your death.”

“You just don’t want to lose to a woman,” Beatrice retorts, flushed scarlet from her escapade, adjusting the velvet cap that she wears at a clever tilt.

“Do you fail to remember that I was not losing?” he answers.

“Settle down,” Isabella says in Beatrice’s direction, hoping that she does not sound too much like the admonishing older sister, the sour one who does not want to be a part of their game. “We are supposed to be showing him the city!”

“Be a good girl, or I’m going to take Drago back home with me,” Francesco says to Beatrice in a tone that conspires with Isabella’s parental attitude toward her sister.

Beatrice clutches the reins close to her chest. “He wouldn’t go. He would run away with me first!”

“Don’t be too sure, little princess,” he replies, sounding like a father.

Thank God he considers her a child and Isabella a woman! Satisfied that she can recapture Francesco’s attention with her more mature demeanor, Isabella leads them over the bridge and back inside the city walls.

“Now, Beatrice, do listen to what I am telling Francesco so that when your betrothed comes to visit Ferrara, you might show him these same things.”

Beatrice groans. The subject is a sore one.

Mistress once more of the little expedition, Isabella explains how the city of Ferrara has changed in recent years; how her father, the duke, had gotten it into his mind to rebuild the city along the enlightened architectural guidelines set by Leon Battista Alberti, the Genoan. She explains (to demonstrate her knowledge of not only architecture, city planning, and mathematics but political subtleties as well) how Ercole had sent to his ally, Lorenzo the Magnificent in Florence, for the ten manuscripts of Alberti’s
De re aedificatoria
, to set about modernizing his city and its buildings according to that great theorist’s vision. Streets were widened into broad avenues. New structures were created with careful attention to classical values of proportion and harmony. Aesthetics were linked with and equal to the mathematical proportions of things.

While all this construction had flown up around her, Isabella had felt that, along with the old-fashioned city of pointed arches and endless spires, life itself was spreading out in broader directions. Narrow streets, dark halls with low ceilings, and cramped corridors were things of the past. Lamps and candles illuminated rooms once kept dark. People were reading and talking in these well-lit drawing rooms late into the night. Ancient manuscripts, once the property of the church and private collectors alone, were being translated from Greek and Latin into Italian right here at Ferrara’s university, and Venetian and Milanese printers were making copies of them and selling them all over the country. In the years after her father had defeated and executed his rivals and made peace with the Venetian Republic, the old Castello d’Este with its famous four towers was quickly transformed from fortress to grand residential palazzo. The soldiers, along with their weapons and artillery, were moved to the older, colder, more stern quarters, while the family and members of the court occupied the newer and more spacious halls and apartments, decorated with the works of the greatest artists of the decades, all of whom had passed through Ferrara in the service of the Este family—Pisanello, Piero della Francesca, the Venetian Jacopo Bellini, Cosimo Tura.

Isabella points out to her beloved Francesco and her uninterested sister an example of the new architecture, the Palazzo dei Diamante, the residence named from her father’s sobriquet, the Diamond. Twelve thousand diamond shapes jut into the air from the palazzo’s ominous façade—not exactly a subtle reminder of Duke Ercole’s omniscient power over Ferrara, but an effective one.

“Do they call him the Diamond because he is worth so much?” Francesco asks.

“It’s because he’s thin and sinewy and his body is cut in hard lines,” Beatrice pipes in, suddenly part of the conversation.

“It’s because in negotiations, he’s as hard as the hardest rock,” Isabella says. “Something your family undoubtedly found out when they negotiated our marriage contract.”

“I think he made a terrible deal for himself,” Francesco replies.

“Why?” Isabella asks, now wishing to defend her father.

“Because you are priceless, that’s why. If you were my daughter, I would know that you were too good for any man.”

Beatrice skewers her face at Francesco, in mock disgust over his syrupy lover’s comment.

“You probably stole that from some bad poet,” she says.

“Or a stable boy courting a kitchen maid,” Isabella teases. It would not do to let Francesco know how deeply his every word affects her.

B
EATRICE
looks restless. Isabella watches her sister’s eyes scan the city walls as if she is looking for an escape. Isabella gets jittery when she sees this mood descend over the younger girl. She can tell by the sudden, secretive smile and the darting eyes that Beatrice has a new surprise and is searching for just the right moment to reveal it. Beatrice is often predictable in her unpredictability.

Isabella tries to distract her sister by beginning a new conversation. “My father’s latest project is to rebuild the city walls,” she says, gesturing to the towering redbrick fortifications, decorated with hand-carved medallions of the city’s symbols, and the crests and portraits of the illustrious members of the ruling Este family from days gone by.

“At the top are wide footpaths. You can see all the way out into the countryside, beyond the Po River. If you like, you can circle the entire city.”

“Or anticipate an invader, which is more likely what your father had in mind,” Francesco adds.

“You men with your military minds!” Isabella says, flashing him a smile that lets him know that she is saying it with admiration.

Before she can bring her lips back together, the thing that Isabella has anticipated and feared begins. Beatrice breaks from the other two, pulls back her horse’s head, and eggs him on up the brick stairs that lead to the top of the city walls. Isabella would like to simply be annoyed at her attention-seeking sister, but the problem is twofold. First, one is not allowed to take horses to the top of the wall. Second, and perhaps more serious, the project is not yet finished. Great gaping holes leave the brick walkways disconnected. But Beatrice is not one to think on these things. She is not particularly observant, nor does she plan ahead.