“Do you want to know something else that is strange?” he asked dreamily. “I can still feel my leg. It’s as if it’s still attached to me. Every once in a while, I have a charley horse or a toe cramp and I feel it in that leg. What’s more, if I happen to be around the jar at the time of that charley horse or toe cramp, the calf of my leg will knot up in a spasm or my toe will jerk. You can actually watch it happen.”
By this time, he was making me extremely uncomfortable. “I…I’d better find the others,” I said hurriedly. “Thank you very much, though, you know…for letting me see your leg.” I fled to the hallway and retraced my steps to the foyer below. From there I headed in the direction I had seen the others go, through the house and down into the vast medicinal garden that lay between it and the river.
When I arrived at the laboratory at the garden’s far end, the boys had just finished transferring the mummy from the stretcher to a marble-topped examination table.
“What was it like?” Pasquale asked me. “The leg, I mean.”
Giorgio snorted stupidly. “I bet it made you swoon!”
“Nonsense!” I said. “I’ve helped to birth goats and lambs. My stomach is strong.”
“She’s from the country,” Pasquale explained.
Dr. Pellicola turned away from the examining table. “Ah! Here you are, Signorina Mari! Well! What did you think of Pepe’s leg?”
Not wishing to offend him, I replied, “It was very…it was interesting.”
“It is, isn’t it?”
“Back to the chapel with you now, lads. Chop! Chop!” Cesare told the boys. “I want that entire floor dug up by Vespers.”
“But you said we could see Signor Passalacqua’s leg,” Pasquale protested.
“After you see Signor Passalacqua’s leg then but be quick about it. No loitering.”
“I wonder if you would be so kind as to perform a small service for us before you leave,” Dr. Pellicola said to me. “Would you mind terribly fetching us a bottle of grappa? Isabella refuses to set foot out here and, besides, one hates to make the poor old thing walk such a long way with her bad hip.”
“She hates me,” Cesare said. “That’s the reason she won’t come.”
“Stuff and nonsense, Bacigalupo,” the doctor corrected him. “It’s the dead things she can’t stand. She has no stomach for them.”
“Or me,” Cesare persisted.
“I’ll do it gladly,” I said, welcoming the chance to have a better gander at the mummy.
Pellicola beamed. “There’s a girl! Just ask Isabella.”
I found the housekeeper crashing about the kitchen, muttering aloud to herself about it being unnatural to fawn over pieces of oneself no longer attached to one’s body. “And what do you want?” she demanded.
“The doctor would like some grappa.”
“Oh, he would, would he?”
“He sent me to fetch it.”
She snorted and pointed to a cabinet. “I tell you, I cannot fathom how in Heaven’s name he can expect me to continue in his employ when he is forever bringing dead things home! He’s like a cat! Like a cat that brings you dead mice and ravaged birds and expects you to be thrilled about the whole thing! And now this…a mummy! Well, I’m not thrilled!”
I returned to the laboratory with the bottle of grappa. The doctor and Cesare were standing on either side of the examination table, gazing intently down at the mummy. “Ah, here she is!” cried Pellicola. “To the rescue!” He relieved me of the bottle. “Care for any yourself, my dear?” I shook my head. “Very wise. It would stunt your growth and that would be a shame. You’re far too short as it is.” He crossed over to a cabinet from which he procured two glasses, opened the bottle, poured two shots, handed one to Cesare and raised his glass. “To our mysterious friend!”
“Our mysterious friend!” Cesare said. The two men tapped glasses and raised them. In the meantime, I commandeered a tall stool, situated it in such a way that it provided me with a good view of the mummy, and clambered up on it.
“Another?” asked the doctor.
“Please.”
The doctor poured; the men drank, then returned their attention to the mummy.
“What’s that around his neck?” Cesare pointed to a frayed fibrous tube encircling the mummy’s papery throat—easy to miss, being the same general color and texture as the rest of the mummy.
