The Falconer's Knot (13 page)

Baron Montacuto was not happy. He had had several very uncomfortable interviews with representatives of the Council in Perugia and they were still seeking out his son for the murder of Tommaso the sheep farmer.

‘I have absolutely no idea,’ he said unashamedly, when they asked where Silvano was.

‘But isn’t that a clear admission of his guilt?’ asked the Capitano. ‘If he has run away from the city without telling even his own family where he was going? That is the action of a guilty man.’

‘And what would the actions of an innocent man be?’ asked Montacuto, enraged. ‘To stay and answer questions when his own dagger had been stolen from him to commit the crime?’

‘You know that his dagger had been stolen?’ asked the Capitano.

‘It must have been,’ said the Baron firmly. ‘My son is not a murderer.’

But for all his bluster, he wished that he had some sort of evidence to offer that would clear Silvano of the crime he was accused of. He missed his son terribly every day and wanted him back from Giardinetto. But it clearly wasn’t safe yet.

His own investigations had yielded one important piece of information. Tommaso, as well as being a successful sheep farmer, had started a second business as a secret moneylender. No records had been found of who owed him money; it was possible that he carried them with him and that they had been taken by his murderer.

But the Baron had found two people who had borrowed money from Tommaso at a high rate of interest and now there was no trace of the loans. Both had witnesses to testify that they had been elsewhere at the time of the stabbing, so they were not suspected of the murder. Needless to say they were very relieved that Tommaso was no more.

Montacuto was convinced there were many more debtors and, if only he could find them all, the murderer would be among them. But for the time being, Silvano remained the only person suspected of the deed and there were notices all over Perugia proclaiming him a wanted man. Baron Montacuto ground his teeth as he walked past one of them nailed to a tree in the square outside the Council. That debtor with the dagger had robbed not only Tommaso of his life and the Baron of his son, but also the House of Montacuto of its honour.

If he ever found out who it was, that man would be made to pay for all three.

Silvano still felt uncomfortable in the friary. Wherever he went, he found that brothers were looking at him or they broke off conversations when he drew near. Whatever Brother Matteo had said about him, it hadn’t stopped the rumours. If he could have heard what they were actually saying, he might not have felt so disturbed. The friars of Giardinetto were so unused to anything interrupting their routine of prayer, preaching and attending to the needs of others that the arrival of both a suspected murderer and an actual murder had been like a fox invading a chicken coop.

Their feathers were ruffled and a certain amount of clucking was to be expected. But they had taken to this modest and willing boy from the city and it didn’t seem as if any brother really believed him capable of one, let alone two murders.

The Novice Master, Brother Ranieri, let the gossip run for a while then decided to have a word with each of the postulants in his charge. But since he did not include Silvano, the young noble had no idea that anyone was trying to quash the rumours.

Late in the day, he decided to see the Abbot.

‘Come in, come in,’ Father Bonsignore welcomed him. ‘How is everything?’

‘I am not very happy, Father,’ said Silvano.

‘I am sorry to hear it,’ said the Abbot. ‘Can you tell me why?’

‘Word seems to have got about among the friars as to why I am here. And I think they might believe I had something to do with Ubaldo’s death.’

‘Surely not?’ said the Abbot, genuinely shocked. ‘I must have a word with them. I don’t know how they found out – certainly Brother Ranieri was under strict instructions not to tell anyone.’

‘I don’t think I can stay here if I’m under suspicion,’ said Silvano. ‘It was bad enough having to leave Perugia. I can’t go through that again.’

‘There is no question of it,’ said the Abbot firmly. ‘This is your home until it is safe for you to go back to your family.’

‘I suppose there is no news from Perugia?’ asked Silvano, without much hope.

‘Nothing yet,’ admitted the Abbot. ‘But I shall go myself next week to see the Bishop, and it would be most natural for me to call on my old friend Montacuto. I can take him a message if you would like.’

‘And to my mother?’ said Silvano eagerly. ‘And he can tell you about what is going on in the city.’

There was a knock on the door. Brother Gregorio, the Lector, came in with a roll of parchment in his hand.

‘I shall leave you, Father,’ said Silvano. ‘Thank you for your kindness.’

As he passed Gregorio in the doorway, the Lector patted him awkwardly on the shoulder. ‘Be of good courage,’ he said quietly and Silvano left the Abbot’s cell feeling better than when he came in.

‘That is a troubled soul,’ said Bonsignore, shaking his head.

‘Indeed,’ said Brother Gregorio. ‘If only we could find out who killed the merchant Ubaldo. Until we do, there is a cloud over Silvano.’

‘And I see you know he came here under such a cloud already.’

‘There has been some talk,’ said Gregorio. ‘But I have paid it no heed. I like the lad.’

‘We all do,’ said the Abbot. ‘Now, what can I do for you?’

‘This letter has come for you from Gubbio,’ said Gregorio.

Bonsignore looked at the wax seal. ‘That is Ubaldo’s signet,’ he said. ‘It must be from his widow.’

‘To thank you, perhaps?’

‘Perhaps.’

The Abbot pulled the seal from the string and unrolled the parchment.

