Machiavelli: The Novel

by Joseph Markulin

  Caesar himself greeted Niccolo at the door. “Ah, the Florentine envoy!” he said brightly. “Please excuse us for the lateness of the hour, but matters touching your city have come up, matters of the utmost importance.”

  Niccolo mumbled something about how it was no trouble, really, and trudged dutifully behind the ebullient Caesar up a broad staircase. The duke was especially elegant this evening in a subdued velvet doublet of black and dark green stripes. Caesar talked as he led the way. “What we wish to discuss with you now is the favor we told you we were planning to do for Florence.” Niccolo could not be sure if the “we” referred to the whole council of blackguards gathered here or just to Caesar.

  “Please, this way,” said Caesar, stepping gallantly aside and ushering Niccolo into the conference room. Niccolo thought to make an aggressive entrance so as not to display any fear or hesitation before this singular band of brigands. All the former conspirators were still there, seated along one wall beneath a row of windows. They were sitting bolt upright in their straight-backed chairs. None of them moved when Niccolo entered the room. Their severed heads were arranged neatly on the table in front of them.

  Caesar Borgia was not a man who did things by half measures. Years later, writing of the startling stroke at Sinigallia, Niccolo Machiavelli would compare Caesar to the basilisk, a mythical beast who, with soft whistling, entices its victims into its den and then destroys them. But on the first day of the New Year in 1503, at one in the morning, poetic conceits and elaborate comparisons to mythological creatures were far from his mind. Niccolo had to stifle the urge to vomit. He could already taste the acid in the back of his throat. He swallowed hard and sent it back down.

  The only sound in the room was made by the blood dripping slowly over the edges of the table onto the cool, green marble below. From a darkened recess, Don Micheletto surveyed the ghoulish scene, a look of utter contentment on his face.

  “It would have cost Florence two hundred thousand ducats to get rid of them,” observed Caesar nonchalantly. He stopped to consider the figure for a moment and continued, “At least 200,000 to raise an army to defeat them, maybe even more to buy them all off.” Niccolo just stood staring at him in disbelief. The cold man smiled.

  “So what do I get from Florence in exchange for my . . .” Caesar paused, looking for the right word, “my . . . gesture of solidarity?”

  When Niccolo did not reply, Caesar indicated a vacant chair at the conference table. “Sit and we can discuss terms.”

  Were it not for the macabre setting, the discussion that followed would have been a perfectly ordinary discussion, touching on all the now-familiar points of the give and take between Caesar Borgia and the republic of Florence. But Niccolo had to keep turning his head so as not to look into the unnaturally still faces of the silent congregation that bore witness to their colloquium. And he had to take his arms off of the table to avoid the advancing pool of dark, black blood that was spreading out across its surface.

  Vitellozzo was the worst. The others evoked varying degrees of terror and pity, but Vitellozzo looked as though some mad demon were caught twisting in him and was frozen at the moment of death.

  “You look as though you want to interrogate our friend Vitellozzo,” said Caesar, seeing that Niccolo was staring at him. “But I’m afraid he would have very little to say in his present condition. You know, Vitellozzo was the most cowardly of them all. He groveled at the end. He actually begged to see a priest.”

  “Which, of course, you refused him?”

  “It wouldn’t have done him any good. But Don Micheletto saved him for last—to give him time to say his prayers, eh, Micheletto?” The little man nodded in silent agreement from his post in the shadows.

  “But enough of them,” said Caesar abruptly. “They did not want to be Caesar’s friends, so they became his enemies. And you can see for yourself the fate that awaits Caesar’s enemies. Now Florence must finally decide whether she will have me for a friend or an enemy.”

  “Florence has always held the duke to be a friend and an ally,” stammered Niccolo, mechanically repeating a sentence he had used so often before.

  “Friends and allies,” mused Caesar distractedly. “Still, I’ve learned something important from my friends here, from Paolo and Vitellozzo and the rest—that the love of friendship is fickle and can be easily withdrawn. I’ve learned that, even among friends, it is better to be feared than loved. So Florence will be my friend and remain my friend, not because of the excessive love she bears me, but because she fears me! That’s why Don Micheletto and I arranged this little demonstration for you—so that what you lack in love toward us, you can make up in fear.”

