The Kingdom of Light

by Giulio Leoni

  ‘Maybe. Or maybe not. In France I have seen several of those animated puppets that decorate clock towers. But never one as apparently natural as that. You might almost believe …’

  Still immersed in their conversation they tried to reach the exit. But outside the crowd seemed to have come to a standstill, and excited voices rose as if an altercation were in progress. Dante stood on tiptoe, trying to discover the source of the noise, and recognised the Bargello shoving his way through the crowd, flanked by a little group of soldiers and darting his eyes all around.

  ‘Messer Durante!’ he cried when he spotted Dante. ‘They told me I would find you here!’

  ‘Why so keen to see me?’ replied the prior, instinctively becoming defensive.

  ‘We need you at the Angel Inn. There’s been a death.’

  Dante lowered his head, clenching his fists and his eyelids to conquer the dizziness that had taken control of him. His heart had started thumping like crazy, as a mute rage filled his soul. Again! He struggled to breathe deeply.

  As if the streets of Florence were those of Hades. The warm air entering his lungs seemed to have become impossible to breathe. He sought a different image in his memory. Pietra’s face, her scornful smile. ‘You deal with it – I’m tired. There will be someone among the priors who can take care of it. Ask one of them.’

  ‘No …’ The Bargello had already broken off after his monosyllable, as if he couldn’t find the words to continue. He cast a suspicious eye at Arrigo, who had stepped discreetly backwards. ‘The dead man is someone … who shouldn’t be there. He’s very old. He’s wearing Turkish clothes,’ he added, emphasising the last two words.

  Dante half-closed his eyes. The fourth man. So the reaper’s scythe had interrupted his escape? He felt a sudden energy filling his limbs, sparked by that unexpected turn of events. His unease seemed to have waned.

  ‘The Angel Inn, you said … Then let’s go there. We might be in time to resume our conversation about that ship.’

  ‘But I told you the man is dead!’

  ‘And I want to talk to him. We can always listen to his mute witness, if we are capable of hearing him.’

  Meanwhile he had turned towards the portal of the church, taking advantage of a narrow passage through the crowd held open by the bargellini, but not before nodding goodbye to the philosopher. The chief of the guards moved behind him, shaking his head.

  THE ANGEL Inn opened on to a little street of beaten earth, in the shelter of the ancient Roman walls, next to the street leading to Santa Maria Novella. It must originally have been one of the perimeter watchtowers, whose top had collapsed in the distant past. Now it jutted from the remains of the walls like the last sentinel of a vanished army, submerged by more recent constructions that had gone beyond it towards the countryside. At ground level a big hall had been built around the circular structure with solid wooden planks; this was where the kitchen was, and where the poorer wayfarers were put up on rough beds wide enough to hold as many as three people.

  On the other side the lane ran into a low dry-stone wall that ran along a vineyard. Clouds of flies buzzed around the dung that passing horses had deposited on the mud before being tethered to the gate-post.

  ‘Who does this land belong to?’ asked the poet, pointing straight ahead.

  ‘The Cavalcantis … I think,’ replied the Bargello after a moment’s reflection. ‘The inn must have belonged to the family, some time ago. It was one of their mills, and the tower was a storehouse before being turned into a staging post for pilgrims.’

  The Cavalcantis again. And again the same sense of sin and treachery. The prior shook his shoulders to rid himself of it, and began concentrating on the inn once more. The sign showed an angel with its wings spread. An unknown hand had painted over an inscription next to the word ‘angel’. But time and weathering had washed it away so that the word was legible once more beneath the blur. The Fallen Angel – that was the inn’s original name. A thin smile rose to the poet’s lips: he was sure that it was Guido Bigarelli who had insisted on the name – that would be typical of him.

  ‘Where’s the body?’ he asked, shaking himself abruptly from his thoughts.

  ‘Come with me. There are some cells upstairs in the tower. The innkeeper hires them out to rich travellers who want to sleep alone. It’s in one of those, on the top floor.’

  Dante hesitated for a moment longer: he wanted an image of the whole to form in his mind before it was overwhelmed by a plethora of sensory impressions. Then, without waiting for the other man to move, he crossed the threshold of the little door and walked alone up the flight of oak stairs that spiralled along the massive wall.

