Besides, if he was hoping to appeal to the doge for help against Inquisitor Gritti, he was wasting his time. Foreign born, Nostradamus often has trouble comprehending how powerless our head of state really is, hemmed in by his six counselors in the Signoria and by ten other men as well in the Council of Ten. He has no vote among the Three. There was a loud scandal a few years ago when Venice learned that in some cases the Council of Ten did not just delegate some of its powers to the Three but sometimes all of them. The Great Council failed to forbid that nasty practice, so it is still possible in certain instances for the three inquisitors to reach a verdict and have Missier Grande carry it out before the rest of the Ten even know. What good could Fulgentio do?
“I have to give this personally to Doctor Nostradamus,” the boy said, “or,” he added with a cheery smile, “to sier Alfeo Zeno.” He handed it to me. “I was told that there would be no reply.”
“But there will be a gratuity,” I said. “Just a moment.” I removed my silver ducat from Vasco’s left ear and handed it to the page, who gasped and protested that all he had done was walk across the campo. I insisted he keep it and closed the door before he tried to kiss my shoes.
“Trickster!” Vasco said.
“Sneak,” I retorted. Reminding myself to enter the ducat in the ledger as expenses, I rapped loudly on my master’s door and marched in without waiting for a response. I locked it behind me.
The Maestro had changed into his nightgown and nightcap, but he was awake, leaning back on a pile of cushions, peering at a book. He took the letter, read it, and closed it up again without a word.
My attention had already gone to the manuscript he was consulting. It was obviously old, written in an antique hand on many sheets of bound vellum. I had thought I knew every one of his books, even those hidden in secret compartments, but this one was unfamiliar. He noted my interest and smirked.
“The Depositions of Brother Raymbaud,” he said. “I expect the Vatican has a copy but I doubt that anyone else does. How would you date it?” He handed it to me so I could examine the penmanship.
“It’s French,” I said, “written in a littera psalterialis hand. Late thirteenth century?”
“Close. It is dated 1308, but it was probably written by an elderly scribe, so your judgment is sustainable. Brother Raymbaud did not write it himself. He was testifying.”
I glanced back to make certain I had closed the door. “Was he a witness or a defendant? I mean, was he Brother Raymbaud of Caron?”
The Maestro smirked. “Of course that Raymbaud. Preceptor of commanderies of the Knights Templar in Outremer. The last such preceptor, naturally. Outremer was the French name for the Holy Land.”
“I know that,” I said grimly. This was heading into territory so dark that it would make my use of the Word seem like a minor misdemeanor. In 1307 King Philip the Fair of France broke up the order of the Knights Templar and tortured the senior officers into confessing to every terrible crime the tormentors could think to suggest. “Was Raymbaud one of those burned at the stake?”
“Apparently not.” The Maestro frowned at having to admit ignorance. “His fate is a mystery. There has been speculation that he bought his way out by revealing certain secrets that even Grand Master Jacques de Molay did not know.”
“Such as the true nature of Baphomet, perhaps?”
Nostradamus pouted sourly. “That is a very astute guess! Sometimes you surprise me, Alfeo.”
“Sometimes you scare me to death, master.”
“Well, there are some obscure points,” he admitted. “Take the book and prepare the schema. We must be ready to start at midnight.”
And I had still thought that the day could not get any worse.
29
N othing serious happened until after curfew. I went back to the atelier with the book and wasted the rest of the afternoon beating my brains to a pulp trying to make sense of three-hundred-year-old French. When I needed a break, I cleaned my rapier and filed the point sharp again, repairing the minor damage done when Danese was felled. If Vasco tried to arrest me, I would need it.
At sunset I also brought the Head down from the attic, well hidden in its leather bag from the vizio ’s prying gaze. A box of human bones in the medical cupboard is permissible property for a physician, if only barely, but the Head dwells apart, among the Maestro’s collection of curiosities. The Head’s original owner died several thousand years ago, probably of chronic dental caries, and was undoubtedly a high-ranking native of Egypt, worthy of careful mummification. His eyes are closed, his mouth open, and he still sports wisps of white hair. He is quite light, because his brain was removed during the embalming process, but he does not seem to care about that now. The Maestro insisted that the Head would play the role of Baphomet very well, so I stood him on the slate table in place of the usual crystal globe.
Amid all the charges of heresy, blasphemy, and perversion hurled at the Knights Templar were some peculiar accusations that they had worshipped a detached head named Baphomet. No one had ever properly explained why they should have done so, and it is generally assumed that Baphomet was just a wild tale made up by some poor wretch to stop the pain after he had confessed to everything else he could think of. The tale has proved remarkably enduring, though. The name is said to be a corruption of Mohammed.
“Far from it,” the Maestro said that evening as he and I settled down to attempt some major black magic. “Didn’t you read the book?”
The spyhole was covered, the door locked, and Vasco outside. The shutters were closed and the Angelis engrossed in their long duty of bedding down children. Yet I still felt a nervous need to keep looking over my shoulder.
“I tried, but Old French is beyond me, and there’s other script in there that I’ve never seen before.”
The Maestro was huddled in his favorite chair with the Raymbaud manuscript in his lap, dimly lit by a lamp on the mantel. In his black robe, he was almost invisible. He was enjoying himself hugely. He had been evasive when I asked if he had ever tried this procedure before, but he obviously felt that he had a good excuse to try it now.
“Ah, well according to Raymbaud, the technique was very ancient, long predating Islam. The invocation is in Sahidic Coptic, the language of the Pharaohs, and he claimed that the ritual was devised by the embalmers to ask the dead’s permission to prepare their corpses. That sounds unlikely, but a technique for interrogating the recently dead would have been very useful to the Templars when they were defending the Holy Land from desert marauders. If a patrol gets massacred and you can invoke their spirits soon enough, you can ask them who did it, or ask the dead brigands who sent them.”
I shuddered. “Necromancy!”
He blinked with childish innocence. “Not if you define necromancy as the ancients did. The learned Strabo, for instance, relates necromancy to divination and the Chaldeans-”
“Tell me tomorrow, while we’re waiting for the torturers to finish their dinner break.” I was still fidgeting, unable to sit. “What else do we need?”
He peered at the manuscript again. “There are only six appurtenances named but there must be seven. What’s missing?”
The list of ingredients was about the only thing I had managed to decipher. “Salt.”
“Ah, of course! Go and bring some.”
I went out and locked the door behind me, for the Head was in full view. Vasco was still draped like a discarded cloak on the couch. He knew we were up to something but were not about to let him find out what, and he just scowled when I told him we would be some time and he should curl up and catch some sleep. I purloined a nugget of salt from the kitchen and returned to the atelier. The Maestro had moved to one of the green chairs, which I had earlier arranged a safe distance back from the table, facing our elderly accomplice, the Head.