The Malice of Fortune

by Michael Ennis

  V

  I returned to my rooms, only to lie awake in bed. Yet I must have fallen asleep shortly before dawn, because when I opened my eyes again, the sun that pierced the cracks in the shutters was unbearably bright.

  “So much snow,” Camilla said as she stirred the coals in the brazier beside the bed. “It came down all night.”

  Wearing only my chemise, I padded barefoot across the icy tiles and flung open the shutters. The light seemed a thousand times brighter than even Valentino’s contrived explosion in the Inferno. With my hand I shielded my eyes and hardly noticed the cold.

  Our Lord has assigned Dame Fortune—that goddess known to the ancient Romans as Fortuna—dominion over this world, much to the delight of evil schemers, whom that bitch often favors over the good and just. But having threatened her worst, Fortune had granted me a brief reprieve. Because the fine points of Valentino’s treaty had yet to be sharpened, I might have sufficient time to draw a straight line between the murdered woman, Juan’s amulet, and the condottieri—thus establishing my innocence in the eyes of the pope, regardless of Valentino’s desire to keep the truth buried. And I had no intention of waiting for the latter’s determination of my “usefulness.”

  “I must learn the truth about this unfortunate woman,” I said, looking down at the thick snow in the courtyard; the Florentine and his mule had already traced a deep ellipse upon the glistening surface. “Her associations and why she was murdered.” I mused for only a moment before I added, “There are considerable ladies in the business here. Some of them must have kept company with the condottieri before they left Valentino’s employ. And I needn’t tell you where we will find them in greatest number—we should obtain invitation to some ambassadors’ suppers.”

  “Do you want me to talk to Messer Niccolò again,” Camilla said, having joined me at the window.

  I nodded absently. “It might be sensible to begin there. Surely he is a clerk with the Florentine embassy.” I blew out a breath. “I suppose I should make his acquaintance. I’ll get dressed.”

  I put on my thickest hose, calfskin half-boots, and the heavy wool dress I had worn for most of our journey here. But just as I snatched my plainest cape from out of my traveling chest, I heard Camilla say, “Madonna. The boy has come.”

  I went back to the window, observing the same boy we had seen on three previous occasions. But now his face was as red as a lobster’s back and I could hear him sputtering away in the local Romagnolo dialect, a tongue so foreign to most Italian ears that it could be mistaken for a German barking his way through some mongrel mix of French and Latin.

  The Florentine appeared to understand well enough. He nodded, gave the boy a coin, and as soon as his little informant had run off, himself raced up the stairs at the far end of the court. Almost before you could say an Ave Maria he flew back down again, a heavy wool cape around his shoulders, and without a pause took his mule’s halter and led it back into the stables.

  “Madonna, he is going out.”

  “Bar this and open it only for me,” I cautioned, having already gotten to our door. “That boy is a spy of some sort. And now he has discovered something.”

  Camilla asked almost plaintively, “But what, Madonna?”

  I was already on the landing when I turned to answer. I could only shake my head.

  As Camilla had suspected, I did not find the Florentine tending his mule in the stables. However, neither did I observe him running down the street that goes past the cathedral, so I quickly proceeded alongside our palazzo to the Via Emilia, where I could see all the way to the center of the city. This ancient road, which cleaves Imola in two, was perhaps not as crowded as a Carnival parade, but amid the wagons, mules, and people of all sorts, there must have been a dozen men who wore gray capes similar to the Florentine’s and were also headed away from me. Even so, I did not take long to recognize the familiar salad-head, darting from one side of the street to the other, as he first dodged a cart laden with vegetables, then steered around a conclave of tonsured monks.

  I began a similar passage, lifting my skirts above the slush. As I made my way I was surprised to see almost as many soldiers as streetwalkers, most with youthful plowboy faces. But I remained fixed on the Florentine, who quickly reached the Piazza Maggiore at the center of the city but did not enter the square, instead disappearing down the Via Appia, which together with the Via Emilia makes a cross in the center of the city. Shortly I arrived at this crossroads and located him again, waiting on a corner three streets up.

