The Wolves of St. Peter's

by Gina Buonaguro

  “Who took her there?” Francesco asked. “The Turk?”

  “He is not The Turk.” Dante was talking at a furious pace now. “He is The Greek. The Turk is The Greek, and Calendula is not Calendula. The Madonna is not Calendula. But Marcus paints Calendula, and it is not Calendula anymore, it is the Madonna. She was making a fool of him with her yellow hair. Stop! Stop! Or I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!”

  “We will not let Marcus kill you,” Raphael said kindly. “He says things he does not mean. Did you go on the ship? Was it in the port?”

  Dante shook his head and started to cry. The eagle was circling ever nearer, his eye firmly fixed on his morning feast of liver.

  “THERE you are,” Susanna said. “I was about to get one of those giants to drag you out.”

  “It was more complicated than I thought,” Francesco said. “Marcus hasn’t been here. But Dante says he saw him at the port. If any of what Dante says can be believed, Marcus seemed to think The Turk had Calendula’s body on his ship. He might have gone aboard to look.”

  “So we’re going to the port now, are we?”

  “Well, I am. Don’t you have to return to your silversmith and cook his dinner?” She looked at him as if he were speaking to her in a foreign tongue, and Francesco felt a twinge of fear for the man he had been ready to thump the night before. “Did he get kicked by a horse?” Perhaps that’s why it had been so quiet.

  “What? Kicked by a horse? Like the miller? I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you’re asking,” she replied indignantly. “He’s gone on to Ostia to his family, to avoid the flooding.”

  “Well, then, come to the port if you wish,” he said, not quite sure if he believed her.

  “Of course I’m going to the port with you.” She pulled an apple from her pocket and handed it to him, along with a piece of bread and a slab of cheese. “I took these when the cook wasn’t looking.”

  “You know what Dante—the writer Dante, not the bat man—said Hell had in store for thieves, don’t you?”

  She snickered. “No. But rich or poor, that’s where we’re all going. Because everyone’s a thief in some way. You tried to steal a man’s wife.”

  He took a bite of his apple and laughed. She was full of a peasant’s wisdom today, though hopefully, for the silversmith’s sake, not a peasant’s violence. “That’s not quite how it happened, but I’m grateful all the same for the food.” The cheese was excellent, a variety made of sheep’s milk, he guessed. “But although you found good food, it would seem I’m the wiser for our visit.”

  “All you’ve learned is Marcus never came here and might be missing. Or, according to a man who thinks he’s a bat, he might have been to the port because he thought The Turk had Calendula’s body on his boat.”

  “Then what have you learned, my wise little friend?” he asked, tossing the apple core into the overflowing gutter.

  “I’ve learned something you might not want to believe.” She looked around quickly, as if to make sure there were no eavesdroppers, but no one seemed interested in them. “It is Imperia. The cook said she and Calendula were always fighting and that it started when Calendula first saw the finished painting. The cook said The Marigold Madonna was bad luck. It made Calendula go strange, and she screamed at Imperia that she was a liar and she hated her. They had some fearful fights about that ring too.”

  “What about the ring?”

  “The cook says whenever one of the girls gets a gift, they have to share it with Imperia. Usually Imperia takes the gift to a certain Jew near the Campo dei Fiori. She gives some of the money back to the girl and keeps the rest for herself. Sometimes the girls use the money toward a dowry or to help their families. Only Calendula wouldn’t agree to sell that ring. The night she got killed, they had a big fight, and Imperia told her she was too much trouble and ordered her out of the house. Calendula told her she didn’t care, since she was going to be a lady again.” Susanna threw her apple core to a pig rooting in the street. “No wonder she was murdered,” she said as they continued on. “Out at night by herself with that ring.”

  Francesco was stunned. Why had Imperia not told him she had ordered Calendula from the house? He thought back to the night when Marcus kept asking who Calendula had left with. But she hadn’t left with anyone—she had left alone. Was some of the grief Imperia now felt really guilt for having put Calendula in the murderer’s path? Or a lament that she’d never received her share of the ring? No. She may have wanted her share, but he didn’t believe her to be that cold.

