City of God (17 page)

Old Juan was used to planting a kitchen garden by the back fence of Nicholas's house. As soon as the winter rains broke, not long after the beginning of Lent, he searched out the shovel and the rake and lugged them off into the weeds.

“I cannot fathom you,” Nicholas said. “You are too old for such exercises.”

He was washing his hands in the stone basin in the kitchen. On the table to his left, Juan was opening a pouch of seed he had traded for in the marketplace. The old man inserted his nose into the pouch and took a loud sniff.

“You might easily purchase all you need,” Nicholas said, shaking water from his hands. Juan put down the pouch of seeds and brought him linen.

“Nothing tastes as fine as fresh herbs,” Juan said. “And it reminds me of Navarre.”

“You live in memories.”

“It is pleasant to me—the work.”

“When you strain yourself, that will not be entirely pleasing, I am sure.”

The old man brought him his coat and he put it on. The coat was new; the stiffened lining under the fur collar bit his neck.

“Is Stebano coming tonight?”

“Yes.”

“There are some apples left. I shall bake an apple cake.”

“Why do you bother with him so much? Per Baccho, perhaps I ought to be jealous.”

“He appreciates such things.”

“And I do not?”

The old man was sniffing at his seeds again. Wisps of colorless hair floated here and there over the dome of his bald head. He poured seed out onto the palm of his hand.

“I think he must have belonged to a large family, wherever he came from. He longs for them, and so he lives in a family with us.”

Surprised, Nicholas searched the old man's face, pacific with age. Juan was always making up tales about people he did not know, yet this one, this was very close to truth.

“His family is dead,” he said slowly. “Died of plague, all save him and his father.”

Juan crossed himself. “Holy Mother gather them to Thee.”

The gold hooks of the coat were cool under Nicholas's fingers. He slipped the prongs into the loops, pulled his sleeves straight, and ran one finger around the scratchy inside of the neck. The old man was right: this house was home to Stefano, living in a taverna, dining on whore's leavings, over a rented table. It irritated him that this simple explanation had eluded him but not Juan.

“I will make the apple cake.” Juan went into the pantry.

“Here, old man, bring me another glass of wine.” Stefano made pouring gestures with his hand over his empty glass.

Nicholas came out of his room to the sight of Stefano, already lounging in the chair now recognized as his favorite, and ordering Juan about. Annoyed, Nicholas paused. Stefano tinned his beaming smile on him, and his eyes widened.

“Sweet Jesus.” Stefano got up out of his chair. “You look like a prince. Where did you have your coat made?”

“In the Lily-Row Street.”

“It looks expensive.”

Juan brought in the wine jar and filled Stefano's glass; Stefano ignored it. He moved around Nicholas, fingering the coat and murmuring in appreciation.

“But you should have done it in some color other than brown. Or at least you could wear a gold chain. Maybe two.”

Warm inside the coat Nicholas lowered his gaze to the floor. Under Stefano's scrutiny he felt like a piece of merchandise. Yet had he not worn it so that Stefano would admire it? He walked away from Stefano's humiliating touch.

“Juan, will you light the rest of the candles? And I shall have the Spanish wine.”

Stefano was behind him, still watching him; Nicholas kept his back to Stefano.

“You are early.”

“I was losing,” Stefano said, “so I left the game.”

He sounded amused. Nicholas turned the lyre-backed chair around and sat in it, now facing Stefano again, and saw with rising anger that Stefano was smiling at him. He pulled at the lavish fur cuffs of his sleeves.

“I'm pleased you've learned to stop when you must.”

“It isn't hard. When I have somewhere to go.”

Juan brought Nicholas his glass and went off to light the candles.

“How much did you lose?”

“Two hundred carlini. How much did that coat cost?”

“Rather more than that,” Nicholas said.

“Where are you getting all this money? It seems to me when I first met you that you were always poor. Haggled with me over a penny.”

“I have made some wise investments.”

Stefano took his favorite chair by the back and brought it across the room toward Nicholas.

“May I sit by you?”

