Afterwards Charles found me standing watching Eleanora attending to the duchess, arranging Lucrezia’s gown as she sat down to take her rest on a gilded chair.
‘If you want to woo that one,’ said Charles, ‘you will have to keep your wits alert. She is no fragile lady who indulges in courtly games.’
‘You know her?’
‘I know of her. Donna Eleanora is one of the Duchess Lucrezia’s circle of ladies and, as such, is intelligent and more able than many others who attend at court.’
‘She is a high-born lady and I am a condottieri lieutenant attached to a cavalry detail with the French army.’ I spoke gloomily.
Charles laughed. ‘You are independent and a man, and she is a woman. Go to, Matteo. Do not let her escape. Already there are other officers clustering round her.’
I went and stood near a pillar where I could be seen yet remain a little apart from the other guests. And waited.
Almost an hour passed until, with her arm linked to that of an older woman, she effected to walk past me. The older lady had played this game before and knew what was required of her.
‘Why, there is one of our young condottieri captains!’ she exclaimed. ‘It’s not right that he stands there alone when he risks his life in battle to defend us. Eleanora, we must speak to him. It would be rude to do otherwise.’ She led Eleanora towards me, and after pleasantries were exchanged she stepped to one side, but remained close enough to hear and observe what passed between us.
Now that Eleanora was in front of me I could not speak. I had forgotten the little snippets of conversation that I had practised while waiting for her. Eventually I blurted out, ‘Donna Eleanora, do you enjoy your life here in the court of Ferrara?’
She tilted her head as if deciding whether to take my question seriously. ‘It has its amusements,’ she replied slowly. ‘But it is hard to enjoy life when so many are dying.’ She paused and then said, ‘But you must be more aware of this than I.’
I looked around the room. The bright silks and satins of the ladies’ dresses mingled with the colours of the soldiers’ uniforms – slashed sleeves and breeches, berettas with feathered plumes. How glorious it seemed.
‘I was at Mirandola,’ I said.
‘The town that was lost?’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘and six of our men.’
Impulsively she stretched out her hand and her fingers touched my sleeve.
Her chaperone cleared her throat. Eleanora took her hand away.
‘To see one’s comrades perish must wound the soul.’
I glanced at her face. This was not mere platitude on her part. Her expression was one of intense sympathy. I thought of Federico, now dead, and how his friend Stefano no longer sang songs with the rest of us as we groomed our horses each morning.
‘It is very perceptive of you to see that wounds are not only suffered by man’s flesh.’
She blushed. And I saw that she took my remark as a compliment and I thought that this Eleanora was different from other women, who accepted praise for the style of their dress or the colour of their hair.
Suddenly there was a disturbance among the courtiers and foreign envoys. Duke Alfonso appeared and spoke rapidly to the duchess. He wished to confer with his advisers. The Duchess Lucrezia gathered her ladies and they left.
Paolo came hurrying up with the news.
‘The Pope is on his way back to Rome. We ride tomorrow to take Bologna!’
Chapter Sixty-Three
‘CHARLES SAYS BOLOGNA is the prize above all others,’ Paolo told me as we mustered our men the next day. ‘It is the most prosperous city in the Romagna.’
From the wall of the castello an orator proclaimed to the people of Ferrara their duke’s purpose on attacking Bologna. He put forward the unarguable right of our cause. Then he spoke of the valour of the armies, our unquestionable honour and the nobility of the deeds we would perform. A cannon fired from the battlements giving the signal for us to move out interrupted his speech. His efforts to continue were overwhelmed by the guffawing of the assembled soldiers and the cheering crowds.
The gun fired again, and we were off!
Towards the city gates in splendid formation the Bande Rosse rode together, with the clatter of our horses’ hooves and the chinking of our armour and weapons giving a rhythm to our progress.
In contrast with the harshness of the winter campaign it was now mid May and the weather glorious. Paolo hummed a tune in time with the jingle of our harness and the rat, tat of the drums. This was an aspect of soldiering that any young man would enjoy. Resplendent in our crimson sashes, one hand on hip, the other gripping the reins of our horses, we passed below the balconies and rooftops where the women waved scarves and dropped handfuls of flower petals to cascade upon our heads.
