Jumping down from his perch, and dusting off his clothes, Niccolo hustled into a deserted side street and headed for the cathedral. He was humming to himself and thinking how perfectly it had gone. Cannons inside. bombardiers outside. And he had banked on the fact that no one would want hulking, clumsy supply wagons and lumbering oxcarts in a parade. The result: Cannons inside. Ball and powder outside. The advanced technology of death at Charles’s disposal had been effectively neutralized. These solid walls of Florence were safe, at least for a while. Rubbing his hands together, Niccolo savored the victory. He was nearly dancing in the street when a loud blast put an abrupt end to his little private celebration. He stiffened. There was another blast, and a fierce light broke in the sky overhead. Then the tension drained out of him and he laughed out loud at his own stupidity. Of course, the fireworks!
As he approached the Duomo, Niccolo began to observe isolated groups of French soldiers being directed to their billetings by obliging, even ingratiating Florentine citizens. They were herded into taverns, shepherded into quiet streets where temporary wine shops had been set up and willing women gathered. They were being courted, caressed, soothed by these most gracious, most hospitable citizens.
This had been Capponi’s idea. The main square before the cathedral, while spacious, could not even begin to accommodate all of Charles’s enormous army, not to mention the numerous Florentines who turned out to gawk. So, as the invincible army poured into the square at one end, they were siphoned off at the other, and diverted into the complicated maze of narrow, nameless streets, a few in this direction, a few in that. Captains and lieutenants were separated from their companies. Of course, they would require more sumptuous lodgings than ordinary soldiers, something befitting their rank and dignity. Fighting units were split up. The walls of men Niccolo had seen advancing on Mordano were being taken apart, brick by brick, and scattered throughout the city.
Niccolo ran into a company of befuddled German landsknechts being tugged along by two urchins making lewd promises with winks and sign language. The lances the Germans carried were over twelve feet long and designed to be planted in the earth to unseat a charging horseman in the open field. In a street less than eight feet wide, these formidable weapons were a useless impediment. In the narrow, cramped streets with their overhanging balconies, it was difficult to hold the lance aloft and impossible to lower it. Niccolo was amused at their plight, and he knew things would only get worse when the Germans were drunk.
By the time the end of the long parade drew up at the cathedral, the bulk of the vast French army was already dispersed throughout the city. The mighty flood had been diverted into a hundred meandering streams and a thousand rivulets. The rush of its destructive power had been reduced to a million trickles that seeped into the farthest and darkest corners of the tangled network of Florence’s streets and alleys.
Niccolo reached the Piazza del Duomo just as Charles was making his entrance. The people were cheering wildly, not because they liked Charles, but because they liked a good show. It was a lesson the Medici had taught them. But the cheers turned to gasps and murmurs when the French king dismounted. Under the bright white light from the fireworks display, his defects were manifest for all to see. He could not hide the crumpled body or his crooked, crablike walk. As he hopped up the stairs to the cathedral, his flat feet flopping on the pavement, many saw him for the poisonous toad that he was.
Niccolo scrutinized the buildings surrounding the square. There was not a sign that every rooftop was a garrison, every window a lookout post or an archer’s perch. And he knew it was the same throughout the city: every blunt tower and jutting balcony was manned, some by professional soldiers, many by armed citizens, all ready to fight to the death if the need arose. As long as Charles remained in Florence, they would be at their posts. The trap was set. Whether it would be sprung or not was still a matter to be decided.
With Charles safely deposited in the cathedral, where he was to hear a mass of thanksgiving, the long evening was almost over. After the ceremony, he would be conducted to the Medici Palace, which, being now bereft of inhabitants, had been reserved for the accommodation of the French royal party. Niccolo hurried to the Signoria for a final word with Capponi. The entire building was ablaze with light. People were running everywhere, bringing news, carrying messages. The makeshift government was working overtime.
Capponi actually jumped up and embraced his de facto secretary when Niccolo let himself into his study. They congratulated each other, and the old diplomat reported that the plan to disperse the army was proceeding splendidly. In triumph, he declared, “The mighty beast that threatened us, Machiavelli, is now a squirming, formless body without a head.”
