“Giorgio had to go into the city himself that day, to pick up some piece of metal harness that had had to be mended at the armourer’s. We met by chance at the drawbridge and walked together. He collected the metal thing and then waited to take me back with him.”
“And you like him, do you?” Lucrezia said, with a smile.
Catelina did not need to answer; the shine in her eyes betrayed the truth most eloquently. Lucrezia knew a moment’s searing jealousy. How simple to be in Catelina’s position, she thought, unmarried, anonymous, ignoble and free to choose her own future, a simple, flat pathway ahead of her, compared to the mountain of impossible obstacles that loomed between her and Jacomo.
Her feelings must have shown in her face, for Catelina took her hand and squeezed her fingers. “Oh, my lady,” she said, “please, what’s troubling you? Something is wrong, isn’t it? What did you want this for?” She held up the basket, now filled with something quite other than pears.
Lucrezia knew she would have to tell her.
“Let’s go up to the Roof Garden when we get in,” she said. “I’ll tell you there.”
They climbed up through the castle, out into the little belvedere, with its terracotta-potted orange trees and bay bushes, and onto the sunlit Roof Garden. Some thirty feet square, it was surrounded by head-high castellated brick walls, in which were several tiny peephole windows. Lucrezia crossed the red-tiled floor and gazed through one of these to the bustling street below.
After a moment, she sat down on a stone bench. Catelina sat beside her.
Lucrezia hesitated, then began. When she had finished, Catelina’s mouth was open and her eyes were quite round. She stared at Lucrezia for a moment, evidently struggling to find a response, but then she took Lucrezia’s hand and held it between both her own. “Pazza!” she whispered. “Che pazza! Oh, dear God, I thought this might happen. If you are discovered, Signora, you know you are both dead.”
She said this without emotion, but the hair on Lucrezia’s neck and arms stood on end. She knew Catelina was right. And she knew, too, that it would not stop her. The fizzing excitement began to bubble up again.
“He will be there after dark. Come with me to my apartment, Lina. I’ll try to work on that stupid tapestry for a bit to make the time pass, and then perhaps you could find us something to eat.”
***
“You look tired,” Fra Pandolf said. “Still, we’re almost done, now, and the light’s going, so let’s just finish this last little corner and then we can tidy up.” He smiled at Jacomo. “After that you can go and rest, lad.”
Jacomo smiled back at him. He looked over his shoulder. Out of the window, the sun was low in the sky and had darkened to a thick, egg-yolk orange. Not long till dark. It was a miracle, he thought, that in his distracted state he had managed to complete this giornata without ruining it: mezzo fresco is an unforgiving medium, and even a single blunder might have meant that the whole day’s work would have had to be chipped away and redone on a new coat of plaster. There can be no overpainting in a fresco.
Jacomo and the friar finished painting and spent a few moments cleaning brushes and tidying, ready for the following day’s giornata, and then Jacomo left the gallery. He crossed the castle, unseeing, his thoughts in confusion, back to the two rooms he and Tomaso had been given to share.
He pulled some things out of a large bag next to Tomaso’s bed, hoping Tomaso would not mind the liberty he intended to take with his friend’s belongings. He held them up, assessing their suitability. “A bit big, but they’ll do,” he muttered. He wrapped the items tightly in a length of linen, and tied the bundle securely with twine. Pulling a sheet of paper from an untidy pile on the small table under the window, he wrote a short note and tucked it carefully into the rolled cloth.
Glancing out of the window, Jacomo reckoned that some two hours remained until it would be dark enough to risk setting out on his venture. Agitated to the point that he was now physically incapable of sitting still, he left the room, the cloth bundle in his arms, and began to walk. Through room after room, down staircase after staircase he went, until he found himself at the foot of the Torre San Paolo. He had been told that of the four towers, this one had been unused for years, and as he stood there now, he smelt the deserted, musty odour of long neglect. A wooden staircase led up out of sight. Jacomo began to climb. He had no candle and the tower was almost windowless; after a couple of dozen steps, he found himself climbing in total darkness, one hand on the stone wall. So many steps. It seemed to him he might climb for ever.
