by David Blixt
Perhaps it was solidarity, one aspiring poet to the son of another. Perhaps Petrarch had even played Pander under his own roof. One never knew with poets, who were hardly better than actors.
Whatever the suggestion's origin, it was worth exploring. “I shall mention it to His Holiness. He does not often listen to me.”
Raising his gaze from his cup, Petrarch grinned. “Your Eminence, I'm amazed you're listening to me.”
♦ ◊ ♦
Verona, Italy
NOT BEING AT ALL FANCIFUL, Pietro Alaghieri did not often dream. Through the years, one only dream had plagued his nights. As it came again, he prayed this time would be different.
As ever, it began with him climbing down a rocky slope towards a river very like the Adige. Landslides from the mountains had left great stones lining the water's edge. He felt the bite of the stone on his fingers.
By Pietro's side was his ward and foster-son, Francesco della Scala. Once appearing as only a child, the dream Cesco now mirrored his age in the waking world. Curling chestnut hair reached his shoulders, partially obscuring the eyes that shifted daily between calm blue and wild green. Nearly a man, there was stubble on his chin, and the scar beside his right eye crinkled whenever he smiled.
A ferociously lean black hound by Cesco's side yelped as something crashed behind them. Pietro glanced back at the terrible monster hurling stones at them from high on the hill. Cesco merely laughed, wild and careless.
As always, their only hope of safety was the river. But this was not the Adige. It was the Phlegethon, the burning river of blood where those damned for violence were tortured for all eternity.
All at once their path was blocked by an unending army of half-horse, half-men battling each other on the water's edge. They did not fight with bow and arrow, as centaurs should. Instead Pietro saw their curved swords arcing, slicing, casting flecks of blood and viscera into the air.
The setting shifted. No longer upon a ruined hillside, Pietro and Cesco viewed the roiling river from the balcony of Verona's famous Arena. The stands were filled with cheering men and women, as at the gladiatorial games of old.
Pietro wanted the dream to be different. He wanted to flee, to hide, to survive. Above all, he wanted to keep quiet. He knew what speaking would bring. Still, he found himself saying, “We're safe now.”
Fateful words. The centaurs all looked up, stamping and whinnying. Their leader shouted, “To what torment do you come, you two approaching down the slope! Tell us from there. If not, I draw my bow!”
A centaur with grey haunches pointed to Pietro. “Do you observe the one behind dislodges what he touches? That's not what the feet of dead men do!”
Bloody corpses on the Arena floor and writhing figures in the river beyond all turned to stare at Pietro with empty, accusing eyes.
Cesco held up his hands, palms forward. “It is true! He is not dead! I am his guide here, at the request of the Scaligeri!”
If this had been his father's poem, they would have climbed onto a centaur's back and been carried across the river. But Cesco's answer enraged the centaurs, who bucked and reared, clanging their swords together in dire applause. Cesco grasped the coin at his neck.
“Who are you?” asked Pietro.
Cesco's smile was wry. “Who were you expecting?”
“A god. Or a poet.”
“Granted in both!” Screaming in joy, Cesco leapt from the balcony into the fray, the massive black hound charging after him.
Pietro grasped after him. “No! Stop!”
He clutched only air. Down among the centaurs, dancing across their backs, Cesco was slaughter personified, slicing horse and human flesh with wild arcing swings of his sword. Cesco sang out in French, “Si Dieu ne me veut ayder, le Diable ne me peut manquer!”
Pietro ran to the lip of the balcony, watching in desperate hope. Would Cesco make it this time? Would he reach the river? “Mercurio!” he called in encouragement. “Mercurio!”
“Close enough!” the warrior-child shouted in Arabic.
The dream was almost over, but Pietro fought wakefulness. This time Cesco would make it! This time he would reach the river, cross it, be free! This time—
Cesco disappeared beneath the bloodied centaurs, who turned to cats, pawing and ripping his body. Pietro screamed—
And woke.
Sweating, pale, terrified, he woke, his throat sore and the name of Mercury on his lips. Rolling out of bed, he threw open a shutter to breathe in the still November night.
