Veritas (Atto Melani) (55 page)

However, with Ilsung and Hag breathing down his neck, as Simonis had already recounted, the Emperor was having problems in finding the money.

The previous year Ungnad had returned from Constantinople after a two-year sojourn there, and shortly afterwards the Turks (it just so happened) had once again begun to threaten the borders of
the Empire. The Diet of Regensburg, the assembly of all the princes of the Empire, urgently needed to be convened. On 1st June Maximilian set out from Vienna to superintend the meeting. Like the
first session he had presided over ten years earlier, it was a diet of crucial importance: it was essential that the princes, both Catholics and Lutherans, should rediscover a form of unity or the
Turks would prevail.

Maximilian confided to his acquaintances that he intended to be present no matter what, even should it cost him his life. Prophetic words. The imperial caravan made its way up the Danube. The
weather was bad, and so was the Emperor’s mood. He confessed to his counsellors that if he had not found the strength to start his journey just then, maybe he would never have set out at all.
He was indisposed, and felt weak at times. He opened the diet on 25th June; after the initial speeches he himself addressed the assembly. His hearers were impressed by the eloquence with which he
described the Turkish threat, which loomed ever closer and ever more formidable. An agreement must be found, if the whole of Christendom was not to be overwhelmed. Negotiations began at once among
the Protestant and Catholic princes and the Pope’s legates. There were long, tortuous and exhausting discussions. Maximilian seemed worn out again. He complained that the air of Regensburg
did not suit him, and wished he were back in Vienna.

At the end of July he was seized with haemorrhoidal pains. The month of August went by without any problems, but in the night between the 29th and 30th he had a severe attack of calculosis
accompanied by tachycardia, which continued until 5th September. On that day, amidst severe pain, he expelled a calculus the size of an olive pit.

“The 5th of September was a fateful day, Signor Master. If you remember what I told you, on that same day ten years earlier Suleiman had died without Maximilian hearing anything about it.
And in the days that followed there had come the military defeat against the Turks which had ruined his fame and prestige forever.”

From 5th September Maximilian’s condition grew visibly worse. The tachycardia persisted, his breathing grew laboured, his appetite vanished. A fit of palpitations lasted for ninety
consecutive hours. Everybody, except doctors and imperial counsellors, was forbidden to approach the bishop’s house, where Maximilian was staying. The bells were forbidden to ring. The
Emperor was in his fiftieth year: a critical age, said the doctors. Over the next few days he would have colic, difficulty in breathing and stomach pains. He slept badly, and this made it difficult
for him to recover.

Meanwhile his old personal doctor was called for, the Italian Giulio Alessandrino, who on account of his advanced age had retired and was living in Italy. But at the same time, those attending
on Maximilian began to talk about a strange woman. She came from Ulm and was called Magdalena Streicher.

“She was a healer, according to some. Others called her a charlatan,” said Simonis with a sharp edge to his voice. “At first no one was against her visits. Perhaps because the
idea came from someone highly influential: Georg Ilsung.”

“Ilsung?” I said in amazement, “Ilsung the traitor?”

Yes, Simonis repeated, it was he who recommended that this charlatan woman should be hired. He assured everyone that she was able to solve the most difficult cases, ones that had baffled
official medicine. Princes and court dignitaries all quickly agreed: they had heard good things about this woman, and some even claimed to have been treated by her, and successfully.

Our inspection of the kitchens had finished. Simonis stood up, and for the umpteenth time he dropped the palette knife, which ended up on my poor right foot. My assistant apologised. As we
gathered our tools and prepared to enter the mansion itself, I noticed once again how awkward Simonis’s movements were, and what a contrast they made with the sharpness of his storytelling
and the adroitness of his nocturnal activities.

