His Last Duchess Read online

  “Do you mind that?” Giovanni asked, frowning.

  “A little, I suppose.” Lucrezia’s smile was tight and rather apologetic. “Perhaps it’s just that he thinks I shouldn’t wish to do it myself.”

  “Have you asked him?”

  Lucrezia shrugged. It had only been a week since Alfonso had made his opinions on the matter quite plain enough for her not to think of questioning him any further.

  ***

  The Castello kitchens are bigger, better equipped and far more efficient than the old and well-worn rooms at Cafaggiolo but, to Lucrezia’s mind, the rows of stark new red-brick ovens and the almost windowless walls have a great deal less charm. She stands in the doorway, watching the cooks, the vintners, the sweat-soaked scullions, intent upon their myriad tasks. For several moments, in all the noise and the acrid blue smoke-haze, no one notices her. Then a young boy—no more than twelve, Lucrezia thinks—nudges his neighbour and jerks his head in her direction. One by one, like deer at a watering-place newly aware of a possible danger, they look up from what they are doing and stare at her. The activity of the kitchen hangs suspended.

  Lucrezia’s face flames. “Please,” she says, “please don’t stop what you are doing on my account. I only wished to acquaint myself with my new surroundings. Please, carry on.”

  They return to their abandoned tasks, backs bend once more over pots and spits, but one bulky man steps forward, smiles and bows, and Lucrezia smiles too.

  “My lady,” he says, “we are honoured to see you down here. Welcome to Ferrara. Is there anything in particular you wanted to see?”

  Lucrezia shakes her head. “No—I had just hoped to explore the castle a little further today. And…” She hesitates.

  “My lady?”

  Biting her thumbnail, Lucrezia says, “I am a little hungry…”

  The heavy figure stands with his big fingers spread across his hips and laughs. “Well, if my lady is hungry, we must do something about it straight away.” He indicates with an arm that she should accompany him across the kitchen. They cross the big, crowded room together.

  “Now, what would you like, Signora?” he says, reaching into a bowl. “A peach, perhaps?” He throws the peach up in the air, catches it—one-handed and surprisingly deft—then holds it out to her with a bow and a swirling flourish, like a conjuror completing an illusion. “Or why not have a small bowl of ricotta and honey? We have some lovely sweet ricotta fresh in from the dairy this morning.”

  Lucrezia has just begun to decide which of the profferred foods might be the most tempting, when she senses a sudden rigidity in her companion. She turns and sees Alfonso in the doorway she has just left. The disapproval in her husband’s face is naked.

  “Madam, a word, if I may,” Alfonso says. It is hardly louder than a whisper, but it carries across the noise of the kitchens with ease. Lucrezia excuses herself, then joins Alfonso, who takes her by the arm—his grip is painful—and shepherds her away. “I am more than a little surprised to have found you in there, Lucrezia,” he says.

  “I’ve been exploring the Castello.”

  “I thought I made it quite plain that any meal requests, any menu planning, should be relayed to the kitchens by way of Guarniero…”

  “Indeed you did, sir. I was not—”

  “It matters little what you were not doing. What concerns me is what you were doing.”

  Lucrezia’s throat tightens. Alfonso’s eyes are glittering. She senses a cataclysmic rage hovering behind his closed expression—the air between them almost crackles with it, like unheard thunder on a heavy evening—but his voice, when he speaks again, is quiet, and only the faintest tremor betrays his discomposure.

  “Perhaps,” he says, “it would be best if you continued to leave the minutiae of domestic organisation to me. Familiarity such as I have just seen displayed will inevitably lead to inefficiency, and to liberties being taken by the staff. You need not concern yourself with the running of the kitchens.”

  The look he gives her is frightening: blank and unreadable. His gaze flicks to her mouth, rests for a moment upon her breasts, then returns to her face. He says coldly, “I do not expect to see you in the lower regions of the castle again, Lucrezia.”

  ***

  She turned back to Giovanni, her thoughts in fragments, as a gust of wind rattled the leaded lights of the bedchamber window.

