A Trembling Upon Rome

by Richard Condon

  'That will fix that son-of-a-bitch, for keeping the entire council waiting for an hour and a half until, he was ready to come out to a Christmas mass,' Cossa said to me as we entered the sacristy to change clothes.

  The marchesa and her four daughters assembled at her house beside the papal palace, reaching it through a protected passageway between the two buildings.

  'Good Cod!' the marchesa exclaimed as they entered the warm room. 'Ten hours in that icy church to watch Sigismund play priest! Three masses! Has Cossa lost his mind?'

  'Last week you were complaining that he didn't say mass often enough, mama,' Rosa said.

  We must prepare my commentary on Sigi's performance,' Maria Louise said.

  'He'll need a lot more than that,', the marchesa said tartly. `Why – will someone please tell me why after thirty-five years did Cossa decide to tell Spina that he knew all about his nose?'

  `I'm sure Cosimo will keep Spina far too busy for him to make any trouble about that,' Maria Giovanna said.

  `Spina' is a Sicilian,' Rosa said. `He is never too busy for revenge. Never mind Spina. What, about Hus? Hus is a holy man, not a politician.'

  `I agree,' the marchesa said. `He symbolizes everything this council is supposed to stand for, but he will be served by what it says it stands for: Peace, Faith and Virtue. Also, if a great howl is sent up across Christendom about Hus's heresy, that will serve to muffle the fact that as, little as possible; reform is going to happen here if the cardinals have anything to say about it – which they will not have, you may be sure. The council knows it can safely disregard peace because, everyone agrees that it can't be controlled. Virtue is the other word for reform and that will have to be postponed by common consent. Bringing in reforms would only bee throwing out management at the top and they are that management. The only reform they will allow is the election of a single pope so that business can get on its feet again. Just the same, the stomach of this Church can only be purged by its vomiting away twenty-three cardinals, and three hundred archbishops and bishops and cleansing out the entire curia. But Faith, the publicly displayed keystone of their slogan, is more easily arrived at: the solution to the problem of how to provide a public badge of the Church's faith was settled on the day John Hus set out from Prague.'

  `The cardinals had best take care,' Maria Louise said. `Sigi is insane with rage about what they have done to Hus. The Bohemian nobles are all over him. More than a thousand letters have come in from Bohemia, Poland and Hungary.'

  Until the pope ended his meeting with Sigismund: at the House With the Steps, the king had, intended that house: to be his permanent lodging place in Konstanz. After the meeting, the king withdrew his entire household to the Benedictine monastery in Petershausen on the far side of the Rhine bridge. I was at that fateful sneering and I watched with growing horror as Cossa began to burn his bridges behind him and all because of John Hus.

  When the glorious procession bearing, His Holiness came to call on the first day after: Christmas, Cossa and the king drank wine from a large loving cup, then, without further pause, the king immediately charged the Holy Father with criminal laxity in the matter of John Hus, provoking Cossa's rage as much because of his contempt for Sigismund (and all aliens who were not Italians),as for the injustice and recklessness of Sigismund's charge.

  `You drunken know-nothing,' he said to the king. `Hus was your responsibility. You abysmal fool – you had thought to make a golden moment out of Hus when they crown you King of Bohemia, if they ever do. Am I the king of the square-headed Germans who call themselves Romans or are you? Romans! Bearded, drip-nosed, stiff jointed beer drinkers who make a gypsy Luxembourger their king! You are the King of the Scarecrows, you ridiculous hick. If you knew anything about people or consequences, you would have prevented that sanctimonious little bastard Hus from coming here in the first

  `You dare to talk to me like that?' You who can't control your own cardinals or any part of the council which you yourself have called? You sinister fraud! I was told that you were supposed to know something about canon law. The safe conduct I gave to Hus was ultra vires and can have no jurisdiction in, a spiritual case. Even I can't shelter a man who was excommunicated by you for contumacy.'

