Jacomo saw a crease pucker between Lucrezia’s brows.
He said, “I think he chose Pandolf partly because of his reputation, but also because of the fact that he was a friar. Pandolf waived the normal apprenticeship fees, out of some sort of charitable instinct, perhaps, and took me on, on the understanding that I’d stay with him, for nothing, for as long as he thought I could be useful to him. He’d feed me, clothe me, teach me, provide me with materials, but no more than that. Papa was worried about the stories he had heard about artists, as well—their reputation for licentiousness and debauchery.” Jacomo laid a heavy emphasis on the last three words, and his mouth twisted into a wry smile. “I think he hoped that being in the care of a religious order would keep me under some sort of control, stop me learning bad habits and behaving badly.”
He leaned towards Lucrezia and kissed her mouth. “That part of it hasn’t quite worked, really, has it?”
She smiled at him, and he said, “The original plan was for me to learn with Pandolf until he and I both felt I was capable of undertaking major commissions myself, at which point, we agreed, I’d move on and begin work as an artist in my own right. Pandolf suggested I might like to contribute some of my first earnings to the friary, a sort of charitable donation if you like. I was quite happy with this idea, and we were both set to work towards it—but then it all went wrong because of Pandolf’s eyes.”
“What do you mean?” Lucrezia said. She pulled the blanket more snugly over her shoulders, tucking it around her legs.
Jacomo paused, choosing his words carefully. “It seems that, despite his appearance of Franciscan humility, the reverend brother has a distinctly worldly streak of pride in him. I don’t think he has ever confessed it, either.” He felt the familiar bite of resentment tensing along his jaw.
“I don’t understand.”
“A couple of years ago, Pandolf began to complain about his sight. Said it was starting to be like seeing everything through a mist.”
“How horrible!”
“It’s worsened over the months, and it’s reached a point now where I don’t think he can see much in detail beyond the stretch of his arm. Painting anything delicate is now almost impossible for him.”
“So how is it that he is still accepting commissions like this one?”
Jacomo hesitated, then said, “I do all the work.”
There was a long pause.
“And he takes all the praise?”
“Something like that.”
“Those were your sketches, weren’t they, that day you both came to the Castello a year or so ago?”
Jacomo nodded.
“Is that why you seemed so angry when Alfonso was telling the reverend brother how much he liked the pictures?”
“You did notice, then. I thought you had.” He went on, “I knew I might have difficulty in establishing myself—”
“But why? Your work is wonderful.”
Jacomo raised his fingers to his cheek. “This,” he said, patting the crimson stain. “There are any number of potential patrons who don’t wish to have their costly commission undertaken by someone with the Devil’s fingerprints on his face.”
“Surely nobody is that stupid.”
Jacomo huffed a small laugh. “In our enlightened times,” he said drily, “you would perhaps have thought it impossible. But though people don’t tend to come out and say such things directly to your face, it’s obvious from the muttered comments and the furtive glances…”
Lucrezia reached out and stroked the red blotches tenderly.
Jacomo closed his eyes, then laid his hand over hers, pressing it against his face. “So, as I say, I knew it would be hard, but I’d planned everything. I was ready to leave, eager to go and prove myself.”
“Then why did you not do it?”
“Pandolf pressured me. ‘Just this commission, Jacomo, please. Help me with this one—I cannot turn down an opportunity like this.’ I’d say to myself—very well, I’ll do this last one with him and then go, but then I’d see his terror at the thought of his incapacity being discovered, and I’d weaken, yet again. It’s been like that for months. But this is definitely the last one. I’ve told him, quite categorically, that I won’t do another commission with him.”
“What will you do?”
“I knew exactly what I was going to do until yesterday.”
“What?” she said, in little more than a whisper.
“Finish this fresco, then go to Rome. I’ve enough put aside to live for a month or two with no work, in case I need it; I thought I’d start by painting uncommissioned portraits and trying to sell them. See what happened.”
“And now?” Her eyes were dark in the candlelight.
