S. PERRY - The Heretic’s Mark

‘I’ll bear that in mind, next time we argue,’ he says, realizing that it’s the first time they have laughed together in a long while.

And then he notices, further down the street, people beginning to break away from the crowd. They are running in the direction of the vanished horses, and something about the agitation in them tells him these are not merely supporters trying to follow the progress of the race. Something is amiss. A woman’s scream pierces the mist.

‘Oh, Jesu, there’s been an accident,’ Bianca says, raising a hand to her mouth.

Without even thinking, Nicholas runs towards the commotion, Bianca at his heels. Rounding the bend at the end of the street, he runs into the back of a throng of spectators, all jostling for a view. He calls out in Italian, ‘I’m a physician, let me pass.’ Grudgingly, the crowd separates and Nicholas finds himself at the front.

A crumpled, bloodied figure in bright-yellow Venetian hose lies face-down in the street, his awful stillness a rebuke to the agitation of the people gathered around him. Rivulets of blood snake out through the spread of white hair, finding the easiest path through the cobbles like the first tentative signs of a turning tide. Too old to be a competitor, Nicholas thinks.

A quick glance around tells him he is right. Two horses stand a short way off. One is being calmed by his rider, who stands beside his mount’s sweating neck, cursing his luck. The other is riderless, his head making great sweeping bows, vapour pluming from his nostrils. A spectator struggles to hold him steady by the reins. The jockey sits propped up against the wall of a house, his face screwed up in agony, one leg twisted outwards at a sickening angle. Someone has torn away the hose from the injured limb and an elderly, grey-haired man in a black gown has his ear close to the flesh, listening for the telltale noise of bone fragments moving. Nicholas recognizes him from his visits to the Palazzo Bo as a colleague of Professor Fabrici.

Satisfied the jockey is in good hands, Nicholas turns his attention to the body in the street. As he does so, a woman and a clutch of children break out of the crowd and fall upon the inert form lying on the cobbles, wailing and lamenting with piercing cries. The woman, stout and plump-cheeked, rolls the body onto its back. She cradles it in her muscular arms, turns her tear-drenched face to the opaque sky and begins to harangue an uncaring God.

‘Merciful Mother of Jesus,’ Bianca whispers at the same instant that Nicholas recognizes the dead man. ‘It’s one of Bruno’s people – it’s the goldsmith, Signor Bondoni.’

The people emerging from the mist, heading towards the Piazza dei Signori to watch the start of the parade, or to the Basilica of St Anthony to catch its end, barely notice the couple passing in the opposite direction towards the Borgo dei Argentieri, heads down, lost in their own thoughts.

‘Are you sure ?’ says Nicholas for the third time in ten minutes.

‘As sure as I may be,’ Bianca replies wearily. ‘I asked everyone who was standing close to Bondoni the same thing. No one saw him pushed, certainly not by a man in a grey coat and a black cloth cap.’

‘But all eyes were on the horses and riders.’

‘Perhaps it really was just an accident, Nicholas. Every year someone gets injured – even killed – during these races.’

Nicholas lets out a short, brutal laugh. ‘Mind you, with a wife who looked as though she would happily wrestle an armed brigand, and six children with mouths like hungry sparrowhawks, perhaps Bondoni stepped under the horses by choice.’

Bianca rebukes him with a sharp look. ‘Nicholas! You of all people should not make light of the sin of self-destruction. Besides, she wasn’t his wife. Bruno said he has a mistress and six children.’

‘Well, there we are then. He was over sixty. Perhaps the poor man had an apoplexy and stumbled.’

They walk on in silence for a while. Then Bianca says, ‘It wasn’t chance, was it?’

‘No, of course it wasn’t.’

‘Or suicide.’

‘Doubtful.’

‘So he was pushed?’

‘Very likely. First Matteo dead, now Bondoni. Who amongst Bruno’s little guild will be next?’

‘I don’t understand,’ Bianca says. ‘If the assassin intends Bruno harm, why didn’t he take the opportunity when they passed each other on the bridge by the Porta Portello? And he’s had weeks in which to make an attack against you and me. I can see no common explanation anywhere.’

‘Nor I,’ Nicholas admits. ‘But one thing in certain: we must counsel Bruno to withdraw from the procession.’

‘Bruno – withdraw? He’ll never agree. He might be small in stature, but he has a great heart.’

‘Well, we cannot keep him in ignorance.’

Bianca laughs. ‘Bruno would risk a whole army of assassins to march at the head of his Arte dei Astronomi . You know how much it means to him.’

Nicholas shrugs in resignation. ‘There is someone else we should warn, too.’

Bianca stops. The edge in her voice cuts through the mist like a sword through gossamer. ‘We promised each other, remember?’

‘I know, but–’

‘Nicholas! No more of this!’

‘Is that what you want of me: to leave her to her fate? Will your conscience lie easy if she is next?’

An anger blazes in her amber eyes that Nicholas has never seen before. He could almost believe it murderous.

‘Enough!’ she cries, so loudly that heads turn. A passer-by frowns: a public altercation on a holy feast day – do some people have no respect? Relenting, Bianca takes Nicholas by the arm, her hand stroking his wrist in conciliation. She drops her voice. ‘That woman has done little but lecture us on fate since the day we met her. You have done all that could be asked of any compassionate man. I will not countenance you doing more. We have promised each other to forget her. Do you now break your oath?’

He shakes his head like a scolded schoolboy and sighs. ‘Of course not. You are right. I have warned her. She chose not to listen. What more can I do?’

Bianca releases his arm. As they set off again through the strange, ominous vapour that muffles their footsteps and robs those who pass of a distinct outline, she says softly, ‘We agreed: as if she had never existed .’

‘He went to the Podestà’s office, hours ago, Signora Bianca,’ Luca says as he brushes the creases out of the new livery that his master has provided for the procession: a tabard of lockram dyed midnight-blue, with a long-tailed star picked out in yellow thread arcing across the breast from shoulder to hip.

‘Did he go alone?’ she asks tentatively.

‘Alonso is with him.’

‘Did he say when he would return?’ she asks, casting a worried glance at Nicholas.

‘He will not return, Signora. He told me that once he’d done at the Palazzo del Podestà, he would send Alonso to summon the Arte dei Astronomi to assemble beneath his banner in the Palazzo dei Signori. If you need him, that’s where you will find him.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Absolutely. The Master will guard that banner with his life, lest the guild of shit-shovellers tries to move it to the back of the procession.’

‘Why would they do that, Luca?’

‘To usurp our rightful place in the parade, Madonna. That’s the sort of low-down trick the guild of night-soil removers always tries to play on holy days.’

Rather than risk sending Luca into a panic, Nicholas waits until he and Bianca are alone in their chamber before he says, ‘I’ll go to the Palazzo dei Signori and warn Bruno to take care.’