Machiavelli: The Novel

by Joseph Markulin

  “It’s not a culinary preference, but a political necessity,” said the host who was aware of Niccolo’s interest in his sauce pot. “Did you know that I can detect the taste of poison in unseasoned food?”

  “And what does it taste like?”

  “Sometimes bitter, sometimes acidic, sometimes very subtle. But almost any poison, even in enormous quantities, can be concealed with pungent spices—pepper and ginger, cinnamon. This sauce, I make myself. It’s no secret recipe—garlic, parsley, a little white wine, some herbs. But I make it myself and I keep it in my possession. No other human hand touches it. If I’m satisfied after tasting the unseasoned food, I sauce it myself. Would you like to try some?”

  Niccolo said he would and extended his hand to take the sauce pot. His host only smiled. “Pass your plate over here,” he said. He was indeed a cautious man.

  The dinner was attended by a number of Borgia intimates, mostly Spaniards who kept to themselves, speaking Spanish. There was only one glaring problem with the guest list—Vitellozzo Vitelli.

  From the point of view of etiquette, Vitellozzo left much to be desired. From his end of the table came a constant barrage of crunching, slurping, and sucking sounds. Vitellozzo had little to add to the conversation at the beginning of the meal, totally preoccupied as he was with his feeding frenzy, gnawing on the bones and sloshing, rather than quaffing, his wine. In a capricious gesture, Borgia had seated the uncouth glutton next to the refined Bishop Soderini, who was most annoyed at the elbowing and splashing he had to endure at the hands of his dinner companion. It was obvious that Borgia enjoyed his little jest.

  “Tell me, Vitellozzo,” said Borgia. “How is the campaign against Arezzo going?”

  “Not making much headway there, sir,” he said between belches. “We’re meeting a lot of resistance in the countryside. Treacherous peasants there hiding their corn, their money. They don’t want to help us. We have to persuade them.” He grinned.

  Niccolo could not bear to look at Vitellozzo when he talked. With the yellow pustules all around his mouth, he would have made a repulsive sight anywhere. At table, the impression he made was even more nauseating.

  “Vitellozzo has had quite a lot of success in subduing the countryside, though. Haven’t you, Vitellozzo?” Borgia smiled. “They say women prefer to throw themselves and their daughters into the rivers rather than be captured by his troops.” Vitellozzo cackled in acknowledgement.

  “And now, they tell me you have a new ally, Vitellozzo. Don’t you? Tell these Florentine gentlemen who it is.”

  His pockmarked face broke into a broad grin. Vitellozzo smiled at his own cleverness. “Piero de’ Medici.”

  Once again, Borgia had caught the Florentine envoys unawares, and he was savoring his victory. Vitellozzo too seemed to be enjoying himself, and, as the subtle game of glances and gestures played itself out among the cognoscenti, he launched into a bawdy description of his latest enterprise, which consisted of carrying off women and girls on packhorses, like so much merchandise, to Rome. “And there,” he said, “if you have the right contacts, if you can find the Turkish merchants who are willing to trade, you can get up to one thousand ducats for one of them. If you can get your hands on a blond, a real blond, they’ll . . .”

  Borgia did not allow Vitellozzo to finish. He shot him a glance, then jerked his head in the direction of the door. In a matter of seconds, the loathsome lieutenant had obsequiously withdrawn. If there was ever any doubt as to who was giving Vitellozzo his orders, that look cleared them all away. Vitellozzo had already played his part in the little comedy Caesar Borgia had arranged, and he was quickly written out of the play.

  “Disgusting man,” said Borgia disdainfully, “but useful. Don’t be concerned, though. I’ve spoken to him and he’s agreed to withdraw from Arezzo. For the time being. Besides I need him elsewhere.”

  “Still,” he added as an afterthought, “I wonder what sort of mischief he could be cooking up with Piero? It would be worth keeping an eye on those two, wouldn’t it?”

