To Lie with Lions (35 page)

It was raining in Rome. Once, he had found the city exciting. Slowly, after the return of the Popes from Avignon, the new houses and mansions, inns and villas, fountains and stalls had begun to cluster again round the bridges, and the two principal roads to Ostia and the north. Some of the converted palaces stayed the same, but churches were acquiring new faces, and costly and elegant buildings were rising now for the Roman nobles, the Cardinals, the Conservators and the municipal authorities, with fine gardens and salons and halls where precious things could be displayed. Only a few months
ago, Jan and his father had been shown the Pope’s own collection in the Palazzo San Marco: the gems and medals and bronzes and cameos; the twenty-five charming altars with their mosaics; the jewelled vestments and ivories; the hundred gold coins, the thousand silver; the modern arras from Flanders; and the golden vases commissioned from Florence. It was said that he had offered to build a new bridge for Toulouse in exchange for a cameo.

All that had been the Pope’s. When, only this January, Jan had received the news, kneeling, that a post would be his with the Cardinal of San Marco, his future had seemed brilliantly assured. He would live in the Palazzo. The ceremonies of the Vatican, glittering and ornate, confirmed the promise of a career that – provided he now kept his head – might astonish and humble his father. The whole city seemed ready to blossom. St Peter’s itself had acquired a flight of new marble steps, magnificent statues. There was no end to what might be going to happen.

Then the Pope died. Life continued. Building continued. But now Jan remembered more clearly the other aspect of Rome which had been forced on him by his antiquarian father, who had dragged him remorselessly from Colosseum to Forum, from arch to pillar, from towering baths to underground tombs. Looked at thus, Rome was no more than a stackyard: a hilly wilderness of rough grass and cracked stone within a circle of walls far too big for it. Most of the ruins had been quarried, the shapes of theatre or temple half lost and the bricks exposed, thin and reddish under the marble. Incinerated marble offered a rich profit in lime: they had discovered as much in Alexandria.

From the heights, its towers foreshortened, its gardens concealed, the Eternal City looked neglected and pagan; a place of marshes and mounds choked with sanctified offerings, its surface pitted and pustuled with domes, circles and crescents; home to robbers and beggars, where packs of dogs strayed and animals rooted even as far as the old Ponte Rotto, and dead men were found every day. That was the country inside the walls, where rich men might wall off a vineyard or a well-protected villa near to the jetty for Ostia. For business, one had to stay in the crowded part, even though two riders could scarcely find room to pass in some of the unpaved, crooked lanes.

Strangers entering Rome, however, would see only what was impressive. Here, the wider roads, although only surfaced with dirt, led between tall houses whose porticos admitted glimpses of green, handsome courtyards. From time to time they would open into wide flowered spaces round a church or a monastery, or a piazza where the
Cardinals’ houses were hung with paintings and tapestry, and the streets were laid with fine carpets on feast days. Once, it had seemed very fine. Now, he was afraid to think anything.

He delivered Patrick Graham and his servants to the Scots house and fled, as he had explained that he must, to the hospice of the French nation. It was untrue that he had arranged to live there: he had to pay extra before they would take him. His father had expected him to stay with the Bishop. He couldn’t stand any more. He wanted to speak the French they all spoke at home, a reminder of Paris, the happiest time of his life.

It was bitter, then, to find there no one that he knew; no one who had travelled as he had. The young men were moved to remark on his beard, the sacred mark of the pilgrim; two years in growing, and carefully kept to impress the late Pope’s nephew, the Cardinal Barbo. They asked, open-eyed, if sheeps’ eyes could be chewed, or gave you a fright the next day in the chamber pot. They enquired whether Arab wives kept their veils on before and during the act, and who shaved them. They wished to know how his cousin pissed, dressed as a boy. They put something into his ale, and after he had been sick, slapped his back and told him he was one of them now, and tried to take him off for a night in a bawdy house.

Sallow and shaky, he took his letters at first light to the wonderful Palazzo San Marco, and left them with the Cardinal’s chamberlain. He had hoped to be invited inside: his father had written already, and the Cardinal might have expected him. But His Eminence, said the chamberlain, was much occupied, and it might take some time to arrange an appointment. He trusted that Signor Adorno was in no haste to leave Rome.

