The letter, delivered by Caterina’s confessor and friend of long standing, Raimondo da Capa, had been brought to Hawkwood wrapped in a simple woollen shawl which he instantly recognised: it was the very shawl that, one day long ago in Siena, a young Dominican tertiary had so gently draped over the body of Karl Eugen von Strachwitz-Wettin.
He kept the shawl and burnt the letter.
*
Pope Gregory was no fool. He knew things were not going according to plan, that his temporal authority was being eroded. He had consistently reiterated his intention to return to Rome – when the time was right – and there was no time like the present. He would make one final effort to bring Florence back into the fold. If that effort failed, he would detach a large conscript army to pave the way for his triumphant return to the Holy See.
San Martino, Perugia
26 December 1375
For the past two years, Hawkwood had kept his head above water only with the utmost difficulty. His immediate financial resources had been depleted to the point of exhaustion. Once he had defected to the service of the Pope he could hardly expect Bernabò Visconti to pay him, and the monies owed him by Gregory had not been forthcoming.
In order to keep the White Company more or less intact, Hawkwood had again had to resort to extracting payment not for fighting but for undertaking not to fight. Over time, Siena, Lucca, Arezzo and Pisa (where Hawkwood no longer enjoyed a safe haven) had all agreed terms, reluctantly offering him monetary compensation for his non-belligerence. Florence, too, had paid an extortionate sum and granted him an annual pension under the provisions of yet another condotta, this one specifying his commitment not to attack the city for a fixed number of years.
Hawkwood harboured suspicions that the Pope had withheld payment in order to force him to fend for himself and, in the process, destabilise Tuscany to the point where its overtaxed citizens might be driven back into the welcoming arms of a benign pontiff who would then grant them exculpation and absolution. If that was indeed an element in Gregory’s strategy, however, it had failed conspicuously: Hawkwood learned that on 24 July 1375 the wearisome negotiations between Florence and Milan had been brought to a sudden close when the two city states concluded a five-year alliance against the Pope.
Hawkwood was still uncertain where his own best interests lay. With the Pope or against him? This dilemma had promptly been resolved when Gregory XI had shrewdly delivered – in cash, no less – a ninety-thousand-florin retainer to persuade Hawkwood to help ensure the defence of Perugia.
But Perugia had fallen. Its people had risen in revolt early that month, and Hawkwood and the papal representative had been blockaded within the citadel for three weeks, desperately seeking cover as rocks propelled from siege engines rained in on them. Eventually, Hawkwood had taken it upon himself to broker a settlement in a bid to extricate his depleted White Company from an increasingly precarious situation. It was agreed that he and his men would be afforded safe and unhindered passage from Perugia in exchange for surrender of the city and the simultaneous departure of the papal garrison. The citizens of Perugia had watched silently as they took their leave, then hastened to the citadel and started to tear it down stone by stone.
The Company tramped disconsolately away. The captain-general had rescued his men, but the loss of the city not only dealt a devastating blow to Pope Gregory, but also provided a rallying-cry for the anti-papal league. Worse, Hawkwood had been identified with an ignominious surrender which had blackened even further the already tarnished image of foreign mercenaries in Italy. There was a new spirit abroad in northern Italy, a sense – premature, perhaps – of a national identity which might one day emerge from a country still ravaged by internal strife and internecine differences; a tenuous belief that Italy might in time resolve itself into a nation that was self-reliant and self-sustaining.
Not for the first time, John Hawkwood asked himself if there would be a place in such a new Italy for him and those like him.
Avignon
22 March 1376
Gregory made one last effort to persuade the Florentines of the error of their ways and renounce their pact with Milan.
A delegation from Florence was invited to Avignon, ostensibly to review these and other matters. No accommodation could be found, however, particularly since the Pope – to the dismay of his councillors – was determined to lay down the law rather than discuss reconciliation.
