Light on Lucrezia

by Виктория Холт

  * * *

  Lucrezia never ceased to think of her brother.

  The times were anxious. Julius was proving a warlike Pope and, although during Alexander’s lifetime he had been his bitter enemy, decrying the ambitious desire to subdue the neighboring states of Italy, now that he was sure of his own power he was determined to restore the Papal states to the Church; and it seemed that his policy ran along lines similar to those pursued by Alexander.

  He had made an alliance with the old Orsini, marrying his daughter, Felice della Rovere, to Gian Giordano Orsini; his nephew Niccolo della Rovere was married to Laura, the daughter of the beautiful Giulia, wife of Orsino Orsini. Laura was said by some to be the daughter of Alexander, but Julius chose to ignore this and accept her as an Orsini.

  Having made peace with the Orsinis and the Colonnas, Julius felt that he was safe at home; he was therefore ready for conquest farther afield, and went forth to attack the Baglioni of Perugia and the Bentivoglio of Bologna.

  The Bentivoglios had always been firm friends of the Este family, but Ferrara had been forced into alliance with the Church. Julius however had never had a great opinion of Ippolito and had reproved him often for his vain dress and manners, suggesting that he behaved more like a woman than a man and did not conduct himself in a manner befitting a member of the Sacred College. Moreover Julius had been shocked by recent happenings in Ferrara, and considered that Alfonso had been wrong not to have punished Ippolito for his terrible outrage on Giulio.

  Therefore there were rumors in Ferrara that this friendship between them and the Pope was an uneasy one, and that the latter might, when he had completed his conquest of Perugia and Bologna, turn his attention to Ferrara.

  Lucrezia felt apprehensive and ready for any terror that might come; never did a day pass without her thinking of those two young men who had been her frequent companions and who were now shut away in the tower of the castle. Disaster could descend, swift and unexpected. Who could know what would happen next?

  Her old friend, Giulia Farnese, wrote to her now and then. Giulia was once more installed at the Papal Court now that her daughter Laura was married to the Pope’s nephew. Giulia recalled the old days when they had been constant companions and had washed their hair together and competed for Alexander’s attention. She wrote without nostalgia, which meant that life to her now was as good as it had been in Alexander’s time; and Lucrezia had heard that Giulia, even now only a little more than thirty, was reckoned to be the most beautiful and attractive woman in Rome. She was surrounded by admirers and even her young daughter, herself a beauty, could not compete with her.

  Giulia had known great triumphs. Not so Sanchia, that other friend. Sanchia had died recently in Naples in the prime of her youth and beauty, deeply mourned by her last lover Consalvo de Cordoba, the Great Captain who had lured Cesare to the Castel del Ovo that he might be made prisoner of Spain.

  It was into this uneasy atmosphere that the great news broke.

  Lucrezia was with her women when she heard that a messenger was below and had news of such importance that he refused to impart it to any but the Duchessa herself.

  The page knelt at her feet and poured out the great news: Cesare was free. He had reached Navarre. He was preparing now to regain all he had lost. He needed the help of the one he trusted more than any other in the world.

  Lucrezia listening felt young again. She laughed as she had not laughed for a very long time.

  Then she took the page into her arms, and kissed his forehead.

  “You shall never want while you live,” she told him, “for bringing me this news.”

  * * *

  Lucrezia was light-hearted. She had another reason for rejoicing besides the escape of Cesare. A guest had arrived in Ferrara and a ball was to be given in his honor.

  She had not realized how much pleasure this event would give her and she was astonished that she could feel so happy. Often she would look up at the tower in which those two young men were incarcerated and, thinking of the melancholy turn to Giulio’s life, had come near to weeping. She had pleaded with Alfonso, and the two brothers had been allowed to be together. She knew what comfort this would be to them, and it must have been indeed a happy day when Giulio and Ferrante were told that their confinement was no longer to be solitary.

