by Anne Stevens
“Good,” Mush admits. “I felt relieved to still be alive, and happy to have destroyed my enemy. There is no room for sentiment in the heat of battle. A few months ago, I was in Wales, fighting, and a friend made a mistake. He wounded his man, and then spared his life. The rogue turned, and struck down another of our company. It is not only your own life that you must look to, gentlemen. Guard the man to your left, and hope the man to your right does the same.”
“There speaks a Cromwell man! Are you, by any chance, Thomas Wyatt, sir?” Mush turns at the sound of another English voice, and finds a stocky man in his thirties, and carrying a heavy jute sack over his shoulder. “So, does Vulcan come down to the Field of Mars, with hammer and anvil in his arms!”
“I beg your pardon?” Mush asks.
“Ah, then you are not the poet, young sir. Thomas did not give any great description. He is a man of few words, and sparing with his ink.”
“Do you know Master Cromwell, sir?” Mush asks, warily.
“May I name myself, young fellow,” the man says, dropping the sack, “as Edward Wotton, zoologist to the Doge of Venice. I am to be your farrier, and ostler during the coming expedition. See here, I have a sack of horseshoes, to start us off.”
“Then you are welcome,” Will Draper says, coming over to them, “but my comrade asked how you know Master Cromwell.”
“We write to one another,” Wotton says, in an off hand manner. “He is interested in butterflies, and other such fauna. I tell him what I can.”
“About insects? I am sure my master is grateful,” Will says. Another Cromwell agent, he thinks. How many does he have, the world over? “When next you write, please tell him how you find us, sir. That is to say, we are well, and our enterprise is going well.”
“He will be pleased to hear of it,” Edward Wotton replies. “Now, where do you want these shoes?”
“Richard Cromwell is our quartermaster,” Mush says.
“Is the scurrilous dog here?” Wotton asks.
“He is, you rogue!” Richard shouts, and the two men rush at one another. Just as it seems they will clash, they embrace, and Richard hoists the older man from his feet.
“Still a great ox,” the zoologist cries. “I swear, gentlemen, he was the worst pupil I ever taught!”
“Then he has not changed at all,” Mush says.
“It seems our numbers swell, daily.” Will can always use another man.
“Wait until tomorrow,” Wotton says, tapping his nose. “I have information that there are two English ships due in on the next tide, with crews ready to earn some gold. I can promise you another fifty hard fighting Englishmen for the task ahead.”
“Then let us pray they do not carry any sickness,” Mush says. “For the Venetian cure is harsh indeed.”
“Ah, you saw that,” Wotton says. “Most unfortunate, but necessary. Once ashore the lentulae can wipe out whole families, in days. We can fight a dozen condottieri, good sir, but will always lose out to the lentils!”
“I believe you have something to tell me, Signor,” Malatesta Baglioni says. The man, a short, ageing merchantman is sobbing in pain, as he hangs by his wrists from a convenient roof beam. The condottiero puts a hand under his chin, raises his head, and stares into his eyes. “No? That is a great pity, Signor Micheletto. My man led me to believe that you want to tell me all about the Venetian plans against me.”
“My… Lord… I know nothing,” Gian Micheletto gasps, as his own body weight almost tears his arms out of their sockets. He locks his gaze on Malatesta Baglioni. “I am but a poor merchant, on my way to Genoa. I beg you to have mercy on me.”
“Liar!” Baglioni slaps the man twice, hard, across his tear stained face. “You are the Doge’s agent in Umbria. You are familiar with the workings of the Venetian navy, and know what their intended movements are. You will tell me their strength, and the numbers of their forces. How will they defend themselves? Do they know I am coming? I can’t hear you, Gian. Speak up. Last chance.” There is only silence. Baglioni raises his gloved hand, and smashes it into the man’s face over and over. Then, he crosses to the door, and calls to one of his men.
Gian Micheletto is almost at the end of his tether, but will not betray his master, no matter what. He stares through bruised, and blood glazed eyes, as his wife, son, and daughter are dragged into the room. Malatesta Baglioni pulls his head up, and nods to his man. The soldier draws a knife.
