by Jean Plaidy
She herself was thinking a great deal about the child she would have. It was in the early days of pregnancy yet, but she longed for a child. She often thought of Giovanni and Roderigo in Rome and wondered when she would be allowed to have them with her. The thought of suggesting such a thing filled her with bitterness. Duke Ercole was not eager to support her; what would he say if she asked permission to bring her sons to Ferrara? That project must wait. So she gave herself up to contemplating the new child.
To the little rooms of the balcony came some of the most interesting people in Ferrara. Writers and musicians felt that the atmosphere of those rooms was more congenial than that of the main apartments of the castle; and among those who came was a man who aroused Lucrezia’s immediate interest. This was Ercole Strozzi. Strozzi was a member of a Florentine family of great riches. They had been bankers who had come to Ferrara some years before, and they had found great favor with Duke Ercole.
This was probably due to the fact that they were experts with money. They knew how to make it, how taxes could be levied; and since they proved to be an asset to Ferrara, Duke Ercole was ready to lavish titles on them. Tito Vespasiano Strozzi was a poet in addition to being a brilliant money-maker, and this doubly endeared him to Duke Ercole, so he was ready to be gracious to his son, Ercole Strozzi.
Alfonso was paying one of his rare evening visits to Lucrezia’s apartments when Ercole Strozzi first came. Alfonso had been sitting at Lucrezia’s side, playing the viol with that touch of near genius which seemed so incongruous in a man of Alfonso’s kind. The company was listening entranced when Ercole Strozzi slipped into the room with the friend who wished to make him known to Lucrezia.
There was about Ercole Strozzi an air of distinction. He was not handsome but elegant; he was crippled and walked with the aid of a crutch.
Lucrezia’s eyes held his as Alfonso continued with his playing. Ercole Strozzi gave her that startled look of admiration which she had received from others yet which seemed different on Strozzi’s face. He bowed and stood perfectly still where he was, for ceremony was not observed in the little rooms, and art was all-important.
When Alfonso ceased playing, Strozzi came forward and taking her hand bowed over it.
He said: “The greatest moment in my life, Duchessa.”
“Then, my friend,” sneered Alfonso, “yours must have been a singularly unexciting life.”
Strozzi smiled lightly and condescendingly. His favor with the Duke absolved him from paying much respect to his uncouth son. It was true that one day Alfonso would be Duke of Ferrara, but it was no use Strozzi’s trying to curry favor with him; he would never achieve it however much he tried. He and Alfonso were so very different in outlook that there could never be harmony between them.
“I would not call it that,” said Strozzi, still keeping his eyes on Lucrezia, “yet would I insist this is its greatest moment.”
Alfonso guffawed. “Strozzi’s a courtier, or fancies he is. Poet too. Do not take his words too seriously, Lucrezia. Well, Strozzi, what are your latest verses, eh? Ode to a red rose or a pale primrose?”
“You are pleased to mock,” said Strozzi. “And while you may mock me as much as you wish, I confess it grieves me that you should speak slightingly of poetry.”
“I am an uncouth fellow, as you know full well,” said Alfonso. He looked round the company. “So elegant, these ladies and gentlemen! These artists! What right have I to be here among them with the odor of the foundry upon me?”
“You are very welcome here,” said Lucrezia quickly. “We should be gratified if you came more often.”
He chucked her under the chin, for he took a great delight in calling attention to his crude manners in such company. “Come, wife,” he said, “let us have the truth. You’ll be glad to see me gone. Truth is more interesting to a plain man like me than your precious poetry.”
He put a hand on Strozzi’s shoulder with such force that the poet almost lost his balance and was forced to lean heavily on his crutch.
“It is not so,” began Lucrezia, but he interrupted her.
“Adieu, wife. I’ll leave you to your art. I’m off to those pastures more suited to my animal tastes and spirits. Adieu to you all.” And, laughing, he left the apartment.
There was a brief silence which Strozzi was the first to break.
“I fear my coming is the cause of his departure.”
