The Heretic's Mark

by S. W. Perry

  ‘Signori,’ Fabrici begins, ‘the ancients from whom we take our guidance are wont to consider the human body a singular thing – a man in his entirety.’ He places one hand over his heart. ‘I believe we can do better. It is not enough to learn how a limb functions. That is not true knowledge. A leg is nothing if it is to be considered only as a collection of bones, sinew and muscle. How can a runner imagine the triumph of victory, if his legs are no more to him than that? Therefore we must look deeper into the structure. We must consider purpose… the beauty of the effect… the promise… A man is so much more than the sum of his parts. He is made in the image of God. The purpose of those parts is to give him his godliness.’

  Fabrici snaps his fingers. One of the servants steps forward and opens the second box. The students peer closer. Resting upon a bed of chipped ice, like a pair of shiny pickled onions, are two human eyeballs. At his side, Nicholas hears Bruno make a strangled little gasp.

  ‘Plato tells us the human eye is fiery in its humour,’ Fabrici runs on, ‘and that it mirrors the cosmos, in that – like the earth – it is at the centre of perception, surrounded by crystalline spheres. Galen holds that it is filled with pneuma, the life spirit. Aristotle suggests that the humour pertaining to it is aqueous. What are we to make of these conflicting claims?’

  The professor takes a trocar from the instrument chest and, with the hollowed tip, straightens the two tails of blood vessel and optic nerve. He likes things neat.

  ‘It is believed by most professors of optics and their students that sight is the manifestation of certain rays, or emanations, that are emitted by the eye,’ Fabrici continues. ‘These fan out to alight upon what is before them, somehow transmitting the result to our perception. I do not believe that.’ He looks around to see if there is any disagreement. There is none, or at least none voiced. ‘I believe the eye is a receptacle. It gathers emanations from the objects themselves. It does not project them. And those emanations are bound by light. Let us see if we can find anything in the eye that proves I am wrong.’

  And so saying, he picks up one eyeball from the box and lays it on the Bergamo linen. He takes a scalpel from the other box and punctures the sclera. A little bubbling dribble spills out around the incision. The chamber is silent – save for the sound of Bruno Barrani’s body hitting the floor.

  ‘I will see that image in my mind for the rest of my life,’ Bruno complains as he and Nicholas leave the Palazzo Bo around noon. ‘You might have warned me.’

  ‘I thought you had the stomach of a lion?’ Nicholas replies, trying not to laugh.

  The early mist has burned off and the sky is cloudless. The light paints the buildings a pale gold. In the arcades of the Piazza delle Erbe the fruit and vegetable stalls are a blaze of greens, oranges, reds and purples. The citizens parade in their finery. Only Bruno’s face is without colour.

  ‘I think I might forget about the statue,’ he says sadly. He squeezes his eyes tight shut and shakes his head vigorously. ‘One thing’s for certain: I’ll never be able to eat oysters again.’

  They have arranged to meet Bianca by the Palazzo del Podestà. She has been shopping for supper. They find her waiting for them, a wicker basket by her feet. Bruno makes another of his extravagant bows. ‘Cousin!’ he cries. ‘Your beauty outshines bright Phoebus himself. Once again you look positively blooming.’

  Bianca replies with a little bob of a curtsey. ‘I’ve bought some fine folpetti,’ she says proudly, and then to Nicholas, ‘That’s octopus.’

  ‘Oh, good,’ says Bruno quietly.

  A few minutes’ walk takes them back to the house in the Borgo dei Argentieri. The conversation is inconsequential, lazy exchanges of friendly banter in the sunshine. Carefree laughter. Past moments revisited. Nicholas’s attention wanders to the colourful city. Three times on the journey he sees a man in a grey coat and a black cloth cap, and three times he knows he is looking only at a shadow, or a trick of the light.

  At the Barrani house the three Corio cousins whom Bruno has hired as guards are sitting against the street wall playing knuckle-bones. The street door is open, giving a view through the passageway into the sunlit courtyard beyond. Nicholas can see figures standing around the table by the mulberry tree. One is Galileo’s pupil, Matteo Fedele. He is in animated conversation with Bruno’s servant, Luca. Judging by the rolls of parchment on the table, he has brought more calculations from Signor Galileo’s house.

