The Secret Supper (22 page)

No answer.

Behind the bars consumed by rust, the prisoner seemed to be waiting for nothing except death. I put one of the keys in the lock and entered. Forzetta was standing against one of the walls, both hands manacled, his eyes lost in vacancy. As soon as I shone my lantern on him, he tried to cover his face. His shirt still bore signs of blood and the wound on his cheek seemed to be festering. His hair was covered in a coat of dust and his whole aspect, in spite of the short time spent in seclusion, was terrible.

“I know you’re from Ferrara, like Donna Beatrice,” I said as I sat down on his cot, giving him time to get accustomed to the light. He nodded in some confusion. He had never heard my voice before and did not know who I was.

“How old are you, my son?”

“Seventeen.”

Seventeen, I thought. He’s not yet a man!

Mario wouldn’t take his eyes off my black and white habit, wondering about the reason for my visit. I must be truthful: a certain sympathy established itself between us. I decided to take advantage of it.

“All right, Mario Forzetta. I’ll tell you why I’ve come. I’ve been authorized to take you out of here and set you free, as long as we can reach an agreement,” I lied. “All you have to do is answer a few questions. If you tell me the truth, I’ll let you go.”

“I always tell the truth, Father.”

The young man moved forward from the wall and sat by my side. Seen from close by, he certainly did not look dangerous. Somewhat lanky and round-shouldered, he was obviously ill-suited for physical exertions. No wonder Jacaranda had beaten him so easily.

“I know you were an apprentice with Leonardo. Is that right?”

“Yes, it is.”

“What happened? Why did you leave his workshop?”

“I wasn’t worthy. The Master is very demanding with his own.”

“What do you mean?”

“I didn’t pass the tests he put to me. Just that.”

“Tests? What kind of tests?”

Mario took a deep breath while he stared at his manacled hands. My lantern allowed him to see the bruises on his wrists.

“They were intelligence tests. For the Master, it isn’t enough that his apprentices should know how to mix colors or draw a profile. He demands that their minds be alert—”

“And the tests?” I insisted.

“One day he took me to see several of his paintings and asked me to interpret them. We went to see his Cenacolo when he had barely started work on it, and also several of his portraits in the duke’s palace. I suppose I performed badly, because a short time later he asked me to leave the bottega.”

“I understand. And that’s why you decided to take your revenge and rob him. Isn’t that so?”

“No! Not at all!” He became very agitated. “I’d never steal from the Master! He was like a father to me. He took us everywhere to teach us how to work and he even fed us. When the money wasn’t enough, I remember that he’d assemble us in your refectory, the one of the Dominicans in Santa Maria, and he’d seat us around a large table, like the apostles, and would watch us from a distance while we ate—”

“So you witnessed the evolution of the Cenacolo—”

“Of course. It’s the Master’s greatest work. He’s been studying for years, in order to complete it.”

“Studying from books like the one you stole?”

Mario protested once more.

“I didn’t steal anything, Father! It was Signor Oliverio who insisted that I go to the bottega and fetch from Master Leonardo’s library an old book with blue covers.”

“That is stealing.”

“No, no, it isn’t. The last time I was in the bottega, I asked Master Leonardo to let me have it. When I told him what I wanted it for, and that it was to please my new master, he gave me the book, which I later placed in the hands of Signor Oliverio. It was like a gift. For old times’ sake. He said he no longer needed it.”

“And you tried to sell it to Signor Jacaranda.”

“It was Master Leonardo who taught me to ask for gold from those who live by gold. That was all. But Signor Oliverio wouldn’t listen to me. He became furious and put a sword in my hands and told me to defend my honor in a duel. Then he locked me up here.”

I thought the boy was being honest, certainly more than Jacaranda, a despicable creature, capable of trafficking with monks and adolescents just to obtain something with which to make a fair bagful of ducats. And what if I took Mario into my service? What if I took advantage of the knowledge of this ex-disciple of Leonardo, master of secret codes, and used him to solve my riddle?

I decided to try my luck.

“What do you know about a deck of cards, one of which shows a Franciscan woman with a book on her lap?”

Mario stared at me in surprise.

“Do you know what I’m talking about?” I insisted.

“Signor Oliverio showed me that card before sending me after the Master’s book.”

