‘When we last met you were a widower,’ said Hugues, thoughtfully, as soon as they were alone again. ‘Even if you had married again straight away, the girl would be six or seven at the most if she were your daughter. And hers doesn’t seem to me to be the body of a little girl.’
‘Fiamma is nineteen years old and is my adopted daughter. I took her into service when I still lived in Tortosa, after you had done your best to ruin me. Then I became fond of her and adopted her. But I don’t see why it should interest you.’
Hugues de Narbonne went back to sit down in one of the three high-backed chairs covered in purple silk cushions and stretched his hands over his thighs. He wore the calcuLating look that made the banker’s heart race. However good the sources of information that the Frenchman might have at his disposal, he could not know about Fiamma. Nobody knew about her, not even Remigio’s father confessor. It was the best-kept secret of his life.
‘Shame about the scar that disfigures her face,’ continued Hugues. ‘Nevertheless, I don’t believe that she’ll have difficulty finding a husband. I imagine that plenty of young Bolognese bucks would aspire to becoming kin to an established banker.’
Remigio did not know what the man was playing at. His every word seemed to hide a threat. But what could he do about it? In the current situation Hugues was in no place to harm him and yet he was afraid of the Knight. It was an irrational feeling, perhaps based exclusively on the man’s extraordinary physical appearance; he was still tall and strong even though he must be over fifty. Despite himself, Remigio had to acknowledge that Hugues de Narbonne was a born leader. He only had to speak and his interlocutor immediately felt the need to please him, to see the light of approval in his pale eyes. Not even the limited and scholastic Latin that he spoke to communicate with whoever did not speak his Language diminished the impression of authority. It was not difficult to imagine an army of templars on the battlefield ready to follow him to the death.
Everything considered, perhaps it would be better to find out what he wanted.
‘Tell me what brings you here, Messer Hugues,’ said Remigio, in a tone that was not steady enough to reinforce his self-confidence. ‘Then I’ll decide what to do.’
Mondino opened the door and found himself facing a Dominican friar. The man was surrounded by three guards from the Podestà who each held a lamp, creating an island of light in the dark street. When he recognised the Dominican to be Uberto da Rimini, his concern turned to something approaching dread. The Inquisitor was known for the intransigence with which he pursued anyone who crossed his path. From the moment he had arrived in Bologna to take up the trial of the templars, the denunciations and sentences for heresy had multiplied. Until now, Mondino had not met him in person, but he had often seen him participating in religious ceremonies. Uberto was a delicate man, smaller than Mondino by a head, thin and completely bald, with a dry, heightened complexion. Particularly striking was the smouldering nervous energy that emanated from his whole body, draped as it was in the black and white of the Dominican’s habit. His eyes, dark and close together, shone out in his hairless head.
‘Peace be with you, father,’ said Mondino. ‘Why abroad at such a late hour?’
‘It’s a question that I might ask of you too,’ answered the Dominican. He was standing several steps away, a trick often used by small men to look taller people in the eye without having to lean back and look upwards. ‘When a man stays up at night instead of going to bed, one fears it is for illicit purposes, and not to do the will of God.’
Mondino knew perfectly well that it was better not to react to the taunt. He knew that he should justify himself in some way and answer his questions, hoping that the guards would stay calm and the Inquisitor go away as soon as possible. But his impulsive nature betrayed him once again.
‘In this city it is above all the ecclesiastics who devote the nocturnal hours to the will of God,’ he said.
He could tell from the friar’s face that he knew the students’ euphemism. Since the lord’s command was to go forth and multiply, it was common among students to refer to the sexual act as the will of God. If Uberto had agreed with him, it would have been as though he were admitting that by night priests spent their time with prostitutes. But neither could he deny that they dedicated their nights to serving the lord.
Uberto da Rimini barked two short words at the guards: ‘Arrest him.’ Before he had time to make a move, he found a man on either side of him and one behind.
‘What do you intend to do, Inquisitor?’ he asked, impassively. ‘I am not a heretic and I have committed no crime. I am Mondino de Liuzzi, physician of the Studium.’
The grimace of disdain on the friar’s face was accentuated. ‘I know exactly who you are. You are the physician who corrupted the art of medicine by introducing the practice of dissecting human bodies, in open violation of a Papal bull. It does not surprise me that you are so insolent to those who spread the word of Christ.’
‘The De Sepulturis bull prohibits the dismembering and boiling of corpses, not dissection for scientific purposes,’
Responded Mondino. ‘It was proclaimed mainly to avoid commerce in false reliquaries and the bones of saints.’
Uberto did not reply. ‘We are looking for a murderer. He set fire to the house he lodged in and made his escape over the rooftops. Possibly carrying with him the corpse of the man he had killed.’
‘And you’ve decided to look for him in the school of medicine?’
‘The neighbours who put out the fire told us that he is one of your students. Your school is only a street away, it would be logical that he would think of taking refuge with you.’
‘What is not logical,’ said Mondino, through clenched teeth, ‘Is to conclude that I would provide refuge to a murderer. There is no one here.’
