Inquisition

by Alfredo Colitto

  ‘His name is Francesco,’ she stuttered. ‘He’s a priest, an Augustinian.’

  At those words, Gerardo started. Another monk who betrayed his vows in the most abject manner.

  ‘And what did Angelo do with the child?’ he asked. He felt a fierce anger mixed with disgust and shame, but he had to know.

  ‘What they all do,’ answered the old woman, shrugging her shoulders.

  Gerardo thought once again that he could not leave the poor little lad here, even if it meant killing his keeper.

  He asked her to repeat to him all that Angelo had said that evening, but she shrugged her shoulders again. ‘He didn’t say anything. People don’t come here to talk to me.’

  Gerardo clutched her throat again, with force. Philomena’s eyes goggled and she went purple. She made a sign to say that she wanted to talk and as soon as he freed her, she coughed violently.

  When her fit of coughing had passed, she leaned on the table with one hand, as though she needed to support herself, and said, ‘I remember one thing.’ ‘What?’

  ‘That evening my legs were aching terribly, as they do every time the fog descends on the city, so when he left I didn’t get up to open the door. I said it was an ailment of old age and told him to enjoy his youth while he still had time.’

  ‘And then?’ pressed Gerardo, impatient.

  ‘He looked at me in a strange way, and he said—’

  ‘What did he say?’ Gerardo couldn’t contain himself.

  ‘He said, “I will never grow old. When your house falls beneath the weight of the centuries, I will still be here.” I remember it not just for the words, but for the look he had. He seemed almost mad.’

  Gerardo let go of her. He was puzzled. Did Angelo know that he would be dead within a couple of days and was that why he had said that he would never grow old? But what did the second sentence mean?

  Taking advantage of his brief inattention, the woman wriggled out of his grasp, knocking over the jug of wine. She managed to grab a knife from the tiled shelf next to the chimney, and before Gerardo could get hold of her again she was already on the other side of the table and shouting like one obsessed. ‘Help! Geremia! Bernardo! Come quickly!’

  Gerardo realised that she must have accomplices, whose job it was to settle any problems she had with clients. He could hardly shout for someone nearby to call the city guards; that was the last thing he wanted. He had to get away. With a leap he got to the door, threw it open and started running up the alleyway. At that moment two brawny silhouettes came out of the house opposite. He did not stop to find out if they were following him or were running to the old woman. He bolted with all the speed that his feet could muster, and when he looked over his shoulder there was no one following him.

  Only then did he become aware of an irksome sensation of wetness on his breeches. Looking down, he saw that they were drenched with wine.

  It was already almost evening, but he couldn’t go to his meeting with Mondino dressed like that, so he decided to go home first to change. He walked along, exhausted by lack of sleep and prey to a nervous trembling at the horror of what he had discovered about the templar who had been his friend. Only once he had got to his room did he manage to calm himself down, swearing to himself that he would free the poor Masino, even if it cost him his life.

  III

  The sight was hardly worth the long journey, thought Wilhelm von Trier, looking around the crowded piazza in front of the Basilica of Santo Stefano. True, the idea of creating a copy of the holy shrines of Jerusalem was interesting, and the name of Jerusalem Bononiensis had become famous throughout Christendom. Yet he, who had seen the real Jerusalem with his own eyes, found it pathetic and almost blasphemous that holy names like ‘Valley of Jehoshaphat’, ‘Golgotha’ and ‘Mount of olives’ were attributed to piazzas and urban slopes, infested with merchants, inns and bawdy houses, although to some extent ennobled by the presence of the churches.

  Nonetheless he decided to go and have a look at Santo Sepolcro. But first he would find lodgings, sleep for a bit and restore himself, hoping that in the meantime the afternoon would become less damp. Age brought its handicaps.

