“If you were to divine a singular cause of our ill favor, Antonio, what would it be?” he asks his secretary.
Antonio shifts, considers. “The elephant.”
There it is. Since the embassy of the Portingales, his world has lurched on the back of an elephant. And now, since this morning, since the Pope’s little declamation, his urbane feigning of surprise—No? Neither of you? Neither of you have read Plinius?—the beast has changed. It sharpens its horn on a rock the better to gore the belly of the elephant, is ill-tempered and untamable, but docile in the presence of virgins. The Pope had grown enthusiastic, all but acting out the description. Could such an animal exist?
“He wants a companion for Hanno,” Vich tells his secretary. “His favor hangs on that.”
“A companion?”
“He wants to see them fight.” Vich’s shrug is unsurprised, as though the Pope’s inanity passed the point of senselessness long ago.
Odd noises percolate up from the tinello below, pots banging, the scrape of heavy tables being dragged out from the walls, his crédencier’s barking, scraps of the servants’ backchat. Then, from somewhere behind the room in which they wait, both men stiffen as they hear a catch click, a door open, and careful steps climb slowly up the back stairs. The door at the far side of the room swings open to reveal a figure swathed in hat, and cloak, his face covered by the windings of a voluminous scarf. The figure breathes heavily. And sweats. First the cloak, then the hat, and last of all the scarf is removed to reveal a face bright red from the heat, which grins at the two men while the body makes slight bobbing motions, as though ducking badly aimed stones. Antonio regards the jerky figure with ill-concealed dislike.
“Be seated, Venturo,” says Don Jerònimo.
The man sits, shifts himself forward, settles again. He fidgets, scratches, as though the chair he perches on pains him in some way. Little rivulets of sweat travel erratically down his forehead and run into his eyes, making him blink. He produces a handkerchief and dabs quickly. His hat has formed his hair into a bird’s nest. Antonio and Don Jerònimo wait patiently and in silence. There was rarely any need to actually question Venturo.
“Cursed heat. Quite stifling. Now, interesting developments, most interesting.” More dabbing. “Concerning the supplication. Concerning the soon-to-be bull. The bull, yes. No name yet, mind you, no name, though I have seen the supplication, rough sort of thing. Seen it in the chamber, it’s already there, on its way, as they say. With the clerks, anyhow, had a good old look, I did.” Some vigorous nodding. “They won’t have your extension; no, not at all”—shaking his head—“they’ll stop it dead, so they will. In—its—tracks.”
“You are speaking of the line, Venturo?” prompts Antonio.
“Three hundred and seventy leagues west of the Cape Verdes, all as before. Dom Manolo to the east, ourselves to the west. … Do I offend, Don Antonio?”
The mention of “ourselves” has brought Antonio’s expression of distaste to a level even Venturo cannot ignore.
“Continue,” says Don Jerònimo.
“To the west, that’s it. Pole to pole, though, not all the way round. That’s the crux, eh? Not all the way round.” Venturo waves his arm in a rough circle. “Not a chance.”
“That is only the supplication, Venturo. Much can change before the bull itself is issued.”
“Much or nothing. Dr. Faria prefers nothing infinitely, you prefer much. Who will have his way? To whom does His Holiness lean, eh? Interesting developments, as I say. All very interesting. Faria’s sister waits upon the Queen. She reports Dom Manolo to be delighted with this novel manner of diplomacy. Did you see the Medici’s expression when the beast squirted the cardinals? He loves the animal more than his own blood; I heard he refused his cousin the loan of it, frightened that the walk to Florence would pain its feet. His own cousin. Did you hear that?”
Venturo’s movements confine themselves now to rocking back and forth and hand wringing. His restlessness transfers itself to his speech, which stops and starts, leaping from subject to subject: the Pope’s delight, his sister’s gallstone, a rumor that Leno and Arminelli have fallen out, a little later that they are reconciled, that the revenues of Parma and Piacenza are to be reassigned to the Duchy of Modena, and agents of Bentivoglio of Bologna have entered into talks with Venice.
Don Jerònimo sits with his chin propped on his hands, puzzled somewhat at his own patience with this rambling knave when only an hour before he had erupted with rage at his master.