“Which one first, My Lord?” the man asks, in a matter of fact way. The condottiero ponders, then sees the hatred in the eyes of the young girl, and turns to the mother. Her dress is torn, and her face is bruised. It looks as if some of his men have been sporting with her whilst they were waiting for him to begin.
“The woman, I think.” Malatesta Baglioni says. “Was she satisfactory?”
“After a few slaps, sir,” the man replies. “She quieted down when we offered to drag the girl in too.”
“Such a noble sacrifice,” Baglioni says. “Proceed.”
The captain of his bodyguard nods, and cuts the misused wife’s throat, with one swift slash. He holds her up for a moment, as the blood gushes then, casually, tosses the body to one side. Gian Micheletto cries out in horror.
“How many of you had her?”
“About a dozen,” the captain replies. “There were plenty of takers, once I’d broken her in.”
“A dozen men, Micheletto,” the condottiero muses. “And she took them, as docile as a pet bird. One after the other. Why, I might even suspect she enjoyed it. Tell me your secrets, my friend.”
“May God curse you,” the man groans. “May you not see another Christmas tide.”
“Oh dear, and I so love the festivities,” Baglioni tells the suspended man. “Now the boy.”
“No!”
“Then speak.”
“You are a traitor, and a coward,” Micheletto spits. Baglioni nods, and the captain pulls the boy’s head back. He twists away, and tries to bite the man. The big soldier curses, and punches the boy to the floor, where he stabs him in the heart. The child’s blood runs across the earthen floor, towards the condottiero’s boot.
“Only one of your little family left, now” the condottiero says, harshly. He crosses the room, and pulls the girl’s head up. Her large, dark brown eyes are blazing with hatred at him. He removes a glove, slips his hand into the top of her dress, and cups one of her small breasts. “A remarkably pretty girl, Gian. How old are you, my sweet little one… fourteen … fifteen? The girl cannot speak. She is rigid with horror, as his hand explores her young body. “Still a virgin, Gian?”
The hanging man remains silent. Malatesta Baglioni removes his intrusive hand, and signals to his man, who pulls the girl over to the low wooden table by the window. He thrusts her, face down, across it, and hoists up her skirts. The condottiero admires the exposed legs and rear for a moment, then begins to unfasten his thick leather belt.
“Please… God… please.” The suspended man is sobbing.
“Never mind wailing to God, you stupid fool,” the condottiero snaps. “You know I am going to kill you. First though, I will pleasure your daughter, as you watch. Then my men can troop in, and have their share too. You can stop it. Tell me what I want to know, and I swear to spare her.”
“On your honour?”
“On the Holy Bible,” Baglioni says, placing a hand over his heart. “You must die, but she will live on, her virtue intact. You have my word. Now, speak!”
“There are over fifty Venetian war galleys hidden along the coast,” Gian Micheletto says. “ Before the month is out, they will be filled with troops, and sail down the coast. Three thousand men will land at Rimini, and then ravage the coastline. When you move against them, the Doge’s main force will cut across country, into northern Umbria, and turn south. They will force march behind you, and storm the city of Rome. Twenty thousand men, and canon. Your forces will be split in two, traitor.”
“You lie!”
“Pope Clement is a
coward. Rome will sue for peace, rather than be sacked again.” Gian gasps. It is hard to speak through the pain. “Then we will turn about, and catch you between our two armies. You will crack like a walnut.”
Malatesta Baglioni draws his dagger, and drives it into the man’s chest. He groans, and sags forward, his last thought being of how he has told the great lie. If the condottiero falls for it, he must split his army, and weaken his position. It is a small thing, but all the dying man can do for his beloved Venice.
“God piss on Andrea Gritti,” the condottiero curses. “Where, in Satan’s name did he get together over twenty thousand men from?”
“Mercenaries,” his captain guesses. “He has some Swiss pike men. Big, hard bastards they are. Perhaps he has bought some more. Then there are always the Milanese. They will fight for anyone with enough gold to pay them. The weasel faced cozza.”
