The King's Diamond (29 page)

The Imperials milled about at the very foot of the walls, and one of the Papal captains handed out iron balls with fuses, fire bombs, which we lit and threw down. The explosions and cries from below told us we had done some good; but more men came scuttling up through the vineyards to creep between the piles of stinking refuse that had been thrown from the walls. Out beyond their first ranks we glimpsed a figure in white riding about on a horse, shouting out encouragement. Shots fell around him, and when the fog blew past we saw him at the foot of a scaling ladder, encouraging his men to follow. A murmur ran along the battlements: ‘Bourbon. The Duke of Bourbon.'

‘That's the man to hit,' growled Cellini. We all of us trained our guns down into the fog. He was climbing the ladder, and the Spaniards came roaring up behind him; we fired, and then again. Next we heard sounds of confusion and the firing of the enemy diminishing, and through the smoke and the fog I saw the Spanish fall back, carrying the man in white with them, his surcoat drenched in blood.

‘I killed him!' Cellini was shouting. ‘I killed Bourbon!'

‘Any one of us could have fired that shot,' I corrected him.

‘Don't be a fool,' growled Cellini. ‘None of the rest of you could hit an ox.'

I resented this; I had practised at sea until I had a fair aim. ‘Benvenuto,' I hissed, ‘why do you forever need to be the first and the best?' John caught my eye. He too had shown himself handy with a
gun, and fired and reloaded wearing a calm smile. But there was no time to quarrel. A cheering was springing up round us, the firing was falling silent, and many of the men on the ramparts actually jumped down and began running off into the lanes between the houses, shouting ‘Victory! Victory!'

‘Now, in the name of God, can we go?' Alessandro picked himself up. He was still shaking.

None of us answered. I peered into the fog. The ladders were abandoned. I saw bodies scattered on the ground, plumed helmets, dead men's beards lifting in the light breeze that blew the fog in swirls, the wounded trying to rise. I did not trust what I saw. Martin was at my side. He had no weapon, but had been helping me to reload my gun. Horses' hoofs could be heard out in the fog. The cannon of Sant' Angelo still fired, their shots landing at random in the vineyards and the marsh. Martin and I looked at one another, and our looks both said the same: they will not give up.

Slowly at first the sound grew. In a moment it was a roar, thousands of throats all shouting at once, with the drums and the trumpets sounding in concert. The first volley of gunfire hit the walls, and then the Spanish were at the ladders again. We ducked back, and fired, and fired again. There was no longer any question of Cellini's troop withdrawing. We would have left a fifty-foot length of the walls unmanned: there were so few left to defend them. Those soldiers who had run off into the city with news of the Imperials' defeat prudently never returned. Soon we had thrown all our bombs, and the men round us were pouring cauldrons of flaming oil down on the attackers, who screamed and fell burning. After that we threw whatever we could, rubble, bricks, dead men's swords. Still they came on. The Spaniards fought madly, with desperation on their faces as they reached the rampart and were shot down. They knew that with Bourbon dead there was nothing to keep them together. If they did not take Rome swiftly, they would break apart, and the League and the murderous countryfolk would hunt them down. It was at this
time, I think, that many of us first became truly afraid. These were the walls that Renzo da Ceri had promised were so strong, and up the ladders before us came the enemy the Pope swore was so weak. Where were the reserves Renzo had posted throughout the city? Renzo himself, in his dazzling armour and feathered helmet, could be seen at intervals, walking along the foot of the walls, well clear of danger, shouting out to us that victory was near.

I fired, and then peered down at that crumbling farmhouse that was built into the walls. A squad of Spaniards was creeping along the base of the wall there, where the refuse was piled high. They were peering upwards. Before the mist blew thick again, I thought I saw an opening in the house wall into the city: a window or a hatch, around which I glimpsed the shapes of men. I nudged Cellini, and told him.

‘Are you sure?'

‘No. But aim all your fire there.'

We fired off a round of shots; but we had all we could do to keep the enemy off the ladders in front of us. A young man who had danced with the courtesans last night lay with half his face shot away; Alessandro had subsided again at his side, moaning with fear.

