Читать книгу The Scarlet Contessa - Jeanne Kalogridis - Страница 12

Chapter Five

The duke refused my request to take Matteo to Florence to be buried in the churchyard of San Marco. For one thing, Galeazzo said, the winter was far too treacherous for a woman to attempt five days’ hard ride, even if it be southward—no matter that a day of feeble sun had melted most of the ice. For another, he insisted that every member of court attend the Christmas celebrations in Milan, whether they were in mourning or not.

Of the myriad princes in Italy, none celebrated Christmas with greater zeal than Duke Galeazzo. He required all courtiers, all ambassadors, all feudatories to come to Milan to celebrate the Nativity and renew their vows of fealty to him the day after, on the feast of Saint Stephen. Everyone, except the dying and the mortally ill, was required to attend, for the holiday marked the end and beginning of the year. The duke gave gifts to his underlings, alms to the poor, pardons to the convicted; during the week, he attended mass at different venues, the better to be seen by his loyal subjects. On the twenty-sixth, Saint Stephen’s Day, he went to the church of Santo Stefano; on the twenty-seventh, Saint John the Evangelist’s Day, he went to the church of San Giovanni, and so forth.

Bona had tears in her eyes when she told me of the duke’s decision; the court was leaving the next morning for the Castle Porta Giovia in the center of Milan, and I, in my black veil, was required to go, too. I turned from her, speechless, but she put a hand upon my shoulder to draw me back.

“He is being embalmed,” she said, and I realized she meant Matteo. “Come with me to Milan, please. And when we return to Pavia, the duke will be distracted, and I will see to it that you are able to take Matteo to Florence for burial.”

The following morning found me riding silently on horseback alongside Francesca and the other chattering chambermaids next to the furnished, velvet-draped wagon that held Bona and the children. It was a sunny winter’s day, harshly bright and blue, with a wind that stole all warmth. The roads were slush and mud; my cape grew quickly spattered. Matteo’s saddlebag, packed with the little book in cipher and Bona’s triumph cards, was strapped to my mount. From time to time, it brushed the back of my leg, bringing fresh grief.

Milan lies due north of Pavia, one day’s easy ride away, on flat roads across the Po River basin. Given the size and lumbering pace of our caravan, however, we set out at dawn and did not reach our destination until well after dusk.

Nestled on a plain, the city stretches out to the horizon, where the distant, snowy flanks of the Alps graze the heavens. The light was failing by the time my horse’s hooves struck cobblestone, but I could still see the four towers of the ducal castle, Porta Giovia, and the flickering yellow glow emanating from its windows. Across the broad avenue was the cathedral, the Duomo, its face covered with dark, skeletal scaffolding. Spires from other cathedrals—San Giovanni, Santo Stefano, Sant’ Ambrogio—reared up from an endless span of red-tiled rooftops.

Normally I would have taken pleasure in the journey and the sights of the city, which we frequented only once or twice a year because the palace there was cramped compared to Pavia, and the city streets noisier and dirtier than the countryside. But that night I felt only bitterness; the festive spirits of those surrounding me were rude, the glory of Milan mocking. The ducal apartments were adorned with pomanders and evergreen, and fragrant with mulled wine; I found it all offensive.

In the little closet off Bona’s room, I shared a bed with Francesca. Happily, she fell quickly asleep. I brought out the little book from Matteo’s saddlebag and lit the lamp, and stared at page after page of my husband’s mysterious cipher. After an hour, I realized that the headings for each separate entry must have been days or dates or times, and I distracted myself from miserable grief by trying possible substitutions for the different symbols.

I did not put out the light until Francesca stirred and complained drowsily a few hours before dawn. Even then, I did not sleep, but lay still, thinking of Matteo, the cipher, and the triumph cards.

Two days passed in a blur of audiences, masses, banquets, dances, and concerts, the last performed by Galeazzo’s magnificent choir of thirty souls. Despite the weather, the streets of Milan were crowded with those who had come to watch the ceremony of the Yule log, and those who had come to proclaim their loyalty to Galeazzo for another year.

On Christmas Eve Day, the duke held a grand audience for petitioners; when sunset approached, we courtiers and servants stood in the first-floor great hall as His Grace lit the ciocco, the Yule log that was to be tended so that it burned for as long as possible. Once darkness had taken hold, Bona called for me to attend her in the ducal chambers. There, in the family’s private dining chamber, I stood while Bona, her two daughters, two sons, and Caterina sat at the table watching the duke direct his brothers Ottaviano and Filippo. Together, Ottaviano—the youngest brother, slight and willowy, with a delicate, feminine face and long dark hair uncharacteristic of the Sforzas—and Filippo—second eldest, sturdy of body but feeble of intellect—carried a huge log of oak through the doorway and set it down atop a bough of juniper set in the hearth.

