The knock at the door was light and Skiouros almost missed it. Roused from warm slumber, he knuckled his eyes wearily and slid his legs from the bed, preparing to cross the room and awaken Cesare, his roommate in the monastery guest house. His friend was already sitting upright and wincing at the cold of the flagged floor on his bare feet. Nodding to him, Skiouros stepped over to his small table and retrieved his macana stick, hefting it.
Cesare frowned at him and he shrugged. ‘Always better to be prepared,’ he mouthed in less than a whisper.
As the young nobleman hobbled on cold feet across to the door, Skiouros took up position to one side with his club raised. With a nod to the Greek, Cesare reached up and unlatched the door, swinging it open easily.
‘Come with me,’ whispered Father Alexander, standing in the corridor outside. Skiouros lowered the wooden weapon and stepped into view.
‘Do we have time to put on our boots?’
The priest looked them up and down and nodded. ‘Bring your cloaks, too. The nocturnal air has a bite to it tonight.’
Peering briefly past the priest to be sure they were otherwise alone, Skiouros padded across to his bed and hauled his cold boots onto his bare feet, forgoing the hose for speed. Cesare did the same, throwing his travelling cloak over his shoulder and motioning for Skiouros to do so. The nobleman paused for a moment, his hand reaching for his sheathed sword, but decided against it and crossed to the door unarmed. Skiouros retained his grip on the macana and followed the other two out into the corridor. Through the next door he could hear the tell-tale rhythm of Parmenio and Nicolo sleeping, one deep snore and one light and easy, working in perfect counterpoint to mimic the sawing of a log.
‘The others?’ he asked, gesturing at the door.
Father Alexander shook his head. ‘His Eminence is expecting to meet only the condottiere in charge. He may be unhappy even that I brought two men.’
For a moment, Skiouros considered returning to the room. After almost a week of languishing in the depths of the Latin countryside among taciturn monks with no news, he was apprehensive about any factor that might upset the situation. Patience was one thing, but enforced inactivity was another entirely.
‘Who is this man?’ Cesare asked quietly.
‘He is a cardinal. I will say no more at this time. Should he show interest in your services, he will tell you himself. If he decides against you, he would not wish his identity known. Truth be told, after speaking to others in the Vatican, I am surprised he agreed to a meeting at all. He must have an extra reason to meet with you, beyond my own recommendation.’
The Greek felt a chill run through him. Who else knew of them?
A moment later they were at the door which led out into the gardens and as the cleric opened it, a blast of chilly air slapped across them, making them all shiver, despite their cloaks. Across the cobbled yard he led them, through the garden with its ancient marble fragments and to the great archaic wall that traversed the hill. Finally, he paused in front of the doors to that impressive rotonda that dominated the skyline. Skiouros felt a slight thrill of discovery. So far, in the week they’d been here he had seen little but the monastery’s guest house, the gardens and the general living and eating spaces. Throughout that time, he had eyed the looming circular building with interest. ‘I trust I can leave you to find your own way back, gentlemen?’ the priest asked.
Skiouros frowned. ‘You are not coming with us?’
‘His Eminence values his privacy and, besides, Barty awaits with a jug full of something illicit and rather intoxicating. I will see you at Prime, or to break your fast if you are not attending services... again,’ he added meaningfully and with a touch of admonition.
As Father Alexander returned to the monastery buildings, the two friends stood before the great ancient building and shared a look. ‘Shall we?’ Cesare smiled.
Skiouros nodded and the pair strode across to the door, testing the handle gingerly and peering into the dim interior nervously as the portal creaked open. The inside was lit only by a single candelabrum at the centre, and the light was nowhere near enough to illuminate more than the basic shape of the place.
As they entered, the young Greek felt a chill that had nothing this time to do with the temperature, as he was struck by the atmosphere of this ancient, austere place in which he could imagine a parliament of ghosts debating his fate. The interior was spacious, an ambulatory corridor running around the edge, separated from the central circle by a ring of delicate twin columns. Though he could not see that high in the gloom, he almost felt the mosaics above him telling ancient tales of saints and emperors in the manner of the Byzantine churches back home. What was this place? A chapter house? A church?
