“The surgeon of my grandfather Louis IX,” Valois replied with a frown. “Afterwards, he became my father’s secretary.”
Crescenzio mentally recorded the detail. “A surgeon,” he thought. “A man necessarily informed about medical matters”.
“And where is he now?” he asked the prince.
“Under several feet of deconsecrated ground,” replied Valois. Then he walked off with a firm step, leaving him there with his doubts.
II
That was what Dante seemed to remember that the Trojans had said at the Scaean gate when they saw arriving the beautiful Helen, who cost the Achaeans – and no less their enemies – so much misery.
Those verses came back to his mind when, as he made his way back to the Florentine hostel beside Crescenzio, who had accompanied him, they had encountered a noble couple who were walking along followed by a row of armed servants, as befitted their high rank. She recalled the morning star, pale of face, eyes and hair, perhaps a little thin, but of a thinness that gave her that vague languor good fairies are believed to have; he instead was angry, frowning like someone who broods upon some unmentionable resentment, his hand quick to the hilt of the sword as soon as his eyes met the gaze of Crescenzio. Dante realized that the girl in question could only be Immacolata di Ottone Colonna, returning from mass under the escort of Gregorio Conti, her uncle and legal guardian, and her old suitor from before her passion for Boniface VIII’s nephew had intervened and disrupted his plans. She, then, was the marvellous condemnation for which Crescenzio constantly risked falling into disgrace with the Pope. The comparison with Helen of Troy, source of so much trouble, was certainly fitting.
Several days before, Alighieri had felt compelled to give his friend, who was a few years younger than he, a sonorous lecture about his duties towards his family, who certainly would not rejoice at the knowledge that he was infatuated with a girl bearing the surname Colonna . He regretted it now, though, because after seeing her with his own eyes, he realized that it was all wasted breath. Crescenzio struggled to contain himself, because the sight of her in the company of a man who wanted her and who had her in his house, under the same roof, made his blood boil.
“You have all my comprehension,” Dante told him, putting a brotherly hand on his shoulder. “I’ve never seen a prettier girl. But she is, of course, the niece of two men who have declared war on His Holiness. And let’s not forget that she is also the nephew of Egidio Colonna; an interesting fact, the latter, isn’t it?”
Crescenzio shook his head slightly. The conversation had taken a turn towards a rather delicate subject.
“Unfortunately the advice that Lemoine gave me is impractical,” he said, regretting having told that detail to his friend. “The secret that torments the king of France lurks in his past, and it will not be easy to find out what it is here in Rome. But we’ll get there, and without needing to disturb the Augustinian friar. In any case, who can guarantee that he will give us an answer if we try to contact him? “
“The prince of Valois was rather reticent, if I have understood correctly.”
“He was practically Delphic, Dante. But I expected that. What else could he do, poor man? Even assuming he knows something about it, could he allow a scabrous fact about his own brother to be known on the street?”
“Excuse me if I insist, but I am convinced that Cardinal Lemoine gave you some excellent advice,” replied Alighieri. “If he went so far as to give you that name…”
Crescenzio was beginning to feel annoyed. “I have no way of contacting Egidio Colonna,” he lied.
Dante remained unconvinced, but he did not wish to bicker with his friend.
“What a shame! The fact that it involved Pier de la Brosse must have set frightening reverberations in motion at the time: you told me that Valois went red in the face when the Pope pronounced that name. Who is he?”
“It seems that he was Louis IX’s surgeon, and then he became Valois’ father’s secretary. And he now lies ‘under several feet of deconsecrated ground’, in Valois’ words.”
“That means he was sentenced to death. Did he betray the king? Perhaps he was the precursor of those who now want to oust Philip IV.”
“Cardinal Lemoine also mentioned Marie of Brabant. She must be involved in the affair too.”
“Philip III’s second wife and his secretary…” mused Dante. “Perhaps it involves an affair of the bedroom. But why should the current sovereign worry? He was born of the first wife of Philip III, Queen Isabella of Aragon.”
Crescenzio’s eyes flashed.
“I don’t know, but there is a singular coincidence: Pier de la Brosse was the surgeon of the royal house of France, and they got rid of him. Arnaldo da Villanova was too for some time, and he was accused of sacrilege. He would have been burned at the stake if the Pope had not imposed his authority.”
“So Brosse knew then what Catalan knows today: Queen Isabella and her husband’s secretary had an affair. When she died, Marie of Brabant took her place next to Philip the Bold. And he discovered everything.”
“Imagine what a drama that would be! The heir to the throne of France was not actually the king’s son. The truth would have destroyed the dynasty, because the barons would have immediately demanded to choose a new sovereign. It had to be remedied, so Brosse was sentenced to death.”
The words of his friend had reminded Dante of his conversation with Guccio de’ Medici, and a certain not exactly irrelevant detail that his fellow citizen had noticed.
“Isabella of Aragon was the daughter of James the Conqueror. Arnaldo da Villanova was the chief physician of King James. The old man certainly looked after the future queen of France.”
“Of course. The health of the royal family was entrusted to the Catalan, and he must necessarily have been familiar with some of Queen Isabella’s private matters. Matters that now worry her son, Philip the Fair.”
