The Botticelli Secret - By Marina Fiorato Page 0,97

not satisfy Don Ferrente’s puffed-up pride—he would need somewhere grander for his meeting. Damn the King of Aragon! “Why can’t he just fucking say where we were to meet him in plain Tuscan? And in Naples too—all that cowshit about Christ on Calvary, and Fiammetta. Why could he not just tell us where to look?”

“Because he is overheard by his court at every hour—that night and this. Recall, if you will, that he had just put down a rebellion by his barons. Perhaps those at his court would not approve of his alliance with the Seven, and their scheme, whatever it may be. Powerful enemies could make things difficult for him, particularly if his barons warn those that he moves against. Tonight he spoke in English, knowing, as he must, that I was schooled by an English tutor. Remember, if you will, that the only time he spoke directly of the Seven, without any of his oblique misdirections, was the day we happened upon him and Santiago alone in the marquetry chamber. Only then did he name me as one of the Seven, or talk of the business with any directness.”

I stared fixedly at the seven figures on the wall, gathered for a meal a thousand years ago, as he continued.

“And that’s another thing. Don Ferrente gave us the clue ‘under the seventh sun,’ but never did he hint that all the Seven would attend the meeting. In fact, how could it be so, when one at least, as we believe, will be absent.”

“One?”

“For Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici, nephew to Lorenzo the Magnificent, surely rests in Florence, preparing for his nuptials.”

I sighed gustily. I felt the sense of my friend’s words but somehow could not let the coincidence pass.

“So you’re saying that this is just chance? That this fresco shows an average Christian family breaking bread together?”

“Most likely. For here are family tombs set into the very wall where the image appears—see . . . many chambers for many dead of the same name. Count them—yes . . . there are seven.”

Jesu. “Pretty unlucky to lose seven sons!”

“Alas, these were dangerous times for the faithful—” He broke off. “What did you say?”

I thought him angered at my flippant tone. But I meant no disrespect for, soothly, after the tale of Severa I cared more for those who had become dust so many centuries ago than I would have thought. “I only meant . . . seven sons was a lot to—” I did not get to finish.

“May the Lord damn me for a fool!” he cried, his tones ringing round the Catacombs. It was the closest I had ever heard him come to profanity. “Of course! The seventh son!”

“Eh?”

“Seventh son! Not seventh sun!”

I was confounded, for to me the English words sound exactly the same.

“They sound the same, yes, but they are spelled differently! Don Ferrente meant sons, as in figlio, not suns as in sol!”

I think I had the right of it. “You mean he wants us to meet him under the seventh son, like in a family?” I pondered. “That makes even less sense than before.”

He paced like an opium feeder seeking a poppy. “Not so. Now it is all clear. He was even named in these very inscriptions! The name of the seventh son, underneath, the concept of imperium, the worship of Sol Invictus, it all fits.”

“Christ knows what you’re talking of, but I don’t. Who was named in these inscriptions? Who is ‘he’?”

“Never mind. We have little enough time, for the bells of the basilica have already struck once as we talked. We have a little under an hour left, and that is all. Follow me.” He made for the exit.

“Where?”

“Whence,” he countered. There was always time to correct me, I noticed. “We’re going back to the center of the city. The Forum, the center of pagan, imperial Rome.”

I pulled at his sleeve just before he plunged recklessly into the night. “And what about the leper with the silver eyes?” I implored. “Have we fully considered what he might do? Can we be certain that he does not know your true identity? Can we risk the chance that he may get to Don Ferrente and unmask you?”

Brother Guido turned and took me by the shoulders, the goodness in his blue eyes so different from the memory of those malign silver ones. “Luciana. We have no choice. For if I attend the meeting, he may well give me away. But if I don’t, I will certainly