Machiavelli: The Novel

by Joseph Markulin

  Callimaco indicated that he would, and, after about ten more excruciating minutes of French, they left. “Well,” said Niccolo, “did you find anything out?”

  Callimaco nodded his head yes. “He says they’re . . .”

  He groped for the correct word. It was not one that he ever remembered using in Italian before, but, he concluded, it must be pretty much the same as in French. “He says they’re—bombardiers.”

  Within twenty-four hours Niccolo would understand the significance of the presence of the sinister, pampered bombardiers, but before that, he and his friend Callimaco were presented with a unique and extraordinary opportunity—nothing less than a chance to be admitted to the presence of the French king himself.

  This came about when Maître Albert sought Callimaco’s assistance in a professional matter—the king was suffering from an abscessed tooth. The royal French physician, Jean Michel, had been able to do nothing. Albert, his assistant, was also unskilled in oral and dental work, but knowing that Callimaco had been interested in this particular branch of surgery in Paris, and had even pursued it against his advice, the professor was now forced to call in the younger man, his former student, for a consultation.

  Accompanied by his “servant,” Niccolo Machiavelli, the dental surgeon was introduced into the royal pavilion by Master Albert. The tent in which the king was lodged was a huge, blue-and-white, cone-shaped structure, as high as the mast of an ocean-going ship. It was surrounded by smaller tents, and guards were everywhere.

  The center of the French camp was a beehive of activity. Heralds, ushers, pageboys, and valets rushed off urgently in all directions. The smugness in their faces announced the obvious importance of the errands upon which they had been dispatched.

  Once inside, Niccolo marveled that the royal tent seemed a million miles away from the rough world of the military camp outside. Sumptuousness and luxury abounded in the accoutrements and appointments. The furniture was not of the flimsy, portable variety one would expect to find in an army on the march. There were rows of ornate, lacquered cabinets, inlaid with designs in gold and silver. Niccolo could make out the spires of a massive bed, canopied and draped. There were heavy, cushioned chairs and thick carpets. Everywhere, everything was covered with the device of the white lily, the symbol of the kingdom of France.

  There was a hush and a subdued quality about the place, despite the presence of a large number of people. Tapestries and curtains hanging from on high muffled the sounds and divided the large open area into a mazelike succession of smaller semienclosed spaces where the various activities required for the maintenance of the royal person were being carried out. Chamberlains and wardrobe keepers went about their business. Bedclothes and tablecloths were being changed and aired, some being taken out, others put away. Cooks and servants were huddled with wary food tasters, who nibbled thoughtfully and methodically at the royal lunch. Concealed harps and oboes produced a soothing, almost-inaudible, background music that hovered in the air above the abundantly displayed richness of satin and soft velvet and fur.

  Callimaco, and, by extension, his servant, were first introduced to Jean Michel, the royal physician. He was a man whose face and manner betrayed a wide range of emotions—false modesty, insincere solicitude, exaggerated concern, hypocritical intensity, and a posturing, affected, air of ethereal spirituality. Niccolo saw him immediately for what he was—a creature of the court—and turning away, half-disgusted, half-amused, he left the three physicians embroiled in their technical discussions.

  He gave himself over to leisurely observation. It was difficult to believe that he was at the vortex of a military campaign. He felt more like he was in the tent of some pampered sultan, while all about him rustled the sultan’s harem, voluptuous ladies-in-waiting, richly, but scantily, clad. There was no evidence of generals or preparations for war. Then he saw a group of men poring over maps that had been spread out on a large table. As casually as possible, he edged over in their direction, hoping to catch a glimpse of what they were planning, perhaps the disposition of troops for the assault on Mordano, or the progress of the army down through Italy. Keeping his back to them, he drifted over toward the makeshift war room. They paid no attention to him. When he managed to get close enough, he stole a quick, furtive glance over his shoulder. “Unbelievable!” he thought. Is this what Charles means by strategy? The men were engrossed in the study of astrological charts.

