Trusting in her powers, but also and above all in the power of despair and in the deep love that Andreas inspired to her, she began to drag his inert body, realizing that she was not even making a superhuman effort. She extended the spell of invisibility to her young love and headed down the Longobard Coast to reach Franciolinis Palace. None of the men who were fighting in the street gave them a glance, continuing to cross their weapons and fight as if Lucia, with her heavy burden, did not even exist. When she stood in front of the door of Andreas house, she laid her lifeless body on the ground and dwelt once again on the decorated tile that had intrigued her so much, the one representing a seven-pointed pentacle. But it was not the time to let herself be taken by distractions. She grabbed the clapper attached to the door and began to knock with how much strength she still had. One of the servants at Franciolinis house, a muscular dark-skinned man with a turban on his head, whom the Peoples Captain had bought as a slave on one of his trips to Barcelona, opened the door just a crack to make sure that no enemies were knocking at the door. When he realized the situation, in the blink of an eye, he let the girl in and dragged the young master inside.
«By Allah and Muhammad, blessed be their name, may I be forgiven for naming them. What about the Captain?»
«The Captain is dead, and if, instead of wasting time invoking your gods, you dont do as I say, the same end will be reserved for your young master!»
«There doesnt seem to be much for him to do. In a few moments his soul will leave him to be reunited with that of his ancestors, and that of his father, may Allah have him in glory.»
«Hes not a Muslim, so Allah will not have him in glory. We can still do something for him. Take him into his room and lay him on his bed, then follow my instructions and leave us alone.»
Chapter 3
Alì did exactly what Lucia ordered him to do. In the pantry he had found all the herbs the girl needed, including willow bark, whose function he was unclear about. It would never be used in the kitchen, yet her owners kept a good supply of it in carefully sealed jars. Only then the Moorish servant had realised that the pantry was more of a herbalists shop than a storehouse of edible things. There were those too, yes, but many of the herbs in the jars he knew well were used by Jews and sorcerers for purposes contrary to the teachings of both his religion and Catholicism. After all, the Christian God and the Muslim God were very much alike, and if a man was destined to die, his own God would take him in glory and be happy alongside him. One could not claim to save the life of one who was already destined to join his Almighty Father in the kingdom of heaven. This was what Alì thought, as he crossed the Piazza del Palio and went up the Shepherds Coast in great stride, taking care not to run into the scuffles that had spread so far. He stopped in front of the door indicated to him, the one on whose headboard was written Hic est Gallus Chirurgus10 .
Another sorcerer!, brooded Alì between himself. He calls himself a surgeon, but I know he is the brother of Lodomilla Ruggieri, the witch who burned alive in Piazza della Morte a few years ago. If I dont pay attention and try to get away from these people, I too will end my days on a burning pile. And even my masters are in it up to their necks, I can only understand now what kind of heretics I have served for years!
Then he realized in his mind that, belonging to another religion, the Inquisition could not prosecute him, and he decided to knock. A tall, sturdy man with mighty biceps, long hair gathered at the back of his neck in a ponytail, and a beard that had not been shaved for a few days, he looked him from top to bottom. Alì was also strong: in his native country, in the upper Nile valley, he was a wrestling champion, there was no one who could beat him, and the man in front of him was unarmed, so he looked at him and told him what he had to tell.
«I see, Ill get my tools and Ill follow you. Wait for me here, Franciolinis palace is a short distance away, but I prefer to make the journey in your company. The two of us could better deal with any troublemakers.»
Gallo disappeared for a few moments inside his house and reappeared with a heavy calfskin bag, which contained the tools of the trade and which, judging by their appearance, must have been very heavy. They crossed the square passing by people who were fighting bitterly. The surgeon recognized a friend of his from Jesi who was shot down with a sword and rushed to help him. But Alì was quick to pull him by the arm and make him give up his intention. It was not really the case to get noticed and engage in a battle that had taken a bad turn for the inhabitants of the city. It was more urgent to rescue his young master... Alì and Gallo quickly slipped into the door of Franciolinis palace, which the Moor provided to bolt from the inside. He would no longer want to stick his nose out of there even for all the gold in the world, until the fighting had subsided, not knowing that he would soon be forced to leave for an even more dangerous commission than the one he had just completed.
Alì watched Gallo gently extract three arrows from Andreas body, while Lucia, at his side, was ready to dab the blood that was spilling as soon as the sharp weapon was extracted, using freshly laundered cloths and applying the herbal poultice that she herself had prepared in the kitchen. The last arrow, the one that went through the young mans arm from side to side, didnt want to get out, no matter how hard Gallo pulled.
