Kitabı oku: «The Shadow Of The Bell Tower», sayfa 3

Chapter 3

Alì did exactly what Lucia ordered him to do. In the pantry he had found all the herbs the girl needed, including willow bark, whose function he was unclear about. It would never be used in the kitchen, yet her owners kept a good supply of it in carefully sealed jars. Only then the Moorish servant had realised that the pantry was more of a herbalist’s shop than a storehouse of edible things. There were those too, yes, but many of the herbs in the jars he knew well were used by Jews and sorcerers for purposes contrary to the teachings of both his religion and Catholicism. After all, the Christian God and the Muslim God were very much alike, and if a man was destined to die, his own God would take him in glory and be happy alongside him. One could not claim to save the life of one who was already destined to join his Almighty Father in the kingdom of heaven. This was what Alì thought, as he crossed the Piazza del Palio and went up the Shepherds’ Coast in great stride, taking care not to run into the scuffles that had spread so far. He stopped in front of the door indicated to him, the one on whose headboard was written “Hic est Gallus Chirurgus”¹⁰ .

Another sorcerer!, brooded Alì between himself. He calls himself a surgeon, but I know he is the brother of Lodomilla Ruggieri, the witch who burned alive in Piazza della Morte a few years ago. If I don’t pay attention and try to get away from these people, I too will end my days on a burning pile. And even my masters are in it up to their necks, I can only understand now what kind of heretics I have served for years!

Then he realized in his mind that, belonging to another religion, the Inquisition could not prosecute him, and he decided to knock. A tall, sturdy man with mighty biceps, long hair gathered at the back of his neck in a ponytail, and a beard that had not been shaved for a few days, he looked him from top to bottom. Alì was also strong: in his native country, in the upper Nile valley, he was a wrestling champion, there was no one who could beat him, and the man in front of him was unarmed, so he looked at him and told him what he had to tell.

«I see, I’ll get my tools and I’ll follow you. Wait for me here, Franciolini’s palace is a short distance away, but I prefer to make the journey in your company. The two of us could better deal with any troublemakers.»

Gallo disappeared for a few moments inside his house and reappeared with a heavy calfskin bag, which contained the tools of the trade and which, judging by their appearance, must have been very heavy. They crossed the square passing by people who were fighting bitterly. The surgeon recognized a friend of his from Jesi who was shot down with a sword and rushed to help him. But Alì was quick to pull him by the arm and make him give up his intention. It was not really the case to get noticed and engage in a battle that had taken a bad turn for the inhabitants of the city. It was more urgent to rescue his young master... Alì and Gallo quickly slipped into the door of Franciolini’s palace, which the Moor provided to bolt from the inside. He would no longer want to stick his nose out of there even for all the gold in the world, until the fighting had subsided, not knowing that he would soon be forced to leave for an even more dangerous commission than the one he had just completed.

Alì watched Gallo gently extract three arrows from Andrea’s body, while Lucia, at his side, was ready to dab the blood that was spilling as soon as the sharp weapon was extracted, using freshly laundered cloths and applying the herbal poultice that she herself had prepared in the kitchen. The last arrow, the one that went through the young man’s arm from side to side, didn’t want to get out, no matter how hard Gallo pulled.

«Bastards, they used arrows with rostrums, they only go forward, you can’t pull them back. I will have to break the rocker tail and take out the arrow from the front, cutting with the scalpel the skin of the arm at the exit hole, but I will risk to cause a fatal haemorrhage. Are you ready to swab?»

«Yes,» replied Lucia, «I’m ready!»

Alì realized that only the force of despair prevented Lucia from fainting, even though her eyesight and the ferrous smell of blood were probably dulling her senses. Realizing that the girl would not be able to attend Gallo again, Alì took a deep breath and, as soon as the surgeon finished pulling out the arrow, he rushed to stop the copious bleeding. In less than an instant, the rag he was holding in his hand was completely dyed red, and made him feel a very unpleasant slimy sensation to the touch. Alì had never felt anything like it in his life, but he had to be strong. Gallo tore a strip of sheet, tying it tightly around Andrea’s arm, upstream of the wound. The flow of blood slowed.

«We can’t leave the arm so tight for long, or we will lose it and then I will be forced to amputate it because of the gangrene that will surely form. I need a powerful coagulant and healing agent, and the most powerful is human placenta extract. Alì, you have to go to the midwife, she always has dried placenta and...»

«But, the midwife lives outside Porta Valle, it’s too dangerous to go there!»

«Then I guess there will be little we can do for the boy.»

