“Well, Sancia,” Valentino said, “now it’s your turn.”
“He is intolerable,” Sancia said.
“Cesare,” Alexander said. “Become tolerable.”
“I’ve been,” Valentino said, “eminently. But that didn’t work either.”
Miguelito hooted with amusement. At the other side of the table, Joffre lifted his eyes a moment from his dinner, his face blank, and returned to eating. By the wall, Nicholas wondered if Valentino had intended the pun—while he was a Cardinal, he had been Sancia’s lover—and decided that he had.
The Pope said mildly, “You are insulting nearly everybody, Cesare.”
“Although of course he’s only made a daughter,” Sancia said loudly. Her strong drawling accent made her speech comical; in the Roman shadow-puppet show, the whores were always Neapolitan. “And knowing the bride to be French, I suspect it was a virgin birth anyway.”
“I decline the obvious retort,” Valentino said, “in view of the defenselessness of the target.”
His glass was empty; a servant filled it up again, and again Miguelito came forward to sip from it. Nicholas let his eyes leave Valentino to follow his dark henchman. The tasting was ceremonial. Valentino would never risk losing Miguelito. As he watched, Miguelito took his place against the wall again.
Sancia was saying, “What you mean is, Cesare, that you won’t risk angering me to the point where I might say something.”
The Pope said, “I will not hear any more of this quarreling!” He looked from Sancia to Valentino.
“This is my table,” Valentino said, “if Your Holiness will recall that.”
The Pope was no longer smiling. Vast in his rich robes, he sat between Valentino and Sancia with his head settled on his shoulders like a Spanish bull’s. To Sancia, he said, “Keep your place, woman.” His head swiveled toward his son’s. “Would you be here, save for me?”
Valentino beckoned to his steward, and the servants bustled in with the game course. Through this business the son and the father eyed one another grimly. Valentino looked away first, but now the Pope’s forehead gleamed with sweat.
Nicholas watched all this with his whole attention. He had known for years, all Rome knew, that Sancia and Valentino hated one another. This rivalry between Alexander and Valentino Nicholas had never seen before. But he remembered something now, another argument between the two men, arguing over Lucrezia’s marriage. Then he had not gotten the impression that Alexander was afraid of Valentino.
There was some use for knowledge like that. Nicholas could not see it yet, but like all the other courtiers he weighed every word the Borgias spoke.
Over the compôte of apricots, Alexander turned to Valentino and said, “The cook’s excellent, but the master of the revel’s gone out to dine, I take it? Or are you and Sancia the sole entertainment?”
“I waited only for your word, Papa.” Valentino lifted his voice. “Des Troches! Speak to us mellifluously in some other man’s tongue.”
Des Troches was clearly ready as a spurred cock. He sprang forward, and posing in the center of the floor before the Pope dipped in a low bow. Speech poured from his mouth.
“Your Beatitude, all Christendom kisses your feet. The past does nothing but prefigure your reign, the future shall only reflect it. Let me therefore restore to our memories the deeds of the earliest Romans, whose virtue yours is the fullest flowering of.” He thrust one arm out in a statuesque gesture. “Arma virumque cano …”
There was an audible mutter of dismay through the courtiers. Uneasily Nicholas wondered if des Troches had the entire poem by heart. After a dozen lines Alexander turned to his son again.
“Is this how you lull yourself to sleep on campaign? Please, relieve me of it—you know Mars is not my star.”
“Would you prefer Venus, Papa, or Jove?” Valentino scanned his court, his brows curled, as if he had not already decided. He turned to look around him, which brought Nicholas within his range.
“Messer Dawson.” Valentino sat forward again; his voice turned lively with mirth. “Step forward and address us with a few lyrics of Horace to his Cynthia.”
“Propertius,” Nicholas said, automatically.
At once he wished he had not spoken. Valentino twisted around in his chair again.
“What did you say?”
