Light on Lucrezia - By Plaidy, Jean Page 0,89

the fact that Giovanni Sforza had thought better of attending the wedding. He must, thought Lucrezia, have realized that, in endeavoring to humiliate her he might bring down scorn on his own head; he had therefore stopped short of Ferrara and turned back.

Nicola had brought her the news while she was dressing. She had had it, she said, from Don Ferrante who had expressed his delight and was eager that she should carry the news immediately to her mistress.

Thankful for this small blessing, Lucrezia rode on, her whole attention demanded by the spirited horse which reared and pranced from side to side and was clearly displeased with his burden.

Lucrezia was at home in the saddle, and she believed she could have mastered the creature if she had been on the slopes of Monte Mario or galloping across the meadows; it was a very different matter being the center of pageantry and forced to restrain him.

Isabella, looking startling in a dress of her own design, which was calculated to outshine Lucrezia’s wedding dress, and watching Lucrezia’s expert handling of the gray horse, grudgingly admitted to herself that Lucrezia was a horsewoman; and what was more to the point although she must be feeling uncomfortable, being forced to ride such a horse at such a time, her serene smiles were undiminished and if she was a little alarmed she gave no sign of it.

But when the fireworks display began, the terrified horse reared suddenly and there was a cry of alarm. Isabella watched exultantly until she realized that it was not Lucrezia who had cried out, but one of the spectators.

“It is dangerous!” cried a voice in the crowd. “No fit horse for the bride.”

Alfonso spoke to his men, and a mule, almost as splendidly caparisoned as the gray horse, was brought forward and Lucrezia was urged to change mounts for the sake of the crowd.

With infinite grace she leaped from the horse and mounted the mule. There was a gasp of admiration in the crowd, for the person least perturbed by the incident seemed to be Lucrezia.

Disgusted, Isabella turned her horse away from the procession and with some of her women rode by a different route to the castle. She was no longer interested in Lucrezia’s ride now that the bride was on a safe mule, and wanted to place herself in the most prominent position at the foot of the great staircase so that she, in her magnificent gown which was embroidered with quavers and crotchets and which she had called “pauses in music,” might receive the guests and do everything in her power to assure everyone that she was the most important woman that day in the castle of Ferrara.

The tiring day was over. Lucrezia’s women clustered about her to help her undress. They removed the mulberry and gold gown and the jeweled headdress; they combed the long golden hair.

There were those who wanted to play the familiar old jokes, indulge in crude wedding customs; but Lucrezia was anxious that they should not do so, and made her wishes clear.

Isabella and Elizabetta who, had she wished for horseplay, would have called her vulgar, now chose to be shocked by her aloof attitude and lack of humor.

But this was Lucrezia’s wedding night. She feared that the jokes as arranged by Isabella might include references to her previous marriages. She was adamant, and such was her quiet dignity that her wishes were respected.

Alfonso entered. Unconcerned as to whether they were subjected to the usual crude practical jokes or not, he was ready to spend half the night with his bride.

So this wedding night was very different from that which she had shared with another Alfonso; but she had reason to believe that her husband was not displeased with her.

She would be glad when the night was over, for she was disconcerted by the presence of all those who, the Pope had insisted, should watch the nuptials so that he could be assured that the marriage had been well and truly consummated.

Very shortly afterward—in as short a time as a messenger could ride from Ferrara to Rome—Alexander was reading accounts of the wedding.

The details were explained to him: the entry into Ferrara, the magnificence of his daughter in mulberry and gold, her expert management of a frisky horse, the honor which was done to her.

Duke Ercole was now writing enthusiastically of his daughter-in-law. Her beauty and charm surpassed all he had heard of her, he wrote to the Pope. “And our son,