“Twenty thousand men on land, and fifty galleys full of more fighting men.” Baglioni is pensive. It means he will be fighting an equal sized force, but on two fronts. “The galleys will have to move before November, or risk the bad storms. They will land at Rimini, and march down the coast, then inland to Perugia.”
“Only two or three thousand, My Lord.”
“There are several ways they can come. It will take a third of my men to block their advance,” Baglioni says. He is a master tactician, and is already seeing events in his mind’s eye. “Then Gritti will thrust out, and down on Siena. Once the town falls, he will move on towards Rome. I doubt I will have enough men left to defeat him.”
“The emperor will not let the Doge do that,” his captain says. “He will order him to desist.”
“It will take a month for the Emperor Charles to act. By which time, Perugia is under siege, and Venice will have Siena, and half of the Umbrian countryside in its hands.” Baglioni bangs a fist into his open palm. “Order Baldini to take a thousand men, and ride to Rimini. Secure the port, and stop the Venetians landing. I will keep my Sicilian company, and two hundred horse here, in Perugia, to guard the town against a citizens uprising. The Doge might try to buy the town’s folk.”
“Yes, sir. What about their main force?”
“They will expect us to try and cut the road to Rome, but we will not. Our main army will swing, in a great arc, around the Doge’s army. Once behind him, he is cut off from the Veneto. We will storm the city, and sack it, whilst he watches helplessly.”
“Surely, he will fight,” his man says.
“Let him. We will be on ground of our own choosing, and we will have canon. The Lombard’s have canon for hire. We will pay for them, and cut Andrea Gritti’s army to pieces. See to it Valdo.”
“Yes, sir,” Valdo replies. Then he realises he is still gripping the young girl by the neck. “What about this little bird?”
Baglioni considers. His mistress is visiting her mother in Florence, and is becoming quite tiresome, of late. Perhaps a fresh, young lover might enervate him for the struggles to come.
“What is your name, girl?”
“Pippa,” the girl says, as Valdo allows her to rise, and rearrange her dress. She looks him in the eyes, despite shaking with fear, and horror.
“She is rather pretty, for a commoner. Send her to my quarters, for later” he says.
“What about your promise?” the captain says. He is a superstitious man, and fears the breaking of oaths. “You swore to spare her, on the holy bible.”
“And so I will, for the next few days. Then, if she does not please me well enough, you and the men may have use of her. Oh, and have this mess cleaned up. Hang the bodies over the main gate, to remind these scum who is master here, in Perugia.”
“The locals will not bother us,” Valdo sneers. “They are all old women, and have no courage.”
“Even the lowest dog needs a kick, now and then,” the condottiero replies. “Take her away.”
The girl shakes, and sobs, as she is forcibly dragged across the courtyard, and thrown into a tower room. As the key turns in the lock, Valdo explains that he will be second, after his condottiero has finished with her. She slumps to the floor, and begins to cry.
With her entire family dead, there is only one thing left to her, as a good Italian girl, and that is, in her heart, to swear vendetta against the condottiero, and his men. Then she realises that to obtain her revenge, she must remain alive. This means that she must either please the animal Baglioni in bed, or escape at once.
She waits for dusk. The door is firmly locked, and the window is very small. She twists, and turns, until the upper part of her body his through, then catches hold of the sturdy vine growing up the tower wall, and pulls herself free. Then she slithers down the vine that hugs the ancient tower’s wall, to the ground. Then she picks up her skirts, looks to see no guards are about, and runs for her life.
Once in the huddle of streets surrounding the main citadel, Pippa can hide, and get her breath back. After she regains her strength, she works her way out into the open countryside, helped by a few of the sympathetic townsfolk, who risk death by giving her food, and directions.
She knows her father has misled Malatesta Baglioni, and that there is no grand army coming to invade, but there is a smaller force, due to make an incisive raid. She resolves to keep walking, until she finds them, and can tell them all that she knows.