Then, from behind us, Renzo da Ceri shouted out those words that have made him so infamous. ‘The enemy are inside! Every man save himself who can!'

All round us, men who had stood before the enemy's fire for two hours, their fear growing by the minute, threw down their guns and ran for the stairways. Some ten Spaniards, no more, emerged from the farmhouse and took aim on the fleeing soldiers. More of our men jumped down, and all along the walls it was the same. A rout. Behind them, the first of the Spaniards climbed over the tops of the ladders on to the ramparts. Cellini, his brows drawing down in rage, muttered, ‘We can do no more good here.'

We sprang down the walls and began running: Benvenuto, Alessandro, John, Martin and I, and some three more of the guards
from the palazzo. More and more Spaniards were pouring from the old abandoned house. A burst of shot flew after us, and another one of Cellini's men fell. To our left rose the front of Saint Peter's: a vaunting folly, half ruin, half unfinished dream, its arches bleak against the fog. From the Hospital of the Holy Spirit came the screams of the sick, who were being slaughtered in their beds. Ahead of us, where the Vatican Hill sloped down to the river, we could see Renzo's plumed helmet as he ran ahead of the rest, and soldiers and townspeople streamed after him. I could hear the enemy behind us, crashing through the vineyard and round the Cardinal's sculpture garden. When I glanced back I saw they were not even troubling to reload, but were running on with their swords drawn, cutting down men in their path. Suddenly we came to the river and stopped at a twisting lane that led left and right among watermills, quaysides and villas.

‘Which way?' I gasped. The mist was lifting. Across the Tiber I saw the outlines of the low houses and taverns that flanked Cellini's new workshop; but a hundred yards of turbulent, brown water separated us. The only bridge from the Borgo lay to the left, upstream, before the castle. Most of the crowd were turning right, following Renzo towards the second of Rome's suburbs, Trastevere. This had walls of its own, and from it three separate bridges led across the river to the city. But the gate was a good way off, and the road was already blocked by fleeing crowds, soldiers and townspeople mixed.

Cellini looked down towards Trastevere, and seemed to think. ‘No,' he murmured. ‘Back.' He led us to the left. Gunfire crashed behind us. Across the street that led back up to Saint Peter's the few hundred Swiss that the Pope had kept in his service were drawn up: true soldiers, who took aim on our pursuers and fired a concerted volley. The Spaniards were stopped, but soon they returned fire. We ran on. The crowds were thick here, nobles and cardinals on their gaudily trapped mules with their servants round them, ladies in their litters, all pouring out from their palazzi. Before us, its gaunt drum
tower looming over all the city, rose the Castle of Sant' Angelo. Once a tomb for emperors; now the last refuge of Rome.

Beyond the Swiss, a party of Spaniards were firing up at the city walls. I turned to look. They were shooting up at the Passetto, the secret passage built into the walls that ran from the Pope's palace to the castle. I saw a flash of red at the narrow windows as the cardinals accompanying His Holiness ran by; all of them had been taken utterly by surprise. Over the Tiber, from out of the city itself, people poured across the bridge making for the castle. I saw old Cardinal Pucci in his scarlet knocked from his mule and trampled, and others pushed over the parapet into the river, where they were swiftly swept away. At the gate, ladies, courtiers and bishops were pressed tight, screaming, shoving, unable to move. I saw Gregorio Casale, the ambassador of England, and Cardinal Campeggio, both of whose palazzi were nearby. We too were slowing down, mired among humanity.

‘Benvenuto!' I shouted above the din. ‘The jewels!' Over the river in Cellini's chest were my treasures: the ship, the green diamond garden, the opal cross: and, dearer than all of them, my diamond of Golconda.

‘We won't cross the river by that bridge,' he answered. ‘Not now.'

