The Marriage Portrait(80)
Her smile falters when they turn a corner by a cathedral into a large piazza, overshadowed on one side by an imposing structure rearing up from an expanse of green moat, with tall towers at each corner. The castello is waiting for them, its drawbridge lowered in readiness.
It is vast, fortified, the walls thick, the battlements high—it is easily three or four times the size of her father’s palazzo. Its foundations stand in water and the tops of its towers pierce the clouds. Rectangular windows interrupt the red brickwork on the upper floors, and a walkway runs from one tower to the next. Nobody could get in here if uninvited, and nobody could get out without permission. It is less of a castello than an edifice of power, a building that has its defence prepared in advance.
The hoofs of the horses clatter on the bridge; she sees a swallow veer along the surface of the moat, a blue-black arrow, then disappear under an arch. Lucrezia passes under the portcullis, pulled up, its metal spikes pointing down towards her, and then she is inside, the doors pushed shut behind her, the castello secured, and they are entering an open courtyard surrounded on four sides by vertiginous walls; Alfonso and Leonello are dismounting, tossing their reins to waiting groomsmen; Alfonso is pulling off his riding gloves, stretching his neck from side to side, and coming towards her horse to help her down.
Taking her arm through his, he turns her and together they face the mass of bowing servants and soldiers assembled before them. Alfonso passes his eyes over them, acknowledging their respect, accepting their deference, then gives them a nod and moves, with Lucrezia, towards the loggia’s cool shade.
Then they are ascending a wide marble staircase, Alfonso saying something about a Dutch viceroy and a treaty over his shoulder to Leonello, who is following them, and something else about Urbino and a letter of intent. Leonello is saying, hmm, hmm, as if neither agreeing nor disagreeing with what Alfonso is saying, but committing it to memory. Lucrezia tries to stay several paces ahead, pulling the orbit of her skirts away from him: she hates to think of him coming up behind her, where she cannot see him. She tries, too, not to recall the noise of the serving boy’s face as it struck the travelling box, that yielding thud.
The three of them arrive, Leonello and Alfonso still conversing about state matters, on a landing with tapestries hung on the walls. Lucrezia is turning her head to examine them—scenes of a mythic nature, with unicorns curled at the base of trees—when some servants dart forward to open heavy wooden doors, and they are passing through them, into a large state room with a lofty, vaulted ceiling; the walls are elaborately painted with, Lucrezia sees out of the corner of her eye, unclothed males, in a row, their arms held up in what might be joy or anger—it is hard to tell.
“Allow me,” Alfonso says, with a brief inclination of his head, “to present my sisters.”
Lucrezia is taken aback. She had assumed she was being guided towards her chamber, where she might change out of her travelling clothes and prepare herself to be received by Alfonso’s family, for the formal menare a casa. She had thought she would have several hours for this task. But here she is, still in her dusty giornea and cloak, her hair blown about, her gloves grimy. And here are they: distant figures at the far end of the room, on a dais, moving from sitting to standing, turning their faces towards her. Trying to hide her discomposure, Lucrezia slides her arm out of Alfonso’s and curtseys deeply in the direction of the figures—were there two of them, or three, and was Alfonso’s mother there?—bending her neck, just as she has been taught, so that her gaze rests on the rug.
There is an exclamation, then the sound of feet on the patterned marble, and a soft, musical voice saying, “We are so glad you have come. What a joy it is to finally meet you, Lucrezia.”
A hand lands on her arm and Lucrezia raises her head to see a woman in an inky-blue sleeveless gown looking down at her. She is considerably taller than Lucrezia, with the same dark eyes as her brother, but with a fragile face, high cheekbones and a curving red mouth.
“Thank you,” Lucrezia falters, unnerved by the woman’s warmth, her poised beauty, “Your Highness. It is an honour and a—”
The woman takes Lucrezia’s fingers in her own. “Please, call me Elisabetta—we are sisters now, are we not?” She gestures at a second woman, coming haltingly forwards. “And here is Nunciata.”
Lucrezia curtseys once more, conscious that Nunciata is looking her up and down. The sisters could not be more different. Elisabetta’s shining dark hair is divided and piled up behind a lace band. She wears a stiffened ruff around her lovely column of a neck and a pearl choker. The slashed fabric of her gown reveals pale rose silk beneath and her slim feet are encased in gold leather shoes. Lucrezia wants to stare at her face, her dress, her jewels, so that she may memorise it all. She would guess her age to be around twenty-six or twenty-seven. Nunciata, however, is not so well favoured: her small eyes peer out of pasty skin, her neck is thick, with a soft chin disappearing into it. She is stout and short in stature, the crease between her brows suggesting that she is given to frowning, and her dress is dun-coloured, rigid with brocade. Tucked beneath her arm is a small spaniel with silky ears and a hostile, imperious face.
“Welcome,” Nunciata says, in a tone that pulls away from the meaning of the word, and gives a stiff nod.
Lucrezia smiles, hoping to communicate to her that she brings no judgement on her appearance, that she knows what it is to be the overlooked, less-admired sister. But Nunciata is looking away, across the room, towards the windows, where Alfonso stands conferring with Leonello.