Ariosto

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  “There have been, as you yourself have pointed out, assassinations in the German States. More than one person has plotted against the King of France and it is only a fluke that he is still alive; he has always learned of the danger in time and was able to avert the peril. That is because he has been willing to listen when advice was given him,” he added significantly. He permitted himself the tiniest smile as he watched Damiano’s apprehension.

  “You’re telling me that I may be killed.” He said it flatly and showed no fear. “That danger has existed most of my life.”

  “I merely warn you,” Cosimo de’ Medici said, with a little less confidence. “You’re fooling yourself if you think that you are safe.”

  “I have never thought that.” His tone was drier, and his smile was now condescending. “If this is to persuade me to see the advantage of having you my heir, you are not being very wise, cousin.”

  The Cardinale bristled visibly, which startled both Damiano and Lodovico. It was an indication of the depth of Cosimo’s feelings that he would forget himself so much. “I am protection, cousin. I am high in the Church and I have the ear of Clemente. I might be able to convince him that Spain should be left to herself.”

  “And knowing Clemente, you might not be able to. A very capricious man, my father’s cousin’s bastard.” He enjoyed Cosimo’s discomfort at his reminder of the Pope’s illegitimacy.

  Cosimo’s hands had closed into fists and the knuckles were white. “You are arrogant and prideful, Damiano. I will not forget this. Spurn my request if you dare. Willingly or unwillingly, you will have me after you. I am a staunch ally, and I am a formidable enemy.”

  “Arrogance and pride run in our family,” Damiano said with grim amusement. “Since we are being bald-faced now, I take leave to tell you, my Cousin, that I am convinced that you would be more destructive to la Federazione than plague and war together. If that draws the battleline, so be it. But while we are issuing warnings, let me warn you that, any attempt on your part to interfere with the running of the state will be met with the sternest rebuke I am capable of. I will have you detained in Roma as long as is necessary. Do not doubt that His Holiness will aid you. Remember that he was at Giovanni’s side when he was Leone the Tenth and la Federazione is as much his dream as it was Giovanni’s and Lorenzo’s. Endanger Italia Federata and you will find yourself in a monk’s cell. I would not want to do this. There are rifts enough in la Federazione without bringing family politics into it. Yet, should I learn that you are determined on this lunatic course, I will stop you.” There was no doubt that he was serious. His voice was even and matter-of-fact. His eyes met his cousin’s unflinchingly.

  “Very well.” Cosimo, Cardinale Medici rose. His face was chalky and about his mouth there appeared to be a white line. He could not entirely keep the tremor of rage from his words. “You execrable cur.” He was silent, as if readying himself for a vituperative tirade. His breath came quickly, hissing.

  Damiano did not move. One arm rested on the table, the other was extended negligently on the arm chair. His face was set into stern but calm authority. Impassively he studied his red-garbed second cousin, giving no response to the bitter obduracy that Cosimo divulged. When he was certain that the Cardinale would not launch another assault, he said, “If there is nothing else you wish to discuss, Eminenza…”

  Without a word, Cosimo di’ Medici turned on his heel and strode from the room.

  As the latch clicked, Damiano sighed, and brought his hands together. He sat looking abstractedly over his interlaced fingers. There was an isolation about him, a remoteness that jangled Lodovico’s already overwrought sensibilities.

  “Primàrio…” It was difficult now to think of this man as his friend, his patron; he was too separate, made an exile in his own country through the gravity of his office.

  “San Edigio,” don’t you start on me,” Damiano said in a voice so exhausted that Lodovico could hardly recognize it.

  His aversion, which had been increasing all through the terrible interview he had witnessed was replaced by a sudden, guilty rush of sympathy. “No. I won’t.” He should have realized that what Damiano had done was a performance, created especially for an audience of one–his second cousin. His attitudes, his aloof demeanor were assumed with the same skill and purpose an actor might choose to portray a King. Lodovico got out of his chair and went to stand beside the table where Damiano sat. Hesitantly he put a hand on Damiano’s shoulder. At that moment il Primàrio reminded Lodovico of Virginio in those days after his retreat from the same august Prince of the Church who had just left the library. The acrimony he had felt for Cosimo grew more intense. The Cardinale had left the effluvium of his malice on two of the men he treasured. That officer of God’s Church, he thought with vehemence, is a rapacious, pernicious reprobate. “Sodomite!” Lodovico whispered as his indignation grew.

