The Pop’s Rhinoceros (46 page)

“No audience?” echoed Wolf. They had given up their game and drawn nearer.

“When do we see the Pope, then?” asked Wilf.

“Tomorrow?” ventured Wulf.

The same questions wrote themselves in different hands over other faces: bewilderment in Joachim-Heinz’s, amazement in Heinz-Joachim’s, disappointment in Gundolf’s and Florian’s, mixtures of these in the others ranked behind them. At the very back stood Gerhardt, Hanno, and Georg. Their faces showed only skepticism, and HansJürgen felt the noiseless hum of uncertainty, indecision, a reverberation from the distant monastery, a stirring of the monks’ discontents. It cannot happen again, he thought. He cannot lose them again. But then the Prior’s voice sounded.

“Well,” said Father Jörg, looking into the faces about him, “if His Holiness cannot see us, I am sure he will not object if we worship in his chapel.” His tone was unconcerned, even jocular. The monks looked at one another. The Pope’s chapel? What was this? “Today he tests us. Tomorrow he rewards us. We shall sing a Mass for our benefactor,” Jörg continued, “and we shall sing it in the greatest church in Christendom.”

He turned and began to walk toward the archway. For a moment they did not move, and HansJürgen held his breath. “In Saint Peter’s!” Jörg called out. Peter’s name jolted them, or the confidence of his invoking. Florian was the first, then Volker. They shuffled forward, then hurried to catch up, and the others followed. Bringing up the rear, HansJürgen released his breath slowly, silently, so that none of them might notice.

They had seen signs painted with blue-, black-, and rust-colored cats, crossed and uncrossed miters, smiling suns, headless sailors, drums, compasses, a portcullis, several fish, but not as yet a Broken Wheel. They had been around Santa Caterina’s
three times, halfway down the Via delle Botteghe Oscure, then back, up and down between the river twice, and had viewed the Melingulo Tower from seven of its eight possible angles before Bernardo noticed a narrow alley running between a large stables and a crumbling granary. Projecting out of a wall at the far end of the alley was a pole from which a sign, perhaps the one they sought, might once have hung. The two of them moved forward.

Beneath the pole was a low and narrow doorway. Bent double to peer in, they were able to make out a sunken floor, some chairs and rough tables, and a counter running down one wall, behind which stood a man who viewed them over the top of a glass tilted to his lips and seemingly frozen there.

“Is this the tavern called the Broken Wheel?” asked Salvestro, at which the man threw the glass’s contents down his throat, gasped, coughed, belched, and nodded. The hum of raised voices sounded from somewhere in the building’s depths. A dog joined the two of them briefly at the door. The man ignored them steadily. Salvestro looked up the bare signpole. “Where’s the wheel, then?” he demanded.

“Broken,” said the man, intent on pouring himself another tot. “Are you looking for someone?”

“Lucullo.” The man looked at them sharply, spilling a little of the liquid on the counter. “His son sent us. Lucillo.” The dog left at this point.

“In the back.” The second tot followed the first, and he gestured with the empty glance toward a thickening of the gloom in the back wall. “Follow the corridor, and don’t open any doors that aren’t already open.”

The noise grew louder and more distinct as they stumbled down the corridor, registering as loud competitive talking mixed with odd shouts and interjections, until the two of them emerged at the top of three steps and found themselves surveying a spacious rectangular room, almost a hall. Large candles blazed from every table, for the place was windowless, throwing a strong yellow light over the faces that turned from their conversations and tankards to stare at them now in silence. Two pillars emerged from the stone floor and continued up into a wooden ceiling. The floor itself was filled with tables and chairs and surrounded by raised wooden booths, seven or eight on each side. Cooking smells wafted in from somewhere.

Salvestro cleared his throat. “We’re looking for Lucullo.”

More silence. Then, when they were about to turn tail and go back the way they’d come, a voice called from one of the booths, “Here. In here,” and at that the rest of the Broken Wheel’s patrons turned away from them as one and resumed their earlier conversations. Salvestro and Bernardo threaded a path among the tables to the source of the voice. A head peeked out, followed by a large hand that beckoned them to sit down.

