“That’s all—come on! Get dressed!”
Lucrezia crawled across the blankets to retrieve her shift, which she pulled on over her head. She picked up the wrap and draped it around her shoulders as Jacomo put the remains of the food back into the basket and drained the last of the wine straight from the bottle. This he also put into the basket. He shook out and folded the blankets, then, pinching out the candles, he threw them into the basket, which he tucked into a dark corner. “I’ll fetch it all later,” he said, seeing Lucrezia’s quizzical look.
They went back down the many steps, slowly this time, hand in hand near the outer wall of the tower where the treads were widest. Jacomo carried his blankets under his free arm. “It’s only a few days,” he said, as they reached the bottom. “Even if we can’t see each other properly until the day we leave, it’s not long.”
“No,” Lucrezia said. “Just as long as nothing happens in the intervening time.”
30
Lucrezia felt stiff, tired and faintly ridiculous. It was off-putting being scrutinized so intently by Fra Pandolf, who squinted as he stared at her, and she was also struggling to ignore Jacomo, who was drawing with a familiar frown of intense concentration.
She had found it most distracting over the previous two days—and it was no better today—to see at such close quarters the man she had come to love so much and not to be allowed to show any of her feelings in her face. It was all conspiring to bubble laughter up through her, like boiling water in a tightly lidded pan. She would not, she thought, have been surprised if wisps of steam had begun escaping from her ears.
At the first sitting, before the reverend brother had arrived, Jacomo had described to her more carefully his plan to paint her as Persephone. She had been bewildered.
“But—but because Persephone eats six of the seeds of the pomegranate, Dis says she has to stay with him for half of each year in the Underworld. In Hades. Oh, Jacomo, I don’t know whether—”
He had kissed her, and explained that although he intended to paint her as Persephone, there would be one big difference: she would, he said, be holding the pomegranate in one hand, and the other would be open, palm up and empty. The twelve pomegranate seeds he would paint where they had fallen, lying uneaten on the ground.
“This time,” he had said, “the painting will show us that Persephone has not succumbed to temptation; she’ll be able to escape the King of the Underworld and leave Hades intact and safe.”
The symbolism was perhaps a little unsubtle, Jacomo had admitted, but he had said that he was pleased with the idea.
***
Alfonso went straight up to the landing as soon as he arrived back from Bologna. After the unexpected changes to the design of the great fresco, he was taking no chances with this portrait. If there were any elements of which he disapproved, he wanted to ensure they were changed well before it was too late.
The friar and his assistant were drawing busily—Pandolf had seated himself surprisingly close to where Lucrezia stood. She was undeniably lovely, he thought, in that dress, the deep red one with the gold, which he had given her himself, last Christmas. He was pleased to see her in it: he had thought she did not care for it. He had seldom seen her wear it.
These few days away from her had calmed him, he realised, and, somewhat to his surprise, he found himself able to look at her now without the disquiet of the previous weeks.
Neither of the artists nor Lucrezia appeared to have noticed his arrival, and for some moments Alfonso stood silently in the shadows watching the artists at work. From where he stood, he could see Pandolf’s paper. He was, it appeared, making studies of Lucrezia’s hands, though he did not appear to have drawn much, which surprised Alfonso: the painting itself was progressing fast. On the wall behind Lucrezia, the cartoon of the whole design had been drawn across the plaster surface; the painted head and upper body were already complete. The depth and passion in her face were striking, he thought. It was going to be a most beautiful piece.
He wondered why Pandolf had asked Lucrezia to hold a pomegranate. There was little doubt that the colours of the exposed seeds were most attractive, set against the crimson of her dress, though the symbolism of the fruit escaped him. He determined to ask the friar after the sitting had finished.
***
Fra Pandolf seemed to have lost the rhythm of his drawing. He fiddled with his drawing implements, dropped something, bent with difficulty and picked it from the floor. For a moment, Lucrezia wondered what was wrong with him, and then she saw Alfonso at the far end of the landing. He was still in his riding clothes, his hair dishevelled by the wind. She caught his eye but, in a pretence that she had to sustain her serene expression for the portrait, did not respond to him.
