The Kingdom of Light (27 page)

Dante shrugged. ‘May the will of God the almighty and merciful be done.’

Only on the stairs did he realise that he had used the formula of the pagans.

T
HE POET
turned off towards the bank of the Arno, skirting the tanners’ workshops. He tried to protect himself against the afternoon sun with the veil of his biretta, waving his hand in front of his nose to chase away the miasmas rising from the vats in which the skins were macerating. It was a pointless gesture, but he went on repeating it automatically,
plunging
further and further into that sticky, tepid wave in which everything was submerged.

His head was filled with the buzzing of the flies that infested the whole district; without noticing, he had left the most direct road to San Piero, seeking the comfort of the shadows in the little vegetable plots behind the Church of the Holy Apostles.

He emerged from the alleyways at the feet of the ramp that climbed towards the Ponte Vecchio. The place seemed unusually deserted, as if a spell had frozen the comings and goings of the crowd that spilled into its arcades at all times of day. Only the quick dart of a fleeing mouse or the shadow of a stray dog disturbed that uneasy stillness.

There was perfect silence, broken only by the cry of a gull from as far away as the sea. Dante could distinctly hear the gurgle of the low water of the Arno, which was now almost running dry. For a moment he thought that the demon of noon had erased all forms of life. Then a breath of wind brought the sound of human voices to his ears.

There was someone at the end of the bridge, beneath the little portico. Two men deep in muttered conversation. Arrigo da Jesi and Jacques Monerre.

Dante began to walk along the row of wooden shops, barred after the end of the working day. The two men didn’t seem to have noticed him. They went on exchanging unintelligible phrases, eye to eye, before staring again at the
other
end of the bridge, as if they were waiting for someone. There seemed to be a secret tension between them.

The prior saw Arrigo clench his fists, as if he had heard something that wounded him. Meanwhile Dante moved, trying not to make a sound. Now the two men were only a few yards away, but still they gave no sign of having noticed his presence. It was he, in fact, who spotted the shadow of a third man arriving from the other end of the bridge. He was walking silently, brushing the stones with the hem of his robe. Tall and with a slightly swaying gait, the doctor Marcello had begun to climb the opposite slope, and was rapidly approaching.

The three men met in the middle of the bridge without any apparent surprise, as if they had arranged a secret rendezvous. After a moment Dante joined the group. He remembered the cardinal’s furious words: perhaps the four horsemen of the Apocalypse really had come to Florence.

The men exchanged a silent glance, before Monerre spoke.

‘Curious that we should meet in the middle of a bridge, the place where the ancients imagined that the twists of fate occurred.’

‘Perhaps because it’s on bridges that fate finds it simplest to accomplish its plans, where the path narrows and escape is more difficult,’ Marcello suggested.

‘And where they say the devil lies in wait for wayfarers to deceive them with his tricks,’ Dante murmured, with a sense that there was something strange about this encounter.

‘But of course none of us is here to play such a malignant role, Messer Alighieri,’ Monerre broke in kindly.

The poet was about to reply, but stayed silent. The other man had resumed staring at the top of the parapet. From where he was now standing Dante could see what it was that had first attracted their attention: a fragment of Roman statue set into the wall. A bearded face with monstrous features like the demons carved into cathedral gutters: two opposing faces profoundly marked by time and neglect.

‘You are struck by this Janus head, Monerre?’ asked the poet. ‘A sign of ancient superstition, from the time of the false and lying gods.’

Monerre turned his one eye towards the poet and stared at him. For a moment he seemed about to reply, then turned his attention back to the statue.

‘Our friend seems fascinated by all things double,’ Arrigo observed. ‘Perhaps because his visual capacity was injured by nature, he is filled with a yearning for completeness that only a pair can provide.’

Marcello was still silent, his eyes fixed beyond the parapet, towards the big mill in whose wheel Brandano’s life had ended, just under another bridge. He suddenly stirred, turning towards Dante. ‘But perhaps the malignant nature of a bridge lies in its very form, and not in the people who walk across it. Don’t you agree, Messer Alighieri?’

