by S. J. Parris
I stared at her, my eyes locked on hers, frozen for several moments as if my brain could not quite process what was happening. My body caught up quicker than my thoughts; as she slid a hand up my leg and bent her head to kiss me, I knew I had to move before my natural responses rendered me helpless. I sprang from the bed, snatching the hem of my habit out from under her as my belt fell to the floor, and backed towards the door.
‘My lady, I can’t – I must stay pure. I am to see the Holy Father tomorrow.’
Her smile vanished. ‘Pure. Please. Who would know?’
I gestured to the ceiling. ‘God is watching.’
‘He’s seen worse.’ She stood and advanced towards me, but there was no honey in her expression now; she looked at me as if we were circling one another in preparation for a duel, and I realised that the conquest had become a matter of saving her pride. For the space of a heartbeat I considered giving in; she was, after all, a good-looking woman, standing before me half-naked, the firelight playing pleasingly over her skin. It would have been no hardship to give her what she wanted. But in the same moment I realised the price would be too high; to make an enemy of her brother the cardinal, on whose goodwill Porta depended, as well as that hot-headed thug Renzo, would not be worth a few minutes of pleasure that I was fairly sure I was not sober enough to appreciate. The insult to her vanity would be brief, and I could take comfort in the knowledge that I had done nothing deserving of reproach.
‘Forgive me,’ I stammered again, fumbling for the latch, and fled before she could lunge at me, leaving her staring in disbelief and fury as the door swung shut. I ran for the nearest set of stairs, tore along an empty corridor and found myself in an outer courtyard by the stables, where boys were saddling horses by torchlight, ready for whenever the last guests chose to depart. The sounds of music and singing carried from the house behind me. My breath steamed in the air; I glanced up to see stars pin-bright in a clear sky. I shivered, realising I had forgotten to collect my cloak, but I did not dare return to the main entrance in search of it. I had lost my belt too, and had to hitch my habit up to keep it off the frosty ground. The thought of it in the lady Lucrezia’s hands, as evidence, gave me a cold sensation in my stomach, as if I were the one with something to feel guilty about.
‘You look frozen, Fra Giordano,’ said a woman’s voice softly, behind me. I jumped, turning with my hands up in defence; the Ferrara accent was so like Lucrezia d’Este’s that I feared she had followed me. But when the figure stepped forward from the shadows, I saw that it was her sister, the lady Leonora. She was wrapped in a heavy cape of fur, with matching mittens on her hands.
‘I left my cloak,’ I said, with an anxious glance at the house.
‘I came out to escape the noise,’ she said, by way of explanation. ‘I like to look at the stars. I find them reassuringly indifferent to our petty concerns, don’t you?’
I nodded, with a shiver, though in that moment my concerns seemed far from petty; I had insulted the sister of a cardinal, whose suitor had threatened to kill me, and the next day, on no sleep, I was to appear before the Pope, who was apparently planning to trap me into condemning myself and my convent for heresy.
‘Do you ever imagine what it would be like to fly among the stars?’ she murmured, her head tilted back. ‘Your friend Porta told my brother he is working on a device with lenses that would allow him to see the heavens as if they were mere yards away.’
‘Did he?’ I felt it best not to admit to knowing anything of Porta’s experiments, though his optical device was among the more harmless.
‘I hope he does not succeed,’ she said, smiling. ‘I prefer the heavens to remain a mystery. I find this desire men have to measure and categorise everything to be at odds with awe and beauty. Suppose we could see the stars up close and find they do not look like diamonds on a velvet cloth after all? How disappointing that would be.’
‘But there is wonder in understanding how the universe works, my lady,’ I said, thinking at the same time that I was probably too drunk for a conversation that might stray dangerously close to heresy. ‘The knowledge of how to measure and map the oceans has allowed men to discover new worlds over the sea in our lifetime – might the same not be true of the heavens?’
She turned to me and frowned. ‘You think there are other worlds in the heavens? I have never heard such an idea.’
But I had. In Porta’s secret library I had found books by Nicholas of Cusa and the Polish astronomer Copernicus proposing the theory that the Earth was not the centre of the universe, that it circled the Sun, a star like any other star, and if that were the case, why should every other star we see not also have its own worlds in orbit, just like ours? Those books and their hypotheses were strictly forbidden by the Inquisition; it was pure folly even to hint at them to the sister of a cardinal.
