Thorn

Chapter Twenty-Three

Fade in on violence.

If you have seen one tournament of jousting, you have seen them all. But then, unless you are after all, in tune with my jests, almost as old as I am, you have never seen even one, have you? Never mind.

There were church bells in my ears, when I knew that no bells rang. Angels swam round me in an alarming swarm; not, as modern legend has it, looking for the point of a pin to sit on, but rather to cluster before my eyes inside my steel helm, good and evil disputing for my soul.

I understood vaguely that my helm was being lifted off, by gentle hands, but the knowledge made things no clearer. I saw the totentantz; and I saw, as on a stage, tableaux from the old French story in which three living men meet their three doppelgangers all wrapped in shrouds.

"Is he dead, then, at last?" It was the voice of my dear wife Helen, and she was despairing almost utterly. "He is dead. I know that he is dead."

Someone else muttered something. If this was death, at least I did not fear it. The Angel of the Lord swooped near to me, dispersing the fog of lesser cherubs who were swarming in my eyes, and spoke to me. What the angel said to me then I may not yet reveal.

"He is not dead," said another, non-angelic voice.

I was lying on my back inside a jousting pavilion of fine white cloth, lit gloriously from above by bright sunlight. My armor had all been stripped away, and my body, wrapped now in white linen almost like a shroud, was a mass of many hurts. I hurt no more, though, than was seemly for one who had been knocked off a horse by the brutal impact of a long, sharp-ended pole, and had probably been trampled on by horses' hooves thereafter. Meanwhile the Angel of the Lord transformed himself into Helen, who sat at my side dabbing with cool perfumed water at a certain abominable lump upon my head.

Presently I understood that this wretched lump was coextensive with my head itself.

"I feared for you, oh my lord." And Helen was weeping softly. Dab, dab, oh so gently. Her perfumed kerchief of fine Florentine cloth was mottled red.

"That I was dead?"

"Yes. Oh, Vlad, your face was pale and still."

"Know then that I am alive." I raised an aching arm to catch Helen's hand, whose dabbing ministrations had become more irritant than help; and, to provide a sweeter reason for the catch, I squeezed what I had caught, and brought it to my lips. "And, even if I had been dead, to have such an angel ministering to me would make me rise again."

A non-angelic face in the background coughed and grimaced at this remark. It was, I realized now, a friar standing by there. Doubtless he had come to anoint the dying.

"I would not have you jest about such things," said Helen. But I think what really bothered her was her perception that I was not jesting. This was in early 1469. By then we had been five years married, and had lived long enough as man and wife to begin to know each other well.

"Your good wife speaks wisely, my son," the friar chided me. "You have been near death today, but today it is God's will that you live. You should consider that one day He must will otherwise. Death will come to us all, or soon or late."

I considered the friar's long face, and liked it not. "Nay, father. Does it not say somewhere in the Scriptures, 'we shall not all die, but we shall all be changed'?"

The friar's face said emphatically that mine was not a proper attitude; but what could one expect from these foreign soldiers who were the bane of Italy? "It saith also, that the devil may quote Scripture when he likes." After that, sensing himself no longer quite welcome, the priest bowed out through the tent flap and took himself away.

"Vlad, do not sit up yet. Rest yet a while, and I will tend to you."

"I will sit up." For the moment, though, it was quite enough just to get my elbows under me and raise my shoulders. "And shortly I will rise, and walk. I want to see the progress of the tournament." There was a large roar, of many excited voices, not far outside. The pavilions had been set up in rows quite near the stands and the lists. Now there came groans, and loud prayers of alarm; again some shrewd blow had been dealt. "Who unhorsed me? Who dealt me such a devil's blow? I don't remember."

"I do not think I saw who it was."

"Nay, Helen, it is only a game, is it not? Do you think I am going to go looking for revenge?"

The great misbegotten lump that was my skull ached all the more mercilessly when I sat up. But evidently, despite all my interesting visions, I had not been unconscious for very long. The brightness and warmth of the sun shining through the pavilion top told me that the time was still near midday, and the crowd's voice sounded as fresh and enthusiastic as ever.

Again shouts of encouragement and triumph, mingled with those of disappointment, drifted in.

"Who is winning?" I wondered aloud. And without letting myself think about the problems of movement, I got to my feet and began to dress myself.

Helen sighed and let me have my way. "I do not know. They say the grand prize will be awarded to Lorenzo himself, whatever happens in the jousts. It is his wedding we are celebrating, after all, even if he is no warrior."

