I
Beatrice, the duchess, used every Friday to bathe her hair, and then tincture it with gold, after which she dried it in the sunshine. For her convenience she had caused balustraded 'altane,' or platforms, to be erected on the roof of the splendid ducal villa of the Sforzesca, which stood on the right bank of the Ticino, near the fortress of Vigevano, among the fat pastures and the ever green water-side meadows of the province of Lomellina. Here, then, she sat, patiently supporting the blazing heat at an hour when even husbandmen and their oxen were wont to creep into the shadow. She wore a schiavinetta—a loose white silk wrapper without sleeves. On her head was a kind of straw sunshade, or hat, from the opening in the top of which flowed out the broad masses of her gilded and rippling hair. An olive-skinned Circassian slave was moistening the hair with a sponge, fixed on the point of a spindle; and a Tartar, slit-eyed and crooked, was combing it with an ivory comb.
The dye was made in May of the roots of walnut trees, saffron, ox-gall, swallows' lime, ambergris, bears' claws, and the fat of lizards. Close beside the duchess, and watched by herself, an infusion of musk roses and precious spices was simmering in a long-necked retort, upon a tripod over an invisible flame.
Both the waiting-maids were bathed in perspiration; even the duchess's lapdog was ill at ease on this burning altana, and, panting and lolling out his tongue, gazed reproachfully at his mistress, nor responded as usual to the provocation of the monkey. The latter was luxuriating in the heat, however, like the negro page, who held the gemmed and jewelled mother-o'-pearl mirror.
Though the Lady Beatrice constantly endeavoured to compose countenance and deportment to the severity becoming her rank, it was hard to believe that she was nineteen, had been married three years, and had borne two children. In the girlish roundness of her dark cheek, in the childish dimple, the slender throat, the chin too plump; in the full lips tightly compressed as if always tempted to pout; in the slight shoulders and flat bosom; in the abrupt boyish movements, she appeared still a schoolgirl, spoiled, wilful, restless and even selfish. Yet prudence and intelligence shone from the steady, dark eyes; and the Venetian ambassador, Marino Sanuto, most astute of statesmen, had written in his private letters to his government that this girl was hard as flint, and gave him far more trouble than did her husband, Il Moro; who indeed showed his wisdom by obeying her about everything.
The dog barked angrily, and up the winding stair which led to the altana came laboriously an old woman habited like a widow. In one hand she held a crutch, in the other a rosary; the wrinkles in her face might have given her a reverend aspect, had not the withered mouth smiled hypocritically, and the eyes sparkled with audacious cunning.
'Ugh, ugh! How detestable is old age! I could hardly drag myself hither. May the Lord preserve youth and health to your Excellency,' said the old woman, kissing the hem of the schiavinetta.
'Well, Monna Sidonia, is it ready?'
The crone drew from her pouch a carefully wrapped, closely-stoppered phial, containing a turbid, whitish liquid,—the milk of a red goat and of an ass, distilled with wild anise, asparagus, and white lilies.
'In good sooth, her Excellency should keep it two little days more in good horse litter. Yet it can be used at once if needful; only first strain it through a filter. Wet with it crumbs of stale bread, and then be pleased to rub your noble countenance for such a period as would take the reciting of three credos. In five weeks' time all swarthiness will be removed, and pimples beside.'
'Hearken, old woman,' said Beatrice; 'in this lotion there are again, mayhap, some of the abominable things used in black magic,—snakes' fat, perchance, or plovers' blood; or powdered lizards, fried in a frying-pan; such as there were in that unguent you gave me for withering the hair in my cheek-moles. If it be so, tell me at once.'
'Your Excellency should not lend her ear to the calumnies of the malignant. I work honestly, as my conscience dictates; but no one can do without dirt sometimes. The magnificent Madonna Angelica, for example, all last year washed her head with dogs' urine, so as to preserve her hair, which was falling out; and thanked God and me it cured her.' Then, bending down to the duchess's ear, she told the latest gossip:—how the young wife of the Master of the Guild of the Salters, the lovely Madonna Filiberta was deceiving her husband with a Spanish cavalier, and diverting herself hugely.
'And doubtless,' said Beatrice, jestingly threatening with her finger, ''twas you who brought the poor thing to it, you old bawd!'
'Does your Excellency call her poor? Nay, she sings me her thanks every hour. Now she knows the difference between the kiss of a spouse and the kiss of a lover.'
'But the sin? Doth not her conscience bite her?'
'Her conscience? Madam, I hold the sin of love the work of nature. And a few drops of holy water can wash the sin away. Madonna Filiberta is but giving her spouse a Roland for his Oliver.'
'Is your meaning that likewise the husband——'
'Say it for certain, I do not—but sure it is that all married men harp on one string. There is none of them but would sooner have a single hand than a single wife.'
The duchess laughed. 'Ah, Monna Sidonia, Monna Sidonia, there's no tripping you! But where do you learn all these things?'