A tomb?
‘Close the door,’ ordered a voice from somewhere in the gloom, its accent refined and soft, like silk to the ear. Cesare reached round and did so, removing roughly half the interior’s illumination.
‘This is a remarkably clandestine environment for discussing the terms of possible employment,’ noted Cesare easily.
‘I favour anonymity and discretion.’
‘Might we have a little more light, lest I fall over a step?’
There was a moment’s silence and then the whisper of silk as a man moved on the far side of the room. Skiouros tightened his grip on the macana stick at his side.
‘You are one of the Orsini.’
Skiouros felt his heart sink at the inflection with which the speaker imbued the name. Perhaps it should have been him coming and Cesare who’d stayed behind.
‘I am.’
‘My experience with the Orsini has not been overly-favourable. Your family are at best a fractious collection, and Romano Orsini in particular has been something of an obstacle to me recently.’
Cesare smiled in the gloom. ‘You are a supporter of the Borgia papacy, then? I know my cousin Romano’s mouth is a little large and well-used - when his foot is not firmly wedged in it - and his mind occasionally unhinged, but as far as I am aware only His Holiness has been the target of the idiot’s spite.’
‘You are clever, Orsini. That does not necessarily endear you to me - a clever Orsini.’
‘Why then arrange this meeting at all?’ Cesare countered. ‘If my name alone was enough to put you off.’
Skiouros licked his lips. A thought had just struck him. ‘You were there, weren’t you, your Eminence?’
A moment’s silence followed and Skiouros nodded to himself. ‘There were at least two cardinals in Orvieto’s army at the fall of Roccabruna. I noticed one of them looked rather bored. The other was watching our group rather more intently. I would be willing to place a coin on a wager that man was you, your Eminence?’
‘Another clever one. My my.’
‘And that’s why you only needed to see Orsini tonight. You’ve already seen us before. In court and in action.’
Cesare took up the conversation with an appreciative nod to his friend. ‘And you are already half decided, but my family ties make you recalcitrant. Can you trust an Orsini, even if he fights for pay?’
‘And can I?’
There was another sound of swishing movement and a flicking noise. Sparks danced and a taper began to glow. The friends’ eyes fixed on the man’s location as he moved around the circular columns, touching the taper to the candle holders between each set of columns, throwing the austere and ancient splendour of this place into glowing golden relief.
Skiouros found himself looking up at the ceiling as the mosaics he’d already known were there danced into view, flickering and dim.
‘Beautiful, aren’t they,’ the cardinal said as he approached slowly around the ambulatory, lighting candles as he went. ‘They betray the pagan origins of the building. Christ sits enthroned in each of the apsidal scenes but all the rest are of ancient origin. I like this place. It sits well with me. I feel it is a perfect metaphor for myself. The spiritual and the practical harmoniously side by side. The pious and the wicked, which live
in all men in varying degrees of balance. The harvesting of the wine grapes among the figures of ancient Gods. The tearing of the vines. Reaping. Cutting. Severing.’
Skiouros felt that chill return in force at the tone the cardinal had slipped into.
‘Why should I place my trust in an Orsini and consider employing him?’ the man repeated.
Cesare stood still and calm as the cardinal came to a halt before him. Almost a head taller than the condottiere, the cardinal was dressed in rich black velvets and silks, embroidered with silver designs, a hat worn at a jaunty angle doing nothing to eradicate the impression of power and tension. Skiouros tightened his grip on the macana as he realised the cardinal was wearing good leather fighting gloves and bore a sword and parrying dagger at his waist.
Once more he began to wonder what this place was, where a man of the church would stoop to clandestine meetings with mercenaries and eschew his official scarlet for the dour colours of a sword-fighting nobleman.
‘You wish some sort of guarantee, your Eminence? And I imagined you a man more familiar with Rome and its transient ways.’