There were three Simonises, I thought as we made our way into the interior of the mansion. The first was the Simonis of every day: a rather foolish student, with a silly expression, slightly
squinting eyes, a dopey smile and clumsy movements. Then there was the second Simonis: he still had the doltish expression, but beneath his half-lowered eyelids his mind (as in his stories about
Maximilian) darted about nimbly and sinuously. Finally there was the determined, courageous and even cruel Simonis, who bullied the poor Pennal and led me around nocturnal Vienna in Penicek’s
cart facing mortal dangers. The face of this last Simonis, the third one, had no trace of the foolish expression. I still trembled at the thought of the bullet that had been fired into my back in
the Prater, miraculously repelled by Hristo’s chessboard. What memory did he have of the terrible dangers we had faced together, of Dànilo’s last gasp, of Hristo’s frozen
corpse? His face showed nothing.

As to the existence or not of a fourth Simonis, the Simonis who pretended to be an idiot and like a puppeteer pulled the strings of the first three just as he wished, I could not yet form an
opinion. I thought I had caught just one fleeting glimpse of him since we first met: the previous night, after taking leave of Populescu. But finding no reason for such behaviour, I had
instinctively shelved the suspicion.

And so, from the anonymous kitchen spaces lying outside the main body of Neugebäu, we made our way towards the mansion. As we approached we were at once caught up in the dark, sombre
atmosphere of those walls, which contrasted so sharply with its white stone, its airy gardens and its lofty, soaring towers.

As we crossed the eastern courtyard, leaving the
maior domus
to the left, Simonis went on with his story.

As soon as she arrived in Regensburg, Magdalena Streicher, the mysterious healer, went to converse with Maximilian, who nonetheless rejected her treatment: he was still waiting for his trusted
Italian doctor, Giulio Alessandrino.

On 14th September the invalid’s condition inspired greater optimism. But over the weeks he had made a number of dietary errors: he had eaten sour fruit and drunk frozen wine. He complained
of heart trouble and he was never free of an insidious cough for more than an hour or two. His pulse was weak and irregular.

Maximilian granted no audiences, but he had enough strength to work: every day he summoned his secret imperial council and dealt with the most important matters. On 26th September Giulio
Alessandrino, on whom they were all pinning their hopes, finally arrived. But while the Italian was on his way, the charlatan woman had been given a free hand, and she had started to administer her
own treatment to Maximilian. The invalid was immediately entrusted to the care of Giulio Alessandrino, but then for mysterious reasons he was consigned once again to Streicher. This toing and
froing between the experts had disastrous consequences. Ever since the charlatan had started treating him at the beginning of October, Maximilian’s condition had worsened to such a point that
they were all expecting him to die. When they approached his bed, they would hear him murmuring heartrending phrases: “Oh God, no one can know how much I suffer. I beg you, Lord, let my hour
come.”

On the afternoon of 6th October he fell unconscious, and for a moment they all feared he was dead. But he regained his senses and vomited a great quantity of catarrh. Over the next few hours,
against all expectations, he slept well and long. Meanwhile his son Rudolph had been summoned from Prague, with the task of attending the final conference of the diet in his father’s
place.

After a beneficial night’s sleep between 6th and 7th October, thanks also to the treatment of Giulio Alessandrino, Maximilian seemed restored to health. He received the Ambassador of the
Grand Duke of Tuscany and the Ambassador of the Republic of Venice, who found him much improved. He spoke aloud the whole time, and was only disturbed by a slight difficulty in breathing and
tachycardia. His cough had almost disappeared.

This improvement seemed to stabilise. Plans were made for the patient to set forth on 20th October on his way back to Austria. On 10th October, however, Maximilian had a relapse, and so, on the
night of the 11th, despite Alessandrino’s protests, Ilsung brought the charlatan back onto the case. The Emperor felt pains in his upper left abdomen; the woman diagnosed pleurisy and brought
in a great number of remedies, the sad effect of which would be seen shortly after. Finally, Maximilian’s former personal doctor, Crato von Crafftheim – whose services had been
dispensed with because he was old and sick, and above all Protestant – was also consulted. “A great deal has been done up to now,” whispered Crato, pointing at the woman from Ulm
in front of the court, “but nothing right.”

