`Is he going?' the pope said, yawning:

`He is gone. But he will be back. In the meantime,, things assume their places. Ladislas grows stronger, but, Sigismund begins to exceed Ladislas's strength. We must be ready to secure his friendship to make him your protector. Soon we will need to meet with him. Before that, Rosa will be united with Pippo Span so that Sigismund may be bent to do what we know must be done.'

`Then we will wait.'

`But while we wait I must compensate Spina for his loss of Rosa. What do you suggest?"

`I will think about it,' Cossa said. But when she had gone, all he thought about was how and when he would be able to lure Catherine Visconti's son away from his generals in Milan and cause him to vanish in the deepest cellars of this building.

The marchesa sent a message to Cardinal Spina, who agreed to meet her at her house in Rome. She had to travel from Bologna, he from Naples, where he was Cossa's listening post next to Ladislas, while pretending to be of the obedience of Gregory, ever-ready to shift his loyalties back to Gregory should the balance of papal power change.

When he met the marchesa in Rome, Spina used a disguise of heavy grief over his loss of Rosa. The marchesa was understanding but she pointed out the certain; logic of Rosa's position. `She is so young, just a girl really, while you must be into your fifties, Eminence.'

`What a life I gave her!' Spina said. `I made her the centrepiece wherever we were, whether among kings and princes or the great of the world. Where is she? How could she do this? Where has she gone?

She has become very religious,' the marchesa said. `She may take vows.'

`Oh no!' the cardinal cried.

`I saw it coming,' the marchesa went on, `which is why – when she told me at last that she would leave you I prevailed upon His Holiness to confer some great benefice upon you, commensurate with your loss of Rosa.''

Spina remained expressionless; except for unconscious movements of his hands which the marchesa had been able to read for many years.

`Eminence, the Holy Father wants you to know how "much he appreciates the assistance and support you gave to me before the conclave at Pisa.'

Spina blinked. He closed his hooded eyes tightly as a defence against the unknown. He smiled with his mouth, not disturbing his eyes. Because he did not know what she was talking about, he answered generally. `When I first knew you, you were not a marchesa,' he said.

`When your mother first knew, you, you were not a cardinal,' she answered serenely. `Are we going to talk business or do you want to gossip?’

"I was happy to be able to help you at Pisa.' `Spina, what makes you so devious?' 'Devious?'

`Boniface called you the most devious man in the curia.' `How I miss him!'

`The Holy Father has been going over records of Sicilian income and I told him I thought you deserved a greater share of it.'

Spina opened one hand but kept the other closed; a neutral signal.

`You have gathered up most of the benefices in western Sicily

it is even possible that you own the city of Agrigento – but the Holy Father thinks you should know that the Duke of Anjou, the rightful heir to the throne of Naples, has been ceded the entire island as a gesture of friendship to France and, although it is a political matter in which he will have to wrest the actual ownership of Sicily from Ladislas, it might occur to the duke to recall the benefices which, you hold and to take over all of the benefices on the eastern end of the island as well.'

`With respect, Marchesa, the duke's work is not God's work.'' Spina's right hand struck at his left wrist, symbolically severing the duke from the Church.

`He could have Sicily for breakfast.' `If he can drive out Ladislas.'

`I have another plan.'

Spina was silent but his hands turned themselves over, palms upward in his lap.

'This is a new papacy, Eminence, a fresh start. His Holiness now holds all the Sicilian benefices, including your own. He has offered to redistribute them through me as a gesture of his gratitude.'

Spina's hands turned over and closed.

`Or-' the marchesa continued sympathetically `he can redistribute the western benefices to you, then endow you with the eastern benefices, with the understanding that you will share them with me.' The last had not precisely been Cossa's plan but the marchesa had always operated on the principle of `if you don't ask, you don't get. 'This would be administered by you and shared out equally with me.’

`It is a Solomon-like decision,' Spina said.

`Be careful when you count out my share, Eminence,' the marchesa said. `For, as the Holy Father gives out these benefices, so can he take them away.'

38

Cossa wanted to take in all the money he could from the Church – as if he believed that the world had forced him to be its pope, therefore the world could pay him well for the indignity – but European politics kept interfering; Church politics refused to go away. I was good at that kind of thing – even the marchesa herself said that once but mainly I mentioned my skills only to Cossa, who always kept my advice to himself because, if the marchesa didn't agree, she could get sarcastic, and nobody likes that.

Cossa wrote to all the Christian princes to announce his accession to the throne of Peter, exhorting them to support him against the two pretenders whom the universal council had condemned and deposed. His first political problem as pope was to break down the support and protection which Ladislas and Sigismund, King of the Romans, gave to Gregory XII. He was on his way to succeeding with, Sigismund, the marchesa's instinct told her and she told Cossa, but Ladislas could not be turned because Ladislas was the enemy of Italy. Therefore, all advice, including mine, was that Cossa should identify his cause with Louis, Duke of Anjou, against Ladislas.

Fighting Ladislas was the Duke of Anjou's life's work. That was a fact. He had been at it ever since, he was a young man. He had invaded the kingdom of Naples three times to try to win the throne which had been willed to him by Queen Joanna. At the end of 1410, Ladislas was, once again, occupying Rome and, once again, preparing to storm Italy. Cossa's only defence against him was attack. The only means of attack available was the ambition and universal availability of the Duke of Anjou.

Naples had fought its way through a history which was as devious and unstable as its own nature. In 1262, Charles of Anjou had been called on to expel the Hohenstaufen and won for himself the kingdom of the Two Sicilies. His cruelty had brought the Sicilian Vespers of 1282. He lost Sicily. Naples alone remained to the House of Anjou. By 1376,the kingdom of Naples was ruled by the four times

four-times married but childless Queen Joanna. Her heir-presumptive was her second cousin, Charles of Durazzo, but the papal schism had begun, dividing both Christendom and the royal house of Naples. Queen Joanna went, over to the French side against Pope Urban VI.

Charles of Durazzo, supported Urban. To defeat Charles's expectations of the Neapolitan throne; Joanna made a will on 29 June 1380, in which she adopted as her son, Louis, Duke of Anjou, brother of Charles V of France, making him her heir in Italy, Sicily, Naples and France. Charles of Durazzo invaded Naples and captured Joanna.

She was murdered. Charles was crowned King of Naples. The Duke of Anjou died in the same year, as he was preparing an assault to win back his inheritance. Charles was assassinated in Hungary when he went to that parlous country to accept its kingship. This left the claim to the throne to be fought for between two boys: Ladislas, son of Charles, aged ten, and Louis II of Anjou, aged seven. Three times over the ensuing years, Ladislas occupied Rome, and three times the forces of Louis expelled him from the city. They were at it for over thirty years: