The Kingdom of Light

by Giulio Leoni

  The injured man had fallen to the bottom of the wall, with his face reduced to a mask by the blood that flowed copiously from a gash to his eyebrow. For a moment his cries of pain drowned out the noise of battle.

  Arrigo went on staring at the poet with a mixture of surprise and concern. Then he smiled. ‘Luckily our differences are restricted to the spiritual sphere. Come away, Prior. Let like go with like. Share your time with me a little longer, on the way to my lodging at Santa Maria Novella.’

  Dante cast a last grim glance at the square, then turned towards the philosopher, as the wrinkles on his forehead slowly faded away. ‘Yes, perhaps it is best to leave this pack of dogs to bite each other as they wish. Let’s go,’ he replied, setting off at a good pace.

  4

  Dawn of 9th August, at the priory

  DANTE NOTICED a certain amount of agitation in the courtyard. In one corner, a horse, still saddled and drenched in sweat, struck its hoof against the paving stones. A man in armour was deep in excited conversation with the Bargello. Around them, other soldiers were following their words with interest.

  His curiosity aroused, the poet approached the group. ‘What’s happening?’ he asked, following from the corner of his eye the courier who had leaped back into the saddle and spurred his horse, before passing through the cloister portal at a gallop.

  ‘News has reached us of a fire on the Pisa road. Something has been burned on the lands of the Cavalcanti.’

  ‘Something? What do you mean?’

  ‘My men couldn’t say. Perhaps a barn. Something big, though. All in ashes.’

  The inn where the crime had been committed also belonged to the Cavalcanti, the prior remembered. Perhaps it was a simple coincidence. And yet his mind was uneasy. Like a drawing that has been erased, yet begins to reappear on the page. ‘How far away is the fire?’

  ‘A few leagues, just beyond the new city walls.’

  Dante remained silent for a while, biting his lips. ‘Order an escort of bargellini to saddle up two horses for us straight away. I want to go and see.’

  ‘But the fire has been extinguished, there is no danger now,’ the other man tried to object.

  ‘It isn’t fires that worry me,’ Dante replied brusquely.

  IT WAS almost an hour before the horses were ready. It was some time past midday when Dante and the Bargello, followed by another six armed men, headed eastwards.

  Beyond the fields of Santa Maria Novella loomed the reddish mass of bricks of the walls that the Commune was building to contain the mass of new constructions that had recently risen up around the old city. The stretches of wall were interrupted here and there without any apparent logic, as if they had been built by a capricious giant at play. It looked as if the architects had taken it into their heads to emulate the ancient Romans, scattering the countryside with fresh ruins.

  Past the future gate, little of which had been built beyond its foundation, they rode a short way along the beaten path before turning northwards along a country lane that continued on between gorges and brushwood, climbing slightly along some low hills. As they emerged from a small oak forest, their goal finally appeared against the backdrop of a little valley: a large area surrounded by burnt vegetation with the carbonised remains of poles and beams sticking out of it. The building was razed to its foundations.

  Whatever it had been, it must have been really imposing. All around, the air was still impregnated by a sharp smell of burning, more intense each time a gust of hot wind returned to raise thin coils of smoke. A certain distance away, untouched by the fire, stood some impressive piles of carpenters’ planks.

  As he came close to the fire, Dante got down from his mount, approaching the burnt area. Behind him, the Bargello had also clumsily dismounted, with a sigh of impatience that was imitated by the soldiers.

  ‘Have you discovered who built this … thing?’ asked the prior.

  ‘No, not yet. These are the lands of the Cavalcanti, I told you, they have lain fallow for years, no income for the harvest land register, they’re not even taxed. There’s only one farmhouse around here, but it’s more than two leagues away. It was the farmer who alerted the city guards about the fire.’

  ‘And he didn’t know anything more than that? Who was working here?’

