«It’s an honour for me to see you here, sir», Andrea said, in turn sketching a bow as a greeting, anxious to know the reason for the unexpected visit. «Now then, may I know what prompted you to move from the stronghold of San Leo, your undisputed bulwark, to the Mount Carpegna, which represents for you a treacherous ground full of perils?»
Giovanni mocked himself and widened his mouth in a smile, then Andrea saw him get closer to him, until he put his hand on his shoulder, almost in a gesture of friendship. From him? From someone he considered an enemy? Did he have to expect to fall into some kind of trap? There was little to trust. Andrea stiffened and the other one lowered his arm, then he started talking.
«I bring good news for you, maybe a little less for me» the Medici said. «The Duke of Urbino has agreed with the new Pope, and...»
«You’re telling me things I already know. The deal with Adrian VI happened two months ago!»
A smile was printed on the lips of the interlocutor again.
«Don’t interrupt me, let me finish. I’m not talking about the Pope who, I think for a little while longer, sits on the papal throne. I speak of the Bishop of Florence, of Julius De’ Medici, who will soon take his rightful place. There are rumours that Adriano Florensz is in very poor health and has a short life. If the good Lord does not call him back to his side, he will have to renounce the office soon. And the papacy will return again to the house of Medici.»
«And you are here to make me believe that my lord, the Duke Della Rovere, who has always been a bitter enemy of the house to which you belong, has already made a secret agreement with the Bishop of Florence, even before having the certainty that he will be elected to the papal throne! Do you think me stupid?»
«Trust me! To show my good faith, I have brought you a gift, which I’m sure will please you.»
With a snap of his fingers, Giovanni beckoned to approach one of the remaining thugs... The latter jumped to the ground and went to lay a large wicker basket next to his lord. Then he bowed in reverence and retraced his steps. The tension could be cut with the knife. Everyone remained silent, even the Counts of Carpegna had stopped at a respectful distance and were waiting for how the events would unfold. The only noise that could be heard was the withering of the banners, which were stretched out under the wind. Giovanni opened the basket and grabbed the macabre contents, showing it to Andrea. A head cut off cleanly from his neck, still dripping blood, his hair entangled between the fingers of the man whose outstretched arm was waving it proudly under his nose. Andrea barely held back a gagging gag, but he recognized to whom that sort of trophy had belonged in life.
«Your worst enemy, Messer Franciolini! Masio da Cingoli. As you can see, I’ve taken the trouble to make sure he doesn’t bother you anymore. You should be grateful!»
«To tell you the truth, I had other intentions about him. I was going to describe the facts to the Duke Della Rovere, in a letter whose contents I already had in mind, calling for a fair trial for this little good. The last of my wishes was to kill him without the intervention of justice. If I had done so, I would have put myself in his shoes. Let it never be said that the Marquis Franciolini is a coward!»
«You could have always challenged him to a duel, but since someone else thought of him, you had saved your honour and you can certainly consider yourself satisfied», and so saying Giovanni dalle Bande Nere threw Masio’s head with contempt on the ground, near Andrea’s feet, resuming his speech immediately, before the latter had a chance to reply. «But there is more, and this is the good news for you. My troops and I are leaving San Leo. Given the terms of the alliance between the Medici and Duke Della Rovere, there is nothing more to fear in these parts. In the coming days, the communities of San Leo and Maiolo will fall under your jurisdiction. Our presence is instead claimed in Brescia. It seems that the Lansquenets have moved from Bolzano and press on the gates of this city. The Gonzaga on the one hand and the Visconti-Sforza on the other, feel themselves in danger, being the bulk of the Venetian forces at the moment engaged in Dalmatia to repel the attacks of the Ottomans. Della Rovere, alone, was unable to stand up to those gangs of bad soldiers, and no one wanted the army of Charles V of Hapsburg to come behind them and threaten cities like Milan, Florence or, worse, Rome. My soldiers of fortune are needed, and our common friend, Francesco Maria, has understood this well!»
If I were not in these conditions, surely the Duke would have summoned me and my men to fight at his side, rather than this bloodthirsty angel-faced man, Andrea said to himself, beware of expressing this thought. But, at the end of the day, perhaps it is better now. Away the Medici, these territories are quiet at the moment and I will be able, as soon as possible, to return to Jesi and marry the Countess Lucia.
He took one last look at Masio’s head, took pity on it, picked it up and put it back inside the basket, closing it with the lid, then turned to Giovanni.
«I am happy for you, Sir Ludovico», and he remarked the voice on this name, aware of how unwelcome it was for the person in front of him to be so called. «I thank you for everything and I wish you good luck.»
Having said this, he turned around, jumped on the horse, reached Piero and Bono, who had remained silent spectators until that moment, and started again at their side towards the fortress, spurring the horse at a fast pace.
«A boaster, there’s nothing to say!», Piero from Carpegna said.
«Yeah!» Bono replied.