I stood up in my stirrups and looked back at our file of condottieri. Even Stefano had brightened up this morning. His eyes were shining and he tipped the visor of his helmet to me. I raised my fist in reply and grinned at him. Then we were past the ramparts and on our way.
It was not long before we saw the red-brick towers of Bologna on the horizon and heard the roar and clash of a battle already begun. Our men spurred on their mounts, keen to reach a place of action. But Paolo and I were more experienced now, and were not prepared to allow a repeat of the mêlée at Mirandola. His voice, when he gave his orders, had an edge of authority that I had not heard before. I saw Charles d’Enville glance at him approvingly as our horsemen formed themselves into the required position alongside his.
The Papal Legate had already fled to Ravenna, a fortified coastal town thirty miles to the east. The defending garrison barricaded themselves inside the Castello di Galliera, and from there put up good resistance until Duke Alfonso’s mobile cannon arrived and proceeded to blast away at the walls.
A breach soon appeared, widening rapidly as the other guns found their mark.
From inside the fortress we heard a series of explosions.
A message came to Charles. ‘They are blowing up their own munitions,’ he said. ‘We have been asked to go in and persuade them to desist.’ He unsheathed his sword and kissed the blade and his eyes shone as he gave the signal for us to charge forward through the gap in the walls.
This was a triumphant attack upon a weak defence and we galloped easily through their lines. We left it to the foot soldiers to mop up the last of the enemy and secure the fortress itself. And at last there was some plunder to satisfy our men.
As the news of the fall of the Galliera spread the citizens arrived in their hordes. Soon people were streaming away from the site laden with dishes and goblets and other furnishings. Some of the mercenaries sent to protect the fortress cast aside their weapons and joined the looters.
‘We should find enough arms and clothing to keep us through the coming winter,’ Paolo remarked to me. ‘We might even capture as much as would give us supplies for the next few years.’
I glanced at him in alarm. We had signed with the French for one year. I still had hopes of attending the university in Pavia and had planned to finish with fighting when our contract was up. That time was approaching.
‘But we have conquered Bologna,’ I said. ‘There is nothing else left to do.’
He did not answer me, and all I could do was follow him in the direction of the armoury.
A mob was in the building. They tore down the statues and silk hangings and ripped up the wooden floors, using axes to splinter the panelling on doors and walls. They cut pieces from tapestries too large to carry away. In one of the corridors I met Stefano, who hoped to be married when he returned to Kestra. He had a bundle of priests’ vestments in his arms. ‘I will take these home to my Beatrice. She will make herself a fine silk shift for our wedding night.’
Paolo and I chased off a group of marauding Bolognese and gathered up swords and lances and commandeered a cart to take them back to our billet. Paolo picked out pieces of armour for his own use. Over his thick quilted jerkin he buckled o
n a decorated Swiss breastplate and steel gorget. It suited him well, and he swaggered around with this ornamental collar like any young girl with a new necklace.
As night fell there was a recklessness about the city. The mood was wild and dangerous. I decided to stay indoors and sat down to play a hand of cards with the French officers. It was past midnight and we were engrossed in our game when Charles raised his head as one of his fellow officers Thierry de Villars entered the room. He had been to the university hospital to see a friend who had sustained a musket ball wound in his shoulder.
‘How is Armand?’ Charles asked.
‘He is dying.’ The man’s voice broke.
Charles went to where a flagon stood on the windowsill and poured Thierry some wine.
‘Such a simple wound.’ Thierry punched his fist into his palm. ‘One would think that they could heal it.’
‘There are few doctors there,’ said another man who was playing cards with us. ‘The hospitaller monks do their best, but there are one hundred wounded for every friar.’
‘Matteo’ – Charles addressed me – ‘I saw how you treated Paolo in Ferrara when he took a musket ball in his leg. You have some skill in medicine. Would you look at this man’s wound?’
