His Last Duchess

by Gabrielle Kimm

  With a toss of her head, the mare jerked Alfonso’s arm and he dropped the rat. Putting the toe of his boot underneath the body, he flipped it to the side of the road and remounted. Man, horse and dog walked slowly through the streets of Ferrara, unobserved by passers-by, and arrived at the castle just before noon, clattering across the bridge that spanned the moat.

  ***

  “There he is! Quick, Lina, I don’t want him to see me.”

  The Signora slid off the window recess. Catelina saw the Signore, with his big black wolfhound, striding away from his horse. He turned his gaze upwards and she stepped back quickly from the glass.

  “Why not, my lady?” she asked.

  The Signora was fiddling with her hair, and biting colour into her lower lip. “I don’t want him to think I have nothing better to do than to sit and wait for him,” she said. “I want it to seem as though I just happened to be passing downstairs. Do you think—?”

  “Just go!” Catelina flapped her hands towards the door, as she had so often shooed the chickens out of the Cafaggiolo kitchens, and then stopped, mid-flap, horrified again by the way she had spoken to her mistress. But the Signora smiled a tight, anxious smile and scurried away towards the stairs.

  Catelina followed more slowly. She was not sure she wanted to see the Signore. If he caught her eye, she was afraid she might betray her suspicions about his morning’s activities. If her face were to redden, he would be sure to guess that she knew. She descended the staircase, deliberately taking her time, pausing by the great bronze statue that stood on a ledge at the corner. A big bearded figure with a muscled chest and a fish’s tail rose out of angry metal ripples, pointing a three-pronged fork at a strange sea creature, his free hand raised above his head. Catelina ran the tip of one finger along the edge of a wave. She was not sure she liked the stern expression on the figure’s face and decided, as she moved on, that she felt rather sorry for the little fish, which seemed to be entirely at the bearded man’s mercy.

  At the foot of the stairs, Catelina found she could see quite clearly into the entrance hall without, she hoped, being noticed. She leaned against the edge of the archway and peered round.

  Her mistress had dropped into a curtsy and was looking up at the Signore, her eyes bright, a smudge of colour in her cheeks. He proffered a hand and smiled as she straightened, though there was something uneasy about his expression, Catelina thought, something forced. Perhaps it was embarrassment. Well, if he had just been in some other woman’s bed, that would be more than well deserved.

  “I was not expecting you till later, Alfonso,” her mistress said.

  “Nothing but the most urgent business could have kept me from you, madam.”

  Urgent business? Catelina almost snorted.

  Footsteps sounded on the stairs above. Standing away from the wall, and hoping that whoever it was had not noticed her eavesdropping, she took a step back. One of the Signore’s men appeared and strode past her at speed. With his shock of white hair and his close-set black eyes, he reminded Catelina fleetingly of a fretful egret. He pecked a perfunctory nod in her direction, then walked out into the entrance hall towards her mistress and the Signore.

  “Er…my lord? Signora?” he said.

  They turned to him.

  “Franco?”

  “Fra Pandolf is here, with the initial sketches, sir, when you have a moment.”

  6

  Alfonso said, “Excellent. When did he arrive, Franco?”

  “A few moments before you did, Signore. I have shown him into the small chamber by the North Hall.”

  “Good.”

  Alfonso reached for Lucrezia’s hand, and together they followed Franco Guarniero, the chief steward, back towards the stairs. Both men walked fast, Lucrezia taking two steps to every one of Alfonso’s long strides.

  “Who is Fra Pandalf?” she asked.

  “Pandolf,” Alfonso said. “He’s a painter. A Franciscan friar, from Assisi itself. The man is a genius—very popular in court. He has works in several royal palaces and—”

  “Why is he here?”