'Believe the word of an old woman; what I tell you is gospel truth. And in matters of conscience I know the difference between a beam and a mote. All fruit gets ripe in its season. If she have not her fill of love when she be young, a woman will fall into such longing when she is old, that she will go straight into the claws of the devil.'
'You preach like a doctor of theology.'
'Nay, I am unlearned; but I speak from my heart, and I tell your Excellency that youth comes but once in life; for what the devil—Lord forgive me!—is the use of us women when we are old? Perhaps to throw charcoal on the brazier, and to count the pots and the pans in the kitchen. Not for nothing says the proverb.
"La giovane mangia, la vecchia s'ingozza."[2]
Beauty without love is like matins without a paternoster.'
'What! say that over again!' laughed the duchess.
The old woman, thinking she had now trifled enough, again bent to the lady's ear and whispered. Beatrice ceased to laugh, her face darkened. She dismissed her attendants, excepting the little blackamoor who had no Italian. Around them was only the still and glowing air, which seemed to have paled under the fury of the heat.
'Folly!' answered the duchess; 'such chattering is of no moment.'
'Signora, I saw with my eyes, I heard with my ears. Others will tell you the like.'
'Were there many persons?'
'Ten thousand. The piazza before the Castle of Pavia was thronged.'
'What heard you?'
'When Madonna Isabella came forth bearing the little Francesco there was a beating of hands, a waving of caps, and a many who shed tears. "Viva Isabella of Aragon," they cried, "Viva Gian Galeazzo and his heir, our true and legitimate lord! Death to the usurpers of his throne!"'
Beatrice frowned. 'Those were the very words?'
'Ay; but there was worse.'
'They cried—my tongue, Signora mia, refuses—but they cried "Death to the Robbers!"'
Beatrice shivered; mastering herself, however, she asked calmly, 'Was there more?'
'Of a truth, I know not how to tell it to your Excellency.'
'Haste thee, I would know all.'
'Believe me, madam, they said that the most noble duke, Ludovico il Moro, the guardian and the benefactor of Gian Galeazzo, holds his nephew in the fortress of Pavia, and surrounds him with assassins and spies. Then they demanded that the duke himself should come out to them, but Madonna Isabella answered that he lay sick.'
And again Monna Sidonia whispered in the duchess's ear.
'But you are distraught, you old hag,' cried the lady. 'Beware, lest I have you thrown from this roof, so that not even a crow can get your bones together.'
The threat did not frighten Monna Sidonia. Beatrice also soon calmed.
'I don't believe a word of it,' she said, observing the crone furtively.
'As you please, Excellency,' answered the other, shrugging lean shoulders, 'but nothing can prevent my words from being true. See you,' she continued insinuatingly, 'you make a small figure of wax, and you put a swallow's heart in at the right side, at the left its liver, then you pierce it with a needle, uttering charms the while; and he will die of a slow death, nor is there doctor who can save him.'
'Silence!' commanded the duchess.
The hag again devoutly kissed the hem of the schiavinetta. 'Your Grace is my sun. I love you overmuch, 'tis my worst fault.' She paused, then added, 'It can be done also without witchcraft.'
The duchess was silent, but she looked at the woman curiously.
'As I came by the palace garden,' resumed Monna Sidonia, dryly, 'I saw the gardener collecting fair ripe peaches in a basket, a present doubtless for Messer Gian Galeazzo.' Another pause, and she continued, 'And likewise in the garden of Messer Leonardo da Vinci, the Florentine, there are fair ripe peaches, but empoisoned.'
'Empoisoned?'
'Ay, Monna Cassandra, my niece, saw——' And again she whispered.
The duchess made no answer. By this time her hair was dry, and she rose, threw off the schiavinetta, and descended to the apartment known as the wardrobe. Here were three huge presses; the first, large as that in some great sacristy, contained the eighty-four dresses which she had found time to acquire in the three years of her married life; some so stiff with gold and jewels that they could stand on the floor by themselves, others diaphanous, imponderous as the web of a spider. In the second press were riding-dresses, and all furniture for hawking. In the third, essences, waters, washes, unguents, powders for the teeth of white coral and seed-pearls, innumerable vases, retorts, rectified alembics, crucibles, in short, a complete laboratory of female alchemy; precious cedar-wood chests, also, covered with paintings and embroidery. From one of these the waiting-woman drew forth a chemise of the purest whiteness. The room filled with a scent of lavender, oriental iris, and dried Damascus roses.
While she dressed, Beatrice conversed about the trimming of a new gown just received by courier from her sister, Isabella d'Este, the Marchioness of Mantua. The sisters vied with each other in elegance, and Beatrice paid a court spy to keep her informed of all the novelties in the Mantuan wardrobe.
The duchess attired herself in her favourite robe, which, striped with gold satin and green velvet, made her seem taller than she was. The open-work sleeves were tied with bands of grey silk, slashed in the French mode, and showing the white puffings of the undergarment. Her hair was plaited and confined in a gold net and fine gold cord, which was clasped by a scorpion of rubies.