by David Blixt
“May I—?”
“No. No local involvement. Five will have to do.”
Corrado watched the dandy suck down another olive, thinking how absurdly simple it would be to kill him. He wouldn’t be able to show his face in Tuscany again, but he’d be free. He could take the four men downstairs and build a band of highwaymen – maybe up by Verona, where the Alps forced travelers to a single path. Or else Spain. There was always a need for Italian soldiers in places like Aragon or Portugal. All it would take…
Corrado rose and made a show of pacing. “That means there’s no one can keep watch – it’ll take all of us to lift the damn thing. No way to keep the friars from ringing the bells if they find us out.”
“Cut the bell-rope before you begin.” Relaxed, the dandy fanned himself and thumbed a page of his book.
“Aye, that’s a start.” Pausing behind the dandy, Corrado drew a misericordia from his tall boot. Eyes on the dandy’s exposed neck, Corrado took two quick steps forward…
He was pelted by small wet objects, then something hard - the foot stool. There was a twist of his wrist, his knees buckled, and a moment later he was flat on his back, his knife no longer in his hand but pressed against his throat. The dandy had a boot-heel against his arm, and was grinding his knee into Corrado’s sternum.
“Corrado, Corrado. You’ve already incurred a death sentence. Why try for two?”
Corrado gasped. “I – I didn’t —”
The fan cracked across Corrado’s cheek. “Of course you did. I’m surprised it took you so long. You’re not the quickest hound in the pack, are you? You’re released from prison and imminent hanging with me as your only watcher. Remove me and you’re free. Now, how hard is that?” The knife didn’t waver as the dandy put more weight down on his chest. Instinctively Corrado sat up, causing the knife at his throat to draw a trickle of blood. “But you must remember, dear sweet Corrado, that you are not as swift as a cat, nor do you have sharp teeth for gnashing. You are a simple rat, with a skill for skulking. Whereas my nature leans far more towards the feline. And like a cat, I can play with my food before or after killing it. At the moment, I need your skills. But not so much that another offence will be tolerated. Understood?”
Vomit in his throat, tears in his eyes, Corrado didn’t move a muscle. “Yes.”
“Excellent.” The dandy rose, dropping the knife to the floor. Gulping down air, Corrado doubled over, clutching himself.
Retrieving his book, the dandy clucked his tongue over having bent the pages. Turning the chair upright, he settled his feet on the windowsill. “Gather your disciples, and prepare yourself to teach them the only lesson you know, my wormtailed – if not friend, shall I say at least comrade? For we are comrades, a fin, fin et demi. Tonight the very trade that condemned you shall give you life. Pray do not vomit on the rug. You’ve already caused it to be stained.”
Corrado touched his bleeding neck and pulled himself upright, his feet crushing the strewn olives into the floorboards. His breath easing, he plucked up the knife and crept from the room. At the door he turned. “Where will you be, my lord, when we’re through?”
“Here, or out. Never fear. Our arrangement is solid. If you are successful, you shall receive the letters of pardon and be free to die again another day. Now leave me to suffer this unbearable heat. Oh, and Corrado – could you send the girl in? I’m out of olives.”
As Corrado departed, the dandy took a moment to adjust the open window – the window that marked this as the best room in the inn. Glass was so much more useful than mere shutters. It was a heartbreaking blow that fifty years earlier the Syrians had sold their secrets to Venice and not his own city. The whole of Italy was clamouring for glass vessels and baubles. What a monopoly the Venetians were building!
The maker of this particular crude window had not been Venetian. The beech wood ash and the sand were improperly mixed, with many large imperfections where the artisan had blown too hard or too soft. But it was sufficient to provide a reflection. Poor simple Corrado had chosen the exact wrong place to stand when he drew his knife.
The girl entered with a fresh bowl, and the dandy watched that same reflection as the girl bent over to clean up the squashed olives from the rug. She had splendid hips, and he imagined that backside of hers was as tasty as a peach. He thought he might call upon her later – or rather, insist that she call upon him. A fine diversion while Corrado plied his trade.
