The Secret Book of Grazia dei Rossi (89 page)

The viceroy is not moved by Bourbon’s impassioned speech. He rises to his feet and signals to his aide to pick up the oak chest.

“In that case, Constable Bourbon, there is no more to be said. His Holiness has assured me that the hundred and fifty thousand ducats I bring to you today represent the last of his resources. In his own words, it would be as easy for him to join heaven and earth together as to raise another ducat.” With that he bows low in the Spanish fashion and takes his leave.

That night Bourbon and his captains convene to debate whether or not to attempt a siege of Firenze. The attack would drain the strength they need to reach Roma. Still, the city is a close and tempting target for the weary, footsore army.

In the midst of their deliberations a messenger arrives with a bizarre piece of intelligence. The Duke of Urbino has arrived at the gates of Firenze at the head of the Pope’s forces, with an offer to defend the city against Bourbon’s Imperials.

At first the Imperial staff takes the dispatch for some kind of joke. Urbino has chased Bourbon’s tail all the way down the Apennines, managing with great deftness never to engage with him. Now, suddenly, this reluctant commander seems to have hauled his army to the site of a battle and is even offering to fight. Incredible though it is, the intelligence is confirmed before dawn. Thus Bourbon’s decision is made for him. Backed up by Urbino’s army, Firenze is no longer a soft target. The Imperials have no choice. Without a dissenting voice, the captains vote to bypass Firenze. On to Roma!

The next day, Bourbon’s army breaks camp and swings out across the Arno down the Val d’Ombra into the state of Siena, which has promised them hospitality. There, over the curses and mumbled threats of the entire force, Bourbon abandons his carriages, heavy baggage, light artillery, and camp followers, save for three prostitutes per company. By a series of forced marches of incredible hardship, the Imperials reach Viterbo on the second day of May. There, a mere fifty miles from Roma, they can all but smell the women and taste the wine and count the ducats that will rain down on them after they have scaled the walls of the Holy City. Newly infused with hope, they hit the road next morning like a pack of wild dogs, and God help the poor bastards who get in their way.

With the enemy almost literally at the gates, the Pope has become strong and decisive. After indulging in months of self-deception, he has finally allowed himself to think the unthinkable: that within two or three days, his city may be under siege. As Madonna Isabella d’Este predicted, he is left with no way to finance the defense of his city but the practice he detests above all: simony, the sale of offices of the church. His captain, Renzo da Ceri, has guaranteed that two hundred thousand ducats will buy enough troops to make the city impregnable.

On May 3, saying he would rather lose his right hand than do so, he nominates five new cardinals on condition they provide him with forty thousand gold ducats each. In an hour, Madonna Isabella d’Este da Gonzaga has placed the required ducats in the hands of her trusted kinsman Lord Pirro Gonzaga with strict instructions to deliver them into no other hands than the Pontiff’s own. By the day’s end, each of the nominees has graciously taken up the Pope’s offer. The total amount raised — two hundred thousand ducats — is fifty thousand more than Bourbon demanded less than a month before to satisfy his army and turn them back over the Alps.

His mission accomplished, Lord Pirro guides his mount back from the Vatican to the Colonna Palace. Under his arm he balances a large, round hatbox — in it, the red hat destined to grace the head of Ercole, as of this day Cardinal Gonzaga. Lord Pirro also carries concealed on his person a document signed by his master, Pope Clement VII, offering two hundred thousand ducats to redeem Roma from the Emperor’s troops. His orders are to ride out at dawn to the Imperial camp at Viterbo and deliver the offer to Constable Bourbon personally. If the offer is refused, he is to proceed directly to Urbino’s camp south of Firenze.

Time is of the essence. But midway across the Ponte Elio, Lord Pirro reins in his horse for a moment of reflection. On his right the Ponte Sisto forms a sturdy arch against the darkening sky. Built by that prodigious papal builder Julius II, it is the first bridge to span the Tiber since ancient times. Lord Pirro looks down into the murky brown river. What he sees pleases him. Fast-flowing water. Whirling eddies that augur treacherous currents. When the Tiber lies low and runs sluggish, a man or a horse can make his way across with little danger of drowning. But turbulent and strong as it is now, the river presents an almost impenetrable barrier to the old Roman city.

If I were in command here, thinks Pirro, I would blow those bridges tomorrow without waiting to see if Bourbon accepts the Pope’s bribe. That way the heart of Roma will be protected no matter what. Of course it is unthinkable that Bourbon will refuse the Pope’s offer. But what if . . .

A trained soldier has a mind conditioned to think in terms of contingencies. What if the Imperial troops have been so maddened by hunger and rage they refuse their leader’s order to turn back? What if they press Bourbon to attack Roma? What if they succeed by a superhuman act of will in scaling the thick walls? What if they take the Vatican palace and occupy the Borgo? Even so, the river will stop them from piercing the heart of Roma . . . once the bridges are blown. Yes, if I were in command here, I would most definitely blow those bridges, thinks Pirro.

The horse kicks his right front shoe impatiently on the cobbles. It is getting late and, in his horsey way, he is signaling it is time to go home. But the rider is not ready. He is still nagged by the question what if? What if, against all the odds, the Imperials do penetrate the heart of the city where his lady and his son live under the protection of the Marchesana Isabella? If they stand in peril, where does his duty lie? With his master, the Pope, or with those he has promised to love, cherish, and protect? In sum, can he in conscience ride off tomorrow morning and leave them to whatever fate and the Holy Roman Emperor have in store for Roma?

Grazia has always been an early riser but this morning she is at her desk even earlier than usual, writing by candlelight before sunup. Back to the quill and the inky fish. Back to the pristine vellum pages.

“My beloved son and confidant,” she writes.