“You must not blame yourself,” said Lucrezia. “I blame no one. He rarely comes here and, apart from the time when he plays his viol, seems to have little interest in what goes on.”
“He will never like me,” said Strozzi.
“It may be because he does not know you.”
“He knows much of me which he does not like. I am a poet for one thing. A cripple for another.”
“Surely he could not hate you for these reasons?”
“To a maker of cannons poetry seems a foolish thing. He is strong, never having known a day’s sickness in his life. He regards with horror any person who is not physically perfect. It is often so with those who have physical perfection and something less in their mental powers.”
A faint smile twisted the handsome lips, and Lucrezia was aware of a stab of pity, which was what Strozzi intended. Strozzi was not in the least sorry for himself; he would not have changed places with Alfonso. Strozzi was so mentally brilliant that he had quickly learned to turn his physical disability to advantage. His love affairs were conducted with a finesse which would have seemed incomprehensible to Alfonso d’Este, but they were as numerous and satisfactory as he wished. He had come now to charm Lucrezia and to win for himself a Cardinal’s hat.
He stayed at her side throughout the evening, and he was not long in assuring Lucrezia that in him she had found a friend who would compensate her for all the hostility she had met with at the Este court.
He could not dance. He indicated his crutch.
“I was born with a deformed foot,” he told her. “In my youth this caused me pain and discomfiture. It no longer does, because I have realized that those who would despise me for my deformity are not worthy of my friendship. I think of my deformity as a burden which for a long time I carried on my back, until I suddenly realized that through it I had developed other qualities; then it was as though the load had burst open to disclose a pair of wings.”
“You are a philosopher, as well as a poet,” said Lucrezia. “And I like your philosophy.”
“Have I your permission to come to your apartment often? I feel that you and I could have a great deal to say to each other.”
“I shall look for you tomorrow,” Lucrezia told him.
When Alfonso visited her that night, he was unusually talkative. She was in bed when he entered the apartment in his brisk manner.
“So the Strozzi has found his way to your apartments, eh?” he said. “The greatest moment of his life!” Alfonso burst into loud laughter. “You understand what that means, eh? At last he has a chance—so he thinks—to get his Cardinal’s hat. The Pope’s own daughter! How could he get nearer the Pope than that?” Alfonso wagged a finger at her. “Mark you, he’ll be asking for the hat before long.”
“I think you are wrong, Alfonso,” she said. “You judge everyone by … by the people you know here. There was a delicacy in his manner.”
That made Alfonso laugh still more. “He knows how to manage the ladies, eh? Not the women … but the ladies. Strozzi wouldn’t look at a mere serving-woman. What good could she bring to him? I tell you a Cardinal’s hat means more to him than any of your gracious smiles. He wouldn’t as much as see a kitchen girl. He wouldn’t see what she could offer. He’d only know she hadn’t Cardinals’ hats to give away.”
“It might be more comfortable for us all if you were less interested in the gifts of kitchen girls,” began Lucrezia. “It might be that if you made some pretence of living a life more in keeping with your rank …”
But Alfonso was in bed and no longer interested in conversation.
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Under the cover of music Strozzi talked.
“I make no secret of the fact, my dear Duchessa, that it has been the ambition of my life to possess a Cardinal’s hat.”
“It is a worthy ambition,” Lucrezia told him.
“And knowing of the love your father bears you, I feel that, should you consider me worthy, you would be able to convince His Holiness that I should not disgrace the Sacred College.”
“I am certain that you would grace the Sacred College,” Lucrezia assured him.
Strozzi bent nearer to her. “I would be willing to spend as much as 5,000 ducats to attain my desire.”
“It is a great sum,” said Lucrezia.
“My family is rich, and I feel that I must go out into the world. I have my life to live in places beyond Ferrara.”
“I will write to my father. I believe the friendship that you have shown to me will please him more than 5,000 ducats.”
“I am grateful.” His beautiful eyes were eloquent. She smiled at him. She was realizing that, in spite of her chilly reception in Ferrara, she was at last making her own court, and life was becoming interesting.
