Machiavelli: The Novel

by Joseph Markulin

  “No,” said Niccolo, declining the proffered treat. “I’ve really got somewhere else I should go. But I’d appreciate it if you could show me the way, or at least point me in the right direction.”

  Disappointed, Michelozzi was nevertheless courteous. “Fine, where is it you’d like to go?”

  “To the Convento Degli Angeli Caduti.”

  It was hard for Michelozzi to conceal his surprise, “You want to go to a convent?”

  The Convent of the Fallen Angels was no ordinary convent, as Niccolo was soon to discover. His new friend, Michelozzi, left him at the door and promised to call back for him in a few hours. After knocking for several minutes, the door opened and Niccolo was admitted by an ancient nun. As he had been instructed, he asked to see the mother superior. From within the folds of her habit, the venerable sister clucked, “Follow me,” and set off down a dimly lit corridor. Crucifixes and portraits of the saints, variously transfixed, adorned the walls at regular intervals.

  They passed through a tidy chapel, where candles burned and several kneeling sisters applied themselves to their devotions. Behind the chapel was a courtyard. Before proceeding, his guide stopped and said, “Here, you’ll be wanting this.” She handed Niccolo a mask.

  Puzzled, he took it and followed the little nun across the courtyard. He thought he heard music, then it was unmistakable—lutes and tambourines. At the far end of the courtyard, the evening air stirred a wall of nearly transparent curtains, and behind them Niccolo thought he could see glowing balls of light bobbing and weaving in the air like giant fireflies.

  When they stepped through the curtains, Niccolo saw the source of this mysterious phenomenon. Negroes, naked and glistening, both men and women, were dancing with lighted candles in their mouths. They ducked and swooped gracefully in some sort of exotic ballet. The air was thick with incense. All over the vast room, strewn about on couches and cushions, some wallowing in shallow bathing pools, were men and women in various stages of undress. Niccolo had just stepped into one of the most exclusive brothels in Rome.

  “The mother superior’s up there,” said the nun who had conducted him to this unlikely place. With a jerk of her head, she indicated a low balcony that looked out over the sprawling, squirming minions of Eros. Seated there above it all in apparent tranquility, surveying the scene below her with serene detachment, was his beloved.

  She rose when she spotted him, and Niccolo saw several guards stationed discreetly around the room snap to attention simultaneously. But Giuditta only beckoned, and the guards settled back. Niccolo hastened across the room, treading his way between the dancers and the heaps of exquisite, discarded clerical vestments. He even spied a red cardinal’s cap thrown nonchalantly on the floor.

  A short staircase led him up to his beloved, who had by this time drawn a curtain across her little balcony. For a moment, Niccolo debated making some wry observation like, “I see you’ve found yourself an employment.” But only for a moment. Without saying a word, they rushed into each other’s arms.

  An hour or so later, Niccolo was lured out of a light sleep by a nagging, whining sort of singing. As he came to his senses, he thought he recognized the voice. “Serafino?” he asked incredulously, turning to Giuditta.

  “None other,” she confirmed.

  “Does he still do the song about the missing tooth and the window of love?”

  “Oh no, he’s gone on to something much better. He has a new one called ‘La formica.’”

  “The ant?” said Niccolo. “I didn’t know the good poet was interested in insect life.”

  “This particular ant has a rather unique erotic experience. He manages to crawl up Venus’s leg while she’s asleep and penetrate the goddesses’ pudenda!”

  “I bet he uses the word honey more than once in that one.”

  “Five times.”

  “And how is it that Serafino found his way into this bordello?

  “He works for the Borgia. I work for the Borgia. Borgia owns this bordello.”

  “Amazing,” said Niccolo. “What an enterprising spirit Our Holy Father has. Not content with the sale of offices and benefices, he takes in revenues on a bordello as well.”

  “Oh, on several,” corrected Giuditta. “And each one offers the customer something different. There’s even one that specializes in boys. They say a lot of Florentines frequent that one, Niccolo.”

  Niccolo poo-pooed the notion. “Lies. Attempts to discredit us.”