  He had not budged a step when I arrived at the opposite corner, partly concealing myself behind a farmer’s wife, so pregnant that she resembled an egg—and she was selling hens’ eggs out of her apron, all of them resting on her belly as if it were a shelf.

  Just across the street, the Florentine was engaged in conversation with one of the candle-sellers, who had opened her cape to show him her tits. She bit her thumb at him and stalked off, whereupon the Florentine more carefully examined the palazzi on the opposite side of the street; I determined he was eyeing the largest of these buildings, the third from the corner, with an immense, black oak door that more resembled the hull of a Genoese carrack. Melting snow ran steadily from the eaves of the lofty tile roof, spattering on the pavement like a rain shower.

  I waited on the corner, grateful to catch my breath, having been goaded into this pursuit by little more than a desperate intuition. The boy who had set me on this chase was no doubt some farmer’s son, and I suspected that whatever intelligence he had conveyed to Messer Niccolò would lead us into the countryside, which was still rife with rumors concerning the dismembered woman, as Messer Niccolò himself had told Camilla.

  Now I wondered if some of these rumors were closer to fact, the reports of witnesses too frightened to reveal themselves—perhaps because they had seen something involving the condottieri. And perhaps rumors of this sort had reached the ears of the Florentines, who would have good reason to be interested: as Valentino had told me the previous night, the Florentines regarded his imminent treaty with the condottieri as a grave threat to their republic. If Messer Niccolò was a clerk attached to the Florentine embassy, as I had surmised, then he might also be the paymaster of a little spy who kept him apprised of rumors and other reports from the countryside—and who might yet lead him to certain witnesses.

  But we had not gone into the countryside. Indeed, as I stood on that corner, an uncomfortable suspicion began to roil my thoughts: that boy had not been employed to gather rumors in the contado but rather to watch the same palazzo that held Messer Niccolò’s rapt attention. Yet even this vigil seemed fruitless. A half hour went by, I would guess, with no indication that anything of note would occur on this street, much less in front of this particular palazzo. I regretted that I had squandered my precious time—this gift Fortune would soon angrily snatch away—on assumptions made in haste.

  All at once the pedestrian door set within that great oaken portal clanked open, issuing forth a youth of perhaps eighteen, whose appearance almost made me gasp. He was as lovely as an angel in an altarpiece, with abundant blond curls falling over his shoulders. His attire was no less blinding—no cape, only pink hose to display well-shaped legs, and a short carnation-hued jacket that did not cover his pretty ass. The effect was spoiled a bit, however, by black farmer’s boots; more strangely, he had strapped to his back a considerable implement of some sort, a large wheel attached at the axle to a long handle. The entire thing might have been a wheelbarrow absent the barrow.

  A moment later the pretty boy was followed by a man of good height, dressed in a horsehair cape and the sort of black velvet berretta a “doctor” of astrology will affect; hair like dirty wool fell from this crown, framing a long, pale face, the nose almost flat, like a Moor’s. Upon his back, he carried two spades and a canvas sack. Directly at his heels a third man emerged, taller still. I recognized him at once, though I had never seen him before.

  Now, in the years just after the Fren
ch army first came into Italy—this being before you were born—I often boasted that hunchbacked little King Charles once drooled on my hand, but God knows His Most Christian Majesty only kissed it wetly, although later he slobbered on my neck. Dukes, popes, cardinals, the brother of the Turk sultan—all have bent their heads to me in intimate conversation, if I can be so vain to say. But never until that day had I laid eyes upon the most famous maestro in Christendom.

  Wrapped in a beige chamois cape, Leonardo da Vinci might have been Apollo incognito, a head taller than many men, his features almost as lovely as the young man who had preceded him: his brow strong, his long, straight nose flawlessly proportioned. Parted in the middle, his pewter hair fell like a thick lion’s mane, the emblem of a god’s ageless wisdom rather than a man’s weary age. Yet like his companions, this great maestro carried a stuffed canvas sack upon his back. In his hands he held a small wooden box, carefully, as if it were the reliquary of a saint’s finger bone.

