Inquisition

by Alfredo Colitto

Genres: Mystery

Synopsis

In 14th-century Italy, Mondino is a university anatomist - a man of science in a land governed by the brutal Inquisition. But the corpse brought to Mondino's laboratory one stormy night defies natural law: The victim is a Templar knight, and his heart has been transformed into a block of iron. Is it alchemy? Or the diabolical work of an ingenious killer? Aided by his headstrong student Gerardo - a young man concealing a deadly secret identity - Mondino must outwit both ruthless Inquisitors and vengeful Templars if he's to stop a murderer whose methods don't just freeze the blood . . . but turn it to stone.

Release date: May 5, 2011

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 496

Sample

Messer,

On 12 January of the year of our Lord 1305, you and other Knights Templar took part in an act of extreme cruelty against an
innocent man, in the hope of obtaining a secret that would make you immortal as well as rich beyond measure.


You were not even certain that he was in possession of the secret. But nonetheless you tortured him and finally killed him,
without inducing him to confess. The fact that he was not a Saracen and enemy of the faith, but a Christian like yourselves,
did not suffice to hold you back.


Your actions disgust me, but that is not the reason that I am writing to you. The secret you have been searching for is now
to be found in the city of Bologna, in Italy. I also desire to possess it, but I need help.


Rather than try to convince accomplices of its existence and find they turn out indecisive and unreliable, I have decided
to ask people who, like you, have already killed without hesitation in order to take possession of it.


If my proposal interests you, come to the place that they call Jerusalem Bononiensis, opposite the Mount of Olives, on Saturday 1 May 1311, after vespers. I will explain what I want
from you in return for what I am offering.


Consider the object that you find accompanying this letter as proof of my truthfulness.

In faith,

A friend

In the autumn of 1310, three Knights Templar, in Naples, Cyprus and Toledo, each received a copy of this letter, written in
faultless Latin and containing variations with regard to the place and time of meeting.


They were astonished and deeply uneasy. All three knew to which event the mysterious ‘friend’ referred and were inclined to
believe that the letter was genuine. Indeed, in the copper tube that contained the parchment, each of them found, wrapped
in a piece of black silk, an object that possessed the repellent fascination of a reptile: an emaciated human finger, with
neither skin nor fingernail, covered in a network of blood vessels.


However, the veins of the finger were cold, hard and dark, made of filaments of metal. A skilful artisan could have made the
object by covering a human bone with iron. But the incredible precision led the observer to think that it might even have
been a real finger transformed into iron, rather than a work of ingenuity.


The knights had no way of knowing that all three of them had received the same letter. Each decided independently that he
should find out whether the person was telling the truth. If someone were able to change human blood into iron, it might be
possible to change it into gold too.


And blood changed into gold was an essential step in attaining the limitless power over life and death that they wanted. The
secret that they had spent years searching for and that had seemed lost for ever had now returned to haunt them. But it was imperative to take precautions. In Bologna, as
in most of the cities of Europe, the trial of the Templars initiated by Philip the Fair and endorsed by Pope Clement V was
well under way.


Disguised as merchant, pilgrim and mercenary respectively, the knights took to the road. One thing was clear to all three
of them: the person who had sent the letter knew too much and would have to be eliminated come what may.






Mondino de Liuzzi saw the fire and heard the crackle of the flames and the dull crash of a roof beam collapsing. The street
was so full of people that it might have been broad daylight. There were men, women and children everywhere, all half-dressed.
And everyone was shouting to make themselves heard above the din. From the wells behind the Church of Sant’Antonino and the
neighbouring houses, the women drew one bucket after another, while the men formed a chain up to the top floor of the building
where the fire was spreading. The rasping of the well pulleys produced a constant background screech to the shouting.


