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.'