Nicholas grunted. The gleam of amusement still danced in Stefano's eyes, in his smile, his whole expression. “Yes, of course,” Nicholas said. He felt suddenly that Stefano knew him too well.

“When are you going to have the walls finished?” Stefano nodded around the room.

“When I have decided what to put there.”

“It seemed right the other way.”

“I was bored with it.”

“It made the room seem …” Stefano stirred up the air with his hand, “it was like being in the country.”

“Yes. It seemed very empty and bland. I loathe the country.”

A banging on the door jumped him up out of his chair, startled, like some animal. He took three steps toward the door before he thought to let Juan open it. He touched his palms to the fur on the front of his coat. Juan hurried by him to the door.

“Yes?”

The old man spoke out through a crack of an opening. The voice that answered was muffled and Nicholas could not hear the words. Juan turned his head.

“He speaks Spanish. He wishes to see you privily.”

Nicholas went up to the threshold; one hand on the old man's shoulder sent him away. On the walk outside the door stood Miguelito da Corella.

“Are you alone?” Miguelito said. He was wrapped to the ears in a cloak. Nicholas wondered how he had come past the gate. “May I come in?”

Stefano must have left the gate open. “There is one here,” Nicholas said. “He speaks no Spanish.”

Miguelito nodded, and Nicholas let him into the room. Stefano was fifteen feet away, watching them curiously. Nicholas took Miguelito by the elbow and turned him so that his back was to the room.

“My master ordered you to determine where in Tuscany to strike.”

“Arezzo,” Nicholas said, low. “Tell him that the people are so sore from the taxes and abuses of Florence that they will probably welcome in any army he sends.”

Miguelito's mouth quirked. His thin black moustache hid the corners of his lips but the smile gave his face a kinder look. He said, “I thought it would be Arezzo. Or Piombino.”

“It's obvious.”

“You will tell them of the matter of Pisa?”

Nicholas nodded his head. “Will you take wine?”

“No. We are leaving now for Cesena in the Romagna.” Miguelito's smile broadened. “I will see you again, after Urbino.”

“Oh?”

“Yes—if it fails, he will want you notified appropriately.” Miguelito nudged him, as if that were a joke they could share. He brushed by Nicholas and went out the door.

Nicholas pushed the door shut. When he turned, Stefano said, “Who was that?—Sweet Jesus, you are white as a ghost!”

“It's nothing.” Nicholas went across the room to his chair; his legs were wobbling, although he could not tell if Miguelito's threat had made him coltish, or only that his plans were at last to come to bloom. He sat down. Juan stood in the kitchen threshold, unsmiling, his eyes sharp. Nicholas raised his head.

“You may serve us now.”

“Who was that man?” Stefano asked. “On my life, Nicholas, you are still pale as death. What did he say to you?”

“Just a messenger.”

“What did he say?”

Nicholas put his hand up to his face, shielding himself from Stefano's eyes. “Nothing—it was the cold wind in the doorway. That's all. Why I paled.” He raised his voice. “Juan! Serve me!”

Unsettled, he spoke in Italian. Stefano cleared his throat. His gaze never left Nicholas. Not his interest so much as his right to an interest annoyed Nicholas and made him uneasy. He had no self any more that was safe from the man. Juan brought their meal on a tray painted with red poppies. Besides the soup, made of onions and dusted with a fine Italian cheese, he had brought them bread, a thick yellow butter, and a cake filled with slices of apple.

“Magnificent,” Stefano said. He leaned forward eagerly over the soup.

Nicholas could barely eat. He stirred his soup with his spoon, his eyes lowered. Everything in his plan against Urbino depended on speed and surprise. The roads were good, but a sudden rain, an accident, a landslide in a mountain pass, any unforeseeable freak would bring Miguelito back to his door with his looped bowstring in his hand.

Stefano leaned back. “Old one!” He snapped his fingers at Juan. “Come take this dish.”

“Damn you!” Nicholas flung his spoon down. “Stop ordering my servant about!”

Stefano goggled at him in round surprise. Juan came up and removed the empty soup dish.

“I will not have you ordering my servant around,” Nicholas cried.

