Niccolò stands at the window of his study and looks out across the courtyard yet again. Night is falling. Dianora’s window remains shut.
Down below, on the ground floor, there’s the sound of clashing swords; he realizes there’s an armory beneath the porticoes.
Two stable hands come out and dump pails of dirty water into the central drain. He quickly ducks inside so as not to be seen.
He glances once more at Dianora’s room, but still no sign of her.
He goes back to his desk and rereads the draft of the new chapter of Res gestæ Cæsaris on the siege of Romagna in 1499. He took a decidedly different approach than Anteo Nuffi, whose twisted perspective actually helped Niccolò in finding his own, gave him wings. Reading what that buffoon had written offered a compendium of everything Niccolò didn’t like and made it easier for him to choose exactly what to include.
At the same time he felt forced to do battle with another enemy: the truth. Or at least a part of it. Niccolò considered himself lucky that, so far, he has only had to deal the years leading up to 1499; he has not had to write about the siege of the fortress of Forlì. Now that Dianora has begun to tell him how things really came to pass, he would have a hard time finding just the right words.
As he finishes rereading the chapter, he notices that the sound of clashing swords has stopped. Training is over for the day.
Not long after, he hears a woman groaning in pain. He hurries to the window and looks down into the courtyard. Two men are carrying out a stretcher on which lies Lucina, trembling and coughing. Torrella, the master physician, walks behind at a safe distance, observing her carefully while holding a handkerchief up to his nose and mouth.
Niccolò looks up. Across the courtyard Dianora is watching the witch get carried off. She catches sight of him.
They communicate through gestures. He’s surprised how much he understands from her facial expressions and gestures: Lucina has a sickness in the lungs, they’re taking her somewhere, but she doesn’t know where.
Niccolò studies the cornice that runs below their windows, it’s wide and strong enough to traverse. Dianora, repressing a cough, sees where he is looking, intuits what he’s thinking, and shakes her head. No, it’s too dangerous, for both of them.
He nods but then glances at the sky. Soon it will be dark.
He was on the verge of climbing out the window three times, and three times he decided against it. If someone were to see him, it would mean certain death for both of them. But his eagerness to find out Valentino’s secrets is stronger than his fear.
He prepares to climb out onto the parapet once again, and this time goes through with it. He presses himself up against the wall, remembering how, when he was young, he walked and then ran—ran!—along the parapets of the bridges that cross the Arno. Although that was more than twenty years ago, it feels like just the other day. He did it in response to a dare, to show off just how courageous he was; if he had backed down, he would have been ridiculed for the rest of his life.
And yet, if he had fallen into the river, full of swirling eddies and currents, he almost certainly would have died. An old bargeman once told him that if you get dragged down by the rushing water, you should never fight it but let yourself sink down to the muddy bottom and then, using all your strength, push yourself back up to the surface.
Air, however, is not water. Air won’t have mercy on him. But he can’t stop now, not with the destiny of his city at stake. Florence is far more important than he is, far more important than his own life.
Thanks to the memory of that watery abyss, the straight line of the cornice is relatively easy to follow. Turning the first corner is hard. He leans forward, places one foot boldly on the other side, hesitates a moment—he feels fear strike deep in his soul—and then moves on. The second corner is easier.
Dianora’s window is closed. He taps softly on the glass. Nothing. He knocks, the sound almost audible in the night air. She appears, but retreats in fear. Then she comes forward and hurriedly opens the window.
“We’ll be killed if we get caught!” she whispers, coughing softly.
“I know, but there might never be another chance. Allow me to enter so no one sees me.”
“You’re forcing me to open up for you—and that’s not right.”
“I beg your forgiveness.”
“That’s not enough.”
“Then I will go back.”
Dianora doesn’t say anything. Niccolò starts to retreat.
“Stay,” she says, opening the window for him.
He clambers inside. He’s never been this close to her. He can smell her scent: violets, sweet but delicate. “Where did they take the old hag?”
“Some remote place.”
“What’s wrong with her? Is it the plague?” he asks with a deep shiver.
“No, I think it’s her lungs. But Borgia doesn’t want to take any risks. He gave orders that anyone who falls ill should be taken away.”
Why did Niccolò think it was the plague? It hasn’t reappeared in a long time. He remembers those days well and is still scared of the illness.
Dianora coughs again.
“Are you unwell, too?”
“No, it’s nothing, just a chill.”
“Is there anyone in the duke’s chambers now?”
“No, no one.”
He looks around her room: the frescoed ceiling, the bed and furniture of inlaid wood, a fire burning in the hearth, and a door not far from her desk, which is covered with pieces of paper.
“Is that where you composed your beautiful poem?”
“Did you read it?”
“I liked it very much. I brought it back—here—we mustn’t leave behind any traces. Your words are now part of my memory. You might be a prisoner, but your soul is free.”
She doesn’t say anything, but her breathing comes faster, her chest rising and falling rapidly.
He speaks to her about the symmetries he noticed in the poem, and the many meanings he found. Dianora listens attentively, as if transported far away. The corners of her mouth turn up in a sad smile, far more luminous than the one Niccolò imagined in the great hall of the Mambelli household in Forlì. She stares at him with such intensity that he has to look away.
“As you know, I also write poetry. I started to write this canzone a few weeks ago.” He takes out a folded-up piece of paper and hands it to her. Dianora accepts it and opens it up.
