S. Parris - The Secret Dead

“If your sister was inside the walls of San Domenico lastnight, someone must know something.” I was surprised at how level my voicesounded, how carefully I controlled my expression. Only a few months since myvows, and already I had acquired the Dominican talent for dissembling. Thoughit was a skill that was to serve me well in later years, in that moment Idespised myself to the core. “What is your name?”

“Maria.” Most of the women in this city were called Maria,but she hesitated just long enough for me to wonder if she was lying “Yours?”

“Bruno.”

“Well then, Bruno. You know where I can be found. But Iwill not hold my breath — I know your kind always stick together. Whatever hashappened to my sister, he will not face justice for it. Not in this city. Afamily like mine, against a man of his name?”

I wondered what she meant by that, and recalled the quiet,deliberate cruelty of Donato’s last insult to her. “Why did he call you — that?”I asked.

Her expression closed up immediately. “I expect it was theworst abuse he could think of.”

We looked at one another in silence for a moment, her eyesdaring me to question further.

“What about the locket?”

Her mouth dropped open, the fury in her eyes displaced byfear.

“What do you know of that?”

“Nothing. Only that I heard you accuse Fra Donato of takingit.”

Her hand strayed to her throat; an involuntary gesture, Isupposed, as she thought of her sister wearing the locket. I could think only ofthe bruises around the dead girl’s neck.

“If he has taken it …” She faltered. I sensed that she wasweighing up how much to say. “It has little value for its own sake. But itbelonged to our mother. I must have it back.” The note of desperation inher voice told me she was withholding something. She feared that locket’sfalling into the wrong hands — but why?

I stood foolishly staring at her, wishing I could offersome consolation, cursing the weight of what I knew — the truth she would spendthe rest of her life raking over and not knowing. Or so I had to hope.

“You know where to find me if you hear anything,” she saidagain, with a shrug. I was about to reply when, silent as a cat, she turned anddisappeared into the blackness between the buildings.

** *

I crashed through the door of the infirmary, careless ofthe hour, careless of the noise I made. Fra Gennaro was bent over the bed ofold Fra Francesco by the light of a candle, applying a poultice to his sunkenchest to ease the fluid on his lungs. Gennaro started at the sound of the door,but as soon as he realized it was me, his expression told me he had beenexpecting this.

I glanced along the length of the infirmary, my ribsheaving with the effort of running through the back streets. Four beds in therow were occupied by elderly friars who wheezed and grunted in concert; theymight have been asleep, but they might also have been quite capable of hearingand understanding. It was all I could do not to blurt out my accusations;Gennaro saw the urgency in my face and gestured me toward the dispensary,whispering words of reassurance to Fra Francesco as he stood to follow me.

“She was not a whore, was she?”

He closed the door behind us and set his candle down on thedispensary bench, signaling for me to lower my voice.

“I told you only what was told to me,” he said. His tonewas clipped and cold, tight with suppressed anger.

“And you chose not to question it.”

He was across to me in one stride, his hand clamping myarm, face inches from mine.

“As I recall, Fra Giordano, you also swore an oath to askno questions. Who have you been talking to?”

“I didn’t have to talk to anyone.” I dropped my voice to anurgent whisper. “Tonight her mirror image walked into the Cerriglio and accusedone of our brothers of murdering her twin.”

He stared at me, his grip slackening.

“She was never found in the street by soldiers. She diedinside these walls, didn’t she? That’s why you would not speculate on whokilled her. Because you already knew.”

He breathed out hard through his nose, his eyes fixed on mefor a long pause, as if I were a favorite son who had disappointed him. Eventually,he let go of me and rubbed his hands quickly over his face, like an animalwashing.

“Where would we be, you and I, if we were not here?” hesaid, looking up.

I blinked at him, unsure whether it was a rhetoricalquestion. He raised his brow, and I realized he wanted an answer. “If you hadnot come to San Domenico, Fra Giordano, what would you have done with yourlife?”

“I would have tried to obtain a place at the royaluniversity,” I mumbled.

“Would you? The son of a mercenary soldier? With whosemoney?”

I looked at my feet.

“My father was well born, but he died desperately in debtto a Genoan banker,” he continued. “If I had not come to San Domenico, I wouldmost likely have had to beg for a position as a tutor to idle rich boys. Andyou, Bruno — I doubt you would by now be the most promising young theologian inNaples, whatever you claim.”

I said nothing, because I knew he was right.

“We are alike, you and I.” His voice softened. “Neither oneof us, in our hearts, desired the constraints of a religious life. But it was theonly door open to us. You acknowledge that, surely?”

I gave the briefest nod.

“Then you also understand that it is not the likes of uswho keep San Domenico afloat. Our scholarship may contribute to its reputation,but it is men like Fra Donato, with his name and his father’s vast endowments,who ensure its continued prestige and wealth. We are the beneficiaries, and wewould do well to remember that.”

“So he must be protected, at any cost. Whatever he does.This man who might be prior one day.”

I turned away in disgust.

“What else would you do?” he continued. “Call in themagistrates? Destroy the whole convent and college with a scandal, for the sakeof one foolish girl?” He rubbed the flat of his hand across his cropped hair. “Iadmire your sense of justice, Bruno, I have already told you that. But you areyoung. If you want to make your way in this city, you must learn to be arealist.”

I wanted to tell him that folly did not deserve death, thather name was Anna, and she did have people to mourn her. I wanted to protestthat a rich and well-connected young man was not entitled to snuff out a lifemerely because it had become inconvenient to him. But I could say nothingwithout revealing that I had been asking questions. My gaze shifted away to therows of glass bottles and earthenware jars ranged along the shelves. Thedispensary always smelled clean, of freshly crushed herbs and the boiling waterwith lemon juice that he used to scrub down his table and instruments, acontrast to the pall of sickness and old bodies that hung over the infirmary.Somewhere in here a tiny, half-formed child was suspended in alcohol, in a jar.Donato’s child.

“Suppose someone knew she came here last night, and comes insearch of her?”

Gennaro’s brow lowered; he fixed me with such a penetratingstare that I almost feared he could see my deception.

“Why should you imagine that?”

“Her clothes did not look like those of a whore. Perhaps,”I added, as if I had just thought of it, “when you first found her, she was wearingsome jewelry that might identify her? If we knew who she was, we might bebetter prepared to defend ourselves against any accusations.”

He sighed, as if the conversation were keeping him fromsomething pressing. “The girl came here alone last night. Donato took her intothe lemon grove — they argued, and he grabbed her by the neck to frighten herinto silence, he said, for he feared she threatened to make a scene and rousethe whole convent. She resisted, and he held her harder than he intended. Herdeath was an accident.”