The Marriage Portrait(75)

She does not know why this is or where it might lead, but she knows it must remain hidden, and silent as the tongue in his head.



* * *





The apprentices make their sketches during the course of two days. They take over the alabaster room with their rolls of paper, their graphite, charcoal and chalk, their travelling bags and discarded cloaks and tunics. When Lucrezia passes the open door, she catches a glimpse of Jacopo, sleeves pushed up, leaning over a desk; she hears Maurizio’s one-sided chatter, and Jacopo answering him with a laugh.

The laugh surprises her. It is the first noise she has heard him make. And it sounds at once unique to him, and also similar to any other laugh a young man might make, like the ones she heard from her brothers when they wrestled each other.

It makes her peer again through the crack in the door, and see them both standing in the golden glow of the alabaster relief walls, like lithe fish in a clear pond. Maurizio is looking down at Jacopo’s work; Jacopo is pointing at something on the paper and Maurizio is considering whatever it is, then shaking his head. This display of wordless comprehension that passes between the two of them intrigues her. How can Maurizio understand what Jacopo was asking him about the work?

She moves off, reluctantly, along the corridor, and goes to the stables to visit her mule, taking a cup of oats, saved from her breakfast.

Over the next day or two, she is frequently summoned to the salon, where her husband will be examining the sketches, holding one in his hands, then discarding it, and reaching for another. Maurizio and Jacopo stand to the side, waiting and watching as Alfonso peruses their work.

“Not like this,” Alfonso says, dropping the curled paper to the floor, “or this. Or this.” He extracts one from the heaps of papers and unrolls it on the table. “This, however, has potential. It has captured her sweetness but also her spiritedness, her—” Alfonso breaks off, turning to look at the apprentices. “Which of you made this sketch? You?” He points at Maurizio.

Maurizio shakes his head. “No, Your Highness. That one was done by Jacopo.”

“The…tongueless boy?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Well, ask him to do more like this. You, too. I want her whole face to be visible, looking at the viewer, with space in the frame for her shoulders and arms and most—if not all—of her dress. Do you understand?”

Maurizio and Jacopo scramble into position behind their paper. All Lucrezia has to do is stand in exactly the pose her husband has decreed. Simple. Yet not so easy. After a minute or two, the muscles in her raised arm begin to ache, then burn. She finds she needs to blink more than usual—it is something to do with being looked at so intently. Her feet, beneath her gown, feel thin-skinned, as if their bones are pressing, unshielded by flesh, into the floor. Her gown weighs on her shoulders, constricts her lungs. She would like to stride off. She would like to go to the stables and order her mule to be saddled, then ride it out of the villa gates, up the path, and away.

She allows her eyes to wander about the room; it is the only part of her permitted motion. Alfonso has folded his long frame into a chair; he sits, one arm draped over his knee, his head swivelling between her and the apprentices. Maurizio stands near the wall, his habitually cheerful face grave with concentration, his brow contracted; he looks like a man undergoing a trial, suffering some agony of the soul. He makes a hesitant mark on the page, then looks up anxiously at her. Jacopo, by contrast, Lucrezia sees, is composed, still as a tree trunk. His hand passes over his page, making sure strokes; his gaze flickers up, just for a brief moment, then down; up, then down. When he glances up, she thinks, he doesn’t see a person. He sees an arrangement of shapes, an intersection of planes and angles, a meshing of light and shade.

“Are you perhaps finding this irksome, my love?” Alfonso has come to stand in front of her, addressing her in a low tone.

“Not at all.” She suppresses a yawn. “Why?”

“You seem…” he circles his hand in the air “…distracted. Weary. As if we are holding you against your will.”

“No, all is well.”

“You aren’t enjoying this?”

“Really, I am.”

“Well, could you then make an effort,” he whispers, “to comport yourself with a little more dignity?”

“Dignity?”

“Hold it in your mind that you are my duchess. We need to see this in your bearing, in your features, in everything about you.”

Lucrezia presses her lips together, then nods. “I will try.”

When Alfonso steps away, she sees that Jacopo’s eyes are resting upon her. Lucrezia looks at Jacopo and Jacopo looks back. His drawing hand has ceased, hovering over the page. She has, she can see, become visible, no longer the subject of his sketch, but as a person. He slides his eyes towards Alfonso, who has returned to his chair and is intent on picking stray dog hairs off his hose, then back to Lucrezia. His mouth twitches, not in amusement, but something else. Disapproval? Concern? It is hard to say. Lucrezia stares at him and something seems to solidify in the air, in the beams of their eyes, flowing from her to him and back again, creating an almost tangible channel between them. Lucrezia wouldn’t be surprised if others in the room were able to see it: it would be coloured red, or blue, or fluctuating between the two, towards purple, and it would crackle audibly. It would be impossible to cross the room at this moment without getting caught by it: the channel or connection between them would repel others from it. It occupies a space of its own.