Perché la vita è brieve
e molte son le pene
che vivendo e stentando ognun sostiene;
dietro alle nostre voglie,
andiam passando e consumando gli anni,
ché chi il piacer si toglie
per viver con angosce e con affanni,
non conosce gli inganni
del mondo; o da quai mali
e da che strani casi
oppressi quasi—sian tutti i mortali.4
Dianora looks up at him.
“You, too, have a wound,” she says.
He’s shocked. What is she talking about?
“An inner wound,” she clarifies.
“Like everyone else.”
“But, unlike so many others, you choose not to reveal it.”
A shiver runs through him as if someone had opened a door that leads to a secret chamber within him. He feels invaded by an obscure torment: not regret, but a disgust with the world and himself, a sputtering of past illusions and sorrow.
“I’m sorry if what I said makes you unhappy,” Dianora says.
“No, it’s nothing,” he says with a heavy sigh, contradicting his words, caught up in his thoughts.
“How will you proceed with the canzone?” she asks him gently.
“I don’t know yet.”
She hands him back his piece of paper. “I’m certain the result will be beautiful. But please, I beg you: leave now.”
He looks at her boldly. He knows he needs to force her hand, to get her to do something that will be hard for her but vital for him.
“The French spearmen have arrived,” he says.
“I imagined as much. I heard the drummers, the blare of the trumpets, all the fanfare.”
“Borgia is going to be a difficult adversary to beat. He is making agreements with Vitelli and the others, and will soon rise up against Florence. There will be war. I need to find out what he is plotting.”
“He didn’t mention anything before he left.”
“May I go look in his archive? You said it was next door. Perhaps I will find something useful.”
Dianora shakes her head, no.
He presses her. “The only way we can beat him is with the element of surprise. That’s the only way we will be able to kill him,” he insists. “It all depends on you.”
She wrings her hands together the way she did in the sacristy.
“Fine, follow me,” she says curtly. She walks to the door, opens it, and they step out into the cold corridor. Dianora points to a tiny nook where there’s an unmade bed. “That’s where the old witch sleeps.”
They walk down the corridor and enter a vast, icy room. The walls are lined with bookshelves that are filled with leather folders, all neatly tied shut. There’s also a desk covered with papers.
Niccolò sees some maps on the desk and walks over to them. None of them are of Florence. There are more papers beneath the map. He picks them up and quickly realizes they’re the articles of the agreement between the duke and his allies. He gives them a cursory glance.
For a true and perpetual peace . . . They agree to form an alliance in union against anyone who tries to attack them . . . He skips the preamble, looking for substance. Restitution of the city of Urbino to the Duke of Romagna . . . In exchange the duke will take them into service and pay them condottieri wages . . . One of the members of the alliance will have to be with him at all times, but not all of them: they can decide who among them it shall be . . . When the duke requests it, they must be willing to give up one of their legitimate sons to His Excellency . . .
Dianora points to some blank pages. “Why don’t you take a piece of paper and transcribe the information?”
“He might notice it’s missing.”
“Shall I go and get one of mine?”
“Thank you, Milady, but we must be quick. I can’t stay much longer.”
She rushes off and he watches her as she leaves. When he’s on his own, he feels deeply anxious and yet also very excited: he has his hands on Borgia’s secret documents. Once again, thanks to Dianora, he has managed to trick the duke.
He comes to the conclusion of the agreement: whosoever disrespects this alliance will be the enemy of all those who underwrite it; all signatories agree to come to the defense of each other no matter who causes offense or for whatever reason, in the name of the Holy Father Alexander VI and His Majesty, the Very Christian King of France.
So, 58 will form an alliance with everyone from 21 to 28.
12 is alone.
He quickly jots down everything and takes his leave of Dianora, who gazes at him sadly and ponderously as she shuts the window.
He returns to the study with the sensation of having asked her too much; his satisfaction is tinged with regret.
He then hurries out of the Rocca, makes his way back to the inn, and writes a letter to the gonfalonier.
Between the lines, in invisible ink, he informs the gonfalonier of the arrival of the French spearmen and the agreement between Borgia and his allies. He also communicates that he didn’t receive the information from the duke’s secretary, as he originally hoped, but through other means.
Now he understands why Valentino pretended to want an alliance with Florence and why he put off coming to an agreement: he, too, was buying time. The same way that the Dieci and I-have-faith had been doing.
Niccolò has hit his mark, he thinks to himself, and is reminded of a skilled archer he observed during the battle with Pisa: when shooting at a target that seemed too far away to reach, the man aimed much, much higher than expected, knowing that by taking that trajectory, the arrow would fall exactly where he wanted. Niccolò now feels like that archer.
He seals the letter and then picks up some blank sheets of paper. He’s filled with so many emotions and images of Dianora that only by writing about her can he regain his calm. But his words all fall short. He can’t capture his impressions. Each one of his rhymes seems trite.
He puts away his papers. He wishes he could return to the Rocca just to be close to her, but that would only raise suspicions. He has to stay where he is and suffer through the anxiety and restlessness.
The night is long and filled with thoughts of Dianora. Even when, many hours later, his weary body seems close to falling asleep, he sees her face before him. He gets some rest around dawn, at which point he then feels obliged to get up, get dressed, and entrust the messenger with his missive, telling him to hurry. Luckily, it’s Ardingo, one of the swiftest and most capable of the messengers. Niccolò listens to his horse’s hooves clatter down the cobblestones, raising sparks.
He wonders groggily what Pier Soderini will do now.
Perhaps when faced with such a great and imminent danger, he will have to forge an alliance with the only power capable of beating France and the papacy: Spain, the enemy of the French, who controls a large swathe of southern Italy. The main thing is that the man take action and bring an end to all this meaningless prevarication.