by Giulio Leoni
Cecco exploded with laughter. ‘Perhaps they want to pay tribute to the greatness of your city! Or more likely they think there are more priests, more money and more idiots here than anywhere else. Certainly I’d rather have cheated my own Siena, but apparently everything has to be sub flore …’
The poet gave a start. Where did the old prophecy about the death of Frederick the Second come into it? ‘Where did you get the reliquary that you’re using for the trick?’ he asked.
‘Bigarelli gave it to us.’
Dante nodded. His suspicions were confirmed; there really was a connection between the sculptor and that business about the fake crusade. And between that and the crime. The tense expression on Cecco’s face suggested that the slashed throat of the victim in the tower was still in his mind.
Dante looked around. ‘The reliquary. Where is it hidden?’
Cecco hesitated for a moment, before moving towards a corner of the church not far from the feet of the scaffolding on which the prior had pursued the monk. He bent down and moved something on the edge of what looked like a tombstone. There was the sound of a click, and then Cecco moved the stone aside with remarkable force, revealing the beginning of a staircase that led under the floor. ‘It’s the old crypt. It’s here that …’
He broke off. Then, having overcome his final hesitation, he went down first, followed by the poet. The silent woman had also walked behind them, as if she feared being abandoned in the church.
A spacious basement opened up beneath the abbey. Gravestones lay scattered on the tiled marble floor, and Roman sarcophagi were lined up against the walls. It must once have been the cemetery of the little monastic community, but the ravages of time and abandonment were everywhere in evidence.
‘This is the secret of the magic,’ Cecco murmured, pointing to an object wrapped in a heavy red cloth.
Dante walked over and resolutely uncovered it. The face of the statue, horrible yet fascinating, was lit by the glare of the oil-lamp. The enamel eyes seemed to stare at him with a light of their own, as if they were about to spring into life. He turned around for a minute to look at the woman. There really was a resemblance between the two faces – the same anxious expression – as if some mysterious correspondence existed between the bronze and the flesh.
He carefully worked the locks on the chest, opening the two panels. There was something written inside, invisible to the eye of anyone looking at it from the front. Bigarelli had engraved two words: Sacellum Federici.
Frederick’s tomb. Or his shrine. Once again Dante raised the lamp towards that bronze face, studying it intensely. The soft features, the long hair, had led him to think it was the statue of a woman. But might he not, in fact, have been gazing upon the lineaments of the Emperor, captured in bronze to carry his image into the afterlife? Might the reliquary have been designed to protect the Swabian Emperor’s body on his journey into eternity?
But if that was the case, what was the connection between the sovereign’s death and the deeds that stained Florence with blood half a century later?
He went on looking round in that cave of wonders. Next to one of the sarcophagi a crack opened up in the floor, leading to yet another room below. Dante stretched down, lowering the lamp into the passageway. Under the crypt there ran a wide brick corridor that seemed to disappear in the direction of the Arno. The bottom was covered with water.
‘It’s an old Roman cloaca. It leads towards the old well, in the Forum. Brandano comes along here whenever he doesn’t want to be seen,’ Cecco explained.
Dante nodded. Brandano really was the king of disappearance. Not just on the roof, then, but here too.
‘Now you know everything, my friend. Join us,’ Cecco whispered insinuatingly into his ear.
‘I can’t let you do it. It isn’t for this that Florence has trusted in my deeds … and in my virtue,’ the poet replied with a shake of his head.
Cecco spread his arms in a gesture of comic desperation. By now the woman had joined them. ‘Don’t lose us. Don’t lose her. Isn’t she too lovely to end up in the hands of the bargellini?’
Dante covered his eyes with his hands. He was about to refuse again, but then a possibility entered his mind. ‘What was the Emperor’s last dream? What was he building in the lands of the Cavalcanti? What was it that came from beyond the seas, on that broken ship?’