  But Lucrezia was not allowed to see them for Alfonso had forbidden any to visit them. Their names, he warned Lucrezia, were to be no more mentioned. He had shown mercy to his brothers who, he declared, had plotted against his life; they were together in captivity, and they were allowed a window from which to look out on the world. They would be fed and clothed until they died; he had commissioned men to look after that side of their lives. As for the rest, they were dead as far as all others were concerned.

  “Why do you treat them thus?” Lucrezia had demanded. “Is it because you, like Ippolito, dare not look at Giulio’s face and know your own injustice?”

  Alfonso’s eyes were cold. “If you would concern yourself with your business and leave mine alone, I should be better pleased with you,” he said.

  “Is this not in some way my business?” Lucrezia asked with unwonted passion. “Am I not your wife?”

  “I would pray you remember it,” Alfonso had answered. “A wife’s task is to provide children for her husband, and you have not been successful in that respect.”

  That subdued her. She was always subdued by her inability to produce an heir.

  But within the next few weeks she was again pregnant and Alfonso’s manner warmed a little toward her.

  And now she must put aside thoughts of those two sad prisoners. She was with child, and she prayed that this time she would not disappoint Alfonso. But what made her so happy was that there would be a guest at the ball who, she did not doubt, had made the journey to Ferrara for the purpose of seeing her; that guest was Francesco Gonzaga.

  She was dressed in cloth of gold with velvet and brocade; she wore her hair loose and a great diamond on her forehead.

  Her old friend, Ercole Strozzi, whispered to her that he had never seen her look so beautiful as she did tonight. She smiled at him well pleased. Since her love affair with Pietro Bembo, Ercole Strozzi had been one of her most trusted friends. It was pleasant to sit with the crippled poet discussing poetry and music; and talking of those days at Ostellato seemed to bring them back endowed with a fresh beauty.

  But this night, if she thought of Pietro Bembo, it was as a figure of unreality; their love now seemed like something they had read in a poem, too fragile for truth, too rarefied for reality. And here was a man who was virile—a man who could arouse her senses, and make her feel young as she had in those days when she had loved Pedro Caldes and Alfonso of Bisceglie.

  Francesco, as the guest of honor, took her hand and led her in the dance, and his eyes were ardent beneath the hooded lids.

  “It seems many years since I said good-bye to you in Mantua,” he said. “Did Isabella hurt you badly, Lucrezia?”

  Lucrezia smiled. “No,” she answered. “At that time nothing could hurt me. You had made me so welcome.”

  “I mean to put a shell about you … a protective shell to guard you from her malice. She hates you because I love you.”

  “She hated me when you were scarcely aware of my existence.”

  “I have been aware of your existence since the day we first met. Nothing shall come between us now. Not Alfonso nor all of Ferrara. Not Isabella with all her malice.”

  “We could not be lovers, Francesco,” she told him. “How could we? It is impossible.”

  “Love such as I bear you can conquer what may seem impossible to conquer!”

  “Come, we must dance,” she told him. “We are watched, you know. All will be wondering of what we talk so earnestly.”

  “They must know that I love you. How could any man do otherwise?”

  “I have my enemies,” she said. “But dance, I pray you. Alfonso watches.”

  “A plague on Alfonso,�
�� murmured Francesco.

  Lucrezia’s dancing had always been of the utmost grace and charm. It had delighted her father and her brothers, and Alexander had been wont to have the floor cleared when Lucrezia danced. Here in Ferrara it attracted attention, and many watched as she circled the floor.

  She seemed inspired on this night. She radiated happiness. She was full of such spirits as had been hers before the death of her father, and those watching her marveled.

  “Madonna Lucrezia is happy this night,” people said to one another, and they laughed behind their fans. Had it anything to do with her attractive partner? Francesco Gonzaga could not be called a handsome man, but he was known to appeal to women.

  “How can we meet … alone?” demanded Francesco passionately.

  “We cannot,” she told him. “It would never be allowed. We are watched closely. My husband watches me, and I wonder too how many in your suite are Isabella’s spies.”

  “Lucrezia, in spite of all, we must meet.”

  “We must plan with care,” she told him.