  Wilhelm von Trier was an old man and he would certainly not have travelled all the way from the island of Cyprus, where he had found secure refuge from the wave of accusations and trials that had assailed his order, just to see the replica of something that he had already admired in its genuine form when fighting in the Holy land. There was another reason, a much more important one, that had induced him to undertake the journey, despite the discomfort and the necessity of travelling incognito. In a reflex he put his hand under his tunic and checked the pocket sewn into his breeches where he had stored the map. He had almost left it in Cyprus, and then at the last minute had decided to bring it. It had been extorted from a man by torture, but had turned out to be entirely useless. And yet it had been sketched out with too much care for it not to mean anything at all. All these years Wilhelm had asked himself whether it hid a secret that they had been incapable of deciphering, and perhaps now that question would finally be answered.

  He walked slowly towards an alley to the left of the piazza, thinking that it was the ideal place to find an inn where there wouldn’t be too many questions asked. On his journey, he had passed himself off as a pilgrim heading for Santiago di Compostela. His shabby look and poor clothes had protected him from robbers and bandits, but had also meant that he had had to lodge in hovels. He couldn’t wait to get back to Cyprus, once this business had been dealt with.

  He still had to find out what the mystery ‘Friend’ who had written him the letter wanted in return for the promised secret. And after that he had to find a way of obtaining the secret and silencing the friend. But it would all have to wait until that evening. If the letter were genuine, he would discover everything after vespers.

  Finding an inn that suited him, he entered and was struck by the fact that the owner spoke fairly good Latin. During his journey through the lands of Italy, Wilhelm had found it difficult to communicate: in his pilgrim’s disguise he frequented mostly humble environments, and the poor spoke only the local dialect.

  The innkeeper explained that in Bologna they were used to accommodating people from all over the world, among them clerics, scholars and pilgrims, and a bit of Latin was necessary for business. ‘When I was a lad my father made me study with a Benedictine monk from the basilica nearby,’ he said. ‘And now I know how right he was.’

  Wilhelm asked for a room to himself, saying that he suffered from insomnia and couldn’t sleep in a shared room. The publican had a little room with a double bed and Wilhelm agreed to pay double to occupy it alone. He went up the narrow wooden stairway to the first floor. Once inside the room, he dropped the two saddlebags that served as luggage, took off his shoes and lay down on the cloth bag full of straw with a sigh of relief.

  In Cyprus he had been used to sleeping on a wool mattress and the discomfort of the beds over the journey had taken him back to the years of his youth. Now too, savouring the pleasurable relaxation of the limbs that preceded sleep, Wilhelm von Trier began to think of that time, long ago, when his search had begun.

  He had entered the order of the Knights of the temple when he was still very young, more due to his spirit of adventure than as a religious vocation, and he had immediately left for the Holy land. He was assigned to the templar House in tyre and it was there that a comrade-in-arms had spoken to him of the secret. From that moment on, its discovery became his chief reason to live.

  Al-iksir, was what he had called it. A secret possessed by the Arabic alchemists even before the birth of Christ, perhaps originating in the far Indies. It was what the European sages referred to as the ‘Elixir of long life’, a powder that was able to prolong life indefinitely and to cure any wound or illness of the body.

  The monk who told him
about it maintained that in the city of Alessandretta, now for some time in the hands of the saracens, there lived an alchemist who knew the secret. The confrère had been trying for a long time to organise a trip to Alessandretta incognito, but had not managed. And now he had heard that the man he was looking for had moved to the moorish lands in spain.

  ‘And that’s why I mention it, brother,’ he had explained to Wilhelm. ‘I need your help. In return I will offer you the possibility of taking part in the search. I have been able to observe you over these months and I know that you are the right person: valorous, intelligent and decisive.’

  Wilhelm had ignored the compliment and asked exactly what he wanted of him. It didn’t take long. Wilhelm had the grade of sergeant and also carried out the duties of company officer. All the transfer orders of the templar House passed through him. The confrère wanted to be transferred to spain so that he could continue his research.

