Gripping his reddish mantle tightly around him, his bones and lungs still aching, Niccolò climbs into the covered carriage decorated in Borgia’s colors. Inside, it’s more or less like a wooden-paneled room with small windows, seats, and even a daybed made of interwoven leather strips and covered with cushions and rugs. He no longer has a fever but still feels weak. The snow on the roads is almost entirely gone. Has it been six days, or more? He can’t say.
Baccino stands on one side, helping him in, and Gemma on the other.
He asks what day it is.
The twentieth of December, they reply.
Cold air sneaks in between the folds of the mantle and he shivers as he settles down in a corner of the carriage.
In a fog, he watches as Gemma sadly says goodbye to Baccino: even though his steward says he will be back soon, they both know it is farewell.
The carriage lurches forward, there’s the clatter of the wooden wheels on the cobblestones. Niccolò wishes he were lying warm in bed but knows it’s pointless to resist.
The carriage makes its way toward the city walls. Baccino hands him the letters that have arrived from Florence while he was unwell: three from the Dieci and one from the gonfalonier. Niccolò puts them to one side. He’s not strong enough to read them now and will only be able to decipher Soderini’s message when he arrives in Cesena.
The steward whispers into Niccolò’s ear things he hadn’t been able to say with Gemma present. It’s hard to hear and the wheels rattle loudly on the cobblestones. The French are still camped out in the villages at the foothills of the mountains and the townspeople are annoyed by their presence because the men are depleting all their provisions. The roads leading into the Apennines are now passable.
Niccolò’s weary mind is filled with thoughts and questions that move faster than his sick body. He needs more information, everything possible. Is it worth going to Farneti’s shop before they leave Imola? No, it would be too risky.
A crowd has gathered outside the gates. People look up at the walls. The duke’s soldiers are conducting executions, hanging people from the ramparts.
Baccino leans out a window of the carriage to see. Niccolò is also curious. Two middle-aged men’s bodies already hang dead. A younger man is still kicking.
Farneti, a rope around his neck, is forced to walk to the edge. His skin is a sickly white, he has bruises on his cheeks, and his mouth is caked with dried blood.
Niccolò gasps. So they managed to catch him and torture him. Did he talk? Are those other men his spies?
The soldiers give Farneti a push. He falls hard, his body twists, his neck snaps, his corpse swings back and forth. Niccolò didn’t hear if he said any final words. The people who have gathered below cheer with satisfaction as a noose is placed around the neck of the next convict, a man of about thirty wearing a soldier’s jerkin.
Niccolò clenches the mantle that Farneti made for him and stares at the swaying body of the tailor.
Baccino observes him carefully. He asks if Niccolò feels ill, if the fever is coming back.
Niccolò shakes his head.
Who do you think they’re hanging? Baccino wonders out loud.
I don’t know, he says.
The crowd cheers as the soldier falls to his death.
I wonder what it feels like to be killed like that, Niccolò wonders. How much did Farneti suffer? When did they discover him? How long had they been watching him? Did they know that he had been meeting with Niccolò? They can’t kill me for talking to him. It’s normal for an envoy to spy.
If Borgia’s men knew about Farneti and his spies, did they manipulate them? Did they feed him information that was useful to them? No, impossible: Baccino confirmed what Farneti had told him about the soldiers. Maybe the duke’s guards didn’t catch all of them. If any survived, they will contact the Republic.
Did Farneti leave a final message for him in the oak tree? Best not to collect it. Only a madman would risk going to look now.
They’re surrounded by fields. Baccino opens a wooden box lined with velvet. Inside are the medicines that Torrella prescribed. Niccolò recognizes them; he started taking them immediately after the doctor’s visit. He takes a few sips, always fearing that they might be poison. But he does feels better, this much is true.
The fields are still covered with snow, mainly under the trees, in the shade. Before they reach Forlì, he’s overcome with fatigue and dozes off, his head rolling forward onto his chest. He looks up, then dozes off again, over and over.
He wakes up with his shoulders and neck aching. Baccino is fast asleep across from him.
Outside, the air is clear and he can see far into the distance. He recognizes the road. They’re nearing Cesena. He sees the house of the farmers who generously fed him while he was traveling. No one is outside, but a wisp of smoke rises from the chimney.
He is warmed by his gratitude to them. He remembers their faces and the taste of those olives, the vegetables, that bread. It occurs to him that he could ask the carriage driver to stop, that he could pay them for their kindness. He knows, though, that they would be offended by the gesture.
