“We know, Messer Cellini-we know -what happened during the attack on Rome, sixteen years ago.”
“Ah, then you know that I commanded the artillery that defended Pope Clement VII when he was under siege in the Castel St. Angelo?”
“We do,” Signor Luigi said sarcastically, annoyed at having his per-oration interrupted.
“And that I was the one who kept the three beacons burning every night, to prove that we had not surrendered?”
“But that is not-”
“And that it was a shot from my arquebus that brought down the Duke of Bourbon himself?”
“We know,” Luigi boomed, “that the Pope, in his hour of most desperate need, with the barbarians battering at the very doors of his sanctuary, entrusted you with the jewels belonging to the Holy Apostolic Chamber.”
At last Cellini could see where this was going. “That he did. I would never deny it. Pope Clement, may his soul rest in peace, came to me one night and said, ‘Benvenuto, we must find a way to preserve these treasures. What can we do?’”
“So you admit to this concealment?”
It was all Cellini could do not to thump the idiot on his fancy breastplate.
“With the help of the Pope himself, and his servant Cavalierino,” Cellini explained, more to the Pope on his throne than his insulting bastard son, “we removed all the precious stones from his tiaras and miters and crowns and sewed as many of them as we could into the folds of the robes that he and his servant had on. In order to move the gold more easily, we melted it down.” Cellini remembered well the small blast furnace he had hastily built in his quarters. He had tossed the gold into the charcoals and let it drip down into the large tray he had placed beneath the brick.
“And where are those jewels now? Where is that gold?”
“Where it has always been. In the coffers and vaults of the Vatican.”
“All but eighty thousand ducats’ worth!” Signor Luigi trumpeted.
“Is that what you are accusing me of? Stealing the Pope’s jewels?”
Signor Luigi rocked on his heels, his thumbs hooked beneath the corners of his breastplate. “If you didn’t, who did?”
Cellini hardly knew where to start, but he knew that he had to be careful; Signor Luigi was a dangerous enemy. Even if Pope Paul knew him to be a bit slippery, the man was still his son-and blood was thicker than water. Cellini never forgot that.
“First of all, even if I had committed such an unthinkable offense, I would never have confessed it to a man like Pascucci; the city of Perugia never gave birth to a bigger liar and thief. And as for the missing stones, I suggest you consult the account books. Have you done that?”
Signor Luigi didn’t answer.
“I didn’t think so. Everything-every ring, every diamond, every ruby, even every garnet-was recorded in the accounts as soon as the siege was lifted. While Pope Clement was negotiating the settlement, a small diamond ring, worth no more than four thousand scudi, fell from his finger, and when the imperial ambassador bent to pick it up, the Pope told him to keep it. Apart from that, you will see that not a ducat’s worth-much less eighty thousand ducats’ worth-is missing.” Cellini scoffed, to indicate the absurdity of the charge he had just addressed.
And though Pope Paul appeared mollified, Signor Luigi was not. Indeed, his brow was more furrowed than ever, and rather than let it go, he said, “The account books will be looked at.” He snapped his fingers and waggled them at a retainer, who scuttled out of the room to get started. “But that still leaves us with an equally grave charge.”
“Another?” Pope Paul said, sounding a bit put off.
“Yes, Father… a charge of heresy.”
The room fell utterly silent, and the Pope leaned forward on his purple throne, his long white beard brushing his knees.
Signor Luigi, pleased at having recaptured everyone’s attention, said, “In his workshop in Florence, Messer Cellini has experimented with forbidden texts and arcana that are in direct contravention of Church teachings. My sources tell me-”
“What sources?” Cellini broke in. “Pascucci again?”
“No,” Signor Luigi replied dryly, “other apprentices you employed. And they tell me you have employed various grimoires”-the black books of magic banned by the Catholic Church-“to fashion objects of an occult nature. Objects that may give you powers properly reserved for God alone.”
Pope Paul fell back in his chair. A foreign ambassador-French by the look of his finery and lace-gasped and held a handkerchief to his face, as if to avert a contagion. Cellini felt the temperature in the room fall by several degrees.
“I don’t know how to answer such baseless accusations,” Cellini said, “especially as I don’t know who’s making them.”
“That’s for me to know,” Signor Luigi declared.
“Is it true?” Pope Paul asked.
And here Cellini paused. He would have to continue his denial, but lying to the Pope himself was a sin of a magnitude he could hardly contemplate. And Signor Luigi must have noted his hesitation because, before Cellini could think of what to say, he had swooped forward, reached under Cellini’s shirt collar, and lifted the chain out.
The Medusa lay in the palm of his hand, her face glaring up at the throne.
“The proof, Father, the proof! An unholy object, whose true purpose only the Devil can know.”
The Pope indicated that he wanted to see it, and one of his priests came forward and lifted it over Cellini’s head. When it was placed in the Pope’s hand, he studied it closely, then turned it over, rubbing his thumb on the black silk backing.
“What is it?” he asked.
“A looking glass, Your Holiness.”
The Pope twisted the latches and the silk cover slid away. Cellini inadvertently glanced toward the long windows giving onto the Vatican gardens. Blessedly, the sun, and not the moon, hung in the sky above the grove of orange and lemon trees.
“It’s not a very good one,” the Pope said, eyeing the convex, and distorting, glass.
“No, Your Eminence, it did not meet my own expectations, either. It was designed for Eleonora de Toledo, but as it came out imperfectly, I kept it for myself and made another-a perfect copy, with ruby eyes-for the duchess.”
“Rubies from the Vatican’s casks?” Signor Luigi threw in.
Cellini’s fists clenched-he had taken all the insults he could-and Luigi, backing away, ordered Bertoldo and his henchmen to grab him.
“You will have all the time you need to contemplate your imperfect workmanship,” he said, “in your old home-the dungeons of the Castel St. Angelo.”
Cellini started to protest, but the Pope, reluctant to thwart his son any longer, handed the glass to one of his retainers as if it were a piece of spoiled fruit from his garden, and conspicuously turned away.
Chapter 9
“One more time, Uncle David! One more time!”
David was about to get off the ice-he hadn’t been skating in years and he considered it a miracle that he hadn’t taken a fall yet-but in deference to his niece, he agreed to go around the rink with her for one more lap. After all, it was Christmas Eve.
It was cold, but still bright and sunny out, and as they skated past Sarah, sitting on the bench and wrapped in a long down coat and a woolen cap pulled down tight around her ears, David shouted, “You hanging in there?”
Sarah nodded and gave him a thumbs-up.