  “Then why do they call sodomy ‘the Florentine vice’?”

  “How should I know? Let’s drop it. Why don’t you tell me what this particular establishment has to offer its clients?”

  “In a word, discretion,” replied Giuditta. “That’s why we have the convent for a front. It seems a lot of your northern churchmen are not used to Roman ways and are uneasy about flaunting their appetites. Here, we let them slip through the back door.”

  “With their reputations and their hypocrisy intact.”

  “Exactly,” said Giuditta, and in the shimmering light they kissed. She kissed him on the forehead and on the mouth and chin. She took Niccolo’s hands in her own and gently kissed his fingertips. Then, suddenly, her grip on them tightened and Niccolo felt a stab of pain. He let out a sharp cry.

  “What’s this,” said Giuditta, flushed with anger, her hands trembling.

  Niccolo realized it would be best not to lie. “A wedding ring,” he said.

  It was thus that the matter of Marietta Corsini came up, or to be more precise, the matter of Marietta Corsini Machiavelli. Giuditta was furious. Niccolo’s explanations were not terribly convincing, and he sounded for all the world like an adulterous husband trying to reassure an irate mistress that he cares little for his wife and that she is the only real love of his life.

  With cold eyes fixed on him, Giuditta said, “You’re asking me to believe that you married a girl to save her honor because a friend of yours got her pregnant. Why didn’t your friend marry her himself?”

  “He can’t,” said Niccolo sheepishly. “He’s a priest.”

  “And he can’t just keep her?”

  “Her father would kill him. Besides, you don’t know Marietta.”

  “No,” she said icily. “I don’t know Monna Marietta, or should I call her Signora Machiavelli?”

  “Call her whatever you want. Listen, piccioncina . . .”

  “Do you call her piccioncina too?”

  “Of course not. I told you I left Florence on our wedding night. I’ve never even slept with her. I never intend to.”

  “You Christians have an odd conception of marriage. But then you have an odd conception of a lot of things, from what I see around here—Christian charity, vows of chastity, celibacy, should I go on?”

  “No need. Listen, Giuditta. I promised Pagolo I would speak to her. For him. To try to work out some sort of compromise.”

  “And you wound up marrying her. That’s a compromise? I thought you were supposed to be a skilled negotiator?”

  “I am. When I asked her what she wanted, she was perfectly blunt. She said she wanted children. As for a husband, she said she could do without one but . . .”

  “But they occasionally come in handy when one wants to have children.”

  Niccolo ignored the remark. “I begged her to consider Pagolo’s fate. She said he had served his purpose, and if her father chose to kill him, well that was Pagolo’s problem. He could always leave town. There were a number of solutions. Then she came up with the idea. ‘Why don’t you marry me?’ she said.”

  “How did she know you weren’t already promised in marriage, or God forbid, even in love?” asked Giuditta sarcastically.

  “She accused me of being a sodomite,” said Niccolo. “You know, the Florentine vice?”

  “Then?”

  “Then we all sat down together—Marietta, Pagolo and I—and she laid down her terms. If I married her, Pagolo’s neck would be saved, her honor preserved, and her father kept from doing anyt
hing rash.”

  “And what were you supposed to get out of the bargain?”

  “According to Marietta—respectability, a screen for my shameless homosexual activities.”

  Giuditta laughed.

  “Then, of course, there was the dowry, the not-inconsiderable dowry.”

  “Who gets the dowry?”

  “I get part of it.”

  “You married her for her money. That’s disgusting.”

  “I don’t get much. This is the arrangement. She comes to live with the Machiavelli family as any wife should. But since my family owns a house in the city and a smaller one in the country, she stipulated that she occupy one house and I the other. When I come out to the country, she goes into the city. And vice versa. In return, she’ll pay me at a fixed annual rate, what amounts to the upkeep on one of the houses.”

  “You didn’t get that good of a deal.”

  “With my salary and with the problems in the Florentine treasury right now, I didn’t get such a bad deal.”

  “And what does the priest get?”

  “Nothing. His skin. But I think she has a perverse affection for him.”