“Come to your point,” Antonio snaps after some minutes. “You try my master’s goodwill.”
“Goodwill, eh? Well, there we are at the nub of it. There have been developments, as I say. Very interesting. Now how much am I to say, I wonder? Such hungry Spanish gentlemen as yourselves, how much will fill your stomachs today?”
It seems that Venturo is smirking, toying with their curiosity, which is too much for Antonio. Venturo cowers but makes no attempt to defend himself as Antonio strides over, draws back his arm, and cuffs him once, twice, about the head.
“Now speak, you bastard!” he barks at the man.
Antonio makes as if to strike him a third time, but a near imperceptible shake of the head from Don Jerònimo stays his hand. Venturo’s fidgeting returns, worse than before. He begins speaking more urgently. Antonio hovers behind him.
“A communiqué has arrived. Albuquerque has sent word from the Indies to Dr. Faria here in Rome. They have a compact, those two. Dom Manolo is said to favor it: a little plot to sweeten His Holiness.”
“And to aid the passage of the bull,” adds Antonio from behind.
“I tell you what I hear. The Ambassador is very cheerful of late. Very flowery in his manners, very sweet. Yes, well, the communiqué speaks of a shipment to be sent from Goa. A second beast; a companion for the beloved Hanno.”
“Another elephant?” Antonio queries.
Venturo twists about to answer him. “I believe it is a different kind of animal. Dr. Faria said that he had never heard of its like.”
“And the name of this unheard-of beast?” Don Jerònimo, mildly.
“Now that is where the store of my ignorance begins, Ambassador Vich. The name itself was not mentioned, or if it was, I was not present to hear it.” Venturo laughs nervously. “I will keep my ears pricked, be assured of that.”
Don Jerònimo smiles at Antonio, who smiles back.
“Ears pricked, eh?”
“A figure of speech, Ambassador. No more than that. I meant only—”
“The name of this beast, Venturo.”
“As I say, I have yet to discover it. …”
“Ears pricked, he says, Antonio.”
“I tell you both, I have yet to discover it. I swear it, gentlemen!”
It seems that Antonio is about to set to work again when Don Jerònimo raises his hand and purses his lips. He weighs the matter up.
“Don Antonio, be so good, if you will, to send for Don Diego.”
“No!” shouts Venturo. Antonio makes for the door, already shouting the name, while Venturo tries to cling to his sleeve. “I tell you I know nothing!”
“Ears pricked indeed.” Don Jerònimo is shaking his head regretfully.
“Please, Don Jerònimo, I have told you all I know. I have kept good faith with you, have I not? Now I beg you to believe me. I beg you!”
Venturo squirms on his chair, his face radiating earnestness as he pleads with Don Jerònimo. His eyes keep darting over the silent man’s shoulder. Suddenly the door opens again. Antonio and Don Diego march in. Without seeming to break his stride, Don Diego smacks Venturo’s face, bangs his head on the table, then holds the head in place with one hand, fishing with the other for his knife. Venturo begins to sob, “I do not know, I do not know” over and over again.
“The name, Venturo?” asks Don Jerònimo, but this only prompts a series of high wails. “Very well. Don Diego? Venturo here has promised us his ears will henceforth be pricked in our cause
, now—”
“No, no, no, no, noo-ooo! Pleeaassse … I do not know the name. I do not!”
Don Diego bends to his task, but before he has so much as scratched his man, Venturo starts to scream.
“Enough!” Don Jerònimo orders, then slumps back in his chair. “Thank you, Don Diego. That will suffice.”
Don Diego’s expression has not changed since the charade began. Now he merely nods, straightens, turns about. The soldier’s boots thud on the floorboards of the sala outside. Venturo snivels, still prostrate on the table. Antonio pulls him up and deposits him in his chair. A long minute passes while Don Jerònimo regards him thoughtfully.
“You bore it very well, Venturo,” he says finally. “Very bravely.” Venturo nods through his sniffles. “You must have something in your eye, I think. It is watering. Antonio? A handkerchief for Venturo here. His own is too grimy. … There now. Better?”
