“Zoto is not even food for worms anymore,” he smiled, pleased, “nothing but bones. The foundry has been taken over by an illustrious and powerful glassmaker.”
“Do you know his name?”
“Tataro. You’ll find him im Amurianum, but I don’t think he wants to part with it. He rented it out for a while, but then he closed it down, and there’s been no smoke from that fire ever since . . . he’d rather let it go to ruin.”
“Thank you, you’ve been very kind,” Edgardo said, walking away.
Tataro again. His name sprung out like an infection that can’t be eradicated.
The missing garzone, his relationship with Abella, the crystal glass, and now the foundry that used to belong to Segrado. How were all these events connected? Edgardo was trying to weave a canvas, to tie together threads that kept slipping out of his fingers.
The only certainty was Alvise.
The fact that he’d found nothing at the foundry was new proof of his innocence. What could be done to spare him an unjust sentence? Face Tommaso? Clash with him? Would he ever admit his error? That was unlikely. The pride of power does not admit failure.
Maybe Magdalena could intercede, at least out of duty toward justice. She had welcomed Nena’s son into her home, and before condemning him, she had to grant him a chance.
However, the word of a poor scribe was not credible enough. He had to find a voice of authority, someone she trusted blindly.
He tried to push away the first spontaneous idea that came to him, but the more he tried to avoid it, the more convinced he was that there was only one person who could persuade Magdalena to plead the case with her husband. And he now harboured too many suspicions about her!
XXI.
THE FAT MAN AND THE MAN FROM BERGAMO
Bloody hell, may the worms eat your balls, your mother’s ass, and the ass of that whore, your daughter!” swore the fat man, whose bulky body made it hard for him to move.
“Take it by the head, you incompetent ass,” the man from Bergamo shouted. “It’s about to break, it’s coming apart.”
The two porters lifted the large bundle wrapped in a jute sack and unloaded it from the cog, anchored along the canal, onto the ground.
“Watch it, you fool, you’ll drop it into the canal,” grumbled the large man who had the neck of a bull and hands as large as the gates of hell.
With difficulty, they lifted the load onto their shoulders and walked uncertainly in the dark, behind the convent of San Giovanni Evangelista in Torcellus.
“Son of a whore, damned ass . . . you can’t see a thing,” complained the slimmer one, who had under his chin a goiter the size of a pumpkin.
“Get a move on, you Bergamo pig.”
“It stinks like shit that’s been shat twice.”
“Just keep walking and shut up, fool.”
They followed the path and, when they reached the entrance, they knocked. A few seconds later, the door opened.
Magister Abella was wrapped in a kind of sky-blue caftan that left only her face uncovered.
“Where do we dump this?” the fat man asked.
“Come inside, quickly.” Abella motioned with her head.
“You should be pleased, Signora, it’s fresh meat, a luxury.”
Abella felt the weight of the package, which was dripping with a thick, dark liquid.
“So I see.”
They went through the front room to the laboratorium at the back.
“Put it there,” she said, indicating a stone table in the middle of the room.
“One, two, three.” They swung the load and placed it on the table, paying no attention to the sinister creaking of bones.
“Gently, you wretches. It’s delicate stuff.” She took a pouch from under her caftan. “So it’s seven dinars, as usual.”
“No, Signora, ten . . . It was a dangerous bit of work,” the fat man replied.
“Venice is crawling with soldiers,” said the other one, in support.
“Hey, Bergamo man, don’t try and be clever,” Abella interrupted, putting the seven dinars into his hand. “Your merchandise certainly isn’t worth any more than that. Let’s see if the meat is as fresh as you say.”
“I swear it on my stinking mother. You’ll see if I’m telling the truth.”
The stocky man took the reward and signaled to his companion. They mumbled something incomprehensible, then left the house.
Abella went back into her laboratorium. The package seemed less swollen than before. It had changed shape, lying limp on the stone surface.
