The professor takes a trocar from the instrument chest and, with the hollowed tip, straightens the two tails of blood vessel and optic nerve. He likes things neat.
‘It is believed by most professors of optics and their students that sight is the manifestation of certain rays, or emanations, that are emitted by the eye,’ Fabrici continues. ‘These fan out to alight upon what is before them, somehow transmitting the result to our perception. I do not believe that.’ He looks around to see if there is any disagreement. There is none, or at least none voiced. ‘I believe the eye is a receptacle. It gathers emanations from the objects themselves. It does not project them. And those emanations are bound by light. Let us see if we can find anything in the eye that proves I am wrong.’
And so saying, he picks up one eyeball from the box and lays it on the Bergamo linen. He takes a scalpel from the other box and punctures the sclera. A little bubbling dribble spills out around the incision. The chamber is silent – save for the sound of Bruno Barrani’s body hitting the floor.
‘I will see that image in my mind for the rest of my life,’ Bruno complains as he and Nicholas leave the Palazzo Bo around noon. ‘You might have warned me.’
‘I thought you had the stomach of a lion?’ Nicholas replies, trying not to laugh.
The early mist has burned off and the sky is cloudless. The light paints the buildings a pale gold. In the arcades of the Piazza delle Erbe the fruit and vegetable stalls are a blaze of greens, oranges, reds and purples. The citizens parade in their finery. Only Bruno’s face is without colour.
‘I think I might forget about the statue,’ he says sadly. He squeezes his eyes tight shut and shakes his head vigorously. ‘One thing’s for certain: I’ll never be able to eat oysters again.’
They have arranged to meet Bianca by the Palazzo del Podestà. She has been shopping for supper. They find her waiting for them, a wicker basket by her feet. Bruno makes another of his extravagant bows. ‘Cousin!’ he cries. ‘Your beauty outshines bright Phoebus himself. Once again you look positively blooming.’
Bianca replies with a little bob of a curtsey. ‘I’ve bought some fine folpetti,’ she says proudly, and then to Nicholas, ‘That’s octopus.’
‘Oh, good,’ says Bruno quietly.
A few minutes’ walk takes them back to the house in the Borgo dei Argentieri. The conversation is inconsequential, lazy exchanges of friendly banter in the sunshine. Carefree laughter. Past moments revisited. Nicholas’s attention wanders to the colourful city. Three times on the journey he sees a man in a grey coat and a black cloth cap, and three times he knows he is looking only at a shadow, or a trick of the light.
At the Barrani house the three Corio cousins whom Bruno has hired as guards are sitting against the street wall playing knuckle-bones. The street door is open, giving a view through the passageway into the sunlit courtyard beyond. Nicholas can see figures standing around the table by the mulberry tree. One is Galileo’s pupil, Matteo Fedele. He is in animated conversation with Bruno’s servant, Luca. Judging by the rolls of parchment on the table, he has brought more calculations from Signor Galileo’s house.
As Nicholas, Bianca and Bruno emerge into the bright theatre of the courtyard, Luca turns towards them and says, ‘Master, we have company.’
Now Nicholas can see more clearly the other two figures standing around the table. One is Alonso. The other is a young woman with fair hair, wearing a plain brown cloth kirtle. He senses Bianca freeze at his side.
‘Master, we have a visitor,’ says Alonso, making a careless bow to Bruno Barrani. ‘This pious signorina has come from the Beguinage at the Seminary Maggiore. She says she is a friend of your guests. She has come to be remembered to them.’
Bruno is already making another extravagant bend of the knee, his habit whenever he meets a female unknown to him, be she six or sixty. But Nicholas and Bianca are rooted to the spot.
‘Good morrow, Meneer Nicholas… Mevrouw Bianca,’ says Hella Maas, presenting them with one of her cold, emotionless smiles. ‘Praise be to God! He has brought you safely to your destination.’
30
‘What are you doing here, Hella? This is not Rome. Have you decided the Pope no longer needs you to pray for him?’ Bianca’s voice is frostier than Nicholas has ever heard it.
‘What manner of welcome is this?’ Hella Maas says in quiet voice. ‘After all the weeks we spent together on the Via Francigena, and after all the effort I expended finding you.’ She tilts her head towards Nicholas, her eyes widening as though searching for a friendly face. ‘Surely you are pleased to see me, even if your wife isn’t.’
‘I think you should answer my wife’s question.’
Bruno’s eyes flick from the stranger to Nicholas, then to Bianca. The tension in her body isn’t lost on him. She’s as rigid as if she’s just spotted a viper at her feet.
‘I changed my mind,’ Hella says, suddenly cheerful again. ‘Rome can wait awhile. Padua is such a fine city. Much finer than Den Bosch, don’t you think?’
‘How did you know where to find us?’ Nicholas asks.
‘Easily. Bianca mentioned her cousin more than once in all those weeks we were together. I am lodging at the Beguinage. All I had to do was ask the Sisters to enquire after one Bruno Barrani. It seems he has some small fame in this city. So now here I am – though I must confess I had thought to find a warmer welcome.’
Bruno looks perplexed. ‘You don’t seem joyful to see your friend, Cousin – and after such companionship on the road. Is there something wrong?’
Bianca doesn’t answer him. Her eyes remain locked on the newcomer. ‘What is it you want with us, Hella? I thought we had said all we have to say to each other.’
‘I wanted to see Nicholas again. I have need of a physician’s skill.’
‘You are ill?’
‘I am sick of heart.’
Bianca lets out a stunted laugh of derision. ‘There are numerous churches in this city, Hella. If you need your heart healed, any one of them will service your needs. Just light a candle and leave a coin. God knows, it’s not as though you don’t know how to pray.’
‘Cousin, are you not being uncharitable to Signorina Maas?’ Bruno asks, his fine black eyebrows lifting in surprise. ‘It seems she has come a long way to meet only coldness.’
‘Signorina Maas is a young maid who hasn’t yet learned how to curb her tongue in adult company. I thought we had heard the last of her.’
‘Cousin, this is unlike you. When did your own tongue become so heartless?’
‘You don’t know her, Bruno. On the journey here, she said things – bad things… hurtful things.’
Hella adopts a contrite expression that neither Bianca nor Nicholas has seen before. ‘I confess it,’ she says. ‘On occasion the demands of the journey brought about a certain ill humour in me.’
‘Only on occasion?’ Bianca mutters under her breath.
Hella seems not to have heard her. ‘My feet were sore. I was not as kind as I could have been. That was wrong. Every day since we parted at the hospice of St Bernard I have prayed to God to forgive me.’
‘There, you see,’ says Bruno, pleased by the result of his impromptu diplomacy. ‘All is now made up. Greet your friend kindly, Cousin, and Alonso will prepare us a tasty dish of that folpetti you bought in the Palazzo delle Erbe. If Signorina Maas has expended so much effort in finding us, the least we can do is offer her some proper Paduan hospitality. Let no one say of Bruno Barrani that he sent a Sister of charity from his house empty-handed and hungry.’