‘By Our Lady and Saint Francis!’ he said. ‘Monna Isabella asks that I be her legal representative. She wants me to be her mundualdus.’

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CHAPTER ELEVEN

From Beyond the Sea

B
rother Landolfo, the Guest Master, had been agitated when Brother Anselmo told him about the two distinguished painters coming to the friary.

‘They will not stay overnight,’ explained Anselmo. ‘They are coming to see the colour room and discuss our production of the first batch of ultramarine. And they will want to see Sister Veronica’s workshop too.’

‘But they will join us in the midday meal, surely?’ said Landolfo. ‘I must speak to Bertuccio. And perhaps your young apprentice could get his hawk to catch a hare or two?’

‘My novice,’ corrected Anselmo. ‘I’ll see what he can do.’

It was astonishing how often Bertuccio or Brother Rufino came to Silvano to ask for a game bird or rabbit for the pot. He was indeed hawking more than once a week and the Abbot turned a blind eye to the pursuit. Celeste needed to be flown every day anyway and it was better exercise for her and Moonbeam if they went outside the friary walls.

Before the two painters arrived, the colour room was in good order. The friars who worked there had stopped gossiping about Silvano and spent the first hours of the day making giallorino.

‘It is from a mineral found close to great volcanoes,’ Brother Anselmo explained to Silvano. ‘This batch came from near Mount Vesuvius. It’s much too hard to break up on a slab so you must pound it in a mortar.’

The friars took the large bronze mortars and worked hard to break up the yellowish rock. Brother Fazio’s bird-like head poked round the door of the colour room.

‘Sorry to disturb you,’ he said. ‘I have run out of verdigris.’

Brother Anselmo went to one of the long shelves and took down a jar of bluish green particles.

‘What are you making today?’ Fazio asked the room in general.

‘A kind of yellow, Brother,’ volunteered Silvano. ‘From volcanoes.’

‘Ah, giallorino,’ said Fazio. ‘All very well for walls, I suppose but I prefer king’s yellow. Nothing less than the royal hue for the Word of God.’

He left with his jar of verdigris.

‘What did he mean?’ asked Silvano. ‘What is king’s yellow?’

‘It is orpiment,’ said Anselmo. ‘We call it and its red brother, realgar, “the two kings”. But they aren’t suitable for walls.’

‘Why not?’

‘They turn black. I make small quantities for Brother Fazio and his helpers to use on parchment. But it is to be avoided as much as possible. The old Greeks called orpiment “arsenikon” and it is a strong poison.’

At that moment there was a tap on the door and the Sienese painters entered. The brothers had met Simone Martini before but they all had to be introduced to Pietro Lorenzetti. As when they first met, Silvano again had the strongest feeling that he had seen the tall red-haired painter before. He noticed that Simone was smiling at him.

‘You have recognised our Pietro?’ he said. And then Silvano remembered where he had seen that long handsome face before. ‘Our Lord!’ he exclaimed.

Pietro laughed. ‘Yes, I’m afraid my Sienese friends took that liberty.’

‘It was my assistants – the ones you met last time in Assisi,’ said Simone. ‘They painted Our Lord among the angels in that picture I showed you of Saint Martin’s dream. And they decided to give him Pietro’s features.’

‘Isn’t that blasphemy?’ asked Silvano before he could stop himself.

‘Not really,’ said Simone. ‘We are all made in God’s image but I think He would have chosen to come to earth in a form more like Pietro’s here than with a face like mine.’ And he smiled his down-turned smile. ‘But enough of paintings already done. I have a second commission in the Basilica. As soon as I have finished the chapel I must paint five saints and Our Lady in the north transept.’

‘He can’t keep out of my way,’ said Pietro. ‘It’s always been the same. Wherever I go, I find Simone underfoot.’ But he clapped the shorter man on the shoulder and Silvano could see that they were great friends.

‘I shall not be under your feet,’ retorted Simone. ‘I shall be working across the aisle from you. But I shall be able to keep an eye on you and give you the odd word of advice if I see you going wrong.’

‘And likewise,’ said Pietro. ‘I shall curb your excesses of gold.’

‘Gold?’ said Silvano. ‘Are we to provide that too?’

‘No,’ said Simone. ‘No one comes to a house of Franciscan brothers for gold. But we are here to talk of something almost equally precious.’

‘Ultramarine,’ said Anselmo.

‘Blue from beyond the sea,’ said Simone. He took a small rock from his satchel that at first looked no more remarkable to Silvano then any other mineral the brothers had worked on in the colour room. ‘This is the true blue, the only colour for Our Lady’s mantle. Ordinary passers-by or bystanders might wear a cloak of azurite but for Our Lady it must be created from lapis lazuli and I ordered this consignment from Venice.’

‘But there is no sea between here and that city, is there?’ asked Silvano.

‘No,’ said Pietro. ‘Only the sea that surrounds it. But the lapis comes from far away across the sea before it reaches Venice. It is hewn from rocks in the valleys of Khoresan, the Land of the Rising Sun.’

