Mondino sighed. ‘The hernia was in a difficult position,’ he replied. ‘I had to remove anything in the way of the surgical knife so as not to risk puncturing the peritoneum.’ ‘Could you be clearer please?’
‘Well, father, I could not avoid castration. I advise you to wait until your cousin is quite well again, before telling him.’ At those words the master builder’s tense expression relaxed. ‘Oh don’t worry about that, magister,’ he said, with a slight smile. ‘The important thing is that Francesco is well. As for the rest ... For a priest, the fact of not being able to succumb to temptations of the flesh is more of a help than a hindrance.’
By now it was dark outside. While they walked down the middle of the road to avoid any nasty surprises that might be hidden behind the columns of the arcade, Mondino reflected on what he had just done. He had taken it upon himself to judge and condemn another human being.
‘You didn’t have to castrate him, did you?’ asked Gerardo, in a low voice, as though reading his thoughts.
Mondino didn’t reply at once, but when he did any doubts had vanished. ‘Yes, I did. We can’t denounce him, but at least this way he won’t be able to do any more wrong.’ ‘No, I meant—’
Mondino stopped and turned to look at him. ‘Did you really think that the explanation I gave the master builder was the truth?’ he said, offended by the idea that the youth could question his expertise. In a crisp tone, he added, ‘I am perfectly capable of operating on a hernia without jeopardising the male functions.’
Gerardo nodded silently and they set off again in the direction of Pratello. They walked along side by side without bothering to stand on ceremony. The moon had not yet risen and in the dim light of the few lanterns hanging above the entrances to the houses, it was almost impossible to recognise anyone unless they were very close.
‘Master,’ Gerardo took up again, after a short while. ‘How did you know that Philomena had stayed on in the city and that he’d know her new address? I had told you that she took fright and fled.’
Mondino shrugged. He didn’t feel like talking, but replied just the same. ‘Women like that one don’t frighten easily,’ he said. ‘She just realised that her house was no longer safe and moved elsewhere, probably to a place that she had ready just in case.’
‘I see, but how did Francesco know where she’d gone?’
‘Because she would have told him. Once she had moved to the new house, she would have sent someone to inform all her regular clients. Otherwise who is she going to sell him to, the poor child?’
Those words ended their conversation. They walked on through the almost deserted streets, passing groups of students going in or out of taverns, shady-looking men on their own and prostitutes winking at them from windows. They reached the Wild Boar tavern, turned into the lane, which was empty, muddy and dark, and after a few yards found themselves in front of the house with the green door. Compline had not yet rung.
‘Let me go in first,’ said Mondino, in a low voice. ‘Even if you disguise your voice, she’ll recognise you.’
‘Master, this is my business. I promised Masino that I would rescue him and I intend to keep my word, but I don’t want you running any unnecessary risks.’
There were a couple of reasons why Mondino had decided to help him. First, the idea of leaving the boy in the hands of the old woman was abhorrent to him. Second, he wanted to protect Gerardo, not so much and not only because his help was indispensible in solving the mystery, but also through a strange sense of loyalty that Mondino didn’t feel like elaborating on. In any case, now was not the moment for long and embarrassing explanations.
He grabbed Gerardo by the collar of his tunic and pushed him against a wall. ‘If you think that I am going to hang around out here in the dark waiting to find out what’s going on inside, you are quite wrong,’ he said, thrusting his jaw at him. ‘We shall go in together, whether you like it or not.’
He let him go, and before the youth had the chance to recover from the surprise, Mondino had knocked on the door. What happened next occurred with the speed and twisted logic of a dream. The woman opened the door; Mondino grabbed her by the throat to stop her shouting and went in, followed by Gerardo, who immediately shut the door. This time Philomena was not alone. Sitting at the table was one of her two accomplices, who quickly got up and threw himself at them, brandishing an iron bar. Gerardo thumped him in the chest, just below the solar plexus, and while he dropped to the floor ran towards the other rooms in search of Masino. Mondino pushed Philomena down on to a bench, pulled the surgical knife out of his bag and pointed it at her to keep her at bay. It probably wasn’t necessary, but he felt more comfortable holding a weapon when faced with the bristly-headed woman with hair on her hands.
