Her ladies had gathered around her in a kind of awe.
But her sense of shame and fury is half directed at herself. From the moment this union with Ferrara was first suggested, Lucrezia had used every ounce of energy in pushing it through—the grief at her husband’s murder, the fury at her brother, her aching pain of leaving her own son—all of it soaked up in her determination to get away. For what? A husband with a stable of prostitutes and a miserly father-in-law?
“It is all right when it is about his pleasure. New buildings, choirs, convents for stolen nuns; he vomits up the money easily enough then.” She is weeping with rage now, spitting the words in half gasped breaths. “It comes pouring out of every hole. Oh, don’t look at me like that! I have heard half of you use worse language when you think I am not listening. And he deserves it. The man has broken every promise. How dare he deny me what is rightly mine? As for the duplicity of his vile, vain daughter…”
It is just as well there are no Ferrarese young women yet employed in her entourage to hear all this. The famous Borgia temper, Angela mutters, as they stand and watch. One should not cross it. But of course they all rather admire it. They have never seen their mistress like this.
Fortunately, the same afternoon, a young nobleman had called to visit, Ercole Strozzi, a poet, a superior gossip and every inch the courtier despite a birth defect that makes him drag his left leg behind him, for it is one of the best dressed legs in Ferrara. He has a natural eye for fashion, women’s even more than men’s, and has become an instant favorite with Lucrezia’s ladies. He is leaving for Venice and is happy to take any orders that the duchess might have. A cargo of first-rate embroidered silks is docking next week from India, their dyes as rich as peacock feathers. How they would suit her!
She welcomes him with flirtatious courtesy, giving him a full list of exactly what she requires. Payment is not mentioned. It would please him mightily to help see her clad in a new dress every day, and when the merchants find out that it is for the Borgia-Este duchess, credit will be automatic. The idea pleases her too. That night she sleeps soundly. It seems battle suits her after all.
—
Three weeks later and neither side shows any sign of giving in. She pawns a few of her less precious jewels in the knowledge that she will always be able to redeem them later. The price is good. The city, if not her father-in-law, is most eager to help. She tries not to let her bitterness spoil the sunshine of these spring days, but there are times when she finds herself tearful or short-tempered, or too tired to bother with much. Where has the fight in her gone? She attempts to settle herself through prayer, hearing mass every morning in her private chapel and sitting for hours over her rosary. She doesn’t possess many objects from her previous marriage, but this is one of them, Spanish silverwork at its best, each bead a filigreed hollow ball filled with musk-soaked padding, so that as her warm fingers move over them the very act of praying releases the scent more strongly. Perfume and memory.
“Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb…” she whispers, but the words tease themselves into different thoughts: of Rome and her other Alfonso, playful and attentive, as the spark in his eyes moves toward desire, which in turn makes her own insides twist and sing. Such a sweet feeling! The sensation moves from her stomach toward her throat, and she realizes suddenly she is closer to nausea, as if something in the very life she is living is disagreeing with her; that or the sickly potency of the musk.
“Get me another rosary,” she calls to her ladies. “This one smells too much of sorrow.”
She makes excuses to miss the duke’s concerts and retires to bed. She is too tired to dance, but her absence works also as a punishment, for she knows how much he likes to show her off. Still, he does not relent.
She wonders about asking her husband to intercede on her behalf. Such an attack on her status is surely also an attack on his. When he tells her that he will be leaving for a diplomatic mission to France within the next few weeks, and will be away for some months, she knows that she must do it before he goes. It would be the kind of conversation best brought up inside the privacy of a curtained bed. She fashions her argument, but when it comes to it, it doesn’t happen; it seems their bodies converse better than their tongues.
A few days before his departure, she and her ladies spend the afternoon in the sprawling gardens on the other side of the castle moat. They picnic close to the fountain under a bower of roses, their scent so powerful it almost overwhelms her. How sensitive she seems to such things these days. The mood is sleepy, and a few of the ladies doze off on beds of cushions, but Lucrezia for once is wide awake. She leaves the group and takes herself on a walk along an orchard path and then through a layout of topiary box trees in the direction of the western perimeter of the estate. She can see plumes of smoke rising out of the complex of foundry buildings situated by the walls. While the sight is familiar enough—from her rooms in the castle she often watches such clouds spreading and dispersing, their centers shifting from ruby red to soot black—she has never been this close. Her husband spends half his life tending his precious fires, yet even after all these months she still knows nothing of what goes on inside; he has never offered and she has never asked. It is not what women do.
Oh my lady, it is no place at all for a duchess.
Imagine the filth.
And the heat. Worse than hell.
The men strip off all their clothes to handle it.
Her ladies, like a flock of disapproving hens, had long since pecked any life out of the idea of visiting. Any lady would have her dress go up in flames from the sparks.
If she has not died first from the stink alone.
No, not a place for a duchess.
Still, today she keeps on walking.
As she gets closer, she sees that it is not one but two buildings, or at least an outer casement of another. Ferrarese bricks are famed through the Veneto for their regularity and color, warm ocher, which lights up under the summer sun, making even the highest run of convent walls look welcoming. As these do now, in contrast to the rising noise and smell. The huge gates that mark the entrance are closed, but when she pushes them they fall open easily. Does she want to go any farther? How awful can it be?
