The Secret Supper (29 page)

Nanni stirred in his seat.

“You know something, Fabio? All the knowledge locked in those frescoes is nothing compared to that which I expect to receive today.”

Fabio lowered his eyes, fearful that his master might discover the eagerness with which he received this information.

“If he gives me what I hope for, then I’ll have the key to everything I’ve been telling you about. I’ll know it all…”

Noticing that the coach was slowing down, he fell silent and looked through the curtains. They were outside Rome and close to their destination.

“I believe we’re almost there,” his assistant said.

“Excellent! Can you see if anyone is waiting for us?”

Fabio stuck his head out of the window and saw the enormous whitewashed façade of the Old Giant, an inn on the outskirts of Rome, famous for being the meeting place of both religious pilgrims and fugitives from justice. A solitary man wrapped in a brown cloak was making signs at them from the door of the establishment.

“There’s a man who seems to have recognized your coach, Master,” he said.

“That must be him. Oliverio Jacaranda. It’s been a long time since we last met.”

The young man hesitated. “You know Jacaranda, Master?”

“Oh yes. He’s an old friend. There’s nothing to worry about.”

“Respectfully, Master, this is not a safe place for someone in your position. If you were recognized, you might be robbed or even kidnapped…”

Annio smiled, much amused. Fabio did not know how many times he had concluded transactions in this place. Long before his appointment as papal advisor to Alexander VI, the Old Giant had been one of his favorite “offices.” The owners knew and respected him well. He had nothing to fear. Within its confines he had received statues, paintings, ancient gravestones, manuscripts, vestments, perfume, and even complete funeral costumes in exchange for heavy bags of gold from the pontifical treasury. Jacaranda was one of his most reliable providers. The pieces he had bought from him had helped him ascend more than one rung in his career. So when the Spaniard had returned to Rome and asked to see him urgently, it could only mean he surely had something important to offer him.

Annio trembled in anticipation. Had Jacaranda obtained for him the ancient treasure at last? Had he brought with him the final piece that he so much longed to possess?

His fertile imagination carried him away. As Fabio opened the door of the coach for his master to descend, Nanni rejoiced to think how close he was to his greatest triumph. Why else would his faithful procurer have had him travel all this way?

Jacaranda’s appeal had come at a fortunate moment. The previous afternoon, Nanni had met again with the head of the Dominicans, the temperamental Torriani, to hear from his lips the latest news regarding Leonardo’s Last Supper. In private audience with His Holiness, Torriani explained that he had discovered the secret message hidden in the mural.

“Leonardo,” he said, “has concealed among his figures a phrase, a sort of invocation, written in a strange language that we are now trying to decipher. A letter from Milan has unveiled the mystery.”

The Master General then recited the sentence in the presence of himself and the Holy Father. Neither understood the meaning. To Nanni’s ears, however, it sounded undoubtedly Egyptian.

“Mut, Nem, A, Los, Noc,” he murmured.

Was not the origin crystal clear? Did it not contain the name of the goddess Mut, wife of the god Ammon and Queen of Thebes? Was it not providential that Oliverio Jacaranda, a true expert in Egyptian hieroglyphs, had arrived almost at the same time as Torriani’s revelation? Had not God Himself sent him to help Nanni solve the riddle and earn the Pope’s eternal respect?

Yes. Providence, he thought, was certainly on his side.

In front of the Old Giant’s stables, Jacaranda kissed Nanni’s ring and invited him to step inside. There they would discuss the ancient treasure and the mysterious hieroglyphs.

Led into the interior of the inn, the Weasel sat down in one of the small booths. In the meantime, Fabio thanked the stars for his luck, to be able to witness the conversation that he would later transmit to Bethany.

“My dear Father Annio,” said the Spaniard, making himself snug on his seat and helping himself to a generous jug of beer. “I trust I’ve not alarmed you with this sudden visit.”

“On the contrary. You know I always await your visits with great impatience. It’s a pity you don’t appear more often around here, where you are much esteemed.”

“It’s more prudent that way.”

“More prudent?”

Oliverio decided to go straight to the point.

“This time, I bring news that won’t be to your liking.”

“Your visit alone is a pleasure. What more can I ask for?”

“For the ancient treasure, of course.”

“What about it?”

“It refuses to fall into my hands.”

