Inquisition

by Alfredo Colitto

  ‘People hereabouts believe that my dogs are possessed by the Devil because they behave in a reasonable manner,’ Adia commented, with a shrug of her shoulders.

  ‘Their obedience to your commands surprised me too,’ replied Mondino.

  ‘In my country the training of dogs, horses and falcons is an age-old tradition,’ she said. ‘My people discovered centuries ago that to make yourself obeyed you need to use gentleness rather than violence.’

  Mondino stopped himself from making a stinging comment about the muslims who infested the Holy land, and their remorseless manner of fighting. They used anything but gentleness.

  ‘You were talking about the instrument,’ he said instead, going back to the subject he had most at heart.

  ‘There’s nothing more to be said,’ answered Adia, her mood suddenly darker. The peasant’s sign to ward off evil must have hurt her more than she liked to admit. ‘A thing doesn’t exist until someone finds a need for it. When there’s a need, sooner or later, it will be invented.’

  Mondino reflected a moment and thought to himself that she might be right. No physician had ever needed to inject medicine directly into the blood, but the idea was fascinating. Certainly, in that way the medicine would have a much faster effect. But again, to be able to do that, you would have to clarify exactly how the circulation of the blood functioned. That took him back to all his current problems and reduced him to silence too.

  They went on a fair distance without speaking, and only when they were in sight of Corticella, a small but very lively and noisy hamlet, did they renew their conversation. Mondino wanted to take the first barge to Bologna, but he felt a strange reluctance at saying goodbye to the woman with the amber skin and the throaty voice. And not even the thought of the Inquisitor and his ultimatum stopped Mondino from accompanying Adia to the friends with whom she was staying.

  The port was congested with boats of every type, from basic punts, which moved with agility even in very shallow waters and were used to transport small merchandise about, to the more imposing merchant ships with trapezoid sails that navigated the wide Po river, as well as the open sea. Mondino was fascinated by the spectacle of the boats and the haggling that was going on practically everywhere: on the embankment, on improvised benches dotted around, and in the few stone-built shops that had grown up around the port. One of the shops attracted his attention because it had its own little harbour and the smaller boats, passing under a high arch, could sail straight into the building to unload their goods. The sight made him think of the descriptions he had heard of life in Venice, and suddenly, perhaps because of his closeness to all the boats, he was seized by a longing to travel, to see new places and not to limit his life to one city.

  Adia seemed to know a lot about the boats and sails and as they walked she explained their various functions. Mondino asked if she had travelled much and she replied that she could talk for hours about all the places she’d been to.

  They finally arrived at the inn she was heading for, a building that seemed too big for the hamlet, with a tavern on the ground floor and several bedrooms on the two upper storeys. The innkeeper made a great fuss of Adia, telling her that she could stay for as long as she wanted, and he wouldn’t hear of payment.

  ‘I healed his daughter of a nasty form of herpes pox,’ explained Adia, while she settled the animals in the courtyard behind the house.

  ‘What did you give her?’ asked Mondino, curious.

  ‘Elder leaves, in a decoction and compresses. But if I’m honest,’ she added with a smile, ‘I had the impression that the illness went away of its own accord, once it had run its course.’

  When they had both freshened up, Adia in her room and Mondino at the well in the courtyard, she suggested they ate together before he went on his way.

  ‘With all the excitement that followed your arrival at my house, I have only just remembered that I haven’t eaten yet. And they serve a delicious rabbit in wine here,’ she said.

  Mondino accepted immediately, showing an enthusiasm that was perhaps more than the circumstances called for, and they went into the tavern. It was full of people. The innkeeper said that there were no free tables just then and asked if they’d mind eating in a room upstairs, assuring them that the food would be brought as soon as possible. Mondino realised that the man had mistaken them for a couple and began to protest, but Adia pulled his sleeve and signalled to him to be quiet.

  As they walked upstairs, she explained: ‘He’s too nice to say so, but many people here recognise me and he doesn’t want his customers to be uncomfortable, seeing a witch in the room.’

