The Poet Prince (61 page)

Destino felt no pain, no fear. He felt only the sadness of leaving the beautiful men and women who had attended him here in the end. They would mourn for him, but he did not wish them to. He was ready. His life had been more extraordinary than most could imagine or even understand. And now his work was done. He was quite certain that the six who remained would fulfill their promises: to God, to themselves, to each other, and to him. They would work toward restoring the Way of Love to the world, and they would do it together.

The time returns.

And his time was returning as well. He was returning to his mother and father in heaven. He was surrounded again by the blue light, and engulfed in a feeling of universal love, as the man known by many names through time—Longinus, Fra Francesco, the Master, Destino—closed his eyes for the final time in his earthly life.

Florence
present day

D
ESTINO HAD LEFT
one final gift behind.

The Libro Rosso, the blessed red book that had held the secret traditions of Jesus Christ and his descendants for two thousand years, had been transferred to Petra’s apartment before the fire.

There was one final card wedged beneath the cover of the book, addressed to Peter. It said simply,

You are as wise as Solomon, for you have chosen Sheba.
Restore these teachings
while praying that they will be welcomed
in peace by all people
and there will be no more martyrs.

Bérenger Sinclair shook the hand of Pietro Buondelmonti while Maureen spoke soft words of comfort to his wife, the Baroness von Hapsburg. Vittoria was still in a coma. She and Alexander had fallen two stories from her balcony in the explosion. Alexander was in traction with multiple breaks and fractures, and it would be months before he would walk again—perhaps longer. But Vittoria’s head trauma had been more serious. Her recovery was still far from certain. Both had been spared from the fire as a result of the fall, however, and that was a blessing of sorts.

It had been a difficult decision for the baroness and her husband to agree to what Bérenger proposed, but they both knew that it was the best thing for Dante. They signed the paperwork in the solicitor’s office after the terms had been drawn up to everyone’s satisfaction. Dante Buondelmonti Sinclair would be raised by his uncle, Bérenger Sinclair, at the château in France, until such time as his parents were recovered and able to care for him. He would spend summers with his grandparents in Austria and Italy, as he learned the languages, culture, and heritage of the three noble families from which he was descended.

Dante would become the symbolic big brother to Serafina Gelis, the newborn daughter of Tamara and Roland Gelis. The children would learn together from the Libro Rosso and grow into their angelic destinies together.

The legacy of the Poet Prince would thrive into the future, with only love as its teacher.

Rome
1521

P
OPE LEO X
sat quietly in his study, relieved to be alone after the many days of emergency meetings and councils. He drank deeply from the heavy red wine in the goblet, which was ironically etched with intertwined wedding rings. It was his favorite vintage, from Montepulciano, and he had it brought in from his native Tuscany by the barrel. The
pontiff could not stomach the watery swill the Romans called wine and refused to serve it anywhere within his reach. Why drink gutter water when the nectar of the gods was available instead?

He smiled and thought that his teacher, Angelo Poliziano, would laugh if he were here now to witness that pagan reference. Of course Angelo would be the first to celebrate the events of the last few years, and certainly with the wine that came from his own hometown.

There was a gentle knock on the door, and Leo sighed heavily. He wanted no company tonight, and yet it was inevitable. His gout was bothering him and he did not feel the urge to get up, so he merely called out “Come in” and hoped that the visitor was someone he cared to deal with on a night like this.

God is indeed good, he thought, as the tall figure of his cousin, Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici, entered. Giulio was the only person he could stand to see at the moment. He was the only person he could stand to see most of the time. This was the one person alive with whom he could be entirely free with his thoughts and words.

“Come in, come drink with me. We have much to celebrate today.”

Giulio nodded, pouring the wine into a matching goblet. He nodded at the portrait on the wall before taking his first sip.

“I could feel him today, Gio.” Giulio never called the pope anything but his given name. It was a privilege of those from a close family. “It was as if he were here, watching us, willing us to do the right thing. Just as he always did.”

Pope Leo X looked up at the portrait of his father and raised his glass. “This was for you, Papa. All of it was for you.” The pope’s dark eyes, nearly black, were identical to those of the man in the portrait. They filled with tears as he thought of his father, whom he still missed so much.

“History will not remember me kindly, Giulio, for what was done today. For what has been done these past three years.”

Giulio, always the most serious of the children, now did something very rare: he smiled.

“But we did it, Giovanni. We did it.”

“Well, we started it. There is much still to do, but we did indeed
fulfill our promise today. And if history remembers me as weak, incompetent, and indulgent, then so be it. It was my promise to carry out this deed, and I have done it. I knew what it might cost me, but it is a small price to pay for the ultimate victory.”

They both drank, reflecting on the events of the past weeks. Four years earlier, a rebellious upstart priest and professor of theology in Germany, one Martin Luther by name, had declared a type of holy war against the Catholic Church. In an act of genius, he had rallied the common folk by nailing a document to the door of a cathedral in Wittenberg. Luther’s document, called
The Ninety-five Theses
, condemned the church for a number of wrongdoings, several of which had been actively instigated and encouraged by Leo X and his cousin, Cardinal Giulio.

Pope Leo X had come out against Luther for his audacity but had done so very slowly. He took three years to investigate and ultimately excommunicate the heretic, who clearly had an intention no less grandiose than trying to destroy the Catholic Church.

