The King's Agent

by Donna Russo Morin

  Battista stepped behind the artist, wrapping his strong, protective arms over the man’s chest, leaning down to whisper in his ear, “Raphael will be remembered. You, caro mio, will be glorified. True compensation is far more satisfying.”

  Michelangelo rested his head onto the arms creating a shield about him, taking in all the succor offered. Aurelia stared at these men, their tenderness heartbreaking, their beauty a creation of God as surely as the masterpiece above them. How many people had the tools to create such masterpieces and simply refused them for their own misguided fears.

  “When Julius set me to the task, I knew it had been at the urging of others, those who would keep me from my chisel, those who would see me fail.”

  Aurelia wrenched her gaze from the ceiling to look at Michelangelo, needing to look him in the eye. “You triumphed, over them, over all. You created this, but this made you the grand master.”

  The hollows beneath the elder man’s eyes grew darker, a brush of fatigue painting his wrinkled face, and he stared at the nave before them, unwilling or unable to turn his gaze upward. “It was an ascension that felled me, I assure you.”

  They stood side by side in the narrow center aisle of the chapel, his voice a low guttural rumble echoing through the cavelike chamber. He told them of the long years of anguish and turmoil as he set about his task, beginning with the design of an appropriate scaffold, one that put no holes in the ceiling, as that proposed by Bramante would have done. Michelangelo spoke of his struggle with vertigo, the dizzying, nauseating condition that had assailed him since he was thirteen and working on the Santa Maria Novella.

  “How many times I vomited into a bucket through ... all this.” He waved his hand at the ceiling twenty meters over their heads. “It is a wonder I had any meat left on my bones.”

  “I have heard,” Aurelia whispered, bending now sideways from the waist as her neck grew fatigued, “that you were obliged to convince Pope Julius of your design.”

  Michelangelo laughed at her polite choice of words. “We argued like Crusader and infidel, I being the Crusader, of course. But to answer, yes, what I wanted went far beyond his original vision and I had to convince him to love it, though love it in the end he did. He interrupted me constantly, and constantly I had need to assure him.”

  The artist walked farther up the aisle, Battista passing him and continuing on, as Michelangelo gestured to the three horizontal tiers of the side walls. On his right, the muted tones of golds and blues detailed the stories of Christ as rendered by Pietro Perugino, Sandro Botticelli, Cosimo Rosselli, and Domenico Ghirlandaio. To the left, the south wall depicted the Story of Moses with the same diffused shades by the same artists, the paintings frescoed upon the middle tiers.

  “Julius wanted the Apostles to be adorned over these stories, simple renderings, one for each of the pendentives.”

  Aurelia stretched her neck once more to the triangular segments supporting the vaulted ceiling.

  “But there was far too much more of man’s spiritual journey to be said. There was too much space available in which to say it.” Michelangelo sat on the edge of a pew, elbows upon his knees, head in his hands. He recalled painful memories; they were there in every curve and bow of his slight body, the pleasure of the achievement muddied by the struggle of its creation.

  Aurelia moved not an inch, eyes locked upon the vision above as if locked upon Heaven itself. She could only imagine how such an achievement had drained so much of his energy—every creation kept a piece of its creator—and why he had failed to be productive for so many years afterward, his creative juices dried, the blood of it painted on this ceiling.

  “Is that—” The words tripped over her lips as she pointed to a particularly intriguing scene within a lunette, but Michelangelo stopped her.

  “There are more than three hundred figures above us, my dear. I would need many days to tell you of them all.” He reached for her hand, his affection tempering his glibness. “I am not sure it is meant to be taken as individual pieces, but as a whole. Yes, I could tell you that there are nine scenes from the book of Genesis. There are the Apostles and prophets, and the ancestors of Christ. But there have been so many who have analyzed the work.” He shook his head. “They try to wrench the spirit of it away with their academia.”

  Aurelia stepped closer, keeping his hand in hers as she stood beside him. “And tell me of the spirit, Michelangelo, of your spirit and your message.”

