Pasquale's Angel Page 16

  A soldier fired his pike at one of the stilt-men—the pike-head went wide and flew straight across the square and struck Berni’s light-cannon, smashing the armature of its lenses. The patterns on the façade of the bank froze around a blurred white web. Another soldier whirled his mace-net around his head and flung it, entangling the legs of one of the stilt-men, who crashed to the paving-stones and erupted in thick jets of vapour that jerked his body this way and that: a cache of gas-bombs, letting go all at once. The mob surged back from this new horror.

  Baverio broke from Pasquale’s grip and ran across the square in the direction of the Great Engineer’s tower, which loomed above the turmoil, its lights as remote as stars. Pasquale screamed after Baverio and ran too, dodging amongst people running in every direction.

  A stilt-man stalked forward to intercept him, blowing hard on a toy trumpet. He was unmasked, with a narrow white face and a shock of red hair. Pasquale changed direction, running now not after Baverio but to save himself, running hard towards the narrow passage at the side of the Loggia. The red-headed stilt-man lobbed a gas-bomb that blocked the way. He was laughing wildly, enjoying his sport. Pasquale turned again, and saw, above the heads of the crowd, two more stilt-men swiftly picking their way towards him in one direction, and a coach and pair galloping at full tilt towards him from another. The coach bore the crest of the house of Taddei.

  Before Pasquale could make a run towards the coach, the shadows of the pair of stilt-men loomed over him. Pasquale yelled defiantly. The nearest bent towards him—and then arrows sprouted on his chest and he staggered back, blundering into his companion. The coach swung past, its pair of white horses tossing their heads. The carriage door banged open and a man leaned out and caught Pasquale around the waist and drew him in, just as the mortally wounded stilt-man toppled and exploded.

  5

  The Palazzo Taddei was busy with men coming and going even at the late hour, past midnight, when Pasquale and Baverio arrived. As soon as they climbed down from the carriage, Baverio was taken off in one direction, and a page led Pasquale in another. Pasquale, excited and curious, and certainly in no condition to sleep after his close brush with the stilt-men, followed readily enough. He was taken inside to see Taddei himself, who was holding an audience in the great hall on the first floor of the Palazzo, listening to a report from a sergeant-at-arms of the militia.

  Taddei was sitting in a high-backed chair near the cavernous fireplace, his jowly, pugnacious face lit on one side by the crowns of hissing acetylene lamps that hung from the ceiling, on the other by the shuddering light of the fire. He wore a richly brocaded robe, and a turban embroidered with gold thread. His eyes were half closed as he listened to the sergeant’s stuttering account of a riot in the workers’ quarter across the river. His secretary sat at a table beside him, taking down the sergeant’s words. On the other side of the fireplace sat a thin young man clad in black, and a cardinal in scarlet robes and a red skullcap, both listening keenly.

  The sleepless manufactories had shut down, it seemed, because the workers, the ciompi, had left their labours and were looting and burning their way through the commercial district which served their impoverished quarter. Pasquale realized that the point of the report was the defence by a detachment of the city militia of a warehouse owned by Taddei.

  The sergeant concluded, ‘Those scum will burn their own houses in their rage, but if we are lucky they won’t think or wish to turn to the factories or warehouses, or cross the bridges. They know that if they do, they will have to face mercenary troops as well as us, and I do not think that they have the stomach for a real fight.’

  The cardinal leaned forward. He was a spry, handsome man of some forty years, with lank black hair cut in a fringe, a long straight nose, and a heavy-lidded gaze with which he fixed the soldier. A big jewelled cross on a heavy gold chain rested on his chest. ‘Be assured that they will try the bridges. The Savonarolistas are behind that riot, of that we can be certain.’

  The sergeant said in a nervous rush, ‘Begging your pardon, your eminence, but even the Savonarolistas, of which I admit to having seen no sign, would be hard put to control this many-headed mob. The ciompi aren’t led at all, not this time. They have no cause, but are rioting for the sake of it, every man for himself, taking what he can and burning the rest. They live like animals, and so they behave.’

