Inquisition (14 page)

‘You haven’t answered me yet, Commander. Why do you want me to share this secret knowledge?’

With a gesture Hugues encouraged him to help himself to the food, but Gerardo shook his head, without dropping his gaze. The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders and bit into a piece of meat, then put the other half on to the greasy bread. ‘God talks to us by putting what we must confront in our path,’ he said, with his mouth full. ‘Sometimes they are tests and obstacles that are destined to form our character. Sometimes good fortune, great or small, of which we should not become too proud. On other occasions, he makes us meet the right people at the right time.’ Hugues paused and swallowed his mouthful with a gulp of wine from the pitcher. ‘Those of us who found true wisdom in the Holy land are growing old,’ he continued. ‘Many of us are already dead. We need young blood so that the torch is kept alight. And I found you on my path. So, if you wish, when this affair is over, I will share what I know with you.’ He picked up the piece of meat again and pointed to the pot. ‘Now you must eat. You’ll need all your energy for the mission I’m about to entrust you with.’

When he got to the construction site of the Basilica of San Giacomo Maggiore, being built on the San Donato road, Mondino stopped beside a row of stonecutters sitting on the ground working on the capitals of the columns. Without much difficulty, he picked out the master builder, a robust Augustinian with a long grey beard, who was standing upright on a block of stone watching the workmen.

Mondino called to him and the monk turned quickly and jumped down, winding his way between the square blocks of stone and the beams that cluttered up the little piazza in front of the church.

‘
Pax vobiscum
, magister,’ he said, shaking the dust off his robe. ‘Forgive my messy appearance.’

‘
Et cum spiritu tuo
,’ replied Mondino. ‘I see that you are getting on well, father Paolo. When does the roof go on?’ the monk turned to look at the site with a pride that was almost paternal. The four perimeter corners were already complete, connected by stretches of wall on which masons and labourers were at work.

‘It will be nearly two years before we can start thinking of the roof,’ he said in a dreamy tone, as though in his mind’s eye he could already see the finished basilica. ‘But tell me, what can I do for you?’

‘Actually I wanted to do something for you. Or rather, for your cousin Francesco.’

The priest’s mouth opened into an almost perfect ‘O’. ‘My cousin? But how?’

Mondino smiled benevolently. ‘A student of mine knows him and told me about his complaint. As you know, the inguinal hernia can become strangulated at any moment, endangering the patient’s life. Rather than run such a risk, it would be better to remove it without losing more time.’

The master builder’s spry face was the picture of astonishment, but genuine happiness was spreading across it as well. ‘You seriously mean that you would do it yourself? Francesco will be delighted. His hernia has given him great pain lately.’ then, all of a sudden, his expression darkened and he touched his beard, embarrassed. ‘But, well, I don’t think we can stretch to ...’ He interrupted himself to shout to a couple of workmen to get out of the way. They were standing underneath a huge beam being lifted with a pulley. Hearing him, they lazily moved away a few steps.

‘Three weeks ago a rope broke and one of their colleagues was killed, but they still don’t learn,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘But going back to my cousin.’

‘Don’t worry about the money,’ said Mondino, who had foreseen the question. ‘As I want to carry out this operation for reasons of research, I would ask your cousin a third of my normal fee.’

The priest’s face brightened behind his beard. ‘Thank you, magister. This is truly a gift from heaven.’ ‘Let’s not exaggerate.’

‘I’m serious. When someone advised him to have his hernia removed, Francesco immediately thought of you. However, knowing that he could not afford your prices, he thought he would ask Bertruccio or Ottone, who use your method too.’

Bertruccio Lombardo and Ottone da Lustrulano were the only ones among Mondino’s students who were capable of carrying out that operation without risk of the patient dying of septicaemia or blood loss.

Mondino was surprised that the master builder was abreast of the innovation that he had introduced in the treatment of the inguinal hernia, but then it occurred to him that it wasn’t so surprising really. The priests fought stubbornly against the progress of science, but they were quite prepared to take advantage of it when it suited them. The previous manner of operating on the inguinal hernia, practised by his Master Taddeo Alderotti, meant first cauterising the scrotum then gradually scraping away the layers of burned flesh. In this way the castration of the patient was inevitable. Mondino fully understood why a dishonoured priest such as the master builder’s cousin was keen to be operated on with his method, which almost always meant that the reproductive capacity was preserved intact.

