me. `It has turned to brass, Franco. If old Filargi were alive in this palace, we would have owned the world. And if I couldn't keep him alive forever, I could have had him stuffed to sit there behind his beautiful, benign smile, a hand raised in benediction. Well, we are not going, to wait here and let them spring the trap which will drop me into the papacy. We are going to get out of Bologna and make the run to Milan as soon as possible. Tell our people to prepare – Bernaba, Palo, Bocca – all of them. Tell Ueli Munger to pick a troop of 200 of the most loyal men in the guard, We'll be safe and back in business in Milan in a few days' time with one half of the gold florins in the papal treasury in the chests of our train…I earned that money, so I am certainly entitled to half of it. We'll be, back in business: We'll take over this whole peninsula. Catherine Visconti will be beside herself with joy and nothing, nothing or nobody, is going to persuade me to ruin what is left of my life by accepting the papacy. Get them ready. We will leave immediately after I have had one last meeting with Cosimo, who is on his way here now.'
He went on with his plans, talking excitedly, and looking like the old-time Cossa. He would answer the outcry which the Medici would organize in Florence, Siena, Perugia and throughout the papal states by raising an army in Milan before they could try to come to get him. With an army between himself and the papacy, between himself and the Medici and all their bankers and businessmen; he would use Catherine Visconti's gold to buy back the favour of the college of cardinals and, in good time, whoever was to be pope would appoint him Archbishop of Milan. He thought of that and it brought him sadness because, by walling off the Medici, he would be separating himself from the marchesa, but Catherine had lived as royalty all her life and she could counsel him on the correct political moves. He would be free, a cardinal of the Church and ruler of Italy. He would lead condottieri in a force which would, multiply and multiply until he was the greatest power of Europe. With Catherine Visconti, her gold and her army, he could win anything.
That night, Alexander made a good end, summoning his cardinals around his bed and saying, `Let not your heart be troubled. I ascend to my Father and to your Father.' He commended France and the University of Paris to their care and said that any decree made at the Council of Pisa had been founded on justice and integrity without deceit or fraud. `Peace I give unto you. Peace I leave with you.' Shortly after, midnight on 4 May he died. He had reigned for ten months.
His body was embalmed. While it was exposed for several days dressed in sacerdotal robes with gloves on the hands and the feet bare for the kisses of the faithful, Cosimo di Medici arrived in Bologna at the head of the delegation of Florentine, Sienese and Pisan bankers and businessmen. He asked for a private audience with Cardinal Cossa, which was granted at once. The two men greeted each other with warm, affection.
`You look ill, Cossa,' Cosimo said.
`I am ill.' Cossa brought wine. He asked after Cosimo's father. They discussed the wine; Cosimo was famous for discoursing upon wines.
`What brings you over the mountains?' Cossa asked. `I ask you because I know it cannot be what all the rest of Europe is, plaguing me about.' 'You mean that you take the papacy?'
`More than that. They want me to give up the things I do well to take up the one thing which I would do badly.'
`Everyone is agitated, Cossa. But I am here with some bankers. We have come to talk about business, which is to say the peace of Europe. Florence and Pisa are losing 50,000 gold florins a day through the schism; Venice, Milan and Genoa are just as badly off.'
`Time will cure all that.'
`Perhaps. But all of us – all the bankers and the business people – agree on one thing. The schism must be finished and we must elect a strong pope to stand for the meaning of the Church before the world.'
`So it all starts over again. It is no use, Cosimo. I will not be trapped in the papacy,'
Cosimo smiled at him as if Cossa had uttered some brilliant witticism and talked blandly on. `You are probably the only churchman who can really appreciate just how bad three popes are for business. A crisis of confidence is sweeping Europe. The Church is disintegrating. This erodes interlinking business. The loss in real money is simply enormous and all of it has happened because of this schism.'
`Oh, come, Cosimo.'
The banker's face grew hard as he stared into Cossa's eyes. `I am telling you that the business community is in danger. The people who generate the cash which is passed back to the Church:through benefices and servitia and Peter's Pence, the people without whom there would be, no pomp, and luxury which our mutual customers expect from the Church, have suffered and still face crippling losses. Three popes, three colleges and three curias are an intolerable financial burden because they separate and isolate three trading communities from each other. If this trinity continues, commerce and banking will be ruined.'
`Why we? Why always me? I delivered the Council of Pisa for you. I have seen to it that your bank now receives almost sixty per cent of the banking of the Church, and within two years I will have obtained all of it for you. Is it my fault that the obediences of Benedict and Gregory refused to take the solemn rulings of, the Council of Pisa seriously?'
`They will agree when they know that they are going to get at least some of the reforms which they have been demanding for over -a hundred years. The pope who will be chosen at the coming conclave must manage those demands and carry through just enough reform to make him the one central leader of Christendom. If you lead that crusade for reform – up to a point, of course – I tell you that you will be marching straight upward beyond the papacy to canonization after your death. I personally, will see to that.'
'That is hardly the way to turn me. Jesus! To amuse me greatly, yes, but you are taking all the precious solemnity out of our discussion.'
`You would mock the saints?'
`Cosimo, you and I are friends. We understand each other. Do you think anyone who learned to run the Church at the side of Boniface IX could bring himself to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs? Not me, surely. Let some priest take over as pope.'
Cosimo smiled ruefully. He shrugged mightily. He sighed heavily. 'Well I tried. If you won't listen, then I must accept that.' His eyebrows went up as if startled by some new thought. `My dear Cossa,' he said, `with all my need to` pour out Europe's troubles I have almost forgotten to tell you of your own astounding good fortune. The day I left Florence the bank received an extraordinary conditional deposit in your name.'
`A deposit?'
`A really amazing amount of gold.', `A conditional deposit?' `Yes.,
'Who made it?'
'Two hundred thousand gold florins. An unspeakable amount of money from a client who says that the gold is to be released to you two days after you have been consecrated, as pope.'
`Who signed it?'
`Someone named Carlo Pendini of Castrocaro in Urbino.' His hard eyes moved over Cossa's shattering face.
32
Cossa sat alone, almost stupefied with shock, feeling as if the blood had left his body. They had stopped him. If he rode to Milan that night, Cosimo and the marchesa would share all the gold he had killed so many comrades to get. He could not leave that behind. He could not be mocked by, knowing it had been taken by his enemies. Decima, the woman he had loved even beyond his love for Catherine Visconti, had taken the Pendini gold to Cosimo and, cold-bloodedly, they had dropped it on him from their great height, crushing him with it. He could feel bitterness rise from his bowels and into his throat as if it were gall. He had lost a great army. He was trapped in the papacy, He was just another workman of the Medici.
I said to him, 'At least you know who your enemies are. Not everyone is that lucky. And you have the power to strike back now that you are doomed to be the pope.'
'Who?' he said, as if he didn't know. `How?'
'The Medici and Manovale.'
