she rode northwards to Pisa, her mind was hard and her spirit cold. She had been cheated. A tithe of the benefices taken from Cossa as a first cardinal, no matter how much, was far from being a tithe of Cossa's potential share as pope. Standing at the right hand of a first cardinal was no improvement of position for herself or her daughters. She marked that Cossa's excuses for rejecting the papacy were admissions of weakness.
It was reflexive with the marchesa to exploit weakness. She was determined to control Cossa as pope in exactly the same way that Cossa intended to control Filargi. Cosimo di Medici had many rightful claims to realizing an influence over the papacy, but even his claims were very nearly invalid compared with the rightness of her own claim, because seeing that all Church deposits went into the Medici bank was only a part of what she would control when she controlled Cossa's papacy.
When she stopped for the night at Siena, she` wrote a letter to Cosimo: It was a harsh, blunt report of what Cossa had told her. She ended the letter with, `It is too late to reverse his decision, so fearful is
he of sitting on the throne of St Peter. Filargi will be elected. He is an – old, old man. You have my consecrated word that Cossa has not yet escaped the papacy.
When she reached Pisa, the marchesa sent a letter to her dear friend, the Cardinal Filargi, Archbishop of Milan, asking for an audience. He summoned her to lunch the following day. He was such a hearteningly amiable, crinkly-faced, brown-skinned, toothless old man, she thought. If he had a fault in the world it could only be that he spent half his day at table and maintained a staff of 400 female servants, all clad in his house livery, among whom were four of Bernaba's failed courtesans who kept her informed of what was happening, as a matter of habit.
As she entered his dining hall, Filargi seemed to be very nearly engulfed by the ministering women. As each did her stint, smiling dotingly; others seemed to appear from trapdoors, crevices, cup-boards and crannies to bring more comforts – cushions, wine, foot stools, hand cream, sweeties and cooling, fans.
`Praise to God!' the old man cried out from beneath the screens of muffling women. `How wonderful to see you again, my dearest Decima. It is like the wonderful old days in Milan when Gian Galeazzo was still alive, and you and I would lunch so elegantly every Tuesday.' Three young women lifted him to his feet and braced him while he flung open his arms to receive her. After the embrace they lowered him into his chair and settled him down sweetly among the cushions.
They lunched on busecca alla Milanese, a tripe soup containing – cabbage, tomatoes, celery, beans, onions, potatoes, leeks and crusts of bread, flavoured with saffron, sage, parsley and garlic, and sprinkled with cheese.
`When I spent that impossibly cold time at Oxford, then an even colder time in Paris which is surely the coldest place on dear God's earth – their faces went blank when I pleaded for this magnificent soup to get myself warm again; and I vowed to St Gregory of s Nazianus (the supreme theologian of the Trinity, but a saint who wrote more than four hundred touchingly beautiful poems – just as this soup is a poem to the living) that I would, if I ever returned to the advanced civilization of Italy, start every meal of my remaining days with busecca alla Milanese. You and I know what is right to set upon a table, my dear. One of the things we were born for was to be each other's eating companion. After the wonderful soup, I have asked for the special sausage, eh? Your favourite and mine, am I right? Where else but in Milan would veal be sliced so thinly, then filled with such infinitesimally chopped veal, pork, ham, breadcrumbs and the cheese of Parma – all bound together with egg yolk and flavoured with garlic and nutmeg, then cooked in butter with a little broth and served in its own dear sauce? Please! We shall drink Virgil's own wine – Rhaetic – red, robust, rich and rewarding Rhaetic from the hills above Verona – such a pleasant change from the heavy wines of Latium.'
`You will make me fat,' the marchesa protested weakly.
`Fat is a phase of life,' the cardinal explained. 'I was thin, then God made me fat but, when he grew tired of seeing me fat, he made me thin again. Always the same five meals a day, the same wines, the same sweets… here, here, you lazy girls the marchesa's glass is almost empty.
They ate and drank. The cardinal talked on and on like a sweet bird perched upon the brow of life singing its praises. As suddenly as he did everything else…, he said, 'Have you come to tell me something, Decima'?'
She nodded happily.
`Is it a private matter?'
She nodded conspiratorially.
`Lazy girls!' he called to his staff. `Tidy me up, then leave us.' Four liveried young women scrambled forward. Two washed his little hands. A third touched tenderly at his mouth with a soft, damp,
scented cloth, as the fourth arranged his hair. Then they were gone. He leaned back and nodded to the marchesa. – `I have just returned from Cardinal Cossa's field headquarters,'
she said. `He entrusted me with a message for you.'
The old cardinal raised one eyebrow.
`He is aware that the council and the cardinals – are speaking of him as our next pope.'
'Ah, that is true, Decima. These are times when a man of Cossa's strength is sorely needed.'
`Yes. Oh, yes, Eminence. But he spoke most forthrightly to me. He told me that such expectancies as those of the council alarm him because he is not as you are – a holy man. He sees himself only as a man of action, and he is painfully anxious that his experience and abilities as a Church administrator after all that long and careful training under Pope Boniface would be lost if he were to accept the post.’
`He would refuse?'
`He wants only to serve God and his pope where God has shown him that he is meant to serve, my Lord. Therefore, because I have his trust and yours, he has asked me to tell you that his support – all of it – will be put behind your candidacy.'
Filargi stared at her steadily, without expression. His crinkled face with its horny skin made him seem like a gentle lizard upon a rock in the warn sun.
`Cardinal Cossa wants to serve you,' the marchesa continued simply. `More than anything else, he wants me to make that wholly clear to you. He offers his services to you humbly, as your first cardinal, as your administrator of the curia and the Church through-out Christendom as military protector of your person and of the papal states, as steward and cherisher of the Church's treasures everywhere,; and as the host to your serenity.'
Two small tears rolled down Filargi's leather cheeks. `Lazy girls,' he called out, `fetch me any jewel chest.' In moments one appeared with an iron-bound chest. He scoured out a key from a hidden pocket of his dress and unlocked the chest set before him. He opened its lid. It was filled with gold jewellery which shone blindly, set with precious stones.
`My lady; Decima he said with emotion, `I ask you to choose the ornament which most pleases you. You have brought to me that which honours all the dead of my family and which will exalt my spirit: to eternal salvation.'
Although the marchesa did not hesitate, she did not appear to have considered which jewelled item she would choose, but her ruffian's eye had decided which object would most benefit herself and, her heirs by choosing a gold ring bearing a sapphire as blue as the Virgin's robes within a setting of diamonds.
`I thank you, my lord,' she said humbly.
27
The next session of the Council of Pisa was held on Saturday, 15 June 1409, beginning with the celebration of high mass by Philippe de Thury, Archbishop of Lyons. The sermon was preached by the Bishop of Novara on the appropriate text, Eligite meltorem et eum ponite super soturn, exhorting the cardinals to proceed to the unanimous choice of a good and worthy ruler. This was now necessary because the council had finally deposed both schismatic popes, Gregory and Benedict.
At vespers, the twenty-four cardinals, including Baldassare Cossa, entered the archbishop's palace, 110 yards west of the leaning tower, and were there immured in conclave under the guard of the Grand Master of Rhodes, and other prelates, not to issue thence until a new pope should have been chosen. Fourteen of the cardinals had belonged to the, obedience of Gregory, ten to that of Benedict.
Throughout the city, stories of exceptional bribery were rife, that every cardinal had, promised to the servants
