The Marriage Portrait(114)

He is there, giving orders for that groom to hold the bridle, for this saddle girth to be tightened. The drawbridge has been lowered in readiness—not the one he usually uses, which is large and leads out of the front of the castello, but a side one so narrow only one rider may pass through at a time.

“We are not going by carriage?” she says.

“No,” he says, taking her arm, “I thought this would be easier. And quicker.” He leads her to the horse and helps her mount. As she settles the reins in her hands and adjusts her gloves, he is indicating her maids. “We will take only one of these women,” he says, and points at Clelia. “This one will stay behind.”

Lucrezia turns in her saddle to watch as Clelia drops a curtsey, then walks away, in the direction of Nunciata’s rooms. Emilia looks after her, trying not to seem too delighted.

“Let us go,” Alfonso says to her, turning the reins of his horse. “The servants can follow behind.”

They clatter over the narrow side bridge, across the moat, between the buildings, past the white-pink fa?ade of the cathedral. It fills Lucrezia with a strange, febrile joy. The vastness of the sky above her, the sight of all the people, out in the early-morning air, the stalls lining the streets, the clothes and hands and noses and shoes of people she has never met and never will.

How the citizens of the town stop and stare, to see their duke, mounted high on a horse, to gaze upon their young duchess, swathed in furs. The two of them, together, riding through town, flanked by their guards.

They pass through the city gates, and out on to the open road. Alfonso urges his horse into a trot, and Lucrezia’s mare follows. The countryside slides by, empty orchards, their bare branches blackened by rain, stony meanders of farm boundaries, sodden fields, blank-eyed houses. She is conscious of the jolting of the mare beneath her, the squeal of the saddle, the wind that tries to prise the hat from her head, to insert its fingers between her clothes and her skin, the sharp needles of rain on her face.

They are following the path of the river and Lucrezia thinks that the way looks familiar: she recognises a particular crossroads at the summit of a gentle incline, a rock formation that resembles a loaf. And then they take a turning, on one side of which is farmland in tiers, where a tethered goat turns its doleful eyes on them for a moment, then turns away, as if to pretend they aren’t there, and on the other run the grey-brown waters of the Po river.

“Is this the same way we went before?” Lucrezia enquires.

They have slowed the horses at this point in the journey, for the terrain here is rockier; she heard one guardsman say to another that he didn’t want to turn the animals’ hoofs.

“Before?” Alfonso asks.

“On the way back from the delizia.”

“No,” he says, “of course not.”

“Why of course not?”

“Well, we are not going to the delizia, so naturally—”

“We aren’t?” She wants to pull her horse to a standstill but a guardsman holds her on a leading rein. “Where are we going?”

“To Stellata,” he says, his expression one of puzzlement, as if she is being perversely forgetful, when in fact she is sure he never told her this.

“Where is Stellata?”

“Just beyond Bondeno. Very close by.”

“Is it a villa? Like the delizia?”

“It is a country lodge, a beautiful place, right by the river, and in the shape of a star. Hence the name. I spent much time there when I was a young child. My father took me riding and hunting. I thought it would be nice for you to see it. A change of scene, some healthy country air.”

“But…” Lucrezia tries to articulate her objection, coming up with “…how will Emilia know where to come? I told her we were going to the delizia, not—”

“Emilia?”

“My maid.”

“The one I instructed to remain behind?”

“No, the other one. I brought her from Florence. She was to come after us, so that—”

“Do not concern yourself. She will be escorted to the right place, and—” He breaks off and gestures with a gloved hand. “Here it is now. Do you see? There is one of the star points.”

Lucrezia can see, through the complexity of bare branches, a dark, high slice of wall, like an arrowhead. It is strangely geometric, for such a rural place. More than anything, it bears a resemblance to Alfonso’s castello, with the same repeating arched battlements, as if part of that structure has been broken off, transported and set down among the trees.

“It looks…” she casts about for the appropriate words—she doesn’t want to criticise a place that has been dear to him since childhood “…imposing. Like a fortress or—”

“You are a very clever girl,” he says, with a smile. “It was a fortress, a long time ago, to control navigation of the river.”

He urges his horse with a click of his tongue. They ride towards the fortezza and, one by one, pass over the bridge.





The Underpainting and the Overpainting


Fortezza, near Bondeno, 1561





Lucrezia makes her way through the fortezza, leaving behind her finished portrait in the empty hall. She can hear Alfonso and Leonello out in the courtyard, bidding Il Bastianino goodbye, wishing him a safe journey back to Ferrara. She climbs the stairs, one by one, and stumbles into her chamber. Emilia holds her by the wrist, admonishing her, saying she should never have gone downstairs, never; she should have stayed in bed.