“I feel angry with Helena,” said Strozzi. “I fancy she is the cause of your long stay in Venice.”

“I am thinking,” said the poet, significantly, “of leaving Venice.” Strozzi was pleased to hear this.

“I have been buying fine materials here in Venice,” he said. “Such silks, such tabbies! You never saw the like.”

“Silks and tabbies? What do you want with such fripperies?”

“I have been buying them on behalf of a lady—the new Duchess of Ferrara.”

“Ah! Lucrezia Borgia. Tell me, is she a monster?”

Strozzi laughed. “She is the daintiest, most sensitive creature I ever set eyes on. Exquisite. Golden-haired, eyes that are so pale they take their color from her gowns. Delicate. Quite charming. And a lover of poetry.”

“One hears such tales!”

“False. All false. It is an ill fate which has married her to that boor Alfonso.”

“She feels it to be an ill fate?”

Strozzi’s eyes were thoughtful. “I do not entirely understand her. She has learned to mask her thoughts. It would seem that Alfonso perturbs her little; and when I think of him—uncouth, ill-mannered—and her—so sensitive, so delicate—I shudder. Yet there is a strength within her.”

“You are bewitched by your Duchess.”

“As you would be, had you seen her.”

“I admit a certain curiosity as to the Borgia.”

“Perhaps one day you will meet.”

The poet was thoughtful. “A delicate goddess married to Alfonso d’Este! One would say Poor Lucrezia, if one did not know Lucrezia.”

“You do not know Lucrezia. Nor do I. I am not certain that Lucrezia knows herself.”

“You are cryptic.”

“She makes me thus.”

“I see she absorbs you. I have never known you so absentminded before. I declare you are longing to go back to Ferrara with your silks and tabbies.”

Strozzi smiled. “But let us talk of you. You are restless. You weary of Helena. Why do you not go to my Villa at Ostellato?”

“What should I do there?”

“Be at peace to write your poetry.”

“You would come and see me there?”

“I would. Mayhap I would induce Lucrezia to ride that way. It is not far from Ferrara.”

The poet smiled, and Strozzi saw that the exquisitely lovely Duchessa of such evil reputation, whom he had described as sensitive and unformed, was catching at Pietro’s imagination as she had caught at his.

Strozzi was pleased. He wished to mold those two. He wished to put them together in his great villa at Ostellato and watch the effect they had on each other.


* * *

When Strozzi returned to Ferrara he found that the heat of the summer was proving very trying to Lucrezia. She was suffering a great deal of discomfort in her pregnancy, and her relations with Duke Ercole had worsened.

She was delighted with the velvets, silks and tabbies which Strozzi had brought her, and they did lift her spirits for a while. She was interested too in his account of the poet, Pietro Bembo, and she gave a party during which Strozzi read the young man’s newest verses.

But these were isolated incidents, and Strozzi saw that she was suffering too much discomfort to feel really interested in either fine materials or absent poets.

She ordered a handsome cradle to be made in Venice so that she could have it well before the baby was due. “It is a great extravagance,” she said, “and I know full well that the Duke will be shocked when he sees it. But I care not. I have come to think that the only pleasure I have in this heat is from shocking the Duke.”

Alexander had now heard of Duke Ercole’s offer of 10,000 ducats as his daughter’s annual income, and he was incensed.

“My daughter cannot be expected to live on a pittance,” he cried, and reminded that old Duke of the 100,000 ducats he had received as dowry, besides all other benefits.

The Duke retorted that marriage into aristocratic families could not be attained by those of lower status without high costs; this infuriated Alexander, and all benefits from the Papacy immediately ceased.

Alexander wrote that he had heard that Lucrezia had been treated with scant respect at the time of the wedding, and he would like Duke Ercole to know that he was far from pleased.

But from the stronghold of Ferrara the Duke snapped his fingers at the Papacy; Lucrezia declared that she would rather starve than accept the miserly 10,000 ducats a year. She gave a banquet for the Duke in her apartments and at this she used the goblets and silver-ware which were marked with the emblem of the Grazing Bull, the arms of Naples and those of the Sforzas. She wished the Duke to know that she was not dependent upon him. She had the relics of a less penurious past, and the Grazing Bull was much in evidence.