«Forget it», Andrea intervened. «He won’t bother us anymore, and that’s what’s important. Rather, retrieve the basket with Masio’s head. I want him to be given a decent burial. I really can’t stand that someone took the trouble to do justice for me, and I don’t want it to be said that I accepted with pleasure the summary execution of that coward. Coward when he was alive and coward remains. But I am no equal to him!»
«And it’s true!», Piero replied again. «You have a noble and generous soul, and we all appreciate it. We’ll provide Masio’s mortal remains are settled. In fact, we’ll also send someone to look for the rest of the body, after Giovanni dalle Bande Nere has left San Leo.»
CHAPTER 3
Eleonora was so beautiful. Her naked body, half-abandoned on the bed, beaded with sweat, reflected the flames of the fireplace, taking on her an amber colour, which revived again Francesco Maria’s desire. Making love with his wife was much more satisfying than making it with a maid or, worse, with a slut. He reached out his hand and grazed her nipple. He felt it rise up under the delicate touch, then he saw Eleonora move, wake up from the torpor and lean towards him again. The mouths joined in a long kiss. A meeting of lips, of tongues, of naked bodies burning to unite again, in a weave of long hair, her blonde hair, his dark hair. Before penetrating his wife again, the Duke put his dark, almost black, eyes into her sea-blue eyes.
«I love you», he whispered to her, realizing those two words, apparently so simple and obvious, would not be uttered in the presence of any other woman. In response, Eleonora took his face in her warm hands, caressed his rough beard, and accompanied him to lie on his back on the linen sheets. Then she sat astride him, sliding his swollen member between her thighs. Francesco Maria was in ecstasy. He loved she took the initiative. He watched Eleonora from below swinging above him, in an ever tightening crescendo of swinging movements, in an ever faster and more pressing rhythm. Drops of sweat, from her forehead, came to rasp his chest, his cheeks, his forehead. He pushed his warrior’s hands along the flanks of his indomitable filly, until they reached her breasts, to start caressing them in a circular motion. He felt Eleonora get even more excited, her gasping breath turn almost into a cry of pleasure. He realized that he could no longer hold back and flooded the belly of his woman who, having reached orgasm, shouted even louder, then stopped and fell on top of him, making sure that his member still did not leave the coils of her womb. Francesco sighed, satiated with the night of love, waited for the erection to slowly come to an end, then gently moved the helpless female body. He knew well that after the third intercourse, Eleonora fell deeply asleep. He made sure that her breathing was regular, covered her naked body with a sheet, and got out of bed, putting on his stockings. He brought a couple of grapes of sweet white grapes to his mouth and then, thoughtful, he approached the window admiring the silvery reflections of the moon on the lake waters. For some months he was a guest in the Scaliger castle of Sirmione, a castle surrounded by water on all four sides and built in a strategic position, on the southern shore of Lake Garda, by the Lords of Verona, precisely to counter the fearsome enemies who invariably descended from the Alps, along the valley of the river Adige. And in that period the enemy was even more fearsome, because instead of being a regular army, it was made up of bloody bands of Germans, who were called Lansquenets, and who fought to the advantage of the Emperor Charles V of Habsburg, but they did it in their own way. The waters of the lake were calm on that mid-November night and the surrounding landscape, illuminated by the moon and overlooked by the silhouettes of the mountains, was truly impressive. From the window, Francesco Maria could look out onto the dock below, a large square shaped like an irregular square, bordered by the castle walls and invaded by the waters of the lake. Through an opening in the walls, boats of a certain size could find safe shelter inside. The dock was the station for the Scaligera fleet, a fleet that would hardly have seen the open sea, considering the lake had no navigable emissaries communicating with the shores of the Adriatic Sea. Only through a series of complicated manoeuvres along artificial water channels and flooded fields could boats be transferred to the large dock at the Armed Citadel of the city of Mantua. From here, through the Mincio, it was possible to easily reach the great river Po, the ancient Eridano, and finally sail towards the Venetian territories and the Adriatic Sea.
