by Giulio Leoni
She opened her mouth and no articulate sound came out. Just a groan, as she shook her head once more. At last she suddenly gripped the poet’s wrist and began drumming with her fingers on his palm.
After a moment of puzzlement Dante thought he understood. He knew of a way with which those without voices communicated among themselves by a system of signs. A code invented by the Gypsies, who often gave those unfortunates shelter in their tribes so that they could exploit them as beggars.
‘You’re … you’re mute?’ he murmured in bewilderment. ‘Then how …’
And yet he had heard her incredible song during the display to the people. Unless that, too, was part of a trick. Like the pleading he thought he had heard on the scaffolding. An act of ventriloquism – that could be the only explanation.
He gently released her hand from his grip. An idea had occurred to him. ‘Cover your face and come with me,’ he instructed her.
He walked towards the door. After a moment’s uncertainty the woman followed him. Now her initial fear had vanished from her face, making way for the bewilderment of an animal in a trap. With trembling hands she wrapped round her head the veil that she wore over her shoulders, then unexpectedly held out her hand to him, seeking his guidance.
Dante stepped cautiously outside, making sure there was no one around who might recognise them. Outside, the city was in darkness, but the moon, high in the sky, gave off sufficient light to guide their footsteps, in spite of the damp haze that rose from the banks of the Arno.
The place they were making for was some distance away. They had to pass through the city walls beyond the meadows of Santa Maria Novella. At that hour of night the gates were closed, but the guards wouldn’t make much of a fuss, particularly with the encouragement of a few coins.
Dante turned towards the woman to gauge her strength. She was slender and seemed to be in good physical condition, capable of a long walk. But then he remembered a cart, sometimes used by the Bargello, which was kept in the stable of San Piero.
He beckoned to her to follow him and set off towards the priory. He turned right into a side-street, in the direction of the river. Ahead of them, in the distance, he began to glimpse the torches of the Ponte Vecchio. At a crossroads he thought he could see shadows darting along the walls of the building in front of them. But no one seemed to pay the two of them any attention. He was exhausted, his clothes drenched in sickly sweat. They continued on for one final stretch, until they reached the San Piero gate.
Outside the monastery, leaning against the columns of the entrance, two bargellini were snoozing. They gave a start at the sound of footsteps and came out in a state of alarm, lances at the ready.
‘I am the prior of the Commune,’ Dante said brusquely, showing himself in the light of the torch carried by one of the men. ‘Step aside!’
The men, after a moment’s uncertainty, did as he asked. The poet distinctly saw the irony with which they looked his female companion up and down. But they didn’t seem too surprised, as if this only confirmed the frequency with which women were brought into the priory at night.
Having passed through the cloister, Dante walked to a side-arcade. There, as he had remembered, he found the two-wheeled cart, and a horse standing beside it. He roused the beast, which consented to be hitched to the cart without too much protest.
They set off again, once more under the startled and ironic eyes of the bargellini. The woman sat on the box next to him, motionless. A new twinge of pain pierced Dante’s neck. His old enemy had been revived by the tension and effort of his nocturnal venture. He suddenly felt all the effects of the fight and its aftermath. He headed towards the walls, hoping that he might be allowed through without difficulty.
SOON AFTERWARDS he stopped the cart beside Paradise Gate, in the realm of Monna Lagia. The old Roman villa had once stood in open countryside, but the new buildings now encroached upon it. The reddish mass of the third circle of walls, whose construction was proceeding at a frantic pace, could be seen not far away.
But once they had passed through the villa’s arch the atmosphere was as silent as ever, interrupted only by laughter that came at intervals from the cubicles on the first floor. After making sure that his veiled companion was unrecognisable, Dante entered the courtyard, heading towards the impluvium, now transformed into a drinking trough for the horses of the clients. The ancient mosaic in the floor, a ship surrounded by dolphins, was being steadily destroyed by the hoofs of the animals, in an endless shipwreck. By now only the shadow of the ancient forms appeared here and there, amongst depressions and bare patches where weeds grew uncontrolled.