“How you must miss Rome!” he said suddenly.
“More than I can say.”
“Ferrara seems dull to you doubtless?”
“It is so different from Rome. In Rome there was so much to do. There were so many shops full of wonderful things.”
“So you think the shops of Rome the best in Italy?”
“Indeed yes. Those of Naples are exquisite, but I think Rome holds the palm.”
“You have not seen the shops of Venice?”
“No.”
“Then I must tell you they have goods therein … jewels … cloth … to outshine anything you ever saw in Rome.”
“Is this really so?”
“Indeed yes. Venice is the traders’ center. They congregate there from the north and the south; and all that is best in their merchandise is bought by the merchants of Venice and displayed in the shops there. I see that you have exquisite taste. May I say that I have never seen gowns of such style? Your velvets and brocades are very beautiful; I have never seen better outside Venice.”
He continued to tell her of the beauties of Venice, of its culture and riches. Strozzi had many friends in that city but there was none other who held the place in his esteem which belonged to Pietro Bembo. Lucrezia knew of Pietro Bembo, of course. He was the greatest humanist in Italy and one of the finest poets. The friendship was treasured by Strozzi, he declared, and he felt himself honored by it.
“I know his work well,” said Lucrezia. “I agree with you that it could only come from a fine mind. Now I envy you your visits to Venice more than ever. There you will be with your poet friend. You will be together in that beautiful city; you will search the merchants’ treasures. Oh yes, I greatly desire to explore Venice.”
“You are a beautiful woman and nothing should be denied you. I could bring Venice to you, in some measure. I shall of course speak of you with my friend Pietro Bembo; I shall tell him of your charm and delicacy. I will make you known to him and him to you. With your permission I will search the shops of Venice for the finest velvets and brocades, and I will bring back the most exquisite, the most delicately embroidered, that they may be made into gowns worthy to be worn by you.”
“You are kind, my friend. But I could not buy these stuffs. Since I have been in Ferrara I am no longer rich.”
“You are the Pope’s daughter. I shall but mention that, and there is not a merchant in Venice who would fail to give you all the credit you desire.”
“You are a very good friend to me,” she told him.
He lifted her hand and kissed it. “To be the best friend you ever had, Madonna, is the greatest ambition of my life.”
“I thought that was to wear a Cardinal’s hat,” she answered.
“No,” he said slowly. “I have suddenly discovered that I no longer desire that hat.”
“You speak seriously?”
“I do indeed. For of what use to me would a place in Rome be when my Duchessa must remain in Ferrara?”
Ercole Strozzi was possessed of an inner excitement. His thoughts were constantly of Lucrezia. Her entirely feminine quality appealed to him in such a way as to present a challenge. Lucrezia seemed to demand to be dominated. He wished to dominate. He did not seek to be her lover; their relationship must be of a more subtle nature. The bucolic Alfonso satisfied Lucrezia’s sexual appetite, and Ercole would have considered a physical relationship between them crude and ordinary; he had been the lover of many women and there was no great excitement to be gleaned from a new love affair.
The lameness of Strozzi had filled him with a desire to be different from others in more important ways. There was in his nature a streak of the feminine which betrayed itself in his love of elegance, in his exquisite taste in clothes and his knowledge of those worn by women. This feminine streak impelled him to show his masculinity. The artist in him wished to create. It was not enough to write poetry; he wished to mold the minds of those about him, to guide their actions, to enjoy, while he suffered his infirmity and was conscious of the feminine side of his nature, the knowledge that those he sought to mold were in some respects his creatures.
Lucrezia, gentle, all feminine, so eager for friendship in this hostile land, seemed to him an ideal subject whose life he could arrange, whose character he could mold to his design.
He could advise her as to her dresses; he could show her the charm of a fashion she had hitherto ignored. He was now going to Venice to choose rich stuffs for her. Her outward covering would be of his creation; as in time the inner Lucrezia should be.
