Light on Lucrezia - By Plaidy, Jean Page 0,139

she realized suddenly that she knew very little about this husband of hers. How could it be otherwise when their acquaintance had seemed to begin and end in the bedchamber? And even there he had never confided to her his hopes and ambitions, his likes and dislikes. All she had known was that he wished for sons, and during the time they had been married she had disappointed him in that respect.

He was entering the castle now, and she came down from the balcony to greet him. She was at the entrance of the castle as he reached it and before the eyes of many eager spectators who, she knew, were as curious concerning her future as she was apprehensive, she knelt and kissed her husband’s hand.

Alfonso laid his hands under her armpits and raised her as easily as though she were a child. He kissed her cheeks and everyone applauded. But his kiss, Lucrezia noted, was as cold as the snowflakes which fluttered down upon them.

Then he took her hand and led her in to the banquet; and those festivities began which would go on until the next day when they must put off all signs of rejoicing, change white and red and gold for black, and conduct the old Duke to his last resting place.

The celebrations both of the coronation of the new Duke and the funeral of the old were over, and for the first time, it seemed to Lucrezia, she and her husband were alone together.

Here was the well-known routine. Alfonso, saying nothing, treating her merely as the means of getting children.

After the idyllic relationship with Pietro she was in revolt against this man, and yet when she thought of those sunny hours with Pietro at Medelana and Comacchio there seemed about them an air of unreality; they were light and transient; they could never be repeated.

She realized now that she was afraid of the future, and the knowledge that it lay within the power of this prosaic and cold man was alarming.

Never until this moment had she felt so alone. She thought of those who had stood between her and the ruthless cruelty of the world and, by their own ruthless cruelty which exceeded that of all others, had protected her from evil.

“Oh my father,” she wanted to cry. “You have left me undefended. Cesare is a prisoner and I am alone … at the mercy of Ferrara.”

Alfonso had taken her into his rough embrace.

“It is important now,” he said, “that we should have sons.”

His words seemed to beat on her brain. Did they convey a warning? Sons … sons … and you are safe.

It was like a reprieve.

In a few weeks Lucrezia was pregnant. The Duke expressed his pleasure. Not that he had had any doubt that this would soon be so. He had had numerous children, and Lucrezia had already shown herself capable of bearing them.

He was waiting now for the birth of the heir of Ferrara.

Once my son is born, thought Lucrezia, my place here will be firm.

She knew that Isabella was receiving reports on her conduct; she had made several attempts to lure Pietro Bembo to Mantua and, now that she knew she could not, she was writing to her brother urging him to put an end to the love affair between his wife and the poet.

If you do not, she implied, when your child is born you will have all Ferrara looking for the features of a poet rather than those of a soldier.

Alfonso grunted as he read Isabella’s warning. He knew that the child Lucrezia now carried was his because she had not seen Bembo since long before its conception. He had known of his wife’s fanciful friendship with the poet and had cared not a jot for it. But Isabella was right when she said that the world might suspect his Duchess of foisting on to Ferrara a child not his.

Poets were not the sort of men he felt much sympathy with. As for Lucrezia he had little interest in her apart from the nightly encounters in the bedchamber. She was worthy of his attention then; he did not deny her beauty; she was responsive enough; but he would always prefer the tavern women; Lucrezia’s perpetual washing of her hair and bathing of her body vaguely irritated him. A little grime, a little sweat would have been a fillip to his lust.

Now that she was pregnant he was less frequently in her bedchamber; but he did like to