Silvano was silent. He had hardly ever been out of Perugia and he suddenly felt small and ignorant, his problems insignificant in a world that had such wonders in it. The strange names of places far beyond his imagining came easily to the lips of these great artists but even the great trading city of Venice, famed for its beauty and wealth, had sounded exotic to him.

‘Look at your novice, Brother Anselmo,’ said Pietro. ‘We have bedazzled him with our talk of distant lands. Come closer, Silvano, and look at the stone. Some people believe that it is a fragment of the starry heavens themselves fallen on to the land from above. But those who work it say that it has to be hewn out of the rock like any other precious mineral.’

Silvano could see the dark, brilliant blue crystals shining in the dull rock. He yearned to turn it into a glowing colour that Simone and Pietro could use in their paintings. He could just imagine what an opulent robe Simone would give to the Blessed Virgin.

‘May I grind some?’ he asked.

‘That will be only the beginning,’ said Anselmo. ‘When we have pounded it in mortars and ground it finely on the slabs, all we will have is a grey powder. You will think that we have spoiled it. But wait till we have mixed it with rosin and mastic and wax, and sieved it and kneaded it with lye. Then shall you see the true blue appear.’

Silvano looked appalled at the amount of work needed to turn the already beautiful blue stone into the equally beautiful pigment. But the two artists were nodding approvingly.

‘We had no doubt about your expertise, Brother Anselmo,’ said Simone. ‘And I’m sure that you will use it to produce the finest ultramarine.’

The sisters were also expecting a visit from the Sienese painters. Chiara surprised herself by realising that she had something interesting to look forward to almost every day. And in between times the routine of the convent had become quite soothing to her. Even the regular visits to the chapel every few hours to say the Office, which she had thought she would never get used to, now felt like a natural punctuation of the day. She had stopped thinking of her brother and her first family and, although she was still in awe of Mother Elena, she was genuinely fond of Sister Veronica. And she enjoyed working the colours.

But her mind still went frequently to the friary next door and not just because of Silvano. A man had died horribly and so close to where she was living that it haunted her dreams. And all the more since she had seen the corpse and helped to clean it up.

‘What are you daydreaming about, child?’ asked Sister Veronica. ‘We must keep up with our work or we shall not have enough to offer the painters.’

‘I’m sorry, Sister,’ said Chiara. ‘I can’t help thinking about the murder next door.’

‘Natural enough,’ said Sister Veronica. ‘But there is no need to be afraid. Father Bonsignore is sure that the murderer has put a great distance between himself and Giardinetto.’

Chiara wasn’t afraid but it was a good excuse for inattention. She bent over her slab determined to keep concentrated on the azurite she was grinding. It must not be too fine, Sister Veronica had said; the coarser the grains, the more intense would the blue pigment be. But not as intense as the costly ultramarine which the Sienese artists wanted for their most important figures.

Sister Lucia entered the room and whispered to the Colour Mistress. The two grey sisters turned towards Chiara, who had not yet trained herself not to be curious and was already looking at them. Sister Veronica beckoned her over.

‘Sister Lucia comes with a message from the Abbess. She wants to speak to you in her room.’

Chiara wiped the blue-grey dust from her fingers on to her robe, where it became invisible, adjusted her veil, and prepared to face the Abbess. She hoped very much that she had done nothing wrong.

Simone and Pietro sat down to a good meal with the friars; Bertuccio bustled about, shiny-faced, bringing more and more dishes from the kitchen. Brother Landolfo hovered in the background, smiling nervously. The painters were not richly dressed but they still looked like peacocks in a dovecote among the grey friars at table.

Usually the friars ate in silence while Brother Gregorio, the Lector, read from the Scriptures, but the rule was relaxed when they had visitors. Talk flowed around the table and the main topic was still that of the death of Ubaldo.

‘So, your last visitor was murdered?’ said Pietro. ‘Should we be worried?’

‘No, no,’ said Landolfo hastily. ‘That was a most unlikely occurrence. We have never had an intruder in the friary before and I’m sure it will never happen again.’

‘Do not disturb yourself, Brother,’ said Simone, frowning at Pietro. ‘My friend is not serious. We are very comfortable here in your friary and grateful for your hospitality.’

‘You go to visit the sisters next?’ asked Landolfo. ‘You must eat up here – they will have nothing to give you.’

‘We shall have no need of anything from them after such a spread,’ said Pietro, and Landolfo looked gratified. He eventually sat down at the long table himself in his usual place next to Brother Fazio and had a little to eat.

‘Brother Anselmo tells me that your paintings in Assisi are of the utmost magnificence,’ said Father Bonsignore.

‘He is too kind,’ said Simone and the conversation at that end of the table turned to art and great masterpieces seen by the brothers before they entered their calling. Brother Fazio was eloquent on the subject of Cimabue, who had also painted some walls in the Basilica.

Down at the lower end, Silvano strained to hear them but then caught another thread of talk that distracted him. Brother Taddeo, the Assistant Librarian, was whispering something to Matteo about Brother Anselmo. He heard ‘Isabella’ and ‘Domenico’ and his heart sank. Anselmo’s secret was out.