Duchy of Fregelone, Anno Domini 1639
Marco raised his gloved fist and pounded on the huge wooden door of the monastery three times.
“Open up!” he yelled. “Open up in the name of the Duchess!”
He was about to knock again when his servant, Aderfi, nodded minutely in the direction of a nearby window, through which a hooded figure could be seen hurrying in a most un-monastic fashion.
“Good eyes, Aderfi, as always,” Marco said.
Aderfi smiled briefly, and went back to tending the asses they had ridden up the winding mountain path, a morning of discomfort that would be matched by the afternoon if he could deal with matters here quickly enough. Marco far preferred his horse, but the terrain simply wasn’t suitable. But even more, he far preferred a roaring fire and his own bed over the cold asceticism of a monastic cell, so he was willing to endure the journey back on the same day.
A short while later, the smaller door within the door creaked open. The candlelight made the sweat on the young monk’s face glisten. “God be with you,” he said, practically gulping in air between each word. “How can we help you, traveller? All are welcome to the hospitality of our weary community.” The phrasing sounded as rehearsed as the catechism, but Marco had the feeling it was said far less frequently — there were precious few travellers who would cross the Appenines here rather than using one of the well-built roads through the passes at lower altitudes.
Marco removed his gloves, making sure that his ring was visible, its intricate design that made clear that he was an envoy of the duchess herself. The monk’s eyes widened. “Have you been sent to join us, sir? You’re a little older than most, and I fear you will find exchanging your finery for a monk’s habit uncomfortable, but one gets used to it in time. And of course you would have to give up your jewellery.”
“Only visiting,” Marco said, his eyes narrowing. Why would this fellow automatically think he was a new initiate? “Her Grace has heard some … disturbing rumours and dispatched me to investigate.”
The monk’s expression changed immediately. “Ah. You must be referring to Brother Uberto. I had best take you to the abbot. If you would follow me, please.”
Marco stepped through into the dimly lit hallway beyond. When Aderfi followed, the monk said nervously, “I can find one of my brother monks to show your servant to the guest quarters so that he may prepare them for you.”
“Where I go, Aderfi goes,” Marco said.
“As you will,” the monk said, slightly nervously.
They followed him through the cloisters, Marco turning over in his mind everything that had happened since they arrived. He could tell that he was missing something obvious. The fellow they were following did not seem like a natural fit for the monastic life, but there was something more to it than that.
Marco knew full well that his mind was not as quick as some others’ but he prided himself on his tenacity. Something somewhere deep in his memory stirred, and he began to wonder if he had met this man before.
“What is your name, brother?” he asked, trying to keep the enquiry casual.
“I am Brother Lorenzo,” he said. Marco frowned; that didn’t ring a bell. But then, Brother Lorenzo went on, “I wasn’t always called that, of course. Because of the rules.”
“I understand there are lots of rules in a monastery,” Marco said. “Though clearly not silence,” he added with a thin smile.
“Not in our order, no,” Brother Lorenzo said. “But we do follow the very common one that everyone must have a different name. Since there was already a Brother Giuseppe when I came here, Lorenzo I became.” He became contemplative for a moment. “Brother Giuseppe was called to rest last year, but I suppose I’m stuck with Lorenzo now.”
Marco didn’t offer any condolences on the monk Giuseppe’s death, as would have been polite. As soon as he had heard that name, all the disparate details that had been swirling around in his mind, refusing to come together, coalesced into a lightning strike of revelation: he had met him before, several times. Replace the tonsure with flowing waves of lustrous black hair, the monk’s habit with puffed up finery — Marco was half-convinced he had even seen him sporting a ridiculous codpiece on occasion, like some lothario from the last century — and there was one of the idiots that buzzed around the duchess like drones around a queen bee.
Giuseppe — or Brother Lorenzo as he was now — doubtless hadn’t recognised Marco. He and his type paid little attention to anyone except the duchess and one another, indulging in petty rivalries as they vied for her favour. A loyal retainer who was valued for his dogged determination and discreet diligence would have escaped this man’s notice entirely, back there. He might have heard tales of “the duchess’s bloodhound” but that didn’t mean he would have any idea what such a man looked like.
With that one revelation, others followed quickly. Brother Lorenzo had immediately recognised the seal on Marco’s ring. And that assumption he had made, that Marco had been sent here on a one-way journey … None of the drones could keep up with the duchess’s prodigious appetites for long but she usually pensioned the discarded ones off generously, using her influence to find them some sort of sinecure in one of Fregelone’s neighbouring cities. A few, though, seemed to disappear without trace – was this where they ended up? How many of them were here? Were there other institutions similarly used as dumping grounds? What was it that they did that earned them such an exile?
