FLOWER OF THE QUINCE
THE CARDINAL OF VALENCIA
For three days I had been cooling my heels about the
Vatican, vexed by suspense. It fretted me that
I should have been so lightly dealt with after I had
discharged the mission that had brought me all the
way from Pesaro, and I wondered how long it might
be ere his Most Illustrious Excellency the Cardinal
of Valencia might see fit to offer me the honourable
employment with which Madonna Lucrezia had promised
me that he would reward the service I had rendered
the House of Borgia by my journey.
Three days were sped, yet nought had happened to signify
that things would shape the course by me so ardently
desired; that the means would be afforded me of mending
my miserable ways, and repairing the wreck my life
had suffered on the shoals of Fate. True, I had
been housed and fed, and the comforts of indolence
had been mine; but, for the rest, I was still clothed
in the livery of folly which I had worn on my arrival,
and, wherever I might roam, there followed ever at
my heels a crowd of underlings, seeking to have their
tedium lightened by jests and capers, and voting me—when
their hopes proved barren—the sorriest Fool
that had ever worn the motley.
On that third day I speak of, my patience tried to
its last strand, I had beaten a lacquey with my hands,
and fled from the cursed gibes his fellows aimed at
me, out into the misty gardens and the chill January
air, whose sting I could, perhaps, the better disregard
by virtue of the heat of indignation that consumed
me. Was it ever to be so with me? Could
nothing lift the curse of folly from me, that I must
ever be a Fool, and worse, the sport of other fools?
It was there on one of the terraces crowning the splendid
heights above immortal Rome that Messer Gianluca found
me. He greeted me courteously; I answered with
a snarl, deeming him come to pursue the plaguing from
which I had fled.
“His Most Illustrious Excellency the Cardinal
of Valencia is asking for you, Messer Boccadoro,”
he announced. And so despairing had been my mood
of ever hearing such a summons that, for a moment,
I accounted it some fresh jest of theirs. But
the gravity of his fat countenance reassured me.
“Let us go, then,” I answered with alacrity,
and so confident was I that the interview to which
he bade me was the first step along the road to better
fortune, that I permitted myself a momentary return
to the Fool’s estate from which I thought myself
on the point of being for ever freed.
“I shall use the interview to induce his Excellency
to submit a tenth beatitude to the approval of our
Holy Father: Blessed are the bearers of good
tidings. Come on, Messer the seneschal.”
