Silent Water Read online

  Now all of it screeched to a halt.

  That was because Bona was about to leave her carriage, pulled by eight white horses, for the last stretch of the journey so her new subjects could see her in all her splendor. Though she was out of our sight, I knew she was going to mount a gold-cloth caparisoned steed to ride onward, erect and proud, her head of plaited blonde hair covered with a loose velvet cap sewn with pearls and aquamarines. She would look magnificent in her blue satin gown decorated with miniature beehives forged of gold plate: undaunted, impervious to the cold, calm, and regal.

  In the streets, the noise momentarily abated as the townsfolk lining the route and leaning out of the windows craned their necks. I knew she had left her carriage when they erupted in cheers again, waving, throwing their hats into the air, and shouting, “Niech żyje! Nasza Królowa!” Long live! Our Queen!

  We stopped three more times en route to receive welcome from city officials in robes and chains of office, and from representatives of guilds, also clad in robes and the various insignia of their trade—goldsmiths, stonemasons, wheelwrights, drapers, brewers, and many others. In the arcaded red-brick courtyard of the University of Kraków, we were met by Stanisław Biel, the provost, and all the teachers. I would later learn that the school, which had been founded a hundred and fifty years earlier, had received a major boost from one of Bona’s predecessors, Queen Jadwiga, who had donated all of her jewels to the university shortly before she died in the year 1399, which allowed two hundred students to be enrolled in courses of astronomy, law, and theology.

  After the introductions had been made on both sides, a booming salute from the cannons placed along the city walls rumbled through the air. We only moved on after Provost Biel had delivered a long and tedious speech, praising Bona’s beauty and the virtues of her mind and character, one of several in that vein that we had to listen to that day.

  As we finally began the ascent toward the castle amid the pealing of the bells of all of the city’s churches—their metallic clangs both solemn and joyous—the clouds parted, and a brilliant sun came out. The royal hill was wide and flat, its southern part occupied by a large flagstone-paved ceremonial forecourt. The castle, a self-contained structure of limestone built around an inner courtyard, stood to the north. A gate led from the forecourt to the castle through one of its wings, and it was wide enough to allow six mounted men to ride in side-by-side.

  We came to a halt in the forecourt. Along its far side, overlooking the river that flowed placidly from the west only to turn north past Kraków on its course toward the Baltic Sea, were the armory and the royal stables. Brightly dressed grooms rushed toward us to take charge of the horses. On the opposite side, near the gate to the castle, the grand Wawel Cathedral overlooked the forecourt. Built more than two hundred years earlier, it was an amalgam of diverse styles and materials—gray stone, limestone, and brick—surrounded by chapels and topped with tall copper-domed towers, each with a bell of its own.

  Outside the cathedral’s open doors, King Zygmunt, cloaked in scarlet edged with ermine, waited to greet his new wife for the first time in person. He was flanked by the kingdom’s highest nobility and its most important Church officials. A little to the side, surrounded by a group of ladies, were two small girls, golden-haired and plump-cheeked, neither older than five. They were clad in little cloaks of white fur bordered with gold, with matching hats on their heads. They were the king’s daughters, Jadwiga and Anna, from his previous marriage to the Hungarian noblewoman Barbara Zapolya, who had died three years earlier. Bona was thus arriving to join a small family already, a stepmother before she had ever become a mother.

  Bona dismounted and offered her husband a deep curtsy, and we all followed her example. The king planted a kiss on both her cheeks. He took her by her left hand, on which sparkled a large diamond ring she had received from his envoys on her wedding day, and he led her into the church for a mass of thanksgiving for her safe arrival. Two days later, Bona Sforza would be crowned Queen of Poland there.

