The Secret Supper (21 page)

Uneasy about interrupting again, Elena nevertheless felt the need to speak up.

“Master, is this related to your showing me now the portrait of my mother? Is it linked at all with this terrible news?”

“You’ll soon understand, my child,” Leonardo answered. “This was not the only time your mother sat for me. In her younger days, she served as the model for the Virgin in the Maestà. Then, just a few months ago, I made another version of the Maestà with your mother again as the model. When I delivered this second version, ten days ago, the Franciscans exchanged it for the first. It was all so fast that I had no time to warn the Brotherhood of the substitution.”

“The Brotherhood?”

“I see that Master Luini has not told you everything yet,” Leonardo said lowering his voice. “The Maestà is like a gospel to them. It was a spiritual balm, especially after the Inquisition took their holy books away. They would come to worship it by the dozen. But when the Franciscans realized what was happening and started quarreling with me, I was forced to produce a new version, stripping it of the symbols that made it so special. I waited ten years before fulfilling their new request, and I wasn’t able to delay it any longer. Unfortunately, I didn’t warn the Brotherhood so that they would cease coming to San Francesco in search of illumination, and my dear Giulio paid for my mistake with his life. Someone was waiting for him.”

“Have you any idea of who that might be?”

“No, Bernardino. But his motive was the same as always, the same one that led Saint Dominic to create the Inquisition: to do away with the last pure Christians. They are trying to extinguish by force what they didn’t manage to extinguish in Montségur when they crushed the last of the Cathars.”

“But, Master, where will the Brotherhood go now to satisfy its faith?”

“To the Cenacolo, of course. But not till it’s finished. Why do you think I’m painting it on a wall and not on a canvas? Because of the size? Not at all.” He lifted a warning finger. “It’s so that no one may unhook it or force me to redo it. This is the only way for the Brotherhood to find long-lasting consolation. No one will think of looking under the very noses of the inquisitors themselves.”

“That’s very ingenious, Master…but very dangerous as well.”

Leonardo smiled.

“Between the Roman Christians and us there’s a great difference, Bernardino. They need tangible sacraments to feel that they’re blessed by God. They eat bread, anoint themselves with oil, are sprinkled with consecrated water. Our sacraments, on the other hand, are invisible. Their strength lies in that they are abstract sacraments. Whoever perceives them from within feels a blow in the chest and an all-invading joy. You know you’re saved when you feel that force inside you. My Last Supper will bestow such privileges upon them. Why do you think that my Christ does not display the Roman host? Because His sacrament is another—”

“Master,” Luini broke in. “You speak to Elena as if she already knew all about your faith. But she hasn’t heard the full story.”

“Yes…”

“I hope you’ll grant me a favor. Give me permission to take her to see the Cenacolo and initiate her in your secret. In your symbols. Perhaps then—” Luini hesitated, weighing his words. “Perhaps then we might both cleanse ourselves and merit a place in your presence. This is what she wants.”

Leonardo did not seem surprised.

“Is that so, Elena?”

The young woman nodded.

“Then you must know that the only way of getting to know my work is to take part in it. And you know that better than anyone else, Bernardino. I am the only Omega toward which you must wend your way from now on.”

“If your intention is to guide her toward you, Master, then why not take her as your model? The mother sat for your ‘painted gospel’ in the Maestà. Why should not the daughter sit for the mural you are completing?”

Leonardo hesitated.

“For the Cenacolo?”

“Why not?” Luini answered. “Don’t you need a model for the Beloved Apostle? Where will you find a more angelic face to finish your Saint John?”

Elena lowered her eyes, delighted. Leonardo caressed his blond beard thoughtfully, carefully observing the young Crivelli. Then he let out a peal of laughter that echoed through the room.

“Yes!” he thundered. “Why not? After all, I can’t imagine anyone better suited for the task at hand.”

30

“Oliverio Jacaranda?”

A look of disgust came over the Father Prior’s face as he spoke the name.

