The Medusa Amulet

Chapter 8

The hood was left on his head until the coach had rumbled over the last bridge leading out of Florence and taken to one of the bumpy rural roads. After another hour or so, a pair of rough hands loosened the cord and yanked it off. Cellini gasped for a breath of the fresh country air.

One of his captors leaned back in the opposite seat and surveyed him with a crooked smile. The other two, he presumed, were up on top, driving the horses.

“They said we’d need ten men to subdue you,” the man said, glancing at the ropes binding his prisoner’s hands and feet. “And now look at you, trussed up like a prize pig.”

Though there were black muslin curtains in the open window, the moon was bright, and Cellini was able to see enough of the countryside to know what road they were on and to guess where they must be going.

Rome.

Which meant that these men, prepared to abduct a man of Cellini’s stature-a man in the current employ of the Duke de’Medici, the ruler of Florence-could only be in the service of the Pope himself, Paul III. No one else would have dared.

But for what offense? Cellini had served the Papacy well for years. He had fashioned the elaborate cope, or clasp, for the ermine gown of the previous Pope, Clement VII, and made a dozen other jeweled ornaments, silver ewers and basins, coins and medals, for the leaders of the Church. And when the Duke of Bourbon, and his army of mercenaries, had invaded and sacked Rome in 1527, who had been its ablest defender? It was Cellini who had manned the gun batteries of the Castel St. Angelo, where Clement had taken refuge for seven long months from the marauding troops-if those savages could be dignified with such a term. Indeed, it was Cellini to whom Clement had turned when all seemed lost and the hoard of papal treasures threatened to fall into enemy hands.

And now this new Pope, Paul III, had sent his ruffians to set fire to his studio and carry him off by force?

“Don’t you want to know who we are?” the man in the carriage said. He was an ugly brute, whose teeth had all grown in sideways so that his words came out with a whistling sound.

“You’re the scum the Pope sends to do his dirty work.”

The man laughed, clearly unoffended. “They said you were smart,” he conceded, digging at something in the corner of his mouth with a long, filthy fingernail. “I see that now. I’m Jacopo.” He flicked the offending particle to the floor.

“But why like this? If the Pope wished to see me, he had only to send a request.”

“We are the request. He requests that you throw yourself at his holy feet and beg him not to hang you from the Torre di Nona.”

“For what?”

Ignoring his question, Jacopo lifted the curtain and stared out at the rolling hills of Tuscany. “It’s nice up here,” he said. “I’ve never been this far from Rome.” He wiped some spittle from his chin with the back of his hand-a gesture Cellini imagined must be routine.

“Well? Are you going to answer me?”

“You’ll find out soon enough,” he said, before settling his head against the rocking wall of the cabin and dropping into a deep, snoring sleep.

And there he was right. Most carriages would have put in for the night, but this one, with lighted lanterns swinging from the four corners of its roof, managed to drive all night, even at the risk of running off the road or injuring the horses. At dawn, they pulled into a post house, and though Cellini was allowed some bread and wine and a chance to put a cold compress on his head, he was bundled back into the carriage as soon as the new horses had been harnessed. Jacopo took the reins, and one of his accomplices-a wiry fellow with a huge, livid bruise on one cheek and a blackened eye-assumed his place inside the cabin.

“What happened to you?” Cellini said, knowing full well. “You look like you got hit with a bucket.”

The man spat in Cellini’s face. “If I wasn’t under orders to deliver you in one piece, I’d break you in two.”

“And if my hands weren’t tied, I’d give you another black eye to match the one you’ve got.”

The carriage rolled on for several days, until Cellini felt that his back would break from the constant jouncing. With his hands and feet tied-these scoundrels must have been expecting a good bounty for his safe delivery-there was little he could do to make himself comfortable, and the prospect of whatever awaited him in Rome was hardly encouraging. As they finally approached the Eternal City, the roads became smoother and better paved, but they also became more crowded, with shepherds bringing their flocks to market, and rickety wagons carrying barrels of wine from Abruzzo, wheels of cheese from the Enza Valley, and loads of the distinctive blue-gray marble from high in the Apennines. Cellini could hear the driver-right then it was Bertoldo, the one with the sword who had first clapped him on the shoulder in Florence-shouting, “Make way! We come on order of His Holiness, Pope Paul! Get out of the way!”

From the oaths and epithets he heard in reply, there were many who didn’t believe him. But the contadini were like that, Cellini mused. They worked the farms and fields all day, sometimes not speaking to a soul, and when anyone did speak to them, they were instantly suspicious of his motives-especially if it was a stranger with a sword, driving a fancy black carriage and ordering them around.