  I joined the rest of the court in following the royal couple inside to the sound of the hymn Te Deum laudamus sung by a boys’ choir. Earlier, while alighting from the carriage near a stone statue of a saint, I had swept my hand over the pedestal to gather a bit of snow and shivered at the cold wetness of the lumpy mass. I dropped it and dried my fingers on my fur, then looked up at the sky to find it almost—although not quite—as blue as that over our southern Italian land. I felt a pang of longing for home again, and again it was followed by a thrill of anticipation for the new life that awaited me here.

  But even in my wildest dreams, I could not have foreseen what it would bring me.

  ***

  The festivities following the coronation on April 18th lasted for a full week, with many speeches delivered and poems declaimed for the occasion, and daily feasts, music, dances, and tournaments. The royal couple even went for a hunt to nearby Niepołomice together, where the queen—whose mother’s stables in Bari were renowned throughout Europe for breeding excellent steeds—impressed many with her equestrian skills.

  When the celebrations were finally over, we began settling into our new quarters, which had been set up on the second floor of the castle, in the wing above the gate that connected the forecourt and the courtyard. They consisted of the queen’s private apartments; the chambers of her maids of honor; and the offices of the queen’s advisors, her treasurer, and her private secretary, Don Lorenzo Mantovano. They were all ranged along a gallery whose windows gave onto the colonnaded inner courtyard, surrounded on three and a half sides by the castle. The remaining half side, to the south of the gate, was occupied by service buildings, including an entirely separate royal kitchen. It had been moved there a few years earlier from the main residence due to the risk of fire, which had been breaking out with some regularity in the centuries since Wawel Castle had been built.

  I assumed the role of the Lady of the Queen’s Chamber with some trepidation, mindful that while I had obtained it with Duchess Isabela’s help, I now needed to prove myself. My old patron was thousands of miles away, and my position depended wholly on the young queen’s continuing favor.

  I had it—so far. Bona tended to be loyal to those who served her well, but she could be tempestuous and capricious, especially when things did not go her way. Thus I could take nothing for granted. Unlike the other ladies-in-waiting—who did not need to do more than accompany the queen during official receptions and entertain her with conversation in the throne chamber—I would have to work hard to maintain my privilege. Although I was Countess Sanseverino, I was also a widow, and thus in a more precarious position than any of them.

  The maids of honor I was put in charge of were a mix of young Polish and Italian noblewomen. In short order I had to learn how to be strict and maintain discipline over sixteen- and seventeen-year old girls whose relatives had entrusted them to us in hopes of securing good marriage matches that would strengthen their families’ power. I had to be on alert day and night because any hint of impropriety could be detrimental to a girl’s reputation, and to my own standing. There are women who relish having that kind of control over other women’s lives, as I know only too well from my time as a pupil at the convent in Naples. But I was never one of them; no amount of Suor Modesta’s droning about the need to uproot evil wherever we saw it had turned me into that. Yet, without a husband, father, or brother, I had to do what it took to secure my own future.

  My role proved difficult from the beginning. As soon as the girls settled into their new surroundings, their minds turned toward the pleasures of the court. The abundance of choice foods and sweets; dances, hunts, and other amusements; and easy access to gossip and the latest fashions were all at their fingertips. But it was the proximity of young men and the opportunities for flirtation it presented that soon became their chief preoccupation.

  When a handsome courtier—or, at times, even just a courtier—entered the queen’s antechamber, they would cease their chatte
r and lower their heads over their embroidery, but never so low as to prevent them from sending the man long glances accompanied by much batting of eyelashes and puckering of lips. Of course, not all of them were like that. For every Lucrezia Alifio or Magdalena Górka—whose sole preoccupation when not serving the queen was gowns and jewels with which they could turn heads in the great hall—there was the pious Portia Arcamone, whose only adornment consisted of a necklace with a gold crucifix that she kissed many times a day, or Beatrice Roselli, who always volunteered to read from the Bible when the queen was in need of spiritual elevation.

  And then there was Helena Lipińska.

