Machiavelli: The Novel

by Joseph Markulin

  Morning found him little better, although a maid did clean up the mess he made on the floor during the night. For several days, he did not leave his bed, and even after the fever broke, Niccolo remained incapacitated by the dreadful, sharp pains in his stomach. He could hold nothing down save a little weak, lukewarm broth.

  In a shaky hand, he informed Soderini and the Signoria of his predicament, and for over two weeks, they heard nothing further from him. Convinced that the dismal climate and diet were responsible for his illness, Niccolo was determined to leave Innsbruck as soon as possible. Feeling somewhat better, but still unable to ride, he decided to make the journey home by hired coach. Undertaken prematurely, the trip through cold, narrow mountain passes along bumpy roads did his failing health little good and further depleted his already low resistance. When Niccolo arrived at Bologna, he was feverish again. He was only dimly aware of the last, jostling leg of the trip and was unconscious by the time he reached Florence.

  For several days, he slipped in and out of a tortured, uneasy sleep. He was troubled by blinding headaches, the light hurt his eyes, and his back ached. Haunted by nightmares, he thrashed in his sleep. Awake, he was too weak to move. When he finally came to himself and looked around, it took him awhile to realize that he was back home and in his own bedroom. He became aware of the fact that someone was in the room with him. Someone was humming.

  Propping himself up on one elbow and making a mighty effort to bring his bleary eyes into focus, he discerned the outlines of a woman—his one and only domestic servant, bequeathed him by his father. Weakly, he called out to her, “Emilia.”

  “Eh, finalmente! At last!” The bright, almost-musical voice was not that of the ancient serving woman, who was in the habit of gasping and cackling when constrained to communicate verbally.

  “Who’s that?” asked Niccolo, although he was too debilitated to really care.

  “Don’t you recognize me?”

  “Giuditta?” stammered Niccolo in disbelief.

  She touched his forehead with a soft hand. It was so cool to the touch. Gently but firmly, she pushed him pack into the pillows. “Yes, it’s me.”

  “But how . . . why? . . . when?” Niccolo was confused.

  “Don’t try to talk. Just rest now,” she said soothingly.

  Collecting himself for another sally at understanding, Niccolo asked feebly, “How long have you been here?”

  “A couple of days.”

  “How did you know I was . . .”

  “Caterina told me. Ssssshhhhh, now.”

  “I can’t believe you came . . . I . . . Was it that serious?”

  “Niccolo, someone tried to poison you.”

  Niccolo was sitting up in bed now, sipping a broth with eggs swirled into it. The pangs in his stomach had subsided, and the muscular aches in his back and neck were easing up. “What makes you so sure it was poison?”

  “When we administered the antidote, you responded.”

  “It could have been coincidental. Maybe I would have pulled out of it on my own.”

  “Maybe not. When Caterina sent for me, you were in extremis. She tried a few concoctions but nothing seemed to work.”

  “And you . . . ?”

  “Saved your life,” affirmed Giuditta.

  “You’re absolutely sure it was poison?” said Niccolo, not wanting to believe he was the object of an attempted assassination.

  “Tell me again what happened.”

  Niccolo described his symptoms.

  “And where was that?”

  “At Innsbruck.”

  “How long were you there before the night you got sick?”

  “About two weeks.”

  “And you weren’t eating anything except sausages and drinking beer?”

  Niccolo thought for a minute. “Wait, as a matter of fact, I was. At Innsbruck they seemed to have plenty of eggs. I was glad for the change. I ate a lot of eggs.”

  “Eggs! I knew it!” said Giuditta triumphantly. “Eggs are the base for making venenum atterminatum.”

  “Which is?”

  “A slow-acting poison that takes effect over a period of time—usually about two weeks. It’s more difficult to pinpoint when and where it was administered that way. And the symptoms are the same as those of a bad fever.”

  “Affogaggine!” whistled Niccolo.

  “What probably happened was that you didn’t quite get a lethal dose the first time. You got sick but recovered. They must have slipped you another dose just before you left. You say you started getting sick again on your way back?”

  “Crossing the mountains. Yes, it was the cold and the damp. But you just said the symptoms of poisoning were the same as those of a bad fever. Couldn’t I just have had a bad fever?”

  Giuditta smiled and took Niccolo’s hand. “You want proof? Look,” she said, running a finger across his fingernails.

  He looked at his fingernails. They were a little longer than usual and needed paring.

  “Do you see anything different?”

  Niccolo moved his hand closer to the lamp burning at the bedside. On each nail, about half an inch up from the cuticle, he could see a thin purple line that had never been there before. “The line?” he said. “What is it?”

  “The signature of the poison.”

  Giuditta’s hypothesis that two attempts had been made on Niccolo’s life was confirmed by the emergence of another thin, telltale purple line etched across his fingernails. At her insistence, he began to dine almost exclusively at home. When he went out, he took his own wine in sealed flasks.

  One spring afternoon, he returned home in particularly high spirits, toting a cumbersome sack on his shoulder. Giuditta was waiting for him, as she had been for the past month or so. No one had said anything about the length of her stay, but then, no one had broached the topic of her leaving, either. Thoughts of her going back to Rome troubled Niccolo, but he didn’t dare ask her what she was thinking, for fear she might announce her imminent departure.