  He looked up at her and she almost staggered back at the wave of gratitude in his powerful gaze. It was as if no one had ever asked it of him, though he longed to tell.

  “Need,” he answered simply, a powerful, potent whisper. “Man’s need, of God, of salvation. It terrifies us and yet we pray for it with every morsel of our being. There is ...”

  He faltered, voice catching with emotion. “There is more, much more than I could ever, should ever, tell.”

  Wiping his face brusquely with the back of his hand, he looked back up at her, and held. He turned to the stone he loved so very much.

  All sadness and heartbreak, need and despair, disappeared, swept away as if wiped with a harsh cloth. His amber eyes bulged from sunken sockets, his throat bobbled up and down, swallow after dry swallow. Michelangelo stared at her ... at one of the renderings just beyond her face ... and back, again and again. His skin burst with red splotches. His hand trembled in hers.

  Aurelia dared not turn, dared not look at what he had seen; she had no need. She saw it in his face; he had seen something, something he had created with his own hand, but only just now—in that very instant as he looked upon her face—did he discover its meaning.

  She leaned down toward him, moving her head closer and into the fore of his vision.

  “You ... ,” he mumbled.

  Aurelia squeezed his hand tighter, a quick glance at Battista, who ambled near the altar a distance from them, a silent plea for Michelangelo, holding him with screaming silence. Slowly, Michelangelo closed his mouth, moving his other hand to cover hers with a rasp of his rough skin.

  Aurelia begged him softly, “You were speaking of things better left unsaid, secrets needing to be, that must always be, buried.”

  Battista turned round and headed back toward them from the east, just as a Swiss Guard creaked open the door in the west wall.

  The time for any more words ended. As he turned to the guard, Michelangelo twitched one eye at her. It was the vaguest sign of collusion but one she must hang on to, at least for now.

  A pall fell upon Battista at the sight of the soldier. Their day had been so filled with enchantment, but their truths lay just below the sound of gentle laughter, ever ready to end the pleasure of each moment. Was the guard there for him or Aurelia? Either possibility put him on the defense, and he checked his hip for his daggers with a slow nonchalant motion as he hurried back up the aisle.

  “Signore Buonarroti.” The guard offered a straight-backed, sharp nod as he approached.

  “Yes, young man?”

  “The pope graciously offers his hospitality to you and your guests.”

  “He does, does he?” Michelangelo looked to his companions with a half smirk hidden beneath his bushy facial hair. “Then we’d best not keep His Holiness waiting.”

  He held out his arm to Aurelia as they stepped away.

  Battista followed, fisted hands by his sides, his unspoken fears yet to be realized. He had thought it imprudent to visit the Vatican, held in the sway of a Medici, but had not been able to deny Aurelia a sight of the chapel or Michelangelo’s delight in showing it to her. That the pope knew of their presence after such a short length of time came as no surprise, though Battista had hoped—prayed—they would come and go long before his all-seeing eye fell upon them.

  Battista was no friend to the Medici, nor was the fact a secret; it had not been for quite some time, and as Aurelia tugged on her veil, pulling it down, covering as much of her face as possible, he wondered on her relationship with them as well. Or pe
rhaps it was the pope, as the master of the Church, whom she had no wish to encounter. It mattered naught, served only to exacerbate Battista’s apprehension.

  With another precise bow, the guard led them forward, halberd held tight by his side.

  “No, not that way.” Michelangelo stepped forward with his protest as the soldier took them through a smaller chapel, heading left. With a flapping, insistent hand, Michelangelo directed him to the right.

  Behind them, Aurelia raised her brows and her shoulders to Battista. Leaning down sideways, his hand on the small of her back, he whispered in her ear, “Raphael’s rooms.”

  Aurelia opened her mouth in a silent oh of acknowledgment, smiling at Michelangelo as he turned back, as they turned right and descended a series of stairs.

  Out into the bright sunlight, they passed a tall, square building on their left.

  “This is the Torre Borgia,” Michelangelo said. “The infamous pope used it as a refectory, is that not right?”

  “Sì.” The wide, protruding bones of the soldier’s hard face barely moved as he spoke, his dark eyes fixed firmly forward.