And the question uppermost in Marco’s mind: should he let Brother Lorenzo know that he was aware of his past as Giuseppe? Perhaps doing so would help him establish a bond that would get him extra information when he needed it, or the opportunity to blackmail him to the same effect. On the other hand, Marco’s usual instinct was to play his cards as close to his chest as possible. Was this a trump to be kept and played when truly needed? Or — if enough of the brothers had ended up here for the same reason and it was common knowledge — would it prove to be a useless deuce?
Marco still hadn’t decided the best course of action when they arrived at the abbot’s office.
Where the rest of the monastery was practical bare, the order’s commitment to frugal simplicity almost pathological, this room was richly furnished. The abbot’s rich mahogany desk was covered in knick knacks from across the world while tapestries and rugs adorned the walls and floor. Marco was no religious scholar, but he was sure that the scenes depicted in several of the tapestries, if they did come from the Bible at all, must have been included to make a point about one or more sins, and everyone shown in the images was struck down by the wrath of the Almighty immediately afterwards.
“We have received a visitor,” Lorenzo said at length. The abbot still didn’t look up from his papers until he added, “He has been sent by the duchess.”
The abbot scratched his quill noisily over the parchment as he suddenly gave Marco his full attention. “Another one, eh?” he said with a twinkle in his eye that was most unbecoming for one of his station in life. But seeing Aderfi behind him, he rose to his feet, stiffening. Presumably the unlucky former favourites who ended up here didn’t come with any sort of entourage, even one so modest as a single convert freed from the clutches of the pirates of the Barbary coast. “Our humble order greets you, sir. I hope you will take full advantage of what modest hospitality we can offer.”
“I hope very much that I will not be imposing on you for long,” Marco said. “The duchess has sent me to get to the bottom of some rumours that are swirling around court. But I’m sure it’s all some misunderstanding.”
The abbot’s face went through almost every colour of the rainbow, from a dark blushing red to an icy blue paleness, through a sort of jaundiced yellow before settling on a queasy green. “And what rumours are these, exactly?” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.
“They say–” Marco laughed, as though what he was about to say was unthinkably silly, a deliberate attempt to put the abbot off guard given how he had reacted before being told. “They say that one of the brothers here has disappeared.”
The abbot stared at Aderfi. “I’m not sure we should discuss–“
Marco cut him off sharply. “You may speak to him as you would speak to me. And you should speak to me as you would speak to Her Grace, who has charged me with dealing with this matter personally.”
“But is he not … some manner of heathen?”
Aderfi smiled at him, then said in flawless Latin, “Vos secundum carnem iudicatis ego non iudico quemquam.”
Making a mental note to ask later exactly what that meant, Marco said, “Aderfi is much more devout than I.” Casting his eye around the room deliberately, he added, “Quite possibly he is the most devout person in this room.”
Marco could tell that the abbot wanted to show how much offence to took at that, but he quailed in the face of the evidence around him that pointed to the truth of Marco’s words. This was the sort of thing Marco enjoyed about this sort of work, keeping people off balance and seeing what shook loose from their lips as they wobbled.
“Brother Lorenzo, you had best show our guests Brother Uberto’s cell,” the abbot said finally. “And find Brother Antonio so that they may speak with him.”
“Of course, Father Abbot,” Lorenzo said.
“Antonio has spent some considerable time attempting to understand what has happened,” the abbot said. “I am sure he will explain everything.”
“I may have some questions for you as well, Father,” Marco said.
“Of course, of course,” the abbot said. “Whatever you need.” He sat back down at his desk as Lorenzo led them away, but instead of returning to his papers he was staring blankly straight ahead, not even seeming to take in the pornographic tapestry right in front of him.
Lorenzo took them through another sequence of corridors, deeper into the monastery. They found themselves looking out through small windows onto a sheer cliff face. One small door was set in to the wall. It was only seeing it, closed and locked, that Marco realised how few doors he had seen in this place so far.
Lorenzo fiddled with the key, becoming frustrated as it failed to turn.
“This is Uberto’s room?” Marco asked.
“That’s right.”
“And what about your own room, does that have a door? With a lock?”
“Of course not,” Lorenzo said. “But Brother Uberto had special privileges. He worshipped God in his own way and … I’ll get Brother Antonio, he will be able to explain better. And I think he knows the knack for this lock.”
Lorenzo hurried off. As soon as he was out of earshot, Marco asked Aderfi, “What was that scripture you reeled off earlier?”
“The Gospel of St John,” Aderfi said. “Chapter 8, verse 15. You judge by the flesh, whereas I judge not anyone. Or something like that.”