“We were fools!” exclaimed Dante. “We wondered why Arnaldo left Paris and we didn’t consider an even more important fact: why had he gone there in the first place?”
“Indeed. The Catalan does not enjoy unanimous esteem in the world of scientists. Many despise him and even accuse him of witchcraft. Philip IV could have had all the doctors he wanted, so why choose one with such a controversial reputation? It’s as clear as day: because the Catalan had taken care of his mother as a young woman, as well as his grandfather and his relatives.”
“So something extremely embarrassing was at stake,” Alighieri murmured. “The king of Aragon realized it immediately, and lent himself to the game. Philip IV’s mother was one of his family, and the honour of the Aragonese dynasty might have ended up getting dragged into it too.”
“Exactly, Dante: dirty clothes are not to be washed in public. Isabella of Aragon and Pier de la Brosse – there must be an invisible thread that connects these two people!”
*
Arriving in front of his hostel, Dante was approached by a stranger clad in religious clothes.
“Durante Alighieri of Florence?”
“At your service. With whom do I have the honour of speaking?”
The character had a picturesque appearance to say the least. Tall and lean, with a penitent’s sharp face and above all, a singularly shaped head culminating in a pointed peak that emerged from among the tonsure of his curly hair. To judge by his appearance, which was as ugly as the devil, he was extremely shrewd, thought Dante. The man’s eyes were as spirited and penetrating, in fact, and moves as if animated by some boundless energy. He said his name was Pierre and that he was prior in a small convent near the French town of Paray, which he had reluctantly left on a pilgrimage to Rome to implore divine mercy for himself and his confreres by kneeling to pray upon the graves of apostles.
Unconvinced, Dante ruminated to himself. The prior had none of that earthy frankness which generally distinguishes the provincial monastic, and moreover he expressed himself in an Italian which did not correspond to any regional dialect but ra
ther summed up all of them. It was certainly not the first time that Paray had been to Rome, and indeed, given the mastery with which he negotiated so many vernaculars and so many cadences of accent, it almost seemed that he had created his idiom himself by making a mathematical average of all the regions of the peninsula. This character had travelled all over Italy, and it was doubtful that his name appeared even in the accounting records or payrolls of the Chancellery of France. It was well known, in fact, that Philip IV entrusted certain delicate assignments to people completely extraneous to the ranks of court, so that if by chance the mission ended badly, nobody could accuse the Crown of France: the diligent French ambassadors immediately assured those involved that some lone braggart acting on his own account on non-existent royal orders was responsible for the damage. And how to refute them, if there was nothing written down?
Dante was certain of it when the prior explained why he was looking for him, which he did by holding a sheet of paper upon which some well-known verses were written under his nose:
“You are the author, aren’t you?”
“I am,” replied Dante, looking slightly confused. “But where did you get that?”
“In Paris,” the Frenchman replied with a smile.
“Paris? How can that be?! How did it get up there? I wonder who there can even understand it…”
“There are many who do; the Florentine community which lives in the capital of France is a populous one. What you write, Alighieri, is much appreciated by these fellow citizens of yours. Just think, I had these verses from the Guidi, his Majesty’s bankers. Is it true that you are writing a poem where you imagine visiting the realms of the beyond?”
“Yes, I am. However…”
“And is it true that these verses come from the section set in Paradise?”
“Certainly, Prior. It is intended to be the sky of Jupiter, where the souls of the just are found. But there is no poem. I am simply collating material – ideas that please me and which I submit to the judgment of those whom I esteem.”
“You do well. You see, the Guidi have shown the verses to the king, and His Majesty has been favourably impressed. There is a phrase of yours which touched the strings of his heart more even than the rest. Right here, where you say that beatitude, that contented seemed at first to bloom a lily. That is, at a certain point, a blissful spirit made of celestial light takes the form of a lily. Am I wrong?”
“By no means,” replied the Florentine, “and soon afterwards, the elect spirit traces out an M, which stands for Monarchy. In those verses I wanted to express that those monarchs enlightened by divine grace make the peoples God has entrusted to them happy.”
The prior gave a smile that glowed as though competing with the pale winter sun.
“What a magnificent thing, Signor Alighieri! What you say is true, and even more true if applied to the sovereigns of France, who are consecrated with the sacred chrism of the bishops. This makes them men of dual value, or , as the theologians say: they are secular, but also religious. Now, as the whole world knows, the lily is the emblem of the French monarchy. Using that symbol, you allude without a shadow of a doubt to the sacred dignity of my sovereign and his lineage.”
“Prior, in truth I did not intend to refer to the kings of France in particular. Or at least, not only to them. I was speaking of the monarchy in a universal sense.”
“This is the point, Signor Alighieri,” said the Frenchman, the luminance of his smile fading a little. “Your lines have the defect of being rather general. His Majesty would appreciate a more explicit reference to his glory and that of his ancestors, especially if you intend to divulge that poem.”
Dante looked at him. “Did the king tell you this himself, Signor Prior?”