Jacopo, sitting inside again, couldn’t resist parting the curtains and holding his ugly mug in front of the window. Cellini had the impression that he hoped to be spotted traveling in such style by someone-anyone-he knew.

The streets of Rome, unlike Florence, were a mess. In Florence, the streets were narrow and often dark, but the people knew how to behave. They did not throw their offal into the gutter, they did not empty their chamber pots out the front windows, and they did not leave dead dogs or cats or birds to rot in the sun. But these Romans, they lived in a cesspool and didn’t even seem to mind. Every time he had come to Rome, Cellini had marveled at the state of chaos, the teeming confusion all around, where the greatest masterpieces of the ancient world were surrounded by tanning yards and the classical temples overrun by pig markets. As the carriage passed through the Porta del Popolo, the tomb of Nero’s mother appeared on their right, a crowd of beggars littering the steps. The tomb of the Roman emperor Augustus fared no better, pieces of its marble facade having been torn down and burned for the lime they would yield. The Campo Marzio was cluttered with workmen’s shops, some of them tucked into the ruins of once-glorious mansions. The Temple of Pompey had been turned into an unruly hotel, where scores of families had carved out spaces for themselves, with open fires and hanging laundry, beneath the enormous and dilapidated vault. If Florence was an elegant ball, Rome was an untamed circus.

And Cellini feared that he was about to become its main attraction.

Passing through the Borgo, as the bustling area between the banks of the Tiber and the mighty Vatican City was called, Cellini could not help but recall his first trip to Rome, when he was only nineteen. He and another goldsmith’s apprentice, Tasso, had often talked about leaving their hometown of Florence; Rome was the place where fortunes and names were truly to be made. And one day, on a long ramble, they had found themselves at the San Piero Gattolini Gate. Benvenuto had jokingly said to his friend, “Well, we’re halfway to Rome. Why don’t we keep on going?” Tasso had looked a bit dubious, but Cellini had bucked him up.

Tying their aprons behind their backs, they had set out on foot. In Siena, they had the good fortune to find a horse that needed to be returned to Rome, and so they were able to ride the rest of the way, and once they’d arrived in the city, Cellini had quickly found work at the studio of a successful goldsmith named Firenzuola. He took one look at a design Cellini had executed for an elaborate belt buckle and hired him on the spot to execute a silver vessel for a Cardinal, modeled on an urn from the Rotunda. Tasso was not so lucky, and homesickness got the better of him. He returned to Florence while Cellini stayed on in Rome, changing masters, and making objects, from candlesticks to tiaras, of such great beauty and ingenuity that he had soon become the acknowledged master of his craft.

But the hands that had made rings and miters for popes were now so chafed and numb from the ropes binding them that he could barely move his fingers.

At the main gate of the Vatican, the carriage was stopped by several members of the Swiss Guard, in their green-and-yellow uniforms and plumed helmets. They were young-these days they were always young, as nearly all of their predecessors had been massacred during the sack of the city-and there was some haggling over papers. The leader of the Guard poked his head into the cabin to see who was inside. He wrinkled his nose at the smell, and said, “You’ll want to give this one a wash before taking him to the Holy Father.” The portcullis was lifted and the carriage passed through into the main piazza. Cellini ached to be out of the carriage, even if it was only to mount the steps of the papal palace and face an unknown fate.

Bertoldo appeared to have taken the guardsman’s suggestion to heart, and he stopped at a fountain, where he let Cellini dismount. Unbinding his hands and feet, he allowed him to scoop some of the cool water with his cupped hands onto his face and neck. The water felt so good that Cellini dropped to his knees and ducked his whole head into the fountain. When he lifted his head back out again, he shook his long black curls like Poseidon rising from the deep. The water coursed across his broad shoulders and chest, and over the Medusa that still hung below his shirt. The sun was hot and bright, and he held his face up to it, not knowing how much longer he might be able to enjoy such a simple pleasure. A pair of friars, in long brown cassocks, stopped to watch, muttering behind their hands.

Bertoldo and his confederates hauled Cellini to his feet, bound his wrists again, and with the water still dripping off him, marched him up the steps of the palace and through the smaller throne room, where dozens of men-merchants, aristocrats, city officials-milled about, waiting anxiously for an audience with the Pope. Some clutched papers in their hands, others were carrying gifts (one had a squawking green parrot on his arm), but all of them fell silent when Benvenuto was briskly escorted past them. Clearly, none of them wished themselves in his shoes.

