The Malice of Fortune (35 page)

Valentino slowly raised his head, elevating his gaze from his own belly to Oliverotto’s face, which was no longer pale.

“Another thumb’s width … and you would have sliced me open,” Valentino said, his own strain evident in his voice.

“You know I did not intend this knife for you,” Oliverotto said. Yet strangely neither man relaxed his posture, as though this contest of strength and wills, however accidental, would have to be resolved.

“It was your mother’s brother who took you in after your father died, wasn’t it?” Valentino asked this almost as if they were merely conversing at a banquet. “Yes. Giovanni Fogliano was that gentleman’s name,” he went on, answering his own question. “And this uncle Giovanni did you an exceptional favor, didn’t he? He sent you to the Vitelli
famiglia
for proper instruction. Vitellozzo and Camillo—and let us not forget Paolo, of such blessed memory—became your fathers. You learned the art and science of arms long before you were able to shave.” Here Valentino’s shoulders heaved slightly, as though he were renewing the effort that had spared his life. “I envy you, Signore. I was seventeen years old when my father gave me a cardinal’s cap. He might as well have made me a castrated choirboy.” The duke offered a small, bitter smile. “Yet I became His Holiness’s most devoted servant. And you betrayed your uncle.”

“I remind you that the interests of the Borgia were advanced that night.” Oliverotto offered this through clenched teeth. “My uncle intended to ally himself against the pope. Excellency, you as well as anyone should know that such actions are sometimes necessary, if capable men are to succeed those far less competent.”

Valentino’s eyes steadied. “Do you have an accusation of your own tonight?” His voice was higher, mocking. “I can assure you I have heard it before, so you will merely add your own refrain. But those men did not have the courage to face me. You do—the Vitelli
famiglia
, to its credit, made you hard. So accuse me of my brother’s murder, Signore. Tell me explicitly what you have just implied, that with such a betrayal I was able to succeed a man who was not competent to hold a sword.”

Oliverotto inclined his head just a bit. Almost at once, his Herculean shoulders relaxed and he drew slightly away from the duke, although he did not step back. Valentino still clutched his hand.

Oliverotto’s gaze appeared to slip. “I did not intend any sort of accusation, Excellency.”

Valentino nodded and released Oliverotto’s hand. The latter nimbly turned the blade of his dagger toward his own gut and offered the engraved ivory handle to his adversary. “You admired it the other day,” he said. “It is yours. With my apologies.”

“No. Keep it.” Valentino’s inflection was inscrutable.

The duke turned to Ramiro. “Go down there with your men and finish your search,” he told him. “Satisfy your suspicions. Then we will talk.”

Ramiro appeared no more convinced than I that Valentino had satisfied
his
suspicions. Before he lowered his head and did as instructed, he gave me an almost plaintive glance, as though I had been the sole witness to his last testament. When Ramiro had vanished into the stairwell, Valentino signaled one of his crossbowmen, who followed him down.

“Signor Oliverotto.” Valentino issued this address with cold formality. “I have given you the answer Vitellozzo requested. Now it is time for you to return to our friends and conclude this matter.” Of course he meant something regarding his treaty with the
condottieri
. And it was all too likely that “this matter” was the secret codicils promising them Florence.

Offering a respectful bow, Oliverotto began to retreat like a courtier, without turning his back.

“One last thing, Signore.” Valentino took two quick steps, erasing the distance Oliverotto had placed between them. “I have always wondered. Did you watch your uncle’s face at the moment he knew you had betrayed him?”

Oliverotto tilted his head in his searching fashion, as if in asking this question, Valentino had revealed his own weakness.

“You needn’t answer me now. You will only have created some image in your own mind, like a painter who believes he can see the suffering face of Christ. You must think about it at greater length. But your uncle’s face will come to you when you do not expect it. Soon, I think.” Valentino leaned toward him, almost as if trying to get his scent. “The next time I see you, I will ask you for your answer.”

Oliverotto inclined his head a bit more acutely, his pale eyes like snow in moonlight. Then abruptly he spun about and walked off, his back to the duke.

Valentino motioned with his head. After waiting a moment, the two remaining crossbowmen proceeded across the rampart, in the same direction as Oliverotto.

You can imagine the thoughts that teemed in my brain, to find myself alone on that dark rampart with Valentino. He walked to the parapet and looked out silently for a time before he said, “Secretary,” gesturing that I should come to his side.

“Do you see the design of this?” He extended his hand and swept it along the horizon. “The Romans divided all the land on this side of the Via Emilia.” Across the snow-carpeted countryside, the dark grid of trees, hedges, ditches, and roads that marked the ancient Roman field boundaries was visible even at night. “ ‘Centuriation,’ they called it. Just as the units of their armies were called ‘centuries.’ They gave these plots to their citizen soldiers, after they had completed their service.” He nodded approvingly. “Through their own efforts and will, the Romans put the world in good order.” He turned to me so quickly that I flinched. “Ramiro summoned you here.”

“Yes,” I answered, taking his statement as a question. “He said he believes Damiata is confined in the tower.”

“Do you?”

“I understand that you suspect her.”

“You have my word on my personal honor that I do not know where she is.”

I put more credence in Valentino’s sense of personal honor than any oath he might have sworn to God. “Excellency, did you believe Oliverotto when he said he is similarly uninformed as to Damiata’s … whereabouts?”

He did not answer at once. “My fear is that Signor Oliverotto knows where she is. If so, Vitellozzo Vitelli may already have the book.”

As before, Valentino’s suspicions were ambiguous, at least regarding Damiata. Did he believe she had been killed by Oliverotto da Fermo that night, as she tried to escape with the
Elements
? Or had she simply brought the book to the
condottieri
, in the desperate hope she could bargain for her son?

