by Mary Hoffman
‘Your circumstances have been explained to me by your Abbot. Sanctuary is an honourable tradition and I do not dispute his right to offer it to you. However, in the light of what has happened since your arrival – in this previously peaceable and unremarkable community – I do question his judgment.’
‘I am not guilty of any murder, Father, neither the one I was accused of in Perugia nor either of the ones here. I am as anxious as anyone to discover the culprit.’
‘Describe your movements on the night the merchant Ubaldo was stabbed.’
‘I went to look for Brother Anselmo in his cell. He had not been well at dinner and I was concerned about him.’
‘You have developed an attachment to Brother Anselmo? Would you have gone in search of any other brother who had been taken sick?’
Silvano hesitated. ‘Probably not. I am . . . close to Brother Anselmo. He is my master in the colour room and he has been kind to me.’
‘If you were a real friar, I should admonish you about that. We are not to prize any brother over another, any human being over another. Our Lord himself exhorted his disciples to leave their families and follow him. Any human attachment is a distraction from the Lord’s work.’
‘But I am not a real friar,’ said Silvano quietly.
Michele da Cesena frowned at him, his shaggy brows knotted over his piercing eyes. Then the grim face seemed to relax a little.
‘No. And I should tell you in all honesty that, since you are not, I have no jurisdiction over you. You do not even have to answer my questions, though I advise that you do.’
Harsh but fair, thought Silvano. ‘I am willing to answer your questions,’ he said.
‘Good. Was Brother Anselmo in his cell when you went to look for him?’
‘No. He came up while I was standing outside his door.’
‘And where had he been?’
‘For a walk in the grounds. He said he needed some fresh air.’
‘That was what he told the Abbot. And that he needed to wrestle with a desire to go and confront the merchant.’
‘Then if that is what he said, I for one would believe him,’ said Silvano.
‘Ah, but we have established that you have a special closeness to Brother Anselmo,’ said the Minister General. ‘It diminishes the value of your opinion on this matter. What about the other murder? Where were you when Brother Landolfo was poisoned?’
‘Exactly where when the poison entered his body, I can’t say,’ admitted Silvano, trying to be scrupulously precise with this exacting inquisitor. ‘But I was there when he was taken ill. Virtually all of us were. It happened in the refectory.’
‘And Brother Anselmo was there too?’
‘Yes. He tried to help Brother Rufino, who was looking after Brother Landolfo.’
‘But unsuccessfully.’
‘Yes. It was too late. Brother Landolfo started to have fits and died very quickly.’
‘You have denied any involvement in the deaths of these brothers,’ said the Minister General. ‘Do you know who was involved?’
‘I have thought of little else since they happened,’ said Silvano. ‘I still have no idea.’
‘Who could have administered poison to Brother Landolfo?’
‘Well, the cook, I suppose, Bertuccio. He is a lay brother.’
‘I have questioned Brother Bertuccio and he denies it.’
‘He had no reason to kill Landolfo, it’s true. He liked him – everyone did.’
‘Someone apparently did not,’ said the Minister General drily.
‘Well, I suppose anyone in the refectory could have put poison in his food,’ admitted Silvano.
‘Who has access to arsenikon?’ asked the Minister General.
‘Brother Anselmo,’ admitted Silvano, caught off guard. ‘But also Brother Fazio. He uses it for his manuscripts and we don’t make much of it in the colour room, though I have seen some there. Any brother could have got it from there or from Fazio’s cell.’
Michele da Cesena suddenly whipped out a dagger and held it less than an inch from Silvano’s face.
‘You know what this is?’
Silvano had flinched only slightly. With a great effort of will he kept his head steady. ‘It is a dagger, Father. Since no friar carries one, I assume it is the one belonging to the merchant. But it is too close to my eyes for me to distinguish.’
The Minister General lowered the weapon and offered it to Silvano, handle first.
‘Take a better look, then. Give me your opinion.’
Silvano took it uneasily and weighed it in his hand. ‘It is a good weapon, well balanced.’
‘Do you miss your own?’
‘No,’ said Silvano honestly. ‘Since it was used to kill a man, I have not wanted to carry a dagger of my own.’
‘And yet that is what it is for, is it not? Why did you ever carry one?’
‘To defend myself. The city can be a dangerous place.’
‘So it would seem,’ said Michele da Cesena.
‘I thought it would have gone back to Gubbio with all his other possessions,’ said Silvano, handing the knife back. The blade had been cleaned but he sensed the blood on it still.
‘The Abbot thought it would be insensitive to include the weapon that killed him among his belongings. I doubt any of his sons will want to carry it.’
The Minister General eyed Silvano as if weighing his soul. With a swift blow, he struck the dagger into the table in front of him, where it quivered, the hilt making the shape of a cross.
‘Pray with me!’ he suddenly ordered, pointing to the ground.
The two men knelt on the flagstones and the chaplain put down his pen, flexing his fingers.
Michele da Cesena prayed tirelessly aloud and Silvano’s knees were screaming for mercy long before he had finished. But he joined in when he was required, giving the right responses.
