| Author: |
Michael Cornelius |
| Dated: |
Sunday, September 14 2003 @ 07:30 PM EDT |
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1372 times |
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Some things are eternal.
When I first learned this lesson at my mother’s knee, pressed softly against the warm hearth of my family’s castle in Baden, it was honor, and love, and family, and legend that never perished.
It was all that was good and joyous and hopeful in life, all that made us happy, all that made life and its hardships worth bearing. As a handsome, round-faced boy, cosseted in the arms of parents who loved me, I believed their words. But now I know they spoke only half the truth. Other things, like war and death, like struggle and prejudice, like blood and hatred—these are eternal too. Some things, like memory, never fade.
Chess is another of those eternal things. Strategy, conquest, defeat—time has no effect on these. They remain a part of our lives, of all lives, victory and defeat, twin impostors, as fresh centuries later as the day after the battle.
It was the Persians who invented chess, who invented the eternal struggle, the game of skill and intellect, the game of peasants and monarchs, of bishops and knights and castles and even pawns, the game that ceases only with checkmate—with shah mat—with the death of the king.
***
Frederick II was greatest of the Hohenstaufen line.
The grandson of Barbarossa and Roger II, he was destined for greatness. He did not fail to live up to expectations. The Infidel Emperor, so called for his wars with the Popes of the thirteenth century, was elected Emperor of Germany in 1211, at the tender age of twenty, and ruled steadfastly for almost forty years. His line was ancient and strong, and he saw his own son, the man closest to him in the world, Conrad, elected Holy Roman Emperor in 1236. Despite negotiation, reorganization, invasion, and excommunication, he died a proud and substantial man, renowned for his intellect, his unwavering appetite for culture, and his devotion to his beloved Sicily.
His son Conrad IV succeeded him, titular king of Jerusalem and Sicily, Holy Roman Emperor, king of the Germans. But the heavy shadow of his father proved too much for him. The war against the church, the war his father had fought so bravely for years, was going poorly. Treachery abounded, the vehemence of the conflict making assassins out of friars and monks. Despite surviving several attempts on his life, this gloomy young man succumbed to illness only two years after his great father’s demise, aged twenty-six years, two months, and three days. He left a grieving widow, a usurping brother, and a small boy, the last hope of the diminishing light of the Hohenstaufens.
The boy’s name was Conradin.
***
A palazzo in Napoli may be truly opulent; its walls may cling to Persian marvels, its fixings gleam with jewels. There may be twelve servants, and thirty rooms, and any whim one could ever desire—food, books, garments of the finest silk—all the trappings of imperial life. A palace must be this lavish, to be fit for a king. But if it should have only one door, a door guarded by armed men, and windows laced with bars, then despite its lushness, despite its finery, it is no longer a palace.
It is a prison.
My beloved lord seems not to realize this, or perhaps he hides it better than I imagine he can. His head bows before me, his forehead furrowed in thought as he stares at the pieces on the board. He carefully chooses his ivory queen, points it at my ebony knight, but falters. A gentle laugh; “no, dear Frederick, that is where you want me to go.” And his contemplation resumes once more.
We have been here three months, he and I, and I would have thought so much time alone with him would be as a gift from God. But every day I wait in fear and terror, for the wrath of Anjou to manifest itself. Exile, banishment, life as a prisoner of France—these I would bless! I have no fear of these. And if someone must die, let it be me—dear God, please let it be me.
Conradin. Still only a boy, too innocent to be king.
***
Manfred was a popular king of Sicily, a blond replica of his famous father. Had he but lived, his nephew Conradin might have grown into a strong and capable ruler. But in 1266, Manfred was killed at the Battle of Benevento, and his conqueror, Charles of Anjou, king of France, seized Sicily for himself. The Pope, Clement IV, in his long and vast hatred of the Hohenstaufens, supported Charles. But the island itself called for the light of the Hohenstaufens, the faraway prince they had heard so much about. Rumors had spread to them, even from Germany, about the youth, reputed to be the handsomest lad in all Europe, quietly charismatic, reminiscent of his grandfather. He was now the true king of Sicily, and as cities rallied to support him, Conradin prepared his army and began to march towards Anjou.
He was fourteen years old.
***
Finally, my liege makes his move; it is the move I expected him to make all along.
I make my reply. “Checkmate.”
With a small smile, he places his slim finger on the head of his king, and in a grand, princely gesture, gently drops it on to its side. “You’ve won,” he says to me, reaching across the table and taking my hand. “Shall we play again?”
I smile wanly and nod, and eagerly, he begins to put the pieces of the game back into place. “This time, I shall win.” His youth, his zeal — have I but known him for three years? I cannot remember my life without serving him. I try to take comfort in the fact that if he dies, I die. But I find no comfort in that thought.
This is torture, this waiting! Why must it take so long? But Anjou cannot kill him — a king killing a king — it is not done! Even the Holy Father would not agree to that. It is too much a crime against God, against nature. Better Anjou retire him to an out of the way chateau, marry him to a minor princess, use his blood to solidify his royal claim.
“It is done,” he announces, looking at me with bated eyes. I catch his gaze; I want to scream and to laugh and to weep all at once.
Then footsteps, the tromping of soldiers, the harsh sound of fate pounding on the palazzo door.
***
Charles of Anjou was the greatest potentate in all Europe. He was an excellent fighter, brave and courageous, severe but magnanimous, faithful but firm, a man of few words: rigorous, generous, humorless, ambitious. According to the Florentine chronicler Villani, when he died, the minstrels would not weep for him.