“Continue.”

“When I went with my request to Master Leonardo, I showed him the card and he burst out laughing. He told me it held a great secret and that unless I were able to decipher it all by myself, he would never discuss it with me. He’s always like that. He never discusses anything unless you unravel it first.”

“And did he tell you how?”

“The Master trains all his disciples in the art of reading the secrets of all things. He taught us the Ars Memoriae of the Greeks, the number codes of the Jews, the letters that outline figures of the Arabs, the occult mathematics of Pythagoras. But I was a slow student and didn’t get too much from his teachings.”

“Would you work on a problem for me, if I asked you to?”

Mario hesitated for a second and then nodded vigorously.

“It’s a problem worthy of your old master,” I explained while I rummaged in my pockets for the piece of paper, to help him understand. “It holds the name of a person I’m looking for. Study the text carefully,” I said, reaching it over to him. “Do it for me. In thanks for my kindness to you today.”

The boy brought it close to my lantern, in order to see it more clearly.

“ ‘Oculos ejus dinumera’…It’s in Latin.”

“Yes, it is.”

“And will you free me if I help?”

“Only after asking one last question, Mario. You told Signor Jacaranda that Master Leonardo had used the book he gave you to shape one of the disciples in the Cenacolo.”

“Yes, he did.”

“Which disciple was that, Mario?”

“The Apostle Matthew.”

“And do you know how he used that book to shape his Matthew?”

“I think so. Matthew was the author of the most popular of all four Gospels, and Leonardo wanted the man who had lent his face to his Matthew to have achieved at least the same dignity as the Apostle.”

“What man was that? Plato?”

“No, not Plato.” Mario smiled. “It’s someone who’s alive today. Perhaps you’ve heard of him. He translated the Divini Platonis Opera Omnia and they call him Marsilio Ficino. I once heard the Master say that when the moment came for painting him in one of his works, that would be the awaited sign.”

“Sign? What sign?”

Mario waited a moment before answering.

“It’s been a while since I’ve spoken with the Master, Father. But if you keep your promise and set me free, I’ll find out for you. I swear. As well as solving the riddle you gave me. I won’t fail you.”

“You must know that you’re giving your word to an inquisitor.”

“And I’ll keep it. Give me my freedom and I’ll be faithful.”

What could I risk? That very same afternoon, just before nones, Mario and I left the Jacaranda Palazzo together, watched by the wary eyes of Maria. On the street, the dark-haired boy with the scar on his face kissed my hand, rubbed his freed wrists and ran off toward the center of the city. Curiously, I never asked myself if I would see him again. I hardly cared. I already knew more about the Cenacolo than most of the other monks whose house I was sharing.

32

Early on the morning of Thursday the nineteenth of January, Brother Matteo Bandello, the Father Prior’s adolescent nephew, burst into the refectory of Santa Maria. His eyes had a startled, frightened look, and he could barely breathe. He needed to talk to his uncle, and seeing him there, standing by Leonardo’s mysterious mural, made him feel both comforted and uneasy. If what they had told him at the Piazza Mercanti was true, then to stay here, watching the progress of this diabolical machinery, might lead them all to their graves.

Matteo approached cautiously, trying not to interrupt the conversation between the Father Prior and his inseparable secretary, Brother Benedetto.

“Tell me, Father Prior,” he heard, “when Master Leonardo painted the portraits of Saint Simon and Saint Judas Thaddeus, did you notice anything strange in his behavior?”

“Strange? What do you mean by strange?”

“Come, Father! You know exactly what I mean! Did you see him consult any note or sketch to give these disciples their characteristic features? Or maybe you can recall if someone visited him at the time, someone from whom he might have received instructions about how to complete these portraits?”

“That’s an odd question, Brother Benedetto. I fail to see what you’re trying to get at.”

“Well…” The one-eyed monk cleared his throat. “You asked me to find out as much as I could about the riddle Fathers Alessandro and Agostino had brought to us. The truth is that, lacking any clues, I spent my time trying to find out what it was that they did on the days previous to the librarian’s death.”

Matteo trembled: they were discussing the very subject that had brought him here.

“And?” asked his uncle, unaware of his nephew’s terrified presence.

