The Bear and Barnacle

Cesare doesn't see him, at first.

It's Miquel who does, and Miquel's flinch speaks volumes. There is only one, one who could make Miquel glide aside to dodge him without causing offense. One who still commanded politeness, a semblance of friendship even (What, don't we both serve him? Should not our differences pale in the light of our devotion to him?) yet raised Miquel's hackles like that.

The scars may have faded, but then Taddeo is Taddeo.

And Taddeo still thinks Miquel is not worthy.

God - or Hades - only knows how Taddeo got here. Why he sits, uninvited, after a curt, soldierly bow, down at their table, the slashed sleeves of his farsetto showing white muslin, his giornea lined in Cesare's colours. "Excellency," he says, fighting with emotion, "I prayed to God that he keep and preserve you, and he has deigned to bend his ears to my prayers."

Miquel has slipped behind Cesare's chair, a hand on his shoulder.

"And Don Michele," Taddeo smiles up like the fox he is named for. "I see you are hale."

Since the day Miquel first nurtured him back to life, since the day they got here, Cesare hasn't felt Miquel tremble, but now his fingers are fluttery, his grip - meant to be reassuring (reassure, whom?) - is weak and growing weaker. Worried, Cesare looks at him, afraid to see him fade.

Then he rallies himself into some outward show of lordliness and rises. "We thought you lost in Arezzo," he says hoarsely. "We feared you had perished in a Baglioni prison, or suffered under Giuliano's all-too-heavy hand."

Taddeo smiles sadly and tilts his head. "All true, Excellency."

Not him, Miquel freaks quietly. Not he. Do not welcome him back.

Look. Somebody took pity on you, Miquel giggles. His naked foot slides through the parcel and the effect is eerie, but Cesare only looks at the shirt, nestled in rustling paper. So you don't have to butcher any more of your clothes.

Cesare fumes. Oh how he fumes. "I'll have you know I'd rather go naked then wear this," he hisses.

LAZIO.

THE IGNOMINY. LAZIO. This is so not happening.

Since the Graces hate him (he knows this for a fact; else they would have bothered to return him to his grown-up state by now; yes please?) the shirt does not come as a surprise. And yet.

Peering from behind the half opened door, he growls, "Grazie mille. Wrong squadra." Cazzi. This is a life-or-death choice. This is a serious, serious matter in Rome.

And besides, AS Roma just went up 4,25% at the stock exchange.

He expects this will end any time soon. He expects it might as well... go on forever. Nothing in this place is right, and life has been restored to him, so why not youth, too? Because nothing lasts, you idiot. And while he likes his new un-heavyness, the gangly limbs and boundless energy, his elder self already sneers at him for taking such puppyish delight in things that will - will - pass again. How fleeting is youth. Take joy in today, for tomorrow remains... uncertain. Lorenzo de' Medici knew all about that, didn't he. Old before his time, and bent twice as fast.

Nervously, Cesare looks up, cradling the juice-and-something Dora sneaked between his hands. "My mother was a very enterprising woman," he says, half-proud, half-shy. "I hear you can still visit some of the places she owned in Rome. Not all of them, no. But a few. The Vacca - that was a tavern - at the corner of Campo de' Fiori; it's a bakery now. And on the other side of the market, there's the Albergo del Sole. That was hers, too. The walls were all wonky!" he laughs, and elder Cesare chokes with apoplexy that he's using such a stupid word. "Not a single beam at straight edges. That's because they built it into the ruins of Pompei's Theatre. Where Caesar was killed. Not me. I mean, Giulio Cesare. The Imperator. My mamma had an inn there. Funny, no? And she owned other places, too."

Then he falls silent for a moment, rubbing his hands before he has to sit on them to keep them still. The juice is quite. Strong, like. His elder self nearly dies of shame at his caterwauling thoughts - when I was your age I already had my doctorate, he tells himself, and blushes. "Anyway. After my youngest brother Jofré was born, our father took a new mistress, but he made sure mamma was well-appointed and lacked for nothing. He found her a husband of good repute and and. Then I had to move away from her, from her house on piazza Pizzo di Merlo, and live with Aunt Adriana. That wasn't... nice. So I guess I was happy when they sent me to school in Perugia."

"They say she - mamma, I mean - they say Vanozza de' Cattanei survived most of her children." He swallows, blinks, then quickly, hastily empties the glass.