A minute later, Gerardo came back carrying the little boy in his arms. He was dressed in tunic and cap but had no shoes or breeches on. Masino had his face buried in Gerardo’s neck and was clutching a small wooden crucifix in his hands, presumably the only thing he wanted to take away with him.
While Mondino was looking at the child, the old woman took her chance and threw herself on him with a loud screech. She had pulled out a long stiletto from her gown and gave such a forceful thrust that had it met its target it would have speared him like a thrush on a skewer.
Mondino didn’t manage to get completely out of the way and the stiletto ripped his tunic, nicking the skin on his left side. Reacting instinctively, he plunged his knife into the woman’s neck and was hit in the face by a spray of warm blood.
Gerardo shouted something that he didn’t hear, but Mondino saw him open the door and went out after him, wiping his bloody face with the sleeve of his tunic. They were glad of the pitch darkness outside. Mondino followed the templar and the little boy through the empty streets. They went past the Church of sant’Antonino and the house that Gerardo had set on fire, but they didn’t stop to look at the blackened beams on the top floor and the wooden scaffolding where repairs would be starting the following week. Mondino passed it every day, going to and from the school of medicine. They carried on towards the hospital of San Procolo, where they had decided to leave Masino. Taking in abandoned children was the monks’ main activity. At the door of the hospital, Gerardo gave the boy some money and spoke to him softly for some time. Then, leaving him on the doorstep, they knocked on the door and quickly moved away into the shadows, each finding his own way home.
As he returned home, in a ripped and bloody tunic, Mondino was busy contriving something to say to his family to justify his appearance, as though with that preoccupation he could avoid thinking about the fact that he had just killed a human being. All of a sudden he understood why murderers loved the night.
The dark provided shelter and allowed them to hide from themselves as well.
VIII
On his way to the monastery of San Domenico, Mondino kept repeating to himself that he had nothing to be afraid of, but however much he said it, he knew that it wasn’t true. The knowledge of all that he had done since that moment eight days earlier, which now seemed a lifetime away, when he had decided to help Gerardo, never left him. And now an urgent summons from the Inquisitor had increased his anxiety to an almost insufferable level.
As he walked, he could feel the bandage rubbing beneath his clean clothes. At home he had had to lie, saying that by a miracle he had escaped the violent onslaught of some wretch, who contented himself with grabbing his bag and disappearing into the night. Naturally, before going home,Mondino had taken the precaution of cutting his belt and throwing the bag into a canal. Everyone had accepted his explanation without question, but as far as he was concerned, the fact that he was such a convincing liar was nothing to be proud of at all.
It was the last day of April and although already late afternoon, the air was warm. Everyone was more lightly dressed than a week before and there was the feeling that summer h
ad finally arrived. Mondino too had stopped wearing his fur-trimmed cloak over his red robe, which made him sweat when he walked fast, but he had put it on for the meeting that awaited him. He preferred to be bolstered by the signs of his profession at the meeting with the Inquisitor.
Making himself slow down, he began to walk at a more measured pace. He envied Gerardo, who at that hour would be sleeping blissfully to prepare himself for some exploit that night, which he had decided to tackle with Hugues de Narbonne. Mondino didn’t approve of the Frenchman’s involvement in their investigation, but he couldn’t do anything to avoid it, and anyhow he was grateful that someone else was running risks with Gerardo.
The physician had lain awake most of the night, troubled by nightmares in which the dominant theme was the sensation of the knife sinking into Philomena’s neck. It continued to torment him, camouflaged in different ways but always recognisable. And when he had risen, his servant Lorenza told him that a Dominican monk had come to summon him to an urgent meeting with the Inquisitor that evening.
At that hour the streets were less frenetic. The working day had ended and people seemed more relaxed. Only a few carders, working from home, who had opened mattresses in their courtyards, were still hard at it, hurriedly separating the wool fibres.
