“Judging by his state, he must have been sentenced to death,” Abella remarked.
They went to the sarcophagus next to it. Inside were the remains of a somebody who must have been a nobleman. His skull was smashed but the body, wrapped in pale linen bands, maintained a certain dignity, and gave off a scent of cedar and myrrh. It looked like an ancient Egyptian mummy.
In the other sarcophagi, they found other corpses, some in a state of putrefaction, others part-mummified, others perfectly preserved. A graveyard of mummies of all kinds and ages.
Next to the stone slab on which the young girl lay, Abella recognized a few surgical tools and various terracotta receptacles, some of which surprised her. “It’s the workshop of an embalmer,” she said.
“An embalmer in Venice?”
“Evidently, as those two villains told us, there’s a blossoming trade in corpses in Venice, which someone transforms into mummies . . . But for what purpose?” She looked around. “There’s something I don’t understand.”
Edgardo leaned against the millstone, lost in thought. He suddenly noticed a heap of rags thrown in a corner. Something was shining among the fabrics. He started rummaging. They were poor jackets, torn breeches, tunics, perhaps clothes that had belonged to the victims.
Among them a quality garment stood out, fine wool embroidered with gold thread, which had certainly belonged to a member of the nobility. Edgardo picked it up. “Look.”
Abella approached.
“It’s a refined dress, very expensive.” Edgardo turned it around, studying it. “I’ve seen this dress before . . . of course . . . this dress belonged to Costanza.”
“Costanza?”
“Yes, I have no doubt. She often wore it on feast days.”
The flash that lit up Edgardo’s face didn’t have time to turn into an exclamation of victory before they heard footsteps outside.
Fingers tight on the wick, and darkness came back to reign over the abandoned mill. Abella and Edgardo quickly climbed up a ladder that led to a gallery. They crouched behind sacks of salt that had been long forgotten there.
The door opened and the sound of panting took possession of the surrounding space. After some bustling, the light of a lamp revealed the features of the man who’d just entered. He had the dark skin of a resident of the African coast, and was wearing Arab clothes. His skull was shiny and his body strong and muscular. He moved with phlegmatic slowness amid the tools, as though getting ready for a procedure. In the end, he approached the body of the virgin, and placed the lamp on the stone slab.
With a light, expert touch, he felt the consistency of the flesh and tissue. Then he remained in contemplation, as though prey to a dream, listening to the creaking sounds caused by a sudden northerly wind.
With unexpected energy, he set to work.
From his tools, he picked a thin rod, curved, which ended in a hook. With infinite delicacy, he inserted it into the nasal cavity. He pushed it in and twisted it with skill until he managed to extract a gray, flabby, gelatinous substance. He repeated the procedure over and over. His movements were precise, always the same, his eyes inspired, as though he were celebrating a ritual.
When he thought nothing more was coming from digging, he turned the body on its side.
He picked up an enema syringe from his tools. It had a long, twisted tube. He immersed it into one of the receptacles next to him, and sucked up some liquid. A fresh scent of cedar spread through the air, so much so that, for a moment, it was like being transported to the shores of the Nile.
When the syringe was full, he carefully looked for the girl’s anus, inserted the tube, and emptied the entire liquid into it.
He repeated the operation until, feeling the belly and stomach, he felt no more tension in them. He then took a curved needle, threaded it with silk, and, with the grace of a woman, went about carefully sewing up the anus that had just been filled with the liquid.
Edgardo squeezed Abella’s arm: it was the same treatment Costanza had received.
Therefore, it hadn’t been violence against nature, but an embalming procedure. All the elements concurred: the stitches in the orifice, the small cuts in the nasal cavity, the swollen belly. If to this you added finding the dress, there was no more doubt. The embalmer was Costanza’s murderer.
Not allowing his heart to consult reason, gripped by an unstoppable impetus, Edgardo lunged down the ladder and fell on the back of the man, who, overwhelmed, rolled on the ground.
The struggle turned immediately fierce. The Saracen, although caught by surprise, managed to grip the scribe’s lean body, and tried to crush it.
Strangled screams, dull blows, wheezing.
Abella rushed down from the gallery and threw all her weight on the embalmer in order to immobilize him, but the Egyptian’s strength was beyond her expectations. Edgardo had been too impulsive.
The bodies rolled, knocking against the sarcophagi.
The wind had started to whistle, shaking the reed roof.
The Magister tried to block one of the Saracen’s arms in order to free Edgardo, but the maniac was stronger than a bear. She received a fist in her face that left her on the ground, unconscious.
The grip loosened and the scribe managed to disengage himself, trying to grab a stick that was leaning against the wall. In vain. The Egyptian came up behind him like an avalanche, and crushed him against the base of the millstone.
The violence of the wind had raised the waters of the lagoon and the tide was rapidly rising.
There was a sudden crash, and the mill wheel began to turn, activating the vertical grindstone that turned around its axis.
Edgardo’s body was lying on the stone base. Panting, blocked by the man’s weight he saw the granite mass inexorably approaching . . . In a few seconds, he’d be crushed. He smelled salt in his nostrils, and his final thought went to Kallis. Theirs was an adverse destiny. He prayed to God and asked forgiveness for all his sins. He closed his eyes.
