The Malice of Fortune

by Michael Ennis

  “It is not much, is it? But I wonder if any of you can afford to play for it.” Vitellozzo nodded at Paolo Orsini. “You, Paolo, perhaps. We Vitelli having secured your family’s wealth against those who would snatch it away.” Certainly he meant the pope.

  The preening Orsini warlord could not keep Vitellozzo’s gaze, as though the guardian of his family’s wealth frightened him more than the prospect of its loss.

  “And you, ’Liverotto, would have to kill some more of your uncles. Or sell your hair to a wigmaker.” Vitellozzo’s sausage fingers mimed a caress of luxuriant imaginary tresses. He lifted a heavy eyebrow and smiled tightly at the man he had schooled since he was a boy—the expression of a harsh father accustomed to mocking his son.

  “ ’Liverotto” acknowledged this expression with one even less genial, although it was little more than a slight adjustment of his head.

  Vitellozzo began to turn the leaves of the geometry text, his eyes now awake, rapidly roaming the pages. “You might ask, ‘Why is this eminent artillerist, this maestro of warcraft, so interested in some schoolboy’s Euclid?’ ” He pushed the book, still open, across the table to me. “Perhaps you can tell me, Messer Macchia.”

  I turned the Elements so that I could examine the pages, requiring considerable will not to tremble. The scraped-over parchment had been reused at least once and the Latin text was hurried and careless, the ink fading. The annotation in the broad margin was worse, a childish, scarcely readable scrawl, the ink a cheap oak-gall brown: Gevol int la carafa. The Devil in a jar. This was followed by an accounting of the streghe present: Zeja Virgi nia. Zeja Maddalena. Zeja Francesca. And finally Zeja Caterina, the white-eyed seeress who had conducted the divination Damiata and I had witnessed—and who was almost certainly the untutored author of this marginalia.

  Beneath the list of doomed streghe was another brief litany, the script much more elegant than the witch’s scrawl, although here each name had been written in a distinct hand: Vitellozzo Vitelli. Paolo Orsini. Oliverotto da Fermo.

  The catalog of participants was followed by a familiar invocation: Angelo bianc, per vostr santite e mia purite. And beneath this diabolical prayer, Zeja Caterina had recorded, in a mongrel of Romagnolo and Italian, a question only the Devil could answer: Gevol int la carafa, tell us who here dies before the new year.

  I fingered the top of the page, intent on turning to the answer. All at once Vitellozzo shot his great, swollen paw across the table and struck down my frostbitten hand.

  “Don’t be impatient, Messer Macchia. We will share it with you in a moment. My ’Liverotto tells me that you are familiar with this form of divination. You and the whore the pope sent.”

  I could only presume that Oliverotto had, as I suspected, followed us to the hut that night—and was in fact the horseman who had pursued the fleeing mastiff keeper and relieved him of this book. “Then certainly Signor Oliverotto also told you that our Gevol int la carafa was interrupted.”

  “Tell us about it anyway. Otherwise we will presume you are a worthless, chittering monkey, whom we have gone to great effort to bring to our table, only to watch you toss your cacca on everything. And you should hear how a little monkey howls when you pull its arms off.”

  I took this as an entirely credible threat. “The zeja represents this Elements as a ‘book of spells’ and enlists some young children, virgins, to implore Lucifer to appear in her jar of water,” I told him with a dry tongue. “At which point I imagine the demon presents the zeja the answers to our questions. But as I said, my divination was interrupted.”

  Vitellozzo’s shoulders heaved with wincing mirth, as if to actually laugh would cause him unbearable suffering. “Turn the page now, Messer Macchia.”

  The broad margin of the next page had been filled with simple geometric figures drawn with a straightedge and sepia ink, evidently by a student. But at the bottom Zeja Caterina had written, in Romagnolo, a curt answer to the question of who among them would perish before the coming New Year: Tot mort. All die.

  “The white-eyed bitch was only half a fraud,” Vitellozzo said. “She and the rest of her strega whores have fulfilled their part of the prophecy. Now turn the page.”