They had almost reached the steps on the other side when a mocking voice thundered in his ears. ‘Oh, Prior! Now you’re coming to bring me women rather than find them? Or isn’t little Pietra enough for you any more?’
Dante turned round with a start, red in the face. A woman with an impudent expression had appeared from beneath the portico, wearing bright colours.
‘Lagia, I’m here for other reasons. There’s a mute among your women, if I remember correctly. A girl who knows sign language. This woman …’ he went on, nodding towards the silent, veiled presence, ‘is unable to speak. I need someone to help me talk to her. And I want it to be done with absolute discretion, given her aristocratic standing.’
‘And why do you bring her to me covered up like that, as if she were a leper?’ Monna Lagia replied suspiciously, taking a step back.
‘She’s not ill. Do as I ask, and quickly.’
The woman waited for a moment. Then, turning towards the women’s rooms, she cried, ‘Pietra!’ Then, with a half-smile, she added, ‘You’re a good customer, after all.’
A girl’s face appeared on the balcony. Recognising Dante, she grimaced.
‘Go and find the mute girl, and bring her to my room,’ Lagia ordered. The girl merely nodded before disappearing again. ‘You follow me, you … and the noblewoman,’ she said to Dante, glancing ironically at him. ‘You always turn up at night, Prior. Your wife Gemma can’t be getting much nuptial bliss, even if you have given her children. But in my Paradiso, the beds are sweeter than the houses of Florence, at least that’s what everyone tells me.’
‘Shut up, woman,’ the poet hissed angrily.
Lagia exploded with laughter, slapping her thighs with her hands. ‘They tell me you’ve written love poems to sixteen beauties, but none to her,’ she continued shamelessly. Then she pointed her index finger at him. ‘People like you would be better off not getting wed at all, if you can’t keep your dicky-bird in its cage,’ she added, quickly retreating from the prior, who had stepped menacingly towards her.
At that moment Pietra appeared from behind the curtain, and came in followed by a frightened-looking girl, as white as if she had never stepped outside the brothel. As she passed by Dante, she ostentatiously avoided looking in his direction, turning instead towards Lagia. ‘This is Martina, the deaf-mute.’
The brothel-keeper raised her chin towards the prior and waited.
‘Tell her to ask the woman who she is, and why she has come to Florence,’ he began.
Lagia repeated the question to the pale girl, standing in front of her and pronouncing the words clearly. The young woman must have deduced something from the movement of her lips, because she nodded in agreement. Then she gripped the hand of the veiled woman, opening her palm, and began tapping out a mysterious rhythm with her fingertips.
Dante watched, struck by the scene. Meanwhile his mind was wandering in a forest of analogies. He felt a sense of embarrassment welling up in him, as if he were spying on a kind of secret femininity that was gradually being unveiled through this strange colloquium. Perhaps the same embarrassment as Paris felt, he thought, when he was called to settle the dispute between the goddesses.
Pietra too seemed attentive, but although she tried to look away, the poet noticed that her eye, apparently fixed straight ahead of her, was occasionally straying and often settling on him.
The veiled woman had in turn begun to touch the other girl’s hand, again with incomprehensible movements. Finally the young prostitute stopped and turned towards Pietra, uttering a series of stifled moans.
‘What’s she saying?’ exclaimed Dante impatiently.
Pietra pulled a contemptuous little face. ‘Your friend doesn’t seem all that special, Prior. Niece of a monk, if I’ve understood. She’s called Amara. French, from Toulouse.’
‘Did your friend ask her why they have come here?’
Pietra hesitated. ‘Martina isn’t quite sure she understood. She seems to have said it’s “for the Emperor’s dream”. His “last” dream, in fact.’
Lagia intervened, alarmed. ‘Emperor? What have emperors got to do with anything? Who have you brought to my house?’
The prior ignored her, absorbed in what he had just heard. Then, turning towards Pietra, he said, ‘Ask her about the mirrors.’ The girl, after a moment’s bafflement, translated the question into that primitive language, which the pale girl hurried to reformulate for the mute. Again Dante witnessed that strange finger-ballet.