Despite the closed windows, the reedy wail of the traditional zampogni, the pipes played only at Christmas, filtered up from the duke’s private courtyard below.

“Ugh!” Filippo exclaimed, once freed of his burden. “It’s fatter than Cicco! This one will surely burn till New Year’s.”

“Back away, back away!” Galeazzo scolded excitedly, and took his place in front of the fireplace. His face was flushed, his words thick; he had already drunk a good deal of wine. A servant handed him a lit taper, and he held the flame to the juniper; it caught with a fragrant flare, and he laughed, pleased, as he handed the candle back.

With his right hand, he made the sign of the cross, and snapped his fingers at his cupbearer, who filled his goblet with fresh wine and gave it to him. Once the juniper had caught in earnest, the duke splashed a bit of wine on the log, as custom required, and took a long swallow from his cup. This he passed to Filippo, who handed it to Ottaviano, who respectfully delivered it to Bona; it made its way down the hierarchy to arrive last of all to me.

I emptied the cup, although there was less than a full sip left, thanks to Caterina swallowing far more than her share.

The duke then tossed a gold ducat onto the fire, and from a red velvet bag, handed one gold coin apiece to his brothers, children, and wife. My lowly status stifled his generosity, however, and he turned his back to me; Bona pressed her coin into my palm, so that I might enjoy an increase in wealth in the coming year.

Fortunately, the duke was not so stingy when it came to food and drink, and I was allowed to sit between his natural daughters, Chiara and Caterina. There was a surfeit of marvelous food, including a pigeon tart with prunes that normally would have tempted me, and ravioli stuffed with pig’s liver and herbs, but I had no taste for it. I had not wanted to attend the family gathering, and had asked Bona to excuse me, but the duke had gotten wind of it and insisted that I come so that “things would be as they are every year.” And to make sure of it, he had ordered that I dispense with mourning and dress in holiday attire; I had no choice but to obey, and so chose a gown of dark green velvet, but wore no gold and no smile.

Galeazzo and Filippo proceeded to get very drunk indeed, and by the time the feast was well under way, their conversation grew peppered with thinly veiled metaphors about the pleasures of defiling virgin flesh. At one point, the duke began to thrust a grilled sausage in and out of the stuffed capon on his plate, in a pointedly sexual manner, while Filippo howled with laughter. Caterina grinned, and Bona flushed and grew quiet. By the time supper was finished, Bona was eager to shoo the children out of the chamber and leave herself. I rose with her and accompanied her to the door; as she turned and bade her husband good night, he looked up from the table, his eyes heavy-lidded and glittering from drink, and said:

“Not her. You can go, but she must stay.”

He had never made such a request, and both the duchess and I were troubled by it, until Galeazzo repeated, “She must stay. And you must have one of your ladies fetch the triumph cards Lorenzo gave you straightaway.” When Bona hesitated to direct a fearful glance at me, he slammed his fist upon the table so hard that the empty platters rattled.

When silence followed, I said to her, “Your Grace, please forgive me, but the cards are in your quarters, inside the trunk at the foot of my cot.”

Bona stared at me as if I were the Devil himself, come to steal her soul. Without a word, she curtsied to her husband and left, taking all the children with her; Caterina passed by last, pausing briefly to study me, her expression both curious and oddly worried. I stood awkwardly by the door for a quarter hour while the duke and his drunken brothers ignored me and the conversation grew ever more raucous. When Francesca finally arrived with the diamond-studded red velvet box, my anxiety increased.

“Sit,” Galeazzo said, slurring, gesturing at the chair directly across from him. His brother Filippo made an exaggerated show of hurrying to pull the chair out for me, as if I were the duchess. He and the duke laughed, but I curtsied and sat with dignity, placing the box in front of me on the table and resting one hand atop it.

Only the girlish, delicate Ottaviano said hesitantly, “But you are in mourning, Dea. Was the loss recent?”

“My husband,” I answered, and acknowledged his kindness with a nod. At that instant, a wave of grief mixed with rage overtook me, and I resolved that I would speak the truth to Galeazzo without fear. I would have been grateful to incur his wrath and die for it.