‘I too am glad that is his preference,’ he replied, without managing to smile. ‘It makes it much easier. Even though, to tell you the truth, I must say that either of the physicians you named would have been perfectly able to perform the operation.’

‘I don’t doubt that. Still, given the choice, always better the teacher than the pupil, don’t you think?’

The master builder’s pleasure for his cousin was moving, and Mondino felt somewhat guilty for the way in which he was using him.

‘Certainly, father,’ he said, avoiding eye contact. ‘If it suits you, I will come by the monastery tomorrow afternoon.’ ‘Very good. We will be waiting, and thank you again.’ the priest turned and went back to work. In the noisy piazza, full of stones, carts, stonecutters and masons, the Church of San Giacomo raised its roofless walls like a ruin from the olden days.

VII

Walking along a foul-smelling alleyway between two rows of houses, Gerardo put a hand over his nose and mouth so as to shut out the stink. He only hoped that some housewife didn’t choose precisely that moment to empty the slops out of her window. He glanced upwards and seeing all the shutters closed, he pressed on. He could have taken the main street to get to the inn where the German had died, but he had decided not to for two reasons.

The first was that he was afraid he might be recognised. Three days earlier, when Hugues de Narbonne had ordered him to piece together Wilhelm von Trier’s movements from his arrival in the city to his death, Hugues had pointed out to Gerardo that the proprietor of the house that he had set on fire lived in the area. But the order remained unchanged and Gerardo did not dare to argue. Although he was still devastated by the Frenchman’s revelations, he was nonetheless a Knight of the temple and the Rule prescribed absolute obedience to one’s superiors.

The second reason that he wasn’t using the main road was that the area around Santo Stefano bordered on that of Trebbo dei Banchi, so that several times a day he passed right in front of Remigio Sensi’s bank. He didn’t want the banker, sitting at his counter on the street, to ask the reason for all the to-ing and fro-ing, and above all he didn’t want to see Fiamma, sitting at the long table behind her adoptive father, busy transcribing documents.

Remigio had shown himself to be most discreet, simply saluting Gerardo with a slight nod of the head, and not addressing a word to him. Whereas Fiamma seemed to sense his presence even before he arrived, and every time he walked past their premises, she glanced up from her papers and gave him a forceful look that he was at a loss to interpret.

Despite all his intentions, Gerardo couldn’t drag his eyes away and he felt his heartbeat accelerate. During those days he did nothing but think of the things that Hugues de Narbonne had told him. Of the possibility of being privy to secrets known only to a small minority of templars. Secrets that would change his life in unforeseeable ways, and were perhaps already changing it.

In his mind’s eye, Gerardo often went back to what Hugues and that woman had got up to in the bedroom. Some years previously, when he was still living in the small family castle, a serving wench by the name of Assunta, married with two children, had introduced him to the pleasures of the flesh.

They had met many times, during the quiet hours of the summer, in the cool of the stables or in the shade of the vine.

It was those memories that had been the most difficult obstacle for him to overcome when he took his vows. It had taken months of prayer and spiritual exercises to forget what the blood insisted on remembering, but in the end he had done it.

And now he found out that it wasn’t even true.

Just the idea that it was possible to violate the Rule without committing a sin, in the name of a superior wisdom forbidden to the majority, had been enough to haunt his mind. Over the last few days, Gerardo had repeatedly asked himself what he wanted from life. For the first time he found himself doubting that his destiny were really that of the soldier monk vowed to the defence of Christianity. But he still hadn’t managed to come to a conclusion.

He had got to the point where he took longer routes; cutting through alleyways deep in mud, excrement and rubbish, just to avoid seeing Fiamma. At the same time however, he wanted nothing more, and at least once a day he gave in to the desire and walked down the main street that ran from Porta Ravegnana to the St Jerusalem quarter.

Coming out of the narrow lane, he finally removed his hand from his mouth and breathed freely. He avoided walking past the inn again, so as not to arouse suspicion.

