The Marriage Portrait(70)

It comes back to her, then, as she stares down at this dying man, the time when a visitor to her father’s court—a foreign dignitary—had collapsed at Mass. Down he had gone, face-first, on to the floor of the chapel, like a felled tree. Lucrezia had been a small child but she still remembers the man’s grey pallor, the looseness of his limbs. Sofia had told her—what was it?—that there was a kind of sickness to do with the blood, an imbalance of some kind, if a person had too much red blood or not enough, Lucrezia can’t recall now, but she does remember that they brought the dying dignitary back to life by dripping honey water into his mouth. There was a man with him, an older man, perhaps his father, who knew exactly what to do; Lucrezia remembers him calling for honey, a cup of water; she remembers him rushing to snatch these things from the hands of a servant.

Within seconds, Lucrezia is running back through the antechamber, the alabaster chamber, the atrium; she is seizing the dish with the honeycomb, the pitcher and a spoon from the table. Then she runs back, as fast as she can, water slopping out to soak her wrists and front.

When she crouches again beside the young man, she can see that he is worse, further away from the shore than he was, his breathing hoarse and rasping, his face a mask of clay.

It seems important that she talk, that a voice might reach him, wherever he is, that he might know he is not alone, that there are people trying to keep him on the side of the living, that there is something for him to come back for, to struggle towards. So she keeps up a torrent of words as she tips water into the dish and mixes the honey into it with hands that are urgent and shaking.

“I don’t know who you are or where you have come from but I want you to stay, do you hear me? You are to stay. We are in the delizia at Voghiera and I wonder what brought you here, with this very heavy bag of yours. Now here, try this, just a little.”

She tips a spoonful of the honey water between his parted lips but his head is lolling at the wrong angle, and the precious fluid seeps out of his mouth, on to the floor.

“Please,” she whispers to him, adjusting his head, which is so slack that she must remove one of her shoes, then the other, to keep it propped straight, “you must try. Do you hear? Please.”

She tilts a second spoonful into his mouth and this time it doesn’t trickle out. She waits a moment, but nothing happens, so she gives him a third. As it enters him, his breathing turns to an alarming gargle at the back of his throat. He is choking, he is inhaling the honey water. Tears start into her eyes. She puts down the dish and turns the man on to his side. He is heavy and cumbersome. His body flops from her grasp, but she manages to yank him towards her, and watches as the liquid streams from his mouth into a puddle on the floor.

She has killed him. She is sure of it. She has hastened his death, brought it about. What was she thinking, pouring water into the mouth of an unconscious man? Why didn’t she run to fetch help or—?

Without warning, there is a splutter, then a cough. The man expels more liquid, then takes a huge, shuddering breath. His eyes are still closed but a faint tinge of pink rises to his lips.

Lucrezia clutches his arm. “Signore?” she says. “Can you hear me?”

She flattens herself on the floor next to him, peering right into his face. The man’s eyes are rolling like marbles beneath the lids. She reaches for the dish and holds the spoon to his lips. This time, he swallows.

“Yes,” Lucrezia murmurs, relief surging through her, “that’s it. A little more.”

He opens his mouth to admit the spoon, and swallows again. The colour is spreading throughout his face like a tide, creeping up from his mouth, to his cheeks, his brow, his forehead.

“Very good,” Lucrezia says. “You’re doing so well.”

His eyelids open a crack, then fall shut, then open again, wider this time, revealing eyes that are neither green nor blue, but somewhere in between. Or is the right eye bluer than the left? Lucrezia stares into them; he stares back at her.

She straightens. He blinks and brings a trembling hand to his head, then turns over on to his back. She lifts his head, propping it once more on her shoes.

“Don’t worry,” she says to him, “you’re going to be all right. All is well. Just try to swallow this.”

He gazes up at her, puzzled, shifting his eyes to the walls behind her, the ceiling above his head. His hand wanders to the strap of his bag, to his loosened collar. When she proffers the spoon, he strains forward to take the honey water.

“I was so worried,” she tells him, in a shaking voice. “I didn’t know what to do. Can you talk yet, signore? Can you tell me your name? Your business here? Are you alone or with an…associate?”

He closes his lips over the spoon, then releases it, all the while keeping his aquamarine gaze on her.

“Well, never mind,” she says, after a moment, “we can wait for that, but I would like—”

Behind her, there is a clatter of footsteps, and a heated exclamation: “God in Heaven!”

Lucrezia turns to see a second young man, ganglier and thinner than this one, with a similar leather bag about his shoulders, rushing along the corridor towards them.

“Oh, damnation and hellfire,” he says, swooping down on them, “did he have a fit?” He comes to a squat, next to his friend, and lays a hand on his shoulder.

“Are you all right? Are you coming round?” His eye falls on the dish with the honeycomb. “You gave him that?” he asks Lucrezia. “How did you know what to do?”