by Giulio Leoni
The stench of decomposition had become unbearable. Dante was seized with a violent attack of retching, as the feeling of nausea become more intense. He managed only to ascertain that their clothes contained no other objects worthy of interest, before he was forced to leave the cabin.
AS SOON as he was outside he stopped for a moment to catch his breath. His mind ran to the terrible deaths of the oarsmen. Now he understood the awful contraction of their limbs. Anyone who had escaped the poison was left in chains to die of thirst beneath the roasting sun, and the murderer hadn’t bothered to unlock their fetters. They had tried to free themselves until the very last, and their desperate cries must have filled the swamp for days. But their incomprehensible language, rather than bringing anyone running over, would have frightened the few inhabitants, terrified as they were by a fear of ghosts.
Dante thought he could still hear the cries rising up from the benches. He turned to the Bargello: ‘Order your men to bring back very carefully every fragment of the machine in the wardroom, and have it brought to Florence with the utmost care. Strip off one of the sails and turn it into a bag.’
‘And … these people?’
The poet looked hesitantly around. He could do nothing more for those wretches. But he wouldn’t leave them there to rot among their chains. ‘Set fire to the ship. Let it turn into a funeral pyre, and let their God receive them along with their souls,’ he commanded. ‘And let people know as little as possible about this story for the time being.’
‘But the galley was empty. No precious cargo, nothing but rubbish. Why such secrecy?’ the chief of the guards objected suspiciously. ‘Apart from those corpses.’
‘Yes. Apart from those corpses,’ the prior interrupted, starting to climb down.
The men hurried to accomplish their task, impatient to get away from that accursed place.
‘Let’s get back to our horses,’ Dante said when he saw the flames beginning to attack the ship. As they moved away, he darted one final glance at the top of the dune. Red tongues rose higher and higher as the fire took hold of the carcase. They looked like fingers rising from the funeral pyre in a plea for justice.
Or revenge.
THEY REACHED Florence early the following day, after a forced night-march that had exhausted both men and horses, while the constellations of the Zodiac waned above their heads. The tops of the walls gleamed in the rays of the early-morning sun, as if they were made of copper rather than brick and stone.
During the night a sandy rain had fallen, with intervals of clarity. While the starry vault had been visible, Dante had looked up to work out how much time had passed. At that moment Gemini, his birth-constellation, was shining in the sky. The twofold splendour of Castor and Pollux seemed to guide him, giving him the strength to conquer the unease that had lately taken hold of him. Several times the Bargello had suggested a rest, encouraged by the protests of his men. But each time Dante had rejected the idea, determined as he was to keep going.
The pyre of the ship had erased the visible traces of the slaughter, but not the right of those souls to be avenged. He had to find the man responsible, the man who had fled after committing that savage crime.
In front of him swayed the bag containing the fragments of the mechanism. The horse swerved nervously each time its cargo groaned with its metallic voice, as if sensing that it was carrying shards of hell.
‘Open the door in the name of the city of Florence!’ Dante called with the last of his strength at the sentinel on the tower, who peered down, poking his torch through a gap in the crenellations. In the semi-darkness the line of exhausted men and horses was a muddled collection of dark silhouettes. ‘And jump to it when I give you an order,’ the poet shouted.
‘Bugger off!’ shouted the man high above them, cupping his hands around his mouth, the better to be heard. ‘It isn’t market day today, and you can’t get in before the third hour. You and your rabble go and camp far from the walls, or I’ll come out with the guard and stroke your bones.’
‘You whore-son!’ yelled Dante, bouncing furiously up and down on his saddle. The unexpected noise and movement terrified his mount, which shifted sideways and made his foot slip from his stirrup. He landed heavily, sending up splashes of mud, only just managing to stay on his feet. Behind him the malevolent laughter of the bargellini exploded in sympathy with their fellow-guard. Even the Bargello had been unable to suppress a barely stifled chuckle.
