‘I’m not a child,’ said Paolo angrily.
‘Indeed,’ said the monk sadly. ‘No more you are.’
‘Two girls she might accept, Father, but if they’re cloistered nuns then two boys who are almost men may give her cause to refuse us entry,’ Elisabetta pointed out.
‘Ah, yes. Let me think . . . I’ll tell you of an incident from our childhood that only she and I know about and then she’ll believe that you come from me.’ He paused, then went on, ‘Remind her that it was she who took the roses to make a garland for the statue of the Virgin, but that it was I who took the beating from our father’s gardener.’
‘We’ll tell her,’ said Elisabetta, ‘but shouldn’t we also tell her that we have been with Plague victims?’
‘Yes, you must.’ The priest nodded. ‘Avoid contact with anyone until you speak to her, and be careful of your clothing. There’s no sure way to know how the Plague is spread. The first person we had was a rag picker. That might be significant, as some say it can be carried in clothes. But then another two of those who were brought to us to be nursed were barge workers who transport materials and food. They claim the infection lies in the mouths of rats and is passed by them to us as the vermin gnaw through our grain sacks. We cannot be certain. In any case warn my sister that you may be unclean. She will be guided by God and her own mind as to how to treat you.’
‘On behalf of my family I thank you, Father, for helping us.’ Paolo made a formal bow.
‘I wish I could do more.’ Father Benedict sighed. ‘Your sister Rossana needs medical attention but it would be too dangerous to delay your departure. What cause do they have to hunt you so viciously?’
‘They spoke of treasure,’ said Elisabetta. ‘They were seeking some great treasure.’
‘It must be a mistake,’ said Paolo. ‘We have no treasure.’
‘Are you sure that that’s what they said?’ asked the priest.
‘Yes,’ said Elisabetta.
‘Did you take any family jewels with you when you fled?’
Paolo gave a harsh laugh. ‘The dell’Orte family owned no jewels, nor good plate, nor gold coin. My father was a soldier all his life. He lived, and fed his family and servants, on the produce of the land around us.’
‘I can see why they wanted to kill you at the time,’ the monk went on. ‘They would know a son would seek to avenge his family and would prefer that you weren’t left alive, but I don’t understand why they still pursue you so vigorously. Do they fear you for some reason? Have you relatives you can call to arms? Kinfolk who will fight for you?’
Paolo shook his head. ‘My mother’s older brother lives somewhere near Milan but I know very little about him. This uncle exchanged letters with my mother from time to time. I don’t think he’s very rich or has any men to call to arms.’
‘There’s more here to discover.’ The priest spoke slowly. He looked at Elisabetta. ‘You say you heard them mention treasure?’
Elisabetta nodded. ‘Great treasure. I heard them use those very words.’
Father Benedict frowned. I saw the expression on his face, the line appearing between his eyes – the one so well illustrated by my master when he sketched the monk the night after we first made his acquaintance. The indent on his brow that showed the priest was thinking deeply about something.
I began to sweat. I hoped that Elisabetta and Paolo would not recall the exact words the brigands had spoken as they had relayed them to me.
‘Not treasure exactly,’ said Elisabetta. ‘They did not say that Paolo had treasure. They said he had the key to great treasure.’
‘And you know nothing of this, Paolo?’ asked the priest. ‘Did your father own a key that unlocked a particular chest?’
‘There was no treasure within our household, else my father would have hidden it with me.’
‘Your father didn’t give you any instruction, leave any message, write anything down?’
Paolo shook his head. ‘I’ve thought about it over and over. He did not.’
‘Your father knew that he was almost certainly going to die.’ To my agitation the monk began to mull over the bones of the information he had garnered. ‘He places his wife and children in the chapel of the keep where he hopes the soldiers will not violate sanctuary. False hope against such barbarians! And he hides his elder son because he knows the boy is old enough that they would kill him.’ Father Benedict fixed his wise eyes upon Paolo. ‘If there was any treasure, Paolo, he would have told you about it, surely?’
