Stefano Vignaroli - In The Lion's Sign

«And it’s true!», Piero replied again. «You have a noble and generous soul, and we all appreciate it. We’ll provide Masio’s mortal remains are settled. In fact, we’ll also send someone to look for the rest of the body, after Giovanni dalle Bande Nere has left San Leo.»

CHAPTER 3

Eleonora was so beautiful. Her naked body, half-abandoned on the bed, beaded with sweat, reflected the flames of the fireplace, taking on her an amber colour, which revived again Francesco Maria’s desire. Making love with his wife was much more satisfying than making it with a maid or, worse, with a slut. He reached out his hand and grazed her nipple. He felt it rise up under the delicate touch, then he saw Eleonora move, wake up from the torpor and lean towards him again. The mouths joined in a long kiss. A meeting of lips, of tongues, of naked bodies burning to unite again, in a weave of long hair, her blonde hair, his dark hair. Before penetrating his wife again, the Duke put his dark, almost black, eyes into her sea-blue eyes.

«I love you», he whispered to her, realizing those two words, apparently so simple and obvious, would not be uttered in the presence of any other woman. In response, Eleonora took his face in her warm hands, caressed his rough beard, and accompanied him to lie on his back on the linen sheets. Then she sat astride him, sliding his swollen member between her thighs. Francesco Maria was in ecstasy. He loved she took the initiative. He watched Eleonora from below swinging above him, in an ever tightening crescendo of swinging movements, in an ever faster and more pressing rhythm. Drops of sweat, from her forehead, came to rasp his chest, his cheeks, his forehead. He pushed his warrior’s hands along the flanks of his indomitable filly, until they reached her breasts, to start caressing them in a circular motion. He felt Eleonora get even more excited, her gasping breath turn almost into a cry of pleasure. He realized that he could no longer hold back and flooded the belly of his woman who, having reached orgasm, shouted even louder, then stopped and fell on top of him, making sure that his member still did not leave the coils of her womb. Francesco sighed, satiated with the night of love, waited for the erection to slowly come to an end, then gently moved the helpless female body. He knew well that after the third intercourse, Eleonora fell deeply asleep. He made sure that her breathing was regular, covered her naked body with a sheet, and got out of bed, putting on his stockings. He brought a couple of grapes of sweet white grapes to his mouth and then, thoughtful, he approached the window admiring the silvery reflections of the moon on the lake waters. For some months he was a guest in the Scaliger castle of Sirmione, a castle surrounded by water on all four sides and built in a strategic position, on the southern shore of Lake Garda, by the Lords of Verona, precisely to counter the fearsome enemies who invariably descended from the Alps, along the valley of the river Adige. And in that period the enemy was even more fearsome, because instead of being a regular army, it was made up of bloody bands of Germans, who were called Lansquenets, and who fought to the advantage of the Emperor Charles V of Habsburg, but they did it in their own way. The waters of the lake were calm on that mid-November night and the surrounding landscape, illuminated by the moon and overlooked by the silhouettes of the mountains, was truly impressive. From the window, Francesco Maria could look out onto the dock below, a large square shaped like an irregular square, bordered by the castle walls and invaded by the waters of the lake. Through an opening in the walls, boats of a certain size could find safe shelter inside. The dock was the station for the Scaligera fleet, a fleet that would hardly have seen the open sea, considering the lake had no navigable emissaries communicating with the shores of the Adriatic Sea. Only through a series of complicated manoeuvres along artificial water channels and flooded fields could boats be transferred to the large dock at the Armed Citadel of the city of Mantua. From here, through the Mincio, it was possible to easily reach the great river Po, the ancient Eridano, and finally sail towards the Venetian territories and the Adriatic Sea.

Looking beyond the walls, Francesco Maria, at the moment, could only observe placid waters, dotted here and there with hulls, and mountainous ramparts, whose peaks had already begun to cover themselves with the first snow. But the enemy could appear suddenly, from one moment to the next, and the Duke was not happy his wife Eleonora and her retinue were there. Yes, on the one hand he was happy to be able to enjoy her company and the love encounters like the one that had just ended, but on the other he feared for her safety. It had been almost twenty years since they had married. Of course, they were only two fifteen-year-old boys at the time of the marriage, a political marriage that had strengthened the alliance between the Urbino and Mantua’s families, but there were very few opportunities to be together. She in Mantua, at the Gonzaga court, and him in the Marche to fight and fight and fight. The first son, Guidobaldo, who was now nine years old, had arrived almost two decades after his wedding day, and those last two months had been the first real period in which Francesco Maria had been able to enjoy his closeness. Since the family was reunited, one could also think of considering a few more children, perhaps a few girls, in order to take anything away from his first-born Guidobaldo. But it seemed that, despite the frequent love encounters of recent times, Eleonora did not seem to getting pregnant. Was she too old to procreate anymore? But no! She was thirty-three years old, she was no longer a little girl, but she was certainly still of childbearing age. In all of this, his heart suggested on the one hand to keep his wife close to him, in order to enjoy her love and her presence, and on the other to send her back to Mantua to protect her from the horrors of a possible battle against the infamous Lansquenets. Moreover, in those very days, news had arrived of the death of Pope Adriano VI, who had been promptly replaced on the papal throne by Giulio De’ Medici, with the name of Clemente VII. It wasn’t certainly an unexpected event. Francesco Maria had foreseen this and his emissaries had worked to make pacts with the Medici, even before he had been elected Pope. But what worried him, and for which he could not sleep at night, not even after a satisfying meeting with the beautiful Eleonora, was how Charles V would react to the new situation. He would have moved, certainly he would have moved on several fronts, in an official way against the France of Francis I Valoise, against his usual enemy, in a less official way by making the Lansquenets spread in Northern Italy in order to subjugate Milan and aim at Florence and Rome, to reunite all the Italian territories, besides those already owned by Naples, Sicily and Sardinia, under the only imperial crown. It would not have been easy to prevent the Germanic army, once paved the way by the Lansquenets, to reach Rome, put it to fire and sword and finally reach the city of Naples, ally of Charles V. It was only to be hoped in the courage and resourcefulness of Giovanni Ludovico De’ Medici. And of his man, who was anxiously waiting day by day for his trusty Marquis of Alto Montefeltro. To interrupt the flow of Francesco Maria’s thoughts was the sighting of the silhouette of an enormous boat, flying the flag of the Serenissima Republic 2, that from the waters of the lake demanded the opening of the access door to the dock. While the guards, from the patrol walkway, put in place the series of complicated manoeuvres that would allow the opening of the door, the Duke realized that, next to the banner depicting the lion of St. Mark, lying and with the classic open book between his legs, there was another smaller one on which stood a rampant lion crowned. It was thanks to the moonbeams that he was able to distinguish the designs of the flags even in the darkness of the night. His heart was finally more relieved. That flag was the signal he had agreed with his men. Marquis Franciolino Franciolini, or rather, his most trusted Captain of Arms, Andrea Franciolini from Jesi, was coming. With his heart in his throat, he finished dressing and hurried down the stairs, to reach a large salon and lay in impatient anticipation. Once the docking manoeuvres were over, whoever got off the boats had to enter that room. The Duke called some servants, who provided to set the table in order to welcome the new arrivals. Even if the time was late, after a long journey, finding refreshments was certainly appreciated by everyone.