She did not have to say it twice, and before the Comandante even had a visual confirmation of the advance, Romanino’s arms were already wrapped around his midsection, a snotty nose burrowing into the embroidered velvet.
“Come now,” he said, patting the dirty head, “we need to find you a pair of shoes. And other things. So, stop crying.”
“I know,” sniffled the boy, wiping away his tears, “knights don’t cry.”
“They certainly do,” said the Comandante, taking the boy’s hand, “but only when they are clean and dressed, and wearing shoes. Do you think you can wait that long?”
“I’ll do my best.”
When they walked away down the street together, hand in hand, Comandante Marescotti found himself struggling against an onslaught of shame. How was it possible that he, a man sick with grief, who had lost everything save his own heartbeat, could find so much comfort in the presence of a small, sticky fist tucked firmly inside his own?
IT WAS MANY YEARS later when, one day, a traveling monk came to Palazzo Marescotti and asked to speak with the head of the family. The monk explained that he had come from a monastery in Viterbo, and that he had been instructed by his abbot to return a great treasure to its proper owner.
Romanino, who was now a grown man of thirty years, invited the monk inside and sent his daughters upstairs to see if their great-grandfather, the old Comandante, had the strength to meet with the guest. While they waited for the Comandante to come down, Romanino made sure the monk had food and drink, and his curiosity was so great that he asked the stranger about the nature of the treasure.
“I know little about its origins,” replied the monk between mouthfuls, “but I do know that I cannot take it back with me.”
“Why not?” inquired Romanino.
“Because it has a great, destructive power,” said the monk, helping himself to more bread. “Everyone who opens the box falls ill.”
Romanino sat back on his chair. “I thought you said it was a treasure? Now you tell me it is evil!”
“Pardon me, Messere,” the monk corrected him, “but I never said it was evil. I just said that it has great powers. For protection, but also for destruction. And therefore, it must be returned to the hands that can control those powers. It must be returned to its proper owner. That is all I know.”
“And that owner is Comandante Marescotti?”
The monk nodded again, but this time with less conviction. “We believe so.”
“Because if it is not,” Romanino pointed out, “you have brought a demon into my house, you realize.”
The monk looked sheepish. “Messere,” he said, urgingly, “please believe that I had no intention of harming you or your family. I am only doing what I have been instructed to do. This box”-he reached into his satchel and took out a small and very simple wooden box which he put gently down on the table-“was given to us by the priests of San Lorenzo, our cathedral, and I believe that maybe-but I am not sure-it contains a relic of a saint that was recently sent to Viterbo by its noble patron in Siena.”
“I have heard of no such saint!” exclaimed Romanino, eyeing the box with apprehension. “Who was the noble patron?”
The monk folded his hands in respect. “The pious and modest Monna Mina of the Salimbeni, Messere.”
“Huh.” Romanino fell silent for a while. He had heard of the lady, certainly-who had not heard of the young bride’s madness and the alleged curse on the basement wall?-but what kind of saint would befriend the Salimbenis? “Then may I ask why you are not returning this so-called treasure to her?”
“Oh!” The monk was horrified at the idea. “No! The treasure doesn’t like the Salimbenis! One of my poor brethren, a Salimbeni by birth, died in his sleep after touching the box-”
“God damn you, monk!” barked Romanino, and stood up. “Take your cursed box and leave my house at once!”
“But then, he was a hundred and two years old!” the monk hastened to add. “And other people who touched it have had miraculous recoveries from long-term ailments!”
Just then, Comandante Marescotti entered the dining hall with great dignity, his proud bearing suported by a cane. Instead of shooing the monk out the door with a broom-as he was just about to do-Romanino calmed himself and made sure his grandfather was seated comfortably at the table end, before he explained the circumstances of the unexpected visit.
“Viterbo?” The Comandante frowned. “How would they know my name?”
The monk stood awkwardly, not knowing whether he should stay up or sit down, and whether he or Romanino was expected to answer the question. “Here…” he said instead, placing the box in front of the old man, “this, I was told, must be returned to its proper owner.”
“Grandfather, be careful!” exclaimed Romanino as the Comandante reached out to open the box. “We do not know what demons it contains!”
“No, my son,” replied the Comandante, “but we intend to find out.”
There was a moment’s dreadful silence while the Comandante slowly lifted the lid and peeked into the box. Seeing that his grandfather did not immediately fall to the floor in convulsions, Romanino stepped closer and looked, too.
In the box lay a ring.
“I wouldn’t…” began the monk, but Comandante Marescotti had already taken out the ring and was staring at it in disbelief.
“Who,” he said, his hand shaking, “did you say gave you this?”
“My abbot,” replied the monk, backing up in fear. “He told me that the men who found it had spoken the name Marescotti before they died of a ghastly fever, three days after receiving the saint’s coffin.”
Romanino looked at his grandfather, anxious that he should put down the ring. But the Comandante was in another world, touching the ring’s eagle signet without any fear and mumbling to himself an old family motto, “Faithful through the centuries,” engraved on the inside of the band in tiny letters. “Come, my son,” he finally said, reaching out for Romanino. “This was your father’s ring. Now it is yours.”
Romanino didn’t know what to do. On the one hand, he wanted to obey his grandfather; on the other, he was afraid of the ring, and he was not so sure that he was its rightful owner, even if it had belonged to his father. When Comandante Marescotti saw him hesitating, the old man was filled with anger, explosive anger, and he began to yell that Romanino was a coward, and to demand that he take the ring. But just as Romanino stepped forward, the Comandante fell back in his chair in a seizure, dropping the ring on the floor.
When he saw that the old man had fallen prey to the ring’s evil, the monk screamed in horror and fled from the room, leaving Romanino to throw himself at his grandfather and beseech his soul to remain in the body for the last sacrament. “Monk!” he bellowed, cradling the Comandante’s head, “come back here and do your job, you rat, or I swear I’ll bring the devil to Viterbo and we’ll eat you all alive!”
Hearing the threat, the monk came back into the kitchen, and he found in his satchel the small vial of consecrated oil that his abbot had given him for the journey. So, the Comandante received the extreme unction, and he lay very peacefully for a moment, looking at Romanino. His last words before he died were, “Shine on high, my son.”
Understandably, Romanino did not know what to think about that damned ring. It was obviously evil and had killed his grandfather, but at the same time, it had belonged to his father, Romeo. In the end Romanino decided to keep it, but to put the box in a place where no one but he could find it. And so he went down into the basement and into the Bottini, to put the box away in a dark corner where nobody ever came. He never told his children about it for fear that their curiosity would make them unleash its demons once again, but he wrote down the whole story, sealed the paper, and kept it with the rest of the family records.