  Niccolo left in a hurry. He took one last look at the gruesome row of heads and the dark stains congealing around them. Once outside, he saw that it was snowing, as he retched and vomited uncontrollably. Fat flakes of snow settled softly and peacefully to the ground. Shaking and sweating, he stood heaving for a long time after his stomach had yielded up the last of its fishy contents.

  For nearly two months after that hellish night, Niccolo trailed along in Borgia’s wake. It was business as usual. Caesar had no trouble securing the services of the now-leaderless troops of his defunct lieutenants, and, with his new and enlarged army, he set about consolidating his gains. He struck off quickly into the heart of the peninsula, securing Perugia and Assisi. From there, he turned north to Siena and halted. He was encamped only thirty miles from Florence. But then suddenly, incredibly, instead of pursuing a fatal northern course for Florence, he turned abruptly and marched south, toward Rome. His father, the pope, required his services.

  While Caesar was disposing of the conspirators at Sinigallia, Alexander had been mopping up on their relatives in Rome. Cardinal Orsini, an uncle to Paolo Orsini and one of the richest and most influential men in Holy City, had been the pope’s first victim. But the cardinal’s murder stirred up more trouble than Pope Alexander had anticipated, and sporadic revolts led by disaffected members of the powerful and far-flung Orsini clan began to break out. Caesar was called to put down these revolts, dispose of the seditious Orsini, and thus render secure the papal grip on central Italy. He made an example of the Orsini stronghold of Cere, near Rome. Using the siege machinery designed for him by Leonardo da Vinci, he took the town in less than a week and slaughtered everyone in it. From there, Caesar proceeded against the other rebellious towns at his leisure. As an observer pointed out, he was “eating the artichoke leaf by leaf.”

  When Borgia turned south at Siena, heading away from Florence, the possibility of imminent attack receded with him, and the Florentine envoy was recalled, his embassy terminated. Niccolo was finally being sent back to Florence for the first time in over six months.

  Not that the Borgia threat had vanished. Far from it. Everyone knew this was only a lull in the contest. However, based on the information Niccolo had been able to supply, and in particular on the secret he had stumbled upon, thanks to the good offices of Giuditta, Florence now had a firm and well-defined policy for dealing with Borgia’s threats—they would wait and do nothing, trying to buy time.

  Niccolo, meanwhile, immersed himself in the day-to-day affairs of the chancery, the more mundane, the better. Anything was better than going up against the dragon every day. He wrote a speech for Soderini on the necessity of raising taxes. He lost himself in the labyrinth of byzantine regulations and petty, often-dishonest regulators who administered the city’s finances.

  And he gained weight. The effects of the sedentary life and the gusto with which he threw himself into his native Florentine cuisine began to make themselves felt. In fact, Niccolo found himself spending an immoderate amount of time in the rituals of eating and drinking. He was always at the market, always snooping in pots, offering advice, laying down rules and caveats—what could be eaten with what, whether the ravioli should be boiled, then fried, whether the cheese should be added before or after frying . . . There were so many details to organize
to ensure not only the quality of the meals but the safe and regular conduct of the family’s digestion. Simple, healthful food for an austere republican family—that was the right way, the Florentine way.

  It was early afternoon and Niccolo’s thoughts were already straying in the direction of a hearty white bean soup, heavily flavored with garlic and spooned over slabs of bread soaked in newly pressed olive oil. “After that, let’s see . . .” And then he lackadaisically forced himself back to the pile letters that awaited his attentions.

  Sorting through the stack of routine correspondence from the Florentine ambassadors in Rome, Niccolo kept abreast of Caesar’s latest moves as he thrashed around the countryside, reducing enemy strongholds to rubble. Mercifully, he was doing it far, far from Florence.

