by Giulio Leoni
‘No one has usurped them,’ the Bargello replied, rising to his full, small height. ‘It was your colleagues who gave me the order to act, after granting an audience to the Holy Inquisition, at the palace. That’s why the Pope’s men are here as well …’
Dante lowered his head in anger. Now that his mandate was about to expire, the crows were ruffling their feathers. He should have been more cautious. And from midnight onwards it would be vital to arouse no suspicions.
At that moment the crossbowmen, having completed their laborious loading operations, had begun to launch their projectiles at the gaps between the crenellations and the little loopholes that opened in the tower. It was impossible to tell who or what they were firing at, apart from a few shadows that could be glimpsed up above. Nor did there seem to be anyone coordinating the firing; everyone seemed to be shooting on a whim. Laughter and salacious comments made the atmosphere even more unreal, as if what was going on were a macabre game rather than a deadly attack.
The first salvo, fired off pretty much at random, had missed its target. Many arrows had flown over the tower and disappeared, while others had struck the wall, scattering fragments of brick and dust. Shouting with excitement, the men began to reload their crossbows.
Those Genovese don’t seem to live up to their fame, Dante thought. And the Commune had bled itself dry to acquire their services, the lazy bastards. At that moment a sudden uproar broke the silence. Something shattered at the very top of the tower. A cloud of dust swelled up and then slowly began to fall. Then, accompanied by a series of loud crashes, a small section of the crenellations leaned dangerously outwards, before collapsing on the heads of the besieging forces with a rumbling roar.
Dante was still busy assessing the effects of the firing from the crossbowmen. He instinctively gripped the Bargello by one shoulder, pulling him beneath the canopy that covered a shop doorway. They fell over one after the other, as the great collapse crashed in front of them and a hail of detritus thundered down on the wooden floor.
In the narrow square not all of the besieging forces had managed to find shelter. Shouts and laments emerged from the cloud of dust and rubble, confirming that more than one had been hit.
The poet struggled painfully to his feet. ‘Damned heretics, we’ll kill you all,’ the purple-faced Bargello brayed beside him. He sat there legs akimbo, panting with rage and fear. An adversary hitherto obscure and impalpable had suddenly emerged from the shadows, revealing himself to be a dangerous flesh-and-blood enemy.
‘You thought they were going to infiltrate your guards, like the Turks in the carnival procession?’ mocked the prior.
The other man coughed violently, trying to rid his throat of dust. They found themselves at the centre of a bedlam of fleeing men, blinded by the dust and seized by terror that the collapse might be repeated. Meanwhile those men who remained unscathed tried to reorganise themselves, dragging the wounded to shelter. A company of archers had retreated to the mouth of the three lanes that led into the piazza, and from there had resumed firing at the tower. Fiery arrows rained down on the stones and exploded in a shower of sparks.
Some projectiles had entered the narrow loopholes, others had become stuck in the roof-trusses. The strips of resinous cloth wrapped round the tips smoked in the air. A cry of pain, followed by the shadow of a body falling far below, indicated that at least one of the arrows had reached its target, amidst the jubilant cries of the bowmen. Here and there on the roof the poet saw red dots flaring where the arrows had struck and pierced the wooden covering.
Meanwhile he reflected anxiously upon what he had to do. Through the wide-open door of the church he glimpsed the blurred silhouettes of other men moving around. He impulsively threw himself forward, emerging into the abbey cloister through the unhinged door.
Spurred on by his own impetuosity, he gripped the door-post and looked all around. Having recovered from the confusion that followed the collapse of the building, the others were running, too. The place was swarming with armed soldiers scattered around the open space of the portico, wielding their swords to finish off the wounded men and women who fell to the ground amidst wails and cries of terror.
All was lost, for Cecco and the others. How could he stop the coming massacre? His own authority would expire in just a few hours. Seized by impotent grief Dante wrung his wrists beneath the sleeves of his robe.
But he could not yield to despair, he decided. He moved cautiously on, taking shelter behind a small pillar. All around him the ground was covered with shattered corpses. Someone, still in his death-throes, was groaning softly, trying to creep towards an unreachable shelter. None of the bodies on the floor wore any of the liveries that he had seen outside. The attackers must have overcome their victims without too much difficulty: the dead weren’t wearing armour, and there was no sign of any weapons on the ground, suggesting that God’s army had not had time to grab the swords hidden in the crypt.