  By now the medical conference had adjourned, and the three doctors, Niccolo trailing behind, were ushered into the presence of the son of the Spider. The king had his back turned when they approached, and Niccolo’s first impression of him consisted of two details—the bald spot and . . . the hump.

  Eventually Niccolo would notice the white hat, gold-crowned, and the shocking-blue cloak, picked out in gold and trimmed with fur. Eventually he would also notice the absurd shoes. But initially, he was struck dumb, almost paralyzed by the profound, distressing, overwhelming ugliness of the man. Wheeling around on his spindly legs, Charles came at them with the bent limp that served him as a walk. He squinted distractingly from large, pale, watery eyes. He had a great, bloated nose, a yellow complexion, and thick, slack lips that hung open moronically and did nothing to hide a mouth full of black and rotting teeth.

  When he moved, he moved nervously. When he talked, he stuttered. His head was too small to house much of a brain. There was a tangled growth of red curly hair at his chin that gave him an undeniably goatlike appearance. At all this Niccolo could not help but marvel. Was this the Sword of the Lord? God’s chosen instrument? Was this the man before whom all Italy cringed, this nervous little monster?

  Niccolo watched while his friend set to work on the royal abscess. The dwarf-king was placed in a chair, and Callimaco and the fawning Jean Michel exchanged opinions and information in hurried whispers. Niccolo noticed that, in conducting his examination, Callimaco had frequent recourse to supporting the king’s head with his left hand while probing the black hole of his mouth with his right. In turning the royal head toward the light, adjusting the angle, pulling it back, more than once the enterprising dentist allowed his hand to brush casually across the surface of the royal hump. Royal good luck!

  Visually dissecting the occupant of the lofty throne of France, Niccolo’s attention fell to the monarch’s footgear. He wore, not boots, but black velvet pumps with a soft sole and low heel. Most remarkable of all was the shape of these shoes. Although narrow at the heel, they splayed out at the toe in a wide, flat arc. Thus shod, the ducklike royal foot seemed more suited to swimming than walking. Who understands French fashion?

  It was clear from the gravity of Callimaco’s expression that an extraction, or something worse, was warranted. “We’re going to be here for a while,” thought Niccolo. He let his eyes wander, taking in with the dreamy delight of the pleasure den the never-ending procession of quiet, sensual women, who came and went and laughed softly in the corners. The luxury and the carnality of it lulled him, and he found himself suddenly resenting the intrusion of a figure who clearly did not belong in this harem of soft, buxom women. Standing a few feet from him, and anxiously inquiring as to the king’s condition, was a scraggly, barefoot man in long-unwashed sackcloth. He looked and smelled like he had just crawled in from twenty years fasting in the desert. Indeed, as Niccolo was soon to discover, he was, in fact, a hermit.

  Perhaps ex-hermit would be a more precise designation for the man who, fretting and mumbling to himself, scuttled out of the king’s presence past Niccolo. The reason Niccolo followed him and then stopped him was that the man was fretting and mumbling in Italian, not French. The young Florentine, remembering now that he was a spy, was curious to know what an Italian was doing here on such intimate terms with the king of France.

  “Is there any problem with the king?” asked Niccolo, breaking in on the other’s sotto voce monologue.

  Flustered, the little hermit regarded Niccolo for a moment before answering. Then, recovering his balance,
he said, “Problem, with the king?” He chuckled. “What problem can there possibly be for the second Charlemagne? For a man destined to conquer the Infidel and reduce the world to a single sheepfold under a single shepherd? No. No. No problem.” He laughed the knowing laugh of the true believer.

  “Another prophet,” thought Niccolo, rolling his eyes. And more Sword of the Lord talk! But, concealing his skepticism, Niccolo encouraged the little man to elaborate. Putting questions to him, he learned that Charles was considered by many in France—and, indeed, had come to consider himself—the second Charlemagne, destined to rule over a united, worldwide Christian empire. After conquering Italy and restoring French rule in Naples, he would reestablish the true religion in Rome by driving out the corrupt, bestial, antichrist who called himself pope. From there, he would cross over into the east, like the Crusaders before him, and crush the Turk. Finally, he would bring the Infidel dogs into the one, true church.

