The Family - Mario Puzo [138]
Zappitto quickly lay on top of him.
“Fall and the match!” cried the referee.
When he lifted Zappitto’s arm in victory, the crowd applauded happily. Their champion had won.
Cesare shook Zappitto’s hand and congratulated him. “A worthy contest,” he said. Cesare then grabbed for his jacket, which he had placed alongside the ring, and there he found his purse.
With a deep bow, and a charming smile, he handed it to Zappitto.
Now, the crowd went wild with enthusiasm. They shouted and cheered. Not only did the new grande signore treat them well, he shared their pleasures. He danced, wrestled, and more important was even gracious in defeat.
Cesare engaged in these festivals and tournaments not for his pleasure alone, though he did enjoy them, but because winning the hearts of the people was part of his plan to unify the area and bring peace to all his subjects. Yet goodwill was not enough. Cesare also ordered his troops not to rape, loot, or harm the townspeople of the territories he conquered in any way.
Therefore Cesare was angry when, on a cold winter morning, only a week after his wrestling match with Zappitto, one of his guards brought three infantrymen to him in chains.
The sergeant of the guard, one Ramiro da Lorca, was a tough Roman veteran, and he announced that the three had been drinking all day. “But more important, Captain General,” Ramiro said. “They broke into a butcher shop, stole two chickens and a leg of mutton, and beat the son of the butcher bloody when he tried to stop them.”
Cesare approached the three men, who now huddled miserably on the steps of his palazzo. “Are you guilty, as the sergeant claims?”
The oldest man, almost thirty, spoke up in a false and pleading tone. “Your Worship, all we did was fetch us some meager food. We was hungry, Your Worship; we just . . . ”
Sergeant da Lorca interrupted. “That’s nonsense, sir. These men were paid regular, like everyone else. They’d no need to steal.”
Alexander had always told Cesare that choices had to be made when one was a leader of men. Difficult choices. Now he looked at the three men, and at the crowd of townspeople who had gathered in the square. “Hang them,” Cesare said.
The prisoner spoke as though he had not heard Cesare. “It was just some chickens and a bit of meat, Your Worship. Nothing serious.”
Cesare walked toward him. “You misunderstand, my man. It is not just some chickens. At the command of the Holy Father, every man in this army has been well paid. Why? So they won’t steal from or brutalize the people of the towns we conquer. My soldiers have been given enough food, and comfortable quarters, in order to prevent any harm to the locals. I have done all of this so that the citizens of the towns we conquer will not hate the papal forces. They don’t have to love us, but my hope is that they will, at least, not despise us. What you fools have done is spoil my plan, and violate a command of the Holy Father himself.”
That evening at sunset the three prisoners, soldiers of the papal army, were hanged in the square as an example to all the other papal troops, and as an apology to every citizen of Cesena.
Afterward, in taverns and houses throughout the town and along the country roads, people celebrated, and all agreed better times were coming. For the new ruler, Cesare Borgia, was just.
As spring approached, Cesare’s force was strengthened by a French contingent sent by King Louis. A Milanese friend also highly recommended the artist, engineer, and inventor Leonardo da Vinci, who was claimed to be an expert in modern warfare.
When da Vinci arrived at the Malatesta Palace, he found Cesare poring over a map of the fortifications at Faenza. “These walls seem to shake off our bombardment like a dog shaking off water. How can we ever create a breach wide enough to allow a successful attack by cavalry and infantry?”
Da Vinci smiled,