She wasn’t proud of what she’d done, but she’d had no choice. Acting in the dark and breaking the law meant dealing with not very commendable people: these weren’t the rules she’d agreed to follow when she’d embarked on practicing the art of medicine.
She’d found herself forced to do this—this was the truth—in order to build her name and reputation. A woman physician certainly didn’t have an easy life, not even in a city like Venice, where travelers, merchants, artisans from all over the Earth were generously welcomed . . . as long as they were male, complete with cock and balls; otherwise they were seen with suspicion or, worse, not seen at all.
Women were all very well if submissive or used for humping, but if they dared philosophize or discuss illnesses and remedies, they were considered witches or liars.
And so Abella had learned not to have too many qualms about it. The odd subterfuge was unavoidable. Like, for instance, doing some research about the patients in order to astonish them at first sight by guessing their ailments. The path to her goal was tortuous, and there was no point in being squeamish.
She estimated the weight of the merchandise with her eyes. It was late at night and tiredness had taken possession of her limbs. She would postpone the heavy work till tomorrow.
“There’s an evil wind blowing.” The boatman pushed the oar hard, and the scaula finally managed to turn into the large canal in Torcellus.
Edgardo looked up at the lead-gray sky. The waters of the lagoon were rebelling against him, and nature itself seemed to be hostile toward him.
They struggled to land at the dock outside Santa Maria Assunta. There were cogs anchored along the fondamenta, some loaded with wine and oil, others covered in sacks of salt or timber from forests on the mainland. Slaves and servants were coming and going between the storerooms and the boats that were to transport the goods to the freight ships anchored in the bay outside San Marco.
Near the baptistry, outside the Cathedral, he came across a small procession of women heading to Santa Fosca, carrying a tiny coffin that must have contained the body of a child.
When he’d reached the convent of San Giovanni Evangelista, he made his way to the laboratorium.
The door was shut and the windows barred with heavy planks. No one responded. He looked around and noticed a Benedictine nun hoeing a small vegetable patch at the back of the monumental church with three naves.
“God be with you, sister,” he called out.
“God is always in my heart,” the nun replied.
She had a soft voice and a body so frail that Edgardo wondered how she could lift such a heavy tool.
“I’ve come to meet Magister Abella. Do you know her?”
“Abella, magister mulier sapiens. We hold her in great esteem.”
“Do you know if she’s coming back or if, by any chance, she’s gone on a long journey?” Edgardo asked.
“They call for her from all over the lagoon, she’s very much in demand, especially among women. She possesses special qualities . . . She’ll be back, be patient, you just need to wait.”
The nun stopped working and, panting, leaned on the hoe.
“Would you like me to help you or bring you some water?”
“May God bless you, son. Don’t let my body deceive you. What
counts is the spirit, that’s where true strength comes from.” The nun looked at the fields surrounding the convent. “We now have to do everything ourselves, the vine, the vegetable patches, the orchard. Now we only get help with the salt pan in the marsh of San Gerolamo,” she sighed. “Able-bodied men are all moving from Torcellus to Rivoalto. They say there’s no more work here. The cogs that come down from the Silis now all carry on to Venice. They’ve forgotten us. The masters no longer care about Torcellus, Aymanas, Costanciacum, Majurbium, Burianum . . . only Rivoalto exists now, the doge wants all the power close to him.” She crossed herself. “You’ll see, all that’ll be left here is us nuns and just a few fishermen.” She wiped her forehead and resumed her hoeing with renewed energy.
Edgardo kept looking at her with admiration, then retraced his steps to the laboratorium, intent on waiting for the Magister’s return.
A blanket of cloud had risen and a wan winter sun was filtering through the gaps. He sat on the front door step and stretched his neck like a tortoise in search of warmth.
The threshold was lit by a beam. Edgardo noticed that a few irregular spots of a vague ruby-red were glistening on the stone. He tried their consistency with his fingernail. The substance was dried up and his weak eyes didn’t allow him to investigate further. An idea crossed his mind. It had worked once before, so why not try it again?
