His Last Duchess by Gabrielle Kimm Page B

rather than heard the room give a barely audible sigh of relief and she saw Fra Pandolf close his eyes for a second, as though offering up a brief prayer.
    Alfonso turned to her. “Lucrezia, come and see the drawings,” he said. “Tell me what you think of them.”
    She slid between him and the edge of the table, and Alfonso placed a hand on each of her shoulders.
    The image she saw was astonishing.
    It was the story of Jason and his quest for the Golden Fleece. The sketches were vivid and powerful, simply drawn in fine charcoal but, Lucrezia thought, showing a passion and animation unlike any drawing she had ever seen. She looked up from the paper to the face of Fra Pandolf and struggled to imagine such a dull, doughy man creating this extraordinary epic tale. She tried to picture him, charcoal stick gripped in his plump fingers, drawing vigorously—feverishly, even—flushed with pleasure at having captured the inspiration that had just sparked into life in his mind, but found herself only able to see the friar gazing into space before a blank sheet of paper, the charcoal lying unused on the table before him, his eyes unfocused.
    Fra Pandolf did not meet her gaze; he was smiling anxiously, eyes fixed upon Alfonso. Lucrezia returned to the drawing.
    The story was broken up into several stages. The image on the far left of the picture, Lucrezia saw now, was of the Argo setting sail. A noble Jason stood up in the prow, arm companionably draped around the neck of the figurehead, apparently unaware of the mutinous expressions on the faces of his crew. The waves had been depicted with little more than a few free strokes of the charcoal, yet their motion and power had great energy. She marvelled at the artist’s skill.
    Further on, the Argo was anchored off Talos’s island. The great metal giant was stirring, and the Argonauts were running for their lives across a rock-strewn beach. Jason was in the lead, racing out of that scene and into the next, towards the figure of Medea, who pointed behind her at the gleaming fleece with its golden, curving ram’s horns, hanging in the sinuous branches of a leafless tree. She was slim as a wraith, with wild hair and graceful limbs, and she was watching Jason with unmistakable desire.
    Lucrezia smiled as she imagined the finished painting, in full colour, running the length of the North Hall gallery, from where it would be seen by anyone entering from the main entrance hall. “Oh, it’s wonderful! It’s going to be a beautiful fresco,” she said, briefly forgetting her preoccupied anxiety.
    Alfonso gripped her upper arms more tightly and the corners of his mouth crooked upwards as his gaze met hers. “You like the idea, then, Lucrezia?” he said. “I hoped you would.”
    â€œI can’t wait to see it take shape. I love it!” Lucrezia turned back round to smile her appreciation at Fra Pandolf and, as she did so, caught sight of the dark young man, Jacomo. She had only seen him in profile until that moment; but now he was facing her and she noticed, with a jolt of surprise, a crimson stain splashed untidily down the side of his nose and across one cheek—like blood spots, she thought, but perhaps more the colour of crushed berries than of blood. Her skin prickled with aversion—she had never seen such a blemish up close before—but then she looked at his eyes and forgot the crimson mark. Jacomo was staring at the friar from the far end of the table. His expression was difficult to read, but in it she saw what seemed to be anger, frustration, longing and a fierceness that surprised her. A muscle twitched in his cheek and his eyes blazed. When he caught her eye, he started and flushed. The tension in his face relaxed—by design, it seemed to Lucrezia; he held her gaze for a long moment, then looked away.
    She continued watching him, and wondered what he had meant by that stare. It had not been the usual