hinges, swinging back and forth like a banner in a breeze. With a gasp I looked up into the dark, rectangular aperture in the plank ceiling.
I ran out to the porch. Here I witnessed the similarly abrupt flight of the three visitors, no doubt also prompted by the noise of the trapdoor. Indeed the Devil might have been their pursuer, so quickly did they vanish around the far end of the farmhouse.
Messer Niccolò shot back into the stables. In a moment all the gentlemen present had assembled to stare at the hanging trapdoor, a construction of wooden slats and cross braces that creaked only slightly before it became entirely still.
You could not hear even a breath, only the sibilance of the wind outside and the rushing river, which now sounded more like a low, rasping sigh.
Messer Niccolò advanced directly beneath the aperture and looked into the darkness above him. He stood there, evidently listening, perhaps waiting for the face—or mask—of a goat to appear. At last he issued a resigned exhalation. “Lift me up again.”
Leonardo’s mouth turned down like a sour old man’s. But after amoment’s pause he hoisted Messer Niccolò, who got a handhold on either side of the opening and hauled himself into the room above.
We could see him stand up and look around. Then he vanished into the darkness; soon we could not even hear his feet padding over the floorboards. Giacomo held up his knife, as if he should be sent to Niccolò’s aid. But the maestro quickly placed a restraining hand on his arm.
For my part, I silently recited an Ave Maria on Messer Niccolò’s behalf. I might well have recited several Paternosters while we continued to wait, ever more anxiously. Now and then I heard dull thuds, yet I could not say if these were blows, someone moving things about, or merely muffled steps.
A pale face floated above us. I let out a little cry and even Leonardo drew a sharp breath in the heartbeat before we recognized Messer Niccolò.
“Nothing,” he reported. “There is not a stick of furniture up here, not a piss pot or a grindstone. Nothing except this.” Messer Niccolò sat on the edge of the opening, his legs dangling, and reached down to us, holding in his hand a plain clay butter pot.
For some reason the maestro and his people were reluctant to accept this offering. I took it, wishing I hadn’t as soon as I smelled the contents. This little pot was half filled with the sort of unguent that ladies in Rome usually obtain from the old women of Israel, whose concoctions of myrrh, sulfur, and hog lard are intended to preserve the skin. But there were other scents in this particular recipe: the foul bitterness of belladonna when it is first crushed and also mandrake, perhaps with henbane and hellebore.
For a strange moment, every foreboding I have ever had in my life seemed to revisit me.
Messer Niccolò dropped almost silently to the ground. When he had straightened up and dusted the sleeves of his jacket, he said to me, “Allow the maestro to smell it. He will recognize the scent.”
The breath caught in my throat. Both Messer Niccolò and Maestro Leonardo had sniffed their fingertips after running them across the flesh of that poor, butchered woman. And now I understood Leonardo’sapparent indifference to this discovery; he had already known what he would smell in that pot.
“This unguent was smeared over her body, wasn’t it?” I offered this more as a plaint than a question. “And it was found on the remains of the first woman as well.”
Leonardo nodded in a palsied fashion, his nostrils fairly twitching. “Yes.” His tenor was slightly hoarse. “Both of them.”
Messer Niccolò cast his eyes up at the darkness he had just explored. “Then I am certain,” he said, “this is where they were both butchered.”
VIII
All five of us arrived back in Imola at dusk, having returned briefly to the olive grove to replace the planks over the little crypt, to keep the wolves at bay until Leonardo
I ran out to the porch. Here I witnessed the similarly abrupt flight of the three visitors, no doubt also prompted by the noise of the trapdoor. Indeed the Devil might have been their pursuer, so quickly did they vanish around the far end of the farmhouse.
Messer Niccolò shot back into the stables. In a moment all the gentlemen present had assembled to stare at the hanging trapdoor, a construction of wooden slats and cross braces that creaked only slightly before it became entirely still.
You could not hear even a breath, only the sibilance of the wind outside and the rushing river, which now sounded more like a low, rasping sigh.
Messer Niccolò advanced directly beneath the aperture and looked into the darkness above him. He stood there, evidently listening, perhaps waiting for the face—or mask—of a goat to appear. At last he issued a resigned exhalation. “Lift me up again.”
Leonardo’s mouth turned down like a sour old man’s. But after amoment’s pause he hoisted Messer Niccolò, who got a handhold on either side of the opening and hauled himself into the room above.
We could see him stand up and look around. Then he vanished into the darkness; soon we could not even hear his feet padding over the floorboards. Giacomo held up his knife, as if he should be sent to Niccolò’s aid. But the maestro quickly placed a restraining hand on his arm.
For my part, I silently recited an Ave Maria on Messer Niccolò’s behalf. I might well have recited several Paternosters while we continued to wait, ever more anxiously. Now and then I heard dull thuds, yet I could not say if these were blows, someone moving things about, or merely muffled steps.
A pale face floated above us. I let out a little cry and even Leonardo drew a sharp breath in the heartbeat before we recognized Messer Niccolò.
“Nothing,” he reported. “There is not a stick of furniture up here, not a piss pot or a grindstone. Nothing except this.” Messer Niccolò sat on the edge of the opening, his legs dangling, and reached down to us, holding in his hand a plain clay butter pot.
For some reason the maestro and his people were reluctant to accept this offering. I took it, wishing I hadn’t as soon as I smelled the contents. This little pot was half filled with the sort of unguent that ladies in Rome usually obtain from the old women of Israel, whose concoctions of myrrh, sulfur, and hog lard are intended to preserve the skin. But there were other scents in this particular recipe: the foul bitterness of belladonna when it is first crushed and also mandrake, perhaps with henbane and hellebore.
For a strange moment, every foreboding I have ever had in my life seemed to revisit me.
Messer Niccolò dropped almost silently to the ground. When he had straightened up and dusted the sleeves of his jacket, he said to me, “Allow the maestro to smell it. He will recognize the scent.”
The breath caught in my throat. Both Messer Niccolò and Maestro Leonardo had sniffed their fingertips after running them across the flesh of that poor, butchered woman. And now I understood Leonardo’sapparent indifference to this discovery; he had already known what he would smell in that pot.
“This unguent was smeared over her body, wasn’t it?” I offered this more as a plaint than a question. “And it was found on the remains of the first woman as well.”
Leonardo nodded in a palsied fashion, his nostrils fairly twitching. “Yes.” His tenor was slightly hoarse. “Both of them.”
Messer Niccolò cast his eyes up at the darkness he had just explored. “Then I am certain,” he said, “this is where they were both butchered.”
VIII
All five of us arrived back in Imola at dusk, having returned briefly to the olive grove to replace the planks over the little crypt, to keep the wolves at bay until Leonardo
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