by L. E. Waters
Rodrigo is thriving and wants me to tell you he loves you as do I. Please write me back. I have written five letters without word of how you are faring and will only be able to rest when I receive word that you are well.
Your sister,
Sancia
I decide I’ll be of no help to Cesare if I wallow in my room, and I know I need to try to get him freed. Alfonso makes it clear he will not support me when it comes to Cesare, so I write to everyone I can, begging for help. In the meantime, I’ve yet another failed pregnancy and worry that if I don’t provide Alfonso with an heir, I can be removed and replaced. I know now, with no protection from Father or Cesare, I’m extremely vulnerable, and know I have to keep trying to carry a baby to full term. I get pregnant right away, and I’m happy to see Alfonso never showing any signs of dissatisfaction with me.
Ercole reveals signs of illness around Christmas, and by January twenty-fifth, he passes on, making Alfonso and me Duke and Duchess of Ferrara. I dress in crimson velvet with gold fringes with matching headdress and go down to hundreds of Ferrarians gathered outside our palace in the frigid cold. I watch as Alfonso rides his adorned horse through the crowd, waving, and as he comes up to the palace plaza, I go down to meet him.
It’s a powerful moment as I look down on all of the happy faces in the crowd calling out our names, and I realize all that Father and Cesare had hoped for me. With Father buried in an unknown grave and Cesare imprisoned, here I am standing as the Duchess of Ferrara. Alfonso looking the handsomest I’ve ever seen him, smiles with dimple showing and holds his hand out to me. As I bend to kiss it, he shakes his head, pulls me into him, and kisses my forehead instead. The people cheer.
I try to keep my mind off of my pregnancy by throwing myself into patronizing the arts. I enjoy dining with the poets, artists, and courtiers of Ferrara and hearing of the world in their fresh and observant eyes. Everything I lack with Alfonso I find at these dinners. Ferrara quickly begins a thriving center for the arts, thanks to my attention.
September nineteenth, I give birth finally to a son that we name Alexandro. I know something is wrong, though, when I hear a weak and low cry, not the strong cries I remember hearing from Giovanni and Rodrigo. Not only is the child not well, but my legs feel ice cold. The doctors attending me try to warm them with hot towels, and a fever comes and burns for five hours. I pull the fragile Alexandro to my breast, and he will not nurse, only sleeps in my arms. I send for the best doctors, and I’m angered when Isabella, who was having a sickly pregnancy, requests me to send my doctors to her.
I write back:
No, Alexandro is still in need of their care.
He holds on for a month and three days but dies anyway. Isabella gives birth to her second son.
Finally, some good news comes through a messenger to raise my spirits.
Dear Sister,
I am writing to you from the safety of Navarre. I escaped from La Mota by throwing a rope out of the window in the tower where they held me. The rope was smuggled in by allies you had begged to assist me. While I was hanging from the rope, guards, seeing my escape in progress, cut the rope, and I fell half the way down into their putrid moat. Though badly injured and limping, I crawled out and ran for the safe harbor of my in-law Jean d’Albret. While I was imprisoned, His Evilness Julius II robbed all of my bank accounts and took away my titles. I am still loved greatly by my soldiers, who are already swarming to my cause and have some faithful allies prepared to regain my titles. I would appreciate anything you can send to aid me, although I am grateful enough for all that you have done for me.
Yours,
Duke of Romagna
I send everything I can and feel that the tide may be turning back in our benefit. I’m pregnant again, and carnival celebrations are to begin. I throw myself into the festivities. I dance, ride carriages all over Ferrara, climb stairs to various parties, and have a joyous night. During the night, though, my body protests to all of the activities by aborting yet another small piece of me—God’s punishment for leaving others to raise my two healthy sons.
Alfonso blames me at once. “You’re a fool thinking you can enjoy carnival when you are carrying a child! You know you have such difficulties, but you still are so careless.”
I keep crying in guilt.
“You must not want this as much as I do, or you would be more careful.”
He’s right, and when I get pregnant, again I barely leave my bed. Isabella has her third son.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
It’s the same brown wolf I’ve seen in so many dreams. Its coat shining in the sunlight, with head bowed, sniffing out its next prey. Suddenly, five large dogs surround him with teeth bared. The wolf lunges at the closest dog, and the dogs take him down with great yelping. The dogs disappear, and the bleeding wolf limps feebly over to me and dies at my feet.
Alfonso comes in to see me like he usually does after a day of testing grenades, but this time he has a somber look on his face.
“What has happened?”
“I hate to bring you more bad news, especially when this pregnancy is faring so well.”
He sits on the edge of my bed as I hold my breath.
“Cesare’s dead.”
I throw my head in my pillow and can hear only parts of what Alfonso’s saying between my sobs.
“Cesare was fighting for the King of Navarre when he was ambushed, stripped of armor, and left bleeding on the ground.”
I pull myself up and yell to God, “The more I try to please you, the more you try me!”
Alfonso tries to console me, even though he hated Cesare so. “It may please you to know that he died triumphant against my brother-in-law’s enemies.”
He walks out to let me grieve yet again. I decide to pretend fortitude when I’m among the public, although I feel so much of me has died inside, not even being able to share grief with anyone else who loved Cesare.