  He suddenly became aware of a strange atmosphere, but one that he couldn’t quite pinpoint.

  He had climbed the stairs very quickly, but halfway up he struggled to breathe in the dense and torrid air. Two small doors opened up on each of the first three floors. The fourth floor had only one door: the whole top floor of the tower consisted of a single room, closed at its apex by imposing chestnut beams. The stagnant air stank, stirred faintly by a feeble draught that came from two little windows set in the front wall.

  ‘Where …’ he began as he crossed the threshold, but even before receiving a reply he stopped, struck by the sight that met his eyes. The space before him repeated the circular shape of the building, with a diameter of perhaps ten ells or slightly more. At the end of it there was a little wooden bed, barely big enough for a man of medium height. Nearby, a clothes-chest illuminated by a guttering candle.

  In the middle of the room stood a high-backed chair, behind a little desk. In it, a man’s body sat stiff and motionless. Dead, but not abandoned to the peace of eternal repose, or prone and crying out for vengeance, because none could have uttered that scream. The man’s head, almost severed from his torso by a savage blow, lay sideways on his shoulder.

  Dante crossed the threshold to approach the body. Copious amounts of blood had gushed from the wound, spraying the clothes and splashing a page upon which the dead man’s right hand still lay, precisely at the centre of an octagon drawn in charcoal on the parchment. The fallen head appeared to turn towards the body from which it had begun to separate. The prior had to conquer a sudden feeling of dizziness before his eyes decided which of the two parts of the body to focus upon.

  The body was dressed in fine clothes. They were ample and light, draped around the man’s nakedness as majestically as a Roman toga; his forehead was partly wrapped in a woven veil. There was something unusual about the garments’ shape, which explained the Bargello’s idea that the man was dressed in the Turkish style. In fact they were clothes more suited to travelling than to urban living. Perhaps a wealthy pilgrim, as his presence in the aristocratic area of the inn seemed to indicate. The prior delicately moved the head, brushing aside the long strips of white hair that fell on either side of the face, hiding it from view, and then lifted it towards him.

  The victim’s face was marked by an anguished grimace, the eyes wide open. And yet, the poet was sure, it was not in pain or surprise. No, that man had tried to go on seeing until the very end. To know the experience of death, or rather to try to escape it. In the black of the pupils Dante sought that shadow of the last image seen, which is said to imprint itself upon the eyes of the dying. But all that his investigations found was a dark cavity. The deep folds in the forehead and at the corners of the half-open mouth, revealing an incomplete, yellowish set of teeth, as well as the grain of the skin marked by the wear of time, indicated advanced age. He recalled the face of the oriental man on the galley, also aged.

  And yet the body of the man in front of him seemed massive and well formed. Beneath the clothes one could sense a powerful set of muscles.

  For a moment Dante suspected that he might be in the presence of the remains of two different corpses, and that the strip of flesh that still held them together was merely an artifice. He lifted the head, and rested it against the severed throat of the corpse.
The lacerations matched up perfectly, and the skin connecting the two parts was intact.

  As he performed this operation, his eye concentrated on the dead man’s face. The features reminded him of something – a vague ghost of voices and faint colours had begun to stir within him. He placed the head against the shoulder once again and continued to stare at it.

  Around him, the little room seemed to have been ransacked. The clothes-chest had been opened and turned upside down, and beside it lay a leather bag with the straps cut, perhaps by the same blade that had slashed the man himself.

  Dante looked inside, but it was empty. A thin smell of wax struck his nostrils, along with the more distinct one of ink-gall. There had been papers in there, perhaps removed by the murderer. The hypothesis was reinforced by a dark stain in one corner of the bag, next to a fragment of broken pen. The chest had contained a brass ruler and a compass.

  ‘Call the innkeeper,’ he told the Bargello.

  A few moments later the other returned, along with a quivering little man, who almost slid along the wall, in an attempt to gaze upon the corpse as little as possible.

  The poet cast him an enquiring glance. ‘Are you Manetto del Molino, who keeps this inn on behalf of the Cavalcanti?’