The provocative tone of the question and the suspicious look on Dante’s face made it clear to Paray that he had perhaps revealed his hand a little too much – so much so that he was on the verge of betraying his true role. That Florentine was anything but a fool, so he would do better to give him something rather than try in vain to lead him by the nose.
“As I mentioned, Alighieri, I am in Rome on a pilgrimage. His Majesty knew it, and so he asked me to do some historical research into the royal dynasty of France for him: we know that the Vatican hosts the largest collection of books in the Christian world. When I arrived, I learned quite by coincidence that you were in the city too, so I thought I would give you that suggestion for your verses. That is all.”
“What a coincidence!” replied Dante with a smile more false than a plugged coin.
He looked at the prior, trying to divine the true intentions that lay behind that inscrutable face. The size of that pointed cranium was so impressive that it was almost mesmerising, and he struggled not to stare at it. The man had clearly been born with forceps, there was no doubt of it, but instead of causing him a physical impairment, it had sharpened his mental faculties. Dante Alighieri had no shortage of brilliant ideas either, however, and one of them now suddenly shone in his head as brightly as the sun.
With a cordiality appropriate to the circumstance, he said, “Prior, I would with pleasure have exalted the moral greatness of the royal house of France in a less ambiguous way. What made me prudent, in reality, was a certain… over its prestige.”
Paray frowned. “What shadow?”
“Some time ago, the prince of Valois was received at the hearing with the Pope. I cannot say that it was a stormy interview, but neither was it a peaceful idyll. His Holiness reminded the prince of a famous scandal that threw unworthiness on the honour of King Philip III. I loathe stirring turbid waters, and in any case it is pointless, because you are French and therefore certainly better informed than I. I will only give you a name.” He lowered his voice, suggesting the complicity of conspirators. “Pierre de la Brosse.”
The prior’s expression revealed that the Alighieri had hit the mark -, and to judge by his gloomy face it must have been something very thorny indeed.
“Mr. Alighieri, it may be that King Philip III was wrong to sentence his secretary to death. Who knows, one would have to see the evidence collected against him. In short, put yourself in his shoes: trying to seduce the queen… In any case, my revered lord, as soon as he ascended the throne, King Philip IV immediately recalled Brosse’s grandchildren from exile. He has returned to them the assets that were seized, and he has covered them with honours.”
Interesting, thought Alighieri. “This does honour to your king’s sense of justice” he said, “but it also demonstrates his conviction that his father was wrong. The son knows, and he has righted the wrong. Do you think that a small fault, Prior? Should I exalt the sanctity of the royal house of France when it is practically common knowledge that Philip III stained himself with that crime?”
Pierre de Paray had now affixed his very mobile black eyes upon Dante. The discomfort that the situation caused him was tangible and intolerable, and as a resourceful man, he immediately went on the counterattack.
“What if I gave you proof, Ser Dante? What if I showed you that Philip III had a good motive for his suspicions of Pierre de la Brosse?”
Inside, Dante gloated, but he tried to contain his joy as much as possible so as not to lose the game at the last hand. He pulled a serious but curious face.
“I need facts, Prior. In the face of certain proofs…”
“You will have them!” the man promised solemnly, then he turned on his heels and walked off with the air of one who has been given a mission and who would happily die rather than fail to carry out the orders received.
III
Around the large hall located on the main floor of the Apostolic Palace, over one hundred notaries, scribes and clerks in the service of the Apostolic Chancellery dealt with its copious correspondence. There was not much room, and they and their mountains of paperwork were crammed into the small rooms with well-painted white walls. Pietro Valeriano Duraguerra da Piperno walked up and down, vigilant and inflexible, watching over the operation of
that vast administrative machine.
He drove them hard as they toiled away, equipped with their indefatigable goose feather quills, the dark brown ink made from walnut husks, the powder to dry their letters and the cotton paper of the finest quality bought in Florence or Fabriano, because the Pope’s registers must last forever. It was no easy thing to watch over all those people and ensure they did their work properly without making mistakes, but when Pope Boniface VIII had ascended to the apostolic throne, the Chancellery had received a worthy guardian capable of carrying out the thankless task.
Not that the Roman Curia was free of stain, and no one considered it a city of saints, the Heavenly Jerusalem that had been prophesied centuries before by Saint Augustine. It was a place that was part of the world, and as such it contained everything – a perfect representation of the seven deadly sins. But it would go on as Christ had predicted: . It would remain standing for as long as a handful of good men willing to take God’s law into account could be found.
Crescenzio approached him discreetly.
“Good morning, your worship. I need your help.”
“For the investigation that His Holiness has entrusted to you, I imagine.”
“Precisely. The search had come to a standstill, to tell the truth, but then Dante had a stroke of luck that allowed us to take a prodigious leap forward.”
Behind him, Dante’s expression took on a somewhat resentful cast. Luck? It had been one of the most brilliant ideas he’d had in his entire life!
“Dante came into contact with the prior of Paray,” continued Crescenzio, “and used a subterfuge to encourage him to say things that we might never have known otherwise. They concern Pierre de la Brosse.”
“I remember that name. His Holiness mentioned it during the interview with the Prince of Valois. I don’t know who this Brosse is, but I do know that the prince went as pale as a corpse at the mere mention of him.”
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