A happy day comes to me when I need it most, as Ercole is born healthy, handsome, and full of life. I never saw Alfonso so happy. I relax at finally having done my part.
After another successful birth of a son a year later, Ferrara is at war. The despicable Pope Julius II sets his sights on attaining Ferrara and lays siege to our city. It is the first time Fia stays away from the palace, and I hope she doesn’t attempt to return amidst all the warfare. I try to flee with my children to Milan, but as I’m getting into my carriage, a mob of villagers comes rushing at me frantically, screaming, “The duchess is leaving us!”
They get in front of the horses, grab hold of their bridles, and circle around us. A young man pleads, “Our lady, you cannot leave us now!”
“I must protect the heirs to Ferrara,” I try to explain, but they start shaking the carriage.
Their leader shouts, “If you leave, then we will all abandon Ferrara!”
A desperate uproar rings in our ears and grows with fisted encouragement. I bow my head and take Ercole’s and Ippolito’s little hands and walk back into the palace.
For three years, the wars rage, and we’re held hostage in the palace. I’ve completely given up that Fia will ever return. Alfonso shows amazing fortitude and resistance against the powerful pope. Only his exceptional knowledge of ammunition keeps the pope at bay. One day, as Alfonso is instructing the defense of one of the palace walls, a ricocheting piece of masonry hits his head. They carry him to our bedroom with his head and nose bleeding profusely, and I’m sure he’s dead.
“Alfonso!” I scream as the doctors are wiping off the blood.
A doctor begins pressing around on his forehead. “It’s a miracle; it did not damage the bone.”
I lie with him all night as the explosions ring out outside the palace walls, and he wakes up early that morning.
“My head aches terribly.” He winces as he holds his swollen head.
“The doctors need you to rest.”
“Rest? How can I rest when Julius’s men are storming the castle!”
> He starts trying to take off his bandages, and I call for the doctor outside.
The doctor runs in, saying, “Duke d’Este you must rest and leave your bandages still. They are keeping you from bleeding.”
“I have to go to my men. I will leave the bandages, but I must go.”
No one can keep him, and he leaves. His soldiers were so proud that he returned that they all bandaged their heads in fraternal support.
Trumpets ring out a week later, and a herald calls out, “Julius is retreating! Duke d’Este is victorious!”
Everyone in the palace runs out on the balconies around the palace and watches as the soldiers of Ferrara parade around the city with Alfonso cantering his noble horse in the lead. Bells ring out from every church, children are throwing flowers, and guns are going off in celebration as the sun sets, while chills run up and down my body in sheer joy.
The joy is effervescent, as all the joy in my life seems to be. Sancia’s letter arrives a week later.
Dearest Sister,
My hand shakes so as I write this letter; please excuse the effect that it has upon my penmanship. I would rather this be our usual letter of courtly gossip and fashion, but I fear I need to deliver you terrible news. Rodrigo became ill suddenly only days ago and quickly succumbed to death in a quiet sleep of fever. The best doctors ministered to him, and I never left his side. He left this world knowing you loved him dearly, and I find such relief knowing he’s gone to be with Alfonso in heaven. Please, sister, do not despair and be sure to write me immediately so I am assured you are well.
Always yours,
Sancia
I would not let this in. There is only so much grief one can absorb. I asked Alfonso every year if I could bring him to court, and every year he said there would be talk. I kept planning a trip to visit him, but my pregnancies always kept me from traveling. Now it was too late. I’ll never get to hold him again. The last time I kissed him was that day in the garden; now he’s gone at thirteen. I feel nothing and lose all interest in anything I loved before. I can only devote myself to the nearby convent; I think that if I’m more pious and charitable, God will stop testing me so. Even though I have so little to lose now, I sell all of my fine dresses and give the money to the church. I stop caring about my appearance as my body thickens, and I seem to age ten years overnight.
Even though I’ve lost my youthful looks, Alfonso still sleeps in my bed, and another boy is born, Alexandro. He suffers with fever and sores all over his head. One of my doctors says, “I have seen babies born with this condition when parents are syphilitic.”
Syphilis seemed a benign condition to me. Cesare, my father, and Alfonso d’Este all had it.
“Syphilis can cause infant deaths?”
“Yes, that and miscarriage. It’s a wonder you’ve had healthy children at all.”
I’m relieved that this whole time it was not something I should feel guilty about but actually something given to me by Alfonso.
Alexandro dies at four months old, and I decide never to give another child the doomed name Alexandro.
I get pregnant again immediately and see that I grow weaker and weaker with each pregnancy. I have a daughter named Leonora prematurely, but she survives, and a year later I have a healthy boy I named Francesco. Each pregnancy, I’ve complete bed rest, leaving only for church, and each one takes me longer and longer to recuperate from.
Pregnant for the eighth time, I’m so weak I can’t get out of bed. I feel faint upon standing.
Alfonso grows extremely worried. “You’re wasting away, Lucrezia. You must have lost ten pounds in a month.”
“I will lie in bed until the baby comes, and I’ll be fine.”
“I’m demanding that there will be no more dieting or fasting for Lent!”
