On the day after the first session of the Council of Konstanz all those weeks before, Cossa had sent another warm letter to the Duke of Milan, inviting him personally to attend on the other nations of Europe at Konstanz and to dine with him on the second night after his arrival, whenever that would be. The answer carne swiftly from Milan. The young duke was highly honoured by the pope's gesture of friendship and hospitality and was resolved to attend Konstanz during the last week of january 1415.
The news seemed to, send a shock tremor through the episcopal palace. It halted the pope's participation in any of the business of the conference until he had gone over every detail of the vengeance he had been planning since the moment the news of Catherine Visconti's murder had crashed down upon him. He locked himself in a small study with me, Luigi Palo and Bernaba.
`When he comes here, we will have a superb dinner. I thought at first a dinner for twelve or so – many cardinals and some beautiful women – the finest wines – but now I think it will be better if it is a dinner for just three of us – Franco Ellera, the duke and me because that will flatter him more and put him more off his guard if he feels that the pope wants to honour him by, dining with him so intimately. We will dine, in the wine cellar of this palace. Very colourful and enormously convivial for such happy company. And soundproof. We will speak of his mother, of the turmoil in Milan since her death, and of superficial things. We will be charming. We will laugh and I will praise him. Then, when the dinner is done, I will begin to speak more closely about his mother's death' – Cossa sunk his face into his hands upon the table – `then I shall tell him how he is going to die.'
`How is he going to die?' Palo asked,
`You will break his bones and I will talk to him. Then we will leave him alone for the first night.'
Palo grinned.
`On the second night we will begin to open him up and pack the wounds with salt,' Cossa said.
`We will have to do it carefully or he won't last through the second night,' Palo said.
`It is too much,' I said. `This isn't vengeance, this is pleasure, Cossa. You have sickened me.'
`What would you do?' Cossa asked me hotly. `Just put' a knife in his heart?'
`An eye for an eye,' I said. `His mother died, peacefully and painlessly, So should he. He should be poisoned slowly enough for you to tell him you have done it and why you have done it and that he is the last Visconti.
`He must suffer!' Cossa shouted.
52
On the night of the second day after the Duke of Milan reached Konstanz, he arrived at the episcopal palace with an escort of thirty mounted men and two bodyguards for his dinner with the pope. While we waited for His Holiness to join us, I explained to the duke that the Holy Father had planned to honour him with a most intimate and unusual dinner – just the three of us in the wine cellar of the palace. The young man was enormously pleased. He dismissed his bodyguards and, when we were alone, I took him to the pope's inner study, a room which had been decorated with fine paintings, furniture and many books from the Vatican.
Visconti was a tall, pale young man with a large, fierce moustache, wearing light armour. I asked him to disarm himself, but the youth was reluctant. I had to make myself larger than life before his eyes. I told him it was an impossibility in such times of upheaval for anyone to enter the presence of the Holy Father bearing arms on his person. I glared into the young duke's eyes and the youth disarmed himself I wish there had been a mirror on the wall behind him so that I could have measured my effect, so dominating was it.
His Holiness entered the room. He was quite pale. He had to hold his hands together in his lap to keep them from: shaking. He was cordiality itself, if somewhat absent-minded about it, but he withheld the blessing. I pressed wine on our doomed young guest, and made little jokes which put the duke at ease. Cossa had agreed to use poison which Bernaba had obtained from the marchesa, telling her that a woman whose heart was being broken had need of it.
We had a magnificent dinner in the cellar. At the end of it Cossa said, 'I knew your mother.'
`She told me.'
Cossa's eyebrows shot up.
`She was my closest friend,' the duke said. `She wanted greatness from me.' She told me that you and she – that you had plans for Italy – that you were going to carry out my father's destiny.'
'Then why did you kill her?' Cossa asked him equably.
Perplexed, the young man stared at Cossa trying to comprehend what he had heard: `What did you say, Holiness? Kill her? I kill her' I loved her.' His answer was so genuine to me that I was shaken; but Cossa did not seem to hear him.
