“I think,” said Nicola, “that she is wise, and when you have to live on Earth it is doubtless better to be wise than an angel.”
“I trust I am wise,” said Lucrezia. “I have a strong feeling within me that I have need of wisdom.”
While she was making her plans for the little rooms of the balcony she received the first blow.
Duke Ercole visited her.
He said: “I see you have not yet occupied the rooms of the balcony which I allotted to you.”
“They are in sore need of refurnishing,” she told him. “When that is done I am going to find them quite delightful. I am grateful indeed to you for having given me such charming rooms.”
“Refurnish them!” cried the Duke aghast. “That is going to cost good ducats.”
“I have already decided on my color scheme. And refurnishing is necessary. It must be years since it was done.”
“The wedding has cost me a great deal,” grumbled the Duke.
“I know. I intend to pay for the refurnishing of these rooms.”
The Duke looked somewhat placated. He went on: “I have come here to tell you that on account of the great cost of the wedding I can no longer afford to feed and house so many of your attendants, so I am sending your Spaniards back to Rome tomorrow.”
Lucrezia felt a cold touch of fear. These were her friends, and he wanted to deprive her of them.
She said: “They need cost you nothing. There is, I believe, a clause of the agreement between us which provides that I pay my own household expenses.”
“There is,” agreed the Duke quickly. “But you must keep within your income here. Moreover Spaniards do not fit well into Ferrara. I have decided they shall go.”
She was fighting for control. She had been able to face the hostility all about her because she had been surrounded by her friends. Was this a plot to rob her of them one by one? A terrible feeling of longing swept over her. The Vatican seemed far away and how different was this grim hostile old man—her father-in-law—from the benign all-loving father who had shielded her during all those years which had preceded her journey to Ferrara.
She would not let him see how deeply moved she was. She had dropped her head. He must have thought the gesture one of submission, for he rose and laid a hand on her shoulder. “You will soon learn our ways,” he said. “The Spaniards are an expense you cannot afford, and we do not like extravagance in Ferrara.”
To whom could she appeal? There was, of course, her husband. He visited her nightly, so he must be pleased with her, and surely she might ask some favor of him.
She lay in the bed waiting for him. He would arrive soon; he had visited her every night since she had been in Ferrara. She guessed she was different from the women with whom it was his custom to associate, and that difference evidently provided a fillip to his passion.
He came singing, as he so often did. Surprisingly he had a good voice. She had not yet ceased to marvel that one, in other ways so insensitive, should have such a good ear for music and an apparent love of it.
He never wasted time in conversation, and there were nights when scarcely a word passed between them. He would undress, leap into the bed beside her, indulge in his animal passion and be gone when she awoke in the morning; but this night she was determined to talk to him.
She sat up in bed. “Alfonso, I have something to say.”
He looked surprised, raising those heavy brows as though reproving her for suggesting conversation at such a time.
“We scarcely ever speak to one another, let alone indulge in conversation. It is simply not natural, Alfonso.” He grunted. He was not giving her his full attention, she realized. “But tonight,” she went on, “I am determined to talk. Your father has said that my Spanish attendants are to leave Ferrara in the very near future. Alfonso, I want you to stop that happening. These are my friends. Do not forget that although I am your wife I am a stranger here. It is difficult to live in a strange land even when one’s friends are about one. There are different customs to which I must adjust myself. Alfonso, I beg of you, speak to your father. Alfonso, you are listening?”
“I did not come to talk,” said Alfonso reproachfully.
“But are we never to talk? Are we always to meet like this and nothing else?”
He looked at her in some surprise. “But what else?” he asked.
“I do not know you. You visit me at night and are gone in the morning. During the day I scarcely see you alone.”
“We do very well,” he said. “You’ll be with child before long. Perhaps you already are.”
There was a flash of spirit in Lucrezia’s voice as she retorted: “In that case would you not be wasting your time?”
“We can’t be sure yet,” said Alfonso speculatively.
Lucrezia felt hysterical. She began to laugh suddenly.
“You are amused?” asked Alfonso.
“It would seem I am a cow … brought to the bull.”
Alfonso grunted. He was ready now. He blew out the candle and got in beside her. She felt his heavy body suffocating her, and she wanted to cry out in protest.
But there was no one who would heed her cries.
The next day when the Spaniards left Ferrara, she did not protest. She accompanied the Duke and his court on a hunting expedition, which he had had the good taste to arrange for her so that she should not see the actual departure of the Spaniards.
She was docile, and Ercole, watching her, believed that he had discovered how to treat his daughter-in-law.
When the Spaniards reached Rome they went straight to the Vatican where Alexander received them immediately.
“What news of Ferrara?” he cried. “What letters do you bring me from my daughter?”
While they gave him letters, they warned him that life was not as glorious for his daughter in Ferrara as he would wish.
He listened eagerly to the tales of Lucrezia’s first days there, of the arrogance of Elizabetta and Isabella and the serenity of Lucrezia which had astonished all who beheld it.
The Pope’s face darkened. “None shall insult her with impunity,” he declared. “So the Duchess of Urbino received her coldly. That was a foolish thing to do. My son Cesare will not be pleased when he hears of that, and his temper is quick. He lacks his father’s calmer and more forgiving nature.”
He listened to an account of the festivities, of how Lucrezia had shone at them, her beauty dazzling all who beheld it, with everywhere women desperately trying to copy her dresses.
“We were dismissed, Holiness, and the Lady Lucrezia wept at our going.”
“It must have been sad, and I am sure she misses you, but tell me—what of her husband?”
“Holiness, he spends his nights with Madonna Lucrezia—at least part of his nights. His mistresses are numerous, and he has not deserted one of them even now that he has a wife.”
The Pope laughed. “But he visits his wife’s bed every night?”
“Every night, Holiness.”
“Then I swear she’ll be with child by Easter.”
“Yet, Most Holy Lord, her husband spends much time with other women.”
“Ah, youth!” said the Pope regretfully. “What a glorious thing is youth. So Alfonso has mistresses, eh, many of them. Well, that is as it should be. I would not want another impotent husband for my daughter. Why, as soon as Lucrezia is with child, Alfonso must come to Rome. I will make him very welcome.”
And the Spaniards went sorrowfully away, realizing that the Pope did not attach much importance to their dismissal from Ferrara.