With the Pope’s blessing and capital, Anjou made it his business to eradicate the blood of the Hohenstaufens. He had captured Manfred’s wife and four children, fettering the dead king’s three sons for thirty years, until this “brood of poison-swollen adders,” as the Holy Father called them, died in madness in a festering palace dungeon. Manfred’s wife was killed after only five years, his daughter sent to live in confinement. Manfred himself was cast into the Liris River, so that his corpse would find no rest.
But this did not complete Anjou’s task. As the Ghibelline’s took heart, Conradin entered Rome. The city was handed over to him. Triumphal arches stretched across his way, from the Bridge of Saint Angelo to the Capitol itself. Women swooned, men were roused from their slumber, and all of Rome remembered its glorious past. The last of the Hohenstaufens had come home, to Rome. The city breathed and pulsed after them, as if their very steps hearkened to its heart; Sicily loomed before him. As the tall, slight young man spoke from the steps of the Capitol, it is said that Romulus and Remus themselves wept to hear his voice. And by his side, his friend and advisor, Frederick of Baden, three years his senior, the two young men hailed as the saviors of all Italy.
And all this while, Anjou plotted his moment.
***
“Why?” I demand, my voice thundering across the room. “Why am I not to die with him?”
The look on the face of the king’s envoy would perhaps have been comical, at another time and place. “You wish to die, foolish boy?” he says to me. He calls loudly to his men. “This child wishes to die as a man!” The soldiers laugh. Again, he leers at me. “I would kill you right now where you stand if I could. Wring your neck with my bare hands and cut out your heart for his majesty to feast upon.”
Eyes blazing, I thrust my chest at him. “I am unafraid,” I say.
He laughs again, but not as derisive this time. “His majesty d’Anjou shows you mercy,” he says, “because of your father, and your mother. But his mercy can be recanted. I suggest you tread carefully.”
If I had had my sword, I would have cut him down, killed him where he stood, killed them all. But I am defenseless. I can only watch, then, as the men all leave, the anger roiling inside me, fury and rage all that I now feel.
Until I turn to my liege, my beloved, my lord who tomorrow in the Napoli square will be put to death. He is stricken; the news was unexpected to him.
“My lord,” I say, but I falter, not knowing what to say; for the first time, not having a thing to say to him. “When you die bravely tomorrow, after, I will die too, of my own hand. I will not live without you. It is the only way.”
Quietly, gravely, he raises my hand to his cheek. “Frederick,” he says, his voice almost a whisper, “live. I want you to go on.”
“But, my lord -”
“I am your king,” he says to me. “In this, you must obey.”
The night passes swiftly in the dungeon, the coarse, sharp hay our final loving bed. We speak not, for there is nothing left unsaid. I hold his frail form against mine, both of us trying not to sob, and I tell him stories, legends of the cold North, and tales of my childhood. As dawn approaches we speak of our memories together, or simpler times in Swabia, or days spent in schooling, or in the woods, hunting, or hawking for small game. How happy we were in those times! He asks me always to remember him that way, on his mount with his bird, his brave bird soaring overhead, swooping in for the kill.
We bathe, and eat, confess ourselves to a holy Franciscan and partake of the consecrated host. Then the soldiers come. I am taken, too; Anjou wishes me to watch.
***
Four weeks after his arrival in Rome, Conradin lead his forces against Anjou at the Battle of Tagliacozzo. The battle was long and grueling, and for a time, Conradin’s forces looked as if they might prevail. But Anjou was cunning, and he spread word amongst the boy’s troops that the day was theirs. Eager for the spoils of victory, Conradin’s army dispersed to loot, and Anjou seized both the victory and the young king. All of the royal retinue were captured and imprisoned. For three months Conradin and Frederick were held in Naples, until Anjou had decreed the boy king’s fate, an unheard-of judgment at the time—death at the scaffold. No judge would concur with the sentence, but the Pope did, and in 1268, at the age of sixteen, Conradin, last of the Hohenstaufen line, in full view of Charles of Anjou, was murdered in the market-place of the town square of Naples.
***
Conradin stands in the center of the square, his arms tied behind his back. Thousands have come to watch. Some men sell food, others drinks, and all await the presence of the executioner.
Anjou sits on the balcony of the Church del Carmine, watching with anticipation. I stand beneath him, held at bay by two armed men. The hangman, dressed all in red, approaches. I watch as Conradin crosses himself. “I forgive thee that thou killest me,” he says to his executioner before kneeling and placing his neck on the scaffold. The hangman raises his ax.
“No!” I scream, and with a burst I break away from my guards and tear through the crowd. The execution is halted momentarily by the chaos. The guards pursue me. “Let him die!” Anjou cries as I reach the scaffold. The assembled masses break into a loud cheer.
I lock my eyes with my lord’s. I watch as his eyes fill with sorrow and gratitude. Then, unblinking, gazing right at me, he crosses himself three times and raises his arms to God. The ax falls, once, then twice. His neck bones crunch and break, and his blood sprays on to the man in red, on to the crowd, on to me.
Some historians will say I shrieked with anguish at that moment, with anguish, with despair, as was my disposition. This is not so. I could not have shrieked, for I was biting my lips, biting them so hard they bled. Instead, I watched, my face a mask of stone, as the man in red kicked the lifeless body of my lord to one side, to make room for me. Inwardly, I retched, but I moved to re-join my lord.
Suddenly, and out of nowhere, an eagle, a large majestic creature, came swooping in from the north, as if from heaven. And as the great bird flew past us all, he trailed his right wing into the blood of my lord, into the blood of the last of the Hohenstaufen kings. The crowd was silenced by this miracle. Even Anjou was taken aback. I smiled, and thought of my bright, shining boy in the field, his hand raised for the hunt, his own hawk circling overhead. Then I knelt in the blood of my lord, crossed myself, and prayed that I might share in his fate.
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