Glorious Ones (4 page)

“Who are they?” demanded Vittoria, strutting and ruffling her feathers like a fat turkey. “What do they want?”

“They’re Protestants,” spat Flaminio, as if he’d suddenly become the great defender of the faith.

“Do they want us to perform for
them
?” asked Vittoria.

“They want us to do our most gruesome death scenes,” replied Flaminio. “They want our heads to go on tour, at the ends of pikes, as a little morality play about their country’s decadence.”

It was then that The Glorious Ones went crazy with fear. That cowardly Jew Pantalone sat alone in a far corner of the cave, hugging himself and shivering. The Doctor kept rushing towards the mouth of the cavern, scanning the sky and insisting that it was essential for his research to know the exact position of the sun. And Vittoria paraded back and forth, making a great show of indignation, flashing her breasts at our jailers as if the mere sight of that pimply flesh would turn the Huguenots into panting adolescents.

If Isabella had been there, we’d have been free in an instant. She’d have bewitched those guards, had them talking about their wives and children; she’d have serenaded them with poetry so sweet that the tears would have blinded their eyes. But Vittoria was the lady of the troupe then. It was a different story. All she did was make everyone sick.’

At last, I lost patience with the whole situation. “Hey!” I shouted, poking Francesco Andreini. “Look at that Captain of ours over there! Instead of getting us out of this mess, he’s quaking in his boots, because Vittoria’s being mean to him. Why not take over, Andreini, and keep us from rotting in here like rats in a trap? That feeble old man’s unfit to be our leader!”

Andreini looked at the Captain, then back at me. “Flaminio is not yet thirty,” he replied, in that confident, maddening way of his. “He’s hardly what you might call feeble. I’m still willing to trust him.”

That’s the kind of bastard Francesco Andreini was! He left me standing there, looking bad, dirty-handed, the only traitor in the loyal band. But he knew I was right—not five minutes later, he walked quietly towards the entrance, and beckoned to the Huguenot leader.

From inside the cave, we watched Andreini, drooping over the Frenchman. Francesco was skinny as a rail in those days; beneath that halo of light, curly hair, he looked like a sunflower. He argued for almost an hour, gesturing, like a natural-born Frenchman, with those long, spidery hands.

At last, the commander nodded, and Francesco reentered the cave. And at that moment, when I saw the hot look Vittoria gave him, I knew that Francesco Andreini had begun to direct another nasty little drama.

Flaminio, too, saw that look on her face. “What happened?” he asked, playing that cowardly role which came to him so naturally.

“In three days,” Andreini replied, “we will be free.”

“Dead or alive?” asked the Captain.

“Exactly,” snapped Francesco. “Dead or alive.”

After a brief pause, he continued. “I have persuaded the Huguenots that their interests might be better served if they allowed the French king to ransom us for a small fortune. They have sent a courier to Blois. And, in seventy-two hours, we will learn of the royal decision.”

“You’re not so clever, Andreini,” I shouted, enraged by the smugness on his big moon-face. “You just know how to reach that greedy pig hidden inside of everyone.”

Francesco only smiled at me, in a way which made me want to strangle him. Then, he sat down to wait.

And, for the first time, we followed his lead. Sitting and sleeping on the cold ground, we waited out the long three days. What else was there to do?

All that time, Francesco Andreini remained calm. He never grew restless, no matter how loudly those cowardly actors whimpered and moaned—nor did he move a muscle at the end, when the sight of that messenger riding up with twenty sacks of gold made those fools jump up and crack their skulls against the roof of the cave.

Andreini’s calmness surprised me; I’d thought
I
was the only brave one in the bunch. But, as we gathered our things and prepared to leave the cave, Andreini did something which surprised me even more.

“Wait!” he cried, blocking the entrance with his long arms. “Perhaps Brighella was right. Perhaps I should be the one to take the first steps out of here.”

We froze in our tracks; our mouths hung open. In those days, we never imagined that Andreini would seriously consider such a thing. Even when I’d suggested it, I’d been joking; I didn’t mean it.

Flaminio was facing outwards, towards the light. He straightened his shoulders, and, without turning around, began to speak.

