Veritas (Atto Melani) (76 page)

Nothing happened, but fortunately the paper passed the test more or less unharmed. We waited for it to dry, placing a small brazier a little way off. Then we tried with the gentle flame of a
candle stub to see if any hidden writing emerged. Nothing. For obvious reasons I discarded the carbonisation method, and resigned myself to trying the remaining methods. I told Simonis to make a
list of what we needed: vitriol oil, alembics,
alumine piumoso, et cetera et cetera
. Then I gave it to Penicek.

“Here’s some money,” I said. “Go in your cart to the Red Crab apothecary, near the Old Market, and get everything.”

“A pity good old Koloman Szupán isn’t here with us,” sighed the Pennal, screwing up his little eyes to stare at the list for the apothecary. “With all this stuff
he would know how to get any secret out of the Agha’s paper.”

“I’d really like to know where he’s got to,” said Simonis.

“Perhaps Opalinski,” the Pennal timidly ventured, “has some notion –”

“Not the faintest idea,” the latter cut him short.

“A pity,” repeated Penicek. “Perhaps Koloman is hiding because he’s scared. After they killed Dragomir in that way . . .”

Opalinski lowered his eyes.

“If he’s vanished because he’s afraid,” the Bohemian considered, limping towards the door, “it would soothe him to know that the dervish didn’t really want to
cut anyone’s head off. It’s a pity we can’t tell him so.”

“This evening I’ll go and see if I can track him down in some tavern,” promised Jan Janitzki.

“This evening will be late,” insisted Penicek. “Signor Barber is right, this is the great chance to find out if the Agha’s phrase conceals something or not. Signor Barber
says truly: if we don’t find anything on this paper, it means the Sublime Porte has nothing to do with this whole story. And so – as Signor Barber neatly puts it – we will finally
have the proof that Dànilo, Hristo and Dragomir were not done away with for their enquiries into the Golden Apple.”

“Bravo, Pennal! Incredible, there really is a glimmering of intelligence in that brute’s head of yours!” exclaimed Simonis, pleased with the praise bestowed on him.

“All the same,” I put in, “if Koloman is hiding, we could end up wandering all over the city . . .”

“He’s at the House Goat.”

Opalinski knew where to find the Hungarian. Koloman had confided in his friend: he was hiding in the attic of an open-air inn, known as the House Goat, in the suburb of
Ottakring.

Penicek had guessed correctly: after Populescu’s death, Szupán was afraid. And so he had gone into hiding and had made Jan swear that he would not reveal his hiding place to a
living soul.

But now the Pole had spoken. It was a question of tracking Koloman down to let him know the reassuring news about the dervish, and at the same time to seek his help in examining the Turkish
Agha’s paper. But Opalinski already seemed sorry he had let the secret out, and his face had turned dark.

“Come on, let’s go,” I exhorted him impatiently.

“If you don’t mind, wouldn’t it better if I went first to the apothecary to get the
remedia
before he shuts up shop?” the Bohemian proposed. “I’ll
come straight back, pick you up in the cart and we can all go to Koloman.”

“If we all set out together we’ll be quicker,” I objected. “Once we get to Koloman, we can start the experiments with his help.”

“With Signor Master’s permission, if I may be so bold,” Penicek timidly remarked, “doesn’t Signor Master think it risky to let the Agha’s paper leave the
secure walls of this convent and to carry out delicate trials in a public place?”

“Good Lord, I hadn’t thought of that,” I said. “I must be really tired. You’re right, we had better go and fetch Szupán and bring him here.”

“On reflection,” Opalinski put in, “despite the good news we’ll be bringing him, it might take hours to persuade Koloman to lend us a hand in this matter. And, I repeat,
even though we are friends, he has never talked to me about Balamber, Attila, ciphered codes or any of the rest. If he doesn’t agree to help us, we could end up not having enough time to do
the experiments by ourselves.”

After further discussion we finally decided to try without Koloman. Opalinski’s face brightened: should the experiments work, his Hungarian friend would never find out that he had blown
the gaff on his hiding place. And so we sent the Pennal to the apothecary.

“And hurry!” roared the Greek, making the poor cripple jump.

The Bohemian student returned more than an hour later, panting and sweating from his hurried journey and from a long argument with the apothecary, who had been unwilling to sell him some of the
preparations, which were potentially toxic. He had asked a thousand questions about what the devil all this stuff was for, and finally had kept him waiting a good while on account of the laborious
Galenic preparation of a couple of
remedia.

My assistant’s little room was quickly turned into an alchemic kitchen, with the cauldron on the hearth full of smoking and foaming alembics, while the air was saturated with pungent
smells.

“Nothing at all, damnation!” Simonis cursed impatiently.

The only effect achieved by all that busy activity was that the paper now had unsightly creases and singed margins.

“How can we put it back in Prince Eugene’s diary in this state?” I fretted. “If Cloridia sees it, I’m done for!”

It was now two in the afternoon. We had been racking our brains for almost three hours over this little piece of paper, which refused to give up its secrets, if it had any. To the great dismay
of Opalinski, our only resource now was Koloman Szupán.

On the way, Opalinski seemed in a state of mute anxiety. Perhaps he was wondering what Koloman would say when he saw us arriving.

I was in a grim mood too. If Koloman could not manage to extract anything from the Agha’s paper, this would be good news in one way, since it would free us from the terror of the Turks. On
the other hand, it would leave us in utter darkness: three students had died one after the other and the murderers (or the murderer) did not yet have a name.