Inside, she is on the edge of a large courtyard, piles of timber everywhere along with carts staked with ingots of metal and pieces of scrap, including maybe half a dozen large church bells. A memory returns to her, of a moment in yet another ceremonial mass in yet another church during their wedding festivities: how as the bells had rung Alfonso, by her side, had lifted his head eagerly, all semblance of prayer forgotten.
“Cracked,” he had whispered as she looked up at him in question. “Can’t you hear it?” His smile was perhaps the most spontaneous display of pleasure she had ever seen from him. Is that one of the bells here now, waiting to be transformed?
In front of her, the foundry itself is a long double-storied building with doors thrown open and large windows everywhere, smoke billowing from them all. The noise now is overwhelming; hammering, yells, the clanging of metal, voices straining, even snatches of song. She can feel the heat from here; going farther would be like walking into an oven. Or the mouth of an inferno.
She thinks of her predecessor, holed up in her rooms with only her servant for company. If a wife shrivels from neglect, doesn’t she bear some responsibility for the process? I want my rightful dowry, she thinks. Even if I have to dirty my dresses to get it.
She crosses the courtyard and goes in.
For a moment she can see nothing, the air is so thick with smoke. At last she makes out the shape of a furnace in one corner, a gaping open mouth of fire inside a structure of bricks built like a large anthill and narrowing to a chimney up into the roof. But that is not where the action is now. There must be a score or more men, not naked, but most of them stripped to the waist, some gathered around a steaming crucible tilted dangerously ove
r hot coals into a pouring position and some close to an open pit, like the entrance to a big grave, with a funnel sticking out from the packed earth. The rest stand between the two, monitoring the flow of molten metal that courses along a fat clay channel suspended on a gradually descending platform of bricks between the cauldron and the funnel. They are chanting loudly, more grunt than song, for every ounce of concentration is directed to this lava red river, their sweat-drenched bodies painted a rich caramel color in its glow. Vulcan’s workforce, forging a new world out of fire, as shocking in its beauty as it is in its power.
And her husband? He is standing in a sleeveless jerkin with his back to her, next to the half submerged funnel, bent, head down, checking the speed of the flow as it plunges into the ground. But where is it going from there? It makes no sense. She feels her breath catch, and the world begins to spin around her. The smell, the heat and the smoke are suddenly unbearable.
It is not clear who sees her first. There is the odd fast glance from the laborers, clearly amazed, but their heads are soon down again, intent on the task in hand. Alfonso though is now turning, squinting in the daylight that frames the open door. She makes out a look of horror on his face, and for a moment he seems torn between his wife and his work. Then he is striding toward her, his hands encased in great leather gloves, waving her angrily out of the building, his mouth moving but any words lost in the roar of the fire.
She backs hurriedly into the open courtyard. As he looms in front of her, he seems to have grown, the black fuss of chest hair crawling up his neck from his open jerkin and his face devil dark with soot and grime. She feels a hot wave of shame in her cheeks. They are right; this is not a place for a woman.
“What? What are you doing here?” With the roar of the workshop still ringing in his head, he is yelling like a madman.
“I—we were in the gardens…and…I was interested…”
Oh, Lucrezia, she thinks. Don’t grovel to him. His precious weapons will defend a city that is yours as much as his now.
“I…had the urge to see you at work. You spend half your life here—why not? Oh, but it’s so hot. Was that the metal for the cannon you were pouring?”
“What?” he says as if he cannot quite believe his ears.
“That flaming liquid, is that the bronze? Did it come from the bells?”
“Some of it. If they crack, they don’t have the right mix of copper and tin, so it has to be remixed.”
“But where is the cannon?”
“In the casting pit. Underground. Sweet Jesus, Lucrezia…you should not be here. This is no place—”
“—for a woman, yes, I know, I know. Don’t shout at me. But—but there is something I need to say to you, Alfonso.”
He stares, then glances back over his shoulder. His molten river is calling him. “Can’t it wait?”
“No. No, it can’t.”
But neither can she tell him. She sees it suddenly with perfect clarity: he couldn’t care less about an annual dowry; all that matters to him is to stay as far away from his father as he can. To help her fight him would be too demeaning. And anyway, what woman could come between him and his molten pleasures? Is this what happened to his first wife? she thinks. She came in strong only to be made feeble by this cursed family.
He is staring at her now. “Well, what is it?”
She looks down at her feet, and the ground shifts underneath her again. Only this time she cannot hold herself upright. She feels the taste of bile in her throat. I am going to be sick, she thinks. She forces herself to gulp it back. He catches her under the elbow to steady her.
“Are you ill? What is wrong with you?”
She straightens up and attempts a smile. How fierce he looks, this husband of hers, caked beard, heavy eyelids, and the thick body smell of him. She imagines him on top of her, the way his eyes close tight, throwing his head back, straining and panting, then grabbing on to her suddenly as the climax comes upon him.
