City of God by Cecelia Holland Read Free Book Online Page A

of money. However, the Florentines carefully left out of the contract when and how the money was to be paid.
    Bruni sent for Nicholas one evening, just before the legation’s gate would close, and handed a slip of paper to him.
    â€œWhat think you of this?”
    The ambassador’s chamber was already dark except for the light of a large lamp on the polished oakwood desk. Nicholas held the paper in the light to read it.
    â€œPer Baccho,” he said. “Who sent this?”
    â€œIt came from a Florentine merchant trading in Naples. What make you of it? Will the King of Spain respond?”
    Nicholas read the note through again. It said in only a few lines that the King of Naples, fearing the French, had asked his kinsman the King of Spain for aid. That single sentence could shake all Europe into a new shape and make a different Italy. He put the note down on the desk beside the lamp.
    Bruni was peering at him, expecting some answer. Nicholas cleared his throat. His mind flew to the mysterious use the Borgias had made of his house. “I don’t know,” he said.
    â€œFind out.” Bruni poked his forefinger into Nicholas’s chest. “You are supposed to know these things. Everyone always congratulates me on having you—how valuable you must be, knowing everything—” the sharp finger dug into Nicholas’s chest again. “How will the Pope receive such interference? If Spain does come to fight the French, which side will the Borgias fall on?”
    â€œI don’t know,” Nicholas said.
    Bruni’s voice rose to a bellow. “Why did you not learn of this, Messer Nicholas? Why did I have to learn of it from a trader in salt fish?” He bent forward and shouted into Nicholas’s face: “Why have you failed me, Messer Nicholas?”
    It was unjust. Bruni never listened to him anyway. Nicholas closed his eyes, his skin burning, as if he were whipped.
    â€œThe King of Spain is Aragonese! So is the King of Naples—so is the Pope! Is it so difficult for you to see these correspondences? What do you know of Ferdinand of Aragon? Nothing! What do you know of Gonsalvo da Cordoba? Nothing!”
    Which was untrue. Gonsalvo, who had shaped the Spanish army into the most modern in Europe, was even now in Sicily with the Spanish fleet. Nicholas bit his lips together.
    â€œGod—God—” Bruni flung up his hands. “I must make such decisions that Florence may stand or fall by, and for your laziness or stupidity I have no information to base them on. You have my leave!”
    â€œYes, Excellency.”
    Nicholas’s legs were quivering. He went quickly back to his chamber, where a scribe waited with a question about a minor document. Nicholas shut the door in the man’s face. Sitting down behind the desk, he raked his fingers through his hair, shaking from head to foot with rage and shame. He longed to go back to Bruni’s chamber and there say into his face what follies Bruni himself was guilty of. He wondered who else had heard. Bruni had shouted, at the end—the noise might have carried down the corridor. In the workroom, were the scribes and pages huddling together over this choice humiliation of the hated secretary? He pressed his fingers against his eyes until they hurt.
    It was easier to think about Spain. He knew more about Spain, in fact, than Bruni guessed, and that had led him into the error of dismissing the importance of the Spanish fleet to Naples. The war against the Mohammedans meant more to the Spaniards than being Spanish. They had been fighting with the Moors to control Spain for seven hundred years. Only eight or nine years before, united under a Queen of Castile and a King of Aragon, they had thrown out the last of the Moors, and Nicholas, like nearly everyone else, had supposed that by nature the Spanish would follow the Moors into Africa. It was the obvious step on. Sicily, more African than Italian, was the