by David Perry
“I don’t understand,” Adriano said.
“Oysters are ugly, are they not?” said Don Bello. “On the outside they have nothing to recommend them. Craggy and rough and difficult to open. Many the sailor’s hand has been bloodied and scarred by trying to shuck a recalcitrant bivalve.” The priest chuckled, but then clasping his hands together tightly suddenly opened them to reveal two foil-wrapped chocolates from Café Volsini. “But when opened, the flesh of the oyster is sweet.”
Lee and Adriano lightly applauded Don Bello’s sleight of hand and took the chocolates from him.
“And sometimes, there is even a pearl inside, yes?” Adriano was smiling broadly.
“Be careful what you wish for,” Don Bello said, motioning for them to unwrap their sweets. Lee looked up, recognizing what had been one of Brian’s favorite phrases. “One never knows what La Donna Volsini hides in her creations. Here, let me show you.”
Don Bello took back the sweets, and expertly cracked one open along a thin perforation in the chocolate. “Hold out your hand,” he said to Lee and out popped a rainbow-hued marble.
“Isn’t that dangerous?” Lee said. “You could crack a tooth? What if a child swallowed one?”
Don Bello laughed. “How funny you Americans are. Always worried. A potential lawsuit behind every bush. La Donna Volsini only sells these to kids old enough to know, or to their parents for special occasions. It’s an Orvieto tradition.”
“It’s like the gift in a box of Cracker Jacks,” Lee said. “I almost choked on a tiny toy once when I poured an open box into my mouth.”
“We have a similar tradition in Spain for Three Kings Day, Rosca de Reyes. It’s a special cake served on Epiphany, January sixth. A little toy is baked inside, usually a ceramic figurine of Baby Jesus. The child that finds it is ‘king’ or ‘queen’ for the day. I always liked the tradition. Life is full of surprises, some of them dangerous, some of them not. Life doesn’t come with a guarantee.” Adriano expertly cracked open his chocolate and plucked out a one euro coin.
“Bravo, young Adriano.” Don Bello grinned. “You are a philosopher indeed.”
“Can atheists be philosophers, Don Bello?” Adriano asked, giving the coin to Don Bello. “For your mural project.”
“Why of course,” Don Bello winked, pocketing the donation. “The Miracle of Bolsena was at the hands of one who questioned his faith.”
“What was Andrea’s temptation?” Lee ventured quietly. Adriano didn’t try and stop him.
Don Bello’s playful smile went flat. He suddenly looked very old indeed. “Andrea was never tempted. That was the problem.” His gaze was steady as he looked far out over the landscape. “Andrea was almost too good for this earth. I don’t believe temptation had found him yet.” Then, almost under his breath he said, “The truly innocent are always the ones sacrificed first.”
“You miss him,” Adriano said. A statement, not a question.
“Yes. We all miss him. But grief is the price of love in this life.”
“Don Bello! Don Bello! Come quickly!”
The trio turned suddenly as a young man ran pell-mell down the incline toward them. His white lab coat and stethoscope streamed behind him like a flag whipping in the breeze. It was Luke, the doctor from Sant’Andrea.
“Lucca, what’s wrong?” Don Bello caught the youthful physician at arm’s length. He was panting from his flight.
“The Bishop. He’s in the hospital. I don’t think he’s going to make it. Bring your holy oils. I think he’ll need last rites.”
The quartet was soon running through Orvieto’s tortuous streets across town to the hospital in the cathedral’s shadow.
CHAPTER XXXIII
Clement’s Fountain
May 1, 1528 (Julian calendar), Orvieto
Clement was pleased. “Like Moses striking the stony earth of the Sinai to bring forth refreshment, let now water gush forth from this rock to quench the thirst of Orvieto.”
The Pope hit the pavement with his crozier and up sprang a geyser, raining down in unexpected enthusiasm on the assembled crowd who rushed forward to splash in the quickly filling pool.
“How was that for my first miracle?” Clement whispered to Gio.
“Behold the Lord’s mighty hand,” the young Swiss Guard replied in the Pope’s ear.
The two friends laughed.
