The Falconer's Knot (20 page)

Simone and his friend Pietro knelt in veneration before the holy relics. But first and foremost they were artists and it was the workmanship and artistry of the casket which had impressed them as much as what it contained. They walked out into the cold morning sunshine praising Teodoro’s work.

‘It was worth losing sleep over,’ said Pietro, clapping the goldsmith on the back.

‘Thank you,’ said Teodoro. ‘The Minister General seems pleased.’

‘So I should think,’ said Simone indignantly. ‘It is absurd for such a commission to be given at such short notice. You have done in days what any other artist would have insisted on taking weeks if not months to design and make.’

As they walked across the green, they saw a small procession approaching. A carriage drawn by two horses was accompanied by several horsemen, Michele da Cesena among them.

‘I showed you my casket just in time,’ said Teodoro. ‘I think they have come to take it now. Giardinetto’s need is more urgent than ever.’

‘How should you like a ride out into the country?’ Simone asked Pietro.

‘Very much,’ said Pietro, ‘but I have work to do and so do you.’

‘Donato and the others can continue while we are away. And you have your own assistants. Besides, we could collect some more pigments from the friars.’

‘Do you think Michele da Cesena would appreciate our presence?’

‘We are not froward friars for him to glare at. And we can’t help it if we happen to be at Giardinetto to collect our colours while he is there.’

Silvano had slept badly, with terrible nightmares. He thought he would never expunge the image of Valentino’s ghastly purple face from his memory. He had been hanged by his own rope belt and that somehow made it seem much more cold-blooded of the murderer. No one suggested that the Herbalist had taken his own life.

It seemed as if the other young friars and novices had passed an equally restless night. Faces were pale and voices quiet. But they had not had their supper the night before and they were hungry. So they were all present in the refectory to break their fast.

Compline and Matins had not been said and only a few friars had gone to the chapel for Lauds in the early morning. When the bell rang for Prime at daybreak, everyone looked fearful. Who would have been brave enough to enter that bell tower after what it had witnessed the night before?

As they approached the chapel, they saw that the bell tower door was wide open and it was Brother Anselmo pulling vigorously on the rope. The Abbot was there too, blessing the tower with holy water and carrying a wooden cross before him.

Silvano felt a surge of affection for both men. They were strong and determined to carry on with the religious life of the friary, no matter what new horror was thrown at them. When the brothers had filed into the chapel, the Abbot came and addressed them before they said the Office.

‘Brothers in Christ, this death of another brother is a terrible blow to us all. Even to the murderer among us.’ He stopped and raked the small congregation with his gaze. ‘If that killer is here in this chapel, sanctified to our beloved Saint Francis, I pray him to come forth and confess. Let the devils within him be called out and exorcised so that he may be free to repent and go to the Lord.’

There was an uneasy silence in which no man dared look at his neighbours.

‘Let us pray together for the salvation of the soul of Brother Valentino, whose body lies in the infirmary. May he today find himself in bliss, even though he went to his rest unshriven. And we also pray for Brother Landolfo and Ubaldo the merchant. Rest eternal grant unto them, O Lord.’

‘And may light perpetual shine upon them,’ responded all the brothers.

‘May they rest in peace.’

‘And rise in glory.’

After the Office of Prime had been said, Bonsignore spoke again.

‘Later today our Minister General will come from Assisi with the bones of the Blessed Egidio. The casket will lie here all day and all night and any brother is free to come and pray by it at any time. There will be a service of blessing immediately after Vespers. The relics will be taken back to Assisi after Terce tomorrow morning. I shall be in my cell until the arrival of the party from Assisi, if any brother wishes to speak to me. Meanwhile, you are all to carry on with your work as normal.’

He left the chapel with a firm step, like a man fully in control of his house, though that was far from how he felt.

The friars dispersed to their tasks and did their best to behave normally but they were deeply frightened.

‘It is a good thing that Michele da Cesena is coming back,’ said Brother Anselmo to Silvano. This is too great a burden for Father Bonsignore to bear alone.’

‘What do you think will happen?’ asked Silvano. ‘Will he call for the friary to be dispersed?’

‘It is very possible. We could all be looking for new houses by this time tomorrow.’

‘Shall we make colours as usual?’

‘We must. It is what the Abbot wants and what will keep us sane.’

‘But not the murderer.’

‘No. I fear Simone is right. One of our brothers must have lost his mind. Brother Valentino was enemy to no man, as sweet a soul as Landolfo. There could be no other reason but insanity.’

‘Perhaps we should not make death’s head purple?’

Anselmo looked at him sympathetically.

‘No. We shall make a more cheerful colour today.’

Umberto made his plans carefully. He had neither wife nor children to mourn him if his scheme went awry and he had already made a will leaving all his money and property to his three nephews and a dowry for his niece. His house was in order in every sense.

Now he was drinking deeply. Like his older brother, he was able to drink heavily without impairing his ability to ride. But it made him even more dangerous. He was going to go to Giardinetto, armed with Ubaldo’s dagger, and take vengeance on his brother’s murderer.