It was dispiriting. He wandered about in the rain, avoiding the houses his father knew. When he had braced himself to return to the hostel, striding in and slamming the door like a magistrate, it was to find the parlour empty but for a well-built middle-aged man in fine clothes whose slanting eyes and classical cheek-bones he remembered at once. Jan Adorne froze.

‘I startled you,’ said the Banco di Niccolò’s notary Julius. ‘Look, don’t hold it against me. I’ve forgotten everything that happened in Venice; and anyway I’m here to give you a hand. You’re here to see Cardinal Barbo.’

‘How did you know I was here?’ Adorne said.

‘I called at the Scots lodging. My God, I remember the Bishop from Linlithgow. I don’t know how you got here alive. I would have killed him, and then cut my own throat. You know that Nicholas is in Scotland with his family?’

‘My parents will be there by now,’ Adorne said. The wave of nausea was receding. He straightened his back.

‘I shouldn’t worry,’ said Julius. ‘They’ll enjoy sparring with one another, Nicholas and M. le baron your father. I only mentioned it to show that no harm came of all that nonsense at Venice. Nicholas took proper care of the child, and he and his wife are together again. And Simon de St Pol is shown up for the cur that he is. Wait till Nicholas gets him.’

‘He could be dangerous,’ said Jan Adorne. ‘His father more so. Afterwards, I thought his father was behind it. Jordan de Ribérac.’ He paused. ‘My father had nothing to do with it.’

‘We know that,’ Julius said. He lifted an eyebrow. He said, ‘I wonder. If you’re not going to eat me, M. Jean, could I beg a little refreshment? I’ve been waiting a long time.’

He said it in French. Jan realised he had been speaking French – Savoyard French – from the beginning. He said, ‘Yes, of course. I’ll call for something,’ and went off to find servants. When he came back, he was already half composed, and by the end of the meal more at ease than he would have thought possible. They had talked of a great many things: he could not remember how many. And Julius – he was to call him simply Julius – had offered to obtain him an invitation to Cardinal Bessarion’s great reception for the Florentine embassy in the Palazzo Colonna. At which, he guaranteed, Jan would come face to face with Cardinal Barbo.

By the time he saw Julius to the door and the others came back, Jan felt perfectly able to deal with them, answering their gambits like a tolerant uncle, and even able to laugh at some of the adventures with which they attempted to shock him. They also told him something of Julius, who had made an impression, it seemed, during his stay in the city. Apparently he was in love with some countess, and was expecting her to come to Rome before Christmas. Her name, as he understood it, was German. They said he had bribed the watch at the Flaminia to tell him the moment she appeared.

Jan was amused. Julius had said nothing of it, which made him appear both more human and a good deal less Olympian. He had confided to Jan that sometimes he found Nicholas too brutish for comfort; and his wife was a witch. Julius thought it a mistake for any man to father a child except in the first flush of youth. It was unfair to the child.

Jan agreed.

Chapter 16

S
TATELY, WHITE-BEARDED
and chaste, the Cardinal Bessarion thought a great deal about banks. It was one of the reasons why, today, he was holding a reception for the envoys of the Republic of Florence in his home, the splendid Palazzo Colonna. Splendid, but not extravagant. Not at all. This was not a household noisy with hunting-dogs, flute-players, jesters. To build the Palazzo San Marco, the late Pontiff had required that a whole quarter of Rome be torn down. But in all this vast complex of houses and courts, the many lodgings which adjoined the Church of the Holy Apostles, there were only twenty servants to see to the needs of the Cardinal, his household, his scribes and his pensioners. Yet no one could deny that his house was well run, his table generous. To bankers, especially.

Sadly, this afternoon Lorenzo de’ Medici himself was not present, having been summoned from Rome by the increasing unrest in Volterra. The Holy Father had voiced his regrets, but made sure that Lorenzo received a gift of two classical busts and his pick of the late Pope’s collection of gems at a very reasonable price. The other envoys remained (including the inestimable Donato Acciajuoli), for there was no doubt, of course, that the Florentine Bank would continue to manage the finances of the Papal See, and to export its alum. The Medici Bank, and not the Pazzi, or the Banco di Niccolò.

