The Falconer's Knot (17 page)

She did not deceive herself that he was more in love with her than with her money. She knew that she could please him, though, and that was enough. She wasn’t in love with him either but he brought to the match what she had brought to her first marriage – youth and looks and pleasant ways – and she was ready to make the bargain.

For his part, Gervasio was light-headed with relief. He would not have to fear the life of a shoeless religious; his future was assured. And Angelica was a lovely creature. A bit plump and perhaps more so since being widowed, but it suited her. She was fair and rosy and a most attractive armful. He would not find his marital duties at all irksome.

But best of all, she was rich! He would no longer have to worry about his mounting debts, his bills at the tavern, his gaming losses. Angelica could write them off with a stroke of the pen.

They kissed passionately, each so filled with relief that it served just as well as real ardour.

‘My darling,’ murmured Gervasio, caressing her shoulder, surprised by the warmth of his own feelings.

‘Dearest,’ she replied, her eyes closed in ecstasy. How delicate and exciting his touch was! Oh, she could be a real wife to this one! She had a fleeting recollection of another young man with big grey eyes and a poem. But she put him out of her mind.

Gervasio was thinking of Silvano too. He still had that poem in his jerkin. He didn’t know where his friend was now but he hoped he was safe. He hadn’t really meant him to suffer when he stabbed Angelica’s husband. But it had been very handy his coming along the street at that moment.

‘He’s here, he’s here!’ said Brother Matteo excitedly. He was at the door of the colour room when the Minister General and his chaplain rode into the yard at Giardinetto.

‘He’s stabling his horses,’ Matteo continued his commentary. ‘And now old Gianni is pointing the way to the Abbot’s cell. Oh no, that’s too bad. One of us should go and escort him. No, it’s all right. Father Bonsignore must have seen him from his window – he’s come down to greet him.’

‘He’s back then?’ asked Silvano, surprised.

‘Oh yes, he got back last night,’ said Matteo. ‘He must be very tired.’

The Abbot was indeed far too weary to handle the Minister General’s visit as well as he should. Michele da Cesena was a terrifying person to entertain. His ascetic, almost fleshless face was dominated by fanatical, black eyes and he had no time for social niceties.

After the briefest of greetings and declining all offers of refreshment, which his chaplain looked a little wistful about, the Minister General asked to see the sites of the two murders. His chaplain sprinkled the guest room and the refectory with holy water, while the Minister General prayed long and fervently on his knees on the flagstones.

‘We held a service of purification,’ said Bonsignore, when Michele da Cesena eventually rose.

‘Good,’ nodded the Minister General. ‘Now, I shall need to use your cell and interview every friar from yourself to the youngest novice – lay brothers and servants too. I shall hear all their confessions.’

And one of them will freely confess to murder, I suppose, thought the Abbot, but all he said was, ‘I have of course heard confessions from them all since the deaths.’

The Minister General ignored him. ‘My chaplain will make some notes,’ he said. ‘In a matter as serious as this, the secrecy of the confessional may be waived.’

As the Abbot followed him to his own cell, he felt displaced from his own house and his position of authority. He sighed and squared his shoulders; he had had no choice but to send for his superior and the knowledge that he was in for a very uncomfortable fifteen minutes was in a strange way comforting. This harsh, uncompromising friar would take the burden from him and, if anyone could solve the terrible crimes at Giardinetto, it would be Michele da Cesena.

The tension in the friary was palpable. Everyone knew why the Minister General was there and everyone expected to be questioned. Work continued but no one was concentrating. As each friar returned to his task after his interrogation, he faced a second one from the brothers around him. ‘What was it like? Were you scared?’ asked the younger friars and novices, forgetting the normal deference they would show to their seniors.

Brother Anselmo was with the Minister General for a long time, causing much speculation in the colour room. The friars shifted uneasily and looked often at Silvano and he didn’t know whether it was because of his closeness to the Colour Master or because of their own suspicions about him.

When Anselmo returned, he looked grey and strained and they were all relieved when the bell rang for Sext. The midday meal came straight afterwards and the Lector read from the Book of Revelation, imposing silence on the brothers with a quelling look.