He was a big man, richly dressed, broad-chested, and gray-haired. A strong brow jutted over steady eyes that watched their scramble onto the bench across
the table from his own. A number of pies sat before him, hot and meaty smelling. Bernardo watched the pies carefully.

“You know me?” asked Lucullo, putting down the spoon that he had been about to plunge into the nearest of the pies. Salvestro shook his head, but as he did so a strange sensation began to creep over him, as if he did know Lucullo, had known him for years, in fact, always enjoying his company, sad when they parted, delighted at their meeting once again: an enveloping pleased-to-be-there well-being. It seemed to radiate out of Lucullo in warm, irresistible waves while Salvestro explained how they came to be there. “Shall we take a look?” Lucullo suggested. Salvestro passed the scabbard across the table. Bernardo continued to monitor the pies.

“Bit of copper in it, that’s normal enough,” Lucullo began. “The wire fused in this pattern round the top, that’s almost pure. Nice design, too; unusual.” He balanced it on two fingers—” Just over a pound in weight”—then thought for a moment. “I can give you one hundred and eighty-five soldi for it.”

Salvestro was already reaching across the table to shake on the deal when Lucullo raised his hand. “Wait. As the founder of Lucullo and Sons, I must advise you of certain facts. First, the value of the silver in this scabbard is probably a little over three hundred soldi by weight; thus in choosing to deal with me, you are accepting a loss of more than a scudo. Were you, take this to the Zecca, you would be offered something close to that sum, minus fees, which are commonly a tenth on small articles. Lucullo and Sons would urge this course of action. You would need to produce some form of provenance, of course, and then wait ten days for the dividend.”

“Ten days!” Salvestro exclaimed. “We need to eat now, not in ten days.”

“Ah.” Lucullo’s brow furrowed. “I rather feared that might be the case. Your friend here, I couldn’t help but notice, has the look of a man eager for sustenance, and that being the case, I’m afraid that I have to insist on a prior condition. Before we make the exchange, you will have to eat. In the current situation, it’s only proper.”

“Only proper,” Bernardo agreed happily. The pies, four of them, were beginning to get cold.

“Proper?” Salvestro burst out. “What on earth … I mean, we can’t eat because we can’t pay. And we can’t pay because we can’t eat…?” He felt he should feel more outraged by this twist, but again some strange benevolence from Lucullo seemed to sap his belligerence. His resistance ended when Lucullo pushed the four pies across the table and Bernardo took the first of them and simply swallowed it. Salvestro reached for the spoon.

The bruises on his face began to throb as he ladled lumps of meat and pastry into his mouth, trying at the same time to pay attention to Lucullo, who explained that these pies were in the nature of gifts and implied no contract between them, that had he exchanged the scabbard while they were hungry, it
might have been said that the deal had been done under passive duress, while if he had loaned them the money for the meal, he might then have demanded its immediate repayment and set the price as he liked, and that to protect the probity of Lucullo and Sons, he was thus forced to either forgo the business or buy them lunch, and in the meantime how were the pies?

“Good,” answered Bernardo, who had finished his two already.

“Now leth make the eckthange,” said Salvestro, who was still chewing.

Again the hand came up. “One more thing. It is a slippery matter, but as necessary in its way as the pies. Your respective dispositions, here, at this moment. Would you be so good as to describe them to me?” Salvestro translated this for Bernardo, and then both men indicated that their dispositions at that moment were exceptionally good. “You feel well in yourselves?” They nodded. “Agreeable toward others?” They nodded again. “In particular toward me?” Salvestro hesitated then, suddenly and briefly wary. He swallowed the last of the pie and gave a slow nod. An expression of resignation appeared on Lucullo’s face. “As I thought,” he said. “It is an entirely spurious sensation, which I must urge you to ignore. It’s me. Since I was a child, people have liked me, agreed with me, found me
agreeable
, been
agreeable
around me. My whole life, all I have ever heard is the sound of concord. Can you imagine that?”