‘She says that along the way, in Venice, someone taught them magic,’ Pietra said, after listening once again to her friend’s strange grunts of reply. But her face was uncertain.
Beside him Lagia seemed to be growing increasingly uneasy. ‘Magic?’ she exclaimed, crossing herself. Dante bade her be silent with an imperious gesture, then Martina moaned again in Pietra’s direction.
‘What else did she say?’ the poet pressed her.
‘Nothing,’ replied the girl, half-closing her eyes with weariness. But through a narrow gap in her eyelids she continued to stare at him with her bright-green eyes. ‘Nothing else. She speaks a strange language, it’s impossible to understand it all,’ she said abruptly.
He shrugged. Then, after a moment’s reflection, he took the mute woman by the hand and set off. Behind him he heard the murmurs of the other women fading away as they walked back across the portico.
Amara looked exhausted. She tried to hoist herself on to the cart by gripping the rim, but stumbled backwards. Dante held her from behind by the hips, keeping her upright, then lifted her on to the box. For a moment the sweet softness of her back pressed against his lips, as a subtle perfume invaded his nostrils. A quiver ran through him.
She had slumped against the back of the seat. Her veil had come away, revealing her alabaster face, which seemed even paler in the moonlight. Her reclining body, unexpectedly full, perspired beneath the light fabric of her dress. Dante was fascinated by the curve of her hips, her long, nervous legs, her half-open mouth, with a drip of saliva gleaming faintly at the corner of her lips.
Dante suddenly withdrew the hand with which he had supported the woman. Was a physical image enough to throw an orderly mind into confusion? And how extraordinarily powerful must Eros be, if the mere vision of his delights was enough to overwhelm all other considerations.
Greatly disturbed, he was about to whip his horse when he heard the sound of hurried steps beside the cart. Pietra was running silently towards them, looking behind her as if afraid that someone might see her.
He clutched the reins tightly to halt the animal that had just begun to move.
Pietra gripped the edge of the cart as if to hold it back, and was looking at the mute covered by the veil. Then she turned to the poet, after glancing round once more. ‘Beware of that woman,’ she murmured to him, leaning into his ear.
Dante caught the sharp scent of her breath. But at the same time he thought he noticed a hint of affection in the warning, as if for a moment the girl’s hostility had eased a little.
‘Pietra …’ he began. But she interrupted him with a brusque gesture and turned to leave. Her voice was harsh once more. ‘Beware,’ she repeated. ‘She is not as she seems.’
‘What do you mean?’
The prostitute cast a hostile glance at the mute, still lying motionless with her head abandoned against the back of the seat. Then unexpectedly she exploded into fits of bitter laughter, full of that vulgar sarcasm that the poet knew so well. ‘You’ll find out for yourself, my God, you’ll find out!’ she exclaimed, removing her hand from the edge of the cart and retreating towards the door of the brothel as if sorry she had come.
Dante was unsure as to the best course of action. Beside him, on the cart, his companion seemed to be slowly recovering, glancing at him from time to time from under the veil, beneath which she had hidden her face once more.
To take her back to the priory would have been impossible. He was almost tempted to turn round and go back to the brothel, to ask Monna Lagia to put her up for a while. But that would have amounted to making her existence public in the blink of an eye, when what he really wanted to understand was what lay concealed behind the trick, and how it was linked to the mysterious deaths.
He decided to return to the abbey. There the woman could remain in hiding, and he would have the chance of getting his hands on the monk as soon as Brandano showed his face again.
DANTE ENTERED the church by the door that he had forced the first time, holding the woman by the hand. Her fingers had slowly warmed up between his. Now when they responded to his grip it was no longer with the fear of a prisoner, but almost with the sweet abandon of a lover.
He led her along the colonnade, towards the door behind the altar. But after a few steps he stopped, pushing her behind a pillar and then squatting down in its shadow. In front of them a man was wandering about the nave as if looking for something. Thinking that Brandano might have returned, the poet moved his hand to his dagger as the shadow came closer.