`You poisoned your mother,' Cossa said, `and tonight' you are going to die for that.'
The young man was a Visconti. He had had enough of threats. His arrogance assembled like a cold wind. `Charge me with the crime,' he said contemptuously. Accuse me directly so that I may understand you.'
`I am going to kill you because you poisoned your mother in the citadel of Milan in order that you might rule.' `I did not need to kill my mother to rule,' the youth said. `I am the only Duke of Milan – that in itself made me a ruler, You blackguard! I have put off meeting you for these years because you were shielding the true murderer.'
`What are you saying to me? What monstrous charge is that?'
`You know and I know who killed my mother. But the killer lives on at your side:'
`Who?' Cossa cried out.
`That woman – my father's assassin -'
`What woman?'
'The Marchesa di Artegiana!'
Cossa's eyes, changed from burning lights of righteousness, to confusion to dismay and then to blankness. He seemed to be witnessing the murder of Catherine Visconti in the tower and he could see the face of the murderer, a face beyond the young man, beyond the room.
`Assassin of your father?' he said stupidly.
`She poisoned my father at Pavia. Barbarelli knows that. Malatesta knows that Speak to them. They remain silent because of the protection you gave her.'
`The Marchesa?' his voice croaked as if in doubt, but his eyes said that he believed this truth. In all the warnings I had pressed upon him about Manovale, I had never wished this much pain upon him.
`She wrote to my mother and said she bore news from you. She asked to see my mother. I argued with my mother not to see her but she said the marchesa, with Cosimo di Medici, was your close adviser and that she had to be bringing your answer agreeing to lead our armies.'
`The Marchesa di Artegiana?' Cossa repeated, trying to convince himself
`My mother received the woman in the tower of the citadel where no one could eavesdrop on them. The next morning I was told that my mother was dead by poison. The woman had gone.'
`When she brought the news of your mother's death to me,' Cossa said, haggard with grief, `she, told me that word had come, from Milan that you had locked your mother in the tower and poisoned her.' He held out his hands imploringly. `Why did you not come to me and accuse this woman?'
`Had I gone to Bologna and you had confronted me with the woman, I would have killed her there. You would have executed me. Or, on that woman's evidence, you would have had me killed as a murderer, my word against the word of your counsellor. But I wait for her. She will not escape me. I will have vengeance on her.'
`The vengeance, is mine,' Cossa said dully. `I will take vengeance for the three of us,' His voice broke. `Most of all for your mother.'
When the Duke of Milan was gone, Cossa lay, upon his back on the floor of the wine cellar staring at the ornate ceiling, unable to move. He breathed deeply and slowly, and tried to think of anything except the marchesa, but that was not possible. He spoke to me in a low, monotonous voice. He could prove nothing. If he accused her, she would be warned that she was close to her death. She had tricked him into the papacy. She had robbed him of his right to live, out his destiny as a soldier and as the ruler of Italy. She had murdered the woman he had cherished, who thought only of his destiny. She was plott
ing his downfall with Sigismund and the Medici. But the even more bitter and inconsolable thought was that he had lost her on the day he had been trapped into becoming pope. Now she would be gone from him as soon as he could devise a punishment which would last far longer than a few days of agony – a punishment which would break her, hour upon hour, for all the years of her life, until death, when it came, would be a merciful thing.
53
All servants on the staffs of the pope and the marchesa, in their separate households, were people from Bernaba's home town of Bari. She had sponsored them, fed them, clothed them, trained them And paid them well. They were the friends of her childhood.
Bernaba spent the evening before her flight from Spina going over details of the administration of her businesses with two sharp-eyed courtesans who had been with her for nine years, the Angiorno sisters, twins – which had ser ed them well in their work. She spent well over an hour with her kinswoman, the marchesa's housekeeper Signora Melvini, wife of the Sicilian mime Alghieri Melvini, brother of the archdeacon, telling her how to organize the staff to listen alertly for any and all information and record the comings and goings at the marchesa's house, and how to gain access to the marchesa's written correspondence. All information she explained, was to go to me, each morning and evening without fail.