‘Strange words you speak. They certainly conceal an allegory, but one that my mind cannot grasp.’

‘Perhaps I can help you,’ said Arrigo. ‘If I have understood correctly, I believe Messer Marcello is referring to the purpose of such constructions. And in this sense it is true that they do contain a spark of the ancient arrogance that cast us out of Eden. Because every bridge, by removing a barrier that God has placed in our path, constitutes an insult to his design.’

‘Ah, I understand. A subtle observation. But not one that can be shared, I fear. It presupposes that God’s design is born complete and definitive, and hence not susceptible to any modification on man’s part. But this contradicts the Scriptures, in which it is written that God made man the lord of all creation, to subject everything to his dominion. If he couldn’t subject so much as a course of water, then that supposed dominion would be reduced to very little.’

The old doctor shook his head. ‘But it is written in those same Scriptures: “You must not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil”; so, not everything has been subjected to our rule.’

Arrigo burst out laughing. ‘But that tree apart, we would seem to be able to pick the fruit from all the others. And cut them down, if need be, for our fireplaces! In fact, Messer Durante, do you not think there may be more sense in that observation of Heraclitus, to the effect that our days are but the dust of time, lost in the cosmos like the atoms of Lucretius?’

‘I believe there exists an order in things. If the world
was
put there by chance, what point would there be in reward or punishment after death? And would the Son of God have had to become flesh because of a chance event, and die on the cross only because of a fortuitous aggregation of atoms?’

Marcello gravely nodded his agreement.

But Arrigo calmly returned to the task. ‘But do you not see, in that chance, a trace of cosmic beauty?’

‘Perhaps, Messer Arrigo,’ Marcello replied. ‘But this mass of combinations, however immeasurable it might be, cannot be infinite. In far-away Persia, before Mohammed arrived there with his sword, it was believed that all things lived and were consumed for two hundred and sixty of our centuries, before starting all over again in a cycle of combinations only apparently infinite.’

‘Twenty-six thousand years? But that vast amount of time is merely a blink of God’s eye,’ Dante objected. ‘How could his infinite power repeat the same thing
ad infinitum
? So however vast it might be, his kingdom periodically returns to zero? And again the six days of Creation, every time, and every time the beginning of light, and his walk in darkness?’

‘Why not, Messer Alighieri?’ replied Marcello. ‘Everything will return to zero and then regain its shape, in a sublime repetition of the same thing all over again. An eternal order will be reconstructed.’

‘That is madness, Messer Marcello!’ exclaimed Arrigo.
‘And
these flies that are tormenting us now, will they too re-enter your sublime design? Would they too have to repeat themselves in an infinite cycle? And the mules and donkeys of Florence, and their dung that floods the city?’

‘Of course! And you will experience precisely that!’ cried the old man.

Dante had been listening attentively. ‘So everything will return?’ he said. ‘Even the murder of Guido Bigarelli? Could nothing prevent it, Marcello? Not a scruple, not a change of heart? Your teaching chains us to evil.’

It was Monerre who broke the silence. ‘Perhaps crime too is part of this order. It forms a logical part of a design.’

‘And if the crime is part of a higher, infinite design, what’s the point of trying to solve it?’ Arrigo said slyly.

‘To do justice. To bring earth closer to the Paradise we have lost. To draw to earth a spark of God’s light,’ the poet replied.

‘I wouldn’t want to find myself in that light,’ Monerre said with a note of irony. ‘My one good eye is already repelled by excessive brightness, and better suited to dusk than to the brilliance of the stars.’

Dante didn’t reply and merely stared at them, convinced that their words contained a deeper significance. No, that had not been a chance meeting, as they had tried to suggest. Perhaps his arrival had interrupted a secret agreement.
Or
the elaboration of a plan. Or the verification of an accord?

And perhaps their dialogue had continued even in his presence, under cover of a philosophical dispute, and the three of them were laughing at him. He was tempted for a moment to reveal his thoughts, and ask the reason for their behaviour. But together they were stronger: if his suspicions had any foundation, under pressure they would have backed each other up, defeating all his efforts to reach the truth. Instead he would have to wait, and catch them in his net one by one.