“He was to tell His Holiness of the new animal today,” Venturo says, wiping his face. “He was to sound him out on it, and then you were present, so I do not know if he did or no. That is the truth of it, and I know no more.”
“Naturally we believe you, Venturo. We would hardly put you through such an ordeal for nothing. You are one of our own. You will tell us when you know, will you not?” Venturo sniffs loudly and nods. “Good. Antonio will pay you. Now come here and kiss me.” Don Jerònimo smells the sourness of Venturo’s fear as their cheeks brush.
A minute later, Antonio has joined him on the loggia overlooking the courtyard.
“Do we believe him, Antonio?”
“He knew we dared not mark him so obviously, Excellency.”
“His terror was real enough. I fear that our Pope’s horn-sharpening lover of virgins and Faria’s mysterious animal are one and the same. In any case, it is the fact of this beast, not its name, which must concern us now. Faria will not keep his secret long. His genius is for advertisement, as I was taught again today. And His Holiness … He is clever to set Faria and myself against each other in this way. And yet he craves marvels and prodigies before allies and armies. I tell you, a dragon, a gryphon, and a centaur would secure Africk, the Indies, and the New World, all three. But who was it gave Cardinal Medici his beloved Florence? Does he forget so quickly?”
“Some say that it is not a happy memory,” offers Antonio.
“Oh, doubtless he would not wish to be reminded. Perhaps this explains his love of diversion, but he does not love me, Antonio. And he does not love our King.” He pauses; some impasse has been reached. “I do not understand him. I do not understand this Pope of ours.”
“He is simple as a woman,” Antonio tells his master. “It is his whims which make him complex.”
The courtyard below is silent. Its flagstones glare in the afternoon sunlight, dazzling both men. Don Jerònimo recalls the scene from that morning, the animal’s sheer bulk, something crude and unfinished about it. The Pope’s open delight, like a child. Perhaps because his smallest whims met no resistance, they grew out of all proportion; peas the size of pumpkins. Mice hungry as wolves. Perhaps that was it. In the gardens of the Belvedere the Pope’s whims had no season, grew unchecked, became monsters. Simple as a woman. That was good. Don Jerònimo turns to his secretary.
“I have an appointment with my mistress, Antonio. I am to take her to Mass at the Colonnas. The feast of Saints Philip and James is said to be amusing, and I am in need of amusement.”
“Take Don Diego, Excellency.”
“Pay court to one’s mistress in the company of soldiers? Absurd! She understands one weapon only, and Don Diego does not wield it.”
“We are not much loved at present, Don Jerònimo. If you are caught alone, it would be an easy matter—”
“This is not Venice, Antonio. Faria would not dare. I shall go to her early, surprise her. Do you still have that minx up from the Ripa?”
Antonio nods. “A candle’s worth of whatever I please for a handful of soldi. I think she must be stupid.”
“I cannot say mine own is stupid. She has the reddest lips, the most golden hair, the tiniest feet, the readiest wit. She plays the lute, or so she says, sings verses. Only thinking of her stirs me up; I swear there is a part of me that loves the woman.” At this point Don Jerònimo pauses in his praises, as though unsure exactly how to proceed. Antonio turns to him expectantly. There is a further aspect to be mentioned, a most encompassing particular. But is he to celebrate it or decry it? In his contemplations, true, it is a part of her he has been repelled by. Yet in the flesh, in the closeness of her chamber, in the dark, in the hours when his hands are busy on her slopes and summits, two feverish explorers roped together in his head, then … Well, she is fat. The fact is inescapable and apparent at a glance. His mistress is very fat.
Antonio watches him as the morning past and evening to come conflate and merge. The animal’s bulk and his darling Fiametta’s, they—as it were—correspond. … Put a horn on her nose, sheathe her in gray, and …? No. He feels light and unguarded, his thoughts drifting like this under the secretary’s nose. You are a traitorous knave, Antonio, and I will cut your throat. Under his very nose. Horns and virgins. …
Pitched somewhere in the gulf between outrage and admiration, the expletive bursts from him, startling his secretary, awakening slumbering servants within, sending lizards basking in the heat below scrambling for the shadows of the arcade.
