Despite everything, and despite the fact that they were not merely passing the evening in restful idleness, Flavia and Argyll walked arm-in-arm as well, their pace slowing and becoming more tranquil as the city wrought its irresistible magic on them yet again. It was the sort of evening that made the cares of the day seem unimportant, no matter how terrible they really were. It was, in a word, what made an overcrowded, noisy and smelly city into one of the most magical places on earth, and ensured that both of them would fight desperately never to leave it.
They walked past the little throng of vigil keepers still camped out on the steps of the church, noting that, if any thing, the crowd had grown slightly. Some Argyll recognized; others were couples just sitting, drawn by the crowd that was already there, and some were long-distance students who decided that the old rule of safety in numbers made this a good place to unroll their sleeping bags and settle down for the night. Somebody—Argyll suspected the cafe owner across the street—had confiscated some of the round black oil lamps, very much like cartoon bombs, still used for illuminating roadworks, and placed them on every second step, giving the whole scene a mysterious, almost medieval air, as the flickering flames cast soft shadows over the figures sitting between them.
“Impressive, don’t you think?” Father Paul said after they found him and Argyll led the way back into the street. “There’s more of them every day. They come with prayers, and food.”
“Food?”
“Old custom, I’m told. More southern than Roman, but it seems to survive here. If you ask a saint for something, you bring a present in return. Food, or money, sometimes even clothes.”
“What do you do with it?” Flavia asked as they’d looked enough and turned to walk down the street.
“Give it to the poor, what else? Some of us are shocked, but I have no intention of discouraging it. Where are we going?”
“Nowhere. We’ve arrived. It’s in here, I think,” Argyll replied. They were a few hundred yards down the road. It was a ugly run-down block, old and disintegrating. The main door should have had an intercom, but it had long since stopped working. Instead, the door was roughly propped open with a brick. Argyll checked the names on the buttons. “Third floor.”
The lift didn’t seem to be working either, so they walked up, then along the narrow corridor of the floor, until he peered at a bell, then pressed it. To make sure, he knocked firmly on the door as well.
The television inside stopped abruptly, and was replaced by the sound of a child crying. Then the door opened.
“Hello,” Argyll said gently. “We’ve come for your Lady. She’s perfectly safe now.”
Signora Graziani nodded, then opened the door. “I’m so glad,” she said. “Do come in.”
Flavia gave Argyll a strange look, then followed him in. Father Paul, quite impassive, brought up the rear. The little living room was cramped and overstuffed with television, washing and grandchildren; the furniture was old and battered, the walls covered with crucifixes and religious pictures.
Flavia was a little perplexed by all this but, as it seemed that Argyll knew exactly what was going on, was content to stay in the background and keep quiet for fear of saying the wrong thing.
“You are sure it’s safe?” Signora Graziani said with a burst of anxiety.
“Quite sure,” he replied. “The picture will go back to its proper place and stay there now. Father Paul is determined to keep her and give her the honour she is due. Aren’t you, Father Paul?”
Father Paul nodded.
“I’m so glad,” she repeated. “When I heard what was to happen I said, “This is not right. This is a bad man, to do such a thing.””
“You were cleaning, and overheard? is that it?”
“Of course. Wednesdays I get there early, because I have to work in the market at eight. I had just prayed and was getting my bucket, when I heard Father Charles—such a good, kind person, poor soul. He was almost in tears, pleading with the superior not to sell the picture. He said the order had to guard her. Foolish, of course; everybody knows it is the other way around and that she guards them. But Father Xavier said it was too late and said, very cruelly, that Father Charles was a superstitious and sentimental old man.”
She looked momentarily terrified, lest Argyll impute evil thoughts. “I prayed to My Lady to defend herself, and offered what help was needed, as my family has always done. And she told me I had to stop this man. She told me; I had no choice, you see.”
“I hit him, with my broom. I didn’t mean to hurt him, really. But my hand was guided, and he fell and hit his head on the stone steps. That wasn’t me, you see. I scarcely hurt him at all. It was her. When she chastises, she can be very severe. She was out of her normal place on the altar and looked so forlorn and lost. And I knew, it was almost as if someone told me, that I had to hide her away until she was safe.”
“So you took her home?” Flavia asked. Signora Graziani looked shocked.
“Oh, no. She must never leave the building. I wrapped her in a plastic bag and put her in my little room across the courtyard. Where I keep all my cleaning equipment. In a large empty packet of soap powder.”
“And you left Father Xavier …?”
“I did, and I’m sorry for it. I didn’t realize he was so hurt. But I left for a while, to tell the people at the market I couldn’t work today, then came back. I was just going to make sure he was all right …”
“Thank you,” Argyll said. “You have done your duty, as you were ordered.”
“I have,” she said with satisfaction. “I do believe I have. We have served her faithfully for as long as I know. What else could I have done?”
“Nothing,” Father Paul said. “You did exactly the right thing. You kept your word better than we did.
“I will put it back myself,” he continued. “And we will have a mass tomorrow to celebrate. I hope very much you will come, signora.”
She brushed away a tear from her eye, and bobbed her head in gratitude.
“Thank you so much, Father.”
“Bloody hell,” Flavia said angrily once they had left the apartment and the door had shut. “You mean to tell me this whole thing was caused by a stupid old woman with delusions …?”
“That’s one way of looking at it. Personally, I believe her.”
“Believe what?”
“That a member of her family has been charged with looking after that picture for ever and a day. Or at least since the servant Gratian left the monastery when his master died. It’s what? Twenty generations? A blink of the eye for this city. An old neighbourhood. Quite possible.”
“Jonathan …”
“There’s a family in the city called the Tolomei, you know. Claims it goes back to the first Ptolemy, illegitimate half-brother of Alexander the Great. Nearly seventy generations, that. It’s possible for a family to have stayed more or less in the same neighbourhood for a few hundred years. Perfectly possible. Assuming they survived the sack of Rome in the 1520’s, not much else has happened in Rome since. If it was charged with enough importance, there is no reason why the family practice shouldn’t continue as the name of Gratian slowly got italianized into Graziani. It’s just very rare to have some sort of independent confirmation. Not rational and police-like enough for you?”
“No.”
“Thought not. But effective enough to find the icon, nonetheless.”
“Assuming it’s there.”
“It’ll be there. How are you going to deal with its reappearance?”
Father Paul shrugged. “I can’t say where it was, because that would involve explaining how it got there, which would be a pity. So maybe the best thing would be just to put it back.”
“And I will have to make out a report,” Flavia said.