Meanwhile, drawn by the hubbub, the other soldiers of the guard corps were crowding round, amidst sounds of yawning and the rattle of armour. Purple faces, still filled with sleep, appeared between the merlons, hurling down insults and making obscene gestures at the people below.
‘Open this door, you rogues!’ the Bargello finally decided to shout, letting them know who he was. From above, the yelling suddenly stopped, replaced a few moments later by the sound of the chain being removed. Dante, drawing his horse by the bridle, moved slowly beneath the low arch. He tried to look in the guards’ faces to memorise each one of them, cursing them under his breath.
At that very moment, a distant chant rose up behind him, a kind of psalmody of indistinguishable words. For a moment he thought he was hallucinating and turned round. Beyond the bend in the road he saw a curious line of people slowly approaching. It was from them that the chant was coming.
The group seemed to be made up of the survivors of a shipwreck. At their head came a tall man, wearing a rough, dark habit, his bearded face half-concealed by its hood. He came forward leaning on a long stick topped with a cross placed in a circle. Behind him a little crowd of men and women were dressed as if their guide had assembled them while they were still going about their daily business. Peasants and merchants, nobles and fishermen, warriors and prostitutes, doctors and usurers, a kind of confused and sorrowful representation of humanity.
In the middle of the crowd of dusty wayfarers were a number of mules loaded up improbably with luggage and parcels. One in particular was constantly shifting sideways, under the weight of a big chest, in spite of the firm hand of the military-looking man who was leading it by the reins. Its load was covered by a white linen sheet emblazoned with a red cross.
After a brief interruption the psalmody had resumed, led by the monk at the head. The procession moved slowly beneath the gate unimpeded by any of the guards.
‘Who are they?’ asked the poet.
‘Pilgrims on their way back from Rome, I should imagine,’ replied the Bargello.
‘All in search of salvation at the court of Boniface?’
‘They travel in groups, hoping in that way to get through the mountain passes without being robbed. Whatever those beggars have worth stealing,’ replied the head of the guards, glancing with contempt at the rabble that had passed through the gate. ‘And if they escape the brigands, our innkeepers will soon finish the job!’ he added with a snigger.
Dante went on watching after the group, then remounted his horse.
‘Where do we unload all our stuff?’ asked the Bargello after they had walked a hundred yards or so into the city, as if he couldn’t wait to rid himself of that cargo of scrap metal.
‘Escort me as far as the priors’ palace, at San Piero. Deliver the bag to Maestro Alberto, the Lombard who keeps an inn in Santa Croce. Ensure that he looks after it with the greatest care. I will call in to see him tomorrow.’
THE MONASTERY of San Piero was lit on one side by the sun, which now stood above the roof of the building. The poet stepped into the area that still lay in shade, and walked to the stairs leading up to the cells. He had only just begun to climb them when his way was blocked by someone coming down in a hurry. It was a girl, wearing nothing but a few rags. The prior opened his eyes wide in surprise, as he recognised the skinny features of the girl’s face, her green eyes bright with lust.
‘Pietra …’ he barely managed to murmur in a cracked voice. The girl laughed stupidly in his face, before resuming her dash towards the exit. A whiff of winy breath
wounded his nostrils. For a moment he was tempted to follow her, but was held back by a heavy sound of footsteps. At the top of the stairs a breathless man had appeared, he too half-naked, and seeing the prior he suddenly stopped. He gave Dante a complicit little smile when the poet walked on, without thinking him worthy of a look, straight to his own cell. ‘Oh, Messer Alighieri, you have no need to be so grand, when we have to stay shut away here for two months – we’re not like the villains locked up in the Stinche prison!’ the man called after him. ‘It looks as if you’ve found a way of getting out at least, at night …’
Dante swung round and took a few steps towards the man. The blood had started pulsing in his temples with the roar of a waterfall. His eyes too were dimmed with exhaustion and unease. His strength was leaving him, he realised with the detachment of an outside observer, as he stretched his hands out towards the other man, who quickly turned to go down the stairs, towards the guards.