Annio grimaced. He knew full well that it would not be easy to obtain what he wanted. After all, the treasure had arrived in Italy more than two hundred years ago, and it had passed through many hands, vanishing suddenly at the most unexpected moments. It was not a piece of jewelry, nor a venerable relic, nor anything that might satisfy the costly appetite of a king. His treasure was a book. An ancient Oriental treatise, bound in morocco leather and secured with leather straps, in which he hoped to find the truth about the Messiah’s resurrection and His ties with the powerful and ancestral Egyptian magic. Leonardo, they both knew, had been its latest owner. In fact, proof of this was in the mysterious phrase that Father Torriani had told them about. An Egyptian invocation could come from no other source.

“You disappoint me, Oliverio,” the Weasel hissed. “If you haven’t brought it with you, then why have you called me here?”

“I’ll explain. You’re not the only person in search of that treasure, Father Annio. Even the Donna Beatrice d’Este wanted it before losing her life.”

“That’s all water under the bridge!” Nanni exclaimed. “I know that the crafty woman appealed to you, but now she’s dead. What’s stopping you, then?”

“There’s someone else, Father Annio.”

“Another competitor?” The Weasel’s cheeks flushed. “What is it you want, Jacaranda? More money? Is that it? Has he offered you more money and now you’ve come to raise your price?”

The Spaniard shook his head, somewhat frightened at Nanni’s tone. His dark eyes betrayed a rare gravity.

“No, it isn’t a question of money.”

“What is it then?”

“I need to know whom I’m up against. Whoever is seeking your treasure is willing to kill in order to obtain it.”

“Kill?”

“Ten days ago he murdered one of my intermediaries, the librarian at Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. After that, the bastard has eliminated all those who’ve shown interest in your book. That is why I’ve come: to ask you to tell me the name of your competitor.”

“An assassin…” The Weasel shuddered.

“Not a common criminal. He’s a man who signs his crimes and mocks us all. In the Church of San Francesco he’s done away with several pilgrims and has always left by the side of the corpse a tarot card.”

“A card?”

“The Priestess. Do you understand now?”

Nanni said nothing.

“Yes, Father Annio. The same card that both you and Donna Beatrice gave me to find your treasured volume.”

Oliverio took another gulp from his beer and then he continued.

“You know what I think? That the murderer knows of our interest in the book of the Priestess. I believe that he hasn’t chosen that card merely by chance. He knows who we are and he’ll do away with us too, if he thinks we’re in his way.”

“Yes, yes.” The Weasel seemed very perturbed. “But tell me, Oliverio, those pilgrims in San Francesco, were they after my treasure as well?”

“I’ve done some questioning among the duke’s police, and I can tell you that those were no ordinary pilgrims.”

“No?”

“The latest one was identified as Brother Giulio, an ancient Cathar ‘perfect.’ I learned this just before coming to see you. The Milan police are at a loss. It seems that this Giulio was rehabilitated by the Holy Office a few years ago, after having been in charge of a community of bonshommes in Concorezzo.”

“Concorezzo? Are you certain?”

Jacaranda nodded, not noticing how his old client had grown suddenly pale.

Annio saw that the merchant was unaware that this village on the outskirts of Milan, northeast of the capital, had been one of the principal Cathar sites in all of Lombardy and the place where, according to all the sources, the book that Nanni wanted had been kept for over two centuries. Everything fit: Father Torriani’s suspicions regarding Leonardo’s Cathar proclivities, the murdered “perfects” in Milan, the Egyptian phrase in the Cenacolo. Unless he was much mistaken, the root of everything had to be sought in that ancient treasure: a text of enormous theological and magical value, full of occult references to the teachings that Jesus Christ entrusted to Mary Magdalene after the Resurrection. A text that brought to light the parallels between Jesus and Osiris, the god who came back from the dead, thanks to the magic of Isis, the only one by his side at the moment of his return to Earth.

The Holy Office had spent decades trying to lay its hands on the treatise. The only fact they could uncover was that a copy, perhaps the only one ever made, had been smuggled out of Concorezzo and had come into the possession of Cosimo during the Council of Florence of 1439. It was never returned. In fact, only a casual indiscretion by Isabella d’Este, sister of Donna Beatrice, during the coronation festivities for Pope Alexander in 1492 had allowed the Holy Office to know that the book had been in Florence, in the hands of Marsilio Ficino, the Medici’s official translator, and that he gave it as a gift to Leonardo da Vinci shortly before the latter’s departure for Milan. It was therefore not impossible that someone from Concorezzo was also aware of this and wished to get the book back.