  The cardinal wore rings on every finger of his hands, and he rolled these back and forth on the carved arm of his chair with contained impatience as the sergeant spoke. Now he said, ‘The Savonarolistas will show their hand soon enough. They have been much abroad recently, amongst your manufactory workers.’

  ‘That’s true enough,’ Taddei said. ‘One was discovered in my weaving-sheds only a month ago. He was disguised as a loom operator, and was preaching sedition amongst the other workers. I had him flogged to the city wall and back, and thrown in jail, and sacked all the workers on that shift. But where there is one, there are others, if not in my warehouses or manufactories, then in those of my less careful friends and associates.’

  The sergeant said, ‘Signor Taddei, I ask for your recommendation.’

  ‘I’ll pay for guards on all my manufactories and warehouses. You know the arrangements, and I know they will be acceptable to you. Go now, Sergeant, you have a long night ahead of you.’

  ‘Signor,’ the sergeant said steadfastly, ‘if the Savonarolistas are involved, I may be ordered to help guard the bridges.’

  The young man in black said sarcastically, ‘If you have to defend the bridges, they won’t be attacking the manufactories, will they?’ This fellow was hardly older than Pasquale, with a mop of tousled blond hair and a face as keen as a knife-blade, his hollow cheeks hectic with acne. His left hand was tucked beneath the bend of his knee, thumb and forefinger working on the ligament there.

  ‘You’ll do your best to make sure that those orders never reach you,’ Taddei told the sergeant. ‘I’m sure a man used to being rewarded so well can manage a small task like that.’

  The sergeant said slowly, ‘If the worst comes to the worst, we can always dispose of any messengers, make it look like rebel work…’

  ‘I don’t want to know about how you’ll do it,’ Taddei said with distaste, and turned to his secretary. ‘Marchetto, you won’t write that down, I’ll have no part in sedition.’

  ‘No visible part,’ the young man said, with a humourless smile.

  ‘No part,’ Taddei repeated firmly. ‘Go to your work, Sergeant. We’ll pray for you.’

  The sergeant saluted and marched out, and Taddei smiled at Pasquale as if he had seen him for the first time. ‘Come here, boy! Come along. Perhaps you can tell us more of these matters, and enlighten my friend here. This is the boy I told you about,’ he added, turning to the cardinal.

  The cardinal lifted a pair of spectacles, shaped like the handles of scissors, to his eyes. He peered at Pasquale for a long moment. ‘Ah, the apprentice of Giovanni Rosso. I have a small painting by Rosso’s master, Andrea del Sarto. An old-fashioned piece, but it gives me pleasure.’

  Pasquale said eagerly, ‘I have learned many things from my master, and from Piero di Cosimo, too; Perhaps you saw the drawings of the scene of Giulio Romano’s murder—those were my own engravings. I am also skilled in all kinds of drawing, especially silverpoint, and in all aspects of the painting of frescos, and of any kind of picture your eminence might require. At this moment I am engaged in the painting of an angel the like of which has never been seen before—’

  The cardinal said, ‘How I wish I was here to discuss painting.’

  ‘If it please your eminence, perhaps he would at least accept this token of my skill.’ Pasquale unfastened the emblem of the Florentine lily which he had pinned to his black serge jerkin—its gold-foil loops were a little crushed by his adventures, but it still shone with a fine buttery lustre—and held it out. He wondered if he should kiss the cardinal’s ring. He had never met a cardinal before, but knew vaguely that
you should kiss the Pope’s foot—there had been a small scandal some time ago, when it was discovered that Leo X, when he went hunting, wore thigh-length soft leather boots which made kissing his foot impossible. Certain broadsheets had commented that the Medicis were corrupting the Holy See for their own convenience, just as they had once corrupted the government of Florence.

  The cardinal took the little brooch and twirled it between his long white fingers. ‘If only I could wear this openly,’ he said, ‘I would be the happiest man in the world.’

  Taddei made a gesture, and the page-boy brought a stool. Pasquale sat, and found that he had to look up at the others.