‘And now I shall hear your confession,’ said the Minister General at last, getting to his feet but indicating that Silvano should remain kneeling.
Silvano glanced towards the chaplain; he had never heard of public confession.
‘Take no notice of him,’ said the Minister General. ‘Just tell me your sins.’
Chiara was making a rich red in the colour room. Although she had had no further experience of dragonsblood since her first day, she knew quite a lot about hematite. ‘Blood stone’ Sister Veronica called it and it was a hard natural rock of a purple colour. It was so strong it had to be pounded in a bronze mortar before it could be ground more finely on a slab.
Chiara pounded at her allocation of blood stone with a will. If only she could get the lumps out of her thoughts as easily! She had not been sleeping well since the artist Simone had suggested that the murderer might be a lunatic. At night her thoughts went round and round in her head, and when she did sleep, the nightmares came. Hooded figures with dripping daggers jumped out at her from the shadows. Ghostly assassins lurked behind every door.
‘Don’t break the mortar, Sister,’ said Sister Veronica and Chiara realised that she was letting her feelings show.
To stay or to go was still her main dilemma. And that was confused by her growing feelings for Silvano. Even if she pushed those feelings aside, she couldn’t leave the convent without knowing that the terrible crimes committed so nearby had been solved. True, she would be safe in Gubbio, and not just from shadowy killers, but she could not forget that every sister and brother in Giardinetto would still be in danger. And one brother in particular, whose fair body she could not bear to think of being stabbed or poisoned.
Perhaps this visit from the Minister General would flush out the murderer? Everyone said he had a formidable intellect. Chiara was a bit apprehensive about his visit to the convent; he was due to celebrate Mass there as soon as he had finish
ed questioning the friars next door.
‘He’s here,’ announced Sister Eufemia, coming to the door of the colour room. ‘You are all requested to come to the chapel.’
The sisters’ chapel was more like a long bare room; it had no bell tower and little by way of decoration. The sisters sat on benches and there was a rough stone slab for an altar with a wooden cross and two wooden candlesticks at the east end. On the wall behind it was an old panel painting of the Crucifixion. Chiara looked at it more critically now than when she had first come to Giardinetto. She could tell what pigments had gone into its painting and could compare it with images she had seen at Assisi.
But it was still a strong piece of work, strong enough to draw her gaze again in spite of the dark figure standing in front of it. The Minister General’s chaplain acted as server and the Mass was conducted with severe dignity. As one of the youngest sisters and the most recent novice, Chiara took the Host last. As she raised her face for Michele da Cesena to place the consecrated bread in her mouth, she caught a glimpse of the dark brow and glittering eyes and it was all she could do not to pull away.
Had he discovered anything? It was impossible to tell. He certainly wouldn’t tell her, the least significant member of the convent. Perhaps he would have news for the Abbess?
Monna Isabella was expecting a visitor. When he was shown in to see her, he found her in the merchant’s old office; she saved her sitting room for social visits now.
‘Ah, Ser Bernardo,’ she greeted him.
Bernardo came into the room nervously, unsure why this wealthy woman had sent for him.
‘I wanted to talk to you about your sister,’ said Isabella.
‘Chiara?’ asked Bernardo. It was the last thing he had been expecting.
‘Only she is not called Chiara any more, is she?’ asked Isabella. ‘Her given name has been taken away from her and she is now Sister Orsola.’
‘You have met her, Madama?’
‘Yes. You may have heard that my husband died at Giardinetto. Your sister helped to take care of me when I went to bring home his body. I was very taken with her – and her situation.’
‘Her situation, Madama? It is not different from that of many young women without dowries.’
‘I don’t doubt it. But she has no calling and I have offered her a place in my home. And a dowry too, should she ever need one. She will live here and be my companion and friend. I have only one daughter and she is too young to be a confidante.’
Bernardo was uncomfortable. Isabella’s generosity made him feel as if he had wronged his sister and he had convinced himself that he had done his best for her.
‘Since you handed your sister over to the nuns,’ said Isabella, ‘I don’t feel I have to ask your permission to invite her into my household. But I take it you don’t have any objections?’
‘No,’ said Bernardo, bemused. If she wasn’t asking his permission to give Chiara a home, why had she summoned him? ‘It is very kind of you.’
‘Another widow, from Perugia, is setting herself up as a wool merchant in Gubbio,’ said Isabella. ‘And I have decided to keep on my husband’s business myself.’
This sudden change of subject perplexed Bernardo even more. He hadn’t heard of women running trading businesses and now here apparently there were two! Did this formidable lady want to train Chiara up to follow in her footsteps?
‘I shall need a manager,’ Isabella was saying. ‘And I wondered if you’d be interested in working for me?’
Bernardo was stunned. This was the answer to his prayers. Since Isabella’s husband must have had business premises, he could sell his own small trading post and pay off his debts. Monna Isabella must surely be his guardian angel! And if she wanted to be Chiara’s too, so be it.
The Minister General was on the road out of Giardinetto. He was profoundly disappointed in his mission. In spite of rigorous questioning, intimidation and threats of eternal damnation, he still had no idea who the murderer was. He wrestled with his feelings, knowing that it was more the idea of his diminished authority that distressed him, than the absolute failure to identify a murderous brother.
