It is meet we share some details of our lives with this gentle Readership. Thus may their keen minds grasp upon the triggers moving you and I, Roxy Dear, to confidently display our feminine understanding of the widespread Beauties of our own Occidental culture, which we have rejoiced to regain by separate paths, as well as experiences emboldening us to frequent mention of the Moorish peoples amongst whom we have both lived, though so far removed from each other.

How I laughed to hear you say what I too had realized before returning to my fair France through Italy (little suspecting I walked in your elegant shadow): that though our Countrymen oft call them barbarians, those Moors (though many Othellos live amongst them), triggered this Renaissance Age we so adore!

Since you permit me, Fair One, I will start with what I know of your infancy, your life story striking me as the more dramatic and lamentable.

Roxy’s mother was the briefly reknown Beauty of Flanders, Margareta Van Langhendank.  Margareta’s mother (Roxy’s grandmother), the Countess Pauweline Van Langhendank, being recently widowed and no doubt fatigued by the endless heavy taxes levied against the cloth industry throughout the Netherlands by the Hapsburg monarch (afflicting the income  of her estate) astutely arranged the marriage of  young  Margareta to one Italian prince Bartolomeo of the Este family in Ferrara.

Pauweline and Margareta, accompanied by their ladies-in-waiting, traveled together to Ferrara for the wedding. This marriage was happy enough for a year or more, during which time Margareta conceived and bore a girl child, Roxanna.

No one was more irritated than Pauweline when Margareta impulsively ran away before daybreak one morning with a visiting duke of the Sforza family in Milan while her innocent child lay asleep in another wing of the Este palace.  Margareta was a rash and impudent creature too much impressed by the reflection in her own mirror.  I abandon her here as she did abandon my Darling Friend, by whom I stand in both recitation and admiration.

Roxy says after many husbands and more lovers, the ancient and now stooped adventuress, her mother Margareta, has settled in a simple hut in the Euganei Hills south of Padua where she weaves rugs and raises a few goats.  Such is the fate of women who follow sweet nothings.

The two mothers-in-law, Pauweline and Isabella, had become fast friends before Margareta upset the status quo.  The ladies had bonded over shared lineage to Frankish nobility as well as a mutual partiality to Chess,  love songs played on the lute, Burgundy wines and Cannoli made by Isabella’s Sicilian pastry chef.  They consoled themselves with these latter, conversing in three languages and congratulating each other on Roxy’s daily progress in walking steps, words, gaiety, and general blossoming health.

Roxanna (whom Readers know best as Karima Hurrem Sultan), was meantime tended by a Flemish nursemaid of ample bosom named Godelieve, whose breasts nourished the babe with rich milk even as Roxy’s infant eyes feasted upon the wondrous Titian frescos painted upon the walls of that princely Este nursery.  Though lowest born among the Flemish ladies in attendance, Godelieve had the fullest, ripest breasts and, in truth, the prettiest face and gentlest heart.

As Paulewine knew, the best inheritance for any child was true Flanders breast milk, a sweet face and kind speech.  One had but to look upon Joris, Godelieve’s own babe brought along to Ferrara and now a solid little fellow firmly planted on two sturdy, running legs, to see the truth of this.

“No, no, not yet!” laughed his mother, a dimple forming in each of her rosy cheeks. “She is too small; when you were so tiny, Joris, you only drank milk! Take it away, Darling; See, your little Bolognese doggy wants your food—you can give it to him.”

“I always have to push his hair out of his eyes, Mama, so he can see Roxy and bark good morning.”

“Yes, do that!” agreed Godelieve, amused by her son’s ritual.

Joris was so even-tempered and gentle that the Este family soon thought of him as a natural part of the estate.  Isabella became most partial to the lad, teaching Joris Italian, Latin, and dance, and planning for his future.  When Pauweline reluctantly decided she must return to her estate in Flanders, she offered to take Joris away.

“No, Cara,” said Isabella, her eyes widening at Pauweline. “I do not even want you to go!”

