A Matter Of Taste by Fred Saberhagen (best reads .TXT) 📗

politics as well. According to Constantia he, with his doting father’s blessing, was beginning to give himself almost royal airs.

      Aut Caesar, aut nihil. Caesar or nothing. That was his motto, and he devoted himself to trying to live up to it.

      I pressed my friend’s hand thankfully. “If what you are telling me is accurate, then you are right, this Borgia is the one I must seek out. Mercenaries and war are going to follow him like soldiers after a prostitute.”

      Constantia soon took her leave. As for me, I had much to do before dawn.

      Once more, as the evening deepened, I roamed the marketplaces of suburban Rome. No one I spoke to there, of course, had ever heard of two condottieri with outlandish names, Bogdan and Basarab. Many people were talking of Cristoforo Colombo, whose name had also been mentioned by Constantia. A daring but controversial navigator, it seemed, who had recently completed his second or perhaps his third round-trip voyage westward to the Indies.

      A corollary of these explorations, though it was not perceived as such at the time, had followed. Immediately after the return of Colombo’s crews from the New World, a new venereal infection, called the French disease by Italians, and the Neapolitan pox by the French, had begun to radiate rapidly from certain seaports, and was now well on its way to establishing a broad foothold in Europe. The modern name for this disease is syphilis.

* * *

      Seeking news, suggestions, any hint at all that might lead me to the wretched pair Basarab and Bogdan, I continued to move among the markets and the taverns of the great city, keeping my ears open. As part of my general vampirish transformation, my hearing had become preternaturally acute, but of the men I sought I still heard nothing. Of the Pope, still hale and hearty at the age of sixty-nine, and of two of his children, I learned a great deal.

      Lucrezia had recently been married for the second time—her father had annulled the first union. In the summer of 1500 her second husband was murdered. This time no one really doubted that Cesare was responsible, and that Alexander had given at least tacit approval to the act. Somehow I just managed to miss out on being on hand for that.

      Everyone was talking of Cesare, in particular.

      It is hard to remember now at exactly what point it dawned on me that the Cesare Borgia of whom I heard so much and his younger sister Lucrezia could conceivably be the pair of adolescents who had once sent me to my grave—at least to one of my borrowed graves—and followed me there, in a spirit of scientific curiosity. When the rumors linking the Pope’s offspring with poison began to reach my ears, I could hardly have failed to make the connection.

      Italy in that age was not yet, as France and Spain and England had already become, a united power. Rather it was the most chronic of Europe’s chronic battlefields. Well, I thought, if I can find out nothing directly regarding the men I want, I can at least discover where fighting and campaigning are currently in progress, or where they are most likely in the immediate future. Those would be the best places to seek out enterprising condottieri; if not to meet them, at least to hear word of them.

      But currently, as I came to understand more thoroughly with every hour I spent in learning more about events, there was no better place to seek for mercenaries than in the train of Duke Valentino, as Cesare had come to be known since the King of France had bestowed certain lands and titles on him.

      In the summer of 1500, whatever spiritual influence the Pope’s proclaimed Jubilee might have had in heaven, His Holiness barely escaped death from a falling ceiling and roof in one of his Roman apartments.

      And at about the same time, Cesare, preparing to campaign again in the Romagna, where certain papal vassals were still showing too much independence, was signing contracts with a number of leading condottieri. Basarab, I considered, might well be among them.

      But no one to whom I spoke there knew his name. He might, of course, have changed it. But if he had not done so early in his mercenary career, why do it now?

      Prowling Rome by night and sometimes by day, concentrating particularly upon the area near the papal palace, I still failed to locate either of my old enemies. Military men were coming and going continually, however, and I still could not think of any better place to search. I decided to remain near Cesare Borgia, and search some more.

      Given my permanent aversion to sunlight, and certain other peculiarities of my new mode of life, I considered myself as ill-suited for the life of a mercenary, or of any kind of regular soldier, as I was for that of a ruler. There were of course other ways to make oneself valuable to a great prince or general, and attach oneself to his staff. Of these, the intelligence service seemed the best suited to my training and talents. Indeed, I considered myself uniquely qualified for such a career.

      I had other reasons for seeking a position. My modest stock of gold was running low, and I foresaw that I was likely to need more in the future. Food I obtained in my own way, but sometimes it would be necessary for me to purchase clothing, help, or information. Theft was of course not to be considered, nor had I any intention of allowing myself to be reduced to beggary. Honorable service seemed the only logical alternative. Therefore I met, or determined to meet, Cesare.

      For both of us, it proved to be a memorable encounter. It took place in a military encampment on the edge of Rome.

      I recognized him at once. If I had not previously suspected he was the youth who had once followed me to my burrow, I knew it now.

      Duke Valentino was now twenty-five