by David Blixt
Berto glanced at him. “What's that you're chewing, brother?”
“Poison. Sweet, sweet poison.” Cesco rose. “Shall we try it?”
“What?”
“A chariot battle.”
“The horses are tired,” said Detto, who had raced hard, but said little. He'd seen the wafer Cesco had popped into his mouth and was glaring.
The Devil was looking out of Cesco's eyes again. “I wasn't thinking of using horses.”
Within minutes they were up and drawing lots for teams of three – one to ride the chariot, two to pull it. They use staves in place of spears, and re-enacted the Battle of Glisas, to much hilarity. They whacked at each other, sticking staves into the spokes of the chariots and striking the 'horses' on the shins and heads. The chariot guided by Detto ended up winning, with Detto's steeds, Paride and Yuri, both panting and rubbing their sore bits.
His victory had been nearly usurped by Thibault Capulletto, driving his chariot with unaccustomed skill and endless vigour. Afterwards, Cesco had teased him. “You court disaster, Master Thibault, lining up against Ser Detto yet again. Do you so long to be masticated?”
Thibault scowled, Detto snorted, and Benedick demanded, “Where does that come from? Do they truly eat cats in Vicenza?”
“Hardly,” replied Detto. “We once had a rat problem, and the city borrowed a hundred cats from Venice. When the rats returned to Venice—”
“Where they feel so at home,” interjected Cesco.
“—the Venetians requested the cats be returned, in the same number. But the cats had all gone.” Everyone started laughing, and even Detto looked abashed. “They asked where the cats had vanished to, and my father told the Venetians that once the rats had gone, we'd eaten them. It isn't true!” he cried over the jibes that followed. “They just ran off. But ever since…”
“Ever since, Vicenza has been known to have cat on the menu,” laughed Benedick. “Your own fault!”
“His father's fault,” corrected Cesco. “But Lord Nogarola never thought he'd be believed. He is a merry man, and doesn't take anything seriously. At least, not for long.”
Detto looked downcast and angry, so the matter was let drop. Instead, inspired by some new madcap notion, on the way back from the heights, Cesco led his merry band to a small village to the northeast of the city. “I have never been,” he remarked, “but it's my understanding this is where to make Veronese out of Paduans.”
“I have no interest in having my penis shortened,” said Benedick, and was beaten for that remark.
“Why here?” asked Salvatore, invoking circumspection rather than circumcision.
“This is where the blessed San Zeno first reached out to a flock, transforming pagans of the old gods into devoted children of the one and only. They say his baptismal font still runs. Are you ready for your bath?”
The church itself was rather ordinary. But they were not there for the church. Before the church was a hole covered with a paving stone. Under the eyes of the local priest, who hoped for largesse from this young prince, the party shifted the stone to reveal a ladder leading down into darkness.
Though there was still light in the sky, they lit lanterns and descended. The walls were close, and the light from their lanterns flickered off damp build-ups of white calcium, left by the flowing water at their feet. It was surprisingly warm, the heat of the earth keeping out the chill air from above.
“What was this place?” asked Benedick. “Did Zeno build it?”
When Cesco shrugged, Paride answered. “No, he hid here. This was originally a Roman hypogeum.”
“It means 'underground',” whispered Salvatore.
“I know what it means,” answered Benedick tartly. “So, was this a tomb?”
“Part of the aqueduct,” said Paride. “The locals think it was also a shrine to water nymphs.”
“Here's hoping the nymphs are still here,” said young Petruchio with a lascivious chuckle.
“Why was he hiding?” asked Rupert.
To everyone's astonishment, it was Thibault who answered. “While the people in the cities accepted the new religion from Rome, the countryfolk were less willing to see God's true light. He hid here, holding services, until the faith spread.”
“Like an inferno.” Cesco ducked through a broken bit of tunnel and out into a larger chamber that branched in three directions. He chose to go left, through an arch that opened into a room twice his height and wide enough to stable four horses with ease.