Mondino did not stop to lend a hand, thus twice neglecting his duty: both as a citizen and as a neighbour. He had other things
to do that night. The men he was expecting would be in a hurry to rid themselves of their burden without being seen. They
were probably hiding in some courtyard, but couldn’t stay there long with all these people about. He hurried on to the School
of Medicine, keeping to the arches so as not to be recognised. No one he knew would have risked going abroad at night without an escort. But if they had done, they would use the centre of the street. It wouldn’t have entered their
minds to walk through the thick pools of shade under the arcades. Mondino was tall and stronger than his narrow frame suggested,
but physical readiness would count for little against two or three villains armed with daggers. As often happened when he
thought of the dangers that he was forced to undergo for the love of science, he felt a rush of anger and clenched his fists.


He paused behind an arch to let past an entire family running with buckets to give a hand. The husband rushed by without turning,
as did the three children, scampering along in bare feet in the mud of the road. The wife, a dark and alluring woman, seemed
to sense his presence and turned to stare into the darkness. She spotted him and opened her mouth to shout, so Mondino did
the only thing possible: he half-leaned out of the shadows and put a finger to her lips. His high forehead, green eyes and
wavy chestnut hair, worn neither long nor short, usually inspired confidence in the opposite sex. He hoped so this time too.


Out of the blue, a short, fat old hag, with her round head wrapped in a grey bonnet, bumped into the woman, murmuring a word
that sounded like ‘whore’, grabbed her by the arm and dragged her away. It must have been her mother or mother-in-law.


Mondino hurried on a bit further, peering ahead into the gloom, then he stopped at a doorway and took a big key from under
his tunic, put it into the keyhole and entered, closing the door behind him.


He busied himself in the dark with flint and tinder and lit the candle that he always kept on a shelf near the door. Then
he walked between the empty desks, touching the flame to the wicks of the oil lamps on the stands at the four corners of the
dissection table. For what he had to do it was important to see well. He went to a cupboard and took the saw and two surgeon’s knives, one long and one short. Then he began to sharpen
the blade of the long one, forcing himself not to listen to the turmoil outside caused by the fire. He tried to concentrate
on the swish of the knife on the strip of well-oiled leather, but couldn’t. He only hoped that there would be no deaths or
injuries.


All of a sudden he heard three urgent raps at the door. With a sigh of relief, he put down the knife and went to open it.

He stopped short in front of his student Francesco Salimbene who was standing there with head uncovered: wild hair, sweaty
face and a slightly mad look in his blue eyes. Even by the uncertain light of the lamps, bloodstains showed on his knee-length
tunic and his chausses beneath. Mondino took one look at the man who Francesco held up by the waist and saw that he was dead.
Before Mondino had time to react, the young man pushed him aside and entered, quickly closing the door behind him with his
free hand.


‘I beg you, Magister, don’t shout for help,’ he said, while he laid the corpse, not without delicacy, on the marble tabletop.
‘I can explain everything.’


Mondino took advantage of the moment to go quickly over to the sloping workbench where he had left the knife and pick it up
with a decisive gesture. Then he went back to stand between the young man and the door. Glancing at the body on the dissection
table, he noticed for the first time the stumps where the man’s hands should have been and the fact that his tunic was drenched
with blood around his chest.


‘I won’t shout for help,’ he said. ‘But I have no intention of covering up a murder. Tell me what my laziest student is doing
here with a corpse in train. Then we will call the city guards and sort the thing out according to the law.’


‘This man, Angelo da Piczano,’ said Francesco, turning round and noticing the knife but not showing the slightest concern, ‘was killed in a way that seems to have something to do with the magic arts and trade with the Devil.’


‘Did you kill him?’

The young man opened wide his arms in a gesture of entreaty. ‘Certainly not. Do you think I’d have come to ask for your help
if I had?’


In the flickering light, his eyes seemed more black than blue. Mondino suspected that he was waiting for a moment of inattention
to try to disarm him. But he would find to his cost that a doctor knows how to wield a knife even better than a soldier.


‘I did not say that I would help you,’ Mondino said, in a flat tone. ‘Go on.’

‘I can’t tell you everything, Master,’ said the young man. ‘I am asking you to trust me and to help me get rid of this man’s
body. If the Inquisition finds it, many innocent people could suffer.’


