The Son of the Father.

The beginning of the journey lies in the past.

‘We are leaves in the wind,’ said my father. I see him now, stretched out upon his prison bed, a giant of a man, completely indifferent to the schemes of others. King Alfonso always called him ‘far above all others of the age,’ and that was from someone who hated us.

I paced about our cell, ‘at the end of the contract a condottiere can serve under any colour he chooses, there is no requirement to continue service with the Pope. This,’ I waved my arms to encompass our present accommodation, ‘is all to do with his vanity.’

‘It’s an occupational hazard.’

‘Is he really planning to excommunicate you?’ I asked trying to keep the fear out of my voice, as if the possibility of death could not be considered serious enough.

He turned to face me. ‘You mean us,’ he said slowly. ‘You expect fairness from an ex-pirate? I see from your face that you do. Francesco my boy, it’s not a question of a thing done or not done, it’s about power. The Pope wants power, the more the better, and in particular, he wants it over us.’

‘He called us, ‘his dearest friends,’ he made you a Count.’

‘He thought it would earn him a discount on our contract rate. Know this, a prince will do much to bind his condottiere to him, but if cannot, he will seek to destroy them.’

‘He is a man of God.’

Father laughed:

‘God does not exist or does not care, man lives and he dies, everything in-between is as we make it. Being a ‘Man of God’ the Pope knows this best of all.’

Then I was still of an age to be outraged by my father’s blasphemy:

‘We owe all to God, we are his servants, his children.’

‘My son; you have a lot to learn about life. One day you will realise that it seems almost by caprice whether a man’s fortune rises or falls. If it comforts you, pray that God asks the Pope to bestow his mercy upon us, for my part I will rely on the rest of the family.’

Father always said he was a simple peasant from Cotignola who only ever wanted to be a farmer and if he became anything more it was entirely by accident. But then as my cousin Micheletto once said, ‘if ever there was an unreliable teller of his own tale, it was your father. Let us say he was a born soldier and the women always loved him, all traits which seem to run in the family.’ At that point he had given me a meaningful look. I always liked Micheletto, even after I crushed him at Caravaggio; it was never personal between us.

Still, it is a fact that father was one of twenty one children born to Giovanni Attendolo and Elisa Petrocini and even by our standards grandmother was a formidable woman, more general than genteel; she bred her children for war and despite the loss of two, regarded our feud with the Pasolini as character forming. In all fifteen brothers and cousins became soldiers and she accounted that a disappointment.

So weighed down by maternal expectation father embarked upon the path that would lead him to ever-lasting renown. His exploits soon attracted the attention of Albreco da Barbiano the leader of the famed ‘Italians only’ company of St George, for all the world knows that whatever soldering the English and French do, we Italians do better. Barbiano made an offer of employment and indeed it was Barbiano who gave the family its name, noticing that my father made war as he lived, he told him, ‘you’re like some elemental force of nature.’ The phrase was shortened by the men to ‘the force’ and so the family name of ‘Sforza’ was born. I know that others, particularly the Piccinini, have argued that the name was more to do with his supposed stubbornness when arguing over the division of spoils, but I regard this ‘story’ to be little more than a base lie and any that repeat it, I would hold no longer a friend.

Speaking of friends, or rather of friendships long ago, I speak now of Braccio da Matone, the other great condottiere of my father’s time. It is strange to think that he and father were once friends, and the struggles of the last forty years have been all the more bitter because of it. From being comrades in arms under Barbiano it was only a matter of time before father and Braccio started their own companies, the ‘Sforzeschi’ and the ‘Braccieschi’ and soon their rivalries and adventures became the talk of all Italy.

Another memory, my eighth birthday, a memory of a suit of child’s armour, and a hill, I remember fear, I remember confusion, I remember the pain. The hill, ten times up and ten times down. In the rain, a father taught his son the practicalities of trying to fight in full armour.

I remember a father’s advice:

‘You must learn discipline, in other men it is either choice or habit, but in you it must be part of the core of your very being. Never yield and never let them see you hurt, no matter what the circumstances. I am leaving tomorrow, come rain or snow I went you to practice the climb everyday. No exceptions. Ten times up and ten times down. You will continue until you can no longer fit into the armour.’

‘What then father?’

‘I will buy you bigger armour.’

Mind, body and will, moulded for one purpose.

Milan.

‘It is the key to everything,’ he often told me, ‘control Milan and you control the fate of the rest of the country. Milan is not a state, it’s a collection of territories that’s held together only by the strength of character of the ruler. Should Milan suffer a weak ruler, or one without an heir, the state will be imperilled and there will be opportunities.’

But for the moment, if father’s destiny was to serve, then service with Florence he considered the most congenial, ‘they seldom achieve anything, but at least their failures are honourable.’ For its part Florence always knew a talented condottiere when it saw one and made efforts to keep him. It awarded him an annual pension of fifty florins after the campaign against Pisa. It was not much, but the symbolism was important and its existence later proved very useful.