Cesco's foot scuffed dirt from the floor, revealing small coloured tiles. The entire room was mosaiced in swirling crescent patterns of blue, red, yellow, green, brown, and white, all faded and dull now but still enough to marvel at. In some places the tiles had gone, revealing outlines carved into the concrete floor for the artisans to follow. Men had laboured down here, creating a place first to worship nature, and then God.
As the others joined him, their lanterns lit the perfectly curved walls enough to behold faces staring back at them, unseeing. Painted on the walls were curious scenes – curious because of their raw and unusual nature. These were not the staid church frescoes of today. Somehow, by being less polished, less perfect, they were more honest.
Not that the faces showed emotion. Even in the most violent images, the faces were serene. And violent they were. The young men spent twenty minutes in this room, deciphering the stories the round walls depicted.
There seemed to be an order to their telling, for a painted child lit the stories from left to right around the room. In the first image, Christ invited six young men for Palm Sunday, where the young men laid out their coats for Christ to walk upon.
Next was King Nebuchadnezzar trying to force some Jews to adore an idol, which they shunned. Their punishment was to burn, depicted in the next framed scene, with the three men bound and in the flames. But they did not burn – an angel appeared behind them, protecting them from the inferno.
Next King Herod ordered the slaughter of the innocents, and soldiers with jewels on their wrists smashed babies on stones.
The scene that followed caused a debate among its viewers. Some said it depicted the Nativity, with animals in a manger. Salvatore maintained that that biggest animal was not an ass but a large dog, while Paride and Thibault said that it wasn't the Nativity at all, but a depiction of Isaiah 1:3 'The ox knows its owner, and a donkey recognizes its master's care. But Israel doesn't know its Master.'
“How do you carry so much Biblical knowledge?” queried Berto of Thibault.
The younger man shrugged. He didn't like to say that his uncle meant him for a cloistered life, and was appalled to discover the stories had sunk in.
Over the portal through which they had entered stood Christ and his Twelve Apostles. All the apostles held papers – the Word of God. That image funneled up into the curved ceiling, with massive painted scrolls hanging like pipes overhead, the largest in red, then rising higher in blue, the final layers in yellow. Scrolls bearing the laws of Israel, the Word of God.
“You say this San Zeno was a teacher?” asked Rupert. “I wonder if this was not his school.”
Petruchio was more practical. “Why do these older frescoes look so much more real?”
“Perspective,” said Cesco, craning his head up. “Something we lacked until very recently. See how things grow smaller in the distance? A visual trick. What's that hole?” Directly in the center of the ceiling was a funnel that provided a bare modicum of light to the chamber.
“We must be under the church,” observed Berto.
“Let's keep exploring,” said Detto.
They did, Cesco leading to the room across the main chamber, which held an altar of sorts. There were broken statues here, and paintings that had not survived nearly as well. As in the previous room, there were marks on the walls of how high the water had risen in times of flood. They were almost at chin-level.
Back in the central area, Cesco ducked his head and started along a narrow passage opposite the way they had entered.
Quickly both his shoulders were brushing the walls. His feet were wet. This was where the water originated, coming from the old Roman aqueduct and running through a carved channel to carry water through the shrine.
“It's almost a thousand years since Zeno was here,” Cesco marveled, his voice echoing around him. “Yet the water still runs. Imagine that. Building something that stands for a thousand years.”
“The Arena,” said Detto at once.
“The Colosseum in Rome,” offered Thibault.
“There are Roman ruins all over the world,” said Petruchio.
“The Parthenon is still there,” came Hortensio's voice from the shadows. “That's older than anything the Romans left.”
“They say the pyramids in Egypt are older still,” observed Paride.
“Which all raises the question – what have we built that will stand a thousand years from now? How will they remember us?” Cesco halted at a shape in the floor. The curved channel for the water ended in a small basin, barely two handspans wide. A hidden pipe fed the water at eighty quarti a minute, according to the priest above. Though the tunnel continued into blackness, the water did not. “Benedick, Salvatore – time to make you proper Veronese.”