Mondino stared at him. ‘Do you realise what you are asking? Destroying the evidence of a murder is a serious crime. Harbouring
a fugitive is an even greater crime. If you think that I am prepared to help, you are severely mistaken.’


‘So you really do think I killed him?’

There was a desolate tone in his voice, but Mondino was unmoved. ‘It’s the most logical thing to think. To convince me otherwise
you’d need to do better than just ask me to trust you.’


Mondino wasn’t frightened of him, but there was no sense in running unnecessary risks. The best thing was to play for time.
The gravediggers would soon arrive with the corpse he had asked for. He would tell one of them to call the guards and the
problem would be solved. He just had to keep the student talking until then.


‘I can tell you this,’ said the young man, after a moment’s indecision. ‘My real name is not Francesco Salimbene, but Gerardo da Castelbretone. And I owed this man help and protection, as he did me. I would never have harmed him.’


‘Is he a relation of yours?’

‘No. Why?’

The doctor looked at the dead man. He was about forty, with an athletic build and an austere expression on his face that he
had not lost even in death. He was dressed in a simple tunic with neither surcoat nor belt.


‘Because he resembles you. A resemblance of character, more than looks.’

Gerardo da Castelbretone, if that was really his name, seemed to be deliberating with himself. Then he smiled bitterly and
shrugged his shoulders. ‘You are very quick, Magister. No, he’s not a relation of mine. But we are bound by a tie that is
just as strong. I am a Poor Knight of Christ and the Temple of Solomon, as was he. That must account for the resemblance that
you notice.’


A silence followed in which Mondino absorbed the information, then he burst out: ‘You’re a Templar! That’s why you use a false
name, why you don’t study and only come to my lessons to waste time. You are pretending to be a student to avoid arrest in
the current trial against your order.’ He was so furious that he took half a step towards the young man, brandishing the knife
in one hand. ‘And now you’ve decided to come clean because you need my help. But you’re mistaken. The Church’s quarrels simply
do not interest me.’


Gerardo lifted up both his hands in a gesture that invited calm. ‘Please, before you decide, listen to me.’

‘Go on,’ said Mondino, without lowering the knife.

The young man explained that Angelo da Piczano was a confrère who had escaped the wave of arrests ordered by Pope Clement
V at the will of Philip the Fair of France, and taken refuge in Naples. They had met one another in Ravenna when Gerardo was
preparing to take his vows and they had become friends, despite the difference in age. Four months previously Angelo had written to him to say that he was coming to Bologna
on urgent business, naturally travelling incognito, and he asked if he could stay with Gerardo for a few days.


‘I answered that my house was at his disposal, and five days ago he arrived.’

‘Did he tell you what business brought him to the city?’ asked Mondino, interested despite himself. He had not understood
the reference to the Devil, but the amputated hands alone were enough to show that the Templar had not been killed in a tavern
brawl or a robbery.


‘No, and I didn’t ask him,’ answered Gerardo. ‘These are difficult times for us. The less we know about each other, the better.’

Mondino nodded, and the young man rapidly finished his story. That evening Angelo had asked him if he could borrow his room.
He had to meet someone and didn’t feel safe in any other place in the city because he feared a trap. Gerardo had explained
how to escape across the rooftops in case of danger. Then he went out to have supper in a tavern behind the Mercato di Mezzo,
doing his best to avoid the offers from prostitutes without letting them know that he was a monk.


‘Angelo had told me that the meeting would not take long and that I could come back after compline,’ he continued, briefly
turning to look at the corpse out of the corner of his eye. ‘When I returned to my room I found him lying on my bed, dead.
But I hardly had time to register the outrage that had been inflicted on his body because the Inquisition started knocking
at the door, obviously notified by the person who had killed him. I thought that it’d be better if they didn’t find his body
devastated in such a manner. I set fire to the house to distract them and made my escape over the rooftops, taking him with
me.’