«Bastards, they used arrows with rostrums, they only go forward, you cant pull them back. I will have to break the rocker tail and take out the arrow from the front, cutting with the scalpel the skin of the arm at the exit hole, but I will risk to cause a fatal haemorrhage. Are you ready to swab?»
«Yes,» replied Lucia, «Im ready!»
Alì realized that only the force of despair prevented Lucia from fainting, even though her eyesight and the ferrous smell of blood were probably dulling her senses. Realizing that the girl would not be able to attend Gallo again, Alì took a deep breath and, as soon as the surgeon finished pulling out the arrow, he rushed to stop the copious bleeding. In less than an instant, the rag he was holding in his hand was completely dyed red, and made him feel a very unpleasant slimy sensation to the touch. Alì had never felt anything like it in his life, but he had to be strong. Gallo tore a strip of sheet, tying it tightly around Andreas arm, upstream of the wound. The flow of blood slowed.
«We cant leave the arm so tight for long, or we will lose it and then I will be forced to amputate it because of the gangrene that will surely form. I need a powerful coagulant and healing agent, and the most powerful is human placenta extract. Alì, you have to go to the midwife, she always has dried placenta and...»
«But, the midwife lives outside Porta Valle, its too dangerous to go there!»
«Then I guess there will be little we can do for the boy.»
Luckily, Alì knew a passage that, through the cellars of the palace, led outside the walls, near the valley, where a guild of county workers, led by the Giombini family, were building a new mill for milling grain. As he emerged from the little door that opened in the eastern walls, well hidden by a thick bush, he regretted the sight of the mill being built, which had been partially razed to the ground by the fury of the enemy. But he could not dwell on that detail. The semi-destroyed structure offered him shelter from the sight of the a soldier from Ancona, who was continuing to enter the city through Porta Valle. Alì went decisively towards the small church of Saint Eligio, near which Annuccia, the midwife, lived. The midwife, when she saw the Moor, was frightened at the time, thinking that the invaders included the Saracens, then she recognized Alì and let him into the house.
«Are you crazy walking around here? I was about to kill you with this», Annuccia told him, showing the chimney wing she was holding in her hand. «Im not about to give up and get raped by this rabble!»
«I need help for my Lord, Annuccia. The Captain has been killed by the enemy and the young Lord is wounded and needs urgent care.»
After a few minutes, Alì left the midwifes house, jealously guarding what the midwife had entrusted to him and for which he had had to pay out as much as three denarii of silver. He returned to the little hidden door , coming back to Franciolinis Palace, handing over the precious casing to Gallo. The surgeon took the dry placenta, put it into a cauldron of boiling water, added a few herbs, including the rare Devils Claw, and within half an hour he obtained a thick, unpleasant smelling poultice, which he placed in a clay pot. Alì took the pot in his hand and followed Gallo to Andreas room, where Lucia was cleaning the blood on the young mans half-naked body. The surgeon trained the rudimentary tourniquet, while the girl applied an abundant layer of poultice to the wound, then wrapping a fairly narrow band, but not too much, around the injured limb. Andrea, in his semi-unconsciousness, made a grimace of grief, which cheered up all those present: he was still alive, and alert, even if very weak.
«I cant do more than this. The next few days he will need constant assistance, his fever will rise, you will have to cool his forehead with wet patches and let him ingest infusions of willow bark, hoping that he will be able to overcome not only the abundant blood loss, but also the infection that will form. If green pus starts to come out of this wound, you can start to say goodbye to him. If, on the other hand, you see yellow pus, what we surgeons call bonum et laudabile, it will mean that he is healing. But you, Lucia, dont stay here for long: your uncle will soon notice your absence, and then I think you will be in trouble. Train the Moor to assist his young master and return home.»
«May it never be so», replied the young lady. «I will be by his side until he is healed. He is my betrothed and I want to be beside him now.»
«Betrothed, you say? Well, I think it was your uncles intention not to let him walk down the aisle. Im no fortune teller, but I think todays party was all a farce to get the enemy and death for the Peoples Captain and his cadet. Do you realize that now your uncle is the highest religious and political authority in Jesi? Do as you wish, but I dont think the Cardinal is happy to see you here looking after the cadet of the Franciolini house.»
Gallo picked up his instruments, cleaned them carefully, put them back in his purse, greeted the girl with a smile, and the Moor proclaiming: «Salam Aleikum, peace be with you, brother, and thank you for your precious help.»
«Aleikum as salam, thank you for the precious care you gave my master, Im sure hell be all right.»
«Perhaps out of his wounds», said Gallo, closing the heavy door behind him. «But certainly not from the clutches of Cardinal Artemio Baldeschi.»
