A Trembling Upon Rome

by Richard Condon

  Each day at one o'clock, Cardinal Spina (disguised) came to the house, a few minutes before luncheon was served for two in the bishop's apartment. Each day, Cardinal Spina remained with the bishop until 4.45 p.m. They met for three consecutive days. Signora Manovale observed and listened to their conversations through a gallery slit, high up in the room and reported them by courier to Cosimo di Medici.

  After Spina left each day, the bishop napped until seven o'clock, after which he bathed and did calisthenic exercises. When he dressed for the evening's dinner with the two ladies, he did not don ecclesiastic robes but wore a fashionable knight's surcoat made of fabrics of great sophistication and garments which were extremely short and padded with a mighty codpiece. His hose were laced to his upper garments. Buttons ran in long rows up and down his arms: As he gazed longingly into his looking glass, he combed his hair in radiation from the centre of his crown with the line at the back dipping well below the cropped fringe on his forehead. He wore the long, pointed shoes which his king, Charles VI, had forbidden to be worn in France because they made it impossible for the wearer to kneel in prayer. By the time he was well scented, Mademoiselle MaCloi was waiting for him with her mother in the large salon. There, they discussed French literature: Guillaume de Dole; the idealistic conception of human love as portrayed in Roman de la Rose, and Gautier de Coinci's Les Miracles de la Sainte Vierge.

  Dinner was served on a balcony overlooking an inner garden, where the bishop said that not anywhere in France, not even in Paris, had he encountered a woman who so combined beauty with intellectuality, who not only understood the true culture but had the ability to listen, as did Mademoiselle MaCloi. `I am too old by far for such things,' he said; `but were I not, I should have to say that I have lost my heart to you.'

  `We love with our minds, you and I,' the young woman said fervently., `Although,' she added, blushing skilfully, `you have not allowed it to stop there.'

  `Oh, I can race for a bit, but then I am exhausted,' the bishop said. 'Such a body as yours requires constant worship.'

  `But your mind is an instrument of prodigious skill at lovemaking,' she protested. `When you fill my heart with the poems of Eustache Deschamps and Olivier de la Marche, fighting the battle of realism against idealism, you are wooing with the strength of youth for the love of all women.'

  He patted her absent-mindedly. `I must leave for Paris,' he said. `I have lain awake nights plotting how I can take you with me yet still know that you will be served well with love in those years which lay in wait before me like brigands.'

  `It is a problem for the mind,' she said gently. `Therefore you will find a solution.'

  `I have done so,' he answered softly, reaching out to hold her hand, oblivious of Manovale's presence.

  'Please --tell me.'

  `I hesitate.''

  `But – why?'

  `It is unorthodox.'

  `You aren't capable of a flawed solution – is he, signora?'

  `Let us hear him,' the signora said:

  D'Ailly smiled ruefully. `When I was Chancellor of the University of Paris,' he said, `I had a student who was so brilliant in his kindness and so generous with his intelligence that, when I became a bishop of the Holy Church, I went to the king and persuaded him to name this student in my place as chancellor,'

  `That is friendship,' Helene said.

  `It is my history,' D'Ailly said. `Because I desire to have you near me – for the rare quick race and for the ecstatic talk and response, I am proposing that, for long-enduring lovemaking as well as for the

  fulfilment of minds, you allow yourself to be shared by my student, the Chancellor of the University of Paris, Jean Gerson.'

  `In the same bed?' she asked shyly.

  `Sometimes. Sometimes not. But could such a paradise be possible?'

  `Mademoiselle MaCloi is my daughter, my lord bishop,' Manovale said.

  `What? My dear woman, how titillating."

  Helene rose. `You two will need to talk,' she said.

  `Does your mother speak for you?' the bishop asked blandly. `She speaks for me.' Helene turned to leave the room. `Wait!'

  Helene turned back to him.

  `Before your mother and I may speak,' the bishop said, `I must know where your heart and mind rest.'

  She stared down at him, silent for several moments, then she spoke to him alone in a low, caressing voice, saying:

  ‘Slender, lovely, darling friend,

  When shall I have you in my power?