  The Bargello shrugged. ‘These people are crude and primitive. Real animals, barely capable of expressing themselves; not like us city-dwellers. All the farmer was able to say was that there were devils here, and that they were working on the construction of “Satan’s ring”. He must have come over to spy, but something frightened him and from that moment onwards he kept his distance, until the night of the fire.’

  Dante was puzzled. Satan’s ring … He went back over to study the forest of charred poles that rose around him. An infernal forest struck by the wrath of God. ‘Scatter yourselves around,’ he called to the men, who stood waiting. ‘And search.’

  ‘What are we supposed to be searching for?’ asked one of them.

  ‘I don’t know. Anything. Anything unusual.’

  The men cautiously entered the area of the fire, careful not to stand on any still-glowing embers. It was impossible to imagine, by looking around, what the burnt-down building might have been. Judging by the remains of the beams still wedged in the ground, it looked like some kind of pavilion, or a big barn. Or perhaps a stable, but of a very unusual shape. And had the wood that escaped the fire been destined for storage in the building? Or was it supposed to be used for its as-yet-unfinished construction?

  Dante went on walking slowly towards the middle of the hypothetical building. After ten paces or so he noticed how the blackened tips suddenly stopped emerging from the ground, producing a broad, empty space in the middle.

  It really did look a ring. Satan’s ring. He irritably repressed that fantastical idea. He had to proceed with the comfort of reason and science. ‘Have you got any ropes with you?’ he asked the Bargello.

  ‘Each man has a few yards, in his saddlebag.’

  ‘Let’s try and get a more precise idea of the shape of this thing,’ Dante murmured. ‘The shape would normally be irrelevant, but in this instance there might be some substance to it,’ he added almost to himself. The Bargello had listened to the last words with puzzlement and was about to reply, but the prior had already darted back outside.

  He had noticed that there were some spots among the remains where the beams had been both thicker and more numerous, as though they were a kind of buttress, or elements with a particular function.

  ‘Look along the perimeter of the fire for remains similar to this, and stop beside them. Give me one end of your ropes and stretch them out between you,’ he ordered the men.

  They all started wandering around among the charred remains, pulling the ropes tied between them. One after another they stopped, raising the ropes to make them more visible.

  The shape of a perfect octagon had formed before the poet’s eyes.

  DANTE WENT on looking for a possible meaning in what he was seeing. Around him the comments of the bargellini mingled together, as they shouted to each other from the corners of the building. Dante was growing increasingly puzzled. Suddenly he heard one of the bargellini calling to him in a loud voice.

  ‘Here, Prior. This might be something!’

  He stepped towards the man who had called to him. He seemed intent on looking for something among the blackened wood and was becoming frantically agitated as he went on shouting.

  There really was something there. At first it looked like some kind of burnt plant. Five jointed sticks pointing towards the sky. A charred human hand.

  The body lay supine, reduced to a carbon statue. The terrible heat that must have been imprisoned in that spot had dried all fluid from the body, turning it into a fragile mummy. But it hadn’t altered the general lines of the body. Perhaps its clothing, apparently a leather jerkin, had melted with the body and protected its shape. The head too was intact, still wrapped in what remained of a strip
of fabric.

  Dante studied that face, which now looked as if it were made of black glass. Rigo di Cola, one of the two wool merchants staying at the Angel Inn.

  In the end the devil really had appeared in his ring, he thought. And something along those lines must have passed through the minds of the men who had been drawn by his cries. He saw more than one of them making the sign of the cross, certainly to invoke protection for himself, and certainly not in honour of the deceased.

  Beside the corpse there were fragments of glass, again covered with what looked like a dark shadow. Dante picked up a piece of the substance on the tip of his finger. ‘Lampoil,’ he said to the Bargello, who had joined him.

  ‘Clear as day,’ the man exclaimed, sniffing a piece of glass. ‘Our friend set light to the oil to start the fire. But he must have miscalculated. Something went wrong and he fell victim to his own plan. The justice of God has many eyes – it comes when we think it furthest off.’

