The Second Duchess (13 page)

“Sit down,” Mother Eleonora said. “Have some wine and a slice of
pampepato
. Yes, the monastery has been under the patronage of our family since the days of my grandfather, the first Ercole. Are you all right, my dear?”

I had seated myself stiffly on the edge of the chair. The cushions may not have been strictly monastic, but I was glad for them.

“Oh, yes.” I took a sip of the wine and smiled. “I am quite all right.”

She nodded, put a whole slice of cake into her mouth, and wiped her fingers daintily on a napkin. Abbess or no, clearly she did not practice austerities of the flesh. “Sister Orsola tells me you have asked to make a retreat,” she said, once the cake had been chewed and swallowed. “Already you wish to escape Alfonso?”

How foolish I had been to think gossip would not penetrate monastery walls.

“For the day only, Mother Abbess.” I sipped the wine again. “To pray for a son.”

“Ah, I see,” Mother Eleonora said. “What do you think of the wine? It is from our own vineyards at Eliceo.”

It has hard to tell if she meant vineyards belonging to the monastery, or an Este family property. I sipped the wine again; it was as good as anything on the duke’s tables. At the same time I cast about for a way to bring Lucrezia de’ Medici into the conversation. Perhaps if I just encouraged Mother Eleonora to talk of the family of Este in general? That certainly did not seem as if it would be an impossible task.

“It is delicious,” I said. “And I am sure you do not enjoy such a luxury every day, as you might have done in the world.” In truth I was not sure of that at all, but it led me to what I really wanted to ask. “How did you come to enter the religious life, Mother Abbess? As an Este princess, you could have made a brilliant marriage, taken a place of importance in the world.”

“A brilliant marriage!” There was an edge to her laughter. “Oh, yes, a prince or duke for a husband, to put me in childbed every year, to accuse me unfairly of taking lovers, and then after my death to consort openly with mistresses. I am happier as I am, and as for luxuries, I have many noble visitors and in charity I must receive them with a few small comforts.”

Wine from Eliceo, cakes of fine-milled white flour stuffed with almonds and citron and spicy with pepper. Small comforts. Mentally I crossed myself and promised to do penance for my uncharitable thought. I had certainly seen worldly nuns before; my own sisters, I suspected, might well end in similar circumstances. But there was something odd, something at the same time scornful of the world and avid for its fleshliness, about Eleonora d’Este. Who could know what she might have seen, growing up in the Ferrara of the first Alfonso and his golden-haired Borgia duchess?

“There is something in what you say,” I said. “And I am sure you offer great spiritual comfort to all those who visit you.” More penance for me, alas. “One day I would like to make a more extended retreat. Is that what you are building, perhaps? A place for ladies from the court to spend time away from the world?”

“Building?” she said. “Ah, of course, you would have seen the bricks in the courtyard. No, not a new visitors’ house, simply an addition to our cellarium. It is almost finished after years of disruption and dust, thanks be to God.”

Room for more wine from Eliceo, I thought. My penances were accumulating rapidly. “Thanks be to God,” I repeated after her.

“We have ample space for visitors now.” Her smile was all courtly pleasantness; I was reminded of the duke’s ability to present a polished, smiling surface whatever the darkness beneath. “You are welcome to visit, my dear, whenever you wish. I can offer you accommodation quite suitable to your station. Or a plain cell with bread and water, if you feel a need to do penance.”

Her expression remained bland and her tawny eyes were unmoving, but even so I could feel her eagerness to know every succulent detail of my experience at my husband’s hands so she could serve it up hot and fresh to her next visitor. I hesitated. Surely she would not recount her gossipings in detail to the duke himself. Surely she knew as well as I such whispers made him dangerously angry. Surely—

I took a deep breath.

“I am told,” I said, keeping my expression one of anxious innocence, “the duke’s first wife did penance here. Some even say her mortifications contributed to her death.” No one had said any such thing, of course, but I hoped my supposedly innocent misstatement would pry out fresh information.

It was spectacularly successful.

