The Malice of Fortune

by Michael Ennis

  In the evening, before you slept and I went out, I would read Petrarch to you or tell you stories. That was what we were doing on our last night together—19 November, anno Domini 1502. I showed you this bronze medallion stamped with a portrait of Nero Claudius Caesar, about whom I recited tales I had read in Tacitus when I was little more than a girl. Hearing of his crimes, you gave Signor Nero a very stern look and wagged your finger at his engraved visage, telling him, “Even an emperor does not have lice … lice …”

  “An emperor does not have lice?” I asked, which made you frown like a German banker, so I said, “I think the word you are reaching for is license.”

  “Sì, Mama, license. Even an emperor does not have license to be so evil.” Your sweet cricket voice was so grave. “Therefore, we shall punish Signor Nero. No dessert! His sugared almond will be given to Ermes.”

  Do you remember Ermes, my eternal love? He was our darling Tenerife, who adored you as much as you adored him. When you said his name he wiggled his woolly rump and lapped at your precious hand with his little pink tongue.

  Camilla sat on the bed with us, sewing patches on her skirt. She was my dearest friend and most devoted servant, who took you on a journey to the piazza in front of Santa Maria every day, when I could not go out, and slept next to you every night, when darkness freed me to do my business. Your zia Camilla was not your real auntie, but she was my sister in everything but blood, and if one day I did not come home, I trusted her to keep you safe and see that you became a man. Thin as a birch and taller than I am, our sweet Camilla had a pale, grave face, her eyes and mouth dark smudges, which made her seem like a lovely ghost, though she was as strong as a Turk wrestler. She was born in Naples, and nature made her hair as raven-hued as I dye mine now.

  I could describe every detail of that tiny room in the Trastevere, my most adored and most precious son, yet I could never describe the love that surrounded you there. And now I have no greater fear than that we will become separated by an ocean of time, which no words can cross.

  Perhaps all you will remember of me is that I did not come back for you.

  An old Jew named Obadiah lived next door to us, above a noisy wineshop. He was a divine man, scarcely tall enough to look through a keyhole, who loved to discuss the works of Flavius Josephus and often arranged for me to purchase antiquities from dealers and cavatori—diggers—of his acquaintance. So when I heard the pounding on our ancient oak door, it was not at all remarkable to find Obadiah there, although I was surprised at his urgency. His face was always like a marvelous drawing on old parchment, all the lines carefully marked in sepia ink. Yet as I looked down at him peering around the side of our door, that yellowed parchment seemed to bleach out in an instant.

  The three men were in our house even before poor Obadiah could sag and fall to the ground; they made certain we saw their saber and stilettos. But you weren’t frightened, nor was Ermes, who rushed at them even before you did, barking like a woman screaming until the man with the saber swatted him with his blade and our precious dog flew against the wall like a bundle of wool. A heartbeat later you collided with this man’s legs and at once he clapped his hand to your mouth and directed the tip of his blade at your little belly. The invaders had entered without a word, but now this man, who had only one seeing eye—the other was like a poached egg—said with a coarse Neapolitan accent, “We’ll slit the boy like a November hog.”

  I wanted to say, “I don’t believe the man who sent you will permit you to kill his grandson.” But if your grandfather had sent these men, he was very shrewd, because they sufficiently resembled common thieves that I could not be certain they weren’t. So I had to say, “I’ll show you where my things are.”

  The second man came around behind me and shoved the wooden gag in my mouth; it is a miracle he did not knock out my teeth. He tied the leather cord behind my head so tight that the knot felt like the butt of a knife jammed into my skull. The wood sucked all the moisture from my tongue and I could only watch as the third man gagged Camilla. I will never forget the look in her eyes just before he pushed her down on the mattress.

  The one-eyed man had started out the door with you, clutching you to his breast, you kicking and flailing until he said, “Do you want me to kill your mama?” Though you were not even five years old, you were clever enough to at once cease your protest. And by then you could see the body of dear old Obadiah lying outside our door, his shirt sopping with blood as red as a cardinal’s hat. He had died trying to warn us.