  Lucrezia saw what she thought might be irritation on Alfonso’s face, and the familiar clutch of anxiety tightened across her scalp. She bit her lip. Not again. Was it because she had interrupted? Was it her ignorance? Since the disastrous wedding night, and the repeated failures since, she had begun to dread displeasing Alfonso, and an uncomfortably heavy consciousness of every word she said hung over her now, each time she spoke to him. She had determined to try to make up for whatever was so wrong in their bed by attempting to smile, be attentive and engage him whenever they were together during the day, but so often, as now, she seemed only to manage to annoy him.

  She saw his gaze move to her mouth, and then he said, “I have been talking for some time about commissioning a fresco to be painted along the wall of the gallery in the hall on the north side of the castle. Pandolf is here with his first drawings.”

  “What is the painting to be about?”

  “Wait until you see the drawings.”

  ***

  The aforesaid Fra Pandolf, Lucrezia discovered, was a grey-haired, plump little friar, whose unremarkable appearance and expressionless eyes gave no indication at all of the extraordinary artistic talent Alfonso had described to her. He seemed, she thought, particularly dull and colourless. As she and Alfonso entered the room, Fra Pandolf stopped the muttered conversation he had been having with a tall, black-haired young man of some twenty years and bowed to them.

  The smile was audible in Alfonso’s voice as he spoke to his visitor. “Fra Pandolf, what a pleasure to see you in Ferrara again.”

  “Signore, I am honoured,” Fra Pandolf replied, in a flat, reedy tone. Turning to the dark boy, he said, “Jacomo, find the drawings for the Signore…”

  The young man called Jacomo nodded and unrolled a length of heavy oiled cloth, which was protecting several large sheets of ivory-coloured paper. It must have been rolled for some time—it kept springing back on itself, and curling itself up again and the young man struggled to flatten it.

  “Can I help?” Lucrezia asked, stepping forward.

  “Th-thank you,” he stammered, too involved with what he was doing to look at her. But Alfonso snapped his fingers and Franco Guarniero stepped out of the shadows at the edge of the room with a heavy candlestick in one hand and a large book in the other. Bowing, he edged in front of Lucrezia and, between the two of them, he and the boy called Jacomo managed to tame the unruly papers.

  Fra Pandolf held out a pudgy hand and Alfonso stepped forward. He stared intently at the drawings for some minutes, brows puckered in a frown, breathing audibly. Lucrezia craned her neck to see around his shoulder. He appeared to have forgotten she was there: he did not move, and offered no opinion on the drawings in front of him for several long seconds, but then he began to nod, almost imperceptibly.

  “Mmmn,” he said, at last, in little more than a whisper. “Brilliant. It is a conception of pure genius, Pandolf.”

  Lucrezia felt rather than heard the room give a barely audible sigh of relief and she saw Fra Pandolf close his eyes for a second, as though offering up a brief prayer.

  Alfonso turned to her. “Lucrezia, come and see the drawings,” he said. “Tell me what you think of them.”

  She slid between him and the edge of the table, and Alfonso placed a hand on each of her shoulders.

  The image she saw was astonishing.

  It was the story of Jason and his quest for the Golden Fleece. The sketches were vivid and powerful, simply drawn in fine charcoal but, Lucrezia thought, showing a passion and animation unlike any drawing she had ever seen. She looked up from the paper to the face of Fra Pandolf and struggled to imagine such a dull, doughy man creating this extraordinary epic tale. She tried to picture him, charcoal stick gripped in his plump fingers, drawing vigorously—feverishly, even—flushed with pleasure at having captured the inspiration that had just sparked into life in his mind, but found herself on
ly able to see the friar gazing into space before a blank sheet of paper, the charcoal lying unused on the table before him, his eyes unfocused.

  Fra Pandolf did not meet her gaze; he was smiling anxiously, eyes fixed upon Alfonso. Lucrezia returned to the drawing.

  The story was broken up into several stages. The image on the far left of the picture, Lucrezia saw now, was of the Argo setting sail. A noble Jason stood up in the prow, arm companionably draped around the neck of the figurehead, apparently unaware of the mutinous expressions on the faces of his crew. The waves had been depicted with little more than a few free strokes of the charcoal, yet their motion and power had great energy. She marvelled at the artist’s skill.