At one in the morning Rudolph and other dignitaries and court officials were summoned. Now it was clear that the end had arrived. The Empress, who had spent every hour close to her husband and
had never left his bedside for the last three days, was awoken at five by the Duchess of Bavaria, Maximilian’s sister, who was relieving her. About to go to mass, she then she returned and
tearfully embraced her husband, who had had another heart attack in the meantime. The Empress could not bear the distress and was carried away unconscious. Doctor Crato was once again admitted to
visit Maximilian. He took his pulse in his fingers, but the Sovereign interrupted him: “Crato, there’s no more pulse.” The old doctor still pressed his fingertips, and found a
feeble throb. He moved away and confided to those present: “This is the limit of human help. We can only hope in divine help.” The charlatan had disappeared in the meantime. No more
would be heard of her.

I interrupted him: “Are you telling me that Streicher poisoned him on Ilsung’s instructions?”

“There was no poison. To kill a sick man you just need to get the treatment wrong,” answered Simonis with a slight smile.

Death was imminent by now. One great question remained: would Maximilian the Mysterious, who had never made a clear choice between the Church of Rome and that of Luther, die as a Catholic or a
Protestant?

“Whichever choice he declared,” explained Simonis, “would be a deathblow for the unity he longed for among Christians.”

In his final hours, relatives, priests and ambassadors gathered around his bed. They tormented him right up to the last moment, begging him to take the Catholic sacraments of confession and
extreme unction. He surely did not want to declare himself a Protestant?

Maximilian, weaker and weaker, held out and gave no answer. Finally the Bishop of Neustadt was brought to the bedside. The Bishop insisted and grew heated, raising his voice. “Not so loud,
I can hear perfectly,” answered the dying man. But the Bishop went on, until he was almost yelling.

“Not so loud,” repeated Maximilian for the last time. Then his head dropped and he breathed his last. It was a quarter to nine on the morning of 12th October, his saint’s name
day.

“He was dead, but he had won his last battle. Refusing the Catholic sacraments, but without proclaiming himself a Protestant, he had defeated those who wanted to take advantage of his
final moments. Maximilian had rejected the corruption of the Church of Rome, but he had not given himself over to the Protestants, who supported the Turks and wanted the Empire to move away forever
from the Catholic religion. His Lutheran enemies, backed by the traitors Ilsung, Hag and Ungnad – the same ones who had elected him and who were now killing him – were left
empty-handed.”

“But why had they decided to kill him just then?”

“Because it was clear now that Maximilian would not become a puppet in their hands. He had not agreed to recant the Catholic faith, and he had fought against the Turks as long as he could.
He was no longer of any use to them. Perhaps his successor would be more pliable. When Maximilian set off on his journey and arrived on Protestant soil, no moment could have been more suitable to
make a clean end of things.”

In the meantime we had begun our inspection and audit of the chimneys in the large rooms on the ground floor of the mansion. We had entered by the great front door, which Frosch had kept open
for us. What we found was a large room with a ceiling of triple height, where our voices echoed as in the nave of a church. The floor had once been muddied by the boots of Maximilian the
Mysterious; there his heart had rejoiced on seeing a column finally set in place, a moulding hoisted onto the wall, a wall plastered properly.

A large window opened in the opposite wall, giving onto the northern gardens. In the walls to left and right two large doors led into other rooms. Everything in that enormous cubic space was
bare: the walls, the floor, the ceiling. For those desolate walls Maximilian the Mysterious had desired impressive paintings, trophies, statues and tapestries.

“You see, Signor Master? There’s nothing. Plans, hopes, desires: everything crushed in the coils of the conspiracy between Ilsung, Ungnad and Hag.”

Turning around, we saw through the doorway the spires of the hexagonal towers rising above the wall that separated the courtyard of the mansion from the gardens. From the point where we were
standing Maximilian must have had a sweeping view over his immense project, while the workers and craftsmen laboured away. The tale proceeded.

While Maximilian was dying, his young son Rudolph was delivering the closing speech of the diet at the town hall of Regensburg. The text had been drawn up urgently by his moribund father: it was
Maximilian’s final effort. In the previous years he had seen his son’s mind gradually yielding to the mental torments of the educators imposed by his enemies, so that now the heir to
the imperial throne was a frail being in the hands of Ilsung and his acolytes.