City of God

by Cecelia Holland

  “Come with me, please.”

  Nicholas grunted. This had nothing to do with Stefano. Yet he was curious enough to follow the red hat on down the lane. At the corner the man removed his signal from his head and stuffed it under his coat.

  They set off on a mad course through the deserted streets, turning every few feet into another alley or lane, and circling back over their tracks, until Nicholas lost patience.

  “What fool’s errand is this?”

  The stranger said, through tight lips, “I am to see you are not followed.”

  “Very well,” Nicholas said. “Assure yourself.” His stomach growling, he thought with regret of his dinner, which by now Juan himself would be eating. He refused to let this hugger-mugger pique his curiosity. In the end it would be a joke of Stefano’s or something else petty. They crossed a piazza below a ruined wall, where a fountain streamed green water from a bronze shell and crowds of pigeons waddled around the paving stones pecking at the debris left from the morning’s market.

  In the next street was the Pantheon. The stranger drew Nicholas to the steps of the Roman relic.

  “Go in. A man will come and ask you for a carlini—you must say you have only crowns. He will take you on.”

  “This is absurd,” Nicholas said heatedly.

  He said the last word to the stranger’s back, as the man turned and walked away. Nicholas hesitated, one foot on the ground, one on the worn marble step. He looked up at the battered columns. At last he went into the building.

  From outside it looked massive, worn, and undistinguished, but inside all the mass dissolved into the vast upward-arching space below the dome. The coffering on the inside of the dome increased the sensation of height and space. Below the oculus in the center of the dome, the marble floor was still puddled with water from the previous night’s rain. Nicholas walked slowly around the edge of the room. Once statues of all the gods had stood in niches around the walls, but the walls were blank now, the niches empty; there was nothing to keep the eye from following the soaring line upward, and like any foreigner he could only look up, gaping.

  He wondered if anything built in his own time would endure so long and so well as this; the banality of the thought made him smile, and he let himself wonder next at the innocence of the ancients, who had imagined all future time would be like theirs. It was hard to remember that in history old was young, and that the Pantheon came out of the childhood of the world.

  “Have you a carlini?”

  He lowered his eyes to a slight homely man who stood before him. “I have nothing but crowns.”

  “Come with me, please.”

  They left the Pantheon and again went roundabout through the streets. Nicholas decided not to be put off again. When they reached the stopping point on this journey he would demand to be told what was going on, or he would go home.

  Probably it was a joke. Once again he considered that Stefano was playing a game with him. Or someone wanted him away from his house.

  Treading after the slight man, he came to that idea with a jolt. That was the answer: they were keeping him from his house. Almost he turned in midstep and rushed away across the city to the rescue of his house. While he was gathering the resolve to do that, the slight man stopped.

  They had come to an archway between the walls of two buildings. Nicholas reached out and took a handful of the smaller man’s coat.

  “Who are you? What does this mean? By Heaven, I will not let you go until I understand everything!”

  “Go down there, to that door, and knock.”

  “You will come with me to the watch.”

  The slight man pointed through the archway. “Go there!”

  Nicholas looked, his hand still fisted in the cloth of the other man’s coat. The archway opened on a narrow alley between two high featureless walls of yellow travertine. Somewhere water was dripping. At the end of the alley there was a door with a lamp hung over it. Nicholas frowned at the man in his grasp, determined to have one at least of these people to take to the watch.

  The man shrugged. He led Nicholas down to the door and rapped on it with his knuckles.

  Nothing happened. The two men stood expectantly before the closed door a full minute. Abruptly Nicholas said, “No, per Baccho!” He turned, walking away from the doorway, to go back to his house.

  “Wait!”

  He stopped. The slight man knocked heavily on the door again, and this time the door opened at once.

  “Go in,” the slight man said to Nicholas.

  Nicholas went up behind him and pushed him. “You first.”

