CHAPTER FOUR
Borgia’s visit with his sister had not been an entirely happy one, as she had been thought at one point to be at death’s door from the complications of her pregnancy. But as soon as she had begun to show signs of recovery he had wasted no further time, and now he returned to the Romagna armed with his highly favorable assurances from King Louis. He lost no time in establishing a new headquarters at the small but well-fortified city of Imola, to the northwest. Leonardo soon received a summons to join him there.
It was early September when Leonardo and his entourage rode through the gate of the Rocca Sforzesca, the fortress at the town’s southwest corner, with its forty-foot-deep moat and fifteen-foot-thick walls. To do so, they had to cross two bridges, for the moat was split by a man-made island. From the concentration with which Leonardo observed everything, Blackfield was sure he would have suggestions for the duke on still further improvements.
But they soon learned that Borgia was gone again—indeed, that he had slipped out of Imola almost as abruptly and unceremoniously as he had out of Urbino in July. But this time everyone knew why. He had been summoned by his father the pope to a private meeting at Camerino, a hundred miles northeast of Rome near the border of the Romagna. The ostensible reason was to discuss the initial steps to establish the four-year-old Giovanni Borgia, the so-called Infans Romanus (widely whispered to be Lucrezia’s illegitimate offspring, possibly by her father or brother) as heir to the Romagna dukedom. But no one believed for an instant that the apparent purpose was the real one, and rumor had free rein.
More and more, Blackfield found himself trying to think like Machiavelli, futile though he knew the effort to probably be. He knew Alexander VI had been growing increasingly unsettled by his son’s hot-headed behavior, which threatened to upset the delicate balance of power he had nurtured between the French and the Spanish. And when he had learned that Cardinal Orsini had slipped out of Rome (where he could be kept under observation and, if necessary, taken hostage) and gotten to King Louis’ court first, he had been terrified that Cesare might end by being the hostage, ruining all the family’s plans. But the young man’s audacious gamble had succeeded, and now perhaps a relieved but still shaken Pope wanted to discuss plans for a seizure of Bologna, which apparently was no longer under King Louis’ protection and whose lord, Bentivoglio, had joined the Orsini in their plot.
Then Borgia returned from Camerino, grimly close-mouthed. No one Blackfield could talk to was able to shed any light; all discussions between the pope and his son had been in the Catalan tongue, closer to French than to Spanish and nothing like Italian. Still, he felt his speculations had been confirmed when word arrived that the pope had summoned Bentivoglio to Rome, laying the groundwork for a takeover by Borgia.
But as September wore on, the duke took no action, and Alexander VI appeared to try to force matters. He ordered Paolo and Giulio Orsini to report to Borgia, their superior as gonfaloniere of the papal forces, for a march on Bologna, thus putting them in the position of having to either obey or else reveal their disloyalty. Still, as September turned to October and the weather cooled, Borgia stayed at Imola, ostensibly awaiting the reinforcements King Louis had promised him.
Then, on October 7, a travel-soiled Niccolò Machiavelli rode into Imola.
Naturally, Blackfield was very low on the list of people with whom the Florentine diplomat had to consult. But he finally managed to accost his old acquaintance while he was eating. “All right,” he demanded, “what is going on?”
“Well, it’s complicated…”
“What isn’t, in this damned country?” Blackfield groused.
“First of all,” said Machiavelli didactically, ignoring him, “the real reason Borgia hasn’t marched north on Bologna is that, even if he was able to take all his commanders of doubtful loyalty with him, he’d be leaving the southern Romagna vulnerable to their forces in their various family castles. So he’s preferred to wait for the French reinforcements. But the pope’s order to Paolo and Giulio Orsini brought matters to a head. Cardinal Orsini summoned all the conspirators against Borgia to meet at his castle at La Magione. They all came, including Vitellozzo—yes, he’s definitely involved—even though he was laid up at Città di Castello with a bout of syphilis—”
“How do you know all this?”
“Patience. They all showed up, even Vitellozzo, who had to be brought in on a stretcher. As unappetizing a crew of cutthroats as you’d ever want to meet. Aside from Vitellozzo and the Orsinis—of whom Paolo, at least, is mad as well as weak—there was Oliverotto da Fermo, best known for having almost all his friends and relatives murdered, and Gianpaolo Baglioni, who killed his cousins and nephews in order to become ruler of Perugia, all the while committing incest with his sister. But the strategic mastermind behind the whole business was Pandolfo Petrucci, tyrant of Siena by virtue of having murdered his father-in-law.”
