by Jean Plaidy
Del Forno was only too glad to obey; and when he had gone, Isabella angrily asked herself why Lucrezia should be able to inspire such devotion, not only in Francesco, but in a purely Platonic way as it seemed she had with Strozzi.
She was more jealous of the girl than ever. One would have thought that, with her father and her brother dead and the name of Borgia no more of importance to the world, she would have been defeated. But no! For always there were some to rally round her.
Francesco was far away, but she still had Strozzi—Strozzi, the power in Ferrara, the lame poet who had taken Barbara Torelli and made a public heroine of her with his verses about her, who was no doubt after the dowry which the Bentivoglio were determined they would not relinquish.
Strozzi must have many enemies in Ferrara. There were not only Alfonso, who disliked him because he was a poet, and Ippolito, who objected to his influence over Lucrezia; there were the Bentivoglio who were violent people and very loath to part with money.
Isabella was thoughtful. Then she wrote to Ippolito.
“I pray that this letter may be burned, as I burn yours,” she finished. “This I ask for the sake of my honor and benefit.”
On a hot June night that chaplain who had been Cesare’s faithful servant, and therefore especially cherished by Lucrezia, left her apartments for his own quarters in the Convent of San Paolo.
It was a dark night and, as he came along the narrow streets, two men leaped upon him and one silently seized him while the other, equally silent, lifted his dagger and cut the innocent priest’s throat. Lightly they dropped the body on to the stones and crept away.
Next morning Lucrezia was heartbroken to discover that she had lost a trusted friend.
Strozzi came to see her that day.
His happiness in the baby girl Barbara Torelli had just given him was clouded by this tragic happening.
“What means it?” asked Lucrezia.
He looked at her obliquely. “Of course it may have been robbery.”
“Who would murder a poor priest for his money?”
“There are some who would murder any for the sake of one ducat.”
“I am afraid,” said Lucrezia. “I believe he has died because my enemies know that he is my friend. How I wish Francesco would come, that I might tell him of my fears.”
Lucrezia began to weep quietly. She had loved the priest, she said; and what harm had he ever done in his life? He had done only good.
Seeing her in this mood of despair Strozzi said they would write to Francesco and beg him to come to comfort her for, reasoned Strozzi to himself, Francesco would know how to take care of himself, and none would dare harm him. Moreover he feared that if her lover did not come, Lucrezia would lapse into melancholy.
“Come to see your Barbara (Lucrezia),” wrote Strozzi. “Show her that you love her, for she wants nothing else in the world.”
The letter was dispatched, and he left Lucrezia to visit Barbara who, in bed with her baby, had not heard the news of the priest’s death. He gave instructions to her woman that she should not be told. Barbara’s clear mind might read something in that death which would make her very uneasy, and a woman after child-birth needed the serene happiness which he had always sought to give her.
He left Barbara happy, after they had discussed the future of their child; he then shut himself in with his work and wrote a little of the elegy he was composing. Reading it through afterward he thought it sounded melancholy. He had written of death—although he had not intended to—for the memory of the priest’s murder would not be dismissed from his mind.
Later that day he went again to see Barbara and when he left her apartment he limped back to his own house, the sound of his stick echoing through the quiet streets. It was at the corner of via Praisolo and via Savonarola that the ambush caught him.
He had half expected it. He had arranged other people’s lives to such an extent that he knew that this was the inevitable end of the drama.
He was unarmed. Their daggers were raised against him. He faced them almost scornfully. He knew who his enemies were; it was the house of Este who wished him removed. It was Alfonso who saw him as the man who had arranged his wife’s love affairs with Pietro Bembo and Francesco Gonzaga; it was Ippolito who was determined to isolate Lucrezia from all those who might seek to make a political figure of her; it was the Bentivoglio family who feared he would discover some means of wresting Barbara’s dowry from them.
Then suddenly he did know fear. It was for Barbara. He thought of all the miseries she had endured; he thought of her at this moment, weak from child-birth. Barbara would be alone once more, alone in a cruel world.
But there was no time for thought. Strozzi sank fainting against the wall of casa Romei, while his enemies, determined that this should be the end, bent over him and thrust their daggers again and again into his dying body.
Lucrezia was bewildered. Cesare, her chaplain and now Strozzi—all lost to her. She was frightened; never before had she felt such a stranger in a strange land.
There was only one person in the world now to whom she could turn: Francesco.
Francesco must come to her. No matter what obstacles lay between them, he must come.
But who would now write those letters for her? Who would make sure that they reached their destination? By striking at Strozzi her enemies had cut her off from Francesco, the only man in the world who would help her.
She summoned Strozzi’s brothers, Lorenzo and Guido, to her; she wept with them over their brother’s death and she implored them to send a message for her to Francesco. “There is no one else whom I can trust,” she said. “You are his brothers, and you will do this for me.”
They did so and Francesco’s response was to offer a reward of five hundred ducats to any man or woman who could name the murderer of Ercole Strozzi.