  “What’s in the sack? You look like an itinerant peddler.”

  Niccolo’s eyes glowed. “It’s spring and in the spring, a young man’s fancy turns to . . .” He upended the sack as he spoke—“Artichokes!” He shook it, and the tender, young, green-and-purple chokes tumbled out onto the table.

  “I’ll fry them whole,” said Giuditta, delighted. “I’ll make them for you the way the Jews do in Rome. You’ll love it.”

  Niccolo did indeed love it, and that evening he managed to eat three of the crisp, blackened, deep-fried artichokes. After demolishing the better part of a roasted rack of spring lamb, he sat back, almost too full to move. He drank, perhaps a little more than usual, because he was nervous. He had to speak to Giuditta. It was not a big matter, but anything that might disturb the delicate equilibrium of the present and alter the unspoken agreements between them was cause for concern.

  “I have to go to Pisa,” he said abruptly.

  Giuditta eyed him curiously. “With your militia?”

  “It’s the first time they’re going to be tested in the field. After all the drilling and training, we’re finally going to see them in action. Don . . . , ah, ah, the captain of the guard has already left with two companies of men to take up positions. They won’t go into action until I get there.” He stumbled on the name of Don Micheletto, unwilling to even pronounce it aloud in Giuditta’s presence.

  “I always knew you’d leave me for the militia,” she said noncommittally.

  “It’ll only be for a few days, and I really do have to be there. I was wondering . . .”

  “If I’ll be here when you get back?” She finished the sentence for him.

  “Well?”

  “Well . . .” she hesitated. “Since you may go and get yourself poisoned again, I suppose I could stay around until you got back. Just in case.”

  Relief washed over Niccolo. All the tension went out of his body. Now he could have a drink, just to enjoy it, not to bolster his courage. He sipp
ed his wine.

  “Of course, I’m sure if I weren’t here, your wife would take care of you. How is the Signora Machiavelli these days?”

  “Oh she prospers. She’s in the country. Already she has two children and she’s pregnant again.”

  “Prolific.”

  “It would seem that in the prolonged absences of her husband, she’s been enjoying the regular consolations of a little priest.”

  “Your fat friend, Pagolo?”

  “The very man. He claims she has an iron grip on him, and you know what they say—when you have them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow. I think that, in a strange and curious way, he’s fallen in love with her. She scolds him constantly, badgers him, and occasionally batters him, but he takes it all in stride. I think he feels something for her. And I know he likes the children.”

  “There’s no accounting for taste,” said Giuditta wistfully. “Some of the most unlikely people wind up together.”

  “Like a mysterious Jewess . . .” said Niccolo.

  “And a headstrong, incorrigible gentile who’s in love with freedom and justice and a militia, and who virtually ignores the flesh-and-blood people around him.”

  “Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa,” confessed Niccolo. “I have sinned exceedingly in thought, word, and deed.”

  “Maybe I should start administering some of that medicine your wife doles out to her lover,” said Giuditta. As she spoke she cuffed him playfully on the side of the head. Niccolo was leaning back in his chair, and, overreacting to the blow—he was also a little tipsy and off-balance—he fell. From where he was sprawled out on the kitchen floor in the clean straw and spring flowers that were strewn about, he looked up at Giuditta and laughed. Then, tugging sharply on the leg of her chair, he upset it and pulled her down on top of himself. After a few moments of mock-heroic struggling, their lips came together and they kissed. In the fragrant mix of sweet hay and flowers that covered the floor, they made love and fell asleep in each other’s arms.

  Riding into the camp, Niccolo immediately saw a difference. To be sure, the shabby, sullen, and drunken mercenaries were still in evidence, and they still made up the bulk of the Florentine force arrayed against Pisa. But in their midst were the signs of change—the red, yellow, and white tents drawn up in orderly rows of the new militia. Gradually, as more men were equipped and trained, the militiamen would entirely replace the undependable hired soldiers.

  Niccolo asked after Don Micheletto and was pleased to learn he was in camp. Having eschewed more sumptuous lodgings in a nearby village, he was staying in his tent among the men. It was a good sign. As Niccolo rode through the rows of new tents, he heard the usual cursing that was so much a part of camp life, but the curses rang like music in his ears. They were all in his native Florentine dialect.

  When Niccolo found Don Micheletto, the captain of the guard was deep in conversation with another odd-looking man. Waiting at a polite distance for the audience to come to a conclusion, Niccolo nevertheless could not ignore the fact that the stranger was holding, and occasionally petting, Don Micheletto’s hand and talking earnestly, even intensely, to the captain. He was about to conclude that Don Micheletto, among his other pernicious habits, was also a practitioner of the “Florentine vice,” when he realized the little man was not making love to the captain. He was reading his palm.

  As the chiromancer glided out of the tent, Niccolo stepped in. “What do the signs say, Captain?”

  “The ssigns are propituousssss,” whispered Don Micheletto. “An engagement is imminent.”

  “And did he tell you how the engagement would turn out?”

  “I believe we will be victorioussss.”