  Here a little parade began, winding through the slushy, crowded streets, led by Maestro Leonardo da Vinci and his two companions, with the Florentine following at a distance of about twenty steps, I another dozen braccia behind him. Our route led us back to the Via Emilia, although we were now proceeding to the far end of the city, entirely opposite the Rocca and my lodgings.

  In my former business, I learned by hard practice to quickly take stock of a situation and the men involved. Duke Valentino’s engineer general had set out upon some peculiar errand, he and his people dressed for the country and proceeding in that direction. And the Florentine who was following him had no doubt been keeping a watch on Maestro Leonardo’s house—and seemed to have anticipated this excursion. Now I could only pray that Fortune had not manufactured some cruel fraud, and the maestro’s errand indeed had something to do with a faceless, ill-starred woman, whom I knew no better than the charm bag she had carried, yet to whom my fate, and my precious son’s, was now chained.

  Shortly we arrived at the Faenza Gate, one of four entrances that pierce Imola’s massive brick walls. In the little piazza before the portal, Valentino’s soldiers had halted traffic so that the customs collectors could inspect cargoes. But these officers merely nodded at Leonardo and his company, who at once passed beneath the arch.

  The Florentine similarly avoided waiting behind the several merchants and farmers; he presented one of the tax officers a paper, no doubt a safe-conduct pass. As the officer paused to read it, the Florentine stared impatiently after Leonardo, craning his neck.

  It occurred to me that having no pass, I would have to talk my way through the gate, a delay that risked losing sight of my quarry. I scurried to the Florentine’s side, clutched his arm, and gave him a peck upon the cheek, saying, “I have decided to come along anyway, regardless of all the trouble you gave me last night.” Here I offered the customs officer my most persuasive smile and a fetching curtsy. But as I had hardly dressed for this role, the officer’s eyes narrowed.

  “If you must.” The Florentine addressed me with a sour tone and a wry smirk. “Don’t say you weren’t warned.”

  His safe-conduct pass was returned; the officer motioned his head toward the arch. With neither an attempt to disengage my arm nor a word of protest, the Florentine escorted me into the countryside. There I observed Maestro Leonardo’s party already some one hundred braccia beyond us, making their way over a little plank bridge that crosses the mill canal, which entirely encircles Imola. My new companion and I were not at luxury to stop and converse, and indeed we would have fallen behind Leonardo’s leaping strides if the pretty boy had not been such a laggard, staggering beneath his burden like Christ bearing His Cross whenever Leonardo turned to snap his fingers at him.

  My companion was not any taller than he had appeared in the courtyard—not considerably taller than I. But now, walking at his side, I felt a stature as lithe and sinewy as Mercury. Still clutching his arm, I recommended myself. “I am Madonna Damiata. From Rome.”

  “Messer Niccolò, as I’m certain your girl told you. Niccolò Machiavelli, from Florence, secretary to the Ten of War.”

  So his position, it seemed, was a bit more elevated than clerk and mule trainer; he was a secretary in the higher ranks of his government—and perhaps even of some use to them. Yet in my former trade, I had once considered it necessary to hold in memory the names of all the important families in Italy, and I could not recall the Machiavelli anywhere upon that list. “So Messer Niccolò Machiavelli, I must presume that you are attached to the Florentine ambassador.”

  He turned his head and studied me, as I did him. He had a scholar’s pale forehead and a refined nose, though with a sharp, impish tip, almost on fire from the cold. His dark eyes glittered. “If I were presently attached to our ambassador, it would necessarily be a very long leash. He remains in Florence.” He spoke in a rat-tat-tat cadence, lively and careless. I could see at once why Camilla had been charmed.

  “Ah, I see. When I supped with Duke Valentino last night, he told me that Florence had sent him an amusing secretary to delay negotiations on a security agreement. I presume His Excellency was speaking of you.”

  This erased Messer Niccolò’s smirk. He observed me again, now as if weighing my claim to familiarity with Duke Valentino. “It is scarcely a secret,” he said, “that His Excellency is as weary of listening to my government’s circumlocutions as I am of singing him the same cantafavola every time we meet.”