  Were I to sleep with you one night,

  And give you love’s kiss,

  Know it: I'd have such desire

  To hold you in another's place,

  If you'd promise me to do

  Everything I'd want you to.'

  `From "Estate ai greu cossirier"!' the bishop cried.

  Manovale made Bishop D'Ailly a profitable. variation of her daughter-leasing deal. Later that evening, when Mademoiselle MaCloi was packing for her departure for France with the bishop on the next morning, the signora and D'Ailly arrived at a banking arrangement, whereby, for the payment of a quarter-tithe to the bishop, and for another quarter-tithe to be paid into the account of Pope Benedict XIII into a branch of the Medici hank to be opened at Perpignan, all the funds received daily from that part of the pope's Christian obedience which was outside France would be deposited in the same Medici bank.'

  Four months later, in the autumn of 1402, Manovale was summoned to Florence to meet with Cosimo. 'My lather is enormously pleased with your work. This new business with Perpignan and Mainz is entirely in the direction of fulfilling his most cherished dream.'

  'How happy that makes me, my lord,' Manovale murmured.

  'He has extraordinary plans for you. He wants to establish a branch in Milan and in Pavia and he wants the state of Milan to put its money there. A war is coming.'

  'Good,'' she said blandly. `.When Milan goes to war against your own Florence and the pope, the Duke of Milan will need to find a lot of money. Where better than from our bank?'

  `You will be introduced to Gian Galeazzo Visconti, Duke of Milan, with safe conducts from the King of France, and from the Emperor, Wenzel, Gian Galeazzo's patron. To establish you as closely and as favourably as possible with the Duke of Milan – he is a colossal snob, and you are a woman who will be made the more, ah, credible for such an adornment – for a certain, ah, sum which my father has paid to him, the emperor has conferred upon you the title, if not the estates, of the Marchesa di Artegiana. My dear Decima! – You are now a marchesa and there are letters patent to prove it.'

  ' My lord Cosimo!' Manovale said, clutching her throat in wonder me and awe. She was overwhelmed for the only time in her life. A peasant woman who now Holy Sweet Mother of God! she was not only a marchesa, she was on her way to becoming a rich marchesa!

  'Don't get it confused, Decima,' Cosimo said with soft amusement. `The title is only a banking tool. You will have to take Gian Galeazzo in hand from this point onwards and make him see what is best for all of us. There will be danger. If he misunderstands your purpose, he will have you executed as a spy, be sure of that; but if you can persuade the duke to bank with us and to give up Pisa to Florence peacefully – my father will advance your share of all future work to a full ten per cent.'

  She smiled at him blissfully, happier than she would ever be again.

  `Our agents are at work in Mantua, Perugia and Siena, preparing the ground;' Cosimo told her. 'We will' appear to be the allies of the pope, even to financing his military expedition when it eventually happens perhaps a year or two from now. When you have Gian Galeazzo ready, you will give him those cities, delivered from within, in exchange for Pisa going to Florence. When he has those cities of the papal states, Gian Galeazzo will be ready to move south to take Rome, then Naples. He needs to be able to think that he can do that.'

  Becoming a marchesa changed everything for Manovale. I know it changed life for me and Bernaba. We were still her friends, but we saw, her in a di
fferent light. It hardly seemed possible that she had been a ruffiana and a mezzana, that I had thought of her as Manovale; never as Signora Manovale, that she had run whores and had dealt in the bodies of boys, mixed potions, sold poisons, handled stolen goods and told fortunes. Her title changed everything but the woman herself. She continued to be as she always had been aristocratic, noble, serene and ruthless.

  16

  In Rome, Cossa prepared his defence of the papal states and his counter-attack into Visconti territory. On 27 May 1403, the Milanese troops at Bologna were reinforced. On 2 June 1403, commanding an alliance of such condottieri generals as Carlo Malatesta and the constable Alberigo da Barbiano, Cossa took over command from Nicholas of Este, Marquis of Ferrara, as commander of the papal armies. Cossa was the pope's legate to the city-state of Bologna as well. He arrived with his force before Bologna's walls on 9 July and ordered his army to dig in to besiege the city.