“When I told you in these pages that I had reached the end of my
ricordanza
and that all my secrets had been told, I did not reckon with the events of this night, which draws to a close as I write. You now know the disappointments, deceptions, and betrayals that have for so long tainted my love for Lord Pirro. Tonight all these were expunged, for tonight he laid before me a proof of constancy beyond all doubt.

“Under orders to ride north to the Imperial camp and beyond if need be to beg reinforcements, he informed me that he would not go, that he could not leave us — you and me — bereft of his protection in this uncertain time. Think of it. For us, he was willing to sacrifice his career, his reputation, his conscience, and his honor. In the face of this sacrifice, any lingering doubts that remained buried in my heart burst out and flew away. I am decided. I will marry him. This time there will be no turning back.

“Of course, I cannot allow him to make a ruin of his life for our sake by defecting from his duty. He must go as he is ordered to do. I have promised that I will marry him on the day of his return. In his absence I will prepare myself for a Christian marriage by being baptized. At last Madama will have her chance to stand beside me at the font and become her sister in Christ.

“As for my promise to Judah that I would wait a full year, I have given him half of his twelve months. More I cannot afford. We live in precarious times. Life is short and pleasure fleeting, as the magnificent Lorenzo taught us in his laud. The dishonor that falls on me for breaking my word to Judah and his disappointment in me, I can bear. It is you who are most dear to him. Me, he lost long ago.

“The moment I made my decision a great heaviness was lifted off me. This is not a matter of whether I be Jew or Christian or whether Roma or Constantinople is the safer haven. It is a matter of the heart. Quite simply Pirro Gonzaga is the only man in the world for me and ever has been. And this decision brings to me the promise of a happiness I have dreamed of since I was a girl.

“We will marry by special dispensation the day he returns from Urbino’s camp. On the same day he will acknowledge you as his son. But I am not to tell you of it. He wishes to reserve that pleasure for himself.

“The only blot on this fair horizon is that damn Bourbon and his army. There does remain a stray chance that, as my beloved brother Maestro Vitale would have put it, the planets that oversee our lives may come into disastrous collision, and that we will be caught in a city under siege. Should such a catastrophe occur, I swear to you as I swore to Lord Pirro that not the Pope’s stinginess nor the Emperor’s venality nor Bourbon’s extraordinary soldiering nor any other act of man or nature will break my will to marry. If siege there be, you and I will withstand it. When the opportunity comes, we will escape. And I will keep my vow unto death to the man I love that when next we meet, I will become his wife.

“I beg your blessing on this enterprise.”

Now that Marchesana Isabella has the red hat in her possession and is prepared to leave Roma, the roads are no longer safe for travel. She can afford to be amused by the irony. Her good sense tells her that very soon now the Imperial army will approach the walls of the city, blow loudly on their trumpets, make their final demand, grab the enormous bonus that their Emperor has so cleverly negotiated, and march away rich and happy.

In case for any reason this scenario does not play out, Isabella has prudently made contact with her nephew Constable Bourbon, Commander of the Imperial Forces, and with her son Ferrante, a captain in that same army, and been reassured by both that her comfort and safety will be their first concern when — neither gentleman admits to if — they take the city.

Was ever a woman better situated to withstand the rigors of a sack?

FROM DANILO’S ARCHIVE

TO THE HONORABLE DUKE CHARLES OF BOURBON, CONSTABLE, ETC., IN THE FIELD AT MONTE MARIO

Most esteemed nephew:

I thank you exceedingly for your expression of concern for our safety and must tell you, in return, of my admiration for the honor and glory you are gaining in the service of His Imperial Majesty, Charles V.

Those of us here behind the walls of Roma continue to hope for a truce between your Imperial master and the Holy Father, but, as you remind me in your most gracious letter, it is prudent to prepare for the worst while hoping for the best.

In accordance with your advice I have garrisoned this palace, not forgetting a special guard for the well. We are bountifully provisioned and prepared to await rescue at your hands should matters come to that. I commend myself to your protection and my dear Ferrante to your care.

Isabella, Marchesana, etc., Colonna Palace, Roma, May 5, 1527.

TO CAPTAIN FERRANTE GONZAGA, IN THE FIELD AT MONTE MARIO

My dear son:

I thank you more than I can say for your letter and I beg of you to take care of yourself for I am always anxious when I remember you are in the camp, even though this is where you wish to be. We pray for your safety as you do for ours and await your arrival eagerly.

From her who loves and longs to embrace your dear self.

(signed) Isabella G., Colonna Palace, Roma, May 5, 1527.

60

M
ay 5, 1527

Constable Bourbon has refused two hundred thousand ducats in ransom. Already on the march when the offer reached him, he informed Lord Pirro Gonzaga coolly that his men could do better by sacking Roma. Such confidence in a general virtually without weapons, totally without siege machines, and lacking supplies of any kind leaves Lord Pirro dumbfounded.

The Imperial soldiers are even more ragged and weary than Pirro remembers them. Slogging doggedly through the muddy countryside, they resemble nothing so much as an army of ghosts, with wild eyes like holes in their gaunt, starved faces. Even the vast sum offered them in exchange for a retreat has lost its meaning. Privation, suffering, and betrayal have leached away both reason and sentiment. There is only one emotion left in them — hatred.

Somewhere outside of Firenze the Duke of Urbino is waiting with fresh troops for God knows what. If this is not the time for him to bring the Pope’s army to the Pope’s aid, when will that time come? The task of putting this question to the reluctant warrior has fallen to Pirro Gonzaga. Having failed to save Roma by bribery, he is ordered to press on to Toscana and instruct the Captain-General of the Pope’s Holy League to come to the aid of the city at once. Lord Pirro’s orders do not say how he is to accomplish this miracle.