‘I don’t know. It’s something spoken of among the Fedeli d’Amore. Perhaps it’s his hidden treasure, as safe as it would be in a felt cradle.’
Dante opened his eyes wide. Between felt and felt: Fabio dal Pozzo had used similar words. He gripped his friend by the shoulders and shook him. ‘What is the meaning of the phrase, “between felt and felt”?’
Cecco had turned pale. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he stammered. ‘It was something the Fedeli used to say …’
He seemed sincere, Dante thought, disoriented. And yet the false crusade must somehow be linked to the deaths of all those men. Perhaps, if he had revealed his discoveries to the world straight away, the feeble thread that linked those events might have broken, and he would never know the whole truth.
‘For now, the secret remains hidden in the abbey, with that woman,’ the prior said at last. ‘I shall say nothing. For the time being at least.’
5
Dawn of 10th August
DANTE CAME outside at dawn, after a brief sleep filled with restless images. The faces of the living and the dead had merged into a macabre comedy in which Cecco’s mocking expression was superimposed over Bigarelli’s horrendous injury and the death-ship, weighing anchor again, now sailed with its cargo of corpses towards the lands of the Orient.
He himself must have ploughed through a salty sea, which he thought he could still taste on his lips. The Virgin, too, a prisoner in her gem-encrusted reliquary, had pursued him for a long time, trying to communicate something to him. In the dream, her delicate features had become the horrible face of a monster, as if the wax of her flesh had finally yielded to the glare of the sun.
He had woken up all of a sudden, his forehead gripped in a ring of iron. His old enemy was back, tormenting him by plunging its nails into his brain; although without injuring him too much this time. A light touch, as if to remind the poet of its presence.
So, in Florence he had to find his way to a treasure. He performed a swift mental calculation, but without reaching any definite conclusion. Without having any final idea of the construction, it was difficult to imagine how long it would take to complete it. The ‘treasure’ – whatever it might have been – might still be in transit, or it might already have arrived in Florence. If that were so, it could not be hidden in the casket designed to receive it. It had to be somewhere else.
Between felt and felt.
An allegory, or an expression to be taken literally?
That might be the explanation. The wool warehouses were all concentrated around the fields of Santa Maria Novella, on the other side of the city.
He hoped the cool morning air might do him good. But the sun was already shining relentlessly, like a ball of fire. He had only been walking for a minute or so, and already he was drenched in sweat, like the humour exuded by the skin in a fever. The burning feeling that had tormented him during the night had flamed up once more.
Further on there was a public fountain, he remembered. He was walking in that direction when he saw a man coming out of a side-alley and heading his way. Dante assessed his chances of turning back, but it was too late.
The man had recognised him, and speeded up to block his path. ‘Greetings, Messer Alighieri. It was high time we met. I was waiting for a visit, but perhaps your engagements have held you up,’ he said with a hint of irony.
‘I will come to you when the time is right, don’t worry,’ Dante replied with a frown.
‘But the right time is fast approaching, don’t you know that? It’s already the ides of August,’ the man replied coldly. All trace of affability had vanished from his p
ock-marked face.
‘Domenico, your loan is guaranteed by my brother Francesco, as you know full well, and by my family’s lands,’ said the poet irritably. He wondered why the usurer had become quite so insolent. Had something happened to weaken his own position in the eyes of this villain?
Meanwhile Domenico had caught up with him, and was jabbing at his chest with his index finger. He looked as if he was about to drum on it, but held himself back. ‘It’s one thousand and eighty florins. Gold ones.’
Dante shivered. Had he amassed such huge debts? He knew that figure very well, it had been repeated a thousand times like a shameful proclamation in all the documents he had had to sign. But now the usurer’s wretched voice seemed to embody a sum of gold as massive as a boulder. He felt as if the world were crumbling around him, ready to drag him down with the ruin that threatened the very walls of Florence.