  Taddei explained, ‘This young man has been involved with the inquiries of Niccolò Machiavegli into the murder of Giulio Romano. He was rescued from the Palazzo della Signoria this night, and brought straight here.’ He said to Pasquale, ‘I must suppose that you were with Signor Machiavegli, investigating Raphael’s murder.’

  ‘Well, that’s true,’ Pasquale said. He was not sure just how much he should admit, but that seemed safe enough.

  The cardinal said, ‘I had believed Machiavegli reduced to a petty journalist, a poor enough occupation for a man of his talent. This news heartens us. Do the members of the Signoria relish the thought of having him involved in matters of state once more?’

  ‘I do not believe they are much aware of it,’ Taddei said. ‘I engaged Machiavegli myself, for the private matter of investigating the death of poor Giulio Romano. His murder—’

  ‘Yes, yes. I heard all of that sorry tale from Raphael, not an hour before he himself was murdered. I had not believed that Florence was so dangerous. But I did not know that Machiavegli was investigating these matters. A provocative choice,’ the cardinal said, ‘and one that pleases us greatly. We have always considered Machiavegli to be supportive of our family.’

  With a soft, sinking shock Pasquale realized who the cardinal was: Giulio de’ Medici, the Pope’s cousin. He wondered what he had fallen into. Of course, Signor Taddei was a good friend of Raphael’s, and so would know the Pope, but Pasquale was beginning to understand that nothing was simple in these circles. As in a painting, where every object is not only itself but also its allegorical meaning, so here each action had a sinister shadow.

  Taddei said to Pasquale, ‘I see that you recognize my illustrious guest. Be assured that he is a friend of Florence.’

  ‘I do not doubt that any friend of yours is a friend of Florence, signor,’ Pasquale said.

  Taddei said, ‘I must also introduce Girolamo Cardano, a mathematician, and more germane to the matter at hand, a scientist of natural magic and my personal astrologer.’

  The young man in black, Cardano, shifted on his seat with a grimace. He said, ‘In my opinion, Machiavegli is a summer soldier, a competent playwright, a no more than ordinary poet, and a failed servant of the state. He’s not to be trusted. Even his friends say that, for love of this city, he has pissed in many a snow. But then you never take my opinions into account when you act.’

  ‘On the contrary, my dear Girolamo,’ Taddei said, ‘there’s always a good deal of truth in what you say. But the thing of it is that Machiavegli has a fascination with problems and riddles. A problem can possess him and consume his entire attention if it is sufficiently complex, and I believe that this problem has indeed possessed him. He needs no commission from me, now. It has become his life.’ Taddei’s forthright gaze bore down on Pasquale. ‘Tell us about his investigation, my boy. More to the point, tell us where he is now. My men could not find him, or he would be here with you.’

  ‘In truth, signor, I would wish that he was here with us too, for I do not know where he is, and I greatly fear for him. I saw him last at the Palazzo della Signoria. He left with the captain of the Guard to question the servants who had been in attendance when Raphael was assassinated, after he discovered that it was not the wine steward who poisoned Raphael.’

  Pasquale told of what had fallen out at the Palazzo della Signoria, speaking mostly to Taddei, but with sidelong glances at the cardinal. When he was done, he realized that the page had appeared at his side, holding out a tray on which stood a jewelled beaker of wine. He drank gratefully, and at once the rich wine’s fumes invaded his head, as if driven by the heat of the fire.

  Girolamo Cardano shifted in his chair, with a sudden wince as if he’d been struck. Pasquale saw that his thumb and forefinger had closed, pincer-like, on the soft muscle under his knee, and that this self-chastisement had brought tears to his eyes. The young magician caught him looking and said with a sneer, ‘Like Machiavegli, I need to be reminded of the failing of my body.’

  Taddei said, amused, ‘Niccolò Machiavegli drinks; Girolamo inflicts pain upon himself. He says that otherwise he is overcome by a certain mental anguish. He does not believe in himself, you see, unless he is subject to some small hurt.’

  Cardano ignored this and said to Pasquale, ‘You do not tell us why the stilt-men were pursuing you.’