In the greater throne room, another crowd was gathered, but this one was made up of priests and cardinals, ambassadors and their secretaries. The Pope himself, draped in a red velvet cape, sat on a high-backed purple throne, giving orders and directives, and apparently carrying on ten conversations at once. He had a long face with a long nose, and a bushy white beard with a dark streak down its center. As Cellini boldly approached the throne, Bertoldo and his men fell away. Benvenuto recognized many of the courtiers-some were prelates who had begun their rise in Tuscany, and some were foreigners whose kings and princes he had worked for-but there was one he knew well. Signor Pier Luigi had recently been made the Duke of Castro, and if he had to guess why he had been brought here under such duress, he’d guess it had something to do with him.

“And look who it is,” Pope Paul exclaimed. “The wandering artist.” There was no malice in his voice, which temporarily puzzled Cellini.

“I came as quickly as I could, Your Holiness… and would have done so willingly.”

The Pope only now seemed to take notice of his bound hands and gestured at Bertoldo to undo them.

Bowing his head nervously, Bertoldo unknotted the rope and stepped backwards toward the rear of the room. Cellini shook his hands to get the blood moving again and straightened the damp collar of his shirt.

“Forgive me, Your Eminence, but my traveling companions-fine fellows all, but a bit lacking when it came to conversation-failed to tell me the reason for this visit.”

The Pope laughed. “You haven’t changed a bit, Benvenuto.”

“Perhaps it was time he did, Father,” Signor Luigi put in, and Cellini smiled wryly at his form of addressing the Pope. In this case, calling him “Father” was more than symbolic; Luigi was in fact his bastard son-which accounted for the heap of titles and monies bestowed upon him-and Luigi liked to subtly remind people of his paternity. He was a dark, scowling man, with thick black eyebrows, a drooping moustache, and black beard. And now, as always, he wore his armored breastplate. He had enough enemies, Cellini reflected, to make that precaution wise.

“Perhaps Messer Cellini would like to turn into an honest man,” Signor Luigi added.

Cellini felt the blood rise into his face, but he held himself in check, simply saying, “I have never been anything else.”

Signor Luigi strode between the papal throne and where Cellini stood in order to look him in the eye. “Really?” he said scornfully. “Then isn’t there something you’d like to tell us about?” he asked. “Something you’d like to confess in this holy place after so many years of concealment?”

Cellini was as honestly confused as he had ever been in his life. “You will have to enlighten me. As always, when Signor Luigi speaks”-he purposely avoided using any of his grander titles-“there is a lot of noise, but not much music.”

The Pope quietly guffawed, which only made his son angrier.

As if he were speaking in the Colosseum itself, Signor Luigi raised his eyes and his voice and even his arms, as he moved in circles around Cellini to declaim his charges. “Would it surprise you to know that your confidences have been breached? That certain confessions you once made, in your usual boastful manner, have reached the Holy See?”

“Confessions? To whom?” Cellini had not visited a priest for that purpose in years.

“A certain apprentice from the town of Perugia.”

Ah, so that was it. He must have been referring to Girolamo Pascucci, a lazy thief who had broken his contract with Cellini and still owed him money. But a confession? Much less to someone he’d never trusted?

“We know, Messer Cellini-we know -what happened during the attack on Rome, sixteen years ago.”

“Ah, then you know that I commanded the artillery that defended Pope Clement VII when he was under siege in the Castel St. Angelo?”

“We do,” Signor Luigi said sarcastically, annoyed at having his per-oration interrupted.

“And that I was the one who kept the three beacons burning every night, to prove that we had not surrendered?”

“But that is not-”

“And that it was a shot from my arquebus that brought down the Duke of Bourbon himself?”

“We know,” Luigi boomed, “that the Pope, in his hour of most desperate need, with the barbarians battering at the very doors of his sanctuary, entrusted you with the jewels belonging to the Holy Apostolic Chamber.”

At last Cellini could see where this was going. “That he did. I would never deny it. Pope Clement, may his soul rest in peace, came to me one night and said, ‘Benvenuto, we must find a way to preserve these treasures. What can we do?’”

“So you admit to this concealment?”

It was all Cellini could do not to thump the idiot on his fancy breastplate.

“With the help of the Pope himself, and his servant Cavalierino,” Cellini explained, more to the Pope on his throne than his insulting bastard son, “we removed all the precious stones from his tiaras and miters and crowns and sewed as many of them as we could into the folds of the robes that he and his servant had on. In order to move the gold more easily, we melted it down.” Cellini remembered well the small blast furnace he had hastily built in his quarters. He had tossed the gold into the charcoals and let it drip down into the large tray he had placed beneath the brick.