“Calm yourself,” Stefano said.

“Per Baccho, I shall not listen to you speak so to me! I am not to be patronized, my man! Get out of my house!”

Stefano looked up at Juan, and returned his gaze to Nicholas; his expression was abstracted and pensive. Swollen with his feelings. Nicholas could not keep still; he cried again, “Get out!” and Stefano rose from his chair and left.

Juan stood in the kitchen doorway, watching the soup bowl in his hands. Nicholas could not meet the old man's eyes. He pushed his chair back and went away to his bedchamber.

The surprise attack against Urbino would not come until well into the spring's campaign. Valentino spent the first months of the warming year raising his army. He had no trouble there; soldiers grew in the Romagna as if the stones were dragon's teeth. Nicholas read every report, talked to every traveler he could find from the north, and heard of turmoil and excitement but no real action.

Bruni hired a new scribe, who could barely write three words without a gross error. At first Nicholas corrected him patiently; then he kept the boy in the workroom during the afternoon to practice; finally he lost his temper and beat the boy with his walking stick.

The youth's screams set the other scribes roaring with laughter; Bruni came down the corridor from his chamber to see what was happening.

Nicholas's walking stick cracked its length. He let the sobbing boy go. Taking the stick into the sunlight by the archway that opened on the loggia, he inspected the split in the wood. Behind him, the other scribes screeched jibes at the beaten boy.

“Now, Messer Nicholas,” Bruni said.

Heavy feet sounded on the stair and a dusty man rushed into the room. “Arezzo!” he cried. “Arezzo!”

All the others hushed. The courier was pulling his dispatch case off over his head. Nicholas's fingers curled. He saw Bruni standing as if he grew up out of the marble floor.

“Excellency.”

Bruni started forward. “Give me the dispatches,” he said in a commanding voice.

“Arezzo,” the messenger said. He thrust the case into Bruni's hands. “The most horrible rumors—”

“Shut up,” Nicholas called. “Whatever's happened, keep it to yourself.” He dropped his broken stick and went around the room herding the scribes and the pages back to their tasks. To the beaten boy, he said, “Take this courier downstairs and give him some wine and help him get his boots off.” For that the boy need not know infinitives.

Bruni was disappearing down the corridor. His face grimy with tears, the boy shambled across the room to the courier. Nicholas cast a sharp look around him, to see that everyone else was occupied, and went down after the ambassador to his chamber.

Bruni settled himself behind his desk and slit the seal on the dispatch case with a knife. He spilled the letter packets onto the desk. There were many, but most of them were marked for some other destination than this office; only three were actually addressed to the legation, and only one was marked with the red wax that announced a special, secret message.

Nicholas stood on the far side of the office. He locked his fingers together behind his back.

“Arezzo,” Bruni said. “I knew there was a disaster coming, the sky's most ominous.” He slit the red wax seals.

Nicholas said nothing.

The ambassador opened out the folded letter. A moment later he pushed it across the sleek surface of the desk toward Nicholas.

“Make of that what you will.” Bruni rubbed his palm over his eyes.

The message was short; wild rumors were traveling the roads from Arezzo, no direct word had reached Florence from the subject city in many days, and the Signory feared that something evil had taken place there. Bruni was to learn all necessary to an understanding of the situation. Nicholas glanced at the signature: the city's Gonfalonier. He felt nothing, not even relief, only a cool distance from all this.

“Where do we begin?” Bruni was saying. “What can we do? Arezzo is much closer to Florence than to us. Why do they not simply send a messenger there to look? What do they consider me—a crystal-gazer?”

Amazed, Nicholas watched him take up the novel lying to one side of his desk and opened its pages. Bruni seemed to shrink down into his chair, settling himself to read. The little silence grew. Finally the ambassador looked up.

“You do it, Nicholas. This is your sort of work. Report to me when you have satisfied the request.”

“Yes, Excellency.”

Bruni was already deep into his novel. Nicholas gathered up the dispatches, stuffed them back into the case, and returned to the workroom.

When he had arranged to have various messages delivered, he went off across the Tiber to the Leonine City.