In a moment, a man in his late fifties entered. Wavy gray hair fell to his shoulders. His face, though well marked with wrinkles, was pleasing, and Adriana imagined he had been quite handsome in his youth. He wore a full-sleeved robe of dark green fabric that reached to his ankles and over it a brick red zimarra of similar length. It was well cut and of fine material but conservative of style, well suited to a man of age and dignity.
“Maestro Leonardo da Vinci, may I introduce Lady Adriana Borgia? We have been looking over her plans for a development of her orchard.”
The great man turned his full attention to her in a manner both paternal and aloof. She sensed no special warmth, but a mild courtesy that sufficed in its place. “Is that so?” His voice was as smooth as the hand that took hers.
“Yes, the Signora wishes to landscape her villa, and I have shown her the ground plan for the Villa di Poggio.”
“It’s the fruit orchard. However, Maestro Sangallo finds my design chaotic.”
“Chaotic is perhaps overstated,” Sangallo cautioned.
“An artistic fruit orchard. Might I have a look at it, Madama?” Leonardo withdrew a pair of spectacles from his pocket and curled the wires over his ears. As he studied the drawing Adriana braced herself for the second humiliation of the day.
“A working orchard with statuary. Of the gods of antiquity. Intriguing idea. Your design for irrigation from a watercourse with nymphs is audacious, but it will require considerable water flow. You might need to add a reservoir here at the top of your slope.”
“You mean you think that the project is artful?” she asked, confused.
He peered at her over the top of his spectacles. “You are crossing lines here, of course. When you mix genres, frivolously and without a purpose, you mark yourself as an amateur. But your plan, Madama, does not seem frivolous. I see a vision here and a vitality in your disorder.”
Sangallo had taken hold of the door handle, and Adriana took it as a signal for her to exit. She rolled up her drawing, then offered her hand to both men. “I thank you for your time, and yours as well, Maestro Sangallo. I won’t impose any longer.”
Leonardo took the occasion to walk with her to the door and into the corridor. “I was acquainted with Cesare, you know. I was an engineer in his service in 1502, I believe. At Urbino and Pesaro.”
“Yes, I remember you. It was just that one summer, wasn’t it?”
“I had many irons in the fire. And other horses to shoe.” He chuckled at his metaphor. “And there were more horses who wanted art than wanted war machines. A pity, though. Some were very good.”
He glanced down at the garden plan that she held rolled in her hand. “Do not be dissuaded, Lady Borgia. Inviting the classical images into your industry is very much in keeping with the new ideas. Orthodoxy has its own beauty, but the time comes when one should step out of it.”
Behind him in the studio, Giuliano Sangallo cleared his throat again, reminding his distinguished guest that he waited.
Adriana felt a sudden affection for the elderly artist. “A friend of mine said the same thing recently, about crossing lines.”
Leonardo started toward the studio, but glanced back and smiled. “I’ve crossed a few in my time, in my wilder days,” he said mysteriously, and waved playfully with his fingertips while Sangallo closed the studio door behind him.
*
Adriana pulled aside the curtain as the coach halted in the piazza before the Palazzo Vecchio. In the midst of the midday noise and activity he stood there. The magnificent “David.”
It pleased her to think that the beautiful boy had marble “sisters” in the Madonna and Temptress that hung around her neck.
As Michelanglo had warned, the statue was long and narrow. Rather like Domenico. Yes, though Domenico was surely less muscular, they shared the long arms and legs, the beautiful brooding face. But the sculptor was evident in the statue too. There seemed to be a strain in his deeply cut frown, like the strain that was always in Michelangelo himself. She felt a sudden melancholy and a kinship with both men.
A fine mist of rain had started to fall, and she called up to the coachman, “Drive on, please. To Careggi.” As the coach rolled again over the Arno, one of Domenico’s most poignant songs went through her head. Lacrimosa dies illa, she began to hum to herself.
