The Malice of Fortune

by Michael Ennis

  The creature cast his unblinking gaze at Leonardo. I don’t know how that bloody slit could have suggested a smile, but it did. Yet he did not even attempt to speak.

  I asked, “Do you want a priest?” Of course we were not prepared to find one, but I hoped I would be able to offer this illusory salvation in exchange for a full confession.

  A little blood spouted from his lips. “I am … a priest.”

  We have become accustomed to the misbehavior and depravities of country priests—not to mention the Vatican Curia—but this man’s vocation startled even me.

  “This explains why he was entirely free to roam the countryside on his terrible errands,” I told Leonardo. “He enjoyed both the sanction of God and the license of the Devil. The master of the shop chose his apprentice well.” The peasants knew that even if they reported this priest’s crimes to the authorities, he was subject only to canon law. Though the Church was quick to punish clerics for heresy, priests who stole, raped, and even murdered were too often allowed to go about their business—and retaliate with impunity against any who accused them.

  Leonardo shook his head in disgust. “That is the consequence when the Church will acknowledge no evil among its own.”

  “Maestro.” Tommaso had finally prized the carefully nailed top from the little wooden casket. Although the room was already filled with the varied smells of the food and salted flesh, a scent of civet and stale roses suddenly came to my nose.

  Tommaso removed the aromatic contents of the box: a jar the size of a wine bottle but of the clearest Venetian glass, the mouth plugged with wax. It was filled entirely with an amber liquid and a great number of what appeared to be tiny shelled clams, each about the size of a thumbnail, mostly of a gray or reddish-gray hue.

  Leonardo at once seized the peculiar vessel from his assistant, holding it to the nearest lantern and staring as if he had, in all truth, found the Devil in this jar.

  “What is it, Maestro?”

  “Paps. Human.” Leonardo turned to me. “Women’s paps. At least threescore.”

  I had to put my hands on my knees. In every instance I had observed, both in the olive grove and in Leonardo’s basement, the nipple had been sliced from the otherwise intact breast. And knowing what I did of the murderer, this had almost certainly been done before death. “At least threescore,” Leonardo had uttered. No less than thirty women had suffered this outrage.

  I leaned forward and whispered into the monster’s ear. “The boxes. Did you put things in them?”

  He coughed blood and shook his head. “I only … buried … boxes.”

  This I believed. I looked up at Leonardo and said, “Maestro, regarding those wizened heads. From your observation, as little opportunity as you had, is it possible that all of them were killed at nearly the same time?”

  Seeing that I had evidently renewed my faith in his science, Leonardo appeared almost grateful. “It is not, on the face of it, false to assume that all those heads were severed from their bodies in proximate time.” Still chastened by his error, he offered this somewhat warily. “They all demonstrated a similar buoyancy. But we cannot be certain.”

  “And how long ago would you presume that time to have been?”

  “I would have to speculate.” Leonardo looked at me as if the very word “speculate” had soured on his tongue. “The medium of preservation is salt … postmortem … I would say many months.”

  “As long as a year or two?”

  “We would not err within that duration.”

  “Were they mostly, if not entirely, women’s heads?” This had certainly been my observation, judging from the hair, the size of the skulls, and my perception of the distorted features. But they might also have been adolescent boys.

  Leonardo only nodded, a grudging assent.

  I had heard enough. “Maestro,” I said quickly, “the nipples in that cursed jar match the heads that erupted from the salt mound in such quantity. I further believe that the crimes consecrated by these obscene relics occurred before this creature here became an apprentice in the Devil’s workshop. Lastly, it is my conviction that these women were murdered at Capua some eighteen months ago.” Hence this much of Ramiro da Lorca’s last testament was true—as I had previously assumed. The murderer had been at Capua, perfecting his brutal craft.

  I returned to the creature, requiring the answer to but one more question. “Who gave you the boxes to bury in that salt?”

  He only rolled his head a little.

  I approached the matter less directly. “How many did you help him kill?”

