covered with golden cloths. Around the small house sat the forty-five servants of the marchesa, Maria Louise and Rosa, each one wearing a black cloak. Between each of these stood a soldier of Pippo Span's command, holding a burning candle.
The Cardinal of Ostia sang the requiem assisted by two cardinals. One sang the gospel. I sang the epistle. We were dressed as priests but were without vestments. After fourteen days, the coffins would be taken out of their crypts to be transported for burial at the Villa di Artegiana, in Perugia.
After the funeral, the two surviving sisters, myself, Bernaba and Cosimo di Medici went to the House of the Goldenen Backen, where Cosimo lived.
It is necessary for us to discuss several things,' Cosimo said to them in the house. `Everything happened so fast, but it still remains that Rosa and Maria Louise died within a day of the marchesa's disappearance and the pope's escape.'
`Are these things connected?' Helene asked.
`They must be,' Cosimo said. `Your mother dined with the-pope, then not only did she vanish but her bodyguard of eight men disappeared. Why did you go to look for the marchesa, Bernaba?'
`We were going to the tournament together with Helene and Maria Giovanna – but the marchesa asked me to call on her early because there was a dress which needed fixing and I have the knack for that.'
`But you know her. You know that she had for years, spent much time with the pope. Why such alarm on this particular morning?'
'I knew she wouldn't miss the tournament for anything. I thought of course that she was still with the pope but I knew she wanted that dress mended. As I left her house, I passed the stables. There were so few horses there so many empty stalls – that I asked the groom if the bodyguard had gone to fetch the marchesa. He told me they had never returned the night before.'
`Then you went to Petershausen?'
'No, my lord. I went to the papal palace and spoke with my kinswoman who is the maid for the ladies' apartments there.' She told me the marchesa was not there and had not spent the night there. Then I went to Petershausen.'
'How do you explain that Maria Louise and Rosa helped the pope to escape?'
'I thought about that for a long time. The marchesa must have got a message to them, telling them to help the pope.'
`Please don't press Bernaba, Cosimo,' Maria Giovanna said. 'She is our friend and my mother's friend. She had nothing to do with this. Sigismund had everyone killed.' Her voice broke. `What are you going to do about Sigismund?'
'He is presently beyond my reach,' Cosimo said with emotion. `But not for ever. He will be repaid:''
59
From the moment the pope's messenger had whispered into the Duke of Austria's ear at the jousting field that the pope had escaped and that he was to join him, the fat young man had begun to feel the freeze of fear. When his own uncle, the famous warrior Hans von Lupfen, had flatly refused to join: him in the adventure, he knew that he had great reason to feel terror. When he had seen the expression on the face and in the eyes of such a man as Hans von Diessenhofen, and felt the terrible danger in his voice when he said, so bleakly, 'Do you have any idea what you have done?' he had tasted his own doom. But it had become a thing of necessity. What had seemed like a noble action when he had taken the pope's money and agreed to protect him had exposed him to the possibility of his own ruination,
even of his own death but he could not refuse because the pope had rented his honour as well.
He rode out to the meeting place at Ermatingen sick in his heart, in his stomach and in his mind. He was barely able to speak to the pope when he found him in: the priest's house, beside the Rhine, ' eating quantities of cheese with me and speaking as merrily as if they were all embarked on a rare excursion. They were not alone until the door was closed upon the pope's chambers in the castle at Schaffhausen and the pope, still merry, began to talk to him as if he did not know that he was standing beyond and speaking through a wall of paralysing dread which separated them.
`Your departed, brother Leopold was once married to Katherine of Burgundy and she likes you,' was what the pontiff said to him, smiling so, sweetly, so charmingly, that the duke was confused as to why he had become so alarmed.
'I don't understand,' the duke said with irritation. `Why. do you say that?'
`Why? She certainly dealt with you: warmly from your brother's estate. She likes you. You can prepare our welcome in Burgundy.'
`Burgundy? Your welcome?'
'I am going to Burgundy. I shall rule the Church from France.'
'But what do you want from me?'
'Frederick,' the pope explained gently, 'you are my defender, are you not? You will get me to Burgundy safely at the head of your troops.'
`Are you crazy? Sigismund and the nations would take my head’
`Not a bit of it, lad., The Council of Konstanz is finished. It has no
legal head and no legal existence. Sigismund will have many other things to do.'
'I have hardly seen you since the night at Meran five months ago!
We have only exchanged two messages, in the six weeks I've been in Konstanz! You cannot involve men in this terrible thing'
'Have you forgotten? You took my money in exchange for your own vows to defend me.'
'Damn your money!'
`Frederick!' Cossa admonished gently,
`The only reason I agreed to that arrangement was because I was Sigismund's enemy.'
'And you needed my help to cope with the enmity of the Bishops of Brixen, Chur and Trient.'
'I thought you wanted moral support.'
'Frederick, you say that you accepted our condition because Sigismund was your enemy. Well? He is more than ever your enemy now. The three bishops have been handled. You have my money You, have one more lofty title and an extraordinary post – Defender of the Papacy – which your descendants will dine off for the next three hundred years. All we ask in return is that you and your troops escort me safely to Burgundian soil. There is no reason to panic,’
`Your Holiness – once you are on Burgundian soil I shall have no position from which to bargain with Sigismund. He will outlaw me for this! He will have everything I own!'
Cossa dropped the silken amiability. His face hardened murderously, making Frederick doubly fearful. `If you even imagine you have a bargaining position, that you can use me as a trading piece with Sigismund, I will have you garrotted here, in this room, now – do you understand me?' he said. `We will stop this nonsense about the value of your word. It is worthless. You will take me to Burgundy.'
'Holiness – listen to me. It was a mistake for you to escape from Konstanz. You may have had to resign your papacy – yes. I mean, that is the sheer reality of it, isn't it? But the French cardinals and the other moderates in the council who hold the balance between the fanatic English and the Germans on one hand, and the Italians on the other, would make sure that you could resign with all dignity and all due grace. D'Ailly understands these things. He would make sure that your future would be richly endowed. But Sigismund! Sigismund is a barbarian and I shudder to think what it is – right now – that he is getting underway against you.'
`You are not competent to advise me,' Cossa said. `I hired you to defend me. Are you going to get me to Burgundy?'
'No, Your Holiness. I can get no one out. How can I get myself out?'