“Your Holiness, you have brought life-giving waters to my people—to all of Orvieto—regardless of their faith.” Moses de Blanis was beaming.
“Gentiles and Jews all thirst for justice, but first they’re just thirsty. This town will no longer have to worry about the safety of its water supply.” Take that Emperor Charles, Clement thought somewhat smugly. While you’re tearing down Rome, I’m restoring Roman aqueducts and building new wells for a weary populace. Clement the Water Bearer. I like that. Maybe I could get that bandied about.
“Orvieto will never forget you for this,” said the Jewish physician and banker. “Your legacy is secure.”
“That will take more than turning on a fountain.” The Pope sighed. “Saving my reputation will be the neatest trick since the Resurrection, but it’s a start.”
“Every journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” said Sofia, stepping up between her father and her newly minted fiancé, Gio.
“Is that from the Koran?” Cardinal Egidio asked, joining the group.
“Confucius,” Hassan de Wazzan answered, stepping forward and kissing Clement’s papal ring. “Wisdom comes in many languages.”
“What a day.” Clement was genuinely happy. “What a pity Michelangelo isn’t here. We could sit for a portrait. How I’d love a way to remember this moment.”
“I’ve thought of that,” Moses said with a sly smile. “Good people of Orvieto,” he screamed out through cupped hands to be heard over the joyful noise of laughing children and chattering parents. “Orvieto is the heart of our country. A city born of volcanoes and sculpted by the rivers of time. It is a rock upon which much history has been written, nay carved in the rugged plinths of a human record in the language of many peoples and many faiths. But once here, the conversion begins.”
“Remind me never to speak in public after your father,” Clement whispered to Sofia, whose hand he noticed was clasped tightly in Gio’s. “He’s a Semite Demosthenese. I don’t want to compete with that.”
“Shhh, Holy Father.” She touched her finger to her lip in friendly rebuke. “He’s getting to the best part.”
Clement obediently crossed his lips in the sign of silence and continued to listen.
“Once here,” Moses continued, “like Paul, visitors are thrown from their horse of previous perception and a conversion takes place. Once here, they drink deep of the societal wine of this miraculous place and all are transformed. Once here, they are no longer pagan, or Cathar, Catholic, Muslim, or Jew. Once here, they are Orvietani. Today, because of our noble newest citizen, His Holiness, Pope Clementius Septimus, Orvieto is once again returning to life, coming out of a deep and frozen sleep. Because of him, business is growing. Inns are reopening. Orvieto is beginning what the French might call a renaissance. A reawakening. My fellow citizens, every day when you have a few more hours to cook your meals, play with your children, or worship your God—a few more hours saved because now you can draw water from this well in the center of town instead of making the treacherous trek down the mountain to pull water from the stream, remember our benefactor. Giulio de Medici, our newest and noblest Orvietani, Pope Clement the Seventh.”
With that, Moses stepped aside to reveal a cloth draped over an obvious sculpture placed on the lip of the fountain. With theatrical flourish, he pulled a string and the covering fell away to reveal a majestically carved coat of arms—the papal tiara crowning the Medici crest, Clement’s personal seal.
At this, the crowd erupted in cheers and applause while Clement beamed.
“Thank you, my friend,” the Pope said to Moses. “It is you who should be having mo
numents erected in your honor, not me. It is your money that paid for this fountain…is paying for so many things.”
Moses waved away the compliment. “My dear friend de Medici. I have given only money. You have used that money here for the good of your people. I doubt a Borgia would have done that.”
“True enough,” Clement snapped back, but cheerfully. In front of him, the crowd was beginning to disperse, the streets slippery with water spilled from groaning buckets being born away by gleeful families. Cardinal Egidio was playfully splashing Wazzan. Gio and Sofia just sat on the lip of the fountain staring into each other’s eyes. “We make quite a team, you and I. the Jewish moneylender and the bastard pope.”
Moses chuckled. “Yes, proof that all conceptions are immaculate. Let us go in.”