  Niccolo had to smile when he came upon yet another letter bemoaning the shortage of funds to run the embassy in Rome. The Florentine ambassadors in Rome repeatedly besieged him with urgent requests for more money. Now back in Florence, it was Niccolo in the chancery who had the task of writing to say that funds would be on their way—very shortly. Be patient.

  As he was wrapping up the day’s business with the idea in mind of retiring early—he had hoped to be able to investigate the rumor that the tiny, still-blind eels taken in the Arno at this time of year had started to arrive and were for sale. Flash fried in very hot oil—he came upon an item that drove all thought of food from his mind.

  It was only a note appended to the urgent pleas and fanciful budget projections of the Roman ambassador. The papal chancellor had registered a complaint with the Florentine embassy regarding a small band of people thought to be Florentines or in the pay of the republic who had been involved in “some unpleasant business.” Said Florentines, after having helped a prisoner of the pope escape from the Belvedere fortress, fled the city. Apparently, the entire party was apprehended outside of Rome on their way to Florence. A struggle ensued when they offered resistance, and they were all unfortunately killed. The note went on to say that His Holiness regrets this business and trusts that the Florentines’ conduct toward him in the future will be nothing short of honorable and respectful of his holy office, but Niccolo was no longer reading. The incident could only mean the escape of Caterina Sforza had been aborted. And Giuditta was involved, Giuditta, to whom he had written several times and received no reply. Panic seized him as he reread the dispatch and his eyes fell on the phrase, “all unfortunately killed.”

  Niccolo’s first impulse was to send an urgent letter to their people in Rome to get more information, but he checked it. Thinking back, he remembered how he had written in good faith to the trusted Florentine ambassadors there instructing them to assist Giuditta in getting the countess out of Rome. If the escape party was taken and killed outside Rome, they must not have gotten clean away, they must have been followed. Or there was another possibility. They had been betrayed, and the traitor was someone in the Florentine embassy. The pen was twitching in Niccolo’s fingers, but he didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know whom to trust.

  A gnomelike head popped into the preoccupied secretary’s otherwise-empty study. It was one of the errand boys. “There’s a priest here to see you,” he said in a voice heavily laden with sarcasm.

  Niccolo looked up. “A priest?” A moment later, he found himself thinking, “That’s not a priest, that’s Pagolo.” The two had been keeping fairly regular company since Niccolo’s return from the Borgia wars, and Pagolo was a frequent and appreciative dinner guest at the Machiavelli household. Niccolo barely paid him any attention and returned to the pointless, nervous shuffling of the papers strewn about on his desk. He said, “Pagolo, maybe you should come round tonight. Something just came up here, and it could mean trouble.”

  “If you don’t have time, just a few minutes, for an old friend, then I’ll go away,” said Pagolo mournfully.

  Niccolo looked up at him and saw an unaccustomed look of worry on the little priest’s face. “Well, what is it?” he said. “How much do you need?” When Pagolo had problems, they were usually monetary in nature and lent themselves to simple, direct solutions.

  “I seem to have fallen in love.”

  “Not again,” sighed Niccolo. “Well, you’ll get over it.”

  “Not this time. This is different.”

  “It’s always different with you, Pagolo. But you always get over it. You know that.”

  “Niccolo, I know I’ve made a habit of, shall we say, associating with fallen women. And I’ve suffered for it, I admit that. But now I’ve taken up with a different sort of woman.”

  “And your vow of chastity is preventing you from realizing your love for her, right?” said Niccolo derisively.

  “You can laugh,” said the pitiful Pagolo, “but it’s no joke to me.”

  “And who is the lucky woman this time?” asked Niccolo, who was well aware of his friend’s habit of discharging his excess passions in the company of professional and semi-professional lovers with whom he then fell hopelessly in love for periods often extending up to a week or two.

  “Marietta.”

  “Marietta Corsini!” said Niccolo in disbelief. “No!”

  “Yes. I’m afraid.”

  “Pagolo, how could you?”

  “It was destiny. It was God’s will.”