The reward brought no murderer to light and, since little effort was made in Ferrara (where the police were famous for their successful work) to bring the murderer to justice, it became clear to Lucrezia that, whoever had committed the murder, it had been done with the connivance of Alfonso and his brother.
The desolate weeks passed. She would sit by the baby’s cradle, brooding. Only in him could she find comfort, yet she longed for a strong arm to lean on, and she realized that never before had she lacked that support. She saw herself clearly, saw that she lacked the self-reliance of a woman such as Isabella, that she had been dominated by her father and her brothers to such an extent that she felt limp and bewildered when forced to stand alone. She needed Francesco, yet he did not come.
Again she wrote to him, pleading, begging him not to forsake her. She would go to Reggio, and the journey from Borgoforte to Reggio was not a long one. She must see him, if it were only a brief meeting. She needed him as she never had before.
She set out for Reggio, and there she waited in feverish impatience.
Isabella watched Francesco with malicious lights in her eyes.
“Why do you not take a little holiday?” she asked. “You are looking strained, husband.”
He tried to read the thoughts behind her eyes. Was it true that she wished him to go to Lucrezia, that he might be murdered as Strozzi and the chaplain had been?
Isabella … Regent of Mantua. It was what she wanted, and if the life of her husband stood between her and that goal, she was ready to sacrifice him.
Francesco was torn between his desire to see Lucrezia and his need to preserve his life, between his wish to comfort his mistress and the triumph of outwitting his wife.
Just a short visit, he promised himself. A little trip to Reggio. It could be a walk into a death-trap. They have killed Strozzi so that we can no longer arrange our communications; they have stripped her of her friends, left her desolate so that I shall go needlessly into the trap they have prepared for me. They know she will implore me to go to her, because without Strozzi to warn her, how can she understand that this is a gigantic plot either to kill or to ruin us both
?
He replied to her, that he longed to be with her but he was unwell and was in fact too ill to travel at this time.
When at Reggio Lucrezia received his letter she was filled with anxiety. Francesco ill; then she must go to him. She would not lose a moment. She called to her attendants and told them that they were leaving next day for Mantua.
She could scarcely sleep that night, so eager was she for the journey. She lay restlessly waiting for the dawn.
Daylight brought visitors to the castle—important visitors, she knew, for there was a great commotion below and, as Lucrezia started up from her bed, Alfonso himself strode into the room.
He stood, legs wide apart, laughing at her.
“What’s this I hear?” he said. “You plan to travel to Mantua?”
“Our brother is sick,” she answered him, although her voice shook with fear. “As I am not far distant I thought it but courteous …”
Alfonso’s laugh was louder. “You thought it courteous! The reason for your intended courtesy is well known. You are not going to Mantua to visit your lover.”
“I have made my arrangements.”
“Then we will unmake them.”
“Alfonso, what can it matter to you?”
“It matters this,” he said. He came to the bed and taking her by the shoulders shook her angrily. “You are my wife and Duchess of Ferrara. We have an heir, but we should have many children. Ercole needs brothers.”
“That … that he may … bury them alive?” she cried with a show of spirit.
He swung his heavy hand across her face. “That is for your insolence,” he said. And he repeated the action. “And that is for thinking to cuckold me and bring flat-nosed bastards into my house.”
She cowered back in the bed. Alfonso’s sudden burst of anger had passed. “No nonsense,” he said. “Daylight is here. You will dress, and we shall return to Ferrara without delay.”
“I have sent word that I am visiting our brother’s sick-bed.”
“Sick-bed! He’s in no sick-bed. He tells you so, hoping to excuse himself for not coming to you now. There is nothing wrong with Francesco Gonzaga. He is a man of good sense. He knows when it is unwise to continue a flirtation.” He put his face close to hers. “And that time has now come,” he added.
She leaped out of her bed. “Alfonso,” she cried, “I will not be treated thus. I am not one of your tavern women. I am not the bonnet-maker’s daughter.”
“Nay,” he said, “you lack their freedom. You are the Duchess of Ferrara, and in future you shall never forget it. Prepare yourself. I am in a hurry and impatient to return.”
“You forget that I am Lucrezia Borgia, and when I married you …”
“I forget nothing. Yours was a name which carried some weight in Italy. It was no credit to you. Your glory came from your father. Now he is dead, and your brother is dead, and the power of the Borgias is broken forever. So subdue that pride which cries ‘I am a Borgia!’ Be wise, woman. Cultivate modesty. Bear me children and I shall then have nothing of which to complain.”
So she came to Ferrara; and as she rode beside her husband she seemed to hear his words echoing in her ears. Alexander is dead, and with him died the power of the Borgias; Cesare is dead, and with him died all hope.
As they came near to the castle she looked up at the highest tower and she thought of the two young men who were prisoners and would remain there for the rest of their lives.
She rode with Alfonso into the castle, and she felt as the walls closed about her that she too was a prisoner, sharing their fate.