  “Five,” he nearly sighed, as if they had been his lovers. I was certain he meant only the five most recent victims. “Whores!” He spit the word vehemently, spraying blood. “The Devil’s … whores. Streghe … all … of them.”

  I could not help but recall the insane violence he had visited on poor Camilla. Perhaps the master of the shop had encouraged this madman to believe that the Devil’s mistresses deserved to suffer the torments of Hell—while they yet lived.

  “So this was God’s labor.” I choked on the words, but I needed to enter his diseased mind.

  Again the demonic smile.

  “But I have seen your work when your master is not present. A poor imitation.”

  Blood spewed from the gill-like stump of his nose. Before he died I wanted to exact a last measure of vengeance for our lovely Camilla, if nothing else.

  “The woman you killed at the Palazzo Machirelli was not a witch, no matter what your master told you,” I said. “The Lord of Heaven knows that.” I could hear the bloody froth hissing on his lips. “But without your master present you could not stop yourself. You slaughtered an innocent. And for that good woman’s murder, you are about to enter Hell, to suffer far worse than she did, each hour of every day, for all eternity.”

  His eyes rolled wildly. Though it was little enough retribution, I was certain he would leave this life fearing the Devil.

  “But why should the man who showed you the way to Hell live long and well, while you alone are thrown into the pit? Who was your master?”

  His throat gurgled.

  “I will help you. Was it Oliverotto da Fermo? Or Vitellozzo Vitelli? Or did the both of them put you to this? These great signori who will only mock your death and raise a cup to your everlasting torment.”

  The wind shrieked against the door. Dante tells us that a man can speak only the truth in Satan’s kingdom; it seemed this fiend had heard his last living inquisitor in one ear, and the cries of the damned in the other. “Speja.”

  I thought he had said Zeja. “A witch?”

  “Spia,” he said in Italian, the word sputtering out with his lifeblood.

  “A spy?”

  I put my ear to his mouth. His last words were a hiss little different than his last breath, which at once followed. I could not be certain I had understood.

  Leonardo observed me with a feverish expression and I thought he would surely scream “Dimmi! Dimmi!” Instead, in a dry, catching voice, as if he had witnessed the death of his own kin, he asked, “What was the name?”

  “He did not give me a name,” I said. “His last words were, ‘He watches.’ ”

  “He watches,” Leonardo repeated like a slow-witted child.

  At that moment I saw Oliverotto da Fermo’s face as he stood on the rampart at Cesena, his head cocked slightly, his pale eyes seeming to reach into Valentino’s soul. Watching, I believed, for some sign of weakness.

  I determined to haul the body of the Licorn back outside, intending to leave him alone on the icy pianura, much as he had discarded the remains of his victims. I did not ask for help but merely instructed Giacomo to remain on the threshold and shout “We are here!” from time to time until I returned.

  Motivated by a rage I had not felt while watching the beast die, in little time I succeeded in dragging his corpse several dozen braccia. I could still hear Giacomo, although only faintly, when I realized I had been a fool not to search
this monstrous apprentice’s clothing—which might well reveal something more of his master. I knelt and carefully examined all of it, even his leggings and shoes, yet found only a few ducats in the lining of his wrap. Despite my desperate finances, I did not want this money and left the coins for Charon.

  When I stood up again, the cold wind hit me like a brick. As before, a portion of the gray, shifting shroud of snow seemed to assume a solid shape. I wondered for a moment if Giacomo had come for me from the farmhouse.

  But this most certainly was not a man. Had I just vanquished one mythical beast, only to find myself in imminent and mortal danger from another?

  “There was only one of you,” I whispered, though of course the thing could not hear me.

  CHAPTER 19

  Fortune reigns over a palace open on every side, and no one is denied entrance; but leaving is far less certain.

  I could see only the hazy outline of a mounted rider, seemingly possessing the forelegs of a horse—hence my belief that whoever had so skillfully crafted the licorno mask had also created an equally convincing centaur. Only when the great warhorse fought the bit, swinging its head from side to side, did the illusion vanish.