  “Who gets the rest of your ‘not-inconsiderable’ dowry?”

  “Marietta keeps it for herself. And her children.”

  “Some diplomat.”

  “I do derive one additional advantage from the arrangement,” said Niccolo.

  “Oh?”

  “Suppose I do have some hidden love to cover, not the Florentine vice, but an unlawful, some would say unnatural appetite, just the same? Wouldn’t a sham marriage be a perfect way to conceal such a dangerous thing?”

  “And what would that unlawful, unnatural appetite be?” said Giuditta, relenting finally and yielding to Niccolo’s embrace. Neither had to speak, but both were aware of the precariousness of their situation. There was scarcely a city in Europe that did not have laws on the books for dealing with the illicit union of Christians and Jews. In times of indulgence, like the present, those laws were not enforced. But in times of persecution, they could be applied with maniacal severity. And times of persecution were never far away. With the Inquisition gaining in strength and fanaticism in Spain, the tolerance or indifference toward Jews that characterized the Borgia papacy was coming to an end.

  In Germany, a spirit of rebellion was brewing that would soon erupt into the full-blown revolution known as the Protestant Reformation. The church was about to be squeezed—very hard. And when the church was squeezed, she struck back. She lashed out at enemies—real and imagined, internal and external—with the full arsenal of weapons at her disposal, weapons like rarely enforced statutes, like the laws that prescribe the death penalty for any Christian found guilty of consorting sexually with a Jew. That the Jew was beheaded as well goes without saying. In fact, the offending couple was usually beheaded together on the scaffold. According to the penal code, such a twin beheading was the lawful punishment for all acts of bestiality.

  “Your friend’s here,” whispered Giuditta. Niccolo had completely forgotten about Michelozzi. Looking down, he saw that his fellow Florentine, masked, was cavorting with three nymphs, dancing with a candle in his mouth. Niccolo recognized him by the loud harlequin doublet, although his friend’s equally garish hose done in the same pattern were nowhere to be seen.

  “Look at him there! With that candle. Che spiritoso!”

  “That fool in the red-and-yellow checkered outfit? You know him?”

  “That’s my new friend. He works at the Florentine embassy here in Rome. Isn’t that who you meant?”

  “No, I meant your old friend. Look there.”

  Following the line of her gaze, Niccolo saw the old friend she meant—a dark figure, poised in the shadows. Caesar Borgia.

  “Well, I suppose I should go down and greet him,” said Niccolo, pulling on the slightly ridiculous clothes Michelozzi had lent him. He would never have chosen blue for himself, not powder blue at any rate.

  “So the diplomat is going back to work,” said Giuditta with a wicked smile. “I hope you manage negotiations for your city better than you did your marriage contract.”

  Niccolo did not appreciate the humor and skulked out of the room to meet his nemesis. He put on the mask.

  The usually taciturn man was talking freely, boasting of his military exploits. Niccolo joined the small group gathered around him and listened patiently to Caesar’s account of the taking of one of the Orsini fortresses in the hills outside Rome. He described with verve and apparent pleasure the execution of the leaders of the rebellious stronghold.

  When he had finished, Caesar paused for a drink, then continued, “But the Orsini,” he mused. “Fighting the Orsini is beneath our dignity, like swatting flies. We’ve left our subordinates in charge of the campaign against the contumacious Orsini. Don Micheletto can deliver their heads to us here in Rome by the cartload if he wants to. We have better things to do.”

  “And what might those better things be, Excellency?” said Niccolo, removing his mask.

  Caesar’s head snapped around at the sound of his voice. A malicious grin spread slowly across his face. “So the Florentine envoy has followed us here all the way to Rome. What an unexpected pleasure. It would be remiss of us not to show him every courtesy.” He called for wine, and, with a nonchalant wave of his hand, dismissed the little circle gathered around him like a man dispersing a cloud of gnats.

  When they were alone, he turned his masked face to the Florentine envoy. Only the evil smile buried in the thick black beard was visible beneath the mask. “Shall we talk?”

  “We’ve done little else since our first meeting,” observed Niccolo.