Further volleys rang out. Back up the street I saw the last of the Swiss fall. They had stood their ground to the end. Ahead of us soldiers sallied out from the castle. For a moment it seemed they would rally the Pope's forces, and make some attempt to drive the invaders back from the Borgo. But instead they set about breaking down the doors of nearby shops and houses and dragging out barrels, hams and cheeses, sacks of bread: provisions for a siege which no one had foreseen. Then they pushed back through the crowd to the gate. Benvenuto was forcing his way after them, with John, Martin and Alessandro close at his side. If I followed him, the castle would swallow me up. For how long, who could tell? And my jewels: I could not leave my jewels.

I looked back. Spaniards and Romans were running down the streets together, a confused mass of killers and killed. But the soldiers had not yet reached the street along the river. Ahead, Benvenuto and the rest were being sucked in through the gate. Martin turned and stretched out his hand to me, shouting ‘Master!' Then they were gone. I turned and pushed back through the crowd, and then I began to run. I passed fleeing men and women, their faces wild with terror, and then towards us came the Spaniards. They were swinging their swords, cutting down the townspeople as they ran.

‘Spain, Spain! Kill, kill!'

I slipped into a doorway. I could not stay here unseen for long. In a few moments they would be level with me and drag me out. I slowly drew my sword from its scabbard. A group of men ran by, a nobleman, hatless and terrified, with his servants. I stepped suddenly out into the street, my sword raised above my head.

‘Kill! Kill!' The cry felt like poison in my throat. The men darted ahead of me, and as I ran on a Spaniard came abreast of me. He was dressed in a puffed doublet and short cloak with a feathered hat, his teeth bared behind a full black beard. His sword came down on the first of the men, a sickening sound like a butcher's knife, and cleft him at the shoulder. Blood spurted across the stones, the Spaniard wrenched his sword free and ran on. It was without sense. I felt bile rising in my throat. But still I forced myself to run on and shout that terrible cry, waving my sword and slicing within inches of the pursued. I had become a Spaniard. We were almost back to the castle. The portcullis had at last been dropped, and the struggling crowd cleft in two. Inside, the bolder Imperial soldiers who had pushed ahead were being quickly slaughtered, while those Romans caught outside were darting this way and that, desperately searching for safety.

Beyond, by the bridge, the crowd paused in dismay and began to push backwards. At the foot of the walls was Cardinal Armellini, a man of vast wealth with whom I and the Cages had once dined. I had
visions of that meal, the gold plates, the lobsters and the peacocks. Now he danced about, trapped outside with his helpless servants, until a basket was lowered from the battlements on a rope, and he was raised, swaying, up the wall. The Spaniards laughed and trained their guns on him, but at that moment a tremendous thunder of cannon broke from the castle, crashing into the nearby houses and throwing stones, limbs, bodies into the air. The Spaniards scattered back into the streets, and I ran with them, not looking back, not caring who was following me; back past the crossroads where Cellini had paused, and the little watermill, and the ropes that stretched across the river for the use of the ferry. I considered for a moment. The ferryboat rested on the bank, a little skiff that could hold about six people. It would be easy to jump in and pull myself across the river using the ropes. But that would be a fool's notion. The soldiers would see me; I was in plain view from the Castle too, and the Pope's gunners might take me for an Imperial. No, but those ropes, lying submerged in the yellow-brown water, invisible in the foam of the recent rain: that might be a thought. I looked back. A group of soldiers was moving towards me, but they stopped to break down the door of a villa and push inside, shouting and firing off their guns. For the moment, the street was clear. I scrambled down to the water's edge, sheathed my sword, and waded out among the reeds. Then, with both hands clenched on one of the ropes, I pulled myself out into the waters of the Tiber.

It was easy going at first. The current did not pull hard, and the sounds of firing, shouts and cries grew more distant behind me. What peace it was, to have water rippling over me and round me: water that had flowed down out of the mountains, past Orvieto and down the Tiber Vale, where surely the Venetians and the Duke of Urbino were marching hard for the relief of Rome. I extended one arm after the other, my head just clearing the water. Three hundred arm's lengths, perhaps, to get over. I pulled, and pulled again. But I had to rest. The current tugged harder here, further from the bank. I gasped, swallowed a gulp of the yellow, mud-laden water. Drowning would be so easy. I peered ahead. I had the odd feeling that the far bank was getting no nearer; in fact, it seemed further than ever.