  The slight man went in and Nicholas followed. They entered a gloomy little cellar, windowless, with only a table and a few wooden chairs for furnishings. A candle burned on the table. The slight man sidled away from Nicholas, going toward the door. In the big chair behind the table was a man wearing a black velvet mask; he watched Nicholas, his eyes glittering through the holes in the mask. He had the broad shoulders and narrow waist of a horseman. With a gesture he dismissed the slight man, who went out the door into the sunlight, and shut Nicholas into the room with this stranger.

  Nicholas stood fixed in his tracks, unknowing what to do, or what was about to happen. The tail man removed his mask. It was Gianpaolo Baglione.

  “My lord,” Nicholas said, amazed.

  The Baglione dropped his mask on the table. “I bid you a great good day, Messer Dawson.”

  Nicholas looked swiftly around him. They were alone in the room, but other doors led out of it than the one he had entered in by, and behind them crowds of armed men might be waiting for a signal from their lord. He faced Gianpaolo again; he had always suspected Gianpaolo of leading the conspiracy against Valentino.

  “My lord,” he said, “may I ask you the purpose of this gaming?”

  “Gaming,” Gianpaolo said. “I would it were a game, Messer Dawson. It’s a little more than just a game. I want a message taken—no, that is wrong.”

  He pushed with his foot at the table, looking sour.

  “We swore to destroy him,” he said. “All his captains together, in one voice, we vowed to rid Italy of him. Well, Messer Dawson, I am sorry I swore it. I want to be his friend again.”

  Nicholas’s tongue slid into his cheek. He made a surprised face for Gianpaolo’s benefit. “That may be difficult to arrange. Why have you come to me?”

  “Bah. I heard you talk to him, that time, when you told him how to take Urbino. He’ll listen to you.” With a rush of activity Gianpaolo stood up and walked off into the shadow at the back of the room. “The Valentino I knew—grew up with, damn him!—he was like me, he loved horses and swords and thrashing one’s enemies. You don’t understand that, do you? Little scribbler, city man, you have no idea what war is supposed to be. To take a city by guile—that isn’t war.” Gianpaolo sat down again, this time on the table, with the candle behind him, so that he loomed up before Nicholas like a black beast.

  “That’s the nobility of war, to use force, to force your enemies down on their knees. Not to take from them when they aren’t looking.”

  Nicholas took a step backward, away from Gianpaolo. “Valentino decided everything, not I.”

  “He’s always been a cheat,” Gianpaolo said. “But not like this. Go tell him I’m sorry.”

  “I will do what I can.”

  “It was a stupid notion, anyway. I don’t know why we thought Venice or Florence would help us. And the French in Milan—go tell him I will come to his side again.”

  “I shall. How may I find you?”

  “I will find you.” Gianpaolo moved in the dark, an indeterminate movement, and suddenly Nicholas found himself gripped by the arm. “I will find you.” The tall man slid off the table, took his mask, and went out, leaving the door open.

  Nicholas stood where he was, full of thoughts. Before he left, h
e pinched the candle out.

  When Nicholas came to his gate that evening, he found Stefano there.

  They mumbled a greeting at each other; Nicholas could not look Stefano in the face and bent his attention to finding his key and using it in the lock. They walked in under the trees. Ahead, a light showed: Juan had opened the house door. Nicholas was walking first, ahead of Stefano, so that he did not have to look at him. Stefano had come only for a free meal and a bed. With every step Nicholas told himself to save his dignity and send Stefano away but he knew he would keep him there as long as he could, suffer much to keep him there.

  Juan stood on the threshold, his face locked into a grimace meant to be expressionless. He said, “Shall I bring you supper?”

  “For both of us,” Nicholas said.

  Stefano had gone to the hearth. “The place is like a dungeon. Why has the old man let the fire go out?”

  “The woodcutter has not come in yet. We are very short of wood.”

  For an instant, in the course of this casual talk, their eyes met; and Stefano’s flinched away. Nicholas sat down. Stefano felt it, too, then, the ruin of their friendship.