As Moses motioned for Egidio and Wazzan and the young lovers to follow, Clement began to make his way back to the newly restored papal residence—courtesy of de Blanis’ munificence. Today, Il Medici would throw a party—upstairs in his rooms overlooking the great Cathedral for the six friends, and outside on the plaza for the people of Orvieto. Pope and people alike would feast on roast lamb and suckling pig. Truffles and the fine wine of Orvieto would flow like water from the new Clementine fountain, the first of several Clement was planning to make sure Orvieto would never again thirst or be strangled by an invader’s siege. Already underway was the centerpiece of his papal public works, a vast and spiraling well that went all the way from Orvieto’s summit fortress hundreds of feet down into the bedrock itself. St. Patrick’s Well they were calling it, because of its resemblance to an Irish cave. He had conceived of it as a fearful pope worried about being trapped. Now, he saw that his fear had given birth to something else, a nascent affection, even love, for this windswept rock in the wilds north of Rome. In five short months, Orvieto had become home, more than Rome or even the beloved Florence of his gilded youth. In both those cities, encrusted with riches and religion, he had been “the Pope” or “a Medici.” Here, he was just Clement. Just Giulio.
As he progressed in casual style back toward his home, Clement greeted the people crowding in to kiss his ring, touch the hem of his robes, hold up their children to be blessed, or sometimes just chat. Clement granted all requests.
The celebrations lasted late into the night. Many a besotted partyer laid sprawled, slumbering in deliciously drunken dreams, on the steps of the cathedral. Looking out over the plaza in the hours just before dawn, Clement smiled. Even the massive edifice of the Duomo now seemed prettier than he remembered it. Everything was. As he drifted off to sleep, the Tower of the Moor clock sounded five bells. In the last moments before sleep overtook him on this rarely joyous day, Clement whispered a prayer for his son. “Alessandro.” Perhaps, soon, their reunion would make complete his joy. In a month, Clement was set to begin his journey back to Rome, a restoration for which he had schemed but now one not so fervently wished. My God, he thought, in his waning pre-sleep consciousness. I walked the streets today with no guard, no retinue, with no fear. The age of miracles, it would appear, was not yet over.
He would miss Orvieto.
CHAPTER XXXIV
Luke
Sunday evening, December 8, 2013, Orvieto
Lee asked, “How is the Bishop?”
He and Adriano jumped up from their chairs in the waiting room of Orvieto’s tiny hospital.
“He’ll live,” Luke said simply, walking toward them through swinging doors. As he walked, he pulled off his plastic medical gloves with a military snap and tossed them into a self-sealing hospital waste bin next to the door. Through the flapping portal, Lee could just spot two sliding morgue shelves—empty and pristine—and a sign marked EMERGENZA. “I gave him a sedative. Don Bello is with him now. He wanted to be there when he wakes up, which, based on the dose I gave him, won’t be for several hours.”
“What happened?” Adriano asked.
“Alimentary mycotoxicosis.”
“What’s that?” Lee asked.
“Food poisoning. I had to pump his stomach,” the young doctor stated evenly, then, with chilly professionalism, thrust forth his hand. “I’m Dr. Luke Schnell. You are the Americans.” He stated the obvious, like reading off a medical chart. He spoke in English but with an obvious German accent and cadence, direct, clipped, to the point.
Lee heard the nuances.
They all exchanged handshakes, the first non-cheek-kissing greetings yet received in Italy, Lee realized as he took Luke’s palm. The doctor’s nails were meticulously trimmed and his hands smooth, and still slightly coated with powder from inside the gloves. His grip was firm but not brutal, manly, but delicate. The handshake of a surgeon, or a watchmaker. A large gold signet of some sort graced the ring finger of his right hand. Lee half expected a salute to follow. Introductions done, Luke pushed both hands back into the pockets of his impeccably white lab coat, seemingly ironed with methodical precision. The harried, panicked man who had dashed into the garden of San Giovanale a few hours previous was now fully in command of himself.
“Oh God, that woman.” Adriano and Lee followed the doctor’s gaze to where through the window they could see everyone’s favorite blogger, Lady Peg, approaching the emergency room at a rapid jog. “She’ll want episcopal gossip for her online rag. Nein. Not from me.” Luke took his right hand from his pocket and motioned for Adriano and Lee to follow him. “I know a back way out of here.”