  This margin had been almost entirely covered with annotations. At the top was the familiar list of participants, a litany of the dead streghe and the three condottieri present at this table. But these names were followed by the words traget di capra. Capra, goat, was clear enough. Traget briefly confounded me. Was it the Tuscan tragitto, journey?

  Goat ride.

  What followed was more confusing. Scrawled over this margin and that of the following page, even written over the Latin text in places, was a hodgepodge of names and nonsensical words and phrases, most in the rough hand of the zeja but some in pure yet undisciplined Tuscan Italian. Misspelled names of those present—Ursin, Vitel, Ferm—and those evidently not—il papa, Duca Valentin. Places real and imagined: Roma, Paradisio, Inferno. Things sublime and profane: tesoro di mi cuor, milli diamanti, potta, fotta. My eyes could do little more than race over this marginalia before Vitellozzo’s hand shot out again and snatched away the Elements entirely. Just as he did so, I thought I saw Ganda—which I took as a misspelled reference to the late Duke of Gandia.

  “You know what we were doing, Messer Macchia-Monkey. Tell me.”

  “The streghe employ an ointment into which they grind hellebore, henbane, and belladonna, before smearing it entirely over their naked bodies—this recipe induces a state known as the ‘goat ride,’ wherein the witches and wizards imagine themselves transported to distant places. As I am certain you gentlemen demonstrated to your own satisfaction, ordinarily this goat ride is a suitable prelude to the gioce di Diana. Witch games, which more resemble a bacchanal. An orgy.”

  “That is true, monkey. My ’Liverotto had his strega whore babbling before he had even finished greasing her snatch. After that … you cannot believe what he got up there. But go on. You know there is more.”

  “This concoction also induces a paralytic state,” I said. “The limbs are frozen, so much so that they might be hacked from the body, yet one is unable to scream.” I forced myself to look into Vitellozzo’s slitted eyes, wondering if he had witnessed this. “Even as one remains entirely sensible of pain.”

  Vitellozzo lifted his bloated hand and rolled it limply, in a “go on” gesture.

  “As the limbs regain movement,” I said, “the narcotics encourage one to converse. Quite liberally, with persons who need not be present.”

  Here Vitellozzo feigned a little clap. “I adore clever pets. Don’t you, Paolo? I found this part of the journey by goat to be most interesting. But our darling ’Liverotto was not at all pleased to see his dearest uncle Giovanni again.”

  Cold fingers traced up my back. I had the sense that Vitellozzo himself had simply observed, while his associates took the goat ride. The faceless apprentice’s last words—“He watches”—took on a new inflection.

  Sparks might have flashed inside Vitellozzo’s animal slits. He had recognized my fear. “But you know you have not reached the end, don’t you, Macchia-Monkey. Finish your recitation.”

  “I can only judge from what you have permitted me to see. But I presume that when their limbs were unfrozen, the zeja and these gentlemen were able to record their musings. It is possible they even confessed to certain sins. Or conversed about an object removed from a corpse.” Of course, I meant the amulet I presumed someone at that table had plucked from the Duke of Gandia’s bleeding throat, five years later slipping it into the charm bag of a strega he had so carefully cut into pieces.

  Again Vitellozzo’s great bulk shuddered, the pained smile fleeing quickly from his bloated face. “So you think you see what I have here, don’t you, Messer Macchia?”

  I nodded warily, wondering if I had already stepped into his snare.

  “Then you are not such a clever little Florentine monkey.” Vitellozzo snapped his bloated fingers at Oliverotto, miraculously making a sh
arp pop, as if he were summoning a serving boy.

  As though long accustomed to such servitude, Oliverotto at once got up and went out the black oak door. Quickly he reappeared in company with two soldiers, both in mail shirts like his. Only when Oliverotto declined his own seat and started toward me did I observe the noose he had obtained.

  Vitellozzo waited until Oliverotto stood directly behind me. After glancing up at his ward, he began to turn through dozens of pages of the geometry text; I could see that most of the margins were marked up in a witch’s scrawl. Evidently finding something of interest to both of us, Vitellozzo stopped and pushed the book back to me.