  There was another matter which she did not forget even as she danced with Francesco and allowed her senses to be exhilarated by his desire for her: the need to help Cesare. Who could be more useful to Cesare than the powerful Marquis of Mantua, the great soldier whom the Pope had made Captain-General of his armies?

  “You know of my brother’s escape?” she asked.

  He nodded. “It was one of the greatest sorrows in my life that my efforts on his behalf should have failed with the King of Spain.”

  “You did your best to help. Do not think I shall ever forget that.”

  “I would give my life to serve you.”

  There was nothing they could do but dance together; only thus could they touch hands and whisper together. So they danced and danced until the early morning, and Lucrezia seemed like a child again.

  She did not realize how exhausted she was until her women helped her to her bed. Then she lay as in a dream, her eyes shining, recalling everything he had said, the manner in which he had looked at her.

  I am alive again, she told herself. Cesare is free, Francesco Gonzaga loves me, and I love him.

  * * *

  She awoke. It was not yet light. Something was wrong, and as she tasted the salty sweat on her lips, she was suddenly aware of acute agony.

  She called to her women and they came running to her bedside.

  “I am ill,” she said. “I feel as though I am near to death.”

  The women looked at each other in alarm. They knew.

  The doctors were brought; they nodded gravely. There was whispering throughout the apartment.

  “She was mad to dance as she did. It is certain that by so doing she has lost the heir of Ferrara.”

  * * *

  Alfonso stormed into her apartment. He was too furious to contain his anger.

  “So,” he cried, “you have lost my son. What good are you as a wife, eh? You dance through the night to the danger of our heirs. What use are you to me?”

  Weak and ill she looked pleadingly at him. “Alfonso …” she began, “I beg of you …”

  “Beg … beg …! You will indeed be a beggar if you do not do your duty, woman. This is the third child we have lost. I tell you, you have no notion of your duty here. You bring frivolous Roman customs to Ferrara. We’ll not endure it, I am warning you.”

  Lucrezia wilted, and the sight of her fragility infuriated Alfonso the more. He wanted a big strong woman, lusty, sensual and capable of bearing children.

  He knew the dangers which threatened those states without heirs. Ippolito had already made trouble; there were the two prisoners in the castle tower. There must be an heir. Lucrezia must either cease disappointing him or he must get him a new wife.

  He could no longer bear to look at her lying there among her pillows, elegant even in her present state. The ordeal through which she had passed had made her thinner than ever.

  “Are you incapable of bearing children for me?” he cried.

  He strode out of the room, and Lucrezia lay back exhausted and trembling.

  Melancholy had seized her. There was no news from Cesare; Francesco had gone on his way; and there was a threat in Alfonso’s last words.

  * * *

  Alfonso strode furiously through the town. He was dressed as an ordinary merchant because he was eager not to be recognized; he did not wish his subjects to see him in this angry mood.

  He was regretting that he had ever made the Borgia marriage. Of what use were the Borgia now? Their influence had died with Alexander. He did not believe that Cesare would ever regain his kingdom. Lucrezia was still rich, and that was to the good, but she was not rich in children.

  She should certainly not have with her in Ferrara her son by the Duke of Bisceglie. She must be made to realize that her position was a very precarious one and would continue to be so until she gave Ferrara an heir.

  He was passing a humble dwelling, and as he did so, a beautiful girl stepped into the street. She was carrying a box—the sort which was used for bonnets—and she walked with grace.

  Alfonso immediately felt interested, and so great was that interest that he forgot his resentment against his wife.

  He followed the girl. She went into one of the big houses, but he knew she would soon come out since he guessed that she was delivering a bonnet to the lady of that house.

  He was right. She soon emerged. Alfonso had rarely seen a face and figure which appealed to him more strongly. She walked with a feline grace although she was large of hip and bosom. Her long hair fell to her waist; it was unkempt, perhaps a little greasy; and her skin was brown. She might have appealed because she was so very different from the elegant wife whom he had just left.

  He caught up with her.

  “You are in a hurry,” he said, laying his hand on her bare arm.