  “How do you know these things?” asked Niccolo, eyeing the scruffy, bearded man.

  “God tells me!” he said.

  Niccolo took his leave of the hermit and returned to the area where the dental surgery was being performed. Callimaco had apparently administered some sort of sedative, as the formerly wriggling, squirming monarch was now lying quite still. The operation appeared to have been successful, judging from the expressions on the faces of the medical men. Callimaco was washing a bit of royal blood from his hands.

  Two chamberlains carried the prostrate King Charles to his imposing bed and with infinite care laid the small, twisted body among the soft cushions. They deftly removed his cloak, hat, jacket, and shoes. Before they pulled the thick goose-down covers over his sleeping form, Niccolo had time to make one ghastly observation. The splayed-toe shoes were no caprice of fashion. They were meant to conceal the fact that Charles VIII, king of France, had six toes on each foot.

  Callimaco left the king’s tent with assurances of reward for having so adeptly extracted the offending tooth. Beaming with satisfaction, he clapped Niccolo on the back and recounted the particulars of what he called the epoch-making operation. Whatever the operation had been in medical and dental terms, Callimaco was certain of one thing. It would make him rich.

  Grinning at his companion, he reached into a pouch on his belt and produced a small, green-black nub.

  “You didn’t,” groaned Niccolo.

  “The royal tooth!” said Callimaco triumphantly.

  “Maybe we can grind it up and make an aphrodisiac? Eh?” Niccolo speculated.

  “Or a potion that will turn a man into a king!” said Callimaco with a wicked gleam in his eyes.

  “Or a little twelve-toed hunchback Frenchman!” concluded Niccolo. They both laughed as Callimaco carefully wrapped his treasure in a soft cloth and put it away. He was sure it would come in handy someday, somehow.

  Niccolo questioned him as to what the royal personage was like, what he had said.

  “He’s a mess of a man,” reported the dental surgeon. “When he tries to talk, it’s like his lips and his tongue conspire to prevent him. The tongue stutters, the flabby lips get in the way, and what comes out is a babble. He was half-delirious, he was mumbling over and over about the second Charlemagne and reforming the Church and liberating Constantinople from the Turks. He believes it, Niccolo. He really does.”

  Callimaco thus confirmed what Niccolo had surmised from his talk with the hermit-prophet. Monsters and beasts from the Apocalypse were swirling around inside the king’s head, and the people close to him were egging him on. He had more prophets than the Old Testament and, apparently, a council of astrologers planning his military moves. But while Niccolo was considering the implications of these discoveries, Callimaco offered him another piece of information.

  “And, get this, in his blabbering about his divinely ordained mission and his destiny, he kept saying that the prophet had foretold it and that he had to talk to the prophet, to get his advice.”

  “I know,” said Niccolo. “I met the prophet. He’s a scroungy little Italian fellow, from the south to judge by his accent. I think he was sent up from certain parties in Naples to fill the king’s head with nonsense and talk him into this invasion.”

  Callimaco furrowed his brow and regarded his friend with something approaching consternation. “That’s not at all who the king has in mind,” he said. “The prophet Charles seems so terribly anxious to consult is—in his own halting words—Sav-vo-vo-vo-vonarol-l-l-la!”

  “Caccasangue!”

  The two spies had succeeded in uncovering what could well prove to be a critical piece of information and resolved to depart for Florence within the hour. But their plans were put on hold when a tremendous uproar erupted in the camp. Tracing the excitement to its source, they saw that much was being made of a convoy that was entering camp at breakneck speed. Niccolo counted thirty-six light wagons thundering past, each in the tow of two hard-galloping, overworked, and clearly exhausted horses.

  They had made the trip from Genoa in less than three days’ time, it was being said. Good time. Great time. They had crossed the fertile central plain of northern Italy on the wide Via Emilia, built by the Romans in ancient times. They had sacrificed everything to speed and scarcely stopped to eat or water the horses along the way.