  Both Niccolo and the bishop understood the veiled threat. Borgia had already said he did not like the government of Florence. Maybe he was contemplating changing it. Maybe he had found a suitable candidate to head a new regime in Piero de’ Medici. And maybe he was only bluffing. Maybe.

  A master of manipulation, Borgia quickly changed the subject. Having planted the seeds of doubt in the minds of his two Florentine guests, he left them with something to think about and turned to other topics. He spoke knowledgably of poetry and music, both Spanish and Italian. He spoke of art, although his interest in it seemed to focus more on market value than beauty. The wine had loosened his tongue a little, and he spoke of his campaigns in the Romagna. It was here that Niccolo could not resist taunting him.

  “I understand you had some trouble with the good lady of Forli?”

  “Trouble,” said Borgia, feigning surprise. “She gave me no trouble. In fact she was quite compliant.”

  “How so?” asked Niccolo.

  “For all her daring, we must admit that Caterina’s defense of her castle was an abysmal failure. Let me suggest, among gentlemen, with the utmost delicacy of course, that once she fell into my hands, her defense of her own virtue was considerably less spirited and considerably less successful.” Borgia smiled the knowing smile of the conqueror.

  He went on, “She’s quite an extraordinary woman, you know, a powerful woman, but after all, only a woman.” He seemed to lose himself in his memories for a moment, trying to recall the fond details of his conquest. “It was a tremendous sensation and a unique one, for me. To hold a woman like that in my arms—a battle-scarred Amazon. Do you know how exciting it can be to run your fingers up and down a deep scar on a woman’s back while you’re making love to her? Up and down the length of her spine?”

  The bishop freely admitted that he had never thought about it before. Niccolo said nothing.

  “Not only was it an exquisite thrill for me, it drove her into a frenzy, an ecstasy.” He sighed, running his fingers under his nose, as if the perfume of that sweet encounter still lingered on them. “Spanish women, I have always found to be superior to Italians,” he said. “The blood runs hotter in their veins. But this Caterina Sforza . . .” he trailed off again, leaving the rest to the imagination of his knowing male companions.

  It was as the great lover and conqueror that Caesar chose to end that evening. His Spanish compatriots dutifully disappeared while he accompanied his honored Florentine guests to the door. As the bishop tottered off down the guarded corridor toward his rooms, Niccolo hung back a second. “Ever since I saw Caterina Sforza for the first time, on the walls at Mordano, I’ve always wondered what it would be like to possess a woman like that.” He put special emphasis on the word possess. “I envy you.”

  Borgia accepted the compliment graciously as he always accepted the admiration of lesser men. “But it bothers me,” said the secretary. “It bothers me to think that someone as ferocious and fearless as the countess should have a scar on her back, of all places. It’s as though she’d been wounded running away.”

  “In the heat of battle, these things happen. Blows arrive from every quarter,” said Borgia dismissively.

  “I suppose so,” said Niccolo, now eyeing the duke with the sly self-assurance of someone about to spring a trap. “Still . . . I’m surprised that such a wound wouldn’t have torn open with all the exertions and vigors of lovemaking, especially with such a lover as yourself.”

  “Oh, it was an old wound,” said Borgia, “completely closed, healed over.”

  “That’s strange then,” said the secretary thinking about it, apparently puzzled. “It wasn’t there a few months ago.”

  Niccolo did not wait for a reply. Abruptly, he took his leave, but not before noticing that, this time, it was the duke who was caught off his guard. There was a look of astonishment on his face, followed by the embarrassment of one who has been caught in a lie. Niccolo had opened up a tiny c
rack in the duke’s armor, a small chink in his defenses.

  “Fio de putta bastardo.” A low, whistled Spanish curse followed the retreating Florentine secretary down the darkened corridor.