Fra Pandolf was frowning now, obviously trying to regain his concentration, she thought, though the fleeting glances he was giving behind him gave away the unease he clearly felt at the presence of his patron. Suddenly, he got to his feet, drawing board clutched in his thick fingers, and stepped towards her, smiling artificially and saying almost to himself, as he moved the tasselled edge of her wrap away from her right hand, “Your mantle laps over your wrist too much, my lady. It has slipped down since I began…”
Lucrezia tried to catch his eye, hoping to put him more at his ease, for his anxiety was unsettling, but he would not look directly at her. Within moments, he was back in his seat, twitching the folds of his brown habit out of the way of his drawing and adjusting the white, knotted cord that hung at his waist, freeing it from where it had caught on the leg of the chair.
It was then that Lucrezia unexpectedly met Jacomo’s eye.
She had been trying to avoid doing so, in fear that she would somehow betray their intimacy. He was now leaning back in his chair, flexing cramped fingers and brushing a lock of hair out of his eyes. Seeing Lucrezia watching him, the crescent-creases deepened in his cheeks; the corners of his mouth lifted in a smile. His eyes danced mischievously and then, suddenly, he ran the tip of his tongue across his top lip. Lucrezia was instantly filled with a melting rush of longing; she thought of his parting gesture in the room at the top of the tower, and a traitorous flush burned its way across her cheeks.
***
In stunned disbelief, Alfonso saw the colour rise in Lucrezia’s face. He had, he thought in fury, returned from Bologna just in time. He had thought himself able to look at his wife without disquiet? A foolish misapprehension. A cataract roar began in his ears, colour seemed to fade from the scene in front of him and a red mist threatened to engulf him where he stood. It was unaccountable. Fra Pandolf had left his seat, crossing to rearrange a fold of Lucrezia’s mantle, lingering just a little too long, Alfonso thought, with his hand upon hers. He had watched the friar return to his seat, looking distinctly awkward. He had listened to the man’s muttered comments about her mantle and had seen Lucrezia’s wide-eyed gaze follow him as he walked back to his place. He had watched Pandolf pick up his charcoal and begin once again to draw. And, in utter disbelief, he had seen Lucrezia—her gaze still in the friar’s direction—flushing vividly and quite obviously suppressing a smile.
She had told them! She must have told them! A ribbon of ice twisted through his guts. They must all now be exquisitely aware that the future of the entire nine-hundred-year-old duchy was to be determined solely by a shameful lack of rigidity in his prick.
Perhaps the whole castle knew it.
His humiliation was absolute.
But even as the thought scoured through him, he saw again the spot of colour in Lucrezia’s cheeks and was almost felled where he stood by a drench of desire so strong it all but paralysed him.
She sensed his gaze. He saw her eyes widen with—was it fear? Was it indifference? Whatever it was, the look she gave him unequivocally extinguished the desire that had threatened to engulf him; left in its sizzling remains were great jagged lumps of a screaming anger Alfonso could feel was fast becoming more powerful than he was. Closing his eyes tightly for a m
oment, he stood still, feeling giddy.
His head cleared. With icy clarity he knew what he would do. She had to be silenced. Immediately. It was obvious now. Whether or not she had told the painters—and he felt quite certain that she had—it was imperative to ensure that she tell no one else. He had been given the key—and the moment had arrived to use it. Turning on his heel, he hurried down the steps and out of the main door, Folletto at his heels.
***
Jacomo felt a cold thrill of shock as the duke strode away. By that one thoughtless gesture, he might have undone them both. His heart raced with fear, and he could see from Lucrezia’s face, suddenly white, that she, too, was afraid.
31
Francesca and the girls started as a great pounding shook the front door. Beata and Isabella stood behind the table and held hands as Francesca went to open it.
