would maintain her. An occasional arrangement at first was best for testing these women, he sensed. It was not a matter of sampling, but of character. Also, he had refused to establish any courtesan under his permanent protection because he could not live with the idea of unseen people attempting to get her to get him to do things for them. Even after spending most of my life around churchmen, I can still say that I have never met a man as devious as Piero Spina.
14
Decima Manovale taught her daughters to search for their clients' oddnesses, weaknesses between man and woman – so when Rosa was brought together with Spina, she acted out convincing terror at the possibility of being known to Rome as a cardinal's lover because then it could be bruited about that she was a courtesan, which he knew she was not. No! And he was to tell her nothing of his life, for women were weak and their tongues wagged. She would place her long, silken hand over his mouth when he offered her as much as a good evening, because why did she need to know anything except her love for him, or to feel anything apart from the madness which came over her when he touched her? She always wept when she returned to him and when they parted.
Because all his life Spina had persevered in never telling anyone his inner (or outer) thoughts of what he was doing, had done or planned to do – he had been unable to trust anyone until his dear little shepherdess had wandered into his life – he had to tell her everything. Spina became an extraordinary source of information for Manovale.
`Never cease exploring the vastness of self-doubt and uncertainty within your clients,' Manovale instructed her daughters, `for these, lead to gold and power. Great wealth is the source of friendship and praise, of fame and authority, for the individual as for the state. A family must erect and decorate buildings, possess beautiful books, much power and fine horses.'
The day after her arrival in Florence with her daughter and Cosimo di Medici, Signora Manovale, feet together, hands in her lap, eyes (frequently) cast down, sat in the Medici house in the Piazza del Duomo of Florence, facing Giovanni di Bicci di Medici.
Behind the senior Medici, beyond the windows, were the almost imperceptibly rising walls and dome of the cathedral, which, the city of Florence intended to be grander than any yet built. Cosimo sat soberly at his father's right hand, thinking pure thoughts, no doubt.
When my son told me of his plans for you,' the father said to Manovale, 'I rejected them. At least I thought I had, but my son and I think alike, I have trained him so, and your possible usefulness – women are not usually such useful objects – began to emerge as I studied your dossier. I asked old Toreton the condottiere to come to see me. He remembers you as what he called 'the most promising soldier on his staff What do you say to that?'
`I knew him, of course. He was a kind man. He taught me so much of what little I know.'
`About war?'
She shrugged. `About war. War was for men. Mainly about how to gather intelligence and how to use it.'
'I will pay you ten gold florins a month.'
Manovale told Bernaba that she had tried not to laugh but she couldn't help it. She laughed, rocking in her seat, holding a handkerchief to her face, with her left hand holding her side. She laughed with disappointment, which is almost the equal of despair. She laughed at the waste of her time. When she was able to regain control of herself, she wiped her eyes and said, `And, of course, you would expect me to give up my business as a mezzana to work for you?'
He looked at her steadily, `We misunderstood each other,' he said, `I offered the ten gold florins a month during the first three months in which you offered to work for nothing,'
`Ah. Such a difference.'
Signora – we have been after a piece of northern business for almost four, years. Church business Church business is important wherever it is to be found, and this happens to be a large matter involving the Archbishop of Mainz, who will go to Rome to see the pope in one month's time. There is French Church business which is also important. We have learned that the Bishop: of Cambrai, who is the confessor to the King of France and a close adviser to Benedict, the Avignon pope, will go to Rome to see Pope Boniface on a most secret mission shortly after Mainz's visit. We must always remain several steps ahead, of the other banks – here and elsewhere. Is all of this comprehensible to you so far?'
She smiled.
`Let us discuss the Bishop of Cambrai, Pierre d'Ailly, a greedy fellow. He has the look of a, sleek pack rat and he has served almost as many sides as there are in France. He supports anyone from whom he can gain, short term or long. When I spoke of Pope Benedict as being the pope at Avignon, that usage could seem to oppose our pope at Rome. Well, we are bankers, and there are two popes in this world, but Benedict is no longer at Avignon. He is defying the French crown or the Mediterranean coast. He is a very stubborn man who wants to be independent of the French king. The Bishop of Cambrai, our same Pierre D'Ailly, will go to Rome for him – as secretly as possible, of course, to discuss with Boniface the sharing out of certain, benefices in Poland, Hungary and Greece. These are open territories and both popes feel they should share in them. Cardinal Spina will be the pope's negotiator. Do you know him?'
She nodded.
`How well do you know him?'
`My youngest daughter is his mistress,' the signora said.
He smiled at her for the first time. `Now, then,' the banker said, `working on the theory that you can be useful to us, we will propose that friends of ours in Paris work on D'Ailly's lust for comfort and pleasure by offering to arrange for him to stay at your house in Rome. No one must know he is there, you understand. The pleasures, however unusual they may be, must be brought to him privately, you understand. His weakness with women has to do with talking. He makes classical conversation with beautiful woman – beautiful young women and those kind of conversationalists are hard to find.'
Signora Manovale made her eyes opaque. `What about that northern business you have been after for so long?' she asked pleasantly. `The Archbishop of Mainz, is it?'
`May we feel secure about D'Ailly?'
What do you want from D'Ailly?'
`Well, I know what I want in a limited sense. I want those benefices in Poland, Hungary and Greece to be told by whichever pope is involved to bank with our bank. But there could be a larger opportunity there. Pope Benedict is breaking away from the King of France. He therefore must keep his money, sooner or later, independent of French bankers: We would like to be his bankers.'
'Please tell me about the Archbishop' of Mainz.'
`He is John, Count of Nassau, Archbishop of Mainz, as un-ordained as the rest of them, a ferocious warrior, and the richest churchman north of the Alps. He is the First Elector of the Holy Roman Empire and, if he can be induced to bank with us to the exclusion of the other bankers, that could lead to the banking business of all the electors of the empire, as well as that of the kings and princes of the north and the businessmen who seek their goodwill.’
Manovale returned to Rome and called her daughters Maria Louise and Helene to her. `The time has come for our first great harvest,' she told them. `The harvest of years of work is about to be reaped. I shall set you each a refresher course of studies. You, Maria Louise, are going into great riches to live among your father's people, the Germans, as mistress of a warrior-count who is also the Archbishop of Mainz. Helene goes to Paris, to her father's France, as the mistress of the richest bishop in France. Maria Giovanna is at the side of a rich banker in Florence. We will be one entity which will interchange information in order to rise and to continue to prosper.'
At the appointed time, John of Nassau, Archbishop of Mainz, arrived at the Manovale house in Rome, a long string of a man who resembled a famished eagle. His face was scarlet, his eyes shining black, his hair prematurely white with streaks of brass. I knew him well, not then but later, and cultivated him for Cossa. He was charming