“I promise no fasting.”
“This is the last time you’ll be with child. I fear it’s killing you and feel responsible. We will have separate rooms after this baby is born.”
Two months later, I become so listless that I’m drifting in and out of consciousness and cannot eat. I awake to overhearing a doctor talking to Alfonso.
“We have all come to the agreement that we must purge her of the bad material in her womb. It is killing her and needs to be emptied, or she may not live another day.”
Alfonso gives permission, and the doctors prepare me for the procedure, when I feel a rush of hot liquid spill between my thighs and onto the sheets under me.
“Her water has just broke. The procedure is useless now. She’s giving birth.”
Alfonso leaves the room as my ladies come and hold my hand. Too tired to keep my eyes open, I hear everything that’s happening, and only when something confuses me will I exert the energy to open my eyes for a moment. I feel another rush of warm liquid and can tell by the quiet that the baby has been born. I open my eyes to see a tiny weak baby girl.
Closing my eyes again, I say with all my energy, “Name her Isabella Maria and have her christened right away.”
Six days becomes a blur of infrequent short moments of lucidity, a fever rages within me, and my nose keeps bleeding. Even when I try to open my eyes, I see darkness, and only slurred words fall out of my cracked lips. The seventh day, I regain both speech and sight, and even though everyone thinks I’m recovering, I can feel it’s my moment to atone before I die.
I dictate a letter immediately.
Your Holiness, Pope Leo X,
I beg God’s forgiveness as I feel my life is fading from me. Though I have always tried to live chaste and pious, my life is not free from sin. Please say a prayer for my soul, as I fear I must yield to nature soon; I am tired and welcome the rest.
Your humble servant,
Lucrezia d’Este
Alfonso opens the balcony doors to let in fresh air, and he ducks as something wonderful flies through the doors and lands like a baby’s kiss on the top of my canopy.
“Oh, Fia, you’ve come back.”
She chirps away in long-awaited greeting, but all those present know the omen of a bird in the house. Alfonso hands me pieces of chicken he needlessly brought for me to eat, and Fia hops down to take the pieces gently from my thin fingers.
I cling to life for a few more days, I hold on to Alfonso, who never leaves to eat or sleep. The doctors try to purge my womb of infection one last time, but I have a few great convulsions and close my eyes to the night.
Sixth Life
The Spanish Crusade
Chapter 1
“Clean up, you little pig!” Hector shouts as he grabs the back of my shirt.
“Let me go!” I scream.
He puts my head in a chokehold and drags me back into the house. I can barely breathe with how tight his arm is pressing against my throat.
“I didn’t make that mess!”
“Of course, you did. Your mother makes your food and works all day to provide for you, so this is your mess to clean.”
I look around. There are plates left in the sink from our breakfast this morning. My mother is working so much since Hector is now worthless, and she doesn’t have much time to sweep and clean. She always asks Hector to clean while she’s gone, and this is how Hector cleaned.
“Clean or I’m going to get the crop.”
“Fine!” I have to relent. “Let go of me!”
He gives me a hard shove that sends me headfirst into the wall, and I go to work while rubbing my head.
I scrub the dishes, dry, and put them away. I sweep up all of the dirt in the three rooms to our small house and take the rugs outside to beat. The whole time under his watchful eye, so I don’t escape like I have so many times before.
He inspects everything I do. He tells me to keep scrubbing a dish even though it’s clean; he keeps making me sweep even though there’s no end to the dust you can pick up; he keeps making me beat and beat the rugs for an hour. He relishes these moments of control and sits with his feet up on the wall, drinking his wine, watching me.
At the end, when he
can’t possibly find more for me to clean, I ask, “Can I go now?”
He searches around, not finding anything, but then slowly, and with a treacherous smile, takes off his mud-crusted boots and rubs the bottoms together, making a filthy mess on the immaculate floor. “Look at how dirty my boots are. Make them shine, and clean up that mess.”
I take them outside and see him now sitting in the window, ready to pounce in case I run. I sit on the doorstep as a boy rides down the street on the shoulders of his father.
My mother comes home early, looking very tired, with her hair falling out of her braid like frazzled wings. She kisses me on the head weakly and goes inside.
“Why is Luis polishing your boots?”
“The boy asked me if he could polish them.”
“Everything is perfect, thank you.”
“All this cleaning’s made my back worse.” He grimaces as he rubs his back.
“Oh, I’m sorry, you didn’t need to do all this,” she says and rubs his back for him.
He makes me sick.
“I have some bad news,” my mother says.
“What news?”
“Lady de Strozzi is leaving with her household to her country estate next week for the whole summer.”
“Well, wouldn’t we go too?”
“She is only bringing those without families.” She nervously tucks her disheveled hair behind both of her pointed ears.
“Can’t we leave Luis with someone?”
“I have no family here, and his father’s family lives three days away.”
He breathes out a heavy, prolonged sigh.
“You will have to get a job, Hector.”
“You know I can’t work with my bad back.”
He threw his back out lifting baskets of fish months ago and still enjoys pretending to be sore whenever Mother is home but gets up with great speed and agility when catching me for a beating.
