The Marriage Portrait(59)
“Emilia,” Lucrezia says, her hands over her ears, “let me understand you. You travelled here with Il Bastianino?”
“Yes,” Emilia says, in tones of impatience. “What of it? I’ve told you that three times now, madam. I said I’d take him to you all if he brought me along, and he said to climb up behind one of his men, then, if I was in a fix, so I—”
“But,” Lucrezia tries to think what she needs to clarify in this confusing turn of events, “why is he just arriving now? You have been here an hour or more so—”
“Well, would you believe it, we got all the way here, and at the end of the driveway, he said he wanted to stop and walk into the woods.” Emilia screws up her face in disapproval. “Something about how he needed to examine the light falling on the branches, or some such nonsense. So I got down off the horse and said I wasn’t waiting around, light or no light. And I just walked up the drive and came in through the back entrance. There was such confusion and noise in the kitchen, with everyone shouting to each other about the Duke’s breakfast and the arrival of extra people from court, that no one questioned who I was or what I was doing there. I just asked one of the kitchen boys where you were. And here I am.”
“Here you are,” Lucrezia murmurs. “You are so much cleverer than me.”
“Nonsense.” Emilia puts aside her darning. “Now, get back under those blankets, please, madam. You mustn’t catch a chill. That would be the very worst thing at this—”
Lucrezia waves her away. “Ssh,” she says. “Let me be. I need a moment to think.”
And so Lucrezia thinks. She thinks about Leonello Baldassare, her husband’s loyal consigliere, riding to the fortezza. The dinner last night. The venison, the wine, the sickness in the dark. She thinks about the unexpected appearance of the court artist, Il Bastianino, with her finished portrait, at the castello. Emilia insisting that he bring her with him, bargaining with him so that he would agree to take her. And Alfonso. She thinks about Alfonso. Why he left her bed. Why he hasn’t yet been in to see her this morning. Where he might be right now—somewhere below, in the dining room, or outside hunting or conferring with Baldassare. And what his next move might be. If he thought she’d eaten as much as he’d intended her to last night, he might suspect she is already dead. Or at least very sick indeed. He might be counting on that, might at that very moment be telling Baldassare that he had put into practice their poisoning plan, that she had had no suspicions, that she fell for it, and hasn’t appeared this morning, just as they had planned. And perhaps he means to come into her chamber very soon, in order apparently to discover the dead body of his young wife, raise the alarm, call a doctor, but—alas—it’s too late. She thinks about how everything will have been carefully planned, so carefully, down to every last detail. Except, of course, that she was not very hungry last night. Except that the artist will have surprised Alfonso by turning up unannounced at his country fortezza, at his secret destination. Which is why, Lucrezia thinks, Alfonso has not yet appeared in her room, to discover that she is very much alive.
Il Bastianino, in his haste, in his desire for money, has given her time. Just a little, but perhaps enough to wrongfoot the Duke. She will not stay here in this damp chamber, like a lamb in an enclosure, waiting for the axe to fall, she will surprise her husband.
Lucrezia draws her hands over her face and swings her legs off the edge of the bed.
“Emilia,” she says, “help me get dressed.”
Honey Water
Delizia, near Voghiera, 1560
The strangest thing, for Lucrezia, about life at the delizia, is that so little is required of her. She is accustomed to days with structure, according to a routine imposed by her mother: a strict rotation of Mass, religious instruction, meals, personal care and manners, tuition, lessons in music, deportment and languages. Here, there is no one to tell her that she must do this, or wear that, go to this room or that room; no tutor appears before her to say that she must make a fair copy of this manuscript or that sketch. Nobody tells her that she is lacking in this regard or that. She can stay in bed, drowsing or day-dreaming until midday. She can wear whatever she wants: there is no stern-faced Mamma bursting into her chamber to say, not that gown, whatever were you thinking, put this on, now, quick, make haste, there are guests waiting, why is your hair not done, where is the maid, why are you wasting your time painting that tiny piece of wood over and over again, what means this strange and repetitive task? She can squander a whole day, should the mood take her, on drawing the distant Apennines, giving each peak a ludic facial expression, or making a tiny painting of a bumblebee with its head buried in a flower (beneath which is a girl growing wings and taking to the sky—but nobody need ever know that). Even meals can be ordered whenever she likes; if she feels hunger uncurl in her stomach, she may ring a bell and a servant from the kitchen will come hurrying along a corridor, bearing a platter of cheeses, fruits, jellies, miniature pies—whatever she feels like eating.
Alfonso comes and goes; sometimes he looks in on her in the mornings, or he might take a turn about the loggia with her when the heat of the day has receded. He goes riding in the forest with Leonello and his men. He spends a great deal of time shut up in his receiving room, where people from court arrive and depart all the time; Lucrezia can see this window lit up, late, across the courtyard. She never disturbs him there but passes quietly, her head down.