A Brood of Vipers

was about to turn back when a flash of colour caught my eyes. It came from one of the arbours, down near a vine-covered wall – a perfect place to hide, concealed from all eyes except mine, because of the angle of my view from the window. Again I saw the flash of colour. Then two people moved in the arbour and came into my vision. I gazed in astonishment. Giovanni the condottiero, his back to me, seemed to be moving jerkily. I glimpsed his hand on a soft, brown velvet breast, saw a flash of bright hair and realized what was happening. Giovanni was making violent, passionate love to the Lady Beatrice. I didn't know what to do! To call my master over would turn us into Peeping Toms. I also felt a thrill of fear as well as excitement. Giovanni was, as Iago almost said to Othello, 'tupping someone else's white ewe'. If anyone came into the garden and caught them, the love tryst would end in murder. I turned away, admiring the lovers' cunning. Everyone else would be too busy in their chambers, recovering from the rigours of the journey, to even think of going out into the garden.
    I undressed, washed and climbed into bed. I stared up at the rafters, wondering what would happen next, and quietly cursed both Henry and Wolsey. Benjamin poured a goblet of wine. He brought across a cup. I drank it gingerly before drifting into the most restful sleep.
    When my master shook me awake hours later, darkness was beginning to fall. The room was cooler and thick with the fragrance of the roses from the garden below.
    'Roger,' my master whispered. 'We must go down. Lord Roderigo has prepared a banquet.' He smiled at me. 'It's not in our honour but his guest, the Cardinal Prince Giulio de Medici, will now be arriving.'
    We dressed carefully. A servant came to take us down to the garden where, on a raised patio which gave a good view of the whole garden, a large table had been prepared under a silk-fringed canopy. For a while we just stood on the lawn. Benjamin and I felt awkward. The rest of the household, except for Maria, ignored us, and she kept up an inane chatter as if to prove to us, and everyone else, that all we had in common was our Englishness. Suddenly a chamberlain came out of the door of the house and tapped his silver-edged wand on the pavement.
    'The Lord Roderigo,' he announced, 'and His Eminence, Cardinal Giulio, Prince of the Church and Master of Florence!'
    A few other dozen titles were added. Benjamin and I, like the rest, bowed as the bastard offspring of the great de' Medici swept into the garden, resplendent in purple robes edged with gold silk.
    Giulio was a tall, striking man, swarthy-faced and hollow-eyed; he looked dangerous and haughty. Were it not for the petulant cast of his lips he would have been very good-looking. He came into the candle-lit garden, fingering his gold pectoral cross and sketching the most cursory benediction in the air. Two strange creatures trailed behind him. One was a blackamoor. He wore a turban round his head and one gold earring. His fingers never strayed far from the hilt of the scimitar pushed into his belt. This was the cardinal's bodyguard. The other, small, smiling, bald-pated and cherubic, was dressed like a monk in a black robe edged with lambswool. The cardinal and his party were immediately greeted by the Lord Roderigo and pleasantries were exchanged, though they were cool and distant. 'There's no love lost between those two,' I whispered.
    'What do you expect?' Benjamin asked. 'Roderigo is for the restoration of the Republic while the cardinal is a Medici amongst Medicis!'
    The cardinal greeted the rest of the household; momentarily his sombre eyes shifted to study Benjamin and myself. A chamberlain blew on a silver horn as a sign for the meal to begin, and we moved up on to the great dais. Now it wasn't like in England, where we'd sit around stuffing our faces until we could hardly move. With the Italians you choose from an array of dishes laid out on the table, carry your meal on a silver platter, and sit and eat it wherever you wish. After years of eating beside people who have the manners of drunken pigs – bishops who pick their noses, clean their teeth and offer you fruit after they have taken a bite out of it and nobles who don't know one end of a knife from another and who hawk, spit and lick their fingers -1 strongly recommend this arrangement.
    Benjamin and I took our places in the line, choosing from boiled and roast meat, dishes of fresh vegetables, wafer