'I thank God that you are here,' he said. `If I am to claim your mother, your escort will be sorely: needed to get out of the city.'
I was guarding the heavy load of gold packed upon two horses in the courtyard, disguised as an old priest. When Cossa saw that the sisters were mounted, he held the halters of their horses and led them along the street to the south gate, wearing a crossbow slung across his back in the manner of a stable boy, while I led the two packhorses on foot to the rear We made our way through the Inselgasse then out by the Eselthurm and, leaving the old Benedictine cloister at the rubbish heaps, went along the, river. There had been no delay at the gate. The officer in charge had bowed low to the ladies when they showed their safe conducts signed by the king. He paid no attention to their stablehand or to me.
Cossa mounted one of the packhorses when we reached the river and I climbed up on, the other. We rode past the castle at Gottlieben to the little village of Ermatingen on the Rhine, five miles from Konstanz. We halted at the house of the village priest, who gave us water. We waited. Cossa told the women that we were waiting to be contacted by the marchesa's, abductors, but he was really waiting for Frederick, of Austria.
A messenger named Ulrich Saldenhorn of Waltsew, who was a servant of the Duke of Austria, rode to the lists at the tournament and trotted sedately to Frederick's lodge. He secured his horse. He went to the duke and whispered in his helmeted ear, `The pope is free.' The duke was badly shaken by the news. He had vaguely expected it, always hoping against it, but Cossa had told him nothing and he had contributed little to the plan beyond his moral support and a boat. Now that the crisis had arrived, it had come at a most awkward time, just as Sigismund had succeeded in undermining the confidence of the duke's Swiss allies. He was unsure what to do. He had pledged his word to the pope and taken his money, but he had the growing feeling, that the, action would create irreconcilable enmity.
He rode his last bout, against the young Count of Cilly for a wager of many jewels, was defeated and unhorsed, and dragged off the ground by his squires. He left the lists without attracting attention. He went into town to his rented house, Zu der Wannen, and sent for his, uncle, Count Hans von Lupfen, who refused to come. Instead, Lupfen dispatched his servant, the Lord High Steward, Hans von Diessenhofen, to deliver his master's flat words that, since the duke had started a thing like this without him, he could also finish it without him.
'Do you have any, idea what you have done?' von Diessenhofen said with agitation.
`Is it so bad, Hans?'
`It is worse than that.'
`What can I do? I have given my, word. I have taken his money.' `What has been begun must be loyally carried through. Here I am, my lord. I am with you.' They took three pages with them and rode out to Ermatingen through the Augustinet gate.
In the course of that evening, the night and the next morning, the papal household and many prelates also rode out after the pope, until the absence of so many people was reported to Sigismund.
After he had waited for one hour with the sisters,' Cossa said to them, `Something has gone wrong. They are not coming.'
'How can that be?' Rosa said. `They must come.'
After' another hour Cossa said to them, `Every moment we wait here puts her life more in danger. Only you can help her now. You must go to Sigismund so that his troops may begin a search for her.' At last the two women were persuaded. They rode off rapidly to the Petershausen monastery. The Duke of Austria arrived at Ermatingen over an hour after that. Collecting the Holy Father and his goldbearing packhorses they rode on to Steckhorn, five miles further down the river where the sailing boat had been moored. It had two rudders and, passing under the old wooden bridge at Stein, it carried them down the river to Schaffhausen. It was long past midnight when they arrived.
Schaffhausen was held by the Duke of Austria on mortgage from the empire. Behind the town, standing on a small hill, was a castle with a thick ring of walls set with tall bastion, towers. Here the Holy Father took shelter.
After dawn the next morning, Cossa wrote to Sigismund. `Thanks be to the all-powerful God, my dearest son,' the letter said, `for we are now here at Schaffhausen in a free and good climate. We were able to make our way out of Konstanz because the daughters of the Marchesa di Artegiana; Maria Louise' Sterz and Rosa Belmonte, love us so well and, sought our freedom so bravely and with your kind safe conduct. We will stay here well protected, with no intention of receding from our intention of resigning, doing so in full freedom and good health.'
58
At the same time as Cossa was writing to Sigismund, that morning, the king began to get wind that the-pope had fled Konstanz because reports kept coming in that so many members of the papal household had disappeared. He refused to see Maria Louise and Rosa when they sought audience because he wanted to work undisturbed all day, sending a force to the papal palace in Konstanz to break in and search out Cossa if he was there. When, in the midafternoon, a cold stormy and oppressive afternoon, Cossa's letter arrived from Schaffhausen, he went wild with rage that the marchesa's daughters had made Cossa's escape possible. `Those women will do anything for money!' he shouted and sent Hungarian officers to arrest and question Maria Louise and Rosa. Pippo Span was with him, trying to calm him, when a Hungarian captain returned with the confirmation that the two women had escorted the pope out of the city.
`Kill them!' Sigismund shouted at the captain.
Pippo Span drew his sword ominously. His eyes glittered. `Take back the order,' he said.
`So!' Sigismund said. `Your woman betrays me and you draw your sword on me. How much did you have to do with that bastard's escape?'
The Hungarian captain did not know what to do with this change of affairs between his king and his general. He could not decide whether to summon the guard or to fight Pippo Span The king burned him with a terrible glance. `Guard!' he shouted. Soldiers came rushing into the room and three irrevocable things had happened: Pippo Span had drawn on his king, there was a witness, and the guard had been called in to compound the witnessing.
Pippo Span ran the captain through. The guards rushed at him with their weapons. He held them off while he shouted at Sigismund, `How many times have I given you back your life, my dear friend, that you should repay me by killing my woman? How many armies have I saved you and how many victories have I put at your feet that you should deny the loyalty of Rosa?' The soldiers backed him across the room. All at once. Sigismund realized what was happening: that his own people were about to kill his most dear and loyal friend.
`Stop! Guard!' Pippo Span was dead before the last word left his mouth.
Two more officers came running into the room. Sigismund stared at them through his blank loss. `There are two women in the cells who have been questioned,' he said. `Execute them.'
Cosimo di Medici conferred with the Cardinal of Ostia about the arrangements for the triple funeral which was held swiftly the following day. I had returned to Konstanz on Cossa's orders because he wanted a daily report on how the council was reacting to his escape. I attended the triple funeral.
On the walls in the cathedral were set 134 burning candles, each weighing six and a half pounds. In front of the high altar Cosimo had had a small open house built eight feet wide, ten feet long, and eighteen feet high. On its roof 400 small candles burned, each a quarter of a pound of wax. The three biers lay under the roof, each covered with golden cloths. Around the small house sat the forty-five servants of the marchesa, Maria Louise and Rosa, each one wearing a black cloak. Between each of these stood a soldier of Pippo Span's command, holding a burning candle.