To the Florentines’ utter consternation, he flatly refused to hear their side of the argument. Instead, he accused them of conspiring against him and ordered them to be excommunicated without recourse. He declared Florence and its possessions forfeit, a curiously petulant and pointless gesture in that it could not fail to stiffen Florence’s resolve to oppose him.
His own resolve had meanwhile been fortified by a brief visit from Caterina of Siena, who had begged him once again to return the papacy to Rome. Since he was on the brink of doing precisely that, he felt reinforced and comforted by her arguments. In practical terms, he had already prepared for that eventuality by assembling an army under the thirty-four-year-old Cardinal Robert of Geneva. Robert was a man of integrity, Gregory told himself, a man into whose hands he could safely commit his own destiny and the defence of his temporal dominions.
Yet another Vicar of Christ had demonstrated his fallibility.
Avignon
23 May 1376
The man to whom Gregory had with such undiluted confidence entrusted the defence of the papal dominions was determined to make his mark and to ride roughshod over any and all who dared oppose him.
Robert de Genève, erstwhile bishop of Thérouanne and archbishop of Cambrai, had been elevated to the cardinalate in 1371. Not before time, he thought, believing the promotion to have been thoroughly warranted; indeed, he had already set his sights still higher. His admirers – of whom there were a few – saw in him a man of action who did not shy away from difficult decisions. His detractors – of whom there were many – found him cold, arrogant and ruthless.
He rode out of Avignon at the head of an imposing force of close on eleven thousand men-at-arms, principally Bretons who had been lured at great expense from north-western France to prosecute the Pope’s war against the anti-papal league. His plan of action was simple. Enter Italy, take Pavia, retake Bologna, strike south-east to headquarter at the papal stronghold of Cesena. He would then advance on Florence from the east, where its defences were reportedly at their most vulnerable.
Word had been sent to an English condottiere named John Hawkwood to make rendezvous with Cardinal Robert at a township near Bologna. Robert saw no need for reinforcement by this Englishman whose company was believed to number a meagre fifteen hundred or at most two thousand men-at-arms. Robert had total faith in himself and in his Bretons, whose reputation preceded them: they were renowned for their savagery in battle and their uncompromising ways in peace. Still, the cardinal reflected, this Hawkwood might have his uses.
Pope Gregory was planning to leave for Rome later in the year, much to the dismay of the French king, the trepidation of the French cardinals and the shock and despair of the French merchants of Avignon, whose livelihood was seriously jeopardised by the imminent departure of the high-living, high-spending papal court.
Robert was secretly delighted at the prospect of entering Rome in triumph several months before the Pope and his retinue left from Marseilles for the Roman port of Ostia Antica at the mouth of the Tiber. By that time, Robert was certain, the ambassadors of Florence, Milan and the other rebellious communes to the north would have sued for peace. Cardinal Robert of Geneva would emerge as the hero of the hour.
And as the obvious choice to succeed Pope Gregory XI.
Cesena
And in his heart he pondered if he should not show clemency
Cesena, Emilia-Romagna Province
1 February 1377
Hawkwood stood on the battlements of Cesena and looked down at the Savio river. It was said that, on a clear day,
one could make out the independent signoria of Forli some four leagues distant along the straight and narrow ribbon of the ancient Via Aemilia. He had not had an opportunity to put that claim to the test; it had rained incessantly for the past five days and today was no exception.
His White Company was cold, wet and dejected. It had been a difficult year, with food and booty in short supply. There had been some defections and the men’s mood had at times turned ugly. Brawls had broken out and there had been a number of serious incidents, one of which had resulted in several deaths. Hawkwood had struggled to maintain morale and preserve the Company’s integrity as a fighting unit. The arrival of the Bretons under Robert de Genève had proved advantageous, however. They were a surly lot, but their saving grace was that they came well provisioned. If nothing else, the Company was being fed regularly.
Hawkwood’s first impression of Cardinal Robert of Geneva had been anything but favourable. He disliked the man on sight, finding him pompous and overbearing. Dislike had turned to anger at the cardinal’s dismissive manner as he surveyed Hawkwood’s men. It was clear that Robert regarded them as little more than a token force and, as fighting men, demonstrably inferior to his Bretons.
