Even from under the hood, he realizes the direction they’re headed. They have crossed the river and they’re leading him to the Bargello. His intense yet perceptive anxiety, which has long been his condemnation, leads him to think the worst.
What will they accuse him of? He no longer has any debts, so it must be something related to matters of State. He hasn’t been involved in anything for a year and he has always been careful not to speak with anyone. He has been keeping his ideas to himself with even more care than usual. They certainly can’t accuse him of plotting to bring back the Republic because he has never been in contact with any of the people who were sent away. Will they accuse him of being paid by those in exile? His poverty is proof of his good faith.
When Gherardi takes off the hood, he finds himself in a large, dark room. Small patches of light shine through narrow fissures in the wall high above. The room is damp, he can feel the moisture in the air.
They shut him in a cell without windows or furnishings, just a grate on the ceiling for air. His stomach growls with hunger but he is certain they won’t give him anything to eat. They’re probably already reading through the papers they took from his home, they have surely handed them over to the judge, he thinks.
He sits down, back up against the wall. All he can do is wait. Whatever is going on will have some logic to it, but it will be up to him to decipher what that is.
Three hours pass, possibly more, before they come for him.
They conduct him to a wood-paneled room with long shadows. Two men sit at a desk. A lantern hangs overhead: arcs of light illuminate their faces. One of them is a well-known judge who does everything that the people in power tell him. The other is a chancellor; he dips his pen in ink and smooths down the pages of the register in which he will soon write everything that transpires.
Behind them, in the shadows, is a narrow wooden aperture. Is someone watching from behind it?
“Are you Niccolò di Bernardo Machiavelli?” the judge asks him flatly.
They know who he is but he must reply.
“Do you sometimes frequent the house of Lenzi, on Borgo Ognissanti?”
He has been there before, yes, but a long time ago; why are they asking? He knows that he has to be very careful of everything he says. It’s easy to take innocent words and use them to build an accusation. All of his words are being transcribed in the chancellor’s register, where they become as if engraved on stone.
“Are you aware that relatives of the exiled Piero Soderini often go there?”
“I was not aware of this.” He was.
“Do you know Pietro Paolo Boscoli di Giachinotto, who also frequents that house?”
Pietro Paolo is a handsome, blond, string bean of a man, around thirty years old, with barely a hair on his chin. Yes, he has seen him there. When? Probably in November.
“What did you talk about?”
“About my land. I tried to sell him some wood but he didn’t want any.”
Lucky for me, Niccolò thinks. If he had bought the wood, they would have seen it as some kind of deal. He recalls Boscoli’s face, how bored he looked when Niccolò had made his offer. Pietro Paolo is a descendant of an old family and considers himself superior to purchasing wood.
The judge holds up a piece of paper, which had previously been folded up, gauging from the creases. “Do you recognize this piece of paper?”
“No.”
“And yet your name is on it.”
And there it is, in fact. Niccolò Machiavelli, black on white, together with twenty or so other names.
“I do not know why it is there.”
“Do you recognize the handwriting?”
“No.”
“Do you frequent any of the other people on the list?”
“No.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
The judge nods and stares at him. He then leans forward. “Do you know His Excellency Giuliano de’ Medici?”
Until that point, the judge had been speaking in a monotone. Now his voice has changed. Niccolò realizes that he has to tread even more delicately. The ground is getting slippery underfoot. Giuliano is the leader of Florence. Why are they asking him this question?
“I saw him pass by once from afar.”
He recalls his hook nose, the strong jawline—so typical of his family—and how he rode into the city in victory, surrounded by his guards and festive crowds.
“When?”
“On his return to the city. I saw him from a window.”
“Of which house?”
There’s no reason to hide it. They probably already know the answer.
“Sandra di Pippo’s house. I spent two days there.”
Sandra is a well-known prostitute. He had gone there at the fall of the Republic, in a kind of funeral rite.
“What sentiments do you nurture toward His Excellency?”
“I think he is capable of doing great things. He could unite all the Italian forces against foreigners. Moreover, he is a poet, as was his father, and therefore he understands deeper—”
“I didn’t ask you that. Do you hate him?”
“Absolutely not. I even wrote him to ask if I could keep my position in the Chancery.”
“We know that. Why did you write him?”
“Because I thought that Florence still needed me.” He was still humilis servitor after all. He had done it out of love for his city. He had even surprised himself by the act.
“So you’re still interested in public affairs . . . ”
Put that way, it sounded suspicious. “I thought I might still be useful.”
“To whom?”
“To the State.”
“The Republican State?”
“To the existing State. A person needs to learn to accept things as they are, if you know what I mean.” Mistake. He had not displayed sufficient enthusiasm for the Medici family. On the other hand, anything else would have sounded artificial. He does not love the new leaders, but now that the Republic no longer exists, if the people in power called for him, he would run, because facts are stronger than desires. That’s why he wrote to Giuliano, who never replied to his letter.
The judge holds up a letter that was taken from his home. It is the one he had been writing when they came to arrest him. The judge asks him what Niccolò meant by needing to find someone to oversee the henhouse. What was he alluding to?
Nothing, he replies. Someone to take care of the chickens, roosters, chicks, eggs. That’s what he was thinking about. He was trying to make some money.
“Why are you smiling?”
“I’m not smiling. Why would I smile?”
“It looked like you were.”
“I’m not smiling, I assure you.”
The judge nods, puts away the letter, holds up the list with his name on it again. “Do you recognize the handwriting of the person who wrote this list?”
Niccolò shakes his head, no.
“The list was written by Pietro Paolo Boscoli, who swore to kill the lordships Giuliano and Lorenzo de’ Medici and Cardinal Giulio, and has confessed as much. It would behoove you to do the same.”
What kind of hell was this? He can’t breathe. He realizes that he is in grave danger. Boscoli is nothing more than a braggart, as far as he knows; he probably was never a real danger, but they want to make an example of him . . . Or perhaps there is something to the conspiracy. Boscoli often used to make remarks about Brutus and Cassius, and that was the main reason that Niccolò spent as little time with him as possible. He was also the heart and soul of a group of young men, and had many friends . . .
“I know nothing of this conspiracy.”
“Boscoli wrote down all the names of the people he could count on.”
“It must have all been in his head. I never said or did anything to encourage him.”
“You served the Republic.”
“I served Florence and, as I mentioned, I would do it again if the Medicis offered me the chance.”
“You’re intelligent; you must have realized that they have isolated you because they don’t trust you.” The judge has gone back to his usual monotone voice.
“There is no reason to think that.”
“Perhaps there is. Boscoli wanted to bring back the Republic.”
“That’s his problem.”
“Not yours?”
“No.”
The judge taps his finger on his name on the page. Two words on that piece of paper are like nails on a cross. “So why did the traitor think he could count on you?”
“You’ll have to ask him.”
“He won’t reply. Do it for him.”
“He wrote my name down without me knowing about it. I would never plot against the Medici family. I challenge you to find a witness that has heard me say a single bad word about them.”
Niccolò knows that they could easily invent witnesses. But he’s such a small fish that they won’t bother going to the trouble.
“So you refuse to reply.”
“I do not refuse. I did reply.”
“But you do not admit anything.”
“I cannot confess to a crime I did not commit.”