A Name in Blood (24 page)

‘What do you think I’ve been doing this last year in Naples?’ he snapped.

Fabrizio wagged his finger. ‘I told you not to argue with a prince.’

Two sailors came up through the hatch from the rowing deck. They carried the limp body of a slave. His skin was patchy and peeling with malnourishment. Excrement fouled his loincloth, and his
thighs and hands were livid with sores from the bench and the oar. His tongue thrust from his cracked lips as though it might find sustenance on the air.

The whip had reopened old scars on the slave’s shoulders. They bled feeble scarlet tracks down his sweaty back, as if his body barely had enough energy with which to die.

The slave groaned as the sailors jerked him onto the starboard rail. His neck rolled. The sailors dropped their burden over the side, timing the release so that the body didn’t impede the
stroke of the oars below. They gave a little cheer to celebrate a clean fall. The air cleared as though the man had been a bucket of night soil dumped into the water.

The façade of the Grand Master’s Palace in Valletta was simple and stern. It extended along the square where the ridge dropped down to the hospital, the
Knights’ original vocation five hundred years before in Jerusalem. Beyond the gate, Caravaggio passed through a courtyard lush with palms and orange trees. A ramp rose to the Grand
Master’s chambers, so that knights might climb in their heavy armour with less effort than stairs would demand of them. The corridor to the Sacred Council chamber was paved in grey and russet
marble. He awaited his audience.

The door swung open. The meeting of the Sacred Council was over. Out came the senior knights of the nationalities around which the Order was organized – of France, Auvergne and Provence,
Aragon and Castille, Italy, and Germany – and a secretary to represent the few old English knights who had remained when their King Henry turned against the Roman Church. Their expressions
were guarded, intense and subtle.

Caravaggio entered the Council chamber. Across the room, a fresco portrayed the arrival of the knights on Malta and the building of Valletta. A tall, gaunt man in the red habit of the knights
examined him. His eyes were bloodshot and pale orange like shelled clams floating in a ragout. He squinted at Caravaggio and his red eyes were like two wounds on his face. Through such a filter,
Caravaggio thought, a man would see nothing but blood. The knight had his hand on the hilt of the dagger in his belt. His beard was ragged and sparse, like pond scum on the disturbed surface of a
pool.

‘Brother Roero, you may leave us.’

An older man spoke from an enclosed wooden balcony framed by the fresco on the far wall. The younger knight passed close to Caravaggio, his nostrils quivering, as if he sniffed for some scent
that would give Caravaggio away. He shut the door behind him.

Caravaggio took a step across the room towards the old man who wore the black doublet denoting the most senior knights. He was rugged and lined in the face, his white hair and beard clipped
short. He fretted a rosary. Caravaggio made to kneel before him, but his melancholy eyes flicked along the Council room, signalling that it wasn’t he who Caravaggio sought.

The Grand Master of the Order sat on his dais at the far end of the chamber. Alof de Wignacourt wore the vestments of his office, a doublet of woven gold and a cape embroidered with Our Lady of
Liesse. His mouth was tight and his brow blotchy, as though some pressure pulsed beneath it. His index finger ticked at a large wart on the side of his nose and he watched Caravaggio’s
approach as if he were at the battlements reading the tactics in an enemy’s formation.

‘Your Serene Highness.’ Caravaggio knelt on the step of the dais. ‘Michelangelo Merisi begs to be of service to you.’

Wignacourt extended his hand. When Caravaggio brought down his lips, it was like kissing a glove of chainmail.

‘Won’t make any problems for me, will you, Maestro Caravaggio? Enough trouble with the Sacred Council. Don’t give me cause for anger.’

The words of command were spoken in a tone of such loneliness that Caravaggio at first thought he had missed their meaning in Wignacourt’s French-accented Italian. He glanced at the other
knight, who had come to his side. The old man in black winked.

‘Your Serene Highness shall witness how grateful I am to be given . . .’ Caravaggio was about to say refuge, but he didn’t want to acknowledge that he was so much at
Wignacourt’s mercy. ‘To admire the feats of engineering carried out by the knights in building their new capital on this rock.’

Wignacourt flicked at his wart. ‘Troublesome types, you artists. That fresco there, by Perez d’Aleccio. A bit like your story. Ran away from Rome after some kind of assault a few
dozen years ago. Went to Naples, then came here. Can’t leave. Isn’t safe anywhere else. Vendettas, you understand. Us? Stuck with the decrepit old fool.’

Caravaggio jerked his thumb towards the wall painting. ‘His art certainly isn’t like mine.’

The other knight smiled.

‘There’s another artist. What’s his name?’ the Grand Master said. ‘A Florentine, like you, Martelli.’

‘He’s called Paladini,’ the Knight said.

‘Paladini, that’s it. Condemned to the galleys for a brawl in Tuscany. Ended up here. Twenty years now. Rough lot, you painters.’

‘Like you knights.’ Caravaggio caught Martelli’s smile once more.

Wignacourt stood. Under his vestments, his knee rocked back and forth. His stocky frame was tremulous with tension. ‘Always been an atmosphere of riot among the Knights of the Order.
Previous Grand Masters tried to rein it in, faced rebellion. Me? Done a better job of it.’

Caravaggio recalled what Fabrizio had told him about the princes and pirates of the Order.
If the Grand Master aims to make these men behave like the monks they’re supposed to be, his
task is by no means at an end
.

‘We’d like to pay tribute to the Grand Master’s work,’ Martelli said, ‘by making a new portrait of him for the palace.’