Perhaps, though, that was what he deserved for even contemplating such a thing as bedding the wife of the Duke of Ferrara.
The steps led to a small lobby. As Jacomo stood in the little room, his heartbeat thick in his throat from the long climb, he could see, by the light that fell from a single window, that another half-dozen roughly made steps led upwards again to a heavy wooden door. He opened it.
The room at the top of the tower was large and airy; wooden-floored, with a great beamed ceiling through which a long ladder rose into an indistinct space high above his head. An unlatched door proved to lead out onto a balustraded balcony. Jacomo leaned over the balustrade: far below him was the black water of the moat. A few stars pricked the darkening sky, and at these Jacomo stared, unblinking, his eyes stinging, searching for the different constellations, trying to order his thoughts.
Some time later, he heard the tower clock chime and went back into the beamed room. From there he ran down the stairs, on and on in the darkness, hearing nothing but the thudding of his feet on the wooden treads. At the bottom, he leaned for a second against a wall, then made his way towards the door that he knew led to the lower regions of the Castello.
***
The sky had deepened to a rich inky blue, and Catelina leaned out of the bedchamber window. She looked intently in both directions, then straight out below her; turning back into the room, she shook her head. “Nothing, my lady.”
Lucrezia’s heartbeat was now so frantic she was feeling quite sick. “He’ll be here soon,” she whispered, more to herself than to Catelina. A round embroidery frame lay across her lap. She stared at it blankly, and picked at the skin of one fingertip with her needle. An untouched plate of fruit, cheese, bread and meat lay beside her; she stared at it for a moment, then turning once more to Catelina, said, “Say an Ave and then try again.”
They began to mouth the prayer together.
***
A few candles were burning in brackets on the walls as Jacomo passed. He prised one out and carried on round another corner, shuddering as he passed the door that he knew led to the dungeons, then, free hand cupped around the flame, he ran down another narrow staircase and along to a small, metal-studded wooden door.
It was locked and bolted.
He put his candle down, then held the bolt in both hands and tried to pull it backwards. It screeched its protestations out into the choking stillness and Jacomo’s heart began to beat so fast he could feel it shaking his whole body. He stood still, breath held, listening for any sounds of investigative footsteps, but none came and, after a few terrifying moments, he tentatively tried the huge key. It turned unexpectedly smoothly, cushioned, Jacomo discovered in the flickering flamelight, by thick, black grease. He wiped his hand down his already paint-filthy breeches.
The moat water smelt stagnant.
Three little boats thunked softly against each other and against the wooden bulk of the jetty. Jacomo stepped into and across two of the three, taking his time to balance as they wobbled beneath his feet, the cloth bundle jammed under one arm. Sitting down in the third, outermost boat, he stowed the bundle by his feet, undid the rope that secured the boat to the jetty and pulled out one of the two oars, which he laid across his knees.
The huge, dark mass of the Castello reared above him as he hand-over-handed around the edge of the overhang. The brick was rough and scratchy beneath its slimy coating of weed, and the dank smell of the water w
as strong in his nostrils. Once out into the moat itself, Jacomo began sculling with the single oar over the back of the boat, keeping as close as he could to the wall. He hugged the deepest shadows and the single oar was almost silent.
A dove clattered out from a hole in the brickwork, making him jump—so close to his head that he felt the draught from its wingflaps.
He sculled around the last corner and lifted the oar back into the boat as he reached the window Lucrezia had described to him, pulling himself to a halt by gripping the bricks with his fingertips.
***
“Ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc, et in hora mortis nostrae,” Lucrezia muttered. “Now try again, Lina.”
Catelina went to the window once more, and this time she gasped. Lucrezia stood up. The embroidery frame fell to the floor with a clatter.
Catelina said, “He’s here, Signora—quick!”
Lucrezia scrambled past her and leaned out of the window. The shadow at the base of the wall was thick and clotted, and the reflection of the parapet of the tower above her shifted and wobbled in the almost black water, but she could just make out a darker shape that had not been there before.
“Jacomo?”
Lucrezia could hardly hear his hissed reply, but there was no doubt that it was him.