‘And you decided to bring the problem along to me,’ said Mondino, having difficulty containing his fury.

It was Gerardo who was responsible for the fire. He would have to answer for that too. The shouting outside had diminished,
a sign that the flames had been overcome. The gravediggers would not be long now.


‘The fact is that I didn’t think I’d find you here at this hour, Master,’ said the Templar. ‘But I saw the light showing under
the door and I thought I’d knock.’


‘You’re lying! All my students know that I often come here at night to conduct anatomical experiments so as not to attract
too much attention.’


The young man nodded, admitting the truth. ‘The Inquisitor’s men were looking for me and they wouldn’t have taken long to
find me if I’d stayed out on the streets, hampered by my dead friend here. I needed help.’


Mondino thought of his uncle, Liuzzo, who had been predicting for some time that his habit of coming to their School of Medicine
at night to dissect corpses would sooner or later end in disaster. Liuzzo had really been thinking of him being attacked in
the street by some miscreant because he insisted on going out alone without wearing his physician’s red robe or even taking
an attendant as an escort. He would never have imagined anything of this sort.


‘Why didn’t you leave him where he was when you set the house on fire?’ he asked. ‘The Inquisitor would only have found a
body burned to a cinder that was wholly unrecognisable, and you would not have run enormous risks by taking him with you.’


Gerardo turned away from him, silently staring at the corpse on the table. A current of air fluttered the lamp’s flame and
for a second, because of the rapid movement of the shadow, it seemed as though Angelo da Piczano’s body had moved. Despite
himself, Mondino took a step back.




‘Answer me, Templar!’ he exclaimed, irritated for letting himself be frightened. He was still finding it difficult to address
the Templar by the name of Gerardo. The man’s face, long hair, blue eyes, athletic and well-proportioned frame, all corresponded
in his mind to an image to which he had given the name Francesco Salimbene from Imola. And now he resisted the idea of giving
him another.


‘Perhaps not all of him would have been burned,’ answered Gerardo, without turning round. ‘And what remained would have gravely
damaged our order. The accusation of adoring the Devil that has been levelled against us would have been well substantiated.’


It was the second time that he had referred to witchcraft, but the corpse spread out on the table had nothing strange about
it, apart from the amputated hands. The face conveyed an expression of stupor more than horror. Some dried blood in the short
hair at the nape of the neck suggested that he had been attacked from behind.


‘So,’ said Mondino, ‘you found this man murdered and left naked in your house. You dressed him, set fire to the house and
fled. How were you thinking of getting rid of his body?’


Gerardo opened his mouth wide, surprised. ‘How did you know that he was naked?’ Then he nodded. ‘Oh, I understand, the tunic.’

The fact that his surprise lasted so short a time slightly annoyed the doctor. But it was not the moment to worry about such
nonsense. He had to carry on talking and hope that the gravediggers would be there soon.


‘Exactly, the tunic,’ said Mondino. ‘It is stained with blood and yet there are no holes, a sign that the wound to the chest
was inflicted on this man when he was undressed. And perhaps,’ he continued, moving to the side to get a better view, ‘when
he was already dead or had fainted due to the blow to his head.’




‘Your perspicacity is worthy of your fame,’ said Gerardo. ‘You already know everything before you’ve even examined him.’

Despite himself, Mondino felt pleasure at a compliment that he sensed was sincere and he rebuked himself silently. Vanity
was one of his greatest defects.


‘You have referred to devilry more than once,’ he said. ‘What is so strange about that wound?’

Gerardo turned to look at him, with an expression that was both fearful and resolved. ‘See for yourself, Magister,’ he said.

Quickly but respectfully he lifted up the dead man’s chest and pulled the tunic over his head. As soon as Mondino saw the
chest wound his interest grew tenfold. He asked Gerardo to step back and stand between the benches of the lecture hall and,
without losing sight of the Templar, he approached the table and ran a finger of his free hand along the cold skin at the
edge of the wound.


‘The person who did this knows how to cut flesh and bone,’ he said with assurance. ‘It took me months of practice to make
such precise incisions.’


