Valentino did not disappoint his audience; he regally bowed and began to lead us all in the Lioncello, his partner an exceptionally comely representative of the local nobility, her bosom well displayed and well deserving of display. Yet she was a mere pendant to the duke, upon whom all eyes were fixed. Appearing slender but not slight in black jacket and hose, he danced with equal measures of lightness and strength, never sacrificing one for the other.
I was taken in hand by a local girl not much older than my wife, and so much like her in some ways that she crushed my heart; she was not as fair as Marietta, but she had the same small nose and the same girlish pride that kept it in the air as she performed with the same impulsive grace, with one glance diffident, the next eager. For the first time since I had left Florence I wanted to hold Marietta in my arms, although my only desire was to comfort her and tell her how terribly sorry I was for this marriage neither of us had wanted.
But my stars were little better with this partner; we ran into some difficulty in the Gelosia and I found myself spit out of the circle like a melon seed. Retreating to a sideboard in one of the anterooms, I poured myself a Sangiovese and tried to forget another silver cupful of my cares. The band launched into a moresca, the cheeks of the pifferi like bellows, the dancers spinning.
I nearly choked on my wine. Seemingly from nowhere, Signor Oliverotto da Fermo appeared like the Devil in a passion play, whirling about with his copper-haired Venetian diva, their lavish, curled tresses tossing—his were almost as long as hers. I had not seen or heard of Signor Oliverotto since I had arrived in Cesena, hence I found his appearance here a most unwelcome sign. Most likely he had come to arrange the final reconciliation between Valentino and the condottieri.
As I contemplated this evil omen, the swirling chaos of the moresca became a suitable accompaniment for the events unraveling around me, the music in time with my own spinning head. Suddenly feeling a soft touch on my hand, I required a moment to focus my eyes on the sort of Carnival mask that had become something of a fashion at Valentino’s court, in and out of season; cut from green silk, it was beaded all around the eyes. A parrot’s beak obscured the lady’s nose.
She did not lead me to the dance but instead pulled me through a doorway at the back of the anteroom, this allowing access to a narrow hallway or closet. Deeper within, I observed pale legs wrapped around pale thighs and heard amorous grunts. Vainly I attempted to recognize my new companion’s face, the mask leaving in evidence only her lips and eyes.
“Do you want to know what happened to your friend?” Her thin voice wavered.
I knew this “friend” at once. “Is she alive? Where is she?”
The masked lady grasped my hand more firmly and dragged me past the coupling pair. The hallway ahead of us was cold and smelled of damp stone. At the end of it she opened a little door. I stooped beneath the lintel and found myself outside.
A sheer wall loomed over us like an immense shadow; this was the rampart that connected the Civic Palace to the single tower of the rochetta, which at present was employed solely as a prison. My guide pointed to a frighteningly tall ladder that extended from the icy courtyard to the top of this massif.
“Who sent—”
She had already closed the door behind me. When I tried to open it, I was surprised to find it unlocked. Nevertheless I quickly discarded the idea of going after her; some intermediary had probably given her a few ducats, and it was unlikely she could tell me who in fact had dispatched her on this errand. Now my mind spun with possibilities. Had Valentino found Damiata and confined her in the rochetta? Or had Oliverotto, as proxy for Vitellozzo Vitelli, insisted on Damiata’s imprisonment—or worse—so that she could not return to the pope with her account of what she had found on the pianura?
I clambered up the towering ladder with nearly as much skill as a monkey, and perhaps as little sense. Reaching the top of the rampart, I looked down onto the walkway that ran its length, framed by a shoulder-high stone parapet. I was alone up there. I dropped to the icy pavement and ventured to one of the crenellations notched into the parapet on the side overlooking Cesena. The sky was veiled with thin, high clouds. Chimneys throughout the city shot up sparking embers; out across the pianura, scattered farmhouses sent columns of smoke high into the cold air. In the darkness at the limit of my vision lay the Adriatic coast; below Cesena the Via Emilia begins to run alongside the sea. And somewhere on the shores of that dark water, the armies of the condottieri were waiting.