  As Niccolo settled into a portable camp chair to discuss details of strategy and tactics with the captain, he stared hard at his colleague and enemy. He never ceased to be amazed at that peaceful, composed, kindly face, a face he knew to be so at odds with the black heart that beat in his breast. As he always did in Don Micheletto’s presence, Niccolo suppressed a shiver.

  The sun rose higher in the sky as they talked of military matters, and the day began to heat up. Don Micheletto called for refreshment, and Niccolo instructed the same servant to bring him wine from his own saddlebags.

  When the wine was served, Don Micheletto helped himself and watched Niccolo pour and drink from his own bottle. “Of course,” he said gleefully. “You drink yourssss. I’ll drink mine. It’sss better. SSSSSSSafer,” he trailed off, hissing and smiling. “That way there’sssssss no danger of poisssson.”

  Don Micheletto’s bluntness in bringing the topic of poison out into the open shook Niccolo. Then he had to remind himself, that, after all, the man had been in service with the Borgias for over ten years. If there was any substance to rumors, he would have acquired some familiarity with and caution about the art of poisoning. Suddenly, Niccolo felt a little silly, insisting on drinking from his own stores.

  A young soldier ducked breathlessly into the tent. “Sir, the enemy is met!” Both Don Micheletto and Niccolo rushed outside.

  Don Micheletto explained the situation. For several days, parties of Pisan soldiers had been sallying outside the walls to meet small supply vessels coming up the river. They managed to unload quickly and escape back to the cover of the walls before they could be challenged.

  “They’ve become quite brazen over the past week,” said Don Micheletto. “But today will be different. Watch.”

  From their hilltop perch, Niccolo saw a column of Florentine militiamen hustling into position between the Pisan raiders and the ship waiting on the riverbank. He watched with great satisfaction as his men drew themselves up into fighting formations, moving quickly and flawlessly.

  When the Pisans turned, preferring to flee to the safety of their walls, rather than face the enemy, another column of Florentines moved in on them from behind, cutting them off. Left with no other choice, the Pisans fought hard. Although outnumbered, they seemed to be getting the better of their Florentine adversaries in the hand-to-hand confrontation. The little party repulsed three Florentine advances and was on the point of breaking through to safety when a contingent of Florentine archers moved in and began to whittle away at their ranks. Completely surrounded, and too far from the walls to take advantage of any protective cover that the Pisan archers might have been able to provide, the leader of the little force signaled for a surrender. Cheers went up in the Florentine camp.

  “They’re raw,” said Don Micheletto. “They haven’t got the ssssmell of blood in their nostrilsssss.”

  As the victors straggled into camp with their prisoners, Niccolo went out to meet them, congratulating them and offering encouragement. Some of the men he remembered having enrolled in the militia, but most were strangers to him. He was a little shocked to realize how young they all were.

  As he moved through the ranks of the archers, he spotted a familiar face. It was Michele di Lando’s son. “Salve, Salvestro!” said Niccolo, eagerly grasping the boy’s hand. “Well done, there. Your archers acquitted themselves in a manly fashion.”

  “Thank you, Captain, uh, I mean Secretary, uh, Chancellor? Well, thank you, sir.” The boy was still a little awkward. “It wasn’t that hard, sir. All we do is stand at a distance and shoot. It’s the men down at the line with pikes and swords who do the real fighting.”

  “Don’t belittle yourself,” said Niccolo. “Without your help, they might well have lost out to the Pisans.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Shall I send a message to your father about this first, splendid victory and the part you played in it? He’d be proud of you.”

  “If you say so, sir.”

  “But I’m surprised to see you up here, at the front. You weren’t in one of the first units trained. I would have expected the older, more experienced hands to get the first shot at the fighting. You must be pretty good with that bow, Salvestro. You must have made a very favorable impression on the captain.”

  “I do
my best.”

  Niccolo was about to take his leave of his friend’s son when he saw that Salvestro was looking at him with a queer expression on his face, part consternation, part indecision. “Is there something wrong, Salvestro?”

  “You’re a friend of my father’s, sir, and he told me I could always trust you.”

  “Well?”

  “Can we,” he hesitated. “Can we go over this way a little?” As they moved off, Salvestro cast a furtive glance over his shoulder at Don Micheletto, who was listening gravely to the report of the two victorious commanders.

  When they were off by themselves, the young archer said, “I don’t want to appear mutinous . . .”

  “Mutiny! What are you talking about?”

  “It’s the captain, sir.”

  “So the captain’s been hard on you, has he? I’m afraid that’s part of the military life, Salvestro. There’s not much I can do about that.”

  “It’s nothing like that, sir. Look.” Salvestro was pointing to a line of stretchers moving into the camp. The sight of the dead and wounded momentarily brought a halt to their exchange.

  “Do you see how young they are, sir?”

  “Young and brave.”

  “They shouldn’t be here.”

  “They volunteered,” said Niccolo, trying not to sound callous.

  “I know they did, but they’re not ready. Some of those men have only had two or three weeks of training.”

  “Nonsense,” said Niccolo. “Don Micheletto has been drilling them for close to a year now. Since long before you joined the militia.”