The Botticelli Secret - By Marina Fiorato Page 0,174
and tore the page the sacristan had read us right out of the good book, leaving a ragged strip of parchment where it had been. He then heaved it back on the lectern, closed it to cover his crime. My jaw dropped further, for never would I have thought him capable of such heresy, such disrespect to his former idol. I was not sure what shocked me more—the fact that he would tear the Bible or the fact that he would wantonly destroy a book, his friend and help-meet, the delight of his youth and his greatest love. He was back, and he laid the page on the floor next to the candle. Then he dipped his hands in the chalice, bringing them out dripping and carmined like a murderer’s. He rubbed the dark wine on the wooden roll, and rolled the thing over the torn page once around, as if he were making a pastry. The wine dried at once into the parchment and he took the roll away. The image was blotted and smudged, the text muddled the lines, but the nature of the design was quite clear. Here was the land, here the sea.
A map.
“But a map of what?” I murmured, in wonder.
“I don’t know. But the serpent has told us all it can. Let us go, before we are discovered.”
He took up the last candle and we carried it to the door, puffed it out as we left. We ran back to Santa Maria delle Grazie, and I thought for a moment that stilled my heart that the doors would be shut upon us. But no—the next cycle of prayers were in progress and we crept through the incense-heavy dark to the arras that led to the causeway. We ran through the greenish night along the moat, Brother Guido talking as we went, murmuring instructions in a low and breathless voice.
“I’ll come to you tomorrow night, and we will talk further,” he said. “We’re getting close.”
“How will you come to me? You swapped your shift,” I gasped back.
“I’ll swap it back. Luca won’t mind. I’ll say my lady denied me, and I’d rather be at my post than in my cups. I’ll be at your door between Vespers and Compline.”
With that we tore up the stairs to my tower till my chest felt fit to burst. We could see the torch of the next guard begin to bob along the battlement and raced it home. I hurried inside and closed the door silently behind me, heard Brother Guido snatch his torch from his bracket, long since burned out. Just as his fellow soldier came round the corner. I pressed my ear to the door.
“No light, soldato?”
“Double shift, sir. For Luca. It went out about an hour ago.”
“Why didn’t you get another torch from the sergeant at arms? At the sentry post?” The man was clearly his superior.
“They’re at the Torre Serpiolle, sir. Didn’t want to leave my post.”
“All right.” The voice seemed convinced, even a little impressed by such devotion. “You can get off now.”
I heard Brother Guido’s feet receding. My breathing started again.
“Oh, soldato?”
And stopped.
“Yes, sir?”
“Get your grappa ration from the quartermaster. Been a long one, heh?”
“Will do. Notte.”
“Notte.”
After that, I collapsed on my bed, spent with exertion and fear. But before I laid my head to rest I took another look at the map. It was not easy to make out, for the print made in wine rode atop the words of Scripture that covered the page—the chapters and verses of the Book of Numbers writ in crabbed, close, black Latin. I strained to see in the dawnlight. There were no place-names. Nothing to indicate which corner of the world it might mean, just what seemed to be a small star on the northwest coast of the land. I gave up and tucked the parchment back in my bodice, with the cartone. I tried in vain to remember if I had seen the landmass before, during my weeks of tuition in Venice with Signor Cristoforo.
As my lids grew heavy the image of that unknown country swam before my eyes. And as you cannot see what is before my eyes, I will show you.
I suppose you’d describe it, as, well, a boot.
42
I woke in my cell at dawn, dressed still and stiff with cold—Zephyrus had taken his revenge by puffing his cool spring winds into my organ pipe of a tower and fluted me awake with the dawn.