'Who is Manovale?' Cossa had never heard the name.
'The marchesa. She brought the gold from Castrocaro to the Medici bank to be used against you. And they used it against you. You can't give it up, so you will be pope. They did it to you, then you did it to yourself. Pay them.'
'Pay them?'
'Give the banking of the Church to the Albizzi in Florence. Tell them they can have all the banking if they follow your plan, then tell them how it all works, how the Medici planned to do it. Insist that they give you two tithes for making them the richest family in Europe.'
“If I did that,'' he said, shaking his head despairingly, 'just as sure as we are standing here, either the Medici would have me murdered or the marchesa would.'
'Then we must put together a large escort and ride tonight to Milan, where the duchess will give.
you her army to destroy the Medici. Take Florence. Force Bologna to give you the marchesa. Execute her.'
'I can decide nothing except, that to be pope must be my fate. My father took me away from a business which had been carried on for four generations by the eldest son because he had a vision or a dream that I would be pope one day. Everything has, conspired to make me pope, everything.'
'Don't mock me, Cossa.'
'I do not mock you! I, am helpless and I agree they have done me in, therefore all the more do I want to enjoy whatever you can come up with to repay; them, even if I will never be able to summon the will to do it.'
`You ran do anything. You will be pope. You will send a message to the emperor asking him to strip her of her title. Nothing could be worse for her.
'At the bottom of my soul rests a punishment for every one which is far worse than that, but I thank you for thinking how we might avenge ourselves on my enemies. I can't afford even to think of the Medici and Decima as my enemies. I am trapped by them, but only they can bring food to my cage.' He seemed to drive out his despair. `That was all settled when I was born. I am to be pope, but what am I going to do about Catherine Visconti? She is locked inside a more, terrible cage and she needs me more than I need the Medici.'
'That will solve itself. What is important now is – what are you going to do about the marchesa?'
Hopelessness filled Cossa's face. `I am lost to her. She is lost to me because of what she has done in the guise of a lover and a dear friend. I shall withdraw from her slowly, waiting for my chance to do to her what she did to me. I will use her body when I need it to reassure her that I have forgiven her and that nothing has changed: I need her cunning now, more than ever before. I need her knowledge of` Europe. But I will possess all that from her and, when I do, and when she is standing naked one day, I will repay her for this betrayal.'
Late in the night, after Cossa had finally fallen into a troubled sleep, the marchesa came into the room, fully dressed, stained by travel. She shook him awake gently. She was as pale as the moonlight. He came awake instantly and stared up into her sombre face. A single huge candle flickered in the centre of the room and it cast the marchesa's shadow high upon the wall.
'Cossa, I bring bad news,' she said.
He stared.
`My daughter, Helene, has just come from Milan… She caught up with me a, quarter of the way to Perugia and I turned back to bring comfort to you.'
'What is it?'
'The Duchess of Milan has been murdered by, her son. Poisoned in the citadel. The regents have taken over the city.'
'No!' he screamed.
'Milan is going to give its allegiance to Pope Gregory.'
'Leave me,' he said harshly.
`She has been dead for three days' or more, and I -'
`Leave me!'
Cossa covered his face with his hands, and turned away from her.
He rolled over in the bed, sat up and faced her. 'I want you to use all your cunning,' he told her harshly. ' I want you to devise a way for us to get that murdering son out of Milan and into my keeping: I will give him to Palo and keep him alive through every agony deserved by a poisoner, deserved a thousand times by a son who has murdered such a mother.' She held out her arms, to comfort him, but he turned away from her again and she left him.
Part Three
33
On Friday, 15 May 1410, the cardinals entered the conclave. They were bricked up in the great hall of the podesta's palace in Bologna, which was surmounted by a square battlemented tower which, since 1245, had been the residence of city magistrates.
Seventeen cardinals went into conclave at ten o'clock at night, their beds arranged in cubicles divided by curtains of fine silk and adorned with flowers and sweet-smelling herbs. The crest of each cardinal was posted outside, each apartment. The windows were walled up, leaving small peepholes for light. A strong guard of soldiers was posted outside the palace under the command of Malatesta of Pesaro and Nicolo Roberti of Ferrara.
At midday on 17 May, the cross appeared outside the palace, signifying that an election had been made. The cardinals issued from the conclave and announced that Baldassare Cossa, Cardinal Deacon of St Eustachius, was to be the future pope and that he would take the name of Pope John XXIII, Our Most Holy Lord, Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Jesus Christ, Metropolitan of the Roman Province, Primate of Italy, Patriarch of the West, Head of the Universal Church – Johannus Episcopus servus servorum Dei.
He was the pope, he thought, when – if he had had any resolve or purpose – he would have moved to Milan months before everything which was essential to his continuance. He would have been with her and prevented her murder by the son whom he would torture – and kill for having taken away such a woman into the darkness of death, changing history, changing and shortening his own life.
The following Sunday, 24 May, three chamberlains dressed Cossa for his coronation in the large room inn the Anziani palace where Alexander V had died. I stood with Palo, watching the stream of garments being lowered upon him. The meeting in the dramatic circumstances had been my idea, because of the effect it would have on Palo, to get through to Palo that there would be a change in business procedures.
As they dressed, him, Cossa spoke to us amiably. He was in the best of health, apart from his gout, a spare, strongly built man with clear sharp features, dark skin, white teeth, a smile of glorious effect, and the dead, dry eyes of a hopeless man. I knew how he was suffering the loss of Catherine Visconti but he now sat upon the throne of St Peter high above all the people of Christendom, and his life had to go on. At the moment of his election, he had fallen into fatalism, a characteristic of people from Naples, an earthquake zone. He was pope and there was nothing he could do about it, so I was able to force him to get down to business. We spoke in the Neapolitan dialect so that his chamberlains could not understand us.
`Palo – Bernaba will operate her business as she always has and handle her own money as she always has, but you will protect the women and the gambling in Bologna, Perugia, Siena, Reggio, Modena and Parma. She will recruit the women and run them. You will collect the money and bring it to Franco Ellera. You understand?'
`Yes Holiness.' Palo wasn't simple-minded or anything thing like that.
He was a criminal.
`From today on, Franco Ellera is out of that operation except to get the money from you. I will need him with me. You understand?' He smiled and Palo grinned back at him. Cossa said, `From today on, you get an extra five
