The Relic Master

by Christopher Buckley

  “I’ll invite him to come and visit me in Schramberg. At my schloss.”

  “I’m sure he’ll be overwhelmed.”

  “Now,” Dürer said, “what am I to wear to the banquet? I can’t go in this revolting rag.”

  “What, am I your valet?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact. This being your idea. Nothing too elaborate, but appropriate to my station.”

  “Station?”

  Dismas went over to the dining table, yanked off its cloth, and tossed it at Dürer.

  “There. That’s appropriate to your station. I don’t give a billy goat’s fart what you wear to the banquet.”

  “At it again, are we?” Magda said. “You two should be on your knees reciting hosannas at our good fortune, not hissing at each other like geese.”

  A knock on the door announced two of Rostang’s people, bearing a trousseau of finery for Count Lothar, along with court attire for chamberlain Rufus. The timing of their arrival seemed an eerie validation of Magda’s rebuke. Again Dismas wondered: Was God smiling on their enterprise? Did the Shroud of Chambéry want to be translated? To—Mainz? What was God thinking?

  • • •

  Duke Charles had diplomatically seated Count Lothar on his left, Urbino and Aragon on his right.

  Dismas took up his servant’s station, a few paces behind his master, where he could overhear the conversation; it was also close enough, alas, to make his mouth water at the procession of dishes.

  Standing in his place behind Urbino was a man the Duke addressed as Signore Caraffa. Caraffa was about Dismas’s age, elegantly attired, all in black: boots, hose, pleated breeches, and a tightly fitted doublet trimmed in sable. Dismas reflected that the Italians put their servants in finer livery than many northern nobles wore themselves. The Elector Frederick cared so little for clothing that he often looked more like a shabby burgomaster than the ruler of Saxony.

  On Caraffa’s breast was an embroidered crest with the letter M, signifying “Medici”; the family had ruled Florence for nearly a century, since the time of Cosimo. Caraffa’s complexion was dark and pitted from smallpox. He was handsome in a severe way, with a soldier’s build and carriage, muscled and upright. His hair was cropped almost to the scalp, revealing what appeared to be sword-slash scars. Dangling from his left ear like a fat drop of blood was a ruby, a good one.

  On noticing Dismas, Caraffa nodded collegially, managing a cursory smile. Dismas thought this gracious, considering the disproportion of their stations. He resolved to make a friend of this fellow, for he did not look the kind one wanted as an enemy.

  A dish arrived, called a tartiflette, with a warm aroma of cheese, bacon, onions, and cream. Dismas nearly swooned. Food prompted the Cardinal of Aragon to launch into an epic account of papal banqueting.

  “Sixty-five courses there were,” he said. “Each consisting of three dishes. Small portions, superbly varied.”

  Dismas calculated in his head. Was it possible to consume that much food? But having seen a life portrait of the adipose Leo X, Dismas thought perhaps it was.

  The Cardinal continued. “Then came a platter—enormous, requiring two servants to lift. Peacock tongues. Have you tasted this delicacy, your grace?”

  Charles smiled demurely.

  “Here, Eminence, we prefer to listen to our peacocks. They make very good guards. Tremendous screechings.”

  “Perhaps it is not for every palate. Myself, I found them sublime. Then, when we could eat no more, arrived the climax. A pastry of Homeric proportion. Six servants were required to carry it. Now you are anticipating that I will tell you his holiness cut into the crust and out flew a flock of blackbirds.”

  The Cardinal waggled a ringed forefinger to indicate—no, no.

  “Nothing so prosaic. How many times have we seen the flock of birds flying out from pies? Instead, the Holy Father clapped his hands three times and said, ‘Arise!’ And from this pastry came—a naked child! Posing as Cupid! Such a dazzlement. The applause was like thunder.

  “But I must tell you. Afterward, I found myself thinking, How did they accomplish such audacious gastronomy? Baking a pastry, with a child inside? I made inquiries. Well! I was informed that before this dish was perfected, there had been one or two, shall we say, misfortunes. But there can be no doubt”—the Cardinal turned to the Duke of Urbino—“that the hospitality of his holiness, your uncle, is without equal in Europe.” The Cardinal added with solemnity, “And in this I include the King of France. Of course I should not be saying this, having only just come from his table.”