There, he’d said it. He had lied. On opening the door to them, he was still not entirely sure that he wanted to run that risk, despite the promise he had made Gerardo and the interest he had in the corpse with the heart of iron. But the Inquisitor’s arrogance and the instinctive antipathy that he inspired did the rest, and now Mondino could not go back, even if he wanted to: he would never be pardoned for that lie. Now, saving Gerardo was the same thing as saving himself.
‘May we have a look?’
‘No. My word must suffice.’
Uberto da Rimini made a sign to the guards and Mondino was seized by the arms. He tried to free himself with a tug, but the man behind held him by the waist. Mondino heard the noise of broken earthenware. One of them must have dropped a lamp.
‘Let me go, immediately!’
‘We only want to have a quick look round. If you’re not hiding anything then you’ve nothing to be afraid of.’
‘Many of my students live around here,’ said Mondino, with a fury that he could hardly contain. ‘I saw quite a lot of them helping to put out the fire just now. Would you really like me to call for help?’
The guards loosened their grip imperceptibly. They knew well that the students welcomed any opportunity to create disorder, especially when one of them or their masters were under threat. Obviously Uberto da Rimini knew this too. He stared at Mondino with such an intimidating look that the physician required all his self control not to lower his eyes, then said quietly, ‘Let him go.’
The armed guards took a step backwards, making the daggers that they wore at their sides clink together. Their faces were emotionless, and Mondino had the impression that they would have obeyed any order from the Inquisitor without blinking an eye, although they were in the employ of the city comune and not the Church. Besides, he imagined that refusing to obey an order from Uberto da Rimini could have unpleasant consequences.
‘We will arrest this man soon and make him confess everything,’ said the Dominican in a shrill voice, fixing him with a penetrating look. ‘I hope for your sake that you are not lying.’
Although his throat burned with the desire to shout a stinging rejoinder after them, Mondino bowed his head and simply said, ‘Peace go with you, father.’
As soon as he heard the door close again, Gerardo got out of the chest in which the physician had made him hide, on top of the dead body of his friend.
‘I couldn’t breathe any more,’ he said, taking great gulps of air.
‘Neither could I,’ replied Mondino. ‘And I was out of doors.’
Silence fell. During his escape over the rooftops, Gerardo had not had time to think of anything else, and inside the chest his ears had been strained and his heart in tumult, as he waited, ready to carry out any desperate action if the Inquisitor had come in to search the house or if Mondino had betrayed him. Now that the danger had passed, his body, more than his mind, remembered the sensation of Angelo’s cold corpse, of the close, intimate contact with death. Gerardo was shaken by a long tremor and had to sit down on the floor. Finally tears streamed down his cheeks.
Without taking the slightest notice, Mondino returned to the matter in hand.
‘The grave-diggers who I am waiting for cannot be far now,’ he said. ‘They have probably been hiding so as not to be seen by the firefighters and the Inquisitor, but as soon as the road is clear, they’ll knock at the door.’
‘You’re waiting for grave-diggers?’ asked Gerardo, drying his eyes with the back of his hand. ‘At this hour?’
‘What did you think I was doing here in the middle of the night? Waiting for you? Help me lift up your friend, we must be quick.’
Minutes before, the physician had risked arrest and a heavy sentence if the guards had found what they were looking for, and yet he seemed perfectly calm. Gerardo looked at him closely, and perhaps because now their relationship was no longer that of teacher and student, it was as though he were seeing him for the first time. A man in his forties, but who appeared younger than his years. He was tall and thin, with intense green eyes beneath a large forehead. Judging by his rugged physique, wrapped in the black robe that went down to his ankles, Gerardo thought that he had been right not to try and disarm Mondino. Despite his training and the difference in age, a scuffle with the physician might have held surprises.
While they pulled Angelo’s body out of the chest and laid it back on the marble slab, Mondino explained that he was waiting for the delivery of the corpse of a woman who had been put to death that day, and on which he wanted to carry out a dissection.
‘I made an application to the magistrate and it is all legal,’ he said, opening the dead man’s breast once again and studying the iron heart as though it were a wonder and not the monstrosity that it represented. ‘But I must do it secretly because the Church is opposed to scientific progress and loses no chance to interfere.’ He turned to look at Gerardo as though the templar were directly responsible for the Church’s behaviour towards him. ‘As long as the priests continue to meddle in everything instead of looking after the salvation of souls, we will never make progress.’
It was no mystery that Mondino was politically on the side of the Ghibellines, in favour of the Emperor’s rule as against that of the Pope. His convictions had even earned him exile, and he had only been able to return to Bologna by paying a very high fine. Gerardo, being a monk, was naturally of the opposite persuasion and supported the Guelphs, but it was not the moment to object.
Silently, Mondino took the knife and started to cut the places where the metal gave way to flesh. Watching him work, Gerardo could not help feeling admiration. He was concentrated and precise. His actions never seemed hasty, and yet in a few seconds he extracted that horror of flesh and iron from Angelo’s chest, passing it to Gerardo so that he could hide it in the wooden coffer. When he found himself holding what had been his friend’s heart in his hands, Gerardo nearly cried out, but he restrained himself and carried out the order without arguing.