Can it be that Cesare Borgia has met his match? Blackfield wondered. “Well, we can stop wondering whether there’s a conspiracy against Borgia among his condottieri commanders,” he said aloud.
“Oh, he first got wind of it in June,” said Machiavelli casually, pausing for a sip of wine and not noticing Blackfield’s openmouthed expression. “He’s been biding his time and laying his plans ever since. But to resume, the conspirators indulged in a lot of big talk about what they were going to do to Borgia, but they couldn’t hammer out a course of action.” He laughed shortly. “How could that lot possibly trust each other? The only thing they agreed on was to secretly send emissaries to Venice and Florence, asking for their support. I’m sure they’ll be disappointed in the case of Venice, which doesn’t want to make an enemy of King Louis. And as for Florence, the Signoria knows better than to trust the likes of Vitellozzo and Baglioni. And besides, Borgia approached them at the same time. For once, they acted decisively. And therefore,” he concluded, tossing off the last of his wine, “here I am. They’ve sent me as ambassador to offer Borgia support… and asylum, in case he should find himself in need of it.”
Blackfield’s head was spinning even faster than the gyrations of Italian politics.
“So,” Machiavelli continued, “I’ll be here a while, attached to the duke’s court. Of course, while I’m here I can pay my respects to Messer Leonardo.”
Who was sent here to be, among other things, a source of information for the Signoria, thought Blackfield. “Of course,” he echoed aloud.
**********
And so they were all ensconced in Imola—a “city” eight blocks long and five wide—while the weather worsened. Machiavelli, who knew perfectly well that all his dispatches to the Florentine Signoria were being read by Borgia’s officers, never mentioned Leonardo by name in those dispatches, merely referring to him cryptically as “another who is acquainted with Cesare’s secrets” and whose knowledge was “worthy of attention.” Very shortly, however, Leonard was sent to Urbino to look into its defenses. This time, Blackfield did not accompany him; Borgia had developed a sufficiently high opinion of the Englishman to keep him nearby at Imola.
Borgia, as Blackfield learned from Machiavelli, was exerting all his reserves of charm on the latter, and trying to press him into agreeing to a formal alliance with Florence. Machiavelli continued to evade, declaring that he lacked the authority to commit the Republic to such an agreement. In the meantime, grim-faced couriers arrived with increasing frequency, carrying news for the duke that not even Machiavelli was able to spy out.
Then, only three days after his arrival, Machiavelli finally learned from Borgia himself what had happened. Borgia had sent word to Paolo Orsini, the weak link in the conspiracy, offering a rapprochement. It had almost worked; word of it had of course leaked, and the meeting at La Magione had broken up in high dudgeon. But then the conspirators had learned that anti-Borgia rebels had acted on their own account and taken the supposedly impregnable hilltop fortress of San Leo, fourteen miles north of Urbino, on the same day Machiavelli had arrived at Imola. At this news the conspirators had miraculously recovered their unity and reconvened, agreeing to a two-pronged advance into the Romagna, with Urbino as the objective. Borgia had also mentioned that his father the pope was beside himself with rage. But, according to Machiavelli, his own unconcern was sublime.
“He’s taking it with amazing calmness,” the Florentine told Blackfield. “He’s merely sending orders to his commanders at Urbino to withdraw here to Imola, so he can concentrate his few forces.”
Blackfield was unable to share Borgia’s equanimity, for he found himself worrying about Leonardo’s safety. It was bad enough that the engineer/artist was at Urbino, commanded by two of the most alarming of Valentino’s Spanish henchmen: the animalistic Ugo de Moncada, and the sinister figure known only as Don Michele, a specialist in strangulation. (Among divers others, he had strangled Lucrezia Borgia’s second husband, Duke Alfonso di Bisceglie, in her presence on Il Valentino’s orders. She had, it seemed, actually fallen in love with that particular husband. It was a mistake she was unlikely to repeat; her brother’s jealously was not to be taken lightly.) But now Leonardo was about to be plunged into an actual war.
His worries were confirmed when, two days later, Borgia summoned him. The duke was seated at a table in a small chamber he sometimes used as an office, dimly candlelit as he seemed to prefer. He was dressed in his customary black, and his still-handsome face wore an expression of sternly suppressed worry.