  Pivoting to his host, d’Aragona smiled beatifically and said, “And yet, my dear Charles, there is no one whose hospitality, whose table, whose company, gives me greater pleasure than your grace’s own.”

  Charles mutely raised his hands and eyebrows to show how touching was this benediction.

  Dismas thought he caught a flicker of disgust on the Duke of Savoy’s face. Peacock tongues? Children baked alive in pastries? These seemed incongruent with the mild-faced and pious Charles.

  Dismas glanced at Dürer, whose contempt for this sort of thing he well knew. Dürer’s jaw muscles looked like he was cracking walnuts. Dismas uttered a silent prayer.

  His prayer was answered in the form of a sharp gasp from the Duke of Urbino, clutching his chest.

  Caraffa was at his master’s side in an instant.

  “Is your master unwell?” Charles asked.

  “An indigestion only, your grace,” Caraffa said. “It will pass.”

  Caraffa snapped his fingers at an attendant, who leapt forward with a vial. He tapped drops onto a lace handkerchief which Urbino held over his mouth, inhaling deeply. After a moment, some color—such as it was, beneath white greasepaint—returned.

  “Forgive me,” Urbino said. “The altitude . . . here, in the Alps . . . always it gets the better of me. I am well. Caraffa, stop fussing.”

  Altitude? Dismas thought. Chambéry was less than two thousand feet above sea level. He wondered what they’d given him. Urbino’s hand remained clutched to his breast.

  The conversation moved on from food orgies at the Vatican.

  “The new Emperor,” Urbino said to Count Lothar, “he is your godfather?”

  Dürer nodded.

  “How soon will he make war on France?”

  “Your grace,” Dürer said blushfully. “What a question!”

  “But not an idle one. I journey to Paris, for the baptism of the dauphin.”

  Dürer downed a slug of wine.

  “Intimate as we are, I am not a member of his imperial war council. I am not included in those discussions.”

  Urbino waited for more.

  Dürer plunged ahead. “But it is no secret that there is little love between the Houses of Valois and Habsburg. I do not think that anyone will be surprised if it does come to war.”

  Urbino looked ready to fall asleep. Lothar was telling him nothing he did not already know.

  “We hear,” Dürer went on, “that King François desired to become Emperor. How he must chafe at not winning such a prize. Sure, he must be feeling a bit ‘between the pincers,’ situated between the Empire and my godfather’s other domain, Spain.”

  Urbino perked up.

  “Is there any message you would like me to convey from your godfather to his highness François?”

  Dismas uttered another silent orison, asking the Almighty please to remind Nars that they had come to steal a relic, not to foment war between France and the Holy Roman Empire.

  “Your grace is kind to offer. But I am here as a poor pilgrim, not an imperial emissary.”

  Thank you, Lord.

  “However,” Dürer added, “I think I speak for the Emperor when I say that he is vexed—oh, sorely vexed—by François’s continued harassments of sovereign Savoy. It would sit excellently well with my godfather were these violations to cease.” He added, “Forthwith.”

  Duke Charles was glowing. Dismas could almost hear him purr.


  Urbino and Aragon looked at Lothar, perplexed.

  “With all respect to our most gracious host,” Urbino said, “is Savoy truly a concern of the Emperor?”

  “Oh,” Dürer said airily, “your grace can have no idea how it presses upon him. He looks on Savoy with fatherly concern.”

  Urbino stared. It was a stunning assertion—that the Holy Roman Emperor gave any thought at all to French scrimmaging in its own backyard with a quaint and—it must be said—somewhat pointless duchy.

  Urbino’s nonplussed expression now gave way to one betraying the suspicion that the Emperor’s godson might be a dolt.

  Urbino said blandly, “I will convey this to his most royal highness.”

  “Do please also convey my godfather’s fervent wishes for the dauphin’s health, longevity, and happiness.”

  Urbino nodded. He was done with this absurd Lothar.

  The Cardinal of Aragon, a diplomatist equally conversant in geopolitics as the Duke of Urbino, also appeared flabbergasted at Count Lothar’s proxy imperial hand-wringing over Savoy. He introduced an altogether different matter.

