The Marriage Portrait(116)
Or perhaps he will do the task himself.
She will die: he means to make this happen. It is unavoidable. It is her fate.
Lucrezia, as if driven by this notion, rises from the bed, where Emilia sleeps on her side, face obscured by the spread of her hair.
Lucrezia stands for a moment in the frost-cold room. What has woken her?
She turns her head slowly, towards the window, then the door, holding her breath, listening out for footsteps, voices, noises on the stair. Are they coming for her? Is the time now?
There is nothing. The star-shaped building stretches out and away from her, silent and undisturbed. She cannot hear a single sound, human or otherwise. She might be suspended in Heaven already.
Except that her stomach growls, gnawing on itself, begging for food. Her body must be empty. She is living entirely on air.
She waits a moment longer, just to be sure that no one is approaching the chamber door. Then she bends over and, with a decisive snatching movement, picks up Emilia’s discarded dress. She pulls it over her head.
She must eat something, if she is to work out what to do. She must find food, and quickly, before anyone else wakes up. She must procure something herself, if she is to be completely sure it is safe to eat.
It seems to her that there is another Lucrezia in the room, one who cowers still in the bed, plaintively asking her what on earth she is doing, imploring her to stay here, where she is safe and warm. She tells this girl that she is putting on the maid’s dress in order to find food, that she needs to keep up her strength. Perhaps it also seems that there is a third Lucrezia, the one who appears in the painting, and she is questioning her as to where she might be going, an imperious look on her face, one eyebrow raised. This Lucrezia, the Duchess Consort, is horrified by the putting-on of this coarse dress. She is advancing towards her, her chioppa rustling indignantly, lily-white hands outstretched, as if to stop her.
But she is too quick for her. The girl in the drab dress skips sideways, past the bed. She unbolts the door, and steps out.
The fortezza is suffused with black, dank air; tendrils of mouldering, spore-heavy draughts move through it, curling round her ankles, rubbing themselves against her. The building creaks and rustles with the frigid chill of night. She fastens the strings of Emilia’s cap and, putting out a hand to find the wall, moves down the stairs.
The whole place seems empty, deserted, corridors filled only with darkness, but Lucrezia knows better. There are guards and servants and assistants and officials tucked away behind these doors, around corners, in every nook and cranny of the place.
This, she hears someone say brightly, inside her head, is the most dangerous thing you have ever done.
If she were found—what then? If Alfonso or one of his men were to discover her. If they were to stop and question a woman dressed as a maid, only to see that it is, in fact, their duchess.
She tiptoes down one flight of stairs, across a square landing, then another. The kitchen is somewhere behind the hall, she knows, down a slope and around a corner. Just as she is about to exit the second staircase, she hears something that makes the blood halt in her veins.
Footsteps, quick and purposeful, coming from the direction of the hall.
Lucrezia flattens herself against the wall. Don’t come this way, don’t, please don’t. She sees, passing the mouth of the staircase, a lantern encasing a single short candle, then an arm, holding it up, then a shoulder, clad in leather, then a chest and face, in profile, and a head of tawny hair.
Baldassare.
Lucrezia clings to the wall with her palms, with her front, as if she would scale it, like a lizard, and disappear into a crack, if only she could. Baldassare is coming along the corridor, with stealth and speed, using only the balls of his feet. He carries a pouch or small bag of some kind in one hand and the lantern in the other.
Impossible to believe, and horrible to see, but Baldassare comes to a stop. His boots pause, and he waits, motionless, the lantern held out. Then he takes a step back, and another, until there he is, once more, at the foot of the stairs. He is right next to her, so close that she could reach out and touch him, close enough for him to hear her breathing.
She watches, from the shadows, cheek pressed to the fortezza wall, which perspires a frigid, slick moisture. Panic swarms over her, like insects. This is her end, right here, right now. She will die on this staircase; he will seize her and put his hands around her throat, and there is no one here to bear witness, to tell her story afterwards, to remember and relate her end. How narrow and slight her neck is. How easy the task will be for a man like Baldassare. He will crush the life out of her in seconds and fling aside her body, like a rag.
Will he turn into the stairs? If he decides to come this way, all will be lost. He will discover her there, within two steps of him; he will want to know what she is doing, where she is going; he will recognise her because he is the kind of person who sees through disguises. She has no doubt of this.
Baldassare seems to be listening. He turns his head one way, then the other. He looks behind him, down the corridor, he turns to look up the staircase.
Lucrezia keeps herself very still. She takes only the smallest sips of air. She doesn’t move: not her eyes, not her fingers, not her face. She is sensible of a glacial thread of air running along the ground, and wonders if it will act against her, disturbing the fabric of her skirts, betraying her presence. Her heart, however, thuds away inside her ribcage, stridently, noisily, as if trying to attract her attention, as if trying to warn her of the proximity of the man who, in all likelihood, has been given the task of murdering her.