  “So what?” thought Niccolo. “So the French have just set a speed record for crossing the peninsula. What could be in those wagons that was so important? New clothes for the king’s whores? Claret for the king’s table?” He had already dismissed the hubbub in his mind and was tugging on Callimaco’s cloak to go when a shock ran through him. The convoy of lathered horses, without breaking stride, without even slackening speed, was plunging headlong into the mysterious compound reserved for the bombardiers.

  The use of artillery as a siege weapon was already common practice throughout Europe, North Africa, and the East. The value of cannons in an attack on a walled city or garrison was well established.

  One of the most powerful concentrations of artillery the world had ever seen was deployed at the siege of Constantinople in 1453, about forty years before Charles VIII invaded Italy. The Turkish sultan Mohammed II turned a total of sixty-eight pieces against the ancient walls. The biggest of these was nicknamed “Basilica.” It was cast for the sultan by the Hungarian founder, Urban, and was universally acknowledged to be the most devastating war machine of its time. It had a range of close to a mile, it had a bore of thirty inches, and it could shoot a stone ball weighing 1,600 pounds.

  Notwithstanding the awe such a weapon was capable of inspiring in the defenders of a fortification, the great cannon was not without disadvantages. Sixty oxen and over two hundred men were required to move it. There were no carriages or supports capable of sustaining a behemoth of the Basilica’s weight and dimensions. Once the sultan’s mighty cannon was hauled up before the walls of the besieged city, it was planted in a mound of earth and pointed in the general direction of the enemy. It was extraordinarily difficult to aim. After being fired, it took over two hours to reload.

  Because of its size, a cannon like the sultan’s had to be cast very near the site where it was to be used. While there was little the French could do to improve on the firepower of such a weapon, they were responsible for introducing an important new element into the use of artillery—mobility. The light, horse-drawn carts that thundered into the camp at Mordano were the proof of it.

  Knowing they would not need their artillery in the north where the Milanese had welcomed them with open arms, the French had secretly sent it on by ship to Genoa. There, the cannons were loaded onto horse carts and speedily transported to the front. It was the quickness of the move that took the enemy by surprise. A train of heavy carts laboriously drawn by oxen might have aroused the suspicions of the Italians and even come under attack. But who would ever have suspected these light, seemingly harmless vehicles racing across the plains? Who would have dreamed what lethal cargo they carried?

  Niccolo did not sleep th
at night, nor did he return to Florence. He had no way of gaining entry into the bombardiers’ compound, but from the sounds that issued forth, he knew what was happening. The incessant hammering could mean only one thing—that nails were being driven and that engines of war were being constructed. In his mind, Niccolo pictured the fabrication of siege machinery for scaling the walls or putting archers in an elevated position from where they could shoot down into the fortress. Little did he imagine what was actually being built.

  When dawn broke, it was clear that the army was being readied for battle. Shouted orders filled the air. Everyone was on the move, and yet there was no sign of frenzy or excitement. Rather, it was with a slow and deadly deliberation that the men began to draw themselves up into fighting units. Charles himself appeared, a suit of gleaming armor visible beneath his royal cloak, a stout, plumed helmet on his small head. Surrounded by his generals and peers of the realm, he nodded gravely as they indicated, with sweeping gestures, the disposition of the troops and the order of battle. When he seemed satisfied, they were dismissed to go about their business, and the king summoned a half dozen other men from a nearby tent. Niccolo recognized them as the grimy bombardiers. Dressed in the nondescript, greasy clothes of mechanics and tradesmen, they seemed out of place in the sea of magnificent color and heraldry and shiny weaponry that was rising and falling in all directions. However, Charles listened intently as they spoke. When they were done, the king of France solemnly embraced each of them. Niccolo remarked that embrace and was shocked that a king, even a mad one, would have publicly done such a thing.

  Niccolo and Callimaco, like many of their countrymen, had turned out to watch the battle. Warfare, after all, was a spectator sport in Italy and on a scale much grander than the palio or the tournament. The music was stirring, the uniforms splendid, and the entire production well worth missing a day’s work.