City of God (16 page)

“Well, my darling mouse, what brought you here?” He spoke in Spanish.

“The wine,” Nicholas said.

“You were not seeking me?”

“Excellency, I had no notion you were here.”

Miguelito returned. After him came two serving girls with platters, who put food on Valentino's plate and poured his wine. Miguelito paid them, and they left.

The Pope's son said, “Fate brought you here, then, mouse, because you have been much in my mind.”

“Magnificence, I live to serve.”

Miguelito tasted of the prince's meat and bread; he drank of the wine. Nicholas looked hungrily at the white veal flesh, smelling of the herbs with which it had been spread before roasting.

“You should not have told me your plan for Urbino in front of Gianpaolo Baglione,” Valentino said. He began to eat. He spoke between bites. “He is too conventional a man not to be shocked.”

“I am devastated that I embarrassed you, Magnificence.”

“All my condottieri are such men as that. They are not thinking men. They obey, which is what makes them useful.” Valentino reached for the wine glass. The candlelight caught glints on the gold thread in the sleeves of his coat. Miguelito, standing behind him, was all but invisible in the dark.

“As for the embarrassment, Nicholas, it was none. I have talked of your plan to some others. We are agreed. There is merit in it—great merit. Of course it needs some changes, but on the whole we are inclined to use it.”

A shock like an electric pulse ran through Nicholas from head to foot. He grew warm all over.

Valentino went on, “I shall need more intelligence of Guidobaldo. First, you say he will surrender. How do you know?”

“He is no soldier, Magnificence. And he is impotent. Thus he is predisposed to—”

“Impotent! I did not know that.”

Nicholas moved his shoulders up and down. “I know a physician who treated him, Magnificence.”

Valentino chewed a moment and swallowed. He glanced at Miguelito. To Nicholas, he said, “You are thorough.”

“It is not secret knowledge, Magnificence. One need only ask.”

“Ask. Yes. He is married to—” Valentino snapped his fingers.

“Elisabetta Gonzaga,” Nicholas said. “She is his strength, in fact. But she is gone from Urbino for the winter; she followed your sister to her wedding in Ferrara.”

“What about her relatives? Can they help him?”

“They are too far from Urbino to help him defend against you. The whole power of the plan is that he will know only a few hours before you reach his doorstep what you mean to do.”

Without marking it, Nicholas had come up to the table.

“Yes,” Valentino said; he touched his mouth with the napkin. “I am aware of the military advantages, mouse. What concerns me are Guidobaldo's family connections, for instance the Estensi, my new kinsmen.”

“His wife's brother is married to Beatrice d'Este,” Nicholas said, “whose only concern is her collections of statuary and painting. You might let her acquire a few of the prizes of Guidobaldo's collection. I understand he has a piece by Michelangelo that she once tried to purchase from you.”

“She offered much too low.” Valentino leaned back, his hand on his stomach. He looked off across the room, past Nicholas, his pale brow furrowing. “I do not like your Republic, Nicholas.”

“Yes,” Nicholas said, startled at the sudden shift.

“Better than giving me Urbino would be a plan to bring Florence to her knees before me.”

“Yes, Magnificence.”

Valentino frowned, his face still turned so that his eyes were directly past Nicholas; he spoke much louder than before. His hand had clenched against his stomach.

“They have insulted me, abused my faith, betrayed a contract signed and sealed—yet I hardly even know their names!” The prince hammered with his fist at the table. “They reach power, they humiliate me and my father, and then before I can retaliate, those men are down and another set are up, claiming no knowledge of what went before.”

Nicholas's mouth was dry. He said, “It is a government intended to be ineffectual, Magnificence.”

“It effects my shame.” Now Valentino raised his stony gaze to Nicholas's face. “You will tell me how to remove it.”

Nicholas's eyes burned; he wanted to look away, sure that Valentino would read his mind through his eyes. He said, “Magnificence, you need only threaten Florence, and the Republic will fall.”

He did not say that any government that followed would certainly be more adamantly against Valentino than the existing state. He pressed his sweating hands to the table linen, wondering how the conversation had led him to this precipice.

“So easily?” Valentino asked.