  ‘In truth, signor, I do not know why. It seemed to me that the stilt-men were attacking any of the crowd that took their attention.’

  ‘He dissembles,’ Cardano declared. With a languorous flick of his wrist, he pulled a white mask as if from thin air, held it up so that its angles flashed in the light of the fire. He tossed it to Pasquale, who caught it by reflex. It had triangular black-rimmed cut-outs for eyes, and black ribbons to tie it around the wearer’s head. The ribbons were stiff with dry blood.

  ‘A Venetian carnival mask, taken from one of the men on stilts,’ the astrologer said. ‘What would you have us know of Venetians, painter?’

  ‘Nothing more than what you already seem to know.’

  Cardano made another languid gesture, and held up a little box. It was covered in black leather, and the astrologer flicked a hinged slide that covered a pinhole opening at one end. Pasquale knew at once what it was: Baverio had described it well.

  Signor Taddei said, not unkindly, ‘We found this amongst poor Giulio Romano’s possessions.’

  ‘There’s something missing,’ Cardano said. ‘You have it, I believe.’

  Pasquale discovered that he was sweating hard, although he felt as if he was bathed in ice. ‘It was only a piece of glass, covered in some black stuff.’

  He could see it quite clearly. It lay on a pile of papers on Niccolò’s writing-table, with the flying device resting beside it.

  ‘Ah,’ Cardano said, ‘exposed, then. If we are to believe you that is.’

  ‘You can ask Raphael’s page. It was he who entrusted it to me, out of the best of motives. He believed it would help me find Romano’s murderer.’

  ‘Hardly,’ Cardano said. ‘Where is it?’

  Pasquale said, ‘I do not have it.’ Signor Taddei’s uplifted eyebrow compelled him to confess, ‘I gave it to Niccolò, to Signor Machiavegli. If you please, I would know what it signified.’

  ‘Something or nothing,’ Cardano said. ‘It depends what image it captured.’

  Pasquale said, ‘Then it was a kind of mirror magic.’

  ‘More powerful and exact than that,’ the astrologer said. ‘This box throws an image on a coated glass plate, which captures it and is blackened to various degrees by various degrees of light. That plate you had may or may not have held an image, but it had not been treated to make it insensitive to light. That’s why it turned black when it was exposed. Don’t tell me that you are ignorant of the process, painter. You shouldn’t be: it will be the end of your profession.’

  ‘I have heard of such things,’ Pasquale said.

  Taddei said, ‘The Great Engineer decided to reveal his invention once he realized that a spy had discovered it. With a masterly stroke, he did so by making a likeness of the Pope and his immediate entourage.’

  ‘It is a very slow process,’ the cardinal said. ‘How Leo complained! We had to sit still for a full two minutes, and Leo had to rest his head in a brace devised by the Great Engineer, for any movement would blur the
image.’

  Pasquale suddenly understood the true nature of the charred picture in his scrip. It was no drawing, but a true image, a residue of something that had really happened. Giustiniani had posed for it, out of monstrous pride or arrogance, and Francesco had tried to bribe him with a copy. But if this was an invention of the Great Engineer’s, how had Raphael’s assistants come by it? Had Salai given it to them? And if so, for what purpose?

  In answer to these questions, which tumbled one upon the other in Pasquale’s brain, Taddei said, ‘One of these devices was taken from the Great Engineer’s workshops. It seems that Romano was a spy.’

  The cardinal said, ‘Not for Rome, despite his name. It seems that Giulio Romano had been promised advancement and employment in return for the smallest of favours. He was not a disloyal man, but was beginning to believe that he had laboured too long in Raphael’s shadow. The court of Spain offered him a position there, if he performed certain tasks. But poor Romano was an innocent, killed once he had learnt what his masters needed to know, or so we believe.’

  For a moment, Pasquale thought that he was falling into the sudden silence of the long firelit room. He said to Taddei, ‘And you set us to the task of finding the murderer, knowing this?’

  Taddei protested. ‘I knew nothing until tonight. I learnt it from a message which arrived only moments before you did. It would seem that whoever has taken Raphael’s body wishes to exchange it for you, young man.’