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.
The Cardinal of Ostia sang the requiem assisted by two cardinals. One sang the gospel. I sang the epistle. We were dressed as priests but were without vestments. After fourteen days, the coffins would be taken out of their crypts to be transported for burial at the Villa di Artegiana, in Perugia.
After the funeral, the two surviving sisters, myself, Bernaba and Cosimo di Medici went to the House of the Goldenen Backen, where Cosimo lived.
It is necessary for us to discuss several things,' Cosimo said to them in the house. `Everything happened so fast, but it still remains that Rosa and Maria Louise died within a day of the marchesa's disappearance and the pope's escape.'
`Are these things connected?' Helene asked.
`They must be,' Cosimo said. `Your mother dined with the-pope, then not only did she vanish but her bodyguard of eight men disappeared. Why did you go to look for the marchesa, Bernaba?'
`We were going to the tournament together with Helene and Maria Giovanna – but the marchesa asked me to call on her early because there was a dress which needed fixing and I have the knack for that.'
`But you know her. You know that she had for years, spent much time with the pope. Why such alarm on this particular morning?'
'I knew she wouldn't miss the tournament for anything. I thought of course that she was still with the pope but I knew she wanted that dress mended. As I left her house, I passed the stables. There were so few horses there so many empty stalls – that I asked the groom if the bodyguard had gone to fetch the marchesa. He told me they had never returned the night before.'
`Then you went to Petershausen?'
'No, my lord. I went to the papal palace and spoke with my kinswoman who is the maid for the ladies' apartments there.' She told me the marchesa was not there and had not spent the night there. Then I went to Petershausen.'
'How do you explain that Maria Louise and Rosa helped the pope to escape?'
'I thought about that for a long time. The marchesa must have got a message to them, telling them to help the pope.'
`Please don't press Bernaba, Cosimo,' Maria Giovanna said. 'She is our friend and my mother's friend. She had nothing to do with this. Sigismund had everyone killed.' Her voice broke. `What are you going to do about Sigismund?'
'He is presently beyond my reach,' Cosimo said with emotion. `But not for ever. He will be repaid:''
59
From the moment the pope's messenger had whispered into the Duke of Austria's ear at the jousting field that the pope had escaped and that he was to join him, the fat young man had begun to feel the freeze of fear. When his own uncle, the famous warrior Hans von Lupfen, had flatly refused to join: him in the adventure, he knew that he had great reason to feel terror. When he had seen the expression on the face and in the eyes of such a man as Hans von Diessenhofen, and felt the terrible danger in his voice when he said, so bleakly, 'Do you have any idea what you have done?' he had tasted his own doom. But it had become a thing of necessity. What had seemed like a noble action when he had taken the pope's money and agreed to protect him had exposed him to the possibility of his own ruination,
even of his own death but he could not refuse because the pope had rented his honour as well.
He rode out to the meeting place at Ermatingen sick in his heart, in his stomach and in his mind. He was barely able to speak to the pope when he found him in: the priest's house, beside the Rhine, ' eating quantities of cheese with me and speaking as merrily as if they were all embarked on a rare excursion. They were not alone until the door was closed upon the pope's chambers in the castle at Schaffhausen and the pope, still merry, began to talk to him as if he did not know that he was standing beyond and speaking through a wall of paralysing dread which separated them.