The Adventures of Enea, Part 10 of 13

Anxious in Ancona (1) His plan, as he’s boarding his baldachined barge en route for the easterly sea, (arthritis allowing) is giving it large, but the pain is as bad as can be: though Rome is his home, he must go and take charge: Cortona is cortisone-free. One thousand four hundred the Christian years (and then we’ll add sixty-four more): Pope Pius the Second, that subtlest of seers, is bound for the Umbrian shore. He’s even less warlike than Billie Joe Spears, but wants to be wading through gore. He’s running a fever, his legs have ballooned, but he won’t be deflected or swayed. He’ll not be impugned or dragooned or lampooned: undampened his rodomontade: the mention of mercy, mere salt in the wound – hell-bent on a pious crusade. The portents are palsied: a bargeman is drowned: this project is just getting sillier. “Venetians are keeping us hanging around: we can hire troops for Tyre in Sicilia.” The Middle East! Pius wants boots on the ground (now why does that sound so familiar?) The ominous omens are gathering thickly, but no-one could call him a quitter. He’s scrofulous, suffering, sallow and sickly, but boyishly buoyant, not bitter. They land him on sand on the strand of Otricoli, and lift him aloft in a litter.