I looked at Simonis: he was sitting opposite me, his dull eyes distractedly following the rows of vineyards running by our sides. Before setting out he had put a small bag around his neck, which
he now stroked meditatively, probably sharing my serious thoughts.

“Why on earth did Koloman choose to hide in the House Goat?” I asked Janitzki.

“An Italian monk took him there. Koloman actually asked for shelter in a monastery, but they didn’t want him there.”

“Didn’t your companion go to an Italian monk to get news of the Golden Apple?” I asked him at once.

“I remember that,” confirmed Simonis, “an Augustinian who used to hear the confessions of the Turkish prisoners of war who wanted to convert.”

“Yes, it’s true, but I don’t know whether it’s the same one,” answered Opalinski.

“What?” said Penicek in alarm. “Has Koloman gone mad?”

“Why?” we asked in unison.

“Didn’t you hear that they arrested an Augustinian this morning? An Italian who has been accused of a string of murders and rapes.”

A chill descended upon us.

Our lame cart driver, by contrast, seemed in a feverish state:

“So Koloman had to go and hand himself over to an Italian monk, of all people? I thought he was smarter than that!” he repeated, shaking his head, as he drove us outside the city
walls, towards the suburb of Ottakring.

“Praguer brute!” Simonis reacted. “How dare you? Apologise and then shut up.”

But either because of the praise he had received earlier from his Barber or from underlying fear, Penicek seemed to have no intention of shutting up. On the contrary, laying aside his humble and
contrite air he persisted doggedly:

“Doesn’t Koloman know that monks are the most treacherous and dangerous breed? And Italians to boot!”

“Why do you say that?” I asked, annoyed that this wretched lame Pennal, the servile laughing stock of his companions, should take such a knowing tone when talking about my fellow
countrymen.

“Filthy Bohemian animal!” snarled Simonis, leaping to his feet and striking the driver on the back of his neck. “What’s got into you? Apologise to Signor
Master.”

“Forget it,” I said to my assistant. “But you,” I said brusquely to the Pennal, being accustomed now to treat him as roughly as all the others did, “I asked you a
question. What’s wrong with Italian monks?”

Halfway through the sixteenth century, answered Penicek, made nervous by his Barber’s reprimand, Martin Luther came along and lifted the stones off those whitened sepulchres and
vipers’ nests, the monasteries. All the things that had previously gone on in the dark were now exposed to the light. Many monks abandoned their orders, got married and joined the Lutherans.
The number of Catholic monks went down alarmingly.

“Just what are you saying, Pennal?” Opalinski said indignantly. “Are you on the side of Luther’s cankerous heresy?”

“What can you expect from a Praguer?” muttered Simonis.

“Go on, Penicek,” I ordered him.

The ancient monastery of the Augustinian Hermits of Vienna, at the time situated next to the Caesarean palace, was on the point of closing down. The order was forced to seek the help of brothers
from other countries. Reinforcements came from the religious houses of Italy, which had not been affected by the wind of the Reformation.”

“A godless wind from the backside,” added Opalinski.

But unfortunately the Italian fathers (especially those of a higher rank), being closer to and more familiar with Rome, felt somehow superior and worthier. They despised and mistreated their
Viennese brothers and wove mysterious diplomatic intrigues with the foreign ambassadors in the Caesarean city.

“You mean the Italian brothers were spies?” I asked suspiciously.

“The imperial authorities were convinced of it.”

As a consequence of certain visits or inspections in the monastery, suspicious characters of every type were found in the cloisters: bandits, plunderers and all sorts. The Italian monks were
accused of exploiting the proximity of the royal palace and their links with the imperial court to spy on all those in the pay of France or other foreign powers, and in the end orders came to drive
them out, forbidding them to return and decreeing that in future all fathers superior must be German-speaking.

The Germans were more honest, but they had other faults. They were a little cold in their faith, and, above all, incompetent. They lacked the human touch that, although often perverse, came
naturally to their Italian brothers. They were great rogues, these brothers from the south, but they knew how to nurture souls and to win over people, and when necessary they were extremely wily
and shrewd. Rome and the fathers general of the Augustinian order meanwhile insisted on having their own men on the spot, and in the end they won. The Italians were readmitted, then driven out
again, taken back, thrown out yet again and so on, while the people looked on in amazement and wondered whether the problem was the dishonesty of those being expelled or the confused ideas of the
expellers.

Meanwhile the Catholic Counter-Reformation got under way, the principal lines being dictated by Rome. The fathers superior sent some of their trusted compatriots to Vienna. The court could not
refuse them, because in the meantime the Prior of the Augustinian monastery, who was not Italian, had fled to Prague just before an inspection, where he was finally arrested. He was guilty of
serious financial malpractice, which had left the monastery up to its ears in debt, having broken the same imperial edicts that forbade the monks from selling off the property of the monastery,
from turning themselves into wine traders, from trading in agricultural commodities,
et
cetera et cetera
.

In short, within the holy walls peace was a chimera. When the Italians came back, quarrels and rows broke out continually. All privileged relations with the Emperor’s court had broken down
in an atmosphere of diffidence and mutual contempt. The monks continued to quarrel with the civil authorities; the fathers superior quarrelled with their subordinates, and also among themselves. If
one of them bought a vineyard or a piece of land for the monastery, his successor would sell it, and then they would accuse one another of having squandered the order’s money. The case would
end up before the civil authorities, who would find faults on both sides, blaming all the monks, and so on, partly because the fathers superior were substituted too frequently, and this greatly
multiplied the number of litigants.