The Botticelli Secret

41

The air was warmer here and I was back in the mink I had worn in Venice. The color was cousin to the night, much closer to dark than the ridiculous white bear coat I’d worn in Bolzano. I drew up the hood and followed Brother Guido, who for the sake of appearance frog-marched me with a tight grip on my upper arm, as if he were taking me prisoner, lest we be challenged. We snuck out of the tower door onto the battlements and crept along the stone walkway to the clock tower—I’d already forgotten how Brother Guido had named it. He drew me close.

“There are two guards on the gate,” he whispered. “So we cannot go down the stairs to look up, so to speak. But if we look down from above, there may still be something to see. Let us take turns. I’ll look first, for if I am seen, at least I am one of their company.” He leaned out between the battlements.

And was back in an instant. “Well. It is the same snake all right. Six coils—not seven as we might expect—north facing, I think, directly above the gate. Take a look.”

I looked down from the same spot. ‘Twas a difficult angle, and there was little light save that from the guards’ torches. To be honest, I’d gotten a clearer impression of the carving in the heartbeat I’d passed under it in my mother’s carriage, for at least that was by day. I could see the curves of the coils, the evil fangs, the yawning jaws stretched wide to devour. But the serpent was giving no other secrets away. I stared so hard I began to feel dizzy and feared I would fall. I jumped back down to the battlement, shrugged.

Brother Guido shook his head. “We are being blind,” he said.

“Perhaps it’s something you can only see from below,” I suggested.

“Or perhaps the snake just represents the Sforzas—and this castle as the headquarters of the new army—and nothing else.”

“That doesn’t help us find the map,” I snapped. “Let me try again.” I jumped and craned over, the stones of the battlements crushing my ribs once more. But this time I saw something else. Another panel, another carving, beside the snake. “There’s something here!” I hissed, snakelike myself. “A figure of a man. No—he has a halo. A saint.”

“Let me see.” Brother Guido almost shoved me from my position. “You are right.” His head reappeared.

“Could you see who it was?”

“I do not need to see. I know. It’s Sant’Ambrogio, patron saint of Lombardy. The people here invoke him for everything from a dying horse to a lost cat; they name their children after him, call on him when they stub their toe. It is he, for certain.”

He jumped down to crouch in the shadows by my side.

“And what was his story?” I demanded. “What was he famous for?”

“Nothing. Except—” He stopped, turned his extraordinary eyes upon me.

“Except?”

“He made a blind man see!” he breathed.

“Really?” My voice was heavy with irony, for I had no truck with miracles. They were just another way for the church to make money.

“That’s it!” He forgot to whisper and I had to shush him. “The saint is going to make us see!”

Despite my doubts, I felt the old familiar excitement build in my chestspoon. “How’s he going to do that? And where?”

“Easy. Let us go and ask him.”

“He’s still here, in Milan?”

“Never left.”

“Explain, please.”

“Il Moro himself worships at the monastery church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, and he requires his soldiers to be devout—a sop to His Holiness the Pope, no doubt.” His voice dripped with irony like the serpent’s fangs. “They say he built Milan on a sword and a crucifix.”

“So?”

“So we worship at the larger church—needs must for our numbers—of Sant’Ambrogio, Saint Ambrose, hard by Santa Maria delle Grazie, not far from here. The saint is still there—his mummified body is there, in a tomb with two lesser saints—and can be visited in the crypt! Everyone in Milan knows the legend. A blind man was restored to sight by looking on the mummified body of Sant’Ambrogio. ‘By virtue of these remains the darkness of that blind man was scattered, and he saw the light of day,’ “ he finished in triumph.

“Well, when do you next attend?” I asked impatiently. “Sunday is . . .” I began to count on my fingers.

“Six days away,” he finished. “Too long. And I would have a regiment around me. We must move faster than that.”

He leaned over the battlement again, and before I could ask him what he did, he hailed one of the guards below.

“Hey, Luca!”

A jovial voice from below. “What ho? Oh, Guido, it’s you. Thought you were watching that pretty Venetian piece.”

“Locked in and snoring.” Brother Guido was doing a good job of mimicking the bluff, curt tones of a soldier—curbing his words and blunting his pretty speech. “Are you watching her next?”

“Yes, Vespers to Terce. ‘Tis no trouble, I’d still be watching her in my dreams even if I were abed.” I could picture him grabbing his crotch. The other guard laughed.

“Look. Let me do your shift. Then tomorrow, go double for me?” Brother Guido wheedled. “There’s this girl in Porta Ticinese.”

“Didn’t you used to be a monk?”