“We did it,” said Niccolo.
“Half of it, anyway,” sighed Capponi. “It depends on what Charles says tomorrow. What demands he decides to press. That will spell the difference between peace and bloodshed.”
“And the men are in position?”
“As many as we could muster. Close to ten thousand, all told. But half of them are untrained. Still, shooting down on them from the walls in our narrow streets, we stand a chance. In the field, we’d be slaughtered outright.”
“The walls are safe too,” added Niccolo. “I saw the ‘bombardiers.’ They’re mostly pages and cup bearers, pretty young pups, but they wouldn’t know the first thing about firing a cannon. Besides, they have nothing to fire, no powder and no balls!”
“No balls, indeed,” seconded Capponi. “No balls whatsoever! No French balls! No Medici balls!” And they clapped each other in another embrace.
Coming to himself and wiping the tears of laughter from his eyes, Capponi said, “Machiavelli, do me one more favor tonight before you go home.”
“At your disposal,” said Niccolo with a curt bow.
“Her,” said Capponi, jerking his head and indicating the recess at the far end of the study.
In his excitement, Niccolo had not noticed “her” before, but now he saw that she was exquisite. She was not so much seated upon as draped across a cushioned bench in an insolent slouch. When she stood up, there was an incredible languor in her movements. “Cleopatra,” thought Niccolo, “or Jezebel.”
“What do you want me to do with the lady?” asked the young Florentine.
“Escort her,” was Capponi’s reply.
“The honor is all mine,” said Niccolo beaming, bowing again.
“The honor is not all yours,” corrected Capponi. “This honor belongs to the king of France.”
Niccolo was taken by surprise, and his mouth dropped open for a second. Then he recovered. Understanding dawned. This was the woman, the sacrificial lamb to be impaled on the altar of Charles’s lust for the good of the fatherland. A quick inspection, however, sufficed to assure him that the lamb was anything but innocent and docile.
Her hair had been shaved back a few inches or so to raise the hair line and add hauteur and authority to the forehead. It was a good job, noted Niccolo, and done very recently. No stubble. The hair itself was pulled back severely, almost painfully and constructed into a magnificent edifice intertwined with jewels and ribbons. Against the prevailing fashion, she had not stiffened the headdress with gum, but allowed her inky black curls to tumble down, loose and lush about her shoulders.
She had full, sensuous features and green, unnerving eyes. Her mouth looked inviting, but it was easy to see that the invitation was mixed with scorn. Her complexion was white, but not a deadly white, not the washed-out white obtained with “beautifying water,” but a bright white, an eerie, glowing white that Niccolo concluded was natural—unless of course she had also bleached and treated her exposed neck, shoulders, and hands. The oversized pearls that graced her bosom and disappeared in the soft fold between her breasts were scarcely discernible against her skin.
Niccolo’s greedy eyes followed the plunge of the pearls to where the extreme décolletage revealed the tops of dark nipples. He wondered if they were rouged like h
er lips. The deep, rich color stood out intensely against the pallor of her skin, as if all the blood in her body was concentrated in her lips and nipples and in her glossy fingernails.
Niccolo remarked her small, even infinitesimal, waist but below that, he could only speculate as to what pleasures lurked. Nevertheless, her dress was cut and she moved in such a way as to invite that speculation. When she approached, Niccolo was enveloped in a cloud of intoxicating perfume.
“Faustina,” Capponi was saying. “This is Monna Faustina.” Niccolo accepted the hand she gracefully offered. It was cold. Before they left, he helped her with her long, shimmering cape. It was made from the shiny fur of a black wolf.
Out in the street, Niccolo offered her his arm. She gave him a disparaging glance, but then accepted. He made several attempts at conversation, but she did not respond. He was in a hurry, but she tarried, strolling and refusing to keep up the pace he was trying to set. Several times, he had to stop and wait for her. She greeted his huffing and impatience with a look of sly, arrogant bemusement.