Pippa Micheletto cannot draw a sword, and fight her sworn enemy, but she can help to bring him down, and gain some sort of revenge. The moon is full, and she walks throughout the night, putting many miles between her, and the traitorous condottiero.
“A beautiful sight, signor,” the Venetian escort’s captain says. Thomas Wyatt looks at the splendour of Rome, spreading out before him, and shrugs.
“I have been here before, Antonio,” he says. “I was not made welcome then, and I doubt things have changed over much. The Pope still dances to the emperor’s tune, and the city’s god is still Mammon.”
“Then I hope you have plenty of gold,” Antonio replies, chuckling. “For Clement is a rapacious dog, and will want every ducat you have, and more.”
“I have no gold with me,” the poet says. “I come with a letter from your Doge, which will get me an audience, and two messages from my master, Thomas Cromwell.”
“Is this Tomas Cromwell a great man in England?”
“Some would think so, and some not,” Wyatt replies, candidly. “For every man who calls him friend, there is one who would call him a cur. Great men attract great enemies.”
“Why will Clement listen to your great man?” Antonio is curious, as politics in Italy usually involves either huge amounts of gold, or sudden, violent death. “Does he fear him?”
“My master does not make threats,” Wyatt concludes, spurring his horse on. “He simply asks.”
“Cristo Santo!” young Antonio exclaims, galloping after his charge. “Without gold, he might as well whistle out of his culo.”
Thomas Wyatt does not hear. He is a hundred yards ahead, recounting, in his mind, how he will speak to Pope Clement on the morrow. As a member of the hated, and feared Medici family, he will be a shrewd bargainer, and a hard man to scare.
Even with the two powerful weapons at his disposal, the poet might still fail. He curses, and wishes that it was Cromwell here, in his position, and able to converse directly with the king’s worst enemy. Not for the first time, Wyatt wonders what the price of failure will be.
Will Draper, Mush, Richard, and himself will be banished from Henry’s court, probably for ever, but Thomas Cromwell might well pay a far greater price. Fail tomorrow, and the poet could be condemning the Privy Councillor to death. It is hard to contemplate such an end, and Wyatt pushes the thought from his mind.
Then he is at one of the city’s many gates, and two guards are approaching him. He recalls the last time, when he had fought his way out, and is relieved when Antonio and his men gallop up, and demand entry.
“On the business of Andrea Gritti, Doge of the Free City State of Venice, you
dog!”
There is nothing, Thomas Wyatt thinks to himself, like a little diplomacy. He half expects the guards to be awkward, but Antonio judges the situation well, and knows they will be scared of refusing admission, and incurring the wrath of Clement, the Medici Bishop of Rome. They wave them through.
They are within the city, and the poet’s heart is moved at the sight of so much decaying magnificence. Great buildings glisten in the sun, alongside crumbling ruins, and huddles of private villas. It seems to the poet that the wealth of the world must reside within these walls, and he can easily see how such a city once ruled the whole world, from far off Cathay, to the north of Britain.
“Tonight, we lodge with Signor Franconi, a rich wool merchant, and a friend of your master.”
“He knows Cromwell?”
“Of course,” Antonio says, with a glint in his eye. “Everyone knows Tomas Cromwell!”
7 Intrigue in Rome
“An Englishman?” Pope Clement asks, as he finishes off his breakfast. “That dirty stronzo, Gritti, wishes me to grant an Englishman an immediate audience?”
“He does, Your Holiness,” the Papal Chamberlain says, persuasively. “It seems the man has something of great import to tell you. The Doge writes, saying he knows what this Signor Wyatt will say, and urges you to listen, at your earliest moment.”
“Why should we listen to the Doge?” Clement asks. “He hates my family, and does not love Mother Church. Why, he will not even visit the Papal Court.”
“Your predecessor did try to poison his predecessor, Your Holiness,” the chamberlain reminds his master. “Had he succeeded in the task, things might have been otherwise, but it did not work, and we must accept his distrust. The Doge is insistent that the Englishman is heard, as it will bring great benefit to both our states.”