It's safe. Upon my honour. Miquel peers at the trembling shape under the duvet. Really. Cesare. Come on out.

"No!" Cesare's voice sounds quite, quite young. Unbroken, in fact. "What new travesty is this?" Squealed into the pillows.

I don't pretend to know. Miquel sits and pats the duvet-covered rump. He follows Cesare's spine, feels Cesare claw at something. Finally, a dark head appears at the edge of the bed. It pokes from the mountain of duvets like a sullen mole. Oh come now. Stop crying, mh? Nobody has to see you like this.

"Oh really!" The boy wails and rubs snot all over the linens. His handsome face would resemble Donatello's David... if it weren't so red and pinched. His hair is a shade lighter than Miquel is accustomed to seeing, the hand that snatches the pillow a good deal narrower. A scholar's hand, suited to hold a pen, not a sword. Cesare's shoulders are hitching.

And then the snot-smeared little crab dashes from the bed, dogding Miquel, to run for the bathroom. Doors are banging, followed by more wailing. Miquel follows him through two walls and hovers over the bathtub. So far he's only glimpsed this most recent, unexpected turn of events but... mare de Déu. Oh God's martyrs. This is... something.

Cesare only stares at him with helpless, haunted eyes.

This is how I met you, Miquel says softly, extending a hand. This is what you looked like... at sixteen. The brat prince. The bookworm. The Bishop of Pamplona.

"Oh God I can't deal with this!" Cesare shrieks, again thrashing past Miquel who can only watch... Watch as Cesare dives into an expensive cashmere turtleneck three sizes too big, not to mention the pants that fall off his hips, watch him frantically hack at a pair of jeans that he has to tie around his waist, watch him run out without proper shoes, even.

Hasn't even taken the keys or money or his telefonino, the stupid thing. Miquel sighs. He'd take them for him, but he can't. He follows him at a safe distance, though, and is a little relieved when he sees that Cesare is running-limping-hobbling towards the pub. At least he's in semi-safe hands there.

It's a coincidence. He only went to get new string, arguing haggling bartering for better loaded gut, and stepped in for a drink. He does not greatly care for all this bawling and barking into 'microphones' and is this close to retracing his steps, backing out of the pub, when something, someone? shoves him forward. Clutching the padded lute case to his breast, Cesare's eyes are a bit wild before he inches and sidles to a table at the back.

Put off by the caterwauling noises, the cats' screeches and the booming beats (Dora sounded nice; she might do well in a choir, he thought, and Messer Holmes' violin was an unexpected boon) he gently opens the case and pulls the lute from her hold.

Oh no, Miquel says. Oh no, you won't-

"Dare me. Stop me," Cesare whispers.

Not this. Miquel is close to hissing.

Cesare grunts, then bends over the frets. He gets through half the canzon, then Miquel snaps half of his chori. I said, not this.

Lute pressed against him so it won't fall, Cesare spreads his arms in a seated, mocking curtsey. "Don Michele."


***
if you're wary of DLing the puristic Lutz Kirchhof version after Josquin Desprez, here's a rendition on youtube

"For some reason, a reason quite beyond my understanding," Cesare says, smoothing out a wrinkle from his subdued Ferragamo ensemble, "our mutual friend Messer Krycek - lately swallowed by the earth, I believe, and possibly clawing his way through several Circles of Hell, up or down remains to be determined - was under the impression that I, in my time as Cardinal, wore pink underwear."

Bleakly, he looks at his hands, now folded in front of his belly.

"There is great care and forethought in a Cardinal's robes, I can assure you. Every bit of vestment has meaning. The deep red, once reserved for kings and emperors, signifies readiness to lay down your life for Christ. The buttons - thirty-three, the number of Christ's human years on earth. The Cardinal's ring, a token of faith and devotion, not unlike the ring a nun receives in marriage to Christ. Then the pallium and the staff - to remind you of your duties as a good shepherd. And so on," he waves.

"Pink underwear does not play into it." He coughs fastidiously behind a manicured hand. "And I can't see what it would possibly signify, other than a sordid mind."

