The Malice of Fortune (7 page)

I stood up and put my hands to Camilla’s long, grave, ethereal face as if caressing an angel. “You know you are my most precious sister and most beloved
amica
, forever and always.” And then I let her go, because Fortune knows when you cling too long to someone.

The Rocca, I remind you, is at the southwest end of Imola, a squat but massive square of gray stone with a stout round tower at each corner, surrounded by a moat full of water that was, by the time I crossed it that evening, already as dark as the oncoming night. As you approach, the walls seem to rise into the sky and when I looked up, the ravens circling over the ramparts appeared little larger than locusts.

Once inside the walls I announced myself to the guard at the gate, whereupon a soldier in a silver breastplate was attached as my escort. He led me through a procession of vaulted rooms, with pikes, halberds, and cannonballs stacked everywhere. The scent of all the greased metal was so much like dried blood that I almost gagged.

Having passed through these foreboding warehouses, I was grateful to enter a quiet little courtyard occupied principally by fruit trees, this bounded on the far end by a graceful portico of modest size. My escort led me to a door within this arcade, knocked, looked in, and gestured me on.

Though the room I entered would have been too small for a grand public event, it was more than sufficient for a private supper; the lofty ceiling allowed the smoke from all the candles to rise into the vaults, permitting an unclouded view of the lavish tapestries on the walls and a long trestle table covered with cloth of gold so gorgeous that it seemed a mortal sin to serve wine on it.

Several of the gentlemen seated around that table, most of them garbed in high-collared black tunics, were familiar to me. Agapito da Amelia, the duke’s personal secretary, talked behind his hand to Michele de Coreglia, whom everyone called Michelotto. The latter had the vague features of a shopkeeper; a moment after you turn away you can scarcely recall him, which was perhaps why Valentino was said to
trust him with his most “delicate” errands. Ramiro da Lorca was an intimate of the pope as well as of Valentino; though hardly a young man, his dusky, proud satrap’s face did not betray his age. Of the several men present who were not among Valentino’s circle, one of those I recognized was the Duke of Ferrara’s ambassador, Pandolfo Collenuccio, a noted scholar, weary-eyed and hoary-headed; I could presume that a few of the most important envoys had been summoned to this supper, though to what end I could not guess.

The room was warm enough for a dozen ladies to dress as if it were St. John’s Day, each one a radiant blossom next to her grave, monochrome gentleman: lips deeply red, bosoms and bare shoulders blushing like dawn, here and there a rouged nipple peeking out amid ruffles, lace, and glistening damask. I was at a loss to find one who was not what we call a “Venetian blonde,” with hair that outshone spun gold, a match for smiles more perfect and brilliant than the pearl necklaces that adorned their elegant necks. There is a name for such women, which had just entered the vernacular when I left the business:
cortigiane oneste
, or “honest courtesans,” although less charitable lexicographers will say “honest whores.”

At the head of this splendid table, seated alone, was Duke Valentino, master of the Romagna, idol of all Italy, the instrument of ambitions his father—our Holy Father—had only imagined when he made poor Juan their fragile vessel. The duke gave a curt little nod, whereupon a page showed me to my chair.

Contrary to his brother Juan, Valentino displayed a preference for sober attire, the tight collar of his black velvet jacket exposing only a thin band of white shirt. The candles glazed his milky complexion; his auburn hair fell straight to his shoulders, framing the lean, saintly face that God had set upon a wrestler’s neck. His mustache and sparse beard were closely groomed, so that the latter more resembled rust upon his jaw—which was as solid as iron plate. However, many of Valentino’s most striking features were feminine, the soft pendant of his lower lip and a nose so finely sculpted that a woman would envy it. His hawk-wing eyebrows rested closely over piercing eyes, the pupils and dark green coronas surrounded by uncommonly clear whites.

At the far end of the table an
alta
band played and a sweet-voiced
young woman sang the sorrowful “O mia cieca e dura sorte.” Yet hardly had I perched upon my cushion, when Valentino lifted his finger and halted the music.