XXXII
“Where were you? I’ve waited for hours.” Michelangelo pulled Domenico into the entryway of his workshop and pushed the door closed.
“I’m sorry. You know it’s always difficult to get out.” Domenico looked everywhere but into Michelangelo’s eyes.
“No matter. You’re here finally. I’ve been wanting you all night, and now we’ve only got a few hours before dawn.” Michelangelo embraced him ardently, rubbing his face against the silken hair, inhaling its scent. “You’ve made me love the smell of incense and candle smoke,” he said, pressing his lips against hair, cheek, mouth.
Domenico yielded at first, accepting the urgent kiss. Aroused by the invasion of his mouth, he stood passive in the tight embrace and felt one hand slide down his back to his buttock. The other hand moved around to the inside of his thigh to the softness between his legs, curving around it and then squeezing gently. Heat spread through his groin and he spread his legs slightly, feeling blood rush to his sex. Memory of their last encounter stirred the urge to tear off his clothing and let himself be entered, filled, possessed.
He wrenched himself free, panting, waiting for the fever to subside. Wiping away the wetness from his mouth he pushed away the hand that held his sex. “Mother of God,” he whispered.
“What’s wrong?” Michelangelo asked. “You don’t want me? Is that why you’re late? There’s someone else?”
Domenico chuckled bitterly. “Don’t always be so jealous, Michelo. It’s not anything like you think. There has been someone else, but in a way you would not imagine.”
“What are you talking about? It’s someone in the Chapel Choir, isn’t it? De Grassis? Who?” Michelangelo’s rough hand grasped his upper arm.
“I can’t tell you. I won’t tell you. It’s not important any more.” Domenico looked away. “I went the other day to Santa Maria del Popolo. To confess.”
“Confess?” Michelangelo’s hand lifted abruptly. “You’ve exposed us?” He took a step backward, appalled.
“No. I confessed only for myself and named no partner. Forgive me. I had to do it.”
“For God’s sake, why? I risked everything for you. I can’t believe you would treat us so lightly.”
“My risk was as great as yours. You don’t know.”
“Did you think confessing would take away the danger? How do you know they won’t arrest you again? Or me?”
“I told you, I didn’t name you. As for me, they can do with me what they want now. I renounce the physical. My place in this world was taken from me anyhow the hour I was given to the knife. I’ve had to live half a life, and that in darkness. Only my soul is whole and I give it to the Sistine Chapel.”
“Your body is whole too, Domenico. What does it matter that you can’t have children? You’re as much a man as I am.”
Domenico turned his head away. “I want children. You have no idea how much I long to have a family of my own. I’m not given to the world, like you, but to God.”
“Is that what they’ve told you? That’s how they justify what they did to you?”
Domenico’s voice was tight with new conviction. “Caro, I must believe that what was done to me had a purpose—that it was for God. Otherwise I could not bear the injustice. And if it was done for God, then I must serve Him truly, in the role that He has given me.” He swallowed with difficulty, as if something had lodged within his throat. “Don’t you see? Either I am God’s solemn servant, or I am a travesty.” He pressed his lips together, holding back tears. “I’m tired of being a dirty joke of virile men.”
Michelangelo’s hand slid upward to the smooth, never-shaven cheek. “You’re none of those things,
and I’ll throttle any man that says them. You’re better than all of them.” He exhaled slowly and his voice grew plaintive. “Please, don’t go.”
“God forgive me, Michelo. I love you, but I love salvation more.” Domenico took the caressing hand from his face. “When you see me tomorrow in the chapel you’ll understand that I belong there.” As he stepped through the doorway, he lifted one hand to say farewell and Michelangelo grasped it, pressing it to his lips.
“Don’t forget, you promised me a saint,” Domenico said. “I shall look for him.”
Michelangelo reluctantly released his hand, and rough fingers slid slowly along smooth ones until they separated. “And you promised me a miracle.”