Trails of blood marked the route of the assailants, who now raged on the stairs of the tower. From inside, at the height of the first landing, more groans could be heard, and pleas for mercy. Dante withdrew still further into the shadows, uncertain what to do. Whatever idea he might have had as he entered that slaughterhouse, it was too late now. Everything was lost, and for ever. He was about to make his way back out again when he heard a quiet voice from the darkness behind him.
It sounded like someone mumbling prayers, a confused and incomprehensible murmur in which the prior could make out only the word ‘damned’ obsessively repeated in the midst of other imprecations. He cautiously approached the source of the voice. It was a man crouching behind one of the pillars, who seemed to be pleading with the wall of the portico. When Dante came up behind him, he saw the man suddenly rising to his feet and turning towards him, as a purple flash split the dense darkness.
Dante felt a hand covering his mouth. He instinctively raised his arm, diverting the dagger-blow. He became aware of the sweetish taste of blood behind his lips. Then with a desperate jerk he escaped from the man’s grip, hurling himself forward in a bid to strike a blow of his own. The movement had impelled him into the open, dragging his adversary with him. The light coming from the flaming roof suddenly lit up their faces. Before him, his face distorted with anguish and his face covered with blood, stood Cecco Angiolieri.
Still trembling with excitement, Dante leaned against one of the pillars. He lowered the weapon, staring at the man in disbelief. His friend was wearing a plumed helmet worthy of a Roman emperor, and thick leather armour. But underneath it he saw the puff of the jerkin and the usual purple stockings. Half god of war, half satyr. A joker as usual.
Cecco seemed pleased to see him. Still quivering, he hugged Dante, covering his cheeks with kisses like a delighted dog. ‘My friend, I knew we’d make it! The Fedeli always help each other.’ Then all of a sudden he turned suspicious, casting the poet an inquisitorial glance. ‘Were you the one who gave the order to attack us?’ he added.
Dante felt it was more of an aggrieved reproach than a question. ‘I should have done it when I saw the head of the snake that is currently unwinding all its coils. But now you must flee, you must all flee! Where is Amara?’
‘I … I don’t know,’ Cecco stammered, adjusting his breeches. ‘We split up after the troops broke in. I saw her escaping towards the tower …’
The cries and mayhem continued above their heads. Cecco looked up for a moment, before staring at Dante again with a despondent expression. ‘The slaughter and great havoc,’ he muttered pompously, moving his blade in a circle like a bad actor on a stage.
The whole upper part of the tower was in flames, like a gigantic torch in the night. The heat had even begun to char the soft tufa from which the building was constructed, and which was now being carried away in an infernal cloud of sparks. If anyone had taken refuge up there, by now they were scattered ashes.
Something stirred on the first floor, where a loophole opened up on to a small stonework
landing. Two men had appeared there, attracting the attention of the other men further below.
One gripped a human figure by the hair. ‘Look who I’ve found!’ he cried mockingly. With a violent jerk he pushed the body beyond the overhang and left it dangling in the void. ‘The Virgin of Antioch … all of her, ready for a second miracle!’
The woman uttered a moan of terror, her bare feet kicking in the void as her hands waved desperately around in the air in search of purchase. The other man stepped over and stripped her clothes off her with a broad grin, revealing her true nature.
‘But she’s a monster!’ he cried with horror. With both hands he brandished the sword he carried at his hip, raising it above his head and bringing it down with all his might.
The blade struck Amara in the loins, penetrating her delicate flesh and shattering her backbone. A rain of blood and innards plunged down below. From her open lips there came only a sigh, followed by a soft bleat like that of a slaughtered lamb, as her chest was drenched in blood. Her arms jerked around in one final spasm, as if in a desperate bid to fly away from her pain. She was still alive, the fallen angel in the hands of the dwellers in Sodom. The man who was holding her shook her violently, sniggering, and then let go. The mass of hair slipped through his fingers like a bundle of dead snakes, then fanned out as the body plunged far below.
