Inquisition (15 page)

The boy paused before speaking, then he said, in a low voice, ‘It is the beggars’ secret refuge. I’ve heard that it’s very old and stretches for miles under the city. Lots of beggars come to sleep here at night. Others are there in the day too, when they are too ill to go out.’

‘How is it possible that no one knows anything about it?’ asked Gerardo.

Bonaga explained that one day, before he was born, someone had wanted to add a new floor on to the house and it had collapsed, because the cellar beneath it could not hold its weight. That was how the underworld was discovered. The house was abandoned because, with the hole beneath, it wasn’t worth rebuilding and the underworld was explored and colonised by the beggars. Then the citizens gradually began to forget about its existence.

‘I’ve never been down there,’ said Bonaga, gloomily. ‘I can’t get down on my own and no one has ever wanted to take me.’

His voice had become harder. Perhaps that was the reason that he had decided to betray the secret, more than for the money. He felt his brothers in misfortune had left him out. ‘Haven’t you got any friends?’

The boy shook his head, looking Gerardo in the eye. ‘We poor are all enemies. I have to spend any alms that I receive immediately, otherwise they steal them off me because they know that I can’t run away.’ He sat there in silence for a moment, then added, ‘But if I have time to get out my catapult and can get my back against a wall, they keep their distance.’

‘Do you want to see what it’s like down there?’ asked Gerardo, on an impulse.

Bonaga shrugged his shoulders and dropped his eyes without saying anything. Gerardo bent down, lifted him off the cart and started to carry him down through the rubble. When they got to the tunnel, he set him down on a square-shaped stone and looked around. In the shadowy light that filtered down from above he saw a torch fixed to a wall and looking more closely he noticed that next to it was a piece of steel and a flintstone. He struck the steel and the torch soaked with cheap oil immediately took fire, letting off a dense black smoke.

The boy exclaimed in thrilled astonishment. They were in what must have been an ancient Roman sewer pipe, with a drainage canal in the centre, now dry, and a narrow passageway leading off on the left-hand side. There was a slight breeze in the tunnel. Obviously other ways down there existed and a circulation of air was created, but the smell carried by the wind was anything but pleasant. The bottom of the canal, dry for centuries, was studded with rubbish, through which rats scurried.

‘Over there it goes underneath the Church of Santo Sepolcro,’ said Bonaga, pointing to a stretch of tunnel to their right. ‘No one goes there any more, they say that it has a curse on it.’

Gerardo peered into the darkness of the tunnel. It wasn’t difficult to imagine that such a spooky place caused people to believe in the supernatural. ‘A curse? What sort of curse?’

‘I don’t know. As I told you, no one speaks to me much. I only heard that some vagrants disappeared and were later found down there. Dead.’

‘I see. And where does the other tunnel lead?’

‘If you go down that tunnel, at a certain point you get to an enormous room,’ replied Bonaga, who was staring at the squalid sight as though it were one of the seven Wonders of the World. ‘They told me that all the walls are painted, like in a church. I know that the Ferrarese sleeps there.’

‘I’m going to find him,’ said Gerardo. ‘You wait for me here, I’ll carry you back up when I get back.’

‘No!’ exclaimed the boy, terrified. ‘We’ve got to leave immediately.’

In an agitated voice he explained that if Gerardo entered the underworld dressed like that, he wouldn’t get out alive. And if he himself were left abandoned on that stone without being able to get away, he would soon meet the same end.

Gerardo hesitated. He wanted to get the thing over with and speak to the Ferrarese in order to find out if he knew anything useful about the death of the German templar. But the urgency in Bonaga’s voice and above all, his expression, made Gerardo take the threat seriously. He put out the torch, took the little mendicant into his arms again and went back up to the ruined house.