  “No doubt your lordships in Florence will send you a new song,” I said, “if Valentino cannot conclude his treaty with the condottieri.”

  He did not hesitate. “My lordships’ most devout hope is that this treaty is never signed—they pray to that end three times every day, at lauds, terce, and vespers.”

  I noted his mocking tone. “You do not believe these prayers will be heard.”

  “I fear this treaty is all but signed and sealed.”

  We came to the mill canal. It raced along, nearly as musical as a brook, although the banks were lined with snow; I was forced to clutch Messer Niccolò more closely than I would have wished as we crossed the icy planks.

  By this time Leonardo’s party had reached the wooden bridge over the Santerno River, which in this season resembled a turbid lake more than a hundred braccia wide. Yet the bridge was a temporary construction that seemed entirely made of toothpicks, despite its enormous size. The thought of crossing it gave me a shudder.

  “I will tell you, Messer Niccolò, why I determined to follow you, in the same fashion you are following Maestro Leonardo.” I gave him a moment to say something smart, but he did not. “As I told you, I have come from Rome. On an errand for Pope Alexander. His Holiness has instructed me to examine the murder of this woman who was cut into four pieces and scattered about the countryside.”

  “Five. If you consider her head, five pieces.”

  I had expected to startle him, but his quick reply gave me a shudder. “Yes, the head,” I said. “Which remains absent, when it might identify the unfortunate woman, as well as inform us of her associations.”

  Here he did observe a careful silence, though I could not say whether I had assumed too much or if he regretted revealing his interest in the matter.

  Moments later we reached the Santerno bridge. Leonardo’s party not only had crossed already; they had left the road, marching down a slight slope onto the river’s opposite bank, which was covered with snow-clotted reeds. As we began to cross, I could hardly keep my feet; these planks were glazed with compacted snow and so carelessly fitted that I could see the muddy water rushing along beneath them. The entire structure swayed before me like a bough in the wind—and there was no railing of any sort.

  No doubt I mouthed the Ave Maria a thousand times before we reached the other side. Here Messer Niccolò halted and looked out over the right bank, where we could see Leonardo’s pewter head bobbing through the tall reeds, more than a hundred braccia beyond us.

  “There are gravel pits and quicksand down the
re,” Messer Niccolò said, evidently believing that this would dissuade me from accompanying him farther.

  “Yet here you are, Messer,” I replied, “all too eager to follow the duke’s military engineer into a frozen swamp.” I did not bother with much of a pause before I added: “Why is your government so concerned with Maestro Leonardo’s excursion into the countryside?”

  He stared out over the reeds, searching for his vanishing quarry. All at once he crossed himself like a comic mime, as if making a satire of the perils ahead. “If you are going to come along, we had better go at once.”

  We had not gone twenty steps through the reeds when I plunged into a soup of icy water, halfway to my knees. Yet I stiffened my resolve and ventured on, the gravel always shifting beneath my feet and often threatening to suck me down, the water sometimes to my thighs. I could see nothing ahead save the slender back of Messer Niccolò Machiavelli, secretary to the Ten of War. Now and then he peered back at me; I could not say if he was anticipating my rescue, or merely hoped to find me gone.

  Just when I feared I had lost sight of Messer Niccolò, I nearly stepped on him, as he crouched in the reeds. He signaled me to keep quiet, though I could hardly help snorting like a horse after the palio, I was so breathless. Someone was speaking just ahead, a strident tenor: “Start clearing the snow. It is buried somewhere in this vicinity.”

  I exchanged looks with Messer Niccolò, who pointed to where the bank sloped up from this dreadful marsh. We scuttled along, soon escaping the icy gravel, and ascended perhaps a hundred braccia before Messer Niccolò halted amid a small grove of poplars, stripped to gray skeletons by the early winter.

  We were afforded a view of the three men thrashing around in the reeds beneath us, the snow-covered rooftops of Imola half a mile distant. I had hardly stood up and shaded my eyes against the glare, when I received a revelation of such stridor that I might have been Saint John of Patmos, thunderstruck by the unearthly heralds of Judgment.