***
“I’ve found the things I wanted to give you. How can I get them to you?” Jacomo said softly.
“Stay there.”
Jacomo stared up towards the open casement. And then he jumped, as a woven straw basket, inexpertly tied to a long dirty rope, came whispering down the wall towards him, scratching as it caught against the roughness of the brick. If he had not felt almost strangled with anxiety, he thought he might have laughed. Pulling the basket into the boat, Jacomo placed the linen bundle into it and then twitched down on the rope, which smelled of horses. The basket rose back up to the window and Lucrezia pulled it in, then leaned out again. “Thank you,” she said.
“There’s a note with the things. Read it first and tell me what you think.”
“I will. I’ll do it now. Don’t go away!”
Jacomo pictured her scrabbling to pull the paper out from where it had been tucked inside the knotted twine, imagined her thoughts as she read the words he had written. “Put on the things you will find in the bundle. I hope they fit you. Come down into the city with me—now. I’ll be waiting by the clump of poplars near the gateway to the city. Bring some of your own clothes in a bag—J.”
The basket reappeared and was lowered once more. Jacomo took it again as it fell near his hands, and felt inside. For a moment, he thought it was empty, but then his fingers touched a velvety softness: a tightly furled rosebud. He picked it up, held it to his nose, breathed in its sweetness. The basket rose out of sight.
Jacomo waited. Long seconds snailed past and then the window above him banged open, and she leaned out so far and so fast that for a second he thought she might fall right out.
“Jacomo! Are you still there?” A barely audible whisper.
“Yes.”
“I’ll be there. I promise. I’ll be a few moments. Wait for me where you said.”
Jacomo tucked the little rose into a hole in his doublet, and then sculled back round to the jetty, negotiating his way under the louring black archway and into the low tunnel. He moored the boat, clambered out and made for the door, which he prayed would not have been refastened in his absence.
It was still open.
Jacomo closed his eyes and stood motionless. Letting out the breath he only now realised he had been holding in, he locked the door again and retraced his steps through the castle.
The smallest side drawbridge was still down. He crossed it, walked round two sides of the Castello and down to a group of six poplar trees. He sat down on a tussock of grass and wrapped his arms around his knees. With his back against one of the tree-trunks, he stared up into the star-spattered sky.
18
Jacomo had tied the twine too tightly, Lucrezia thought, as her trembling fingers fought to loosen the knots. Catelina stood at her shoulder, hands clasped, not speaking. Lucrezia could feel Catelina’s breath on the side of her face.
The covering linen finally fell away to reveal…a paint-stained pair of brown breeches, grey hose and a linen shirt. There was a brownish-grey woollen doublet, and a scarlet cap.
Catelina’s eyes were wide with curiosity.
“He means you to wear this, Signora?” she said.
“So the letter says.” Lucrezia fingered the clothes, which were worn and soft with use. Flecks of paint and plaster clung to each garment; they were certainly artist’s clothes, Lucrezia thought, but they seemed far too small to belong to the tall, long-limbed Jacomo.
Catelina said, “Well, come here, my lady. You’d better hurry. He’s waiting.”
Lucrezia gasped. “Oh, cielo! Quick! I must—” She stopped as Catelina swung her round and busied herself with laces and fastenings, then, wriggling out of her stiff bodice, Lucrezia ducked down and picked up the two separate legs of the hose, turning them this way and that, smiling at the thought of herself clad in such grubby, unappealing articles. Catelina started to laugh, covering her mouth with her hand.
Lucrezia stepped out of her skirts, pulled off her shift, and then sat naked on the floor, pushing her legs into the hose. They fitted quite well, though when she stood up, she felt certain that, within seconds, they would be round her knees. Frowning, and fingering the top edges, she saw a dozen little lace holes.
“Look, Lina! We tie these to something to keep them up!”
“Here,” Catelina said. “There are holes here, in the doublet. I’ll get some laces.”
Lucrezia pulled the shirt over her head and pushed her hands into the doublet sleeves.
“Arms up!” Catelina said briskly.
Lucrezia raised them and Catelina knelt in front of her, a bunch of laces between her teeth, one in her fingers.