The tower at the far end of the walkway—where the prisoners were most likely kept—was eight-sided rather than perfectly round, with a large portal opening onto the rampart. I crept inside with due caution—and nearly fell into a rectangular opening in the floor, where narrow steps descended to the rooms below.
I peered into a darkness so thick I could have scooped it into my hands.
The face emerged so abruptly from the murk that I believed a disembodied head had been thrown up at me. I stumbled back and fell, my head striking the pavement.
By the time I recovered, this phantom was standing over me, his muscular legs sheathed in black hose. The head far above was a shadowy cipher.
“Get up.” He held out a thick hand and wrenched me to my feet.
I beheld the dusky face of Ramiro da Lorca, the man the pope had entrusted with the initial investigation of his son’s murder, five years ago—and whom Valentino had recently sent to Rimini, to get him out of the way. Ramiro reeked of cloying perfume and pomade, his hair plastered to his scalp like a thick black poultice. Yet even with this sleek carapace, his head was too blocky and heavily fleshed for his almost delicate, Oriental features.
“My people are still searching the cells down there,” Ramiro said, as though they enjoyed full authority to do so. “You should not have poked your Florentine nose into this. But you have …” Vapor streamed from his nostrils. “You are not the first man to be duped by the Duke of Gandia’s whore. Do you understand why Duke Valentino might want to confine her?”
I nodded, scarcely able to think.
“I created him.” Ramiro’s voice was distant, his eyes fixed on the empty, icy rampart behind me. “After the Duke of Gandia was murdered and it was decided to settle Cesare in a secular office, His Holiness asked me to take the boy to France, to see that he received a duchy and was married as promised to Carlotta of Aragon, the price we had arranged for King Louis’s divorce.” I noted the “we had arranged”—it seemed Ramiro had regarded himself as the pope’s partner in such decisions. “You would not have recognized the fop who rode into Chinon on a charger with pearls in its mane. The entire French court howled at his vanity and called him the ‘little duke.’ ”
Ramiro abruptly looked into the dark stairwell at our feet, holding up his hand to caution my silence. I heard nothing. After a moment he returned to his account: “When Carlotta of Aragon joined the chorus of ridicule and refused Cesare’s suit, it was I who prevented him from fleeing France and returning like a humble little friar to his tonsure and cap. It was I who negotiated his marriage to Charlotte d’Albret and obtained the Duchy of Valentinois from her father. I created the man we call Valentino.” Ramiro’s eyes were entirely dark, as if belladonna had been applied to them. “The Romagna is the Lord Jesus’s estate, given to the Supreme Pontiff as his state. It is not Duke Valentino’s to give away to these dogs.”
Here the dawn began to break, let us say. Despite his suspicion of Damiata, Ramiro was most likely my ally—and probably hers as well—in all this. “What do you intend to do?” I asked. “Take Damiata back to Rome?”
“I must know where that book is,” Ramiro said. “Did she get away with it?”
Something cold trickled down my back. Ramiro had probably been present when the streghe brought “that book” to the Rocca at Imola; perhaps he even participated in the witch games. But I did not think it likely that Valentino, having exiled Ramiro to Rimini, would now confide in him the details of our Gevol int la carafa—particulars I ha
d shared only with the duke and his engineer general.
Ramiro had “interrogated” hundreds of men during his long service to the Borgia; with little difficulty he recognized my suspicions. “I did not take all the good men still loyal to His Holiness with me to Rimini. Only a fool and a traitor would have done so.” Again the vapor streamed from his nose. “I had Gandia’s whore followed. At all times. Even into the pianura.”
I could not see all his cards, but I made a wager. “I have seen your man’s mask. A Devil’s mask, on that occasion, as I recall. I presume he spared me because he didn’t obtain the book.”