Trembling uncontrollably, Dante covered his face with his arm. A stormy sea roared in his temples. He had to lean against the roof-beam to stay upright. Beside him Cecco gave a muffled sigh.
It was that wound that brought the prior back to reality. He turned towards his friend, staring in bewilderment at the bloody remains that lay piled up a few feet away from them. ‘Move yourself or you’ll be finished, just like that woman!’ he hissed, shaking him by his arm.
Cecco remained motionless, as if he was deaf. ‘She wasn’t a woman …’ he stammered. He had taken a few steps forward, emerging from his hiding place. He stared at the body, his eyes bright with a strange form of lust.
‘Follow me!’ Dante commanded, pushing him towards the door. ‘But first help me to recover something precious.’
‘Money?’ panted Cecco, suddenly animated again. ‘The treasure? So you know it exists!’ he exclaimed.
‘Maybe more than that. The key to a kingdom.’
Cecco stared at him, disconcerted. There really was something precious in the abbey. And something very dangerous. Something that the poet could not abandon at any cost. Al-Jazari’s machine, hidden in the crypt.
When the disorderly troops had overcome the last of the resistance and turned their attention to plunder, it was just a matter of time before they reached the sarcophagi. And the Bargello had seen the machine, albeit in pieces, and would be able to recognise it and denounce Dante as a co-conspirator. It would be like handing the enemy his head on a silver platter. The machine had to disappear.
He stopped on the threshold, holding Cecco still just behind him. There didn’t seem to be anyone inside, the shouts and footsteps were further off now. He slipped silently towards the basement entrance, pulling his friend after him by the hand. In the crypt he lifted the slab and, with Cecco’s help, pulled out the chest. During the operation Cecco had continued to stare greedily at the object, but Dante had ignored all his silent questions.
‘We have to get out along there,’ he said, pointing to the cavity at the end. ‘Help me – two of us will be able to do it.’
Conquering the horror that the fetid opening aroused in him, he slipped into the passageway. There was no time to get hold of a torch, and the air was so thick with fumes that a flame would have made it impossible to breathe. At the end he spotted a little tunnel leading from the wall. He began to move forward on his hands and knees, feeling his way along the stone. The vault of the tunnel was so low that it forced him to lower his head until he was almost creeping along.
They proceeded in the most total darkness, trusting their instincts. Cecco followed him as a blind man follows his guide, while the hurrying feet of the soldiers echoed above their heads like a distant tremble. The air was getting hotter and hotter, filled with a powerful stench of burning, indicating that the smoke from the fire must have penetrated all the way down there.
Dante made his way onwards, filled with nausea and a growing sense of vertigo. His guts were getting tighter and tighter. Beneath his fingers he recognised the regular roughness of a brick wall: that meant they were underneath the tower. Followed by Cecco, who was still cursing everyone and everything, he started to climb along the passageway, which was so narrow in places that the chest could hardly pass through.
The air was getting more and more impossible to breathe, and the prior felt anxiety mounting within him. He had set off on this journey with no guarantee of success, and a growing feeling of suffocation was taking hold of him. Behind him he heard his companion’s panting breath.
He was gripped by fear: if the passageway led nowhere, or if it was blocked, would he be able to turn back? If Cecco was exhausted and collapsed, his body would prevent any possibility of reaching safety. Or if the chest got stuck …
The spectre of a horrible death flashed before Dante’s eyes. Ideas became muddled in his air-starved brain. Beginning to panic, he was tempted to turn back. He thought he couldn’t hear Cecco any more. Perhaps he had stayed behind, not daring to carry on. Perhaps the chest whose weight he could still feel was merely a hallucination. And if … if Cecco had followed him into this trap specially to get rid of him? Mightn’t his scoundrelly coarseness, his affable buffoonery, be merely a mask that he wore to conceal the muzzle of a murderous beast?
He was about to lose control of his movements when he started to feel a faint draught on his face, barely perceptible at first, then gradually more apparent. He climbed the short flight of steps and emerged in the Forum well.