“Oh, yes,” Nicholas said. He forced himself to go on meeting the prince's gleaming feral eyes. “You need only send your armies into Tuscany to put this Republic in its grave.”

Valentino twisted to look at Miguelito behind him and straightened again in his chair. “It will serve as a diversion, too—while we take Urbino.”

Nicholas said, “Yes—and the King of France cannot accuse you of disobeying his order against attacking Florence directly.”

Valentino frowned again; his gaze slid away from Nicholas and he stirred in his chair and rubbed his throat with his hand. “The French king,” he said, loudly again. “The French king may dance as he wills. Now that the Spanish have an army in Italy—”

Then the French had in fact guaranteed Florence against the Borgias. This was fresh news. Nicholas did not look away from Valentino now. He had the sensation of rushing into the slack jaws of a crocodile, picking at the morsels between the teeth.

“There are a number of cities in Tuscany who hate the dominance of Florence,” Nicholas said. He lowered his voice. He wanted to seem diffident. “You need only convince one city to open her gates to your army—”

“Which?”

“I shall study the problem.” One more succulent tidbit between the crocodile's back teeth. “You know that Pisa has defied Florence, now, for so many years—if it could be revealed to the Florentines that Pisa has offered herself to you—”

Valentino tipped his head back. “Will Pisa come to me?”

No, then. Nicholas smiled at the prince before him. “Whether she will or no, the rumor will be enough.”

Valentino laughed and slapped his hand on his broad thigh. “My darling mouse. To think your talent might have withered and died, there in the Florentine legation.”

“He is hungry,” Miguelito said.

The Borgia pushed his chair back and stood. “Eat,” he said to Nicholas. “Send for more, if you wish.” From his full height he smiled down on Nicholas, his leonine beauty vivid with good humor. He took his mask from the table and went out.

Miguelito followed him to the door, where he turned again toward Nicholas; sober-faced, he bowed his head and made a little flourish with his hands. The door closed silently behind him.

Nicholas took his place in Valentino's chair. He fell upon the feast that Valentino had left to him.

Carnival began. White as skulls, the painted faces of the celebrants swarmed along the Corso and through the web of crooked streets beside the river; every piazza resounded with dancing music and the racket of fights. Nicholas kept his purse tucked safely away under his coat. He avoided the thick of the crowds, going always down the side of the street, along the edge of the piazza, until he came to the bullring near the river.

There the sausage vendors and the sweetmeat vendors were hawking their delights in voices hoarse from overuse. Nicholas loitered near the wall of new lumber that kept the bulls in. He watched a young sprig of the Cattanei, mounted on a gaudy chestnut horse, chase a black bull around and around the ring. None of the Italians knew how to fight bulls. Nicholas bought a drink of wine from a vendor wearing a red and white mask and a false beard. Down the street to his left came a chain of people, singing and dancing, each with his hands on the shoulders of the one before him.

The young nobleman at last succeeded in turning his bull, and the bull in one charge drove him out of the ring. The crowd hooted. Bits of bread and small stones showered him as he rode away.

“Well met, Nicholas,” a voice boomed, “and what do you today?”

It was Amadeo, splendidly dressed, his face half-concealed behind a jeweled mask; he wore jeweled gloves also. Half a dozen of his familiars were standing in the street behind him.

Nicholas turned his walking stick up under his folded arm. “Well, Amadeo, I am looking for an honest man.”

“During the daylight, Nicholas, how decadent!”

Nicholas laughed unconvincingly; Amadeo always pushed him into these half-witted duels, grasping for witticisms. “Only in Rome is honesty a matter for the dark,” he said. Beyond the ring, the crowd's voice swelled to a thunder: someone was riding to the bull.

“When you find him, will you do me the favor of joining me?”

“Really, Amadeo. In the daylight?”

Now Amadeo laughed. He ran his fingers over the bottom edge of his mask, adjusting it on his nose, so that all the jewels glittered. “Feeble, my dear Nicholas. I see you've been drinking, it affects your wit.”

At that moment Stefano came up to them. Already more than half-drunk, he was not wearing a mask, only the great floppy hat pulled low over his eyes. He said to Nicholas, “Am I late?” and looked curiously at Amadeo.