“Captain Negrocampo, I have a special task for you. It is necessary that I reveal to you certain information I have just received by confidential courier. You will, of course, treat it as secret.” Borgia’s eyes were shadowed in the dimness, but there was no mistaking the intensity of his gaze.
“Of course, Magnifico.”
“My commanders have, as instructed, withdrawn from Urbino. But then they decided to depart from my orders. On hearing that Urbino had been occupied by the traitorous dogs Vitellozzo and Orsini, the low-born peasant scum of Fossombrone, ten miles to the east, rose in revolt. Moncada and Don Michele took a detour for the purpose of making an example of that town, which they have done with their customary thoroughness.”
Blackfield said nothing, He knew what horrors the Spaniards’ “thoroughness” implied, and he wondered what Leonardo, who surely must be with them, had thought.
“Unfortunately,” Borgia continued, “I fear their little diversion has given the rebels time to catch up with them and trap them against the Adriatic coast. If so, Messer Leonardo will be in danger. I want you to take a detail of men south and bring him back here. Here is your authorization.” He slid a paper across the table. The writing was in Spanish. “I would be distressed to lose my chief engineer. Very distressed.”
“I understand, Magnifico. I’ll depart as soon as the horses can be made ready.”
**********
The region the retreating troops should have reached by now was over sixty miles to the southeast of Imola. But there was a decent road, the Via Emilia, most of the way. Blackfield and his detail made good time. They had not even gone the full distance when they topped a low ridge and saw, ahead in the distance, a cart that Blackfield recognized, struggling northward.
Blackfield spurred his horse forward. “Maestro!” he called out.
Leonardo, seated beside the driver (Salaì, whose beauty was noticeably in abeyance), stood up and waved. His customary fine clothes were tattered and soot-stained, and his hair wild. He greeted Blackfield with almost comically obvious relief.
“I am most heartily glad to see you, Captain Negrocampo. No… Blackfield, isn’t it?”
“But what has happened?”
“I had been working on improvements to the fortress at San Leo. Then we learned that rebels had taken it. They had to use a ruse,” Leonardo parenthetically explained, lest his competence as a military engineer be doubted. “I understand they arranged to have some of my building materials left on the drawbridge so it couldn’t be raised.”
“Yes, but–”
“Afterwards, we received orders from the duke to retreat north from Urbino. But then our commanders learned of an uprising at the town of Fossombrone. So they turned east, and…” Leonardo’s eyes seemed to lose their focus.
“Yes, I know.” Blackfield imagined the scene. The peasants of Fossombrone, armed with whatever agricultural implements they could pick up around the farm, brushed aside by the hardened Spanish soldiers. And then the massacre… but only after that which had been done to the villagers before they were allowed to die. Especially the women, of course, but some of the soldiers had other tastes. Some had a particular partiality to children…
He became aware that Leonardo was speaking briskly. Too briskly. “The capture of the fort at Fossombrone was most instructive. Entry was effected through the secret passage of an emergency exit. I must make a note that escape tunnels should never lead into the inner fortress lest—”
Why all this chatter? Blackfield wondered. Then he noticed the wildness in Leonardo’s eyes, and understood. The sage was talking of irrelevancies to fend off his memories of the horrors he had seen. He was attempting to exorcise the tortured ghosts of Fossombrone.
“Yes, yes, no doubt,” he said gently. “But what happened then?”
Leonardo seemed to pull himself together. “Early this morning the rebels—I understand Baglioni has joined with Vitellozzo and Orsini—surprised us at the village of Calmazzo. We were heavily outnumbered. Before Salaì and I fled from the rout, I heard that our survivors were headed to Fano, on the coast, for refuge. As they were being pursued, we got away unnoticed. But before we did…” His voice trailed off, and the haunted look returned to his eyes. He must, Blackfield thought, have seen something of the battle before his escape. He lowered his head. “War is beastly madness,” he said, almost inaudibly, to no one in particular.
“Well,” said Blackfield, clearing his throat, “it’s fortunate that we encountered you. The duke has sent me to bring you back to Imola.” He glanced at Salaì. “I’ve only got one extra horse.”
“Don’t be concerned. Salaì can follow with the cart. It contains some valuable items… including some of my notebooks. Could you spare a couple of men to escort him?”
“Of course.”