  'How pleased they will be in your future capital city of Prague to hear, that you abandoned Hus for so technical a reason.'

  `Damn you! Your cardinals and bishops did that! What the hell do I have to say about what people are in the eyes of the Church? Your bishops examined Hus and had no hesitation about proclaiming his heresy. You are responsible for this dangerous affair, yet you have the brass to suggest that I – King of the Romans, King of Hungary, future King of Bohemia, and next Holy Roman Emperor – should bear the odium of your faithless breach.'

  Cossa moved closer to the king and patted him on the cheek contemptuously, speaking gently as if he were praising a favourite child. `You are a drunkard, a cuckold, a barbarian and a fool.'

  'Am I now?' Sigismund said, leaping away from him. `You debauched and degenerate Italians think you lead the world in knowledge and power, but I call all of you the dregs of the earth.'

  Cossa spat at the king's feet. `Do you suppose,' he said, `that you are herewith me, enjoying a bit of wine and a revealing chat, because you are a Luxembourger? If you were not King of the Romans – a throne which I lifted you upon -you would be sitting on the floor at my feet. I only grant You this honour of token equality because of the outrageous misnomer of your title. It is that wild anachronism, of your title which has me greeting you as a token Italian and not as barbarian.'

  `How unctuous you were when you thought you needed me, Cossa. How you appreciated my, great faith, how willing you were to lend me money – what?'

  `My bailiff will fling you a few coppers as I leave,' Cossa said, turning away from him.

  `I will settle with you in good time, my lord,' Sigismund said. 'For now we share a boat in rough water. Gerson has drawn up a catalogue of twenty heterodoxies which he has taken out of Hus's own treatises. What are you going to do about that?'

  'Sigismund – I repeat – Hus is your responsibility.'

  'Cossa look at this squarely – you are forcing me to choose between you and the council – or Hus. If I force his release, then the council will be at an end because it would tell the world that the council was not competent to deal with such cases. The cardinals would abandon Konstanz before they were made a laughing-stock. But I have sworn before God that this schism must end, so; this council must proceed. The prosecution of Hus will be known throughout Europe to have been enforced by you because it is a prosecution which must proceed according to spiritual laws, something quite beyond my jurisdiction.'

  When I was alone with Cossa, I asked him the key question, pointblank. `Did you order the arrest of Hus?' I said having just realized it could not have happened otherwise.

  `Of course,' he said, smiling. `And when I finish, Sigismund will be chopped down to his proper size?’

  As I watched Sigismund respond coolly to Cossa's vituperation, suddenly everything became clearer about what was happening and who Cossa's enemies really were. Cossa lost his head and indulged his vile temper, but I am not so sure that it changed Sigismund's intentions. I did not believe that Sigismund, stung by the outrage of Cossa's attack, would be changed from friend into an enemy. The king was a cold man who was always desperate for money. I am sure he went to Konstanz convinced that he must, in one way or another, persuade Cossa to resign so that the way would be clear to accept the willing resignations of the other two popes and allow himself to take the credit for ending the great schism before all of Christendom. If he could end the schism, he could claim the leadership of the empire with all the resources that entailed. If Cossa had remained his ally, the way would have been much more difficult for Sigismund, but now that Cossa had flaunted his authority, had insulted him and abased him before a witness, Sigismund had every reason to carry out his most severe intentions against Cossa Nothing had changed, except tha
t Sigismund now had the excuse to move more quickly.

  51

  At the moment when I realized Sigismund's; inevitable course, I saw as clearly what the marchesa was preparing to do on behalf of the Medici, who had everything to gain from Church reform in greater or lesser degree. What they wanted was a single pope who would rule a single Christendom so that business could proceed smoothly and profitably across the frontiers of the papal obediences which had been imposed upon Europe and taxes could be reduced to one instead of three. I vaguely understood that the marchesa had been moving against Cossa, but I had no conception of how great she had allowed her commitment to become.

  'You are doing almost everything wrong,' I said to Cossa, `but at least you are doing something. You have flushed Sigismund out from his cover.'

