A Trembling Upon Rome

by Richard Condon

  Cossa was urged to appoint Sigismund and certain cardinals as his proctors to carry through the abdication: He was supported by the Italian nation when he refused this. His refusal sent Sigismund into such a rage that he ordered the lake and city gates to be heavily guarded night and day to prevent anyone from leaving Konstanz. `He is toying with us,' Sigismund ranted. `He has no intention of keeping his word.'

  The next day he called a congregation to introduce the need for an immediate conclave to meet and elect a new pope for the Church, proclaiming in the most pointed way that he no longer considered Cossa to be pope. John of Nassau arose in wrath and shouted that, unless John XXIII were re-elected he would recognize no pope, but his worldly character matched the reputation of the Holy Father and lent no weight to the process. At a meeting of the council the following day, Bishop Buckley, speaking for the English nation, demanded, in the presence of the King of the Romans, that Cossa be arrested and imprisoned and, were, it not for the instinctive and implacable opposition of the French, this would have happened.

  That night, on Cossa's orders, I brought the Duke of Austria secretly to the papal palace. Frederick was, a tall, fat, florid man of Twenty years still young enough to believe that life, was an adventure and that intrigues brought power, He had readily made a lucrative deal with Cossa. The time had come for him to deliver,

  `I want to speak to you in an entirely tentative way,' the Holy Father said gently. `We must be prepared at all times, even though we may never need to carry out our plans. But that is what leadership is, isn't it, my son?'

  `You were twice the commander I could ever be, Holiness. I would give my, life to learn from you in all things.'

  `I bless you for that. First, I'd like you to get me a boat with a sail and keep it moored in readiness at Steckhorn – that's about five miles down the river from Ermatingen, they tell me just past the Gottlieben castle on the Rhine.'

  `Oh, I know Steckhorn, Holy Father. Steckhorn is in my dominion.'

  Ah. Yes.'

  `Are you really thinking of escape, Holiness?'

  `I cannot conceive that it could be necessary.' He paused and gazed sadly at the young man. `Although, if the English are able to dominate the council with their threats to burn me, I should have to try to escape then.'

  Should such a monstrous thing take place, you will ride out of this travesty at the centre of my two thousand horse.'

  'My Cardinal Ellera lives by one rule,' the pontiff said. "If you're always ready, you're always glad," he says.'

  `Yes. I see. By all means

  `If you will be ready, my son; Cossa said, `all Christendom will be glad.'

  When the fat young duke had gone, I brought Cossa a large parchment page. `This is what they are circulating throughout the nations today' I said

  Cossa examined the page without reading it. 'A fairly expensive job of scrollwork, I would say. How many copies?

  `Dozens. These things are nailed to the doors of every nation's meeting place. And every officer has one.'

  `Then someone has been working on this little move for weeks. Someone with money to burn. What does it say?'

  'Say? Oh, it merely accuses you of every mortal or abominable sin in the book and demands a public inquiry into your character.'

  'Sins? It is only because those glossy rats in the council are so well informed on the subject that they are able to define every mortal and abominable sin in the book. How can they expect mercy?' What have they charged me with?'

  `'Orgies, grand thefts and the commission of greater simonies than have ever been bled from Christendom.'

  'As if I could top Boniface.'

  `This is serious, Cossa. The misappropriation of Church funds is listed item by item.'

  `Decima did this. It took money and inside information.' He covered his face, with his hands. `She must be taken out of my way. She will be here tonight. God give me strength.'

  He knew that it was because this was the last time he would ever see her that she was more beautiful and charming than ever. But the exterior beauty, He could see, was there only to conceal the form of an ancient witch, long skilled in murder by poison and betrayal by lies. Her long, flame-coloured dress had sleeves buttoned to her wrists and a demurely high bodice. There were jewels in her hair. She was shining and womanly on the outside but a pit of horrors beneath. He must force himself to understand her as she truly was, I thought. He must see the truth of her and not be cheated by: her as she has cheated him throughout their time.

