muddy from head to foot, the serious work started.
Up went beams in an A frame. Pulleys. The engineers set up a pentaspastos on the bed of planks and sent the soldiers swarming up to gird poor weeping, naked Niobe in belts and rope.
One so hoped they didn’t drop the old girl and doom them all. Niobe rose, rose, rose from her pedestal, and set down again beside the rear of the truck.
Then the pedestal moved, by the same expedient, while legionaries, with sly grins and roving hands, steadied la signora Niobe.
The engineers gave orders, and quite smartly those who weren’t mauling the statue disassembled the pentaspastos and reassembled it on the truck bed, fast as fast. It wasn’t as if the age of the truck didn’t manage hoists somewhat more complicated, Niccolo thought. His age had had them.
But the engineers, stubborn fellows, clearly didn’t believe in powered winches and hoists, and it was amazing how very fast that ancient machine reformed and got into operation. The legionaries on the ground attached the robes, the legionaries on the flatbed, three of them, hauled, and Niobe rose, rose, rose to the truck bed.
The legionaries scrambled up then to put the lady into her web of braces and ropes, which would hold her steady on the short drive down past the park. They’d turn at West 96 th , round the corner and turn again – easy drive. They’d manage it.
The engineers gave orders. The pedestal joined the weeping lady.
Did a romantic imagine a look of panicked distress on the marble face? Rain glistened on her skin. Her outstretched hand, so delicate, appealed to brute men for salvation, to the thoughtless heavens for a rescue.
None such was coming. You play chess with gods, signora, you just do not expect to win. You were a vain bitch.
Now you get a new admirer. Doubtless you’ll grace his bedroom. Lucky signora. You’re marble. He’s – shall we say – less than pure.
“He-us!” the senior engineer shouted, and the legionaries scrambled to grab rose bushes and to get them aboard. And Julius had probably been watching the progress, since he came out, looked the situation over, counted rosebushes – little nods of his head – and walked grandly back indoors, into the dry.
Well.
Dannazione. Not a shred of notice, his direction. Julius was thinking about those two boys of his. He was thinking about Augustus, or Cleopatra, or any of a dozen others.
Who did he have? Dante Alighieri. Who believed heaven and Beatrice awaited him – if he could ever reconstitute his great epic.
Ha.
Well, he had the garden to keep his mind off his problems. He had to move some rosebushes to cover the scars the trucks had made – and the missing ten bushes. Eleven, counting Cicero’s.
Couldn’t have made it an even, easy-to-apportion number, could they?
Maybe he should send a gift of his own to Cicero … just paving the way for future favors. One never had too many favors of the inbound sort.
He thought that, gathering up his garden spade from its place, leaning against a pillar of the portico.
And saw, through the gate, three things.
First, there was a great metal tower in the far distance – right next to the edge of the flood, right on the edge of Tiberius’ lawn.
Second, on Richelieu’s lawn, there was a small band of the Cardinal’s men, armed with swords, determinedly facing something, short and singular, splashing its way across the flood at an angle.
Thirdly, and equally determined, there was one of the Cardinal’s men in galoshes, headed for the villa’s back gate, sword in hand, and fire in his eye.
“Toi!” the man shouted at him.
That did it. “Don’t you toi me, vous! ” He flung down the shovel. “You are addressing Niccolo di Bernardo dei Machiavelli, Secretary to the Second Chancery de la Repubblica di Fierenze, lately Secretary to Caius Julius Caesar Octavianus Augustus, master of this villa. Whom do you
Up went beams in an A frame. Pulleys. The engineers set up a pentaspastos on the bed of planks and sent the soldiers swarming up to gird poor weeping, naked Niobe in belts and rope.
One so hoped they didn’t drop the old girl and doom them all. Niobe rose, rose, rose from her pedestal, and set down again beside the rear of the truck.
Then the pedestal moved, by the same expedient, while legionaries, with sly grins and roving hands, steadied la signora Niobe.
The engineers gave orders, and quite smartly those who weren’t mauling the statue disassembled the pentaspastos and reassembled it on the truck bed, fast as fast. It wasn’t as if the age of the truck didn’t manage hoists somewhat more complicated, Niccolo thought. His age had had them.
But the engineers, stubborn fellows, clearly didn’t believe in powered winches and hoists, and it was amazing how very fast that ancient machine reformed and got into operation. The legionaries on the ground attached the robes, the legionaries on the flatbed, three of them, hauled, and Niobe rose, rose, rose to the truck bed.
The legionaries scrambled up then to put the lady into her web of braces and ropes, which would hold her steady on the short drive down past the park. They’d turn at West 96 th , round the corner and turn again – easy drive. They’d manage it.
The engineers gave orders. The pedestal joined the weeping lady.
Did a romantic imagine a look of panicked distress on the marble face? Rain glistened on her skin. Her outstretched hand, so delicate, appealed to brute men for salvation, to the thoughtless heavens for a rescue.
None such was coming. You play chess with gods, signora, you just do not expect to win. You were a vain bitch.
Now you get a new admirer. Doubtless you’ll grace his bedroom. Lucky signora. You’re marble. He’s – shall we say – less than pure.
“He-us!” the senior engineer shouted, and the legionaries scrambled to grab rose bushes and to get them aboard. And Julius had probably been watching the progress, since he came out, looked the situation over, counted rosebushes – little nods of his head – and walked grandly back indoors, into the dry.
Well.
Dannazione. Not a shred of notice, his direction. Julius was thinking about those two boys of his. He was thinking about Augustus, or Cleopatra, or any of a dozen others.
Who did he have? Dante Alighieri. Who believed heaven and Beatrice awaited him – if he could ever reconstitute his great epic.
Ha.
Well, he had the garden to keep his mind off his problems. He had to move some rosebushes to cover the scars the trucks had made – and the missing ten bushes. Eleven, counting Cicero’s.
Couldn’t have made it an even, easy-to-apportion number, could they?
Maybe he should send a gift of his own to Cicero … just paving the way for future favors. One never had too many favors of the inbound sort.
He thought that, gathering up his garden spade from its place, leaning against a pillar of the portico.
And saw, through the gate, three things.
First, there was a great metal tower in the far distance – right next to the edge of the flood, right on the edge of Tiberius’ lawn.
Second, on Richelieu’s lawn, there was a small band of the Cardinal’s men, armed with swords, determinedly facing something, short and singular, splashing its way across the flood at an angle.
Thirdly, and equally determined, there was one of the Cardinal’s men in galoshes, headed for the villa’s back gate, sword in hand, and fire in his eye.
“Toi!” the man shouted at him.
That did it. “Don’t you toi me, vous! ” He flung down the shovel. “You are addressing Niccolo di Bernardo dei Machiavelli, Secretary to the Second Chancery de la Repubblica di Fierenze, lately Secretary to Caius Julius Caesar Octavianus Augustus, master of this villa. Whom do you
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