Page 11 of The Stone Witch of Florence

TEN

FRA MICHELE DI LAPO ARNOLFI

July 7th of 1348, City of Florence

A nd, just as the bishop predicted, Piero did not die. Still, nobody really expected Ginevra to show up, from such a distance, with only a boy as an escort. So when the pair arrived at the bishop’s residence just a fortnight after Piero was dispatched to Genoa, the Swiss mercenaries guarding his doors regarded them with suspicion. They conferred among themselves in their native tongue, and after a few minutes told the travelers to go meet with the inquisitor first.

A tight knot formed in Ginevra’s gut.

“But the bishop said he’d find a position for me if I delivered his letter!” Piero explained.

“After you drop her off,” said a soldier gruffly, slamming the palazzo doors.

Piero shrugged. “Come on, Ginevra. The inquisitor’s palazzo is just around the corner.”

“We are not expected. Someone has tricked us,” she said.

“I swear it was the bishop who sent me. He promised he would place me with a good family in exchange for delivering you. Come, let’s do what his man says.”

“No. Something isn’t right here.”

“Please, Ginevra, I can’t be alone anymore!”

She let herself be dragged to the inquisitor’s door. The lintel was inscribed let no man commit error in word or deed and painted in with gold foil. The gold was peeling.

“I’m going to knock,” said Piero.

“Wait—I need to think for a moment!”

He knocked.

“I told you to wait!”

The door opened. A neatly dressed servant stared at them.

Piero looked at Ginevra and then back at the servant. Neither adult said anything, so he announced their purpose. He made Ginevra take out the letter from Ludovico. The servant stepped aside to let them in. The knot inside Ginevra wound tighter. She’d so dearly wanted the letter to be genuine she had ignored her instincts. Now she’d walked into a trap she did not understand. Piero ran back toward the home of the bishop, stopping to wave goodbye before he disappeared around a corner. She moved to follow him, but the servant pulled her by the arm into the dark interior, then shut the door.

“Miasmas,” he said by way of apology. Her heart began to flump in ways it shouldn’t.

She found herself at the shorter end of a rectangular room, the interior wall pierced by three windows that showed a central stone courtyard. Narrow blocks of light shone through, giving just enough illumination for Ginevra to see the walls were painted with panel scenes of the apocalypse: towers toppled by earthquakes, famine riding fast on a skeletal horse, sinners packed into a flaming kiln tended by beasts.

“So, the boy, he actually found you, then?”

Ginevra jumped. Straining her eyes into the gloom, she saw a tall, slender figure pacing at the far end of the hall, his soft leather slippers making faint slaps on the green tile floors.

“He did. But he ran away, just now.”

“Incredible. Monna Ginevra, I am Fra Michele di Lapo Arnolfi, Inquisitor to His Holiness Pope Clement VI.” He paused briefly, awaiting platitudes, but Ginevra only studied him intently.

He was not so old, a few years more than herself, at most. But he had the pale skin and darkly circled eyes of one who spent too much time reading by lamplight, and his narrow frame was lost in the voluminous black-and-white robes of his order. A black niello pomander hung from his silk belt, the size and shape of a crab apple. If Ginevra had been closer, she’d have seen that silver letters spelled out prayers to San Sebastiano around its circumference. The trinket emitted a pervasive musky odor and he jerked it compulsorily up to his mouth and nose every minute or so.

Ginevra saw she was being observed just as closely. Automatically, she touched the scar on her nose, and then was annoyed she had pointed to the very thing this loathsome man was searching for. Her gesture broke his silence.

“Er, our deepest apologies, but Signore Ludovico died shortly after he wrote you.”

Ginevra’s heart panged, but she kept her face stony. This was why the pear tree had warned her. So she did not have to learn of her Ludo’s death from this sickly skeleton of a man.

“Ser Ludovico wrote that the bishop had particular need of my services, that I was to be welcomed back into the city.”

“Yes, well. Is it true that in the year 1340, when so many died from the water sickness, you went into infected houses and parishes and never became ill yourself?”

“It is true.”

“And is the same true with this new and vile plague?”

“It is, so far as I know it.”

“And I am also of the understanding that the nuns of Sant’Elisabetta taught you to read?”

“Sister Agnesa did, yes.” Ginevra realized she had not said that name aloud in years. Another pang of heart.

“And that with these skills, you became familiar with certain books on sorcery and unnatural arts?”

Ginevra stiffened. “I was accused of such familiarity, as you clearly know. But that does not make it true.”

The inquisitor took a nervous inhale from his pomander and spoke: “Well, it’s close enough,” he said. “What we require is a person impervious to the effects of the pestilence, who is also intimate with practices and writings of charlatans and sorcerers.” Another sniff.

Ginevra almost turned and fled right there. She expected to be asked about her healing skills, not interrogated about sorcery. Again.

But then she remembered the lone guard at the porta , the absent bishop, the empty streets. If ever there was a time a woman might rise above her born station, surely this was it. She must be steady, make her demands. If it did not work, she could leave whenever she wanted. There was nobody to stop her.

“So,” she said, “what would you have me do, then?”

The inquisitor left Ginevra’s question hanging in the air and called out to the lone servant, who was named Giuseppe. The fashionable young man reappeared carrying a small slant-top desk and set it in the center of the room. Atop he placed a ceramic beaker painted with green and purple grapevines pecked by golden chickens. Ginevra realized she was desperately thirsty, and began to say her thanks, but the inquisitor walked to the beaker and drank its entire contents himself.

He wiped his mouth delicately, then removed from the desk a little row of bottles, filled with liquids in varying shades of violet, sage, plum, and emerald. He placed them on top of the desk, then retreated to his far side. He indicated Ginevra should come forward and examine.

