The Pop’s Rhinoceros (43 page)

The two men pause, standing arm in arm. Leo’s smile administers a vacant balm to the attentive assemblage. One of his minor talents is finding usefulness in the apparently useless. The Bishop at his side has a function now, though he is ignorant of it. They advance into the Sala d’Incendio, Leo nodding slowly, head turning about, conferring silent benediction over the heads whose bodies move backward before his own. The Bishop of Spezia smiles broadly. A little circle forms about them.

“I think it would be best,” the Pope says pleasantly, “if I deprived you of your benefice.” The Bishop stops smiling.

Minor princes, their manservants, priests, hangers-on, higher-placed members of his
famiglia,
clerks of the Camera, bureaucrats and functionaries of Rome’s communes, pay polite attention. A discreet cluster forms about the scarlet of his mozzetta, emanating hope. They are here to be noticed.

To be witnesses, thinks Leo, then corrects himself. Gossips.

He says, “A young orphan is taken in by your sister, whose charity extends to reforming the Magdalens of Spezia, but not so far as lining her brother’s pockets. In return, her brother neglects his offices, allows his churches to tumble into ruin, squanders the scant revenues of his diocese, and mismanages its lands; then, finding the cup half-empty instead of half-full, he comes to Rome and asks the Pope to have the orphan girl burned in the Campo de’ Fiori. Now tell me: what am I to think of this?”

By tonight there will be so many chastised bishops being sent back to Spezia: on the back of a mule; impoverished; struck to the floor and tongue-lashed till they miraculously bled; clapped in chains and hauled off for questioning in Sant’Angelo. A cloud of little orphans will attend them, and a whole gallery of
elder sisters. Mugs will be raised to him in the inns of Rome. Jokes cracked. He looks about him as though helplessly, as though he takes no pleasure in these displays. Concerned faces peer back at him. The Bishop has started gulping again but says nothing, which is wise. “I hardly know
what
to think,” says the Pope.

A minute later Ghiberti is hurrying along beside him, back through the Segnatura. He stops abruptly in the Sala d’Eliodoro.

“What are the revenues of Spezia?” Leo demands.

“Small, Around four hundred ducats. He holds Pontano, too, though, which yields a further three.”

“Have him know my pleasure consists in his granting the latter to his sister’s hospice.”

“The revenue or the sum?” asks Ghiberti.

“The sum! I am not about to assign church revenues to a houseful of retired whores. And hint at a legate to check that he complies. His sister and this barefoot child of heaven can wait for a stranger from Rome alongside their ‘stranger from the sea.’ Why not?” Ghiberti makes a note in his ledger. “And now? Whom else must I see?”

“The common petitioners. At least four or five of them. …” Ghiberti begins to read from his ledger, “‘Marten of Bisenzio, Iacopo of Trastevere, Joanna of Citatorio, a Johannes Tiburtinus, Giancarlo of Pontormo, Giancarlo of Volterra …’”

The names soothe him, gazing out of the casement over the gardens below. The curtain of shade has drawn closer to the palace, a mere strip now. From far over on the west side come vague crashings. Hanno is destroying trees again. The garden is wilder over there, invisible from here. He thinks of yesterday’s antics, Vich’s histrionic fury, Faria’s marble calm. They do not fool him, either one. He turns away.

“‘… Matthaus of Roos, three women—unnamed—Robert Marck, gentleman, Paulo of Viterbo, Brother Jörg of Joosdom, Aldo of Pisa, Antonio of Parione, Hubertus of Parione, Salvatore of Parione—they are together, I believe—Philip of Savoy, the Prior of Minervino—’”

“He is not,” Leo breaks in sharply. “I deprived him, and refuse leave to appeal. He knows why. Continue.”

“’Father Pietro of Gravina, Cosmas of Melfi, Bartolomeo of San Bartolomeo in Galdo, Rodolfo of Fiefencastel, Maximilian of Chur, Signora Jadranka of Sebenico, Jacob of Ragusa, Adolphus of Freiburg …’ Ah, greetings, Cardinal Bibbiena.”

A bearlike man capped in green and cloaked in red is striding briskly toward them—albeit backward—through the Sala di Constantino. “Good day, Gian Matteo Ghiberti!” he replies, head angled up at the green-and-yellow splotches on the ceiling. He makes a half pirouette as he enters, smiling at Leo, who embraces him. “Holiness”—he steps back to make an elaborate bow—
“Optimus et Maximus
.” Two more bows follow, increasingly elaborate. Leo smiles.

“Dovizio is downstairs; I saw him as—”

“Dovizio! Then why is he not here?” Leo exclaims. The clouds are beginning to lift.