  In the third week of the siege of Bologna, Cossa worked at a field desk deep within his army of 16,000 men, 4000 horses, 7300 camp followers, 177 priests, 59 spies and a musical group of general entertainers from Rimini who were taking in money hand over fist. It had been confirmed that Gian Galeazzo was preparing to march from Padua to relieve the city. Cossa ate the meal which Geofreddano Bocca had prepared for him, then played cards with me for about half an hour.

  `The change in the drinking water gave me the runs,' he said.

  'What do you expect?' I said, losing the hand.

  'The water is better in Rome. It is the only thing that is better.' He dealt the cards out rapidly as if he were doing required exercises.

  'You'll get used to the water here.'

  `I know. But it's rather a shock to know that there are animals in the drinking water in a great place like this and not in Rome.' He won two more hands, then turned in for the night.

  I made a bed at the entrance to his tent and went straight to sleep as always. Some time later, a gentle hand shook my shoulder. I opened my eyes and had the surprise of my life. It was the doorkeeper from the Manovale house in Rome. `What are you doing here?' was the first thing I asked her, then the real question came to me. `How the hell did you get here through the lines?'

  `How do you think I got here? I rubbed the lads a little. Franco, listen to me. This is important. My mistress, the Marchesa di Artegiana, has to talk to the cardinal. Believe me, it is very important.'

  'Who is the Marchesa di Artegiana?'

  `Didn't you hear? She is Signora Manovale! The emperor made her a marchesa!'

  Manovale?'

  'Franco, we can't talk here all night. She is waiting out there and a patrol might come upon her and stick a sword into her just for fun.'

  'All right. Okay. Bring her here.

  The doorkeeper, her name was Michela, went back into the darkness, then reappeared a few minutes later with Manovale that is to say, with the Marchesa di Artegiana.!

  'Franco!' she said softly, putting her arms around me and kissing me full on the lips, rubbing her crotch into mine as if we were longtime lovers. I had shaken hands with her a couple of times, but no more. 'How wonderful to see you again.' It was nice, and skilfully done. She let me go and stepped backwards only slightly. 'I have information that can change the war,' she said. `I must talk to the cardinal.'

  'Are you really a marchesa?' I asked her mockingly.

  She nodded solemnly. `The emperor honoured me,' she said simply.

  I went into the tent to awaken Cossa.

  'Franco Ellera! For Christ's sake, it is still dark!' he said.

  `There is a woman here, Cossa,' Franco Ellera said urgently. `Very beautiful. Very rich. She passed right through our lines and no one stopped her. It must have cost her a fortune. She came right to this tent. She knew the right tent. She is unarmed I made sure of that. She wants to talk to you. She says she has information which could change the war.'

  'Beautiful and rich? Send her in in ten minutes.'

  When Cossa was dressed, he opened the flap of the tent and motioned to me. I showed in the marchesa, a tall, hooded fgure, and left them. The doorkeeper and I got back to old times and her hips had never lost their skill.

  This is what happened inside the tent at the first meeting between Cossa and Decima Manovale. It is exactly as Cossa told it to me.

  The marchesa threw back her hood and Cossa was axed, by her beauty. She was tall, large and deep-chested, having a cap of odd-looking golden hair, very white skin dusted with sun spots and large deep-blue eyes which came up like stars behind her high cheekbones. Cossa stared into her face and she became imprinted, upon his mind and spirit. It may have been the light, the wood fire and two candles. It may have been the fault of his transformation from the half-death of sleep into a place which seemed like a dream, but the strange beauty of the woman had a bewitching force upon him. Cossa had forgotten his army and his rewarding Church. He had forgotten the woman who had felled him at Perugia. He had almost forgotten, his ambitions. He stared at her like a country boy peering from behind a barn as she dropped the cloak, showing him the strong, white outline of her shoulders and the rising, half-bare bodice above a shimmering green dress.

  `Your Eminence,' she said with a Pisan accent, speaking as if she were unaware of her effect upon him. She reached for the, hand which hung at his side, lifted it and kissed his ring. Returning the hand to its limp place, she said, `I am the Marchesa di Artegiana, at your orders.'

  Cossa came to himself again. He pulled her down upon a bench and sat close to her, smelling her, touching, her arms and hands. `Why did you come here?' he asked.