  “Might I inquire of your lordship, what are the intentions of your esteemed godfather with respect to the heretic Luther?”

  “Luther?” Dürer said. “Ah, Luther. What a business.”

  “Heresy is a terrible business. In his case, appalling.”

  “Um,” Dürer said with emphatic ambiguity.

  “His excoriations of the Holy Father continue unabated. I can tell you that it has become a great nuisance to his holiness. He is barely able to concentrate on his passions.”

  Dismas thought, Please do not let Nars say, “What, buggery?”

  “Feasting?” Dürer said.

  Aragon stared icily. “The rebuilding of the Saint Peter Basilica. His ardent support of the arts. His explorations in the field of zoology. What delight he derives from this. And his elephant. He is like a boy with Hanno. And the hunting. He is a man of diverse many passions, the Holy Father.”

  “Yes,” Dürer said, “he seems quite relentless.”

  “As to the hunting, alas his infirmity in the saddle prevents him from the riding. But always it is he who delivers the coup de grâce with his spear. Like Saint George and the dragon. Bold. Firm. If Luther could see him, I think he would feel great fear.”

  Dürer nodded. “It must be something. Plunging the spear into an exhausted, wounded animal. What sport.”

  “You are German,” Aragon said. “Pray educate me, for I have need. Why does the Elector of Saxony, Frederick, harbor and protect Luther? By all accounts, he himself has remained devotedly Catholic. I cannot fathom why, when his holiness is trying to silence Luther, Frederick continues to shield him. Elucidate this for me.”

  “Well, it’s complicated, isn’t it?”

  “No. Not really.”

  “See, Luther’s a Saxon. Frederick’s the ruler of Saxony. Never mind the religious issues. The Elector is loyal to his subjects.”

  Aragon laughed derisively. “You say, ‘Never mind the religious issues’? But Luther is an Augustinian monk. He is a subject, first and last, of Rome.”

  “Exactly,” Dürer smiled. “As I said—complicated.”

  The Cardinal frowned. He tried again.

  “Your godfather’s predecessor, the late Emperor Maximilian, tried to get Frederick to allow the process of examining Luther to go forward. He did not succeed. I trust it will be your godfather’s intention to support the Holy Father in his efforts to deliver Luther to account for his attacks on the Church.”

  “To account?” Dürer knotted his brow. “Ah. You mean burn him.”

  “How else root out heresy, except with the purifying fire?”

  “Quite right.” Dürer nodded. “Did Our Lord not say as much in his Sermon on the Mount?”

  The Cardinal stared.

  “What kind of world is it,” he said in a plaintive tone, “when a monk—a single German monk—I mean no offense, of course; the obduracy of your people is among their many fine qualities—when one monk openly defies the authority of the Holy Roman Emperor and the Holy Father in Rome? What kind of world is this?”

  “A new one?”

  Aragon sighed, defeated, like Urbino, convinced that this Count Lothar of Wherever was an idiot.

  For the first time all evening, Dismas relaxed. Better to be thought a fool than dangerous. Nars had played his hand well. Then:

  Dürer said to the Cardinal, “Eminence, with respect to the Pope’s passion for hunting . . .”

  “Yes?” the Cardinal said, not looking up from his food, having no interest in further converse with an obtuse Teutonic minor noble.

  “Am I mistaken, or does canon law not proscribe hunting by the clergy?”

  Aragon stared. “Clergy?”

  “Um. Priests and such.”

  Aragon laughed bitterly. “You consider the Supreme Pontiff in Rome clergy?”

  “Ah,” Dürer said. “Quite right. Leo wasn’t even a priest when he was elected Pope, was he?”

  “Under canon law, in which you appear to be a scholar, it is not required that a pope be a priest. But since becoming supreme pontiff, he has been ordained. What do you insinuate, if I may ask?”

  “I only cite our beloved Church’s own law. Which forbids the clergy, specifically the higher ranks, from indulging in such worldly pastimes as hunting. As well as certain, shall we say, other pleasures?”

  Dismas’s heart was pounding. He braced for Dürer to start enumerating the “other” pleasures. Sodomy, gluttony, simony . . .

  Dürer smiled. “Eminence, you—not I—are the authority on such matters. Forgive my impertinent question.” He added, “Tomorrow I will make a good confession!”