“Plinius!” blurts Don Jerònimo.
It appears suddenly, a cliff of travertine and tufa rising up and running the length of the Piazza di Santissimi Apostoli. Heavy iron grilles protect tiny ground-floor windows set within deep embrasures that seem to have been hollowed from solid rock. Higher up are shutters and bars. An arched gateway barred by heavy oak doors battened with iron suggests repulse rather than entrance, and the adjoining church only heightens the impression. Ramshackle parades of broken-down houses and stables face this architectural scowl across the piazza and seem to cower before its bulk. Louring over the antlike denizens below, Fortress Colonna appears as a single, enormous, impregnable block of stone.
Within, the story changes somewhat. Down the years, successive headstrong Colonnas have indulged their passion for towers, mezzanines, balconies, walkways, little blockhouses; staircases have been confidently projected through curtain walls to join bedchambers and reception rooms, grand halls envisaged by knocking out a scullery and two kitchens. Great confidence attends the workmen’s initial hammer-blows, but the business soon starts to go awry. Floor levels are found to differ by crucial inches. Walls that should be the same wall turn out to be quite different walls. Punching through here should lead to there. It doesn’t. Workmen poke dust-covered heads through holes to find themselves in little studies and servants’ dorters when they should be in cellars, or privies, or attics, anywhere but here. Elderly female second cousins have turned en deshabillé from their mirrors to find their quarters broken in upon by men swinging hammers. Denizens of the tinello have been startled in the midst of sordid solitary practices. It’s unsettling—for the engineers not least. Shouldn’t this unexpected saletta be on another floor entirely? Where did this dining room come from? Their tunneling has brought them out in rooms lost for generations by some intervening “improvement,” rooms that no one knew existed, impossible rooms.
Ceiling collapses are frequent. There are rumors of doors that open on nothing more substantial than the open sky and a drop of fifty feet. Passages take devious, compromised routes on their way to nowhere in particular. Behind its massive facade, Fortress Colonna is riddled with these inexplicable gaps. Dotted throughout the sprawling shambles are useless wedge-shaped spaces, irregular chimneys of stale air, inaccessible “courtyards,” fissures, scissures, hiccups in the ground plan. A watercourse that no one has ever managed to find erupts periodically to turn these secret gardens swampy. Overlooking windows disgorge chamber pots and soiled rushes, dog bones and dogshit, animal guts and vegetable peelings. Fortress Colonna abounds in malodorous def
aults: accidental gaps and wells where walls peel away from one another or meet at irreconcilable angles, leaving scum-filled defiles and pestilential sumps. In winter, men (small boys for the narrowest) are lowered in with buckets to clear the worst of the muck. In summer, they stink just the same.
A small mystery: If the Church of Santissimi Apostoli truly did push itself free of the adjoining palace to form this latest baffling space, no one can remember exactly when. It had always been assumed that the west wall of the nave ran flush with the east wall of the palace and the west wing of the transept intruded into the body of the adjacent building. A number of passages at that end of the palace have a certain blocked-off look about them. Eyeing it up from the available angles, the intruding transept theory looks unassailable. Direct access from palace to church? No problem at all, a simple matter of knocking through from here and coming through into the upper gallery that runs all around the church. …
The wielders of hammers and crowbars should be inured to this sensation, but still it catches them out. Crumbling brickwork topples in, a head is poked through, and there it is, thirty or forty feet away, the wall that should have been this wall. It appears from the piazza that the two buildings stand side by side. It appears from here that they do not. Another of those puzzling and pointless gaps, another fault in Fortress Colonna’s internal topography (some obstreperous geometry at work here). Fabrizio remembers angling his five-year-old head to peer down into this newly discovered secret space. The ground twenty feet below looked like a slice of cheese, but a hundred feet long. Anxious nursemaids had snatched him away, but thereafter he escaped at every opportunity to watch the men at work: cutting rope for the scaffold, winching up beams, emptying bags of lime, silversand, and horsehair into the plaster-vat. A man working all day at the business of splitting laths, he remembered that. A gap: the solution, to his grandfather, at least, had been obvious.
The Pop’s Rhinoceros Page 24