He had summoned me as soon as he knew that I had returned to the monastery. It seems that the brethren had spent hours on alert because of my unexpected absence and that several of the monks, armed with clubs and torches, had gone out to look for me shortly after nightfall. Therefore, when Maria Jacaranda delivered me to the doors of Santa Maria, unharmed but with a troubled mind, the Father Prior called me at once to his side.

“And you tell me, Father Agostino, that you spent the night in the company of Oliverio Jacaranda, in his own house?”

His tone of voice betrayed his deep concern.

“I see that you know him, Father Prior.”

“Of course I do,” he answered. “All of Milan knows the scoundrel. He deals in liturgical objects, as well as buying and selling pictures of saints or naked Venuses, and he handles more money and securities than many a nobleman in the duke’s court. What I can’t understand,” he said half-shutting his eyes, “is what he might want from you.”

“He wanted to talk to me about the father librarian.”

“About Father Alessandro?”

I nodded. The Father Prior seemed disconcerted.

“Apparently, both of them maintained a sort of commercial relationship. They were, so to speak, associates.”

“That’s nonsense! What could Father Alessandro, may he rest in peace, want with an immoral and depraved man such as Jacaranda?”

“If what Signor Jacaranda said to me is true, then Father Alessandro Trivulzio led a double life. On the one hand, he appeared as a man fearful of God, a lover of letters and of study; but on the other hand, far from your protecting eyes, he had become a dealer in antiquities.”

The Father Prior seemed to consider this revelation carefully.

“I’m at pains to believe it,” he muttered. “And yet, perhaps this might explain certain things…”

“Certain things? What do you mean, Father Prior?”

“I’ve spoken to the duke’s police about the circumstances of Father Alessandro’s death. There’s an obscure point that none of us can explain. A great contradiction that has us all baffled.”

“Pray tell.”

“You see, the police found no signs of violence or resistance on the body of Father Alessandro. However, it seems that he did not hang himself on his own. Someone else was with him at the time, someone who left a strange card at the naked feet of our librarian.”

The Father Prior dug into his pockets and produced a well-worn piece of parchment full of scribbles and incomprehensible lines.

“Look,” he said, handing me the card.

I must have shown my astonishment, because the Father Prior looked at me strangely. How else could I have reacted? Because a section of the scribbles corresponded to the riddle that had brought me here in the first place. Indeed, Oculos ejus dinumera, the Soothsayer’s peculiar signature, could be read in the very center. Its seven verses had been copied out in a trembling hand and they appeared to have been studied carefully, since the notes on the margins looked like the efforts of someone trying to make sense of the whole.

“This is my riddle!” I exclaimed.

“ ‘Count its eyes but look not on its face
The number of my name
you shall find on its side…’ Yes. I know. You told me some time before Father Alessandro’s death, as you surely remember. But these”—and here he drew a circle on the card with his finger—“are not my notes, Father Agostino.”

His eyes sparkled.

“And that’s not all. Look here.”

The Father Prior turned the card over. The unmistakable figure of the Franciscan nun holding in her right hand a cross and in her left a book left me stunned.

“Dear God!” I cried out. “The card—your card!”

“No. Leonardo’s card,” the Father Prior corrected me. “No one knows who placed this card at the feet of Father Alessandro’s body after his death, but obviously it’s supposed to have a meaning. I’ll remind you that the Tuscan challenged us over this same picture. And now it appears, together with your own riddle, next to our dead librarian. What do you make of it?”

I drew a deep breath.

“There’s something I haven’t told you, Father Prior.”

My host wrinkled his brow.

“I don’t know how to interpret this following your revelations, but Signor Jacaranda and I were talking precisely about this very same card. Or rather, about the book this woman is holding in her hand.”

“The book?”

“It isn’t just any book, Father Prior. Jacaranda wished to get hold of it for an important client and entrusted the job to Father Alessandro. Apparently, it seems that the owner of this valuable book is Master Leonardo himself, and so he thought that it would be easier for our librarian than for any other messenger to get in touch with him and make him an offer. A simple commercial transaction that has already cost two lives.”

“Two, you say, Father Agostino?”

“I haven’t told you this yet, Father Prior, but the client who desired to buy the book was Beatrice d’Este, may God have mercy on her soul.”

