The Marriage Portrait, page 27
“Your mother is Spanish, is she not?” Nunciata asks.
“She was born there but spent her girlhood in Naples, where her father was—”
“And you speak Spanish?”
“I do.”
“What else?” Nunciata demands.
“French, a little German. And I can write Latin and Greek.”
“I see. Quite the little scholar, aren’t you?”
Lucrezia makes a lightning decision to sidestep the aggressive tone; sometimes this worked when Isabella and Maria were taunting her. “My father,” she says evenly, “believed in educating his daughters, alongside—”
“You have ladies-in-waiting with you, I assume?”
Lucrezia shakes her head. “I thought perhaps I would—”
“No lady-in-waiting?” Nunciata regards her with a shrewd gaze. “Not even one?”
“I brought a maid,” Lucrezia says, “and I’m very fond of her. She is in there.” Lucrezia points to the chamber.
Nunciata leans sideways, peering through the open door to the chamber, where Emilia is bending over the boxes, lifting out garments and shaking them in the air. She is evidently unimpressed by what she sees because she says: “I will send a woman to you directly. A companion. Someone befitting your status. She can wait on you, introduce you to the fashions of this court, and perhaps attire you appropriately.”
Lucrezia, unnerved, can make no reply. The thought of admitting into her rooms a lady-in-waiting she has never met, and one selected by the unpleasant Nunciata, is not a welcome one. A spy in her midst. What is so wrong with her attire now, and her hair? She would like to lean forward and say to this woman that her mother is considered a great beauty, and highly stylish, that people come from all over the province, and beyond, to look upon her, to copy her dress and her manners.
Elisabetta must have divined her unease because she says, without warning, as if to change the subject: “Tell us about Alfonso.”
“What of him?”
“He seems well. So restored by his time in the country, by his time with you. It is a delight to see. Is it not, Nuncià?”
Nunciata doesn’t reply, but keeps her head bent over her lapdog, still murmuring into its ear.
“He is…” Elisabetta seems to hesitate “…attentive to you?”
Lucrezia nods. “Yes.”
“And…kind? He treats you well?”
“Yes.”
Elisabetta looks at her for a moment longer, then says: “Good. I am glad to hear it.”
She helps Nunciata to her feet. “We will leave you now. Please send me word if you need anything. My rooms are adjacent to the state room where we first met. Nunciata’s are next to mine.” She crosses to the door, her arm through Nunciata’s, where she turns to say: “Alfonso’s apartment is directly below yours. There is a staircase linking your rooms with his. I’m sure he will be up to see you soon.”
* * *
He doesn’t come that night. Lucrezia listens out for the purposeful tread of his boots up the private staircase, for the sound of the door latch lifting without so much as a knock. But neither comes.
She makes preparations for retiring, Emilia turning back the covers, then drawing the curtains around the bed, with Lucrezia inside: a songbird in a fabric cage. Still no sign of him.
Lucrezia waits. The room fills with darkness, the stars pushing their distant cold light through pierced holes in the sky. She pictures herself, in her tower room, at the corner of the castello, where two of its sides meet. This room seems to hover in space, above the city, high above the green moat. If she were to lean too far out of the window, she would lose her footing and drop like a stone into the water.
She asks Emilia to sleep not in the small closet off the chamber’s anteroom but on a pallet beside her bed. The maid obliges, carrying her bedding through and settling herself quickly, without fuss.
But sleep will not come for Lucrezia, refuses to hear her call. Her mind, made restless by the journey, by the new rooms, has too much to do, too many impressions to review and polish and store away, too many questions to pose and ponder. Elisabetta and her high gold shoes, her delicate cheekbones, the secret Lucrezia barely comprehends but must keep from Alfonso, Nunciata and her ill temper, her stubby fingers, the sleek, peeved face of the spaniel, with teeth like white needles, the vanished French mother, the elder sister whose putative marriage would pose a terrible threat, the court over which Alfonso must exert his authority, like a falconer bringing a bird to glove, the feast to come.
