The Family - Mario Puzo [72]
“I will go to this man, and ask about my son,” the Pope said, “for if this man can speak to anyone, he will speak to me.”
Cesare’s head was bowed, and his voice was low. “Not without a tongue, Father.”
The Pope felt his knees weaken.
“And he is too wounded to pen this information?” the Pope asked.
“He cannot, Father,” Cesare said. “For he is without fingers.”
“Where was this squire found?” the Pope asked his son.
“In the Piazza della Giudecca,” Cesare said, “and he must have lain there for hours, in front of hundreds of passersby, who in their fear did not report the incident.”
“And there is still no news of your brother?” Alexander asked, now, sitting down.
“No, Father,” Cesare said. “There has been no word.”
After they rode throughout Rome gathering information from the captains of the Holy Guard, the commander of the Spanish force, and the Swiss Guard, as well as the foot police in the city, both Cesare and Duarte returned to the Vatican.
Alexander was still sitting silently, his golden rosary beads now clutched tight between his fingers. When they entered the Pope’s chambers, Cesare looked toward Duarte Brandao. He felt it would be kinder to his father to hear the most recent news from a trusted friend.
Duarte stood next to the Pope and placed a strong hand on his shoulder to help brace him. “It has in these last moments been brought to my attention, Your Holiness, that the captain general’s horse has been found, wandering with one stirrup cut by what appears to be a sword.”
The Pope felt his breath taken away, as though he had received a sharp blow to the stomach. “And the rider?” he asked softly.
“No rider was found, Father,” Cesare said.
Pope Alexander lifted his head, his eyes clouded, and turned to Cesare. “Call together the Holy Guard and have them search the streets and the countryside outside Rome. Tell them they are forbidden to return until they have found my son.”
Cesare left, as he was asked, to instruct the troops. In the hallway to the palace he passed his brother Jofre. “Juan is gone,” Cesare said, “and Father is desolate. I would speak very carefully if I were you, and under no circumstances allow him to know your whereabouts last evening.”
Jofre nodded to his brother, and said, “I understand.”
But he offered nothing more.
Rumors spread throughout the city about the Pope’s son Juan: that he was missing, and that the Pope was in severe distress, threatening dire punishment if it were found that he had been harmed.
Storefronts were boarded up and shops shut down as Spanish soldiers ran through the streets with swords drawn. The enemies of Alexander, including the Orsini and the Colonna, fearing they would be blamed, also took up arms. Runners were sent into all the alleys in the city of Rome to search, and all soldiers were threatened with death should Juan not be found.
Early the following morning, the police awoke a fisherman they discovered sleeping on his boat. His name was Giorgio Schiavi, and he claimed that on the night of the party he had seen four riders, one of them masked. He had watched from his boat as a fifth horse was brought forward—a body draped across its back—and led to the place in the Tiber where the filth of the city was dumped. There the body was lifted from the horse, and heaved into the river.
The police asked, “What did these men look like? What can you tell us?”
Giorgio said, “It was very dark . . . ”
On further questioning, he admitted that he had heard the voice of one, the master, order the others to throw several stones upon the corpse when his blue velvet cape floated to the surface. And he told them, of course, that one of the horses was white.
But he kept his vow to the cardinal, and never described the man who had spoken, the man who had been there. When the police became more aggressive, asking why he had not reported such a happening, Giorgio replied, annoyed, “I’ve seen hundreds of bodies thrown into the Tiber over these past years. To report each time to the police would