‘Sir,’ replied Paolo, ‘my father said nothing to me about treasure. Only that I should watch over my mother and brother’ – Paolo’s voice broke a little – ‘and my sisters. And to uphold my honour where I could.’
The priest looked at Elisabetta. ‘Tell me again what you heard them say.’
Elisabetta thought before replying. ‘They said, “We must find the boy. He holds the key to the treasure.”’
The furrow in the priest’s brow deepened. ‘Did he mention Paolo by name?’
My stomach cramped in fear. Now I would be betrayed. This monk was too clever not to see the flaw in the fabric of the story.
Elisabetta began to speak. ‘As I recall—’
The door opened and Ercole came in. He held a lantern in one hand, in the other a long metal rod. ‘Father, the hospital is quiet again and the street outside is empty. We should go while we can.’
The monk stood aside to let us pass. ‘Follow Ercole now and do as he says.’
As we filed out of the storeroom he touched my shoulder. ‘Do you wish me to get a message to your master that you are in trouble and need his assistance?’
‘No,’ I replied. ‘My arrangement is that I will meet him in Florence and that I still hope to do. Also, he works in part for the Borgia and it would seem that Captain dell’Orte offended Il Valentino in some way so he decided to destroy him and his family. Therefore it’s best that my master is not concerned with this. I will take them to the convent at Melte and then make my own way to Florence.’
‘Yes, I can see the wisdom in that,’ the priest agreed. ‘But how is it that you are bound up with this family, Matteo?’
‘They gave us shelter on our travels last summer. I – I heard that they were under threat and – and left my road to warn them, but I arrived too late. I could do no more than stay and help them.’ I had thought that the monk might ask me this and had my answer ready. But even though I had rehearsed what I would say I stumbled in my explanation. Yet he seemed to believe me.
‘You will earn reward in Heaven for your true charity.’
He laid his hand on my head. I felt my face burn with shame.
When we reached the cloister he bade us farewell and blessed us in turn.
‘Now I will go to the chapel and pray.’
‘That will be of little use against swords,’ muttered Paolo.
‘If I am to die then I can think of no better place to be,’ the monk said calmly. ‘Don’t forget to tell my sister that I forgive her the beating I took on her account.’ He touched Paolo on his chest. ‘Your heart is full of bitterness. Try to find a little space to let in God’s good grace. Remember, “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.”’
Paolo waited until Father Benedict had gone beyond his hearing before he hissed between his teeth, ‘And as the Lord saith, then so say I. This I vow, on my sacred word, for the honour of my family. Death, with no quarter, to those who robbed them of their lives.’
Paolo drew his father’s sword from its scabbard and, holding it up, he kissed the blade with his lips.
‘Sworn on the blood of my father, my mother and my brother. I, Paolo dell’Orte, will have my vengeance.’
Chapter Twenty-Eight
ERCOLE LED US through the hospital. As we passed the entrances to the long wards where the patients lay asleep he dropped the shutter of his lantern and we flitted across the openings in turn. A small votive lamp burned under these archways but it gave little light. Hopefully any r
estless person glancing at the door would only see shadows in the depth of the cloister.
We followed him through the corridors until we came to the workshops and outbuildings, low-roofed sheds abutting the main hospital block. The laundry rooms were situated here. These were fitted out with drying racks and great sinks with drains in the floor. Huge vats were set on stones under which fires could be lit for bedding and clothing to be boiled clean. Behind the last of these was a narrow spiral stairway. With Ercole holding the lantern high, we went down these stairs, on and on, until, half dizzy, we arrived at the end. We were in a small room which held nothing except a large grating in the stone floor. Ercole put his lantern down and shifted the metal rod he carried so that he held it in both hands.
‘What mischief is this?’ Paolo’s hand was on his sword. ‘Have you brought us here to assassinate us?’
Ercole didn’t bother to reply. He crossed the room, and using the end of the metal rod he forced one end of it under the rim of the grating cover. With a grunt he levered the lid up a fraction and tried to push it aside.