  “Then perhaps the time for talk is over, don’t you agree? Let us be blunt. Our ears have grown long listening to the Florentines. Since they’ve repeatedly rejected our offers of friendship, we intend to destroy them.”

  Niccolo was taken aback but didn’t show it. “And how do you propose to do that?”

  “With money and bread and men and iron! First by taking Pisa and cutting off your access to the sea. Then by marching directly against Florence and tearing her walls apart stone by stone.” A certain uncharacteristic rage had crept into Caesar’s voice as he outlined his brief program. The village strongman was losing control.

  Niccolo countered, “And if your designs should incur the displeasure of the king of France?”

  “Then the king of France will have to learn to live with that displeasure, won’t he?” Caesar shot back vehemently. “We will no longer be denied.” The velvet glove had come off the iron fist.

  Niccolo leaned close to Caesar in the dim candlelight and said matter-of-factly, “I think, Excellency, that if you go against Florence you will find far stiffer resistance than you’ve ever encountered before.”

  Caesar roared with laughter. “Does the Florentine envoy threaten us then?”

  “Consider it what you will.”

  Caesar was smiling now. The dark cloud had passed. “I know the Florentines,” he said. “Stiff necked and uncircumcised of heart, but grasping, grasping. When the time comes, we’ll know how to deal with you. We’ll see which you value more—your vaunted liberties or your pocketbooks. Do you want to wager we can take Florence without firing a single shot? By buying her off?”

  Niccolo winced. That was always a distinct possibility. There were more than enough Florentines willing to sell the city and her government for thirty pieces of silver—to Caesar, to the Medici in exile, to the highest bidder.

  “But this is wearisome,” said Caesar. “We didn’t come here to argue politics. We came to worship Venus and her son Cupid! Pasiphae! Pasiphae!”

  “Pasiphae?” inquired Niccolo.

  “Pasiphae is my personal favorite among the ladies here—for the time being. Do you know the origin of the name? Do you know who Pasiphae was?”

  Niccolo knew all the old legends. He recited by rote: “Pasiphae was the wife of Minos who was cursed by Poseidon and conceived
a mad, destructive passion for a bull, with whom she eventually coupled.”

  “And do you know who the bull is?” said Caesar with smug satisfaction.

  Borgia’s gloating was interrupted by a strange sound, by the indescribable tinkling of a thousand tiny bells like the far-away voices of a thousand happy children. A woman appeared in front of them clad in a long, heavy dress, covered with shimmering silver bells like a coat of living, singing armor.

  She bowed to Caesar, but it was not a bow of submission. It was a simple acknowledgement. “My Pasiphae,” said Caesar, presenting her to the Florentine envoy.

  Another bow sent out another wave of tintinnabulation. Niccolo was stunned by the singing dress. He had never seen such a thing before. The light played on its lustrous, undulating surface, and every small movement or shift in position produced another chorus of tiny, ringing voices. When he was finally able to take his dazzled eyes off of the thing long enough to look Caesar’s dark beauty in the face, he was all the more stunned. It was not the razor-sharp features or the high shaved forehead or the arrogant lips in themselves that startled Niccolo. It was the shock of recognition.

  The dress was new, but the face was one he had seen before, only the last time she had gone by the name of Faustina, and he had been charged by Piero Capponi to deliver her over to Charles VIII, monster-king of France.

  As the bull collected his prize and turned to go, Pasiphae whispered discreetly in Niccolo’s ear. “You were right. Six toes.”

  Niccolo quickly got over his surprise, reasoning, correctly, that nothing could be more natural than to find a whore in a whorehouse. And Pasiphae did not concern him nearly so much as her lover, the Borgia Bull. Caesar had changed, and Niccolo had anticipated that change. His iron-willed self-control was slipping. Caesar the tight-lipped had become a boaster. And an incautious one at that. He could have had no way of knowing who his audience was in that circle of strange, masked creatures that surrounded him. The fat man with no ass and a generous belly who seemed to approve Caesar’s discourse—who was he? And the girls—eyes and ears of God knows what king or duke or archbishop in this den of iniquity.