He thought once more of Cecco, his haughty refusal of his invitation. He tried not to listen to this person’s petulant voice, still nattering about maturities and risks. He tried to blank his mind, but Cecco’s proposal went on washing around inside his head like filthy water.
In the end, couldn’t he too have joined in with this crusade business? Who would it have harmed, except for a pack of wealthy and wasteful merchants, and a corrupt and simoniac Church? Might that really have been a way to get out of the mess in which he had ended up?
‘Yes,’ he decided. ‘Those damned Florentines can go to hell.’
HE REACHED his destination, conquering the fire that burned his guts. The area was occupied with warehouses, but there was no one to load or unload the goods: the bell had just struck nine, and all the porters must have been busy refreshing themselves. So Dante headed towards the wool warehouse. The guard was at the door, sitting on a keg, with an earthenware jar between his feet.
‘I don’t suppose there’s a consignment of felt in the store?’
The man looked him mildly up and down. ‘Who wants to know?’
‘The authority of Florence.’
‘By the Holy Trinity and Saint John!’ the man replied, suppressing a yawn.
The poet came closer. The guard read something in his expression and hurried to his feet, moving back a few steps. ‘Only members of the Guild are allowed in the warehouse. And access to the stores is restricted for reasons of commercial security,’ he added immediately, looking round in alarm. But there was no one he could call for help.
The prior came closer.
‘Perhaps … yes, I think so – a few days ago now …’ the guard stammered, confused, taking another step backwards.
‘Show me where it’s kept.’
The other man was giving in. ‘But I’ll have to tell the captain of the Guild,’ he whined, disappearing into a little cupboard just behind the door. He quickly consulted a tattered book, then crossed the courtyard to the other side of the colonnade, followed by Dante.
The warehouse was filled to the rafters with goods. Still following the guard, Dante entered that labyrinth and started to walk past the loads piled up towards the middle of the building. The Minotaur’s labyrinth could not have been very different from that suffocating inferno, he thought at one point, as he wiped away the sweat from his brow. Finally the man pointed to a pile of greyish bales, tightly bound in hempen ropes.
‘Leave me alone,’ the prior commanded. ‘I have to perform an inspection. Apparently fabric has been brought into the city from Cremona, where there has been an outbreak of plague.’
The guard stepped backwards, crossing himself, and began to retreat quickly towards the door, vanishing from view without another word.
Having reassured himself that no one could see his movements, Dante began testing the bales, probing the soft mass with his fingers. Reaching the third one, he felt something hard.
With a few quick movements he liberated the bale from its cords. The hidden content was wrapped in soft felt cloths, as Fabio dal Pozzo and Cecco had said it would be. He went on extricating the ‘treasure’ from its hiding place until he found himself looking at a heavy, compact block, at least two feet by five and more than a span thick. It looked as if someone had hidden a stone slab in the wool.
He delicately cut through a corner of the felt covering with his dagger. A sliver of light from the courtyard exploded with a flash of silver where the felt had come away, dazzling the poet.
A mirror. There was a mirror hidden in the load. A giant slab of mirror, larger than any that Dante had ever seen in his life, not even in the houses of the wealthiest merchants in Florence, or in France, when he had travelled to Paris.
Within a few minutes he frantically inspected the whole load. There were seven more slabs identical to the first, each one carefully protected by felt cloths and hidden amongst the coarse wool. Was this the treasure that everyone was waiting for? They must certainly have been enormously expensive, but he guessed that their value must be more than purely monetary.
One corner of the slab must have been broken in transit. Dante picked up the fragment and put it in his pocket.
He carefully tied up the bales again, concealing all trace of his search. Then he left, brusquely summoning the guard.
The man had followed his movements and would certainly go and nose around as soon as he had left. He came over rather reluctantly, staring at the mass of bales.