  For my part, I bolted to the door, preferring to perish in pursuit of you than share our beloved Camilla’s fate. I was not forced back into the room; after the second man grabbed me by the hair, he proceeded to drag me alongside you and his accomplice, pricking his knife into my ribs whenever I struggled. The flock of chickens that roosted on the balcony next door clucked and chortled as we passed beneath them.

  It did not take us long to arrive at your grandfather’s residence, even though we circled around the back. As we came up through the garden mazes, the basilica and palazzo rose like mountains above us, lamps flickering in dozens of windows. Within moments we were inside that great edifice, glimpses of gilded furniture and new frescoes rushing past, the brightly colored patterns of the tapestries and Oriental rugs flying at me like confetti at Carnival. The entire establishment reeked of pleasure: smoldering censers, fresh orange and rose water, roasted meats, musk, wax candles, and spilled wine.

  Halfway through our passage two more men, hooded like monks, took you from your one-eyed captor. I could say nothing to you in farewell, merely issuing terrible, strangled sounds that nearly choked me, until I thought a merciful God would take me away. But of all the dwellings in this sinful world, our Immaculate Lord is least present in the house where you and I had just become captives.

  Light from an open doorway burst before me, as brilliant as fireworks. Laughter leapt out at me as mercilessly as Caesar’s assassins when he entered the senate. The room I was shoved into was the big sala reale, most of the floor transformed into a forest of brass lampstands. In a scene our Dante never thought to invent, two dozen or so women, on their hands and knees, crawled like pigs rooting for acorns, bare breasts swaying and naked white bottoms quivering, some squatting in an effort to retrieve the prizes—chestnuts—strewn upon the Turkish carpets. In accordance with the rules of the house, they were not allowed to use their hands or mouths—or even their toes.

  The master of that evening’s quaint ceremony was your grandfather, Rodrigo Borgia, though the rest of Christendom calls him il papa: Pope Alexander VI. His Holiness was seated upon the raised wooden dais, behind a table covered with cloth of gold, the saltcellars arrayed atop it in a symposium of miniature gold and silver gods and goddesses. The silvered sugar desserts, in the shapes of deer, dolphins, unicorns, and lions, crawled among the little deities like the disgorged cargo of some confectionary ark.

  As I was dragged toward the master of the house, the men at the table stared with eyes reddened from the smoke, not a jacket remaining on anyone—they were down to shirts and hose, or breeches, all those bald or tonsured heads glistening. Your grandfather’s white silk shirt was so wet that it had become a milky membrane, clinging to his great chest and sagging old-man’s breasts. His skull gleamed like a brass bowl, the rim of this vessel a fringe of gray-tipped chestnut hair that fell over his ears. I had not seen him in five years, but it was as if that time had been only an illusion.

  Leaning back in his immense gilt chair, he offered me his scrutiny, his pupils as black and empty as the holes drilled in a marble bust. He tilted his head slightly, his magnificent predator’s beak pointing the way back out.

  I did not have to be carried far, just around two corners. Once we entered your grandfather’s apartments, I even knew precisely which of these lavishly frescoed rooms would witness my travail. Called the Hall of Saints, it was empty save for a few chairs and sideboards; in the center remained a brazier, a small intarsia table, and a s
ingle armchair, upholstered in scarlet velvet embroidered with little gold bulls, the symbol of your family.

  Once I was tied upon this throne, I quickly received my first visitor, your grandfather’s master of artillery, Lorenzo Beheim—he of the treatises on dark magic and procedures to summon Satan. Beheim carried a wooden box such as physicians haul about. Placing this item on the table beside me, he opened it so that I could admire instruments that indeed looked like those used to explore the womb and extract a reluctant infant—tongs, hooks, picks, and pliers. As he brought the brazier closer, no doubt for his convenience when heating these devices, the reek of burning charcoal invaded my nostrils.

  Having completed these preparations, he left.