All eyes came to their duke—who had nearly closed his own, his eyelids slightly fluttering. “I am certain you are all familiar with the revelation of Saint John of Patmos, as he watched the new city of Jerusalem descend from Heaven. A city built of jasper and gold.” Valentino’s voice was thin, almost frail.

It seemed he would not go on, when all at once his eyes shot open, his next words so sharp that everyone sat straight up. “His Holiness and I do not intend to wait for great cities to fall from the heavens. I have been speaking with my architect and engineer general—you all know Maestro Leonardo, from Vinci. Our esteemed maestro has authored his own revelations, visions of cities where plagues cannot be spread, where smoke and fetor cannot foul the atmosphere, where the streets are not clogged with whores, charlatans, and ruffians but instead are spacious and open to the most useful forms of commerce. Cities where mills and geared machines will perform the labor of men and beasts. Cities where all men can enjoy justice and
libertas
, regardless of rank or wealth.”

Valentino swept his eyes about the table, as if challenging any of us to deny this vision. “Tonight I propose the first step toward such a city, because like Jacob, we must begin to climb the ladder to Heaven, rather than wait for the last trumpet.” He lifted his cup. “We have completed the articles of agreement that will restore peace to the Romagna. Only when this treaty is signed can we begin to build our New Jerusalem here on Earth.”

All the blood might have drained from my head. Everything I had heard, whether from the lips of His Holiness or from the streets of Imola, had led me to believe that the Romagna would soon become Armageddon, as Valentino was forced to defend his conquests against the very
condottieri
who had helped him achieve them. But this “treaty” could only mean that these soldiers for hire, having declared war against their patron, were to be welcomed back with kisses and embraces. And if peace between Valentino and the
condottieri
was now imminent, every assumption I had made regarding the pope’s errand would have
to be discarded. It would hardly remain in His Holiness’s interest to discover an association between the murdered woman, Juan’s amulet, and his former and now future allies.

I heard the rest of Valentino’s address as if I had a pillow over my head: “For that beginning I am grateful to our most honored guests.” Valentino tilted his cup slightly toward the opposite end of the table. “My esteemed brothers-in-arms, Signor Paolo Orsini and Signor Oliverotto da Fermo, who comes to us on behalf of the most excellent Vitellozzo Vitelli.”

The two men seated at the far end of the table nodded and raised their cups; upon entering the dining room I had given this pair only the most careless examination. Now my mind nearly screamed at me:
Juan’s murderers are here. At this table
. And those same bloody hands had just been invited to sign a treaty with the father who still mourned their victim and the brother who alone possessed the skill and courage to avenge him.

Paolo Orsini displayed the excesses of his station, his face bloated and sagging; only the arrogant thrust of his jaw and the great hump of his nose gave any suggestion that his lifelong profession had been that of arms. But his companion, this Signor Oliverotto da Fermo, quite resembled a lord of the battlefield. He was perhaps Valentino’s age, his features resembling a bust of a Greek athlete; even beneath his velvet jacket, one could distinguish the shoulders of a discus hurler, though they were draped with languorous curls the color and sheen of polished bronze. His pale, wide-set eyes drifted around the table, pausing slightly at each face.

Over the next several hours, I merely pecked at the various courses, the liveried servers parading platter after platter of melon, gelatins, candied fruits, liver sausage, pork loin, ravioli in broth, and sugared pine nuts; the Trebbiano and Frascati wines poured like the waters at Petriolo. The conversation flowed just as liberally, with many citations of the ancients—among them Plato, Horace, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius.

Yet Valentino sat silent throughout, eating little more than I, careful to avoid catching my eye. I found this studied indifference no less disconcerting than his announcement regarding the
condottieri
. If this
treaty was all but sealed, Valentino, who had clearly attached his hopes to it, would have even less interest than his father in allowing me to investigate Juan’s murder. But perhaps I would yet provide him a useful scapegoat, my forced “confession” twisted to absolve the
condottieri
of any guilt in Juan’s murder—and spare the pope and Valentino accusations that they had bartered the peace of Juan’s soul for peace with the Devil.