Domenico ran from the Piazza Rusticucci along the empty streets back toward the Vatican complex. In less than an hour, still well before dawn, he reached the Piazza San Pietro. In the mist, the crunch of his shoes on the gravel seemed louder than usual. He hurried to the side of the broad steps leading up to the basilica along the wall supporting them, toward the north portal. His path would take him onto the narrow street running along the Papal Palace past the Sistine Chapel and to the rooms where he housed. He hoped the gate he had left open remained undiscovered.
Just before he reached the portal he heard their voices, and then he saw them, two ominous shadows atop the wall to his left. He knew the danger at once. They had been standing under the loggia at the top of the steps, he guessed. So easy to see and hear him in the empty plaza.
He began to run and they dropped like predators from the wall directly behind him. In spite of their proximity, his long legs gave him an advantage as he ran down the narrow street adjoining the Papal Palace. He widened the distance between them and calculated whether it would give him enough time to reach gate to the courtyard and to safety.
Then he heard a third man fall in behind him on the gravel. His panic grew and he turned abruptly toward the left, down the alley to the door of the Sistine Chapel basement. Surely they would not touch him in the chapel. He threw himself against the heavy door.
Locked.
Hearing them he turned around again, panting through dry lips. Three men emerged from the mist, and two of them held cudgels. They closed in slowly, like wolves, and one of them called out in a mockery of sweetness.
“Look, boys, it’s our little cocksucker.” Domenico backed up, pressing himself against the indifferent wood.
The one who spoke reached him in two paces and pulled him from the doorway. The circle closed around him, and on some signal they began to kick and pummel him. He covered his face with his forearms and felt the sudden explosion of a fist in his stomach. As he dropped his hands to his pain, the wood struck him on the side of his head. The concussion made his ears ring and knocked him to his knees. Another blow to his forehead split the skin at his scalp line. Covering his head again, he felt the toe of a foot kick upward under his chest, knocking the breath from his lungs. He gasped for air. Another blow from the wood caught him at the back of the head, stunning him and erasing his vision. He mumbled, fearfully, “Salva me, salva me.”
“What’s he saying, Livio?”
“I don’t know. Look, let’s just get this over with, okay?”
“Some Latin shit,” the third man said. “Where d’ya learn that, pervert? From sucking some priest’s dick?”
The wood connected again with his unprotected face, splitting his lips and breaking his clenched teeth. Another blow shattered his nose. Gradually the pain gave way to numbness and nausea until he felt only fear and the fluid oozing in rivulets down his face. He knew then that they would kill him.
Sightless and on his hands and knees, he reached out toward the voice of his attacker. “Agnus Dei qui tollis peccata mundi,” he murmured.
“Sounds like he’s asking to be fucked. I’ve got something to fuck you with, pervert.” One of them danced around him holding up a stiletto.
Domenico whispered through bloody ruined lips. “I forgive you.”
“Cocksucker!” A final blow to the back of his head fractured his skull, and he pitched forward onto the ground, unconscious. When the point of the stiletto was forced into his rectum, tearing clothes and flesh, he felt no pain.
Withdrawing his weapon, the leader prodded the unconscious man with his foot, turning him onto his back. He took hold of a lock of hair that had fallen over the shattered face and sliced through it with the bloody blade. “We’re done here,” he said, and stood up.
Bending down quickly on one knee, Livio cut the tangled purse-strings and snatched the bundle of coins before following the others.
XXXIII
“Oh, dear God!” In the early morning rain, the sacristan hurrying through the chapel court with his cowl over his face stumbled over the unconscious man. Panicked, he did an about-face and ran to summon help.
Within moments he returned with two priests, who bore the battered form of the singer into the chapel basement. “What monster would do this?” the sacristan lamented, guiding the priests to a bench against the wall where they could lay him. While they draped his limp arms across his chest, the sacristan fetched a lantern.
