Leonardo's Swans (9 page)

FROM THE NOTEBOOK OF LEONARDO:

You have named painting among the mechanical arts! Truly, if painters were as equipped as poets to praise their own work with the written word, I doubt whether painting would ever have to be so defiled with such a description. You call it mechanical because it is by manual work that the hands represent what the imagination creates. Aren’t you writers setting down your words with the pen? Is that not mechanical? If you call it mechanical because it is done for money, who is more guilty of this error—if indeed it is an error—than you writers? If you lecture for the schools or academies, do you not go to whoever pays you the most? Do you do any work without monetary reward?

If you say that poetry is more everlasting than painting, to this I would reply that the works of a smith are more enduring still, since time preserves them longer than either your words or paintings; nevertheless, they show little imagination, and painting, if it be done upon copper in enamel colors, can be made far more enduring.

We painters are the grandsons of God, the grandchildren of Nature. For all visible things derive their existence from Nature, and from these same things is born painting. So therefore we may justly speak of it as the grandchild of Nature and as related to God himself.

The next night, Beatrice lay in bed, head spinning from wine and dancing. She had not consumed so much wine since she was a child, thieving it with her gaggle of playmates at Naples as the adults passed out, and drinking it until they vomited all over the nursery. As the hands of her ladies had dressed her for the first night in her marriage bed, she had prayed that she would not give a repeat performance of her childish pranks for her husband.

With perfumed kisses and knowing smiles, the women had laid her upon the most sumptuous bed she had ever seen—so soft that when her small body sank into it, she wondered if she would drown in its feathers before Ludovico made his appearance. Lions and serpents carved into the canopy above stared at her, and to take away her fear, she stuck her tongue out at them, giggling. The reds and golds of the brocade fabrics draping the bed began to run together, making her dizzy, and she closed her eyes. Nestling deeper into the bed, she ran her hands up and down the white silk nightgown, feeling the small mounds of her breasts and the strength of her stomach muscles. The cold fabric titillated her skin, giving her gooseflesh.

The marriage ceremony, she reflected, had come off spectacularly well. Most of the decorous lords and ladies who had come to Pavia to welcome her had returned to Milan, where the celebrations were to take place in the Castello. But Ludovico’s intimates, as well as representatives of the Houses of Este and Gonzaga, had remained for the ceremony in the Visconti Chapel within the Castello di Pavia. Upon entering the chapel, she was greeted with a whirlwind of faces, almost none of which she recognized in her nervous state. Niccolò da Correggio was present, happy to take advantage of Francesco’s absence so that he might have Isabella all to himself, though, since every man sought it, no man ever had her sole attention. Galeazz di Sanseverino had appeared with four of his brothers, who all had gleaming smiles despite their martial appearance, and were no less dashing than he. Other faces she could not associate with names, at least not at this moment.

Isabella and Leonora each took her by an elbow to lead her to the altar. She was sewn into a brilliant white robe, embedded with a thousand small pearls. Streams of sapphires and diamonds met in sharp angles in the tight bodice. She had insisted upon keeping her long plait, into which was woven white and silver ribbons lined with pearls. Beatrice was used to formal gowns, but she had never worn one as heavy as this, and she had to walk slowly, feeling weighted to the mosaic floor of the chapel. She was in no hurry to get to the altar. This was her moment, with the faces of all those who were important to her husband and to her family glued to her as she walked past them like a bejeweled angel.

The Mass seemed to pass very quickly, her mind whirling with thousands of thoughts and images, none of which she could remember after the ceremony was over. It was all a blur until Ludovico had taken her left hand and placed upon her finger a ring with a huge square diamond at its center, surrounded by the tiniest pearls she had ever seen, strung on wires. It was so heavy that, had he not been holding her hand, it would have dropped right to her side. Would she have to wear it all the day long, she wondered? Then he was walking her away from the altar and the rush of faces came at her again, and she just smiled and smiled.

After the ceremony in the chapel, dinner for the hundred or so guests had been taken in the immense dining hall, with tall ceilings painted in glittering gold and ultramarine, the paint of which Ludovico told her had been made from thousands of crushed lapis lazuli. The walls were covered with frescoes of the Visconti men and women of the past who had built this royal house. Beatrice searched their faces for similarities to her husband; he explained, however, that alas, he resembled the Sforza side of the family. She believed him. Everything about him was
strong
, the literal meaning of Sforza.

Each of the arched windows high above were set in triangular marble shafts. Coats of arms from the Visconti, the Sforza, and the House of Savoy, into which Ludovico’s family often married, decorated the empty spaces in the walls. Never had Beatrice seen such grandeur, not even in her grandfather’s court at Naples. Perhaps the Pope lived in greater splendor, but she was certain that even those fabled Turkish sultans, or the doges of Venice, could not possibly live in more magnificent surroundings.

