Inquisition

by Alfredo Colitto

  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.

  ‘Do you know what will happen to you if someone recognises you?’ asked Mondino, for the tenth time.

  Gerardo just shrugged his shoulders, without replying. Where they were going that possibility was almost nonexistent, and the physician knew it. They walked along as they usually did, the master in front and the student a step or two behind. Mondino had been the first to say that it was a pretence, and so it was. Gerardo respected him, but didn’t accept orders from him. When Mondino had tried to convince the younger man to go back home, promising that he would tell him everything the next day, Gerardo had replied that he wouldn’t dream of it, and had walked on at his side.

  ‘Well, at least promise me that you will not let your anger get the better of you,’ continued Mondino. ‘I can’t promise anything.’

  Suddenly Mondino stopped in his tracks and turned to look at Gerardo in the uncertain evening light. He let past four women who were proceeding in a tight group with their heads down and in silence to avoid any kind of approach from unknown men. When the women were out of earshot, he said, ‘Then you can forget it. I am prepared to run risks, but only on condition that they are not rash ones.’

  Gerardo sighed, exasperated. And yet he saw that the physician had a point. It wasn’t worth increasing the risks involved in an already very dangerous situation just because he wanted to take the man by the neck and make him rue the day he was born.

  ‘I promise,’ he said. ‘I will only do what you tell me to do and I will not get carried away. Now can we go on?’

  At Borgo San Giacomo they turned and not long afterwards arrived at the entrance to the monastery. Mondino knocked, said his name and explained that father Francesco was expecting him. The friar closed the hatch and soon afterwards opened the door, bidding them come in. Father Paolo, the master builder at San Giacomo Maggiore, was waiting for them in the corridor, beaming behind his grey beard. He told them that unfortunately the friars were at supper just then and the prior couldn’t come in person to greet the great physician Mondino.

  ‘If you’d like to join us, we would be very happy,’ he added.

  Gerardo smiled to himself. Mondino had told him that that was exactly what would happen. The physician knew perfectly well that the Augustinian prior did not like him, and for once the Church’s antipathy was to his advantage. This was the reason he had chosen the supper hour to turn up at the monastery. The priests would have an excuse not to see him and Mondino was quite happy to be seen as little as possible. ‘Unfortunately I need to go and see another ailing patient immediately afterwards,’ replied Mondino. ‘But don’t worry about supper. I work better on an empty stomach. Please, take us to your cousin.’

  Father Paolo, visibly relieved, led them down a long, deserted and almost pitch black corridor, where no one had yet lit torches or candles. When they went past the deserted dormitory, he didn’t stop, explaining that they had moved father Francesco to a private cell, which even had a door.

  ‘His wailing kept everyone awake at night and come the daytime the monks kept dozing off,’ Paolo explained, smiling. ‘So the prior decided to accord him the distinction of the room kept for important guests.’ they went on until they reached a bare but comfortable cell. The friar Languished on a straw palliasse on a rough-hewn wooden bed, covered in a sheet and his habit.

  Father Paolo made the introductions and asked if they needed a brazier, to which Mondino replied with great gentleness, that he had all he needed with him.

  ‘How will you close the wound?’ asked the master builder.

  ‘I will not cauterise it, if that’s what you want to know. I will use silk thread.’

  ‘I see,’ said the priest, with the air of someone who didn’t understand at all.

  ‘The only thing that I shall need is a basin of water, but I see that there is already one here,’ said Mondino, pointing to the bowl and the jug on the table beneath the window. ‘As for the rest, my assistant will see to everything. Go back to supper, father. We will still be here when you have finished eating.’

  The priest bowed his head, thanked him again and left, closing the door. Mondino asked Gerardo to prepare the patient, accompanying his words with an admonishing look, and then he started to take his instruments out of his bag, laying them out in a row on the table.

  Gerardo was too surprised to think of being angry. He had been expecting a man who looked brutish, black-hearted or at least deceitful, whereas father Francesco was the picture of sweetness. Blue eyes, very short hair, a shaven face and an open smile, despite the pain his hernia caused him. He was the type of religious man to whom one would naturally turn, for advice or a comforting word.

  Without saying anything, he lifted the sheet and helped the priest to sit up on the bed. Then he made him lie down again, but across the bed, with his back on the mattress and his feet on the floor. He explained that he would have to immobilise him to avoid involuntary movements during the operation, and father Francesco consented with good grace.

  ‘Do what you must,’ he said, opening wide his arms and smiling.