Nicholas walked around to the front of the table, so that the prince could hold him in his gaze without the effort of turning. He made a deep obeisance to the Pope and faced Valentino again. “Cynthia was the love of Propertius, as your Magnificence surely knows, meaning to test my learning, shallow as it is.”
Valentino slapped his hand down on the table. “Well, then, Messer Dawson, since you know the ladies so well, let us hear you address some fortunate lover with a speech of seduction. To Sancia. Make courtly love to Sancia.”
Nicholas stiffened, his gaze moving to the princess, on the far side of the table from Valentino. She was frowning, but with puzzlement; probably she recognized the tone of an insult without understanding the substance. She watched him—they were all watching him, expecting him to obey. He had to obey. Fortunately her name fitted easily into the only love poem he knew well enough to recite.
He bowed to the princess. “Vivemus, mea Sancia, atque amemus.” In a plain speaking voice, without gestures, he recited the lovely verse.
When he had done, the Pope patted his white palms together. “That suits me very well, especially all those kisses.” He laughed, ebullient, his round face bright again with good humor.
Nicholas bowed again and withdrew to the wall. The Florentines would buzz if they heard about this. Everyone around him was watching him covertly; he saw the gleam of their eyes, the nudges and the mutterings. Valentino had made a fool of him as well. He pushed himself against the wall, his head down, and tried to look as if he did not care.
A few days later Astorre Manfredi’s corpse was turned up by the wheel of a mill on the Tiber Island. Nicholas went to the watchtower where the body was taken, so that the Signory of Florence would have first-hand knowledge that their friend was dead.
The river had destroyed the boy’s beauty. After one glimpse of his face Nicholas swiveled-his head away. The old custodian followed him to the door.
“Poisoned, he was—mark me.” The old man grinned. He had no front teeth.
“Spanish poison,” Nicholas said. Around Astorre’s bloated neck the mark was still visible of the garrotte. He had been warned. Nicholas touched his throat. There was no use in innocence. He had been warned. He fumbled at the latch of the door, and the old man, hut-hutting in his throat, reached past his elbow to help. Nicholas went out to the sweet autumnal air.
Perhaps he should have done more for Astorre, exercised some slight influence in his favor; or perhaps he had done too much, showing interest, and led Valentino to eliminate a potential threat. Life was unjust. Nicholas took an absurd comfort from that. Not his fault, but life’s itself.
Across the room from Nicholas sat Stefano, eating up the last of his dinner. Juan came in and took away the empty glasses.
Nicholas watched Stefano wipe his fingers on his napkin and slide back in his chair. He had eaten twice as much as Nicholas. His appetites were enormous. That gave him his distinction, in one sense, his zeal, his vitality. In another sense it was his ruin. Already he was going to fat. He sat there with his hands on his paunch; Nicholas half-expected him to take a sliver from the hearth and pick his teeth. In a few years he would lose his looks, coarsen into a plain middle age. That thought was another absurd comfort to Nicholas.
Stefano turned his head suddenly and glared at him.
“Why are you staring at me? You are worse than a woman, sometimes—gawking at me.”
Nicholas put his elbow on the arm of his chair and set his chin on his fist. “I enjoy looking at you.
The younger man stirred fr
om head to foot, shifting in his chair, looking in the other direction. “Sometimes I think I liked you better when you did not like me half so well.”
There was no answer to that, and Nicholas made none.
“This place is like a church. There’s nothing to do here.”
“What would you like to do?”
“You never take me with you to the Vatican any more. Why—are you afraid I’ll embarrass you in front of those clerks?”
“Not at all,” Nicholas said, uneasily; he saw what Stefano wanted. He pulled nervously on his chin. “You are never an embarrassment.”
“God’s bones—I cannot even pick an argument with you any more.”
“Do you want to go to the Vatican? Why?”
“They have a lot of money there, and no skill at cards.”
Juan came in again with glasses of another wine. Stefano lunged out of his chair. He took the glass from Juan and paced off around the room.
“There is nothing to do here. You even took away the only thing worth looking at, the pictures on the walls.”