Luckily, Alì knew a passage that, through the cellars of the palace, led outside the walls, near the valley, where a guild of county workers, led by the Giombini family, were building a new mill for milling grain. As he emerged from the little door that opened in the eastern walls, well hidden by a thick bush, he regretted the sight of the mill being built, which had been partially razed to the ground by the fury of the enemy. But he could not dwell on that detail. The semi-destroyed structure offered him shelter from the sight of the a soldier from Ancona, who was continuing to enter the city through Porta Valle. Alì went decisively towards the small church of Saint Eligio, near which Annuccia, the midwife, lived. The midwife, when she saw the Moor, was frightened at the time, thinking that the invaders included the Saracens, then she recognized Alì and let him into the house.

«Are you crazy walking around here? I was about to kill you with this», Annuccia told him, showing the chimney wing she was holding in her hand. «I’m not about to give up and get raped by this rabble!»

«I need help for my Lord, Annuccia. The Captain has been killed by the enemy and the young Lord is wounded and needs urgent care.»

After a few minutes, Alì left the midwife’s house, jealously guarding what the midwife had entrusted to him and for which he had had to pay out as much as three denarii of silver. He returned to the little hidden door , coming back to Franciolini’s Palace, handing over the precious casing to Gallo. The surgeon took the dry placenta, put it into a cauldron of boiling water, added a few herbs, including the rare Devil’s Claw, and within half an hour he obtained a thick, unpleasant smelling poultice, which he placed in a clay pot. Alì took the pot in his hand and followed Gallo to Andrea’s room, where Lucia was cleaning the blood on the young man’s half-naked body. The surgeon trained the rudimentary tourniquet, while the girl applied an abundant layer of poultice to the wound, then wrapping a fairly narrow band, but not too much, around the injured limb. Andrea, in his semi-unconsciousness, made a grimace of grief, which cheered up all those present: he was still alive, and alert, even if very weak.

«I can’t do more than this. The next few days he will need constant assistance, his fever will rise, you will have to cool his forehead with wet patches and let him ingest infusions of willow bark, hoping that he will be able to overcome not only the abundant blood loss, but also the infection that will form. If green pus starts to come out of this wound, you can start to say goodbye to him. If, on the other hand, you see yellow pus, what we surgeons call “bonum et laudabile”, it will mean that he is healing. But you, Lucia, don’t stay here for long: your uncle will soon notice your absence, and then I think you will be in trouble. Train the Moor to assist his young master and return home.»

«May it never be so», replied the young lady. «I will be by his side until he is healed. He is my betrothed and I want to be beside him now.»

«Betrothed, you say? Well, I think it was your uncle’s intention not to let him walk down the aisle. I’m no fortune teller, but I think today’s party was all a farce to get the enemy and death for the People’s Captain and his cadet. Do you realize that now your uncle is the highest religious and political authority in Jesi? Do as you wish, but I don’t think the Cardinal is happy to see you here looking after the cadet of the Franciolini house.»

Gallo picked up his instruments, cleaned them carefully, put them back in his purse, greeted the girl with a smile, and the Moor proclaiming: «Salam Aleikum, peace be with you, brother, and thank you for your precious help.»

«Aleikum as salam, thank you for the precious care you gave my master, I’m sure he’ll be all right.»

«Perhaps out of his wounds», said Gallo, closing the heavy door behind him. «But certainly not from the clutches of Cardinal Artemio Baldeschi.»

Over the next four days, Andrea fell prey to a fever, accompanied by his chills and delusions. Lucia had been close to him the whole time, doing exactly what Gallo had advised her to do and everything she knew about having learned from her grandmother Elena. In his delirium, Andrea often mentioned the witch Lodomilla, talked about the strange symbols drawn in the portal tile together with the seven-pointed pentacle, talked about a Jew who had initiated him to a particular kind of knowledge, sometimes appointed the biblical king Solomon, sometimes one of the wives of Emperor Frederick II, Jolanda of Brienne. She often pronounced, among other confused words, the name of a place, also known to her: Colle del Giogo. That place, which was located in the nearby Apennines a couple of days walk from Jesi, reminded her of the ritual with which, a few months earlier, she had officially joined the sect of witches worshippers of the “Good Goddess”. A few days before the spring equinox, her grandmother had told Lucia to be ready, as on the night of March 21st they would join the other followers of the coven up at Colle del Giogo, in the mountains of Apiro.

«Uncle says they are pagan rites, that most of the followers are heretics and sorcerers to be burned at the stake.» Lucia was a bit afraid, but curiosity outweighed fear. «Don’t you think it’s dangerous to attend this meeting, this Sabbah, as you call it?»

