The Botticelli Secret: A Novel of Renaissance Italy by Marina Fiorato

Author:Marina Fiorato
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Thrillers, General, Renaissance, Fiction, Historical, Mystery & Detective
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group
Published: 2010-03-30T05:39:53+00:00

27

Nicodemus of Padua was silent.

He had heard the entire incredible tale and now sat, stroking the white stubble at his chin and occasionally grunting faintly, as if he were digesting a meal. He was digesting our story.

I had begun by looking around me, when we had entered the herbarium at Brother Malachi’s direction. It was an intriguing place—a candlelit room with a colonnade of pillars and cross-rib vaults holding up the low roof. My eyes followed the pillars upward.

Madonna.

Two thirds of the way to the ceiling the ribs disappeared into an inverted meadow. Hanging from the ceiling were flowers and herbs and bulbs of every sort, drying in the firelight, turning gently on their twines as our breath or the door draft stirred them. The scent of the flowers and herbs, all jumbled together and releasing their heady fumes as the fire warmed them, was almost overpowering in its cloying, choking sweetness. We sat at a trestle bench for our conference, the fire burning merrily at the hearth at our side. Every other niche of the place was crammed with fat-bellied pots, corked bottles, or clay crucibles, labeled in Latin and stacked to the ceiling. A long scrubbed table ran along one wall, crowded with flints and burners, copper pipes and alembics, all crazily connected with tubes of pigs’ gut. Most bizarre of all was the herbalist himself, smaller than any living man I had seen yet with the wisest eyes. His age was numberless; he could have been on this earth since the Crusades, as his ancient cheeks carried more lines than a Saracen’s map. His hairs were as scarce as his wrinkles were plentiful, for they sprouted in white whiskers just above his ears and round his head in a snowy frill.

I let Brother Guido tell the story, without interruption, for I realized early on that the old monk had a difficulty—he had, as all the brothers had, seen me at the postern in the old days and knew that I brought corruption within his walls. He did not meet my eye once, but I took no offense—I had had plenty of insults in my life and I could well stand a monk’s disapproval, if only he would help us.

When he spoke at last, his voice was unexpectedly deep, and with a strong Paduan accent. If he felt surprise at seeing a Franciscan novice who had disappeared more than a month ago reappear dressed as a prince, with a well-known tart on his arm and with an incredible story to tell, he did not show it. And of all the things he may have said, he struck right at the heart of Brother Guido’s anguish. “And you are certain, my brother, that His Holiness is involved with these seven conspirators?”

“I am, for he wore the ring they all wear on their thumbs; my uncle, Don Ferrente of Naples, the pope, and now myself as you see.”

The herbalist peered at the gold band gleaming in the fire-light. “And presumably,

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