  “I told you I’d learn more than you,” Susanna concluded triumphantly.

  He was about to commend her, but the reappearance of the dead cow at the Cestio Bridge diverted their attention. “Look, it’s been waiting for us,” Susanna said with a laugh. Still on its back, with its legs sticking up absurdly, the cow seemed somehow a suitable companion on this mission. A couple of boys aimed stones at it from the bank, cheering every time they hit their target. They all kept pace with the carcass to the port, where it became snagged in the lines of a barge and bobbed there like a giant buoy, immediately attracting the attention of the seagulls that circled overhead.

  “If we hang around here, you’ll get to know what the Devil playing his pipes sounds like,” Francesco said as the boys scrambled aboard the barge for a closer look.

  The flooding had thrown the port into a frantic state. Crews stood by, not knowing whether to load or unload. Some men tied lines, then untied and retied them again, while others pulled small craft from the water and then put them in again. Yet more men rowed boats to one side of the river and back again for no apparent purpose. No one seemed to know whether the worst of the flooding was over and they could get back to normal, or whether the worst was yet to come and, if so, what they should do about it. Men stood in groups, passing around jugs of wine, ignoring the brazen prostitutes who worked the wharf. As the men argued, they pointed upstream, then downstream, then back again to the sky, every bit as gray and heavy as the last time they’d pointed at it.

  Conturbatio super conturbationem veniet, et auditus super auditum … Calamity will come upon calamity, and rumor shall follow upon rumor. A promise of destruction by God so great no man would fail to know who is The Lord God. The words from the book of Ezekiel came to Francesco as he listened to the men. Washed-out bridges, flooded roads, boats stranded on sandbars that hadn’t been there before, drowned horses, cattle, sheep. And omens, omens everywhere. A dead cat on a windowsill, a gathering of crows over St. Peter’s Square, a three-eyed fish, and, of course, the wolves, the starving wolves. Dozens of them, hundreds of them, a wolf to pick off every Roman fleeing for the hills. And at their head a white wolf, bigger than any other, that was said to walk on its hind legs and talk in a strange language no one had heard for thousands of years.

  “It’s like the market,” Susanna said close to his ear, as a water snake slipped off the dock into the river. “You just have to listen.” But no one mentioned Marcus, The Turk’s ship, or the important shipment The Turk had alluded to.

  Francesco swore as a clawlike hand encrusted with sores and dirt emerged from what appeared to be nothing but a mound of filthy sacking and grabbed at his leg. Sickened, he shook it off and yanked Susanna away. “Oh, how horrible!” she exclaimed, recoiling further as the moaning mound began to crawl slowly toward them on all fours. Like some sort of monster, its face was wrapped in rags, and only two lidless, staring eyes were visible.

  Of course, it wasn’t a monster. Francesco knew it was a woman, or had been before disease had eaten away even her eyelids. Et qui in civitate, pestilentia et fame devorabuntur … And here in the city, pestilence and hunger shall devour them. Francesco had heard tell of this, a new and disfiguring disease spreading through the port’s prostitutes. It had made its way here from Naples, spread, some said, by French sailors. Covered with oozing sores that in the final stages of death ate the very flesh from their faces, its victims had been shunned by even the most undiscriminating
sailors. Now, like this woman, they were reduced to begging along the docks, their faces bound in rags to hide the rotting flesh. Hardly recognizable as human, they evoked so much revulsion they were likelier to be clubbed and pushed into the river than helped. As he and Susanna retreated along the docks, Francesco couldn’t help but think this was the merciful thing to do, though he wouldn’t be the one to do it.

  Susanna begged him to leave, but Francesco reminded her they were here to find Marcus and did his best to distract her with a story about the time he and his sisters filled his maestro’s desk with dozens of lizards from the garden. It worked, and by the time they stopped to watch the unloading of a ship, she was laughing.

  “You think that’s the one?” Susanna asked. It was by far the largest ship in the port, a seagoing vessel, and Francesco was amazed it had managed to navigate the Tiber, so notorious for trapping much smaller boats than this in its shifting sands. A sole dockworker kept watch over bolts of cloth and bales of spices that did their best to compete with the smell of the river. If not a large cargo, it certainly seemed to be the most valuable they’d seen. They did their best to seem casually curious, sniffing at the sacks of spices, fingering the cloth, until the man asked what they wanted.