  The daily policy of petty subterfuge that characterized, of necessity, the conduct of Florentine foreign affairs was extremely difficult to control in all its complicated and interlocking detail. Many things had to be taken into account—the explosive and unpredictable Borgia on the loose with a huge army, the waffling of the king of France, the rapidly shifting alliances among Venice, Milan, Spain, Germany, and the pope, and, of course, the never-ending war with Pisa. Managing a policy to deal effectively with this heaving, swirling sea of states and alliances would have been challenge enough for any government. In Florence, the situation was exacerbated by precisely the quality that the city believed set her apart from her neighbors—the love of liberty.

  So fearful was she of a tyrant reestablishing himself or of power being concentrated in the hands of a small group of men, that her constitution mandated what amounted to a state permanently and continuously in the throes of electioneering. Florence’s primary legislative and executive bodies, the Great Council of Twelve Hundred, the smaller council of The Eighty, and the gonfaloniere or standard-bearer, were all elected to office for terms of only two months.

  Continuity in government was impossible, everything moved slowly and uncertainly, money was wasted, and decisions were postponed and ultimately never made. When mistakes were made, nobody could be found responsible, since magistrates came and went more quickly than the torrential spring rains and the swollen waters of the Arno.

  At this juncture, many ideas for radical reform were put forward and debated. All agreed that some sort of change in the government was necessary. What was finally agreed upon was to make the elective position of gonfaloniere—the standard-bearer of the Signoria—permanent. The position was then legally defined, safeguards were imposed, procedures for removal established, and qualifications for office stipulated. In order to carefully limit and circumscribe the power of the new gonfaloniere, the Signoria insisted that he could hold no other office, that his sons, brothers, and nephews were excluded from the council, and that the entire family was forbidden to engage in trade and commerce. When elections were finally held in 1502, the bishop’s brother, Piero Soderini, was elected by a large majority, the first gonfaloniere for life.

  Although wealthy, Soderini was always considered a good friend of the people and an advocate of liberal government. If he was not a brilliant leader or an extraordinarily gifted politician, he was a competent administrator. Many claimed that it was precisely his lack of exceptional gifts that made him acceptable to the largest segment of the population. He did not excite the passions of his fellow citizens, neither excessive hatred nor excessive devotion, nor was he filled with an overweening ambition to enlarge and extend his power.

  If Soderini lacked brilliance, this is not to say that he was stupid or that he exhibited bad judgment. Quite the contrary, for he was fully aware of his own limitations and quick to seek the advice and counsel of those who knew and understood more than he. He had a knack for recognizing talent in others and putting it to good use. And it was certainly no accident that he quickly came to depend on the extraordinary mind and abilities of his secretary, Niccolo Machiavelli. So when, just a few months after Soderini’s election, Borgia began to threaten Florence anew and demand the money she had promised him for the condotta, and it was decided that an envoy should be sent to him in all haste to clarify the situation, the choice naturally fell on Niccolo.

  Caesar was wreaking his own special brand of havoc in central Italy, striking without warning, capturing cities, deposing tyrants and installing himself in their place. Like his namesake, Julius Caesar, he was a brilliant military strategist, and, like the Caesar of old, Borgia yearned to create an empire, although he showed none of his predecessor’s hesitation or indecision about assuming the title of emperor. Although he often said that he came to Italy, not to play the tyrant but to do away with tyrants, his recently adopted motto, Aut Caesar, Aut Nihil—“Either Caesar or Nothing”—seemed to sum up his views on the immediate future of the Italian peninsula.

  This time, Niccolo received his commission directly from Piero Soderini, the gonfaloniere for life and the god-like idol of his childhood. Despite this new proximity to power and the privileges such a position of favor might be expected to carry with it, Niccolo received only half the money he requested from the parsimonious republic, and once again, found himself obliged to use his own horse. So it was with a certain weariness that he rode out of Florence, alone, reviewing what had now become the depressingly familiar instructions—make no promises, spend no money, offer nothing concrete, buy time, try to get information, and report back daily. The only twist, the only area in which he was authorized to come to terms immediately, since it was a matter of the utmost urgency, was in the arrangement of a safe conduct for the Florentine merchants through the territories controlled by Borgia. Trade must go on.