After a brief tour of duty with Niccolo d’Este father returned to the service of Florence who ‘loaned’ him out to Pope John in his struggles with Ladislau, King of Naples. Service with the elect of God was not a happy experience. Like most princes the Pope had courtiers and that usually means trouble of one sort or another. Father was not squeamish, he just could not stand political intrigue or those mean and petty minded politicians who proclaim their love of humanity, but contempt for any individual less fortunate than themselves.

At the end of the papal contract father refused to renew which provoked the Pope in the manner described. Fortunately, either God or more likely one of my many uncles intervened and we were free to seek service with Ladislau.

Now with the Sforzeschi on his side there seemed little to stop the King, Rome was taken and Florence menaced. When everything seemed to be going the King’s way the wheel turned and the King was no more. Why do some men live while others are cast down on the threshold of greatness? The same thing happened to Bianca’s grandfather when he was campaigning against Florence. I remember discussing the coincidence with Cosimo, ‘Florence is like Plato’s theory of forms,’ he told me, ‘a reflection of the divine, and thus too fine a city for the Almighty to let it succumb to a man’s ambition.’ He said it lightly, but the intent was clear.

And thinking of my dearest friend brings to mind one of his favourite sayings, ‘the chaos of the present often finds meaning in the events of the past.’ No doubt Bianca would find it amusing that most of my present problems stem from one particular woman. But it has to be said Queen Joanna, the childless sister and successor to Ladislau, was never a fortunate woman and was particularly unfortunate in the choice of men in her life. Her first choice as favourite was Pandolofo Aleppo, whose unbridled ambition led to father and I being seized and thrown into prison as soon as we set first in Naples.

‘Another occupational hazard,’ said father on the first day of our imprisonment, ‘what does it teach you?’

‘Fortune is fickle, one moment a Count, the next a condemned prisoner.’

‘And what else?’

‘To beware of the ingratitude of princes and the jealousy of my fellow man, for in the end both can prove fatal.’

‘And?’

I hesitated.

‘My son, you must always cultivate the friendship of those who administer the prisons. You never know when it might prove useful.’

And so it did at Mortara.

It may seem strange, but I remember the times in prison with my father as being the happiest of my life. Children seldom have the privilege of truly getting to know their parents. At first the parent is a remote figure of authority never to be questioned. Then the relationship develops to a point where the child begins to define himself by his opposition to the parent, who now seldom speaks sense or acts contrary to what is plainly obvious to all right thinking people, whereas the father looks to the mother and wonders.

Occasionally, Fortune smiles upon the family and both parent and child live long enough to realise not only, that it is not some perverse of nature that they are related to each other, but also that wisdom and common sense did not entirely skip a generation.

My father and I had spent the morning discussing the various techniques for mining and counter-mining the walls of a small city and had moved on to the problem of finance.

‘You are besieging a city, but have run out of money,’ he said, ‘do you withdraw and look for easier prey, or do you turn over the city to be sacked? Which is the greater crime, spare the city and risk the desertion of your army or unleash your troops and face eternal condemnation for all misery and depravity that follows?’

‘Does the end justify the means?’

‘That is the wrong question; the end never justifies the means it merely makes it easier to live with yourself. The question is whether you can become the man who can kill without compunction and then having become that man, can you control what lies within you?’

The door opened and in walked Aleppo.

‘Fortune seems to favour you,’ he said, ‘you are to be released.’

The loyalty of our fiefs and threats from the rest of the family may have given Fortune a helping hand in the matter. To save face Aleppo made father High Constable of the Kingdom and the title of ‘Count’ awarded to me by Ladislau was confirmed by the Queen. ‘It won’t do him much good,’ said father, ‘the Queen will marry someone and then that will be the end of him.’ She did and it was. Not that it did father much good either, the Queen’s new husband, Jacques of Bourbon, pushed the Queen aside and imprisoned father again, ‘as a precaution.’

Seeing father indisposed the Pope saw an opportunity for revenge and employed Braccio to plunder father’s estates, but before any real damage was done the wheel turned against the King and both the Queen and father were restored.

As the Sforzeschi marched on Rome to avenge the insult to family honour, the great Braccio gave a masterly demonstration of his generalship by avoiding, evading and generally running away whenever we came near. Even an attack on the city itself could not bring him to battle, but we did capture one of his captains, Niccolo Piccinino the father of my present problem. Of course we let him go, it is how a civilised people conduct their wars, unlike the English who cut off each others heads. But in truth it would have better for me if we had.

With a curious inability to learn from her mistakes. Queen Joanna then permitted another of her favourites to act out of jealousy of my father.