  She held his hand loosely, caressing the soft flesh under his wrist, and peered out at him from over the tops of her cheekbones like a sniper working high up from behind a rock, let her lips, slacken into an expression of sincere lust and said, `Last night in Padua, Gian Galeazzo, Duke of Milan, died in my arms, of the plague. A huge comet appeared in, the sky as he lay dying.."I thank God," he said, "that the sign of my recall appears in the heavens for all men to see." Gian Galeazzo is dead, Eminence,' she said in a soft, provoking voice. `I have come to tell you to march on Milan with your army. My; people have already seen to it that, if you march by Reggio and Parma, they will greet you as their liberator. The citizens of Brescia, Cremona, Lodi, Placentia and Bergamo will revolt from Milan and take their independence. In Milan, the duchess and her son will wall themselves up in the citadel, but she will tell the city to come to terms with you because, the wives of your generals are her sisters.'

  `How do you know these things?'

  `I was close to Gian Galeazzo. My department ranked with Francesco Barbavara's who ran his chancery.'

  `Your department?' He leered at her, giving it lewd meaning, as if he were startled that a department which called for laying on her back with her legs spread wide, with her knees lifted, could have ranked with Barbavara's.

  'It is right that you mock me,' she said, `but I ran Galeazzo's agents who supplied political information from all over Italy and Europe. I ran his agents in Aragon, Burgundy, Germany, and twice among the Turks. I ran his agents at the court of Sigismund, King of Hungary, and close to Wenzel, the emperor.' Cossa believed her story; but I didn't when it was told to me.'

  `What did you learn about me?'

  `That you adore women. That thoughts of coupling are on your mind most of the time.'

  He showed her what a Cossa smile really was.

  When the marchesa had stood away from Gian Galeazzo's corpse, she had seen what she must do, she told Bernaba months later. She had secured Milan for the Medici bank, but if the papal armies conquered the north of Italy because Gian Galeazzo's talisman was not there to ward them off, then all that good work, and her tithe, could-go to waste. Better to protect the new Milanese deposits by persuading the commander of the papal armies to transfer the money of Bologna and all the cities of the papal states into the Medici bank along with Milanese florins. Gian Galeazzo's death had been necessary. She was now established at
the Medici bank as being entitled to a full tithe. She could now advance Giovanni di Bicci di Medici's plan to secure all the Church's banking. She saw that she must go instantly to the papal army's commander. The commander would have to be grateful to her. He would have to cooperate with the Medici bank.

  That the commander turned out to be a wiry, compact, elegant ruffian who was also a cardinal amused her and stimulated her the more.

  `Where will you go from here?' he asked.

  'I go with you, my lord, to aid in your conquest.'

  He put his hands into her bodice and lifted out her breasts. Better our conquest than anyone's, dear lady,' he said.

  Cossa left a token force at the gates of Bologna to remind the

  occupying Milanese troops that their work: was: over. He rode through the cities between Bologna and Milan taking cheers. A peace was written with the Council of Milan. The pope instructed Cossa not to include his allies, the Florentines, in the peace, although they had expended 80;000 florins on the war, because he had learned that `a Florentine bank' had financed Gian Galeazzo in making the war, and also he did not wish to share Cossa's loot and ransom money with them. Despite this betrayal, the Florentines showed no rancour towards Cossa, because the Marchesa di Artegiana had confirmed to Cosimo di Medici that she saw qualities in Cossa which could be fortunate for the bank, so Giovanni di Bicci di Medici extolled Cossa eloquently in his speech before the Signoria of Florence.

  Part Two

  17

  Cossa was besotted with the marchesa. I had seen him almost as insanely affected years before, when we had left the red-haired woman on the bed in Perugia and I had made him ride on to Rome; but he was older now and, after the stint at the Vatican, a far more worldly man, who, anyone would have thought, should have been less paralytically susceptible than the marchesa had revealed him to be. He wanted her at his side at all times. He could not keep his hands off her. He could stare at her for embarrassingly long, moments, as a hen stares at a white chalk line on the ground. He heaped jewels on her. When the temperature dropped, he ordered furs to be brought for her. He was on her and in her like an unbalanced satyr, moaning, talking brokenly. I must have lost two hours' sleep every night because of the noises he made on that woman.