“If you still intend to perform before the King of France next week,” he said, “I suggest that you remain beneath the leadership of the most talented actor, director, stagehand, musician, and singer among you. Unless you desire to disgrace yourselves before royalty, I suggest that you stay beneath the brilliant command of Flaminio Seal a, leader of The Glorious Ones.”

That coward Andreini bowed his head, and motioned for us to precede him from the cave. But, as I brushed past him, I looked into his eyes, and realized that the drama he’d begun in that cave was not yet over.

Two days later, we were perfumed so sweetly that we couldn’t have offended a single hair in the French king’s snotty nostril. No one could have told that we’d just spent all that time encrusted with shit and mud. We sparkled like angels dropped in from heaven—and that was exactly what those French aborigines thought we were!

God, what jackasses they made of themselves, banging their goblets against the table and screaming. I couldn’t find a joke too dirty for them; I couldn’t play a prank too nasty for their refined tastes. They were at us all the time, those filthy lechers—refilling the women’s wineglasses, patting their backsides. Their wives bent over backwards, luring us up to their rooms. Even the king was in on it—trying to peer down Vittoria’s bodice, getting eyestrain; you’d have thought they were the only breasts in all France. And how could I forget those senile old retainers who crowded around us, those doddering half-wits who asked if our stage effects were in fact great feats of magic?

Feats of magic! Those were the geniuses of the French court! No wonder the country was in such bad shape!

Still, I must admit: Flaminio outdid himself that week we spent at Blois. All those fancy devices he invented—the dancing moon, the raging flood, the flying lovers. I sweated blood, pulling the ropes on those pasteboard pirate galleons!

He himself was always strutting like a gander, declaiming like an arrogant fool. He exaggerated all the worst aspects of the Captain’s part. His boastful leadership was so outrageous that, by comparison, the French king seemed as wise and prudent a monarch as the Lord Himself.

The courtiers loved it. And each day Flaminio grew fatter, more bloated with success and pride, until we took to calling him “The Pope.”

The Pope! Some joke! We had no idea what we were saying, we should have knocked on wood! Because, on the eighth day of our stay, the real thing showed up!

He called himself the Cardinal, the Monseigneur—who can keep track of the fancy names those French monks take on? He was a thin, balding, ugly fellow; he minced and pranced like a billy goat on his way across the room. But, as he moved towards the king, each tap of his high heels sounded like the crack of doom.

Right then, I knew the whole story. It was a feeling I remembered from the old days, when I was always on the run: someone enters the room, and you know that there’s trouble, and the trouble means you.

“Flaminio Scala!” I hissed. “This play is just about over!”

Just as I’d predicted, the Cardinal leaned down, and whispered in the king’s ear. The king’s dumb face twitched with confusion. Then, he rose and followed the priest out the door.

A moment later, the king returned, grinning sheepishly. “Tonight,” he said, pointing towards the door.

“You mean we should discontinue our performance until tonight?” asked the Captain.

“I mean you should leave my court tonight,” replied the king, with a silly, helpless shrug. “The Church of France disapproves of the theater in general, of your lewdness in particular. Therefore, you are expected to be on the other side of the border within ten days.”

“My beloved Sovereign!” cried Flaminio, racing towards the throne. “I cannot believe that the most equitable and enlightened ruler in all Christendom could do us such a grave injustice! We meant no harm, I assure you. We were only trying to please. And I was actually under the impression—correct me, my lord, if I am wrong—that we had managed to amuse you.

“Why, then, should a leader of your boundless generosity reward us so poorly? Is it possible that our good-natured vulgarity has offended the spotless purity of your ladies? Were our songs too loud for you, our dances too sensual, our jokes too coarse? If so, I. apologize, Your Majesty. And, from the depths of my contrition, I implore you to consider our humble and inconvenient position.

“It will require at least five days for us to gather together our equipment. And it was my dearest hope—surely this cannot disturb your pious and holy churchmen—that you Would allow us to perform for several weeks in the towns and cities of your glorious land, so that we might gain a few extra pennies to help defray the costs of our journey.”