It was a more solemn moment than he had intended – he'd hoped for a pool to throw them into. Instead they each knelt while he splashed cold water on their heads. There were a few weak jests but no laughter as they all retreated the way they had come. Someone suggested they brace themselves for the cold above with wine. A welcome suggestion, soon the chambers were ringing with songs whose lyrics were most unreligious.
Exiting at last, Cesco answered the priest's prayers with a small bag of gold, and they all remounted. Benedick looked up at the building that stood over the ancient site. “What is the name of this church?”
“The same as the village,” replied Cesco, using his reins to turn his mount's head. “Santa Maria in Stelle.”
Saint Mary in the Stars.
♦ ◊ ♦
Padua
PADUAN SPIRITS WERE HIGHER than they had been in ages. Taxes were low, foreign soldiers were absent, there was construction on houses and churches instead of walls and fortifications. Best of all, the terror that had stalked the streets these last few years had entirely vanished. No longer did one need weigh the risk of stepping outside their door, lest they have a hood thrown over their head and be beaten or abducted or murdered outright. Local convents no longer barred their doors against theft or violation.
All around the town the sentiment was the same: We fought against the Scaliger for so long, when we could have had this?
Thus the people of Padua had decided to decorate their city lavishly for the coming holy days. The bridges over the Bacchiglione were covered in lamps by night, and fresh greenery during the day. Mirrors were set up to reflect light in wild directions, and the red Christmas apples hanging from trees complemented the rose-marble in the city's major buildings.
Not only were buildings made festively ornate, but the people as well. Masques (an unwelcome reminder of recent horrors) were forbidden, but colourful clothes, scarves, hats, and fripperies were in evidence everywhere. Long feathers sprouted from men's hats, and while they did not go so far in honouring their new overlord by switching the feather from the Guelph to the Ghibelline ear, several caps bore a ladder on the crown, a sign of just how much Padua now loved Cangrande.
A love he continued to earn. While the celebrations in Verona were unparalleled, Paduans appreciated that their new lord had not forgotten them. Ornaments and sweets and toys were given away daily to any Paduan child who cared for one, and there were several public feasts hosted by the Carrara family, paid for by the Scaliger.
One such feast was in the air as the crippled Girolamo entered this city that he had loathed for nearly fifteen years. He twitched and fidgeted in the carriage. The jerks and bumps of wheels on brick caused his twisted spine to ache, and every cheer from the crowds made him start. But he bit his lip and suffered in silence.
Not that the journey had been silent. The Florentine, Jacopo, had talked incessantly, and about nothing. He'd asked the questions they all asked – about the pendulum, about the future, about predictions. He'd talked of events in far-off places, about poems he had read, about women – dear lord, the talk of women! Girolamo hadn't had a woman in years. The few times he had paid for sex, the women had asked for darkness, or to be taken from behind, so that they might not look on his features. But with his hip he could not balance on his knees. His only pleasure came from being on his back, which forced the women to look down upon him. Mostly they looked at the sky while feigning their pleasure. So he'd stopped seeking that kind of comfort. But he missed women. There were some things for which the pendulum was no substitute.
Respite came when Signor Alighieri fell asleep. That had been interesting. The Moor had sat, his one eye closed. But from his breathing Girolamo suspected he was awake. At last the diviner had spoken. “Do you divine?”
“I have,” the Moor had answered, his eye still shut. “The results were mixed. The pendulum does not sing to me.”
“I heard you dabble in such things.”
“I do,” came the rasping voice, as painful to the ear as Girolamo's face was to the eye. “Dabble.”
“In what way?”
“I chart the stars. They sing, and at times I hear their music.”
“Isn't that just Greek math?”
The pause was so long, Girolamo thought he had caused offence. But the Moor was just framing his answer. “There are those who can play an instrument. And there are those to whom the instrument is a part of their being.”