The cardinal gave a humorous snort of laughter, swishing the taper he held until the flame died away, and Cesare shrugged in the flickering candlelight as a zig-zag of light remained on their retinas. ‘What guarantee can a man give in these times? I could give you my word, which I hold in high esteem, but to you it is simply yet more dissembling of the Orsini. I could sign a legal document, but then I would be doing that anyway should you contract us. Perhaps I can make some sort of vow over the altar here? Though I fear that a promise to God is also worth as little as a clipped penny in this city.’
Skiouros frowned at his friend, wondering what he was playing at. He was about to lose all chance of securing a position unless he started to show some deference, some loyalty.
‘More than a grain of truth there,’ the cardinal said.
‘And in the interests of transparency, I feel that I ought to let you know that I am aware of who you are, despite all your secrecy.’
‘Oh?’
Skiouros was shaking his head. Don’t do it. Don’t push him too far, Cesare. We need him!
‘You are my namesake, of course. You are Cardinal Cesare Borgia, son of His Holiness and the lady Vannozza dei Cattanei.’
‘Far too clever,’ smiled Cardinal Borgia coldly. ‘A clever Orsini. I cannot decide whether that makes you useful or more dangerous than any man in Rome right now.’
‘Simple deduction, your Eminence,’ Cesare smiled. ‘There are remarkably few pro-Borgia cardinals from what I hear, and to state the position of the anti-Borgia Orsini so early in negotiations, you had to be one of the most important. I have met half a dozen of the more senior cardinals, including Della Rovere, who we encountered in Siena fleeing to the arms of the French king with his tail between his legs. And one thing I do know about those men is that their position is all to them. The power of their robes. The only time they are to be seen without their vestments is when they are naked as the day they were made and cavorting with the courtesans of Rome.’
Skiouros felt his blood run cold as his friend blithely insulted the entire college of cardinals in a single sweeping statement. Cesare relaxed into the silence and rubbed his hands together.
‘But a cardinal, a nobleman and a sword-fighter with the security of the Pope as his prime concern? Who else could you be?’
‘You have still not answered my question to any level of satisfaction,’ replied Borgia calmly. ‘Why should I trust you?’
‘There is no solid answer I can give. Look me in the eye and decide, for the eyes are where our secrets hide, do they not?’
The cardinal leaned slightly closer, studying Cesare’s face, and then he brushed the matter aside with a black-gloved hand. ‘The Orsini were ever good at playing the game. Your Greek here is a different matter. He seemed almost boyishly innocent at Roccabruna for all his martial achievements, and all the time we have stood here he has been twitching at your flat statements and blatant insults, unable to hide his shock and disappointment in you. Your eyes, Orsini, hide their secrets well and tell me only that which you desire I know. This young man, however? Well he seems an open mirror for your true intent.’
Skiouros tried not to sweat profusely as the cardinal stepped towards him, leaning down to gaze unblinking into his eyes. He suddenly felt like a child being questioned after some mischief that he knows was his fault. By the time those ice blue eyes moved back, he was almost ready to confess to anything the man cared to name. As Borgia stepped away towards Cesare, Skiouros was embarrassed to feel his nerves force a little bile into his mouth.
‘Your Greek friend is uncommonly nervous, Orsini, but not - I think - through any deceit. He genuinely wishes this contract and appears to fear that you are losing him his chances of securing it.’
Cesare stopped rubbing his hands and folded his arms in a casual manner, almost challenging. ‘Your tone tells me that you have made a decision, your Eminence. Might we know what it is, so that we can end this game and return to our beds? The night grows old.’
Borgia gave the first laugh that contained genuine humour since they had arrived.
‘I like you, Orsini. Your Greek too. God help me, I really shouldn’t, but I do.’
‘Then you are inclined to take us on?’