  Yet I was not entirely alone. The upper walls all around me were framed by massive gilded arches, and the painter Pinturicchio had filled each of the half-moon-shaped lunettes with tales of saints, their legends portrayed as extravagant ceremonies teeming with spectators. My chair had been placed so that I could look up at the lunette opposite the window, upon which the enormous Disputation of Saint Catherine of Alexandria had been painted in gorgeous peacock hues.

  This view allowed me to renew my acquaintance with some of your grandfather’s bastards. You see, Pinturicchio used all sorts of people at your grandfather’s court as models for the characters in this tale, though in the short years since he finished his labor, time and Fortune had altered so much about them. At the center of this glorious pageant was Saint Catherine, presenting her defense of the Christian faith to the Emperor Maximinus and his colloquy of scholars. Saint Catherine was a perfect likeness of your aunt Lucrezia, the present Duchess of Ferrara, her hair falling in flaxen waves, her puckered mouth as red as a cherry, her cerulean gaze fixed on a dream. This portrait was more real than life, because when I knew Lucrezia, if ever she was caught in a momentary thought, she would at once show her perfect teeth, a smile intended to draw one’s attention from the desperate hope in her eyes.

  In my worst fears, my darling, you have come to know Lucrezia’s expression; but if this is so, then perhaps you have an image in an imperfect mirror of your mama. Because it was often said, in those years when I was familiar with your family, that I looked enough like Madonna Lucrezia to be her older sister. I never thought so; your aunt’s nose was smaller, her forehead less broad, her eyes a lighter tint. But perhaps now I share with your aunt Lucrezia the same sorrowful hope.

  No less real than Lucrezia’s portrait were the two figures at opposite sides of the scene. Your grandfather had intended his most cherished son, Juan Borgia, the Duke of Gandia, to serve as the model for the Emperor Maximinus. But Pinturicchio’s vision had been less clouded by sentiment and he instead made another bastard son, Cesare Borgia, the face of this all-powerful sovereign. At the time the painting was done, Cesare had been twenty years old; he was still a cardinal of the Holy Roman Church and he still had his sister Lucrezia’s delicate beauty. Yet Pinturicchio had given him a peculiar gaze, the dark green eyes staring down and away, fixed on something that could not be bound within the picture, as if Cesare were peering into a realm even the painter could not imagine.

  Opposite Cesare, on the other end of the wall, Pinturicchio had placed Juan in the guise of a Turkish sultan, the sort of costume this most beloved son had indeed favored in life, a great linen turban around his head, his cape and loose trousers a tapestry of Oriental patterns. Juan was darker than his siblings—Cesare and Lucrezia are quite fair-complected—and in this portrait his gaze is predatory, a falcon’s angry yet wary stare. In life, if Juan ever looked thus, it was a pose.

  My meditation on those fleet years that “carry us to death’s sharp spear,” as Petrarch would say, was at last interrupted by your grandfather. Beheim at his side, still in his sweaty shirt, His Holiness wore only sagging hose and scarlet slippers, the better to display his legs, which were still sturdy and well-shaped. He advanced to me with the graceful step of a much younger man, toes out as if his dance master were watching. Only when he was close enough to touch me could I see how much he had aged—the liver spots, the thin skin stretched taut over the great obstinate hump of his nose. But his lips were luxurious as ever, pursed delicately, as if he had just sipped a particularly fine wine and was trying to get the taste of it.

  He nodded at Beheim, who removed a knife from the physician’s box. I prayed for a quick end. But Beheim simply cut the cord that held my gag. My mouth was so dry that I couldn’t spit out the wooden plug. Employing the point of his knife, Beheim gouged it loose.

  Your grandfather leaned forward and stared at me with those obsidian eyes. “Damiata. I always knew where you were.” His voice was deep but his words hissed a bit, a whisper of his Spanish ancestry, even though the Borgia family—your family, carissimo—has been in Italy for generations. The snake in the grass. Or the serpent in the tree.

  His fingers flicked at my hair; this gesture was not a caress but that of a stableboy examining the mane of a sick horse. “Dyeing your hair, hiding in some Jew’s tavern …” He shook his head wearily. “I could have come for you at any time. Each breath you have taken in the last five years has been at my indulgence.”

