City of God (22 page)

Stefano looked down again at the deck. He turned over the top few cards one by one: the eight of swords, the Ace of pentacles, the Fool, the Hanged Man. Nicholas wondered if he believed what he had just heard.

“That's where you are getting all the money,” Stefano said.

The Hanged Man glided across the table and out over the edge, onto the empty air. Nicholas bent to pick it up from the ground.

“Why did you tell me?”

“Why should I keep it from you?” Nicholas laid the card on the table. “That is the ring he gave me, when the plan worked and Urbino fell to him.”

Stefano gawked down at the ring. He shot a narrow look at Nicholas. “Well,” he said. “Do not turn your back on him, Nicholas.” He raked the cards into a heap and made a square deck of them again.

“It's hot out here,” Nicholas said.

“Let's go inside. I have to go soon anyway.”

“Soon?”

“We have some time still.”

For many days Nicholas had no word at all from Bruni. One day as he was walking through the horse market near the legation, someone called softly to him from an alley.

He looked; down in the shadow of the alley a hooded man beckoned furiously. Nicholas hesitated to go into the narrow darkened space, and the man called, “Messer Dawson! I have a message for you—” and waved a roll of paper.

Nicholas went down three or four paces into the alley and reached for the roll, but the hooded man hid it quickly in his cloak. His empty hand reappeared, palm up.

“Two crowns.”

Nicholas gave him fifty carlini. The man paused only a moment, shrugged, and gave him the message.

Heavily waxed and sealed, it required a strong knife to open; he took it back to the legation. There was no signature, only a bare page of script.

“My dear friend,” the letter began. “Since Saturn holds in his toils that fountain whence we two were wont to quench our thirst—”

Bruni, certainly. Nicholas smiled, and to his own surprise felt a sudden amused affection for the ambassador.

“Know you then that your Virgoan traveler, keeps his place here, although with nothing but doubt for tomorrow. The situation, as you might guess, wavers between the Jupiterians of the city and the Mercurians. Certain barbarian influences also make known their presence. I have cast my fate in with those supporting the Father of the Planets, in the person of one whose calls are Pisces Sagittarius. I trust you will unravel this mystery, and give me the benefit of your counsel. Sign me thus: no one.”

Nicholas laid the letter down on his desk. Perhaps Bruni was justified; the crisis in Florence might well require exactly this sort of subterfuge, but Nicholas felt that the ambassador could have risked a little more clarity. He laid his two hands on either edge of the letter to hold it flat. The
Jupiterians
of the city versus the
Mercurians:
that eluded him. He thought perhaps the first reference was to the aristocrats of Florence, who had always resisted the broadly based Signory, and the second to the popular Republic, the fickle mob. The
barbarian influences
certainly were the French, whose arrival to defend Florence from the Borgias had been timely enough for the interests of the King of France. In that case Bruni was supporting the great families in their move to take control of the city back from the mob to whom Savonarola had delivered it, many years before.
Pisces Sagittarius
confused him, until he realized that the initials of the phrase were those of Piero Soderini, the dominant politician in Florence.

Nonetheless he wished Bruni had taken the chance of saying more exactly what he meant.

Bruni wanted advice. Lacking knowledge of the planets, Nicholas could hardly employ a similar code, and finally he wrote down exactly what he thought: that Bruni should watch all the sides in the controversy, try to choose the strongest, and support it, because the sooner the crisis was resolved the safer Florence would be.

With this letter in hand he started out of the building, to go find a certain Sienese merchant whom he knew to be staying in Rome overnight. As he went through the workroom, he noticed that the curtain over an archway onto the loggia was open, and when he closed it he noticed the palms on the loggia beyond.

They were wilting in the heat. The tips of their fronds were brown and yellow. Nicholas stood still, one hand on the curtain, his gaze fixed on the row of dying plants, and all his fresh affection for Bruni soured into rancor. He wished he had not seen the plants; now he would have to do something. He felt as if Bruni had deserted them purposely to irritate him. He would not water them himself; one of the pages could be ordered to do that, but the page's work would have to be supervised and his failures reproved. Nicholas started to turn away, the plants like a new, burden on his back.