He took from his pouch the case inside which he jealously kept the miraculous contraption.
He brought his eye circles close to his eyes and bent down: irregular edges, circular shapes, purple in color. They looked like drops, the drops of a dense, viscous liquid . . . there was no doubt: it was blood. The traces led inside the house.
Perhaps an injured man had sought help at the physician’s house. He examined the green patch outside the front door: there were other, even more copious traces of blood, and the grass was crushed as though a load had been carried to the door.
The tendency of delirious imagination to roam down twisted paths led him to a rather rash decision.
He made up his mind to go in. He’d never been able to dispel the shadows gathered around that quack’s behavior.
The door was firmly shut. He walked around the house. On the side facing the lagoon, the protective beam of one of the windows had a long crack. It wouldn’t be hard to take it off its hinges. He managed to open a gap with a blow, climbed through it, and slipped inside.
Light spread from the reed roof. He first recognized the front room, with the bed and the hearth. He looked at the floor beams and, albeit with difficulty, found the same purple drops that continued to the second door, which led to the laboratorium.
He hadn’t forgotten the specific arrangement of the place, the rounded walls decorated with marvelous paintings and the stone table lit by a beam of light raining down from the circular hole in the ceiling dome.
Finally, there were the frescoes, the aura of healing fascination emitted by the blue peacock that glowed with colors and gold sparks as it took flight from a stormy sea toward a clear sky. He couldn’t fathom why this image triggered such a strong emotion in him.
He followed the traces that went across the whole house and stopped in front of a shabby arras hanging on the wall.
He tried to push it apart and saw a low, arched door concealed in the wall.
He pulled the bolt across and pushed the door.
A whiff of sick, putrid air, like the breath of an old leper woman who eats too many sweets, made him choke. The place was plunged in darkness. He went back to the laboratorium to look for an oil lamp, and lit it.
His mouth was suddenly filled with a sour terror that rose from his stomach. He plucked up the courage to go into the room.
The stench grew more intense and nauseating. It looked like a church chapel, with a dirt floor and brick walls. He raised the light so as to see to the end of the room.
Merciful God! He took a leap backwards. His stomach churned, he bent double, the taste of bile in his mouth.
Never had he seen such a spectacle.
Hanging from a hook that protruded from the wall, held up with ropes, dangled a bleeding mass of unrecognizable shape.
Shreds of intestine were hanging out of the belly; the official organs, liver, spleen, and stomach, had been removed and neatly arranged on a beam; the chest, ripped open, displayed the heart. The limbs, cut along orderly, precise vertical lines, revealed the streaks of the muscles and the shape of the bones. No recognizable element of the face remained. The skin had been torn off and the bones stripped so that they showed the white outline of the skull and the arch of the teeth giving a malicious smile amid that mass of murky, opaque humors.
The eye sockets, from which the eyeballs had been pulled out, were waiting disappointedly for someone to restore some of their dignity.
Not far from there, the two now hopeless eyes were floating in a yellow fluid inside a glass jar.
Next to them, in another recipient, to keep them company, was a flabby, ash-colored mass; Edgardo thought it must be the cerebral mass, seeing that the cranium, sharply sawed, looked totally empty.
Never had he seen such butchery, not even when the hunters at his father’s castle skinned and slaughtered deer or boars after the hunt.
He brought the light closer to what remained of that wretched body, trying to work out the sex and the age.
There was no suggestion of breasts on the opened thorax. Only in the lower part of the belly did he think he saw what could have been the memory of female genitalia, two female testicles, the vasa seminalia and os matricis.
It must have been a woman, a young woman, judging by her hips and build.
The humors and blood dripping from the body had formed a puddle that the ground was slowly absorbing. The air was unbreathable and made his mind numb.
He was right to have suspected Abella. What terrible rituals, what experiments did that witch perform, that she had reduced a human being to such a condition?