  I did not even sense the men at my back.

  At once they had a hood over my head and powerful hands bound my wrists behind me. I was hoisted into a saddle and in a heartbeat we started off. Having no stirrups, reins, or even free hands to clutch the mane, all my efforts were concentrated simply to remain on the horse.

  It is impossible to imagine something such as this: clinging to a galloping horse with only my legs, bound and hooded, entirely blind in a world where little enough could be seen as it was, my heart at the base of my skull, asking myself, Why did they not kill me?

  I have since passed worse nights, several of them in the Stinche prison, where my hands were similarly bound behind my back, the rope attached to them thrown over a beam from which I was hoisted; as my joints popped and cracked I was instructed that I would remain in that excruciating posture until I condemned innocent men—or, failing to do so, until I was taken out to have my head chopped off. (I left that prison having preserved both my silence and my honor, although my shoulders still ache every winter.)

  But this night was hard enough for a young man still frightened of death. The sole source of my courage was the scant hope I had obtained from the creature already crawling in the foul mud of Hell. Damiata is alive.

  For more than an hour, at least, I gauged by the wind that we were going inland, most likely returning to Cesena. This gave me some opportunity to ponder my circumstances—or at least attempt to net a few of the observations that flew around in my brain like harried swifts and swallows. I could only think that in the same manner that both the Licorn and at least one horseman—if Ramiro was to be believed—had followed Damiata and me into the pianura, on this occasion the same parties had stalked Leonardo and me. Beyond that, I could not say if the Licorn and these horsemen had worked in concert. Even less clear was where, and to what end, I was now being transported.

  Suddenly we turned, so that the tempest now came from the back quarter. Judging from the unvarying direction of the road, we were on the Via Emilia heading away from Cesena, flying south like Boreas.

  We continued on this route for what must have been several hours, although in my misery it seemed like days. Then, just after we had changed horses in the manner of couriers, I began to hear the percussion of the sea through the wind. I reasoned that we had likely come as far as Rimini, where the Via Emilia runs along the coast. And indeed the scent of salt again mingled with the blowing snow.

  After another interminable passage, at last the sky began to lighten—or I should say, the world inside my hood brightened somewhat. Able to roughly estimate the time, I presumed that at our pace we had gone past the town of Pesaro, which marked the southernmost limits of Valentino’s dominion. The territory south of Pesaro was occupied by the condottieri and their troops.

  Hence I hardly required a mappa, or even eyes, to assume with reasonable certainty that at the end of this road I would find one man of a rare and terrifying nature, who had confounded us all with his cruel games and monstrous deception.

  Perhaps an hour after I first perceived the breaking dawn, again we turned from the coast. Although we began to go up and down hills, our direction did not vary much, which led me to believe that we were now on the Via Flaminia, heading away from the town of Fano, the coastal terminus of yet another ancient Roman road.

  Finally I heard shouts up ahead. We turned and rode up a very steep paved street, which I took to mean that we had entered a town. When we stopped, I was dragged from the horse and could not stand securely, so that I fell down, occasioning much laughter, which I did not mind so much as the kicks in the ribs. I was pulled to my feet, taking slaps as I was forced up a long stairway, this followed by a procession through what might have been several galleries or hallways; the place reeked of gunpowder. I began to tremble, although I was warmer than I had been in a day.

  The room where we stopped smelled of wine and damp, like a vintner’s basement. But stronger still were the perfumes, of such rare quality that I knew at once I was in the company of some of Italy’s great signori. My scent also made an impression, because someone said, “He smells like a fish.”

  I was forced into a chair and my hood pulled off. Light and shadow flickered around me in amber and brown waves, as if I were submerged in a muddy river. This unsteady illumination was provided by the flames in a brick fireplace large enough to shelter a watchman’s hut; I could feel the heat on my face. Above my head ran immense, ancient oak beams. I was seated at a modest round table some distance from the hearth, in company with three men and a woman, their primero cards and silver cups strewn across the felt cloth.