Marco laughed. “So what do you make of this place so far?”
“I begin to believe that almost everyone who is here has been sent to this place for the purpose of preventing them being anywhere else.”
“And does that apply to us as well?”
“I go where you go, sir, as you said yourself. But perhaps, on our return, it would be wise to enquire fairly minutely into what passed in your absence.”
It was far from the first time Aderfi had floored Marco simply by reflecting back to him what he had said from a slightly different perspective. But indeed, what better way to throw the duchess’s bloodhound off the scent of some planned skulduggery than by laying down a false trail? The way everyone here had reacted to his presence suggested there was substance behind the rumours — but then again, even a valid reason for him to be away could be convenient to those who might wish to pass unobserved. He was almost pleased that this thought had occurred to him; it was a far better reason to want to arrive back the same day than his desire for his creature comforts.
“One problem at a time, I think,” he said to Aderfi, who nodded, then nodded again to point out that Lorenzo was returning with another monk, this one shorter but making up for it with wider girth. Not the duchess’s usual type, so most likely he was here for other reasons. Who knew, maybe he had voluntarily chosen a life of contemplation of the divine?
“Brother Antonio, I presume?” Marco said warmly. “I apologise if we are distracting you from your duties.”
“Not at all, sir. God is Truth, and so all those who seek the truth do the Lord’s work.” Antonio took the key from Lorenzo and opened the door for them, employing a slight jiggle at the crucial moment in the turning.
Marco wasn’t quite sure what he had expected to see on the other side, but it wasn’t the mess that confronted him. There were books and papers everywhere: on multiple little desks that had presumably graced the monastery’s scriptorium once upon a time, in the days before the invention of printing. A profusion of candles, mostly burnt down to stubs, would have provided plenty of light to see by even in the middle of the night.
Two years prior, Marco had investigated a purported theft from the university. The scene before him reminded him more than anything else of the state when Marco had first visited of the office of the academic, who had turned out to have staged it himself all along.
“Was it like this when Brother Uberto was–” Marco stopped himself from saying “alive”, pausing for a moment before going on, “in residence, or has it ended up like this after his disappearance?”
“This is tidy by Brother Uberto’s standards, believe me,” Brother Antonio said with a laugh. “We’ve left it in anticipation of his return; he was most particular about not having things moved.”
Marco looked from the sheaf of papers in his hand to the desk he had just picked them up from, satisfying himself that he could put them back exactly as they had been before beginning to leaf through them — page after page of complex equations and geometrical diagrams that Marco had no hope of following. “Mathematics,” he said. “Is all of this like this?”
“The vast majority, yes. Signor Galileo says that mathematics is God’s language for writing the universe.”
Aderfi cleared his throat. “If I may, Signor Galileo is under house arrest for heresy.”
His intervention clearly took Antonio by surprise. “Your man is surprisingly well informed,” he said, “though I should point out it is only the suspicion of heresy.”
“Vehement suspicion, if I remember the proclamation,” Marco put in. “Surely not someone such devout souls as yourselves ought to be condoning, let alone using as a source of inspiring quotations.”
Antonio bristled slightly. “There is a greater plurality of views within the Church than I suspect is fully appreciated by members of the laity,” he said eventually.
“I’m sure,” Marco said. “Let us turn to the circumstances of Brother Uberto’s disappearance. Are we certain that he didn’t simply … leave to go for a walk?”
Lorenzo barely suppressed a smirk. “That really wasn’t like him.”
Antonio cut in. “The door was still locked from the inside when we realised no one had seen him for a full day. It was exceedingly difficult to gain access but fortunately some of our brother monks have the relevant skills.” Ex-convicts, Marco assumed he meant.
“And you found the room as we see it now?”
“Substantially, yes.”
Marco crossed to the window, looking down the sheer drop to where the walls of the monastery met the base of the cliff.
“You don’t think he went out through the window?” Lorenzo said.
“And carefully replaced all this glass once he was out on the other side, in the wind?” Marco said, running his gloved finger along one of the many strips of lead holding the individual panes together. “Hardly. But you have searched the grounds, have you not?”
“Thoroughly,” Antonio said.
“And if Brother Uberto was deliberately hiding?”
“What possible reason could he have?” Antonio said. Seeing Marco’s expression, he said, “Its not impossible, but it’s absurdly unlikely. Brother Uberto was nearing his sixtieth year, and while his mind was undoubtedly nimble, his body was much less so.”
“I see,” Marco said. “Aderfi, I want you to make your own search. Which of you two would be best to guide him?”
Lorenzo volunteered himself, and Marco said to him, “Show Aderfi the guest quarters on the way, I think we will be staying after all.”