  Now that he held all the keys to the cipher her conspiracy with Spina, her murder of Catherine Visconti and her husband, the betrayal by Cosimo, the circulation of the charges against him to the nations – he could admire what a fine actress she was. ‘How long, has she pretended with me?' he wondered. Did she ever love me? Was she ever my friend?

  The marchesa had grown so accustomed to Cossa's taking her for granted as his closest adviser; and to his indifference to what was happening around him or what other people thought of him, that she was sure that he knew nothing about her many-level plots to bring him down. But she was also certain that, if he ever did know or found out, he would be the first to understand that it was only business which had set them against each other. She was even more fond of him now, at the brink of his overthrow, than she had been when they had been going up together. She knew, insofar as it could be measured, that, if she loved any man, she loved him. She had made Cosimo swear that whatever they or the council did to him – it could not be allowed to bring him any harm. Although she had persuaded Bishop Buckley to cry out twice that Cossa should be burned at the stake, that was merely a tactical position taken to force Cossa to make a wrong move and another way to harden opinion within the council. Cossa was her lover and, her friend, but the papacy was a business proposition.

  The marchesa was fond of Cossa, but she worked for the Medici. The great, schism in the Church meant nothing to her or to them except that it was bad for business. It was a sad fact to her that Cossa was replaceable; he could have been ten other men. He was pope and he had used his power to move the Church's banking to her employer's bank. He had called the Council of Konstanz to expand and protect that banking. Life was business and business was money and power. When this council, was over, she was going to use her money and her power to have herself made a duchess.

  They sat down to dinner. The marchesa served Cossa from a sideboard. They were alone.

  `I've missed you, Cossa,' she said.

  `We each have our duties,' he murmured.

  `All this will be over soon.'

  `Very soon.'

  `Sigismund has behaved badly. At Lodi he swore to be your defender.'

  `I can abide Sigismund. he is a bumpkin but I understand him. And, of course, he is an ambitious man.'

  But he needs money, I said to me self that, if Cossa could lend him the money, a new agreement could be reached which would make a vast improvement to his manners.'

  Cossa smiled. `Did you talk to him about it?'

  ‘Well, yes. Maria Louise mentioned it to him and he asked her to ask me to ask you for the money.’

  ‘You didn't actually speak to him' yourself?' `I did, actually.'

  `Then he retained you. You represent him?'

  She hesitated, but only for a short second. `Yes. Isn't it delicious? That he has to pay me to get you to help him.'

  ‘If we had had this conversation before we came to Konstanz, I would say that you were offering me good value – what with Sigismund being eloquent enough to divide the national delegations until perhaps, they grew tired and went home. But when I see from whom such an offer comes from yourself, indeed – I see a basket of vipers. I see no woman before me, only a cold and cunning mind and, because you recommend it, I shrink from it with horror.'

  `Cossa!' she said, with bewilderment `What are you saying?'

  `Why did you kill Catherine Visconti?'

  She did not hesitate. `Because if I had not you could have turned your back up
on the papacy to become a minor north-Italian warlord’

  `Did you murder Filargi?'

  `His time, had come. He was old but he was so holy that he could have gone on and on and on when I had vowed that only you should be pope.' She pulled her hand across her eyes. `I am so tired. I can't understand it.'

  `It will be at least ten minutes before you go into a deep sleep;' he said. `Your own potion is working on you. Bernaba was happy to procure it for me. Still, there will be-enough time for me to foretell your future for you.'

  `You have poisoned me? Foretell my future?'

  `Remember how you told Spina – just a few nights ago-that you doubted whether he – as-old as he is and as sick as he is – could ever enjoy his revenge, on Bernaba Minerbetti? – You could give her to him, you told him, but he would have to get her away somewhere. Then he would have to follow her wherever that was, if he were to have the pleasure of doing the things which he had been planning for her all her life but that was very complicated, you told him, and perhaps could even be dangerous for him.’