“Enough of that,” the duke said, dismissing the gloomy subject with a curt gesture. “She’s going to tell me my fortune for the coming year, boys.” He leveled his dangerous gaze at me; for once, I returned it without disguising my hatred. “Except that this time”—his voice dropped to a malicious whisper—“my luck will be quite good, won’t it, my dear?”

“Can we know our fortunes?” Filippo asked, with inebriated enthusiasm. His face was flushed, his lips crooked in an intoxicated grin. “My lord, may we know, too?”

Ottaviano seconded him so eagerly that the duke waved for silence.

“It all depends,” he said, with a wink to his brothers, “on how cooperative the lady is. And such a lovely lady she has recently become.”

Filippo laughed—half from nerves, half from delight—as the duke reached out and put a warm, sweating hand upon mine. Disgusted, I slipped mine out from under his and instinctively glanced behind me to confirm that Bona was indeed gone, as were all the servants save the duke’s cupbearer and a pair of bodyguards who had appeared silently in front of the closed, and now bolted, doors.

I suppose I should not have been surprised, yet I had always believed that my relationship with Bona protected me, that the duke would no more lay a hand on me than he would his own daughters. For an instant, I considered screaming and pounding on the door, but I had heard too many times how little such behavior availed the other women who sought escape. I could rely only on my wits.

“Your Grace,” I said, with feigned confidence, “I will read your cards. For the sake of accuracy, let us have silence. You must think only of the question you would ask and nothing else.”

“I stated the question,” the duke countered, with a hint of irritation, and slouched forward with both elbows on the table. He propped his chin upon both hands, as if his head had grown too heavy to hold up. “My future for the coming year.”

“Then think on that, Your Grace,” I said coolly, and took the cards from the velvet box. They were warm, as if they had been stored close to a hearth, and despite the fact that they were much larger than playing cards, they shuffled easily this time, as if tailored to my grasp. I mixed them for as long as I dared, praying silently all the while. I saw no point in calling upon God; I spoke to the only one I still trusted.

Matteo, help me. Help me to get out of here untouched and alive.

Filippo broke the silence with a drunken giggle; Ottaviano joined in, but the duke had grown serious and hissed at them to be quiet.

I, too, grew deeply still, and surrendered even my prayers in order to listen to the cards whispering in my hands. Instinct directed me to gather them up, stack them neatly, and push the pile to the center of the dining table, within Galeazzo’s reach.

“Cut them, Your Grace,” I directed. An odd calm descended upon me, turning my feigned confidence into something real, a strange and ancient authority.

Leaning heavily upon his left elbow, chin still propped upon a fist, Galeazzo reached out with his right hand. It was unsteady, and on his first attempt to cut the deck, he dropped the cards, overturning some, and swore.

“No matter, Your Grace,” I said smoothly. “Gather them up, and cut again. It is all as fate wishes it to be.”

By then, Galeazzo was scowling and visibly unnerved. Filippo’s drunken grin had vanished; he and Ottaviano were paying careful attention to their brother’s changing mood. Galeazzo pushed the cards back into a pile and cut them. I placed one stack atop the other, and took them back across the table.

I drew a card from the top of the deck, turned it over, and dropped into another world.

Before me, a glittering marble tower reared up against the bright blue sky, its pinnacle so high that wisps of clouds kissed it. At the top—so far up, they appeared as small as flies—two stonemasons wielded mortar and plane to build ever higher. This was the Tower of Babel, I realized, representing the hubris of man; and as I tilted my head far back to study its apex and the men working there, a roiling indigo cloud rushed from the horizon and enclosed the pinnacle and the men.

It was the wrath of God, this cloud, and it birthed a blue-tinged, blinding bolt of lightning; the crack and roar was so ominous, I shrieked and covered my ears. At the same instant, the Tower exploded, sending shards of shattered marble hurtling to earth. The masons’ screams grew louder as they fell, headfirst, into oblivion. One of them, flailing a steel blade, I recognized as the King of Swords, he who metes out justice. I dropped to my knees and covered my head as he and a second man struck the earth beside me.

Just as swiftly, God’s dark wrath disappeared, and the sky was again an unmarred blue—but the Tower was reduced to a shambles. Beside me lay the body of the second man. Impossibly, he was whole, and his eyes open in stark surprise, but he was no less dead and bloody, pierced through the heart by the King of Swords’ weapon. His hair was a light chestnut, his lips thin, the bridge of his nose marked by a single large bump. He was Duke Galeazzo, and I knew that he had at last paid for his sins, and was glad.