‘No. That would be blasphemy,’ I said quickly. ‘Forgive me, my lady – I talk too much.’
‘My sister Lucrezia always says the same of me. By the way – she was looking for you earlier,’ Leonora added, giving me a sidelong look. ‘She seemed quite determined to find you. Did she?’
I lowered my eyes. I could not think how to answer, though I felt discretion was my best defence. A dull pain throbbed behind my eyes; if I had not been so cold, I might have fallen asleep right there on my feet.
‘I see.’ She continued to watch me. ‘Luigi said he warned you. You turned her down, yes? That’s why you’ve come running out here without your cloak?’
I nodded miserably. She glanced around the yard, then clapped her hands together briskly.
‘Then you need to leave immediately. My sister doesn’t like to be thwarted – she tends to lash out.’
‘How do you mean?’ I snapped my head up, alarmed.
‘Do as I say. Get yourself away from here while her anger is hot, so none of her poison darts can land. By tomorrow she’ll probably have forgotten the whole thing. I’ll have your cloak sent on.’ She called over one of the grooms. ‘You, sirrah – take one of the cardinal’s horses and see this young friar safely back to Santa Maria sopra Minerva, quick as you can. Go the back way.
‘Merry Christmas to you, Fra Giordano,’ Leonora said, as I mounted behind the servant and the gates were opened for us. ‘May the Christ child and His Holy Mother bless your audience with His Holiness tomorrow. And don’t worry about my sister. I will speak in your defence.’
I thanked her with a tight bow from the saddle, but all I could think was: defence against what? I feared that, of the two impossible choices put before me in that small, firelit chamber, I had made the wrong one.
I woke abruptly into grainy grey light, to find myself shaken by the officious novice from the day before.
‘Fra Agostino sent me to fetch you,’ he said. ‘You’ve overslept.’ He seemed pleased but unsurprised by this most basic shortcoming.
I sat up gingerly, touching my fingers to my temples. My skull felt like the shell of an egg that might fracture with the slightest unexpected movement. I did not remember much about how I got home; I recalled the horse, the solid bulk of the cardinal’s servant as I clung to him through twisting back streets; the knowing nod of the old gatekeeper at Santa Maria as he unlocked the door for me. I had no idea what time that might have been, or any recollection of how I had found my way to my bed.
‘Can I get some hot water?’ I asked the boy. ‘I would like to wash before I see Fra Agostino.’
‘No time for that,’ the boy said, smirking. ‘He’s waiting for you to go to early Mass at San Pietro.’
Madonna porca. I managed to keep the curse under my breath. I stood, steadying myself as waves of dizziness blurred my vision and the pain threatened to split my head in two. I felt as if I had barely closed my eyes. Never again, I thought, furious with myself; it was all I could do to remember my own name, never mind swathes of scripture.
‘What time is it?’ I asked.
‘Six.’ He opened the door and held it for me. Somewhere
beyond the cloister a bell was ringing. ‘I heard you didn’t get back until four.’
I passed a hand through my hair. I didn’t want to think about what I looked like. It was then that I realised my habit was trailing on the floor.
‘Can I borrow your belt?’ I said.
‘What?’ He looked me up and down. ‘No. Don’t you have one?’
‘I lost it. Come on – I can’t go to San Pietro like this. It would reflect badly on our order.’
He hesitated, his cheeks primly sucked in, as if he couldn’t imagine how someone could be such a hopeless mess. After a moment, he rolled his eyes and unfastened the cord around his waist. ‘This is only so you don’t make Santa Maria look bad,’ he said. ‘Although from what I hear it will take more than a belt.’
I decided not to give him the satisfaction of asking what he meant by that.
‘Dear God in Heaven.’ Fra Agostino assessed me from head to foot and shook his head in dismay. ‘Your face is actually green. Are you going to be sick?’
‘I think it must have been something I ate,’ I mumbled. ‘Probably the wrong season for shellfish.’