“And now I have no idea what to do.” Jacomo laid his drawings on the floor and gestured towards the pillows. Lucrezia shuffled back up the bed. She was still wrapped in her blanket but looked, Jacomo thought with a stab of longing, like a nymph from one of Buonarotti’s ceilings. He sat next to her on the mattress, put his arm around her shoulders and pulled another blanket around them both.
“Why don’t I come with you?” Lucrezia said.
Jacomo froze. He said nothing.
“We could leave now. Not go back to the Castello, just go from here to Rome, like you said.”
There was a tremor in her voice. Jacomo watched the flickering shadows on the ceiling for a moment before he answered. “I wish it were that easy,” he said, picking up one of Lucrezia’s hands and holding it to his mouth. He lipped around her fingers and fiddled her thumbnail between his teeth.
“Why? Why can’t it be that easy? No one knows we’re here. We’d be long gone before anyone even suspected.”
His longing to do as she suggested was so acute that it began to hurt deep in his chest as he imagined it: the two of them, hand in hand, arriving in Rome, searching for lodgings.
He said, “No one would know tonight, that’s sure enough. But we can’t do it, Lucrezia. Think of tomorrow, when it’s discovered that you are not to be found anywhere in the Castello—”
“Well, it would be too late then.”
“And when I fail to turn up to work on the fresco, how long do you think it would take them to work out what had happened?”
“What would it matter if they did? We’d be miles away.”
“Yes. And what about your little waiting-woman, left behind in the Castello? I’d wager that before the day was out, she’d have been accused of collusion, and would be languishing in one of the dungeons.”
“Oh, dear God, do you think so?”
“I’m sure of it. I doubt the duke is the sort of man to endure such a humiliation without exacting some form of retribution on whoever happened to be nearest to hand.”
Lucrezia looked stricken.
“Do you really think he would just let you go?” Jacomo said quietly.
There was a long pause. Jacomo said, “And Pandolf. There’s Pandolf to consider.”
“What do you mean? You said you wanted to leave him.”
“Yes, I know I did, but I can’t leave him in the middle of a commission. I owe him a great deal, Lucrezia. He’s taught me everything I know—far more than just the painting. I’ve learned Latin and Greek, history, poetry, philosophy—so much. I can’t just abandon him—he simply couldn’t finish what I’ve started here. It’s beyond him now. He’d have to admit to the deceit, which would destroy him, or he’d try to complete the fresco and ruin it, but that’s not the point. Either way he would be forced to face the duke’s displeasure. Which I doubt would be easy for him. Your husband—” The word caught in his throat as he uttered it. “Well…I don’t think he would be very happy, shall we say. He’s set quite some store by this commission, I think.”
“Yes, he has,” Lucrezia said.
“Too many people would be hurt too badly if we were to do this.”
Lucrezia sat up. He saw that her eyes were wide and scared now. She said, in a voice pitched high with fear, “Bu
t, Jacomo, I shall die if I can’t be with you! You can’t go from the Castello and leave me there!”
She was trembling. She looked frightened and vulnerable and younger than ever. Putting his arms around her, Jacomo kissed her and said, “I won’t leave you. I can’t.” He paused. “But we cannot go now, like this.”
“What shall we do, then?”
Jacomo considered. “We have to go back to the castle before daybreak. That’s for certain. I must finish the fresco—that’s about two more weeks. And then…”
“And then?”
“When the fresco’s finished and Pandolf, Tomaso and I can leave the Castello, you’ll have to make sure that your waiting- woman finds a believable excuse to be absent. Is there ever a time when you leave the castle without attendants?”
Lucrezia shook her head. “No. Well, I suppose I could say I want to take Violetta out—my mule. I don’t normally go far on her—but I do ride alone sometimes.”
“That’s it, then.”
***
A fine drizzle was falling as Jacomo and Lucrezia walked along the last few deserted streets and neared the Castello. Droplets of rain clung like tiny diamonds to the wisps of Lucrezia’s hair that stuck out of the ridiculous red hat, and a smell of wet dust rose from the cobbles as they went.
