The Marriage Portrait(89)

She will never take Elisabetta or Nunciata there.

Elisabetta ensures that Lucrezia doesn’t spend too long in her rooms, drawing her into life at court. You are not to shut yourself up in here all day, she says, walking in unannounced, pulling back the window coverings, ruining the light that Lucrezia has carefully filtered for whatever painting she is working on. Elisabetta glances at Lucrezia’s easel but doesn’t say anything beyond an encouraging How pretty. She will take Lucrezia’s hand, ordering Emilia to remove the painting smock, and will then lead her down to one of the salons, where writers are discussing poetry, or philosophers are debating ethics, or a player is giving a recitation, or noblewomen are whispering to each other about this husband or that lover or which dressmaker is the laziest. Lucrezia will sit, mostly silent, at these events. She will endure the stares and glances of the men and women of court, the way they assess her posture, her jewellery, her worth, her standing, her appeal or otherwise. She will switch off the surface part of her that notices these arrows and lances, and instead tune herself, like a lute string, to pick up only what is being said across the room, by the philosophers, by the player and his lines about Ithaca. If she hears the people around her murmur the name “Alfonso,” she will refuse entry to her head the words around it; she will not slip into the pool where these people swim; she will not, even, turn her eyes towards the door, where stands the broad and straight figure of chief guardsman, Ercole Contrari; she will not blink when Elisabetta slips out, shortly followed by him. She sees all this but does not admit it, to herself, or anyone else.

If there is a cloud on her horizon at this point it is only Nunciata, who becomes suddenly alert to the amount of time Lucrezia is spending with Elisabetta when she sees them pass the open door of the chapel one morning, where Nunciata sits alone with her dog. Lucrezia is relating to Elisabetta her mother’s habit of keeping only Spanish ladies-in-waiting and how this often gives rise to linguistic misunderstandings between them and the palazzo servants; Elisabetta is laughing, she has her arm through Lucrezia’s, she is saying how funny Lucrezia is, please tell her more. When Nunciata calls to her sister, asking where they are going, Elisabetta doesn’t break stride, just says over her shoulder that she and Lucrè are going out for some fresh air. It isn’t long before Nunciata comes after them, tracking them down to the courtyard, where Elisabetta has requested that Lucrezia’s white mule be brought to them so that they may feed it orange peel and pastry crusts. Elisabetta is weaving coloured ribbons into the patient animal’s mane while Lucrezia holds it still, and telling her women to brush out its tail, when Nunciata appears, spaniel under her arm, her face shiny with exertion. She watches with narrowed eyes as they decorate the mule, then lead her around the courtyard, asking each other if they should fetch more ribbons, in a brighter colour perhaps, or even lace, Elisabetta is suggesting that they call Alfonso, so that he may see, it might divert him. Lucrezia, carried along by these high spirits, is starting to nod, but Nunciata cuts across them.

“Our brother,” she says, apparently addressing only Elisabetta, “would not appreciate being disturbed. Especially for this frivolity. Have some sense.”

Her voice is like water tossed on to a fire: the joy, the spark goes out of them all. They unwind the ribbons, they hand the reins of the mule back to the groom, they disperse from the courtyard.

After this, Nunciata is sure to attach herself to them every day. She ensures that she arrives early at Elisabetta’s chamber so that she, too, may fetch Lucrezia from her rooms. She attends every salon gathering Elisabetta gives, even though she yawns and fidgets through each recitation or recital, often inserting herself in the seat between them, speaking over Lucrezia if she addresses a remark to Elisabetta, answering for Lucrezia if Elisabetta asks a question. It is an awkward grouping; Lucrezia longs for the days when it was just her and the lovely, light-hearted Elisabetta. This triangular dynamic, with the two of them warring over her attention, is confusing and uncomfortable, a far cry from Isabella and Maria’s aloof and excluding pairing.

Elisabetta seems amused and delighted by Nunciata’s behaviour, thinking up more and more remote places in the castello for them to hide, murmuring to Lucrezia that Nunciata will never find them here. She is so jealous, Elisabetta whispers, delighted, pressing Lucrezia’s hand as they conceal themselves behind the window drapes in her salon. But when Lucrezia writes of it to her mother, thinking that she, too, will find it entertaining, she is taken aback when her mother replies in a very serious tone, warning her to be on her guard:

    Dearest Lucrè,

Do not be deceived that Alfonso’s sisters are engaged in this rivalry because they are fond of you. Never mistake such behaviour for affection. Remember that any alliance at court is always about power and influence. To be the confidante of their brother’s wife, his duchess consort, is their aim. They want to be close to you so that they may be close to him, to secure their position. They see you as a way to him. Take care, always, not to show favour to one above the other. Conduct yourself with fairness, as well as a seemly distance. You are the Duchess, not them. Ask yourself why they are urgently seeking your favour. Is there any reason to suspect that either of them is acting against their brother in some way? Or perhaps you?

You are in my prayers, daily,

Your devoted mother



Lucrezia conceals this letter hastily, in a locked drawer. She takes it out, every now and again, to reread it. Can her mother be right? Perhaps it is just that Elisabetta enjoys her company and that Nunciata feels excluded by this. But doubts begin to pluck at the edges of her mind whenever she is with Alfonso’s sisters. What do they want from her? Are their motives clouded, as her mother claims? Could their invitations and offers of company be moves in a sophisticated and invisible game of power?