“In your work with necromancers and witches, have you ever seen anything like these?”

“I never worked with—never mind—no. Flasks filled with liquid. It could be anything.” She grew impatient. “Why are you showing this to me?”

“ Becaus e: someone is stealing the relics out of our churches . ”

“Stealing...relics?” Ginevra was not sure she’d heard correctly.

“And whoever it is, he leaves these behind. One bottle for one relic. We thought with your background, you might recognize them, which is why, aside from your fortitude against illness, I—er, rather— Ludovico suggested that we write to you.”

“Ser Inquisitor, I do not follow.”

“With so many gone,” he continued, “our holy spaces are not watched as they ought to be. Seven of our most precious relics are now gone. And once the relics are taken, so die the residents of the parish. I myself am one of the very few left in the parish of Santa Reparata.”

“So...you did not ask me here to heal people?”

“Oh, no, NO, no, no, Monna,” he said, pulling at the pomander. “As we all unfortunately know, this plague is the wrath of God—” sniff “—manifesting itself on earth. The only escape is to pray for intercession from the saints—” sniff “—but we can’t do that because our saints keep disappearing.” The inquisitor’s voice broke and his cheeks became flush. Was he about to cry ? Ginevra decided it must be the wine.

“Ser Inquisitor, are the relics not crusted in gold and jewels? It is not sorcerers who are interested in those, but ordinary men. You have no need for one with specialized knowledge—”

“Ha! You’ve a mind for inquisiting, just like me.” (Ginevra did not appreciate the comparison.) “The golden reliquaries remain intact, in position. Only the relics were taken. ”

Ginevra shivered. A pall hung over the city; she felt its suffocating drape when she crossed through the gate. Who would choose to be closer to such a wicked crime? But, if this was the task she must accomplish to begin life anew, so be it. “What happens if the thief is not caught?”

“He will be caught. This condition must be met if your exile is to be rescinded.”

“Reversing my exile is a start. But it’s not enough to secure my help. You ask an extraordinary thing.”

“Name your price, then, bold woman.”

“I wish to join the Florentine Guild of Doctors, Apothecaries, and Grocers,” she said, finally voicing aloud what she had wished for a thousand times in silence.

“You wish to be a grocer?” he asked in all seriousness.

“ No. I wish to register as a doctor, of course.”

“But you are a woman.”

“I am aware. And yet, I still wish to be admitted to the guild as a doctor. So I can practice my trade without persecution. I know it is unusual, but women may join, if they pass the exam. I’ll need the patronage of someone important—I thought Ludovico might... Anyway, I suppose you will have to do.” Ginevra was terrible at flattery.

“Monna, that is not in my control. The guild decides its own members.”

“Are you saying the guild doesn’t value a recommendation from the office of the Holy Inquisitor?” (She was better at insults.)

“It’s just, this is a highly unorthodox request...” he spluttered.

Ginevra shrugged. “These are unorthodox times. And I should think, judging by the emptiness of your streets and the stink of the air, that perhaps the good doctors of Florence should not turn up their noses at offered help. No matter where it comes from.”

“Fine, then. This deal is in my favor, anyhow, as it will never come to pass. If you recover our relics, I will request your admittance and provide requisite funding to the Guild of Doctors, Apothecaries, and Grocers, which they will decline, as neither your father nor your grandfather was a member. Now. Is that all?”

“Yes. That is all. Plus expenses. And it must all be in writing.” The obstacle of patronage was not a surprise to her, but never mind. She would sort that bit out later.

“Very well, then,” said the inquisitor. “But it shall also be put in writing that while engaged in my services, you will not perform any doctoring, and that you must appear at my place of residence to report on progress at intervals of no longer than three days, the first meeting being on July the tenth. You will note my generosity in giving you the rest of today to recover from your journey. Any deviation voids our agreement, and you will face immediate criminal charges for violating your exile.”

Ginevra nodded curtly.

“Then we are in agreement. Giuseppe, come here.” The inquisitor wrote up the terms, and he and Ginevra signed their names, with the servant acting as witness.

Then the inquisitor gave her a modest sum for incidentals. He also gave her the first small bottle found in San Filippo’s reliquary, and a list he had drawn of the robbed churches and the dates the thefts were first noticed.

Ginevra examined the parchment: it was decorated with massive borders of flowers, rats, the crest of the city, and what looked like a procession of saints walking along the bottom of the page.

“This is very...formal, Ser Inquisitor.”

“Thank you,” he said blushing. “The beauty illustrates the importance of the words.”

She squinted to read his perfect handwriting, the tiny names of churches cramped inside colorful borders. No wonder Florence needed her help. Their inquisitor spent all his time drinking wine and making art.

“Fine,” she said, tucking the list and the contract into her belt. “I take my leave, and will return soon.”

“In three days,” pressed the inquisitor.

“In three days.”

“I pray for your success, and for the soul of your friend, Ludovico . I shall inform the bishop of our arrangement.”

Before she could respond, Giuseppe ushered her through the front door and locked it. She did not see Piero outside. She called out his name, but there was no answer. She started toward the bishop’s home, intending to ask the boy if he’d like to continue as her partner. But then she stopped herself. Perhaps it was better this way. Piero would be sent to live with a family, with other children. She would not force him to accompany her on her crooked path. She put him in the place in her heart she kept for things she had cared for and lost, along with Ludovico, Monna Vermilia, and her original left nostril.

Now, in the street alone, she was struck by the reality of her decision. She did not know how to hunt a thief. She took out the inquisitor’s list, with its lush illustrations and scant information, and then put it away again. She looked around the empty piazza, a place once lively and familiar, now distant and strange. Again, her mind went into the past, back to the circumstances of her first arrival as a girl, to the city of her heart.