He had never really had nightmares – not like Cesco, who had suffered them all his life. Yet this one had pursued Pietro for fourteen years. The details altered. For a time, Pietro had worn silver armor. For a year and more, Cesco had worn a mask. Sometimes other faces appeared – the Moor, the doctor, Pietro's sister.
One face was always notable for its absence. The Capitano di Verona had never once made an appearance. The omission felt significant.
The scene was from L'Inferno. The Mercury references were likely due to the coin Cesco wore at his throat. Pietro had found it on the night he first met Cesco, and for a time it had hung about the neck of Pietro's own hound called Mercurio. The dog had died in Cesco's arms, and the child had taken the symbol for his own.
In the light of day, Pietro could convince himself that this was just a dream born of his father's poetry. In moments like this, the dream was all too real. Cesco, fighting until his death. Pietro watching, helpless.
Sleep would not return, so Pietro started to dress. His page had laid out his formal robes the night before. They were new, and remarkably fine, the best he had ever owned. Putting them on, he felt like he was donning a funeral shroud.
No need to wonder why the dream had bubbled up on this, the eve of what promised to be the worst day of his life. Of all their lives.
Father knew, thought Pietro. Father understood there are worse things than a river of blood, or death by a sword. Worse even than a lake of ice, where betrayers dwell. There is exile. Not exile from home. Exile from one's self.
Bells began to ring, and with them the first strains of music. Resting his head against the doorjamb, Pietro breathed deeply. Then, squaring his shoulders, he opened the door to face the trial ahead.
Just as in the dream, Pietro was doomed to watch helplessly as events swallowed his marvelous mischief-maker whole.
ACT I
To Wive and Thrive
One
Verona, Italy
Sunday, 27 November 1328
VERONA'S ENDURING WAR with Padua ended not with a clash of steel or a charge of horse, but a peal of bells. Wedding bells. Today the leading families of the feuding cities were sealing the bond of peace in matrimonial bliss, binding the kindred of Cangrande della Scala, Capitano di Verona, to that of Marsilio da Carrara, Capitano da Padua.
Whatever the talk of union and partnership, one family would clearly dominate. After fifteen years of war, Padua was vowing to love, honour – and obey.
The two months prior had seen a frantic rush unparalleled in recent history. To start, Carrara surprised everyone by recalling all the Paduan exiles save two. Padua's internal strife had been far more destabilizing than the war itself, rising to such a crescendo of violence that it was preferable for Carrara to hand the city to his enemy than to trust his own family. Thus cousin Niccolo did not receive a pardon.
Nor did the poet Albertino Mussato. He'd savaged Carrara's disastrous rule, and even this recent salvation. Mussato's continued exile entirely suited Cangrande, who had never quite forgiven the poet for the savage literary flogging he'd received in Mussato's play Ecerinis.
Today's double wedding promised to be the grandest event in Veronese history – quite a statement! Cangrande had always been praised for his open-handed entertainments, but now florins and ducats flowed as if carried down from the Alps along the Adige.
Not that he spent his own money. As the bride, Padua was forced to offer a substantial dowry to defray the cost of these nuptial
extravagances. And Verona's allies – Mantua, Bergamo, Cremona, and Vicenza – footed the rest of the bill, sending presents of food, drink, and expensive wedding trinkets, while Lucca donated huge rolls of their famous cloth.
The most surprising gift came from the Venetians. In place of the traditional gold cup for the bride, they presented two heavy goblets of flawless blue glass, one for each couple. A credulous soul might even think they approved.
Such tokens of respect were evidence of Cangrande's growing pre-eminence. By conquering Padua, the Scaliger had arguably become the most powerful man in Italy. That it had been achieved peacefully, reasonably, only enhanced his stature. At thirty-seven, Cangrande was now the undisputed leader of the Ghibelline party, controlling all of the Feltro.
Almost. There was no gift from Guecello Tempesta, ruler of Treviso, who was too occupied in fortifying his walls to send his regards.
But the prospect of war with Treviso paled against the incredible goings-on inside Verona's own walls. Members of various guilds capered in the streets, dressed in silks and linens of every shade the dyers' rainbow could offer. Entertainers of every stripe descended on the city in droves, all housed at the Scaliger's expense. Actors, musicians, painters, poets, magicians, dancers, riders, and jugglers were put to work for impromptu plays, shows, and concerts at all hours, in every square.