The Castello loomed ahead of them, huge and square, as they walked through the archway and found the basket still hidden in the shadows of the poplars. Jacomo took out the rolled-up dress and shift, which were a little damp, and began to unpick the twine, as Lucrezia pulled off the cap and unfastened the grey doublet.
He saw her glance around to ensure they were alone, and then she wriggled out of the doublet and hose. She pulled the undershirt off over her head and Jacomo’s insides lurched with longing as he held out the shift. Lucrezia pushed her arms up and into its sleeves and let it fall down around her nakedness. Jacomo held out her dress. She stepped into it and he pulled the laces tight. She shook out her hair, wound it into a knot, then slid her feet back into her shoes.
He smiled. “There you are,” he said. “No one who sees you now could possibly connect you with the grubby little red-capped urchin who went down into the town with me last night.”
He kissed her.
“Jacomo,” she said, as he stopped for breath.
“What?”
“Finish the fresco soon.”
He held her tightly to his body.
“Alfonso will be back before long,” she said, into the stuff of his doublet. “If he suspects, I think he might kill us both.”
“When I was a little boy,” Jacomo said, his cheek resting on Lucrezia’s hair, “my friends used to mock me because of the marks on my face. They were worse then, the marks—a darker red, much more noticeable. The boys didn’t mean much by it, I don’t think—it was largely in fun, but it upset me, just the same. I used to try to impress them—wanted to make them forget about my cheek—so I’d climb the most difficult trees, scramble up sheer rocks, jump into deep water. Anything to prove myself to them. My mother used to call me her piccolo spericolato—her little daredevil—she was forever bandaging up my cuts and bruises, mending all the clothes I’d ripped. I broke my leg a couple of times too and cracked a rib once, but I never minded the danger. It got me what I wanted—I ended up as the leader of my little gang of friends.”
He put a hand on either side of Lucrezia’s face and tipped it up towards his own. “I’ve not changed. I’ll do what I have to do. I won’t leave you here.”
They clung together, not speaking, for a long moment. Then Jacomo said, “We have to get going—it’s past dawn. Go on, get back inside. I’ll take these things back to Tomaso.”
“Those are Tomaso’s clothes? Did he not mind?”
“He doesn’t know.”
She smiled. “What will he think?”
“I shan’t tell him. He won’t notice. But if he does, I think he’ll be jealous—he’s told me he thinks you’re very beautiful.”
Even in the grey half-light, Jacomo saw her blush. He hugged her. “Go on—I’ll wait here till I can see you’re inside.”
“I have to see you again later.”
“Not today. Too dangerous. I’ll be working on the fresco till the light goes, and it’s courting disaster to meet again after dark, so soon. Come up to the gallery tomorrow. Don’t come today.”
Lucrezia picked up the now empty basket and walked backwards for the first few steps, her eyes fixed upon his; then she blew him a kiss, turned and ran. He watched until she had rounded the corner and crossed onto the main drawbridge, then began walking the other way, scuffing the damp stones on the path with the toe of his boot.
The marriage was unconsummated. The duke had never bedded her. The thought bugled in his head: an unconsummated marriage could be dissolved. It was possible. He felt his hands ball into fists and pushed them down into the pockets of his breeches.
20
As Lucrezia crossed the drawbridge, several men she did not recognize, but who she realised obviously recognized her, were crossing in the opposite direction—away from the Castello.
“Signora.” One of them swept his woollen cap from his head and touched a hand to his forehead. The others followed suit. Lucrezia nodded in acknowledgement, hoping desperately that she did not look guilty. She lifted a hand to her hair; the hasty knot she had fingered into place only moments before was already loosening and several long wisps were falling around her face. She tucked them behind her ears. There were frankly inquisitive expressions on all their faces, but Lucrezia felt sure they would not think to question their duchess.
She hoped their curiosity was no more than momentary.
Feeling exposed and vulnerable as she passed them—as if, Lucrezia thought, she had not only no clothes but no skin either—she forced herself to walk calmly up through the Castello. She realised that she was shivering; it might not be purely the excitement of the night, she thought—her dress and shift were both damp—and by the time she reached her chambers she felt chilled through.