“He has no invitation,” replies Bibbiena.

“But neither do you!”

“Sack the guards!” shouts Bibbiena. “Then promote them! We were talking, Dovizio and I, making jokes about you behind your back. It is so much more interesting than talking to you in person.”

“Why? Have I grown dull?” This day needed Bibbiena.

“Deadly. But you are Pope and can be as dull as you please. I saw Leno as I came in, in a state of most oily excitement. He has news from the Colonna Mass for you.” Leo’s light spirits evaporate at the mention of Leno. “Cheer up,” Bibbiena admonishes, “it could be much worse. His master, for instance.”

“Now, now!” Leo protests. “Cardinal Armellini is my loyal and obliging servant.”

“Agreed, and a hypocritical extortionist. …”

“You cannot use such language!” Leo is laughing.

“Agreed again. The last time I described him as such, a mob of true hypocritical extortionists laid siege to my palazzo, demanding my head for the slander. Granted, a mob of four men and a dog more or less fills the current Palazzo Bibbiena, but even so. … My hands still shake to think of it. Look.” Leo takes the proffered hand. “Come,” says Bibbiena.

“The petitioners?” says Ghiberti.

Otium, negotium …

“Very restive as I came in,” says Bibbiena. “They want their Pope.”

“Do this for me, Gian Matteo,” Leo asks his secretary. “Take four or five. Hear them out and … Do as you think best. On my authority.” Ghiberti nods impassively. “And give my blessing to my brother when you see him.”

He is turning away, walking back through the Sala di Constantino with Bibbiena on his arm. Bibbiena is saying, “Now there is a dreadful slander running through the corridors of your palace, and it is not one of mine. I heard it as I came in. Now tell me, is it true or is it not that you forced the Bishop of Spezia to eat a toad this morning?” Ghiberti listens to the Pope’s silvery laughter, rising and falling, until the two men glide away and the sound is replaced by another. A murmuring or whispering, a rumbling susurration. It never stops, this sound, which is of hushed voices behind doors, of anxieties in rooms other than this one, in places other than here. Ghiberti closes the ledger.

On the floor below, Leno hears it, too. He ignores it—and most sensibly, for it tells him nothing, cannot be sold, is valueless. Rough-cut marble is twenty-three giulii the toise. That’s a fact. He employs two hundred and five men and women: another fact. One hundred and thirty-two of them in workshops owned by him outright behind the Via delle Botteghe Oscure. One hundred and four of them Jews. Fact, fact. He is waiting for the Pope in the anteroom of the Sala Regia. A fact? What if His Holiness does not come? An abstract fact. Useless.

Further: There are a hundred giulii to the scudo, and twenty soldi to a Genoese lira, fifteen of those to the English pound. The florin and Venetian zecchino are firm at one to one. There are four soldi to a cavalotto, six quatrines to a soldo, one of those to two Genoese denarii, four to a baiocco, ten of those to the giulio, or paolino, or carlino, though you don’t see many of those nowadays. No one in his right mind accepts dalers, and the same goes for stivers, batzen, and copstucks. This is all very diverting. One hundred and fourteen Milanese soldi buy a single silver crown, which equals three Genoese lira plus a number of Roman soldi fluctuating between twelve and twenty. Four bagatini make a quatrino. Fact, fact, fact.

A riddle: If one Venetian ducat is a little under two and a half livres tournois, and a toise of rough-cut marble is sold at five and a quarter livres, how many toises will fill his largest purse—capacity: one foglietto, usual weight: one libbra—with Venetian ducats? Answer: Not all the quarries in Christendom. Ha ha. The Republic’s ducat is money of account, a figure in the ledger, a handshake and settle up next year at Besançon. Hurry up, he thinks, fidgeting on the bench.

From time to time members of Leo’s
famiglia
poke their heads around the door, stare at him, then withdraw. An official he knows from the Camera nods to him. Some young men leapfrog each other down the corridor, then run away. It is warm, waiting in the antechamber. He is sweating. Bibbiena wouldn’t have forgotten him, would he? Or decided to forget him? It wouldn’t be the first time; a good laugh at the expense of Signor Giuliano Leno, left waiting for the day. Price each guffaw at a giulio, how much would that come to per annum? Last year someone tallied up the number of pasquinades against each of those lampooned, then chalked the results on Pasquino’s chest. Amongst the most reviled inhabitants of Rome, Giuliano Leno ranked second.

