The Marriage Portrait(67)
“Mmm,” she says, only half listening, still thinking about the unruly court, Alfonso’s sisters.
“You are not pleased?”
“I am,” she says, hastily. “Very much so.”
“I had thought it would be diverting for you,” he says, slightly aggrieved.
“It will indeed. Forgive me. I was thinking about…something else. A portrait. That will be wonderful to…to see.”
“I know you have a great interest in painting so…”
“Yes,” she says, struggling to contain a desire to point out that a fondness for painting and sitting for a portrait are two very different things. “You’re right. I do.”
“I have decided,” he continues, “that it will be a marriage portrait. It is only proper. Further paintings will follow, of course, in time, of you alongside our children. I have chosen the artist—a man well known to me. He has created the decorations in many rooms of the castello. Furthermore, he trained under the greatest master of all, Michelangelo himself. What particular form this portrait shall take is still under discussion. But I am anticipating…”
Alfonso’s voice talks on. Lucrezia’s attention slips away from it, fastening instead on the doves that pick their way among the villa’s roof tiles, bobbing their heads at each other, beaks emitting low pentatonic trills, wings folded in tight at their sides. Minuscule insects are circling and gathering above the hazel tree, as if they are consulting with each other about some matter, and all are undecided. The mule tosses her head, flicking the soft, furred triangles of her ears back towards Lucrezia, then forward to Alfonso, then back again, as if she is trying to follow their conversation, trying to discern what is happening in this marriage. In the distance, Lucrezia sees that Leonello, unlike Alfonso, is in a state of edginess and haste. He is ordering servants to stow certain objects—clothing, documents, linen packages—in saddlebags; he is ticking something off a list; his foot, encased in its supple leather boot, is tapping against the impacted earth of the courtyard; the tendons in his neck stand out beneath the skin.
Lucrezia watches, from the back of her rare and colourless mule, as a servant—a young boy with an open, tender face, who has been overloaded with luggage—stumbles on a shallow stone step. The boxes and bags slide from his thin arms and fall to the ground. Papers and wax seals spill over the parched earth. The boy kneels, trying to gather them up, brushing dirt off them with his hands. A more senior servant—a secretary from the office—castigates him in a loud voice, cuffing him on the back of his head. As Lucrezia watches, feeling sorry for the boy, and wondering if the papers were important, and whether Alfonso will be displeased, Leonello Baldassare reaches down, without looking, and closes his fist around the boy’s collar. He pulls him from the ground and, taking one of the dropped boxes, slams the boy’s face, once, twice, three times, into its hard wooden lid.
The bright day goes dark, as if the sun has hidden its face, and the noise of this assault—a soft shape meeting a hard surface, like that of a cabbage falling to the floor—ricochets around the courtyard, bouncing off the tiles, the walls, the shocked faces of the other servants.
Lucrezia stands up in her saddle, her foot pressing into the iron stirrup, her hand held out towards the boy.
“My God!” The words fly out of her lips. “Stop! Enough!”
With measured slowness, Baldassare turns to look at her. His face is still, eyes expressionless as pebbles. The boy still dangles by the collar from his hand, a bloodied puppet making muffled squeaks of distress. Lucrezia is sure that at any moment Alfonso will do something: he will indicate to Leonello to let the boy go. She is certain that this horror will be put to a stop.
But what happens is this: Baldassare, still holding Lucrezia’s gaze, strikes the boy one final time with the box, then drops the child to the ground and accepts a handkerchief from the secretary, which he uses to wipe his fingers. Some servants step forward and pick up the boy, removing him, hurrying away his wrecked form.
Alfonso does nothing. Alfonso says nothing. Alfonso makes no sign he has seen anything untoward. Alfonso continues to lead her mule along the terrace, towards the end of the courtyard, and now beyond, so that they are on the narrow path towards the garden, heading away from the villa.
Lucrezia is shaking, all along her arms and fingers; she feels cold; she is having trouble keeping a grip on the bridle. She feels she may slide from the saddle to the ground. She doesn’t know what to do or say. She has never in her life witnessed anything like that. Certainly, she has seen servants disciplined, by her parents, by other elevated members of her household, but never to that extent, never more than a shouted word, or perhaps a brief slap. Nothing in her life has prepared her for this.
“Alfonso,” she says, once they are alone, when it becomes clear, from the implacable back of his head, that he will not speak, “do you not think that was…excessive? The poor child—it wasn’t his fault. Anyone could see that. Will you now speak to Leonello and say that he was—”
Alfonso turns, pulling on the bridle so that the mule comes to a sharp halt, and regards her, a smile on his face. Lucrezia stares at him, uncomprehending. How can anyone smile after what happened? She has no idea what he will say. Any impression that she has come to know him, that she has reached a sense of intimacy with him, is, in that moment, blown away. A stranger stands before her, a person with whom she has no connection. Instead of agreeing with her, instead of saying that, yes, Baldassare’s punishment was too harsh, the boy had done nothing to deserve such brutality, Alfonso reaches out and touches her cheek with loosely curled fingers. “What a kind and tender heart you have,” he murmurs, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “You will make a wonderful mother.”