Light on Lucrezia - By Plaidy, Jean Page 0,79

held her to him for the last time, and released her abruptly as though he could bear no more.

He accompanied her then to the waiting cavalcade. He watched her mount her mule, and he called aloud to her so that all might hear: “God go with you, daughter. The Saints preserve you. Though you are far away from me, I shall do as much for you as though you were here at my side.”

All knew that that was an assurance for Lucrezia, a threat to themselves. If any do harm to my daughter, the wrath of the Vatican will descend upon him.

Slowly the cavalcade moved out of St. Peter’s Square, followed by the 150 carts which contained Lucrezia’s gowns and treasure.

Alexander, from a window of the Vatican, watched Lucrezia on her mule and would not move until she was out of sight.

Then he turned away from the window and shut himself into his private apartments.

“I may never see her again,” he whispered, and for a short while gave himself up to an agony of grief such as he had experienced at the time of Giovanni’s death.

At length he roused himself, shook off his forebodings, and called to his attendants.

“Ferrara,” he said, “is not so very far from Rome.”

V

INTO FERRARA

In her castle which overlooked the River Mincio, Isabella d’Este was growing more and more uneasy with every report which reached her.

She had placed in the retinue which had left Ferrara for Rome a spy whom she could trust, a man who had at one time been a priest. His letters to her were signed El Prete, and he had sworn before he left that he would attach himself to the suite of the lady Lucrezia and that nothing which concerned her should escape his watchful attention. He would send details of every dress she wore, of every word she spoke, so that Isabella should know as much as if she were present.

Isabella soundly rated all her women; during these weeks of preparation her temper, always uncertain, had been more difficult than usual and they had been at their wits’ end to placate her.

Isabella was furious that the Borgia match was to take place; she was also desperately afraid that this girl, of whose attractions her brothers—even pious Sigismondo—wrote so consistently, was going to prove a rival.

“She has dresses such as you have never seen,” wrote Ferrante. And there were El Prete’s descriptions of mulberry velvets, blue brocades and slashed sleeves from which cascades of lace flowed like waterfalls.

Where did she get such dresses? Who made them? she demanded. The lady Lucrezia took great pleasure in planning her own dresses, she was told, and superintended the making of them.

Isabella had looked upon herself as the most elegant lady in Italy. The King of France had asked her to send him dolls wearing exact replicas of her designs. And here was Ferrante writing that she could never have seen such splendid dresses as those worn by the lady Lucrezia!

“I will show her what elegance means!” cried Isabella.

She summoned all her dressmakers to the castle. Rich stuffs were delivered for her approval. There was not a great deal of time if she was to be at the wedding with a wardrobe to put that of the Borgia woman in the shade.

Night and day she kept her sewing women busy while she designed garment after garment. Pearls were sewn on to rich brocade and capes of cloth of gold were lined with blonde lynx. Satins lay draped over tables, in the richest colors procurable.

Isabella paced up and down the great workroom reading extracts from the letters of her brothers and the priest.

“And what is she like?” she cried. “It would seem they are so bemused by her that they cannot write clearly. ‘She is tall and slender and greatly do the gowns she designs herself become her.’ ”

Tall and slender! Isabella ran her hands over her somewhat ample hips.

Her women pacified her as best they might. “She cannot be more slender than you, Marchesa. If she is, she must be hideously thin.”

Isabella’s dark eyes flashed with anger and apprehension. It was bad enough to bring a Borgia into the family, but to have to accept her as a rival—a successful rival—even in only one of the talents at which Isabella excelled, was going to be intolerable.

Although her courtiers might tell her that she was ethereal, that she was slender as a young girl, she knew better. Therefore she began work on dresses which would make