Her grandmother had tightened her shoulders, as if to say that she didn’t give a damn about what her brother thought, and answered her very naturally.

«When we speak of divinities, we speak of supernatural entities, which with their infinite goodness can show us paths to follow, paths that only with our eyes we would never be able to see. Now, if the true God is the Almighty Father proclaimed by your uncle, the Yahweh invoked by the Jew who lives in the little house down by the river, the Allah in which the Muslims believe, the Zeus of the Greeks or the Jupiter of the ancient Romans, where is the difference? Everyone can call God in his own way and receive the same favours, no matter what is the name he use. And if we are men and women here on earth, even in heaven, or in Olympus, or in the garden of Allah, there will be female gods. The one we worship as the “Good Goddess” was known to the Romans as Diana. Look, look at the facade of our palace. Look up: What do you see in a niche between the windows on the top floor?»

«The sacred image of Our Lady, of Mary, of the mother of Jesus, accompanied by the inscription “Posuerunt me custodem”, they placed me in the custody of this dwelling.»

«And so here we venerate Our Lady, the Holy Virgin. But remember that all the places sacred to us who call ourselves Christians, Catholics, were erected over ancient pagan temples, and the ancient divinities were replaced with the new ones. The same cathedral next door was built above the ancient Roman baths, and the location of the crypt corresponds to the location of the temple that the Romans had dedicated to the Goddess Bona, another name for Diana. As you can see, there is much in common between the different religions. In the same place where we will go in a few days, the ancient image of the Good Goddess has been replaced by a statuette of the Madonna, inside a tabernacle. The place is still sacred, and magical, and there is always someone who adorns the image with fresh and colourful lilies. It is our way of continuing to adore the Goddess, even if under the image of Mary, mother of Jesus.»

Lucia believed that her grandmother had a not indifferent culture, perhaps because she had access to the reading of forbidden books, kept in the family library. Perhaps she had been able to draw on the knowledge kept under lock and key by her uncle the Cardinal, perhaps without his knowledge, or perhaps because decades ago, when Elena was still a child, the books could be freely consulted. Then Artemio had arrogated himself the title of Inquisitor and had put under lock and key everything that was contrary to the official Faith. And it had gone well that he had not made a great bonfire of those precious texts, as other illustrious prelates in other cities of Italy and Europe had done.

«I understand, Grandma, the important thing is to believe in the good entity, which loves us and helps us, whatever its name.»

Contrary to what Lucia expected and what she had heard from those who feared the so-called witches, the ritual took place in complete tranquillity. No goat came forward to claim her virginity, nor did any of the participants try to torture her or make her sign oaths with her blood. The path to Colle del Giogo had not been easy. After the Moje lock, the path along the bank of the river Esino was often lost in the bush. Lucia could not understand how her grandmother could not get lost and find the trace of the ancient path even after having groped for several leagues in the woods, without apparent landmarks. At a certain point they had to ford the river and continue uphill along a dirt road that climbed up the hollow dug by a rushing torrent that descended from the mountain. They arrived in Apiro at lunchtime and were hosted by a young married couple, Alberto and Ornella, who offered them black bread and dried venison. The two had a little girl of about three years of age, two big blue eyes and flowing brown curly hair; she played with a rag doll near the fireplace, having fun dressing her in tiny coloured clothes, made of simple pieces of cloth. She seemed don’t care about what her parents were preparing to do, together with the new arrivals, for the evening.

«What are you going to do with the baby?» Elena asked the young couple.

«Oh, that’s all right, at seven o’clock the little girl is already in her strawberry tree. Anyway, we asked our neighbour Isa to come and take a look at her. She’ll do it gladly.»

Lucia, who had always slept in a comfortable bed, couldn’t understand how these people slept in those piles of woven straw.

They’ll be full of fleas! she thought, shuddering at the very idea that the next night she would have to sleep there too. Better dead than lying in one of those things.

The initiation ceremony of the new adept took place according to an ancient ritual. It was late at night when Lucia and her grandmother, in the company of their guests, immersed themselves in the stinging cold of the mountain. The fields were still covered with a light layer of snow and the path was illuminated by the bright disc of the full moon shining huge in the sky, as the girl had never seen before. Going up towards Colle del Giogo, at certain points one could sink into the snow up to the knee and it was tiring to go on, but when they reached the clearing to which they were heading, Lucia was amazed at how the place was almost completely cleared of the white blanket and the lawn was dotted with small and numerous colourful flowers, white, lilac, fuchsia, purple, yellow ...

