She smiled.

`Let us discuss the Bishop of Cambrai, Pierre d'Ailly, a greedy fellow. He has the look of a, sleek pack rat and he has served almost as many sides as there are in France. He supports anyone from whom he can gain, short term or long. When I spoke of Pope Benedict as being the pope at Avignon, that usage could seem to oppose our pope at Rome. Well, we are bankers, and there are two popes in this world, but Benedict is no longer at Avignon. He is defying the French crown or the Mediterranean coast. He is a very stubborn man who wants to be independent of the French king. The Bishop of Cambrai, our same Pierre D'Ailly, will go to Rome for him – as secretly as possible, of course, to discuss with Boniface the sharing out of certain, benefices in Poland, Hungary and Greece. These are open territories and both popes feel they should share in them. Cardinal Spina will be the pope's negotiator. Do you know him?'

She nodded.

`How well do you know him?'

`My youngest daughter is his mistress,' the signora said.

He smiled at her for the first time. `Now, then,' the banker said, `working on the theory that you can be useful to us, we will propose that friends of ours in Paris work on D'Ailly's lust for comfort and pleasure by offering to arrange for him to stay at your house in Rome. No one must know he is there, you understand. The pleasures, however unusual they may be, must be brought to him privately, you understand. His weakness with women has to do with talking. He makes classical conversation with beautiful woman – beautiful young women and those kind of conversationalists are hard to find.'

Signora Manovale made her eyes opaque. `What about that northern business you have been after for so long?' she asked pleasantly. `The Archbishop of Mainz, is it?'

`May we feel secure about D'Ailly?'

What do you want from D'Ailly?'

`Well, I know what I want in a limited sense. I want those benefices in Poland, Hungary and Greece to be told by whichever pope is involved to bank with our bank. But there could be a larger opportunity there. Pope Benedict is breaking away from the King of France. He therefore must keep his money, sooner or later, independent of French bankers: We would like to be his bankers.'

'Please tell me about the Archbishop' of Mainz.'

`He is John, Count of Nassau, Archbishop of Mainz, as un-ordained as the rest of them, a ferocious warrior, and the richest churchman north of the Alps. He is the First Elector of the Holy Roman Empire and, if he can be induced to bank with us to the exclusion of the other bankers, that could lead to the banking business of all the electors of the empire, as well as that of the kings and princes of the north and the businessmen who seek their goodwill.’

Manovale returned to Rome and called her daughters Maria Louise and Helene to her. `The time has come for our first great harvest,' she told them. `The harvest of years of work is about to be reaped. I shall set you each a refresher course of studies. You, Maria Louise, are going into great riches to live among your father's people, the Germans, as mistress of a warrior-count who is also the Archbishop of Mainz. Helene goes to Paris, to her father's France, as the mistress of the richest bishop in France. Maria Giovanna is at the side of a rich banker in Florence. We will be one entity which will interchange information in order to rise and to continue to prosper.'

At the appointed time, John of Nassau, Archbishop of Mainz, arrived at the Manovale house in Rome, a long string of a man who resembled a famished eagle. His face was scarlet, his eyes shining black, his hair prematurely white with streaks of brass. I knew him well, not then but later, and cultivated him for Cossa. He was charming when one was alone with him, or when two or three other men were present, but be became offensive as soon as there were women in the room and impossible if the women were pretty.

He came to the Villa Manovale dressed in blood-red ecclesiastical garments under polished battle armour. He wore spurs to the dinner table. He stared at Manovale's body as if it were unclothed. She felt encouraged in her task.

`You are the Medici representative in Rome?' he asked mockingly.

She smiled at him. She allowed the smile to begin gently, then, with experienced control, she slowly increased its heat to lasciviousness.

`I understand,' he said.

On the day after his arrival, a papal messenger, brought an invitation to the archbishop suggesting that he join. His Holiness at dinner at two o'clock the following morning at the Vatican.

Unwilling to consider going to bed to be reawakened, the archbishop asked Signora Manovale if she would lay on a `merry luncheon' at ten o'clock in the evening before his meeting with the pope.

The signora invited Paolo Orsini, the industrial condottiere, so that the archbishop would have someone with whom he could talk shop if he chose. She brought in the famous actor Alghieri Melvini and Giovanni di Gianni, a man who controlled the grain in Rome and who was a new client of the Medici bank, recruited by her. There were women to set these men off but, seated at the archbishop's left, speaking in both Latin and German, was Maria Louise Sterz whom the signora introduced only to her guest of honour. He was soon so delighted with her that he made it clear that he wished to speak to no one else at the table.

John, of Nassau remained in Rome for eleven days, six days longer than his original intention. He saw the pope once again and spent the rest of his stay with Marie Louise. When she was absent – seeing her dressmaker, she said – her mother comforted the archbishop with fine wine and soon established a relationship for him with the Medici bank. She assured him that the Medicis would be so honoured to have big account that they would immediately open a branch for his convenience in Mainz as well as, she was hopeful, for the convenience of the Church's considerable banking business in Swabia and for the bank deposits of those dioceses which neighboured on the archbishop's jurisdiction and which looked to him for protection from the Teuton and Polish princes. His Eminence, Archbishop and Count, wanted something from her, so the matter of which Italian bank held his money was of little interest to him. Therefore, when the Count of Nassau left Rome, the signora had made a banking coup which delivered over 500,000 florins each year to the new Medici branch at Mainz and 25,000 gold florins to Decima Manovale, at the commission of 5 per cent which had been arranged by the bank to come into effect immediately when she produced the business.

The Archbishop of Mainz departed from Rome at the head, of his troop of 600 horsemen, with his household of 192 people, and with Maria Louise Sterz, whom he had leased from Signora Manovale at terms no more strenuous than those she had secured from Cosimo di Medici for Maria Giovanna Toreton.

That night, Pierre D'Ailly, the Bishop of Cambrai, arrived in Rome after his journey from France. He had travelled with only ten men. I worked with D'Ailly several years later. It was a cheerless task, like trying to touch a man by addressing his reflection in a mirror. He was a smart fellow who had seen everything and had done everything. He never lost sight of himself.

Manovale received him in the company of an exclamatorily attractive young woman of seventeen, whom she introduced as Mademoiselle Helene MaCloi. Everyone spoke French. The. two women dined with the bishop that night and soon he and Mademoiselle MaCloi were into a dense discourse which excited the bishop. He drank much wine and insisted, when the evening came to an end, that the young woman take him to his bed.

Each day at one o'clock, Cardinal Spina (disguised) came to the house, a few minutes before luncheon was served for two in the bishop's apartment. Each day, Cardinal Spina remained with the bishop until 4.45 p.m. They met for three consecutive days. Signora Manovale observed and listened to their conversations through a gallery slit, high up in the room and reported them by courier to Cosimo di Medici.