The girl departed and he returned to his book, a rather poor collection of poems. Just as he was losing himself in the second stanza, something in one of the bubbling imperfections caught his eye. Something moving on the rooftop further along the inn. Probably a bird.
Some minutes later, as he stood and stretched, he glanced out the window and noted the serving girl he fancied chatting with a child. He watched, amused, as they talked earnestly for several minutes. He could have leaned out the window to hear, but it was nothing of consequence. He had no liking for children.
Two
Corrado waited for the final Benedictine observance before setting out, using the time to make sure his men were well-oiled for the work at hand. It took a queer man to be a grave robber, and Corrado was the only one among them who’d been convicted of that particular crime.
It was only a week since he’d been slated to hang from a gibbet for violating some rich man’s grave – it was a rule of his profession not to pay attention to names. Not only could it engender sympathy for a widow or child, it was bad for the imagination.
Caught, he’d taken a fierce beating before being dragged in front of a consul who judged him guilty as sin. Corrado couldn’t argue, since they’d caught him with the dead man’s rings, fingers and all. He’d begged quite shamelessly for his life, unabashedly offering his services to the city if only they would spare him. Deaf to his pleas, they’d beaten him again and thrown him in with murderers and heretics, who had cheerfully continued the beating. His profession lacked esteem in the eyes of more accomplished villains.
Then, an hour before the dawn of his slated death, he had been taken from his cell to a carriage with covered windows and transported to a house overlooking the Arno. Manhandled through the door and thrust down among the straw rushes of the foyer, he’d looked up to see the dandy sauntering towards him.
“This is a grave-robber? Really? I would have thought he’d been leaner. Perhaps stout of stomach, stout of heart. Can you speak?”
Corrado had mumbled something and the man had laughed, unleashing a further string of jibes. After an eternity of empty talking, the dandy had smiled and ordered Corrado to his feet. “Like the emperors of old, I have the power to grant life or mete out death. And, like that first Caesar, I am given to rash clemency. But, like Pompey, I must have a little something in return. You don’t have a daughter, do you?”
Corrado had stammered that he hadn’t, that he knew of.
“Pity. Then it must be a father. No no, not your father, or even mine. Rather I am looking for a surrogate father, one you are uniquely suited to bring me. You see, I have a particular fellow in mind. Oh, do stop trembling and listen, don’t ruin my fun – I’m playing Caesar! I need a less-than-living fellow delivered into my hands. If you do this minor deed for me, I might be able to have your regrettable sentence lifted. Well, I’m fibbing a bit – I’ve already had it lifted by a special decree. I have stored the document neatly away. No one knows of it save me and the Anziani, and the city elders aren’t likely to raise a fuss if I let you go to your arranged marriage to a hempen wife. However, if you aid me in this little task, I’ll gladly hand the thing over and we can smell the last of each other. What do you say?”
Having trouble following the fellow’s jaunting talk, Corrado had said, “If I to steal a body for you, you’ll let me go?”
“What a mind! What a prodigy! In a dozen years he’ll be reading and writing at the level of a trained monkey! What do you say?”
What else but yes? He’d chosen four other men from
the prison, strong hands eager for freedom – not men who had beaten him, a pleasant revenge.
Learning whose body he was to steal was unavoidable, and had caused a shiver of fear. But with his neck at stake, Corrado would risk anything. He now led his company of cut-throats and fiends to the walls of Ravenna. There was no war on, so the portal was guarded by a single man with a torch. Seeing no armour and only what weapons a man might carry on a lonely road, the town porter let them in.
Corrado first led them to the handcart he had stashed in town. Beneath the straw it bore picks, iron crows, and a storm lantern. So armed and pulling on hoods to resemble friars of the Frati Minori, they set out towards the churchyard. It was a perfect night for grave-robbing, warm, moonless, and so cloudy that even the stars would not reveal the trespassers.
As it was between the hours of observance, the friars of San Lorenzo were all hopefully asleep. Corrado hoped none lingered in the church, having no desire to raise a hand against a holy man. But without the corpse there was no freedom, only the end of a rope to make corpses of them all. One dead body for five live ones. The trade was more than fair, so woe to anyone who tried to stop them.