‘Tell me what you intend to do now,’ said Mondino, without looking at him.
He had closed Angelo’s breast again and seemed more relaxed.
‘In what way, Master?’
‘We want to find out who killed your friend, don’t we?’ demanded Mondino, impatiently. ‘So we have to draw up a plan of action.’
‘You’re saying that you’ll help me in that too?’ Gerardo couldn’t hide the annoyance in his voice. He was happy that the physician was prepared to help him get rid of the body, but he didn’t want anyone hampering him and slowing him down in the search for the culprit.
Mondino was looking the other way, standing in front of the cupboard where he kept his surgical instruments. He turned with a reel of silk thread in one hand and a large needle in the other.
‘Listen carefully,’ he said, staring Gerardo hard in the eye. ‘I have lied to the Inquisitor, I have broken the law and I am now in as much danger as you are. I do not intend to loiter around while a callow youth makes a mess of things and gets himself arrested, condemning us both. You wanted my help and it is too late to go back now. I will decide what we do from now on. Is that clear?’
‘Not at all,’ answered Gerardo, dryly. ‘I respect you as a physician and I thank you for not reporting me, but I have no intention of being told what to do by you.’
He had not liked being referred to as a callow youth, and he certainly didn’t believe that a layman, who was anti-religion and lacking any military training, could really help him find a murderer and defend the interests of the Knights templar at the same time.
Mondino went up to the corpse and, without saying a word, started to suture the chest, piercing the flesh and pulling the thread through with the expert and nimble fingers of a seamstress. When he had finished he asked Gerardo to help him put the tunic back on, then finally spoke.
‘My involvement is not negotiable,’ he said, louring at the monk with resolute green eyes. ‘You want to find the assassin; I want to discover the alchemical secret. We must unite and it is not in your interest to refuse.’
‘Why? Because otherwise you’d denounce me?’ countered Gerardo.
‘No, because pursuing two parallel lines of action can get us both what we want more quickly. The more time we waste, the greater the risk of being caught.’
‘You speak as though you already had something in mind.’
‘I do. But before I go on you must accept my involvement without reserve.’
Gerardo reflected. Although he had no military training, Mondino seemed strong and decided, a man who should not be underestimated in a fight. He had shown himself able to react forcefully to the unexpected. Besides, the idea of following two trails was not at all stupid. But there was still the fact that he didn’t know whether he could trust Mondino once the corpse was hidden.
‘You won’t betray me?’ he asked.
‘It’s too late for me to do that now, and I’m already beginning to regret the fact. Now make up your mind, we haven’t got all night.’
‘Very well, but we make the decisions together.’ Mondino thought a moment and then he nodded. ‘First I will explain my idea, then you tell me yours and we will come to an agreement.’
It was obvious that the influence of his job as a teacher was taking the upper hand. Although he had just accepted collaboration as equals, Mondino continued to behave as he did when speaking from the podium. As soon as they had begun to discuss their plan, a hurried knocking at the door interrupted them. It was the grave-diggers, just as Mondino had said it would be. They had been hiding in a courtyard with the woman’s body on a barrow and only dared to come out when the street was deserted once again. As Mondino bade them come in, Gerardo quickly withdrew to hide in another room. From behind the door, he
listened to their apologies: they had been frightened when the Inquisitor with the three guards had passed close by them and they’d thrown the cadaver into a sewer. Then they had retrieved it. Mondino was indignant and said that it was impossible to practise anatomy on a body covered in slime and filth. The two men asked for compensation to take the woman away again. The physician negotiated a fee and in the end doubled it, asking them to take away the corpse stretched out on the dissecting table at the same time. He explained that it was a body on which he had already finished experimenting, and should be buried in a mass grave. The two grave-diggers lifted Angelo’s body on to the wooden barrow, laying it on top of the woman, pocketed the agreed sum and went off satisfied.
A minute later Gerardo went back into the lecture room and only then could they finally talk in peace.
‘As I said, there are two routes to follow,’ resumed the physician, leaning against a desk. ‘The first is to find out whom Angelo was meeting that evening and whom he had met since arriving in the city. The second is the trail of alchemy.’
‘I understand your interest in the secret of how to turn human blood into iron,’ replied Gerardo. He was exhausted and would happily have sat down, but he stayed on his feet out of respect. ‘However, I don’t see how it can help us to find the murderer.’
‘I studied alchemy a little bit as part of my medical training, and yet I have never heard of such a thing,’ explained Mondino. He had an unfocused look on his face, as if he were rapidly trying to go back over all the books he had read. ‘Very few people can know a secret such as this.’
Gerardo was surprised by the physician’s mental clarity. They had not had a moment of peace since he had turned up at the man’s door, and yet Mondino had already had the time to elaborate a plan that lacked nothing, except the finer details. Acting on impulse, he decided to share with Mondino what he knew. He put a hand into the little leather bag that hung from his belt and pulled out a piece of crumpled paper. ‘This slid out of Angelo’s tunic when I dressed him. It may have no importance, but it’s the only clue I’ve got.’
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