I said nothing, but I could not look at him. Gennaro folded his arms across his chest. When he spoke again, his voice was kinder.
“The only accusations that can harm us now are coming from your own conscience, which you must learn to silence, or you will put us all in jeopardy. She is no longer your business. Do not give me cause to repent of my belief in you, Bruno.”
I lifted my head and met his gaze. In his stern expression, I saw anger tempered by a fatherly concern. I had thought I was being tested, to see how much I was prepared to risk in the pursuit of knowledge. Now I felt deceived; this had not been about the advance of science at all. What we had done was all in the service of protecting a murderer and the name of San Domenico. A murderer who might one day be the head of the most powerful religious house in Naples. I wished bitterly that I had never thought to follow Fra Gennaro last night. Not that my ignorance would have changed anything, but I would have been spared the weight of this guilt.
From beyond the window, the chapel bell struck a long, low note.
“You had better get yourself to Matins,” he said. He reached a jar down from a cabinet to his right, unstoppered it, and pulled out one of the ginger and honey balls he kept for throat complaints in winter. “Here. Take one of these — I can smell the tavern on your breath. And Bruno …” he called, softly, as I opened the door. I turned, expectant.
“Remember your oath.”
I nodded. But I also remembered my promise to Maria.
* * *
At first light, shortly after Lauds, I crept out of my cell again and crossed the gardens to the lemon grove. I scoured the ground, fancying I could see here or there in the parched earth and scrubby grass some sign of a struggle, but there was nothing conclusive. Nothing to say that the girl had ever set foot here. I searched among the trees for almost half an hour, in vain. Gennaro had deftly ignored my question about jewelry; perhaps he had disposed of the girl’s locket in case it should identify her, or perhaps he had never seen it. A necklace chain could easily be broken if you were fighting off a pair of strong hands around your throat.
The bells had just rung for Prime when the sun slipped out from behind its veil of cloud and I caught a metallic glint at the foot of a twisted trunk. I knelt and fished out from among the dried stalks a chain with a gold pendant. An oval, about the size of a large olive, faced with exquisite filigree work and a finely wrought figure of the crucified Christ on the front. I wondered if the girl’s father had made it. The chapel bell sounded its sonorous note again, and I glanced up to see Fra Donato crossing the grove toward me in rapid strides. With his bright hair lit by the early morning sun, he looked like a painting of the newly risen Christ, if Christ had ever glared at someone as if he wanted to burn them alive with his eyes. I barely had time to slip the locket inside my habit and stand, hands folded demurely into my sleeves, to greet him.
“Brother. Pax vobiscum.”
“What are you doing here, Fra Giordano? Shouldn’t you be at prayer?” He had no authority over me, except that afforded by seniority and birth, though he addressed me as if he were the prior himself. His cold blue gaze swept over the lemon trees and seemed to comprehend the scene in a glance. He had come in search of the locket too, I was certain.
“I am praying, Brother. I felt moved to speak to God here among the trees, where I can meditate on the wonders of Creation.”
“Perhaps you should have joined the Franciscans.” He left a pause. “Do you know, they say you are the most promising scholar San Domenico has seen in a generation.”
I shrugged. “They do not say so in my hearing.”
“Well, of course not,” he said. “They would not want to provoke you to the sin of pride.” He tilted his head to one side. There was an intensity in the way he held my eye that made me understand why a woman might fall under his spell. That and the remarkably fine features, the bones that looked as if they had emerged from a sculptor’s vision of an archangel. “I hear you have a prodigious memory too.”
I made a noncommittal movement with my head. “It serves.”
“That is a great gift,” he said, as if he were granting me a rare concession. “But even with your powers of memory, Brother, certain things are best forgotten. That scene in the tavern, for instance. A woman who believes I slighted her sister or some such thing. Women do not take well to feeling scorned, you know. It can quite turn their wits. They will say terrible things in their fury.”
“I barely recall it,” I said.
He gave me a sliver of a smile. “Good. It’s just that I thought you went out after her.”
“No, Brother,” I said, composing my expression into one of perfect sincerity. “I had been unwell. I went out because I felt sick and needed air.”
He was watching me carefully, I knew. “Well, I hope your health is improved,” he said, in a lighter tone. “We had better not be late for Prime. They also say you show a particular aptitude for your Hebrew studies,” he added, as I turned toward the path. I stopped, remembering his insult to Maria. Was he insinuating something? “A surprising aptitude,” he repeated. “Almost a natural fluency, apparently. Is there Hebrew blood in your family, Fra Giordano?”
“No.” I regarded him with a steady eye. “My family has lived in Nola for generations. You may make any enquiries you wish.”
“Oh, I have,” he said, with a pleasant smile. “Your father is a soldier, is he not? And a soldier for hire at that — not even an officer.” He sounded regretful. “Still — with the right patronage, a young man with your rare abilities might achieve great things in the Dominican order. You were fortunate to be admitted to San Domenico. Without your place here, I fear your exceptional talents would go to waste.” His eyes skated over me from head to foot as he spoke, as if he were trying to detect whether I was concealing anything.
“I do consider myself fortunate, Brother.” I lowered my gaze to demonstrate deference.