A sudden tear, as though he’d been lifted in the air by a vortex. A blow, a wheeze, a thud. Before him, still dazed, Abella was holding a stick.
The Egyptian’s body was lying on the millstone. The wheel was advancing, implacable.
They almost didn’t realize it in time. Edgardo leaped to his feet.
A sinister creak of mangled bones, a mix of dull and flabby sounds. A bloody mush. The man’s head had been crushed like a melon that was too ripe. The grinder slowly pursued its course.
Abella and Edgardo took a step back, disturbed by the horrifying spectacle.
Almost automatically, the scribe’s hands made the sign of the cross in the air.
Drowned by the wind, the matins bells drifted across from Torcellus.
“He shouldn’t have died. He was our only proof,” Abella murmured.
“The night is about to give way to a new day. We haven’t much time left.”
Edgardo picked up Costanza’s dress and gave the embalmer’s body one final look. “We must reach the Doge’s Palace before dawn.”
XXXI.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
Anything interesting this morning?”
“A quartering, with gouging of the eyes.”
“Oh, good. And who’s the lucky man?”
“Alvise, Nena’s child.”
“Poor boy.”
The crowd in San Marco, outside the Doge’s Palace, had been growing since dawn, awaiting the execution.
On the main floor, where the doge’s Curia gathered, Edgardo and Abella were waiting with trepidation to meet the representatives of the Great Council.
In his cell, Alvise was reciting his final prayers, wondering why Our Lord had reserved him such an unjust fate for him.
The bells of the basilica rang Prime. The fateful moment had arrived.
A few footsteps resonated in the salon and Grimani
appeared at the bottom of it, followed by the nobleman Morosini.
Edgardo and Abella immediately went toward them. “Illustrious gentlemen,” Edgardo said, going down on his knees, “you must suspend the execution. Alvise is innocent.”
The hostile look Tommaso gave Abella did not bode well.
“We’ve discovered Costanza’s true murderer,” Edgardo continued.
“So who could that be and where is he?” Morosini immediately asked.
“We left him in a water mill in Litus Mercedis. Alas, dead.”
“Did he confess?” Tommaso asked authoritatively.
“No, Signore, he didn’t have time. However, there are many unequivocal signs of his guilt.” Edgardo made a sign to Abella. “We found this in his house.”
The Magister showed them the dress.
“Do you recognize it?
Tommaso examined the dress attentively. “It’s Costanza’s,” he said.
“Moreover, we discovered that he killed other people in the same way,” Abella added.
Morosini’s eyes narrowed so much they almost disappeared.
“He was an embalmer,” Abella explained. “He arrived cum aliqua verisimile ratione from Egypt. He abducted and killed the victims, then turned them into mummies. We found various bodies treated this way in the water mill.”
“Are you sure it really was an embalmer?” Morosini asked.
Edgardo took out the parchment Ermanno d’Istria had given him. “The procedure coincides perfectly with Herodotus’s description in Book Two of his Histories. Listen.” And he began to read out the text. “Herodotus says that there are three kinds of embalming: the first for the rich and powerful, the second for those who are less rich, and the third for the poor wretches.
“In the first one, on the first day, the body is washed and the brain extracted with an iron hook through the nostrils. Then one of the embalmers, also known as the quarterer, uses an obsidian knife to make a long incision in the left side of the abdomen to remove the stomach, intestine, lungs, and liver. Not the heart, which remains where it is. Then the quarterer, being impure, is sent away. The organs are carefully washed and the belly filled with myrrh, cassia, and various aromas, then sewn up. The corpse is then covered in natron and left to dry out for forty days. Subsequently, the corpse is coated with juniper and cedar oils and aromatic resins, and wrapped in linen bands soaked in resin. At that point, the mummy is ready to be shut in a sarcophagus.
“And now we get to the second type of embalming, which is less costly. In this case, the organs are not removed, but repeated enemas with salt, wine vinegar, and aromatic herbs are administered, and the intestines are washed until they are clean. Then, still by means of enemas, a solution of natron is inserted through the rectum, which is then sewn up to stop the liquid from pouring back out, so it can act inside and dissecate the organs.” Edgardo stared at them. “It’s what we saw the man do with the virgin’s body.”
“And the same treatment was performed on Costanza,” Abella added. “I saw it with my own eyes.”
“God Almighty,” Tommaso exclaimed. “And why would he have attacked poor Costanza like this?”
“We know there’s a secret, highly remunerative trade in mummies between Venice and Alexandria,” Edgardo explained.
“Buying and selling mummies. I don’t understand why.” Nobleman Morosini looked increasingly upset.
“We haven’t found an explanation either, but there’s no doubt that the embalmer abducted and killed Costanza in order to make her into a mummy. The dress is proof, as well as the natron on her body. It’s a salt ancient Egyptians used in order to dry meat and heal wounds.”
“Alvise confessed,” Tommaso said, turning to look at Morosini.
“Under torture,” the nobleman replied.
“It’s true,” Tommaso squeezed Costanza’s dress in his hands, “but we cannot ignore this new element.”