He gave me a long look. ‘I don’t think it’s what you ate. You reek of wine. I hope you didn’t do anything to disgrace yourself?’
‘Of course not.’ Jagged shards of memory jabbed uncomfortably at me; my hand on Lucrezia’s breast; punching Renzo in the stomach; suggesting to the lady Leonora that I believed in other worlds. ‘It was all quite uneventful.’
‘You can tell me all about it on the way. Oh, and this was sent for you by messenger from the Este house early this morning.’ He held up my cloak. ‘You must have left in a hurry. Like Joseph fleeing from Potiphar’s wife.’ He raised an eyebrow.
‘No, nothing like that. I just forgot it.’
‘Really? I thought you were the memory expert.’
I shrugged the cloak around my shoulders and avoided his eye.
We walked to the Vatican with other senior brothers from Santa Maria, accompanied by several armed servants; Fra Agostino had brought with him a purse from which he distributed Christmas alms to the beggars and workless men who lined the streets with their hands out, hoping for a scrap of seasonal charity from those on their way to Mass at San Pietro. Agostino quizzed me all the way about what I had seen and heard at Cardinal d’Este’s the night before; he was disappointed with my claim that I had been seated at a far end of the table among persons of no note and had overheard little of interest.
‘No rumours at all that Este is trying to raise a faction against the Pope in the Sacred College?’
‘Nothing of that nature,’ I said. ‘Everyone spoke most respectfully of His Holiness.’ As we passed through a small piazza the smell of fresh bread drifted from a tavern; I was at once ravenous and nauseous.
‘Hm. And did you see any suggestion of fornication or lewd behaviour?’
His eagerness on this point was off-putting. I could not shake the image of Lucrezia unlacing her bodice and reaching under my habit. ‘Not in my presence. There was dancing, but it did not seem improper.’
‘So you failed to observe anything that might be of value to Cardinal Rebiba,’ Agostino said with a sniff as we crossed the Ponte Sant’Angelo. The dark walls of the castle prison loomed ahead and I thought of Cardinal Rebiba locked up there for months on a pope’s whim, while his colleague was strangled in the dark. ‘Whatever other gifts you may have, you are sadly lacking the skills for spying.’
‘I never claimed any such talent,’ I said, pulling my cloak tight against the cold. ‘That was your idea.’ The bridge was crowded and I could see a greater throng of people ahead, pressing towards the Piazza San Pietro for a glimpse of the Holy Father.
‘If you hope for a future in Rome,’ Agostino said with chilly contempt, ‘you would do well to learn that intelligence is the most versatile currency here. Tell me – what did you make of Cardinal d’Este’s sisters?’
‘Oh – I only saw them from a distance. I found them to be modest, gracious women.’
‘Then you are more naïve than I thought. The elder is a notorious Jezebel. Never happier than when she has young men duelling to the death over her. And they say when she tires of her lovers, she finds a way to be rid of them. More than one has found himself on the wrong end of false charges. Those of lower birth don’t even get the courtesy of a trial.’
‘What?’ I turned to him, staring, then quickly dropped my gaze, hoping he had not seen the panic in my eyes.
‘Last year, a groom from the Este household washed up dead on the banks of the Tiber. Supposedly an altercation in a tavern over a bet, but rumour said he had been the lover of Lucrezia and she wanted him silenced.’ There was a particular malicious pleasure in his tone, or perhaps the lack of sleep made me imagine that.
‘Rumour may say much,’ I muttered.
‘But rarely without cause, where women are concerned,’ he said smoothly. ‘You must be relieved you only saw her from a distance.’
‘Greatly relieved.’ For a moment I thought I might be sick on the steps.
Papal guards ushered us into the great draughty basilica of San Pietro and escorted us through the crowd of citizens to the front benches, where the dignitaries of the city’s religious houses were seated, their orders marked by the colours of their habits. Ahead of us, closer to the altar, scarlet robes rippled as the members of the Sacred College of Cardinals took their places. I wished I had been in better shape to appreciate the magnificence of my surroundings; though the dome was unfinished and the roof covering temporary, the sheer size of the basilica made it a marvel of art, geometry and engineering, a bold assertion of Rome’s primacy as the beating heart of the Christian faith. If I had been feeling less delicate I might have experienced a moment of pride at this religious life I had chosen, or paused to ponder the ineffable mysteries of divine grace as we celebrated the incarnation of God in the Nativity. But as the choir’s first clear notes ascended to the heights and I craned around to see the papal procession advancing up the nave, all I could think about were the stories I had just heard concerning Lucrezia d’Este.