‘You. Help.’ He glared at Paolo and myself.
We went to assist him, and between us we managed to swivel the heavy lid to one side. Below us we could hear the sound of rushing water.
‘In.’ Ercole pointed to the hole in the floor. ‘All of you. In.’
‘What’s down there?’ said Paolo.
‘We are below the laundry rooms,’ I said. ‘The hospital would need a big sewer passage to empty the washing tubs and get rid of the waste of so many people.’
‘You are taking us into the sewer?’ Paolo asked Ercole. ‘Is that what’s below us?’
‘Water. River,’ Ercole answered him.
‘We might drown,’ Elisabetta said.
Ercole looked at her more kindly than he had at Paolo or myself. He shook his head. ‘Not drown. Way out.’ He pointed to Paolo. ‘You first.’ And as Paolo hesitated he said, ‘Go. You help them.’
Paolo looked at me. I understood the meaning of his look very well. It said: I leave you with my sisters, protect them against this ruffian.
I inclined my head. Paolo went to the open grating and sat down with his legs dangling into the hole. Ercole brought the lantern to shine above his head. Bracing himself against the sides, Paolo lowered himself into the darkness.
‘There is a tunnel,’ Paolo called out to us. ‘With enough space at the side for us to stand up. And it’s dry, above the water level.’
‘Come.’ Ercole took Rossana by the hand and to my surprise she allowed him to lead her to the edge of the hole. ‘Sit.’
Rossana sat down. Ercole knelt in front of her on the other side of the opening. He held out his hands. She put both of hers in his. Ercole grasped her wrists and Rossana slid herself off the edge. We heard Paolo’s voice from below: ‘I’ve got her.’
Elisabetta went without being asked and sat on the lip of the opening. Ercole helped her down.
And then it was my turn.
‘You are coming too?’ I asked Ercole. ‘To show us the way?’
He nodded.
Now I had to do what the girls had so easily accomplished, but my legs would hardly obey my wishes. I forced myself to walk towards the opening in the ground, the nothingness of the pit. Ercole was watching me. I bent my head so that he would not see the fear on my face. He held out his hands. I managed to get myself to kneel down opposite him. The void began to pull me in. Greasy sweat was forming on my palms, my face. I began to shake.
‘Close your eyes,’ Ercole grunted. ‘Give me your hands.’
I closed my eyes.
Elisabetta voice came from below, speaking quietly but still audible above the rushing sound of the water. ‘There is room for all of us here, Matteo.’
Blindly I held my hands out in front of me.
I felt Ercole’s calloused fingers close around my wrists. He pulled me from my position. For one sickening second I dangled above the emptiness. Then he let me drop slowly downwards. My mind wavered and my feet scraped desperately against the sides but he held my weight.
‘I have you.’ Paolo’s strong arms wrapped themselves around me and I stopped kicking. He guided me to a safe position and put his mouth against my ear. ‘If that man above us chooses, he could replace the grating and entomb us here.’
I shook my head, to rid myself of that idea before it had a chance to grow, but also because I did not believe it. Ercole would come down and help us to escape as the monk said he would. ‘No,’ I replied to Paolo. ‘Look.’
We saw a small light wobble in front of us. Ercole, with the lantern hooked in his belt, had negotiated his own passage from the floor above to join us under the earth. The frail glow seemed to make the blackness around us more intense. The girls’ faces gleamed white; their eyes showed as empty socket holes.
‘This way.’ Ercole squeezed past us. ‘We go in line.’
We shuffled close to each other to let him pass in front of us. Rossana’s teeth were chattering. I gritted my own together to stop them doing the same.
‘You’ – Ercole pointed to me – ‘the cunning one, walk at my back. And you’ – he pointed to Paolo – ‘you, who want so much to fight, go last. If anyone follows, then we’ll see what you can do with that great sword you carry.’
I saw Paolo flinch. Being set upon from behind in a filthy sewer was not how he wanted to fight his enemies.
We assembled as Ercole had instructed us and followed him into the sewer.