  “I want to buy some cardamom,” Francesco said. “Who’s the owner of the ship?” The man shrugged, saying he was damned if he knew, but if they gave him the money, he’d make sure it got to him. Tall, thin, unshaven, already hunched from carrying too many heavy loads, he was one of those weedy-looking dockworkers who unloaded ships for enough to buy their next meal.

  Had Francesco actually wanted cardamom and not the ship owner’s name, he would have given the dockworker the money and not cared if he pocketed it for himself, but the cardamom on its own was useless to him, so he told the man he’d changed his mind. He would have liked to buy the bolt of blue cloth Susanna was eyeing longingly, but he had only enough money for the day’s wine and bread.

  The next ship was a heavily guarded barge loaded with wooden poles. “Speculators,” Susanna said. “They know the poles will be worth even more after the floods.”

  Francesco was ready to give up, buy some food, and call it a day. Marcus clearly wasn’t here. But suddenly there was a commotion on the wharf, much bowing and removing of hats. All eyes were on the stone arch that marked the entrance to the port. Catching Susanna’s sleeve, Francesco quickly looked around for a hiding place and pulled her inside the open door of a shed. Satisfied that they were alone, Francesco shut the door, leaving a gap just wide enough to give them a clear view.

  “We’re standing in horseshit,” Susanna complained, hiking her already filthy hems over her ankles. “I’ll scream if I see a rat.”

  “No, you won’t. Your house is full of rats. They reenact the storming of Northern Italy by Hannibal every night under your bed. And over it too, believing it to be the Alps. We’re only lucky they’re not riding elephants.”

  “Then I’ll scream if I see another woman like that one out there.”

  “I will too if that happens,” he said, taking her hand as much to comfort himself as her.

  She squeezed his hand and kissed his cheek. “Silly boy. I was only teasing. But don’t worry. I’ll protect you.”

  “Be quiet,” he said, holding on to her hand. “I don’t want The Turk to think I’m spying on him.”

  “Well, you are,” Susanna said. “Except I don’t think that’s The Turk. They’re acting like it’s His Holiness himself.”

  She was right. It wasn’t The Turk, but it wasn’t Pope Julius, either. It was Cardinal Asino and Paride di Grassi in their scarlet robes, just as they’d looked when he’d met them at The Turk’s the day before. They must have arrived by carriage, since the hems of their robes were unsullied.

  They stopped at the ship where Francesco and Susanna had inquired about the cardamom, but they didn’t seem interested in the cloth and spices on the wharf. Instead, the boat’s captain came out on deck, and after Asino and di Grassi cast glances around, they went up the plank to meet him.

  “I bet they wish they weren’t so conspicuous,” Francesco whispered, though there was no chance of them being overheard.

  “No point in becoming a cardinal if no one knows it,” Susanna said with more of her peasant wisdom.

  Still, di Grassi and Asino didn’t stay long on the ship’s deck. They exchanged a few words with the captain before disappearing below. The dockworker they’d spoken to earlier stood guard on the deck, while on the wharf the cloth and spices sat unattended. An urchin dragging his club foot behind him attempted to carry one of the sacks away, but the dockworker saw him before he got far and aimed a wine jug at him. It shattered on the wharf next to the boy, shards of pottery flying in all directions. The boy dropped the sack and limped off, looking more startled than hurt, though surely he’d been struck.

  Di Grassi and Asino didn’t linger below deck any longer than they’d lingered above, and they were soon back on the wharf, walking away without so much as a backward glance.

  “Well, that’s a relief. I was worried we’d be here all day,” said Susanna. They waited until di Grassi and Asino were out of sight before returning to the ship.

  “I think I’ll take some of that cardamom after all,” Francesco said to the dockworker, pulling a coin from his pouch. He held it up, already grieving the wine he would no longer be able to afford, and nodded in the direction of the port entrance. “What did they want?” he asked, thinking such a question could hardly sound suspicious. Surely everyone was curious.