The first day he had gone in pretending to be curious like so many people, and he had asked some questions about Wilhelm von Trier’s murder. The innkeeper was literally besieged by people who wanted to know about the dead templar and the heart of iron, and he had not noticed the fact that Gerardo’s inquiries were more precisely targeted than those of the others. He had told him, and five or six other people who had stopped to listen, about the German’s arrival, his request to have a room to himself, the fact that he had gone out in the afternoon and no one had seen him come back in.

‘A stray dog got into the hen coop,’ the innkeeper said, happy to repeat his adventure yet again. ‘I heard the hens cackling and went out to have a look. I’m certain that the murderer let the dog into the coop so that he could get into the German’s room without being seen. Then my customer must have come back too, and gone up to the first floor.’ ‘Who found the body?’ asked a pimply youth.

‘The woman I paid to clean the house.’

‘Would she tell us what she saw?’ Gerardo had asked.

‘She doesn’t work here any longer. The experience frightened her off.’

‘Where does she live?’

‘In Via Galliera, beyond the market square.’ Gerardo got the innkeeper to tell him the name of the woman and went to see her that afternoon. Handing over a few coins, he persuaded her to tell him everything that she had already told the Captain of the People’s men. He didn’t find out much more, other than the fact that after vespers she had to go out on an errand. She had taken the stable boy from the inn, a strapping lad quite able to defend her if need be, and she’d noticed the German waiting by a wall opposite the church of San Giovanni in monte. He was talking to the beggar with a missing hand who hung around thereabouts.

She remembered that the man, tall despite his advanced age, was leaning over the vagrant as if listening to him. Beggars could usually be got rid of in a few words, with a handout or a shove, and it had seemed strange to her that the German was taking such a lot of trouble to listen to the monk’s woes. Immediately afterwards he walked away in the direction of the inn.

Then, the following morning, opening the door of his room to clean the floor, she had seen him lying on the mattress, with his chest wide open and his heart transformed into a block of iron.

Wilhelm von Trier’s meeting with the beggar probably wasn’t important at all, but you couldn’t be sure. Gerardo asked the woman for a description of him and began to look along the route to St Jerusalem.

He went twice round the churches that represented the sacred places of Jerusalem, peering into every part of the piazza and the surrounding lanes near San Giovanni in monte, but he could find no trace of the maimed tramp described by the woman. And yet he should have been easily recognisable: he wore a filthy black tunic that must once have belonged to a man of the church, he had a long beard, long hair and used a pilgrim’s walking stick made of ash.

Gerardo had decided to go and look for him not long before nones sounded, because the working day was at an end, the shops would soon be closed and a mass of people would be spilling into the streets on their way home. It was the best time of day for anyone living off charity.

Afraid that the description he had was mistaken, he stopped other beggars and got the same reply from all of them: the maimed beggar was from Ferrara; in fact they called him the Ferrarese as though it were a proper name. They hadn’t seen him around the place for a while and supposed that he had returned to his city. Gerardo asked other questions and with a bit of effort managed to verify that the Ferrarese had disappeared on the day that the German’s corpse had been found. He might easily have gone away by chance on that very day, tramps moved around a lot. But there were beginning to be too many coincidences in the whole affair.

If the man had taken the trouble to disappear after the murder, he might genuinely know something and not want to run any risks. At this point it was imperative to find him. But the idea of setting off for Ferrara in search of a mendicant with a missing hand seemed ludicrous.

A crippled boy who was begging for alms on a wheeled board, about fifty yards from Remigio Sensi’s premises, was the only one to give him any new information. He said that perhaps the beggar with the missing hand had not gone away after all, but could be ill. In that case, he could easily be in the underworld.

‘What underworld?’ asked Gerardo.

‘I’ll show you for a lira,’ answered the boy.

‘A lira?’ Gerardo laughed at such an absurd request. ‘Don’t you think that’s a bit much?’

‘Not at all. Another person I showed it to gave me that without quibbling.’

‘Really?’ smiled Gerardo. ‘Tell me his name and I’ll believe you.’

The boy’s face grew sullen. ‘No chance. The person gave me that amount so that I would never mention it to anyone.’

‘Very convenient,’ replied Gerardo, who began to find the conversation amusing. ‘You can’t tell me who it is and yet you are free to tell me how much money he gave you.’

