`I feel more like an innkeeper than a pontiff,' Cossa told me. `Two years and two months is hardly an epic period for a pope to hold Rome.'

`You will go back again.'

`I will never go back. Rome is a provincial pestilence.'

His Holiness did not wait at Viterbo for proof that he would not be harmed. He pushed forward with his dwindling household to MonteFiascone, where he rested until the 13th, when he went on to Aquapendente. On the 17th, the papal caravan reached Siena. Cossa was determined to make his way to Florence and Cosimo di Medici, who had been advised many days before that he was coming and would have the Signoria in a mood to welcome him. But Florence, in strict observance of the treaty with Ladislas, refused to receive the papal host within its walls. They felt they would not be violating the treaty by providing a sanctuary for the pope, because he had not arrived with an army, merely his entourage; so they allowed him to stay at the bishops' palace in San Antonio, north of the city about two miles from the duomo. The day after Cossa arrived exhausted at the head of a raggle-taggle horde, word came from Rome indicating how Ladislas would use his new conquests. He had, plundered the city and had massacred priests. The pope's chapel was pillaged, relics were looted, horses were stabled inside St Peter's, and churches were converted into inns and brothels.

`Cossa, this report is crazy,' I said. `Why should he do all that on the fifth time around? He's occupied Rome four times before and his troops behaved like choir boys.'

'You deny a report, from Cardinal Chalant?' Cossa said heatedly. `A respected, wise, responsible old man such as Chalant and you tell me he would lie to me?'

`Yes. Anyway, keep reading.'

`Cardinals have been imprisoned!' `Which ones?'

`He doesn't say.' He was agitated. `The shrines of the Apostles were profaned!'

'Aaah, some soldier probably had to take a leak.'.

`I should have left you there. Listen to this – "Wives and holy virgins were violated and the soldiers used sacred chalices for their wine.’

`That I believe,' I said.

On 26 June, news came in describing the surrender of Viterbo, Perugia and Cortona. Cossa ordered the commander of the garrison at Bologna to take Cesena. The force succeeded in capturing Carlo Malatesta's concubine, a very agitated fat lady, but before the winter started all the southern and central parts of Italy, as far as the borders of Siena, were held by Ladislas.

41

In the late spring of 1413, at San Antonio, Cossa received a dispatch from the marchesa. It said that Sigismund, King of Hungary, and still uncrowned King of the Romans; was marching with his army north from Venice, through the passes of Austro-Helvetia, and that she would be able to effect a meeting with him at Chur. However, the marchesa felt that, if she could have in her company myself; Francisco, Cardinal of Sant Amalia di Angeli, it would add credence to her mission, in that Sigismund was such a religious man.;

`Dearest Cossa,' she wrote. `In two hours I will be on my way to Chur to deliver Rosa to Pippo Span. That is the apparent reason. The other reason is because Rosa is so beautiful and the beloved of his closest friend, and because Maria Louise is beautiful and – theoretically available in that John of Nassau has become impotent – I am sure that I will be allowed to have time with Sigismund. In that time I intend to prevail upon him to become the protector of the papacy or he is a man whose family tradition has had much to do with struggles for Church unity and, naturally, he will have every reason to be grateful for your sponsorship which made him King of the Romans. He is still to be crowned, of course, so it will be useful for him to keep in with you. A certain amount of bargaining will need to be done but I can see that my clearest course must.: be to move him forward towards a meeting with you where you can impose your will upon him. As soon as I have arranged this meeting with Sigismund, I will spare no moment until I am blissfully content to be in your arms once again.'

I was sent north to Chur at once, with a pitiably small household of only thirty-four people, but there was a need to travel fast through rough terrain and alpine valleys. I am sure other cardinals had plenty to say about the size of my entourage as we were leaving San Antonio, but you may be sure that I held to my dignity and paid them no heed.

We joined up with-the marchesa's party at the episcopal palace of Chur, which was called in Latin, Curia Rhaetorum, in the western part of Austro-Helvetia. We arrived at Chur two days after Sigismund's address to the representatives of the six cantons on St Bartholomew's Day. The marchesa and Pippo Span had been negotiating by courier. about Rosa's `protection for the, future', made necessary by the general's inability to marry her. At last the agreement had been sealed. The merchandise was being delivered.

By the agreement; Sigismund was to confer upon Rosa the title of Countess of Solothurn when he was finally crowned King of the Romans. She was to be permanently housed in Prague but was to accompany her protector as he followed his king until there should be any heirs. She was to have a stipend of 1000 florins a year for current expenses, 1000 florins a year against the future, and 500 florins a year as a clothing allowance. Pippo Span did not haggle over Rosa as Spina had done. The general signed the papers instantly and had them returned at once to the marchesa in Mainz by military courier.

The instant the young lovers were reunited in a small audience room of the episcopal palace, they tried to bolt like horses in a stable fire, but the marchesa gripped Rosa's elbow from behind and inquired about the health of the king.

`He is in splendid form – splendid,' Pippo Span said in a strained voice; `He is looking. forward greatly to the pleasure of your company – and yours, Fraulein, and yours, Your Eminence,' he told Maria Louise and me.- `You- will be having a memorable dinner. with him.'

`Where shall we dine?'

'He has taken over the bishop's hunting lodge. He will send for you, of course.

'You won't be there dear Count?' 'I think not.'

`Pity. Well, you and Rosa, must have-so much to talk about. Please don't let us keep you.' Pippo Span and Rosa vanished. They were standing there, then they were gone.

`My God!' Maria Louise said. `Did you see the lust-on that girl's face?'

`That was real, yearning love not lust,' the marchesa answered sharply.

`They look very much the same to me, then.'

`It's all in the mind, dear, of course. Love is actually " more subjective than lust, although it may be the other way round: What shall you wear tonight?'

`The very, very low bodice, I think.' I coughed lightly to remind them that, a cardinal of the Church was in the room with them; but they carried on as if I were not.

`Excellent,' her mother replied. `Sigismund is a painfully obvious man. His father passed it on.'

As they dressed for dinner with Sigismund, the marchesa said,

`Tonight you must be the Ice Queen.'

`Yes, mama.'

`It is the only way to hold his attention which is so easy to get. Be friendly – in the way you would show respect to a poisonous snake – but he must understand that you are as attracted to him as a man as you might be to a plate of four-day old fish.'

`Knowing that one day he will turn me into a volcano,' Maria Louise grinned.

`Not with this one. You stay solid ice for ever with Sigismund. It's the only leverage: He is a fool.'

`What else is he like?'

'He isn't like anything. He is a fool. Tall, quite vain, about forty-five. The same age as Cossa. All you do is stay as beautiful as you are, play the Ice Queen, and we'll have him trussed up before the night is over.'