'I want to go back to Bologna,' I told him.
'I am working on that,' Cossa answered.
The Swiss overran the Aargau. They took Mellingen and Sursee. Baden was besieged. All the Duke of Austria had left out of a vast domain was the Black Forest,. Breisgau and the. Tyrol. Sigismund had an army of 40,000 men in the field against him.
Sixteen hours before Cossa's letter reached the Duke of-Burgundy, the messenger of the Council of Konstanz reached him with Sigismund's version The. Duke of Burgundy was a very unsentimental politician who had assassinated his cousin to get where he was. When Sigismund's letter explained that the pope had made a fatal move which had cost him his place and his influence, Burgundy no longer wanted to have anything to do with Cossa. When Cossa's letter arrived; the duke repulsed it with great indignation and dispatched ambassadors to Konstanz to deny any possibility that he would cooperate with the disgraced pope.
`I should have known,' Cossa said when he was told of the duke's rejection, `that anyone who would kill his own cousin to get ahead couldn't be relied on.'
`Mavbe, it's the other way round,' Franco Ellera said. `Maybe we are the ones who can't, be relied on.'
'How can you say that? I am the pope. All Christendom relies on the pope.' He grinned, sardonically. `Look at the deal that idiot turned down. Everything being equal, with the pope making Burgundy the centre, of the world and the focus of the church, that would have given him more power than the King of France. But he didn't know what was good for him.'
`Maybe we're finished,' I said.
`Maybe you're right., Maybe I'm more unpopular than I think. But nobody can discharge a pope. That's the lever we have and I'm going to use it to set us up for the rest of our lives.'
`What can you do?'
`I have to agree to resign. There is no other way. To persuade me to agree, they have to pay me. It's simple.'
'No. We can't win this one.'
`Cosimo has all, my money and most of the Church's. ' We have to get a lock on Cosimo, because money is the big lock he has on Sigismund and the council.'
`How do you get a lock on Cosimo?'
'We kill Decimals daughter Helene Macloi.' `What is she to Cosimo?'
`Decima, Cosimo's true instrument, is gone. He knows I did that.
He doesn't know how or when, but he knows I got rid of her. Two of her daughters are dead. He knows Sigismund wouldn't do anything to harm Pippo Span: What were two women to Sigismund? Pippo Span was his greatest friend. Pippo Span had saved his life, twice. So Cosimo has reasoned that I arranged that.'
`Cossa, tell me, please. What does all, this have to do with Cosimo?'
`He loves Maria Giovanna;, He, loves her almost as much as he loves that bank. When they see Helene MaCloi dead, and her sisters and their mother dead before her, it will come to them that Maria Giovanna is next unless he does something:'
'You mean you disposed of the marchesa and her two daughters so that you would be able to handle Cosimo di Medici if it came to it.’
Cossa shrugged. 'Cosimo owed me He wronged Me. He trapped me in the papacy, but I must have him in the background as my ally if I am to come out of this with anything. Tell Palo to kill her. Now as soon as he can get to Konstanz. Bernaba will set her up for him.'
On 27 April, Duke Frederick, prodded and petted by his mother, urged on by his family, and threatened with cousinly violence by Duke Ludwig of Bavaria Ingolstadt, decided, at last, to deliver the pope to Sigismund as a peace offering… His troops took Cossa from the outraged monastery at Breisach to Umkirch to meet a deputation of cardinals, who set before him the alternatives of honourable resignation or disgraceful deposition. Cossa took a night for reflection, enticing the absent innkeeper's wife into bed with him. In the morning, he told the cardinals that he was willing to resign. but not at Konstanz. He would resign in Burgundy; Savoy or Venice – always providing a fitting reservation was made for his future.
Twelve guards watched him by day; twenty-four by night, from the end of April in Freiburg. The town was densely occupied by imperial troops. The pope was the prisoner of Sigismund, King of the Romans.
61
On 30 April, the prelates of the four nations and the secular princes I and nobles of the empire and Christendom assembled at the Franciscan cloister in a long throne room, where Sigismund stood in judgement. It was an exquisitely staged proceeding. Sigismund stood in the refectory, with his back to the door and chatted with the envoys from Milan, Genoa, Florence and Venice, who looked over his shoulders at the door; While they talked, Duke Ludwig of Bavaria-Ingolstadt, Burggraf Frederick of Nuernberg and Count Nicholas Gara appeared at the door, as, if the king's meeting with them was merely accidental, leading the saddened Duke Frederick, who kneeled three times at the entrance to the room. When the four men approached Sigismund, he turned casually in the direction of the stares of the Italian envoys. All petitioners kneeled.
`What is your offering?' the king said distantly
'Here has come for your mercy,' Ludwig said, ‘our cousin Frederick, Duke of Austria. He will submit to you, and swear, do and keep what is said in this letter which was written here according to an agreement with your royal mercy.'
‘Relative,’ Sigismund said to Frederick, `are you really willing to do this?'
The young duke mumbled in a broken voice, pleading for grace humbly.
`I ask the King to pardon him,' Ludwig said,. `while knowing that because he has scorned your royal majesty and the council, he hereby makes over to the king's grace and power his body, his land and his people, all that he has. He promises moreover to bring back Pope John from where the king has confined him, provided, for honour's sake, that no injury befall the pope's body or his goods.'.
Sigismund held out his hand to Frederick and said, `It grieves me that you have committed this fault.'
The duke's letter was read aloud. Sigismund spoke to the envoys.
`You see how one can be mistaken?' he asked them. `You thought that the Dukes of Austria were the greatest lords in the German countries. Now you see what the King of the Teutons can do. I am the mighty ruler over not only the Austrian princes but overall other princes, lords and towns.'
The Duke of Austria swore and subscribed to a deed whereby he made over all his lands from Alsace to the Tyrol to the king. He contracted to bring the pope back to Konstanz and himself to remain as a hostage until his promises were fulfilled. Sigismund asked him to swear to that. Frederick lifted his hand. The Bishop of Passau gave him the oath; which he repeated in a shaking voice, `I will swear it, keep it, abide by it, and undertake nothing against it.'
Sigismund turned away from them again and immediately proceeded with the auction of the Austrian possessions, which went, piece by piece, to the highest bidder. He sent out his delegates in all directions to take possession of the duke's lands. He needed the money.
The Austrian towns in Upper Swabia as well as all towns in the county of Tyrol refused to swear allegiance to the king.
61
On 2 May, Pope John was summoned to appear before the council within nine days. He was cited as a heretic, a schismatic, a simoniac, and as being incorrigibly immoral. On Thursday, 9 May, the envoys from Konstanz arrived in Freiburg to take their prisoner to the council. They were Frederick, Burggraf of Nuernberg, and the Archbishops of Besancon and Riga, with a troop of 450 horsemen.
Everyone in Cossa's official household had deserted except Count Weiler, Bocca, Luigi Palo and of course, myself. Father Fanfarone had departed immediately upon receiving his generalship of the Franciscan order. It was a sorry train for the spiritual lord of Christendom. Cossa received the envoys and promised to accompany them to Konstanz, but the nine days allowed for his appearance elapsed and still. he, delayed his departure.