The Botticelli Secret - By Marina Fiorato Page 0,96

guttering flame till his fingers bled, to think of her all the days of his life, and to die, many years later, and be buried with her in this place, their bones collapsing into an embrace at last. I wished that I had a parent to love me so. I’ll find you one day, Vero Madre, and you will hold me to you and call me dear. I could not speak for a moment, so lost was I in this little human tragedy. I remembered, too, that Brother Guido had just lost the only parent known to him, and I’m pretty sure that we both forgot our quest for a moment. I shot a look of sympathy at my friend, but it was not heeded or needed, for Brother Guido was off on a more spiritual bent.

“Do you see now? Do you hear their voices across the ages? You are hearing, directly, what early Christians thought of the last realities of death and the fate of the soul in eternity, in the days when faith must be hidden. They truly believed, even then, that the soul would rise again, like Saint Lazarus, like our Lord Jesus himself. Now you see what I mean, that this is a cemetery where everything speaks of life more than death. And now we are truly blessed, for in the modern age we need not fear, need not bury our faith underground.” He stroked the inscriptions tenderly with his long sensitive fingers. “Indeed, His Holiness Pope Sixtus—whom God willing we will meet on the morrow—has built a wondrous chapel for all to see, to the glory of the Lord, and plans a dome for Peter’s church even greater than the one that crowns the Duomo in your native Florence.”

The bells of the nearby basilica struck a warning chime, telling me that time was short, and recalling me to the quest. I tried to return to the matter at hand. “So if we are in a meeting place where those who had to meet in secret once hid, might we not be in the right place? Under the right hill? By chance?”

“It’s possible. But nothing I have read so far fits the riddle.”

I looked about me, desperate for an idea. Saw, in the warm glow of the candles, images which I had not seen before stand forth on the walls. “Mayhap we must look to their paintings as well as their words—for it was a painting that began all this!”

Brother Guido squinted at the walls of our cavern. “Perhaps—for look, here and there are frescoes to witness their faith. This is a veritable jewel casket of ancient evidences.”

I looked, and saw. There were loaves and fishes, angels, and a benevolent shepherd Christ carrying a lost sheep across his shoulders to safety.

Then one image made my heart stop.

And begin to thump again.

“Here,” I hissed. “I think we are in the right place. Look!”

I pointed to where seven crudely drawn figures, ages old, sat about a round table waiting to break their fast. Seven.

“I don’t know.” Brother Guido rubbed the back of his neck.

“What don’t you know? There are seven figures gathered here in this fresco. The Seven were meant to meet here—I am sure of it. The candles are lit and all is ready! To think that we came here by chance, running from the leper!” (Whom I had almost forgot.)

Brother Guido looked unconvinced. “It cannot be. For one thing, this image is common enough as a representation of the miracle of the loaves and fishes—seven figures are often depicted at the feast. For another, this place is too Christian for the Seven’s gathering—as I said, it was a Christian sanctuary, and yet we have already agreed that the riddle itself and everything in the king’s discourse and demeanor points to a pagan, Roman, imperial meeting place.”

I deflated as he spoke, but he had not done.

“And lastly, what are the chances that, be we never so blessed by the true God, we would have stumbled, unaided, into the very place we were struggling to find? No, no, Luciana, it will not do.”

I kicked a stone underfoot in frustration and succeeded in nothing more than stubbing my toe in its fancy pointed boot. I knew Brother Guido spoke sooth, for it was all too neat if this had been the place and Don Ferrente had walked right in after us. And even one as green in the body politic as I, felt that this barbarian bone house would