“Father Agostino spent all of his free time here, thanks to the key you gave him. Which was normal.”

“And Father Alessandro?”

“This is what’s so strange, Father Prior. The sexton surprised him several times speaking with Marco d’Oggiono and Andrea Salaino, Leonardo’s favorite disciples. They’d meet in the Cloister of the Dead and converse for hours. Those who saw them there say that they were talking about the Tuscan’s deep concern over Saint Simon’s portrait.”

“And this astonished you?” growled his uncle, frowning, as Matteo had seen him do so many times. “Master Leonardo is a stickler for details, for the slightest minor point, the tiniest question. You should know that. I don’t know any other artist who revises his work as many times as he does.”

“It’s as you say, Father Prior. And yet, at the time, Father Alessandro obeyed Leonardo’s whims with more determination than ever before. He sought out books and engravings that might be of use to him. He worked all hours at the library. He even went up to the duke’s castle to supervise the transport of a very heavy box of which I’ve not been able to discover anything at all.”

The Father Prior shrugged.

“Maybe it’s not as strange as it seems, Brother Benedetto. Didn’t Father Alessandro sit for him? Didn’t he choose him among many others to lend a face to Judas? Of course, they’d have become friends, and of course Leonardo would have asked for his help.”

“So you think it was by chance? Father Agostino has spoken to you of his suspicions, hasn’t he?”

“Father Agostino, Father Agostino!” the Father Prior muttered. “That man is keeping something from us. I can see it in his face every time we talk!”

Matteo hesitated as to whether to interrupt them or not, and the more he listened to them discuss the Cenacolo and its secrets, the more impatient he grew. He knew something vital about Leonardo’s mural!

“But he believes that Leonardo may have had a hand in Father Alessandro’s murder, isn’t that right?”

“You’re mistaken. That’s what Oliverio Jacaranda believes, and he’s an old enemy of Leonardo’s. The Tuscan is an extravagant man, of unusual tastes, and the fact that we don’t see him often at Mass or that he says he’s locked a secret inside this mural doesn’t make him a murderer.”

“Well,” Brother Benedetto admitted, “that’s true enough. It makes him a heretic. Who but a man of his colossal vanity would paint himself present at the Last Supper? And especially as Judas Thaddeus!”

“That is an interesting point. He paints himself as Saint Jude, the ‘good’ Judas, and Father Alessandro as the ‘bad’ one.”

“Respectfully, Father Prior: have you noticed in what pose he’s painted himself in the mural?”

“Of course,” the Father Prior answered, searching for the figure among those depicted on the wall. “He’s turning his back on Our Lord.”

“Exactly! Leonardo—or Thaddeus, if you like—is talking to Saint Simon instead of paying attention to Christ’s announcement of the betrayal. And why? Why is Simon more important than Our Lord to Leonardo? And taking this further: if we know that each apostle represents someone special for Leonardo, then who in fact is this Simon?”

“I don’t see where all this is leading.”

“Let me explain,” answered Benedetto. “If the people in The Last Supper are not who they seem, and Master Leonardo shows more esteem for Saint Simon than for the Messiah, then this Simon has to be someone of great importance to him. And Father Alessandro knew this.”

“Saint Simon…Saint Simon the Cananaean…”

The Father Prior rubbed his forehead, trying to fit into the picture the piece Brother Benedetto had offered him. Matteo, still trying to keep silent, was growing impatient. His message, he knew, was urgent.

“Since you insist, Brother Benedetto, I do remember that something odd happened as Leonardo was completing that section of the Cenacolo,” the Father Prior said at last, still unaware of his nephew’s presence.

“Tell me.”

Brother Benedetto’s single eye lit up.

“It was something quite peculiar. For the past three years, Leonardo had been interviewing candidates to sit for his apostles. We all were examined, remember? Then he summoned the duke’s guards, the gardeners, the goldsmiths, the pages. He drew something from each one: a gesture, a profile, the outline of a finger or an arm. But when it came time to paint the right-hand corner, Leonardo interrupted his interviews and stopped seeking inspiration in models of flesh and blood.”

Brother Benedetto cocked his head inquisitively.

“What I’m trying to tell you, Brother Benedetto, is that in order to paint Saint Simon, Master Leonardo didn’t make use of any living subject.”