  “You are the prince of indulgences, are you not?” I said. Your grandfather sold forgiveness from the altars of his churches like a whore selling candles on the street corner; the only crimes he would not pardon for a price were those against his person, or in aid of the Turk. “Perhaps you can even afford to absolve yourself. You murdered a blameless, dear old man at my house tonight. And your grandson’s dear little pet.” I did not want to tempt Fortune by speculating on Camilla’s fate.

  I thought he would strike me. Instead he turned his back and looked up at Juan, the alla turca Duke of Gandia, as if beseeching this most cherished son to restore the flesh to his own moldering bones. After a time your grandfather’s heavy shoulders sagged and he turned his attention to the prophetic image of the son who yet lived: the Cesare Borgia who is now, as I write this, captain general of the armies of the Holy Roman Church, famed throughout Christendom as Valentino, Duke of the Romagna, the prodigy who threw off his cardinal’s cap for a warrior’s helmet, the vanquisher of tyrants and the savior of all Italy. The son who will enable your grandfather, His Holiness Pope Alexander VI, to conquer the Kingdoms of the World without rising from the Heavenly Throne of Saint Peter. Perhaps by the time you read this, that papal empire will have grown far beyond its present boundaries, to spread from the heart of Italy across Europe.

  Indeed, if all my present fears come to pass, perhaps Fortune has already made you heir to that empire. But if that is so, then the Borgia have told you nothing about me but lies, save where the truth is worse.

  At last your grandfather interrupted his own meditation. “Juan was going to your house the night he was murdered. You alone were privy to that. You alone could have informed someone else.”

  I had sat at this pope’s table often enough, and had observed his methods sufficiently, to know how well he crafted false accusations from undeniable fact. Having anticipated such an interrogation for more than five years, I replied, “If you are claiming that I betrayed Juan by revealing his route to my house that night, God and the Holy Mother know that it was far easier for his murderers to follow him from his mother’s house near the Esquiline, where he had dined, as half of Rome knew. And you know as well as any man that the Orsini and the Vitelli had their knives out for him. They are the very condottieri who would profit most if the Borgia were erased from the earth.”

  Now, I should explain that we Italians have for several generations placed the very survival of our various states and principalities in the hands of these condottieri, a brotherhood of mercenary generals whose bands of thugs carry out, for a very dear price, the martial tasks the French king would assign to a vast army of men in permanent service, led by nobles who have sworn allegiance to him. Here in Italy, however, it is our fashion to hire the agents of our own destruction. These “soldiers of fortune” str
ut about like pimps in their suits of engraved armor, waging phony war among themselves only to pillage the livelihoods of helpless peasants, transferring their allegiances to whoever will offer the fattest contract. And the two families presently in command of this blood-sucking cabal are the Orsini and the Vitelli.

  “You made Juan the captain general of the Holy Roman Church,” I accused my accuser. “An office for which he was entirely unsuited and which he in no way desired. And it was you who directed poor Juan to throw his soldiers into one hopeless assault after another on the Orsini fortresses around Rome, which were defended all the better by troops under the command of the Vitelli. Even a cloistered nun could have seen that Juan’s assassins were Orsini or Vitelli. Or both. But you did not pursue them, did you, Holiness?” If I expected an answer, it was not forthcoming. “You were too weak to reckon with your own son’s murderers. Instead you made use of them.”

  My meaning was clear to him, though perhaps it will not be to you. The popes who preceded your grandfather had surrendered much of the Church’s earthly domain, which at present occupies the entire middle of Italy and is known as the Papal States, to a host of tyrants large and small. Without the assistance of the Orsini and Vitelli, your grandfather and Duke Valentino could only dream of defeating this confederacy of despots. So they hired their former enemies, subordinating these condottieri to Valentino’s bold and clever command, and were thus able to reclaim the Papal States with a swiftness that inspired awe throughout Europe; we heard of these victories even in the half-buried alleys of the Trastevere. That is why your grandfather, having no wish to implicate his allies, found it far more convenient to accuse me. I had no soldiers for His Holiness to hire.