The guild ahead of them in the procession is hoisting its banners and preparing to follow the sound of the drums. The crowd lining the walls breaks out into sporadic clapping and cheering. The Arte dei Astronomi must either march or stand down.
In the event it is Alonso – entrusted by his master with the banner – who takes command. He has the little group form into an orderly file, two abreast. Then, as the guild in front begins to stride out, he calls out in what he imagines is the voice of a Caesar, ‘Astronomi – avanzare!’
The only man not to obey is Nicholas. Wishing them well, he slips away into the crowd.
At once he is jostled by bodies. He feels as though he’s jumped from the safety of a shore into waters whose depth he cannot judge. Although the throng is moving with him, it does so with a slow, jerky, hesitant progress. This far down the procession, the guilds are stopping and starting unpredictably. And he needs to hurry. He is sure now that something is terribly wrong.
From his bench in the Piazza dei Signori the mathematician watches the vanguard of the march move off into the mist. The drummers raise their hands high in a blur as they hammer out a martial beat. Behind them comes a squad of the Podestà’s guard. Their breastplates of burnished steel reflect the numerous flaming torches, making them appear like a squad of small suns on the move. Behind them, the replica Venetian galley sways precariously on its way to do battle with the heathen Turk.
Galileo pours himself another cup of the Englishman’s wine. And as he does so, a young maid barely out of her teens – dark-haired, plump and dressed in pious brown hessian – slips onto the bench beside him. She has a folded sheet of paper in her hand.
‘Are you Signor Galileo, the professor from the Palazzo Bo?’ she asks tentatively. She seems to be searching his face as though she thinks she might have met him before, but isn’t sure.
‘I am he… Sister. Who are you?’
‘My name is Carlotta.’
‘You look like a nun. I’m a little short on coin, if it’s charity you’re after.’
‘I’m not a nun. I’m a Beguine. And I have a letter for you.’
‘It’s not a bill for votive candles, is it – for my father’s soul?’
‘I have been instructed by Signor–’ Carlotta stops, as though trying to make sure she has the name right. ‘By Signor Barrani to give you this.’ She hands him the paper.
‘Why is Signor Purse entrusting his letters to a Beguine?’ he asks.
Her reply sounds stilted, like a bad actor who has trouble memorizing lines. ‘He said… you would surely want to hear the news… but he was too busy at… the Palazzo del Podestà… to give it to you in person. It’s an errand. The payment will go to the poor.’
‘I’m glad to hear it. Perhaps I should give up mathematics and take to delivering letters.’
Unfolding the note, Galileo finds the misty twilight insufficient to read by. He moves across to a torch burning in its sconce against the wall.
… a great purse full of His Serene Highness’s ducats has this day arrived from Venice… your labours on the sphere rewarded… wherein this very place I may see you soundly recompensed…. be there, when the bell in the clock tower strikes the said hour…
Your friend and fellow seeker of knowledge,
Signor Purse
Galileo reads it a second time, to savour the meat of it and capture the detail that his first, hurried glances have missed. The hand is new to him. He cannot recall receiving a letter from Bruno Barrani before, and on reflection he wonders if perhaps the writing is a little too feminine to be his friend’s. But then Bruno is a small man and is as particular as a woman about his appearance. A measure of delicacy might be expected. And it is signed Signor Purse. By that measure alone, he can see no reason to suspect one of his pupils of playing a trick on him.
Tucking the note into the sleeve of his tunic, Galileo Galilei walks back to the bench, ready to thank the messenger and explain – regretfully – that he cannot afford to tip her for her troubles.
But when he reaches the spot, he finds she has not waited.
The mist is thickening. Night has the upper hand now as Nicholas pushes on through the lanes towards the Borgo dei Argentieri. Soon he is all but alone. He passes only the occasional citizen late for the festivities and the odd scrawny, prowling cat. More than once he takes a wrong turning, straying down stuccoed canyons whose ends are lost in darkness. So far he has realized his error before becoming irretrievably lost. But the prospect of wandering into the heart of this vaporous labyrinth and losing all sense of place is frighteningly real to him. When he spots the two Corio cousins sitting on the cobbles outside the entrance to Bruno’s house, a flask of wine and a dice board lying beside them, he feels like a mariner who’s spotted land on the very day the food runs out.
He asks, ‘Where is Signor Barrani? Have you seen him?’
One of the cousins points back up the street. ‘He’s in the procession, Master.’
‘I’ve just come from there,’ Nicholas says, trying hard to stifle the fears that are marching inside him now with a din that would put the Piazza dei Signori to shame. ‘They started without him.’
The man shrugs. ‘That’s what he said when he left. We haven’t seen him since.’
‘And Signora Bianca? You must have seen her leave. Which way did she go – towards the Piazza dei Signori?’
The other cousin shakes his head. To Nicholas’s horror he points in the opposite direction – towards Porta Portello.
Along the riverbank the mist has turned to fog. The narrow margin of black water that is visible to Nicholas is shot through with a golden weave from the torches burning here and there in their mounts. As he crosses the bridge, his fears rise up from the surface like monstrous sea creatures. He can think of only one place Bianca could have headed for in this quarter of the city: the storehouse. And he can think of only one reason for her visit. He sees again in his mind her brief exchange with Hella in the Piazza del Santo this morning, and he recalls only too clearly her refusal to reveal what had passed between them.
The brickwork of the storehouse looms out of the fog, like the walls of a prison so grim that he cannot stop himself imagining the torturers at work within. The fact that he can see a glimmer of torchlight in the narrow window beneath the eaves gives him no comfort. A torturer needs enough light to work by, but not so much that he can see too deeply into his victim’s eyes. Unless, of course, he has no soul.
The wide doors at the front look securely barred. Slipping down the side of the building, he sees the smaller door ajar. His heart pounding, his mind flinching at all the horrors presented to it by his imagination, he slips quietly around the door and inside. He is certain now that something very wrong has happened tonight, and that Hella is at the centre of it.
What he sees confirms the very worst of his fears.
Bianca is lying against the cradle of Bruno’s great sphere, clad in the pearl-coloured gown Bruno had brought her. Only it is no longer pristine. It is stained with blood. And looming over her is the man in the grey coat.