Michele da Cesena did not appear in the refectory and nor did the Abbot.

‘The man must eat surely?’ whispered Brother Taddeo at the lower end of the table.

‘Perhaps Bertuccio has taken something to the Abbot’s room?’ said Silvano.

‘The Abbot is not in his room,’ said Monaldo the Librarian, who had already been questioned. ‘I think he is praying in the chapel. The Minister General has taken over his quarters.’

The questioning lasted all that day and into the next. Michele and his chaplain appeared briefly at supper, eating and drinking a little of the deliberately plain fare provided by Bertuccio, and then went back to work. The Minister General was offered the guest room but chose to sleep a few hours in the Abbot’s cell. His chaplain joined the junior friars in the dormitory but would not be drawn on his master’s work.

And still Silvano had not been called.

Word got around quickly in Perugia that the beautiful widow Angelica was going to remarry. It wasn’t long before it reached the ears of Baron Montacuto. He experienced a rapid series of emotions: surprise, that his old friend de’ Oddini could sanction the marriage of even a youngest son to the widow of a sheep farmer; relief that this took the light of enquiry off his own son, since Angelica had clearly not been in love with Silvano and, finally, suspicion.

The most convincing reason for Gervasio’s marriage must be lack of money. And if he was short of money, perhaps he had been in debt? Bartolomeo da Montacuto decided that he must put his investigators on to young Gervasio de’ Oddini; a terrible misgiving was building in his mind.

He had read Silvano’s letters and was moved by how much the boy was missing his family. He had been careful too to keep his news neutral; no one would guess he was writing from a religious house. When Margarethe came into the Baron’s room, he hadn’t the heart to keep her letter from her any longer.

‘I have news my dear,’ he said stricken by her wasted look. ‘A letter from Silvano.’

Instantly the mother’s face brightened and she practically snatched the roll from her husband’s hand. She read breathlessly.

‘He is well; he is safe!’ she said, clutching the parchment to her breast as if the skin were her son’s own, for her to stroke and kiss.

‘I told you, dear heart,’ said the Baron, embracing her. ‘I promised you I would keep him safe.’

He was not going to tell her that Silvano was shut up with at least one and possibly two murderers; let her enjoy the happiness of the moment.

‘But when will we see him again?’ asked Margarethe, resting her fair head on her husband’s broad chest. ‘When will Silvano come home?’

‘Soon now, my dear, very soon,’ said the Baron, patting her shoulder. ‘I think I might have found out something that means he will be back with us before too long.’

.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The Colour of Blood

T
he Minister General called Silvano to the Abbot’s cell shortly before Nones in the afternoon of the second day of his visitation. The walk from the colour room to the main house had never seemed so long to him.

He found Michele da Cesena sitting sternly in the Abbot’s chair, the tired chaplain occupying a high reading desk.

‘You are not a genuine novice,’ was the Minister General’s opening remark; it was not a question.

‘I am not,’ said Silvano.

‘Your circumstances have been explained to me by your Abbot. Sanctuary is an honourable tradition and I do not dispute his right to offer it to you. However, in the light of what has happened since your arrival – in this previously peaceable and unremarkable community – I do question his judgment.’

‘I am not guilty of any murder, Father, neither the one I was accused of in Perugia nor either of the ones here. I am as anxious as anyone to discover the culprit.’

‘Describe your movements on the night the merchant Ubaldo was stabbed.’

‘I went to look for Brother Anselmo in his cell. He had not been well at dinner and I was concerned about him.’

‘You have developed an attachment to Brother Anselmo? Would you have gone in search of any other brother who had been taken sick?’

Silvano hesitated. ‘Probably not. I am . . . close to Brother Anselmo. He is my master in the colour room and he has been kind to me.’

‘If you were a real friar, I should admonish you about that. We are not to prize any brother over another, any human being over another. Our Lord himself exhorted his disciples to leave their families and follow him. Any human attachment is a distraction from the Lord’s work.’

‘But I am not a real friar,’ said Silvano quietly.

Michele da Cesena frowned at him, his shaggy brows knotted over his piercing eyes. Then the grim face seemed to relax a little.