“Used to be. Why d’you think I gave it up?”

More laughter. “All right then, Brother, you’re on. I’ll be glad of the rest.”

“Dio benice.” Brother Guido sketched an ironic blessing and sang in plainsong, making them laugh again, then he was back down below the battlements and at my side.

“Let’s go. We still only have two more hours before someone relieves Luca’s watch.”

“Where?”

“The church of Sant’Ambrogio, of course.”

“Now?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“There is a way.”

Back we ran, across the battlements and down the spiral stairs in the tower, across the deserted parade ground hugging the shadows of the keep. In the curtain wall, a low door led to a short stair and a dark passage that smelled of new-cut stone.

“Come,” he said. “Let us hope they have finished it.”

“Where are we?” I breathed.

“In a passage that leads from the castle to the Dominican monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie. Il Moro is constructing it so that he may freely reach his place of worship, and also freely escape if there should ever be the need.”

“Madonna.”

“Such things are commonplace.”

I knew that much—I well recalled our secret walk between Castel Sant’Angelo and the Vatican in Rome, but I thought it better not to remind Brother Guido of the day his faith died. As we ran I mused that it did seem quite gone. I had not known how much I had connected him with his faith, and it had been a shock to hear him addressed as Guido, to hear him talk of women, to mock his God even in jest. I gave myself a little shake. What was wrong with me? If he was entering the worldly world, might there not be a chance for me, for us?

We ran on, swift and silent, until a greenish hue told us of light above. We were up another stair and through an arras, and emerged into a vast cavern of the monastery church. Gothic vaults colored in powdery blues, reds, and ochers were still illuminated by the full-moon light flooding through the arched windows of a high dome. There were a company of monks near the high altar, intoning one of their midnight prayers, and we scuttled swiftly to the exit and into the dark night. Once outside, Brother Guido grabbed my hand with more urgency than tenderness and turned left and right through the silvered streets. I could see our destination the moment the clouds cleared the moon, a huge pile of a place with two high towers: the basilica of Saint Ambrogio.

“Put your mask on,” urged the brother, as we reached the great doors. “Slow your breaths. And follow my lead.”

We waited in the portico for a moment to compose ourselves then Brother Guido swung the heavy doors. “Unlocked?” I asked.

“The house of God is always open,” said Brother Guido, with a sneer I didn’t like. Inside, I could see that the brothers here kept time with their brethren at Santa Maria delle Grazie, for mass had just finished; the brothers had shuffled off for another pair of hours in bed before their next devotions. A single sacristan remained, as once before in a doomed church in Naples, extinguishing candles.

We proceeded noiselessly down the aisle, and Brother Guido cleared his throat. The old man turned and smiled sweetly, as if he’d been expecting us.

“Your pardon, Brother,” began Brother Guido. “I am a member of Lord Ludovico’s personal guard.” The old monk looked him up and down, taking in his brand-new armor, his height, his noble face. “I have the honor of escorting the Dogaressa of the Republic of Venice.” He indicated me, and the old fellow’s jaw dropped open.

I tried to look as haughty as I could.

“I am directed to ask you to allow the dogaressa a private visit to your famous relics, for she wishes to pray privily, at an hour when public eyes are not upon her.”

The sacristan seemed to have lost the power of speech. I wore only a mink cloak and my mother’s lioness mask, but it was chased in gold and gilt enamel, and I must have cut quite a figure with my golden hair in the bargain.

Brother Guido attempted to break the spell. “I carry the seal of Lord Ludovico, as you can see.” He held out the clay plaque with the snake design he showed me earlier.

“Yes, that’s quite, that is, that’s quite in order. Except . . .” the old monk bumbled.

“Well?”

“It’s just, well, which relics would the lady, the dogaressa I mean, wish to see? Our Blessed Saint Ambrose or”—he looked down at the seal—“Nehushtan?” He seemed to sneeze.

Brother Guido exchanged a look with me, and I could see that he didn’t know what the second word, if it was a word, meant.

“The saint, to be sure.”

The sacristan nodded. “This way, please.”

We followed obediently to steps leading down into what could only be a crypt. I tugged at Brother Guido’s sleeve urgently—we couldn’t have this monk standing by as we tried to figure out the significance of our findings. He nodded briefly.

“Do not disturb yourself, Brother. Do you go about your business. I will escort the dogaressa. A private penance, you understand.”

The monk bowed in my direction and left. I rewarded him with a fraction of a nod, such as I had seen my mother give to servants who pleased her, and swept down the stairs.