  Further on, the Argo was anchored off Talos’s island. The great metal giant was stirring, and the Argonauts were running for their lives across a rock-strewn beach. Jason was in the lead, racing out of that scene and into the next, towards the figure of Medea, who pointed behind her at the gleaming fleece with its golden, curving ram’s horns, hanging in the sinuous branches of a leafless tree. She was slim as a wraith, with wild hair and graceful limbs, and she was watching Jason with unmistakable desire.

  Lucrezia smiled as she imagined the finished painting, in full colour, running the length of the North Hall gallery, from where it would be seen by anyone entering from the main entrance hall. “Oh, it’s wonderful! It’s going to be a beautiful fresco,” she said, briefly forgetting her preoccupied anxiety.

  Alfonso gripped her upper arms more tightly and the corners of his mouth crooked upwards as his gaze met hers. “You like the idea, then, Lucrezia?” he said. “I hoped you would.”

  “I can’t wait to see it take shape. I love it!” Lucrezia turned back round to smile her appreciation at Fra Pandolf and, as she did so, caught sight of the dark young man, Jacomo. She had only seen him in profile until that moment; but now he was facing her and she noticed, with a jolt of surprise, a crimson stain splashed untidily down the side of his nose and across one cheek—like blood spots, she thought, but perhaps more the colour of crushed berries than of blood. Her skin prickled with aversion—she had never seen such a blemish up close before—but then she looked at his eyes and forgot the crimson mark. Jacomo was staring at the friar from the far end of the table. His expression was difficult to read, but in it she saw what seemed to be anger, frustration, longing and a fierceness that surprised her. A muscle twitched in his cheek and his eyes blazed. When he caught her eye, he started and flushed. The tension in his face relaxed—by design, it seemed to Lucrezia; he held her gaze for a long moment, then looked away.

  She continued watching him, and wondered what he had meant by that stare. It had not been the usual deferential glance of the hireling, she thought—it had been steady and searching, and it had raised the hairs on her arms.

  7

  A few miles south of Ferrara, some way off to one side of the long road from Bologna, a stone house stood before a large, walled yard. It was in poor repair—half a dozen tiles had fallen from one end of the roof, exposing the rafters below, and the long front wall was significantly cracked in several places, but the yard itself was pristine. A dozen or so large barrels were neatly double-ranked along one side, with a couple of long-handled, flat-bladed wooden paddles lying across them. A pyramidal pile of filled sacks rose against the back wall of the house under a projecting wooden roof, and a long row of gleaming spades leaned against the yard wall like off-duty soldiers.

  In the centre of the yard a stone well was covered with a heavy wooden lid.

  At the far side, on the ground near the gate, four flat, rectangular mounds had been covered with damp hessian. If these looked—as they did—like impromptu graves, then the five sweat-gleaming men who stood in front of them appeared to be the grave-diggers. They were all peering at a new hole in the ground and at the large pile of earth they had removed from it. Leaning on the handles of their spades, they ran filthy hands through damp hair, stretched aching backs and grinned at each other in tired camaraderie.

  “That was a grand job, lads,” said the oldest of the five, nodding at the hole. The skin around his eyes and across his forehead was pitted with small scars; more covered his hands and forearms. “Just the cloth lining to do, and then I reckon we’ve earned ourselves a little sustenance before we set to with the barrel.”

  His companions murmured agreement. They shook out several lengths of tightly woven sacking, dipped each into a bucket of water, then lined the hole with it, first one way, then the next, neatly overlapping the strips so that no raw earth showed. After checking the pit carefully, they all moved in a pack, towards the back of the house, leaning their spades up next to the rest of the regiment as they passed.

  The interior of the house was as dingy as the outside. The windows of the main chamber were small and, being covered with thick squares of waxed parchment instead of glass, admitted little light. Everything in the large, low-ceilinged kitchen seemed thus sketched in sepia: the table, laden with pots, pans, plates and jugs; the dilapidated credenza, the stone fireplace, across which hung an iron spit, festooned with dangling pots and implements, and the sulky-looking girl of around fifteen, who was seated on a low stool under one of the windows.

