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It was indeed mysterious what power Lucrezia yielded over him: She said she guessed his dreams and wishes. Even now that she was frequently ill and he had to ride to that cold and uninviting town to see her. The Ferrarese were thoroughly disgruntled by their duchess’ fluctuations between life and death and Cesare’s sudden comings and goings.
The clatter of hoofbeats grew louder as his white horse entered the square of the convent of San Vito. It was hot for September, even inside the chapel. Lucrezia still suffered a slight fever, and so she did not need to dampen her hair to comb it.
“I did not die,” she said with a slight nod at the sculpture of her predecessor. “Not like her.”
Cesare looked at Anna Sforza, sister of the Virago Caterina, once famous for her shining chestnut eyes, the most beautiful in the Lombardy. While Caterina would strap on her cuirass, the steel shaped to her curves and a delicate floral pattern lightly incised on the front striving for governance and seduction, Anna would wear the Este family jewels with the haughtiness and extravagance of a true Visconti.
“They say she was happy and sweet,” Lucrezia stared at the marble and trembled. “I fear they will repudiate me awaiting their convenience.”
“Then I promise you, they will never know peace again,“ Cesare said and added by way of spite or consolation. “She was only worth 150 000 ducats.”
Lucrezia smiled cynically at the reminder of her own outrageous dowry. Coolly she looked him over, a knee length black velvet tunic and leather trousers under a silver and black cloak, Cesare sported a black velvet beret adorned with a long white feather. Not quite a match in vanity for their dear Juan yet.
“Oh Cesare,” Lucrezia smiled sweetly. “Are you still bitter that father would not let you clad the seductive tigress in golden chains and let her ride behind you through Rome? For Forlì is not Gaul!”
Quite some time ago Lucrezia had discovered malice and cruelty, and in turn Cesare loved his sister with a fire all too burning. Dressed in dark-red velvet, the sleeves of her gown worked through with gold thread in the Castilian fashion, a coif adorned Lucrezia’s hair loaded with the spinels and rubies of Anna’s favourite necklace.
“These Sforza are the seed of the serpent Satan,” Cesare smiled without humour. “If we start slipping up, you and I will be right back at the bottom again.”
“Oh well,” she said alluding to the past. “I fear I lost a few things on the way up, dear brother.”
Her face frozen in an expressive pallor, the darkness of her dress aroused his admiration for her sombre nobility.
“They say, in the crisis of melancholy, you found a new favourite, sis?” Cesare spat and was suddenly seized with a spasm of rage. “Nicola dei Trotti would take off your fine brocades and together you would play in a warm bath, sweet-scented incense burning in braziers, hair held up in meshes of gold.”
“It is true,” she admitted freely, smiled and studied the sculpture again. “As it is true that she consoled herself at nights when our husband forgot to visit her by sleeping with a charming little black slave girl.”
Cesare looked at her sternly, “I told you once before, sis, there is nothing unusual in the sadness of marriage.”
“So you did,” Lucrezia nodded earnestly. “And now I take it, you shall part again, ride south to Camerino to confer with father?”
“Will you miss me then?” Cesare laid a calming hand on Lucrezia’s arm. “Since we are apart, I think of you even more, as if this separation is another form of togetherness, more subtle yet greedier with sharpened senses.”
Tears streamed down over her face and her dress was soaked with sweat, as she stood there hot with fever, now leaning against him.
“If it pleases you,” Lucrezia sighed. “At midnight I want you to cite the verses I love so much.”
“If in your breast you have love's burning fire I'll feel it by your side, for it will have the power to set my heart aflame. It's not possible to escape its blows, and whoever feels truly loved is bound to love the lover in return,” he recited solemnly. “We shall say them at the same hour. And at one you will step to the window and observe the moon. And you will look at no one.”
“Believing it to be yours, I will bite into the pale flesh of my arm so as not to cry in grief,” she declared honestly.
“At five you must close your eyes, my love, for I shall kiss you then!” Cesare promised.
With these and other follies they said goodbye. And truly they kept to their vows with painful strictness. Who would dare break such a lovely ritual?
Cesare: “You can take the cloth like me. Live in sanctity and prayer, like Abelard and Heloise.”
Lucrezia: “Did they love each other?”
Cesare: “With a love as pure and all consuming as the love of God.”
Lucrezia: “So then, I shall become a nun. For I shall never love a husband as I love you, Cesare.”
~Fin~