I grumbled reflexively at that. Not that I wished for myself the fame of winning. I did not want to be prominent in the public eye; I was still Signore Ladislao in Italy, because I was still theoretically, officially, imprisoned in Hungary by my brother-in-law, and would be for another seven years. His Majesty King Matthias was still wary, still uncertain of what reception I might be accorded were I to appear in a place of honor at his court; and he was, for somewhat different reasons, also unsure of what Helen's reception would be there. Meanwhile I had been occupied with other things. Some of these were tasks undertaken for Matthias, and none of them have any proper place in this history. But I was on better terms than ever with the Medici, who ruled more firmly than ever in Florence; and they would not take no for an answer to their invitation to this tournament and wedding.

It was a celebration, a festive occasion, the like of which had perhaps not been seen in those parts since the days of ancient Rome. Arm in arm with my wife (She was, I must admit, helping me to keep steady on my feet, though she managed to make it look as if I were the one supporting and assisting her) I presently walked out of my pavilion, which stood surrounded by a multicolored mushroom forest of other tents like itself. I was at once congratulated upon my quick recovery, by smiling gentlefolk nearby. Only a few yards away, the temporary stands held cheering thousands. In the middle distance the Palazzo Medici was strung with flowers from every doorway, window, and cornice, as were many of the other buildings in this quarter of the city, and even some of the many church spires in the distance. The land where the tournament was being held had been, only a few months ago, a wasteland of abandoned buildings, emptied decades ago by plague. At Piero's direction, all had been leveled and made smooth for a jousting ground to help in the celebration of the wedding of his eldest son to the lovely Clarice Orsini. Now, as I strolled with my wife, the prize seats of the grandstand came into our view, and I could see some of the Orsini delegation there now, the future in-laws of Lorenzo, ready to weld their elder dynasty to his.

"Shall we go and watch the fighting, Vlad?"

"No, I have changed my mind. I think I have seen enough of combat for one day." And I guided Helen in the opposite direction from the lists. "I prefer to seek more soothing entertainment."

Through increasing crowds, lively with celebration, we moved toward the palace. There was something strange about the crowd, and it puzzled me until I realized there were few hawkers; food and drink were instead being given to the masses free during these proclaimed days of joy. Musicians played on a small green, and some gentlefolk were in sport performing for the crowd, treading the stately old French basse danse. It reminded me for a moment of the old French story in my dream, or vision.

Helen must have seen me smile. For whenever I displayed good humor she was wont to bring up some topic she had been saving till I should be in a good mood.

"Vlad, you have been fighting so much these last few years. In these little wars, and tournaments. Do you mean to keep on fighting always, until one day when I think that you are dead it turns out I am right? Is it not time to let the younger men do their share?"

"Oh, am I old?"

"You are—mature. And there should be more to life than giving and receiving blows. And—Vlad, I tell you truly—on the day that I do see you lying dead, I think I shall go mad." She said it simply and without emphasis.

"I am a soldier."

"My husband, with your agreement, I am going to write a letter to my brother. He could end this farce of your supposed imprisonment at any time, and then we could go home. I think that by now I have demonstrated that I can be well-behaved. And you—you could be Prince again, in Wallachia. Matthias could install you there if he wanted to."

"I can see political reasons why he would not want to. Not now, at least. I think he will not agree to your proposal."

"Then I should wait for a time, and write again. You would like to go home? Such a change would please you?"

I looked around me. I had, as I have written, fallen in love with Italy. Yet it was not home. Then I looked intently at Helen. "It would please me very much," I said, "to rule in Wallachia again, this time with you beside me. Though you must realize that things there are not always perfectly peaceful. There have been moments, one or two in history, of unrest, invasion, murderous intrigue and treachery—a few upsets of that sort." I had to smile. "By St. Peter's beard, you worry about me in tournaments, and yet wish to see me on that throne again?"

Helen was distressed, but determined also. "Oh yes, I know there would be dangers at home, too. But there—how can I put it?—the dangers would have meaning. You would be defending our own homeland. That is what a sword ought to be for, and a cannon too."

"I think you have a woman's view of swords and cannons and war."

"Well, and if I do? A woman can be right. And if death came, in some great, just cause, then in death too there would be meaning. If you were to die so, perhaps I would not go mad to have you taken from me."

I did not know quite what to say, or think. "I have told you, wife. I mean never to submit to death without a struggle. The old scyther will have from me such a fight as he has not known in a long time."

Arm in arm we walked on, through celebrating crowds toward the palace. I had heard that Leonardo was to be there this afternoon, discoursing of his art to those folk who loved such things more than tournaments.