Without saying a word he deposited the boy on his cart, gave him the other five coins that he had promised him and they began to retrace their steps. As soon as they were back in Piazza di Santo Stefano, Gerardo said goodbye to the boy and set off towards Via San Vitale, where he had a meeting with Mondino. He looked skyward. The sun was hidden behind a thick cloak of clouds and the afternoon promised rain.

As he was in a hurry, he took the main street and found himself walking past Remigio’s counter almost without realising it. The banker had already told his servants to raise the wooden hatch and was waiting for them to close and bolt it from the inside. In the few seconds in which he could still see in, Gerardo saw Fiamma raise her head and stare straight at him.

Incapable of going a step further, he stood looking back at her and, without thinking, waved a hand by way of greeting. The hatch closed with a dry crash and Gerardo had the impression that a second later Fiamma would have smiled at him.

Somewhat annoyed, Uberto da Rimini walked out of the street door and headed for Trebbo dei Banchi. The two young priests that he had decided to take along with him followed a few paces behind, with heads down, not daring to disturb him while he was thinking.

He had just been to see the owner of the house where the arsonist-cum-student had lived. However, the wool merchant hadn’t seemed particularly pleased that the Inquisition was taking his interests to heart. On hearing that the officers of the
comune
had obtained no results as yet, he became reluctant to collaborate. Uberto couldn’t work out whether this was because he was a stupid Ghibelline or because he had something to hide. Perhaps both.

However, at least he had been respectful, not so much towards him, but towards his office. This was one of the reasons why Uberto took pleasure in the job of Inquisitor. He would not have liked to belong to an order lacking in notoriety and celebrity like the Augustinians or the hermitical monks of San Girolamo, for example. He enjoyed the fear that the Dominicans’ black and white habit inspired in people. The populace was wicked by nature, and the one thing capable of keeping the people in line was a healthy fear of God. Something that the Inquisition, through its work, continued to nurture. Uberto was convinced that sooner or later the privilege of investigating heresy and behaviour that was contrary to the faith would be entrusted entirely to his order, removing power from the franciscans who often showed themselves to be too weak.

In any case, he had managed to get a physical description of the young man from the merchant, since his research on the basis of his name had led nowhere. By this time he was certain that Francesco Salimbene was a false identity. This, more than anything else, indicated that he was guilty. It wasn’t quite legal proof, thought Uberto with a rush of irritation as he was reminded of his recent meeting with the Archbishop, but it was more than enough to convince him that he was on the right path.

If they could find the young man who had vanished and who was almost certainly a Knight templar in disguise, he was convinced that a great deal would become clear and the Archbishop would no longer be able to get out of taking the decisions that his cowardice had stopped him confronting until now.

Another lead he wanted to follow was that of Mondino de Liuzzi. Uberto had been livid with rage when he had found out that the physician had been the first person to examine the corpse of the German templar in Santo Stefano. But then he realised that that too was an important pointer. Mondino’s presence at the scene of the crime was suspicious. Since the evening of the fire at sant’Antonino, it became increasingly clear that Mondino had something to hide.

Uberto keenly hoped that Guido Arlotti had managed to discover something useful too. The former priest had not yet reported back, but time was tight and he didn’t intend to sit around waiting for him to do things at his leisure. He had decided to go and speak to Arlotti in the tavern that he used as a base for his nefarious trade. Guido had promised results and the time had come to make him understand that he should never make vain promises.

Walking with rapid steps, Uberto soon arrived at Porta Ravegnana, followed the road to the Mercato di Mezzo as far as the bridge over the Aposa, then turned right into the blacksmiths’ neighbourhood, still followed by the two friars, who were now chatting among themselves. The noise of hammering on anvils and the acrid smell of steel tempered in water surrounded him like a cloak. He picked his way along the road, walking on the dry mud in the centre of the street, passing the array of swords, metal cauldrons, knives and other wares displayed outside the workshops.

The members of the populace whom they happened to notice turned away with a hostile air. Uberto knew why: a rumour was spreading through the streets that the rise in the price of bread was the fault of the Church.