  In this margin was the record of a Gevol int la carafa almost identical to the preceding, with the same list of four streghe as before. But only one petitioner had signed, offering not his name but his title, in Latin: Dux Romandiole Valentieque. Hence I could be entirely certain that Damiata had not lied about Valentino’s presence in the book. Beneath the latter’s formal signature, Zeja Caterina had recorded a new question: Gevol int la carafa, tell us who kill Duca Ganda.

  “We discovered this Zeja Caterina and her gioca of whores and witches when we were in Imola almost two years ago,” Vitellozzo said. “At that time, our Duke Valentino was only beginning his conquest of the Romagna. He was most intrigued when I told him about our entertainment, but I don’t think he amused himself in similar fashion until the end of this summer, after these gentlemen and I had already determined to leave his employ. Well, you can see the question on his mind.”

  Reaching his hand out as carefully as on the previous occasion he had been impulsive, Vitellozzo again took the Elements back. “This will make it more interesting for you, if you can’t peek. How do you think this ‘Devil in a jar’ answered the duke’s question?”

  I presumed the answer was on the next page. “I would imagine that the zeja gave Valentino the answer he expected to hear.”

  “And what do you think the duke expected to hear?”

  It seemed Vitellozzo had simply cast out this net to see if he could discover whom I suspected, given my considerable inquiry into the matter. “The Duke of Gandia had acquired a number of enemies at the time he was murdered. Names familiar throughout Italy. The zeja might have told Valentino any one of them. Or even all of them.”

  “ ‘Names familiar throughout Italy.’ You diplomats have cunts where your mouths should be.”

  I was jerked to my feet, just as the hood went back over my head. In my renewed blindness, I waited for Oliverotto’s noose around my neck. Instead the rope went around my hands, binding them behind my back. As I was rushed to the door, stumbling over my own feet, Vitellozzo called after me.

  “Messer Macchia! You should know a thing before we hang you.” He waited until his thugs had briefly halted my journey to the nearest window. “Your friend, the great whore of the Vatican, has already come to see me.”

  CHAPTER 20

  When evil comes, you must take it down like medicine, for he is crazy who keeps it on his tongue, and savors its taste.

  Still bound and hooded, I was dragged down some stairs, heard a lock clank, and was thrown onto a stone floor. The door rattled behind me. I quickly discovered that this cell could be measured by my head at one end and my feet at the other. It stank like a rotting carcass.

  These discomforts were nothing next to the horrors in my mind. I did not believe that Damiata had “come to see” Vitellozzo Vitelli any more than I had; if she had journeyed here of her own volition, she would not have left her room in Cesena without a word to me. Hence I shared that cell with images far worse than any punishment of Hell, condemned to helplessly envision the things that had already been done to the woman I loved.

  I know now that I spent only one night in confinement. But when the door clanked open, I had no notion how long I had been there. Still hooded and bound, I was wrestled to my feet and shoved along until I found myself again seated on a horse.

  We went up and down hills for some time before I was pulled from the saddle, on this occasion staying on my feet. My hood was whipped off and the light from all the snow burst upon me like a vast explosion of gunpowder. I stood in a small field surrounded by a dozen irregular plots similarly strewn across the hills, all of them pushed together as if they had collided by chance; this was more like our Tuscan countryside than the flat orderliness of the Romagnole pianura. In the distance were higher, barren slopes, sheathed in ice and shrouded in clouds.

  Amid this melancholy landscape sat Vitellozzo Vitelli, upon the same tasseled cardinal’s throne he had occupied at the primero table. Strangely, in this considerably brighter light his features appeared less bloated and malformed.

  Attending him was Oliverotto da Fermo, attired in the same chain mail and cape as the previous day. The two condottieri—Signor Paolo had for some reason not joined them—were accompanied by six or seven soldiers in padded jerkins, most armed with crossbows, although two of them were scoppiettieri, the butts of their guns planted in the snow. In the field beyond these men, a dozen grooms tended an equal number of warhorses and mules. I knew there were soldiers at my back as well.

  Here I must confess that I have exercised a bit of the fabulist’s art in describing this scene, because only after I had been there for a time did I begin to make the preceding observations. In truth, almost as soon as the hood was snatched from my head, I nearly fell to my knees in gratitude and relief.