‘If that woman can’t control her men then it’s about time we found someone else,’ was father’s feeling. So we switched allegiance to the family of Anjou, while the Queen turned for protection to Alfonso, King of Aragon who spent the next thirty years trying to destroy me.

Sometime ago I remember I was sitting with Bianca and the children and for some reason the conversation had drifted to past events. ‘At the time of my first wedding,’ I told them, ‘my father gave me three pieces of advice. The first was never commit adultery.’ For some reason Bianca found that highly amusing. ‘The second - do not offend your generals.’

‘I cannot see why,’ said Galeazzo, my heir. ‘A ruler commands and a subject obeys that is the nature of things.’ I confess I despair sometimes.

‘What was the third?’ asked Ludovico. He likes to think of himself as the scholar of the family and in our family that is saying something.

‘Don’t ride a horse with a hard mouth -.’

‘Pretty obvious really,’ interrupted Galeazzo.

‘Sush!’ commanded my daughter Ippolita. ‘You know how father does not like to be interrupted when he is telling one of his little stories.

I smiled benignly. ‘Or one that was not sure of foot.’

‘Why is that important?’ Asked Ludovico.

‘It is what killed your grandfather.’

Father’s end was incompatible with the dictates of the age. There was no great and glorious death fighting impossible odds, nor any great betrayal from those who professed to love him. His end was ordinary.

He drowned.

The city of Aquila had rebelled and we had advanced to the Pescara river to settle matters. Father and I had crossed with a troop of men when he turned and seeing one of our foot soldiers in trouble went to help. Already tired my father’s horse stumbled. I heard a shout and turned in time to see my father go under the water. He resurfaced struggling for all he was worth. He must have known this was his end, for a brief moment he ceased to struggle and looked directly at me.

‘Goodbye father,’ I said quietly.

I never found his body.

If there was to be a Sforza inheritance I had to take as much as I could as quickly as I could. I crossed the river and entered the main camp. Already news of the disaster was spreading and men were starting to pack their bags. Another hour and the army would disintegrate.

I faced the army. ‘Our common father is dead,’ I told them. ‘He died as he lived, leading the army that he loved. He was not some remote general forever moving blocks of wood upon some parchment map. Instead, he lived amongst you. He knew you and you knew him.’ I told them of the battles won and the enemies defeated. I told them that ‘Sforza’ was a name worth ten thousand men. ‘You knew him as the father and like a father he provided for us all.’ I tipped over one of the pay chests so that all could see the gold. ‘My father’s last words to me were of you. ‘My son,’ he said, ‘all that I am I leave to you, not by claim of inheritance, but by right of ability. Remember each day that you live you have the privilege to lead men of honour beyond measure, of courage unequalled, and so skilled in the arts of war that they are the envy of all Italy. Treat all as you find them and injure none that does not deserve it. For this is not an end, but a beginning. You will lead our army to a glory and riches greater than I can conceive. For as I am Philip, you are Alexander, and all will tremble at the approach of the Sforzeschi.’ Those were his last words before the waters of the Pescara took him. We know that there are those who will rejoice at the death of our captain, Braccio for one. He is laughing at us, he sees us as defeated, imagining himself already retired to Capua. My friends I stand before you not as the son of our general, but as the man who will avenge him. I swear before you and Almighty God that Braccio will not steal this victory. Instead, he will be defeated and that defeat will resound through the ages to come.’

The Sforzeschi hailed me as their leader, swearing friendship and eternal loyalty. Troilus, Brunero, Ciarpellio, Gian della Noce, Ventimiglia, Brandolini, names from the past, where they all there that day or did some come later? After all these years it becomes hard to remember, but I do remember one thing, they all betrayed me in the end.

I marched the Sforzeschi across my father’s domain. All knelt in homage, some out of fear, most out of love; as long as they knelt I did not care. The Queen wept at my loss and the new Pope prayed for me, but now only Braccio mattered. As for the man himself, he was over-confident and despite having the lesser number said he would meet me on plains of Aquilla. Hubris, the downfall of commanders throughout the ages.

‘Sforza! Sforza! Sforza!’ screamed my men as I rode among them after the battle. In one day I had surpassed all the condottiere of Italy. Henceforth, I would be known as ‘the conqueror of Braccio’. ‘Where is he?’ I asked Brunero.

‘We have put him in a tent with the rest of the wounded.’

One look at Braccio was enough to tell the end was near. He tried to rise from his camp bed.

‘I salute you,’ he said, ‘a worthy son of the great Sforza.’

I acknowledge the compliment and told him:

‘You must rest my lord.’

‘I wonder will my name be remembered or be eclipsed by others?’

‘Where men such as us meet, the name of Braccio da Matone will be remembered.’

He held my hand and smiled. With his death his empire collapsed, his name obliterated from the earth and it was just that it was so.

Now began the climb up the hill.

Who am I?

‘You are the blessed son of the Pope and the church.’