  As Nicholas, Bianca and Bruno emerge into the bright theatre of the courtyard, Luca turns towards them and says, ‘Master, we have company.’

  Now Nicholas can see more clearly the other two figures standing around the table. One is Alonso. The other is a young woman with fair hair, wearing a plain brown cloth kirtle. He senses Bianca freeze at his side.

  ‘Master, we have a visitor,’ says Alonso, making a careless bow to Bruno Barrani. ‘This pious signorina has come from the Beguinage at the Seminary Maggiore. She says she is a friend of your guests. She has come to be remembered to them.’

  Bruno is already making another extravagant bend of the knee, his habit whenever he meets a female unknown to him, be she six or sixty. But Nicholas and Bianca are rooted to the spot.

  ‘Good morrow, Meneer Nicholas… Mevrouw Bianca,’ says Hella Maas, presenting them with one of her cold, emotionless smiles. ‘Praise be to God! He has brought you safely to your destination.’

  30

  ‘What are you doing here, Hella? This is not Rome. Have you decided the Pope no longer needs you to pray for him?’ Bianca’s voice is frostier than Nicholas has ever heard it.

  ‘What manner of welcome is this?’ Hella Maas says in quiet voice. ‘After all the weeks we spent together on the Via Francigena, and after all the effort I expended finding you.’ She tilts her head towards Nicholas, her eyes widening as though searching for a friendly face. ‘Surely you are pleased to see me, even if your wife isn’t.’

  ‘I think you should answer my wife’s question.’

  Bruno’s eyes flick from the stranger to Nicholas, then to Bianca. The tension in her body isn’t lost on him. She’s as rigid as if she’s just spotted a viper at her feet.

  ‘I changed my mind,’ Hella says, suddenly cheerful again. ‘Rome can wait awhile. Padua is such a fine city. Much finer than Den Bosch, don’t you think?’

  ‘How did you know where to find us?’ Nicholas asks.

  ‘Easily. Bianca mentioned her cousin more than once in all those weeks we were together. I am lodging at the Beguinage. All I had to do was ask the Sisters to enquire after one Bruno Barrani. It seems he has some small fame in this city. So now here I am – though I must confess I had thought to find a warmer welcome.’

  Bruno looks perplexed. ‘You don’t seem joyful to see your friend, Cousin – and after such companionship on the road. Is there something wrong?’

  Bianca doesn’t answer him. Her eyes remain locked on the newcomer. ‘What is it you want with us, Hella? I thought we had said all we have to say to each other.’

  ‘I wanted to see Nicholas again. I have need of a physician’s skill.’

  ‘You are ill?’

  ‘I am sick of heart.’

  Bianca lets out a stunted laugh of derision. ‘There are numerous churches in this city, Hella. If you need your heart healed, any one of them will service your needs. Just light a candle and leave a coin. God knows, it’s not as though you don’t know how to pray.’

  ‘Cousin, are you not being uncharitable to Signorina Maas?’ Bruno asks, his fine black eyebrows lifting in surprise. ‘It seems she has come a long way to meet only coldness.’

  ‘Signorina Maas is a young maid who hasn’t yet learned how to curb her tongue in adult company. I thought we had heard the last of her.’

  ‘Cousin, this is unlike you. When did your own tongue become so heartless?’

  ‘You don’t know her, Bruno. On the journey here, she said things – bad things… hurtful things.’

  Hella adopts a contrite expres
sion that neither Bianca nor Nicholas has seen before. ‘I confess it,’ she says. ‘On occasion the demands of the journey brought about a certain ill humour in me.’

  ‘Only on occasion?’ Bianca mutters under her breath.

  Hella seems not to have heard her. ‘My feet were sore. I was not as kind as I could have been. That was wrong. Every day since we parted at the hospice of St Bernard I have prayed to God to forgive me.’