Muffled shouting reaches him then, rolling down the corridor from the courtyard of San Damaso. The noise increases, becomes part groan, a strange mix of applause and disappointment. It begins to subside. The noise the petitioners make, thinks Leno. Petitioners imply the Pope, thus more waiting for himself, and—two lira to the justino—the hardening conviction that Bibbiena has decided to add a giulio or two to the mockery-account. Or a soldo, a full scudo. … Then, as if to confirm his fears, the sound of laughter assails him. And then, as if to allay them, the Pope appears, flanked by Bibbiena and Dovizio at the far end of the corridor.

The three of them pause. More laughter, some embracing. Bibbiena’s green-trimmed hat bobs up and down. Leno stands up to be noticed and organizes his thoughts: Vich and Serra, that’s good, though his man caught nothing of their conversation. The monks, too, it will amuse His Holiness, and while he is still chuckling, ask him about the bill. The Camera has delayed his payment again, and he is down to a skeleton crew. Dovizio takes the big man by the arm; Bibbiena catches sight of him standing there and raises a hand before he is led away. Leno
waves back quickly. The Pope composes himself, then marches quickly toward him, hardly stopping to take his arm, sweeping him up and continuing.

“What news, Leno?” he asks briskly, propelling him forward, releasing him to take a narrow spiral staircase whose wooden steps become stone ones halfway down, then give out onto a broad, high-ceilinged corridor echoing the one above. Barred vents set high on one side admit vivid shafts of light. On the other, arched openings in the brickwork hung with sackcloth disgorge a clangor of pots and pans, cooking smells, and aproned scullions who shoot in and out the doorways while being shouted at from within. Men balance trays on their head and stagger about, trying not to collide with others carrying firewood, fish-barrels, huge steaming tureens. A barrowload of calves’ heads is wheeled past. A second is filled with eels. It is hotter down here, Leno realizes as he relays to the Pope what was relayed to him the previous night sometime after midnight and wipes furtively at the sweat trickling stickily from his armpits.

“Vich and Serra?” Leo queries at one point, but otherwise he is silent, content to watch the whirl of
sauciers
and sous-chefs, bloodied butcher’s boys and pot-scrubbers, their swervings, near-collisions, and hops over the gutterful of rancid water that runs down the center of the passageway. From time to time, billowing clouds of steam and smoke lift the greasy sacking. Within, the two men glimpse fires and huge red-faced men wielding meat cleavers.

“Go on,” says the Pope. Leno is telling him about the fracas. His Holiness repeats the choicer morsels in absentminded good humor: “Monks? German monks?” And then, “Quoting Gratianus? Poor Serra. …” Mention of Signora Vitelli brings an arch expression to Leo’s face and a comment in Latin about backward-facing horsemen, Parthians or something, Leno doesn’t catch it. “Well, Colonna was mad even before Ravenna,” says the Pope a few minutes later. “Presumably even more so now.”

“Oh yes,” Leno agrees happily, but then remembers his man’s report, which had grown garbled toward its conclusion—had he truly seen the evening out as promised?—difficult to disentangle. A dull crash sounds above the din of the kitchen, followed by anguished cursing. “Actually, no,” he corrects himself. “It turned out that two of the monks’ men had seen action at Ravenna. He was happy enough to release them.”

“The monks?”

“No, their men. Vich’s captain vouched for them.” The Pope gazes blandly at the sacking over the nearest doorway. The bellowing within has reached a new pitch. He turns to Leno as the other continues, “Your name was mentioned. They claimed to have fought for you, too. …”

More bellowing. A crisis in the kitchens? Leno stops.

“Continue,” says the Pope.

An eel appears. Its head peeks out from under the sacking and waves from side to side, sniffing for water. The eel distracts Leno, and the amusing tale he has
brought along to tell grows messy, slippery. He cannot remember the name of the captain. The eel makes a dart for the gutter, slithers in, and starts swimming. Two others appear, and three more behind them. And their former captain, had he been delighted to see them or displeased? It was one or the other, and he had called them something. … It is all suddenly snarled in itself, and awkward, and the Pope seems unamused.

“They were Diego’s men,” Leo says abruptly. “They acted under his orders.”

That was the name—Diego—floating free of some weighty introspection that seems to have seized the Pope and now carries him away. Leno cannot keep up with it. Ragged pot-boys are leaping into the passageway armed with brushes and short-handled rakes to drive back the advancing flood of eels—several dozen of them now. Why is His Holiness not doubled up with laughter at this? He observes coldly as eels curl themselves about ankles, slither into the gutter, are picked up by the tail and thrown into pots and buckets. Leo does not smile at the eely japes and wiles. One is attempting the stairs. A private cargo carried on a private current of thought. Leno flounders in its wake.