  ***

  The crowds cheered as the armour-clad figure pushed up his visor and smiled at Lucrezia. He tilted his lance upwards and held it out towards where she sat in the gallery. Lucrezia reached forward, a long green ribbon in her hand, and tied her favour in a bow around the end of the lance. To her surprise, this felt embarrassingly intimate, and a flush dragged colour into her cheeks. Seeing this, the knight’s smile broadened, but then Lucrezia saw him glance towards Alfonso. The slow-blinking gaze was fixed impassively upon the knight’s face; his smile faded and he reined back, the lance now horizontal, the handle end tucked in against his hip.

  “Why did you choose him?” Alfonso asked quietly, as the knight neck-reined the big grey horse round to the left and jogged noisily back towards the far end of the tiltyard to a ripple of applause, the little green ribbon fluttering cheerfully at the tip of his lance. “Why him, and not any of the others?”

  Lucrezia was unsure how to answer. Still hurt by Alfonso’s continued dismissal of her attempts to establish herself in the castle, she now found herself fighting not to let her resentment show in her voice. “I liked the look of him,” she said. Would her answer anger him? She lifted her chin a fraction of an inch and added, “And I liked his horse better than the others.”

  Alfonso’s mouth twitched. “As good a reason as any, I suppose. What say you, Signore?” He turned to Giovanni.

  “Crezzi has a good eye for a horse, sir. That Percheron is quite something.”

  “It certainly is. And Zudio is a spectacular tiltsman—I’ve seen him on several occasions. You chose well,” Alfonso said to Lucrezia. She managed a smile.

  The combatants edged their horses into position, one on either side of the striped railing at the two furthest ends of the tiltyard. The great animals sidestepped and snorted; one pawed the sand like an angry bull, tossed its head and snatched irritably at its reins. Their riders shifted position and edged their weapons into place.

  To one side of the yard, halfway between the two combatants, a small podium had been draped with the Este colours. On this stood a boy. In his hand was a flag—the Este arms—raised up as high as he could reach.

  The crowd’s murmur died to silence. Each combatant lowered his visor.

  Lucrezia’s fingers were so tightly interlaced they were aching.

  The boy’s face puckered into a grimace of determination as he swept the flag downwards.

  Both horses began to move. Picked up speed. Their hoofs thudded into the sand, both lances now lowered to the horizontal. As they neared the centre, Lucrezia found herself hunching her shoulders and screwing her eyes into slits, pushing her body back into the seat as though to protect herself from the collision.

  She gasped as Zudio’s lance found its target, shattering upon impact; his opponent lurched backwards, but found and held his balance. A surge of noise mushroomed upwards from the crowd. Lucrezia clapped. Giovanni whooped. Alfonso said nothing, but leaned forward and rested folded arms along the edge of the gallery.

  The riders jogged back to their positions and readied themselves once more. Someone reached up and tied Lucrezia’s green favour to the end of Zudio’s new lance and he shifted the weight of the weapon, edging the handle back against his hip. The big Percheron’s front feet left the ground and hung in the air for a second. Lucrezia held her breath. Seeing the great arched neck and the muscled legs as the hoofs thudded down, she was suddenly awed by the horse’s power, sensing the vigour and energy and raw maleness in the scene before her, that maleness that was still so tangled and confused and distressing in her bedchamber. As Zudio and his opponent cha
rged again, it seemed to Lucrezia that their outstretched lances were mocking her and Alfonso. Was her husband thinking the same as she was? His eyes were bright, his gaze riveted on the two combatants. The hot, hooking thread slithered down through her belly as she wondered if this exhilarating exhibition of such uninhibited, thrusting power might finally break through her husband’s inexplicable barrier. Perhaps this would be enough to—

  Giovanni whistled and whooped again.

  The crowd burst into applause.

  Lucrezia turned her attention back to the tilt.

  Zudio was pushing his visor up. His right hand, in which he held a second shattered lance, was held high. The Percheron was once more on its hind legs, and, sprawled on the sand on the far side of the spiral-striped balustrade was the other knight, already pushing himself awkwardly up onto his elbows. His horse, reins flapping loose, was trotting away towards the furthest corner of the tiltyard, where several young men were poised to recapture it.

  “A resounding success for the chosen combatant, Lucrezia,” Alfonso said, clapping enthusiastically. He looked sideways at her, his gaze moving from her eyes to her mouth and back. Lucrezia smiled at him.

