The Botticelli Secret - By Marina Fiorato Page 0,92
a dark doorway, I pulled us through it, twisting down and down to an underground chamber, with more passages than a cunny-warren. Once in the underworld—clearly some sort of shrine, for votive candles lit the stuffy caverns and twisted passages—we stopped to catch our breath, and I knew I must explain what I’d seen.
25
For a few moments I heard nothing but the drip of water and the hiss of the candles that burned in the niches, in this strange underground shrine. Brother Guido was silent, digesting what I’d told him—that the leper who had followed us since we started this thing, followed us still; that we were in greater danger now than we’d ever been.
“And you’re sure? You’re sure this was the same man? The leper you saw in the Via Nilo, the ‘priest’ in San Lorenzo Maggiore? For I have to tell you, Luciana, that church was almost destroyed in the earth’s quake.”
I set my jaw, stubbornly. “We escaped.”
This he had to concede. He sighed. “Very well, suppose we accept your position that the leper is the assassin. There is no inconsistency in my position. I said then, as I say now, that our best chance of safety is to discover the secret of the painting, and then we have a bargaining tool. But if this fellow is not our assassin why would he assist us in our charade by concealing our true identities from our powerful hosts?”
I had a revelation. “Maybe he’s following me, not you. Perhaps he thought that when he murdered Brother Remigio he had dispatched you. If he picked up the trail at Fiesole, he may have thought you were a monkish escort that Abbot Giles sent with me to Pisa to guard my way.”
“Then how are we to explain what happened to my uncle?” He choked a little as he named him.
“Perhaps he died of the bad oysters in sooth.” But I knew it was not so.
“Then why did he tell me, with his dying breath, to follow the light to the Muda?”
“Because he was dying. Whether of the oysters or of a poisoner’s draught, he would have given you the same instructions.”
“Why did Tok pursue us?”
I thought fast. “Because once your uncle was dead, your cousin wished to remove you as a rival. Perhaps Niccolò’s motivations had nothing to do with the painting.”
“And yet we know that my uncle was one of the Seven, and that Niccolò would have inherited his place in the conspiracy.”
“It does not follow. Perhaps the real Niccolò knows nothing about the Seven. You ‘inherited’ your part in the plot when your uncle passed his ring to you and told you to follow the light to the Muda. Niccolò may have been thought unfit to join the alliance. You said yourself he was a good-for-nothing finocchio who thinks more of fucking small boys than studying his books. My words, not yours,” I added hurriedly.
“But in essentials, you are correct,” he said wryly.
“Well, then. Perhaps the leper does not know your identity. If he has followed us from Florence, you look a much different creature than the scruffy monk in Pisa who had spent two weeks on the road in his own filth. Now”—I looked at him, noble and beautiful in the candlelight—“you are a prince.”
“All right. So you think that he will not move against you at present because he believes you are under the protection of Niccolò della Torre, one of the very seven lords for whom he works?”
“Why not? A clever working girl would change sides in a heartbeat and cling like a limpet. You could protect me, give me every comfort, buy my silence. Perhaps he thinks I am no longer dangerous. I may know the secret of the Primavera, but I am now in the company of one of the plotters, and it would harm your wealth and position to reveal what I know. Why would I do such a thing, if you are now my patron? Perhaps he thinks he need only watch me, for now, to follow my steps. For if I were truly your concubine, to harm me would anger you, perhaps even threaten the enterprise. Perhaps I am safe until you marry and I am then an expendable mistress.”
“Very well. Let’s say he followed you to Santa Croce, murdered Brother Remigio in my stead. He then follows you to Pisa by reason of my name—”