  The innkeeper nodded. The chattering of his teeth was plainly audible in the silence. It was then that Dante understood the reason for the sense of strangeness that had accompanied him since the moment he had stepped into the inn: there were none of the usual sounds normally heard in such places. No shouting, no laughter, no women’s voices. Not even the rattle of crockery or the clatter of hoofs on cobbles. Everything seemed as dead as the victim.

  ‘Who was this man?’

  ‘A pilgrim on his way to Rome. He said his name was Brunetto da Palermo, a painter. I thought he was one of the many who were going to see the Pope to work on the Jubilee …’

  The poet’s eye turned to the dead man’s hands. Knotty, covered with the dark marks of old age. But still strong. ‘Have you taken anything from here?’

  ‘No, heavens above! I wasn’t even brave enough to come in when I was told about … about …’

  ‘Who discovered the crime?’

  ‘One of Monna Lagia’s whores. She had gone to see if any of the guests felt like – well, you know how these things are …’

  Dante nodded distractedly. ‘You mentioned guests. Who’s staying in the other rooms?’

  The innkeeper cleared his throat. ‘There are six guests. Apart from … from this one,’ he said, pointing to the body, still without looking at it.

  ‘Tell me exactly the names of each of them, and where they’re staying.’

  ‘I can do better than that, Prior. I can show you in person. They are drinking together in the big room down below. If you’ll follow me …’

  Dante set off behind him, followed in turn by the Bargello. A wide trapdoor opened in the wooden floor of the first storey, perhaps the loading bay of the old barn. The innkeeper lifted it and beckoned the poet over.

  Below them a group of men were sitting around an oak table, drinking from earthenware pitchers. They were sunk in quiet conversation, far from the usual effervescence of tavern noises. They seemed to be biding the time as they waited for something.

  ‘Are those your guests?’ the poet asked in a low voice.

  The other man, after a quick glance, nodded.

  Dante cast his eye over the group, settling on each in turn. He pointed to the one sitting at the top of the table, his head sunk between his shoulders, a vexed expression on his kindly features. Dante thought he had seen him somewhere before. He was the youngest, twenty or younger.

  ‘Franceschino Colonna, from Rome,’ the innkeeper murmured. ‘On his way back from Bologna. He’s a student and he’s going back home.’

  The prior remembered the young man he had noticed in the miracle church.

  ‘And that one’s Fabio dal Pozzo,’ added the innkeeper, following his hand, which had turned towards a squat man sitting beside the first, with a goblet of wine in his hand. ‘Cloth merchant. He’s come from the North to sell Scottish wool.’

  Still in silence, Dante nodded towards the other two, who were sitting on the other side of the table, in the corner, intent on a game of dice. One, wearing clothes that stretched tight as a drum-skin over his large belly, slowly shook the cup as though reluctant to tempt fate. The other man, with features as dark as his own outfit, and terrifyingly thin, distractedly observed his companion’s movements.

  ‘Rigo di Cola, the fat one,’ whispered the innkeeper. ‘Another wool merchant. He’s heading to Rome for the Jubilee as well. And the other man’s called Bernardo Rinuccio. He’s travelling with a lot of paper and ink. I think he’s writing something. He’s always with the friars, at Santa Croce, rummaging in their paperwork,’ he added with a grimace.

  The man’s angular cheekbones seemed about to pierce the skin of his hollow face. A shiver ran down the poet’s spine.

  The landlord seemed troubled as well. ‘He looks as if he’s already dead … doesn’t he?’

  Dante nodded. Boniface was buying up works by artists to beautify Rome in time for the Centesimus, the grand Jubilee. His friend, the artist Giotto, was about to leave too. ‘And that one?’ he whispered, pointing his index finger towards a massive man who, in spite of the infernal heat, sat wrapped in a white woollen cape. His face, with a distinctive aquiline nose, was marked by a long scar that ran from one eyebrow to his cheek. A blow that had only failed by a miracle to kill him.

  ‘Jacques Monerre, a Frenchman,’ hissed the innkeeper.

  ‘A Frenchman? And what brings him to these parts?’