“But his father is there, and he must miss him,” said Pauweline.

“My spies tell me the man has fathered three children since you came to us.  He has probably forgotten all about the eldest, and if he has not, surely he knows a little boy raised as an Italian gentleman will fare better than one raised to be a Flemish farmer.   I will never see Joris again if you take him; I propose to adopt him.  But if you care so much for fairness, let us ask the child himself.”

When called, Joris skipped to Isabella’s side and threw himself across her lap.

“Ah!” Isabella’s fingers knotted into his curls.  “Desiderate andare a partire da me? Do you wish to leave me? To go away with this lady?”

“No!” came Joris’s muffled but stubborn voice.   His hands held tight onto the silken dress of the lady he presumed to be his grandmother.  Isabella smiled at Pauweline, who lifted her eyebrows, having expected truly no less.

“It is settled,” said Pauweline.

Roxy had the love, if not of mother, then of everyone but, including her father, Bartolomeo. Little Roxy felt her daddy’s warm kisses cover her cheeks and small nose whenever he visited her, which was often. Being a generous man, Bartolomeo shared the overflow of his affection with Godelieve, who was close at hand, and who felt even more closely bonded to this family unrelated by blood.

Isabella found a new bride for Bartolomeo once the delegated period of time had passed by which she could legally declare the departed Margareta dead.  The Catholic Church was appeased. Godelieve watched as preparations were made for the ceremony and the arrival of a new young beauty.

Steeped in festering jealousy, the Flemish nursemaid began to neglect her duties.  (But what did she think? That an Este duke would stay unmarried?)  One late evening, Godelieve unleashed her hormonal rage by mixing arsenic into the wine she knew Bartolomeo would carry with him on the next day’s hunt.

Bartolomeo and his companions came home hours after their dawn departure, demonstrating all the nastier signs of food poisoning: vomiting, diarrhea, thirst and paleness.  Knowing how easily procured arsenic was in her homeland and suspecting the foreign nursemaid, Isabella summoned a trusty local monk known for antidotes. Thanks to this swift thinking, only one hunting companion died, a cousin named Gianni who had not even been invited due to his irksome quality of knowing more than anyone else on any conceivable subject. Gianni had, as usual, shown up without invitation.  Isabella put on a slight show of regret to his parents.

Godelieve, however, could not get off without punishment. As a married woman, she was guilty of adultery with the widow, Bartolomeo, a sin Isabella would have been inclined to overlook, but unmistakably the girl had tried to kill an Este.   All that was needed was a confession.  Godelieve was led to lower chambers in the palace and Isabella kept Joris entertained in her own rooms.  Roxy, a mischevious toddler and Joris’s favorite playmate aside from the Bolognese, was also in Isabella’s suite; a new Italian nursemaid watched over them both.  The minstrels played well and noisily all evening while a capped fool danced so merrily that Joris almost upchucked his dinner from belly laughter.

Was Isabella a heartless woman? No.  She did not make her final decision over Godelieve’s fate until traces of arsenic powder were found under the false bottom of Godelieve’s candy box. By then, Godelieve’s ample breasts and once full head of golden tresses were almost unrecognizeable. But someone did identify the form carted off in a cage, hands chained in her lap, bloody head bent over the charred front of her dress.  Joris and the puppy had found their way alone out to the top of a tower. The boy, growing taller, had been peering through the parapets and saw the cart passing through the gate.

“Mama!” Joris screamed.  A shrill note of hysteria spiked in the voice of this otherwise gentlest of children: startled, the Bolognese backed against the stone wall and howled.

Here I close my first open letter so as to not weary our Readers; yet I do vow to take back up the thread of this tale anon–say, seven days.

Tags: arsenic, barbarians, bartolomeo, Bolognese, Burgundy wines, Catholic Church, cloth industry, countess, Duchy of Ferrara, Este family, flanders, Hapsburg monarch, italian prince, love songs played on the lute, margareta, moors, renaissance age, roxy, sweet nothings, Titan fresco