“Dear Heaven!”

The Father Prior invited me to continue.

“Jacaranda doesn’t know why the duchess contracted his services to obtain the book and didn’t ask Leonardo himself for it. But he’s convinced that, in one way or another, Leonardo is implicated in these deaths.”

“And what do you think, Father Agostino?”

“I have difficulty believing it. Leonardo is an artist, not a soldier.”

The Father Prior looked down with troubled eyes.

“I too am of that opinion, but from what I can see, death appears to be an everyday event where Master Leonardo is concerned.”

“What do you mean?”

“Yesterday a strange thing happened, not far from here. The Church of San Francesco was desecrated with the murder of a pilgrim within its walls.”

“A murder?” I was aghast. “On consecrated ground?”

“That is so. The unfortunate soul had his heart pierced by a blade just behind the main altar, under Leonardo’s new painting. It must have happened only a few hours before the death of Father Alessandro. And there is something else.”

The Father Prior took a deep breath before continuing.

“The police found among his things the deck to which this card belongs. Whoever killed that man, stole it from him, scribbled your riddle on the back and left it by the body of our librarian. You must help me find him. Unless I am much mistaken, our murderer, whoever he might be, is also after that damned book of Leonardo’s.”

31

“I want you to hand over your prisoner.”

Maria Jacaranda looked at me in astonishment. She was no longer wearing the man’s costume from the previous night, but had changed into a dress with a loose waist, blue and white sleeves and a striped bodice. Her blond hair was gathered in a fetching net, and her whole aspect was radiant.

It was obvious that the young woman had not expected to see me again so soon, especially not bearing such an odd request. Little did she know my reasons. Mario Forzetta, the swordsman whom her father had defeated in the duel, was, as far as I knew, the last person who had tried to obtain the “blue book” of Leonardo’s card. And the only one still alive. It was obvious that I needed to speak with him.

“I don’t think my father will be keen on the idea,” she said when she heard my clumsy explanations.

“You’re wrong in assuming that, Maria. You were present when Signor Oliverio asked me to help him obtain Leonardo’s book. And that is why I’ve come.”

“And what will you do with Mario?”

“First of all, place him in my custody, that is to say, the Holy Office’s. Then take him with me for questioning.”

The mention of the Holy Inquisition undermined the young woman’s objections. Impressed by my severity, she decided to agree to my demands and accompanied me to the cellars of the palazzo. No doubt she did not wish to upset the Dominicans in her father’s absence. She told me that he had left shortly after our meeting and that he was not likely to return to Milan for another week. While he was away, it was her responsibility to oversee the running of the household and guard his possessions, among them, the young Forzetta.

“Is he violent?” I asked.

“Oh no, not at all. I think he’d be incapable of harming a fly. But he’s cunning. Be careful with him.”

“Cunning?”

“That’s a quality he learned from Leonardo,” she added. “All of his disciples have it.”

The young man had been imprisoned in a section of the palazzo that had long ago functioned as a jail. Thick walls and deep stairwells enclosed a strange underground world impossible to imagine from the rooms and gardens on the surface. Jacaranda, in a magnanimous mood, had allowed his impertinent servant one of the cells murus strictus, that is to say, one whose dimensions barely allowed him to lie down, stand up and walk a few steps from one wall to the other. With no windows, in the midst of an impenetrable darkness, Mario Forzetta could consider himself nevertheless fortunate. Next to his compartment, Maria held up her lantern to show me another cell, murus strictissimus, in which a man could neither stand upright nor lie full length, and from which no prisoner emerged except stark raving mad or in a coffin.

By the door of Mario’s cell I felt short of breath, but I didn’t want Jacaranda’s daughter to see me falter. I hated visiting prisons. Closed spaces made me sick. In fact, the only inquisitorial tasks I never turned down were the administrative ones. I preferred the heavy weight of files and papers to the stench of damp and the drip of water pipes on the stone. Left alone, with a second lantern in my hand and a ring of iron keys in the other, it took me a moment before I could speak.

“Mario Forzetta?”