The castello, under its mantle of night, respires with strange noises: the creak of joists, faint ripples of footsteps, a shuffle and clink outside in the passageways, which Lucrezia tells herself will be the guards doing their rounds, but which the fevered part of her brain tells her is some spectre or dead spirit, dragging chains and instruments of torture around the castello’s quiet spaces.
She tries to harness her hearing, to bring it under control, like a wayward bloodhound, orders it not to listen out for all that is distant, but to focus instead on what is in the room: the brush of the bed curtains as they move in the draught, to the deep and regular sound of Emilia’s breathing.
Lucrezia is the guide for this night, its companion, its confessor. She hears doors swing open and slam closed; she hears a cart clatter along the street below; she hears the rumble of a voice—male—perhaps on the floor below, and a woman answer it, in tones that, to Lucrezia, seek to reassure; she hears, far in the distance, beyond the city walls, the plaintive cry of a wolf. She sees the darkness weaken, grapple by degrees with the dawn, then cede its sovereignty to a vitreous grey mist. And, just as this night, her first, is very nearly over, as it is ushered into obliteration, she falls asleep, an exhausted guide, her task complete.
* * *
Alfonso’s singers at the banquet stand at either side of the dais, their heads tilted upwards, their voices seeming to rise not from their mouths but from a place somewhere behind them. The sound is like nothing Lucrezia has ever heard: their voices carry more strength, more power, than any other singers’. They begin a note and, without pausing to draw in more breath, sustain and stretch it for so long that Lucrezia feels a sympathetic dizziness. How can they sing for the count of eight, nine, ten and beyond? Their voices intertwine, rising to the vaulted ceiling, twisting and growing; they sing with each other, against each other, the melody veering back and forth between them, like a shimmering kite on a string.
She glances around, wanting to know if others share her astonishment. Nunciata, on the other side of the table from her, seems oblivious, deep in conversation with someone introduced to Lucrezia as a poet. Her spaniel stands on the table, lapping from a dish, its little haunches convulsed by shivers. Elisabetta is facing the performers but her gaze has slid sideways, fixed on the far side of the room. Others listen for a moment, then turn to their neighbour to murmur a remark or an aside; two women, one in an emerald-green dress and a frothy half-ruff, the other’s hair adorned with small, stuffed birds, are whispering together, their faces close, their shoulders trembling with silent laughter. A man at the end of the table has one hand inserted into an arrangement of fruit, his fingers straying over grapes, peaches, apricots; he settles on a fig, drawing it out of the heap and dropping it, whole, into his waiting mouth. Catching Lucrezia’s eye, he gives her a wink, his lips mobile and moist. She looks away. Only Alfonso, Lucrezia sees, is intent on the music. He leans forward, one elbow on the table, chin resting in his hand, his index finger beating out the tempo of the song on his temple. He is rapt, transported; he is caught up in the music, a willing butterfly in its beautiful frail net. She pictures the notes and phrases rippling through his head, like many-coloured pennants.
She is wearing her wedding gown as she sits at the banqueting table. He had come to her rooms earlier in the day, looking tired and unslept, to request this of her. He was sorry, he said, that he was not able to visit her yesterday evening. State matters had required his attention—many people had needed to speak with him, it is often so when he has been absent from the castello—but would she please wear the gown to the festa arranged in her honour? Courtiers would be happy to see her in her wedding clothes, and he would be proud to escort her into the room and present her to the court. She had looked like a goddess and he wants the whole of Ferrara to see her thus, at his side. Emilia clapped her hands when he had gone and ran to fetch it. She was so happy, she said, as she straightened its skirts and teased out the gold panels, that Her Highness would wear it again, and so soon.
So Lucrezia has put it on, once more: the blue skirt, the huge sleeves, the gold cintura Alfonso gave her. This time, however, she was able to instruct Emilia to fasten the bodice as she wishes, to ignore the marks made by her mother, indicating where the lacings should be tied, to make it her own. Tonight, it doesn’t feel like Maria’s but hers and hers alone. She is no longer an imposter, an interloper assuming the life of her sister, but herself: Lucrezia, Duchess of Ferrara.