The doctor leaned in for a closer look. “I say! Good eye, Bacigalupo! That’s rope, if I’m not mistaken. Maybe our friend was executed by hanging.”
Cesare shook his head. “I don’t think so. You can’t bury a convicted felon or a suicide in sacred ground.”
“How do you explain the rope then?”
Cesare pondered this. “Maybe he was dragged about by means of it. The way prisoners are. Or slaves.”
“But how did he die?”
“Surely the more important question is: How did he become a mummy? We all die sooner or later, but very few of us go on to become mummies.”
“Good point! But let’s sit, shall we?” The doctor gestured toward a small, round table and four chairs positioned under a large bay window overlooking the rapids. “All this excitement! It’s left me somewhat fatigued.”
“Me too,” said Cesare.
“What about you, Signorina Mari? Will you sit?”
“I am content to remain as I am,” I replied.
The two men retired to the table and the doctor poured another couple of shots. “Since this isn’t Egypt, I’d wager our mummy is a natural rather than an artificial one. Probably his bodily fluids were so rapidly absorbed by mold present in the soil where he was buried that he dehydrated before he could properly decompose. I’d put my money on Hippa Bombicina Pers, a mold found in abundance in this region. You’ve seen it, Bacigalupo—those white flakes in the soil when you turn it with a shovel.”
“Interesting! Hippa Bomba…. Whatever! Dehydrated?” said Cesare. “I say, Pellicola, could I have another grappa? I am so excited about our dehydrated friend here that I am quite beside myself! After all, it’s not every day one finds a mummy!”
“Indeed!” The doctor poured two more shots.
Cesare raised his glass.” To the dead!”
“To the dead! Long may they continue thus!”
“I think that goes without saying!”
“But continue with your…you know…your discourse.” Cesare was slurring his words a little now. “You were speaking of…natural mummies. What causes them. Mold. That was it. Yup. A fascinating topic! Continue, sir!”
But the doctor had sagged into a kind of reverie, his head lolling to one side, a silver spindle of drool beginning to spiral its way down his chin from the corner of his gaping mouth.
“Pellicola!” Cesare managed. “You’re drifting!”
“What?” The doctor rallied himself, blinking. “Ah, yes. Mummies. Mold. Dehydration…” He too, was beginning to slur his words. “And what about Naples?”
“What about it?”
“In Naples, they bury their dead without coffins. Do you know why?”
“No.”
“Because of the volcano!”
“Monte Vesuvio?”
“The same!”
“The Neapolitans just hurl their dead into Monte Vesuvio?”
“No! Of course not!” Pellicola corrected him. “That would be cremation. In Naples, there’s a high percentage of volcanic ash in the soil—very dehydrating, volcanic ash! So, the Neapolitans bury their dead, then, after a year or so, they dig them up—all dried out and perfectly preserved—and put them in above-ground vaults.”
“A sensible people, the Neapolitans. To the Neapolitans!” Cesare raised his glass, then squinted at it. “Is this empty? I can’t focus.”
“It is!” said Pellicola. He filled it. “To the Neapolitans!”
&n
bsp; “To the Neapolitans!”
The two men sat for a moment, staring straight ahead, weaving to the extent that that was possible, given their seated position.
Then, “I say, Bacigalupo, is your glass empty?”
Bacigalupo held his glass at arm’s length and squinted at it. “So it would appear!”
“Girl! Where is that girl?” Pellicola muttered. “She was here just a minute ago.”
“I’m right here,” I told him.
The doctor stared at me; he was having trouble focusing. “So you are! Had me worried there for a moment. We need some more grappa.”
I glanced at the bottle. It was empty. “There’s no more,” I told him. “You drank it all.”
“No more? Nonsense! There’s always more. Off to the kitchen with you now. Straightaway! Tell that old biddy Isabella we need another bottle.”