  'What are you saying, Cossa'' she said with fright. `Cossa! I love you. And you are wrong about everything you are thinking.'

  'Decima -look at this.' He produced a scroll from within his garments. He unrolled it and, leaving his chair, held it under her eyes so that she could read it. `It is the letter to my father which you had the stupid Fanfarone forge in my writing. Ah, forgive me. Your eyes may be getting too dim to read comfortably. Let me read the letter to you.

  "Dear Papa," it says. "You can help me and help the Holy Church by selling this woman at the slave market in Bari to work among, the Arab people whose language she does not speak." It has your deft touch Decima. It is brilliant. Then you laid out the route the wagons would follow to take poor, drugged Bernaba down the Rhone valley to Marseilles, thence by ship to my father on Procida. Well! You had it all so beautifully thought out that I am going to use that route and, your plan for you”

  She did not answer him. Her eyes, which had already begin to film over, burned into him. She was not able to move her body any longer, but her eyes were alive and wide with horror.

  `Stay awake for a bit, Decima,'. His Holiness said softly. Just a few more things you, must know. I have plans for your daughters as well, although, alas, nothing, I could plan for them would be as pitiless as your own notion of selling a friend in the Bari slave market. There won't be anyone alive to search for you. No one will care enough, when your daughters are dead, to bring you back from animal slavery.'

  She had fainted. Cossa called for me. `Are the Markgraf of Baden and his men in the courtyard?' he asked. I nodded, unable to speak.

  `I'll want a message from them from Valence and from Marseilles.'

  I lifted the marchesa into my arms. 'Bernaba thinks it would be better to kill her,' I said.

  `An easy thing for Bernaba to say, isn't it?' Cossa said. `She hasn't lost everything, has she?' He began to weep and turn away from me. I carried the marchesa's limp body out of the room.

  57

  After going, through the marchesa's wardrobe and setting to one side the garments which she felt would be of use to the women working for her business outside Konstanz, and after making the best choices from among the marchesa's jewels for herself, Bernaba rode at a gallop to the Petershausen monastery, having been passed out of the city by order of a good client, the commander of the military garrison, because she was going to the king's; headquarters. Rosa was with Maria Louise when Bernaba found them.

  `I am worried about your mother,' she said to them. `She went to dinner, as usual, with the pope, at one thirty, this morning, but she hasn't returned. Her bed hasn't been slept in.'

  Rosa and Maria Louise exchanged glances. `Mama has so much to do for His Holiness' Rosa said

  `If it were only that,' Bernaba said, `I wouldn't be troubling you. But her bodyguard – eight men – have disappeared. I went to the Holy Father this morning. He is upset about it. The marchesa left him at three o'clock, he said. He had his major-domo check the gate. She left with the bodyguard,'

  Mama does so much business -'

  'A letter arrived when I was with the pope this morning. I think she is being held for ransom.'

  `Ransom?'

  'We must do something,' Rosa said. `We'll go to Cosimo. I'll tell Pippo. Maria Louise, will bring the king down on them.'

  Please, no,' Bernaba said with alarm. `The letter told what must be done and if it is done she will be free tonight. They want a great sum of gold., The Holy Father will gladly pay that, he said. He must leave the city, the letter says, and go down the Rhine to the place they have appointed.'

  `How can he leave the city?' Maria Louise said. `The king has forbidden it.'

  `His Holiness said, "How can I not leave the city when she is in such danger?"

  `We will go with him. The guards at the city gates will recognize Maria Louise as the king's dear friend,' Rosa said.

  `More likely they will cheer you as Pippo's dear; friend,' Maria Louise said. 'We must go with Cossa. Mama will need us.'

  `I don't know about that,' Bernaba protested. `His Holiness didn't say anything about that.'

  'We will not be stayed, Bernaba. With the tournament on today,' no-one will know we have gone.'

  The tournament staged by Frederick of Austria at Cossa's urgent suggestion was the most glorious, spring festival Konstanz had ever seen. All the houses in the town were closed and everyone but the guards, the sick and the elderly had streamed out of the city past the Capuchin monastery to the lists on the site of the common ground, called Paradise, on the inner Userfeld.