A gloomy crypt, three candles burning for three saints, all huddled together as if they shared a bed. Their forms twisted and their flesh waxen, their finery now shredded bandages around their wasted bones. Gervaise, Protease, and the Blessed Ambrose, mummified for eternity, even the splendor of their golden bed doing nothing to glorify the hollow features of carrion. Saint Ambrose was possibly the ugliest of all, his corpse misshapen, his head swollen like a bladder, and his face caved in to one cheek, giving him a lopside.

Brother Guido caught my look. “Saint Ambrose was missing one of his eyeteeth,” said he. “It gave him an odd appearance in life too.”

We carefully searched the crypt, silently, whispering to each other occasionally, as if the three saints were not dead but asleep.

“Well,” I said at last. “There’s nothing here, not to do with snakes at any rate.” I looked to the lumpen head for a miracle.

“ ‘By virtue of these remains the darkness of that blind man was scattered, and he saw the light of day,’ “ intoned Brother Guido, repeating the words of Ambrose’s legend once again. In these surroundings, they sounded like a prayer, save he had not prayed since Rome.

“We are the blind ones this night,” I grumbled. Then I had an idea. “Perhaps we should look up, like Mercury does in the Primavera.” We both craned into the vaulted darkness and could see nothing beyond the friendly circle of candlelight.

“Upstairs then?”

My companion shrugged. “It’s worth a try. This tomb seems to avail us nothing.” He laid a hand on the saint’s shriveled arse, not without affection, but I was again shocked at how worldly he’d become. The monk was now a soldier; he’d shed the last of his faith with his habit and had donned a different persona with his armor.

We emerged into the great church and began to look about us, the sacristan’s lamp hovering distantly like a firefly. Hundreds of votive candles lit the interior, so light was not our problem. Inspiration was. We searched every inch of the place, all the while attempting to look like interested tourists. At length, the sacristan began politely extinguishing candles nearer and nearer to ourselves; the darkness crept forth and around us and threatened to engulf us till we were on an island of light in a dark cavern. Our search now seemed hopeless. At last I found a particularly fine altarpiece, with strange animals at the top of the pillars. I could see rearing horses, twisted dragons, and a great assortment of bizarre creatures. I called my escort over.

“Here,” said I. “Here are some animals. Any snakes? Help me look.”

“Hmm,” he murmured, “very interesting, very fine work. Transmutations and transformations, animal to animus.”

“Do any of those words mean snakes?” I said testily. “If not, save your syllables.”

There were a great variety of strange things to behold in the carvings, but nothing that resembled the Sforza serpent.

Downcast, Brother Guido touched my sleeve. “We should go. We cannot have long before the next guard relieves me, and if I am not there, there will be a hue and cry.”

“And if I am not there, there will be a bigger one,” I agreed.

As we headed for the great doors I kept one eye on the sacristans’s light. Remembered what he’d said. Stopped in my tracks.

“Madonna. We are blind!”

I put out an arm to Brother Guido’s breastplate to hold him back. “Truffling about like pigs in shit, and all the time he gave us the answer.”

“Who? The sacristan? In what way?”

“He said which relic, the saint or something else, that word that sounded like a sneeze.”

“That’s right! He did!”

“Shush. And he looked down. He said the sneeze word and looked down at the snake, on the seal that you showed him. So there is another relic here, and the second relic, the N word, has something to do with a snake.”

He nodded quickly, eyes afire once more.

“Come on.”

We approached the old fellow and beckoned him over. “The dogaressa has prayed to the Blessed Saint and admired your church. She wishes you to commend her to the abbot and mention that she enjoyed all of the basilica’s wondrous features.”

The old fellow beamed. I waited for Brother Guido to mention the second relic, but he did not.

“We will take our leave of you now. Please accept this for the poor.”

He held out a Milanese soldo, one of his pay coins as a paghe vive soldier no doubt. I was briefly touched, but as the monk took the coin, I trod heavily on my friend’s foot. I couldn’t believe he was going to have us leave without asking the crucial question. But I need not have worried.

“The dogaressa very much enjoyed seeing all of your church’s beauties.”

“Oh, but soldato,” broke in the sacristan, “she has not seen all of them. I cannot permit the dogaressa to leave without—that is, I must insist, suggest, beg, that she look upon Nehushtan.”

There it was. That word again. I took my foot off Brother Guido’s and we followed the sacristan to a remote corner of the church at the left of the nave, to an ornamental pillar standing alone, as if it belonged to another time and place.

“A Byzantine pillar, very fine,” said the sacristan with pride.

Brother Guido voiced my disappointment. “And this is it? Ni-hus—”

“Nehushtan?” The sacristan smiled again. “Bless you, no. You must look up.”