“Chè bugia!”
Mother Eleonora put her wine-cup down with a thoroughly nonreligious crack of indignation. Drops of the wine spilled over onto the embroidered tablecloth. “Who has been telling you such untruths? The young duchess practiced no mortifications at all, and in fact was provided with every comfort. She came here upon Messer Girolamo Brasavola’s recommendation, and Messer Girolamo is the best of Alfonso’s physicians, a doctor of our university, and a great scholar. She was to have rest and quiet and good nursing care and that is what she received. She died of a sudden imbalance of humors, something not even our infirmarians could have anticipated.”

I did my best to look abashed. “One hears such tales,” I said. “Everyone has been whispering to me, and I cannot remember exactly who has said what.”

“Such whispers are for fools. I tell you plainly, my dear, if you listen to gossip about Alfonso and his first wife, you will find yourself very unhappy in Ferrara.”

I was taken aback by her vehemence, and by the hint of a threat in her words. What was this strange half-monastic, half-worldly woman concealing, that made her so quick to attack me? I hung my head as if I had taken her scolding to heart, but even as I did it, I was thinking perhaps one of the infirmarians she spoke of would be looser-tongued and less zealous to defend the duke.

“It is difficult to be a second wife, Mother Abbess.” To my surprise and everlasting shame, my throat thickened with genuine tears. “It is difficult—difficult to hear people speak openly of one’s husband’s beautiful first wife.”

“You will make it more difficult if you give credence to every bit of tittle-tattle you hear.”

I kept my head bowed meekly, although I did not believe a word of her protestations. Blood called to blood, and the duke’s aunt could hardly do anything but defend him. Her very fervor told me there was something she was concealing.

“You are right, of course, Mother Abbess.”

“Excellent,” she said briskly. “Now come, you are here to pray for an heir to Ferrara, and rightly so. I will set two sisters to pray with you, so your own prayers may be strengthened.”

She picked up a silver filigree bell and rang it vigorously. I did not care for the idea of two sisters watching my every move, as I had hoped to slip away from the chapel to search for the infirmary. Well, if I wanted to get myself to the infirmary, I would have to take a more direct approach.

“Oh, dear,” I said. I put one hand over my mouth. “Oh. All of a sudden I feel unwell.”

Mother Eleonora frowned and rang her bell harder. “Sister Caterina!” she called. “To me! Fetch Sister Orsola at once!”

The pretty novice rushed into the parlor. I did my best to look wan and allowed her to fan me with the hem of her veil. “I am going to be sick,” I whispered. I had no intention of going to such lengths, of course, but it was an effective threat. Mother Eleonora called for water, towels, and a basin, clearly fearing for her luxurious carpets, and poor Sister Caterina fetched them at once. Then she went out of the room, and came back a few minutes later with Sister Orsola, the nun who had admitted me.

“Sister Orsola is our infirmarian,” Mother Eleonora said, patting my hand. “She will take you to the infirmary, where you may rest until the sickness passes. May God and Our Lady bless you, my dear.”

“Thank you, Mother Abbess.” So the rude Sister Orsola was the infirmarian! I resolved to make it quite some time until my sickness passed, so I would have a chance for a good long talk with Sister Orsola.

We’d hated each other from the day I came to Ferrara. She was like a brown-and-white Franciscan spider, sitting in her parlor swilling wine and cakes and whispering, whispering, whispering with the ladies of the court, who came to visit her just so they could learn the gossip about each other. She gossiped about me, too, and one day I told her to her face she was a Borgia whore’s daughter and a dried-up old
arpia
who’d never been to bed with a man. After that she hated me, and we never spoke again.

Mother Eleonora was right about one thing—I didn’t practice mortifications. But to say I was given every comfort? Yes, I had some chests of things Alfonso sent, once he had me safely locked away. Clothes and cups and plates, lotions and towels,
giocattoli
to play with to while away the time. I had fruit and comfits and wine Tommasina smuggled in without Alfonso’s knowledge. Seeing Tommasina again, unpacking her baskets, was something to do in the long dreary days with no one to talk to, no musicians to play lively tunes, and no handsome young men to laugh and dance with.

“
I
should give you a good strong purge and see how you like it,” Sister Orsola said once she had loosened my clothing and settled me on a narrow cot in the infirmary. It was a plain whitewashed room with a stone floor, nothing like the abbess’s parlor. “You’re no more sick than I am.”