Mondino usually enjoyed the sight of the daily life of his city, but just then he hardly took it in at all. He had already prepared his defence should the Inquisitor question his interference in the case of the dead German, and as he walked along he tried to identify its weak points. That must be the reason that he had been called to see the man. If it were the other thing, the concealment of Angelo da Piczano’s body, they would have come to get him with city guards in tow.
Or perhaps not, so as to avoid stirring up protests by the students. Perhaps the Inquisitor had cunningly thought of inviting him to a friendly meeting and would have him arrested the minute he set foot in the monastery. Then there might be protests anyway, but without a public arrest they would be more moderate.
And anyway, if they had managed to find proof of what he had done, Mondino knew that he had no hope. His students certainly wouldn’t be able to defend him in a trial of that sort. So as far as the German’s murder was concerned, he couldn’t do anything but continue to play the part of the comune’s envoy. The Church must have been annoyed because he had demanded to examine the cadaver before the Inquisitor. But then why hadn’t they protested through the official channels, complaining to the Podestà or the Captain of the People? Mondino had entered the inn with a pass that was entirely in order.
It was pointless torturing himself over it all. He had now arrived and would soon discover the reason for the summons. He walked diagonally across the piazza, passing the memorial tombs of Egidio Foscarari and Rolandino de Passeggeri, the great commentator who had resisted Emperor Federico II, refusing in the name of the Bolognese to give the Emperor back his son Enzo, a prisoner in the city. Mondino would have liked to have a tomb like that one day, for his scientific discoveries. But perhaps that meant he should restrict himself to writing his treatise instead of dreaming of the secret that transformed the veins into iron so as to reveal the blood’s circuit in the human body. In any case, it was a bit late now to back out. He knocked at the door of the monastery, gave his name to the friar on guard and said that the Inquisitor was expecting him. The friar immediately let him in and ordered a novice to accompany him to Uberto da Rimini’s study.
Mondino walked through halls and along corridors, following the faint sound of the young friar’s bare feet flapping on the floor. At last the boy knocked on a door, listened for an answer that Mondino couldn’t hear, entered and almost immediately came out again. With a respectful smile he stood aside, let Mondino past and closed the door behind him. Mondino imagined his bare feet padding away down the corridor and felt an irresistible desire to follow him. The physician could already feel himself suffocating in that monastery.
He walked into a large room decorated with taste but without excessive opulence. At the other end, seated at a walnut table in the light of an open window, the Inquisitor Uberto da Rimini raised his eyes from an illuminated manuscript and looked at him with an expression that was almost benevolent. ‘Mondino de Liuzzi,’ he said, dryly. ‘Thank you for coming.’
‘It’s my pleasure, father,’ replied Mondino. ‘I imagined that you would want to see me, and only this morning I was thinking of asking to see you. Your summons just beat me to it.’
The Inquisitor’s small, thin body appeared even smaller behind the large table at which he was sitting and the great bound volume on it that he was reading. ‘That’s just as well,’ he said, almost to himself. ‘Just as well.’ After which he paused for some time without saying anything, his dark eyes fixed on those of de Liuzzi.
‘Why did you send for me?’ asked Mondino, finally.
‘Ah,’ replied the friar, with a flourish of his child-sized hand from the sleeve of his black and white habit. ‘About the murder of that German templar, Wilhelm von Trier. They told me that you examined the body.’
‘I see,’ said Mondino. Then, since the prelate still didn’t ask him to sit down, he went over to the table and sat on a seat, from where he could see the sky out of the window. ‘Please ask anything you’d like.’
The discussion had become a delicate fencing match, where they had to dance round the crux of the matter rather than deal with it head on. Mondino confirmed what the prelate already knew, after which there were another couple of general questions and answers and then Uberto asked him if he had determined how many mortal wounds there were.
‘One, father.’
‘Only one?’