Alfonso’s face was tight and closed. Francesca was shocked to see him—he rarely came to the house. She could not read his expression but, after what had happened before, she was not going to risk saying or doing anything unless she had to. She waited for him to speak.
The silence stretched out so far that it began to seem ridiculous. They were all just standing like statues, staring at each other and saying nothing.
Then Alfonso spoke. “Put on a cloak. I have a job I should like you to undertake.”
He handed her a piece of paper, folded and sealed. “Take this to Signor Carolei, the apothecary in the Via Fondobanchetto. Tell him that the substance I require is to be made up as quickly as he can provide it, but do not tell him who sent you. Bring the letter back with you. Whatever you do, don’t leave it with him.”
Francesca frowned. “I will willingly run an errand for you, Alfonso, you know that, but I don’t understand why one of your servants cannot—”
“This is not a job I wish to delegate to anyone other than you, Francesca. I will wait for you here.”
“In my house?” Francesca said, surprised.
“It seems preferable to being left in the street,” Alfonso said, with a faint smile. Francesca saw that his eyes were glittering strangely and felt distinctly uneasy.
“I want,” he said, “to hear the results of your errand straight away.”
“We will be as quick as we can.”
The girls flattened themselves against the wall as they and their mother left the house. Francesca could see they were afraid of the great black dog, which, some inches taller than they were, must, she thought, have seemed a truly formidable monster to them. As they walked away, she turned back, but Alfonso and the wolfhound had already entered the house and the door was closed.
Francesca and the two girls hurried up the street. “Would you rather go to Catelina’s?” she asked them. They nodded. Francesca stopped outside Giorgio’s house and knocked on the door.
Some seconds before Catelina appeared, they heard the baby crying.
She opened the door with the child in her arms. It was screaming, red-faced and sweaty, its tiny hands clenched into angry fists. Catelina’s exhausted face lifted into an attempt at a smile when she saw her visitors. “I’m sorry,” she said. “As you can see, he’s a little fractious. Did you want anything?”
“No,” said Francesca, seeing that her request would be unwelcome. “I was going to ask if I could leave the girls here for an hour, but I can see that…” She tailed off.
“Oh, Francesca, I’m sorry—” Catelina said, swaying from side to side in an attempt to soothe the furious baby, “—but…oh, God, that poor girl’s so sick. It’s getting worse. Worse every day. I hope I’m wrong, but I think it’s childbed fever.”
“What about the baby?”
“He’s not ill, just hungry. That poor little thing’s far too sick to feed him. Giorgio’s gone searching for a wet-nurse.”
“I’m so sorry. I’m…on an errand to an apothecary. I’ll ask him if he has anything he can give me that might help her.”
“Thank you. Perhaps he’d come here and see her? We’ve tried everything, and nothing’s working.”
“I’ll see what he says,” she said, looking down at the girls, who were both staring huge-eyed at the howling baby.
***
It took Francesca and the twins a matter of minutes to reach the Via Fondobanchetto: a narrow, dirty street with a scummy ribbon of dank water trickling along its centre, and Francesca found the apothecary’s house with little difficulty.
Signor Carolei himself opened the door when she knocked. He was of middling height and softly plump. His skin seemed unnaturally pale—like uncooked pastry—and his bulging eyes were the almost hueless colour of old dust. These eyes regarded Francesca and her children coldly for some moments before the apothecary either moved or spoke.
“Yes?” It was not much more than a whisper. The end of the word stretched into a hiss.
Although the apothecary’s substantial bulk all but blocked the doorway, Francesca could see past him into a cramped chamber filled with boxes, crates, jars and bundles; they were stacked in neat piles that reached virtually up to the low, beamed ceiling and only a small narrow space was left clear, leading to a staircase that descended steeply out of sight.
“I have a letter for you,” Francesca said. “I have been told to let you read it and obtain a response, but to keep the paper myself and return it to its author. He says he wants the substance made up as quickly as you can manage it.”
