His Last Duchess (22 page)

Catelina leaned against the wall of the smaller of Giorgio's two upstairs rooms and looked down at the two sleeping faces. The girl's cheeks were still tear-streaked and dirty; and the baby boy, whose head now lay in the crook of her thin arm, was small and blotched, his straggly black hair plastered flat to his skull, like wet feathers.

“Well done,” said a soft voice.

Catelina smiled at the fourth occupant of the room. What an extraordinarily beautiful woman she was, Catelina thought. Even like this, all dishevelled and tired and grubby. She did not think she had ever been this close to someone so lovely. There was something hard and pinched around her eyes, though. And one of those eyes was bruised.

“Thank you for helping, Signora,” Catelina said.

“Francesca,” said the woman.

“Francesca,” repeated Catelina. “I'm so very grateful. I don't know what I should have done if you hadn't been there…”

“Having seen you at work, I'm certain you would have managed perfectly well without me. But I'm glad you thought to knock. I'm proud to have helped.”

“I'm still very grateful. Whatever you say, I didn't know what best to do. I was close to panicking. We're all very lucky that Giorgio has such a capable neighbour.”

Francesca smiled. “Don't think of it.” She took Catelina's hand and squeezed her fingers, then turned and made for the stairs. Catelina heard the front door open and close. She looked back at the girl and her baby. What in heaven's name would Giorgio say when he arrived home? It had been a momentous day. Giorgio had asked her to marry him; he'd left her to make herself at home in his house. He had given her some of his precious money and sent her out to buy the wherewithal to make a meal, and what had she done? She had brought back a homeless waif and delivered a baby without his knowing anything about it.

The little boy snuffled in his sleep.

Poor mite'll need a crib, she thought.

She sat down on the lid of the wooden chest, then stood up again, lifted the lid, and took out of it Giorgio's shirts, breeches and hose, which she carried into the larger room and laid on the end of the bed.

“The chest will do very nicely,” she said to herself.

The latch on the front door clacked and Giorgio's voice called up the stairs. “Lina?”

She hesitated and then said, “I'm just coming down.”

The evening sun was no more than a sliver of rich yellow above the distant line of the mountains. The light was low and a deep pinkish-gold, and the shadows it cast over the statues in Cosimo de' Medici's
loggia
were a rich slate blue. The sky was clear above the big house of Cafaggiolo, but far to the north a dark mass of cloud was gathering and a rumbling growl presaged a storm.

Cosimo de' Medici's face, too, was thunderous.

“There is simply no point in looking like that, Cosimo,” Eleanora de' Medici said, a muscle in her cheek twitching. “I know what you're thinking.”

“I very much doubt that.”

“It's not difficult. You're angry that we have yet to go to Ferrara, even after nearly two years.”

Cosimo's scowl deepened, but he said nothing.

“But I don't care how long it has been, you are not going. The apothecary says it would be madness. You—and I—will have to stay here. We will see Lucrezia in August when she comes down here to Mugello. It's all arranged—we will stay here and Giovanni will go to Ferrara.”

“There's nothing wrong with me now and I fail to see why—”

“Oh, for heaven's
sake
!” Eleanora stood up, one hand on a hip, the other fisted against her forehead. “Do you not think I miss Lucrezia easily as much as you do? Can you not imagine how I
long
to see my daughter? But we have to be realistic! You've been ill again. And it's the third time it's happened. At any significant exertion, you struggle to breathe. You have had pains in your chest that—in an aberrant moment—you told me felt like knife cuts, and you are
dramatically
thinner than you were a matter of months ago. You are
not
travelling to Ferrara.”

“But the fresco is finished and I—”

“That fresco has been carefully crafted and, unlike you, is likely to last at least two hundred years. The fact that you might have to wait a few more months before you are recovered enough to travel to see it will make not the slightest difference to the painting.
Not
waiting might make a
great
deal of difference to
you
.”

Cosimo de' Medici glared at his wife, his jaw jutting mulishly. She held his gaze.

Giovanni sat in the shadow of a large bust of Lorenzo the Magnificent, listening to his aunt and uncle's bickering quarrel and thinking hard about the letter he held in his hand. He turned it over and over in his fingers, imagining Lucrezia writing it, and wondered why his cousin's invitation had made him so uneasy. There was, he thought, flapping the small sheet of paper open again and re-reading it for the twentieth time, nothing specific he could put his finger on—it was just a
feeling
. Something about the tone of this letter was making him think that she was…not unhappy, Giovanni thought, but
agitated
. That was it. Something, he thought, was not right.