  The innkeeper shrugged. ‘From Toulouse, he said. He’s come here from Venice. A literatus, like the old man at the end.’

  ‘Toulouse … but he’s come here from Venice,’ repeated the poet, pursing his lips. ‘And who’s the last one?’

  He pointed to the one who had first attracted his attention, an old man with long grey hair parted in the centre that flowed down his thin shoulders. The man was tall and dressed in the sober, dark clothes worn by scholars. His face, illuminated by eyes that shone with youthful light, seemed marked by a network of deep wrinkles. It looked as if he was in the grip of intense cold. His hands were also protected by dark leather gloves.

  ‘Messer Marcello,’ replied the little man in a mixture of obsequiousness and diffidence. ‘A most learned man, apparently. From the North. He’s going to Rome to fulfil a vow. Or at least that’s what he’s told his companions. One of my serving-girls overheard him.’

  Dante glanced once again at the group, then withdrew to avoid being seen. He didn’t want them to know they were being watched. ‘Close the door and make sure no one tries to get in. And if anyone does try, take note of it and tell me,’ he ordered the little man, before leaving the room again. Then he turned once more towards the Bargello. ‘Have the body taken away from here, to the hospital of Santa Maria. In secret, in so far as that’s possible in this city of gossips. And without giving any explanation of what’s happened.’

  ‘Explanation? We could do with some explanations ourselves,’ the chief of the guards replied sarcastically.

  ‘That’s true. We haven’t got a lead, but the wise man’s mind is happy to move through the torments of thought, where the mind of the vulgar man becomes lost and discouraged. And my mind … but all in good time.’

  ‘Do you want to question these men? Perhaps …’

  Dante shook his head. ‘If the murderer is one of them, he will have had time to erase every trace by now. And questioning him along with the others would only give him certain advantages. He would jumble his words up with everyone else’s, like a wolf among a pack. Better to let him think we know more than we really do. That way we’ll make him anxious and give him a false sense of security. And between that Scylla and Charybdis I will stretch my net.’

  He moved towards the stairs. On the steps he carefully straightened the folds of his habit an
d adjusted his biretta, carefully arranging the veil over his right shoulder. Then he started down, moving past the seated men, and made for the light beyond the door.

  He had to shield his eyes with his hand before he became accustomed to the glare outside.

  3

  Morning of 8th August, at the priory

  ‘HERE IS the information you requested about the guests at the inn,’ said the town clerk, showing Dante a sheet of paper. ‘It hasn’t been easy: I’ve asked all the chief guards at the city gates.’

  ‘Do you expect applause, Messer Duccio?’ snorted Dante, taking the sheet from his hands. On it there was a list of names, with a few words next to each. ‘Your labours don’t seem to have yielded much.’

  ‘Florence is a land of freedom. We don’t investigate travellers unless there’s a reason involving the security of the Commune,’ the other man replied, piqued.

  The poet shrugged, then immersed himself in reading. The report added little to what the innkeeper had already revealed.

  The only new clue was the record of the date when each of the men had entered the city walls. The pilgrims had arrived by different gates, from the four points of the compass. First Brunetto, the victim, on 2nd August. And with him Rigo di Cola, the wool merchant. The next day Bernardo Rinuccio, followed by the young Colonna and the cloth merchant Fabio dal Pozzo. Then the French knight and finally the old doctor, only two days before. As if they had arranged to meet, waiting for one last pilgrim. Instead, the last to arrive had been death, the most undesirable of guests.

  Or perhaps death was already waiting for them there, its yellowish skull hidden behind one of their faces. And it was preparing to take control of their lives in that rundown tower, as it had already done on the ship of the dead.

  THE SUN was beginning to set, turning the façades of the houses red. Nearing Orsanmichele, Dante thought of taking the route by the Torre della Castagna, close to the houses of the Cerchi. It could be an opportunity for paying a visit to his relatives, who lived in the same street. But then he changed his mind, seeing that the shadow of the sundial fixed to the loggia was now approaching the seventh hour of the day. He had some way to travel if he was to reach Maestro Alberto in his workshop before the end of the working day.