  “Where were you last night?” Nicholas asked.

  “At the Vatican.”

  Nicholas jerked his head up, surprised; he imagined Stefano in a gilded suit, playing cards with the Pope. “Really. Did you win?”

  “No, in fact. His Holiness won. And Corneto. It is the game, to come in second. Did you wait for me?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry. The message said to come at once, I had no time to send to you.”

  “Who sent for you?” Nicholas said, expecting the name of one of the Pope’s household. Alexander summoned only princes in his own name.

  “Someone named des Troches,” Stefano said.

  “Des Troches.”

  Valentino’s man. Nicholas rubbed his hand over his mouth. Juan brought in the steaming plates of soup, flavoring the room with a fragrance of cabbages. Silently he laid their supper down before the two men by the fire, and they began to eat.

  The silence weighed heavier every moment. Nicholas hunted frantically for some topic light enough to break it; he could think only of the long night he had passed waiting for Stefano, falling asleep in his chair.

  “Keep losing to the Pope,” he blurted, “and you will play often at the Vatican.”

  Stefano wiped his mouth on a napkin. “I did not lose a purpose.”

  “I did not mean to imply you had.”

  “He plays shrewdly. And well. It is a good game. I am to go back again Friday, in the afternoon—is that what you wanted to know?”

  “I—”

  “Do you think I belong to you? I’m my own man, Nicholas. I have my own life, and when the chance comes to better it—a chance like this—”

  Nicholas left his chair and walked away from the table. Halfway across the room from Stefano, he stopped; he pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers, wondering what he could say next. Behind him, the other chair grated roughly on the hard floor.

  “Look,” Stefano said. “This is no good. I’m sorry. I owe you a lot—without you I would never have gone past the gate over there.”

  Juan hurried out of the room, plates in his hands. Nicholas said nothing.

  “I’m going,” Stefano said.

  “No, stay.” Nicholas turned toward him again.

  Stefano hesitated for a moment, his coat in his hands. His mouth worked up and down at the corners, indecisive. Abruptly he started to the door again.

  “Goodbye.”

  “Please.”

  Stefano went out the door. Nicholas stared after him, drained of will, his muscles slack and his mind empty. Through the open door came a distant clang as the gate was slammed shut. Numbly he went to his chair and sat down again and put his face in his hands.

  Valentino lingered in Cesena, drawing together what troops he could to face the army of his rebellious captains. In the first weeks of the mutiny much of the territory of Urbino had gone over to the side of the rebels, but since then no more of the Romagna had deserted Valentino, and the great powers of Italy supported him, a prince against rebels. Nicholas sent word of Gianpaolo’s offer to change his loyalties.

  A few weeks later the Pope summoned him to the Leonine City.

  “I was dispatched a note to give you,” Alexander said. “I destroyed it. I am not my son’s courier.

  Nicholas bowed, one foot behind the other, in the Spanish style. He had never before been alone with the Pontiff. They were in Alexander’s reading room; the walls were painted with figures of grazing bulls, the Borgia emblem, and the marble floor was worked with the Papal tiara above the crossed keys. Somewhere nearby someone was practicing on the lute, the same tune, over and over, with the same mistakes.

  “Your young friend plays a brilliant game of cards,” Alexander said. “Do you still keep company with him?”

  “No, Your Holiness.”

  Alexander looked keenly into his face. “I am sorry. I had noticed you never came with him.”

  “No, Your Holiness.”

  “Well.” Alexander rubbed his nose; his tone turned brisk. “Perhaps it’s for the best, my English friend. That is a sin, you know, you risk your soul. The Lord despises sodomy.”

  “Alas.”

  “The Lord loveth increase,” the Pope laughed, his ebullient humor swelling up again, infectious. “For see how I am blessed, and my only virtue, Messer Dawson, is that I have been fruitful and multiplied.