Over the next four days, Andrea fell prey to a fever, accompanied by his chills and delusions. Lucia had been close to him the whole time, doing exactly what Gallo had advised her to do and everything she knew about having learned from her grandmother Elena. In his delirium, Andrea often mentioned the witch Lodomilla, talked about the strange symbols drawn in the portal tile together with the seven-pointed pentacle, talked about a Jew who had initiated him to a particular kind of knowledge, sometimes appointed the biblical king Solomon, sometimes one of the wives of Emperor Frederick II, Jolanda of Brienne. She often pronounced, among other confused words, the name of a place, also known to her: Colle del Giogo. That place, which was located in the nearby Apennines a couple of days walk from Jesi, reminded her of the ritual with which, a few months earlier, she had officially joined the sect of witches worshippers of the Good Goddess. A few days before the spring equinox, her grandmother had told Lucia to be ready, as on the night of March 21st they would join the other followers of the coven up at Colle del Giogo, in the mountains of Apiro.
«Uncle says they are pagan rites, that most of the followers are heretics and sorcerers to be burned at the stake.» Lucia was a bit afraid, but curiosity outweighed fear. «Dont you think its dangerous to attend this meeting, this Sabbah, as you call it?»
Her grandmother had tightened her shoulders, as if to say that she didnt give a damn about what her brother thought, and answered her very naturally.
«When we speak of divinities, we speak of supernatural entities, which with their infinite goodness can show us paths to follow, paths that only with our eyes we would never be able to see. Now, if the true God is the Almighty Father proclaimed by your uncle, the Yahweh invoked by the Jew who lives in the little house down by the river, the Allah in which the Muslims believe, the Zeus of the Greeks or the Jupiter of the ancient Romans, where is the difference? Everyone can call God in his own way and receive the same favours, no matter what is the name he use. And if we are men and women here on earth, even in heaven, or in Olympus, or in the garden of Allah, there will be female gods. The one we worship as the Good Goddess was known to the Romans as Diana. Look, look at the facade of our palace. Look up: What do you see in a niche between the windows on the top floor?»
«The sacred image of Our Lady, of Mary, of the mother of Jesus, accompanied by the inscription Posuerunt me custodem, they placed me in the custody of this dwelling.»
«And so here we venerate Our Lady, the Holy Virgin. But remember that all the places sacred to us who call ourselves Christians, Catholics, were erected over ancient pagan temples, and the ancient divinities were replaced with the new ones. The same cathedral next door was built above the ancient Roman baths, and the location of the crypt corresponds to the location of the temple that the Romans had dedicated to the Goddess Bona, another name for Diana. As you can see, there is much in common between the different religions. In the same place where we will go in a few days, the ancient image of the Good Goddess has been replaced by a statuette of the Madonna, inside a tabernacle. The place is still sacred, and magical, and there is always someone who adorns the image with fresh and colourful lilies. It is our way of continuing to adore the Goddess, even if under the image of Mary, mother of Jesus.»
Lucia believed that her grandmother had a not indifferent culture, perhaps because she had access to the reading of forbidden books, kept in the family library. Perhaps she had been able to draw on the knowledge kept under lock and key by her uncle the Cardinal, perhaps without his knowledge, or perhaps because decades ago, when Elena was still a child, the books could be freely consulted. Then Artemio had arrogated himself the title of Inquisitor and had put under lock and key everything that was contrary to the official Faith. And it had gone well that he had not made a great bonfire of those precious texts, as other illustrious prelates in other cities of Italy and Europe had done.
«I understand, Grandma, the important thing is to believe in the good entity, which loves us and helps us, whatever its name.»
Contrary to what Lucia expected and what she had heard from those who feared the so-called witches, the ritual took place in complete tranquillity. No goat came forward to claim her virginity, nor did any of the participants try to torture her or make her sign oaths with her blood. The path to Colle del Giogo had not been easy. After the Moje lock, the path along the bank of the river Esino was often lost in the bush. Lucia could not understand how her grandmother could not get lost and find the trace of the ancient path even after having groped for several leagues in the woods, without apparent landmarks. At a certain point they had to ford the river and continue uphill along a dirt road that climbed up the hollow dug by a rushing torrent that descended from the mountain. They arrived in Apiro at lunchtime and were hosted by a young married couple, Alberto and Ornella, who offered them black bread and dried venison. The two had a little girl of about three years of age, two big blue eyes and flowing brown curly hair; she played with a rag doll near the fireplace, having fun dressing her in tiny coloured clothes, made of simple pieces of cloth. She seemed dont care about what her parents were preparing to do, together with the new arrivals, for the evening.