Light on Lucrezia - By Plaidy, Jean Page 0,143

“It is from Alfonso. Ippolito has complained about your storming of his castle and freeing your chaplain who, Ippolito claims, insulted him. Alfonso is weary of the strife within the family, and he says that Giulio must immediately leave us. You are to go far away from trouble, Giulio, far away from us all.”

Angela let out a wail, and Giulio’s eyes flashed. “I’ll not go,” he declared.

“Giulio, Angela, you must think of your future. You must obey Alfonso. Only if you do, shall I be able to persuade him to agree to your marriage.”

And after a passionate leave-taking of Angela, Giulio left.

During the heat of September Lucrezia’s baby was born. She called him Alexander, for as she held him in her arms she believed that he might bring her a joy which would help her to forget the loss of that other Alexander.

But the baby was very small. He did not cry; he lay very still; he did not want to be fed. There was surely something wrong with a child who did not cry and did not want his food.

She longed for a word from Alfonso but there were only the letters from Pietro and Francesco to bring comfort.

And one morning when Alexander was scarcely four weeks old Lucrezia awoke with a terrible sense of foreboding. She knew that her baby was dead.

A letter from Francesco Gonzaga brought her out of her melancholy.

His condolences, his most tender thoughts, he sent to her. He knew how she must be suffering. He thought of her constantly in that gloomy town of Reggio. If she would forgive the presumption, he would say that she was unwise to stay there. Let her leave Reggio and all its memories; she should not remain, brooding on her tragedy. She should return to Ferrara, and she should do this by barge, which would be so much more comfortable in her present circumstances. He would suggest that she break her journey at Borgoforte, a small fortress in his possession, on the banks of the Po. It would give him the utmost pleasure there to wait upon her, and entertain her. He was a rough soldier and was no poet to charm her with words, but he could offer something of equal value, he believed. For instance he knew how she suffered on account of her brother’s imprisonment. If they met they could discuss this sad matter. Who knew, he—as a soldier—might be able to suggest some means of alleviating her brother’s suffering. And this he would be at great pains to do, because he knew that the suffering of her brother was hers also.

That letter roused her out of her apathy.

She read it through and read it again, and she found that a smile was curving her lips because she was comparing his blunt phrases with those flowery ones of the poet, Pietro Bembo.

But Francesco was right. What she needed now was a soldier’s help for Cesare. Only in helping her brother could she forget her own misery.

Alfonso’s neglect—he was clearly annoyed by the death of the boy and seemed to blame her, first for bringing a sickly child into the world and then losing it—had hurt her deeply, and this gallant soldier’s tender interest soothed her, wiped away her humiliation.

She called her servants together and cried: “Make ready to leave. I am weary of this place. We shall travel back to Ferrara by barge. But first we shall stop at Borgoforte.”

There was bustle throughout the apartment. The atmosphere had lightened.

Everybody knew that they would now begin to move away from the tragedy which had been wrought by the death of little Alexander.

Francesco was hastily trying to transform the meagre fortress—which was all he possessed at Borgoforte—into a palace worthy to receive the woman he was hoping to make his mistress.

He had not been so excited since the days of his early youth. Lucrezia was different from all other women. That mingling of latent passion, that serenity—they were such an odd combination.

The enchantment of Lucrezia lay partly in the fact that there could not be a woman less like Isabella in the whole of Italy.

The gentle Lucrezia … the domineering Isabella. How different! He believed he was on the verge of the greatest love affair he had ever experienced.

Recently she had been said to be the mistress of a poet. Was she in truth his mistress? Had there been physical love between those two? No one had proved that. They had wandered in gardens together and he