  'How very nice of you to say that.' `Please, I am developing a thought.' 'I can't wait.'

  'I wondered if you were aware that, deep in her mind, the marchesa has decided that you are finished.'

  'We have known that, Franco Ellera, for some time. Don't you remember?' he said. His face was sad but his eyes had hardened.

  'Oh, yes. But she was sour shepherdess. She cozened yell and clucked over you. But now she has lost interest in you. Haven't you noticed? At the most perilous time of your career, she hardly ever comes near you any more. She dines with you about once every ten days – not every night., as she did when the ground was being laid for the present peril – and when she sees you, talks only about the management of the Konstanz business, never about the dangers which beset us.'

  'It is a mutual thing. I have lost interest in her,' Cossa said. 'All we have left in common are the properties here which are yielding far more than anyone estimated they would.'

  `Bernaba says the marchesa isn't sharing the information with you which she gets from everywhere.'

  `She isn't the same, I'll grant you that, and it's been a long time since either she or Cosimo brought me any little opportunities. But I don't think it means anything. The priorities are different here. Sigismund and D'Ailly are the ones who have to be dealt with to survive. I may be out of touch with Decima, but I control the cardinals and they run the business of the council.'

  `What about Hus?'

  `What do I care about Hus? Hus is Sigismund's political problem. I tolerate everything in Konstanz, while I wait for Catherine Visconti's son to ride into the city.'

  He had spoken of the young Duke of Milan almost every day and had hardly mentioned the matter of the marchesa's indifference – but no matter what he said, I knew that in the back of his mind there lived an imperishable intention to make her pay for what she had done to him. There was nothing stabilized about his thinking. He was living in a climate of worry, and to offset that he used his standard measure. She was making them a lot of money. Her sudden lack of interest in him should have warned him. They were partners. She had him for a tithe of everything he was squeezing, out of Christendom. She knew he would be in danger until the council ended, yet she hardly ever spoke about either the council or about what she knew his enemies were plotting. I knew they were plotting, and I knew she had made it the first item of her, business to know, every hourly development of the plotting.

  By early January: she dined with him only twice a month, pleading the harsh weather. Cossa could have been a laird in some small castle in northern Scotland for all he entered her thoughts, He was about to be deposed and, when he was, he would be a nonentity. He would talk about buying himself an army but she knew he did not have the energy for that. He would probably return to Naples and interfere with the management of his family's business. That was how she saw it.

  Cossa, for his part, had no such plans. After he had defeated his enemies, he would live on as pope, cutting away any, weak elements which had shown themselves at Konstanz and collaborating with Cosimo on realizing a fortune greater than Pope Boniface VIII, head of the Gaetani family, making his own family as important and as permanent as the Colonna had ever been.

  At the feast, of the Conversion, of St Paul, Cossa celebrated mass at the cathedral before all members of the council, then led a procession out into the streets. It was a solemn scene of prelates, their aspergilla clanking, banners, singing, choirboys, cardinals two by two and, lining the streets, the dukes and counts with their attendant squires, ambassadors of Prester John speaking a language no one there could understand. Merchants, hungry friars with platters, women with their heads wrapped; mountebanks, fiddlers and students watched them sway past. While the chanting went on and the censers belched holy vapours, Greeks sold aromatic spices to women with dark hair and darker eyes, and musicians with the lilies of France upon their backs sang to lutes and viols.

  Seen from above, the swaying canopies held over the prelates made the procession seem like a multi-hued silk snake as the two-by-two file of cardinals passed through the tightly packed banks of cheering people. Spina, swaying beside D'Ailly, glanced over the crowd and stared, for a moment, directly into the grinning face of Bernaba Minerbetti. His memory hurtled him back thirty-five years. He seemed to be staring at a note which had been pinned to his shirt. It said – - Spina screamed hoarsely and turned out of the procession, – intending to crash through the crowd to get her. D'Ailly grasped his wrist with the strength of an iron manacle and held him in the course of the procession. `Whatever it is, don't think,' he said to Spina. `Keep walking. You are a prince of the Church.'