His uncle's voice grew louder and more insistent. “It's not just the painting, Eleanora, I want to see Lucrezia. Before August. After Alfonso's news about the Holy Father's
unaccountable
intentions to…” He frowned, apparently searching for a word which would adequately sum up his sense of outrage. “…to
sack
the duchy and completely
ignore
the fact that Alfonso has made entirely
legitimate
arrangements to—”

“Calm down, Cosimo—you will make yourself ill yet again!” Eleanora said firmly.

“Why has she not conceived in two years?” Cosimo jabbed an accusatory index finger in his wife's direction.

Giovanni saw his aunt bite her lip. “It happens, Cosimo. You know that.”

“Not in this family! There must be some problem, something they're not telling us. We need to see her.”

“I'll talk to her, Uncle Cosimo,” Giovanni said.

His uncle started. “Eh? What?” he said.

“I'll talk to her. When I see her. Find out what's happening.”

“Don't be ridiculous, boy—she is unlikely to want to share any intimate confidences with a…with a child.”

A mouthful of angry profanity pushed up into the back of Giovanni's throat like rising bile. He was on the point of retorting when he was interrupted.

“Cosimo!” Eleanora sounded angry now. “Giovanni is nearly eighteen. He is no longer a child. You were not much older than that when I first met you.” Eleanora flashed an apologetic smile at Giovanni. “But if it makes you happy, why not let Giulietta go to Ferrara with him. If there are any…intimacies to be shared, Lucrezia will surely be as happy to confide in her as she would in you or me. Possibly more so.”

A knot of irritation tightened in Giovanni's chest at this and his jaw tensed. He had been looking forward to travelling alone, the sole representative of the family, and was longing to see Lucrezia again. Of all the people he could have chosen to travel with, one of the last would have been the implacable, nit-picking, unquenchably righteous Giulietta, who would, he was quite certain, dominate the days they spent at the Castello and make it almost impossible for him to spend any time alone with his cousin. But his uncle was nodding. “Yes…yes, Eleanora, I do believe that would be the next best thing to her having her parents there. We will send Giulietta.”

***

“We must be nearly there, Giovanni,” Giulietta said, peering out of the window of the little carriage.

Giovanni reined in his horse and slowed until he was level with her. “Yes,” he said. “Can you see there?” He pointed, and Giulietta stretched to see where he was indicating. Her fingers gripped the edge of the window, the knobbed knuckles bone-white. “That's the Porta Paula. The edge of the city. We'll be there soon.” She was tired, he thought. The three-day journey must have taken its toll on her, and there were shadows under her pouchy old eyes that he had not seen before. Compassion fought with exasperation as he watched her pull herself stiffly back inside the carriage. He kicked his mare into a faster trot and nodded to the carriage driver in an invitation to keep pace, eager now to reach their destination. With a quick flick of the whip, the carriage horses, too, picked up speed, and it was not much more than a half-hour later that the little party drew to a crunching halt in the great central courtyard of the Castello.

Lucrezia was waiting for them. Arms folded in front of her, shoulders hunched, she stepped out of the shadows of an archway as Giovanni stretched and dismounted. He was shocked: she was drawn and pale, the freckles on her nose darker than usual, her eyes red-rimmed and over-bright. She said nothing to him by way of greeting, but walked up to him, put her arms around him and clung to him as though she were drowning. He hugged her and could feel her trembling, her breath shallow and ragged.

“Crezzi, what is it? Is something wrong?”

“Where are Papa and Mamma?” she said, into his doublet.

“They didn't come. Uncle Cosimo is still ailing—Aunt Eleanora says he is in no danger but she was afraid the journey would be too much for him. Giulietta's here, though—”

“Giulietta!”

Lucrezia pulled back from him and Giovanni saw a flicker of what looked like panic cross her face. Then he glanced across to the carriage. The door opened and Giulietta appeared, crumpled and sunken with fatigue.

“Lucrezia!
Cara!
”

“Oh, Giulietta!” Lucrezia ran to help the old lady down onto the cobbles.

They stood close-clasped for a moment, and then, holding Lucrezia's shoulders, the old woman drew away from her and frowned. “
Cara—
you're so pale. Are you ill?”

Giovanni was unconvinced by the levity of his cousin's answer as she swiftly sidestepped a response. “I might say the same about you, Giulietta,” she said. “You look quite exhausted. Was the journey
very
tiring?”

Several castle servants appeared, as Giulietta began to describe the voyage, and, as they fussed around the carriage, reaching for the luggage, Lucrezia caught Giovanni's eye. She said to Giulietta, “Why don't you go in and change your clothes? The ladies will show you to your apartment and fetch you some hot water so that you can wash. I'll…I'll just go across to the stables with Vanni, and then I'll be with you. Alfonso is somewhere about the castle—he'll join us later, I'm sure. We'd love to hear about your journey, and you must tell us all the news from Cafaggiolo.”

