all the crazy Dan Brown fans—would-be Freemasons making the Templars their hobby. Genuine alchemists are natural loners who hide themselves away in their laboratories. They were like that five hundred years ago, and it’s the same now.”
“They also hide themselves away behind books?” she asked, glancing at the room.
He lit another cigarette. “Of course.”
“I don’t think that TABULA really has anything to do with alchemy. The tablet is only some kind of symbol to them. These people are scientists. And they must have some rather prosperous patrons.”
“Evangelos Thanassis?”
“Could be. It’s only a suspicion so far, that’s all.”
“But there’s something you’re not telling me.”
Somewhere in the house a telephone rang loudly. The cat jumped off Iole’s lap in alarm, leaped up onto a tottering tower of books, and hopped off it again just before the pile collapsed in a cloud of dust.
Dallamano stood up with the cigarette in the corner of his mouth, and bent over the chaos. The next moment he picked up the cat by the nape of its neck and carried it out of the conservatory and into the house. A little later they heard his voice on the phone, indistinctly.
Rosa turned to Iole. “How much does he know?” she whispered.
“About the dynasties? I haven’t told him anything.”
“You sure?”
“Rosa!”
“Sorry. It’s just that—”
Dallamano came back and stopped beside his armchair. “Scientists, then. Top-ranking people, I guess. At least they ought to be, if someone’s investing large sums of money in them. In them and in secrecy.”
“Sounds logical.”
“Nobel Prize winners?”
“How would I know?”
“If you have any idea what kind of research this organization is doing, then you’d better start by looking at the list of winners of the Nobel Prize for the last few decades. And it would also be a good idea to find out who was expected to win but didn’t. After that you could check who of those has carried out investigations into your subject. It’s possible that you might come upon a couple of people who could be involved with TABULA. Depending how much you really know, you might even find a name or two that you’ve heard before.”
“I’ll try that,” she said. “Thanks.”
Dallamano turned to Iole. “The taxi driver called. He’s waiting down on the road. If you two want to catch your flight, you’d better leave now.”
“If I do find out anything,” said Rosa as she got to her feet, “would you mind if we talked about it some more?”
“Of course I’d mind,” he snapped at her, then added in milder tones, “but that’s not going to stop you, is it? One of these days you’ll be at my door again to pester me. Just so long as that young Carnevare doesn’t turn up here.”
She smiled. “I’ll make sure of that.”
Outside, in the spacious entrance hall of the villa, Rosa’s eyes fell on a figure at the top of the stairs to the second floor.
“Olá,” she called.
“Olá,” the woman replied. She was delicately built, and at the most in her midtwenties. Her jeans and close-fitting blouse were black, like the long hair that fell smoothly over her shoulders. Rosa couldn’t see much more, but she noticed her strong, dark eyebrows.
The woman stood there at the top of the stairs, with one slender hand on the banister, and Rosa wondered whether she had overheard the conversation in the conservatory.
“Your landlady?” asked Rosa, turning to Dallamano as he picked up Iole’s bag to take it out to the taxi.
He nodded, and walked out with his niece. Rosa glanced up at the landing once again. The woman was gone. A door closed up above in the house.
“Coming?” called Iole from outside.
Rosa pulled herself together, hurried down the steps, and followed the two Dallamanos along the enchanted path to the road.
THE ISLAND AND THE MOON
A GOAT LOOKING FOR tufts of grass among the volcanic rocks bleated as, a few hundred feet farther down, the waves broke in cascades of spray on the shores of Isola Luna.
Rosa and Alessandro were on their way uphill along a rocky slope. They had spent all morning climbing over porous stones, bizarrely shaped ridges, and lava glaciers frozen solid. Rosa had grazed her ankles and the palms of her hands, had lost no opportunity to curse volubly, but it had been a long time since she’d felt so content and happy.
Now the rim of the crater was directly above them. So close to their destination, she was almost sorry that the climb was nearly over. She stopped and looked back at the rooftops