  Gerardo tied his hands to the frame of the bed and then took another two pieces of stout cord from the bag. While he lifted up the man’s knees and opened his legs, he told himself that there was nothing to be surprised about. Angelo da Piczano had appeared to be an exemplary Knight templar, dedicated to the Rule and the defence of the faith. And yet he did those unspeakable things to innocent children, the very children whom Christ loved above all else. Suffer the little children to come unto me. The way in which people like Angelo and father Francesco perverted those words set the anger inside him a
flame and he pulled too hard on the cord, prompting a cry of pain from the patient.

  ‘Be careful!’ snapped Mondino immediately.

  ‘It doesn’t matter, magister,’ said Francesco, with an angelic smile. ‘The fault is my own, I am too sensitive.’

  Gerardo tied the rope in a double knot, and then he lifted up the priest’s shirt, laying bare his genitals. Turning away so as not to see the spectacle of a grown man with his legs wide open like a whore, he said: ‘The patient is ready, Master.’

  Mondino nodded, he asked him to put the basin filled with water on the floor beside the bed, then he sat on a stool in front of Francesco’s open legs and with expert movements began to shave his thick pubic hair, moving his member this way and that with his free hand to facilitate the passage of the blade, and rinsing the razor in the basin every so often.

  Watching the scene, Gerardo thought that he had been right not to study in those years when he had pretended to be a student: he could never have made a surgeon.

  When his genitals were completely free of hair, Gerardo put a rag into the monk’s mouth so that he could bite it against the pain. They had decided not to use sedatives, because if father Francesco had gone to sleep it would be impossible to interrogate him. While Mondino lay down the razor, took up the knife and began to cut, Gerardo looked away again. The sight of blood had no effect on him, however while a cut with a knife or sword was one thing, it was quite another to watch the surgeon’s knife invented by Guglielmo da Saliceto cutting and poking around in a man’s private parts.

  The operation was quicker than he thought it would be. Francesco was groaning with pain while the mattress became covered in blood and then something that was not quite recognisable ended up in the basin with the blood, water and hairs. Mondino cleaned the wound several times with vinegar, applied a healing poultice and waited for the blood loss to lessen. Then he asked for the needle and silk thread and sewed up the incision.

  ‘All done’ he said afterwards, raising his head and looking the patient in the eye. ‘The operation has been successful.’

  Francesco spat out the cloth and tried to smile, repressing a grimace of pain. ‘I don’t know how to thank you, magister,’ he said, weakly.

  ‘Oh, I do,’ replied Mondino, without smiling back. ‘You knew a Knight templar by the name of Angelo da Piczano. I need some information about him.’

  ‘What?’ answered Francesco, his clear eyes wide and sincere, still dazed by the pain. ‘No, I don’t know anyone of that name. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Because Angelo da Piczano is dead,’ replied Mondino, in the same tone. ‘And we are trying to find out who killed him. We know that you were one of the last people to have seen him alive, so don’t bother to lie. Just tell us everything you know about him, to help us track down his murderer.’ the priest opened his mouth, but Mondino went on, taking a firm hold of the monk’s member with his left hand and raising the knife with his right. ‘Needless to say, if you lie, the outcome of this fine operation could be compromised. It is a regrettable fact but it is sometimes necessary to remove the genitals too. Nobody would blame me.’

  His tone was calm, but his expression was unambiguous. Father Francesco realised he was caught in a trap. ‘This is what you really came here for,’ he whispered, furiously. ‘You tricked my cousin into trusting you with the story of the operation, just to ask me about this Angelo da Piczano. Well, sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t know him. I have never even heard of him. And you would not dare to hurt me. If you try I will shout for help, and in seconds my colleagues will be here.’

  The look of pain in his blue eyes was momentarily cancelled out by a challenging expression. He no longer seemed to be the personification of goodness. Gerardo took a step forwards to take hold of him round the neck, but Mondino stopped him.

  ‘No,’ he said, without taking his eyes off the priest. Then, slowly, he moved the razor nearer to the man’s member, so that he could see quite well through his open legs.

  ‘You wouldn’t do it,’ said the priest.

  ‘You don’t know me,’ replied Mondino. He lowered the blade, ready for the incision.

  Father Francesco shouted with as much breath as he had in him, but he had to stop because the effort increased the pain in his groin.

  Alarmed, Gerardo turned to the door, but Mondino remained quite calm.

  ‘Your colleagues are at supper in the refectory,’ he explained, in a mild tone. ‘Besides, everyone knows that removing a hernia is a painful operation, and they would expect to hear some yelling. No one will come.’

  Gerardo saw a flash of doubt pass through the priest’s eyes, then his stubborn pride returned.

