The Marriage Portrait(109)



“There is something about her, though,” Alfonso mutters, and Lucrezia can picture him, his frown, his restless striding. “Do you not see it?”

“See what, Your Grace?”

“Something amiss.”

The doctor hesitates. “Amiss? I am not certain that I—”

“It is hard to define. There is something at the core of her, a type of defiance. There are times when I look at her and I can feel it—it’s like an animal that lives behind her eyes. I had no knowledge of it prior to our marriage, no sense of it. I was assured of her balanced disposition, her good health. She seemed so biddable, charmingly so, young and innocent. But now I see it I do not know how I missed it. It makes me fear that there will always be a part of her that will not submit or be ruled.”

The doctor makes a neutral noise. “Her Ladyship appears to me to be a most—”

“I have a suspicion,” Alfonso speaks in so quiet a tone that Lucrezia has to strain to hear him, “that she keeps pregnancy from her body by force of will, by some malady of character. Is it possible for a woman to be so unsettled in spirit that a child will have no hope of taking root within her?”

Beyond the door, Lucrezia hears the doctor hesitating before making his reply.

“I have never,” he says tentatively, “heard of such a thing. Her Ladyship comes from a very good family. Could it be that what you are referring to in the Duchess is a tendency to emotional excess?”

“Perhaps. That is one way to put it.”

“It is, I can assure you, a common state in young women. Your wife, I would venture to say, has too much heat about her. Her blood is hot and this can overexert the female mind. I can, of course, treat this. It should be simple to redress. I recommend a course of bleeding and cupping, some preparations of herbs and minerals. I will see to the precise concoctions myself. She must eat cool foods, a little poultry, green vegetables, red meat, cheese and milk every day. No spices, no broths, no peppers or tomatoes. Let her also be surrounded by gentle and fruitful things. None of these images of wild beasts that I see on the wall here. These bones and feathers and savage artefacts should be removed from her. She may engage only in careful exercise, once a day, and should rest after meals, in bed, and after waking. No excitement, no dancing, no music, no creative endeavours, no reading, except for religious texts.”

“Very well.”

“I am certain that the event you so desire will come to pass.”

There is a shuffling, a rustling, as if the doctor is taking his leave, bowing, backing away. Lucrezia is about to move back towards the bed, in case Alfonso comes into the room again, when she hears the doctor say: “Oh, and I recommend that her hair be cut.”

“Her hair?”

“It is the colour of fire, Your Grace,” he says, as if the idea is distasteful to him, “and there is so much of it. Very heating, very inflaming. We need to cool her, remember, to contain her. Cutting off her hair will help, I assure you.”



* * *





A group of servants are sent up. They arrive with boxes and sheeting. Clelia supervises as they remove the paintings from the walls—the betrothal stone marten, Lucrezia’s sketches of the white mule, a small oil painting of a fox, a scene depicting a doe chased by dogs, a portrait of a woman with a pet leopard she found in a salon at the delizia and relocated to her private rooms. When they begin to dismantle her collections of feathers and pebbles and fragments of bark, Lucrezia springs forward and inserts herself between the servants and her treasures. They will not listen to her protestations and so she tries to gather up as many items as she can, filling her arms and hands, but before she realises what is happening, two guards have stepped in from the corridor, and they are taking the feathers and stones away from her, they are putting their hands on her, holding her back. Emilia is shrieking, don’t you touch her, don’t you dare, get away from her, and Clelia is scolding, telling her to hush, and the guards’ faces are grey and miserable, like those of stone gargoyles, so Lucrezia takes to the window seat, and huddles there, with her head buried in her knees.

Her sheaf of streaked porcupine spines is taken, the dried mosses and lichens, the dish of apricot pits, cleaned and polished to a gleam, are all packed into boxes and carried away.

In their place, Clelia hangs a picture of a bowl of lemons and figs, a classical scene of men standing in a circle, solemnly holding spears, and a depiction of a blank-faced Madonna with an overlarge halo, holding a passive Christ-child swathed in a loincloth.

Her books are taken away, “to prevent excitement,” Clelia explains, and her paints and vellum and chalks. She is allowed a small amount of paper and ink, for letters.



* * *





A packet of herbs is brought, with instructions to drink it before her evening meal. Clelia pours hot water on to the dried concoction, and an evil-smelling steam is released into the air.

Lucrezia looks down into the cup. The liquid is dark green, with particles of black afloat on a foamy surface. She raises it to her mouth but the smell rising off it is so noxious, so powerful, that she gags before the drink even touches her lips.

“That’s good,” Clelia says, observing her from across the room. “It is purging you of the heat. It’s working already.”

Lucrezia holds her breath, tips the cup, tries to swallow. The mixture is thick, viscous in texture; the warring tastes of mulch, bitter mint, a pepperish aniseed flood her mouth, coating her tongue and airways. She gags again, coughs, splutters, feeling a portion of it slide down her gullet; the rest diverts into her throat, the back of her mouth.

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