She was being impossible, and he suspected she was doing it deliberately, to tease him. Wanting to make a speedy end to the evening, he decided to puncture her bubble of disdain and superiority. “How long have you been in this line of work?” he asked.
“Is it work?” she shot back.
“Do you get paid?”
“Do you?”
And so it went. Maddening. “You’re a friend of Capponi? How long have you known him?”
Suddenly her expression changed to one of bewilderment. She bit her lip and looked him in the eyes. In a low, strangled voice, she said, “Piero Capponi is my father.”
Niccolo was stunned into silence. How could he! His own daughter! He had to look away. When his eyes found the girl again though, there was laughter and mockery in her face. “You believed it!” she said. “Are you always so gullible?”
Niccolo was furious. But she was smiling at him now. Having demonstrated that she had the upper hand, she was willing to engage him. They talked as they went along, although their discussion was more of a sparring match than a friendly exchange of ideas.
“He’s got six toes!” exclaimed Niccolo, proudly producing his piece of inside information.
“I’ve got ten.”
“On each foot! You’re going to sleep with a monster,” he taunted. “Hunchbacked, deformed.”
“I’ve done worse things,” she said nonchalantly. He believed her. It was with a sense of relief that Niccolo finally left her at the gates of the Medici palace. The entire building was festooned with the blue-and-white banners of France. She was admitted by French guards and, with no apparent concern or trepidation, she went calmly to meet the French king. Despite her allure and her lascivious sensuality, Niccolo did not envy Charles this night. She was a wolf in wolf’s clothing. He made a mental note to ask Capponi where he had ever found such a woman.
Charles VIII of France did not put in an appearance the next day at the Signoria to negotiate a settlement with the Florentines. Nor the day after, nor the day after that. He was busy enjoying himself in the Medici apartments. He had already located jewels, vases, and priceless paintings that were being crated for shipment back to France. Among other things, he found a whole unicorn’s horn and parts of two others. These he kept with him for emergencies. When ground, the horn made a powerful aphrodisiac. If kept intact, it could be used to detect the presence of poison.
As the days stretched into a week, then two weeks, the tensions in the city were palpable. There were scuffles and sporadic outbreaks of violence between soldiers and citizenry, but still, Charles dismissed all invitations to meet with officials and did not seem even to be entertaining the thought of leaving. It was at this time that, in a burst of erudition and cleverness, Charles took to punning on the famous three-word message that Julius Caesar sent back to the Roman Senate from Gaul—Veni. Vidi. Vici. “I came. I saw. I conquered.” Charles insisted that he had reversed the terms of Caesar’s procedure. He was fond of saying he came, he conquered, but so effortless and swift had that conquest been, that he had not had time to see. Now he wanted to look around. “Veni. Vici. Vidi.” became a capital joke in French circles.
Finally, with the weather getting worse every day, Charles decided it was time to forge on to the sunny climes, sea breezes, and orange blossoms of Naples. Capponi called the Council of One Hundred into session, and Charles appeared before them, but it was not the Charles who had only days earlier had prostrated himself at the feet of the great prophet. This Charles was testy and petulant. He was not thinking of the global and apocalyptic repercussions of his descent into Italy, but of the practical problems. He was making unreasonable demands again.
In front of Capponi and the others, he had a herald read the treaty he had drawn up. It was in most respects the same treaty Piero de’ Medici had agreed to sign, with the same humiliating conditions—surrender of the fortresses and ports and payment of the enormous sum of 200,000 ducats. But going beyond that, Charles claimed overlordship of the city and, as a condition of his overlordship, he demanded the restoration of Piero de’ Medici!
Having discussed this with his advisers, the French were in unanimous agreement that a fawning Piero, dependent on French power to maintain his position, was infinitely preferable to a volatile and unpredictable republic. Besides which, the new Charlemagne, with dreams of extending his empire to the ends of the earth, had little sympathy for sniveling, small-minded republics. Emperors and republics did not mix well.