The only pity was that his sister-in-law would not know about it until after the event. And if he should be so unlucky as to miss his mark and be himself killed by the friar, however unlikely that might be, he would miss the satisfaction of seeing her grief over the loss of her paramour.

Umberto brooded about this and eventually sent his man with a message to Isabella:

‘Am gone to Giardinetto to avenge my brother. U.’

He sat back, satisfied that he had tied up every loose end, and drank another two goblets of wine. He had never killed a man before. And his intended victim was a man of God – supposedly. But that did not deter him. Umberto did not expect to be sent to Hell for murder or sacrilege. He saw himself as the wielder of justice, justice that had so far been denied to his brother.

‘It is up to me,’ he said to himself, his voice beginning to slur. ‘There is no one left in our family to avenge Ubaldo but me. His sons are too young. And I won’t let that so-called friar get away with murder.’

He called for his horse.

.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Mordant

T
he soldiers arrived from the Council before Angelica could reach the palazzo of the de’ Oddini family. But she was there in time to see them lead Gervasio away in manacles. He cast imploring looks at her and his father but did not, she noticed, protest his innocence.

‘On what evidence do you arrest him?’ begged Vincenzo.

‘Ask Baron Montacuto,’ said the Captain.

‘Montacuto? But then this is a trumped up case to get his own boy cleared,’ protested Vincenzo. ‘Don’t worry, Gervasio. I’ll have you out of prison within the hour.’

‘Look after Angelica,’ was all Gervasio said, looking his intended wife defiantly in the face.

Left alone, Vincenzo and Angelica were in a state of shock. The father instinctively believed in the son’s innocence and was all for going to the Palazzo Montacuto immediately. The beloved, though, had her reservations about the lover. She saw straightaway from the look on his face that he probably was her husband’s killer.

Angelica was under no illusions about Gervasio. She remembered that he had been friendly with the young man who had written the poem. And though the red flower had been gained by the one, it had been the other who had vigorously courted her. That was not the action of a true friend. If he could do that, he could just as easily have killed a man and put the blame on someone else. She didn’t doubt it.

Nevertheless she still wanted to marry him. He was her safe-conduct to a more elegant life and a way of putting her peasant origins behind her. There must be a way to rescue him from execution. But not at the cost of the Montacuto boy’s life. There was something sweet and natural about him in her memory that brought out a new maternal feeling in her.

‘Let us try the Baron,’ she agreed. ‘I shall go with you.’

The solemn procession had arrived at Giardinetto. The Abbot went to meet it with heavy heart. Although it would have been a sinful deception, he wished he could have kept the fact of Brother Valentino’s death from the Minister General. After his strictures last time, Bonsignore was still smarting.

He saw now that, as well as Michele da Cesena and his chaplain, there were four other friars from Assisi – and it looked as if the two painters had joined the group as well.

The Abbot and the Minister General performed a perfunctory embrace and then the four friars took the elaborate casket from the carriage and carried it on their shoulders to the chapel, as if the Blessed Egidio had died only the day before, like poor Brother Valentino, whose plain coffin already lay before the altar.

There were two trestles laid ready for the casket and the friars of Giardinetto filed in behind it, chanting the opening prayer of the Requiem Mass, as if willing the bones to do their work and flush out the murderer from their midst.

But nothing had happened by the end of the service, except for some heartfelt sobbing by some of the younger brothers.

When it was over, Valentino was laid next to Landolfo in the little cemetery. As the Minister General performed the committal, he looked around the graveyard and Bonsignore could tell he was thinking it too cramped for the needs of a house that was going to have a murder every week or so.

When Valentino was safely under the earth, the Assisi party visited the Abbot’s cell for refreshment. Simone and Pietro, the unofficial visitors, went to the colour room. Brother Anselmo suggested that all the other friars should take some fresh air while he spoke to the Sienese artists but Silvano stayed to talk to them.

‘This is a bad business,’ said Simone. ‘You must have some idea who’s doing this?’

‘I have had my suspicions,’ said Anselmo, much to Silvano’s surprise. The Colour Master certainly hadn’t shared them with him. ‘But I have no proof.’

‘You must be careful,’ said Pietro. ‘If the murderer suspects you know something, you will be in even greater danger.’

‘And you shouldn’t try to confront him by yourself,’ urged Simone, ‘or you will be his next victim. Go and tell Father Bonsignore once the visitation is over and let him help you.’

Anselmo was touched by their concern. ‘If I’m still here, I shall,’ he said.

‘Still here?’ said Silvano. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Father Bonsignore has told me that the Minister General wants another interview with me. I think he has me marked down as the murderer.’

‘But that’s ridiculous!’ said Silvano. ‘I thought he was supposed to be a good judge of men.’

‘Your loyalty is touching – all of you,’ said Anselmo. ‘But I think things are coming to a head here. If the Minister General orders me to Assisi, you must look out for the other brothers, Silvano. And our sisters nearby.’

‘Do the sisters know about Brother Valentino?’ asked Pietro.

‘The Abbot sent the stableman to tell them,’ said Anselmo. ‘He didn’t want any of us to leave the friary before the party came from Assisi. Mother Elena has locked and barred the doors. But I am not really afraid for them. The murderer hasn’t harmed any of them yet and it would be immediately noticed if someone other than myself as their chaplain left here to visit them.’

