The Marriage Portrait(8)

On the other side of the table, the nurses sat with their smaller charges, the three baby boys, who were arranged in the same fashion: Garzia was three, Ferdinando almost two, and baby Pietro not yet a year.

Around Lucrezia, however, was a baffling vacancy, more than two years wide, on either side. No children occupied the years between Giovanni’s birth and hers, or the gap between her and Garzia. She had once asked Sofia, the nurse, why this was. Why didn’t she have a brother or a sister close in age to her? Sofia, who had been wrestling Ferdinando into a sitting position on the pot because she had decreed it was time for him to have a motion, had said exasperatedly, Maybe your poor mother needed a rest.

Lucrezia approached the table in a sideways manner, placing one foot beside the other. In her mind, she was the new tigress, pacing on powerful feet, terrifying all who saw her.

There seemed to be no place laid for her. The chair she usually occupied was currently being sat in by the wet-nurse, who had Pietro tucked up under her shawl, suckling; Lucrezia could see his feet emerging, toes clenching and unclenching as he fed.

She stood there, between the wet-nurse and Giovanni’s turned-away back, for a moment, then reached forward and took a hunk of bread. She raised it to her mouth, still standing, and tore at it with her teeth. She was the tigress, devouring an enemy. She glanced around the table, almost smiling. There was a tigress among them all and they had no idea: Maria, who had her arm around Isabella’s shoulders, saying something to Francesco, Garzia, who was struggling on Sofia’s lap, wanting to get down and run about.

It was only when Lucrezia poured milk into a bowl and began to lap at it that she became once more visible.

“Lucrè!” Sofia yelled. “Stop that at once! God in Heaven, what would your mother say?” She released Garzia, who immediately set off towards his wooden blocks, and came towards her. “And what’s happened to your hair? Have you been in a storm? Why is your smock on backwards? This child,” she appealed to the other nurses, as she yanked the smock over Lucrezia’s head, “will be the death of me.”

Lucrezia stood as still as the statue outside the palazzo gates while Sofia set about combing the knots from her hair, wiping the milk off her chin: there was no other way to be. Sofia was almost as wide as she was high, with hard palms and strong shoulders. Her smile, which came rarely, was riddled with gaps; she had barely any teeth. She had no truck with disobedience or wriggling. This was her nursery, she would remind them all the time, and things would be done her way. Isabella once muttered, It’s my mother’s nursery, you old cow, and Sofia’s punishment for this was swift and terrible: six lashes of the switch and bed with no supper.

She didn’t bear grudges, however. The next day, Lucrezia watched out of the corner of her eye as a surprisingly chastened Isabella had put her arms around Sofia’s neck and kissed her cheek, whispering something into Sofia’s cap. Sofia grinned, revealing the blackened gaps in her gums, and patted Isabella’s arm, motioning her to the table.

Sofia pulled the brush through Lucrezia’s hair, pins in her mouth, Lucrezia’s ear gripped in her opposite hand. She was simultaneously telling the balia to stop feeding Pietro, to wind him; she was ordering Francesco not to gulp his food, to chew it properly; she was answering Maria’s question about lessons this morning.

Lucrezia winced as the brush’s bristles found a knot; she didn’t cry out. There was no point. If you made a noise, Sofia might well remove the brush from your hair and snap it smartly against your legs. Her ear flamed hot under Sofia’s grip.

She thought herself away from this situation, this moment. She pictured instead the basement in the Sala dei Leoni. The tigress would pad towards her, that rumble in her throat, but she would not bite her, no: she would regard her with a calm gaze and Lucrezia would emit an answering throaty noise and—

A sharp tug on her ear brought her back to the nursery. There was a clamour of calls and jeers around her. She had missed something—that much was clear. Her older siblings were looking at her for the first time since she had woken, laughing and pointing; Isabella was covering her mouth, bent double with mirth.

“What?” Lucrezia said, rubbing her lobe.

“You were…” Giovanni collapsed into giggles.

“I was what?” she said wildly, not understanding why they were all staring at her. On an impulse, she flung her arms around Sofia’s familiar middle and buried her face there.

“You were growling,” she heard Maria say, with icy disapproval.

“Like a bear!” Isabella said. “Oh, you are so funny, Lucrè.”

She heard them all leave the table and depart from the room, still talking about Lucrè and how she thought she was a bear.

Sofia rubbed her back, between the shoulder-blades, with firm, downward strokes. Lucrezia pressed her nose into her apron and inhaled the smell that was Sofia and Sofia alone: yeast, salt, sweat, and a hint of something spicy not unlike cinnamon.

“Come,” Sofia said. “Let go now.”

She tilted back her head to look at the nurse, arms still circling her waist. She felt the secret of the tigress move within her, like a bright ribbon weaving in and out of her ribs. Should she tell Sofia what she saw? Would she?

“Why do you have no teeth?” she asked instead.

Sofia tapped her on the head with the brush.

“Because,” she said, “somebody had to feed your mother and her sisters and brothers, and every baby costs you a tooth. Sometimes two or three.”