I expected that being guilty, Ramiro would deny it. Instead he gave me a lava-glass stare before he said, “A number of people fled that hut—men, women, children. You and two others did not get away.” The “two others” were almost certainly the unfortunate streghe. Yet it was still maddeningly unclear to me whether Ramiro’s man had been responsible for my incapacity—and the fate of the two women—or had simply been a witness. “After considerable pursuit, my subordinate found one of those who fled. The man with the big dog. Both with their throats cut. The dead man had no book on his person. But the tracks of a horse led away from him.”
“A horse,” I said stupidly. “Then who was the rider?”
Ramiro elevated his square, arrogant jaw. “We will know shortly. Most probably that man with the dog was a decoy employed by the Duke of Gandia’s whore.” This accorded with Valentino’s theory that Damiata would use the book for her own purposes.
Stepping to the open doorway, Ramiro looked over the rampart again. Quickly he came back to me, his dark eyes sparking with some sentiment I could not distinguish: perhaps fear, or anger. Perhaps both. “Ask yourself this,” he whispered harshly. “Why would Duke Valentino protect Oliverotto da Fermo?”
“I presume because His Excellency no longer has any choice in the matter. He must accept the terms dictated by the condottieri.”
Ramiro sniffed. “If you believe that, you are not in any way ready to answer the question. The murderer was at Capua. Do you understand?” I understood that many of the condottieri had been present at the siege and sack of Capua, eighteen months previously. “The same man who murdered the Duke of Gandia and these women here in the Romagna also butchered the citizens of Capua.” Again he looked out the doorway, the cadence of his speech markedly quicker. “Ask Duke Valentino about the women at Capua. Ask him what happened to those women.”
Almost trailing these words behind him, Ramiro strode out onto the icy rampart. Perhaps a third of the way across he stopped and planted his feet, his posture erect. Clouds of his breath rose before him.
He had issued four such clouds when I saw what he was waiting for.
CHAPTER 10
A prince who wishes to guard against conspiracies should be more wary of those for whom he has done too many favors than those to whom he has done too many injuries.
The five men at the far end of the rampart became visible all at once, or so it appeared. The two who were unarmed preceded three crossbowmen; I recognized the outlines of this leading pair before I could distinguish their faces. Valentino, attired in his jacket and hose, appeared slight next to Oliverotto da Fermo, who wore a sleeveless sable surcoat over his tunic.
Oliverotto evidenced no expression at all. But when Valentino came closer, I observed that his eyes almost danced about. Nevertheless he did not halt his advance until he was close enough to Ramiro to clasp hands. Or strike him.
He did neither, instead saying in a voice far less troubled than his eyes, “I instructed you to come directly to me when you arrived.” Evidently Valentino had summoned Ramiro from Rimini. “I was told your people are nosing around up here. Why?”
“I am looking for the whore His Holiness sent.”
“And you thought she was my prisoner?”
“You suspect her of complicity in your brother’s murder,” Ramiro said. “As we all do.”
“Did you find her?”
“My people are still looking down there.”
“You won’t find her.” Valentino turned to Oliverotto. “Do you know where this lady is?”
“If you want to find Gandia’s whore, take your Messer Ramiro down into your prison and ask him.” Oliverotto spread his legs and hooked his thumbs on his belt, a pose as confrontational as his tone. “You will discover that he knows all of it. He is the traitor in your own house.”
Ramiro’s neck corded. “How long will you continue to protect this impicatto?”
Oliverotto blithely said, “Do you wish to accuse me?”
“Excellency, come to your senses!” Ramiro’s complexion was so colored with fury that he might have been a Moor. “Your enemies found him in their cess-trench and made him a signore.” He faced Oliverotto. “Vitellozzo Vitelli shit this turd out of his bleeding asshole when he was fucked by his brother.”
What occurred next is perhaps only an image I assembled in my mind after it had taken place. I believe that Oliverotto lunged at Ramiro, who stepped back at the same moment that Valentino sprang forward, placing himself directly between the two of them. But this happened in the blinking of an eye.
From that point on, my memory is more reliable.
Valentino and Oliverotto were as still as stone, as if transformed by Medusa’s glance. Oliverotto had been frozen as he reached forward; his great fist, nearly in Valentino’s gut, was wrapped within both of his adversary’s smaller hands, which seemed a child’s in comparison. The only sound was the distant, dull resonance of the tromboni still playing below in the Civic Palace.