  The lists themselves were sixty paces long by, forty paces in breadth. At either end stood the lodges of the combatants displaying their arms, banners and helmets. Frederick's lodge faced that of the other principal, combatant, Frederick, Count of Cilly. Facing the centre of the lists was the royal stand provided with semicircles of benches which rose in tiers one above the other, where sat, resplendent in the majesty of the Holy Roman Empire, King Sigismund – a perfect chevalier so crowd-proud in his bearing and the way it was being received that he did not think about where Maria Louise might be.

  Below the king, on the lowest tier, with the prize of the tourney on the cushion before her, Queen Barbara was leering at the young Tyrolese knight Tegen von Villanders, a peacock plume in his, hat and the Queen of Aragon's ring in his beard. Gathered round Sigismund were princes, dukes and dignitaries of the empire, with ambassadors and strangers of rank from every country of Europe and beyond, all glittering in costly garments. Facing, on the far side of the lists, was the pavilion for the citizens of Konstanz. Between lay the sanded battleground with a long barrier to separate the combatants as they tilted at one another. The tournament began in the early afternoon and would go on until stars came out in the sky.

  When the sisters reached the papal palace, they found Cossa dressed as a groom. He wore grey clothing with a grey shawl over his shoulders.

  'I thank God that you are here,' he said. `If I am to claim your mother, your escort will be sorely: needed to get out of the city.'

  I was guarding the heavy load of gold packed upon two horses in the courtyard, disguised as an old priest. When Cossa saw that the sisters were mounted, he held the halters of their horses and led them along the street to the south gate, wearing a crossbow slung across his back in the manner of a stable boy, while I led the two packhorses on foot to the rear We made our way through the Inselgasse then out by the Eselthurm and, leaving the old Benedictine cloister at the rubbish heaps, went along the, river. There had been no delay at the gate. The officer in charge had bowed low to the ladies when they showed their safe conducts signed by the king. He paid no attention to their stablehand or to me.

  Cossa mounted one of the packhorses when we reached the river and I climbed up on, the other. We rode past the castle at Gottlieben to the little village of Ermatingen on the Rhine, five miles from Konstanz. We halted at the house of the village pr
iest, who gave us water. We waited. Cossa told the women that we were waiting to be contacted by the marchesa's, abductors, but he was really waiting for Frederick, of Austria.

  A messenger named Ulrich Saldenhorn of Waltsew, who was a servant of the Duke of Austria, rode to the lists at the tournament and trotted sedately to Frederick's lodge. He secured his horse. He went to the duke and whispered in his helmeted ear, `The pope is free.' The duke was badly shaken by the news. He had vaguely expected it, always hoping against it, but Cossa had told him nothing and he had contributed little to the plan beyond his moral support and a boat. Now that the crisis had arrived, it had come at a most awkward time, just as Sigismund had succeeded in undermining the confidence of the duke's Swiss allies. He was unsure what to do. He had pledged his word to the pope and taken his money, but he had the growing feeling, that the, action would create irreconcilable enmity.

  He rode his last bout, against the young Count of Cilly for a wager of many jewels, was defeated and unhorsed, and dragged off the ground by his squires. He left the lists without attracting attention. He went into town to his rented house, Zu der Wannen, and sent for his, uncle, Count Hans von Lupfen, who refused to come. Instead, Lupfen dispatched his servant, the Lord High Steward, Hans von Diessenhofen, to deliver his master's flat words that, since the duke had started a thing like this without him, he could also finish it without him.

  'Do you have any, idea what you have done?' von Diessenhofen said with agitation.

  `Is it so bad, Hans?'

  `It is worse than that.'

  `What can I do? I have given my, word. I have taken his money.' `What has been begun must be loyally carried through. Here I am, my lord. I am with you.' They took three pages with them and rode out to Ermatingen through the Augustinet gate.