The Cardinal Bessarion – moving hospitably from one group to another; speaking to his scholarly house-guests, his fellow exiles from Trebizond, the orators of Florence – had not forgotten the Banco di Niccolò, ruled by this young Burgundian who did not know what he was or what he was doing. In all the years he had known Nicholas de Fleury, either through their infrequent meetings or indirectly through that zealot the Patriarch of Antioch, the Cardinal had never given up hope that the man would eventually bring himself and his Bank to the aid of the Church in the East.

The Cardinal had not given up hope because, although his interest in de Fleury was purely political, as was the Patriarch’s, his experience of human nature was wide, and he had observed some contradictions to which da Bologna had not given note.

According to his former clerk Julius, as well as his own observation, the man Nicholas had heard at least some of the teaching at Louvain, could read, and knew languages. According to the merchant Michael Alighieri, now knight and chamberlain to Duke Charles of Burgundy, the young Nicholas had been a silent observer during the Emperor’s famous gatherings of scholars at Trebizond, and during his wanderings after, had drifted through several studios on both sides of the Alps. According to the seamaster and merchant Benedetto Dei, who traded in Africa, the man Nicholas had attended the schools of the Sankhore University for many months, placing himself in the hands of the finest Arab teachers of the day.

Yet nothing of it was visible. Questioned, the Burgundian evaded the subject. He entered no discussions, took part in no debates. Here, last Christmas, he had broken bread with Callistos, Laskaris and the Cardinal’s own dear Perotto. He had listened to Regiomontanus, who had tried to draw from him his experiences in Timbuktu and beyond, but with no success. Once, perhaps, the reticence had been rooted in shyness, but that was true no longer; the man was disarming in converse, conveying all he wished to convey, with some wit.

Perhaps the habit of self-distrust in personal matters was hard to break, once ingrained. Perhaps he feared, as often happened, that in saying something, he might not be able to prevent himself saying too much. Or perhaps, since he came from humble beginnings, he had discovered early the secret of a kind of contentment, and preferred to float through life on this familiar raft, rather than plumb below, and risk finding turmoil and pain, or a mission which his mind or his soul could not abandon.

Such a man would act like this and, seeking justification, would make himself a false purpose, creating an earthquake out of a sneeze, and a burning wound from the scratch of a fingernail. He had seen it happen, in women as often as men, and it never ceased to exasperate him with its waste. He had never found a solution.

And now Nicholas de Fleury was in Scotland, they said, and perhaps there would be no other chance to convert him, for Cardinal Bessarion himself did not expect to remain long in Rome. Sixtus had come to the throne of St Peter from humble beginnings. As Francesco della Rovere, he had studied here in Cardinal Bessarion’s house; had been encouraged to teach on Duns Scotus. Now he was Pope, and the relationship would be too hard to sustain. Bessarion would be found
some distant post, as the other foreigners, the other friends of Pope Paul would be scattered. He would be gone, very likely, before Nicholas de Fleury had cause to come back.

But that was next year. Meanwhile, the Cardinal could make sure of the marriage of Zoe. He did not speak of it now, moving among his eminent guests, but the question of Zoe was another which rarely left his mind.

A slender Greek princess of twelve, misty-eyed, her cloudy hair veiled to her hips, Zoe had come to Rome with the two youths her brothers after her father the Despot had died. That was six years ago. The precious family, orphaned, bereft, had understood no Italian; the Cardinal had gathered them round him and spoken in Greek. They must do all that was asked of them. They must talk, sing, pray in the Latin rite as they would be taught, for if they deviated by one inch, the Pope their host would discard them. One day they, the grandchildren of the Emperor Manuel, would go forth and, God willing, teach the two churches of Christendom, the Latin and Greek, to unite. But first they must learn the ways of the Franks. They must survive.

The child’s marriage had concerned him for years. She was without financial resources. However exquisite the girl, Italian princes demanded a dowry. The man who would make Zoe his bride must value her not for her wealth, but for the one priceless asset she had: her claim to the blood of Byzantium.

Once, it had seemed to the Cardinal that the wild young King Zacco of Cyprus would take her, securing his throne, for Zoe was second cousin to Carlotta his rival. But Venice had seen a more direct advantage in forcing upon him – there was no other phrase – the daughter of Marco Corner and Fiorenza of Naxos. The Cardinal knew more than might be expected of Fiorenza and Violante her sister, wayward beauties with unfaithful husbands.