  Helena was diligent in her duties, but quiet and aloof, and she kept mostly to herself. She arrived from her father’s estate near the town of Baranów, northeast of Kraków, to join Her Majesty’s household a month after the coronation. But she showed no signs of wanting to become close to any of the other girls, and as the year 1519 arrived, I could not say that I knew her any better than I had in the spring of 1518. All I could say was that she was not particularly devout—I caught her yawning into her sleeve several times during mass—and did not seem to have any interest in the men of the court. In fact, more than once I had seen her shoot disdainful looks toward her companions as they simpered in the presence of a young knight or widowed baron. On that account, at least, she was unlikely to give me trouble.

  Still, I had my hands full. Just a few nights before that fateful Christmas of 1519, I had gone into their bedchamber late at night to make sure they were all there. As I opened the door, there was a frantic scrambling around Lucrezia’s bed, which was the only one where a candle still burned on a nightstand. Her bed neighbored that of Magdalena Górka, a slender yet full-bosomed beauty from one of the most prominent families in Wielkopolska. Magdalena’s bare feet flashed as she hastily slipped between the covers. Walking between two rows of canopied beds, I caught sight of Lucrezia hiding something under her pillow.

  Lucrezia had rich black hair and the smooth, olive-hued complexion common in our parts, which made her—to her unending delight—the object of a great deal of attention from Polish courtiers. To them, she must have appeared quite exotic compared to the golden-haired, ruddy female looks, much like those of Magdalena, to which they were accustomed in this kingdom. Now she lay straight and immobile, pretending to be asleep, even though traces of mirth and mischief still flickered around her mouth. I came to a stop by her bedside. After some moments, she opened her eyes and guiltily reached under the pillow to pull out a small volume, which she put in my extended hand.

  “I am sorry, Donna Caterina, we couldn’t sleep and we were just reading a bit—” She broke off as I opened the book to the title page. It was a Latin version of the fictional love letters written by Theophylaktos Simokates, a Byzantine writer. Epistolae morales, rurales et amatoriae had been translated by Nikolaus Kopernikus, who was a frequent guest in Kraków in those days. Some years later, he would gain notoriety for propagating theories about the universe that would scandalize the world.

  I straightened my spine and gave Lucrezia my best Suor Modesta look. This was not her first infraction. Early on, I had gone through their chests—as my role required—to make sure they had not brought anything inappropriate for the court with them. Among Lucrezia’s belongings, I had found a dog-eared copy of Boccaccio’s Decamerone, which I then confiscated.

  “Well, you will not be reading anymore tonight,” I said in a firm but low voice so as not to awaken the others. I tucked the book under my arm. “Blow out your candle, and do not ever let me catch you with these sorts of writings again.” I directed the last words to both of them, sending Magdalena what I hoped was an equally stern look. She pulled the covers up to her chin.

  “Sì, signora.” Lucrezia made a better show of humility.

  “In the future, if you wish to have a book to hand for a sleepless night, I am sure Her Majesty will be glad to lend you one of her volumes of Petrarca.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t dream of that,” she assured me with a fear in her eyes. A fear of boredom most likely. “What if she fancies a read herself and it’s not there, and then she has to send for it and wait?”

  “I would not worry about that. She knows it by heart.”

  I went back to my chamber, and, after a short deliberation, opened the book and began reading. I had to admit that the translation of the love poems was quite artful, and my pulse quickened more than once at the images they invoked in my mind. The candle was burning low when I finally went to bed. My dreams that night included scenes from my married life that made me blush at their recollection the next morning. I put the book in the chest by my bedside, next to the Decamerone, where it would remain until the day I left Kraków.

  What I did not know was that that day would come less than a year later.