When he said that, I knew we were in the right place before I even saw what he was pointing at.

At the top of the pillar, flicked into a loop and ready to strike like the Sforza serpent, was a bronze snake. In the remaining candles it gleamed softly; exactly the copper hue of Mercury’s wand in the Primavera.

I was dying to ask what it was but knew from many months with my mother that an exalted lady would never address a lowly monk directly. I knew, though, that I could leave the questions to Brother Guido, and so it proved.

“ ‘Tis wondrous strange. Pray, what is the significance of this serpent? I am sure the dogaressa would like to know.”

“We are privileged indeed,” replied the old man, “for this artifact came to us across many lands and seas, all the way from the Holy Lands of the Bible, and across time from those days too.”

“Ah, then it is perhaps connected to Aaron’s rod, which turned to a serpent?” Brother Guido gently nudged the wordy fellow to spill the story. “I thought that Aaron’s serpent was to return to the valley of Josaphat at the Day of Judgment, not to rest in a church in Milan, even one as fine as this.”

The monk looked at him sharply, and I gave him a small vicious kick to the shin. For certainly he knew too much Scripture for a private in Ludovico’s army, be he ever so devout.

“You know your Scriptures,” said the sacristan guardedly, but with approval. “I am glad il Moro keeps you devout. But for this serpent’s story we must look to another chapter and verse of the Book of Books. For Nehushtan has to do with the other brother of that blessed family—Moses, not Aaron. The Israelites were complaining about their problems in the desert somewhere near Punon. God, angered at their lack of faith and ungratefulness, sent poisonous snakes among them as punishment. Then Moses, who had prayed in order to inter-cede on their behalf, was told by God to make a brass snake so that the Israelites merely had to look upon it to be cured from the snake bites. Allow me to find you the passage.”

He trotted up the nave to an eagle lectern with spread wings and heaved the good book off the top. We exchanged a look as he brought it back to us and began to leaf through the yellow pages. I saw Brother Guido’s hands itch to take it from him, but the sacristan found his place at last.

“Here, as I thought, ‘tis the Book of Numbers which provides an origin for an archaic bronze serpent associated with Moses, with the following account.”

And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died.

Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord, and against thee; pray unto the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people.

And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.

“The thing was named Nehushtan by the boy-king Hezekiah.”

As he fell silent, we all looked up at the snake, an odd trinity of harlot, soldier, and monk, collectively as sinful and as devout as any that had touched it in that cursed valley.

“Brother,” breathed my friend at last, in a voice low and urgent with excitement, “are you telling us that this is Nehushtan, this is actually the snake that Moses made at the word of God? Brought here to Milan?”

“As the Lord is my witness.”

I didn’t doubt that the Lord was his witness. I looked again at the snake, in awe, and the snake looked at me.

“Then if you will permit us, the dogaressa will pray before this wonder alone. We will leave in a very few moments.”

The fellow nodded and withdrew entirely; his light extinguished, he had gone to his shortened rest.

“Now,” I said. “Let’s crack this egg.” I took the cartone from my bodice, unrolled it for the umpteenth time, and laid it on the open page of the Book of Numbers. “This pillar, in Ludovico’s army’s church, has a snake at the top, like the cad . . . cad . . . Mercury’s wand.”

“Caduceus. Yes.”

“But there’s only one snake here, on this pillar. Mercury’s wand has two, look.” We both craned in to peruse the warlike figure stirring the clouds with the rod of snakes. Sure enough, two serpents twisted about the haft.

Brother Guido was untroubled. “Well, I think there we must look to the name of the idol. In Hebrew , nachash, means serpent, while , nachoshet, means brass or bronze.”

“So?” I was all impatience.

“Let me finish. The -an ending of ‘Nehushtan’ denotes a plural—in short, it signifies that the original idol was actually of two snakes. Two snakes on a pole.”

“All right, so the caduceus, with which Mercury stirs the clouds, is Nehushtan.”

“Undoubtedly. But I was thinking of another wand in our possession. One which boasts only one snake.”

I stared blankly. He touched my sleeve. “The ‘map,’ “ he said briefly.

I took the wooden roll from my surcoat. We huddled to the flame to see, clearly carved, the serpent Nehushtan on the top, burned into the wood like a brand.

“So what we’re holding here,” I said slowly, “is a model of this pillar.”

“A replica, yes. Except it is not an exact copy, for the markings on the wood are muddled scratchings and marks that mean nothing.”

“Whereas this pillar,” I slapped the polished stone, “has absolutely nothing on it.”