Under the livid skin, the sternum had been sawn lengthways and the ribs broken at the sides. To the left, there was a small
triangular hole. Having stunned him with the blow to his head, the murderer must have stabbed the heart with an awl or stiletto,
then got down to producing his work of art. It looked as though the man’s chest had been turned into a small casket and one
had only to open the door to see what it contained.


‘I closed it,’ said Gerardo, confirming his thoughts. ‘When I found him, stretched out on my bed, his chest was wide open
like an obscene mouth. And inside …’


He stopped short, won over by an emotion that could have been horror or pain. Mondino was no longer thinking of the gravediggers
who were about to arrive, or the fact that Gerardo might be a dangerous criminal on the loose. Now he only wanted to know the secret of the dead Templar. He rolled his
sleeves up to the elbows and put his fingers between the edges of the wound. The idea of a tabernacle came to mind. He banished
the thought as sacrilegious, but then it came to him with lightning intuition that perhaps this was the mysterious murderer’s
very intention. To make a mockery of religion by building a tabernacle out of flesh and bone in the chest of his victim.


However, he couldn’t waste any more time. In the room, there fell an unnatural silence in which any tiny movement sounded
like the crack of a whip. With the greatest care, he moved the sides of the wound apart and opened the two strips of flesh
in the chest.


He instinctively jumped backwards, giving a cry of horror that sounded all the more anguished in the empty hall.

Looking round, he stared at Gerardo, who was standing behind the bench almost as if it were a normal anatomy lesson, but there
was no sign of surprise or derision in his blue eyes. Just an attentive look, as though he knew exactly what the other man
was feeling.


Mondino wanted to say something but abhorrence silenced him. Taking control of himself, he went back to the table and looked
at the tormented breast again, without giving in to the impulse to turn away. What he saw, between the dried blood and the
broken bones, took his breath away, but in a certain sense calmed him down somewhat. It was ghastly, yet perfectly explicable.


‘Someone wanted to have some cruel fun with this poor fellow,’ he said, in a strained tone that was meant to sound relaxed.
‘And I agree with you that to desecrate a human body in this way makes one think of trade with the Devil. The murderer wanted
to transform the chest into a blasphemous tabernacle, sculpting a heart of iron to substitute the one of flesh and putting it in the place of the holy pyx with the communion wafers.’


‘It’s not a sculpture,’ said Gerardo, in a voice so low that Mondino thought he hadn’t heard properly.

‘What?’

‘The heart. It’s not a sculpture. Have a better look.’

Mondino looked again at the man’s gaping breast and saw clearly what in reality he had noticed before but had blotted out
because he couldn’t justify it.


The heart in Angelo da Piczano’s breast was a real human heart, transformed into a block of metal.

It couldn’t be otherwise, given the precision with which it was welded to the veins and arteries connecting it to the other
organs. There was absolute continuity, with no joins to be seen. It was a work of art that reflected a perfection more divine
than human, but twisted and oriented towards death rather than life. At that moment Mondino did not doubt that he was contemplating
the work of the Evil One.


He turned to Gerardo. All the certainty he had felt before deserted him, leaving a sense of parching thirst that prevented
him from speaking. Hurriedly, he brought the four pedestals with the lamps closer to the table. He had to see more clearly.
He had to know. To think. He was no longer interested in keeping an eye on Gerardo. He only had eyes for that open thorax,
full of dried blood, the now motionless organs devoid of the glimmer of life, and that heart converted into an abomination.


The perpetrator of the revolting spectacle was human, of that Mondino had no doubt. You could see the marks left by the teeth
of the saw on the bones of the thorax, and the Devil, as far as he knew, wouldn’t use such crude instruments. But the murderer
had certainly acted from an evil impulse. Why? What did he hope to accomplish?


All of a sudden he looked up, fearing that Gerardo would take advantage of his inattention to try to overpower him. But the young man hadn’t moved. He was staring at him with his
hands resting on the sloping surface of the desk where Mondino usually put his study books and the sheets of paper on which
he made notes.