The pontiff had been heavily criticized by many of his brother cardinals and other Church leaders throughout Europe, who were insisting that he take a harsher, quicker stand against Luther and his growing movement of reformers. But Pope Leo X had been adamant that such events should be carefully considered and dealt with only after much time and thought. He sent papal envoys—all Medici friends and supporters—to Germany to investigate Luther, but these events seemed only to inflame the reformers and add more, and increasingly rabid, members to the movement. By the time Luther was excommunicated, his followers were so swelled in number and strong of spirit that the decree of anathema against Luther was worn as a badge of honor and celebrated throughout the reformist movement.

To be excommunicated by a church one despised was a blessing.

Today, in a series of heated debates, Pope Leo X decreed that no further action would be taken against Martin Luther. He proclaimed that the sentence of excommunication was enough; the reformers would no doubt be disheartened by this act and their little rebellion would diminish. There were other matters at hand that Leo X wished to deal with—the rebuilding of Saint Peter’s, his new commissions for Michel
angelo and their other favored angelic, Raphael, while an exciting new artist appearing out of the Venetian school, a man called Tiziano, warranted special cultivation.

The conservative cardinals were outraged. Was the pope completely mad? How could he not see that the Catholic Church was faced with a revolution the like of which it had never seen before? Further, he had already squandered several fortunes on art and architectural commissions, solidifying his reputation for frivolity and fueling the fires of the reformers. Did the pope not understand the gravity of the circumstances they were in? Did he not realize that the very future of Catholicism was possibly threatened by these protestors?

None but the most intimate inner circle would ever know that Pope Leo X saw the threat very clearly. Those who mumbled about his ineptitude and railed against his lack of leadership for the Church would never have guessed just how brilliant, committed, and purposeful Pope Leo X was in every single choice he ever made. He had, in fact, carried out a carefully orchestrated plan that had been put in place when he was made the youngest cardinal in history at the age of fourteen. His partner in the plot was his cousin Cardinal Giulio, the sullen child who held a lifetime grudge against the Church that had sanctioned the murder of his father during High Mass on Easter Sunday. But they were not the founders of the plot; they were merely the latest in a long series of operatives.

“Send our most trusted messenger to Wittenberg,” the pope said to Giulio, “with a message to Luther telling him that his job was well accomplished and we are most grateful. He has served the Order to perfection.

“But first, come and drink with me—one final toast to the man who put all this into place so fearlessly. To Lorenzo il Magnifico, a wonder
ful father and the greatest poet prince to ever live. We have kept our promise to you!”

He raised his goblet to Giulio, who returned the gesture. “To Lorenzo,” Giulio said, before adding, “and in memory of my father, Giuliano, that such crimes will never be committed in the name of any papal authority again.”

And the first Medici pope, Leo X, drank a toast with Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici. Once a boy orphaned by the acts of a corrupt Church, he would one day follow his cousin to the throne of Saint Peter, to become Pope Clement VII.

After all, they weren’t Medici for nothing.

England
1527

I
SEEK NO OTHER
.

Anne read through the letter once again, whispering the words aloud and savoring each passion-filled syllable.

Henceforward, my heart shall be dedicated to you alone.
I wish my body was, too. God can do it if He pleases—
and to Him I pray every day to that end,
and hoping that one day my prayer will be heard.
I wish the time to be short, but fear that it may be long
until we see each other again.
Written by the hand of that secretary who in heart, body, and will
is your loyal and most devoted servant.

The lovesick suitor who called himself Anne’s
loyal and most devoted servant
signed his declaration with a phrase in medieval French borrowed from the love songs of the troubadours,:
Aultre ne cherse.
I seek no other.

She sighed with the beauty of it all, and then once again with the pain. For as much as her passion was reciprocal, the object of her affection was unattainable by the laws of this land. He was a married man and a father, and therefore utterly off-limits. Yet his letter indicated “God can do it if He pleases,” as if to reassure her that their love was so strong and surely destined that God would intervene to change
their circumstances. In the European courts, where she spent her childhood, Anne had been taught that love conquers all. Holding fast to that belief, she went to retrieve her Book of Hours from its resting place on her bedside table.

A smile played across Anne’s lips as she paged through her cherished
prayer book. It was an exquisite masterpiece of Flemish art, an illuminated private volume given to her by her grand teacher, Margaret of Austria. But it was neither the artistry nor the sentimental value of the book that brought the smile to her now. It was the handwritten notes in the margins. Anne and her lover had devised a clever method in which to pass secret messages to each other—through her prayer book during church services. His last message had been inscribed on a page depicting Jesus Christ following the flagellation, a man of sorrows, beaten and bleeding. It read, in her preferred French
:

If you remember my love in your prayers as strongly as I adore you, I shall hardly be forgotten, for I am yours forever.

His message was clear: I suffer for the love of you.

Anne had given careful consideration to her response. She chose to reply on a beautifully illustrated page of the Annunciation, wherein the lovely Madonna is told by the angel Gabriel that she will bear a son. Composing a couplet in English, she wrote:

By daily proof you shall me find
To be to you both loving and kind.

The symbolism was unmistakable; Anne had chosen wisely. The selection of the Annunciation was an emphasis on the glorious event of God bestowing a son upon a most blessed woman. This was her promise to her lover: she would be both loving and kind to him and she would give him the son he most desired. Whereas her beloved was a married man and a father, his wife had given him only one living child, a girl.

To emphasize her sacred promise, Anne added a final signature to the book, one which she knew he would comprehend immediately. She wrote in French this time, invoking the Troubadour tradition—and something else, a secret vow that only he would recognize—as she inscribed:
Le temps viendra.