“No,” said Salvestro, but really feeling that, yes, it made perfect sense. Why not agree with a man like Lucullo?

“We get chased a lot by dogs,” said Bernardo.

“My sons suffer the same affliction, though to a lesser degree than their father. You noted yourselves the nature of our trade in the piazza. I mention it because I would like you to discount it from your decision on the exchange. You could leave now, having gained a lunch, and try your luck at a pawnshop. No obligation. Now dismiss your feelings and decide.”

“Done,” said Salvestro, and reached across to shake on it. Lucullo began counting out coins from a large satchel resting on the seat beside him and stacking them in columns of ten.

“We get chased a lot by dogs,” Bernardo said again.

“I have never been chased by a dog” replied Lucullo.

“You’re lucky, then,” said Bernardo.

Lucullo said nothing to that but after a moment or two murmured, “It’s a curse.”

Salvestro and Bernardo looked at each other, Salvestro wanting to nod happily at this, but both of them feeling at the same time that immunity from dogs was most emphatically not a curse. “Why?” asked Salvestro.

“Imagine what life would be like if everyone always agreed with you,” said Lucullo then. “I mean
everyone,
and
always
. You’re with a woman, your first love, for instance, and you say to her, Shall we take a walk together in the orchard? Of course she agrees, so off you go. You tell her that you love her and ask does she love you? Of course she does, and a little later, when you ask her for a kiss, she
yields. And yields further, too, naturally, if you suggest it, and says yes when you ask for her hand in marriage, and yes again when you ask that she forgive your infidelities, which are numerous and sometimes monstrous—why should her sister prove any less compliant than she?—and when you tire of her off she trots to the dower-house, or the nunnery, or the stew. … Take a tavern, another instance. There you sit with your old drinking partners. Another drink? Of course. And another? Why not! You decide you’ve had enough. So have they. But a tiny glass of rum, perhaps? Capital idea! And then a gallon of brine? Very well. And then round the evening off with a pint of pig’s blood? Everyone hurries to knock it back, and anything else you want to suggest. Do you see? Do you see what it would be like?” Salvestro was nodding sympathetically.

“Perhaps you do,” Lucullo continued more quietly. “And perhaps my wife does indeed love me, and my friends do truly live only to drink with me. But perhaps you are all merely agreeing with me, with Lucullo, the most
agreeable
man in Rome. I will never know.” He was silent for a moment. “Anyway”—Lucullo roused himself—” this is all very gloomy, and as your friend here says, there are indeed patches of sunlight in it.” Bernardo looked blank. “The dogs,” Lucullo reminded him. Bernardo shrugged. There was a short silence.

“And your line of business,” Salvestro ventured. “It must be helpful there.”

“Money? Well, what is money but agreement? Silver is a pretty metal, as everyone agrees. But if they did not, would it still be pretty? Perhaps it is a little more beautiful in Venice today, or the Hansa ports, or Constantinople, or less. How many ducats to the dinar? How many dinars make a Reich dollar? Scudi, zecchini, gulden, and groshen. … Their little quarrels are a noise the world cannot bear to hear, and their makings-up are how we
bancherotti
make our fortunes. Since Adam covered his privates, our sadnesses and joys have been theirs. What can we agree upon when we cannot agree upon that? Money is the most agreeable thing in the world.”

As an archer sure of his target will look to his quiver rather than follow the shaft’s inevitable path to its target, Lucullo looked away when this little speech was ended, and sure enough, Salvestro found himself agreeing, nodding, hardly understanding more than the gist of what had been said yet still convinced that whatever it was, it was so. Lucullo sighed heavily. Bernardo was silent.

The back room of the Broken Wheel had grown more crowded. A few men had entered by the passage that the two of them had taken earlier and been greeted by receptions similar to their own. More frequently, though, a door in the wall opposite swung open and disclosed glimpses of a staircase as men walked in and out with oily-skinned young women dressed in gaudy-colored satins and muslins. Two young men came and went through a curtained doorway next to it, carrying trays of food and drink. Then Bernardo spoke.