  The fire was little more than red embers and white ash as the men trooped indoors.

  “Stir yourself and stoke that up, Chiara,” said the oldest of the guildsmen. “We could all do with ale and some of that lamb from yesterday before we begin the slaking. And we’ll need to wash.”

  At his words, Chiara stood, and bent to pick up a pair of leather bellows. She crouched in front of the fire and, pushing the nose of the bellows into the embers, began gently puffing until a few bright little flags of flame broke from the glowing lumps of charred wood. She laid a few more split logs on top of this, and then went back to the bellows. Soon the fire was crackling confidently beneath a large iron pot of water. “Will you be starting straight after you eat, Papa?” she said to the oldest guildsman.

  Eduardo Rossi shook his head. “No. I reckon we need a bit of a rest before we get going on the next batch.”

  ***

  At her father’s words, Chiara looked across at one of the workers, a stocky boy of about her age and she flicked her head towards the door. He raised an eyebrow and nodded once; Chiara’s mouth tightened in a smile, as she busied herself carving slices from a leg of lamb, which she laid neatly on a plate. She lifted a couple of flat, round loaves down from a shelf and passed them, with the lamb, to her father and the others, who had seated themselves around the table. She then left the room, making as though to go upstairs, but remained instead crouched beside the door, watching her father tear the loaves into large pieces and hand them around. The men helped themselves to slices of the lamb.

  The stocky boy, she was pleased to see, finished eating first. Pushing back his chair, he crossed to the fire. On the floor nearby there was a big wooden bowl, made like a half-barrel, in slats. Wrapping one hand in sacking, the boy tilted the pot allowing some of the hot water to run into the bowl.

  “Make sure those hands are properly clean, Niccolò,” said Chiara’s father. “I know we’ll have gloves but I don’t want dirt in the lime.”

  Niccolò nodded. Kneeling, he washed his hands carefully in the hot water, picking the earth out from under his nails, then rubbing vigorously up past his wrists. He checked the palms and backs of both hands, then scooped up a double handful of water to splash over his face. He pushed his hair out of his eyes, rubbed a fold of his shirt across his cheeks and wiped his hands on his breeches. With a nod to the others, he left the room by the yard door.

  ***

  “I didn’t think I’d get to talk to you on your own today. You all seemed so busy earlier,” Chiara said. Niccolò said nothing, but leaned towards her, his mouth seeking hers. She tipped her face up towards his and he kissed her. One hand slid up her bodice to press itself against her breast, at which Chiara arched her back and pushed against him, nudging him with her h
ips. Niccolò’s free hand sought the hem of her dress; he fumbled with the fabric and reached upwards into the folds of linen. Chiara moved her knees apart.

  But, after no more than seconds, they heard the house door being banged and voices loud in the yard. Niccolò and Chiara froze.

  “Cazzo!” Niccolò hissed. He pulled his hand out from under Chiara’s skirts and she raised her fingers to her hair, tucking back the wisps that had curled out around her face.

  “Your bloody father!” Niccolò mouthed. “I thought we might have at least half an hour.”

  Chiara was on her feet. Her mouth felt wet and swollen—she wiped it with the back of her hand. “Niccolò—quick! Go out through that door.” She pointed to the far end of the barn. “I’ll stay here until you’re with them and they’re busy again.”

  Niccolò bent to kiss where the tops of her breasts pushed against the neck of her dress. “We’ll find a moment soon—I promise,” he said.

  “Please be careful,” Chiara said. “I hate when you do the slaking. Are you mixer today?”

  “No.”

  “Well, thank God for that, at least.”

  ***

  “Barnabeo and Niccolò, bring a barrel over here!” Chiara’s father called.

  The two men rolled one to within a few feet of the newly dug hole. It was stoutly built, thickly banded with iron and wide at the rim.