“And where are those jewels now? Where is that gold?”

“Where it has always been. In the coffers and vaults of the Vatican.”

“All but eighty thousand ducats’ worth!” Signor Luigi trumpeted.

“Is that what you are accusing me of? Stealing the Pope’s jewels?”

Signor Luigi rocked on his heels, his thumbs hooked beneath the corners of his breastplate. “If you didn’t, who did?”

Cellini hardly knew where to start, but he knew that he had to be careful; Signor Luigi was a dangerous enemy. Even if Pope Paul knew him to be a bit slippery, the man was still his son-and blood was thicker than water. Cellini never forgot that.

“First of all, even if I had committed such an unthinkable offense, I would never have confessed it to a man like Pascucci; the city of Perugia never gave birth to a bigger liar and thief. And as for the missing stones, I suggest you consult the account books. Have you done that?”

Signor Luigi didn’t answer.

“I didn’t think so. Everything-every ring, every diamond, every ruby, even every garnet-was recorded in the accounts as soon as the siege was lifted. While Pope Clement was negotiating the settlement, a small diamond ring, worth no more than four thousand scudi, fell from his finger, and when the imperial ambassador bent to pick it up, the Pope told him to keep it. Apart from that, you will see that not a ducat’s worth-much less eighty thousand ducats’ worth-is missing.” Cellini scoffed, to indicate the absurdity of the charge he had just addressed.

And though Pope Paul appeared mollified, Signor Luigi was not. Indeed, his brow was more furrowed than ever, and rather than let it go, he said, “The account books will be looked at.” He snapped his fingers and waggled them at a retainer, who scuttled out of the room to get started. “But that still leaves us with an equally grave charge.”

“Another?” Pope Paul said, sounding a bit put off.

“Yes, Father… a charge of heresy.”

The room fell utterly silent, and the Pope leaned forward on his purple throne, his long white beard brushing his knees.

Signor Luigi, pleased at having recaptured everyone’s attention, said, “In his workshop in Florence, Messer Cellini has experimented with forbidden texts and arcana that are in direct contravention of Church teachings. My sources tell me-”

“What sources?” Cellini broke in. “Pascucci again?”

“No,” Signor Luigi replied dryly, “other apprentices you employed. And they tell me you have employed various grimoires”-the black books of magic banned by the Catholic Church-“to fashion objects of an occult nature. Objects that may give you powers properly reserved for God alone.”

Pope Paul fell back in his chair. A foreign ambassador-French by the look of his finery and lace-gasped and held a handkerchief to his face, as if to avert a contagion. Cellini felt the temperature in the room fall by several degrees.

“I don’t know how to answer such baseless accusations,” Cellini said, “especially as I don’t know who’s making them.”

“That’s for me to know,” Signor Luigi declared.

“Is it true?” Pope Paul asked.

And here Cellini paused. He would have to continue his denial, but lying to the Pope himself was a sin of a magnitude he could hardly contemplate. And Signor Luigi must have noted his hesitation because, before Cellini could think of what to say, he had swooped forward, reached under Cellini’s shirt collar, and lifted the chain out.

The Medusa lay in the palm of his hand, her face glaring up at the throne.

“The proof, Father, the proof! An unholy object, whose true purpose only the Devil can know.”

The Pope indicated that he wanted to see it, and one of his priests came forward and lifted it over Cellini’s head. When it was placed in the Pope’s hand, he studied it closely, then turned it over, rubbing his thumb on the black silk backing.

“What is it?” he asked.

“A looking glass, Your Holiness.”

The Pope twisted the latches and the silk cover slid away. Cellini inadvertently glanced toward the long windows giving onto the Vatican gardens. Blessedly, the sun, and not the moon, hung in the sky above the grove of orange and lemon trees.

“It’s not a very good one,” the Pope said, eyeing the convex, and distorting, glass.

“No, Your Eminence, it did not meet my own expectations, either. It was designed for Eleonora de Toledo, but as it came out imperfectly, I kept it for myself and made another-a perfect copy, with ruby eyes-for the duchess.”

“Rubies from the Vatican’s casks?” Signor Luigi threw in.

Cellini’s fists clenched-he had taken all the insults he could-and Luigi, backing away, ordered Bertoldo and his henchmen to grab him.

“You will have all the time you need to contemplate your imperfect workmanship,” he said, “in your old home-the dungeons of the Castel St. Angelo.”

Cellini started to protest, but the Pope, reluctant to thwart his son any longer, handed the glass to one of his retainers as if it were a piece of spoiled fruit from his garden, and conspicuously turned away.