Valentino slowly raised his head, elevating his gaze from his own belly to Oliverotto’s face, which was no longer pale.
“Another thumb’s width … and you would have sliced me open,” Valentino said, his own strain evident in his voice.
“You know I did not intend this knife for you,” Oliverotto said. Yet strangely neither man relaxed his posture, as though this contest of strength and wills, however accidental, would have to be resolved.
“It was your mother’s brother who took you in after your father died, wasn’t it?” Valentino asked this almost as if they were merely conversing at a banquet. “Yes. Giovanni Fogliano was that gentleman’s name,” he went on, answering his own question. “And this uncle Giovanni did you an exceptional favor, didn’t he? He sent you to the Vitelli famiglia for proper instruction. Vitellozzo and Camillo—and let us not forget Paolo, of such blessed memory—became your fathers. You learned the art and science of arms long before you were able to shave.” Here Valentino’s shoulders heaved slightly, as though he were renewing the effort that had spared his life. “I envy you, Signore. I was seventeen years old when my father gave me a cardinal’s cap. He might as well have made me a castrated choirboy.” The duke offered a small, bitter smile. “Yet I became His Holiness’s most devoted servant. And you betrayed your uncle.”
“I remind you that the interests of the Borgia were advanced that night.” Oliverotto offered this through clenched teeth. “My uncle intended to ally himself against the pope. Excellency, you as well as anyone should know that such actions are sometimes necessary, if capable men are to succeed those far less competent.”
Valentino’s eyes steadied. “Do you have an accusation of your own tonight?” His voice was higher, mocking. “I can assure you I have heard it before, so you will merely add your own refrain. But those men did not have the courage to face me. You do—the Vitelli famiglia, to its credit, made you hard. So accuse me of my brother’s murder, Signore. Tell me explicitly what you have just implied, that with such a betrayal I was able to succeed a man who was not competent to hold a sword.”
Oliverotto inclined his head just a bit. Almost at once, his Herculean shoulders relaxed and he drew slightly away from the duke, although he did not step back. Valentino still clutched his hand.
Oliverotto’s gaze appeared to slip. “I did not intend any sort of accusation, Excellency.”
Valentino nodd
ed and released Oliverotto’s hand. The latter nimbly turned the blade of his dagger toward his own gut and offered the engraved ivory handle to his adversary. “You admired it the other day,” he said. “It is yours. With my apologies.”
“No. Keep it.” Valentino’s inflection was inscrutable.
The duke turned to Ramiro. “Go down there with your men and finish your search,” he told him. “Satisfy your suspicions. Then we will talk.”
Ramiro appeared no more convinced than I that Valentino had satisfied his suspicions. Before he lowered his head and did as instructed, he gave me an almost plaintive glance, as though I had been the sole witness to his last testament. When Ramiro had vanished into the stairwell, Valentino signaled one of his crossbowmen, who followed him down.
“Signor Oliverotto.” Valentino issued this address with cold formality. “I have given you the answer Vitellozzo requested. Now it is time for you to return to our friends and conclude this matter.” Of course he meant something regarding his treaty with the condottieri. And it was all too likely that “this matter” was the secret codicils promising them Florence.
Offering a respectful bow, Oliverotto began to retreat like a courtier, without turning his back.
“One last thing, Signore.” Valentino took two quick steps, erasing the distance Oliverotto had placed between them. “I have always wondered. Did you watch your uncle’s face at the moment he knew you had betrayed him?”
Oliverotto tilted his head in his searching fashion, as if in asking this question, Valentino had revealed his own weakness.
“You needn’t answer me now. You will only have created some image in your own mind, like a painter who believes he can see the suffering face of Christ. You must think about it at greater length. But your uncle’s face will come to you when you do not expect it. Soon, I think.” Valentino leaned toward him, almost as if trying to get his scent. “The next time I see you, I will ask you for your answer.”
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