  The poet leaned over the body again, staring at the sharp features of the face, which seemed to have preserved a terrible expression of wonder in the dark cavities left empty by the melting of the eyeballs. Then he turned the body over and went on examining it.

  ‘I’m sure it happened as I told you, Prior,’ exclaimed the chief of the guards, in a loud voice so that his men could hear.

  Dante pointed his index finger against Rigo’s back, at a level with the heart, showing the Bargello something. Two deep parallel cuts in the burnt jerkin. He drew the dagger from the inside pocket of his habit and delicately inserted the blade into one of the two cuts. The steel entered without encountering any resistance in the lacerated tissue.

  Still in silence, he tested the other wound as well, with identical results. Then he turned to stare disdainfully at the Bargello. ‘So he was caught up in the torment of the flames, and out of remorse for the crime he had committed he stabbed himself in the back?’

  The Bargello didn’t say a word.

  ‘Or,’ Dante continued implacably, ‘have you noticed anything else?’

  He stretched his arm out towards the dead man, pointing to something close to the body. The remains of some large sheets of parchment, completely consumed by the flames. Whatever had been written on them was lost.

  ‘More writing?’ said the Bargello, looking ill. ‘A book?’

  The prior shook his head. ‘Too big. And no trace of binding between them,’ he said, picking up one sheet and examining its edge, which crumbled under his fingers. ‘More like drawings of some kind,’ he continued. His thoughts had returned to the big, empty bag in Bigarelli’s room, with its smell of ink.

  ‘The fourth man? The one who murdered the others? In that case, who killed him?’ the Bargello muttered suddenly, confused. He seemed to be waiting for Dante to resolve some inexplicable mystery. But the poet merely reflected, holding his chin between his fingers.

  His eyes ceaselessly crossed the space around him, sliding from the burnt remains to the corpse. There had to be a logical connection. He felt he was close to the truth, but it kept slipping through his fingers.

  The sun was setting. Soon there would be no point in staying there. After ascertaining that the dead man’s pockets were empty, he ordered the body to be buried in the shade of a pine, away from the burnt area.

  No one said a prayer over that wretched corpse.

  THEY WERE halfway back to the city when Dante heard the intense sound of galloping horses. He barely had time to order his men to stop before a group of horsemen in hunting attire, carrying quivers and bows, emerged from a thicket.

  At the sight of them the newcomers reined in their mounts and stopped a few yards away. The poet was sure he had never seen any of them, apart from the youngest, who seemed to be the leader of the group.

  ‘Good evening, Messer Alighieri!’ cried the student Franceschino Colonna, ostentatiously removing his cap. ‘And you, pay tribute to the Prior of Florence!’ he called to his companions. The three men bowed their heads slightly in greeting and muttered something inaudible.

  ‘What brings you to these parts, Colonna? Aren’t you a long way from the road to Rome?’

  ‘My city has stood solidly on her hills for twenty centuries, and will remain there for many centuries yet to come. There’s no hurry to get there, since your lands are so abundant with game,’ the young man exclaimed, drawing a blood-covered rabbit from his saddlebag.

  ‘It doesn’t look like much booty for four fat men,’ the prior observed, nodding to Franceschino’s companions, who remained at a distance. ‘Your friends?’

  ‘Jolly travelling companions. They too are pilgrims for the Jubilee, I met them on the road from Bologna. As we wait to resume our journey, we’re taking occasional rides in the countryside.’

  ‘Do you know where you are?’

  ‘Somewhere north of the new walls, I think. But we’ve been wandering about without paying any attention to the road. Have we accidentally trespassed?’

  Dante shook his head.

  ‘Then have a safe journey, Messer Alighieri, and I will see you again when God wills,’ the young man replied, tugging on his bridle and spurring his horse.

  Dante watched him take off before disappearing in the direction of the fire. ‘I’ll see you again when Florence wills,’ he murmured.

  His instinct told him they were heading straight for the place where Rigo di Cola had been killed. He had heard that murderers often return to the scene of the crime, because of that mysterious attraction that binds conscience and the sin committed. But he had always thought it mere foolishness.