“Tell me, Father Annio,” Jacaranda said, interrupting the prelate’s musings, “why don’t you explain what it is that makes this book so dangerous?”

Seeing the Spaniard’s deep concern, Nanni decided to answer.

“It’s an extraordinary book,” he said at length. “It records the dialogue between Saint John and Jesus Christ in the heavens, concerning the origin of the world, the Fall of the angels, and the paths laid out for us mortals in order to attain the salvation of our soul. It was written just after the last vision the Beloved Disciple had before dying. They say it’s a lucid, intense narration, depicting details of life in Heaven and the order of Creation, to which no other mortal ever had access.”

“And why do you think that a book of this kind is of interest to Leonardo? He’s not a man who’s at all keen on theology—”

The Weasel lifted a finger to silence Jacaranda.

“The real title of this ‘blue book,’ my dear Oliverio, will answer your question. Listen. Two hundred years ago, Anselm of Alexandria mentioned it in one of his writings. He called it Interrogatio Johannis, or The Secret Supper. And according to the information available, Leonardo has made use of the information contained in the book’s first pages to illustrate the wall of the Dominican refectory. Nothing less!”

“And that is the book that appears on the Priestess’s card?”

Nanni nodded and then added:

“And its secret has been reduced by Leonardo to a single phrase that I want you to translate for me.”

“One phrase?”

“In ancient Egyptian. It reads ‘Mut, Nem, A, Los, Noc.’ Do you know it?”

Oliverio shook his head.

“No. But I’ll find the translation for you. Leave it in my hands.”

40

From sunrise to sunset.

That is how long they lasted, the interrogations of January twenty-second.

I remember that the Father Prior, Brother Benedetto and myself interviewed the brothers of Santa Maria delle Grazie one by one, struggling to find in their words clues to solve our riddles. We lived through astonishing moments. All had something to confess. Trembling, they begged for absolution from their faults and swore never again would they put in doubt the divine nature of Christ. Poor things. Most of their revelations were simply the fruit of a defective theological education. They took trivial deeds to be mortal sins, and vice versa. And yet, it was through these patient interrogations, little by little, that the intentions of Brother Giberto and Father Alessandro began to take shape, revealing their plans to take control, from inside the resting place of the Cenacolo. The four monks who, as it turned out, had been largely involved in the preparations confessed separately the powerful motive that had moved them: the colossal work of Leonardo concealed what all four defined as “a pictorial talisman.” That is to say, a subtle geometrical design, imagined with the purpose of seducing the unaware and imprinting in their memory information that, unfortunately, none of them was able to articulate. “It is God’s third revelation,” one of them dared to assert.

This caught my attention.

Our four heretics came from small villages north of Milan, from the region of the lakes and even further, and they had joined the Dominicans shortly after the founding of the monastery, when they heard of Ludovico il Moro’s intentions to turn it into the family mausoleum. Unlike their brethren, these four were men of some culture, admirers of Saint Bernard’s famous maxim, “God is length, width, height and depth.” They were familiar with the works of Pythagoras, had read Plato, whom they preferred to Aristotle, the inspiration for our system of theology. The most stubborn among the four was Brother Guglielmo Arno, the cook. Not only did he refuse to confess any sins to our tribunal but scorned us for belonging to the “False Church.”

The little I knew about him until then was his great friendship with Leonardo. Father Alessandro had been the first to mention it. Both men were seduced by the same pleasures. They mocked and despised the duke’s sumptuous meals, trading the huge roasted meats for cabbages, plums, sliced carrots and fermented pies. Leonardo and his friend achieved their moment of glory during Christmas 1495, when they invented a cake with a rounded top that mirrored Santa Maria’s Bramante dome, and presented it at the duke’s banquet. It was such a success that even Donna Beatrice begged them to reveal the secret ingredient that had made the dough rise in such a spectacular manner. Brother Guglielmo declined, the duchess insisted, and many still remember the cook’s rude riposte that earned him five weeks’ detention in his kitchen and a stern reprimand from the House of Sforza.