Pulling the blanket back from her then, he saw that she was naked. Her shift lay discarded on the floor next to her bed, and wrapped around and around her neck was a long string of dark red, glittering stones.
“Bastard,” Jacomo whispered, hardly able to believe the appalling thought that had come into his mind. “You…you bastard!”
He picked Lucrezia up in his arms and held her close. She was limp and heavy, and her head hung back across his arm. A moment later, trembling, he placed her back down on the pillow.
“Jacomo?” Giovanni was at his side and, though Jacomo quickly pulled the blanket over Lucrezia, he heard a soft little indrawn breath, and knew that Giovanni had seen what he had seen, had deduced what he had deduced.
“But—he believed her truly dead…” Giovanni sounded sickened.
“We have to get her out of here. Take Giorgio and get Chiara.”
Giovanni and Giorgio peered around the door to check that the corridor was still deserted, then left the room.
Jacomo unfastened the string of red stones and took them from Lucrezia’s throat. They would have to be put around the unfortunate Chiara’s neck, if the substitution were to be credible.
Giulietta laid a hand on Jacomo’s arm. Her eyes were big with tears. “Oh, dear God—look at her! How could he do this? How?”
“Please—help me to dress her,” Jacomo said.
He pulled Tomaso’s hose and breeches from his bag and, with difficulty, fitted them onto Lucrezia’s lifeless legs. Giulietta shook out the shirt, doublet and cap with visibly trembling hands and passed them to him. Within moments, an inanimate echo of the shining-eyed creature he had held in his arms above Alessandro’s shop lay silently before him, and it only remained to hide her hair before he carried her from the castle.
He tried hard. Standing behind her that night in Alessandro’s storeroom, he had enjoyed winding Lucrezia’s hair around his hand, had managed to pull it into a rope and tuck it away into Tomaso’s hat, but now, try as he might, with Lucrezia seemingly lifeless and so utterly unresponsive, it refused to comply with his still inexperienced efforts. In the end, frantic to leave, he whispered to Giulietta, “Can you find me some scissors?”
“Oh, no, you cannot—” Giulietta began, but she passed him nevertheless a long-bladed pair from a bag of sewing under the window. Jacomo bunched and twisted the hair and then took the scissors in his free hand. With a slow scrunch, the blades sliced together, the long hank of hair fell away and the cut ends curled and wisped forward around Lucrezia’s face. Jacomo picked up Tomaso’s red hat and pulled it onto her head with ease, then laid her gently back onto the pillow. Giulietta reached for the already unwinding rope and took it from him.
It was done, Jacomo thought. Time to go.
Giulietta was staring at Lucrezia, tears spilling unchecked onto the front of her dress, blotching the cloth. “Oh, God! This is too—I cannot bear to think I will never see her again. And that poor, poor child in there…”
Tears came to Jacomo’s eyes too as a rush of guilt pushed its way up into his throat. Here was this old lady, weeping in anticipation of a loss she could hardly contemplate; back in Mugello, Lucrezia’s unwitting parents were still entirely ignorant of the news they would receive in a few days’ time, and within minutes he would be leaving it all behind, carrying Crezzi away, for them to begin a joyful future together. The injustice seemed unbearable. But he could see no alternative. He took Giulietta’s hand. “I will always take care of her.”
“I know, child.”
“I…I love her, Signora.”
Giulietta’s face was inscrutable. She said softly, “Go on—take her now.” She laid the long rope of hair down on the table by the bed, picked out a thick strand and wrapped it around her fingers, then slid the little bundle off and rolled it into a piece of linen pulled from the bag that had contained the scissors. She held it out to Jacomo.
Jacomo smiled his thanks and tucked it into a pocket in his breeches. “Thank you, Signora. We must go now. Giorgio and Giovanni will stay with you—it’s not safe for you to be alone. They’ll do…well—they’ll do what must be done.”
Giovanni and Giorgio appeared, Giorgio carrying Chiara, her blanket-wrapped body no bigger than a child’s in his big arms. Tomaso edged past them and crossed to Jacomo.
“Am I coming with you, Jacomo?”