In the early hours of the next morning, Bernaba and I sat together as I wrote her letter for the marchesa. `Distinguished Lady,' the letter said. `I have received news that my mother is dying in Bari and is calling for me. Franco Ellera has made all arrangements for me to leave, Konstanz at, once with an escort and with a safe conduct from His Holiness. The Angiorno sisters are well briefed on my duties at our office and they understand` how to assist you in every way. Bari is a long way, but I shall return to Konstanz as soon as this sad experience permits. I press your hand, Bernaba.'
Cardinal Spina left his residence in the Haus zum Hohen Hirschen and was carried over the snow in a sedan chair to the marchesa's house in the Upper Minster Court beside the episcopal palace facing Wessenbergstrasse, at eight o'clock on the night of the day Bernaba had fled to Bologna. Signora Melvini showed him into the sitting room, where the marchesa awaited him. She rose to greet him warmly. `Eminence! You dear, dear, old friend,' she said. `We see each other so seldom.'
Cardinal Spina was in his late fifties with the eyes, skin and relentless expression of a sea turtle. His gaze was steady and dry, his hope not negotiable. There was a pleading urgency slipping towards madness in his expression.
The marchesa was fifty-four years old. Her hair was quite black now, as if it had never been blonde. Her face was utterly handsome – on account of the shapes of the bones which made it, but she was no longer beautiful because her glittering eyes had hardened beyond her control.
`Yes. We have been too much apart,' Spina said listlessly. `It is a pity.' Living with Bernaba’s ghost for thirty-five years, then having it exorcise itself, had changed his expression. The stealth had gone from his eyes: The whirlpool which had marked him as an intriguer and had won him such infamy for his deviousness had been washed out of his face by the force of his concentration upon his need to avenge his honour: The marchesa read these things and was pleased that she would be able to help him. They sat facing each other.
`Well?' Spina said. `You sent for me.'
'I can help you find Bernaba Minerbetti,' the marchesa said.
`Does the entire world know of my shame?' he cried out.
`No. Bernaba told Cossa and Cossa, seeking my counsel, told me.'
Spina made no effort to cover his jagged compulsion to rape, murder and mutilate. `Where is she?' he said harshly.
`For the time being she must rest where she is. I want to talk to you about the council.'
`Speak out;' he said.
`My bank has recommendations to make which must fall upon the right ears. You have the confidence of D'Ailly, who has the confidence of the French cardinals and theologians and princes, and the bank feels that these hold the solution to the future as it must evolve.'
`What has that to-do with Minerbetti?'
`What the bank asks from you, Eminence, in recognition of whatever service I may do for you, is that you, arrange for Cardinal D'Ailly and a French deputation to request a meeting with Cosimo di Medici in Konstanz.'
'How do you know' Bernaba Minerbetti?'
'From Bologna. She ran the courtesans there. She went to Bologna over thirty years ago with Baldassare Cossa, when he was sent there to study law.'
`Cossa!' Spina shouted. `He was the one! He pinned that note to me! Cossa was the boy who defiled me!' he shut his eyes tightly to impress that image upon his memory. 'How do you know this?’
'Bernaba told me.'
`Where is she?'
'If you arrange what the bank asks, you will be serving many important ends, Eminence. Your own interest first, of course, before all others.'
`You can deliver Bernaba to me?'
`I can, either tell you where she is or I can deliver her.' `How can you do that?'
'Eminence – she works for me.' 'In Konstanz?'
'You frightened her badly when you saw her from the procession yesterday. She was so frightened that she fled to Bari. She left me a letter saying that her mother was dying. But she won't go there. Bernaba is over fifty. Her mother is long dead.'
Spina pounded on the arm of the chair. `Then where is she?’
'The bank's needs come first, Eminence.’
"I will do it. Give me two days, then the Medici can expect a message from the French.'