  Damiano brought his head up sharply. “What did you call me?” There was sufficient apprehension in his manner to startle Lodovico.

  “Not you,” he protested. “The Cardinale. He read nothing in Damiano’s enigmatic expression, and decided impulsively to tell il Primàrio of what his kinsman had attempted. “My son…while he was here in Firenze not so long ago, attracted the Cardinale’s attention…”

  The telling was long and painful, with many awkward silences and sickening hesitations when Lodovico felt as if he were falling over a cliff or being drowned in a well. His mouth was dry and his tongue moved behind his teeth like a wooden paddle. Halfway through this shameful tale, he wished he could stop. He should have never begun, he told himself. He might well compromise his son, if any word of this conversation should become known. His eyes darted nervously about the room and he set his teeth.

  “Go on, Lodovico,” Damiano urged kindly. “I am familiar enough with Cosimo’s antics that you will not disgust me, I give you my word.”

  Lodovico very nearly blurted out that he feared not for Damiano but his son’s reputation, but for once he contained himself. He resumed the story, recalling the night arrival of Tancredi Scoglio.

  “Scoglio…” Damiano repeated. “He’s one of Benci’s lot, isn’t he?” He scowled at the flowers on the mantel. “My secretary should have taught the lad more discretion.”

  “But it was Benci who brought Virginio to the Cardinale’s attention,” Lodovico objected, letting his rancor show for once. “Benci does not like me. He wants to embarrass me. He’ll use my son if he has to, if he cannot compromise me directly.” He was foolish to say this, he knew he was foolish. Inwardly he cursed himself for this petty indulgence of spleen. He would destroy his credibility with Damiano, he was sure of it. At the least he would be returned to the villa at Fiesole, if he was fortunate enough to keep Damiano’s patronage at all.

  “Yes,” Damiano said calmly. “I’m aware of that. It’s not as extreme as you imagine, but it would take a man much blinder than I, to overlook battle between you two.”

  “But, then, why?…” Lodovico hoisted himself onto the table and tucked his legs under himself, tailor fashion.

  Damiano gave Lodovico a long, faintly sardonic stare. “As comforting as it might be to be counseled only by men who agree with each other and with me, I was taught from childhood on that a leader who insists on such sycophancy breeds his own ruin. It is unfortunate that Benci cannot see your virtues and your worth because he does not understand men who do for reasons other than political ones. You, to complement him, are not willing to tolerate his political talents. I am selfish enough to want both of you near me. Between you, I will keep on the path I must tread. Neither of you walks it, but without both of you, I fear I should quickly lose my way.”

  “But Virginio,” Lodovico began, and stopped quickly.

  “That I was not aware of,” Damiano said, his brow darkening anew. “I should have paid more attention. But as you have your differences and blindnesses with Benci, so I have them with Cosimo.” He propped his chin in his hand. “I’ll have to watch that mo
re closely, I fear.”

  “If it had been a minor matter,” Lodovico went on, chagrined. He thought that perhaps it would have been better to keep the matter to himself and trust that distance and time would favor Virginio.

  “This is not a minor matter. It is true it’s a very little thing, but if Cosimo is so indiscreet and audacious that he approaches young men who are not…available, then he must be watched.”

  Lodovico agreed and after a moment told Damiano the rest of it, not omitting the painful confrontation he had had with Virginio that brought the sordid matter to light. “I have faith that the worst that was damaged was Virginio’s vanity.”

  “You know,” Damiano said thoughtfully as he regarded Lodovico, “there are many fathers who would have told their sons to accept the Cardinale’s offer. A great deal of advantage is to be gained in such arrangements.”

  For a moment, Lodovico could not move. He was not sure he could breathe. Then, with a calm that startled and pleased him, he said, “There are such men, yes. I have heard you speak of them as despicable. I do not think I could ask my own child—my only child—to make himself a whore to his own ambition, or to mine.”