Cardinal Borgia stepped back and leaned against the delicate pillars. ‘I am inclined to do so, yet am not ready to agree altogether.’ He gestured at the ceiling. ‘As I said, the mosaics echo my soul. Light and dark together. In the service of the Lord a man can afford to be a shining beacon of church morals. In the service of the Papacy, one has to be prepared to move in darker circles. I employ only those of whose unswerving loyalty I am convinced, and those who accept my service must be willing also to accept the need to do my bidding, no matter how morally-troublesome the task to which I set them.’
‘Condottieri are soldiers, your Eminence,’ Skiouros interrupted, not liking the direction the conversation was heading.
‘True indeed, but you showed such devious ingenuity back at Roccabruna, young Greek. And there is something about your manner and your stance that tells me you are no simple sell-sword. That you are accustomed to moving in those same dark circles.’
‘Cut to the chase, your Eminence,’ Cesare said, straightening and unfolding his arms.
‘Very well. If I am to trust an Orsini, I would have his contract signed in blood. You will solve a small problem for me, and when you have done that to my satisfaction, I will give you your contract. You will find my terms of employment hard to beat. I pay well and the benefits are unmatchable. But first you will prove your ability, your worth and your fidelity.’
‘How?’ Skiouros blurted.
‘You will bring me something that I very much wish to have.’
‘And you’re really comfortable with this?’ Skiouros muttered unhappily to Cesare.
‘I wouldn’t say that, given an infinite choice, this is how I would be filling my time, but when the devil drives and all that.’
‘He’s your cousin!’
‘He’s an idiot who fell foul of Rome’s most powerful family because he is permanently unable to extricate his enormous foot from his immense mouth. In the Rome of the Borgias only a fool stands in opposition to the Pope.’
‘It sounds like there are a surprising number of fools in the college of cardinals, then!’
Cesare scratched his chin. ‘You met Borgia. Would you cross him?’ He watched the expression change on Skiouros’ face. ‘No, I thought not. And he is only one of them. He has a sister, brothers, half-brothers, his father, of course, and even his mother is a force to be reckoned with by all accounts.’
‘So you are happy with it?’
Cesare rounded on the Greek as he leaned back into the pitch dark shadows of the alley. ‘Of course I’m not happy about it! But I pledged my sword to your task, and I do not back out of such things with ease. To gain access to the Vatican and
Prince Cem, we need that contract with Cardinal Borgia, and he is not going to accept an Orsini in his service without damn good reason. He set us a task and we have to see it through. I thought your peculiar aversion to any recognisable faith would allow you some ethical leeway? It’s those of us who hold to our faith in the Lord God who have to panic about the repercussions of this night.’
Skiouros leaned back in the face of Orsini’s anger. ‘Because I can see a truth between and beyond the liturgies does not mean I lack the morals of any of them, Cesare. . I am confident in our goal and in my abilities, but I am uncomfortable with this. Are you sure there’s no alternative?’
‘Of course there is,’ snapped Cesare. ‘You can wait until Charles of France walks into Rome and then back out with Cem in an iron collar and then try and infiltrate the French army if you prefer?’
‘And what of your men? What of Girolamo and Helwyg? I cannot imagine this is the sort of thing they signed on with you for. Are they happy with following you and I this close to Hell?’
Orsini gave him a hard look. ‘I pay better than any other Condottiere they might find. Besides, I am the lord of Carloto - where Girolamo’s family live - and in serving me well, he secures a comfortable and pleasant life for them. As for Helwyg… well, he owes me of old, and has sought to pay me back for years out of some grand Germanic sense of propriety. We are set, so stop muttering.’
Skiouros sighed and ducked out of the deep shadow, peering across the dark market square to the brown, smooth façade of the palazzo opposite. A tall building, perhaps three floors high and purpose built as a grand residence rather than formed from the bones of a centuries-old fortress in the manner of many of the city’s palaces, this one presented ordered rows of windows, the lower floor’s ones protected by heavy wooden shutters. They were closed as one would expect given the lateness of the hour. The earliness of the hour, Skiouros corrected himself, looking up at the dark sky, the moon having now passed from sight.
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