After five minutes of this disgusting display, even Flaminio realized that the king wasn’t listening. The Captain turned his back on the throne, and walked towards the door. His eyes were downcast. As he passed the stage, he couldn’t look at us. I cleared my throat and spat, right in his path. But an ocean of my spit couldn’t have conveyed half the contempt on Francesco Andreini’s face.

Needless to say, the journey home made the trip out seem sweeter than crossing the Jordan. No one smiled, no one laughed, no one even talked except Vittoria, who harangued the Captain mercilessly. During the day, Flaminio stared straight ahead; as soon as we reached the inns, he rushed off to bed. The Captain still rode in front, but Andreini had moved to the very back; riding between them, the rest of us almost choked on the thickness in the air.

Poor crazy Flaminio! Even I almost pitied him. “He’s finished now,” I thought. “His job is free for the asking. These actors would follow Peter the Hermit, if he came along preaching another crusade.”

But late one night, at an inn just south of Turin, something happened which made me suspect that the old lunatic still had a few clever tricks up his sleeve.

It was after a dinner of foul, greasy broth. We were all grumpy, waiting to digest that slop so we could go to bed. That evening, for the first time since Blois, Flaminio didn’t go straight to sleep. Instead, he walked over to the fireplace, then wheeled around to face us.

“My dearest Glorious Ones,” he began. “It is my proposal that we return to Venice. And there, amid the comforts of that lovely city, we shall decide the future of our troupe. But, before that, I would like to give one last performance, tomorrow morning, at a spot not far from here.”

“Why, Captain?” shouted Vittoria. “So you can kiss the ass of one last nobleman?”

The Captain threw her an accusing look. “There will be no noblemen in the audience,” he replied. “I would like us to perform before a crowd of poor, deprived innocents, at the local convent orphanage.”

It took me two seconds to figure out what that filthy blasphemer had in mind. “Flaminio!” I cried. “You’re like an open casket. We can see inside you, straight to all the rot and putrefaction in your soul. I understand your plan perfectly. You’ll do anything to revenge yourself on the church. You’ll corrupt babies, molest little children, scandalize a convent full of blameless nuns. That’s your idea, isn’t it—to pay back those pious friars, to make yourself our hero, our avenger, the upholder of our honor?”

“Not at all,” he replied. “I have no more interest in being your hero, or even your leader. The only thing which concerns me now is the prospect of making my peace with God. I have suddenly come to understand why He has cursed me so cruelly, why my luck has grown so bad. For, if each of my sins were a single grain of sand, the Sahara would seem like a narrow shoal compared to the vast desert which would separate me from the Blessed Lord.

“And now, I am hoping that this small act of piety,
this
pitiful performance in the name of charity, will persuade Him to turn His face towards me across the burning wasteland.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Captain,” muttered Vittoria. “Only in your wildest dreams have you sinned so often.”

Ah, Vittoria. At moments like that, I almost liked her. For a moment, Flaminio’s eyes narrowed with cowardice. Then, they widened again, and began to glow with a peculiar light.

“What kind of man do you think I am?” he cried. “What good would it do me to be known as a great sinner? Why should I want that? Don’t you realize how serious I am, how I’d do anything on earth for a clear conscience, how desperately I hunger for spiritual peace?”

“The only thing you hunger for is Vittoria’s ass!” I shouted.

But I was the only one speaking. The others had fallen silent; and, as I followed their bug-eyed stares, I saw what had made them so quiet.

Even with my razor-sharp wit, I can hardly describe or explain it. But after it was over, and we discussed it, the actors agreed that we’d all seen the same thing:

The bright lights came on in Flaminio’s eyes, as if they were a theater. And there, on the stage inside those gleaming discs, we saw the Play of the Prodigal Son, with Flaminio Scala in the title role. We saw him squander his father’s money, break his mother’s heart. We saw him traveling, gambling, whoring, drinking, smoking opium. We saw the anguish which tortured him near the end, and the sweet smile of contentment which came over his face when at last his father pardoned him. And we heard the words of the Bible, “Forgive, that you may be forgiven.”

To this day, I don’t know if Flaminio Scala bewitched us that night, or if it was actually another miracle in my long career of wonders. But those other dimwits weren’t so concerned with fine spiritual distinctions.