  The man looked up, scanning the ship’s decks. “Damned if I know,” he said. “Got slaves, mostly. You’re not the first person poking around here.”

  “Who else?” Francesco held up another coin. There went his bread.

  The dockworker shrugged. “Haven’t a clue. Wasn’t here. They said he was prowling around last night, yelling bloody murder.” He looked around him before handing Francesco a sack the size of a loaf of bread. “Take some fucking cardamom,” he said in a voice edged with contempt, though for what or whom wasn’t clear. “And that bolt of blue cloth your lady’s been eyeing. If you still want to know, the ship belongs to The Turk. But you didn’t hear it from me. Now hurry along and keep your money.”

  “He called me ‘your lady,’“ Susanna said, pressing one cheek against the precious cloth as they walked back in the direction of the port gates.

  “That’s a very valuable gift you just got. It would make a good dowry. Hell, even I would take it.”

  “Truly?”

  At that moment, Francesco saw Michelangelo’s assistant Bastiano just ahead of them in the crowd. He was sure Bastiano had seen him, but when he called to him, the apprentice turned tail and pushed his way toward the gate. How was it that Bastiano seemed to be everywhere Francesco was these days but was able to avoid him with such diligence? Annoyed, Francesco was about to run after him when a call went up.

  “Got a floater here!”

  “A floater … a floater …” rippled through the crowd. Bastiano forgotten, Francesco wheeled around and saw the same dockworker who had just given them the cloth and cardamom.

  “Let’s go see,” Francesco said to Susanna. “But first, let me hide that cloth under my cloak before a cry of thief goes up too.”

  Reluctantly, she handed over the bolt, and he put it under his cloak before taking her by the hand and running back along the dock, where already a crowd was gathering. Seagulls circled overhead, adding their screams to the mayhem.

  It was a floater, all right. It couldn’t have been anything but a dead body, shrouded in seaweed and tangled in the mooring lines of The Turk’s ship. Francesco and Susanna watched silently as a group of men pulled the body onto the dock. One eye open and staring, the other swollen shut. Quoniam terra plena est iudicio sanguinum, et civitas plena iniquitate … The land is full of bloody crimes, and the city is full of violence. And for the second time in three days, Francesco knew the victim’s name. Marcus.
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br />   CHAPTER FIVE

  THEY LAID MARCUS’S BODY OUT ON THE WHARF, AND THIS TIME Francesco had the courage to step forward and close the corpse’s remaining open eye. He closed it as he’d seen the priest close his mother’s, placing his palm over the eyelid. But he didn’t know what to do about the poor man’s mouth, still open as if in a scream, dirty water dribbling from one corner.

  “You know him?” asked one of the dockworkers, and Francesco thought how he’d been asked the same thing about Calendula.

  He had denied it then, but saw no reason to now. There were no police around, only curious dockworkers, children, and prostitutes. “Yes,” he said, without elaborating. This time, however, he wasn’t going to let the body out of his sight and risk it being claimed at the mortuary by another mysterious fat man. He looked around the growing crowd of curiosity seekers and called over a rag-and-bone man leading his donkey and cart.

  Thinking how he was simply not destined to buy food that day, Francesco offered to pay the rag-and-bone man if he’d cart the body to Imperia’s. The man agreed, enlisting the help of a couple of boys who, tired now of poking at the bloated cow, were eager for new fun. They grabbed Marcus by the feet and hauled his body over the rags and bones that lined the cart. An old woman stepped forward with a piece of torn sail and covered the body, jumping clear as the cart started with a jolt. Francesco decided it would be better not to involve the police, and no one on the docks seemed inclined to fetch them anyway.

  Like mourners in a funeral procession, Francesco and Susanna followed behind, occasionally giving the cart a push when it became bogged in a muddy rut. By the time they reached the silversmith’s, dusk was falling, and while it wasn’t raining, the sky was still heavy with clouds. Francesco handed Susanna the bolt of cloth and promised to see her later. For once speechless, she held it tightly and nodded wearily at him. Francesco, thinking this was perhaps the most vulnerable he’d ever seen her, kissed her on the cheek.