  They ate their meal in a small private room adjoining Adia’s bedroom, decorated with a low table and two small sofas upholstered in red velvet. In fact, given the late hour, they were nearer the evening than the midday meal, and the sun, already in its descent towards the horizon in the direction of Modena, lit the room with a warm reddish light.

  While they ate the rabbit, dipping pieces of bread in the sauce and drinking a fresh and deceptively light Trebbiano, they carried on talking of alchemy and Adia told him about all the places that her thirst for knowledge had taken her. She had been to Greece, where she’d seen the ruins of the Parthenon and the rock of Athens. Then she’d travelled to Sicily, from where she had sailed to Barcelona and continued on foot to the Basilica of Santiago di Compostela, and from there she had crossed the Pyrenees and then on to Bologna.

  Now she was planning to go to Venice, where she wanted to meet a Hebrew sage about whom she’d heard a great deal, then she would travel on to France.

  Mondino said that one day he wanted to visit the School of Medicine in Montpellier, but he knew that he would find it difficult to make time for such a long trip, at his age and with all the responsibilities tied to his family and profession.

  ‘Our responsibilities are where we want them to be,’ replied Adia, looking at him keenly. ‘As for your age, I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Don’t make a fool of me, mistress Adia,’ said Mondino, somewhat offended that she wanted to take him up on that point. ‘I’m quite aware that I am no longer in the first flush of youth, and—’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, please,’ she interrupted him. ‘Can’t you see that for every one of your desires, you immediately find an excuse not to carry it out? Don’t you see that everything depends on you?’

  ‘No, I don’t, and I would ask you to let it be, so as not to ruin this nice moment with an argument. Let’s just say that perhaps I am simply too weak and lazy to take on the journey to Montpellier.’

  ‘Weak?’ she laughed. ‘To judge from the way you fought those cut-throats, I would have felt safe with you even without my mastiffs.’

  At those words, Mondino felt the blood rise to his face, but he did his best to appear indifferent and said nothing.

  Adia looked at him and burst out laughing. ‘You really are funny right now, do you know that? you force yourself to sit there looking as inscrutable as a statue, but you’re not really like that.’

  ‘You seem to know a great deal about how I am and what I want.’

  ‘That’s right,’ she answered, with a cheek that Mondino didn’t have the time to find irritating, because of what she added immediately afterwards. She looked him straight in the eye and with her lips slightly apart, she said, ‘And I also know what I want.’

  In the headiness that the wine had brought on, Mondino didn’t know how they found themselves in one another’s arms, while their mouths searched eagerly for each other. Murmuring in his ear, Adia told him to carry her into the bedroom and he obeyed immediately, lifting her up in his arms without ceasing to kiss her and feeling vaguely sacrilegious as he crossed the threshold with her in the manner reserved for spouses.

  He didn’t waste time looking for a candle; the beam of light that filtered underneath the shutter was eno
ugh. Gently he laid Adia down on the mattress, which was makeshift but covered in a clean sheet. Quickly and expertly she helped him take off his tunic and breeches, provoking a passing fit of jealousy in him, then she too was naked, kneeling at his feet.

  For a moment they just stared at one another, motionless and in silence. Their desire was speaking for them, and what Adia did next didn’t seem vulgar to Mondino, but an act of love, tender and terribly exciting. He ruffled her dark hair, muttering words that made no sense at all. Twice he tried to pull away from that avid mouth to unite himself with her, and twice Adia dissuaded him with her hand, while Mondino adapted to being guided and not taking control of their lovemaking.

  At a certain point Adia lay backwards on the mattress with Languid movements, never losing eye contact with him.

  Mondino overcame the impulse to jump on her like an animal, and stood there contempLating her body in the half-light, guessing at what she wanted him to do.

