The Marriage Portrait(79)
If she is to survive this marriage, or perhaps even to thrive within it, she must preserve this part of herself and keep it away from him, separate, sacred. She will surround it with a thorn-thicket or a high fence, like a castle in a folktale; she will station bare-toothed, long-clawed beasts at its doors. He will never know it, never see it, never reach it. He shall not penetrate it.
* * *
The next day, when Emilia wakes her, she learns that the apprentices left early, saddling their ponies just after dawn.
Lucrezia and Alfonso, and the household retinue, ride out after midday. The air is washed clean by the storm, with a hint, Lucrezia thinks, of autumn’s chill. She wears a fine wool shawl about her shoulders as they ride, Alfonso on his stallion, she on the cream mare; her mule, Alfonso has said, will be brought later, by a servant. It would be inappropriate for the court or the citizens of Ferrara to see her mounted upon it.
High on the back of her long-maned mare, Lucrezia turns in her saddle as they depart from the villa. She wants to etch its square red roofs and the symmetry of its fountained gardens on to her memory. She grips the reins, overcome with a peculiar certainty that she might never see it again, might never be as happy or as free as she was here. Life at court awaits her, and her role as duchess consort is about to begin.
With Her Head Held High
Fortezza, near Bondeno, 1561
Emilia is laying out a velvet dress and the jewelled cintura but Lucrezia shakes her head. “Not that one.”
“But, madam, there will be people for you to receive—courtiers and the artist and—”
“Doesn’t matter. Give me the woollen one. I’m so cold.”
With a truculent flounce, Emilia turns her back on the velvet dress and starts to fiddle with the woollen one Lucrezia discarded last night. Can it have been only a few hours ago? It feels as though she has been in this place for weeks, perhaps months. She is a different person from yesterday, from the girl who rode from Ferrara, from the duchess who sat down to eat dinner last night. She has changed her shape, shed her skin, been painted over, or remade in a new form.
“We need to hurry,” Lucrezia says, seizing the bodice from Emilia and wrestling it on to her body.
“I still don’t see why you need to go down. You ought to be in bed, you ought to…”
Lucrezia lets Emilia’s words run over her. She bundles her hair into a scuffia and, without pausing to let the maid fasten the cintura around her waist or thread earrings through her lobes, she snatches up her furs and makes for the door.
She will walk into that room with her head held high. She will do it. The fever still clings to her as mist lingers on the surface of a lake: a film of sweat chills her brow, and there is a dull, pervasive ache in her lower spine and in the places where her bones fit into their sockets. Her ankles, as she descends the winding stairs, feel tender and spongy. But she will do this. She grips the rough grain of the stone walls with certainty, with a crystalline, righteous anger.
Sisters of Alfonso II, Seen from a Distance
Castello, Ferrara, 1560
As they depart from the delizia, her husband rides next to her. He has fitted leather gloves over his hands; his cap is set back on his head, so that she can see his face when he turns to address her. The air, after the thunderstorm, is cool and clean, the ground still damp. There is a sense, as they pass through the fields, that it is possible to hear the roots of the fruit trees thirstily drawing up this sudden gift of rainwater. Leonello is behind them somewhere, the guards out in front.
When they reach the city, there are lines and lines of Alfonso’s men waiting outside the walls for them, bearing swords and flags; there are musicians, who herald their arrival by raising instruments into the air and sounding loud notes. The noise is harsh and atonal, and it is all Lucrezia can do not to wince. Then crowds of people surge out of the city gates, spilling into the street around the horses, calling, cheering, waving handkerchiefs and hats. Lucrezia’s horse skitters anxiously sideways, whisking its tail, and Alfonso reaches out to seize the bridle, yanking it back into line. Leonello shouts an order to the soldiers who push back the crowds, clearing the way for them. As they pass through the arches of the gates, the porters bow, pulling off their hats, while covertly casting their eyes up to look at their new duchess. There are yet more people lining the streets, faces turned towards Lucrezia and Alfonso as they make their way along a straight road with trees and high, symmetrical buildings along its edges. The Ferrarese put down their bundles, abandon their stalls or pull their children by the hand, so that they might rush to stare at her, or cheer, or throw into her path flowers and handfuls of grain. Windows of houses open and figures lean out, calling greetings and felicitations, making the sign of the cross in the air. She isn’t sure if she should smile or wave; Alfonso, when she casts a look at him, keeps his eyes ahead. She tries to arrange her face into a pleasant yet dignified expression, neither too prim nor too joyful. How should a duchess look? She cannot help but glance into the faces of these people, who celebrate her appearance here with such glee. She sees: a man with a small child on his shoulder, the child waving its hand vacantly, as if it has been instructed to greet the new Duchess but has no idea why. A young boy holds the collar of a brown dog, which is crazedly barking at the horses and the soldiers; the boy’s face joyous, delighted by the spectacle. An elderly couple, arm in arm, stand by a vendor selling woven baskets, the man leaning towards his wife, speaking into her ear, as if explaining what is before them. As Lucrezia rides by, she sees that the woman’s eyes are occluded, sightless, her face turned up towards the sky, as if appealing to its power, as if its brightness is the only thing she can see. At a street corner, there is a girl with a sack balanced on her head, her feet bare and filthy, and here is a mother with a baby tied to her back, and by a small fountain, a group of children are tossing beads of water into the air, calling to each other. When they see the procession, they run from the well, clapping and shouting, jumping up and down, their thin limbs contorted with excitement. Lucrezia raises her hand and waves to them—she cannot resist—and the children burst into laughter, throwing their arms into the air to wave back, crying La Duchessa, La Duchessa!