«They are called snowdrops because they are the first flowers to appear as soon as the snow begins to melt, but their real name is “Crocus” and their dried stigmas can be used both as a condiment in the kitchen and for their medicinal properties.»

«Grandma, why does the temperature in this place seem more pleasant?» asked the curious girl.

«They say this is a magical place, but in reality the temperature is tempered by a hot spring. Here the subsoil is rich in sulphurous springs, which is why the temperature is a little higher. From now on, you will learn that most of the phenomena that ordinary people indicate as “magical” actually have a logical, rational explanation: just know how to look for it. They point us out as witches, but all we do is exploit ancient knowledge and natural phenomena for our own purposes. You see, a legend tells that about three hundred years ago one of the wives of Frederick II, the Emperor of Swabia, came to this remote place to hide something that her husband had told her to jealously guard, because she came from the Holy Land, from Jerusalem. Legends and traditions say that this object was a magic stone, a stone that the archangel Michael would give to Abraham or, perhaps, even the so-called philosopher’s stone that the ancient alchemists were looking for. This is a fairy tale, you’ll know the truth in a moment. And now, let us enter the cave. Let’s not be kept waiting!»

The oldest of the participants was a woman with long grey hair, her face skin wrinkled with wrinkles. She wore a long blue tunic with a golden talisman on top of it at chest height, secured to her neck by a chain also made of gold. He had lit a bonfire inside the cave, occasionally throwing dust into the flames, which from time to time caused a blaze of a different colour, sometimes yellow, sometimes green, sometimes blue, sometimes deep red. For each blaze that illuminated her face, she pronounced strange words, which the others present interpreted by arranging themselves around the bonfire, now holding hands and rotating in circles, now moving away and bowing to the will of the Wise Old Woman, now taking bunches of herbs and throwing them in turn into the fire, now sitting on the ground in complete silence. At one point, the only person left standing was the old teacher. She was holding a large book in her hand, on the cover of which stood out the drawing of a pentacle, just like the one in the family diary that her grandmother had given her some time ago, and the gothic inscription “Clavicula Salomonis”.

«By virtue of the powers conferred on me by this coven, I, Sara of the Bisenzi, welcome novice Lucia Baldeschi into our community. She is the chosen one, the one who will replace me one day and will be destined to lead all of you. Therefore, Lucia, come closer and swear obedience and fidelity to this book, written by the ancient King Solomon in his own hand, and brought here among immense perils by Jolanda, who lost her life once she reached her final goal. It is only thanks to his daughter Anna that the book and its teachings have been handed down to us and, from time to time, one of us has the task of preserving and protecting it.»

So saying, the old woman took off her medallion and gently passed the chain around Lucia’s neck. The golden talisman represented a five-pointed star, the seal of Solomon. The same design was drawn on the ground by the old woman using a pointed rod and the girl was made to stretch out so that her head, her hands at the end of her arms outstretched and her feet at the bottom of her legs apart corresponded exactly to the points of the star. Sara took some olive oil, marking with it in sequence Lucia’s left hand, left foot, right foot, right hand and forehead.

«Water, air, earth, fire: you know how to govern the four elements. They can be invoked and used separately by each one of us, but only your spirit is able to unite them and strengthen their powers and qualities to the maximum. Remember, Lucia! You will use your powers only for good and you will fight, even sacrificing your own life, against anyone who wants to abuse you and your abilities for evil purposes.» Then he poured water on the girl’s left hand, still lying down, blew on her left foot, threw a handful of earth on her right foot and brought a burning stick to her right hand. Finally he kissed her forehead. «And now stand up. Your long journey has begun.»

The initiation ceremony was therefore very simple, not as traumatizing as the girl had feared. The rite had taken place in the manner handed down from ancient times, without constraints, without violence, without the intervention of strange figures resembling goats or other beasts. The Devil was certainly not hidden among the participants in the rite. Lucia was disorientated, but she was beginning to understand many things, which her grandmother would help her to define in the following months. Magic, witchcraft, as she had conceived it up to that moment, did not exist. Her grandmother would explain to her what the frontiers of human thought were, how each individual was endowed with enormous potential linked to the use of the same, but that only someone was able to perform certain functions, both by innate ability and through exercise. But then, Lucia asked herself, was the floating sphere that materialized in her hands pure fruit of her imagination, of her suggestion? Yet she was able to visualize it! Yes, but only she, the others couldn’t see it. Anyway, he had experienced its devastating effects by throwing a fireball at that little girl, Elisabetta, who had found herself surrounded by flames. And she could read the thoughts of those in front of her, and she could hear the voices of the spirits, and she could predict the future somehow. How did she explain all this?