A nod. “I need you to come as far as the drawbridge. And, please, will you give this to the reverend brother in the morning?” He held out the long letter he had written—a mixture of apologies, heartfelt thanks and detailed instructions. And a plea for a blessing. In the knowledge of his mentor’s distress at the slow failing of his skills, Jacomo had found his letter all but impossible to write. Tomaso tucked the paper inside his doublet.
Jacomo bent forward, slid one arm under Lucrezia’s knees and pushed the other behind her shoulders. Her head sagged into the crook of his elbow and his fingers gripped beneath her armpit. With an effort, he stood upright and shifted her weight so that she lay more comfortably in his arms. Her head was heavy on his shoulder and the newly cut hair wisped across his cheek.
Giorgio laid Chiara in Lucrezia’s place.
Giovanni crossed to Jacomo, bent and kissed his cousin’s forehead tenderly. “Look after her,” he said.
It was, Jacomo knew, an order as much as a plea.
He said, “I promise. We’ll write. Tell you where to find us.”
Giovanni wiped his eyes and nose with the heel of his hand. “I’ll come straight away. Tell her.” His voice shook.
Jacomo looked from Giovanni to Giorgio. “Will you manage…manage the rest of this?”
They nodded. Jacomo told them briefly about the string of red stones.
“Wait!” Giulietta leaned towards Lucrezia, held the lifeless face in both her hands and kissed her. Then Giovanni put his arm around her shoulders. Giulietta turned to him. He held her close, then looked at Jacomo and jerked his head towards the door. Jacomo nodded. Giorgio opened it and peered out into the corridor. Then, with Lucrezia in his arms, Jacomo stepped over the lifeless body of the dog in the doorway. With Tomaso at his side, he began to make his way—for the last time—through the lightless Castello.
***
Giulietta picked a tiny carved box from a shelf, opened it and drew out a rosary. Giovanni recognized the coral beads and silver chain—it had been Aunt Eleanora’s and she had given it to Crezzi when she had left for Ferrara. Giulietta wound the rosary around the dead girl’s thin fingers, tucking the silver cross so that it was held firmly between her two thumbs. “What will happen tomorrow,” she said, “when the Signore sees that Lucrezia has gone and this child is here in her place?”
Giovanni swallowed and said, “He won’t know. He’ll never know. Giorgio and I will make sure of it. You’re not going to like it, Giulietta, but we must do it if Il Duca is to believe Crezzi dead when he returns.”
“What do you mean, child?”
Giovanni glanced at Giorgio, and drew in an uncomfortable breath. He explained their plan.
Giulietta gasped. “Oh no! Giovanni, no—the poor child…”
“Look, Giulietta, this girl—Chiara—is already dead. We can harm her no further. If we don’t do this, Crezzi’s life will always be vulnerable. She’ll be waiting for him to catch up with her—always looking over her shoulder, never knowing. Please, go and wait in the studio for now. You won’t want to watch what we’re doing.”
He turned to Giorgio. “Ready?”
His face ashen, Giorgio nodded. He pulled a waxed-cloth bag from where it was tied to the belt around his waist and followed Giovanni back towards Lucrezia’s bed. Giovanni drew back the covers, then stopped at the sight of the little body in its white shift. He and Giorgio exchanged glances, then Giovanni crossed himself and silently begged forgiveness for what they were about to do; Giorgio pulled his cap from his head and closed his eyes.
Giovanni picked up the long string of red stones and wound them around Chiara�
��s thin neck. The great mass of red looked like a slit throat, and Giovanni wondered why Lucrezia had been wearing it: he could not imagine her liking such ostentatious jewellery. They had to have been his choice, he thought with a surge of loathing. He tucked the blanket back around the body, and rewrapped the rosary around one hand, folding the thin fingers around the crucifix and the jumble of dark pink and silver beads.
Now Giorgio took from his bag a large lump of glistening white fat, badly wrapped in greasy sacking.
“Bring it here!” Giovanni hissed, pointing to the pillows. Giorgio held the lump in both hands; he placed it on the bedside table and pulled a knife from his belt. Holding the block firm with one hand, he began to chip nut-sized pieces from it, handing them to Giovanni. Giovanni placed them carefully around the stark hair, across the girl’s collar-bones, neck and chest, and along the length of her arm. There was a faint smell of roast sheep. Giovanni lifted his fingers to his nose.