We shall see, thought Hawkwood.
He knew that Robert’s initial intentions had been frustrated. True, he had entered Italy, but he had neither taken Pavia nor retaken Bologna. The former – in the person of Gian Galeazzo Visconti – had simply bought him off for an undisclosed sum. And the latter had put up such stiff resistance that Robert had eventually called off his Bretons, anxious not to squander his forces prior to the ultimate push on Florence.
Cesena had thus far remained loyal to the papacy and Hawkwood was puzzled by the cardinal’s aggressive attitude towards its citizens. He had put the question directly.
‘It is clear you know nothing of Cesena’s history and reputation,’ the cardinal had answered abruptly.
‘That is true,’ Hawkwood replied, ‘but I am willing to learn.’
‘They give safe haven to the Antichrist,’ the cardinal continued, as if that were explanation enough.
He turned away, but Hawkwood was not prepared to let the matter rest.
‘I do not take your meaning.’
Robert shrugged. ‘You are an Englishman. I cannot expect you to know of Michael of Cesena and his blasphemies against our Holy Father and the Church.’
Hawkwood was intrigued. ‘I am indeed an Englishman and I offer no apology for it. But it rains outside and I have naught else to do this day.’
Robert gave him a condescending look, but could not resist the temptation to enlighten him. He explained at some length that, in 1329, Pope John XXII had issued a papal bull excommunicating an ‘evil man’ – vir reprobus – called Michael of Cesena. The latter’s crime was that he had insisted on the strict and absolute application of the rule of poverty within the Franciscan order. Inevitably, as an advocate of ecclesiastical poverty, Michael had gone on to rail against the opulence and riches of the ‘Whore of Babylon’: Avignon. Pope John had, equally inevitably, taken first umbrage, then action, not only against Michael but against his followers, the Fratricelli, the ‘Little Brethren’ of Grey Friars. They were adamant in their belief that the Pope’s convoluted attempts to justify the wealth and property maintained by the Church were in blatant contravention of holy scripture. Accordingly, they asserted to any who cared to listen that the Pope had betrayed his mission and had thus forfeited his authority: he and all those who served the Church were, according to the Fratricelli, guilty of mortal sin.
Hawkwood was tempted to interject that Michael had not been alone in regarding the Avignon papacy as the whore of Babylon: Petrarch had also referred to the city as ‘la puttana’. But he felt little would be gained by unnecessarily causing offence, so he bit his tongue, content only to make clear to the cardinal that Italy was not alone in despising papal excess.
‘I recall a man of that persuasion in England,’ he said.
‘Ockham,’ said the cardinal, almost spitting the name. ‘William of Ockham. Another vile blasphemer who dared countermand his Church and Pope.’
‘Embracing poverty is no vice,’ said Hawkwood.
Robert laughed. ‘That is indeed rich, coming from a mercenary such as yourself!’
The exchange had been brief, but Hawkwood had learnt a lot from it. Whereas he had initially found the cardinal pompous and overbearing, he now regarded him as dangerous and unscrupulous in the extreme. Moreover, Robert’s obsessive hatred of Cesena and its citizens still struck him as distinctly odd. One might have expected the cardinal to be more conciliatory, bearing in mind that the Cesenesi had remained loyal to and supportive of the pontiff at a time when many towns and cities were outspoken in their opposition to Avignon and everything it stood for.
Hawkwood shivered and went indoors, shaking the rain from his cloak.
Cesena
4 February 1377
‘Mama!’
Silvana Vitelleschi was two years, seven months, three weeks and five days old. Her tiny frame was trapped beneath the suffocating weight of her mother’s body. Wriggle as she might, Silvana could not wrench herself clear.
‘Mama!’
But Mama could no longer hear her. Still-warm blood from the yawning gash in her mother’s throat flowed into Silvana’s eyes and hair. She could hear grown-ups screaming. She did not understand why.
