The stakes of your game have changed. This time they did not seem intent on taking Cesco. They appear bent on murdering him. The time for your precious secrets may be past. Next year he will be three, and you know what the astrologer's charts say. If you know who is threatening the Greyhound's future you must take whatever steps you deem necessary to stop them.
Arriving three days later, Cangrande's reply was characteristically brief:
I have no proof, and will make no accusations without proof. If you want to see the boy live, you'd best protect him better. Or else trust the stars. Isn't that what you always told me?
Reading this, Katerina balled up the note and threw it in the fire.
Twenty-Nine
Ravenna
15 May 1317
The May sun above reflected off the waters of the Rubico River. Pietro reached into his saddlebag and lifted out a hunk of cheese, made locally. Today was an idyll. The weather was glorious, the ride unhurried. Returning from a lecture in nearby Rimini, he pondered the topic: the need for good judges in this lawless world. "There's a real need," the professor had pronounced in the open-air theater, "for justice in the world today. And if the world needs knights to enforce laws, doesn't it also need judges and advocates to decide what those laws are, what they mean? Judges are more important than knights because, in the end, it's the judges who have to decide what justice is."
Riding along on Canis, Pietro now wondered, Isn't the man who enforces the justice as important as the man who decides what justice is?
Pietro was coming to love the Law. Before going to university he could never have imagined loving a concept. Oh, he knew his father loved poetry. But now he understood. What poetry was to Dante, law was to his son.
It was a passion two years in the making. After the brief stay in Venice, where Ignazzio and Theodoro had picked up the scarecrow's trail, Pietro had gone to Bologna. It was supposed to be a pretense, Pietro feigning studious pursuits while waiting for news of their quarry. But weeks had turned into months, and for Pietro the end was lost in the means.
Growing up in Florence, Pietro had been trained in the basics of learning: grammar, logic, music, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, rhetoric. But a hundred miles north of Florence, young men were striving daily to know more. Eschewing the common precepts of learning, they came to La Cittia Grossa, where the learning was as impure as the sausage invented here. Mortadella — bones, gristle and hooves, the deadest part of the pig, turned into a delicious meal. So the faculty explored the darker sides of life to find the unsavory but longed-for truths.
Bologna was second only to Paris as a repository for written knowledge. But unlike Paris, where the students ran around creating unchecked chaos, students at the Studium of Bologna made the rules and hired the faculty. Many of the students were already practicing doctors and lawyers. The motto here was Bononia Docet — Bologna Teaches.
Pietro had been greeted as a kind of celebrity — he was, after all, the son of the great Dante, famous not only for his poems but his essays and lectures, many of them having taken place right there in Bologna. Through Cangrande's subtle influence Pietro had started by taking classes in law, but soon he couldn't resist dabbling in other topics. He'd found himself thrust headlong into new ideas, scandalous thoughts having to do with the body as the root of truth, or Truth. The new art of opening up the dead for knowledge of anatomy and alchemy was as horrifying as it was enlightening. The latest argument in the new field of theology was that sex was the path to God. It was one the students had embraced.
Then, just after Calvatone, Pietro had received a coded letter from Cangrande. It was quite common for letters to be coded, having to pass through so many hands. Typical of the Scaliger, this letter didn't mention the stain on his honour. Instead, he had been entirely solicitous of Pietro's situation:
It seems the hunt is going to last longer than we expected. I want you to stay where you are. As you reside between Padua and Florence now, you are in a perfect position to hear things of interest to me. Especially since it is generally thought we quarreled. On top of which, I have directed Ignazzio and a few other of my spies to write any news they have to you. Calvatone is further proof that someone close to me is acting against my interests. As long as that person is at liberty, I cannot have sensitive information coming here to the palace. I am relying on you to coordinate any information that comes to me. I will make arrangements for those to be brought to me by a hand I trust.
In the light of this change in your assignment, I have a suggestion to make. A rented room is impermanent, it suggests mobility. I want your name to be linked to Bologna — or rather, unlinked from Verona. To further this, I have arranged with your father's friend Guido Novello of Polenta for you to be appointed keeper of the Benefice of Ravenna. It is a secular post for the Church, and your only duty will be to collect tithes and settle minor disagreements. It also comes with a casa. You will move in at once, and hire a couple of local servants. You will be close enough to Bologna to continue your studies, and it will be more secure if you have visitors.
The job also requires you to train a few men-at-arms. Make certain you do. Contact Manuel's cousin in Venice if you require more funds.
Cg.
For more than a year now Pietro had made Ravenna his home, leaving for weeks at a time to study in Bologna, then returning to collect tithes and arbitrate disputes between the laity and the Church. It was good training, he thought, for the career that now lay spread before him. Though he was wary of being a lawyer. That was considered worse than being even an actor.
Wading his horse through the water by Pietro's side, his groom Fazio wiped his brow. "Hot enough."
Pietro felt the heavy glare of the cloudless sky. Beneath him, Canis finished pushing his way through the waters. The ankles of Pietro's boots were wet, but no higher. A slight breeze passed pleasantly by. "Let's stay here a moment, let the horses cool off."
Fazio obediently dismounted and led his horse back to the water's edge. Pietro did the same with Canis. Looking down the length of the divide, Pietro said, "Nearly fourteen hundred years ago the greatest soldier in history picnicked over here."
"Who do you mean?" asked Fazio.
Pietro laughed. "Caesar!"
"Oh, him," said Fazio dismissively. From a smallish boy he had grown into a wiry fourteen year-old. He rarely had much squiring to do. To Pietro's dismay, he'd taken to throwing dice in his spare hours.
"What, not impressed?"
"He's got nothing on Cangrande."
Pietro chuckled, shaking his head. But the act of crossing the Rubicon was a legal question that fascinated Pietro. It was almost this exact spot that Caesar left legality behind to claim his due. That act brought about an empire — the rule of one over the rule of many, the way God intended. But how can a man who puts himself above the law then claim to defend it?
On the far side of the river Mercurio darted out of some bushes and made for his master. In a moment both Pietro and Fazio were sprayed with water as the hound shook himself dry. Fazio shouted, "Dammit, Mercurio!"
The hound was already stalking a woodchuck in the bushes. Ravenna had agreed with Mercurio. The dog had grown into a fine-looking hunter, also becoming a father last winter with some neighbourhood bitch. Pietro had adopted the whole litter, though being mixed they wouldn't have the promise of Cangrande's purebreds.