The boni homines exchanged unfathomable looks, then Morosini said to Grimani, “I think we could suspend the sentence while we wait for new and more accurate details about this case and about this Egyptian’s trafficking.”
“We’ll send guards to the water mill,” Tommaso replied.
“I’ll run and give Nena the news,” Edgardo exclaimed, forgetting all etiquette.
“Remember, it’s just a suspension. The magistrates will decide whether there’s a case for holding a new trial,” Tommaso repeated with austerity.
Edgardo and Abella took their leave.
“It’s a first victory,” Edgardo whispered as they were leaving.
“We’ve only tripped death up,” Abella said, not looking quite so confident.
So many times he’d gone through calli and shores, crossed fords, slipped away like a thief in the hope of merging into the silver glow of the lagoon, of turning into a rush, of sinking into the muddy slime of that uncertain land. So many times, over those years of desolation and solitude, he’d dreamed of a slow death while dissolving in the vapor of opium; so many times, he’d clung to the faint hope, the illusion that Kallis hadn’t sunk into the abyss of the muddy sea.
Now, as he brushed against huts, hiding in the shadows, plunging into the thickest vegetation, looking for deserted paths amid sand banks and pools, ponds and little islands, now that he avoided prying eyes like the pustules of lepers, Edgardo wished he could shout his joy to the world, shout to strangers the warmth his new-found love had generated in his soul, the huge desire to build a new existence.
Nobody was supposed to know, nobody was supposed to see him going into the palazzo of Ibrahim al-Fazari. That’s what he’d agreed with Kallis. Revealing herself would have been too dangerous, and the past could still crush her.
The Moorish servant opened the door. He crossed the garden, which looked even more luxuriant, and went up to the loggia. Kallis was waiting for him in her room, the same room where he’d hidden and where he’d found feminine traces he’d then connected to Costanza.
He saw, standing by the window closed with an oilskin, a mercurial form undulating in a stretch of light. She was wearing the tortoise-colored tunic she’d had on when they’d first met.
“God Almighty, how I’ve dreamed of this moment. I’ve even hoped to get some evidence of your death, so I could keep your memory alive in my heart. I couldn’t survive in a state of doubt.” He approached, and was inebriated by the amber scent of her body. “And how have you lived these past years?”
There was a shudder of uncertainty, a shadow. “I’ve worked every day to build this return.” Kallis touched her face. “When I felt death sleeping at my side, I thought God wanted to punish me for my terrible sins. Then salvation appeared on the horizon, and I understood that, in the end, I would win my battle, because God wanted me to atone for my guilt: I had to return to Venice, to the city where I was born a slave, where I died as a slave, and was then born again thanks to you.”
Edgardo stroked her face, her lips, her earlobes, the cut of her obsidian eyes.
“Don’t I horrify you? It’s not my face anymore . . . ”
“Horror? You of all people talk of horror, when you made love to a cripple bent over by a purulent hump, you who chose to love a monster?”
“You’re free now.” Kallis lifted his jacket. A red line marked his chest where flesh once grew.
“The signs of our struggle with death are what our lives have in common.” Edgardo pushed her onto the bed and lightly placed his mouth on the scars that ravaged her face, one by one, as though to heal them. “Do you remember when you stole my soul with a kiss?” he whispered.
Kallis laughed. “Even when I was far away you were inside me.”
“You can give it back to me now. I am here, body and soul. Nothing can separate us.”
Deep in the Mongolian slave’s eyes, there was a flash of dismay the scribe couldn’t grasp.
“After all that’s happened, despite all the sins with which I soiled myself, do you really love me so much you can imagine being able to cross the tempestuous sea of life with me? Aren’t you afraid of God’s judgement?”
It was a question he’d asked himself many times. “I’m scared to admit it but I love the whole of your being, I even love the evil in you.”
Kallis clung to him and held him as tight as her slave arms allowed.
The memory of when their bodies had blended in divine ecstasy had never been erased. As though not even a season had passed, the memory of the skin, gestures, and tastes bloomed again, and Edgardo was reacquainted with the incomprehensible, magic words Kallis had whispered, swept by pleasure, and the almond taste of her sex, the amber tones of her skin; Kallis was reacquainted with the hardness of his member, and the tousled passion of his kisses, and the cry of ecstasy he emitted at the moon, like a stray wolf. How could two people, after all these years, find each other again as though the handwriting of their love had never been interrupted?
“I must leave, you know, even though that makes me very sad,” Edgardo whispered. “I managed to postpone the execution of the garzone, but his life isn’t safe yet.”
“So he’s innocent, then,” Kallis said with a kind of venom. “I am envious of the innocent.” An expression of repressed anger flashed through her eyes.
Edgardo looked at her, perturbed. “I believe it, and I must convince the judges that I am right.”
“Are you so sure that justice is always after the truth? Truth has many faces.”
Edgardo felt that hatred he’d known so well resurface in Kallis’s words. “The murderer was involved in a traffic of mummies, but unfortunately he is no longer alive, so he can’t confess. It seems that this traffic takes place between Venice and Alexandria. Did you hear anything about it when you were there?”
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