  Thus, a few months before the fall of St John of Acre confirmed the definitive loss of the Holy land by the Christian forces, the two of them turned up at the Tortosa templar House in spain, where another Knight of the temple joined the group. The three had made a pact to take possession of the elixir. Then Wilhelm’s friend died of fever and they were two once more. In the meantime the turkish alchemist whom they were looking for was killed, and his corpse found at the gates of Granada, or Gharnata as the Arabs called it, with his heart missing. This had caused a fresh outbreak of hostilities between Granada, in the hands of the saracens, and Tortosa, the stronghold of the Kingdom of Aragon. Now that the alchemist was dead, Wilhelm and his companion despaired of ever bringing their search to a conclusion. But suddenly a new ally appeared, he too a templar, who had pointed out a different trail to them, right there in Tortosa ...

  Wilhelm von Trier’s musings went no further. His conscious thoughts were confused with strange images that blossomed in his mind without any constructive logic, and in the blinking of an eye the old templar was asleep.

  Mondino crept on tiptoe into his father’s room on the ground floor and watched him quietly. Rainerio lay facing the window, looking at the little bright-green fruits just forming on the apple tree in the garden after the flowers had fallen. He was thin and pallid, with strangely shiny skin and an expression that grew daily more distant. Mondino repressed the pain it gave him and sat on a stool by the side of the bed. ‘Good evening, father.’

  He didn’t ask how Rainerio was. Everyone who visited the old man invariably did just that. He never did. What was the point of asking how a dying person was feeling? It only served to make the man lie, to answer in bland replies made with a forced smile. Because if he had told the truth, people would feel ill at ease and would have submerged him with gentle reproaches, showing a hypocrite’s optimism. Mondino wasn’t sincere with him either because when he entered he lowered a mask over his face so as to hide his true emotions from his father. But that wasn’t hypocrisy. It was compassion. Towards both of them.

  Rainerio turned and smiled. ‘Mondino. We don’t see much of you nowadays.’

  The physician nodded, once more distracted by the thought that had tormented him since the evening before. Gerardo had not turned up at the meeting place. And however much he tried to force himself to think of all the possible innocuous explanations for the templar’s absence, his mind turned in circles around a single fear: Gerardo had got himself arrested, and soon the city guards would be knocking on Mondino’s door too.

  ‘That was exactly what I wanted to talk to you about, father,’ he said, expelling his ill-omened thoughts. ‘It’s possible that for a while I may be away from home more often than usual.’ He looked away, searching for the right words. ‘Please believe me when I say that it is not a question of indifference with regard to yourself.’

  Despite the strength of will he felt, his voice had abandoned him for a second. He hoped that his father hadn’t noticed.

  ‘You’ve found another mystery on your path?’

  ‘How do you know?’ asked Mondino, struck with surprise and not managing to hold back.

  Rainerio didn’t smile, but a playful spark appeared in his eyes. ‘Do I have to remind you of the story of the apples? I was just thinking about it.’

  Mondino remembered the episode only too well, not least because it had earned him a decent dose of lashes. One day, when he was a boy, he had stolen all the apples off the tree. He’d taken them to the loft and hidden them in a wooden case lined with waxed paper, on which he had then nailed down the lid. He had heard his Uncle Liuzzo speak of the spontaneous generation of maggots and had decided to experiment. If, after two or three weeks, he opened the case and found maggots in the apples, he would believe that they were born spontaneously. ‘No, there’s no need,’ he answered with a smile. ‘But I still wonder how you found me out.’

  ‘Because I know you,’ answered Rainerio. ‘You are attracted by what you can’t explain and you have no peace until you find an answer that satisfies you. Not even the divine Aristotle escaped your investigation. And now you must have found something that has stimulated your imagination. That’s why we never see you around the house any more.’

  Mondino and his father had never communicated very much. They both had the thorny character typical of choleric temperaments, dominated by the humour of the yellow bile.