  Spina was sweating and trembling as he changed his clothing in the vestry of the cathedral. He could feel only the threatening presence of Bernaba Minerbetti. D'Ailly sat beside him and spoke to him soothingly. `What did you see in the crowd, Spina?'

  'Nothing. 'A delusion.'

  `A deadly enemy?'

  Do you want to confess to me?'

  `There is no sin to be shriven. I feel pain but I have done nothing yet.'

  `You should talk to me about it. That would help you.'

  Only I know what will help me,' Spina said. He left the cathedral alone, almost disabled by the,, knowledge that Bernaba Minerbetti was in Konstanz. She had gone to Cossa. She had told him everything. She was telling that terrible story about. the trent-uno to everyone. He had to stop her. He had to find her and be revenged on her.

  When Bernaba returned to the offices of the marchesa's syndicate, she was shaken and her face was colourless.

  `Bernaba!, What happened to, you?' the marchesa asked her. `Spina.'

  `What about; Spina?'

  `You should have seen his face. He wanted to screw me and kill me at the same time.'

  `I can't believe it! You mean nothing has changed after thirty-five years?'

  `He is the ultimate Sicilian. He forgets nothing. He feeds on anything which has damaged his past: I tell you, `He wanted to kill me.'

  `What can he do? You have the pope and Cosimo di Medici behind you.'

  `You don't understand, Decima. You didn't see his face.' When I got back to our house in the Engelsongasse and saw my wife's frightened, face, I crossed the room with two bounds and lifted her up into my arms. She began to sob. 'I really caught it today, Franco,' she said.

  `What happened?'

  `The marchesa thought it would he a big joke if I stood in the crowd and smiled at Spina as he went by in procession.'

  `You didn't do it?'

  `He saw me. He went crazy. He is going to find me and try to kill me.'

  `Why should Decima care if Spina ever sees you again?' `I don't know.'

  `She must have explained something:'

  `She said Spina was trouble for Cossa and it would be useful if we could have a hold over him.' -

  'We?'

  `I'm telling you what she said.'

  `I don't understand. How did the marchesa get into this?' `Franco, get me a glass of wine. I think I caught a cold or something.'

  When I was sure my wife was asleep, 1 put on a greatcoat and a fur hat and trudged through, the snow to the papal palace to begin the working night with Cossa. I pulled up a chair a
cross the work table in

  Cossa's study. `Something evil is happening, Cossa,' I said.

  `Like what?'

  `The marchesa told Bernaba that it would be a good joke if Bernaba popped up in the front row of the procession and gave Spina a big smile.'

  `I saw her out there' It came to him. 'Spina? Spina?'

  'The. marchesa told Bernaba that Spina was trouble for you and that we could do with a hold over him.' `What happened?'

  'He tried to break out of the procession and go after her in the crowd. Bernaba said he looked insane. He wanted to kill her.' `But Decima knew that would happen.' `Yes. That is why I say something funny is going on.' `Why would Decima want to set Bernaba up?'

  `Well! Think about it. She wants to use Bernaba as bait to get at Spina.''

  `Why?’

  `Ask her tonight. You have to straighten this out, Cossa. We have to protect, Bernaba.'

  `I'll protect her right now. Get an escort together. When I have dealt with that murdering duke, Bernaba is going back to Bologna.' His face was blank. He rubbed his nose and said, `Tell her to leave a note for Decima saying that her mother is dying in Bari and that she had to go there. Before she goes, she must set up the women in Decima's house to watch her and report to you. Send a messenger to the marchesa telling her to be here for dinner at two o'clock tomorrow morning.'

  `Do you want Palo to head Bernaba's escort?'

  `What use would Palo be? He is a specialist. We want Captain Munger of my guard to take care of Bernaba. He is steady and he is dangerous.''