Verona owned a deserved reputation for contests. The night hunt during the late Cecchino della Scala's wedding was fabled, the annual twin races known as the Palio legendary, and the tourney two years past had been as exciting as any contest in Rome's Colosseum. This wedding celebration promised to show them all up as cheap and tawdry masques.
After weeks of revels and sport, the promised day had finally arrived. The private stages of the marriage, impalmamento and sponsalia, already performed, today was matrimonium, ring-day, a ceremony particularly Italian. Germans and Frenchmen exchanged rings upon betrothal. Only in Italy did the ring set the seal on the marriage.
Verona was packed to bursting. Nobles from France, Germany, Brabant, Burgundy, Aragon, Sicily, Zeeland, Denmark and other nearby nations flocked for the event, only to find the city already teeming with citizens from all over the Italian peninsula. Even the Emperor had overlooked his festering discontent with the Scaliger to send his nephew along with favoured knights and courtiers. After all, one of the bridegrooms had served as the Emperor's page for over a year.
Packed streets were ripe for low thieves and rascals who knew how to cut a purse, pluck a ring from a finger, or strip a man of his best knife without giving the slightest sign. City guards were conspicuous in their bright yellow and blue garb, their striped tabards bearing the Scaligeri seal, a ladder topped by a two-headed eagle, a snarling hound at the base. The guards halberds were bedecked in garlands, demonstrating the victory of peace over war these marriages symbolized.
As dawn approached, excitement rippled through the air. It was rumoured that Manuello Giudeo, Cangrande's aged Master of Revels, meant this to be his swan song, the pinnacle of his career.
It began, as all weddings should, with music. At first a select band of strings greeted the pre-dawn light, the musicians placed on balconies and rooftops across the city, filling the air with sustained notes, long strings to fish for men's hearts.
Fifes joined in with the rising sun, livening the jostle and bustle below. More wind instruments followed and finally, scant minutes before the procession set out, drums. These drums were placed below ground, in the excavated Roman ruins beneath the Piazza dei Signori and the Piazza delle Erbe. Thus their hammering pulse seemed to rise from the very earth itself.
The drumming ceased as the air was suddenly shattered by a blaze of trumpets. At that moment the palace doors flung wide to hurl forth twenty angelic children strewing rose-petals in their wake, followed by acrobats and jugglers. Next came minor priests and monks, holy men without family to elevate them to notoriety. Solemn though the moment was, they could not help smiling, their joy mirroring their flock's.
The gentry came next, mounted knights and nobles. They rode in matched pairs, one Paduan beside one Veronese. This was no traditional parade, with the most important lords at the head. No, this was modeled after the ancient Roman Triumph, building man after man to the most illustrious.
They started strong. Leading the way were the Paduan Baptista Minola, whose son-in-law was Veronese, and Guglielmo del Castelbarco, Cangrande's most valued statesman. They were immediately followed by Nico da Lozzo, who had long ago traded Padua's colours for Cangrande's, and his cousin Schinelli, who had refused to change sides. Blood enemies for a score of years, they smiled now in perfect amity.
More Veronese faces paired with their Paduan opposites. Some of the loudest cheers were for Petruchio da Bonaventura, he of the mad Paduan wife, riding beside his lifelong friend, Hortensio Alvarotti, namesake of Petruchio's second son. The two laughed and waved, clearly well-pleased that they could now live in public concord.
Some braces had no personal link, paired only to honour their rank. Others were more awkward, such as the pairing of Antony Capulletto with Ubertino da Carrara. Capulletto had once been betrothed to Ubertino's cousin, only to have her run off with Antony's best friend. Despite this eternally-festering sore, Antony put on a brave face for the crowd.
Not far behind him rode that same former friend. As Mariotto Montecchio was wed to a Paduan noblewoman, he was among the last duos to issue forth from the Scaligeri palace. His companion was a relation by marriage, Tiso da Camposampiero. Until last month the two had never met outside a battlefield.
Nearing the ultimate set of riders, out came four of Scaligeri sympathy, bound by blood and marriage. Antonio and Bailardino da Nogarola, along with Bail's two sons Bailardetto and Valentino. They were paired with four of the Papafava clan, tied to the Carrarese much the same way the Nogarola family was to the Scaligeri.