I dismounted from the stool, returned to the house and fetched a fresh bottle of grappa. I arrived back at the laboratory to find the doctor relieving himself into a boxwood hedge just outside the door. I averted my eyes until he was finished and waited while he wobbled back inside before reentering the laboratory myself. “Ah, it’s you!” he greeted me. “What took you so long?”
I handed him the bottle. He poured Cesare and himself another glass and raised it. “To…who? What? Who are we toasting?”
“To whoever the mummy was in life!” Cesare suggested.
“To you! Whoever you were, you sorry specimen! You miserable wretch!”
“How do you know he was a miserable wretch?” Cesare wondered. “Maybe he was a happy man, prosperous, with a large and loving family.”
The doctor sniggered, hiccupped, and managed, “I doubt it!” before placing his elbows on the table and laying his right cheek on his forearms. His eyes slid shut.
“What? Pellicola? Are you asleep?”
The doctor mumbled something incoherent.
“Oh, very well then! If you’re going to be that way.” And Cesare too, set his elbows on the table and slumped forward, his forehead resting on the back of his hands.
I walked over to the examination table and stared down at the mummy—at the brittle leather of its skin, the yawning eye sockets, the howl frozen on its twisted face, the mop of matted hair atop its head. “Who are you?” I whispered. “Who are you and what’s your story?”
No reply.
I left the laboratory, closing the door quietly behind me so as not to wake Cesare and Pellicola. As I made my way through the herb garden, I encountered Pepe coming the other way, carrying a battered looking saddle.
“Are you going out riding?” I asked.
“Perhaps,” he replied. “But first I want to look in on my cousin and his newest acquisition.”
“They drank too much grappa and fell asleep,” I told him. “Best let them sleep it off.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of disturbing them,” Pepe assured me. “I can be very quiet. Very quiet, indeed! I just want to have a peek at our new friend. Just a peek.”
I shrugged. “Do as you like.”
Pepe smiled. His scar was shiny and dappled, like abalone, and his teeth were a peculiar shade of green. “I always do.”
Cesare returned to the house for dinner, rumpled and dazed. He reported that the mummy discovered earlier that day had vanished from the laboratory as he and the doctor napped. So, coincidently, had Pepe.
“I saw him,” I said. “We crossed paths in the doctor’s garden. He said he wanted to take a peek at the mummy.”
“I expect that villain stole it then,” said Antonella, ladling thick stew into bowls and sounding faintly triumphant. “He probably intends to sell it. And a pretty penny he’ll make, too, now that’s it’s in such short supply.”
“Sell it?” I asked. “To whom? For what?”
“An apothecary, of course. For mummia!” Then, at the blank look on my face, “Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of mummia?”
“Now, Antonella! Mari can’t help it if she is a little backward. Country folk always are.” He attempted to take her hand, but she snatched it away. “Sit down, dearest,” he pleaded. “You will have to get used to it, you know, once we are married.”
“And until that sad day, I will eat my meals in the kitchen, like the poor relation I am!” Antonella proclaimed. In proof of which point, she retreated to the kitchen; she did not, however, close the door to the dining room.
Cesare sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Mummia is mummy flesh,” he told me. “Fantastic stuff, really. It’s used to restore wasted limbs and to treat heckticks. It even cures ulcers and corruptions.”
“What are heckticks?” I asked.
“The fidgets,” Antonella answered from the kitchen.
I was intrigued. “Mummy flesh is a medicine with specific applications? Like foxglove for dropsy or mugwort for arthritis? What a concept! And how do you administer it? Do you…eat it?”
“Sometimes, but mostly it’s applied topically,” said Cesare. “An apothecary will process it into tinctures, elixir, treacle, and balsams, then use it to treat patients. It’s terribly rare right now, the imports from Egypt having recently dried up.”
“Your mummy will fetch a good price. That’s for sure,” observed Antonella. “And Signor Passalacqua will drink and gamble it all away in no time!”
“Look, Antonella, it’s ridiculous for you to be in the other room if you’re going to continue to talk to us!” Cesare objected.