She was sensitive; she was fond of poetry. It was true that they had not educated her in Rome as Isabella d’Este, for instance, had been educated. He would remedy that; he would encourage her to become more intellectual; he would increase her love of poetry, he wished to be the creator of a new Lucrezia.
Thus he reasoned as he came into Venice, as he went through the stocks of the merchants and bought exquisite patterned satins and velvets of varying shades of color.
“They are for Lucrezia Borgia, Duchess of Ferrara, and daughter of the Pope,” he explained; he had come from Ferrara on a visit to Venice, and she had entrusted him with these commissions.
There was not a merchant in Venice who was not prepared to bring out his most treasured stock for the daughter of the Pope.
When Strozzi had made these purchases he visited his friend, the poet Pietro Bembo, who welcomed him with great pleasure. Pietro was handsome and thirty-two years of age; but his attraction did not only lie in his handsome looks. His reputation throughout Italy was high; he was known as one of the foremost poets of his time, and because of this there was always a welcome for him in Ferrara, Urbino or Mantua, should he care to visit these places.
Pietro was a lover of women, and experience was necessary to him. He was in love at this time with a beautiful woman of Venice named Helena, but the love affair was going the way of all his love affairs, and Pietro, finding it difficult to write under the stress, longed for a quiet refuge. He and Strozzi had been fond of each other since they had met some years before in Ferrara; they admired the same poetry; they were passionately devoted to literature in any form; and they shared a detestation of the commonplace.
“I feel angry with Helena,” said Strozzi. “I fancy she is the cause of your long stay in Venice.”
“I am thinking,” said the poet, significantly, “of leaving Venice.” Strozzi was pleased to hear this.
“I have been buying fine materials here in Venice,” he said. “Such silks, such tabbies! You never saw the like.”
“Silks and tabbies? What do you want with such fripperies?”
“I have been buying them on behalf of a lady—the new Duchess of Ferrara.”
“Ah! Lucrezia Borgia. Tell me, is she a monster?”
Strozzi laughed. “She is the daintiest, most sensitive creatur
e I ever set eyes on. Exquisite. Golden-haired, eyes that are so pale they take their color from her gowns. Delicate. Quite charming. And a lover of poetry.”
“One hears such tales!”
“False. All false. It is an ill fate which has married her to that boor Alfonso.”
“She feels it to be an ill fate?”
Strozzi’s eyes were thoughtful. “I do not entirely understand her. She has learned to mask her thoughts. It would seem that Alfonso perturbs her little; and when I think of him—uncouth, ill-mannered—and her—so sensitive, so delicate—I shudder. Yet there is a strength within her.”
“You are bewitched by your Duchess.”
“As you would be, had you seen her.”
“I admit a certain curiosity as to the Borgia.”
“Perhaps one day you will meet.”
The poet was thoughtful. “A delicate goddess married to Alfonso d’Este! One would say Poor Lucrezia, if one did not know Lucrezia.”
“You do not know Lucrezia. Nor do I. I am not certain that Lucrezia knows herself.”
“You are cryptic.”
“She makes me thus.”
“I see she absorbs you. I have never known you so absentminded before. I declare you are longing to go back to Ferrara with your silks and tabbies.”
Strozzi smiled. “But let us talk of you. You are restless. You weary of Helena. Why do you not go to my Villa at Ostellato?”
“What should I do there?”
“Be at peace to write your poetry.”
“You would come and see me there?”
“I would. Mayhap I would induce Lucrezia to ride that way. It is not far from Ferrara.”
The poet smiled, and Strozzi saw that the exquisitely lovely Duchessa of such evil reputation, whom he had described as sensitive and unformed, was catching at Pietro’s imagination as she had caught at his.
Strozzi was pleased. He wished to mold those two. He wished to put them together in his great villa at Ostellato and watch the effect they had on each other.
When Strozzi returned to Ferrara he found that the heat of the summer was proving very trying to Lucrezia. She was suffering a great deal of discomfort in her pregnancy, and her relations with Duke Ercole had worsened.