«There’s a rational explanation for everything», Grandma told her one night in front of the burning fireplace. «Some of our followers, in the light of what had already been done in the past by ancient scholars, some of whose texts escaped the fires of the ecclesiastical authorities, opened the skulls of corpses of men and women to study their contents, their brains. The surface of our brain is not smooth, but it has many folds, which are called “circumvolutions” by anatomy scholars and which are able to increase by many times the useful surface of this important organ of ours. It is not the heart, as everyone says, the seat of our feelings, but the brain is their repository. As well as all our memories, near and far, are set aside here. It is the brain that allows us to recognize sounds, colours, smells, makes us associate objects with a name, makes us learn the symbols of writing so that the most intelligent people, or the luckiest if you like, are able to read, write and count. It is also the brain that sends dreams to our eyes while we rest. And if all this already seems like a lot to you, know that a very small part of the brain surface is used for all this. The rest is enormous potential, but unknown to most people. Thus, those who manage to train the unused areas of their brain can perform activities that ordinary mortals don’t even dream about. And here you can hear speech spoken in one place even in ancient times. Every word spoken leaves its trace in the air, nothing is lost. If you can pick up these speeches, these words, it’s not that you’re talking to spirits, you can’t talk to people who have been missing for months, or years, or centuries, but you can listen to what they said even a long time ago.»

«What about foreknowledge?»

«That’s a little more complicated, but even here some scholars have speculated that those who predict the future will pick up the brain waves of someone who is already planning to act. That’s why prescience is limited to the short term, and it’s not possible to predict the future in the long term. Whoever claims to be able to do that is a charlatan!»

«What about being able to move objects, levitate them, or turn on a lamp with the power of thought?»

«Well, even these are potentials of the human brain unknown to most individuals. By exercising and training the areas of the brain that are able to use the elements around us to our advantage, we are able to do anything. We are accustomed to using the five senses that we know, sight, touch, hearing, taste and smell, without even imagining what the actual power of our brain is. The ancients knew very well how to use certain powers, so that they could build enormous works without the slightest effort. You see, the Romans, when they came to conquer Egypt, couldn’t explain how the Egyptians, long before their arrival, had built colossal works, such as the pyramids and the sphinx. The enormous blocks of stone with which they had been built could not be moved even by hundreds of slaves working together.»

«You mean to say that...»

«I don’t want to say anything. You draw your own conclusions.»

Lucia was more fascinated by her grandmother’s speeches every day, but she was even more interested in curing illnesses with herbs. During the spring, she went several times with her grandmother Elena to Colle del Giogo, but also to the countryside and woods around Jesi to collect medicinal herbs. Each time her grandmother explained to her the properties and use of a certain herb: Henbane, Turpentine, Licorice, and the dangerous Belladonna. Elena had promised Lucia that, starting from late summer and for all the following autumn, she would teach her how to recognize mushrooms, how to distinguish between edible and poisonous ones, how to prevent and treat intoxications due to the latter, and how to use the spores of certain mushrooms on infected wounds. But in those last days of spring, the course of history had taken her to assist the young Franciolini, wounded by the enemies of the city.

It had been more than ten days since Lucia was busy around Andrea’s bedside when the boy regained consciousness. He opened his eyes and Lucia felt immediately observed in a strange way. She read in those eyes the bewilderment of the young man, who perhaps believed he was already dead, that he had reached heaven and that he had an angel at his disposal to take care of him. Certainly, he was a nobleman and, as he had servants on Earth, his head certainly led him to think that he would have servants there in Paradise too. But then, little by little, Lucia realized that Andrea was beginning to recognize the walls, furniture and ornaments of his room.

«Who are you, taking care of me, without even knowing you? And what happened to the rest of my family? And my servants? Where’s Ali? Damn that miserable Turk! When he’s needed, he’s always able to disappear, maybe you’ll find him with his ass in the air praying to his God...», Andrea began to say, with his cheeks inflamed with fever, shaking so much that a convulsive coughing fit managed to interrupt his speech in half. Lucia took the hand of the young man among her own, trying to calm him and, at the same time, enjoying that physical contact.

«You must be quiet, or you will plunge back into unconsciousness and feverish delirium. And you must not rage against Alì. Only thank to him, you’d already be in the ground! As for me... Well, I would be Lucia Baldeschi, your betrothed.» In uttering these words, a slight redness took hold of the girl’s cheeks, which could then sink her hazel eyes into the young man’s blue, magnetic eyes, which attracted her face, her lips all over her body to him.