‘You won’t be jealous of your whore, will you? You can find her whenever you like, in Paradise!’ yelled the man, still keeping a prudent distance away. ‘Where I found her!’
Dante clenched his fists and resumed his walk towards his destination. ‘Lapo, only the irony of fate has decreed that we should find ourselves part of the same authority. Which I try to honour with merit and intelligence, while you offend it with pettiness and vice. But anyway, in church with the saints and in the inn with the gluttons.’
He had articulated the words coldly, in a loud voice. No door opened as he passed, but he hoped that the others were already awake, and that they had heard. He threw open his door, glancing anxiously around the interior of his little cell. Nothing seemed to be missing. He checked his papers, stacked up on his desk beside the loophole, and his precious manuscript of the Aeneid. He brushed his finger over the parchment, worn away by countless consultations. They were all there, yes, but not in the order in which he remembered leaving them. During his absence someone must have ransacked his cell in search of his secrets, with a view to using them against him.
A mocking smile rippled across his soft lips. Blind and ignorant. His secrets were written in the book of his memory, protected from everyone.
The message was also still in its place, hidden among the lines of the sixth canto. His unease grew as he felt his strength deserting him. He buried the text in his cabinet and threw himself exhausted on the bed, finally slipping into sleep.
2
7th August, late morning
HE WAS woken by a piercing blade of light that stung his eyes. The sun was already high in the sky, but not even the third-hour bell had managed to conquer the weariness that he felt. He had spent the whole of the previous day in the grip of a dream-filled fever. He got up and sat on the bed. The room spun around him, rolling like the ship that had obsessively passed through his visions. A black hull, heavy with ghosts, emerging with its cargo of ruined faces each time his consciousness faded into a dull torpor.
He waited for things to stop moving, his eyelids tightly shut. Then he tottered to the cabinet and took out his manuscript of the Aeneid. Between the pages he had concealed a sheet of paper upon his return from the ship.
It had been found by one of the customs guards in an anonymous-looking bale of silk. He read it for the umpteenth time:
Entrust yourselves to our work, O Fedeli d’Amore, and welcome from the four points of the horizon anyone who comes to accomplish the plan. First the new Temple will be built, then its magnificent gates. Last of all will come the nave, and the incredible dimensions will have been achieved. There lies the key to the treasure of Frederick, which opens the portal to the Kingdom of Light.
A sealed parchment, with no recipient identified. A sign that he knew it was on its way, and was waiting for it in the warehouse, had a casual inspection not got to it before he did.
He reached his hand towards the bag that he had thrown on to the big chest at the end of the bed, and took out the notebook that he had found on the galley. He began delicately opening the pages, which were stuck together by the dampness of the sea. It must have been the logbook, judging by the navigational notes that were repeated with monotonous regularity. Here and there the ink had been diluted, making the writing illegible. He deciphered a few Mediterranean place-names and an inventory of goods. One of the last notes listed some names, perhaps the members of the crew, followed by a short record of repairs carried out in Malta.
A Christian ship. With an unusual crew, however, if those names were really what they seemed to be. A lot of Frenchmen from the Languedoc. And then the passengers, indicated as ‘people from beyond the sea’.
But why would a Christian ship have been carrying pagans, and not as galley-slaves, but staying in the captain’s cabin? And under that macabre banner, too. The imperial treasure had been entrusted to them. And what was the Kingdom of Light?
And yet there was something comprehensible in that text. That name, the Fedeli d’Amore. The sect of which he too had been a member in his youth, the secret group struggling against the despotism of the popes. Frenetic thoughts, passions of love. He had known nothing more about them since leaving to devote himself to the political struggle in his city. And now they were coming back, in the company of death.
Death. For some time it had been his travelling companion. He heard its silent footstep as he crossed the sun-drenched streets of Florence, he noticed its breath when his hair stood on end for no reason, like a dog’s pelt.
