“You keep your head down.”
“Right. Because one misdirected shell could wipe out your whole damn species. That’s why some of us,” he whispered, “believe that it would be a mistake to announce our presence to the stars.”
I frowned. “I thought we’d already done that. We’ve been blasting TV signals to the skies since the days of Hitler.”
“Yes, but we’re getting more efficient about our use of electromagnetic radiation — tight beams, cables, optic fibers. We’re already a lot quieter, cosmically speaking, than we were a few decades ago. We can’t bring back our radio noise, but it is a thin shell of clamor, heading out from the Earth, getting weaker and weaker … Blink and you miss it. And besides, radio is primitive. The more advanced folk are surely listening out for more interesting signals. And there are some people out there who think we should start sending out just those kinds of signals.”
“I take it you aren’t one of these people.”
“Not anymore.” He was gazing into his hands as he said this, and his voice was unusually somber.
I remembered how he had fled to Rome, with no money, not much more than the clothes he stood up in. Suddenly I was suspicious. “Peter — what have you done?”
But he just smiled and reached for the bottle.
Chapter 42
It was in the year 1527 that Clement came to Rome. He was in the service of Charles V, Emperor of Germany, who also happened to be king of Spain and Naples and ruler of the Netherlands.
A huge army of German Landsknecht, mainly Lutherans, had been raised by the king’s brother, a mighty force to wreak vengeance on the Antichrist in Rome. They battled through torrential rain and snowstorms to cross the Alps. They advanced on Lombardy and joined the Emperor’s main force of Spaniards, Italians, and others.
And then they converged on Rome.
Clement, after his travels, had seen much of the world. But Rome was extraordinary.
A great circuit of wall, it was said raised by the Caesars, was still in use today, much repaired. But within its wide boundaries there were farms, vineyards and gardens, even areas of scrub and thicket where deer and wild boar roamed. Here and there you could see broken columns and shapeless ruins poking out of the greenery, draped with ivy and eglantine and populated by pigeons and other birds. The inhabited area was small and cramped, a place of narrow streets and houses hanging over the muddy waters of the patient, enduring Tiber, with the spires of the rich looming over all.
There were many fine churches and palaces. But Rome was a city trapped in the past, Clement thought, a city that would have been humbled if set aside Milan or Venice or Trieste.
And now it was to be humbled further.
The pope offered an indemnity, which tempted the army’s leaders. But the Landsknecht wanted pillage. And so it was that an undisciplined, heterogeneous, half-starved, and ragged army finally marched on Rome, dreaming of plunder. There were more than thirty thousand of them.
The attack began before dawn.
The first assault on the wall was repulsed, but the defenders, hugely outnumbered and lacking ammunition, were soon reduced to throwing rocks at those they called “half-castes” and “Lutherans.” Up went the scaling ladders, and soon Germans and Spaniards were swarming over the wall. Some of the defenders fought bravely, including the pope’s Swiss Guards, but they were quickly overwhelmed.
By the time Clement had crossed the wall the fighting was all but done. It was still dawn; still mist from the Tiber choked the city streets. Afterward, Rome was at the mercy of the Emperor’s troops. Later, Clement would remember little of the days that followed, little save bloodstained glimpses of unbelievable savagery.
The Romans were cut to pieces, even if unarmed, even if unable to defend themselves. Even invalids in hospitals were slaughtered.
The doors of churches, convents, palaces, and monasteries were broken down and their contents hurled into the streets. When people tried to shelter in the churches they were massacred; five hundred died even in Saint Peter’s. Priests were forced to take part in obscene travesties of the Mass, and if they did not they were eviscerated, or crucified, or dragged through the streets, naked and in chains. Nuns were violated, and used as tokens in games of chance, and convents were turned into brothels where the women of the upper classes were forced into prostitution. Holy relics were abused; the skull of the Apostle Andrew was kicked around the streets, the handkerchief of Saint Veronica was sold in an inn, the spear said to have pierced Christ’s side was displayed like a battle trophy by a German.
Clement took part in the torment of one wealthy man who was made to rape his own daughter, and another, a very fat man, who was forced to eat his own roasted testicles. Afterward he would not be able to credit what he had done.
The Sack of Rome was the end product of decades of suspicion, jealousy, and hostility. The Renaissance popes had been great patrons of the arts, but they had acted like ambitious princelings and made many enemies. Meanwhile the great wealth of Rome had made the city a prize that the European powers, especially France and Spain, had eyed with jealousy. French, Spaniards, and landless German Lutherans had at last made common cause under Charles’s imperial banner. But none of this could have justified the Sack.
It went on for months. It was said that twelve thousand were killed. Two-thirds of the housing stock was burned to the ground. On the resulting wasteland lay putrefying corpses, gnawed by dogs. Even on Sundays not a church bell sounded, across the whole of Rome.
One hot night Clement found himself with a party of a dozen or so that ventured outside the city walls. They were drunk. There might be nothing to find out here, but at least it would be a break from the stink of the city itself, where, it was said, by now you couldn’t find a purse worth emptying or a virgin over twelve.
The Emperor’s soldiers followed an old road the locals called the Appian Way. It was overgrown and rutted, but you could still trace its line, arrow straight. They drank, sang bawdily, and as they walked they probed with sticks and spears at the ground. There were tales of Catacombs out here, and where there were Catacombs you might find treasure.
It was Clement, as it happened, who found the door. His broken stick, in fact a smashed-off crucifix, hit wood — he thought — something solid, anyhow.
He called the others over, and soon they were scrabbling at the turf and dirt, pulling it away in great handfuls. Gradually they exposed a great square door in the ground. They tried to haul it open, but it would not budge.
So Philip, a great slab of a man from southern Spain, got to his hands and knees and began to hammer on the door. If it was not opened it would be smashed in or burned, he shouted, and it would be the worse for whoever was inside. None of this provoked a response, so the men began to gather wood for a fire, to burn their way through.
Then, without warning, the door pushed open. Philip scrambled off, and soon all the men were gathered around, hauling at the door.
A chamber in the ground was exposed. It was walled with white-painted plaster, Clement saw, and lamps flickered in the breeze. And there were women here — six of them — none younger than sixteen or older than twenty-five, he judged, and they were wearing white dresses. They stood in a row, peering up, like nuns praying. They were very pale, like ghosts, yet beautiful, and all of them full-figured.