Q by Luther Blissett (poetry books to read txt) 📕

‘That wasn’t so difficult either: it wasn’t long before Bockelson proclaimed himself the New David, the king of Zion, and at the suggestion of the court theologian Rothmann he instituted polygamy, in order to restore the customs of the Fathers. That was the end. I don’t remember how many women were executed for refusing to submit to the new ordinances. I have a vague memory of those months, like the memory of a dream. Hunger, houses ransacked for the last loaf of bread, the child judges, death in their eyes, pointing out undesirables in the streets. Pale, haggard bodies dragging themselves through the city, almost unconscious. I could have gone away and let the end come of its own accord. Instead, through some strange alchemy, I felt that I had to be the one to make the last compassionate gesture. I had to put an end to that agony.’

He straightens his back with some difficulty, as though his shoulders were very heavy. His eyes stare at an indefinite point in the lagoon.

‘I jumped the walls, travelled the half mile separating them from the bishops’ front, risked the bullets, squatted in a ditch and stayed there for hours, sure that if I had lifted my head up I would have presented an excellent target to von Waldeck’s mercenaries. I was captured and escaped death by rebuilding a model of the walls with mud, and indicating where the walls could be penetrated. It wasn’t enough: I had to demonstrate the truth of what I said by climbing back up the walls at night and returning to the camp unharmed. You remember? You were the one who entrusted me with the control of the defences. I knew every inch of them. I alone could do it. It was up to me to deliver the coup de grace.’

He bends over again, overwhelmed by the weight.

I hand him the yellow pages, dust between my fingers. He reads, holding the pages at a distance and narrowing his eyelids.

‘You’ve kept them all this time…’ He hands me back the letters he wrote to Magister Thomas twenty-five years ago.

‘Were you already in Carafa’s pay?’

‘I was one tile in a mosaic assembled over a period of years. When they recruited me I was only the library assistant at Wittenberg University. My task was to keep an eye on Luther. At that time only a few people realised what an obtuse little Augustinian friar was capable of unleashing. Carafa was the first to understand that the German princes would use him as a battering-ram to bring down the gates of Rome, and to punish the arrogant scion for whom the Fuggers had bought the imperial crown. Within that intricate design my duty was to ignite the fiery mind of Luther’s greatest antagonist, Thomas M�ntzer, to feed the fire of the peasant revolt against the princes and their apostate at the court. While the rebellion raged across Germany, Rome took its time, and Carafa tried to convince the cardinals of the danger that Luther represented. But then things got going. The boy Emperor showed himself to be more ambitious than expected: his emergence as a champion of the Catholic faith over a territory stretching from Spain to Bohemia made him much more dangerous, in the eyes of Rome, than the little German principalities. From that moment onwards, Luther’s protectors became potential allies against the Emperor. In the meantime the insurgent peasants had become a source of alarm. The revolt had to be stopped. Those letters were used to oil the whole machine. They won me my promotion on the battlefield.’

Old Gresbeck takes a breath, coughs again, and looks at me. A grimace: ‘After the sack of Rome, in ‘27, Carafa took advantage of his own predictions, no one dared to contradict him, he had been right about everything from the start: the Lutherans were wicked people who cared nothing for excommunications and blithely pillaged the papal city. He started to accumulate power, he climbed his way up through the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and had many more sound premonitions.’

The words come out unbidden: ‘A network of spies in every state.’

He nods: ‘He always managed to have information before anyone else, thanks to all the many pairs of eyes that he kept in all the key places. Wherever something significant was taking place, it was a safe bet that the old man had one of his people there.’

I interrupt him: ‘Why did he order you to destroy the Anabaptists in M�nster? What did that have to do with Rome?’

‘Rome is everywhere, Gert. The spirit of revolt against the powerful survived in you people. Luther had preached unconditional obedience. That was fine: you can always negotiate with sovereigns. Not with you, though, you wanted to shake off their yoke, you preached freedom and disobedience, and Carafa couldn’t afford to let ideas of that kind spread. Thanks to my detailed reports he understood the strength of a tightly organised unit, and he had seen what a single preacher like Thomas M�ntzer could do. The Anabaptists had to be crushed before they became a serious threat.’

‘Carafa called a meeting of all his spies at the end of the thirties. The monastery of the Theatines was where you were to assemble.’

He looks astonished. ‘You’ve done your homework.’ A shiver passes along his shoulders, but he goes on talking. ‘We were needed in Italy. The Pope was about to give Carafa approval for his plan: the constitution of the Holy Office. His motives were very noble: to resist the spread of heresy with new means. In fact the old man would use those means against his internal enemies in Rome. The highest job of all was at stake.’

‘The Pontifical Throne.’

My turn to shiver.

‘And the annihilation of all his adversaries. The Englishman, Pole, was causing him problems, in his own way he was a tough nut to crack, but Carafa played his cards very well. And he got him. He did it by a hair, but he did it.

‘The Benefit of Christ Crucified.’

‘Exactly. I took care of the whole operation. At least until Carafa needed me again. From the start we knew that the circles of Pole and his friends were behind Fontanini and his book. We knew that the spirituale cardinals would read the book, and would take it as their starting point in their approaches to the Lutherans. If they’d succeeded, Charles V would have brought together the whole of Christendom under his banner for a crusade against the Turks, and today he would have no enemies. But Pole didn’t become Pope, and now the spirituali are falling, one after another, beneath the blows of the Inquisition. Once again the old Theatine has outwitted everyone: he has taken his enemies’ weapon and turned it against them.’

The sun has appeared above the lagoon, a blood-red disc casting its glow� across the water. The thoughts pile up in my mind, but I have to force myself to hold them back, I have to know, time is precious.

‘What do the Jews have to do with all this? Carafa struck an agreement with the Venetians, didn’t he?’

Another nod of assent, his eyes getting smaller and deeper with exhaustion: ‘The Jews are goods to be exchanged. Everyone will benefit from their ruin: if the Marrani are found guilty of perpetrating Judaism in secret, the Venetians will be able to confiscate all their goods. Carafa is handing them over on a silver platter, and in return he is planting the banner of the Inquisition in Venice, launching an operation in the grand style, in the state that is famous for its independence from Rome. A good few sovereigns in Europe will break out into a cold sweat when they hear the news. You’re on the wrong side once again, Captain.’

Silence, nothing but the slow surge of the tide and the cry of a gull.

‘Is that your task? To round up the Jews?’

A shadow falls across his face, as though he had to force himself to speak, his voice is a murmur. ‘That’s why I was sent to Venice.’

Exhaustion runs through every inch of my body, my headache has worsened, I press a finger to my temple, and I too lean on a tombstone to support my legs.

Heinrich Gresbeck scans the horizon, then he turns to look at me: the years haven’t spared him, the night has been long and sleepless for both of us.

‘What will your reward be, this time?’

He smiles. ‘A quick end, probably.’

‘Is that the reward for the most faithful servant?’

He shrugs. ‘I’m the only one who knows the whole story from the beginning: Carafa can’t risk keeping me in circulation. Not now that he’s preparing to seize all the power for himself.’

I let my eye wander to the gravestones. On every one of them I could read the name of a companion, I could run all the way back through the various stages that have brought me to this place. But I can feel no hatred. I no longer have the strength to despise anyone. I look at Gresbeck and all I see is an old man.