There had been music when she and Alfonso entered the banqueting hall—trumpets sounding out trilling arpeggios—and outbursts of exclamation and applause. People were lining the long sides of the room, and Alfonso had led her on a circuit, pausing every now and again to present a particular person to her: a cousin, a friend, a courtier, a poet, a sculptor, a companion, some of Nunciata and Elisabetta’s ladies-in-waiting, a lute player, the head of the guardsmen. Lucrezia had inclined her head to these people, accepting their curtseys and bows, trying to imprint their names on her mind so that she would remember them. The dresses of the ladies were narrower than those in Florence, with higher collars, more lace, and bodices longer at the front. She examined these gowns from the corner of her eye, as an adviser of Alfonso informed her of the number of exits and entrances in Ferrara’s city walls, while Alfonso stood at her side, his hands clasped behind him. She could feel him vibrating with amusement at the man’s determination to reel off the names of all of the gates, enumerating them on his stubby fingers. She nodded, as if fascinated by this information, all the while wondering if she could draw these Ferrarese dresses in a letter to Isabella, who had told her to write with detailed descriptions of the fashions here.
It is through this lens that she views the entire festa. How would she relate this to Isabella, she is wondering throughout a long and somewhat meandering theatrical performance of a historical dramatic verse about a king who accidentally poisons his wife, and is then for evermore haunted by her ghastly and reproachful apparition. Which of the dishes, she considers as she eats, will she describe in her letter? The stuffed head of the cinghiale—its mouth forced open with a yellow quince, its eyes closed to the indignity—the fish broth, the twists of almond pastries, the frittata, the white slabs of lardo crudo, the slices of cheese so fine you can see the light through them.
She composes sentences in her head, as she sits at the table: It is a very refined court, she will write to her sister, who has remained in Florence, at their parents’ side, who has not been sent to live with her husband. They value not acrobats or nano antics but theatre, poetry and music. Or: The ladies wear their hair piled high above the radius of their ruffs. And: There was a recitation of an epic poem, followed by two singers with extraordinary voices—I only wish you could have heard them.
The thought of writing this letter brings a sharp and novel pleasure. She will be able to tell Isabella about things she does not know. She allows herself to imagine Isabella reading closely, avidly, then feeling pangs of jealousy, of wishing that she, too, could go to Ferrara. She might visit, perhaps. Lucrezia could invite her, if Alfonso permits it, and Isabella could ride over the Apennines and reside for a time here with her, in the castello.
Lucrezia sighs. The music and the voices of the singers have taken a melancholic turn, sliding into a minor key. It is unlikely that Isabella will come. She is so caught up in her life in Florence, so absorbed by it. If Lucrezia wrote to her, describing this festa, in all likelihood Isabella would lose interest halfway through the letter, toss it aside, and go off to find one of her friends or whichever courtier is her current pet.
The sentences fade in Lucrezia’s mind; they fall silent. She smooths the folds in her skirt and concentrates instead on the room, which flares with murmured conversation and song, the swaying light from the candles, which finds its echo in the jewels about the ladies’ necks, in their rings, on the hilts of the men’s weapons.
The song builds to a climax, both singers hitting the same high note, its sound swelling and amplifying in the air between them. Then, glancing at each other, they close their mouths in perfect unison, snipping the silken rope of the note in half.
Applause descends like a rainstorm. People stand up from their seats, raising their hands to clap; women wave their handkerchiefs; men call, bravo, bravo, more, again. The people who applaud the loudest, Lucrezia notes, are the ones who talked through the performance.
She claps and claps until her palms sting. The singers blow kisses into the crowd, moving towards each other, with a curious sideways gait, clasping each other’s hands and bowing low. Lucrezia is used to tumblers, acrobats, jesters, but there is something elevated and indefinable about these singers. They are tall, with long, tapering limbs, and pointed feline faces; the flex and motion of their wrists, their arms, is mesmerisingly agile, as if their joints are oiled to move more smoothly than others’. While they were singing, that is what they were—singers, geniuses, angels—but standing, as they are now, bowing and calling words to people in the room, they are once more human.
Alfonso bends towards her through the noise, shrinking his height so that he might look into her face. “You are enjoying the music?”