After the Mass was over and the Holy Father had left to dispense his blessings from the balcony to the waiting crowd in the piazza, one red-robed figure detached from the flock of cardinals and moved towards us. I saw Fra Agostino’s eyes light up like a girl awaiting her sweetheart, and guessed that this must be his patron, to whom I was expected to show my gratitude.
Cardinal Scipione Rebiba was a tall, broad-chested man, with a full beard still more black than grey despite his sixty years. His rectangular slab of a face looked as if it had been carved from one solid block of marble. He did not smile, and his expression when he looked at me was that of a man who expects to be disappointed.
I lowered my eyes in deference. He held out his hand and Fra Agostino bent to kiss the gold ring he offered.
‘So this is the talented Fra Giordano Bruno?’ He made it sound as if I had given myself the accolade. He stretched his hand to me and then withdrew it hastily. ‘What’s wrong with him, Agostino? He looks like he’s coming down with the plague.’
I was glad I could not see myself in a glass; I was conscious of the sweat glazing my skin.
‘I assure you he’s perfectly well, Your Eminence,’ Fra Agostino said, before I could speak, with an oily little bow. ‘It may be that something disagreed with him last night at Cardinal d’Este’s feast.’
‘Ha. Este disagrees with everyone – it wouldn’t surprise me if his food followed suit. Come on, then, don’t waste my time.’ Rebiba set off down the nave in long strides, cracking a smile at his own wit. Agostino chivvied me along in his wake.
He led us through a side entrance, across a small courtyard and into a chapel that seemed unassuming from the outside, but caused me to cry out as we entered.
‘What?’ Rebiba, halfway across the chapel, turned impatiently to find me rooted to the spot, staring in amazement at the ceiling. ‘Oh, this. Yes, I always f
orget how it renders people speechless the first time they see it. Bit gaudy for my taste, but he had an eye for spectacle, that Buonarroti.’
‘I’ve never seen anything like it.’ I felt as if the breath had been knocked out of my body. I wanted to lie on the floor for a day and take it all in. On every wall, biblical scenes exploded into vivid colour, characters of flesh and muscle, their coiled energy captured as if the master had painted them from life, in the midst of their private dramas. Naples had beautiful churches, but until that moment I had not encountered art possessed by genius. ‘It’s as if his brush was touched by the hand of God.’
‘He certainly thought so,’ Rebiba said drily. ‘Stubborn old goat.’
‘You knew him?’ I stared.
‘He died only five years ago. Nearly ninety, and still arguing with everyone. I never met a man so sure of his own brilliance. Thought his gifts gave him some kind of divine singularity that permitted him to defy popes.’ He pointed a finger in my direction. ‘Don’t take any lessons from him, if you know what’s good for you.’
But I crossed the chapel with my head craned back and my eyes fixed on the ceiling, on the hand of God stretched out to Adam, privately thinking that no pope or cardinal could be closer to the divine mind than the man who had given life to those pictures from his own imagination.
We were accompanied by soldiers from the Papal Guard up a flight of stairs and through a series of rooms no less astonishing in their decoration, until we were shown into a chamber known as the Stanza della Segnatura, and I understood with a tightening of my throat that we were now in the very heart of the Apostolic Palace.
‘This is the Holy Father’s official study,’ Agostino hissed. ‘Where he signs the papal bulls that must be obeyed throughout Christendom. Quite a thought, is it not?’
I nodded. the order of excommunication against Elizabeth of England. Though the high-backed wooden throne at the far end of the room was empty, the setting demanded hushed voices. We were not the only ones waiting for an audience with His Holiness; perhaps a dozen men stood about in small groups, some in silk doublets and fur collars, others in clerical robes or religious habits, heads bent, conferring in whispers. At our arrival they fell silent, looked from me to Cardinal Rebiba and fell back to their murmuring, eyes still fixed on us.