  ***

  “She’s quite a find, Este. In the event, the Medici have done you proud.”

  Agnese de Rovigo said nothing as her husband leaned towards Alfonso and thus offered his delighted approval of the new Duchess of Ferrara. Alfonso could see, however, that Agnese’s black eyes were fixed upon Lucrezia, who was at that moment happily engaged in conversation with one of the courtiers.

  “Not your usual type, Alfonso,” she whispered, as her husband then turned to speak to another guest. “What was it you called her family just before your betrothal? ‘Nothing but a long line of mercantile upstarts,’ was it not?”

  Alfonso raised an eyebrow. There was, he thought, more than a touch of venom in the remark, and he was forcibly reminded of the relief he had felt some years before, when the unexpected arrival of Francesca had put an end to his liaison with this woman, the admittedly beautiful, but rapaciously demanding Contessa de Rovigo. He did not believe she had ever fully accepted the cessation of the affair—certainly, to look at her now, one would have thought her the wronged wife rather than the discarded mistress she actually was. But, he supposed, as he glanced across at Lucrezia, Agnese was quite right. This boyish, copper-haired, unsophisticated girl—coming from a line of upstarts or not—was indeed unlike any woman he had ever bedded.

  Or had at least attempted to bed.

  A tangle of images patchworked in his mind: the pounding hoofs of those two horses this afternoon; Lucrezia’s small fingers tying the favour around Zudio’s lance tip—and her charming confusion upon realising the symbolism of what she was doing; the admiration on the faces of his guests tonight at the sight of his new duchess; the silky skin of Lucrezia’s breasts under his fingers; the great curved neck of Zudio’s Percheron…the pictures pushed in one after the other. He resolutely refused to let himself think of his discovery of his duchess in the kitchens the other day: she had been smiling up at that great lump of a cook as though she admired him…and at least two of the menials had been eyeing her breasts. It was not to be condoned. But a shameful, childish part of him secretly rejoiced at the thought of bedding a woman he knew was desired by his underlings. Alfonso began to feel a creeping certainty that tonight, at last, in the face of this almost universal approbation of his choice of bride, he would finally be able to overcome the incomprehensible obstacles to consummation that had so far so horribly hindered their union.

  Almost universal approbation.

  Agnese de Rovigo’s naked jealousy was obvious—but this merely fuelled his certainty. He compared Lucrezia to the debauched sybarite who was now positively scowling at him; though he had thoroughly enjoyed the many energetic hours he had once spent coupling with the contessa, he had come to understand, as did every man who took Agnese into his bed (and there were many), that despite her beauty, she was at heart little more than an unthinking trollop. Alfonso felt as suddenly proud of his own aesthetic sensitivities as he felt sorry for Agnese’s ignorant cuckold of a husband. He turned to the contessa and laid a hand on her arm. He felt her flinch but kept hold of her sleeve. Stroking her wrist with his thumb, he said quietly, “You are quite right, Agnese. Not at all my usual type. But, then, one’s taste improves with age, so I’ve been told.”

  She said nothing, but stared at his hand on her wrist. Her breathing deepened and for a moment he watched the upper swell of her breasts rise and fall, pushing at the constraining neckline of her bodice. And then, knowing well how little she would enjoy the encounter, he gripped her arm more firmly and said, “But, Agnese, you must meet the duchess—Lucrezia!”

  Lucrezia turned.

  “Come here!” he said. “There is someone I should like you to meet.”

  Lucrezia laid a small hand on the arm of the courtier. She smiled at him as she excused herself. Alfonso saw the boy smile in return and—entirely unexpectedly—a flash of raw, screaming, black jealousy suddenly obliterated the banqueting hall, the guests and the whore of a countess who still stood unwittingly beside him. For an instant he saw and heard nothing. Then he felt Lucrezia at his side and looked down at her. The corners of her mouth crooked again as she met his gaze, desire drove rage before it, and in its wake, the noise and colour of the banqueting hall surged back into vivid life.

  “Lucrezia,” Alfonso said, more calmly than he felt, “this is Agnese, the Contessa de Rovigo. Agnese, my duchess.”