  “You struck home on that one,” Damiano acknowledged with a gesture. “It is true enough that I find such men contemptible. Whores are not lovers, certainly. But perhaps I’m too severe. I can’t point to my own sons with pride, so it may be that those fathers who guide their children into venality do well by them.” His expression was once again melancholy, introverted.

  In a desperate attempt to turn Damiano away from the reflections that were tormenting him, Lodovico said, “Would you prefer to see them parading with the catamites in Piazza delle Belle Donne? Think of Renato with his lips carmined and his hair dyed blond, arranged in curls.”

  Damiano’s painful chuckle stopped him. “You’ve made your point, Lodovico. Don’t belabor it, I beg of you.” He got to his feet and thrust his hands through his belt. “I need time. And I haven’t got time. I haven’t got the information I must have. The wolves are following my scent, I fear. But what wolves?” He stared away, through the windows, beyond the gardens and orchard and fortified walls.

  Lodovico got down from the table, noticing that his heel had scarred the fine wood. He buffed at it with his sleeve surreptitiously, but the mark remained, a silent reproach for his clumsiness.

  “Do you know Carmelo di Lozza?” Damiano asked suddenly.

  “No,” Lodovico answered, trying to place the name. “Who is he?”

  “He claims to be a prophet,” Damiano went on as if he had not heard Lodovico, “which I take leave to doubt. His parents were part of Savonarola’s sect before he was sent away. They were very strict, given to fasting and prayers and mystical dancing. That whole group was fanatically austere. No ornaments on the clothes or in the home. No luxury in food. No music that is not religious. No sport. No art. No jewelry. Carmelo falls into trances, they claim. I have heard the gibberish he speaks and it sounds no different to me than the raving of madmen. Yet he has a small devoted following.”

  “Why do you ask?” Lodovico was disturbed by the excessively religious. As a boy, reading the lives of the saints, he had been filled with the conviction that it was not zeal but vanity and unsound mind that provoked many of them to the outrageous acts credited to them. He had not been back in Firenze long enough to learn of this man, he decided, admitting also that he would not want to know too much of such a person as this Carmelo di Lozza.

  “Benci tells me that it’s becoming popular with the younger officials to attend this Carmelo’s meetings…” Damiano remarked, frowning.

  “Tell the Prior that you would rather he not allow…” Lodovico began only to be interrupted.

  “He’s not in any order. He claims to detest the profligacy of monks. Give him a pulpit and he might change his mind.” He drew his hands out of his belt and folded his arms. “What concerns me is that this man is full of praise for Cosimo. He has been saying that only a man in the Church is sufficiently wise and farsighted to be capable of leading la Federazione in a godly way. It would seem that he does not know my cousin well. Yet, he is certainly the Cardinale’s creature. Observe him for yourself, for after what I have learned today…”

  “Do you mean that you believe the Cardinale has corrupted this Carmelo di Lozza?” Lodovico was prepared to think ill of Cosimo de’ Medici, but was shocked, nonetheless.

  “Oh, no, nothing so blatant as that. Men like di Lozza are not corruptible. But they are manipulable. They can be used more successfully than the most contumelious rascal alive because men such as Carmelo di Lozza fancy themselves acolytes, servants of a great truth, and will endure anything for it, anything at all. If they can be convinced that such a man or such a group or such a nation will further their one great truth, they will follow that man or that group or that nation all the way to the gates of hell.” He cocked his head to the side as if listening to faint whisperings. “I wonder who convinced di Lozza that Cosimo de’ Medici serves the same truth that he does. For whoever that man is, he is a greater danger to me, to this state, than a dozen of Cosimo.”

  “Has anyone spoken with di Lozza?” He felt something stir in him, not quite worry, not quite anger.

  “Whom would he confide in?” Damiano asked wearily, meeting Lodovico’s eyes for a moment.