Nicholas said, “We can go to the Vatican, if you wish. Not tonight, the Pope is otherwise busy, but soon.”
“Thank you,” Stefano said, but the look he gave Nicholas was still angry. He raised his glass and drank the fine wine as he drank all wine, sluicing his throat. Nicholas took his eyes from him. The more he tried to please Stefano, the less he pleased him. There was a certain symmetry to it; he remembered how at first Stefano had pursued him, and he had resisted. He did not want to think how it would end. Raising the glass of wine, he closed his eyes and drank.
After riots and even attempts at murder of high officers of the Republic, the city of Florence re-formed the state, placing at its head a Gonfalonier elected for life. The first man to enter into this office was Piero Soderini, a man of ancient and honorable family whose brother, Cardinal Soderini, was the leading churchman of Italy. The great ones of Florence had triumphed over the little people. Savonarola was truly dead now.
“None here of good mind,” Bruni wrote, “but believes that His Excellency the Gonfalonier will restore our Republic to its height of eminence enjoyed in the past. He is a man of highest purpose, very firm of mind, and unutterably set against the Borgia beast.”
Nicholas marked that with a dot of ink from his pen.
Bruni followed with a long paragraph describing the disposition of the stars at the time of Soderini’s election and their interaction with the stars of Soderini’s birth. He added, “I have met with His Excellency in numberless private sessions, and was able by reference to my past dispatches to argue that, while seldom heeded, my advice and understanding of events have always proved as accurate as a rendering from life. My dear Dawson, be confident in my assurances that I pressed them with reports of your faithful service to the Republic.”
There followed a detailed list of the other offices created and filled in the reform of the government. Nicholas let his gaze slide over this assemblage of names he hardly knew. The letter ended in a volley of astrological advice. Nicholas laid it down.
He knew Soderini well, by reputation: a clever man, honest, astute, but uninspired. The Republic having suffered much from flights of fancy in the recent years, such a stolid man might serve well. At least the contrast would be refreshing. Nicholas folded the letter up and put it away in his desk.
As he was doing this there was a knock on his door. He went to answer it and a young man in a fashionably flat hat invited him down to the workroom, where the young man’s master waited.
This was a banker from Florence, a member of the Albizzi bank. Nicholas shook his hand. They exchanged the usual greetings and Nicholas escorted the rich man down to Bruni’s office, where he would have room to sit down. Nicholas himself stood before Bruni’s desk, a sort of proxy.
“What may I do to help you here in Rome?”
The banker removed his hat, and the young man took it to hold for him. “Messer Dawson, I have been in Naples, and for reasons obvious to us all I am eager to return to Florence as soon as possible. I have certain letters to be delivered here in Rome and elsewhere. If you will do me the great favor of seeing to their delivery, I shall be the sooner on my way to Florence.”
“I shall do as you require, Excellency.”
The banker took a thick packet of papers from his coat and gave them to the young man, who conveyed them to Nicholas. The banker folded his arms over his chest.
“There are five letters. Four are a simple matter of taking them on to the name written on the front. The fifth requires a certain delicacy.”
Nicholas made a noncommittal sound in his throat. He laid the packet down behind him on the desk. The banker stared at him a moment.
“The Orsini are great enemies of our Florentine state, as you well know.”
Nicholas made another throaty noise, this one signifying understanding. He said, “I have contacts with the Orsini.”
“We know that,” the banker said, acidly, “which is why I have trusted you. However, it’s not so simple as that. If Florence hates the Orsini, the Orsini are none too pleased with Florence. It might prove embarrassing to the recipient of my letter if his family knew of this correspondence.”
“I understand.”
“I happen to know that Gravina will be at San Leo Fortress in Urbino within the month. You will arrange to have the letter sent there.”
“Gravina,” Nicholas said, stupid.
“Yes, the letter is for the Duke of Gravina.”
“I shall see that it arrives there,” Nicholas said.