He was preparing to attack, his muscles quivering for action, but just a moment before he pounced a ray of moonlight from a window lit up the ungainly face of the stranger.
‘Cecco!’ cried Dante. ‘What are you doing here?’
The other man gave a little jump, and stopped. But he immediately recovered his composure, his embarrassment soon erased by a mocking little smile. He raised his head, glancing ostentatiously all round.
‘They say miracles happen here. I just wanted to see. You Florentines are really lucky, you know. God comes and writes straight on to your pages. I’m sure that if it rained shit from the heavens one day, in Florence it would smell of violets.’
A red veil fell over the poet’s eyes. He gripped the Sienese by the lapel of his jerkin and shook it violently. ‘Cecco, did you come here to hoodwink my city along with that rogue Brandano? When there’s cheating going on, you’re never far away!’
Cecco delicately took Dante’s fingers and gracefully loosened their grip. ‘I swear I’m here to breathe in the air of the miracle and prepare my soul for the baptistery in St Peter’s.’
‘What are you doing here?’ the poet repeated, trembling.
Cecco’s cheerful mask was beginning to crack. His eyes ran from Dante to the woman, as if uncertain what attitude to assume. ‘Nothing … I was looking for something …’ he stammered, embarrassed. He kept his eyes lowered. Then he raised them to the mute woman. ‘So you’ve discovered everything,’ he murmured, drawing his head back defiantly. An icy silence fell between them for a few moments. ‘Well?’ Cecco continued. ‘You can’t tell me you want to help the populace of this despicable city just to sit on some miserable throne and represent the clique of merchants and cutpurses! Besides, I’ve used up all my funds and my faction in Siena is doing battle with its enemies. And they will do badly if our only protection is Milady Poverty. I’m not one of those idiots who jump up and down singing the praises of that fool from Assisi,’ he concluded, with a hint of his usual mirth.
‘Cecco, tonight you will sleep at the Stinche.’
Cecco blanched, just for a moment, then immediately grew cocky again. ‘Come on, Dante, you wouldn’t do that to an old comrade-at-arms? Don’t you remember how I protected your back, at the battle of Campaldino?’
‘At the battle of Campaldino all I saw was your back, running away ahead of all the
others!’
‘Which means you can’t have been far behind!’
Dante shook his head. ‘Who else is involved with you in all this?’
‘There’s no shortage of them in Italy, people ready to play at being priests,’ Cecco smiled. ‘And even more if there’s the prospect of gain. Join us, my friend. I know your finances aren’t exactly flourishing at the moment. We can make a small fortune from the gullibility of these yokels.’
There was a moment’s silence. Cecco took advantage of it to nudge the poet.
‘Those Florentines can go to hell! What have you got in common with all those pygmies that surround you, apart from the fact that you were born in the midst of them? And wouldn’t a few florins in your pocket come in handy? I know your name’s in the records of the usurers, as well as on the parchments of the poets.’
The prior’s face was darkening by the minute. Beside him Amara had lifted her veil. Once again those enigmatic features pierced him to the core. For a moment he had a sense that she was about to say something, and that even her muteness was a trick. Instead she merely took a deep breath. ‘Yes,’ he went on, ‘they can go to hell. Yet I want to know everything, holding nothing back. Who’s responsible for this mess? And who are the people I must join, Cecco?’
The other man gestured vaguely. ‘The Fedeli are about to carry out a colossal enterprise that will change the face of the earth.’
‘Who’s Brandano? And where’s he got to? He’s the brains behind the illusion, isn’t he?’
‘He’s merely a showman, the kind of wandering player who charms the peasants at fairs. But he’s pretty good, don’t you think? He’s believable, in those monk’s rags. I thought I’d find him here.’
‘Who gave Brandano the mirrors for the trick? And who’s pulling the strings here in Florence?’
Cecco shook his head. His expression was sincere now. ‘I don’t know who’s running this. I found out about this in Toulouse, when we went there for a change of air.’
‘To Toulouse?’ Dante said. ‘And why Florence after that?’