  Though Lodovico nodded, he wanted to ask Damiano why it was not possible to find someone who might persuade di Lozza that it was Cosimo, not Damiano, who was the more sinister man. He compromised, suggesting: “Do you think he would listen to me? You are my patron, there is no disguising that, and I am often in your company. But everyone knows that I am inept when it comes to politics. Under ordinary circumstances, our close association might turn against you, but if I tell him something of what passed between the Cardinale and my son, then he might not ignore what I say.”

  Damiano considered this. “I had planned to send Benci, but perhaps you are right.” He fiddled with the lacing on his sleeve. “Don’t force him to listen to you, Lodovico. Men like di Lozza won’t tolerate that. But if it turns out that there is opportunity…” He gave Lodovico a speculative scrutiny. “He disapproves of poetry; you know that.”

  “There are times I think that half the court disapproves of poetry,” Lodovico said, trying to make light of this remark.

  Unexpectedly, Damiano laughed. He put his hand on Lodovico’s shoulder, saying in an undertone, “Very well. See what you can learn from him. But it may be best not to discuss Virginio’s encounter with the Cardinale. Di Lozza might take a notion to denounce the boy, and that would be unfortunate.” He removed his hand and stepped back.

  “If that is what you wish, I will,” Lodovico said, and his heart was troubled.

  La Fantasia

  A stealthy hand parted the reeds; water lapped against the hiding place. There was a sudden lunge, a cry, a squawk, the rustle of feathers and hoarse quacks of consternation, a subdued shout of triumph and an insistent shushing.

  “We go two of them,” Massamo Fabroni announced in a loud, gravelly whisper that carried across the marshy backwater of the river as effectively as a shout.

  “There were more, but they’re gone,” Lodovico answered sharply, then as quickly relented. “It’s good that you caught them. Another five and we should have enough.”

  Massamo held up a large sack that moved and bulged most strangely, and a new sound arose from it, a distressed cackling. Massamo held up the two ducks that flapped in his hands. “I feel a damned whoreson fool, Ariosto, but if this is necessary…”

  Taking the sack from the Lanzi captain, Lodovico held the mouth open a moment while Massamo Fabroni thrust the two new ducks into it. The sack writhed and the sounds grew louder. “We’ll take these back anyway. If the others have fared as well, there should be ample ducks for all of us.”

  “The only place I would consider ducks ample is in a cookpot,” said Massamo as he slung the sack onto his shoulder. “Ducks, of all things. Ducks
!” He chortled and began to wade back toward firm ground.

  “Per grazie Dei, be careful,” Lodovico said sharply. It was dark and the way was hazardous. He had been given stem warnings from the Cérocchi and Pau Attan of the perils of the swamps. There were voracious serpents, deadlier than the asp, which waited in the tangled vegetation of the shore to surprise their victims. It was said that these snakes struck so quickly that there was almost no time for a cry before the venom rendered the unfortunate insensible, and the serpent dragged the body under the water so that it might consume its prey in comfort. Fumovisione had described a gigantic lizard, like the crocodiles of Egypt, which lay still on the water having the appearance of a log, which could tear a man in two.

  “Fables for children,” Massamo pronounced as Lodovico reiterated the warnings. “ Where are the lizards, tell me that?”

  “Far from here, I earnestly hope,” he said with a quiet laugh. “Indeed, I hope that all the monsters they have described to me so vividly prefer to stay abed at night and will not trouble us in any way.”

  “You’ve the right of it,” Massamo exclaimed. “The only monsters I want are the ones you can’t see.”

  “That’s another matter entirely,” Lodovico corrected him, suddenly serious, his chestnut eyes shining with somber determination. “The monsters you cannot see are immeasurably worse than those you can, for no matter how terrible, the visible ones can be fought. How do you battle an enemy you are unable to see? Where is it? What is it like? Where is it armed? Where are its weapons? How does it move? Whenever you face a man in battle, those are the things that save you, whether you think of them or not. Your mind takes note of such details and you are able to defeat the other soldier or demon or monster. I am often reminded of those brave, blind Kings who still went into battle and somehow found glory and victory. What great souls those valiant Kings possessed! I cannot think of them without humility. Who am I, who are any of us, in the face of such commitment and integrity?”