“Very good.” The banker rose. Again he and Nicholas shook hands, and this time Nicholas shook the hand of the young man, who turned out to be the other man’s son. They left. Nicholas shut the door behind them and let out his breath in a windy sigh.
“Has Gravina any reason to visit San Leo, sometime in the next month?” Nicholas asked. “Any good reason?”
Miguelito frowned at him. “San Leo. The fortress in Urbino?”
Nicholas nodded his head. They were standing off to one side of the Pope’s sitting room, where surrounded by their familiars the Borgias were playing cards. Directly under a clump of blazing candles was Stefano’s burnished head. He was playing tarocco with the Pope himself, and smiling, obviously winning. Miguelito was pulling on his moustaches. His wrist was flea-bitten above the frayed cuff of his shirt.
“He has not been assigned there, if you mean that.”
“I have been told to send a letter to him there. By a Florentine with Orsini connections.”
“You think this has something to do with the La Magione meeting?”
“I put that color on it, yes. San Leo is a key fortress. I think they are conspiring to drive Valentino from the Romagna.”
“They. Who are they?”
Nicholas shrugged his shoulders. “All his captains seem to be implicated. Whoever is the ringleader would have offered the suggestion to them all, and not one of them has come to Valentino to report it. Has anyone come?”
“No.” Miguelito scratched furiously at his wrist, his face drawn tightly into a frown. “Who is the ringleader? Gianpaolo?”
“I do not know the man. Nor any other of Valentino’s captains.”
“The meeting is on Monday,” Miguelito said.
Nicholas looked across the room again at Stefano, in time to see Valentino just settling himself into a chair at the table, and he took in a deep breath. He hoped Stefano had the sense to lose. He yearned to go over and watch the playing. Miguelito was eying him unpleasantly.
“Your logic is flawless, as usual,” Miguelito said. “But what does it stand on—three letters with no address and one letter with the wrong one.”
Nicholas was edging away from him. “By your leave.” He started across the crowded room toward the gaming table, and Miguelito sauntered af
ter him.
Stefano was sitting there with the Pope, Valentino, the Pope’s friend Adriano Corneto, and a Spanish Cardinal far along in his wine. Valentino had the cards and was dealing them. Nicholas took up a place behind Stefano, where he could watch the play as Stefano saw it.
He knew the game very little. The gaudy cards were meaningless to him. Other elements of the game fascinated him: the deft economy of the gestures of the players, the repetition of the sounds, of cards sliding on one another, coins clinking. The players spoke in a sort of code. Nicholas enjoyed the purity of this form, a ritual in and of itself, like mathematics. He understood why folk believed the cards could tell the future. It was hard to believe such an intricate miniature world could have no purpose but to rearrange a supply of money.
Valentino dealt several times. Nicholas saw that Stefano bet very little and lost hardly anything. On the fifth deal at last Valentino lost, and the deck of cards passed on to the drunken Cardinal on his right.
“You have very fine hands, if I may say so,” Stefano said, on his left.
Valentino and the Pope both turned on him, one on either side of him; the Pope demanded, “Do you suggest that my son cheats?”
“I have lost nothing.” Stefano’s face was blandly cheerful, a mask he put on over card games. “I enjoy the art, of course.”
A brief silence met this, while everyone watched the Pope, to see how he would take that. Then Valentino erupted with laughter. He leaned out and clapped Stefano on the shoulder.
“As one artist to another, I accept the compliment.”
At that, the Pope began to laugh, and the laughter spread rapidly around the room. Nicholas relaxed, pleased. He was glad Stefano had won Valentino’s respect even if it were only for cheating at cards.
As the laughter subsided around the room Miguelito leaned down and murmured into Valentino’s ear. A few moments later the Pope and his son left the card game, and with Nicholas and Miguelito went into a small room nearby.
There Nicholas repeated the fact he had learned and the conclusion he drew from it, reciting like a schoolboy with his hands behind his back. Valentino heard it impassively, but the Pope cursed the Orsini in very round terms.
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