Read Online Leonardo's Swans by Karen Essex - Free Book Online Page B

early mistresses, though Ludovico doted on the girl. She was only three years younger than Beatrice. Galeazz was waiting for her to come of age so they could marry, but in the meanwhile, he had adopted Ludovico’s surnames, Visconti Sforza.
    “But he is more like a son to me,” Ludovico finished.
    “No one believes that, Your Excellency,” Galeazz retorted, and Ludovico assumed a hurtful look. “Because you are far too youthful to be the father of me.”
    “And now that I shall be married to one who is the essence of youth and all its charms, I will be even more mistaken for a young man.” Ludovico addressed his words to Galeazz but directed them at Beatrice, as if thanking her for performing this miracle of reducing his age.
    Beatrice laughed, but wondered if perhaps they had rehearsed these lines before. Still, she was grateful for the good nature that Il Moro showed with this handsome young man, not to mention the compliment to herself. She liked that he treated his captain general as a family member and an equal. Such a ruler was bound to inspire loyalty—something she had not expected her much-maligned husband to elicit. But between the shouts of the crowd, the assemblage of the nobility come to greet her, the affectionate glances her betrothed threw in her direction, this glorious man before her offering his service and protection, and the absence of anyone known as Cecilia Gallerani, Beatrice wondered if life as Ludovico’s duchess was going to be far from the nightmare she had anticipated.
    L ATER that day, when the long procession was over, Beatrice looked through the blurry glass of the arched windows of the library, over the snow-veiled lakes, parks, and gardens of the Castello di Pavia, one of her many new homes. The sun was almost down, but she could just make out the iced-over prongs of Poseidon’s trident, staking its claim in the middle of a frozen fountain. All shrubbery, lawns, trees, and intricate pathways were a seamless blanket of white, fading almost to purple with the dying sun. She could feel the temperature drop as she stood by the window. Tomorrow would be colder still. It was beautiful, though, and she could hardly believe that she would be back here in the spring, when instead of this mantle of white, all would be alive and green and blooming with life, and she, mistress of this castle, would be riding through the expansive parks and grounds on the lovely cinnamon mare.
    The library was a series of rooms with tall vaulted ceilings, dark mahogany woodwork, and marble columns in the ornate, Corinthian style supporting great arches. Shelved were thousands of precious manuscripts that Il Moro had collected from all over the world, decorated with painstakingly beautiful miniature paintings. He was showing one of these to Isabella and Leonora, who looked with admiration at tiny renderings of the Viscontis of the past smiting horrific dragons and other mortal enemies. Ludovico had assembled, he boasted, as complete a collection of the great works in Greek and Latin as exist in Europe, certainly in a private home.
    “Perhaps the Vatican has a few more,” he said, trying, Beatrice thought, to sound modest. “But I spend many days sending letters to those who can make the collection more complete. So much has been carried off in the past, what with wars and the like. They’ve been scattered to convents, monasteries, and dilettantes and such who do not even know what they possess.”
    Leonora had already told the duke about her own library in Ferrara, and now was expounding on her husband’s particular interest in translating the knowledge of ancient civilizations into the native tongue.
    “A worthy pursuit,” he agreed. “So you see that your daughter will not be deprived of knowledge, even though she is leaving the company of her learned parents. I assure you that I will continue the tradition in which you raised Madonna Beatrice. Her smallest desires will receive my greatest