Panting, his companion emerged behind him. Cecco’s face was a mask of sweat. He looked disorientatedly around as he got his breath back. ‘Where are we?’ he asked in a stunned voice.
Dante had recognised the pool of calm water at his feet. ‘In the old Roman well,’ he said, pointing to the narrow flight of steps that led into the open. ‘We should be safe here.’
‘Damn it …’
‘Who are you angry with, Cecco?’
‘That old hangman – my father. It’s his fault that I’ve ended up like this … Damn it!’ Fear had made Cecco’s voice even shriller than usual. ‘If I ever make it back to Siena, I’ll throw him down the stairs, I swear I will. He’ll give me every last scudo, if I have to drag it out of him with my fingernails. I’ll carve him to pieces, I’ll eat him up and then I’ll shit him into the Arno …’
As he said this Cecco waved his arms around, flailing to left and right with his dagger, which he had drawn from his belt. He seemed to be plunged in a battle with the shadows, as his grotesque mask became more and more tragic. His face, too, beneath the waving pennant of his helmet, had grown sombre. He went on trembling, in the grip of an uncontrollable fury. He prodded the poet’s chest several times with his index finger. ‘I’m fed up with the company of Poverty. When will our time come, my friend? And by the way, what’s in there?’ he said, pointing to the chest, suddenly suspicious. ‘You haven’t told me yet. Are you going to keep it all to yourself, are you going to steal from an old companion-at-arms?’
As he spoke, with a rapid movement he gripped the lid of the chest and opened it. An expression of disappointment appeared on his face as he shifted the machine to make sure there was nothing hidden underneath it. ‘A clock – all this for a damned clock …’ he mumbled, passing the back of his hand over the cut in his forehead. ‘And … the treasure?’
‘There is no treasure, you idiot!’ Dante cried, exasperated. ‘It doesn’t exist, it has never existed! Only death, the shadows and this inferno. Look!’ he added, gripping him by his tunic and forcing his head all the way round.
Cecco coughed, trying to escape his grip, then sagged as if all his spirits ha
d abandoned him. ‘The treasure … doesn’t exist,’ he said disconsolately. ‘They’ve tricked me. Me, the master.’
Stupefied, he had slumped down on his backside. Dante couldn’t suppress a smile. ‘Head for Pistoia, you fool. For the Eagle Gate,’ he said in a low voice. ‘All the units are assembled around here, and no one will pay you any attention. Wait for night to pass, and at dawn mingle with the peasants leaving for the countryside. You’ll be able to do that if fate’s on your side.’
Suddenly Cecco leaped to his feet, like a cloth puppet pulled by a string. He threw himself on the poet, hugging and kissing him. His eyes were moist with joy, faced with that hope of salvation.
Dante looked away and broke free from his grip. He was suddenly able to express the doubt that had been tormenting him. ‘Why were they killed?’
Cecco stiffened, a grimace of surprise on his face.
‘What did old Bigarelli have to do with your plans? And what about those unfortunates on the galley?’ the prior pressed him.
‘Nothing! I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Cecco stammered. He had become circumspect once more. He glanced nervously behind him, as if fearing an ambush.
‘There’s no one here,’ Dante reassured him coldly.
‘I told you, and I swear on the life of that sainted woman Becchina, my lover, and the horns she puts on my head.’
‘Cecco, I know everything. Monerre told me all about the plan. But who did you want to put on the throne? One of those already dead? Or …’
‘So the Frenchman didn’t tell you? And now you want me, your old friend, to show you his cards?’
‘It’s what you’re best at, it seems to me.’
‘Oh, there’s no one better than you at cheating!’
‘Who is it, Cecco?’ the poet yelled, gripping him by the collar and shaking him violently.
‘Arrigo,’ Cecco moaned, trying to break away.
Dante tightened his grip still further. Beneath his hands, his strange friend’s face had begun to redden. On his own face he felt splashes of spittle from a mouth desperately gasping for breath. Then suddenly he let go. ‘Arrigo!’ he spluttered. In the end it was just as he had expected. It had to be that way. According to reason, which is never wrong. The one who had always been in the back of his mind. Arrigo, with his defective leg, the mark left on him by the evil one. Arrigo, the ‘incomplete man’.