  Between them there had always been precious few hugs and a great number of arguments. Mondino was convinced that his father wasn’t interested in him. And now Rainerio showed that he knew him much more thoroughly than he thought.

  It was true that Mondino loved to uncover secrets. That was why he’d become a physician. Even greater than the idea of alleviating his neighbour’s suffering, it had been the impulse to discover the workings of the human body that drove him to take up his profession. And this was why he had developed a passion for anatomy too. But it would be better if his father didn’t even suspect the nature of the mystery that preoccupied him now.

  ‘Well, father,’ he began, dropping his eyes, ‘I am studying a new technique for—’

  ‘Let it be,’ said Rainerio, interrupting him dryly. ‘If you don’t want to talk about it, never mind. You don’t have to lie.’ Mondino felt himself blush. For a second he thought about denying it, and then he told himself that it was ignoble to spend the little time he had left with his father telling untruths. ‘Forgive me,’ he murmured. Then, in almost as quiet a voice, he added, ‘It is something dangerous. The less you know, the better. I would ask you not to speak of it to Liuzzo.’

  ‘Does the danger regard the Inquisition?’ asked Rainerio.

  ‘Yes,’ answered Mondino, omitting to say that the concealing of corpses and the help given to an arsonist were also of interest to the civil authorities. He had accumulated an impressive collection of crimes, in just one night. ‘But there is the possibility of obtaining something that is very important, for the good of humanity.’

  His father turned towards the apple tree. ‘Be careful, I beg of you,’ he said, in a prophetic tone that sent a long shiver down his son’s spine. ‘I have a bad feeling about it.’

  When he left the room, Mondino felt indescribably sad. And not only for his father’s fate.

  *

  Passing beneath the huge sign affixed to the wall of the Garisenda tower, which proclaimed the law against carrying arms in the city, Gerardo remembered that he was not armed. For what he intended to do, he couldn’t decide whether this was a good or a bad thing.

  When Gerardo had announced his decision to enter the order, his father began to summon a templar Master of Arms to their castle three times a week. According to his teachings, the sword is like the cross for a Knight of the temple. A weapon against evil, but a sacred weapon, to be used sparingly. It is only used in battle, the bearded old monk said. We are not vulgar mercenaries. We are the soldiers of Christ, and we are only permitted to fight against the enemie
s of the faith. An axiom that he often repeated was that the only way to be sure not to kill someone for the wrong motives, in a street fight or a tavern brawl, was to avoid carrying arms when not at war. If I have not got my sword with me, I can be certain that I will not use it, he used to say.

  As he walked along under the arches and distractedly watched the artisans, bread-sellers and cheese-slicers who were putting away their wares and taking down their stalls, Gerardo was overcome by an excess of anger for the life that he had dreamed of and which had been denied him. He had put on the chain mail and the white robe with the cross on his chest only once, the day when he had been ordained a monk. He could remember the weight of his helmet, his shield and his sword perfectly. And the pride of feeling himself a powerful instrument in the hands of the lord, a member of one of the most important and legendary orders in the history of the Church. Not long before, he had left the home where he had been born and brought up and moved to the templar House of Ravenna. He had been waiting for his first posting, when like a flash of lightning in a clear sky the warrant for the arrest of all the members of the order had arrived, signed by Pope Clement V himself.

  Many of Christ’s soldiers had thought that it was a mistake and stayed serenely awaiting the Inquisitors, convinced that they had nothing to fear. Gerardo had followed the advice of his Master of Arms, who had immediately left for the island of Cyprus. Retreating is not fleeing, he had told him. Find a place of hiding, watch what happens from safety, and then only if it’s appropriate, make yourself known.

  Gerardo had never regretted following that counsel. He had escaped to Bologna and changed his name. He had broken off all contact with his family, more for their good than for his, and in three years had only once sent them a message, in which he said that he was well and as soon as the storm had died down would come home. He had been hoping that his situation would take a decisive turn for the better with the conclusion of the trial, expected within the next few weeks.