From behind me I heard splashes and shouts. The boat was pulling out from the bank with ten or so men, Papal soldiers, all piled in together and yanking on the rope for their lives. The rope ran in a loop: to my horror I realised I had hold of the other strand, and they were slowly hauling me back in towards the shore of the Borgo. I set about pulling myself along with all my strength, but I could make no headway against so many strong hands. The reeds, the street with
the villas and the Spaniards swarming along it, the watermill I had just left: all were growing closer and closer, as was the ferryboat itself, the men inside glancing back with fear. Then from the bank I heard shots. One of the soldiers tumbled over the side, his face pouring blood. Another dropped, and another, and then the rest all together dived over and were swiftly swept off in the current, their arms reaching up like paintings of men swallowed by Hell. The boat ceased moving. The Imperials, laughing, went back to their plunder. I was alone once more, almost back where I started. My arms shook with weakness. But I began again, pulling myself slowly, painfully, back out into the river. The current tugged stronger, and then stronger; surely I was more than halfway over, and nearing the inside of the bend where the water was swiftest. I closed my eyes, while my arms still reached, first one, then the other, and I pictured to myself my diamond, lying waiting in Cellini's shop, calling me to hang on, keep going, come and save it. And then, cursing my lack of loyalty, I pictured Hannah, and imagined meeting her when all this was over, her eyes becoming soft with concern as she listened to the tales of my pains. God grant she was well clear by now and off to sea.

I felt something snagging my foot, and opened my eyes ready to struggle and fight to the death. But before me I saw reeds, and the rope sloping upwards out of the water to its iron ring and post. For a moment I thought I was back in the Borgo, and froze. But everything here was quiet. I dragged myself slowly out of the river and fell weak and shaking on the ground. The bells of the city were ringing. From close by came the solemn booming of the great church of the Florentines. I was in Rome: I was safe. The river was a barrier stronger by far than those miserable, decayed old city walls. I stood up, laughing out loud. My purse was gone, washed away in the river. But the casket that had in it my unset stones, my dark emerald, my cats' eyes, my great ruby and my bills, was safe. It was nearly midday. I was hungry: I needed to buy food. That was my first concern. My jewels would be safe enough for the moment, locked in Cellini's
chest. At my inn I had a small store of money. I looked round, and staggered up an alley that led between the houses into the Florentine quarter. On the Via Giulia there were groups of people hurrying this way and that. A merchant clutching a small casket, three or four nuns, a group of soldiers without weapons. One of them wore a sash of command. I stopped him.

‘What news?'

‘There has been a parley. What's come of it, I do not know.'

‘But what orders have you for the defence of Rome?'

‘There are no orders. No one commands. Hide yourself where you can!'

The soldier ran on. I reeled down the street, heading south. I was afraid again. As I passed the Palazzo Farnese I saw a horde of people pressing in for shelter. Others streamed north, making for Don Martin's strong-built house with its tower and cannons, or the palazzi of Cardinals Araceli, Ceserino and Piccolomini: men who were known to be loyal to the Empire, and whom the Spaniards and Germans would not harm.

I saw an aged nun hurrying across the square, her skirts lifted up, clutching under her arm a jewel-studded box of relics. She would not have left her cloister, perhaps, in forty years. She looked round in fear: the open spaces, the hurrying crowds were enough to daunt her, without the appearance of the troops. Even in the midst of this rush and panic, there were still those who lounged against the corners of buildings, watching with smiles. The Imperials would never cross the river, they thought. But who was to stop them? Renzo da Ceri had shut himself up in the castle with the Pope. There were no Papal forces to be seen. Either they were still resolutely manning the walls far across the ruins to the east, or they had simply melted away. Our only chance lay in destroying the four bridges over the river. But no one had given the order. ‘Who would build them up again?' I heard one man mutter. ‘Us, that's who, with our taxes. Let the bridges stand. The Imperials won't cross.'