  ‘If you do not let me go immediately, I will call for help,’ he threatened. ‘I will shout murder. You can be sure that someone will come.’

  ‘In that case,’ said Mondino, ‘I will inform your confrères about what you do to little boys in that old crone’s cavern. Perhaps they’ll tear you apart themselves or maybe the prior will manage to stop them in time and you will be saved for the executioner, for a humiliating trial that will end up at the stake.’

  Gerardo was literally on tenterhooks with anxiety. If Francesco called for help and the monks really did turn up, someone would call the guards, he would be recognised and arrested, and the same fate would await Mondino, since he was his accomplice. Knowing that father Francesco had been condemned to death would be meagre consolation. Mondino’s hold on him was based entirely on the fact that the priest could not know that Gerardo was a wanted man, but the risk was still enormous. The young man could not understand how the physician managed to keep his sang-froid.

  A gleam of real terror could now be seen in father Francesco’s martyr’s eyes. He stared fixedly at Mondino and what he saw convinced him not to cry out. ‘Which old crone?’ he attempted to say.

  ‘Her name is Philomena,’ replied Mondino. ‘Don’t waste time lying; it was she herself who betrayed you. We know everything but that’s not the reason that we are here.’

  Francesco shook the ropes that were binding his arms, and again the effort caused him to groan with pain.

  ‘If you don’t stop twisting and shouting,’ said Mondino, without losing his calm, ‘The only result will be that the wound will reopen. In such an eventuality I might not be able to close it in time and the excessive loss of blood could be fatal.’

  This time the man was left in no doubt that the threat was genuine. He nodded and said, ‘If I admitted knowing Angelo da Piczano, what would you do?’

  His situation was desperate and yet he still tried to negotiate. Gerardo thought that it was just as well that he hadn’t been able to speak to the man three days earlier. He wouldn’t have got anything out of him and would only have succeeded in putting him on his guard.

  ‘We shall ask you some questions,’ said Mondino, ‘And then we’ll go away. We are not interested in denouncing you; otherwise we would already have done it. It’s a threat that we will only carry out in extreme circumstances. And by the way, it will not be worth your while talking about what has been said between these walls.’

  Francesco seemed to reflect on the offer. His self-control was frightening.

  ‘First undo my legs,’ he said, after a pause.

  ‘No, first you speak,’ intervened Gerardo, incapable of containing himself any longer.

  ‘You heard what my assistant said,’ affirmed Mondino.

  ‘Tell us what we want to know and everyone will be better off.’

  The priest capitulated with a sigh. ‘Very well. But I warn you: I know very little.’

  His confession was disappointing. He had met Angelo da Piczano some days before his disappearance, at the public baths near Porta Govese. Angelo had noticed the looks that he was giving the young men and had approached him. After a brief conversation, Francesco gave him
Philomena’s address and received some money in return.

  ‘I haven’t seen him since then, and I didn’t know that he was dead,’ he concluded, his voice cracking from the pain the wound gave him. ‘If you don’t believe me, I’m not sure what I can do about it.’

  Gerardo was convinced that he was telling the truth. By now he had admitted enough to condemn himself to death and he had no reason to hide anything to cover up a dead man. The knight was just thinking that they had run a heavy risk for nothing, when Mondino got up from the stool.

  ‘One last thing,’ the physician said. ‘The address of the house that Philomena has moved to, and we’ll go. I know you know it.’

  Francesco nodded. He no longer had the strength to resist. ‘Borgo del Pratello,’ he murmured. ‘A house with a green door, in the first lane on the right after the Wild Boar tavern.’ then he closed his eyes and began to groan quietly, overcome by the pain and weakness due to the loss of blood. Mondino put his instruments back into his bag while Gerardo untied the patient and laid him properly on the bed. As soon as they left the room, they found father Paolo waiting for them in the corridor.

  ‘Supper has just finished,’ said the master builder, embarrassed. ‘Unfortunately the prior—’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Mondino, interrupting him. ‘As I told you, we must go. As far as my fee is concerned, I shall send a servant along in a few days.’

  ‘Certainly, as you wish,’ replied the priest. ‘Did it go well?’

  Mondino took on a contrite air that amazed Gerardo. ‘Yes and no, father, yes and no.’ ‘Please, don’t keep me in suspense.’

  The physician explained that the operation had been successful and Francesco was doing well. They would only have to change the sheet and palliasse and let him rest. They should also ask the father apothecary to give him a calming decoction twice a day.

  ‘Within a week at the most father Francesco will be on his feet again,’ he concluded. ‘So what is the problem?’