  Damiata stood beside Vitellozzo’s throne, the snow a white curtain behind her, her unflawed features framed by her sable hood.

  I did not expect her eyes to seek mine; in truth I was grateful that she did not risk even a glance. Yet I could not keep myself from staring at her face, lovely as a bust of Aphrodite—and less animated than cold marble with life or feeling. She did not, however, appear to have suffered the horrors I had imagined.

  “We must finish our business quickly,” Vitellozzo said, wrenching my attention from Damiata. “Duke Valentino is going to join our forces for the final assault on the fortress at Sinigaglia.” One of the most important fortified cities on the Adriatic coast, Sinigaglia had yet to submit to the pope. “When we have Sinigaglia, the Romagna will be entirely secure and our combined armies can move north.” Vitellozzo raised his hand to his forehead as if he had sighted this signal victory on the horizon just behind me. “Before the first of January, the duke and I will prepare our plan for the conquest of Florence.”

  As many times as I had conjured this grim prophecy in my own mind, to hear the words “conquest of Florence” from the man most capable—and most desirous—of effecting it was a kick in the testicles; only by some great exercise of will was I able to keep from doubling over.

  No sooner had Vitellozzo announced the fate of my republic, than Oliverotto da Fermo pointed at the men behind me. A moment later I heard the crackle of a burning fuse, followed by the sharp thunder of a scoppietto, twice in rapid sequence.

  But I did not feel my flesh rip and my bones shatter. Hardly believing that the marksmen could have missed me at this range, I dared to turn.

  The two scoppiettieri were surrounded by a cloud of smoke. Beyond them, at a distance of about a hundred braccia, a man wearing only a peasant’s sand-colored work tunic had been tied to a tall stake. The round wooden gag stuffed into his mouth gave him a dreadful, gaping, fish-out-of-water aspect, as he writhed and tossed his head, trying desperately to escape his bonds.

  I quickly turned from this ugly game.

  “The problem with the scoppietto is the man, not the mathematics,” Vitellozzo said, pouncing on my terror-filled eyes. “With a fixed artillery piece, assuming the foundry is reliable and the powder likewise consistent, I have only to calculate the mathematics. The wind, also, but that is predictable in most conditions. But the scoppiettiero moves to his own momentary tics and whims. He allows his arm to drop slightly with one shot, then stray to the right with the other. The force the weapon exerts on him as the ball is expelled will also cause consider
able variation. But that is the usefulness of this weapon, is it not, my sweet ’Liverotto?” He glanced at his pupil, more reprovingly than with expectation of an answer. “Will the gunman’s whim provide the correct mathematics? Only Fortune knows.” He nodded past me. “The target cannot know. Each errant shot only heightens his terror.”

  Vitellozzo went on to other business. “This whore the pope sent to find his son’s murderer.” He inclined his head slightly toward Damiata. “You are familiar with her.”

  “I know the lady.”

  “The whore,” Vitellozzo corrected me. “At least she has convinced us she is a whore, even if she has not convinced you.” Oliverotto smiled slightly, as if at last his mentor had amused him. “She claims the pope trusts her. Should I?”

  I presumed that Damiata had used her connection with the pope in a desperate attempt to save herself and her son. “She has the pope’s trust,” I said, believing the truth could only help her. “Her son is his hostage.”

  Vitellozzo received this intelligence with no expression whatever. Perhaps he already knew it.

  Behind me the fuses spit and the scoppietti again issued their dreadful percussion. The two shots were far enough apart that I could hear the brief, moaning flight of each ball. And the impact of the second, like an ox stepping on a melon.

  Vitellozzo squinted past me. “Now, that is a turn of Fortune. But let us go on to another matter.”

  Here Vitellozzo reached into his riding cloak and extracted the Elements we had examined at his primero table. “We must finish yesterday’s tale, mustn’t we?” He leafed quickly through the pages. “I believe we left off with Duke Valentino expecting the Devil to appear in a jar of water and tell him the name of his brother’s murderer.”