  ‘Come here,’ said Adia, in a hoarse voice, beckoning to him. Mondino knelt on the mattress and began to caress her slowly, starting at her knees and moving up towards her breasts. Adia let out a soft groan and tried to pull him to her, but this time it was he who resisted. Her every look and gesture gave him a pleasure that until then he would not have thought possible. ‘You learn quickly,’ she laughed, softly.

  She pulled him by his wrist and this time Mondino was on top of her with the impetus of a river in spate, holding nothing back.

  They made love with eagerness the first time, then, after a brief rest in which there was no need for them to speak, they did it again more slowly, but with equal relish. Mondino fell asleep thinking that he had missed the last boat to Bologna. He had confused dreams in which all the events of the long day seemed to swirl in a vortex: the operation on Hugues de narbonne’s brain, the three armed men who had burst into Adia’s house, her sad dogs and her warm smell.

  Uberto da Rimini tried to hide his fury without much success. He couldn’t explode in a fit of rage in front of the Archbishop of Ravenna. And yet Rinaldo da Concorezzo seemed created for the very purpose of making him lose his calm. As soon as Rinaldo arrived he had installed himself in Uberto’s study, called for all the papers reLating to the templar trial, and only then had called for the Inquisitor. Now, after a frugal supper, he was subjecting Uberto to an out and out interrogation. Uberto only prayed that he hadn’t left any compromising notes among the papers by mistake.

  But what seemed to interest Rinaldo the most was the death of the German.

  ‘Monsignor,’ said Uberto, trying not to give his words too challenging a tone, ‘I am convinced that the murder of the templar, Wilhelm von Trier, found dead in Santo Stefano, is the second murder of that type here in Bologna. The first, as I have told you before, was not discovered, but only because the cadaver had disappeared, as well as the assassin.’

  ‘I am in no doubt that you are convinced,’ replied the Archbishop. ‘And I am also prepared to believe that it really did happen just as you say it did, father Uberto.’ He paused, looking at the papers and parchments strewn across the table as though searching for inspiration. ‘The point on which we continue to misunderstand one another is that, to be relevant to the trial, personal convictions must be supported by proof.’

  Uberto would have liked to reply that there was plenty of proof. A corpse with an empty hole in place of the heart and a man who, after killing him, had paid two grave diggers to throw the body in a nameless grave. But if he gave in to the temptation of revealing the truth, Rinaldo da Concorezzo would scupper everything, with his mania for absolute legality and his obstinate refusal to use torture to obtain confessions. He would even be capable of formally reprimanding Uberto if he found out about da Rimini blackmailing Mondino de Liuzzi to stand witness at the trial.

  ‘I agree with you, monsignor,’ Uberto said, simply. ‘I am doing my best to get hold of the necessary evidence.’

  He felt strange, sitting on an uncomfortable chair on the wrong side of his desk, in his own study. He wanted to get to his feet and put his papers in order, but etiquette demanded that he do nothing until invited to.

  ‘How exactly are you going about it?’ asked Rinaldo. The moment had arrived. Until now Uberto had got by with half-truths and omissions. Now it was a case of taking the plunge and knowingly telling a lie to his own Archbishop. A lie in the name of faith was not a true sin, but Rinaldo certainly wouldn’t see it like that. If he found out, he would dismiss Uberto. As he looked up at the ceiling in search of ideas, Uberto felt something akin to hate. Why on earth hadn’t the Archbishop stayed a few more days in his castle at Argenta, in the middle of the Ferrarese swamps? once he had the confession from the young prisoner in the comune and a statement from Mondino de Liuzzi, the manner in which they were obtained would take second place and what would count was the result. Should he then have any problems, Uberto would even be able to bypass the Archbishop, sending a message straight to the Pope.

  But Rinaldo had chosen precisely that moment to come and cause trouble, and he had to put a good face on it.

  Just as Uberto was getting ready to unleash a stream of untruths, a novice knocked and put his head round the door. After bowing deeply to the Archbishop, he announced, red in the face, that there was a certain Guido Arlotti waiting for father Uberto downstairs. Arlotti said it was urgent and they had not managed to make him understand that the Inquisitor could not be disturbed. What was the novice to do?