One by one they slipped into the church, glancing down the darkened nave towards the altar. When one robber knelt to cross himself, the others stopped him, thinking it unwise to draw the Lord’s attention.
Padding on cat’s feet, Corrado led them into the side chapel. Inside he set the shuttered lantern on the floor and lifted two metal wings just enough to illuminate the marble sarcophagus. He glanced around, but all was the same as it had been that afternoon – save that the candelabra overhead was now covered with a tarp. Odd. But who knew why friars did anything?
Crossing to the stone slab, he lifted his iron bar and sidled it under the lip of the heavy lid. The other felons joined him, and they began to heave.
Corrado began to sweat. Not from the warm night or the exertion, or even fear of discovery. He had serious misgivings about desecrating this particular grave. Under any normal circumstance he wouldn’t have dared. In life this was a man who had consorted with demons. Unearthing his bones was a sure invitation to do the same, or worse.
They’d been at work for two minutes, scraping and grunting, when one of them said, “Did you hear that?”
All five froze, listening intently for the patter of sandaled feet. But the church was silent.
Corrado turned to the man who’d spoken. “What did you hear?”
“It – it sounded like – like a voice.”
“Where?”
“In here!”
Corrado scowled. “Nerves. Everybody gets that way, first time. Now push. The sooner he’s out of here and in the cart, the sooner we’ll be gone.”
They started again with their tools.
“Who’s in here, anyway?” asked a dark-haired murderer as he pushed and wheedled the end of his iron crow.
“Doesn’t matter.” Corrado didn’t want them knowing. It was bad enough that he knew.
“Must be damn important, to buy us our freedom.”
One man stopped, staring at Corrado suspiciously. “He’s not a saint, is he?”
“No,” grunted Corrado. “Far from it. Now be silent.” Their chatter wasn’t helping their nerves. Or his own.
He was just pushing down on the iron crow when a voice, clear as glass, said, “Cianfa dove fia rimaso?”
This time they all heard it. One robber raised his crow to strike. “Who’s that?”
“Cianfa dove fia rimaso?!” The question echoed around the small chamber.
“It’s not outside,” hissed another robber. “Where’s it coming from?”
He was answered by a chuckle that frightened them more than the bodiless voice. One man’s shaking hands caused his iron crow clatter on the floor. “You heard that!”
Corrado was utterly still, trying not to feel the hairs standing on his forearms and neck. This wasn’t imagination. There really was a voice!
“Who is it?” demanded the convict who’d crossed himself. Snatching up the shuttered lantern, he moved it close to the inscription chiseled in the marble. Corrado knew he should stop the man, but he was unable to move.
The convicts all clustered around the tomb, kneeling or bending close to read. One of them spoke the words aloud. “Theologus Dantes, nullius dogmatis expers quod foveat claro philosophia sinu.”
In the close light Corrado saw their widening eyes and tried to forestall their fear. “He was just a –”
“Fiend!” One felon backed away from the inscription as if it had begun to glow with infernal fire. Another closed the seal on the night by saying the poet’s name aloud.
“Dante!”
From out of the darkness came a rattling of chains, followed by a whispered voice. “Si?”
There was no discussion, no consideration of noose or gallows. The lantern was dropped as all five hardened criminals turned and hightailed it into the night. Corrado was in the lead, praying harder than he had ever done. He ran clear out of the city, ran until his legs could no longer carry him. A week later he would take ship for Spain, still convinced that his steps were dogged by the undead poet who had seen the shape of Hell.
Had he witnessed what happened next he would have been even more certain that the devil had stepped into the world of men. As the fallen lantern cast its light upwards, a shadow on the ceiling moved.
Then the macabre became mundane. The tarp over the huge candelabra shifted and a figure unfurled itself to dangle in midair. There was the smallest scuffle as two feet touched down on the stone floor.
“Cesco?” came a voice from somewhere up above.
“Just a minute.” The lantern was set to rights, its storm shutters opened wide to illuminate the whole chapel. “Let there be light.”