Nevertheless, I was inclined to believe Ramiro’s account, which suggested another means by which Vitellozzo might already have obtained the
Elements
. And although it had not been Ramiro’s intention
to absolve Damiata, this possibility did not presume her guilt. “Excellency, Ramiro had us followed into the
pianura
. He claims that a horseman reached the mastiff keeper before his spy did, cutting his throat and perhaps retrieving the book from his person.” I paused before assigning guilt—and then did so with a question. “Was Signor Oliverotto still in Imola at that time?”

Valentino almost never evidenced his displeasure, yet here he appeared to grimace—much as he had when remarking on his tenure as a prince of the Church. “What else did Ramiro tell you?”

I assumed he was preparing for an interrogation. And I would have to be careful not to withhold what Ramiro might give up all too quickly.

“He recalled that he accompanied you to France, Excellency. He credits himself for your success there. He asks why you would protect Oliverotto.” I ran through this litany quickly, the better to avoid undue emphasis on any particular item. “And he insisted that I ask you about the women at Capua.”

Valentino closed his eyes and nodded gently for some time. “Capua … At Capua I saw and heard things I cannot …” His throat pumped. “I would prefer to witness a thousand soldiers hanging from the scaffolds for looting than to see some of the things our German mercenaries did to children torn from their mothers’ arms. And then to their grieving, keening mothers. Beasts. Grunting, stinking animals. Not even that. Demons of the pit. If I close my eyes, just the sound of it, the unearthly din …” He shook his head such that I thought he would press his hands to his ears. “I would sooner be struck deaf than to hear that again … Secretary, one in ten of the soldiers at Capua were under my direct command. But that does nothing to absolve me. I should have protected the honor of those women. No less than I would protect the honor of my own sister.”

He stared out over the Romans’ vast
disegno
for some while, as if only in their well-ordered world could he find redemption for the sins of Capua.

“Secretary.” Sharply voiced, this address abruptly ended his musing. His question was no less direct. “Who do you believe killed my brother?”

I watched my breath drift out over the icy piazza below us. “The same man who killed those women at Imola.” After weighing my words, I added, “And he was also present at Capua,” echoing what Ramiro had told me only moments before. “I believe he sharpened his trade there.”

“You continue to believe he is a
condottiero
,” Valentino said almost absently, like a tutor with his mind now on loftier matters. “But which one? As you know, they are not of one accord or purpose. In anything. That is their chief weakness.”

I was heartened at his interest in the weaknesses of the
condottieri
. “This man is different than the rest of them. Different than any other man. But I … I cannot determine yet …” I trailed off, thinking that perhaps the murderer had stood before both of us not moments before. And even then, I could not say with certainty that I had seen his face. In truth, I could suspect Ramiro as much as Oliverotto or any of the
condottieri
. Ramiro had until recently been the enforcer of all justice throughout the Romagna; he possessed superior knowledge of the countryside and had almost certainly seen Leonardo’s
mappa
. And the Romagnoles had come to regard his cruelty as proverbial, widely retailing accounts of arbitrary hangings and the torture of even young boys. That was what so nettled me. None of these men lacked the bona fides of an unspeakably cruel murderer.

Valentino issued a scarcely audible grunt, as though I had offered him only nonsense—this perhaps being so. Nevertheless I clung to my conviction that we would never identify this man by trying to guess his allegiances, which were written in water. Only his true nature was indelible.

“You cannot see it from this vantage, but the Rubicon River is over there.” Valentino pointed toward the dark eastern horizon. “
Alea iacta est
.” The die is cast. “So said Caesar when he crossed the Rubicon. Secretary, the die will soon be cast. Within days. But we must not allow Fortune to throw the dice for us. We cannot leave our fate in the hands of Fortune’s soldiers. Otherwise, we will all dig our own graves and lie down in them.”

The inscrutable Valentino could not have more nakedly revealed his hope that he might yet defeat Fortune—and her soldiers, the
condottieri
.
And I believed I still had time, however fleeting, to abet this cause.

Certainly this was precisely what the duke had hoped I would obtain from our conversation, because here he ended it. He walked off toward the dark tower, where I presumed he would learn more from Ramiro da Lorca, somewhere deep within it. But after a few steps Valentino turned abruptly, his soles screeching on ice, as though he had forgotten the most urgent matter of all.

“Secretary, as I said, all of us were at Capua. Vitellozzo and Camillo Vitelli. Oliverotto da Fermo and Ramiro da Lorca. Paolo Orsini and his cousins. And myself.” Even in the dim light, I could distinguish the green tint of his eyes. “Not one of us is innocent.”

CHAPTER
11

M
en are born, live, and die, always with the same unchanging nature
.

The Malatestiana of Cesena is, to this day, one of the most modern and beautiful libraries in all Europe, the entrance resembling a small Greek temple. Yet I am less beguiled by the elephant carved above the door along with the motto of its builder, Malatesta Novello: “The Indian elephant does not fear mosquitoes.” To my mind this inscription reflects the arrogance of the
condottieri
, who became elephants by feasting on the lives of those poor mosquitoes whom they so disdained.

But on the sun-filled day—so rare in that winter—following the eventful
ballo
, this mosquito was only too eager to get into the elephant’s library. With its three aisles and great processions of columns and arches—along with dozens of long reading benches, which have shelves like lecterns, upon which the books are kept—the Malatestiana resembles a cathedral for the worship of knowledge.

Inquiring of a monk as to the location of Suetonius Tranquillus’s
Lives of the Twelve Caesars
, I was directed to one of the benches. The object of my search, bound in tooled, amber-hued leather, had been secured to the shelf with an iron chain. It was a copied book, but the Latin script, in two columns on each page, was in a hand so precise it might have been produced by a printing press.