Chapter Sixty-Four
THIERRY’S FRIEND ARMAND was gravely ill with a high fever.
This was the result of infection, which was the usual outcome of a wound made by a musket ball. The torn flesh had been treated with hot oil and was now suppurating pus. I deduced that this poison was coursing through his body and perhaps travelling to his brain. He babbled, every now and then starting up and staring around wildly, as if he saw demons that we did not. His friend Thierry, who had brought me to him, stood by the bed with such a look of misery on his face that I could hardly bear to confirm to him what he already knew. I was too late.
But I made a salve of honey and alum and cleaned out the wound. I told them to stop using the oil, and gave different instructions for treating him.
To begin with Thierry demurred. ‘Your words go against the directions that soldiers are given to deal with battle wounds like this.’
‘This is the method that I advise,’ I said and left him to it. To be honest I was a little put out at his manner, partly because I had been winning at the card game and held a good hand and was sorry to have been interrupted.
I went back the next morning and Armand was no better, but then he was no worse. The next morning he was the same. But in the afternoon Thierry sought me out and said that although the wound still had foul matter within it, his friend was now awake and able to converse with reason.
I returned to examine Armand’s wound. Around the edges the skin was beginning to heal. I was very pleased with myself. While I was there a hospitaller monk came and asked if I would treat two other soldiers similarly afflicted. I had to admit that I found an immense gratification in my success, and a curiosity to see if my method would work again. And I thought that rather than losing money at cards and pining for the sight of Eleanora d’Alciato, the hospital was as good a place as any for me to spend my time while we waited for our next posting with the French cavalry.
A week or so later, when I went to the hospital, I was told that there was an important person there who wished to see me. This man was waiting in the office of the infirmarian monk, and introduced himself as Dr Claudio Ridolfi of the Medical School of Bologna University. He wanted details of my treatment of musket wounds.
‘I did not seek to do this work,’ I protested immediately. From my time at Pavia I knew that there were strict rules regarding doctoring. Barber surgeons were not allowed to give medicine, and even dispensing apothecaries must be inspected by the grocers’ guilds. The clergy were forbidden to perform surgery, and anyone practising medicine who was not properly qualified could be cast into prison or worse.
‘I took no payment,’ I said, ‘and only treated those persons as requested by the monks.’
‘I have no wish to criticize,’ said Dr Ridolfi, ‘only to learn what it is you do, and how it is that you do it so well. For one so young you appear to have specific knowledge.’
‘I was brought up in the countryside,’ I said, now less anxious. ‘From an early age I learned folk remedies. And I have some knowledge of the internal workings of the human body, having watched anatomies being performed by the Professor of Anatomy at the University of Pavia.’
‘Would this have been Marcantonio della Torre?’
‘That is his name,’ I said.
‘Then you have been greatly privileged. His work is renowned throughout Europe.’
I nodded. ‘He is a very able and learned man.’
‘Was.’ Dr Ridolfi spoke slowly. ‘If you were an acquaintance of his, then I am grieved to be the one to tell you. Messer della Torre is dead.’
‘Dead!’ I was stunned. He was not so old, only in his late twenties.
‘I am sorry,’ said the doctor.
‘How did he die?’
‘Of the Plague. He went to tend victims in Verona. He had family in that region and he succumbed himself to the disease.’
So like him, a true doctor, to go to help others at the expense of his own safety. This blow would leave my master bereft, I thought. Charles d’Amboise, the governor of Milan, who had welcomed the Maestro into the city, had died recently. And now Professor della Torre. Two of his friends, with whom he had shared his thoughts, gone.
Dr Ridolfi gave me a moment to recover myself and then said, ‘I am interested to know why you did not first treat artillery wounds by the conventional method.’
‘I do not know any conventional method.’
‘I thought you said you studied at Pavia.’
‘It was for a few months only, while my master worked there at his own anatomies and research,’ I replied.
‘Your master?’
‘At that time I was with Leonardo da Vinci.’