Looking beyond the walls, Francesco Maria, at the moment, could only observe placid waters, dotted here and there with hulls, and mountainous ramparts, whose peaks had already begun to cover themselves with the first snow. But the enemy could appear suddenly, from one moment to the next, and the Duke was not happy his wife Eleonora and her retinue were there. Yes, on the one hand he was happy to be able to enjoy her company and the love encounters like the one that had just ended, but on the other he feared for her safety. It had been almost twenty years since they had married. Of course, they were only two fifteen-year-old boys at the time of the marriage, a political marriage that had strengthened the alliance between the Urbino and Mantua’s families, but there were very few opportunities to be together. She in Mantua, at the Gonzaga court, and him in the Marche to fight and fight and fight. The first son, Guidobaldo, who was now nine years old, had arrived almost two decades after his wedding day, and those last two months had been the first real period in which Francesco Maria had been able to enjoy his closeness. Since the family was reunited, one could also think of considering a few more children, perhaps a few girls, in order to take anything away from his first-born Guidobaldo. But it seemed that, despite the frequent love encounters of recent times, Eleonora did not seem to getting pregnant. Was she too old to procreate anymore? But no! She was thirty-three years old, she was no longer a little girl, but she was certainly still of childbearing age. In all of this, his heart suggested on the one hand to keep his wife close to him, in order to enjoy her love and her presence, and on the other to send her back to Mantua to protect her from the horrors of a possible battle against the infamous Lansquenets. Moreover, in those very days, news had arrived of the death of Pope Adriano VI, who had been promptly replaced on the papal throne by Giulio De’ Medici, with the name of Clemente VII. It wasn’t certainly an unexpected event. Francesco Maria had foreseen this and his emissaries had worked to make pacts with the Medici, even before he had been elected Pope. But what worried him, and for which he could not sleep at night, not even after a satisfying meeting with the beautiful Eleonora, was how Charles V would react to the new situation. He would have moved, certainly he would have moved on several fronts, in an official way against the France of Francis I Valoise, against his usual enemy, in a less official way by making the Lansquenets spread in Northern Italy in order to subjugate Milan and aim at Florence and Rome, to reunite all the Italian territories, besides those already owned by Naples, Sicily and Sardinia, under the only imperial crown. It would not have been easy to prevent the Germanic army, once paved the way by the Lansquenets, to reach Rome, put it to fire and sword and finally reach the city of Naples, ally of Charles V. It was only to be hoped in the courage and resourcefulness of Giovanni Ludovico De’ Medici. And of his man, who was anxiously waiting day by day for his trusty Marquis of Alto Montefeltro. To interrupt the flow of Francesco Maria’s thoughts was the sighting of the silhouette of an enormous boat, flying the flag of the Serenissima Republic
2
The first to disembark were the servants, who provided to stack on the pier trunks and personal belongings of the noble warriors who had accompanied in navigation. The servants of the castle rushed out, both to transfer the luggage of each one in the rooms already assigned to them, and to direct the newly disembarked servants to the wings of the castle reserved for them, so that they could refresh themselves, rest and, if they wanted, take advantage of the company of some tramp. Immediately afterwards the sailors went ashore, who were soon directed to the openings that gave access to the town of Sirmione, on the southern side of the walls of the dock. They couldn’t wait to reach the taverns, to feast, drink wine and lure some beautiful villagers. The women of the Venetian and Lombard lands were in fact renowned throughout the peninsula for being passionate and always available lovers. And then they spoke with that singing idiom that would open the heart even to the most gruff of sailors. And all for a few coins, much less than what one was accustomed to pay in other areas for the sexual favours of certain damsels.
The last to get off the big boat were the noble warriors, each escorted by his own attendants. One after the other, they crossed the threshold of the large saloon where they were welcomed by the Duke Della Rovere, who invited them to bid farewell to their subordinates and sit at the table set. Soon it would be a feast, the food would certainly not be lacking and the wine would be flowing. At a nod from the Duke, some handmaids with colourful transparent dresses, which left nothing to the imagination, began to dance sinuously on one side of the room, to the rhythm of a lullaby reminiscent of exotic atmospheres. Women took prisoners and made slaves during the campaigns of the Serenissima against the Ottoman Empire. Women who came from the lands of the Near East and who knew how to make their bellies dance independently from the rest of the body. At a second nod of the Duke, the girls got rid of the coloured tunics and kept wearing only tiny costumes to cover breasts and pubis. The music changed and the young maids, one more beautiful than the other, one more sensual than the other, began to perform the provocative belly dance. In the meantime, the servants poured over the sumptuous table all sorts of things, from hare pies to roast wild boar, from sweet-and-sour game to jugged rabbits, from vegetables of various colours to chicken and beef broths flavoured with spices. The jugs of wine did not have time to make their appearance on the table that already had to be replaced with other full.
Francesco Maria reviewed the faces of his guests. The Duke of Orvieto, with a chicken leg in his hand and a mug of wine in the other, had already approached one of the dancers, throwing kisses with greasy lips towards her. That one, for all answer, had got rid of the upper part of the costume and had remained bare-breasted, continuing the dance in an even more provocative way. The Marquis of Villamarina, for his part, had sat down at the table, with the serious intention of eating and drinking to his heart’s content, almost without regard to the dance performance. But he shook his head to the rhythm of the music. Messer Vittorio dei Gherardeschi, Count of Hunting and Lord of the lands of Polverigi, looked around a little lost, as if everything that was happening in the salon did not concern him at all. He approached Francesco Maria, greeted him with respect and asked to be accompanied to his lodgings, as he was very tired and wanted to rest. The Duke Della Rovere had scrutinized everyone, but had not yet been able to locate Andrea. The latter, in a completely unexpected way, entered at a certain point in the hall from the opposite entrance to the one from which all the others had entered, the one used by those who came from the mainland, from the town of Sirmione. Andrea appeared tried, he was very pale and had dark circles around his eyes.
«My God, Andrea! It seems that ships are your worst enemy!», and so saying Francesco Maria approached his friend, holding him in an affectionate embrace. «Luckily I have other plans for you, and tomorrow we will talk about it in all tranquillity. Now have a seat and enjoy my hospitality to the full. You will be able to restore body and spirit, and tomorrow you will feel like another man!»