  ‘There, you see,’ says Bruno, pleased by the result of his impromptu diplomacy. ‘All is now made up. Greet your friend kindly, Cousin, and Alonso will prepare us a tasty dish of that folpetti you bought in the Palazzo delle Erbe. If Signorina Maas has expended so much effort in finding us, the least we can do is offer her some proper Paduan hospitality. Let no one say of Bruno Barrani that he sent a Sister of charity from his house empty-handed and hungry.’

  Hella says to Bruno, in Italian, ‘You are generous, Signor Barrani. God likes generosity, especially to a stranger. Will you permit me to help your servants prepare the meal? It would be an honour for me to recompense your kindness.’

  ‘Can you cook, Signorina?’ Bruno says, flattered.

  ‘Well enough.’

  Matteo Fedele chips in. ‘That’s not all she can do.’ He points to the rolls of paper on the table. ‘We’ve been having a discussion about the calculations I’ve made for the gearing for the orbit of Mars. She has a rare grasp of mathematics – for a maid.’

  ‘Then you are doubly welcome, Signorina,’ Bruno says. ‘Do you plan to stay long in Padua? We could well put your skills to use, in the Arte dei Astronomi. Poor Matteo is a slow fellow unless the whip is applied liberally, or so Signor Galileo tells me.’

  Bianca opens her mouth to protest. But Bruno and Matteo, engaged in an impromptu bout of mock-sparring, are too distracted to notice. She drops her shoulders and shakes her head in slow despair.

  ‘Bruno is a fool where women are concerned, even ones dressed in plain kersey and brimful of dubious piety,’ she says softly to Nicholas. ‘Hella’s up to something. I know it. And I have a very bad feeling that you are at the centre of it.’

  The supper, taken in the warm afternoon air, is a torture. For Nicholas and Bianca, it is like being the only two people at a revel who have realized how the illusions are performed, or who know that the singers are out of key and the dancers clumsy. They eat unenthusiastically, while Bruno and Matteo take turns to fawn over the new arrival. Both men seem entranced by Hella’s ability to converse on matters mathematical, though Bianca suspects most of it is lost on her cousin, who is only pretending in order not to look less able than Galileo’s pupil.

  It is the first time in all the weeks since leaving Den Bosch that they have seen Hella in the company of men other than priests. She displays a worldliness that neither is expecting. She speaks when not actively invited to do so, does not lower her gaze submissively when either man declaims. She takes the conversation where she chooses, rather than following. If Bianca did not know any better, she would admire it. What is certain to her is that this is not the character of a maid who has given herself up to prayer and humility in the service of God. When Matteo and Bruno boast of the great sphere they are building for his Serene Highness the doge, there is no stern lecture on the folly of seeking knowledge, no hectoring about curiosity opening the door to the Devil’s designs. Instead Hella appears to have adopted the technical mind of a student of astronomy.

  ‘How will the retrograde motions of the planets be depicted?’ she asks. Then, when the answer has been given to her satisfaction by a beaming Matteo, ‘How have you calculated the representative distance between their orbits?’ And when this has been explained, ‘How far into the future will you show the precession of the equinoxes?’

  Bianca chews noisily on a piece of octopus and tries to stop herself pulling a face. What game Hella is playing she cannot determine. But there is no question in her mind that a game is exactly what it is. Nor is there any question about the meaning of those not-so-discreet glances she keeps throwing at Nicholas.

  ‘Forgive me for sounding harsh, Cousin, but I cannot remain here in this house if that woman is to be your guest.’

  The supper is over. Alonso and Matteo Fedele are accompanying Hella back to the Beguinage. She has left them as the latest addition to the Arte dei Astronomi, proposed by Matteo and unreservedly approved by Bruno. ‘If they had a crown, they’d have anointed her queen,’ Bianca whispered angrily to Nicholas after she’d departed.

  ‘Did Signorina Maas’s offer of reconciliation not move you?’ Bruno asks.

  Bianca’s amber eyes blaze dangerously. Nicholas can see she has that set to her jaw that those who know her well recognize as a warning to tread carefully.

  ‘It was not hers to make.’

  ‘Surely it could have been no more than a minor falling-out, Cousin,’ Bruno says. ‘She would not have taken the trouble to seek you out otherwise. I see no poison in her.’

  ‘If there isn’t – there ought to be. You weren’t there, Bruno.’