Dante turned to him and spoke with concern. ‘In the top bale,’ he said, pointing at the one in which he had uncovered the first slab, ‘suspect rags are hidden. Plague,’ and added, ‘It must be burned immediately, outside the city walls. I will assign people to carry out the task, as soon as possible. On no account are you to touch it, don’t let anyone in, and don’t tell anyone what you know, so that the city does not fall into a panic. And now leave, for your own safety.’
Without a doubt, the first thing the ass would do would be to go and tell his friends the news. But at least fear of the consequences would keep him from poking around for a few hours. Judging by the pallor of his face, he looked as if he had believed the story. The mirrors would be safe for a while.
The prior turned back towards the store, trying to imprint upon his memory the precise point on the shelves where the load was hidden. Then he made for the door, passing once more by the guard, who was anxiously waiting for him. ‘There are sure to be other rags in the load. It’s not absolutely certain that they come from Cremona, but keep away from them, just to be on the safe side. I’ll be back soon, with the chief physician of Santa Maria. And take care that no one gets close: you have to be careful with the plague.’
The man nodded quickly and firmly.
‘And now tell me who it was that stored the load of felt,’ the poet added imperiously.
The man quickly returned to his tattered book, his brow pearling with sweat. ‘Here we are … one Fabio dal Pozzo, merchant. The goods come from Venice.’
Dante smiled to himself.
WORK HAD been frantic in Maestro Arnolfo’s workshop for some time – an activity that was practically never interrupted, not least because of the need not to let the fire go out.
It was a low basement, filled with the hot dryness that emerged from the kiln in a corner. On the benches, some busy apprentices were pouring on to a brick surface the contents of a crucible that had just been extracted from the flames with a long pair of tongs.
The incandescent glass flowed across the surface. Heedless of the heat, the maestro began to trim it with big bronze shears and a shovel of the same material. A few resolute blows and he printed a rectangular shape from the mass, about a foot in length.
‘There’s another pane for the noblemen’s windows, Messer Alighieri. No well-to-do citizen in this city wants the old cloth window coverings any more. It’s good luck for us glass-makers.’
Dante studied the cooling pane. ‘Is that the biggest sheet of glass that you’re capable of making?’ he asked.
‘You can make them a foot along the side as well, but there’s no point. The pane would
be too fragile and imperfect. You’re better off mounting pieces this size with a strip of lead. You can fill a whole church window with those, as they do in France. And the result is safer.’
‘I imagine that in your workshop you make mirrors as well,’ the prior went on.
‘The mirrors are my greatest boast, the pride of my workshop. Celebrated throughout the whole of Tuscany. Look.’
Arnolfo walked over to a bench, where a workman was mounting a pane of glass a span long in a brass frame. He took the object from the boy’s hands and held it up smugly in front of the poet’s face.
Dante studied it in silence. His image returned to him as if the surface of the glass were covered by a layer of water, blurring his vision. The mirror of Narcissus must have been like that, so that the youth didn’t recognise his own reflection. The background of the image was weakened by the darkness of the lead, in spite of the fact that the light was falling right on his face. He smiled politely as a sign of appreciation. Then he asked, ‘Do you have mirrors that are bigger than this one?’
‘Bigger than this one? What would you want to do with it?’
‘Nothing. I’m just curious to know how big a mirror can be.’
‘Not much bigger than what you’ve seen,’ Arnolfo replied. He seemed offended, as if these observations of Dante’s diminished his work. ‘To increase the size you also have to increase the thickness of the pane,’ he began patiently, as if talking to a slightly slow workman. ‘Because otherwise the glass breaks as it cools down. But as you increase the thickness, it’s impossible to preserve the perfect transparency of the material. Besides, it would be extremely difficult to keep the pane perfectly flat to avoid defects in the reflection, once it’s backed with lead.’
Dante nodded as the maestro gave the mirror to his workman. ‘So, it isn’t really possible to make what I suggested? So what would you say about a mirror that was five feet long, and gave a perfect reflection?’
‘I’d say you were raving. Either that or you’d found Maestro Tinca’s coffers.’