When I had known fear before, I had felt it as a raw, gut-wrenching thing, accompanied by violent death, spurting blood, screams of pain.
This was a more insidious type of terror. Crawling, silent, it stalked us as we scurried under the earth, pressed in by the slime-coated walls, the odour of excrement, of soiling and hospital waste matters. A plash in the water at my feet and the red eyes of a rat glittered.
As the tunnel left the hospital it passed under the streets of the town. Above our heads we heard the tread of feet, the sound of smashing wood, doors rent asunder, the clash of metal upon metal.
‘Wait.’ Ercole halted after a few minutes.
There was another grating in front of us. Gobbets of filth clogged the bars. Ercole put his hands upon it without hesitation and with a heave he wrenched it from its position.
‘Softly now,’ he whispered as we climbed out of the tunnel into the sweet fresh air. ‘You, boy’ – he put a dirty finger under my nose – ‘go last now, and make the call of a night bird if you hear or see anything.’
Ahead of us was a path trodden by the town washerwomen when they went to do their laundry and spread their sheets to dry.
Ercole extinguished his lantern. ‘Take hands,’ he instructed us. ‘We will go the rest of the way in darkness.’
I was linked to Rossana. I had never held a girl’s hand before in my life. It lay in mine like a soft mitten. Her fingers were very slender, her skin cool. This was not the way that a first touch between a boy and girl who were attracted to each other should happen. There should have been a dalliance at some fair or festival, a walk under the moonlight, or sitting in a garden, when someone’s hand reaches out for the other. What was she thinking? At one point when the moon was uncovered by cloud I saw that Rossana’s face was wet with tears.
When we reached the river Ercole pointed in the direction we must take. ‘That way,’ he said. ‘Walk as fast as you can without stopping.’ He looked at Rossana, opened his mouth as if to speak, but then only nodded, and was gone.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
WE LEFT THE river and took the path into the mountains.
I had been abroad in the dark before and the shapes of trees and bushes did not alarm me. With the monk’s map unfolding in my head, I found my way partly by instinct, my ears alert for the sound of any pursuit. The ground began to rise steeply. Paolo and I had to help the girls more. Elisabetta and Rossana’s stockings were ripped, our fingers torn as we scrambled higher and higher. After an hour or mo
re Paolo suggested we should stop.
‘My sisters are exhausted.’
I agreed reluctantly. ‘A few minutes only.’
We ate some bread standing up leaning against a tree. I would not let them sit down, being worried that if we did we might delay getting up again.
As we went higher the snow was fresh. I was aware that we were leaving tracks but there was nothing I could do. Dawn came, coldly beautiful. We looked back down the mountainside and saw the town and the river unveiling in the morning mist.
‘We must go faster’ – I spoke urgently – ‘so that we are not visible from the valley floor when the sun is risen.’
The great majesty of the mountain with its mantle of snow loomed over us. Through a small forest, and then we were beyond the tree line. Here the snow was deep. I risked another glance down. I could see a group of moving dots near the river. The bargemen making ready to load their wares? Or men gathering together to begin a hunt?
We trudged on. As the snow became deeper and deeper our progress became slower and slower. Our view of the town was less distinct, with only the outline of the monastery hospital and the bell tower of the church now visible.
‘If we cannot see them then surely they cannot see us,’ Elisabetta gasped out.
I said nothing. I had hunted in snow. A man could pick out a hare, dark against the white background, from a mile or more away.
The girls were floundering, sometimes waist-deep. I was thinking that we could not go much further without resting when Paolo voiced the concern in my own mind. ‘Matteo, are we on the right course for Melte?’
We halted. My feeling was that I had kept to the way indicated by Father Benedict but I could not be sure. I must tell them the truth.
‘I think so,’ I said. ‘But by now I would have thought we should have been able to see the way over the mountain top.’
We looked up. There was no indent or fold in the ridge above us.
‘But the heavy snow fall of the last day may have obscured it,’ Elisabetta pointed out. ‘The mountain passes are often closed in winter time.’
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