Free The Caravaggio Conspiracy by Walter Ellis

hand and stuck-up Venetians on the other. But Cardinal Battista – our esteemed Camerlengo – was dead against it. A plague on both their houses, he said. The pair of them, Persians as well as Turks, were Muslim and therefore our sworn enemies, and we’d be better off striking a pact with the devil himself. Some Hospitaller or other, over on business from Malta, backed him up. It did the trick. Now it looks as if the Pope’s gone cold on the idea and we’re all back where we started.’
    Orazio Battista, a member of the Sacred College since the time of Pope Sixtus V, was easily the most powerful Cardinal in Rome, to whom even the cardinal-nephews deferred. As Camerlengo of the Apostolic Camera, the Vatican treasury, he controlled the finances of the Holy See and the Papal States. He knew the wealth of every member of the Curia and how that wealth had been acquired.
    ‘A hard man to fathom,’ Caravaggio said. ‘He knows where the bodies are buried.’
    ‘Yes,’ said Longhi. ‘But that’s mainly because he dug the graves.’
    ‘Exactly. And popes depend on bastards like that. They may talk about the power of prayer, but it’s the Inquisition and the army they rely on in a crisis.’
    Orsi dispensed another round of drinks. ‘You know what they say about Battista. Get on his wrong side and the next thing you know you’re strung up by the arms in the Tor di Nona, begging for mercy … either that or crawling around the scaffold looking for your head.’
    At that thought, Caravaggio shivered.
    ‘Well,’ said Longhi, ‘hold on a moment. Maybe we’re looking at this the wrong way round. See it from Battista’s perspective, perched up there in the Vatican. Christian Europe must seem pretty well invincible to him right now. As far as he’s concerned, it’s not the Turks that are the problem, but the English and the Dutch – and they’re a long way from Rome. Look at our monuments, our churches, our city walls, the cardinals and princes in their finery. The Swiss Guard, too, of course, and the Knights Hospitaller out there in Malta. And, please, let’s not forget the sbirri . The moment the Turks appear on the top of the Quirinal Hill, they’ll be arrested for carrying scimitars without a permit.’
    The other two grinned at this. But Longhi wasn’t finished.
    ‘The point is – and this is what they all forget – the Muslims don’t give up that easily. They’re hard bastards, fighting for a cause they believe in. They think history’s on their side, no matter how long it takes. And from what I hear, if they die in battle they go straight to heaven, with seventy virgins each to attend to their needs.’
    ‘Is that a fact?’ Orsi asked. ‘Well, they wouldn’t stay virgins for long if it was me.’
    This prompted Caravaggio to yawn expansively. ‘Listen to him, Onorio. You’d never guess he had the smallest prick in Ortaccio.’
    ‘All the same,’ said Longhi, ‘you watch. Before we’re too old we’ll be out there on the Hungarian plains, fighting for Christian survival.’
    ‘We can only hope,’ said Caravaggio.

8*
    Conclave minus 15
     
    Maya Studer had been looking for a way of escape when she first met Liam Dempsey. The reception at the Irish College on the Via dei Santo Quattro had been dull even by the standards of ecclesiastical hospitality in Rome. An elderly Italian bishop was shamelessly flirting with her by the drinks table, seeking to impress her with the extent of his connections. Several times he patted her hand; once he even stroked her arm. She had smiled politely, then, when Dempsey drifted past on his way to the college garden, she had hooked her arm under his and announced in impeccable Italian: ‘I’m sorry, Your Grace, but my fiancé and I really have to go. We’re trying for a baby, and the way my cycle works this afternoon may be our best hope.’
    Frustratingly for Dempsey, that had been the high point so far. He hadn’t even kissed Maya yet, let alone slept with