Signor Carolei nodded and took the letter. He jerked his head to indicate that Francesca and the girls should follow him and led the way across the cramped room towards the stairs, reading as he walked.
His windowless workroom was underground, lit with torches that burned in brackets. It was a spacious chamber: large and low, smelling of an acrid mixture of spices, rotten eggs and a sweet metallic tang, like the smell of blood. A heavy table stood in the centre. Made of a coarse-grained wood, it was pitted and crosshatched with knife-cuts like a butcher’s chopping block, and a variety of different coloured stains spattered its surface. Bunches of leaves of many shapes and textures lay upon it, beside a number of jars of varying sizes. Some were glass and the contents could be seen through the sides—yellow, green, white and a deep brick red—and others were of fired earthenware. The walls were lined with shelves containing dozens—perhaps hundreds—of similar jars. A delicate set of brass scales stood to one side on the table, gleaming in the torchlight. One of its small, flat pans contained a heap of white powder, which had unbalanced the scales so that one side hung lower than the other; the graded weights the apothecary would use to measure his ingredients lay scattered around beneath the mechanism. Francesca presumed it to have been the act of weighing that she had interrupted when she had knocked at the door.
It was hot and airless and she shuddered at the thought of spending long hours in a room like this, away from the light; now she understood Signor Carolei’s pallor. Beata and Isabella stood on either side of her, their fingers gripping her skirt. They were still and silent, and Francesca knew they were afraid. The apothecary read Alfonso’s letter again.
“Tell him yes. Tell him it will be ready for collection tomorrow night after sunset. I can see that he already understands the need for…discretion. And in answer to the last question in the letter—tell him it works almost instantly. In little more than…moments.” The bulging eyes widened as he spoke this last word, and he held out the note, slightly creased now and torn where the seal had been broken.
“Thank you, Signore,” Francesca said, taking it from him. Her fingers touched his hand. His flesh was chill and pale, damp with cold sweat, and she recoiled as though the touch had burned her.
***
“Are we going home now?” Isabella asked, as they emerged into the street, all three blinking in the brightness. Francesca hardly heard her; she was struggling to control a cold, swelling feeling of panic. Flapping open Alfonso’s note, she read it and, with a sickening rush of comprehension, understood all too clearly the import of her “commissi
on.” Alfonso had had good reason not to entrust it to a servant. He was planning to end a life. And, though he did not identify his intended victim in these lines she read here, Francesca was in no doubt of her identity. Perhaps it was the mad glitter she had seen in Alfonso’s eyes as he had handed her the letter—something she had only seen before on the occasions he had spoken to her of his tearing unhappiness with his wife. As she stood in the street outside the apothecary’s, she pictured the freckled girl with the sweet smile, sitting so uncertainly on the bay pony. “Oh, dear God, I won’t let him do this,” she said. “I can’t. I have to get word to her.”
“Who, Mamma?”
Francesca was startled to discover that she had spoken aloud, and that the twins had heard her. She answered honestly, but briefly. “A lady, at the Castello Estense. The kind lady who gave you the ribbons. But I don’t know how best to reach her.”
She was so frightened, and so bound up in the horror of Alfonso’s intrigue, that she did not hear Beata say, “Giorgio works at the Castello.”
When she did not respond, Beata said, “Mamma—he does…”
“What? Who are you talking about?”
“Big Giorgio who lives next door. He works with the horses at the Castello. He told me.”
Giorgio. Catelina. That baby. Oh, God, she had completely forgotten about them…
She said, “Giorgio works at the Castello?”
“Yes. And Catelina said she used to work there too. She worked for a lady, she said, but not any more.”
Francesca stopped mid-stride, startling the children. She said, “When the man who is waiting in our rooms has gone, I want you to stay quietly in the house whilst I go to Catelina. You are not to say anything to the man about this. It’s very important. Do you understand?”
They both nodded.
Some moments later, they arrived home and Francesca hesitated on her doorstep, one hand on the wall beside the door, thinking fast.
His Last Duchess Page 28