  “Pagolo, anyone but Marietta. She’ll eat you alive.” Marietta Corsini was a girl from the same neighborhood where Niccolo and Pagolo had grown up. They had known her most of their lives as a sharp-tongued, hellion of a woman. It was not without reason that, although beautiful and from a good family, at thirty-two, she was still unmarried.

  Niccolo laughed, “Go back to your prostitutes, Pagolo. They’ll treat you better than Marietta ever will.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Give yourself a week. It’ll pass.”

  “No, it won’t. She’s pregnant.”

  Niccolo was stunned, then he burst out laughing. “You got Marietta pregnant!”

  “I think she got herself pregnant. She just used me as the instrument.”

  “And what are you going to do now?”

  “I don’t know. She says I’ve destroyed her honor and that when her father finds out, he’ll kill me.” Pagolo was not exaggerating in his use of the word “kill.” Corso Corsini had a reputation for the ferocious and often-violent defense of his honor.

  “He won’t just kill you. He’ll cut your balls off,” observed Niccolo. Glumly, Pagolo acknowledged that that probably would be the case.

  “What does Monna Marietta want?” asked Niccolo.

  “I’m not sure. She said everything is in my hands. She’s seems rather unconcerned about the whole thing.”

  “Can you get her to induce a miscarriage?”

  “I’ve suggested it. She refused. Vehemently. She wants the child.”

  “How long before it starts to show?”

  “Couple of weeks. Then I’m a dead man. A dead man with no balls.”

  “A dead priest with no balls,” corrected Niccolo.

  Before Pagolo left, Niccolo assured him he would speak to the formidable Marietta on his behalf and try to come to some sort of an agreement with her. After all, he assured his friend, he was a professional diplomat, a negotiator, and, if he had dealt with the likes of Caesar Borgia, who was the devil incarnate, he could manage things easily enough with Marietta Corsini. Maybe.

  Shortly after Pagolo took his leave, a courier arrived with another batch of dispatches from Rome, and Niccolo tore recklessly into them, hoping for more news of the fatal escape attempt. He continued to work throughout the afternoon. He penned half a dozen letters and tore them all up. Messengers and colleagues came and went through his office in a steady stream, but he paid them little heed, absorbed as he was in the problem at hand.

  He heard the letter fall on the writing table and was dimly aware that the messenger for some reason had not gone away. Irritable now and without even looking up, Niccolo said testily, “Well, what are you waiting for? If
you want a receipt, one of the clerks outside can give you one.”

  When there was no response he reiterated, lifting his head in anger, “I said, one of the clerks . . .” The words stuck in his throat. Standing before him, disheveled but very much alive, was Countess Caterina Sforza.

  “You were saying, ‘one of the clerks’?”

  “I thought you were dead,” stammered Niccolo.

  “In spirit perhaps,” said the countess. “But in the flesh, as you can see, I’m very much alive.”

  “There was an ambush and the whole party was killed. How did you get away?”

  “Simple enough. I wasn’t in the party. I went by sea to Livorno instead.”

  “Miracolo,” muttered Niccolo.

  “It wasn’t my idea. I would have fought every inch of the way from Rome to here, if I had my way. Right through the heart of Caesar’s army too. It was your beloved . . .”

  “And she’s . . .”

  “Fine.” confirmed Caterina, to his great relief. “She went with me as far as Ostia, put me on a merchant vessel, and returned discreetly to Rome. But is that all you think about? Don’t you even have time to greet an old friend?”

  In his surprise and anxiety, Niccolo had been remiss. Now, he rose and kissed her on both cheeks. “Such kisses!” she said, teasing him. “So cold and formal. I see the fire has gone out of the secretary.” Niccolo looked embarrassed. “Oh well, to hell with you,” she said, laughing. “I want to see my children.”

  As Caterina was leaving, she turned, “Don’t forget the letter I brought you,” she said with a knowing smile. “It’s from your beloved.”

  Niccolo ripped the envelope open. As he did so, Caterina’s words echoed in his ears, “From your beloved.” Giuditta must have talked to Caterina about him. Maybe even referred to him as her “beloved.” His breast swelled with pride.