“Mutton tallow,” Giorgio said. “It was all I could find in the kitchens. I hope there’ll be enough.”
Giovanni crossed to the studio. “Are there any spare candles, Giulietta?”
Wordlessly, she opened a long box on a window-ledge and brought out two new, yellow beeswax tapers. Giovanni took them from her and returned to his task. Breaking the largest into three pieces, and sliding them off the wick, he handed the fragments to Giorgio, who placed them gently up against Chiara’s yellow-white face. The second candle, also broken into fragments, Giovanni laid in the crook of Chiara’s other arm, which he had positioned to lie across the pillow. Giorgio took the greasy piece of sacking, shook the remaining crumbs of tallow over the bed and flattened the cloth across Chiara’s body. Then, crossing the room, he opened one of the windows wide. The breeze lifted the bed-hangings, which billowed softly in towards the bed.
They stood back and stared at what they had arranged. Turning to Giorgio, Giovanni saw that he was shaking.
“Oh, God,” Giorgio said, “what are we doing? We’ll all go to hell…”
Giovanni said nothing. Giulietta had to leave the studio, he thought. Fire is unpredictable. He went back to her and took her hand. “Giulietta, you must come out of here. It’s time to make sure Crezzi is safe from that bastard for good.”
Shivering, Giulietta followed him back into the bedchamber, looking open-mouthed at the figure sprawled on the wide bed, the little lumps of white tallow tucked around her face and body. “Oh, dear God, Giovanni…”
“Just think, Giulietta,” Giovanni said, to convince himself as much as the old lady, “she’ll have more than a Christian burial in the end. This little homeless waif, instead of ending her days in lime-spattered sacking, dumped into an anonymous mass grave, will leave this world with all the pomp of a sumptuous state funeral.” He paused, and then added, “The state funeral that would have been Crezzi’s.”
Giulietta smothered a sob.
“Giorgio…” Giovanni said.
Giorgio picked up the candlestick from the table next to the bed and placed it nearer to where the dark bed hanging was moving in the draught from the open window. Then he put his fingers under the base of the candlestick and lifted, as though the candle was being tipped by a billowing fold of the curtain.
At that moment Giovanni saw that the duke had unwittingly left them the finishing touch to their set piece: an almost empty wine bottle and two silver cups. Il Duca had provided them with a perfect excuse for why their “duchess” had failed to wake when the wind had knocked her candle into her bedding.
The candlestick tipped sideways. The candle rolled from it and fell onto the pillow; the flame touched one of the lumps of tallow that lay around Chiara’s head. For a moment, flame licked from lump to lump, around the upper edge of her head and it seemed to their horrified eyes as though a bright halo had just glowed. Then suddenly, the tallow was blazing and Giulietta turned her head away with a whimper. Giorgio put his hands over his mouth and Giovanni felt as though he were suffocating.
Chiara’s hair caught then and burned with a fizzling flare, just as a flicker of flame ran along the length of her outstretched arm, across the pillow and over to one of the bed-hangings, which ignited almost immediately. As the material scorched, flamed and began to drop in blackened fragments down onto the already burning rushes on the floor, Giovanni looked back at the supine figure and saw that, as Catelina had imagined, the flames were now licking around the thin face, already rendering it quite unrecognizable.
It was almost time to leave, he thought, and for Giulietta to raise the alarm, as though she had just discovered this horrible scene—too late to save the person they wanted all to believe to be Lucrezia.
The room was hellish as Giovanni turned at the doorway. The bed-hangings were ablaze and flames were now cradling Chiara’s body. Her face and hands had blackened and her fingers had contracted, as though in supplication.
37
Even as Alfonso crossed the central courtyard of the Castello, he heard a howling scream from somewhere inside the castle, begging for assistance. His heart raced, and for an instant he stood torn, his thoughts fragmenting, unable to leave, but unwilling to return to face whatever was happening within.
Then Francesca was beside him. “Is it over?” she said.