Wignacourt tried to look grave, but the corners of his mouth flickered with pride. ‘I acknowledge Brother Antonio’s gesture. Commence with this portrait at our command, Maestro. Then
I’ll have a further project for you. Wish my knights to have more time for contemplation, fewer distractions.’ The Grand Master caught Caravaggio’s elbow. Brother Antonio took his
other side. He was pinned gently between the two knights.

‘His Serene Highness confronted the Turk at the Battle of Lepanto,’ Brother Antonio said. ‘I fought here in the Great Siege against the Sultan’s army. Those desperate
times gave us an understanding of life and death – and of the life to come. If we didn’t live for God before those battles, we were His entirely after we survived them, by His
Grace.’

‘The novices of our Order should prepare themselves for the sacrifices of battle and of holy orders,’ Wignacourt said. ‘How? Contemplation of art, inspiration.’

‘You might say that the proximity of death terrified the less worthy lusts and impulses right out of us older knights.’ Brother Antonio squeezed Caravaggio’s elbow. ‘We
wish for an equally inspiring terror to be instilled in our new knights – by you.’

Caravaggio said, ‘What makes you think I know—?’

Wignacourt shook a dismissive hand. ‘Want to read the letters the Marchesa of Caravaggio wrote to me about your fight with Signor Ranuccio? About his death? If the letters weren’t
enough, Brother Antonio here came through Naples recently. Saw your work there. Liked it.’

‘I recognized what you depicted,’ Martelli said. ‘I saw your suffering and your hope for salvation.’

‘Let our young knights see it, too, Maestro.’ Wignacourt stroked at the buttons on Caravaggio’s doublet and brought his face very close. ‘Let them see it, and you shall
be made a Knight of our Order.’

Caravaggio flinched in astonishment. The two old men watched him with a knowing pleasure, like merchants certain of an inflated price.

Caravaggio brought his materials to the palace for the portrait of Wignacourt. At the centre of the room allocated as his studio, he stared at the armour in which the Grand
Master wished to be portrayed. He lifted the visor and imagined his own face looking out at him. He whispered a prayer with the fervour of a warrior before battle. To be dubbed Knight would release
him from the threat of capital punishment. It would be a pardon for soul and body. He gripped the shoulders of the armour like an old comrade and regarded it with the firmness of a man entering the
deadly fray. He would paint such works on this island that the knights would make him one of their own. He would be free. Saved.

Wignacourt came into the chamber with the gaunt knight named Roero. The gold chain of office around the Grand Master’s neck looked heavy enough to moor the galleys in the harbour.
‘Maestro Caravaggio, this is a day blessed by Our Lord. This morning I was able to persuade the landlord of another brothel to close.’

Caravaggio attempted to imbue his bow with admiration. He wondered what alley would now serve the whores who had been turfed out of their rooms.

‘Our Maestro is an artist.’ Roero’s voice grated, dry like that of a man waking from sleep. ‘Perhaps your news displeases him, Your Serene Highness. Whores would have no
employment if it weren’t for painters.’

Wignacourt affected to peruse Caravaggio’s brushes.

Roero’s infected eyes glimmered with suspicion through the glassy redness that shrouded them.
So the Grand Master brings his guard dog to goad me a little
, Caravaggio thought,
to
test my temper.
‘You mean that painters use whores as models?’

‘I don’t mean that at all.’

‘Oh, I see. Then I think you’ll find a whore’s main source of income is not artists, but soldiers like you.’

Roero dropped his voice, gritty and growling. ‘Don’t compare me to a common soldier, nor to a mere craftsman such as yourself. I am the Count della Vezza. My line is as noble as
time.’

Caravaggio bowed low.
When I’m a knight, I won’t have to listen to this arrogance any more. I’ll be the equal of Costanza’s sons – and of this bastard, too.
‘I humbly beg your Lordship’s pardon.’

Wignacourt touched his beard. ‘Brother Roero refers perhaps to reports from Rome – of your involvement with the ladies of the Evil Garden.’

‘It was
against
a pimp that I fought the duel of honour for which I now suffer a price on my head.’

‘Attend on me in the antechamber, Brother.’ The Grand Master gestured for Roero to leave. With another hard glance at Caravaggio, Roero went into the corridor and shut the door
behind him.

Wignacourt picked up a thick hogshead and brushed the bristles against his palm. ‘Brother Roero is most solicitous of my safety. He has little respect for those who may not claim noble
descent. Don’t be perturbed by his zeal.’ He opened the door. With his back to Caravaggio, he said, ‘But don’t be heedless of it, either. Tomorrow, begin the
portrait.’

When he was alone, Caravaggio closed all the shutters and lit the lantern.

By late afternoon, the canvas was prepared. Caravaggio rubbed his eyes. They were tired and stinging. He wondered if Roero had passed on his infection just by looking at him. He was about to
return to the Inn of the Italian Knights when a messenger entered.

Caravaggio rotated the lantern. The messenger raised his arm to cover his face from the glare of the light. Caravaggio let go of the lamp, his grip loosened by shock. Across the
messenger’s doublet was a black and white cross, each branch ending in a three-budded trefoil to represent the Holy Trinity: the coat of arms of the Inquisition.

The herald lowered his arm and peered at Caravaggio, as the light swung before him. ‘Michelangelo Merisi of Caravaggio? The Roman painter?’

‘Who wants him?’ he whispered.

‘Are you him?’

Caravaggio opened his arms and let them fall.

‘Inquisitor Leonetta della Corbara commands your presence tomorrow,’ the herald said.

Caravaggio knew better than to ask why. Whether he was witness or accused, he wouldn’t know until he stood in the Tribunal Chamber.

The arc of the lantern grew shorter and faster. His heartbeat kept pace. He touched the grain of the blank canvas on his easel. The Grand Master would have to wait another day for his
portrait.