‘No. And I should tell you in all honesty that, since you are not, I have no jurisdiction over you. You do not even have to answer my questions, though I advise that you do.’

Harsh but fair, thought Silvano. ‘I am willing to answer your questions,’ he said.

‘Good. Was Brother Anselmo in his cell when you went to look for him?’

‘No. He came up while I was standing outside his door.’

‘And where had he been?’

‘For a walk in the grounds. He said he needed some fresh air.’

‘That was what he told the Abbot. And that he needed to wrestle with a desire to go and confront the merchant.’

‘Then if that is what he said, I for one would believe him,’ said Silvano.

‘Ah, but we have established that you have a special closeness to Brother Anselmo,’ said the Minister General. ‘It diminishes the value of your opinion on this matter. What about the other murder? Where were you when Brother Landolfo was poisoned?’

‘Exactly where when the poison entered his body, I can’t say,’ admitted Silvano, trying to be scrupulously precise with this exacting inquisitor. ‘But I was there when he was taken ill. Virtually all of us were. It happened in the refectory.’

‘And Brother Anselmo was there too?’

‘Yes. He tried to help Brother Rufino, who was looking after Brother Landolfo.’

‘But unsuccessfully.’

‘Yes. It was too late. Brother Landolfo started to have fits and died very quickly.’

‘You have denied any involvement in the deaths of these brothers,’ said the Minister General. ‘Do you know who was involved?’

‘I have thought of little else since they happened,’ said Silvano. ‘I still have no idea.’

‘Who could have administered poison to Brother Landolfo?’

‘Well, the cook, I suppose, Bertuccio. He is a lay brother.’

‘I have questioned Brother Bertuccio and he denies it.’

‘He had no reason to kill Landolfo, it’s true. He liked him – everyone did.’

‘Someone apparently did not,’ said the Minister General drily.

‘Well, I suppose anyone in the refectory could have put poison in his food,’ admitted Silvano.

‘Who has access to arsenikon?’ asked the Minister General.

‘Brother Anselmo,’ admitted Silvano, caught off guard. ‘But also Brother Fazio. He uses it for his manuscripts and we don’t make much of it in the colour room, though I have seen some there. Any brother could have got it from there or from Fazio’s cell.’

Michele da Cesena suddenly whipped out a dagger and held it less than an inch from Silvano’s face.

‘You know what this is?’

Silvano had flinched only slightly. With a great effort of will he kept his head steady. ‘It is a dagger, Father. Since no friar carries one, I assume it is the one belonging to the merchant. But it is too close to my eyes for me to distinguish.’

The Minister General lowered the weapon and offered it to Silvano, handle first.

‘Take a better look, then. Give me your opinion.’

Silvano took it uneasily and weighed it in his hand. ‘It is a good weapon, well balanced.’

‘Do you miss your own?’

‘No,’ said Silvano honestly. ‘Since it was used to kill a man, I have not wanted to carry a dagger of my own.’

‘And yet that is what it is for, is it not? Why did you ever carry one?’

‘To defend myself. The city can be a dangerous place.’

‘So it would seem,’ said Michele da Cesena.

‘I thought it would have gone back to Gubbio with all his other possessions,’ said Silvano, handing the knife back. The blade had been cleaned but he sensed the blood on it still.

‘The Abbot thought it would be insensitive to include the weapon that killed him among his belongings. I doubt any of his sons will want to carry it.’

The Minister General eyed Silvano as if weighing his soul. With a swift blow, he struck the dagger into the table in front of him, where it quivered, the hilt making the shape of a cross.

‘Pray with me!’ he suddenly ordered, pointing to the ground.

The two men knelt on the flagstones and the chaplain put down his pen, flexing his fingers.

Michele da Cesena prayed tirelessly aloud and Silvano’s knees were screaming for mercy long before he had finished. But he joined in when he was required, giving the right responses.

‘And now I shall hear your confession,’ said the Minister General at last, getting to his feet but indicating that Silvano should remain kneeling.

Silvano glanced towards the chaplain; he had never heard of public confession.

‘Take no notice of him,’ said the Minister General. ‘Just tell me your sins.’