  They entered a large rectangular courtyard, one filled with people, terraces, fountains, and statues as well as plots of formal, sculptured gardens and angled stairs. A festive atmosphere lived in the air, one dictated by the beauty and sophistication of the setting.

  “Ah, so he is in the library,” Michelangelo murmured, not expecting, nor receiving, a reply.

  “You are in for a treat, my dear.” The artist offered again his arm to Aurelia. “You have mentioned your dedication to study. You will think you are in Heaven when you see this library. I hear at last count there are more than three thousand books, codices, and incunabula within these walls.”

  “Cannot be!” Aurelia cried, thunderstruck.

  “Sì, ’tis true,” Michelangelo assured her. “His Holiness, like so many before him, is a devoted scholar, and not just to works of the faith. You will see.”

  The guard held open one door of the large two-sided entrance and they stepped into a massive hallway, checkered marble tile upon the floor, delicate paintings of cream and blue, and soft umber upon the vaulted ceiling, the rows of columns, and their thick box-shaped bases.

  Within the column-formed arches stood rows and rows of shelves filled to capacity with books of every shape and size. Battista found occasion to smile as Aurelia breathed deep, closing her eyes in pleasure at the pungent scent of leather, parchment, and ink as if she were in a resplendent and redolent garden.

  Their heels clattered upon the tile, echoing in the quiet chamber. Here and there scapular-hooded novitiates and long-robed priests crossed their path, hovering silently through the hall, books in hand, academic specters intent on naught but gaining knowledge, vexed that any disturb their study.

  Stopping with a squeak of a leather-heeled boot on the slick floor, the guard turned, directing them to his right and into a small cubby of two-sided mahogany writing desks and thickly populated bookshelves.

  “His Holiness will be with you shortly.”

  The soldier tromped off, weapons jangling in the stillness.

  “I am not sure this is a good idea, Michelangelo,” Battista whispered brusquely. He paced the narrow length of the space, hands clasped behind his back, clenched tightly together. Peering out of the cubby to the long corridor trailing away in two directions, he watched for more soldiers as well as the presence of the pope himself, listening for the jangling of more weapons.

  “Nonsense,” Michelangelo waved off his friend’s caution, taking a turn about the room with far more relaxed leisure, studying the half-dozen paintings hanging in a tight pattern along the outside, windowless room. “If the pope were calling you forth to question your ... your activities, it would not take place in the library.”

  Battista scoffed at himself with critical amusement. “Quite right.”

  “Don’t forget, caro, you and the pope now have a mutual friend, sì? No, I’m sure this is no more than—”

  The artist’s words broke off like a dead branch in a vicious windstorm.

  “What is it?” Battista rushed to his friend’s side, Aurelia but a step behind.

  Michelangelo stood before a painting, a long vertical rectangle of dark grays and whites and blues. Upon the canvas, a walled castle stood on the edge of the ocean, gray stone harsh against brilliant white waves crashing upon it, spraying up to the third- and fourth-story loopholes. Circling the exterior of the fortress, a constricting snake winding about the main keep, a staircase spiraled upward. From the artist’s viewpoint, it appeared as if one could climb the staircase up to and into the twilight sky, one speckled with night’s first stars.

  Michelangelo’s slight, stiff body hummed with energy; it buffeted against Battista and he feared for his friend’s health, paying little regard to the painting. Until Michelangelo raised his hands to it, gnarled and shaking limbs hovering over the rendering.

  “Michelangelo?” Battista reached out and took the slim shoulders in his grasp, ready to shake them if he must.

  “ ‘I was pure and prepared to climb into the stars.’ ”

  “What?” Battista scolded with his apprehension, unable to hear the meaning of the artist’s words through his fear. “What are you saying?”

  “ ‘I was pure and prepared to climb into the stars,’ ” Michelangelo repeated, but with the same singsong voice that alarmed Battista for its peculiar articulation.

  “Dante,” Aurelia breathed.

  Battista cut his eyes at her; her dumbfounded stare now joined with Michelangelo’s upon the painting.