Dressed in purple and gold, Detto's head should have been high. Yet he neither waved nor smiled, keeping his eyes fixed rigidly upon his father's back as though drawing strength from that gregarious, warlike bulk.
Next came the only rider without a mate. The rumoured architect of this grand peace, Ser Pietro Alaghieri had been given the honour of riding in solitary prominence. Fitting, as he was neither Veronese nor Paduan. He was a Florentine, though still labouring under his father's decree of exile. Known as a knight of scrupulous honour, recently returned to the light of God, he was said to be the Scaliger's most trusted confidant. Hadn't he been given the chore of secretly raising Cangrande's heir? Hadn't he gone to Avignon to plead the Scaliger's reinstatement by the Pope? Hadn't he once been wounded fighting the Paduans, and yet devised this new glorious peace? Moreover, was he not the son of the poet Dante, who had braved Hell in order to achieve Heaven?
Certainly the son looked as though he'd shared his father's journey, so grim and tired and sad all at once. Like Detto before him, he looked girded more for a funeral than a wedding.
Ah, but the next pair bore smiles that angels would have envied. Cangrande della Scala and Marsilio da Carrara rode side by side, dressed in the colours of their cities, but reversed – the Paduan wore Verona's gold and azure, while Cangrande was draped in the crimson and white of Padua.
At the prime of his life at thirty-five years, Carrara was dark of hair and eye, the flower of Paduan nobility. He waved his clasped hands above his head as though this were his triumph – as, in many ways, it was. No longer under siege, he was free to lead his people to the prosperity that had so long eluded Padua.
Yet Carrara's joy paled beside the Scaliger's. It was not his added height that gave Cangrande such a dominance, nor was it his position as the victor. There was something innate in the man, something grand and eternal. It did not hurt that his flawless smile was famous across the known world, or that his chestnut hair framed orbs of such unearthly blue that women had made spectacles of themselves just to be seen by those eyes. Having shed the weight gained in recent times, he appeared younger t
han his modest thirty-eight years.
Decisive, cunning, foresighted, generous, forgiving, proud, able, and charming, Cangrande was such a man as to come along once in a generation, a dozen generations. With this victory, the world had begun to recognize that fact. And fear it.
Both lords were draped in so much wealth as to dazzle the eye – even the stitching of their gloves was gold. Neither was armed in the slightest, not even knives on their belts, so secure were they in the peace they had made. A peace that would be forever signified by the mingling of their kindred's blood.
Then, at last, the ultimate pair appeared. The two bridegrooms, dressed in flawlessly matched embroidered farsettos and capes. Not gold but silver, head to spurs, with the deepest and most expensive black to accent their luster.
At twenty years, Mastino della Scala had all the handsomeness youthful vigour could endow. His dark hair was cut short, making him look quite martial, in a Roman way. One might have mistaken Mastino for the son of Carrara, not the nephew of Cangrande. He was mounted on a pure white stallion that even the horse-loving Montecchio openly admired.
Beside him, on an equally white steed, rode Francesco di Cangrande, the bastard Heir of Verona. Cesco's curling chestnut hair was long enough to tie back. He had a more crooked smile than Cangrande's, curling up on the left side and pressed tight on the right. It was a smile, not of joy, but of wry amusement, one that would have looked out of place on any other fourteen-year-old. But Cesco already owned something of the Scaliger's immense presence, a quality that would only increase with time.
Since his dramatic reappearance three years earlier, Verona had watched this young man grow. Just this summer he had guided the city through the aftermath of a terrifying earthquake with remarkable ability and assurance. Better still, the running duel of wills between Cangrande and his bastard heir seemed to have ended. For the first time, Verona's future seemed not only bright, but replete with promise. There lacked only a victory over Treviso. Then, with the Feltro united, with the support of the Emperor and respect of the Pope, with control of the Alps, with an experienced and eager army, with Cangrande to lead and Cesco as the promised future, Verona's possibilities were limited only by imagination. The city so beloved of Charlemagne could easily become the new Paris, the new Rome, the new Athens. Verona would become the center of the world.