Chiara was making a rich red in the colour room. Although she had had no further experience of dragonsblood since her first day, she knew quite a lot about hematite. ‘Blood stone’ Sister Veronica called it and it was a hard natural rock of a purple colour. It was so strong it had to be pounded in a bronze mortar before it could be ground more finely on a slab.

Chiara pounded at her allocation of blood stone with a will. If only she could get the lumps out of her thoughts as easily! She had not been sleeping well since the artist Simone had suggested that the murderer might be a lunatic. At night her thoughts went round and round in her head, and when she did sleep, the nightmares came. Hooded figures with dripping daggers jumped out at her from the shadows. Ghostly assassins lurked behind every door.

‘Don’t break the mortar, Sister,’ said Sister Veronica and Chiara realised that she was letting her feelings show.

To stay or to go was still her main dilemma. And that was confused by her growing feelings for Silvano. Even if she pushed those feelings aside, she couldn’t leave the convent without knowing that the terrible crimes committed so nearby had been solved. True, she would be safe in Gubbio, and not just from shadowy killers, but she could not forget that every sister and brother in Giardinetto would still be in danger. And one brother in particular, whose fair body she could not bear to think of being stabbed or poisoned.

Perhaps this visit from the Minister General would flush out the murderer? Everyone said he had a formidable intellect. Chiara was a bit apprehensive about his visit to the convent; he was due to celebrate Mass there as soon as he had finished questioning the friars next door.

‘He’s here,’ announced Sister Eufemia, coming to the door of the colour room. ‘You are all requested to come to the chapel.’

The sisters’ chapel was more like a long bare room; it had no bell tower and little by way of decoration. The sisters sat on benches and there was a rough stone slab for an altar with a wooden cross and two wooden candlesticks at the east end. On the wall behind it was an old panel painting of the Crucifixion. Chiara looked at it more critically now than when she had first come to Giardinetto. She could tell what pigments had gone into its painting and could compare it with images she had seen at Assisi.

But it was still a strong piece of work, strong enough to draw her gaze again in spite of the dark figure standing in front of it. The Minister General’s chaplain acted as server and the Mass was conducted with severe dignity. As one of the youngest sisters and the most recent novice, Chiara took the Host last. As she raised her face for Michele da Cesena to place the consecrated bread in her mouth, she caught a glimpse of the dark brow and glittering eyes and it was all she could do not to pull away.

Had he discovered anything? It was impossible to tell. He certainly wouldn’t tell her, the least significant member of the convent. Perhaps he would have news for the Abbess?

Monna Isabella was expecting a visitor. When he was shown in to see her, he found her in the merchant’s old office; she saved her sitting room for social visits now.

‘Ah, Ser Bernardo,’ she greeted him.

Bernardo came into the room nervously, unsure why this wealthy woman had sent for him.

‘I wanted to talk to you about your sister,’ said Isabella.

‘Chiara?’ asked Bernardo. It was the last thing he had been expecting.

‘Only she is not called Chiara any more, is she?’ asked Isabella. ‘Her given name has been taken away from her and she is now Sister Orsola.’

‘You have met her, Madama?’

‘Yes. You may have heard that my husband died at Giardinetto. Your sister helped to take care of me when I went to bring home his body. I was very taken with her – and her situation.’

‘Her situation, Madama? It is not different from that of many young women without dowries.’

‘I don’t doubt it. But she has no calling and I have offered her a place in my home. And a dowry too, should she ever need one. She will live here and be my companion and friend. I have only one daughter and she is too young to be a confidante.’

Bernardo was uncomfortable. Isabella’s generosity made him feel as if he had wronged his sister and he had convinced himself that he had done his best for her.

‘Since you handed your sister over to the nuns,’ said Isabella, ‘I don’t feel I have to ask your permission to invite her into my household. But I take it you don’t have any objections?’

‘No,’ said Bernardo, bemused. If she wasn’t asking his permission to give Chiara a home, why had she summoned him? ‘It is very kind of you.’

‘Another widow, from Perugia, is setting herself up as a wool merchant in Gubbio,’ said Isabella. ‘And I have decided to keep on my husband’s business myself.’