  Chapter 2

  Wawel Castle, Kraków

  December 25th, 1519

  The Christmas banquet started at three o’clock in the afternoon, after a two-hour mass in the cathedral. The celebration brought together the entire court and scores of guests from all corners of the Jagiellonian realm—the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Mazovia, Hungary, Bohemia, Moldavia, and Ducal Prussia. The tables in the banqueting hall, the walls of which were paneled in gilded walnut and lined with mounted bronze sconces, creaked under the weight of choice dishes. Their appetizing fragrance mixed with the balsamic scent of the spruce and juniper wreaths hanging on the walls and twined around the great chandelier that could hold two hundred candles.

  We were served smoked hams, roasted boar, succulent venison in a variety of herbal and spicy sauces, pheasants on beds of greens surrounded by slices of fresh Italian oranges, an array of cheeses, and a dizzying assortment of sweets, for which the queen had a particular weakness. Everywhere trays were heaped with candied walnuts, sugared plums, apples and pears baked in honey, and delicate flaky pastries filled with jellied strawberries and almond paste. All of that was accompanied by excellent Lombard wines.

  Queen Bona and King Zygmunt, along with a few select guests, were seated on a raised dais by the windows that gave on to the balcony that ran the perimeter of the castle enclosing the inner courtyard. It had snowed a few days earlier, and the wide ledges of the balcony’s ornate railings were covered with a white coating, now sparkling with a reddish glow in the last rays of the setting sun. The queen looked resplendent in a golden brocade gown with puffy sleeves slashed with white satin. Her large headdress was like a halo trimmed with pearls and rubies. It was covered with a short veil of white silk so light and translucent it seemed like gossamer floating about her head.

  She had brought new fashions with her from Italy, especially in her preference for comfortable wide sleeves and low-cut square necklines that revealed the lace of the chemise underneath. Gradually noblewomen in major cities like Kraków, Gdańsk, or Vilnius—who until then had worn tightly buttoned gowns and old-style fitted sleeves that constrained the movements of their arms—had begun to imitate their new queen. Lately the more daring ones at the court had taken to competing with one another for who would show more bosom, an aspiration that delighted some courtiers but scandalized many others. It was a controversy, if such it may be called, in which the king, true to his nature, preferred to take no sides.

  The guests at the main table reflected the kingdom’s political priorities. On the queen’s right sat the wojewoda of Vilnius, the capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, along with the ambassador of the Kingdom of Hungary, which was ruled by the king’s nephew Ludwik. On the king’s left side were the wojewoda of Gdańsk, the main city on the Baltic coast, and Prince Bogusław of Western Pomerania, a distant Jagiellon kin. He had offered his lands as a fief to Poland, and some—though by no means all—advisors hoped that the king would accept it. It would, the argument went, protect the kingdom’s access to the Baltic Sea, which was forever threatened by Poland’s long-standing feud with the Teutonic Order. That Christmas the hopes of the Pomeranian faction must have
been very high indeed.

  In the corner farthest from the royal dais, the children’s table had been set up, presided over by Princesses Jadwiga and Anna. Long before the sun had gone down, shrieks and chases were under way, and the nurses were poised to intercept any food pellets that might start flying. At one point Princess Izabela, almost a year old, was brought in from the nursery. Dressed in a miniature gown of red and white silk, with a starched white cap adorned with ribbons on her head, she looked like a cherub. After she had received kisses from her parents, her nurse brought her to the table at which I sat with the maids of honor. We passed her around, cooing and smacking our lips at her. She smiled back, exposing her toothless gums and making gurgling sounds in her throat, until suddenly she went still, grew red in the face, and started grunting. She was promptly removed back to the nursery.

  We laughed and waved after the little princess. We were in a cheerful mood, despite the looks sent our way by some of the Polish noblemen, unhappy with the way we Italian women talked and laughed rather than being quiet and demure. I knew that they deplored the fact that the Polish maids of honor imitated us in this, but it was Christmas, the short winter day was coming to an end in a fiery glory, and I did not care much. The traditional Advent fasting period was over, and, dressed in all our finery, we enjoyed ourselves and were happy to sample the delights of the table.

  All of us except Helena, it seemed.