In the sphere of lantern light, one of the priests knelt down, making the sign of the cross. He pressed his fingers to the side of the boy’s throat for a moment. “Send for the Vatican physician. It may be that he still lives.” Drawing a pyx from the burse, which hung around his neck, the priest removed a tiny particle of host and touched it to the torn lips of the singer. “Corpus Domini nostri Jesu Christi custodiat te in vitam aeternam.” He began the viaticum.
At that moment a wiry figure strode through the door and halted suddenly. Two assistants, both carrying long rolls of paper, halted with him. “What’s happened?” the man asked the sacristan.
“The castrato, Maestro Buonarroti. Assaulted.”
The priest droned absolution for all sins and made the sign of the cross in the air over the body. Then he opened a small vial and anointed the cold forehead and hand with drops of oil. “Per istam unctionem liberet te Dominus ab omnibus peccatis tuis in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.”
The painter stood wordlessly for a moment and then stepped into the sphere of lantern light. He stared down at the mutilated man. His face, illuminated from below, was ashen. His young assistants stepped back into the darkness, waiting for instructions. But there were none. There was only the crashing of the rain on the pavestones outside and the murmuring of the priest. When the sacrament was finished, the sacristan said, “Maestro de Grassis must be informed at once. The boy’s family too.”
The painter replied impassively, “He has none. Not in Italy. Only a few friends.”
The priest made the sign of the cross again. “Dominus vobiscum,” he whispered as another man came through the door.
“The physician is here,” the sacristan announced. The medicus knelt and pressed his fingers, as the priest had done, to the victim’s throat, then examined the swollen face and head. Finally he undid the buttons on the front of the doublet and, pulling it open, he pressed his ear against the cold chest. “He lives, but barely.”
Michelangelo knelt down next to him. “Have you no potion, Dottore, to waken him even for a moment? To let him hear my voice?”
“I fear I do not, Signore.” The physician closed the singer’s shirt again. “There is blood between his legs, from some internal injury, and his skull seems to be fractured. He could linger for a few hours or even for days in this way, but without a miracle he will not recover. If he has family or loved ones, they should be summoned now.”
“A miracle,” Michelangelo muttered, and got to his feet. He took the paper roll from the hand of one of his apprentices and tore off a corner. With a piece of charcoal from his pouch, he scribbled a note. Then he turned to the older of the two apprentices, who held his wet hat in his hand. Water still dripped from its feather. “Pierro, can I trust you to carry a letter for me all the way to Florence?”
“Of course, Maestro.
You can trust me with anything.”
“Take a strong horse and leave as soon as you can.” Michelangelo pressed the paper into the boy’s hand. “The message is for Lady Adriana Borgia. Ask at the city gate for directions to the Villa Careggi. I will pay the costs of the journey.”
“Yes, Maestro. I have a good horse and can leave right now.” He exchanged a few words with the younger boy and then stepped out into the rain.
*
Pope Julius dozed fitfully at his desk until his chamberlain knocked and opened the door. “They are here, Holiness.”
The Pope rose and drew on a cloak over his alb. “What time is it? Is it morning?”
“No, Holiness. It is still night. The messengers are here. Shall I let them in?”
The Pope nodded and the chamberlain signaled the door guard. As the Pontiff sat down on his high-backed chair, Gian Pietro Carafa entered with three boys. The Cardinal remained at the back of the room while the three boys came forward and knelt, forming a triangle.
“Is it done?” the Pope asked. His fingers tightened over the chair arms.
“Yes, Holiness, just a little while ago.” The leader got to his feet and approached with lowered head. Without lifting his eyes from the papal slippers, he held out the dark bundle in his hand.
The Pope took the clump of hair and waved the boy back. He lifted it to his nose, held it for awhile, and nodded.
“That’s all. You can go now,” he said to the boys. “The Cardinal will take care of you. You know what to do, don’t you, Cardinal Carafa?”
“Yes, Holiness. I know your wishes,” Carafa said neutrally.
The three assailants edged out backward through the open doorway. The Cardinal followed but at the threshold looked back for a moment and stared in shock.
Sistine Heresy Page 21