  And yet those men weren’t there by chance. He had had time to study the prey that Franceschino had shown him. The animal was covered with dried blood, as if it had been dead for many hours. Whatever their intent, those men had not been hunting.

  AS SOON as they had passed through the city gate, the Bargello came and stood next to him. ‘You know, Prior? I’ve had an idea. I was thinking about that pile of timber that went up in smoke, and the other lot, ready for use. It would take a clever carpenter to put together a piece of work like that. Who knows what a merchant was doing there in the middle of it.’

  ‘Perhaps he wasn’t a merchant after all. And someone must have helped him. But I’m sure it was only at the moment of death.’

  ‘Are you thinking of the cloth merchant Fabio dal Pozzo, who’s staying at the Angel Inn?’ he asked the poet, who nodded. He too had been thinking of the dead man’s companion. ‘He’s an outsider. He’s not one of us. And he’s already killed someone, someone close to him.’

  Dante thought with a shiver of how justice was done in his city. ‘It might be useful to listen to him. I want to question him once we get to Florence. See to it that he doesn’t get away.’

  At the priory, early afternoon

  HE MUST have been dozing for some time, overcome as he was with exhaustion. He got up from the bed with his mind still confused, still prey to the images of his dream. He threw open the door of his cell and emerged on to the portico, taking deep breaths. In the afternoon air a damp night-time smell was slowly becoming noticeable, but it couldn’t yet defeat the fierce heat of the sun, still high in the sky. The usual animation of the streets beyond the monastery wall reached his ears, amplified by the echo of the walls.

  He saw that the guards had clustered around the open gate, busy studying something outside. Trying to get his thoughts in order, Dante went down to the cloister. Crowds of men and women could be glimpsed through the portal, walking back from the Oltrarno, passing through the Ponte Vecchio and heading for the northern part of the city. ‘Where are they going?’ he asked one of the soldiers.

  But he already knew the answer. ‘Towards the Maddalena. There’s a rumour that the Virgin is going to be exhibited again today.’

  The image of Bigarelli’s broken body had never stopped haunting him. Along with his splendid and horrible work, if what he had been told was true. And then the face of that statue and its curious simulacrum of
life. His reason drove the prior to seek the guilty man among the guests at the inn, taking refuge from the ambiguous realm of shadows that had been manifested in the abbey. And yet his instinct cried that the miracle was yet another link in the chain of death. ‘Tell the other priors they’ll have to manage without me at the meeting. There’s something that requires my presence,’ was all he managed to convey to the guard.

  WHEN HE got there, the church was already full to capacity. Once more the poet elbowed his way through the throng, trying to reach his earlier observation point behind the pillar. The canopy designed to receive Bigarelli’s reliquary had already been carried in front of the altar, and someone had drawn the curtains to display it to the view of the faithful. But the monk and the prodigious relic had yet to appear.

  Dante took advantage of this to study the mass of humanity all around him. Something had changed since last time: the rumour of the miracle must have spread quickly, reaching the furthest points of the city. Now, apart from the vulgar faces and the coarse greyish clothes of the rabble, the nave was animated with patches of colour, the sumptuous clothes of aristocrats and members of the upper classes.

  The halt and the lame had managed to grab a place behind the altar. Here and there was the dark clothing of a notary, and in a corner, unsettlingly, the white habits of two Dominicans.

  The poet instinctively withdrew behind the pillar: if even the Inquisition had taken the trouble to come, it was a sure sign that news of the miracle had passed beyond the walls of that little monastery.

  At that moment the monk Brandano entered through the back door, on slow and majestic footsteps, followed by the two men charged with the duty of carrying the reliquary. The same procedure was repeated, but this time the expectant atmosphere in the auditorium was more palpable, practically frantic. The eagerness of those who had already witnessed the miracle was now joined by the morbid curiosity of those who had heard of its wonders and by the hope of salvation of those who believed that God had really descended to the midst of hell.