“What does it mean?” Galeazzo demanded, and when I did not immediately reply, his tone changed from impatient to apprehensive. “What does it mean?”

Matteo, help me, I prayed again. I drew a deep breath and spoke the truth. My words were just loud enough to be heard over the crackling fire and the duke’s quickened breath.

“That you will be attacked, my lord, by those against whom you have sinned. That unless you repent immediately and make reparation, you will not live to see the coming year.”

His brothers looked on while Galeazzo let go a ragged gasp of amazement and clumsily pushed himself to his feet. Grimacing with fury, he let go a snarl and raised an arm to strike.

I glared back, defiant and ready to face my own unhappy fate. Matteo was dead, and I did not care to live. Yet it brought me wicked comfort to know that Duke Galeazzo would quake with fear until his own time came.

“You!” he roared, his voice shrill with outrage. “You rotting bitch, how dare you speak to us so! How dare you . . .”

He struck out. The stinging blow caught my upper lip, and almost tipped me backward in my chair. Stubbornly I held on and would not stir from my place, though my lip smarted enough to provoke tears. I refused to shed them, but looked boldly back at him.

“You,” he hissed, his anger transforming in that exhaled word to curiosity. He stared at me, and his eyes narrowed in disbelieving recognition, then widened as his brows rushed together in fear. “Mother of God, it’s her, she’s a ghost! A ghost come back to haunt me! God help me . . . Save me, someone!”

He crossed himself and staggered backward, promptly falling over his own chair; Ottaviano and Filippo rushed to help him. As he struggled back to his feet, his brothers clutching his elbows, he bellowed, “Get her out of here! Get her out!”

I rose, and when the guards caught hold of my arms, I did not struggle, but let myself be pushed through the swiftly opened doors, and flung down upon the cold, hard marble in the loggia. Once there, I sat up and gingerly fingered my lip to find it greatly swollen. I touched my tongue to it, and tasted blood and morbid satisfaction.

Bona was sitting in front of her fireplace beside Caterina and Chiara when I returned from the duke’s chambers. I knew she still felt betrayed over the cards, but at the sight of me, she let go a cry and rushed to embrace me. I put my hands upon her shoulders to comfort her, and when she realized I was otherwise untouched, she let go a sob of relief.

I admit, I was surprised to find Caterina there, wearing an unusually somber expression. Once she learned I was mostly undamaged, however, she grew at once insolent. While Francesca went downstairs to the larder to find a piece of fresh meat for a poultice, Bona made me sit in front of the fire and gently pressed her own kerchief to my lip to staunch the bleeding. She could not bring herself to ask how her husband had behaved, but Caterina, who had settled in the chair beside me, had no such reluctance.

“Did the king appear?” she asked.

Bona, Chiara, and I looked at her in puzzlement.

“The king,” she prompted. “The one with the sword. You drew that card for my father before, when Lorenzo came to visit. Did it come again? Or does some new future await him?”

Bona’s lip curled. “You ought not ask such impertinent questions,” she said, with uncharacteristic asperity. “Let Dea rest. She’s tired and has been through enough.”

Caterina ignored her and turned her whole body toward me. “It must have not been a very good future, or he wouldn’t have hit you.”

Bona was right: I was tired—tired of secrets and lies. And Galeazzo’s reaction had left me with an odd sense of power. No matter what punishment he was planning for me, I no longer cared. I had spoken the truth and it had squarely hit its mark; now I did not want to stop.

“The king was there,” I said, my words muffled by Bona’s kerchief and my huge upper lip. “But he appeared inside another card: the Tower.”

Caterina leaned closer with avid curiosity. “And the Tower means?”

“The wrath of God will strike your father down,” I said flatly, and tried not to care when Bona flinched.

Caterina caught her breath, her eyes oddly bright. “When?”

“I will not hear of this,” Bona interjected. “Fortune-telling is pure wickedness, an abomination. . . . I wish to God that you had never seen those accursed cards! How could you have taken them from me?”

“Soon,” I answered Caterina. To Bona I said, “Forgive me, Your Grace. Of late, my mind seems not to be my own.”

Bona crossed herself. She was on the verge of weeping, I realized, and so I fell silent and answered no more of Caterina’s questions.

The duchess never said anything more about the cards that I had taken without her permission, yet from that moment on, she developed a perceptible coolness toward me. I had stolen from her, and Bona would not forget it.