She spoke quietly to one of the servants, who held out an arm to Giulietta. Doubt and suspicion were etched across the old lady's creased-parchment forehead, but she nonetheless gripped the proffered arm and began to walk with the young man towards the castle's main entrance.

Giovanni lifted his mare's reins over her head and held them in one hand up under her muzzle. She tossed her head and snorted, jerking his arm upwards, but he held fast and scratched her between the eyes with his free hand, soothing her disquiet. “What the hell is wrong, Crezzi?” he said quietly.

“I can't tell you here. Let's go to the stables.”

They walked together, the mare now droop-headed beside them, and as they walked, Lucrezia looked about her warily, and then began to speak.

Giovanni listened, his gaze on the ground. Several times he opened his mouth to say something and each time he closed it again, unable to find the words he sought.

They reached the stables and were shown to an empty stall. Giovanni led the mare in; Lucrezia followed and sat on a bundle of hay in a corner. Giovanni unfastened the mare's bridle, and a heavy silence stretched between him and his cousin as he worked. The only sounds in the cramped stall were the tiny clinkings of the harness buckles, and the scuffing hoofs and soft snorts from the mare as she tore hay from her manger.

Several minutes passed before Lucrezia spoke again. She said, very quietly, “I love him, Giovanni. I will die if I cannot be with him.”

She was not exaggerating—Giovanni could see that this was a simple statement of fact. He could think of nothing to say.

She said, “Come and see the fresco with me, Vanni, and you'll meet him. He won't know that I've spoken to you. We have to be very careful.”

She was so small and fierce and determined, he thought, and he really did love her. He knew her so well—if this was what she wanted so very badly, then, however shocking he might find it, he wanted it for her. How could he want anything else? How could he even think of judging her?

“When did this happen?” he said. “How long ago?”

“A couple of weeks.”

“Is that…is that enough time to be so sure?”

He expected angry protestations, accusations of unreasonable suspicion and lack of understanding, but Lucrezia just nodded. “I knew that first day.”

“What will you do?”

“When the paintings are finished and they leave the castle, I shall go too.”

“But—”

She interrupted him. “I've made up my mind.”

There seemed to be nothing more to say.

Giovanni finished unsaddling his mare, gave her a final pat, then he and Lucrezia walked slowly back up to the castle.

“How did it happen that Giulietta came with you?” Lucrezia said, as they crossed the central courtyard. “I'm surprised she wanted to travel so far.”

“Aunt Eleanora suggested it. Uncle Cosimo's worried about you—they both are—because of what
Il
Duca
said when he stayed a few weeks ago.”

“Alfonso went to Cafaggiolo?” Lucrezia stopped abruptly, clearly alarmed. “When? Why? What was it—what did he say?”

“Did he not tell you? He came for a couple of days—on his way back from Firenze, he said—with that curly-haired friend of his. He was all fired up about what the Holy Father had said…” Giovanni was expecting to see her expression clear, but Lucrezia's eyes widened.

“The Holy Father? What did—”

“Don't you know?”

“Don't I know
what
?”

This Giovanni had not expected. He had presumed she knew. But, he thought, Lucrezia had just confided in him her most intimate and treasured secret: he felt he owed it to her to be honest. “I was not in the room with Uncle Cosimo and
Il
Duca
when they discussed it, I admit,” he said, “but from what my aunt and uncle have said to each other since, I think…that the Vatican has said it means to reclaim the rights to Ferrara if there's no heir and—”

“Oh, dear God!” Lucrezia cut across him. “Then it wasn't an annulment.
This
is why he hates me so much.”

Giovanni stared at her. “Hates you?”

There was a long pause. Then Lucrezia said quietly, “There are times when I think that even the sight of me is almost more than my husband can endure.”

Giovanni thought back to that moment in Cafaggiolo when he and Lucrezia had gone down to the
loggia
, and she had curtsied to the duke, her hair gilded with the evening sun, and he had smiled at her. Giovanni had been overwhelmed by a wash of antipathy so strong it had made him feel sick, he remembered. He looked at his cousin now, nauseous again with anxiety. “Has he done anything to hurt you, Crezzi?”

She smiled. “That's what Jacomo asked.”

“
And?
Has he?”

“I can only say to you what I said to Jacomo. He hasn't struck me.”

“God, Crezzi, what are you not saying?”

“None of it matters now. I'm leaving, aren't I?”

“But what if—”

“Stop it, Vanni!” Lucrezia leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “Come and meet Jacomo, and then we must find Giulietta.”

Giovanni saw on his cousin's face a familiar look of determined implacability and knew better than to continue questioning her. He stopped talking, and followed her up through the castle to the North Hall.