IX

Having reached the nuptial apartment, he found the lamp extinguished, and Beatrice already reposing in the huge, mausoleum-like couch on a dais in the middle of the floor under a blue silk baldachin. It was adorned with silver curtains, and a coverlet, costly as the vestment of a priest, of cloth of gold and pearls.

'Bice,' he whispered caressingly; 'Bice, dost thou sleep?' and he would have saluted her, but she repulsed him.

'Bice—why is this?'

'Leave me in peace; I am fain of sleep.'

'But why, dear one, why? If thou knew'st how I adore thee!'

'Yes, yes, I know you adore us all together. Your consort, and Cecilia, and perdio! the Muscovy slave-woman, the red-haired fool whom you kissed in the obscurer angle of my wardrobe room!'

''Twas a jest.'

'A jest I care not for.'

'Alas, Bice, these many days thou hast been harsh to me! Well, I confess it—I am guilty; 'twas a scurvy jest—a caprice.'

'Your caprices, my lord, are many.'

She turned towards him angrily. 'How is it you have no shame? Why, why these lies? Do I not know you? —read you to the soul? I would not have you think this jealousy; but I will not, hear you, my lord?—I will not be one among your lemans.'

'I swear to thee, Bice, I have loved none save thee. By my soul's eternal weal, I swear it.'

She was silent, surprised less by his words than by the tone in which they were uttered. He was not wholly lying. The more he deceived her the more he felt he loved her, as if passion were inflamed by fear, qualms of conscience, pity, and remorse.

'Pardon, Bice, pardon,' he implored; 'consider my love for thee——'

She submitted herself; and as he embraced her, invisible in the darkness, he remembered serene and innocent eyes, and a perfume of freshness, of violet and musk; the two loves confused themselves in an exquisite sensation.

'Truly to-day thou art something like a lover!' she said with inward pride.

'Of a truth, dear one; it is still as it was in our first days——'

'Foolishness!' cried Beatrice laughing; 'Fie on this trifling. Rather should'st thou be thinking of deeper matters. It seems as though his health were mending.'

'Nay, 'tis but few days since Luigi Marliani assured me there was no hope for him,' replied the duke; ''tis true we have now a little amendment, but it will not be for long; he is doomed beyond remission.'

'Who can tell?' urged Beatrice; 'he is over-tended. Of a truth, Ludovico, I marvel at your patience. You bear insults like a sheep. You say "The power is in our hands," but were it not better to renounce power at once than to tremble for it night and day like thieves; to lick the dust before that haughty bastard who is the King of France; to be slaves at the mercy of the impudent Alfonso; to weary ourselves in propitiating that perfidious sorceress of Aragon! They say she is pregnant again: a new serpent will come forth from that cursed nest. And to fare thus for our whole lives! Consider, Ludovico, for our whole lives! And you call that having the power in our own hands!'

'But the physicians constantly aver,' repeated the duke, 'that this malady is incurable; sooner or later——'

'Ay, 'tis later then. For ten years he hath been dying.'

There was a silence. Suddenly she threw her beautiful arm round his neck, and drawing herself to him, she whispered in his ear—words which made him shudder.

'Bice! may Christ and His most holy Mother pardon thee! Never—dost heed me?—never again speak to me of that.'

'You are afraid, perhaps? Would you wish me to try?'

He did not answer, but asked presently:—

'Of what thinkest thou?'

'My lord,' she answered, 'I am thinking about peaches.'

'Ay; I have bidden the gardener send thee of the ripest.'

'I care not for them. My thought was of the peaches of Messer Leonardo. Hast thou heard aught of those?'

'What should I have heard?'

'That they be poisoned.'

'How poisoned?'

''Tis true. He hath poisoned them himself, by magic, for his experiments. Monna Sidonia told me; wonderfully beautiful peaches!'

And again they were silent, embracing thus in the stillness and the dark; their thoughts united, each listening to the quickened beat of the other's heart—no further speech needed. At last Il Moro, with almost paternal tenderness, kissed his young wife on the brow, and made the sign of the cross.

'Sleep, dear one,' he said, 'sleep in peace.'

That night the duchess saw in her dreams fair peaches on a platter of gold. She proved one and found it succulent and toothsome; but of a sudden a voice cried unto her:—

'Poison! poison!' and again, 'Poison!'

The duke likewise dreamed his dream. And in it he fancied himself walking on the shining lawn beside the fountain. And before him at a little distance he saw three women, white-clad and embracing like fair sisters. And nearing himself, he perceived the one to be Beatrice, and the second Lucrezia, and the third Cecilia. He thanked his God that at last they were friends; but in his heart he blamed them that they had not been friends from the first.