Trumpets sounded from behind me, and the beating of drums. There was fresh gunfire coming from the south, towards Trastevere. I was almost at the Campo dei Fiori, but I turned back and ran down to the river to see. I came out just upstream from the Bridge of Sixtus. Fleeing soldiers and townspeople were hurrying across it towards me, while from over the river the drums were coming nearer. Across the bridge lay the suburb of Trastevere; our men had abandoned its walls and run. As I watched, a column of Imperial soldiers came down out of the town, and others appeared from left and right along the river. On the bridge, one small group of Papal guards halted under their banner, which bore the words Faith and Fatherland. They turned and fired, but the Imperials bore down on them, and after a short battle I saw the standard fall and the Imperials sweep forwards across the bridge. They were close: so close that I could hear their cry: ‘God and the Emperor!' It was the cry that had carried them hundreds of miles down over the Alps, through the hungry campaign around Milan and the ineffectual attempt at Florence. They had had precious little reward yet for their sufferings. Now they were loose in the richest city in the world. I watched, rooted with horror, as they crossed the bridge and ran on in close order into the streets. Behind them came bands of Spaniards, greedier and less cautious, who scattered at once this way and that, harrying the pursued and cutting them down: men and women, monks and priests, merchants and nobles.

I turned and ran, back up the Via Giulia and into the lanes. It was too late to reach the inn. My one thought was for my gems. I came out, panting, on the riverbank by the old blacksmith's shop Cellini used as a workshop. Of course it was locked. I shook the bars on the windows and beat my shoulder against the oak door, but they defeated me. Well: my stones were safe. What I needed was a place to hide, not far off, from which I could keep guard. And after all, it would not be for long. The League would be here soon. The Duke of Urbino had acted with caution when Bourbon's huge force was
on the march and ready for battle. But it would be an easy matter for the French and Venetians to sweep away a leaderless army, drunk with plunder. I crept behind a low shed nearby, where there was an old anvil, some split roof-timbers and other refuse. I waited. I felt weak; my clothes were still wet and I was racked with shudders. I needed to run, or fight, merely to keep my courage. From all round came the sounds of terrible cries, running feet, shots.

Suddenly a group of men burst into the lane. A dozen or so, speaking Spanish. They were arguing about the foolishness of exploring so derelict a region, where there was nothing but a few poor artisans' huts. Their captain agreed. Then they caught sight of Cellini's door and stopped. Such a well-fortified dwelling interested them. The captain ordered them to bring up one of the timbers and break down the door. I crouched lower as they approached the pile I was hiding behind. The men swung their beam, and at the fourth blow the hinges leapt from the walls. They dropped the beam with cries of triumph and streamed inside. I peered forward, seething with frustration and rage. There was nothing I could do.

I heard their captain's voice from inside. ‘No! This house is mine. Go and find your own. Meet me back at the church later.'

Grumbling, the men obeyed. I watched them troop back up the lane towards the Via Giulia. The Spanish captain was alone. I crept out from behind the beams. From inside the shop came the sound of blows: he could not hear me approaching. I was at the doorway; I looked in. The Spaniard, a tall man in a green velvet doublet and a broad hat with three red feathers, was bending over the lock of Benvenuto's chest. At his side rested a harquebus. He swung a hammer: that same hammer with which Cellini had beaten out the gold to make the Ship. It was too slender a tool for the job; but he succeeded in bending the hasp, hooked the hammer behind it, and prised the lock apart with a wrenching twist. His back was to me. As he lifted the lid of the chest I stole inside the room.

‘Aah!' First he lifted out sheets of thin-beaten gold, and a bag of coins. He chuckled, and then came the laugh of triumph: the laugh of a man who has found the treasure of a lifetime. He had found my emerald pendant, and the opal cross. ‘So very imprudent to hide here,' he murmured, lifting them and turning them in the light. ‘But I will keep you safe.' Both of these he slipped into a pouch at his side. Then he found my diamond. He lifted it slowly and turned it in his fingers, murmuring to himself: ‘You are so shy. Why will you not shine for me?' There was cruelty in it; it was the soft voice of a man about to commit a rape. I paced round behind him. If I could catch him now, while my stones held him in their power. Slowly, slowly I began to draw out my sword. He turned the stone again, and suddenly he must have caught that ray of light.