“You might prove it by showing a little less disregard for the rules,” he said. I jerked my head up and stared at him, indignant. He laughed and stretched his arm out to pull down a branch of the tree above us. “No doubt you think me a hypocrite for saying so. But here one has to earn the right to a degree of flexibility. You are very cocksure for a friar who has barely taken his vows. Not my words, Brother, but those of others who have noted your tendency to pick and choose when to honor the vow of obedience. And I do not believe you have the learning to challenge the authority of Holy Scripture in the way you do. I offer this as a friendly warning. But you should be aware that they are keeping a close eye on you.” He snapped off the twig in his hands and stood there, twirling it between his fingers.
I walked away. I did not know if there was any truth in his words, but the warning itself was not to be ignored. Donato was certainly watching me, and he wanted to be sure I knew he could break my future as easily as that branch. When I reached the far side of the gardens I glanced back to see him under the trees, searching the ground and kicking at the grass with the toe of his calf-leather shoes.
* * *
As soon as I was alone in my cell for silent prayer, I opened the locket. The clasp sprung with a satisfying click, to reveal a miniature portrait of a dark-haired woman. It was cheaply rendered; the paint blurred in places so that it was hard to make out her features, though I assumed it must be the girls’ mother. I turned the locket over in my hand, perplexed as to why Maria should have been so afraid of losing it. I pictured again the flash of panic in her eyes, the desperate catch in her voice. Perhaps it was more valuable than she admitted, or it was all the sisters had to remember their mother. But I could see that the back of the golden oval was deep and rounded, though the portrait it contained was flat. It looked as if it had been designed to contain something more substantial than a picture. Something concealed behind it, perhaps. Such things were used for smuggling secret communications, I had heard. With this sudden understanding, my skin prickled into goosebumps. Of course a master goldsmith wou
ld know how to work a hidden compartment into a pendant like this. The question was how to find the opening without damaging the mechanism. I worked at the clasp with the tip of my knife with no success, before trying the same trick with the hinge on the other side. I nicked my fingertips so many times that the surface and the blade grew slippery with blood, until at last I heard a catch give and the back of the locket opened smoothly. I licked the blood from my fingers, wiped them on my habit, and drew out a folded square of parchment.
The writing on it was tiny and densely packed, though neat and precise as if it had been written with a quill as fine as a needle. But my heart was hammering as fiercely as the moment I first saw the girl’s body, for the characters written there were Hebrew. I mouthed the first words — Shema Yisrael — and realized I was holding a text more dangerous than anything I had read in my life. This was a copy of the Shema, from the Jewish prayer service. Anyone found to possess this would be immediately summoned before the Inquisition, with little hope of a pardon. No wonder Maria was so terrified of its falling into the wrong hands.
Officially, there were no Jews left in Naples. They had been expelled in 1541, though a few had chosen to convert and stay. Maria’s father must be one such convertito, if he was permitted to trade here as a Neapolitan. I had heard that their houses were raided occasionally to ensure that they had truly renounced the faith, but it was rumored that some had managed to cling to their traditions in secret. I recalled the deliberate cruelty of Donato’s insult to Maria; the way she had flinched as if he had struck her. The insinuations he had made to me — that he could taint me with the same slur if he wished. What did he know of Maria’s family history? If the girl Anna had believed herself in love with him, how much might she have confided? To hide the Shema in the locket suggested that, however tentatively, she had chosen to hold on to her identity. Surely she would not have given up such a dangerous secret to a man who belonged among the city’s Inquisitors, no matter how strongly she felt for him?
I folded the parchment and replaced it in the locket with trembling fingers. As I closed the secret compartment, I saw that a drop of blood from my finger had stained the edge of the prayer crimson. I could not think what to do. In my heart I knew I had no choice but to return the locket to Maria; I understood its value now, not least as a memory of her dead mother and her sister. But to return it was as good as confirming that I knew something about the girl’s fate, and the bloodstain on the parchment would surely fuel their fears; they would take it for hers. I could not keep it. Fra Gennaro would no doubt see it as more evidence to be erased, so I could not ask for his help. I hid it again inside my undershirt and prayed earnestly for guidance.
* * *
Despite Fra Donato’s warning that I was being watched, I decided to miss my theology class after the midday meal, asking Paolo to say I was still feverish, and slipped out into the tired heat of the city. With my hood pulled up around my face, I cut along Via Tribunali in the direction of the Duomo. Strada dell’Anticaglia stood steeped in shadow from the high buildings closing in on both sides. Lines hung with washing dripped on me from above as I passed under the ancient arches of the Roman theater that spanned the street, seeming to hold up the houses. I walked quickly, my head down, scanning the doorways and barred windows for the sign of a goldsmith’s. After walking the length of the street, I returned to the only shop that seemed likely, though it had no marker outside, and peered through the small window. Inside, a man stood canted over a workbench with two lamps lit beside him; though it was the brightest hour of the day, the sun would never penetrate to the interior of this little shop in its canyon of a street. He held a thick lens to one eye to magnify his vision as he worked with a delicate, tweezer-like tool. I could see only the top of his head: graying curly hair and the beginnings of a bald patch the size of a communion wafer.