A boy with thick blond straw-like hair, busy polishing a breastplate with a cloth, spat on the ground as they passed. Uberto stopped, turned and looked at him in silence until the boy got down on his knees, offering a stream of excuses in an almost incomprehensible dialect. The spit had not been a gesture of disrespect towards them, it had been by chance, and he had not seen them, no one would dare to spit in the path of the Dominican Inquisitor ...

Uberto, mollified by the terror of a rat in a trap that he had seen in the boy’s eyes, and content to have been recognised even by an ignorant peasant such as he, told him to be more careful in future and went on his way. His companions had witnessed the scene with expressionless faces, and they carried on walking behind him without breathing a word. They were both bright boys whom Uberto had picked out to be his personal assistants in order to prepare for the job of Inquisitor. It was above all the smaller of the two, a friar by the name of Antonio, who knew the value of obedience.

So he had decided to take them to Guido Arlotti’s den. They had to begin to learn that one could not always do everything according to the rules, and that to combat the Devil it was sometimes necessary to get one’s hands dirty.

Once they had left the blacksmith’s borough, with their ears ringing from the clamour of the hammering, it took him a moment to hear the normal noises of the street. He turned to check that the two novices were still behind him and led the way along a route made circuitous by the necessity to avoid dangerous roads and at the same time not be seen by too many people. They finally reached Torresotto di Galliera. Not far ahead, in a street without a name, they stopped in front of the door of a tavern.

Uberto ordered friar Antonio to go in, find Guido and bring him out. If possible, the Inquisitor preferred to save himself the sight of what he imagined would be inside. Scantily dressed women, depraved men, dirt and the stink of sweat. The young man nodded and went in without hesitating, a determined expression in his eyes and his jaw set. But he came straight out again, visibly shocked. He said that Guido Arlotti was not in a condition to come outside and perhaps not even to speak. The publican had told him that he was in bed in the room upstairs, still drunk from the night before.

Uberto reflected on what to do. Given that he had come this far, he wasn’t about to leave without getting any answers. He told the two of them to follow him and marched into the tavern.

Inside, the filth and stench were exactly as he had imagined them. However, the prostitutes and drunks must have taken advantage of those brief seconds to get out of the place. There was almost no one in there, only three men with evasive expressions who were sitting in silence at a square table. Uberto stepped with sandalled feet on to the damp straw strewn across the floor and went over to the publican, a man with broad shoulders and thighs like tree trunks. He asked the way to Guido’s room and then went up the stairs, followed by the two friars.

He left them to wait outside the door and went in alone, saying that he wanted to save them from the sight of a man reduced to living like a brute beast. In realty, although he trusted them both, he did not want witnesses to his conversation with Guido.

He immediately threw open the small window, letting the air and light in, and when the stocky man lying on the large bed covered with a sendal drape protested, swearing with his eyes shut, Uberto went up to him and simply said, ‘Guido, it’s me.’

The result was astonishing. Guido Arlotti immediately sat bolt upright, his eyes popped out of his head and in a hoarse voice he stuttered, ‘You? But how ...?’

‘I cannot wait any longer, Guido,’ said Uberto, cutting him short. ‘Don’t disappoint me. Have you found out anything useful?’

‘My head aches,’ Arlotti moaned. He rubbed his face with his hands in an effort to regain the lucidity that the wine had removed. When he looked at the Inquisitor again, he was smiling. But the smile, perhaps because of his headache, seemed more of a contorted grimace.

‘I found the grave-diggers,’ he said. ‘They had buried the body in a mass grave. I paid them to dig him up and I discovered something interesting.’ ‘What?’

‘The dead man had a suture on his chest. I opened it and inside it was empty. His heart was missing.’

Uberto had to force himself to appear impassive. After the German templar being found with his heart transformed into a piece of iron, a detail of the sort was almost an indictment. Mondino would have a lot of explaining to do. One way or another, his fate was sealed.