Girolamo had never heard it put so succinctly. He knew at once that this was not a charlatan, a mountebank, but a fellow traveler, one to whom the mysteries of the world were always calling, revealing themselves a wink at a time, like a painting seen through a tattered gauze at a distance. “People are always asking me for predictions. But that's not what the pendulum is best at. It likes facts, and the present – where is this person now, is this food poisoned, like that. Are the stars better?”
The eye opened. “At the future? Yes. But they are rarely certain, and often misleading. Ser Alaghieri says the stars are a book, but the reader can interpret them according to his own lights and prejudices. Only the author knows the truth, and He is silent.”
“You believe in God?” asked Girolamo.
“Do you not?” asked the Moor.
“Is that an evasion or an answer?”
“I believe there is more to life than flesh. I choose to call that belief divine. Whether it is Allah or Yahweh or Jehovah or Jupiter, that is beyond me. I do not try to find the answer. I merely ask questions and receive the reply. Is that not what you find?”
Girolamo was silent for a while. “Yes. But if there is a God, then He is punishing me. What else is this face, this body, if not punishment? Which means the evil I've done will be put against the good, and I'll be damned.”
“Only if you continue to do evil. Despite our companion's father, whom I knew well, I am uncertain of the afterlife, if there is such a thing.”
“Mohammedans don't believe in Heaven?”
“I am speaking for myself,” said the Moor. “And I have not said I am one of the Prophet's followers. Nor did I say I was an unbeliever. I merely said I was uncertain. Certainty is often a sign more of fear than of conviction. It is something the poet himself would say after he had taken his wine and stopped writing for the day. We would talk, he and I, late into the night. Ser Alaghieri as well, and his sister. We would debate, we would challenge, we would discuss. We came to few conclusions. I know Ser Alaghieri and Suor Beatrice felt strengthened in their faiths.”
“And you?”
“I felt then as I do now, uncertain. I choose to believe in forces I cannot understand, any more than I understand what brings a gust of wind, or a drop of rain. Or a shooting star,” he added, his rough voice trailing away.
He di
dn't know what had made him say it, but Girolamo confessed, “I saw them. The boy's charts. The ones he didn't burn. I took them.”
The gaze came back into focus. “Did you understand them?”
“Not entirely. But I saw the differences. Something – something did not feel right.”
“They are dark portents,” said the Moor.
“No, I mean – when my pendulum wants to swing, but I'm asking the wrong question, my fingers itch. It was like that, holding the charts.”
The Moor was silent for a long while. “I was right to come. We shall speak of this further, when our journey is finished.” That had given Girolamo enough to think over for the remaining hours of bouncing carriage wheels and infrequent stops.
They entered the city without trouble, crossing the dreaded Ponte Molino of terrible memory. From there, Girolamo instructed the driver how to reach their destination, carefully repeating words branded in his brain so long ago. He'd been to the house several times through the years, trying to prise free the reason he had been sent here.
What he could not fathom was what these men were seeking. They knew where the boy was, and who had ordered his murder. What did they want with an old house, long since abandoned?
Apparently the younger Alaghieri felt the same. Girolamo overheard him asking the Moor why the house mattered.
“It matters to your brother because it might reveal the identity of Cesco's mother, and why Cangrande has worked so hard to keep her name secret. It matters to me because I may find someone who was present at his birth – a nurse, a servant. They may be able to give me better details. The hour, the colour of the sky, anything.”
When the carriage came to a halt, Girolamo tried his best not to sigh in relief. Jacopo leapt from the carriage with the alacrity of the whole. Slower in exiting, Girolamo scuttled through the carriage door in his crabbed gait and clambered awkwardly to the ground. The Moor followed suit, looking less pained, but with the same careful movements of one who has been injured and now was cautious of his body.
Looking about, Girolamo pointed. “That's it.”
“You're certain?” asked Jacopo.