He turned around, full of a frivolous malice. Going out onto the loggia, he looked out, first, into the courtyard below; there was no one there, only a horse tethered at the far end of the yard, a pile of dung decorating the paving stone below its tail. Even the far balcony on the facing wall of the building was deserted, where customarily the old lady sat with her tatting. Nicholas lowered his gaze to the plants.

Going along the row of pots he pushed them one by one over the edge of the loggia. They smashed on the paving below. He went back into the workroom, took his coat, and went down the stairs.

When he emerged into the courtyard a groom was standing there, frowning at the mess of dirt and broken plants, the bits of bright pottery scattered all the way across the court to the far wall. As Nicholas passed, the young man said, “What happened, sir? Do you know how they fell?”

“I have no idea,” Nicholas said cheerfully, and without pausing went on his way.

In the Borgia Tower the anteroom to Valentino's chamber was sweltering with late summer heat, the air dense and stale, and the light gloomy. Nicholas sat in the corner away from the fire. He was alone in the small room. He had been waiting over an hour; night was coming; more than six hours had passed since he had received Valentino's summons. In that time Nicholas had considered the summons from every perspective. The message's wording gave no hint why Valentino wanted to see him, a void Nicholas had tenanted with numberless demons.

The door into the inner chamber was on his right. Now he was wondering if Valentino were there at all, if anyone were there.

The moments crept by. He began to stare at the door. No one had come in or out all the while he had been waiting. Surely the room was empty.

If he could go into that room—if he could catch even a glance of Valentino's privy papers—

Now his gaze was fastened to the door. He was sure that the room was empty, but what if someone came in suddenly and surprised him there? He did not want to have to explain that to Valentino. Still, he would have no chance like this again, to look through Valentino's privy papers. He could open the outer doorway so that he would hear anyone coming. Immediately he rejected that. Anyone passing by would see him where he should not be. He would have to take the chance. Only a few seconds. Just a look.

He went to the door and stood with his hand halfway to the latch, gathering up his courage. Just a few moments. He opened the door.

The room beyond was dark. On the table a single candle burned. Behind the table sat Valentino.

Nicholas startled down to his heels. He said, “Magnificence. Your pardon.”

Valentino left his chair. “What will you do with my pardon?” He sauntered around the table to the door and shut it. “What a mean-stomached mouse. You waited an hour and twenty minutes merely. Better be honest, mouse, you are too cowardly for the other. Make something of this.”

He swatted with his hand at a pile of letters on the table. Nicholas moved nearer the candle. Valentino had waited, sat there and waited, to see if Nicholas would steal into his room. Nicholas's hands were wet. His neck burned with embarrassment. He remembered it as if he had watched it from above, himself fidgeting in his chair on one side of the wall and on the other Valentino waiting. He took a napkin from his sleeve and dried his hands. Behind him, Valentino laughed.

The three letters in the pile were short notes, nearly identical, in cipher. Nicholas saw the key at once and translated them out in his head.

“These are all notes agreeing to meet at Lake Magione in October,” he said.

Valentino returned to his chair. “I managed that well by myself.”

“They are all in the same hand. Where did you dome by these, Magnificence?”

Valentino was looking off into the darkness. “A friend in Gianpaolo's service sent them.”

Nicholas gave a little shake of his head. Into his mind popped the memory of Gianpaolo Baglione, in this very room, horror-struck by Nicholas's plan for Urbino. “It's slight enough,” he said, “but it can't be good.”

“Then you agree with me,” Valentino said. He reached his two hands across the table for the letters and gathered them into a stack. “Take these.” He held them out to Nicholas. “Find out what you can.

“Yes, Magnificence.”

“I want to know everything as you learn it. Within an hour.”

“Yes, Magnificence.”

“Where do you suppose you are going now?”

With the letters in his hand Nicholas had backed a step toward the door. “With your leave, Magnificence—”

“I have not dismissed you.” Valentino smiled at him.