“I feel like a parcel, Lina. This is worse than women’s clothing!” Lucrezia said, as Catelina wordlessly pulled and knotted her into her new garments.
At last, hose, breeches and doublet all neatly fastened, Lucrezia stood back to examine herself in her glass. “Oh!” she said. “My hair. What shall I do with it?”
“Let me, my lady.” Catelina plaited it quickly, then between them they rolled the braid up against the back of her head, and pulled the scarlet cap over it, hiding all but a few stray wisps.
Lucrezia looked at her feet. “Jacomo hasn’t given me any shoes.”
“The brown kid slippers will do well,” Catelina said, crossing to the chest at the foot of the bed.
Lucrezia hooked a finger into the heels of the proffered shoes and pulled them on. “What do you think?”
A wide smile and a hug were her only answers.
Catelina pulled a dress and a shift from the chest, and rolled them into a tight bundle, using Jacomo’s twine to secure them. She pushed them into the straw basket.
“Well, come on, my lady,” she said. “We have to get you out of the castle now.”
Lucrezia thought her heart might burst right out of her as they crept through the Castello and out to the back drawbridge, which, thank God, was still down. Every sound she heard struck like a chill blade in her chest and the faces in the portraits along the many walls seemed to her to accuse at every step. She felt, though, strangely liberated and unlike herself in the unfamiliar clothing, stronger, braver, in these men’s garments. They were an effective disguise, she thought.
Catelina had been carrying the basket. Now she pushed it into Lucrezia’s arms and said, “Go on, Signora. He’s waiting for you. Oh…God keep you safe.”
Lucrezia hugged her, then crossed the drawbridge and ran along the shadowed path that led around the dark castle walls—only one or two yellow-lit windows now punctuated the heavy black mass of it—until she could see the clump of poplars, which stood a few feet from the main gateway into the city.
She saw no one,
heard nothing but the pinking of the toads as she crept the last few steps to the trees. Eyes stretched wide in the darkness, she looked for him, but saw only shadow, thickest between the straight poplar trunks.
And then an arm reached out, a hand caught her wrist, and he pulled her into the denser darkness. Her gasp of surprise was cut short. She dropped the basket. There was no bitter paint taste this time—Jacomo’s mouth was warm and sweet. His hands were clean of paint now, and this time he did not hold them away from her, but pulled her in close to him, one arm around her back, gripping her shoulder, the other hand reaching down around her buttocks. She clung to him, pressed up against him, ran her hands over every inch of him she could reach, finally uttering the soft little noises of longing she could no longer suppress. Her mouth on his, it was as though the feel and taste and smell of him were seeping into her, expanding within her.
Eventually, Jacomo cupped her face in his hands and drew back. “Will you come down into the city with me, then?” he said, stroking her cheek.
Lucrezia nodded.
“Give me your dress—we can leave it here. It’ll be quite safe, and we’ll pick it up on the way back so you can change.”
She nodded again, unable to speak, light-headed with kissing, and handed him the basket, which he tucked into a deep patch of shadow below the poplars.
***
Lucrezia had no idea where Jacomo was leading her—despite her year and a half’s residence in Ferrara, she realised now how little she knew of the city beyond the castle walls. She reached for Jacomo’s hand; he caught her fingers, but quickly let go.
“Put them in your pockets. We can’t hold hands in the street,” he said, smiling at her, “not with you dressed like that. Two lads, hand in hand? They’d arrest us soon as look at us!”
Lucrezia wanted his hand in hers so badly it made her feel dizzy. She twisted around, searching for the pockets in the unfamiliar breeches, found them and pushed her hands deep into the dusty linen, where she balled them into trembling fists.
A maze of narrow, twisting streets led away from the looming bulk of the Castello; vividly painted houses and shops jostled each other like an excitable crowd of brightly dressed peasants. Stripes and patterns crawled over walls and around doorways; painted fruit and flowers twined above windows. Lucrezia saw by the light of a flaring torch over the doorway of a cheerful second-hand clothes shop that here, at least, the Este colours of red, white and green loudly proclaimed their allegiance. And everywhere there were people: busy, working people.
His Last Duchess Page 17