I poked around in my stew; it was a uniform brown color and very glutinous. Antonella was not a very good cook. “Is there one of those…what do you call it…the person who makes the medicine…is there such a person in Casteldurante?”
“An apothecary?” said Cesare. “Why, yes. There are two, in fact—Giovanni Bertoldi and…ummm?”
“Alphonso Lanza,” Antonella supplied the name.
“Well, why don’t you check with them and see if Signor Passalacqua has approached them?”
Antonella snorted. “Hah! As if that would work!”
“I’m afraid she’s right,” Cesare agreed. “Pepe is not so stupid as that. No, he would have spirited it out of town most likely—to Urbino or Fossembrone perhaps.”
“But how would he get there?” Antonella wondered. “With a mummy in tow?”
I remembered the saddle. “On horseback. When I saw him he was carrying a saddle.”
“Well, that’s that then!” said Cesare glumly. “He’s gone and won’t be back until he runs out of money. Pellicola is a brilliant fellow, but he has a real blind spot when it comes to his cousin. He thinks that Pepe can do no wrong and cannot be convinced otherwise. Too bad. I was thinking of having a glass cabinet made so that we might properly exhibit our mummy.”
“And where did you think you were going to put that case?” demanded Antonella. “Not in my house, I hope!”
“In the Capella Cola, my dear, in the chapel! Will you please come and sit down with us, Antonella? Please!”
“I’m not saying another word!”
That night, I described the events of the day to Lady Sibylla.
“That priest knows something and I’m just the one to make him talk!” she declared.
“But how, Milady? How can you possibly do that?”
“He’s the one who likes mugwort, and your mother sent a big bag of mugwort down with me and that appalling cheese. It’s probably still in the satchel. Tell his housekeeper that your mother sent it for him and you’d like to give it to him.”
“And then?”
“You take me along with you in the satchel. When we get him alone, I will speak to him.”
“How?”
“The same way I am speaking to you now. You know that thing I do when I sound like I’m everywhere and nowhere at the same time? I’ll do that. Trust me, Mariuccia Umbellino. The priest�
��s a superstitious man. He won’t doubt that I am who I say I am. I’ll give him such a fright that he’ll spill the beans.”
The following morning, Padre Eusebio woke with a start. Someone was knocking on his door. No. Not knocking. Pounding.
“What? Who? What is it?” was all he could manage. His brain was still tangled up in dreams. Terrifying dreams. That the body had been found. Finally found after all these years.
“It’s Caterina Assaroti,” came the reply through the door. “You have visitors.”
“At this hour of the morning?”
“It’s ten o’clock, Padre!”
“I’m sick! I ache all over. Tell them to go away.”
“That’s just it, Padre. It’s Signorina Umbellino. She’s brought you mugwort. For your arthritis.”
“Ooooh,” said Padre Eusebio. On the one hand, he couldn’t bear to see another human soul, not until he wrapped his mind around exactly what had happened the previous day—for some reason he was having difficulty remembering just what that was.
On the other hand, the relief that mugwort would bring him was sorely tempting. “Oh, all right.” Everything will be all right, he told himself, as long as nobody digs up the floor of the chapel. Then he remembered. Someone had. Someone had dug up the floor of the chapel and the body had been found! “Oh, my stars!” he whispered, shrinking beneath his bedcovers as the door opened and Signora Assaroti ushered me into the dark bedroom, saying, “I will leave you to find your own way out. I’m off to market.”
“Take your time,” I said, retrieving a chair from beside the window and repositioning it at the old man’s bedside. I sat down, the satchel on my lap. “I understand you’re not feeling well.”
“When have I ever felt well?” complained the old priest. “If there was a time, I can’t remember it. Old age is a terrible burden. Die young. That’s my advice.”
“Mama sent you down some mugwort. I’d forgotten about it until last night when I was going through the satchel she sent. It should relieve your suffering a little.”
The Oracle of Cumae Page 17