From the citadel parapet, Hawkwood watched as his Company and Robert of Geneva’s Bretons tried to outdo each other in their indiscriminate massacre of the Cesenesi. The city gates had been barricaded two days previously and, ever since, the defenceless inhabitants had been put to the sword and axe. Many who had snatched a few precious belongings and made a dash for the city walls had been systematically cut down. The few who managed to scale the ramparts had discovered to their horror there was no option but to leap into the fetid moat far below. Those who did not drown among the reeds were mercilessly despatched when they reached the far side.
Breton vied with Englishman, seeking out victim after victim as men, women and children ran frantically this way and that. Bodies sprawled grotesquely in the streets and dogs gnawed contentedly on severed limbs. Fires had been set, and an entire section of the city was ablaze. The conflagration spread quickly as roof timbers crackled and spluttered into flame. A dark cloud spiralled high above Cesena.
Hawkwood was in no doubt: this atrocity was intended as a deliberate and cynical display of papal authority, a planned rather than random massacre: Cesena and its people were deemed expendable. It had been ordained that full expression be given to the long-standing papal grudge against a city which had not only spawned Michael of Cesena but had also tacitly endorsed the latter’s fulminations against Avignon and the established Church. The cardinal had doubtless exploited some pretext or other – Hawkwood did not know exactly what, although he was later given to understand that a minor dispute involving some Cesena tradesmen and a group of drunken Bretons had escalated to the point where two Bretons had been killed and several others seriously hurt. Whether this was true or not, it – or some similar incident – had provided the cardinal with the excuse he sought. He had ordered Cesena torched and its inhabitants slaughtered.
Hawkwood was revolted by the scene below but did not seek to absolve himself from blame or to deny that he and his men had played their part. Cardinal Robert had ordered him to secure the city. He had done so. Robert had ordered him to start a house-to-house search. He had done so. Robert had ordered the Company to kill any and all who breached the city walls. He had done so.
Hawkwood knew he could have refused to obey the Cardinal’s orders. He had not done so. He should have marshalled his Company and marched them out of Cesena. He had not done so. He should have ordered his men simply to hold station and take no part in the ensuing bloodbath. He had not done so.
Guilt and compassion prompted him belatedly to intervene, to help put an end somehow to this protracted and senseless slaughter
for which no pardon might ever be asked or given. He left the citadel and made his way down into the city.
From above, Hawkwood had discerned a logical pattern to the massacre as first one area of the city was subdued, then another. Once on the ground, however, he discerned no such logic: the situation seemed totally out of control. He found it impossible to gauge how many had found death in the streets or in the flames that engulfed their homes. The skeletal remains of several churches dotted the skyline, giving off the unmistakable stench of charred flesh from the smouldering bodies of victims who had been incarcerated there and burnt alive. Rudimentary gallows had been erected on street corners, and bodies hung there, naked and mutilated. In some cases, men had been subjected to ritual crucifixion: horseshoe nails had been driven through their hands and feet into wooden doors and beams and their sides had been gouged with sword and spear in a grotesque parody of Christ’s suffering on the Cross.
Mute groups of small children huddled together in doorways, their eyes rolling in terror. Not far away lay the bodies of their mothers and fathers, the latter stripped of their clothing and belongings, some crudely decapitated, others missing genitals or limbs. For the most part, the women lay half-naked on the cobbles, their skirts yanked high to expose dark patches of pubic hair flecked with blood. An occasional monk stooped to administer the last rites. Hawkwood noted that, to a man, the friars were Dominicans or Augustinians. They, it seemed, had been spared.
Not so the Fratricelli. The fountains and wells of Cesena were liberally decorated with corpses clad in the distinctive grey tunics and white waist-cords of the Grey Friars.
On all sides, Bretons and Englishmen were bundling their precious booty into coarse woollen blankets. The occasional quarrel broke out over the division of spoils; but, by common consent, there was more than enough to go around.
Condottiere: A Knight's Tale Page 22