Beatrice did not remember eating anything from the platters of meats and delicacies that came in an endless parade from the kitchen. She tried to take a bite or two, but she had gone through the entire day without being able to feel her body. All she could manage was to keep picking up various goblets of gold and silver and drinking whatever was inside. It was always wine—sometimes red, sometimes white, sometimes sweet, sometimes dry. After a while, she could no longer taste it at all. She could feel the weight of her dress and her ring, and she could feel the cold air hit her face as they left the dining hall and entered the courtyard, but there was a strange absence of her corporeal self.

She had almost forgotten the strangest event of the day. When they had left the chapel, among all the faces was one in particular, wearing a black velvet mask and a long black cloak. She knew the man, she was sure, but could not decide exactly who it was until she saw Isabella turn utterly white. Then she realized, it was Francesco, come in disguise. Beatrice had been forewarned that her brother-in-law’s employer, the Doge of the Venetian Republic, did not quite approve of this marriage between Ferrara and Milan. It would be if not unseemly and disloyal, then impolitic of Francesco to attend. The doge neither liked nor trusted Ludovico, and relations between Milan and Venice had been more than strained for some time. It was bizarre, indeed, then, to see Francesco standing in the courtyard, a part of and yet apart from the wedding party. She had wanted to welcome him, but her husband had taken her in a different direction to greet the Prince of Mirandola, and by the time she turned around again, he was gone. He did not come to dinner. She hadn’t time to speak to Isabella about it either. Strange. What could it mean?

Soon, thoughts of Francesco left her. She shut her eyes tight, running her hands along her body, feeling again the cool silk of her nightgown, enjoying the strength in her arms and legs from long days on the horse, and thinking on all the riches in her future. Not even her future, because her future was now. She was
now
the Duchess of Bari. She was
now
the official mistress of this magnificent and ancient castle. She was
now
the wife of the handsome Moro, who had promised, in the presence of her mother and sister, to spoil her and indulge her every wish.

She was lost in reverie when she heard him enter the room, his footsteps approaching the bed. The sound of her husband’s slippers on marble tile would become a familiar sound. Had he been watching her? She froze, hands at her sides, afraid to open her eyes.

“Your dreams appear to be giving you pleasure, my pet,” he said. She couldn’t tell if he was making fun of her. His voice sounded dreamy and distant, as if he were coming from some far-off place.

Before she could open her eyes, before she could take another breath, he was lying next to her, his hand upon hers, taking over its movements, and guiding it over her breast again. Torn between pleasure and mortification, her eyes popped open to see his swollen red lips inches from her face. His cheeks were flushed, not so much with wine, she thought, but with mirth.

“Will there be blood on the sheets for the official inspectors in the morning?” he asked.

“I have not done this before,” she said, wishing he would be more serious.

“Of course you have not,” he laughed. “You are a child.”

“I am your wife,” she countered.

She looked at him, waiting. She had no idea what was expected of her. He had stopped guiding her hand. They both lay still. What could possibly be next? He gave her a kiss on the lips, soft and slow. She tasted the wine on his hot breath and on hers, still sweet. She felt herself awakening inside, and she reached forward to kiss him harder. His hand moved to her breast, caressing it over the nightgown, teasing one nipple and then the other. Just as she began to roll to her side to push herself against him, he stopped kissing her and said, nonchalant, “Perhaps they will grow.”

He must have heard her inaudible gasp because he quickly covered his blunder. “Oh, do not despair, little one. Whether they grow or not, it doesn’t matter. Your life will be very good, indeed. You will have everything you ever dreamed of, my little princess, and so much more—more than your mother, more than your sister, more than anyone you have known.”

She wanted to ask,
Will I have your love?
But she dared not. At least not yet.

“Maestro Ambrogio says that the stars are aligned for the conception of a son. That is why the ceremony had to happen today. I did not want to tell you this before. But it is the truth, and so we must be very serious.”

He pulled up her gown, letting it bunch at her waist. He fumbled briefly with himself, revealing his member to her, as if offering her a cut of meat from the kitchen. It looked benign enough—fat, pink, blunt, and not so very long.

He took in the lower part of her body with his eyes in a way that embarrassed her, as if he was regarding the flank of a horse he was about to buy. Finally, he looked into her eyes.

“It seems almost a sin,” he said with a small giggle that she did not find either kind or attractive. He should not be laughing at her now. Did he not just say that they had serious business to attend to? How did he expect her to give him a son? A strong son could not be born on the brunt of a joke.

Beatrice knew that if she could say to Ludovico what was burning inside her head, he would cease to be amused by her as if she was his little baby and not his wife. If he knew the woman she truly was inside, he would even begin to love her, she was sure. But something, some silly fear in her, some misplaced vestige of girlhood, prevented her from letting her true thoughts be known. She shut her eyes tight against the tears that welled up behind her eyes, and she got angrier still because she knew that he would think that she was crying because she was afraid.

“Ah, it is time,” he whispered. Without another word, he mounted her, spreading her legs, letting the air hit the warm, private part of her. She wanted to snap those strong legs tight, denying him entrance, but if she did, he would have to report it to the Ferrarese ambassador as well as her mother, and they would send a letter to her father, and that would be intolerable because then all of Italy would think that the scared little virgin refused her husband his rights on the night of their wedding. Instead, she lay still as a corpse, waiting.