Nicholas realized that something bad was coming. For an instant his eyes met Valentino's; instantly he dropped his gaze.

“The city of Florence is more fixed against me than ever,” Valentino said. “Although as you predicted the state fell. You must have known that it would not fall to me.”

“Magnificence, no one is always right—”

“I don't believe you, my dear mouse.”

“I assure you, Magnificence—”

“Bah.”

Although Valentino never raised his voice Nicholas fell still. He passed the cryptic letters from one hand to the other. That raised his spirits; having work for him, Valentino was only going to scold him. He took a deep breath, half sure, and took the jump.

“Magnificence, you know everything—I throw myself at your feet for mercy.”

“Henceforth you serve me alone, mouse.”

“I ask nothing more than that, Magnificence.”

The candlelight gleamed strangely on the prince's eyes. His smile parted his lips. He was feeding on these cringes and scrapes. Nicholas bent his knee a little more.

“In your service I can make good use of my position with Florence. Only guide me to your purpose. I am your tool.”

Valentino was silent. Nicholas touched his lower lip with his tongue. He had spoken too broadly, the prince would take it for satire. The chair scraped on the floor; Valentino was rising.

“What do you mean?”

Nicholas raised the handful of letters. “If these mean some conspiracy among your captains, as it could be supposed to mean, men your enemies will know of it long before your friends.”

Valentino said swiftly, “You think it's that? They conspire against me?”

Something in his voice brought Nicholas to stare at him, surprised. It seemed as if Valentino were afraid. His gaze met Valentino's back. The Borgia was standing in the darkness looking down through the window. Abruptly he wheeled smartly to face Nicholas across the candlelit table.

“Then find out what they conspire to do. Stay with the Florentines. Do they pay you well?”

“Poor and late.”

Valentino broke into a sudden sunny smile. “I pay well. You'll learn to love me. Now go and bring me something to convince my father.”

“Magnificence, I will do what I can.”

“Oh, no.” Valentino cocked up his sun-bleached eyebrows and pointed his finger at Nicholas. “You will do what I say. Now go.”

Nicholas bowed and left the room. In the antechamber he paused a moment, there in the deep brown darkness by the outer door, far from the candle, and sorted through what he had just seen.

He understood more of Valentino now, enough that he no longer feared him. He saw how Valentino was to be managed. Great as his power was, yet he could not trust it; he feared so for it that the cringing of as low a man as Nicholas was true comfort to him. That was how to lead him. Nicholas saw it as clearly as a problem in mathematics. Whoever made a king of Valentino would hold him.

He saw himself, not the king but the king's minion, whispering in his ear.

A sound beyond the door brought him to himself. Footsteps. Someone was coming up the stair outside the antechamber. Valentino would come out of the inner chamber and Nicholas did not want to see him, not now, with the new knowledge shining in him. Hastily he went out the door.

In the morning he had a dispatch from Florence, in two pieces: a letter giving him temporary power to receive diplomatic communications in the name of the Republic, and a short order concerning Astorre Manfredi.

“It is known to us,” the letter ran, “that the Borgia having seized the city of Faenza took into his power the youthful prince Astorre of that city, and that since the return of the monster to Rome this young man Astorre has been flung into the dungeon of Sant' Angelo. We require that you do all possible to achieve his release, in the name of the Republic of Florence.”

That was all, save the signature; yet the signature told Nicholas much, because it was that of Niccolo Machiavelli. Machiavelli was Piero Soderini's man. Nicholas spent several moments weighing out what it meant that a henchman of Soderini's should already be signing letters to Florence's most important legation.

The Fortress of Sant' Angelo stood like a tumulus on the bank of the Tiber just upriver from the Vatican. Its battered round walls were high enough to shadow the street around it, and the two new towers that Pope Alexander had added to it gave it an awkward, horned look. Nicholas loathed the place. He remembered his meeting here with Lucrezia Borgia and hoped that he could find some way as effective in the case of Astorre Manfredi. He presented himself at the gate of the fortress and was let in.