As his conditions were being read, Charles played nervously with the many rings on his twisted fingers. Cries of outrage began to rise from the Florentine assembly. The normally unflappable Capponi was red with rage. In a single tremendous movement, he leapt over the huge conference table, bounded to the speaker’s platform, and seized the offensive treaty from the hands of the herald. Holding it aloft for all his compatriots to see, he defiantly tore it to pieces.
Charles gasped. Then, like a wounded animal, he shrieked something in French. His translator addressed Capponi: “He says the treaty must be signed, or he will order his trumpeters to call out the troops and they will sack the city without mercy.”
Quivering with agitation, Capponi shouted back, “If you sound your trumpets, we will ring our bells!” There was a roar of approval from the assembly.
Breathing hard, Capponi glared at Charles. In an even, but menacing, voice he said, “Every able-bodied man in Tuscany is armed, is within the city walls, and is willing to shed his blood. All I have to do is raise the alarm. If the bells ring, they will respond as one.
“And where is your army, mighty King? Where are your commanders? Your men? Have you seen them? Sound your trumpets! I dare you. Your soldiers are too scattered and too drunk to hear them. And I have fifty thousand men ready to descend upon them as they lie sleeping and cut their throats!” He bluffed.
The king hesitated. He faltered. Then Savonarola stood up. The friar drew a silver crucifix from his bosom and held it high in the air. Charles cringed and fell back like a vampire trying to ward off the power of the sacred object.
Like a volcanic eruption, the preacher exploded: “God has chosen you, O King, to do great deeds, to reform the church and forge the Christian republic. Why then, do you linger here?
“Your work here is done. You have liberated this great city from the grasp of a tyrant. Go forth now, to Rome, and Naples. Be about your Father’s business.”
Charles was dazed, stupefied by this injunction. His eyes were fixed in awe on the trembling figure of the prophet. His mouth hung open, far more so than usual. Tears streamed down his cheeks. Muttering something to his advisers, the mighty king hurriedly fled the room and the terrible, accusatory gaze of God’s personal spokesman.
Within hours, the task of assembling the dispersed, dissipated army began. Soldiers straggled toward the city gates. Many had lost their weapons and uniforms gambling, or had been deprived of them in a drunken stupor. After
eleven days of occupation, the ferocious army was leaving with no more than the loss of ten lives on both sides. In order to save face, Charles had instructed his advisers to stand firm on a demand of 120,000 ducats from the Florentine treasury to cover his expenses. Of course, the Florentines graciously acquiesced, and, of course, the sum was never paid.
Si stava meglio quando si stava peggio.
“We were better off when we were worse off.”
—TUSCAN PROVERB
There were angels in the street. Again. Niccolo didn’t care for the angels. When the angels appeared, that usually meant trouble was brewing, and this morning there was a veritable flurry of angelic activity. Unable to concentrate on his studies, Niccolo looked idly out the window at them. What he was reading, Roman history, seemed meaningless with the angels in the streets. Once he had thought that Roman history could help him understand Florence. Now he wasn’t so sure. Once he could think of Florence as the Roman republic, reincarnated. Now she was more like Israel under the judges.
And severe judges they were. A friend of his had been imprisoned and tortured—for gambling! For betting on a cockfight! A woman in the neighborhood had been accused of blasphemy and had her tongue slit open. Astrologers had been burned at the stake. Well, he had to admit, a case could be made for that. Arguably, they deserved it. But last week, the ax had fallen closer to home, and he was still infuriated by the incident. He himself had been fined, heavily fined, for eating meat on Friday.
He had no money, no job, no prospects of employment. He was almost thirty years old. His mother had died recently, and his father had gone into a deep depression. In fact, the entire family was in a kind of stupor. Everyone around him was morose. To make matters worse, most of his friends were gone. Pagolo was in Rome. Callimaco had trailed off after the French army, doing what he could to patch up the torn and broken bodies left in its wake. Biagio had gotten married. And Niccolo Machiavelli was here, sad, bitter, and alone, unable to concentrate, watching the angels.
Machiavelli: The Novel Page 27