Uberto seemed disappointed, and Mondino could guess why. The maximum number of people that you could condemn to death for murder could not be more than the number of mortal wounds found on the corpse. The Inquisitor must have been hoping to rid himself of a number of enemies in one go.
‘Actually it doesn’t surprise me,’ said Uberto.
‘Why not?’ asked Mondino.
‘In Devil worship there is often only one fatal wound, inflicted after the victim has been subjected to prolonged suffering.’
Now they were getting to the point. Mondino considered what he could say without compromising himself, but he could find nothing better than repeating the priest’s words in an interrogative tone. ‘Devil worship?’
‘You don’t deny that’s what it is about, I hope.’ the Inquisitor’s tone had suddenly hardened. ‘The templar was offered up in sacrifice to their idol, Baphomet. And I believe I know why.’ ‘Why?’
Mondino knew that he couldn’t go on for ever just repeating the priest’s words like an echo. But he was determined not to say anything of importance until he had found out exactly what it was that the Inquisitor wanted from him.
Uberto da Rimini abandoned the mask of cordiality that he had been wearing up to that point. His face became taut, all corners and straight lines. ‘Because there is a trial in process against the templars,’ he said. ‘And with abominable acts like this one, they hope to ensure the protection of the demonic forces. Ah, when I think that this nest of vipers came to life and prospered in the bosom of the Church ...’ Uberto shook his head slowly and said nothing more.
This time it would have been confrontational to repeat the Inquisitor’s words, so Mondino chose to remain silent. He sat motionless, quietly waiting for da Rimini to go on.
‘In short,’ said Uberto, tracing a vein in the wood of the table with his finger, ‘You can confirm having seen definite signs of adoration of the Devil and moral degradation in the manner in which the murder was carried out?’ ‘I cannot confirm that,’ Mondino replied. ‘I didn’t see that.’ now he had openly opposed the Inquisitor’s will. The boundaries were marked out. The battleground had been identified. The moment for wielding the sword had arrived.
Uberto
da Rimini seemed to reflect on what he was going to say, as though wondering whether he might not in fact be mistaken in judging the German’s death to be Devil worship.
‘And yet,’ he said, as if to conclude his interior reasoning, ‘The man’s heart was changed into a piece of iron.’
Mondino also chose his words with care, before speaking. ‘I saw that, I cannot deny it ...’ ‘And so?’
‘It is an unusual phenomenon. I have never heard or read of such a thing before. But it is not enough to be certain of the Devil’s participation. An alchemist might have been able ...’ ‘An alchemist!’
‘Father,’ said Mondino, raising his palms to invite quiet.
‘It may seem strange, but you know better than I do that the principle of metallic content of matter, as Geber explains in his Book of the Composition of Alchemy...’
Seeing a fierce smile appear on the lips of the Inquisitor, Mondino didn’t go on. He knew immediately that he had made a mistake, but it was too late now to put it right. He automatically hunched his shoulders, as if preparing himself for the blow.
‘I don’t possess your scientific knowledge, magister,’ said Uberto, in a honeyed voice. ‘And I do not know much about the metallic principle and of that which is inflammable contained in matter. But I do know that this Geber of whom you speak is an infidel, a saracen, part of that same stock which we fought in the crusades and we still fight on our coasts. You are not by chance telling me that, to support the lack of Devil worship in the murder about which we are speaking, you are going on the words of an unbeliever?’
‘The Arabic religion is in error, without any doubt,’ Mondino hurriedly clarified. ‘But their knowledge is great. Avicenna’s Canon, as you know, is one of the most studied medical texts in Christianity, and even in the Studium we value ...’
‘The Studium!’ Uberto burst out, managing to make the word sound as though he were spitting. ‘A rabble of folk who invade the city, propositioning honest women and fornicating with strumpets, spending their time in taverns drinking and playing dice, and other depravities that I won’t mention. People who, as Maurizio da San Vittore said, “Seek wisdom not for wisdom’s sake, but to prostitute it, either out of vanity or for money”. And I should be surprised that the texts on which they base their studies come from the land of the heathens?’
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