And who was the young girl? He immediately thought of Costanza and her abduction. Was she perhaps destined to meet the same horrible end?
An absurd thought suddenly flashed through his mind, plunging him into despair. And what if this long-suffering body belonged to the virgin of the beads?
Was this shapeless mishmash of bones, organs, and muscles all that was left of his sweet Kallis?
He did not have time to provide an answer. An excruciating pain in his head made him lose consciousness.
XXII.
ARZANÀ
When, with a huge effort, he reopened his eyes, the first thing he saw was the muzzle of the boar watching him, surprised, leaning out of the center of the dome in the ceiling.
“Still here?” it seemed to say. “This slab of granite has now become your bed.”
Edgardo slowly turned his head, blood throbbing in his temples. He located the blue peacock and greeted it like an old friend. He was in Abella’s laboratorium. What had happened?
The image of the corpse, cut open and hanging in this sort of chapel, flashed through his mind. He must run, go to the gastald, and report the incident. With difficulty, he managed to sit up, and tried to get down.
Before he even put his feet down, he pulled them away in fear.
The floor was moving, undulating. Lively snakes with dark, shiny skins were leaping out of everywhere. They were moving in bursts, winding around the counter, slapping against the walls, slithering with a slimy hiss.
The excesses of opium had compromised his wretched mind, which wandered in foreign lands populated by gruesome visions.
There was a thud in the room, then the sound of footsteps. “So, scribe, still feel like snooping?” Abella’s voice was calm and cheerful. “Oh, look, dinner is off for a stroll. You turn your back for a minute and these eels start crawling all over the place.”
She started chasing after the snakes and,
having caught them, threw them into a basket.
They were eels, simple eels. Edgardo propped himself up. The Magister didn’t look the least worried.
The scribe confronted her. “I know everything. I never imagined you could be capable of such cruelty.”
Not even as much as giving him a look, Abella continued hunting for the eels.
“Who was that wretched girl?” he insisted.
“I have no idea.”
“How can you speak so carelessly of a human being after reducing her to such a state?”
The last eel was finally in the basket. Abella looked at the scribe with defiance. “Are you perhaps thinking of reporting me?”
“It’s my duty. Will you try to stop me?”
Abella approached with a threatening expression. “I’m very tempted to string you up next to the girl. Nobody will miss a crippled scribe devastated by opium.”
Edgardo leaped to his feet in a flash, ready to defend himself.
“Unfortunately, I don’t think even fish would enjoy your flesh, you’re too indigestible.”
Abella drew even closer. Edgardo was dazzled by her lips, her soft skin, the fragrance of her sage-smelling breath, and by the pleasant weight of her chest pressing against his hump.
“Tell me honestly,” she continued, “what advantage would you get from knowing that I am in prison? Or is it just because you hate me?”
“You’ve killed and cut open a stranger and Heaven knows how many other people you’ve treated the same way. Perhaps you’re also involved in Costanza’s death—”
“Just a moment!” Abella said aggressively. “What are you raving about, you demented, hallucinating scribe? I haven’t killed anybody. I purchased the corpse you saw in an above-board transaction. It was most probably the body of a woman sentenced to death.”
“Are you trying to tell me that you spend money to have a corpse delivered to your home and then cut it to pieces?”
“Exactly. I know the law forbids it but I have no choice. If we physicians want to study the human body, learn how organs function, the density of humors, the combination of primary elements, we have no choice but to cut up the bodies of the dead. The Holy Church forbids it, so we’re forced to use crooks who obtain the goods with the help of subterfuge. Many of my colleagues do the same as I, secretly, to increase their knowledge.” Abella drew breath, and was about to walk away like a member of the Roman Forum after an oration, but then changed her mind and added, angrily, “A woman who practices medicine must prove she has more knowledge than her male counterparts, so she can gain patients’ trust, and I’m ready to do everything in order to establish my knowledge and my name. Have you got something against that? Now if you want to report me, go ahead . . . the gastald is waiting.”
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