  If Guido dared to insist on seeing him at a time like this, thought Uberto, it must be something serious. But however much he burned with the desire to know what it was, he could not interrupt his meeting with the Archbishop.

  ‘Tell him to come back later,’ he said to the novice. ‘I’m busy now.’

  ‘Why does this person want to see you so urgently?’ intervened Rinaldo da Concorezzo.

  ‘He is an ex-confrère who for years now has been on the path to perdition,’ said Uberto, again embarking down the road of the half-truth. ‘Recently he has been returning to the faith, but his crises of conscience can very well wait until the end of our meeting.’

  ‘Allow me to correct you, father,’ said Rinaldo. ‘Nothing is more important than the return of the prodigal son. Please go, I will wait for you here.’

  Uberto swallowed the rebuke, thanked the Archbishop for his magnanimity and hurried after the novice down to the floor below, worried about the news but pleased by this unexpected piece of good fortune.

  Guido Arlotti was standing in the atrium. He was wearing a clean tunic, faded green breeches and a floppy cap that hid his ears, but not enough to hide a face covered in grazes and bruises. His lips were swollen and cut and he had a black eye. Uberto led him to a little room with a crucifix painted on the wall and sparse furniture where the friar who guarded the street door received the postulants. The room was dimly lit by a candle at the foot of the crucifix, but the Inquisitor didn’t bother to light the oil lamp on the cupboard next to the small table. Nor did he invite Guido to sit down on one of the two benches. He indicated to him that he should speak quietly and asked what had happened. The ex-friar told him about the misadventure with Mondino, Adia and the mastiffs.

  ‘And what did you do when the woman sent you away?’

  ‘All three of us needed a physician so we came back to the city.’ Before the Inquisitor could object, Guido raised his eyes to him and added, ‘The witch will pay for it sooner or later and I can find Mondino when I want. But that’s not why I’m here. Do you know about the latest murder?’

  Uberto let his hands drop to his sides with irritation. ‘I’ve just found out, when I was at the comune. It’s a serious problem, because the young man I intended to accuse of the first two can’t have committed the third. He’s been in prison all morning.’

  ‘That is exactly what I wanted to talk to you about,’ replied Guido, with an expression of
triumph on his huge face. ‘The murderers are Mondino and a young man called Gerardo. I am almost certain that it’s the bogus student you were telling me about, the one who’s in jail now.’

  It was almost too good to be true. Now Uberto knew Francesco Salimbene’s real name and the next day he would be able to use the fact to break the templar. But it was very important to check the information. There was no room for a false step.

  ‘Are you absolutely sure?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ answered Guido, without hesitation. ‘The body was found at vespers, but the man was killed between lauds and daybreak. I saw everything.’

  Uberto da Rimini stared at him at length before speaking. If Guido really had witnessed the murder, the case could be considered closed. And the trial against the templars, despite all the Archbishop’s nitpicking, would be concluded with an exemplary sentence. A monk disguised as a student, who killed three confrères in a devilish manner, with the help of a physician who had always been against the Church. A fact that would not fail to influence even the franciscan Inquisitors themselves, who with their misplaced compassion represented the last obstacle to overcome before the order of the temple was entirely rooted out from the garden of the Church.

  ‘If you saw everything, why didn’t you call the guards immediately so that they could catch them at it?’ he asked, struck by a sudden feeling of mistrust. ‘And if you couldn’t do it for some reason that you are about to give me, why didn’t you inform me immediately? next to a thing of the kind, all the rest takes second place.’

  Guido must have understood the importance of choosing the right words, and he thought before answering. ‘I didn’t actually see it,’ he corrected himself. ‘I was hidden outside the house and I heard what they were doing. They were talking about an operation to the brain, but I had no idea that they were opening his head to fill it with worms. When they came out, I thought that the man was alive and decided to go and have a look later. Only when I got back to the city from Bova did I hear the news, and then I realised what had happened.’ ‘Did they mention the heart too?’