  The foremost man among them was Vitellozzo Vitelli, sitting like an enthroned cardinal in a great chair ornamented with silk tassels and brass studs. Nevertheless he wore only a satin vest over his linen shirt, revealing a chest like a keg and arms as thick as tree stumps. I had not seen him in three years, since he had been employed by our government to assist his brother, Paolo, in the campaign against the Pisa rebels. At that time he was regarded as a man of proverbial strength, this having been manifest in a neck wider than his head and the jawbone of a horse, if not an ass. In his present incarnation, however, Vitellozzo’s powerful face was bloated and the ridge of bone at his brow gave him the appearance of an ape, his close-cropped hair crowning all this lumpy flesh like a boy’s cap. His eyelids were so fat and drowsy that he appeared to gaze at me from a near-slumber.

  Seated on the right hand of Vitellozzo, as attentive as his garzone, was Signor Paolo Orsini. As Damiata has observed, neither did this squat satyr with blubbering lips and sagging eyes wear the last few years well. The third man was separated from Signor Paolo by a woman who was certainly a cortigiana onesta and almost as certainly Venetian; as blond and gorgeous as one of Botticelli’s Graces, I could only wish I knew her. But the man to her right was immediately familiar to me.

  Oliverotto da Fermo was attired as if he had just put his troops through drills, a velvet riding cape draped over his freshly lacquered mail shirt. His eyes roamed in their casual yet watchful manner, as if searching for some small thing that would betray each one of us.

  Only then did I observe that my arrival had interrupted a primero hand. Vitellozzo lifted the corner of a card and peeked beneath it. “Fottimi. Face card,” he said, grunting like a Romagnole. “I can hope for a coro or throw in now.” He sighed theatrically. “Do you know what the Florentines have done?” He addressed this question to the table, his voice now as resounding as an actor’s. “Such is their native cowardice that instead of dispatching Duke Valentino an ambassador, they have sent this little secretary. Better this flea die for their sins rather than some splendid merchant with a villa in Mugello—one of those asshole-burgling cowards who lost Pisa and were so desperate to cast blame elsewhere that they murdered my
brother rather than confess to their own incompetence. Every cacasangue-eating coward in Florence, none of them with the spine to lift anything more than a table knife in defense of their so-called republic, came out to cheer in triumph when my brother was martyred. Were you there that night, Messer Macchia?”

  He had abbreviated my name in the way my friends once did with affection—and as my enemies often do these days. Macchia. A blemish or a stain that goes deeper than the skin. Vitellozzo Vitelli had erred if he hoped to make a coward of me, because I would rather take the Heavenly Father’s name in vain than let pass an insult to my dear father’s name.

  “We lost Pisa because your brother betrayed us,” I answered. “We lost Pisa because your brother waited two days for the breach in the wall to be sealed before he withdrew his troops entirely, protesting that he could not attack an intact defense. We lost Pisa because of your brother’s cowardice or outright treachery, whichever you prefer.” For a heartbeat, again I saw Paolo Vitelli’s head, all white and shadow, lit by the single torch in a dark piazza, black blood dripping from the neck. “And I shouted my own praise to a just God when the executioner raised your brother’s head.”

  I was prepared to die for those words, in some boyish fantasia believing that my republic would celebrate my courage. But Vitellozzo did not even rise from his cardinal’s throne. “Perhaps we will let you live, Messer Macchia, to see the entry of the Vitelli into Florence—and into your women.” He blinked so drowsily that it seemed he intended to sleep. “Or perhaps not.” He lifted another corner. “Fottimi. Another face card.”

  After Vitellozzo had lamented his late brother—and his cards—Oliverotto won the stakes with merely a numero quaranta. But before the deal could pass to the left, Vitellozzo produced a parcel from his lap. He placed it in the middle of the table, as if establishing the stakes for the new hand. At once, I recognized this slight volume, bound in greasy, soiled cowhide. And I was hardly surprised to see it there.