Nicholas said, “This is Amadeo Risi, Stefano.”

“Oh,” Amadeo said, smiling. “Is he honest?”

“What?” Stefano asked blankly.

Amadeo was grinning at him like a fox. “An old continuing joke between me and my friend Nicholas here. We haven't met, have we? I thought I knew everyone in Rome. Nicholas is coming with us to a little party at my house—do come too.”

“I haven't seen much of the Carnival yet,” Nicholas said quickly, before Stefano could agree.

Without a word, Stefano brushed between them to reach the wall of the bullring. Amadeo's avid stare tracked him faithfully.

“Oh, come,” Amadeo said, “what's to see? Carnival is tame, now—a hundred years ago, only think, we'd have enjoyed the spectacle of a hundred pigs dashed to pieces on the rocks below Testaccio. Come to my house. I have a keg of Perugian—we'll broach both ends before the night's over.”

Stefano said, “Isn't that Valentino?”

Nicholas reached the wall in a single step. It was Valentino; the man riding to the bull was indeed Valentino. He should have guessed it by the racket of the crowd, still roaring and waving their arms and hats.

Valentino rode a black horse against a black bull; he turned it at the far side of the ring from Nicholas and the bull charged. Its horns were longer than the horns of a Spanish bull. Valentino bent his horse neatly around a circle, avoiding the bull's rush, and when it wheeled, he raced past its heels. Confused, the bull stopped and shook its head and snorted.

The crowd whistled and cheered its approval. Valentino raised his hand to them; he made his horse dance sideways, its legs crossing one over the other, for another shout of applause. Word that he was riding had spread and more and more people were moving in around the ring, shoving for a place near the wall. They pressed against Nicholas, uncomfortably close.

Valentino took a lance from someone at the gate and played the bull from side to side, leading its charge with the lance. They turned in circles in the middle of the ring, the bull around the horse and man, like the sun around the world. Suddenly, with no warning, the bull veered from the lance and struck the horse in the shoulder.

The horse fell and Valentino leapt to the ground; he slipped and went to one knee in the dust. The screams of those around Nicholas made him catch his breath. Stefano pushed into him from one side, pushed himself by the people behind him. Nicholas was pressed against the rough boards of the wall. Across the sand from him Valentino surged up onto his feet and pulled his sword from its scabbard.

The bull dropped its horns and charged him. Valentino stood like a stone before the sweeping horns until the bull was one stride from him; he pivoted to one side, and the black beast shot by him. With both hands Valentino brought his sword down across the bull's neck.

The bull went down so suddenly that it tumbled head over heels. Blood sprayed in a broad sweep over the dust; one horn had broken off against the ground. While it thrashed its legs Valentino ran in behind it and struck it again, and the bull's kicks gradually ceased. Valentino backed away.

Nicholas sighed. The wall shook and rocked under the impact of the cheering people around it. He turned toward Stefano, who gave him a shocked frown.

“I think you are in love with him.”

“Bah,” Nicholas said, which was not denying it.

Amadeo had taken off his mask, and held it in his hand, while he smiled at Stefano. Abruptly he turned to Nicholas and said, “What does he have?”

Nicholas gave him a pointed look, embarrassed; he hoped that Stefano would not judge him by this friend. “What he needs,” he said.

“Really, Nicholas. Jealousy is a woman's trait.” Amadeo fit his mask smoothly back over his head. “Well, we're off. Are you coming? I promise you we shall enjoy every pleasure this evening.”

Nicholas glanced at Stefano, who had turned back to watch the bulking, where some men with a cart were butchering the dead bull. Valentino was leading his crippled horse out of the ring at the far end. Nicholas faced Amadeo again.

“Another time, perhaps.”

“I'll join you,” Stefano said.

Amadeo beamed all over. “Oh, wonderful!” he cried, and looped his arm through Stefano's. “Nicholas,” he said, “how sad you can't come too. But we will see you—another time?”

Stefano's face was carefully bland. He glanced at Nicholas, but his eyes focused somewhere beyond him. Amadeo hurried away down the street. Nicholas stared after them, sour.