“Oh, yes,” she says. “It is like nothing I have ever heard. It is sublime—they are extraordinary. Their singing, the way they can switch from a low note to a high one—I don’t know how they do it, how they flex their voices in that way.”
He is regarding her, intrigued, still clapping. “You are right,” he says, surprised. “I had not thought of that. They do have an extraordinary ability to go from a low register to a high one. It is a skill unique to their kind.”
“Their kind?”
“They are evirati. I ordered them especially from Rome. They are trained, most rigorously, from a very young age, even before they undergo…” He makes an indecipherable gesture with his outstretched fingers. “It produces a voice extraordinarily pure, with unprecedented range. Their vocal cords are those of a young boy, in a body the size of a man.”
In a rush, she understands. She has read about such customs in the ancient world but had no idea it happened in her own. She feels colour invade her face, while a peculiar suffocating sensation grips her throat. She glances quickly at the figures by the candelabra—their long, slender wrists, their smooth and ageless faces. She cannot help but picture them as small children, about to be operated on, without knowing what was ahead. What pain and shock they must have suffered, all for the whim of a wealthy man, what helplessness and confusion. Did they have any choice? Who would perform such a procedure?
The room is falling silent; people are resuming their seats, their whispered conversations. The singers are preparing for another song.
As the first phrases of the music float out over their heads, Alfonso reaches out and covers her hand, resting on the tabletop, with his own. Her disquiet at the enforced gelding of the evirati, treated no better than performing animals, battles for a moment with the simplicity of this gesture, its heartfelt nature.
Alfonso’s hand dropping on to hers like this, its fingers curling around hers, carries enormous, significant weight. For her it means he must love her, must feel for her—but also for the entire room, the gathered assembly. To do this, here, in front of his whole court, with all his friends and associates and courtiers and guardsmen and servants and artists and musicians and poets looking on, is a statement, a message, of commitment and love, and also perhaps renewal. Maybe she, the new Duchess, can heal the rift in this court caused by the old Duchess, its evident instability and unhappiness, the religious schism, the attempted annexation of her daughters, the absent sister?
Resplendent in her bridal dress, Lucrezia sits with her hand in that of her husband. She is so pierced by happiness that she believes she must be glowing, like a lantern in the darkness. Someone loves her—a man, a powerful and erudite man. She has invoked and inspired love in the heart of a duke: she, Lucrezia. More than anything, she wishes she could write this down, for Isabella, for anyone to read: He took my hand at dinner, in front of the whole court. She sees Nunciata noticing, and looking away. She sees the woman with the birds in her hair cast a brief, stabbing glance at their joined hands, then whisper something in her companion’s ear, her pretty vixen face distorted by ire and envy. She sees that the man who ate the fig is now picking at his teeth with a small chicken bone. She sees Nunciata plucking at the sleeve of the poet, who, with a weary courtesy, leans towards her to hear what she is saying. She sees Elisabetta moving along the far edge of the room, weaving through the chairs and seated guests, making her way past a figure standing beside a pillar. It is a uniformed soldier: Ercole Contrari, the head of the guardsmen, to whom Lucrezia was introduced an hour or so ago. She recognises his moustache, his handsome, even-featured face. He is leaning with one arm on the pillar, and as Elisabetta passes, his body inclines towards hers. He murmurs something but Elisabetta affects not to have heard him, turning her face resolutely towards the room, the tables, the rows and rows of guests. Lucrezia sees, however, that Contrari’s hand extends, and it holds, between its fingers, a folded piece of paper, which Elisabetta, twisting her arm up and behind her back, plucks from him, quickly, deftly, and conceals up her wide, tapering sleeve, and then she moves on, as if nothing at all has taken place. It is an act so smooth, so practised, yet so charged with danger, for him and for her, that Lucrezia’s breath leaves her chest. Lucrezia swivels her eyes towards Alfonso, but he is still focusing on the singers; she swivels them back to Elisabetta, who is taking a seat across the room, next to some cousins, and her face has an air of calm but her eyes—her eyes!—are alight with a treacherous, beguiling happiness.