“At once,” Aderfi said with a bow. “But, sir, there are the asses, too.”
“You have a stable?” Marco said to Lorenzo curtly.
“Not exactly,” Lorenzo said, “but … we can make do.”
“Yes, yes, give our noble steeds the best accommodation you can muster,” Marco said. “You,” he said to Antonio as they left. “I’m going to need to speak to everyone.”
“Everyone?”
“That’s what I said,” Marco said. “Find me somewhere I can speak to each of the brothers privately in turn.”
“Even the abbot?”
“I will visit him in his office at a convenient time,” Marco said, carefully not specifying for whom it would be convenient.
“Very well,” Brother Antonio said.
By the end of a long afternoon of interviews, Marco knew all about dozens of petty rivalries, was certain of four clandestine relationships and had suspicions about several more, and had been recognised by three of Lorenzo’s fellow former drones, who did indeed seem to make up a significant proportion of the monastery’s population. So much for holding onto that card to see how best to play it
But after all those interviews, he was no closer to any understanding of what lay behind the vanishing of Brother Uberto. In particular, the warm regard with which all the monks spoke of him, often unprompted, seemed genuine enough. If it was some sort of joint enterprise, the whole place must be in on it.
After their simple evening meal, while the monks were attending vespers, he caught up with Aderfi, who had had a similarly fruitless afternoon. Marco quizzed him intently on what he had found underneath Uberto’s window, the unlikely hypothesis that he had somehow climbed out being left as one of the only explanations that he hadn’t completely rejected. He was even beginning to wonder if it was possible that Uberto had passed through it insubstantially, like some sort of strange phantom.
As he failed to sleep that night on the uncomfortable bed, Marco still couldn’t come to any conclusion. His mind might be slow and deliberate, even plodding at its worst, but he was unused to encountering such an intractable puzzle as this. The monks, if they were all working together, had ample means and opportunity, but seemingly no motive; amongst all the petty human interactions that characterised any community, Uberto seemed to hold the status of a respected elder, the esotericism of his studies apparently a proof of true holiness. Several of his interviewees had earnestly impressed upon Marco how fervently they were praying that he would be successful in finding him.
The motives of Uberto himself were unknowable, but it was seemingly impossible for him to have made some sort of escape, and harder still to believe that he would have wanted to.
And yet, his cell was empty. The facts didn’t fit together; there was some aspect of the matter that he was missing.
The next morning, he rose early, woke Aderfi and they went to the abbot’s office while matins was still going on. Quickly and carefully, they searched through his papers and belongings for any clue.
The papers turned out to be two sets of meticulously kept accounts, one for the consumption of the ecclesiastical authorities and one showing exactly how much the abbot was enriching himself, almost as though he were obsessively keeping score. If Marco could detect the fraud with a cursory glance, Uberto’s mathematical skills would undoubtedly have rendered him able to unpick all the detail. Was that reason enough for Uberto to be disposed of? But that just brought things back around to the practicalities of doing the deed, disposing of the evidence so thoroughly Aderfi had found nothing at all, and then arranging for the room to have appeared locked from the inside.
Marco sat himself in the abbot’s comfortable padded chair and waited for him to return. When he eventually did, it was clear that he was swallowing his indignation at this affront with some difficulty. “I see you chose to enjoy our hospitality after all,” he said coldly.
“And I see you chose to line your own pockets,” Marco said, holding up the papers. “Is that what really happened to Brother Uberto? You got rid of him before he could tell anyone?”
“Don’t be preposterous,” the abbot said. “If I were to have done as you say, I would hardly have done it in a way that would attract all this attention. He was an old man, it would have been simple enough to arrange for him to meet an entirely natural seeming end. In which case, you would never have turned up and my life would be infinitely better.” He looked at Marco hopefully. “I don’t suppose you’d take a small bribe to keep quiet about this to the duchess?” When Marco did not respond, he said weakly, “Or a large one? A very large one?”
The man was odious but the logic behind his denial of fair play was sound. “I’m afraid bribery won’t work,” Marco said. “We will be taking you back with us to face the Church authorities … and the wrath of the duchess.”
Removing him would lead to a sort of miniature version of a conclave amongst the monks. There would be no white smoke, but they would still have to reach a consensus on the abbot’s successor. From his understanding of the networks of relationships, he was pretty sure Brother Antonio was the leading contender. They could certainly do worse.
As they wound back down the mountain path later, the donkeys picking their way slowly and the abbot complaining bitterly with every step, the only thing that Marco thought might still contain an answer was the wealth of papers Uberto had left behind.
If only they made any sense to him at all.