because her glittering eyes had hardened beyond her control.
`Yes. We have been too much apart,' Spina said listlessly. `It is a pity.' Living with Bernaba’s ghost for thirty- five years, then having it exorcise itself, had changed his expression. The stealth had gone from his eyes: The whirlpool which had marked him as an intriguer and had won him such infamy for his deviousness had been washed out of his face by the force of his concentration upon his need to avenge his honour: The marchesa read these things and was pleased that she would be able to help him. They sat facing each other.
`Well?' Spina said. `You sent for me.'
'I can help you find Bernaba Minerbetti,' the marchesa said.
`Does the entire world know of my shame?' he cried out.
`No. Bernaba told Cossa and Cossa, seeking my counsel, told me.'
Spina made no effort to cover his jagged compulsion to rape, murder and mutilate. `Where is she?' he said harshly.
`For the time being she must rest where she is. I want to talk to you about the council.'
`Speak out;' he said.
`My bank has recommendations to make which must fall upon the right ears. You have the confidence of D'Ailly, who has the confidence of the French cardinals and theologians and princes, and the bank feels that these hold the solution to the future as it must evolve.'
`What has that to-do with Minerbetti?'
`What the bank asks from you, Eminence, in recognition of whatever service I may do for you, is that you, arrange for Cardinal D'Ailly and a French deputation to request a meeting with Cosimo di Medici in Konstanz.'
'How do you know' Bernaba Minerbetti?'
'From Bologna. She ran the courtesans there. She went to Bologna over thirty years ago with Baldassare Cossa, when he was sent there to study law.'
`Cossa!' Spina shouted. `He was the one! He pinned that note to me! Cossa was the boy who defiled me!' he shut his eyes tightly to impress that image upon his memory. 'How do you know this?’
'Bernaba told me.'
`Where is she?'
'If you arrange what the bank asks, you will be serving many important ends, Eminence. Your own interest first, of course, before all others.'
`You can deliver Bernaba to me?'
`I can, either tell you where she is or I can deliver her.' `How can you do that?'
'Eminence – she works for me.' 'In Konstanz?'
'You frightened her badly when you saw her from the procession yesterday. She was so frightened that she fled to Bari. She left me a letter saying that her mother was dying. But she won't go there. Bernaba is over fifty. Her mother is long dead.'
Spina pounded on the arm of the chair. `Then where is she?’
'The bank's needs come first, Eminence.’
'I will do it. Give me two days, then the Medici can expect a message from the French.'
`Bernaba will be in Bologna in six days' time but you cannot go to Bologna. You are needed in Konstanz and must be here,' 'You will bring her back?'
`If the meeting is held, yes.'
`Nothing must go wrong, with this,' he said.
After midnight, when she was sure the marchesa was asleep, Signora Melvini left the house by the servants' entrance and made her way through the town to the Broadlaube, five streets away, into Engelsongasse to my house, the deanery of Albrecht of Beutelsbach. I was waiting for her. We sat by the fire and drank warmed wine as she reported Cardinal Spina's visit to the marchesa. When I had heard her story, I dressed myself in warm outer garments and we walked to the cathedral area, where she returned inside the marchesa's house. I went into the episcopal palace.
Cossa was busy with his chamberlains when I came into the room. He concluded the business and sent them away.
I told him what had been said at the meeting of the marchesa and Spina. Cossa kept his eyes closed as he listened. There was a long moment before he was able to speak. `That is that,' he said. `She will not do any more harm.'
`She was only after 'the same thing you were. Always money, Cossa.'
`I got them money! I made her rich! I transformed the Medici into Croesus when I transferred the Church's banking to their bank' More than that-' At last he opened his eyes. `She is finished.' He clenched his hands before his face in the attitude of prayer. `And it will cost Cosimo, too. Who do we have inside Cosimo's household?''
`No one.'
`Use raw gold florins. Have Palo do the bribing.'
`Signora Melvini would be better. She knows all the servants in the principal houses here.'
`Good. She has two days to have, them ready and rehearsed. Her people must be in place in Cosimo's house to report on that meeting. Franco, please do not be distressed. We will protect Bernaba, but you must bring her back from Bologna. She will be our bait.'
`Where is she to go when she gets back?'
`To the marchesa, of course. Now in your letter to Bernaba, which must go out tonight, tell her that the marchesa's courier will bring her a message telling her to return and giving a plausible reason. There is nothing to worry ablaut. She will not be harmed. We will destroy them. Please, leave me and send the letter.'
54
Cosimo di Medici received the four prelates at his small elegant house, formerly the Haus zum Goldenen Backen, in the Bruckengasse off the Minsterplatz. Attending him were Cardinals D'Ailly and Spina of France and Italy, Bishops, Weldon and Von Niem of England and Germany, and Chancellor Gerson of the University of Paris. They, were the leaders of the reform party which opposed the papal party in the council. They stood for the reorganization of the Church in its head and its members, for establishing a single true pope, for passing laws which would prevent a future schism, and for complete reform of the curia. Cosimo had always been happy for them to get their kind of reform as long as he got his: one pope, one obedience.
Cosimo made them welcome. He was forty-five years old, a man of enamelled kindness and enforced gentility. He spoke to them. `You may see me, because I am a banker, as being removed from
wonderment at the glory of our Church, but that is not the case. I agonize to save the Church and to smash the, schism within it, needs which can only be served through reform.'
Cardinal D'Ailly reassured him. 'If it should seem, dear sir, as if we do not need your counsel in matters of the spirit, the fact is that we must look to you for an explanation of the realities of this council.'
There was a low murmuring of approval from the other members.
They were all seated in chairs which described a general circle within the room. Spina breathed shallowly. Bishop Weldon wished for a sweet drink. Gerson, as always, seemed to be assembling his arguments. D'Ailly packed himself into the security of wondering how much money this man must have.
`At the outset,' Cosimo said, 'on the surface, it would appear that I am an Italian.'
The prelates smiled at his little joke.
`But, before I am an Italian, I am a European whose interests are alone the interests of Europe: to make Europe strong so that it may serve the Church. Man does not live by the Holy Spirit alone. He must have bread. The stability of the establishment which makes that bread, finances the distribution of that bread and provides that bread – and I am speaking of the European business community depends upon the end of the schism and the