‘Nothing will stop the punishment of the murderer,’ he exclaimed at last. ‘You will see,’ he added, raising his index finger. He took a step backwards and then turned resolutely around, abandoning the three men without a word.

Behind him he became aware of a guilty silence. Or maybe it was mockery.

At the priory

P
ANTING, THE
Bargello stopped at the top of the stairs to catch his breath. Then he moved firmly towards the prior. ‘There is news, important news. My men have uncovered a secret during a check of the banks in the market.’

While they were extorting money in return for turning a blind eye to all the thieving and trickery that goes on there in broad daylight, Dante thought. ‘Tell me.’

‘There’s someone in the city. A dangerous Ghibelline. Apparently he’s come from the North, doubtless to make contact with his colleagues and plot harm to our Commune. I’m waiting for them to reveal his whereabouts, and then I will arrest him and all his accomplices. What you saw at the Stinche is nothing, if he ends up in my clutches.’

‘And who might this dangerous demon be?’ the poet asked, folding his arms.

‘A foreigner, from France, apparently. And I have formed an idea of who he might be. I think you might wish to be present at his capture. As soon as …’

Dante firmly raised his hand. ‘What I saw at the Stinche is enough to make me recommend that you be prudent. Florence is a land of freedom, where every man – whether he was born there or arrived from elsewhere – has the right not to be imprisoned without certain proof of guilt. So if you want to throw someone in chains, you will need more than market-place chit-chat.’

The head of the guard had turned purple in the face. ‘But he’s a Ghibelline,’ he protested in a strangled voice.

‘Don’t do anything yet, that’s an order. And keep me informed about everything. I will tell you if and when to act.’

Having said this, Dante turned round and headed for the door, with the Bargello’s gaze piercing his back.

A short time later, at the Nuncio’s palace

T
HE BARGELLO
had practically slipped into the cardinal’s room on his knees. Reaching the great mass of Acquasparta, he bowed his head and greedily kissed his ring as if he wanted to eat it. The cardinal smugly withdrew his hand, then sketched a swift blessing on the man’s forehead.

‘You urgently wanted to speak to me. So, what can I do for you?’

The Bargello bowed again, then cleared his throat. ‘I need some advice, your Eminence, on how to perform my office so that my deeds are always welcomed by the Church.’

The senior prelate gave a faint nod of agreement.

‘My men have identified a head of the Ghibellines hidden in Florence. But it would appear that the Commune authorities are not so diligent in putting him out of harm’s way. I have been ordered to wait, when with a very small investigation I could discover his hiding place. Please give me your advice.’

‘Dante Alighieri,’ the cardinal hissed, narrowing his eyelids to slits.

The Bargello nodded.

‘Pope Boniface’s love for the cities that are loyal to him prevents me from interfering in internal matters of yours,’ Acquasparta explained, ‘so I can hardly advise you to ignore an order from the Florentine authorities. Even if that order might conceal the head of a poisonous snake. Even if that order might fly in the face of all foresight and prudence, and even if no one could reproach you for doing the very opposite.’

‘But, your Eminence … I would need the endorsement of other priors at least …’

‘You will have it. And yet you will be able to invoke a state of emergency. It’s impossible to ask a man in danger not to defend himself:
nemo ad impossibilia tenetur
. And your actions will have our full support.’

The cardinal clapped his hands vigorously. A moment later the grim silhouette of the head of the inquisitors emerged from behind the curtain. Noffo Dei, rather than coming straight towards him, crept along the wall for a while, as if to avoid the direct sunlight that entered through the window. Then, keeping his hands hidden in the sleeves of his black and white habit, he bowed before Boniface’s representative.

‘This fine man has come to reassure us of his devotion. He seems to have found the key to the plot that has been causing us such grave concern. Help him by giving him information about the other strands of the problem. Who knows, he might be able to untangle it.’

Noffo bowed, and gestured to the Bargello to follow him.

‘Listen well to what he has to tell you,’ the cardinal ordered, as the head of the guards walked backwards from the room.