Alfonso found that he could not answer, but he nodded once.
Francesca stood in front of him. Her mouth should have been irresistible, he thought. Its ripeness was unchanged, and its latent invitation obvious. But an unprecedented weight and weariness were seeping through him and, with a shock, Alfonso found himself for the first time contemplating his whore without stiffening. The fear-sodden torpidity that had suffused him as he had gazed at the body of the duchess still hung around him like a wet cloak. He could see, though, that Francesca sought a kiss and he bent his head to hers, but he found with distress that he had no sensation in his lips. He could not feel his mouth upon hers at all.
“Don’t go back in, Alfonso,” Francesca said. “It is better if you are not seen until tomorrow. Come with me.” Taking his hand in hers, she led him away from the Castello and the unfolding catastrophe.
***
It is as well, Francesca thought, as they walked, that a whore’s training allows her to look with believable desire upon someone whose very proximity makes her want to vomit. To look up into Alfonso’s eyes that night and offer to kiss him, knowing what he had intended to do, knowing what he would have done had they not prevented it, knowing what he believed himself to have achieved…it had been, she thought with a shudder, very nearly beyond her.
When they arrived at the villetta, after a silent walk through the streets of Ferrara, Alfonso seated himself in the elmwood chair under the window by the bed. Francesca lit the fire and opened one of the many bottles of wine. Pouring a generous glassful, she handed it to him and he took it from her without a word. He seemed hardly aware of her presence, and she saw, when she looked closely at him, that what she had at first taken to be the effect of the flickering firelight, was in fact a slow tremor right through his body.
“Come to bed, Alfonso,” she said. She had told them she would hold him here for the night, and she intended to keep her word.
He looked up at her with blank eyes, as though uncertain what he should do next. Francesca took his coat from him, then unfastened doublet, breeches, boots and hose. He submitted to her ministrations without response. For the first time since she had known him, he made no attempt to touch her. She had to undress herself.
Even given her new antipathy to her former lover, Francesca was shocked, in the event, to see the disintegration in Alfonso. After caressing him and attempting to engage his attention for some moments, she saw him at last focus upon her face. He seemed to register her presence, and even attempted to kiss her, but then, as his hand closed upon her breast, he stopped, shivering and motionless. He seemed utterly consumed by what appeared to be panic, Francesca thought, like a child who suddenly realises that, after running and playing thought
lessly in an unfamiliar place, he is entirely lost; and with a soft noise as of despair, he clung to her. Though she could hardly bear to offer him any semblance of comfort, she felt, as she put unwilling arms around his shaking shoulders, a kind of bitter satisfaction in the contemplation of this unprecedented, helpless distress.
***
They stayed in the little house throughout the following morning. Alfonso was silent and tense, and sat before the fire, clasping a glass of wine in both hands and staring into the flames.
At around noon, he professed himself tired, and Francesca suggested that he sleep. A distracted nod was the only sign he gave that he agreed with her suggestion, and, putting down the now empty glass, he crossed the room, lay on the bed and closed his eyes. He slept almost immediately.
Francesca waited and watched him for a while, and then, as soon as she was certain he was truly unaware of her presence, she covered him with a blanket, collected her belongings and left the house.
She walked quickly, wanting to get back to the twins and take them away from Ferrara as soon as possible. Before Alfonso woke and came after her. She was certain that her life—and theirs—would now be vulnerable, were he ever to learn of her duplicity. She had little doubt of his reaction should he ever discover the truth of her visit to Alessandro’s workshop with Jacomo: how they had waited while the apothecary created a means of saving the life of the duchess. She and Jacomo had talked of an antidote—something they could administer once she had removed Alfonso from the scene—but Alessandro’s substitute had been better, Francesca thought now. Safer.
She would go to Napoli, she thought, as she crossed a bustling piazza. She would take the girls to Napoli. That would be far enough away from Ferrara. They would set out that afternoon.
***
Alfonso woke with a start as a frantic knocking shook the door of the villetta. He reached for Francesca but, to his surprise, she was not there. His heart pounding, he lay still. The knocking came again, louder now. He pulled on shirt and breeches and went to open the door.
His Last Duchess Page 32