  “Nicholas had to smile at him; Alexander’s high spirits defied his age and made him seem to Nicholas no older than he was himself. “Yes, Your Holiness.”

  “Save that Cesare is no replica of me.” Smiling, Alexander picked his nose with his forefinger. His fingers were plated with jeweled rings. “The note was brief.”

  “Was it, Your Holiness?”

  “He sounded very smug, my son. He wishes you to know that your goose is not the only gander to waddle away from the gaggle, but soon they shall all rejoin one another, roasted in a fine sauce.”

  As the last word left him, Alexander’s restrained laughter bubbled up again, and he gave himself over to a thunderous peal of mirth. Nicholas, watching, his head bowed slightly in the proper deference, wondered if the metaphor were Valentino’s or his father’s.

  “You are to tell your goose to keep faith as he will and wait to be summoned. That is all.” Alexander rolled the gatherings of his nose into a ball and flicked it with his forefinger away across the room. His smile sagged; he was morose in an instant. “A man is measured by his enemies. I hope—I pray that my son has not found his true enemy, and that these—fleas and rats are not the measure of my son.”

  “Your Holiness, he shines above them like a star.”

  The Pope was looking past him. His lips squeezed together into a pout. He heard so many flatteries; how could he believe anything that anyone told him? Nicholas took his leave with many a ceremonious phrase and went out.

  The whores were all naked. Some of the more drunken men had boosted women up onto their shoulders and were running up and down the middle of the great room, pretending to joust, the women on their backs shrieking with laughter and striking at one another with their open hands. As Nicholas came into the room a page got into the way of a whore and her mount, who ran him down. They all fell, and the rest of the crowd roared with laughter and threw sweetmeats at them as they lay groaning on the floor.

  Nicholas stayed nearby the wall. The Borgia court had always made him feel dull as a village priest, but now they made him feel old as well.

  He saw Stefano on the far side of the room, playing cards. His profile to Nicholas, he kept his attention on his game; he would not notice Nicholas watching him. He wore a coat of red shot with silver. His attendance on Valentino had not improved his
dress. Nicholas looked elsewhere.

  The Spanish courtier des Troches came up to him, talking. “Your friend is doing well, Messer Dawson, that was shrewd of you there.”

  “Very shrewd,” Nicholas said. Two couples strolled past him; he followed them with his eyes, absorbed in the contrast between the naked women and the dazzling court clothes of the men.

  “Do you play?” des Troches was saying.

  “Play what?”

  “Tarocco.” Des Troches’s face put on a mild surprise at Nicholas’s ignorance. “It is a marvelously useful skill, you know. The Pope does many a good work over a deck of cards.” His long white face slipped for an instant into a smirk.

  “Does he indeed.”

  Valentino’s dwarf was coming through the room toward him; like a rat in the weeds he parted the court as he passed. He was coming straight to Nicholas, who moved a step away from des Troches.

  Des Troches followed, pressing the matter of tarocco. “You ought to have your friend teach you.”

  “I understand it takes years to learn,” Nicholas said. The dwarf plucked on his sleeve. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Come,” the dwarf said, and Nicholas followed him.

  They left the noisy hall and went into a little room, gloomy in the light of two candles. Miguelito was sitting in a cushioned chair in one corner. Nicholas went in, rubbing his hands together; this room was cold after the sweaty warmth of the sala grande.

  “Have you talked to Gianpaolo again?” Miguelito said.

  Nicholas shook his head. “I have not even delivered the answer yet to his first message.”

  Miguelito’s eyes widened. “It’s been a month. Why not?”

  “I have no way to reach him. He said he would come to me.”

  The door flew open and Valentino strode in, pulling off his gloves. “This place stinks of incense. Light some candles. One of you light a fire, my father will be here immediately.”

  Nicholas went around the room with one of the lit candles, putting the flame on the wicks of the candles set in sconces on, the walls, and the room grew steadily lighter and apparently larger. Miguelito was standing by his chair. He did nothing; perhaps he thought it beneath him.