His books supplied the answer. The tyrannicide was not a malefactor; rather he was to be ranked with the greatest of heroes. Heroes of this stamp he found in the stories of Pelopidas and his young companions, and of Timoleon, the liberator of Sicily. Livy conjured up for him the proud figure of Mucius Scaevola, pointing with his one remaining arm to the long line of his successors. He even came across the Greek verses that had so inspired the youth of Milan:
When, like Harmodius and Aristogeiton,
I have dispatched the usurper
And made Athenians equal under the law
I shall garland my sword with myrtle leaves.
“But those people were pagans,” he reflected. He opened the scriptures and found the book of Judith, who, though but a weak and feeble woman, killed a man and achieved eternal fame. Even the holy and austere St Thomas Aquinas — who was himself eventually poisoned by a French despot — condoned tyrannicide. Ordinary people and philosophers alike agreed that the death of a tyrant was pleasing to God. Soon even Lytto could see that such a person was a pernicious figure, and the enemy of all mankind. But who, or what exactly, was a ‘tyrant’?
Tacitus and Suetonius told him what he needed to know about the way such people behaved. He gobbled up their pages, scarcely able to wait for long-needed Vengeance to glut itself on the bloody Nero. Now there was a tyrant! He set fire to Rome, poisoned his relatives, murdered his mother and put Christians to the torch. He was mad — and more loathsome than any monster. But Galeazzo? How could he be a ‘tyrant’. The hideous, bestial image that the word conjured up for Lytto seemed in no way to describe the gentle, refined, almost monkish figure of the Duke. Since childhood, standing at his place behind Galeazzo’s chair, Lytto had been present at all the important discussions of affairs of state. He had never taken much interest in them, but he knew all the secrets of the way Milan was governed. And he knew perfectly well that Galeazzo had never perpetrated any of the things those monstrous dictators had. In everything he did as a ruler he had been honourable and humane.
Lytto began to think that there must be some unfathomable, Satanic madness driving the youth of Milan to their death, like moths to the candle.
Then his hand fell on the history of Julius Caesar, that greatest of all rulers, who was slain as a tyrant, in the name of liberty, by his closest friends. Why? Once again everything became confused in his mind.
For many days he carried these burning questions around in his head. But for that very reason he performed his duties all the more punctiliously, and his placid gaze, with its permanent air of wonder, troubled no one. Galeazzo had taught him welclass="underline" no one could see what lay in the depths of his soul.
One evening they were sitting together in front of the fire. Galeazzo, still convalescent and finding sleep difficult, was ensconced in a large armchair swathed in furs, with Lytto at his feet, lyre in hand. The cosy, dancing half-light would have been enough to stir up memories of younger days and past loves in anyone, but neither of them had any such to call on. However Galeazzo’s face was more languid than usual, and he felt at ease with himself. He was enjoying the soft, exquisite singing, the gentle warmth, and the self-indulgent wanderings of the convalescent mind. But above all, he enjoyed having Lytto at his side. He would have protested fiercely against any suggestion that he might love the boy so very much, but he was certainly receptive to everything that was beautiful, and he took real delight in Lytto’s noble, upright character as he sat there with his head inclined gracefully over his instrument, and his long hair trailing across his face. Galeazzo felt the need to talk, to embrace the boy with words, the way you might caress a beautiful statue with your eyes.
“I have often thought, young Lytto,” he said after a protracted silence, “how strange it is that you never show any desire to get away from this castle, with its permanently cold floors, and that you never seem to be bored beside such a silent person as myself. But you know, I’d be quite happy now to tell you something about my life — not that there is anything to tell… On winter evenings… I always used to sit here in front of the fire… in summer it was in the loggia… I spent my free time in the library. Sometimes I’d watch the guardsmen drilling… and I had so much to do. So much work. I tell you, sometimes I loved just watching the birds taking to the air… and then suddenly the years had all flown away with them, and I was old. Now there’s a boring tale for you.”
Lytto’s fingers trembled on the lyre. No one had ever heard the Duke speak like this before.
“When you were young, my lord, did you never go down into Milan?”
“Never, my boy. If I had, they would have killed me within the hour.”
“But what about your bodyguards?”
“Lytto, perhaps you think I am some sort of coward. Well, perhaps. Who can say he truly knows himself? But then, a man who holds the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in his hands, and would put all that in jeopardy, is probably exempt from the charge. No, Lytto, I’m not afraid of the assassin’s dagger, believe me, nor do I think I shall escape it in the end. What does horrify me is the depth of hatred — you know — the loathsome atmosphere of the hatred of slaves. It would smother me, down there. I begin to wonder if this isn’t my greatest achievement, that no man was ever so deeply hated as I am.”
The words burst from Lytto’s mouth:
“My lord, in the name of all the saints, why do they hate you, who are so good, so virtuous in your life, and always act for the best?”
Galeazzo shrugged his shoulders.
“I don’t know, and I’m not really interested. The hatred is in them, not in me. My soul will be found pure on the Day of Judgement. I’m incapable of hatred, myself.”
Lytto leapt to his feet.
“My lord, I shall go right now and tell them they are wrong!”
Galeazzo’s smile was a sharp as a razor.
“Calm yourself down, my boy, and then we can continue the discussion. No more of these loud words and wild gestures, if you please. Believe an older man, Lytto, there’s no helping this hatred until these people change, and change totally, and become like you, and me, and everyone else. The fact is, they hate themselves in me.”
“I don’t follow you, my lord.”
“I’m not surprised, and it isn’t important that you should. Every living thing strives for power, Lytto — for domination. Some consciously, some not. The Lord Mayor orders the heads of guilds about, the guildsman lords it over the bootmaker, the bootmaker bullies his apprentices, the apprentice no doubt has younger siblings who torture the cat, the cat torments the mouse, and no doubt even the mouse isn’t at the bottom of this ghastly hierarchy. So the mouse hates the cat, the cat hates the children, and everyone hates me, because I am the one with power.”
“Is the possession of power worth all the hatred, my lord?”
“I could declaim in poetical tropes, Lytto, how one minute of power is equal to a thousand years of hell. Of course power isn’t an end in itself. It is simply an instrument. But it is absolutely necessary.”