Dante and Pietro spent two chilly but instructive hours inside the basilica of Verona's patron saint, looking at tombs, frescos, windows, and the famous doors. Then Pietro limped back towards the Piazza della Signoria in plenty of time for his meeting with Donna Katerina.
Aching, stiff, cold, wishing he'd ridden Canis and cursing the dog that strained forward, Pietro knocked on the door to the Nogarola house. It stood across the street from Santa Maria Antica, at the back of the main Scaligeri palace. He was greeted warmly by Katerina's servants, and after they took his cloak they admitted him into an upstairs sitting-room with fires blazing. The doors to the balcony were open to provide ventilation for the smoking braziers.
The room was well ordered for one that housed so rambunctious a child. Perhaps because he wasn't walking yet. The staff had to be dreading the day that tiny Cesco became ambulatory.
The child himself was in evidence, sitting with a new nurse on the far side of the chamber. The girl was trying her best to entertain him with coloured puppets with wooden heads. They were carved in the style of classical allegorical figures. The boy seemed particularly fascinated with the crimson head of Malice, banging it against a tiny tiger. Well, thought Pietro, it looks a little like a leopard...
The moment they entered, Mercurio bolted from Pietro's side to press his nose into Cesco's face. The boy giggled as the young hound snuffed at him and began licking his face. Cesco's tiny fingers grasped the coin at the hound's neck.
"Mercurio! Heel!" Pietro called to no avail.
"Let them play." Katerina sat by the open balcony doors holding a small loom. In a long patch of sunlight two chairs were set out facing her. One was occupied, with a servant hovering over the high back. Pietro blinked. The servant was the Moor.
The occupant of the chair rose. He was in his middle years, told only by the touch of grey at his temples. Well dressed and well made, he might have been handsome but for the fact that he was all chin. The cleft in it was the size of Pietro's knuckle and Pietro had an absurd desire to see if it fit. It was a moment before Pietro registered the outstretched hand. "Ser Alaghieri, congratulations. You had quite a day — but then, I could have told you that!" One eye above the monstrous chin dropped in a wink.
"And you are?"
"Who am I?" The short man turned to Katerina. "You haven't-? I mean, madam, when you called upon me, I thought you would trumpet it from the-"
"Pietro, may I introduce you to Ignazzio da Palermo, astrologer and diviner to kings and princes. Theodoro of Cadiz you have already met."
"Yes." Pietro crossed to take the Moor's hand. "You saved my life. Thank you." As the Moor inclined his head, it was as difficult not to stare at the scarred neck as at his master's chin.
Katerina gestured to the open chair. As he sat, Pietro noticed three scrolls lying out on a table. Each was made from long, thick parchment sealed with yellow wax, the colour that best revealed signs of tampering. It looked as if the seals had been covered again with a light layer of honey. What were these papers that they required such precautions?
Katerina turned her head. "Marianna, put Cesco in his crib. Luciana, please stoke the fires a little. Then you may both leave us. We shan't need you. If the fires require tending I shall prevail upon my guests."
With a wary glance at the dark-skinned Moor, the nurse carried the child to a wooden crib with high barred walls. Little Cesco was up on his feet in a moment, holding onto the bars of his cage for support and reaching though the bars for Mercurio, who followed him. He'll be walking soon. Look at him. He isn't even wobbling.
Both girls bowed their way out of the chamber, closing the doors firmly. Pietro heard them whispering as they walked down the corridor. Katerina said, "They're still upset about Nina. As are we all. Are you well?"
"Quite well, lady. Thank you."
"No, thank you." She set her loom aside. "Ser Alaghieri, you have taken several wounds for a cause that you don't understand. We are about to remedy that. It is time to bring you into our little circle. What we discuss now only five people in the world are aware of. My brother is one. The boy's mother is another. Ignazzio and Theodoro here. I myself. No one else — not my husband, no one — knows what we are going to tell you today."
Pietro flushed. "I–I'm honoured."
Katerina held up a warning hand. "There is a price. By hearing this, you will be obligated to help us shape future events. I don't put you under this obligation lightly, for an obligation it is. If you wish to decline hearing-"
"Madonna," interrupted Ignazzio. "This is unfair. He will be incapable of saying no. He will also be unable to retreat before you, for fear of losing your respect. The stars have chosen him. Having been chosen, it is foolish to offer him escape. He will not take it, and the offer can do nothing but act as a salve for our consciences."
"You are right, of course. Shall we begin?" Katerina lifted one scroll and handed it to Ignazzio. Placing a board across his lap, his fingers broke the honey-covered seal. It was hard work, because honey was prone to crumbling.
At last Ignazzio unfurled the wide parchment on the makeshift desk and Pietro saw multicoloured lines, various signs of the zodiac, and several small notations in Greek and Latin. A star chart.
"This was made this many years ago," said Ignazzio, "for a newborn son, the third son of Alberto della Scala by his wife."
Pietro remembered Cangrande mentioning a star chart, and what that chart said. "Donna Katerina, your brother once told me he'd consulted Benentendi-"
"Benentendi!" scoffed Ignazzio. "A charlatan! Why, he wouldn't-"
Katerina cut across him. "Pietro, how much do you know of astrology?"
"Some. My father insisted I have some formal training when I was younger."
The astrologer gestured to the parchment before him. "This chart is plain and clear. Francesco della Scala — Cangrande to you — is destined for great things. Probably the most important of his aspects is the fact that Mars is in the house of Aries, which creates both his great skill as a leader and his recklessness, his need to prove himself in personal valour. Interesting, too, is the position of Saturn. It is also in Aries, one of the few contradictions in the Capitano's chart. In that placement, Saturn usually leads to a serious self-doubt in leaders. In the Scaliger it seems to have had an opposite effect, probably because it shares the house with Mars. It has led the Scaliger to reject fear in its entirety."
"That is the thing I worry about most," observed Katerina. "He's never acknowledged fear."
"That's hardly a fault, lady." Pietro noted that, unlike his master, the Moor was not looking at the chart. Instead, he watched Pietro. Unsettling.
Ignazzio pointed to some lines for Pietro's benefit. "There are few sextiles, trines, and squares in his chart. Do you know what those are?"
"It's geometry, isn't it? The angles of one planet to another at the time of birth?"
"Correct. Different angles create different relationships between the planets. There were ten such relationships formed at the time of Cangrande's birth — fewer than normal. Most of them are minor — three trines, two conjunctions, three squares, one sextile, and one pure opposition. These last two are the most interesting. In Cangrande's chart, Mercury forms a sextile with Mars, giving him his sharp, strategic mind. But Mercury also forms an opposition with Uranus. He is aware of his talents, and must fight to retain his humility. It is interesting that Uranus, the creator of self-doubt, should have pushed this man so far in the other direction."