He thinks about Dianora, now captive in Cesena. Feelings of regret weigh heavily on him, pain mixed with bitterness. He had been unlucky; his illness impeded him from spending time with her just when he received permission from Cesare to do so. Will he be able to see her again? Or will the duke forbid it, as a way of punishing him from having been in contact with Farneti? “Go ahead and try—if you can,” Valentino had said about spying at their very first meeting in Imola. Maybe he will allow Niccolò to see her again.
He wishes he had her book of poems; it’s in his travel bag, in a distant corner of the carriage. The time and effort it takes him to reach it is immense.
He strokes the soft damask cover. Remembering how Dianora stood in the light of the setting sun, he feels his strength return to him. He hesitates before reading, as if he’s afraid to bring her presence into the hardship of the current moment. But he needs to feel her closeness, so he opens the book.
He skims the pages, stopping here and there to take in a few words, not unlike how one looks at a landscape, initially attracted by the stronger marks of color, the tallest trees, the most striking shapes.
And then he randomly stops on a passage.
Re del cielo che di tutti hai pietà
che l’ampio mondo riempi di vita,
che di tanto dolore mi hai nutrita,
dove io non vedo dammi libertà.17
He looks out at the plains, notices how endless they seem, and is struck by her curtailed freedom. He feels the burden of her imprisonment as if it were his own. He aches with her; it feels like there is no way out for them. He wishes he could see her, smile at her, confide in her, console her, save her. He goes back to reading her words.
Fa’ ch’io non tema quanto accadrà.
Portami nei sentieri di pianura,
e nelle selve, là dove ovunque dura
la tua voce, o Signore che dai pace.
Conducimi lì dove più ti piace,
consola questa mia anima errante
ed io sarò per te una fida amante.18
He looks away, moved by her lines. He can’t handle reading anymore. He bows his head and closes his eyes. He sees her in his imagination.
The walls of Cesena, which he recalls as being yellowish, are blood red in the sunset.
The house where they will stay is three stories high, has a loggia, and looks out onto a small piazza.
Ennio, the head steward—a bulky man of around fifty with a big nose—welcomes Niccolò and Baccino to the home. He makes no effort to hide his irritation at their presence. The family he serves, descendants of the noble Falchi family, are not likely to be among those who favor Valentino.
They walk down a long, cold corridor lined with portraits. Ennio carefully names them one by one, beginning with a knight who took part in the first Crusade, explaining so that it is exceedingly clear that members of the Falchi family were already traveling the world long before anyone named Borgia was born in a small provincial town of Spain.
Valentino probably derived great pleasure in requisitioning rooms in this house for them, Niccolò thinks. With some malice, he asks the servant how they managed to make portraits of so many Falchi family members who had been dead for centuries. Perhaps the painters traveled back in time?
They based their works on written testimonials that have been passed down from generation to generation, Ennio replies curtly.
The family members are in the house but do not come out to greet them. Niccolò hears their voices from behind a closed door that surely leads to a grand hall.
The rooms prepared for the envoy are spacious: the furniture is made of walnut, the ceilings are high and paneled with wood, the central beams have been painted with a floral motif, and a fire has been lit for him.
A room next door has been prepared for Baccino.
Ennio announces that he will have their baggage brought up and leaves them alone.
“I should probably go and get some food for us,” Baccino murmurs as soon as the man leaves. “These people are capable of poisoning us just to offend the duke.”
Niccolò nods, he’s exhausted, and he goes and lies down on the bed.
He wakes up not long after; he needs to get to work. With some fatigue, he reads and deciphers the letter from the gonfalonier. In normal ink, I-have-faith updates him on how Guidobaldo da Montefeltro escaped, destroying several fortresses in the Duchy of Urbino before leaving so that they wouldn’t fall into Cesare’s hands yet again. In invisible ink, the gonfalonier urges Niccolò to send news soon; he very much wants to know Borgia’s intentions.
The Dieci also ask him to write with news.
So Niccolò sits down at a table and, with great effort, writes. He may be weak, but events continue to unfold, and he has to stay on top of them. He uses all his strength and discipline to write a few clear lines. And then he signs off, exhausted: servitor.
He lies back down on the bed. Tomorrow. Tomorrow he will go. Tomorrow, whatever it takes, he will go to the court to see Dianora.