  She turned a startled gaze on him. Her large eyes were soft and without anger.

  “I am in no hurry,” she said.

  “It is well, because I would talk with you.”

  “I must return to my mother’s house,” she said.

  “The bonnet-maker?” he asked. “I saw you leave with the box on your arm.”

  She recognized him suddenly; she turned to him and dropped a curtsey.

  “You know me?”

  “I have seen you riding in the streets, my lord Duke.”

  “Do not be frightened,” he said softly. “I would know your name.”

  “It is Laura Dianti.”

  “Laura Dianti, the bonnet-maker’s daughter,” he repeated. “I think we shall be friends.”

  They had reached the little house. She pushed open the door. It was dark inside.

  “There is no one at home,” she said. “My mother is at the house of a lady, making a bonnet.…”

  “So much the better,” laughed Alfonso.

  He laid hold of her. She was unresisting, earthy, the woman he needed to make him forget his frustrated anger against Lucrezia.

  He was well content; and so it seemed was Laura Dianti, the bonnet-maker’s daughter.

  * * *

  Lucrezia soon recovered from her miscarriage. There was so much now to make her gay. Cesare was a free man; she had constantly believed so firmly in his destiny, so godlike had he always seemed to her, that she was inwardly convinced that he would now achieve all his desires.

  When a few of the younger Cardinals rode into Ferrara from the suite of Julius which was now installed in neighboring Bologna, Lucrezia was as lively as she had been since she came to Ferrara. She forgot Alfonso’s threats because, surrounded by Cardinals, she was reminded of the old days in Rome; and the homage these men paid her made her feel young and important again.

  Francesco was passing through Ferrara once more, and this time she was determined that there should be some means of meeting privately. She began feverishly designing new dresses and spent so much time on these frivolities that Friar Raffaela da Varese, a strict priest of th
e Court, began preaching sermons against the wickedness of feminine vanity, and even condemned the use of cosmetics.

  Lucrezia and her ladies pretended to listen to him gravely, but they ignored his warnings of hell-fire. There was gaiety in the little apartments of the balcony; and always at the side of Lucrezia was the lame poet, Ercole Strozzi.

  Alfonso disliked him; he had no use for poets and, since he had ruled in his father’s place, life had gone less smoothly for Strozzi. Certain lands which had been bestowed on him by Duke Ercole had been reclaimed by Alfonso. Strozzi could have forgiven him that, but what angered him was Alfonso’s attitude toward his literary work.

  Alfonso would laugh slyly when poetry was read, and there were many in the court who were ready to follow the example of the Duke.

  Moreover Strozzi was a great friend of Francesco Gonzaga, and Francesco and Alfonso had never been fond of each other; now that Francesco desired Alfonso’s wife they were less likely to be so.

  The proprietary attitude which Strozzi had assumed over Lucrezia, during the affair with Pietro Bembo, persisted. There was a strong bond between Strozzi and Lucrezia which neither of them understood. There was deep affection, although there had never been any suggestion of their being lovers.

  Strozzi was now entirely devoted to the beautiful Barbara Torelli whom Lucrezia, when she had heard her sad story, had taken under her protection.

  Strozzi was an artist; he longed to create, and because he felt a certain inadequacy in his poetry he wished to use his creative ability to mold the lives of the people he loved.

  Barbara Torelli had appealed to his pity, for hers had been a very tragic story. She had been married to Ercole, one of the Bentivoglios of Bologna, the lowest sort of sensualist, in whom Barbara’s cultured manners inspired a great desire to humiliate her. He had therefore set about making her life as miserable as he possibly could and his greatest pleasure was in devising means of insulting her. There came a time when he invited a Bishop to his home and offered to rent Barbara to him for a period, for the sum of 1,000 ducats. Barbara refused to agree to the transaction; whereupon her husband told her that if she did not he would publicly accuse her of attempting to poison him. Barbara’s reply to that was to leave him. She found refuge in Mantua and stayed in a convent under the protection of Francesco Gonzaga.