A second boy dropped to earth, and the two youths grinned at each other. Dressed alike in dark shirts, hose, and hoods, they were as different as two youths could be. One was big for his age, his size only promising to increase now he had reached his double-digit years. He took after his father, a cheerful barrel-chested hulk of a man, and several lords had inquired after having him as their squire in three years time. Like his father, and his father’s father, fidelity ran through the veins of Bailardetto da Nogarola.
Sadly for the hopeful lords of the Feltro, Detto’s loyalty was already pledged. No oath to a knight – or even a king – could bind Bailardetto as tightly as friendship bound him to the angelic imp at his side.
Despite his whole thirteen-month seniority, Cesco was shorter than Detto. He moved with liquid grace, appearing at times almost boneless. Restless, never still, he was endowed with such a surplus of energy that it seemed he might combust if it went unspent. His golden-edged chestnut hair fell perpetually across his eyes, and he gazed from behind this veil like a tiger through tall grass. Encountering him that morning, Corrado had noticed the colour of those eyes – green, with the pale ring of blue about them. Vibrant, unsettling.
Idly, Detto picked up a fallen crow while Cesco sauntered over to the marble slab covering the poet’s final resting-place. The boy’s fingertips traced the fresh pock-marks in the stone. “Sorry, O theologian. I should have stopped them sooner. But I hope you enjoyed the show.”
“Sorry I laughed, Cesco,” said Detto. “I ruined it.”
“Ruined? That was inspired! They thought it was demonic. But now we have to hurry.”
Detto picked up the lantern. “Where, home?”
The boy called Cesco shrugged. “You can, if you want. I have a cat whose tail needs pulling.” In answer to Detto’s puzzled glance, he said, “Somewhere out there, beyond the city walls, a man waits for a gruesome delivery. I have to tell him it won’t be coming.”
Any other ten year-old might have been trepidatious at the prospect of facing a full-grown adult who trucked with grave-robbers. But Detto’s faith was unshakeable. “Lead on!”
Closing the lantern, they exited the church under the cover of darkness
and skipped down the shadowy street.
Behind them one of the shadows shifted to trail along in their wake.
♦ ◊ ♦
Waiting in his room, the dandy was annoyed. The girl was late. He’d arranged with the inn-keeper’s wife that the girl should be sent to his chamber before midnight, giving him enough time to mount her then have her bathe him before Corrado and his cronies returned. She hadn’t yet arrived, and his temper was fraying.
“Which only bodes ill for you, my dear,” he said to the empty room. A single candle glowed near the bed upon which he sat impatiently. Perhaps she had refused? But no, he’d paid so much that they would beat her if she disobeyed. In fact, if she didn’t arrive with a black eye, he determined to give her one himself. Perhaps two – symmetry in all things pleased him. His own features, for example, were perfectly symmetrical, and quite pleasing to see in his mirror each day.
A sound caught his attention. Focused as he was on the door, it took him a moment to realize it had come from the window. And again. What on earth—? He crossed to the window, but recoiled a fraction as a third pebble whanged off the thick bubbled glass.
Moving swiftly, he threw open the window and peered out into the night. A beefy lad was standing there, readying another stone. “Stop that this instant!”
The black-haired boy looked instantly chastened. “Isn’t that Luigi’s room?”
“No,” came the dandy’s angry reply, “nor do I know of this Luigi of whom you speak. I will, however, talk to the proprietor and make certain your hide is tanned past enduring!”
The boy looked for a moment over the dandy’s head, then gave him the fig and ran.
Already in a mood, the dandy stalked away from the open window and began to pace. He now had a reason to speak with the owner. He would demand satisfaction for being disturbed, and then quietly speak of his patience in waiting for his ‘bath’. The girl would be sent – though now there was hardly time for both the lovemaking and the bath. One would have to be done quickly, or not at all. A fastidiously clean man, he usually would have set the pleasures of the flesh aside, or at least made quick work of them, in order to be washed. In his present state, however, he was grimly certain which would be dispensed with.