  But Bruno is nothing if not a conciliator. ‘Come, it is a warm evening and we have had good company. This is not the time to harbour ill will.’

  ‘I wish to say no more on the matter. If you would prefer that we sought lodgings elsewhere—’

  Bruno looks hurt. ‘Of course not. You are kin. I would not think of it.’ Then, with the merest hint of an astute smile, he turns to Nicholas. ‘Is it perhaps that Signorina Hella is in need of a cure that has nothing to do with medicine? A cure that only you can provide?’

  Nicholas opens his mouth to deny it, but Bianca breaks in. ‘Please, Cousin, if you bear any love for Nicholas and me, keep that woman away from us.’

  And with that, she kisses Bruno demurely on the cheek, thanks him kindly for the meal and sets off for the chamber she and Nicholas share, as though it has all been nothing but a foolish misunderstanding. Though from the tautness in her stride, Nicholas knows that inside she is screaming.

  ‘Was Bruno right? Are you frightened I’ll let Hella lead me by the hand to adultery? Why would you even think that?’

  Nicholas has asked because Bianca has started to cry. She is crying only softly, and were it not for the slight movement in her shoulders he would never know it. It is something he has seen her do only rarely, and never when they are lying together in a tangle of sheets, the fire of lovemaking cooling on their bodies. The window shutters are thrown open to air the chamber. It is almost night. Outside in the Borgo dei Argentieri comes the sound of young gallants singing praise to wine, women or honour.

  Bianca does not answer him.

  ‘Is it what she said in Reims, about a dead child? Is that still preying on your mind?’ He runs a soothing hand through her hair.

  Still no answer.

  ‘Listen to me, Bianca. When she spoke those words, yes, I admit it, they brought back old memories I thought I had buried. But only for a while. I have had plenty of time on the road since then to consider their effect. I have made peace with my past. I have let Eleanor’s memory go. You must, too.’

  Bianca draws a slow, steadying breath. She thinks: what can I say to you? What can I confess that will not cause my fear to burst free from its chains? Like a ghost whispering in a graveyard, the words Hella had spoken on the road outside Mouthier-Haut-Pierre insinuate themselves into her mind: It will break his heart when the child you are carrying is stillborn… No, she thinks, I cannot tell you what I truly fear. Because to do so will mean acknowledging the utterly unacceptable truth, which is that Hella isn’t the street-huckster I thought she was, a charlatan peddling tricks to turn a husband away from his wife. It means considering the possibility that she has somehow cursed me. That she knows what the future holds for a body that isn’t hers – my body. Which means she has control over my happiness. Our happiness. And that I will never do. Especially now that my menses are overdue and – according to Bruno, who seems to be the only one of us who has noticed – I am apparently blooming.
r />   31

  Rose Monkton hurries up Woodroffe Lane on a windy morning in late September. The trees in the gardens of the fine houses north of Tower Hill are starting to lose their summer bloom. Soon the leaves will begin to fall, to die.

  Death has been much on Rose’s mind of late. She has come across London Bridge today determined that if he is to take anyone in the coming days, it will not be her husband Ned.

  She has visited him every day since he was returned in chains to the Marshalsea from the Queen’s Bench, a condemned man with a very temporary stay of execution. In her presence Ned has been unconvincingly jovial, almost unconcerned. But she knows from the gaoler that he spends some of the money she provides, to keep him free of manacles and in a private room, on jugs of fiery bingo to numb the fear. Sometimes she can smell the spirit on his breath. Once she noticed an empty pitcher in his room. He told her he used it as a piss-pot. It is the only time, she is sure, that he has ever lied to her.

  The past few days have not been easy for her. The work on the Jackdaw, though progressing well, cannot be left entirely unattended, and Mistress Bianca would not want her weeping into her sleeve all day. Rose has tried hard to be ordered and restrained, but it is not in her nature. After all, she knows Mistress Bianca is wont to refer to her as my Mistress Moonbeam and – when irritated – likens her brain to a cauldron of pottage: full of scraps and constantly bubbling. But since the day the magistrate set down his awful sentence, Rose has shown a determination that would astound Bianca – wherever she is.