  “It is a great pleasure to meet you,” Lucrezia said sweetly. Agnese de Rovigo did not smile. Her face twisted into a parody of polite interest, though Alfonso could sense a tremor in the arm he still held, and knew at once that he was not the only person in the room experiencing the torments of frustrated lust. Her discomfiture pleased him, however. Agnese’s self-centred hedonism had long since become so boring that Alfonso found himself now thoroughly enjoying seeing it thwarted by his diminutive duchess, despite his own frustration with Lucrezia.

  The desire to provoke Agnese gripped him, like the urge to prod a sleeping dog. “I have known Agnese for many years, Lucrezia,” he said. “I really feel that you two should make an effort to spend some time becoming acquainted. You would find her an excellent source of information about the duchy and its traditions, and…” Alfonso paused “…she probably has a fair amount to tell you about me, too.”

  Agnese’s face stiffened with shock at the impropriety and Lucrezia’s mouth opened. Alfonso watched them for a moment, amused by the spectacle, until Ricardo de Rovigo—the “ignorant cuckold”—turned back from his conversation and exclaimed delightedly to see Lucrezia at such close quarters. “Why, Signora,” he said, bowing extravagantly, “what a privilege!”

  Agnese rolled her eyes and snatched her wrist from Alfonso’s grasp.

  “I trust,” Rovigo said, “that you are finding ways of making yourself comfortably at home in this great sarcophagus of a castle?” He beamed at her.

  “The Castello is indeed very big,” Lucrezia agreed, “but each day I find myself a little more familiar with it.”

  “Well said, my lady, well said! A diplomatic answer! But what you actually mean is, you agree with me that it is a vast, old-fashioned, comfortless fortress. A couple of generations of the Estes have attempted—unsuccessfully, I might add—to convince the Ferrarese that it has been transformed into a palace, but in the end a comfortless fortress it remains. And you are far too well bred to admit it.”

  “I should not dream of speaking so ill of my new home, Signore,” Lucrezia said. She smiled as she spoke and Alfonso found himself watching her mouth. He wanted to speak to Rovigo, and turned to his friend, but felt his head move for at least a second before he was able to drag his gaze from Lucrezia’s slightly parted lips.

  He said, attempting an amicable tone, “You take considerable liberties, sir, from your necessarily humble position as guest in my oversized and underheated
sarcophagus.”

  “Indeed I do, Este, indeed I do—safe in the knowledge that a host as magnanimous as yourself will take such pleasantries in the spirit in which they were uttered. Merely in jest, sir, merely in jest.”

  “Of course.”

  Agnese took Ricardo’s arm and, with naked antagonism, stared haughtily at Alfonso and Lucrezia, before steering her unfortunate husband away across the hall.

  “Did I say something to offend the contessa?” Lucrezia asked.

  “I shouldn’t worry. I don’t think it was what you said, rather what you are.”

  Lucrezia was clearly distressed. Her eyes were round and anxious. Alfonso looked at her for several long seconds, with what he hoped was a clear declaration of his intentions.

  ***

  After eleven courses, almost every guest at the great Christmas banquet at the Castello Estense was wondering if they had room enough for even another mouthful—but according to the servants, yet one more course still remained. Even Giovanni, Lucrezia noticed, had slowed the pace of his eating.

  It had certainly been a spectacular occasion. Not only had the food been extravagant beyond anything Lucrezia had yet seen, but the music that had accompanied each course had been exquisite: blaring trumpets with the venison, flutes with the fish and a singer with a lute when oysters and fruit had been served. Pasta dishes and salads had been brought in by dozens of men in bright Ferrarese peasant costume, with flowers in their hair, and the candied fruit, sweets and cakes had been accompanied by a team of jugglers. Lucrezia had watched, speechless, as they had astounded the company by juggling not just balls, but fruit, knives, spoons and—most breathtaking of all—glassware. Not one thing had broken, and when they had finished juggling, they had tumbled round all three long tables and out of the hall to resounding cheers and applause.

  Lucrezia finished the wine in her glass. A servant appeared at her side and refilled it immediately, and she turned back to continue the conversation she had been having with the man on her left. Slight, curly-haired, with a thin-bridged, beaky nose, Francesco Panizato was one of Alfonso’s few close friends.