Catelina was already up and dressed, and was busy mending the hem of one of Lucrezia’s night shifts. She lifted her head from her work as Lucrezia banged open the door to the little studio, her eyes asking the questions she was evidently restraining herself from uttering.
“Good morning, Lina,” Lucrezia said.
The eloquent curiosity in Catelina’s gaze did not falter. She tucked the needle carefully into the lawn of the shift and laid it on her lap.
There was a moment of silence.
Then Lucrezia felt her face pull itself outwards into a smile, a smile that became a breathy little laugh, perilously close to being a sob. She put her hands over her mouth.
“Oh, Signora!” Catelina crossed to her and put her arms around her. A moment later she stood back, frowning. “But, my lady, those clothes are wet. Let me help you out of them right away.”
***
The sun had passed its midday height. Franco Guarniero held the door open as Lucrezia walked into the small reception chamber behind the chapel. She flicked her heavy skirts to one side and sat down in an ornately carved, cross-framed chair.
“I am so sorry to inconvenience you, my lady,” Guarniero said. His black eyes were anxious, and he ran long fingers through the shock of white hair that was now standing up like a bird’s crest. He said, “Were my lord not absent, I should not have dreamed of bothering you, but…” He tailed off, both hands held up in apology. “The gentleman arrived unexpectedly, and he has particularly requested a moment’s audience with the Signore. My lord is not yet returned, and I have had no word from him as to a date for his arrival…”
“Don’t worry, Franco,” Lucrezia said, struggling to maintain an impassive expression. Her features seemed possessed of an animation quite separate from her own intentions; she was fighting her mouth’s wish to keep stretching itself into a smile, and she wondered if the strange sensation around her eyes was a physical manifestation of the fact that they mig
ht be “sparkling.” Having had little more than an hour’s sleep, she knew she must be tired, but rather than the expected heaviness of fatigue, she felt instead lightheaded and uncomfortably restless. “Do you know what he wishes to talk about?” she said.
“I am afraid not, my lady. The gentleman is a priest, though.”
“Well, we will soon discover what he wants. Show him in, Franco.”
Guarniero disappeared, and returned some moments later, accompanied by a thin young man in a black cassock. Lucrezia rose to her feet and held out her hand. Guarniero bowed and retreated, closing the door behind him.
“I am so sorry to inconvenience you, Signora,” the young man said, in a thin voice, taking the proffered hand and lowering a rather wet mouth to her knuckles, “but I was asked particularly to speak with the Signore, and told most specifically not to deposit a letter or to leave a message with a servant. But as my lord is not here…”
“Please, do not distress yourself. It is no trouble,” Lucrezia said. Beneath what she hoped was a semblance of outward composure, her mind was on Jacomo. She eyed the young man before her, and began listing comparisons. This man was bony, where Jacomo was lean; he had thin, pale, nervous fingers, where Jacomo’s hands were strong and square and brown—her nipples contracted at the thought; this man’s colourless hair was neatly limp, in poor contrast, she thought, to the untidy tangles through which she had laced her fingers last night. And he was a priest! What could he know of the joyous world she had discovered a few hours before, the extraordinary wild country to which she had been taken in company with her painter?
“…and I have been sent here straight away with the news, Signora,” the young priest was saying.
Lucrezia started out of her daydream. “I’m so sorry, would you explain that again? I want to make quite sure I understand the message properly.”
He seemed a little surprised, but smiled and said, “As I told you, Archbishop Verdi has managed to secure the audience with His Holiness requested by the duke, and he wanted the message relayed to the Signore as quickly as possible. If the Signore would care to present himself in Rome during the first week of September—perhaps just after the feast of Saint Gregory,” the young man said, “His Holiness will be anticipating his arrival, and, I am told, looks forward to discussing the issue raised by the Signore when he met Archbishop Verdi in Firenze two weeks ago.”
His Last Duchess Page 19