‘Ho!' He stood dazzled, immobile, unspeaking. My sword cleared its scabbard with the faintest rasp of steel. The Spaniard swung round, the stone in his left fist while with his right he snatched up the harquebus. He fired. The report deafened me, and the room filled with smoke. But a harquebus is a heavy weapon to lift one-handed. The shot buried itself in the floor, sending up splinters of earthenware tile. I sprang forward with a downward cut of my blade. The Spaniard jumped back and drew his sword. He parried well. I was tired, hungry, utterly drained; and perhaps he was too. But we fought like demons. The age-old temptation of man was upon us: gold, treasure, the beautiful precious things that grow underground. My diamond gave us both power. I deployed the
punta
, the downward strokes and the sideways flying strokes and the upwards wheel. He kept on the defence, sensing that I would soon tire. And indeed my arm was like lead. That rope across the Tiber had cost me much. The Spaniard lifted his left hand and let me see the diamond. He smiled. ‘Yours?'

I nodded grimly. He closed his fist again.

‘No longer. Now it belongs to Don Adriano de Córdoba.'

He sprang at me. His blows came fast, his wrist deft, swinging the blade now this way, now that. I was an instant behind with my replies,
and he caught me on my sleeve, ripping through the cloth. He smiled. He could see his triumph coming. His eyes flicked for an instant to his left hand. He was thinking of that wonderful moment when the light glances down, down, alongside the snaking white flaw, and the eye takes in all the stone's beauties at once. He was wondering, maybe, how easy it would be to catch that moment again. My blade flowed from a parry into a thrust. We were chest to chest. I gazed into his eyes that were wide with amazement. Only the hilt of my sword was showing, the rest buried in his flesh. Slowly he fell against the coffer as my sword slid out again in a rush of blood, and he landed face-down on the floor. Blood began to spread round the body in a pool. I stooped down and prised the diamond from his fingers.

I ran to the door. There was no one in sight. Shots continued to ring out, and the louder cannonfire of the Castle. I crossed back to the body and retrieved my other treasures, the emerald pendant and opal cross, as well as the soldier's purse with a few silver coins. Then I sat down at Benvenuto's workbench, exhausted. There was the Perseus, the sketches, the model for Cardinal Cibo's candlestick, the furnace in the corner. Things so familiar, witnesses now to murder.

I took the diamond in my fingers. It was mine again. But I had to convince myself it had not suffered, and could still speak to me as it used to; like a tender virgin snatched in time from the hands of her ravisher. I turned the stone and let the light pierce down, down, rebounding, whispering, echoing, breaking into blue, green, vermilion, stroking the white flank of the flaw, then twining back up again and out. I shivered. I turned it again, and let the white mist spread over its surface, smooth, rippling, seductive. A dizzy weakness passed over me. The sounds from outside, the shots and screams, came dimly as if from a vast distance. How fortunate I was to be alone here at last; at last to have time to turn the stone, slowly and with loving care. Every time I lost that gleam I felt a stab of grief and loss, but then I turned it and caught once more that darting plunge
of colours into its depths; just as when Hannah's moods altered in an instant, the warmth so much more beguiling because it burst suddenly from the cold.

But the light in the diamond was changing. It was growing deeper, more sombre, the reds and the blues gathering strength at the expense of the yellows and greens. The change fascinated me. It was a long time before its cause penetrated my brain. Night was coming. I had had no idea I had sat so very long. When I moved my arm it had no strength. Very soon it would be too late to leave. I would die like this, of all the stone's owners the most fortunate; the only one to have seen so deeply into its heart. I ought to fight this, rouse myself. But the thought of that death did not trouble me. My temples throbbed.