It lived in every line of his next work. The big poem about heaven and earth. A pilgrim’s dialogue with the great souls of antiquity, in which he would reveal all the secrets of the beyond.
His eye slipped over the pile of sheets on the desk, papers and parchments collected from everywhere possible, carefully scraped so that they could be used again. He ran a few pages through his fingers.
On one of the first he had traced a picture of the earth, perfectly divided into land and water. And in its belly the vast cave in which the damned would be placed, arranged in circles in a vast amphitheatre, around the dreadful well where Lucifer groans for all eternity. And then the huge cliff rising from the waters, in which sins are purged by climbing. And then … and then nothing. His imagination seemed blind, unable to find anything that might with the same precision convey the state of beatitude and the visible form of the heavens.
Evil was so much simpler.
FOR SOME time Dante had heard the unusual sound of people moving, apparently heading towards the Ponte Vecchio. As if a crowd was coming back up from the Oltrarno, heading for the northern districts. First of all, immersed in the rereading of his own writings, he had paid no attention to the sounds and voices. But now the hubbub had grown intense. Instinctively he glanced at the door. Perhaps there was a riot going on, or worse, an uprising by the wool-carders, who were always on the brink of revolt. He ran outside, to find himself in the middle of an excited crowd running down the narrow street like a river in flood.
Amongst the throng of people, most of them dressed in the modest clothing of workers, every now and again one could see the more refined outfits of some members of the upper classes, and the uniform of the district guards. Among them he recognised a face.
‘Messer Duccio, what are you doing here? What’s everyone doing?’
The secretary of the Council, a middle-aged man, completely bald, had almost fallen on top of him, pushed by the crowd.
‘They’re all going to Santa Maddalena, Prior!’ the man panted at him. ‘The reliquary of the East has arrived!’
Dante slipped to the side, dodging the crowd that was moving like a tidal wave along the street.
‘Hunting for relics? This gang?’ the poet muttered in disbelief.
The secretary braced his shoulders, as he shoved a peasant out of their way. The man didn’t even seem to notice, so anxious was he to run ahead with the others.
‘The monk Brandano, the preacher of miracles, has arrived from the lands of France!’
‘Nothing good h
as ever come from the lands of France, only the corruption of our honest customs and the worst kind of pestilence. And less than ever since the treacherous Philip has reigned there. They all seem to have gone mad.’
‘You’re right, they all seem to have gone mad. But when you’ve seen it for yourself …’
‘What am I supposed to see?’
‘The miraculous Virgin. Come on!’
Dante stared at him, startled. But the other man had already slipped ahead, driven forward by the crowd, and was gesturing to him to follow.
‘Come on, you come too!’ he heard the secretary calling again as he was sucked in by the crowd.
THE ABBEY of Santa Maddalena rose up behind the old Forum, just beyond Santa Maria in Campidoglio. A massive construction, built on the foundations of an ancient Roman insula, whose rectangular perimeter it repeated. In front of it loomed the abbey church with its simple baked-tile façade, followed by a second construction beyond the apse, which had once housed a small community of Benedictine monks. A tall, blind wall on the left closed from sight the cloister, caught between the church and the adjacent buildings.
‘Tell me, Messer Duccio,’ Dante called to his companion, as he pushed his way through the crowd that thronged before the portal, trying to enter. ‘I thought the abbey was abandoned.’
‘It is. The community that lived there has almost disappeared. The last abbot died about ten years ago, in the days of Giano della Bella.’
‘So who owns it now?’
The town clerk shrugged. ‘Hard to say. It was supposed to return to the ownership of San Pietro. But in practice, adjoining the houses of the Cavalcanti, it was annexed to their possessions in the two adjoining streets.’
Dante looked up towards the neighbouring buildings. He knew those walls very well. The two-hundred-foot truncated tower and the other houses crowding round it, connected by buttresses and walkways. By walling up the outward openings and fortifying the doors, the family dwellings had been transformed into a fortress in the heart of the old city.