‘This is unbearable,’ said Silvano. ‘Do you really think the murderer will confess, because we have the Blessed Egidio’s bones?’

‘I know that Father Bonsignore hopes so. It is such a personal disgrace to him, what has happened here. And I know he fears that Michele da Cesena will remove him from office. Or disband the house, if the relics do not expurgate the sin.’

Brother Fazio’s head came round the door.

‘Excuse me, Brother Anselmo, gentlemen. Might I have some gold?’

‘You are still working on your Gospel?’ asked Anselmo, taking a key from his belt and going to a cupboard in the corner.

‘Of course,’ said Fazio, looking vaguely at the others. ‘God’s work must go on.’

‘You are gilding the letters?’ asked Simone. He was always interested in gold. ‘You use mordant gilding?’

Fazio nodded and focused on the painter.

‘Water, glair, a little chalk and a little honey,’ he said. ‘And then the finest slivers of gold.’

‘Why do they call it mordant?’ asked Silvano, interested in this new aspect of artistry, in spite of the horrors he had seen.

‘Because it bites,’ said Pietro unexpectedly clashing his strong teeth together, so that Silvano jumped. ‘The sticky mixture painted on to the page clings on to the gold like a dog to a bone.’

‘I could not have put it better myself,’ said Fazio. ‘But I believe you use gold in another way?’ he asked Simone.

‘Yes, we have reached that stage in the chapel,’ said Simone. ‘For the haloes of the saints, I use a set of punches in the soft gesso and then we paint it over with gold tin. It’s less fiddly than mordant gilding but it takes time.’

‘I’d like to see that,’ said Silvano. He suddenly longed to be in Assisi, thinking of nothing more distressing than colour and form and technique.

Simone patted him on the shoulder. ‘I’m sure you will.’

‘Ah, we each have our own mysteries,’ said Brother Fazio, taking the tiny packet of gold from Anselmo. ‘And I must get back to mine. I have a new chapter to prepare.’

Vincenzo de’ Oddini listened in despair to the damning evidence against his son. He could not maintain Gervasio’s innocence in the face of it. He was particularly shocked to learn of the boy’s debts. But he could not let him go to his certain death.

‘Please help him,’ he begged the Baron. ‘Consider if he were your own son.’

‘You dare to speak of my son,’ said Montacuto, ‘who languishes in exile while his mother and sisters waste away with grief because he can’t show his face in Perugia? It is
your
son who is responsible for that, stabbing the sheep farmer with Silvano’s dagger.’

‘I know. It was terrible. But think of the old friendship between our families. Our boys have always been close.’

‘It is not wise to remind me of that. What did their friendship mean to Gervasio when he stole my son’s dagger to do his dirty work with? Silvano looked up to your son as soon as he could walk. Do you imagine he would ever have done such a thing to him?’

‘But perhaps he did not mean to leave the weapon in the body and put the blame on Silvano?’

The Baron grunted. ‘If that is true, it makes it little better. But Gervasio intends to marry this – lady,’ he said, indicating Angelica, who sat overawed in the great salon of the Baron’s palazzo. ‘What are we to think of him for that?’

‘I do not think that was his intent when he killed my husband,’ she said in a small voice. ‘It must have been the money. But we have a future together now. I beg you to be generous. I . . . I am expecting a child.’

Both the Baron and Vincenzo were so surprised by this announcement they didn’t ask if the baby was Gervasio’s; they just assumed it. Angelica was relieved that she didn’t have to lie.

‘I beg of you,’ said Vincenzo, falling to his knees. ‘Don’t visit your vengeance on my unborn grandchild. Let him have a father and this woman a protector. Let them leave Umbria and start a new life in another city.’

‘It is no longer up to me,’ said Montacuto. ‘The Council have the evidence and they have him. The law must take its course.’

‘You can do it,’ said a quiet voice. The Baronessa had entered the room silently and had been listening for some time. ‘You can ask for the sentence to be commuted to exile and a fine. You and Silvano.’

‘Margarethe,’ said Montacuto. ‘Don’t distress yourself about this. We shall get Silvano back. And soon.’

‘But does another parent have to lose his child?’ asked the Baronessa. ‘And a pregnant mother her husband?’

She took Angelica by the hand. The widow felt large and clumsy and brassy in her new finery next to the slim and delicate Baronessa. She had the same large grey eyes as the young man who had written the beautiful poem.

‘My dear,’ said the Baron. ‘It is different. Gervasio de’ Oddini is guilty of a crime. Our son had to flee for his life when he had done nothing wrong. Would you let a guilty man go unpunished?’

‘Will it not be a punishment to leave his family, his friends and his city for ever?’

The Baron was silent. Suddenly his wife and the pretty blonde widow of the sheep farmer were both kneeling before him beside his old friend Vincenzo.

‘Get up, get up,’ he said testily, helping the women to their feet with more tenderness than his voice showed. ‘I shall refer the matter to my son. If Silvano agrees to clemency, I shall try to help Gervasio escape the full penalty of the law.’