The coupling of husband and wife. Another wave of nausea hits her. Dear Mary and all the saints, how could she be so stupid? This business with her father-in-law has curdled her brain. But…but how? She is a few days late with her menses, but that is not unusual, and she had bled last time—God knows, her cycle is public knowledge inside her court. The flow had been light, though, much lighter than usual. Catrinella had remarked on it as she carried out the spotted rags. So little blood in comparison to the usual flood. So little blood. Tears and tantrums, too tired to dance. She pulls her arms up tight against the bodice of her dress, squeezing her breasts hard. Ah, there it is: an answering sharp pulse of soreness. She laughs out loud.
“What’s wrong?” he says again, her strange actions and mirth now alarming him further.
“Nothing. Except, as you are leaving so soon, I thought it right to tell you…I believe that I am with child.”
“With child?”
Alfonso stares at her, clearly dumbfounded. It is not how such news should be delivered, the two of them, standing together in the middle of a woodpile with a foundry spewing out hellfire behind them. He clearly has no idea what to do.
He gives a rough and awkward laugh. “With child,” he repeats. “So soon.”
She feels suddenly light now, as if her body is blown up with color and air. She realizes that she is happy.
She puts her head to one side. “It seems we both were old enough,” she says with a touch of the coquette.
But he does not respond; perhaps he no longer remembers the words.
“What about the duke?” he says. “Does my father know?”
She shakes her head. “No one knows but you, my lord. I wanted you to be the first to hear it.”
After all, that is the truth, she thinks as the smile on his face trumps that caused by the sound of the greatest cracked bell.
It is done, Father, she thinks as she presses the seal down on the folded parchment, ready for the dispatch rider. I have done it. Just as you said.
She can almost hear his voice booming out to Burchard and anyone else who might listen. What did I tell you? Married barely three months and the duchess is carrying an heir. For, of course, everyone will know that it will be a boy. Why else would fortune smile on them so quickly and openly?
The heir to the heir of the Este dynasty.
If this isn’t enough to squeeze an extra two thousand ducats out of her skinflint father-in-law, then what is?
CHAPTER 12
It is early June when the bodies of the Manfredi brothers, bloated and fish blown, are pulled from the Tiber somewhere downstream from the Ponte Sisto. As the news spreads out around Italy, the Borgia campaign begins in earnest.
In the city of Arezzo sudden insurgent activity erupts, brawls and civic unrest everywhere. The authorities do their best to keep the peace, but a week later in the middle of the night the rebels mount an attack on the main gate and open the doors to let in Vitelli’s men, conveniently camped near the walls. On the Tuscan coast, in Pisa, which also chafes under the yoke of Florentine rule, rebel elements take their cue, marching through the streets shouting the name of Cesare Borgia.
As predicted, the government of Florence tumbles into diplomatic panic. Such actions are clearly precursors to a full-scale invasion. Inside the Palazzo della Signoria, the town hall of Florence, Gonfaloniere Piero Soderini and the Council for Liberty and Peace meet in emergency session. They send appeals to King Louis and furious complaints to the Pope. But they must also confront the man himself. Except Cesare Borgia is nowhere to be found. It seems he has already slipped out of Rome, and by the time there is any news of him he is marching the opposite way, toward the city of Imola in the Romagna, where the rest of his mercenary forces are gathering, ready to join him for an attack on Camerino. But why Camerino if Florence is his goal?
Then comes news of a communication from the duke to his general Vitellozzo Vitelli. A leaked letter telling him that his occupation of Arezzo is against the duke’s orders and that he must leave the city
.
A second urgent meeting takes place, and two envoys are picked to go to Imola immediately and seek the duke out.
When the call comes, Machiavelli, who has been at his desk for the best part of two days, is cleaning his teeth with a rag soaked in rosemary and vinegar. In his excitement he swallows when he should spit and is taken with a fit of coughing. The honor is commensurate with the responsibility. His fellow envoy, the gonfaloniere’s own brother, Bishop Soderini, will be the chief negotiator, but it will be he, Niccolò, who will write all the dispatches home. Having watched the duke’s comet scorch its way across the sky for the last three years, at last, he will meet him face-to-face.
“So, make sense of this if you can, Secretary.” Soderini’s knuckles have cracked so often these last few days that his fingers look longer. “Who is playing whom in this game?”
How many answers has he reached for and discarded? As the reports have flown across his desk, he has traced the trajectories of all the main players, matching character with action, pushing each possible scenario to its best and worst conclusion. In the end he is left as much with the feeling in his gut as with the logic in his head.
“However desperate he is for revenge against us, Vitelli would never have acted alone. He doesn’t have the manpower to see it through, and for him to even attempt it without the duke’s approval would be signing his own death warrant from both sides.”
“In which case all this denial is a smoke screen and the duke is coming for Florence.”
“I am not sure, Gonfaloniere.”
“You are not sure? What does that mean? It was your opinion that Valentine would soon be ready to fly in the face of France.”
“Yes, but if this was the moment and if Florence was the target, he would never have played his hand so openly. His strength has always been speed and surprise. And he has neither of those if his army is on the other side of the country.”
“Exactly. So what is happening?”