He was silent on the journey back to Assisi and his chaplain was grateful; he had heard enough words in the last two days to last him for a long time.
They encountered a lone horseman, who raised his hat, passed them, stopped and turned and retraced the horse’s paces.
‘Forgive me, Father, but are you Michele da Cesena?’ the stranger asked.
A curt nod encouraged him to continue. ‘I believe you have been investigating the merchant Ubaldo’s murder at Giardinetto? I am Umberto, his younger brother. May I ask if you have had any success?’
‘I have not,’ said the Minister General, with a brow of thunder.
‘Perhaps I could offer you a piece of information?’ suggested Umberto.
And there on the dusty road he told the Minister General what he had heard about Brother Anselmo at Giardinetto.
Michele da Cesena had heard the same story from Anselmo’s lips: his youthful passion, the loss of his beloved and his nearly twenty years of devotion to the religious life since; his shock at seeing Ubaldo at the friary and hearing his wife spoken of; his decision not to confront the merchant but to let sleeping dogs lie.
But now, away from the influence of Anselmo’s own sincere voice and truthful eyes, it sounded different. A sordid story of jealousy, sexual rivalry and revenge.
Striving not to show that he had been taken in by one of his own friars, the Minister General listened carefully to what Umberto had to say.
‘Thank you for your help,’ he said stiffly at the end of the bereaved brother’s tale. ‘I shall go back to Assisi and ponder what to do. Meanwhile, perhaps you would like to have this.’
He took from a sack at his saddle the dagger belonging to the murdered man. Umberto looked at it in fascinated horror. He took it from the Minister General, bowed and turned his horse’s head back towards Gubbio.
Brother Anselmo went to celebrate Mass at the convent, unaware that the Minister General had already done so. If he had stopped to think, he might have realised it was likely, but he was still too distracted by his own recent interview with Michele da Cesena.
The Abbess explained the situation tactfully and offered him nettle tea in her room.
‘How is everyone at the friary?’ she asked.
‘Still reeling from our visitation,’ said Brother Anselmo ruefully. ‘It was a punishing experience. But I do not think it has shed any light on our problems.’
Mother Elena was a sympathetic listener. ‘Perhaps the murderer has repented under questioning?’ she suggested.
‘Even if that is so, he will always be a danger as long as he is at large,’ he said. ‘Murder is not the kind of sin that can be absolved through confession without also being punished.’
‘A life for a life,’ said the Abbess.
‘Yes, I’m afraid so. Whoever it is cannot hope to be allowed to continue in our Order. Imagine what Saint Francis would have thought of that!’
‘How is young Silvano?’ asked Elena.
‘Why him particularly? He is no worse than the rest of us. Bruised by his encounter with our Minister General, I imagine. He is not a gentle questioner.’
‘Do you know that our youngest novice, Orsola, has been offered a home by Monna Isabella?’
The apparent change of subject showed Brother Anselmo that the Abbess saw more than most people realised. She had noticed, as he had, the growing attraction between the two young people. He had to steady his voice and control his expression in speaking of Isabella.
‘So Sister Orsola will leave the convent?’
‘She is considering it,’ said Elena. ‘You see, she has no vocation. And I have no desire to keep her here against her will.’
And Silvano will leave one day too, thought Anselmo. There will be nothing to stop them finding love together. A wave of pain and regret swept through him, followed instantly by remorse that he should begrudge any young couple their happiness, particularly two people he was fond of. But suppose they found that happiness under Isabella’s roof? Wouldn’t that remind her of her own lost youth and love? Anselmo couldn’t help feeling that it would be a source of painful pleasure to her.
He took his leave of the Abbess in pensive mood and arrived back at the friary to find a message for him from the Abbot. The subject of his thoughts had sent to say she would like to visit the friary on the following day to discuss her business affairs with Abbot Bonsignore. And she had requested a private meeting with Anselmo.
Umberto had been tempted to stop at Giardinetto again on the way home and confront this scheming Brother Anselmo on the spot. But he didn’t even know which friar he was. And he could hardly ask the Abbot to introduce him to the man he wanted to kill.
He had convinced himself that Anselmo was his brother’s murderer and that the Minister General, in giving him Ubaldo’s dagger, had been entrusting him privately with a mission to see justice done. Umberto knew nothing of the religious life and had no idea that Michele da Cesena would have been horrified by any such interpretation.
His brother’s dagger, tucked into his jerkin, burned Umberto with an almost sacred flame. He had all the evidence he thought he needed of Anselmo’s guilt, the blessing as he saw it of the Church on his enterprise and the appropriate weapon with which to carry it out.
When he next returned to Giardinetto, it would be as an avenger. And he relished like a sweetmeat in his mouth, the prospect of telling Monna Isabella how her lover had died.
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CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Digging up the Past
A very nervous man was being shown into Baron Montacuto’s private room. He was pale and sweating and refused to give his name. He would say only that he had been sent by the person investigating Tommaso the sheep farmer’s murder for the Baron. Such an introduction ensured his admission.