The Duke’s reactions were that, as she had so much, he need not worry about her. He was content to save his money.

And after that, when he visited her, he found the doors of the little rooms closed against him.

But he did not wish them to be so obviously bad friends, and these little quarrels were patched up, although he remained adamant—and so did Lucrezia—about money.

Lucrezia was finding this pregnancy more exhausting than the others. She lost a little of her sweet temper and although she did not keep up the intense hostility between herself and the Duke, she was less forgiving than previously.

She spent a few weeks at the Este palace of Belriguardo and when she left this palace to return to Ferrara, the Duke, who was becoming disturbed by the spreading rumors of hostility between them, set out to meet her on the road.

Knowing that he was coming to greet her, Lucrezia deliberately delayed so that the Duke was kept waiting in the heat of the sun. When she came, fresh and cool from having rested in the shade, and expressed little concern to see him hot and angry, he realized that there was another side to the soft and gentle Lucrezia.


* * *

Guidobaldo di Montefeltre, Duke of Urbino, sat in the convent gardens outside the city walls. It was June and delightful to sit in the shade. He was suffering less pain than usual and was thinking how pleasant it was to enjoy that freedom from discomfort, to sense the peace all about him.

Elizabetta, his wife, was visiting Mantua. She and Isabella, he guessed, would put their heads together and discuss the latest Borgia scandal. Isabella was urging her father to stand firm and not to give the bride a ducat over 10,000 a year.

How those two hated the bride of Ferrara! He could understand Elizabetta in some measure, but in Isabella’s case it was jealousy. He had urged Elizabetta to forget her rancor before she set out on her visit to Mantua.

“I suffer the fortunes of war,” he had said. “It is wrong to blame young Lucrezia for what happened to me.”

Then Elizabetta had cried out: “You went away young and healthy. You came back crippled. Alexander could have brought you back to me … as you went away. But he let you stay in that filthy prison. It was no concern of his, he said. You were no longer of use to him. Do you think I shall ever forget that?”

“Still, Elizabetta,” he had said, “it is wrong to blame the girl.”

“I blame them all. I would like to see all Borgias suffer as they have made us suffer.”

Guidobaldo now shook his head, remembering. What joy was there in life if one nursed hatreds? To live peacefully one must forget past insults and injuries; and that was what he had tried to do. Even at this moment Cesare Borgia was passing through Urbino on his way from Romagna to Rome. He had asked permission to do so. Elizabetta would have refused, even though she knew that to have refused would have plunged Urbino into war. She would have cried: “I’ll not give one concession to these Borgias, however small. Let him make a long march round Urbino. Let him know that we do not forget. He has laughed at you for your lost manhood, yet he must know that it was his father who destroyed it.” Then he would have had to placate her, to tell her that to refuse would mean war. He was glad therefore that she was in Mantua and that they had avoided one of those unpleasant emotional scenes during which he was reminded how much his infirmity meant to her.

Sipping his wine he wondered where this would end. Would it happen, as some prophesied, that as the territory of Il Valentino grew so would his longing to make it bigger? Would he rest content until the whole of Italy was his?

Wretched thoughts. There had been too much war. The old soldier was weary, no longer being fit for battle. Thus he could enjoy the good wine, the pleasant shade and the thought that Elizabetta was away in Mantua.

He dozed and was awakened by the clatter of horses’ hoofs. He heard voices in the distance.

“The Duke! He is here? Then I pray you take me to him at once.”

Did he guess during those brief seconds before the messenger reached him?

Elizabetta was right when she said a man was a fool to trust a Borgia. He had laid his territory open to the Borgia, and at this moment Il Valentino and his ruthless troops might be in the city itself.

The messenger was kneeling before him. “My lord, there is not a moment to lose. Il Valentino has entered Urbino. He has taken possession of the city. He is sacking the palace. He is sending his soldiers to find you, and he knows that you are here. To horse … my lord Duke. Fly for your life!”

So Guidobaldo di Montefeltre, twice deceived by the Borgias, took horse and rode toward Mantua with all the speed his crippled body would allow.