  The Cardinal’s face was flushing the color of his ferraiolo.

  Duke Charles leapt in, clapping his hands together.

  “How honored is Savoy to have such company at our humble table in Chambéry! Your grace, your eminence, your lordship, with your permission, I have arranged a small entertainment.”

  The Duke gave a signal. A curtain raised at the far end of the banquet room. The hundred guests gave a collective ahh of surprise at the scene before them.

  Dismas had seen one or two tableaux vivants before. He found them a bit odd: still lifes, with humans instead of flowers and fruit and such.

  This one’s theme was the Adoration of the Magi, the visit to Bethlehem by the three kings, as related in the Gospel of Matthew. Considerable preparation had gone into it. In addition to the human characters, the kings sat atop three live camels. Touchingly, one of the kings had been made up to resemble the Duke of Urbino; another, the Cardinal of Aragon. The third king bore a kind of resemblance to Count Lothar.

  The Duke of Savoy murmured to Dürer, “Because of your late arrival, we did not have time to properly prepare. Still, I hope you are pleased.”

  Dismas saw Dürer biting his cheek, trying not to laugh.

  “It is mm-arvelous, your grace,” he said.

  Urbino and Aragon stared blankly.

  “Extraordinary,” Aragon managed. Urbino made a hand gesture to convey that yes, he, too, was overwhelmed.

  The infant playing the role of the baby Jesus began to howl. Duke Charles stood and thanked the people in the tableau for playing their parts, and signaled for the music and dancing to begin.

  32

  Digitalis

  Was that necessary, about the Pope violating canon law?”

  “Maybe not. But it was damned satisfying, after that grotesque recitation about papal gorging. Children, being baked in papal pastries! Next to such depravity, the outrages of the Caesars pale. Suetonius himself would be appalled. Truly, Rome is the new Babylon. Luther understates, if anything.”

  “Let me point out,” Dismas said, “that the ‘new Babylon’ employs your friend Raphael. And many other artists.”

  They were sitting around the dining table in the archdeacon’s apartment, all but Magda. The dancing and
music had gone late. Urbino, fortified by his medicated hanky, had remained to watch the merriment, eyes lighting on various pretty young girls. Even dying, and in excruciating pain from his infirmity, his lust ran strong.

  Seeing his chance, Dismas had approached his majordomo, Caraffa.

  “I regret to see your master suffer so, signore.”

  “It is only a temporary affliction.”

  “I’m sure his grace’s physicians are without equal. But if my master’s apothecary, Sister Hildegard, can be of assistance, we are at your disposal, signore.”

  Caraffa regarded the offer without expression.

  “We chanced to be present when you arrived at the city gate,” Dismas said. “Sister saw his grace put his hand to his chest, as he did tonight. She mentioned that there is a medicine.”

  “For altitude?”

  “I took her to mean for chest pain. She is skilled. Count Lothar values her greatly. He never travels without her. She studied with the great apothecary Paracelsus of Basel.”

  “Yes, we know of Paracelsus.”

  “The drops on the handkerchief. Might I ask, was it ladanum?”

  Caraffa stared.

  “What a mercy,” Dismas went on. “Though I believe Sister had in mind some other medicine. Well, no doubt that your master is in excellent hands, and for that, I rejoice with all my heart. Pray accept my wishes for his swift recovery and robust health.”

  Dismas made a little bow and turned.

  “Master Rufus.”

  “Signore?”

  “Your nun. Send her to me.”

  • • •

  It had been hours now since Magda had gone to the royal apartments, bringing digitalis. Dismas and the Landsknechte sat, fretful.

  Noticing Dismas’s nervousness, Dürer said, “Dis. She knows what she’s doing. She’s a capable girl.”

  “But a beauty,” Cunrat said. “That’s what worries me.” Nutker and Unks made affirming grunts.

  Dismas did not want to contemplate this. He was in torment. He’d sent Magda alone into a den of ravening Italian lechery.

  “Come,” Dürer said. “Do you suppose the Duke of Urbino would commit indecencies—on a nun? A nun in the retinue of a count who is godson to the Emperor? Under the roof of his own host? Stop worrying, all of you. You’re like old women.”