At last Valentino pushed back his chair and slipped out, absent a word to anyone. But the woodwinds and the
trombone
played on; faces grew flushed and hands began to slide beneath damask skirts and linen chemises. The supper did not end until Messer Agapito stood up, a faintly pained expression on his small, weasel face as he brushed the crumbs from his velvet jacket, and addressed us as proxy for the departed duke. “The former despots of Imola, whom our duke has deposed as his gift to the people of this city, referred to this wing of the Rocca as the
Paradiso
.” Thus my invitation to supper in Paradise. “But now we must all leave Paradise,” Agapito added with a reluctant grin, his teeth like grains of rice. “We have been summoned to the Inferno.”

IV

Agapito led us all in a long procession through the door at the end of the dining room, whereupon we entered a closet full of grain sacks and barrels of oil, and then another, darker storage room, reeking of gunpowder. A short flight of stairs led to the darkest room of all. Around me I could hear anxious titters, soon followed by the sound of a heavy door closing behind us.

This place smelled like a painter’s studio, redolent with oils and lacquers. More sounds: succulent kisses, the whisper of skirts, whining about the cold. I heard someone say that the tower we had evidently entered was called the Inferno because the previous proprietors had constructed it as a prison—

The sun might have burst forth in a moonless night. In the blinking of an eye I saw every person present—I believed I could distinguish each pearl, every stitch, the stubble on men’s faces. Yet this unnatural illumination faded in little more than a heartbeat to the sound of a loud, hollow thump, like a dozen people striking a carpet with brooms at the same moment.

Screams followed. One could scarcely think amid the terrified shrieks, and I wondered if someone had dropped a torch onto a barrel of gunpowder stored in the closets below us.

Out of the darkness, skulls appeared, six or eight of them spaced evenly about the room, hung like sconces on walls draped with black velvet. Each had a candle inside, the light pouring from empty noses and sockets. In this fashion the entire “amusement” was illuminated for
us; it seemed Valentino’s people had ignited those vapors I had smelled upon entering—the explosion entirely harmless, except to our nerves.

Anxious laughter still floated in the air when a velvet curtain parted and a small, brightly painted car such as they use in triumphs rolled into the room with no apparent means of transport. Atop this chariot without horses stood three entirely naked women, backs facing one another to make a sort of human tripod; beneath their bare feet, gilded plaster gryphon heads spouted wine into silver basins. Absent cups, ladies and gentlemen alike began to scoop with their hands. In little time the wine drenched them, their soaked shirts and chemises leaving little doubt as to where this amusement was proceeding.

I found a corner among a few of the ladies who did not wish to stain their Oriental satins and Rheims linens, and was soon engaged in conversation by one of the blondes. “Most of us are from Venice,” she said. “Our merchants are always down here in good times and bad, and they like the same dishes they enjoy at home.”

To either side of her, several ladies dropped their deepest curtsies; my Venetian friend hurriedly joined them. Guessing the object of these frantic obsequies, I turned and did the same.

Duke Valentino offered a little bow before presenting me a hand formally gloved in black kid. I could not help but tremble as I accepted it. My companions furiously tittered as he escorted me away.

“Your rooms are sufficient?” We strolled with lingering, short steps, more suited to lovers. But Valentino did not wait for my answer. “If I have neglected to send word before now, it is because this treaty with the
condottieri
has got every government represented here in a lather, believing it will put them at some measure of risk. None more so than the Florentines—I must now convince them that this peace of ours will not provide the Vitelli, with whom they have an unpleasant history, the liberty to attack them. I keep offering the Florentines a separate agreement to ensure their security, and in return they have merely sent me an amusing secretary, to interminably delay the matter. Their merchants and bankers find the expenses of peace too onerous, without regard for the far greater exactions of war.”