There was a pain in her heart and a longing to see a loved face again; and the cry which rose up within her was not Francesco, but Cesare.
EPILOGUE
Lucrezia was pregnant. How many times in the last ten years had she been pregnant! And each one left her a little weaker and a little less able to endure the next. Yet never had she felt so ill as she did now. She was growing old, although at times she still looked like a girl, for she had remained slender and her face had never lost its look of innocence. She had remained serene, accepting her fate since the day Alfonso had brought her back to Ferrara and had told her so clearly that her future depended on her ability to do her duty.
Little Ippolito had been born after that, and Alfonso was not displeased. Two sons now for Ferrara. Young Ercole had continued healthy.
What pleasure there had been in the children! They had provided all the happiness of the last years. Alfonso’s pre-occupation with the wars which had at one time threatened Ferrara had kept him away from her for so long that after Ippolito there was no other child until little Alexander was born. Poor Alexander, that ill-fated name! The first of her children by Alfonso had been Alexander who had lived less than two months; her second Alexander had died at the age of two years, which was even more heartbreaking. But by that time she had her little Eleonora, and Francesco, the baby, had come the following year.
She had recaptured her youth playing games with them in the castle. Games of battles and hide-and-seek, and in those games never, never going near the great tower in which two men—young no longer—remained shut away from the world.
When they were tired of games they would call to the quaintest of the dwarfs, Santino, whom they would stand on the table that he might tell his wonderful fairy stories. And as he talked others would creep in from all parts of the palace, lured by the spell of the teller of tales.
Those were happy times.
She had now ceased to grieve for Francesco Gonzaga. He had remained her very good friend, and had wanted to tell her of the plots against them, of the reasons why he had thought it necessary to make illness his excuse for not visiting her. Yet they had discovered a means of continuing to correspond, and through this she had at one time found her greatest happiness.
There had been a time when he had been captured in battle by the Venetians, and kept in prison where he had suffered deeply. It was then that the whole world came to know Isabella as she really was, for she had refused to allow her son to become a hostage for his father, even though there could have been no danger to the boy; and it had become clear then that Isabella wanted her husband to die, and that she hoped the melancholy dankness of his prison would kill him.
Francesco had never been the same man after that, but there had been a return of hope, a sudden outburst of passion when the Papal forces rose against Ferrara, and Gonzaga planned to carry her away as his prisoner. He had prepared the Palazzo de Té to receive her, and the letters which passed between them at that time were like those of young lovers.
It was a dream which was never to materialize. Alfonso was too good a soldier, and his beloved cannon served him well.
Francesco was now dead; he had died at the beginning of this year and Isabella was at last triumphant. But how short-lived was that triumph as her son Federico soon showed his determination to rule alone, and the death of her husband for which she had longed brought no power to Isabella.
Lying back in her bed Lucrezia thought of all the unhappiness which need never have been. She thought of the malice of Isabella and the murder of Strozzi and the chaplain. She thought of her love for her young husband, Alfonso of Bisceglie, and of his wanton murder by one whom she had never ceased to love, more she believed than any she had ever known.
It might have been so different. She had wished to live happily and serenely, away from violence, but the milestones of her life were stained with blood.
She was in pain again and with pain came flashes of a memory which seemed to impose itself on the present; she saw the handsome face of Pedro Caldes and remembered the anguish of the love they had shared in San Sisto. There had been many reminders of that love when she had had Giovanni Borgia, the Infante Romano and son of Pedro, brought to her in Ferrara. Alfonso had at last relented and allowed her that, although Roderigo, the son of Alfonso of Bisceglie, had never been allowed to come to her. Poor Giovanni, he had been a wayward boy and she feared he would never
make his way in the world. As for Roderigo she would never see him again; he had died some years before.
“Why should you grieve for him?” Alfonso had demanded. “Have you not healthy sons in Ferrara?”
But she did grieve. She grieved for the past, which had been so sad and might have been so different.
Pain had seized her although the child was not due until August. She called to her women, and they came hurrying to her bedside.
That night a seven-months child, a daughter, was born; the child sickly, refusing to take nourishment, was hurriedly baptized.
Lucrezia lay in a fever.
Her long rippling hair hung heavily about her shoulders. She lifted her patient eyes to those who watched her, and implored them to alleviate her pain.
“Your hair, Madonna,” they murmured, “it is so heavy. Shall we cut it off? It would mean great comfort to you.”
She hesitated. She could not clearly remember where she was. She thought of long afternoons, lying on a couch in a Moorish shirt, her hair damp about her; she remembered washing it with Giulia Farnese whose hair had been similarly golden.
Cut off her hair, of which she had been so proud? She would not have believed that she could ever consent to such an action.
But the heat was unendurable, the pain intense and she was so tired.
She nodded slowly, and lay quietly listening to the click of the scissors.
Alfonso came to look at her, and she saw the alarm in his face.
I am dying, she thought.
Alfonso had moved away from the bed, and was beckoning to the doctors. “What hope?” he asked.