‘I’m not lying,’ insisted the boy. ‘Why do you think no one else has told you about the underworld yet?’ ‘They didn’t think that the Ferrarese was ill.’ the boy shook his head, with a serious air. He can’t have been older than eleven or twelve, but he was trying to behave like an adult. The top half of his body was normal, but his legs were two dry sticks folded on to the wheeled cart. ‘They didn’t tell you because it’s the beggars’ secret.’ Gerardo got down on his heels so that his face was level with the boy’s. ‘And you, so respectful of your word given to a stranger. Why are you prepared to betray the secret?’

The lad looked at him angrily. ‘Because I’ve never promised anyone that I wouldn’t tell!’ He began to manoeuvre himself with his hands on the paving, turning the board and moving away. ‘Anyway, if you are interested in finding out where the underworld is, the price is one lira.’

Gerardo got up and saw Remigio Sensi looking at him from a distance, standing erect behind his bench. When their eyes met, the banker saluted him with a nod of the head as usual. Gerardo replied in the same way, and then he ran to catch up with the boy and he stopped him by grabbing hold of his shoulder. ‘I’m interested. But I can’t pay you that much. I’ve just taken out a loan, because I had nothing left.’

‘I don’t believe you. Let me go.’

It really did seem as though he had decided to go on his way without bartering. Gerardo put his hand in his purse. As soon as the boy heard the rattle of coins he stopped, and in the end they agreed on ten soldi, a decent labourer’s pay for two weeks’ work.

‘I’ll give you five straight away,’ said Gerardo, putting the coins in the boy’s hand, which was so dirty and calloused that it almost couldn’t close, ‘And five after I have seen this famous underworld.’

‘Done,’ said the boy. ‘Come with me.’

He slipped the money into the smaller of two bags that he wore across one shoulder, over his torn coat, and set off on his cart, pushing himself along with his hands.

Gerardo couldn’t help liking him. He decided that even if the secret of the underworld turned out to be a hoax, he would still let the boy keep the five soldi that he had already given him.

‘What’s your name?’ he asked.

‘Bonagrazia, at your service,’ he replied without turning round. ‘But everyone calls me Bonaga.’

They left the piazza, walking past the inn where Wilhelm von Trier had been killed, and entered a maze of alleyways between Santo Stefano and the high street. Bonaga manoeuvred his cart with skill, but in some places piles of rubble and rubbish blocked his way. So as not to lose time, when the going was rough, Gerardo picked him up, trying to ignore the fact that he reeked, and carried him and his wheeled cart together.

At a certain point the boy stopped in front of the ruins of a house. ‘Here we are,’ he said. He went round a pile of square stones but then he suddenly stopped, making a sign to be silent. From his larger bag he pulled out a rolled up catapult, placed a stone in the piece of concave leather in the centre and a finger in the ring at the other end of the cord. Then, with a rapid movement, he whirled the sling twice above his head and let it fly. Gerardo ran quickly to his side, with a hand on the hilt of his knife, but as soon as he saw the boy’s satisfied smile he relaxed. He followed the direction of his gaze, and on a bit of grass growing between the rubble, at about eight paces distance, he saw a blackbird with its head smashed.

‘That’s my supper,’ said Bonaga. ‘A right piece of luck.’

‘Yes. It was a long way to have hit it at your first shot.’

The boy took on an offended air. ‘I could have hit it had it been twice as far away. I meant that it was a piece of luck to find a blackbird. The innkeepers slaughter the things, to serve them warm to their customers, and there are almost none left in the city now.’

Gerardo went to pick up the dead bird by its tail and handed it to him. Bonaga immediately put it away in the big bag that seemed to be half full of pebbles from the river. Then he pushed off with his board to go into the house, crossed into the entrance hall that no longer had a front door, and went on into the darkness. ‘Come. It’s this way.’

For prudence’s sake, Gerardo waited until his eyes had become accustomed to the dim light before following him. A strange silence reigned in the ruined house, perhaps due to the fact that the noise from the main streets did not reach such a secluded place. As soon as Gerardo reached him, Bonaga showed the templar a large hole opening out beneath a wall. ‘That is the underworld,’ he said, holding out his hand for the rest of the money.

‘One moment.’ Gerardo held him back. ‘You must tell me exactly what this place is and why the man I am looking for should be down there.’