City of God by Cecelia Holland

of the palace, second-story balconies overhung the street. Through their open doors several strains of music spilled out, muffled in laughter and voices. Here and there in the street the local people had gathered in little knots; they stood on their toes, striving to look in, and the scattered light from inside the palace gleamed on their eyes and now and again shone on half a face.
    Nicholas loitered a moment outside the gate. A steady stream of frivolously dressed people rushed by him into the courtyard beyond, as if something were there they could not wait for. One or two arrived in chairs, like merchants of Cathay. The torches in their iron stanchions rippled and made ghastly shadows against the walls of the palace. Inside, a shout went up from many throats, a horn blared, and a kettledrum began to pound. Nicholas went in.
    In the courtyard a large plaster fountain gushed streams of wine. The horn and the kettledrum were playing tunelessly just beyond in a recess in the wall. Nicholas went through the crowd there toward the nearest door.
    Inside the palace building the crowd thickened, the noise grew louder, and the air warmer. Nicholas went from room to room, remarking to himself which folk were here. He saw no one important—hangers-on and flunkies. In a long room set with tables he found himself a glass of wine.
    He took up a post near a window covered with an iron grille and watched the passing faces.
    There were fewer women by far than men. No one seemed to talk very long to any one person; even while they exchanged a spirited chatter they were looking off around the room for someone else. Nicholas held a sip of the wine on his tongue. It was a fine wine, superior, which surprised him, that Valentino would throw his doors open to the herd and treat them with good wine as well. It amused him to see that the glass itself was cheap.
    Gradually a strain of low music reached him through the general babble. At first he heard it only inattentively, but then he recognized it; he straightened, alert.
    The music came from a doorway down the hall. Nicholas followed the song into a small room hung with wine-colored draperies. Before a hearth where a fire crackled sat a man playing the guitar. Nicholas paused.
    It was Miguelito da Corella—the Italians called him Michelotto—one close to Valentino. He did not seem to notice Nicholas. His black hair, slick with oil, hung in curls to the shoulders of his velvet coat. His fingers arched delicately over the strings of the guitar. For Cesare Borgia, he used other instruments: the sword, and the Spanish garrotte.
    Abruptly the music stopped; his head turned toward Nicholas. “Yes?”
    â€œI was listening,” Nicholas said, “to the melody. Did I disturb you?”
    Miguelito’s fingers plucked three or four more notes from the guitar. He slapped the box with his palm. “Who are you?” A jewel studded the left nostril of his long nose.
    â€œMy name is Nicholas Dawson. The song’s from Navarre, is it not?”
    â€œDawson.”
    Miguelito’s eyes opened wider; Nicholas expected the obvious question, but the heavy eyelids drooped again, and the man turned his head away; picking up the guitar, he began to play once more, another song, another ballad of Navarre.
    Nicholas listened a while longer from the middle of the room, but Miguelito did not look up again. Nicholas went away.
    He wandered up to the second story of the palace. Here, in a room whose walls were lined with huge paintings of princes and condottieri, were tables stacked with roast meats and piles of steaming bread. Masses of folk gorged themselves at this feast. Many of them were Frenchmen, dressed in clothes of plainer cut and coarser cloth than the Italians’. Nicholas strolled the length of the room, coddling his half-empty glass in his hand and holding his walking stick under his arm. Every time he paused near a knot of talking people, the name of Valentino fell on