Although “Jawohl” would have seemed the appropriate answer, Lee and Adriano joined Luke as he silently led them out the hospital’s emergency entrance at the rear of the building and into a small garden. A grove of large walnut trees shaded the tiny parking area next to the door, their branches hanging over the cliff face just twenty yards from where patients were dropped off. Two modern and sleek ambulances sat underneath the nearest tree. Occasionally a husk dropped off one of the branches and pinged against the roof of the compact vehicles, clearly a specific design for Orvieto’s medievally narrow streets. Through the dappled light of the trees, an enormous stone building with a Rapunzel-like tower could be seen on the hills about five miles away. The Capuccine Monastery. Lee remembered reading about it.
The trio wound their way along the cliff face behind the medical vans, stooping beneath several nut-laden branches in the effort. The drop down to the Rupe below wasn’t as bad as it at seemed closer to the entrance. About twenty feet below the parking area for the ambulances was a well-trod footpath winding down the side of the mount. A sturdy iron gate tucked into the rock just under the ambulance car park, secured with a chain and padlock, prohibited egress from above. Lee noticed that it was topped with sharp, metal tongs. Definitely a private road for the hospital, or some vineyard or olive grove farther down the slope. If you fell from here onto the path, you’d be knocked up pretty badly but probably survive. Of course, if you rolled over from the path, the rest of the descent was a sheer drop over a hundred feet down.
Luke led them onward through light overgrowth for another several yards until he arrived at an impassable facade of bars and vines. With the practiced ease of an expert hand, he reached into the leafy mass and pushed against a gate concealed by a cascade of antique ivy and other vines. “This is where the nurses sneak out to smoke,” Luke said with an obvious frown of distaste. The grate squeaked open. Once through, Luke let it drop back into place, which it did with the metallic clang of an automatic locking mechanism. They were now in a small alley. To their right was a three-story wall punctuated by balconies and arches of typically ancient construction. To their left, a sheer drop down to the road encircling the cliff. A short stone wall was the only protection against a fall. The hillside path that Lee had noticed earlier was nowhere in evidence here. Once again taking the lead, Luke walked at a brisk pace down and around to the right along the alley. A few moments later, they exited onto the street, startled by the overpowering facade of the Cathedral directly in front of them.
“You really know your way around,” Lee said as he tried t
o get his bearings—the Duomo in front, the formal Papal Palace to the right, and now behind them the building whose alley served as their secret passage, the Hotel Maitani, proclaimed in raised, marble type over the door of its obviously luxe-but-somewhat-faded-grandeur lobby.
“Making house calls in a medieval city requires a lot of shortcuts,” Luke said with a slight smile, the first non-martial response yet exhibited. “Arnaud will sleep for a long time yet and I need a break. I’ve done everything I can for His Eminence, the Right Reverend Archbishop of Orvieto and Todi.” He recited the ecclesiastical list of titles with Germanic precision and correctness but nonetheless, Lee thought, also the slightest edge of a simmering resentment. “Let’s go to Michelangelo.”
They walked through the receding sunlight of the rapidly approaching winter, each day’s light a little quicker to leave the sky, a little colder and dimmer in its seasonal retreat until the solstice in two weeks, the shortest day of the year. The vast plaza in front of the Duomo was almost deserted. Most people were still indoors with late afternoon chores and those stores that did open on Sundays here in this town of Catholic tradition were still shuttered from the typically Italian midday break. Both of Orvieto’s clock towers were poised between the final quarter of the hour and the vertical shaft of six o’clock, the time when Orvieto woke from its afternoon naps and the town spilled into the streets to the sound of bells. Like the breath between labor pains, everything was poised on the precipice of Christmas. For a few more moments, it was an almost silent night.
“How did you find Orvieto?”
Luke broke the silence as they walked down the Via del Duomo, away from the cathedral, Hotel Maitani, and the small medical facility toward Orvieto’s central artery, the Corso. As they passed, shops along the way flickered into life behind a growing nativity of seasonal window displays. By the time they got to Café Michelangelo, Orvieto’s evening life had cracked open.