“Hmmm,” mused Brother Guido, stroking his soldier’s stubble, “just the snake at the top. Very well. Let us consider what Nehushtan may tell us. For there must be a reason why we have been led here, to the church that made blind men see. The snake holds a secret.” He craned upward and traced the snake’s shape in the air with one long finger—one loop, around and back.

“One revolution . . . and the snake head resembling an arrowhead . . . go this way . . . yes . . . it’s almost as if . . .”

“As if you might finish a sentence?” I rapped.

“Forgive me. As if we are being given a direction. Loop around. Go once around. Let’s obey, and take a turn about the pillar.”

We walked round the pillar in opposite directions, the snake balefully regarding us from the top, and fetched up exactly where we had started. The pillar was as plain as a Pentecost platter.

“Wondrous,” I grumbled as we met once more. “Around the pillar and up the garden path.”

“Very well. Perhaps the snake is not telling us what to do with this pillar, but what to do with the replica that it adorns.”

In the candlelight we turned the wooden roll this way and that, but the markings made no more sense.

“Unless . . .” began Brother Guido slowly.

And then he seemed to run mad.

He dashed to the altar, snatched up a half-full chalice. I gaped at him, for this was no time for refreshment. Then he came back to me, took up the great Bible, and tore the page the sacristan had read us right out of the good book, leaving a ragged strip of parchment where it had been. He then heaved it back on the lectern, closed it to cover his crime. My jaw dropped further, for never would I have thought him capable of such heresy, such disrespect to his former idol. I was not sure what shocked me more—the fact that he would tear the Bible or the fact that he would wantonly destroy a book, his friend and help-meet, the delight of his youth and his greatest love. He was back, and he laid the page on the floor next to the candle. Then he dipped his hands in the chalice, bringing them out dripping and carmined like a murderer’s. He rubbed the dark wine on the wooden roll, and rolled the thing over the torn page once around, as if he were making a pastry. The wine dried at once into the parchment and he took the roll away. The image was blotted and smudged, the text muddled the lines, but the nature of the design was quite clear. Here was the land, here the sea.

A map.

“But a map of what?” I murmured, in wonder.

“I don’t know. But the serpent has told us all it can. Let us go, before we are discovered.”

He took up the last candle and we carried it to the door, puffed it out as we left. We ran back to Santa Maria delle Grazie, and I thought for a moment that stilled my heart that the doors would be shut upon us. But no—the next cycle of prayers were in progress and we crept through the incense-heavy dark to the arras that led to the causeway. We ran through the greenish night along the moat, Brother Guido talking as we went, murmuring instructions in a low and breathless voice.

“I’ll come to you tomorrow night, and we will talk further,” he said. “We’re getting close.”

“How will you come to me? You swapped your shift,” I gasped back.

“I’ll swap it back. Luca won’t mind. I’ll say my lady denied me, and I’d rather be at my post than in my cups. I’ll be at your door between Vespers and Compline.”

With that we tore up the stairs to my tower till my chest felt fit to burst. We could see the torch of the next guard begin to bob along the battlement and raced it home. I hurried inside and closed the door silently behind me, heard Brother Guido snatch his torch from his bracket, long since burned out. Just as his fellow soldier came round the corner. I pressed my ear to the door.

“No light, soldato?”

“Double shift, sir. For Luca. It went out about an hour ago.”

“Why didn’t you get another torch from the sergeant at arms? At the sentry post?” The man was clearly his superior.

“They’re at the Torre Serpiolle, sir. Didn’t want to leave my post.”

“All right.” The voice seemed convinced, even a little impressed by such devotion. “You can get off now.”

I heard Brother Guido’s feet receding. My breathing started again.

“Oh, soldato?”

And stopped.

“Yes, sir?”

“Get your grappa ration from the quartermaster. Been a long one, heh?”

“Will do. Notte.”

“Notte.”

After that, I collapsed on my bed, spent with exertion and fear. But before I laid my head to rest I took another look at the map. It was not easy to make out, for the print made in wine rode atop the words of Scripture that covered the page—the chapters and verses of the Book of Numbers writ in crabbed, close, black Latin. I strained to see in the dawnlight. There were no place-names. Nothing to indicate which corner of the world it might mean, just what seemed to be a small star on the northwest coast of the land. I gave up and tucked the parchment back in my bodice, with the cartone. I tried in vain to remember if I had seen the landmass before, during my weeks of tuition in Venice with Signor Cristoforo.

As my lids grew heavy the image of that unknown country swam before my eyes. And as you cannot see what is before my eyes, I will show you.

I suppose you’d describe it, as, well, a boot.