  He looked at it then, really looked, and in a rush the words made sense as Dante had spoken them, as he passed from Purgatory to Paradise in the Commedia. With one true glance, Battista noted the similarity to the castle in the Duccio, the last location on the map, the location of the last piece of the triptych.

  “Where is it?” Battista hissed, leaning between them, brusquely nudging them aside with his large form. “I can’t make out the signature.”

  Michelangelo shook his head. “Nor can I. But I know where this is.”

  “You do?” Battista heard Aurelia chorus the question.

  Michelangelo slapped his hands upon his forehead, head falling backward as he left them upon it. “Now I understand. The words stuck in my head, but I had no idea what they meant, only that I should know it.”

  Battista took a deep breath, summoning all the patience he could muster. Placing his hand once more upon his friend’s shoulder, he turned Michelangelo around with gentle insistence.

  “Slow down, Michelagnolo,” he hummed, plying the endearment given to the artist long ago by his father, one spoken only by the artist’s closest compatriots, hoping it would calm Michelangelo and allow him to focus. “Tell us from the beginning. Of what words do you speak?”

  Michelangelo’s vague stare focused sharply upon the face of his dear friend. “Earlier today, when I read the notice posted to the Pasquino. I found a sentence that had no place.”

  Battista skimmed a look to Aurelia and saw his own consternation; so many of the clues they had needed existed where none belonged.

  “It was yet another derisive commentary against the pope and his allying with the French king and yet, in the middle passage ...” Michelangelo brought his fingertips to his brow and rubbed, as if calling forth the words as one would tempt a genie from a bottle. “It spoke of calling the dragon to his home. I thought it complete nonsense, the ravings of a lunatic. And yet I could not forget it. The words have been in my head for the whole of the day. Someone intended for you to find the words, you or someone else.” He poked his temple as if it offended.

  “And those words.” Aurelia stepped into the crook of their entanglement, her body forming a triangle with theirs. “What do the words tell you of this picture?”

  Michelangelo turned with the most reverent of slight smiles. “I know where it is, donna mia. I know this castle. It is not far from
Florence, just to the north.” He looked back to Battista. “It is the Castello della Dragonara.”

  “The Cast—”

  “Ah, my dear Michelangelo, how dare you come to the Vatican and not say hello to me?”

  The pope barged toward them like a ship pulling into port, one with no anchor, his tall, wide body larger than life in the pure white sottana and mozetta covering every inch of his body. He tipped his head and the slim line of jewels trimming the white zucchetto upon his almost-bald head sparkled, as did his dark gaze. He held out his hand and the Anello Piscatorio to the artist.

  With a barely contained sigh, Michelangelo stepped up and, with a slight bow, brushed his lips across the Fisherman’s Ring, the same worn by every pope. The relief of pure yellow gold depicted St. Peter fishing from a boat, a reminder that all Apostles were “fishers of men.”

  “I meant no slight, Holy Father, I swear to you. I know how busy you are and had no wish to disturb you.” Michelangelo swept his gaze and his hand to his young companions. “We are here as tourists, no more.”

  Pope Clement laughed heartily. “You can never be a tourist here, Michelangelo, not anymore.” He turned to the others, keeping a smile upon his bearded face. “Ah, and this sturdy young man must be Battista della Palla, if I guess correctly.”

  “You do, Holy Father.” Battista dropped like a stone into a bow, reaching upward to kiss the offered ring, thoughts gnawing on how the pope came to know his name though they had never met. He straightened, catching the peculiar sight of Michelangelo squeezing Aurelia’s hand behind her back, a covert gesture. “Your palace is a testament to God Himself.”

  “As it is meant to be, my son. You and I have mutual friends, or so I am told, important friends.”

  There could be no doubt he referred to King François, and Battista relaxed a bit at the mention of the ruler. “It is true, Holiness. I have called him friend for many years.”

  “I would ask you of him,” the pope replied, turning his gaze upon Aurelia. “But first you must introduce me to this beautiful woman by your side. She is a mystery to me.”