A bell chimed as I entered the shop. The man looked up with a smile that froze on his lips as he registered my habit. He lowered the lens and straightened his back with an air of resignation.
“Have you come to search my home again, Brother? It is barely two months since they were last here.” He sounded as if the prospect made him weary rather than angry. “We are true Catholics, as we have been for twenty-five years.”
Twenty-five years. He could not be much over fifty; that would mean he had been little more than my age when he had been asked to choose between his history and his home.
“No, sir,” I said, quickly, appalled to have caused him alarm. “I hoped I might speak to your daughter. Maria.”
His face hardened. “Neither of my daughters is home at present.” As if to betray him, the ceiling creaked with the footsteps of someone walking in the room above. My eyes flickered upward; his remained fixed calmly on me. In the light of the oil lamp I saw that his face was drawn, his dark eyes ringed with shadow. One of his daughters had not come home for two days; he must already fear the worst. I wondered if Maria had confided in him about her sister’s lover, the pregnancy, or where she had last seen Anna. I doubted it; she had said the knowledge of her sister’s affair would break their father’s heart. She would want to protect him from the truth.
There was nothing more I could do. Inside my habit, the locket pressed against my ribs in its hidden pocket, but to hand it over would be as good as announcing that his daughter was dead, and implicating myself.
“No matter. Perhaps one day I will come back and buy a gift for my mother.” I turned to leave.
“I should be honored, sir.” He gave me a slight bow and a half-smile; despite his understandable dislike of Dominicans, he knew that he needed our continued favor.
I felt a pang of empathy; though I could not imagine the constant threat that hung over this man and his family, no matter how sincerely devout he tried to appear, I already knew what it meant to harbor secret beliefs in your heart, beliefs that could lead you into the flames before the Inquisitors’ signatures had even dried on your trial papers. The more I studied, the less convinced I was that the Catholic Church or her Pope were the sole custodians of divine wisdom. I could not tell if it was fear or arrogance that led the Holy Office to ban books that might open a man’s mind to the teachings of the Jews, the Arabs, the Protestants, or the ancients, but I felt increasingly sure that God, whatever form He took, had not created us to kill and torture one another over the name we give Him. Tolerance and curiosity: a dangerous combination for a young Dominican at a time when the Church was growing less and less tolerant. I nursed my doubts like a secret passion, relishing the shiver of fear they brought. I wanted to tell the goldsmith we had more in common than he realized. Instead, I returned his bow and left the shop, the bright chime of the bell ringing behind me.
A few paces down the street, I stopped under the Roman arch and tried to think what I might do with the locket. I could wait until the shop was closed and try to push it under the door or through a window, in the hope that Maria would find it. But someone else might see it first, and think to look inside its secret compartment. I could not risk that. I could walk down to the harbor and throw it into the sea, where it could not incriminate anyone. Though I hated the idea of destroying something so precious, this seemed the only safe course, for all of us. I had almost reached the end of the street when I heard quick footsteps behind me, and turned to see Maria running barefoot through the dust.
“I went to Fontanelle,” she announced, pinning me with her frank gaze. I stopped absolutely still. I dared not even breathe for fear of what my face might betray. Every muscle in my body was held rigid. She let out a long, shuddering sigh and her shoulders slumped. “Nothing. No bodies of young women found in the past two days.”
“Then perhaps she has run away after all,” I managed to say, hating myself for it, though relief had made me lightheaded and my legs weak. I leaned one hand on the wall for support.
Maria shook her head. “I will never believe that. I thought you might have come to bring me some news?”
I hesitate
d, then reached inside my habit and brought out the twist of paper I had wrapped it in. “I came to bring you this.”
She tore it open and stared at the locket, her face tight with grief. “There is blood on it.”
“Mine. I cut my finger on the clasp.” I held it up as proof.
She raised the locket slowly to her lips and closed her eyes, as if in silent prayer. A tear rolled down her cheek. “Did he take it from her? How did you get it?”
“I found it on the ground.”
“Where?”
Again, I hesitated just a breath too long. “In the street, outside the gate. She must have dropped it there.”
She shook her head.
“That cannot be true. I have searched the streets around the walls of your convent for the past two days for any sign of what happened to her. I would have seen it. And the chain is broken, as if it was torn from her.” When she saw that I was not going to respond, she rubbed at the tears with the back of her hand and drew herself upright. “Well. I should not expect truth from a Dominican. But at least I know now that my sister is dead. She would never have willingly let this out of her sight.”
“Very wise. It is a beautiful piece of work. Your father must be a highly skilled craftsman, to have made something so complex.”
She looked at me with a hunted expression as she tried to discern my meaning. “Did you open it?”
The question was barely a whisper. She knew the answer. She clenched her hands to stop their trembling and her face was tight with fear — the same fear I had felt only a moment before at her mention of Fontanelle. The naked terror of being found out.
“Yes. Is it your mother?”
She nodded, a tense little jerk of her head, her eyes still boring into me.
“She must have been beautiful,” I said. “But something as valuable as that should be carefully guarded. Others might not be so understanding of your desire to honor your family memory.”
The Secret Dead Page 5