Gifts, he thinks, gifts are a language. A complicated exchange of gestures, signs and subtleties, to be delivered with the softest of kid gloves. He receives Dora's crumpled, sticky candy wrapper with mild apprehension: for one, there's half a caramel in it, and then... what if it reveals the name of someone he doesn't know, or, worse, knows and dislikes?

Ah.
Graciès a Deu.

Seeing the squiggled name, he can't help the small noise of contentment. Dolcissima.

Red, he thinks at first, garnets and gold, only to recall the spun light of her hair and fix his mind's eye on... something else.

He writes a note, then frowns at the jagged mess of steeples. Episcopal handwriting, how charming, he snorts, wads it up, and writes a second one in concise chancery style. A small black box has to do, tied to her door with green ribbon (after the young man has left).

( 'Donna Vittoria', it says. )

He stands there, getting wet and wetter, but instead of hurrying inside - fixing himself a caffè, now that he's learnt how to, instead of grabbing one of those lush towels, or better yet: lounging away the rest of the day, snug in a fauteuil, swirling Armagnac - he walks away from the door, back into the rain.

He doesn't look where he's going until he bumps into a bench, shin first. Cesare takes that for a sign - isn't the sky full of portents? - and sits, getting wet and wetter, the glasses clutched in his hand as if they were a saint's relic.

Looking heavenwards, all he sees are fleeing shapes, panicked and wheeling, twisted by an invisible force and trampled by the throng. The shapes in the clouds remind him of something. Something he's seen, somewhere. He vaguely remembers being angry ( then. )

"My sister called me that. A monster." Cesare tiredly rubs his face with a cashmere sleeve. "Prego. I mean, seriously. Do I look like one?"

Shaking his head, he mutters under his breath, "When it was all for the best, really. But I, her own brother who loved her best. A monster."

The notion is ridiculous.

Er. And this is, what exactly?

Sucking a bleeding thumb, Cesare glares over his shoulder. "Well, what does it look like?"

I don't know; you tell me. An ass on a pumpkin? Miquel straddles a chair, props his chin on the backrest.

"That's the Borgia bull, you git." Cesare squints. It does look a bit like an ass, true, but then carving the thing was a bitch. Really, as a cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, he should be above such heathen rites. Ridiculous; positively ridiculous. Not to mention the smell of pumpkin everywhere. He may need a grappa soon.

Which, historically speaking, used to be a peaceful, grazing ox... at least while your grand-uncle was alive. No es verdad?

"An ox. You are fucking mental."

And you are starting to sound like a native, Miquel beams. You never used to be that thick. Venga, venga. Why not show me ( whether it's a bull or an ox? )

"The way I understand it, a job is something you do, forced by necessity, but not something a person is naturally inclined to, correct? Consider the trials and tribulations of Job from the Bible, and you have it, in a nutshell. Poor Sisyphus on his mountain, day in, day out."

"But whatever happened to calling? I'd prefer that to a job."

The distinction is fleeting, though, the lines blurry. Cesare weaves his fingers around one knee and remembers the grey afternoons of Romagna, himself buried under mountains of paperwork - dispatches, administrative documents, topics so sensitive he couldn't even trust Agapito, his private secretary with them. For a while he dug and delved into those. It was better than seeing Miquel's pale face, wan and drawn, betraying the sickness they shared. Better to bury himself in work, draw up maps, marshal his troups, ride out and inspect the battlements.

"Because a calling is something you can't help, see? A lightning stroke from above, a benediction, a course set for you." He nods gravely. "What could I do but follow my star? Indeed, what can I do? When it's my calling to rule? Retreat to my country villa and tend to the vines while there are decisions to be made?"

***

Leave him be, Miquel pleaded. Send him back to Napoli. Alfonso is a limp-wristed pretty-boy; he poses no threat. Let him go, Cesare.

And allow him to drum up the Sforza and all of Aragon? I don't think so. Cesare crossed his arms, set his jaw.

It will kill Lucrezia. She's grown fond of him.

Ah. If there was any pain in Miquel's voice, then he hid it well. Then she'll have to grow fond of someone else, I suppose. Cesare smirked. Thinking of applying for the position as her sweetheart?

Cruel. That had been cruel. Miquel's face shut and smoothed itself into something noncommittal. Your orders, Excellency, he said. Not a question, more of a statement, and anything but deferential.

You know them. Just do your job.

( Roma, Città Leonina, Vatican Palace, 18 August 1503 )