‘I won’t do anything to harm you, Master,’ Gerardo said, reading his thoughts. ‘If I had wanted to, I would already have disarmed
you.’


‘Try, and you’ll get a surprise,’ countered Mondino, but without hostility in his voice.

He was distracted by a thought that made his insides vibrate with curiosity and fear. It was clear to his scientific mind
that the transformation of Angelo da Piczano’s heart was not the result of the shadowy spell of a witch, but the much more
concrete art of alchemy. Although a distorted alchemy, it was true. None of the treatises that he had read during his medical
studies had referred to the possibility of converting human blood into metal. At the time, Mondino had even got hold of a
copy of Liber Aneguemis, the Latin translation of an Arabic manuscript on the dark side of alchemy, but not even that made mention of such a horrible
thing.


And yet, if he could only lay his hands on the formula and apply it to a corpse, the entire vascular system passing through
the organs and muscles of the human body, which stubbornly escaped his every effort with the dissecting knife, would be revealed
with complete clarity, like a map, down to the smallest detail. And he would be able to copy it into the anatomical treatise
that he was preparing, for the benefit of medical science and all physicians of the present and future.


He turned to the Templar, who had not moved and was peering at him intensely. Mondino had the distinct sensation that he was
in front of another person, someone very different from the absent-minded student whom he had known from the first.




‘What would you do if I decided not to denounce you?’ he asked.

The young man allowed himself a slight smile. It was clear that he had understood Mondino’s interest in the corpse and the
secret that it contained, and thought he could turn this to his advantage.


‘Magister, help me to get rid of Angelo’s body. I will have a mass said for his soul, then I will dedicate myself completely
to finding his murderer,’ he said, firmly, as if Mondino had already made his decision.


And in a sense, thought the scientist with amazement, that was exactly how it was. He continued to tell himself that it was
ignoble and dangerous to conceal a murder, but given that Gerardo meant to catch the perpetrator anyway, justice would be
done in the end. He thought of the dangers to which he would be exposing himself and perhaps his family if he were caught.
He thought of the office of Magister of the Studium that he held, for which he had made so many sacrifices. But every objection melted away like snow before a fire. For the
dream had taken possession of his mind.


Suddenly, without thinking about it too much but in the full knowledge that they were rash words that he would later regret,
he looked Gerardo in the eye, laid down the knife on the table and said, ‘Very well, I’ll help you.’


Before he could add anything else there were two loud knocks at the door. A coarse voice shouted, ‘Open up, in the name of
the Holy Inquisition!’


Gerardo looked at him, afraid but motionless, waiting to see what happened.

Contemplating the man at the other end of the long oak table that almost divided the room in two, Remigio Sensi felt himself
transported back into the distant past, to a time when he had not yet returned to Bologna from the Kingdom of Aragon, and
was not yet an established banker.




He had first met Hugues de Narbonne in the city of Tortosa, on an occasion that he did not like to remember. Then as now,
the Knights of the Temple were among his best clients. They often needed money to buy a new horse or a present for a lover,
and they certainly couldn’t sign a letter of credit to their order for loans of that nature.


Remigio charged them a low rate of interest so as not to provoke the wrath of the Archbishop of Tarragona. In fact any loan
with interest was defined usury, but the Church knew that the Templars were necessary to wrench the south of Spain away from
the Moors, so closed its eyes to the activities of the moneylenders.


Nonetheless, Hugues de Narbonne had never had need of Remigio’s services. He had been Commander of the Vault of Acre, responsible
for the Templars’ vessels and all the merchandise carried in them, and even after the fall of Acre in 1291, he held important
offices within the order. He was not lacking in money, or lovers either it seemed, despite his vow of poverty and chastity.
As far as that of obedience was concerned, Remigio suspected that the Frenchman had made the vow to obey himself alone.


On the day that Hugues de Narbonne first came to see Remigio, he made it quite clear that he knew all about the banker and
his aff