`Bernaba will be in Bologna in six days' time but you cannot go to Bologna. You are needed in Konstanz and must be here,' 'You will bring her back?'
`If the meeting is held, yes.'
`Nothing must go wrong, with this,' he said.
After midnight, when she was sure the marchesa was asleep, Signora Melvini left the house by the servants' entrance and made her way through the town to the Broadlaube, five streets away, into Engelsongasse to my house, the deanery of Albrecht of Beutelsbach. I was waiting for her. We sat by the fire and drank warmed wine as she reported Cardinal Spina's visit to the marchesa. When I had heard her story, I dressed myself in warm outer garments and we walked to the cathedral area, where she returned inside the marchesa's house. I went into the episcopal palace.
Cossa was busy with his chamberlains when I came into the room. He concluded the business and sent them away.
I told him what had been said at the meeting of the marchesa and Spina. Cossa kept his eyes closed as he listened. There was a long moment before he was able to speak. `That is that,' he said. `She will not do any more harm.'
`She was only after 'the same thing you were. Always money, Cossa.'
`I got them money! I made her rich! I transformed the Medici into Croesus when I transferred the Church's banking to their bank' More than that-' At last he opened his eyes. `She is finished.' He clenched his hands before his face in the attitude of prayer. `And it will cost Cosimo, too. Who do we have inside Cosimo's household?''
`No one.'
`Use raw gold florins. Have Palo do the bribing.'
`Signora Melvini would be better. She knows all the servants in the principal houses here.'
`Good. She has two days to have, them ready and rehearsed. Her people must be in place in Cosimo's house to report on that meeting. Franco, please do not be distressed. We will protect Bernaba, but you must bring her back from Bologna. She will be our bait.'
`Where is she to go when she gets back?'
`To the marchesa, of course. Now in your letter to Bernaba, which must go out tonight, tell her that the marchesa's courier will bring her a message telling her to return and giving a plausible reason. There is nothing to worry ablaut. She will not be harmed. We will destroy them. Please, leave me and send the letter.'
54
Cosimo di Medici received the four prelates at his small elegant house, formerly the Haus zum Goldenen Backen, in the Bruckengasse off the
Minsterplatz. Attending him were Cardinals D'Ailly and Spina of France and Italy, Bishops, Weldon and Von Niem of England and Germany, and Chancellor Gerson of the University of Paris. They, were the leaders of the reform party which opposed the papal party in the council. They stood for the reorganization of the Church in its head and its members, for establishing a single true pope, for passing laws which would prevent a future schism, and for complete reform of the curia. Cosimo had always been happy for them to get their kind of reform as long as he got his: one pope, one obedience.
Cosimo made them welcome. He was forty-five years old, a man of enamelled kindness and enforced gentility. He spoke to them. `You may see me, because I am a banker, as being removed from
wonderment at the glory of our Church, but that is not the case. I agonize to save the Church and to smash the, schism within it, needs which can only be served through reform.'
Cardinal D'Ailly reassured him. 'If it should seem, dear sir, as if we do not need your counsel in matters of the spirit, the fact is that we must look to you for an explanation of the realities of this council.'
There was a low murmuring of approval from the other members.
They were all seated in chairs which described a general circle within the room. Spina breathed shallowly. Bishop Weldon wished for a sweet drink. Gerson, as always, seemed to be assembling his arguments. D'Ailly packed himself into the security of wondering how much money this man must have.
`At the outset,' Cosimo said, 'on the surface, it would appear that I am an Italian.'
The prelates smiled at his little joke.
`But, before I am an Italian, I am a European whose interests are alone the interests of Europe: to make Europe strong so that it may serve the Church. Man does not live by the Holy Spirit alone. He must have bread. The stability of the establishment which makes that bread, finances the distribution of that bread and provides that bread – and I am speaking of the European business community depends upon the end of the schism and the return of our Church to the leadership of a single pope.'
A Trembling Upon Rome Page 30