  Whether it was the increasingly insubstantial nature of his diplomatic efforts or just overwork, Niccolo had accepted this mission with the greatest reluctance. Then, too, he had little desire to lock horns again with the formidable Borgia, a man who could leap into the saddle with one hand, bend iron, and sever the thick neck of a Spanish bull with a single stroke. Borgia, too, played the diplomatic game, and he played it well, but he did much more than just temporize and stall for time. He acted. He struck. He took the initiative. Where others proceeded with extreme caution, he launched himself with all the impetus and directed destructive energy of a cannon shot.

  Borgia’s physical prowess made Niccolo vaguely uncomfortable. He sensed a tremendous violence in the man, although it was always under control. But he could not help thinking, what would happen if that control slipped, even for a minute, and the pent-up, black rage that was seething inside him, just below the surface, were unleashed? What could he, the modest diplomat, the man of many words and frail reason, do to withstand the onslaught of such a fury? Niccolo’s feelings toward Borgia were a source of growing consternation to him. He hovered between disdain for the man and admiration, between awe and loathing.

  The qualities Niccolo most admired in Borgia were the ones that prevented him from actually gaining an audience with the duke for well over a week. Borgia’s boldness, his unpredictability, the swiftness with which he struck made it difficult for Niccolo to track him down. When the itinerant Florentine envoy finally reached Camerino, the duke had moved on to Urbino. Upon obtaining Urbino, Niccolo discovered that Borgia had set out for Cesena. Having no other choice, the weary ambassador-without-portfolio dragged himself along in the impetuous conqueror’s footsteps, on through Forli and Faenza. At Imola, Niccolo finally caught up with him.

  The days on horseback, far from refreshing Niccolo, had only added to the weight of worry that was pressing down on him. The pace he was required to maintain in his pursuit of the precipitous duke aggravated the pain in his back, too long curved over a writing table, and now too long punished in the saddle. What is more, the irregular eating and sleeping habits he had adopted in order to continue on his forced march were creating a terrible confusion in his stomach and bowels. The rain and occasional sleet and snow tended to make matters even worse from both a digestive and a rheumatic point of view.

  For fear of losing his quarry yet another time, Niccolo presented himself at Borgia’s headquarters cavalchereccio, horseman that he was, without even changing clothes. He was ushered almost immediately into the presence of the daunting warrior.

  When he realized that it was Niccolo who had been sent to him again on behalf of Florence, Borgia’s thin lips curled into a smile. “The impertinent secretary,” he announced, seeming to derive a great deal of satisfaction from the situation. “Well?” Laconic and unnerving as usual, Borgia left it to his interlocutor to begin the dialogue.

  In rather ornate and formal language,
the language of diplomacy, which says much and nothing at the same time, Niccolo reiterated Florence’s desire to be on friendly terms with the duke, just as Bishop Soderini had done in their last encounter. Again, Borgia listened without reply or interruption.

  “Sit down, secretary,” he said pointing to a lavishly upholstered chair. Niccolo hesitated on account of the mud caked on his boots and cloak. Borgia needed no words, only a sneer to indicate his contempt for the fate of the furniture, and Niccolo gratefully sank back into it. The duke remained standing as he spoke, once again exhibiting the same eerie motionlessness, the same supreme muscular control.

  “I’m going to tell you things that I’ve told to few other living men.” He put an ominous accent on the word, living. “You spoke freely to me the last time we met. Freely, if deviously. That was admirable, especially from a Florentine, especially from one like yourself. It must have taken courage, since you know I could bend you in half more easily than a horseshoe.” Niccolo winced inwardly at the thought, and Borgia continued.

  “So let me speak freely to you. Vitellozzo, Paolo Orsini—my captains, my trustworthy captains—long for the destruction of Florence. They lust for it. They are mad for it, and they’ve pleaded with me, on their knees like beggars in a church, they’ve asked me time and again to proceed against you. They want me to put Piero de’ Medici back in Florence. And what have I done?