‘The great Leonardo! You have kept fine company in your youth, Matteo.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Now that I am older I appreciate this more. The Maestro was willing to support me to continue to study at Pavia, but—’ I broke off.
Sandino pursuing his vendetta against me, and my duty to join Paolo’s condottieri, had made me unable to take up the Maestro’s offer last year. But always, somewhere I had thought these present trials of mine to be transitory. With the ignorance of youth I had hoped that some day I might return to Milan, and it would be arranged for me to go to Pavia to the university. But if Marcantonio della Torre was dead, cruelly taken by the Plague, the world had lost a good doctor, and I had lost my opportunity for advancement.
I sat down at the desk and took pen and ink. ‘I will write out my recipe,’ I told the doctor, ‘so that you may have it and use it as you will.’
I had scarcely finished when Paolo and some of our men arrived at the hospital looking for me.
‘Come!’ Paolo shouted out. ‘You must see this, Matteo. They are bringing down the Pope’s statue.’
We went to the piazza, where a huge crowd had gathered, pushed our way through and gained entrance to a rooftop. They had tied ropes around Michelangelo’s colossal bronze statue of Pope Julius. This statue was three times the size of a man and teams of men were dragging on the ropes as a fat Bolognese councillor struck a drum and shouted, ‘Heave!’ to co-ordinate their efforts.
‘Heave! Heave!’ The onlookers took up the chant.
Paolo clutched my arm as the statue began to rock backwards and forwards.
‘Heave! Heave!’ The crowd screamed encouragement.
Several of the city magistrates rushed out and ordered the soldiers to clear the square. These men tried to push the people into the side streets but, in peril of their lives, they would not move. There were a dozen urchins in every tree and people climbed onto the roofs of the surrounding buildings, vying with each other to have the best view.
‘Heave! Heave!’ The roar reverberated in the piazza.
Pope Juli
us’s statue swayed terrifyingly, then the colossus smashed down upon the ground. Splinters of stone hurtled into the air as the cobbles burst asunder.
Citizens hoisted their children up to look at it, saying, ‘See! Bologna brings the Pope to earth. We set an example to the rest of Europe.’
There was the sound of a trumpet and soldiers gathered in the square to chase away the people who were swarming all over the statue. The magistrates had to set a guard upon it. Then blacksmiths were called and they took off the head. This was dragged through the streets of the city, where people flung stones and lumps of dung at it, calling out, ‘Here, Julius, take the tithes you demanded from us!’
The city of Bologna decided to offer the statue to Duke Alfonso. He sent word to have it delivered to him at once. He declared that he would melt it down and make it into a gun and name this gun after the Pope. This new cannon would be fiery and loud, and be known as Il Julio.
Chapter Sixty-Five
A SPECIAL CART was constructed to bear the Pope’s statue to Ferrara. Supported with wheels banded in steel and pulled by twelve bullocks, it rolled along the Via Montegrappa and out the San Felice gate towards Ferrara.
It seemed as if the entire population of Bologna had turned out to see the procession leave: guildsmen and washerwomen, market traders and merchants, artisans, courtesans, the middle gentry, clergy, professional craftsmen, nobles and beggars. The Bande Rosse had drawn forward escort detail and thus we rode slowly at the front of the cavalcade. Teams of road menders worked one day ahead of us to ensure the paving underfoot was secure enough to bear the weight of the cart. They were accompanied by a detachment of infantry soldiers to clear the road of other traffic.
Peasants stopped work to watch us ride past, and the inhabitants of villages along the way came out to greet the soldiers. They threw bunches of yellow buttercups, white daisies and other meadow flowers. These showered upon us and we laughed as we brushed them off our heads and shoulders. It had been a hard winter for these people but now, with the Bentivoglio family reinstated as their overlords, they hoped to have a summer of peace in this region. Paolo beamed with pleasure and the younger boys in our group whistled and yipped at the girls in the fields. It was our victory march, wearing the spoils of conquest, with compliments and applause from grateful admirers.
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