The Marriage Portrait(115)

Lucrezia ignores her and sits at the desk, slumping sideways, resting her head on her arm. In this position, she has a new view of the sketches she did last night. She is down at their level, regarding them from an angle. Had it really been she who drew this mule, this unicorn? What was it that had excited her so much about them? She cannot for the life of her remember. They seem devoid of existence now, just lines on a flat page.

She closes her eyes. Emilia is fussing around her, placing blankets on her shoulders, telling her she should get into bed, she needs to rest.

Lucrezia opens her eyes and sees: the strokes of chalk, the hind hoof of the mule, the wooden surface of the table, with its knots and rings and alluvial grain, the fading light filling the narrow window, a hand with curled fingers lying limp beside a stylus, a ring with a tiny moonstone, a lace cuff.

“Come to bed,” Emilia is saying. “I will help you.”

Lucrezia shakes her head, interested in the percussive noise her hairpins make against the table. She watches as the hand with the ring and the cuff moves towards the stylus. The fingers grip it. The stylus rises up and settles against the notch in the hand’s muscle. Its point is guided towards a piece of paper, where it makes a horizonal mark that tapers off in a curve. Lower down, it makes a second mark, which meets the end of the first. Then it moves again, in confident downstrokes, again and again: legs, in motion, ending in strong feet, four of them, running, sprinting at full tilt. Lucrezia watches as her hand brings forth a vibrant face, a complex pattern on a flank. These markings might, to the untrained eye, appear as stripes or cage-like bars, but to Lucrezia they are camouflage. The animal in the picture is soon surrounded by vegetation lush and dense, by lianas and heavy blooms, and even its startling appearance is soon lost, melded with the jungle.

“Very nice,” Emilia says, looking over her shoulder. “A leopard?”

Lucrezia, still slumped sideways, shakes her head.

“How well you draw. But I think you should—”

“It was to be the centre of the triptych,” Lucrezia mutters into the surface of the table.

“Hmm?” Emilia says, her fingers moving to untie Lucrezia’s neckline, to remove the furs and shawls from her shoulders.

“I shall never finish it now,” Lucrezia says, and she watches as the hand slackens, as the stylus falls to the desk, as the paper rolls up into itself of its own volition, the tiger disappearing. “It will never be done.”

But Emilia is not listening. She supports Lucrezia to a standing position and suddenly the headache worsens, tightening its hold, delving its fingers into the nerves of her eyes, the muscles that stretch from shoulder to neck. She feels the blood drain from her head, from her shoulders and lungs, pooling uselessly in her legs. She has to cling to the bedpost in order to remain upright.

Behind her, Emilia is removing her gown, the bodice, the sleeves, still chiding her; she has aired and warmed the bed, she says; she gets Lucrezia to lie down, and pulls the covers over her.

Lucrezia is cold, cold; she has never felt so cold in her life. Her legs and feet are insensible, her fingers ice. Her breath rattles and rasps in her chest, her teeth juddering against each other. At all her joints, the places in her body that articulate and bend, there is a deep, dragging ache; she may never move again.

Emilia piles blankets and cloaks on top of her but the chill will not leave Lucrezia. The maid closes the bed curtains, she builds up the fire. Eventually, she gets in beside her mistress in an attempt to warm her, rubbing her feet with her own, huffing hot breath into Lucrezia’s curled hands.

“There now,” Emilia whispers to her, “all will be well.”

Lucrezia turns over to face the wall, away from Emilia, her jaw clamped tight. Desolation is flooding through her, to her every edge.

“No,” she gets out from between her clenched teeth, “it will not. I shall die here and—”

“Do not say such things,” Emilia protests.

“—I shall never see Florence again.”

“Why would you think that? Come, you are feeling ill but soon you shall recover. It is just an ague, brought on by the journey and—”

“Poisoned,” Lucrezia mutters.

Emilia shushes her, strokes her forehead until Lucrezia feels the approach of a numbing unconsciousness.

“Sleep,” Emilia tells her. “Rest.”

“Don’t answer the door,” Lucrezia mumbles. “Don’t draw back the bolt. Whatever you do, don’t let him in.”



* * *





When she wakes, it is much later. Darkness fills the room and the faces of the windows. Lucrezia sits up, her mouth parched, her head as clear as a goblet, ringing with a single, resonant note. She rubs a hand against her face. The pain of the headache has gone but it has left behind an expansive feeling in her skull, a peculiar kind of clarity, as if the agony of it has washed clean her mind.

Her thoughts are diamond-sharp, cut with precision, polished and perspicuous. They follow, one after the other, as if strung together on a thread.

She is hungry, her stomach flat and gnawingly empty.

She is at the fortezza.

Death will come for her, if not tonight, if not tomorrow, then one day very soon.

There is no one to save her.

Alfonso will send one of his men. Baldassare, most likely. It would need to be someone he trusts absolutely.