When he and Ella traveled around Italy some years ago, they had been forced to exclude Siena because they stayed in San Gimignano too long, something he regretted, he told me later.
The Barbarian´s house, which in my opinion it was undeservedly called in the Four-Leaf Clover´s old message. The cathedral was world famous for its mosaic that was several hundred years old. There were around thirty mosaic paintings that were 2x3 meters, carved in the floor in white, red and yellow. All were fenced with red rope as if the mosaic stood on the red carpet at a gala premiere.
With little time Ludwig and August stood before thirty puzzles, with only one that had a message for them.
They went in different directions. They looked at the old mythical Sibyls who were trapped in the floor. There were images of the slaughter of the innocent and the philosopher Socrates.
When they met in the middle, they had not found anything. Ludwig decided to start from scratch.
He knew that the message written by Thoth´s Brotherhood sometime in the late 1500s when the entrance wasn´t at the side of the cathedral which it was now, but in the middle of the facade. He reminded himself that the Path of the Five Trials begins inside the gate of the Barbarian's house.
He went back through the nave of the church, staring at all the Pope heads that were in long rows up in the cathedral's roof.
Ludwig loved to visit churches, from a start I didn´t understand it because he was not a believer, but he said he always felt so calm in the churches, that he liked the smell of candles, stones and old Bibles and especially the architecture. I think it was that he had read so much about churches in ancient societies, he could just sit in a church on a bench and just stare at the ceiling.
I remember, when I went to buy something to drink on a summer´s day in Ystad, I left Ludwig on a bench in the church but I met an old friend and came back after half an hour. I was surprised when I found him in the same place when I came back. He didn´t have a phone used for surfing the web in his hand or anything, when I asked him if he had been sitting in the same place all the time he said yes, but when he said it, I saw in his eyes that he had been given somewhere.
A young couple kissed in front of a mosaic depicting the Cumae Sibyl. A guard adjusted the frequency on his radio. Another said to a tourist not to use flash.
Ludwig read the message. He looked around. He felt that there was something hiding in there somewhere.
When he reached the end of the nave and the old gate to the church, he turned around. He looked toward the popes in the ceiling and the mythological canopy that was supported by small marble lions.
He turned his gaze to the floor. What he saw made him paralyzed.
He waved to August and pointed to the floor in front of the gate. Before them was a beautiful mosaic.
It was the first one inside the old main entrance. It was hard to miss and as big as the others. For centuries it had been keeping a great secret.
*
”Matteo. It's me. Juan”, said the dark moor.
”Where are you?”
”I'm outside in the Siena Cathedral. They've gone in.”
”Have you seen if they have the box?”
”No. Tell me, Matteo, I didn´t talk to Luca when he left over. Did he have any success on the train?”
”No. But something tells me that you were right after all. That it was these two who stole the Four-Leaf Clover. If we are to believe Bellarmine and the Montepulciano manuscript the place of the first chamber is the Siena Cathedral. Why else would they go there from Vienna. I don´t think it's a coincidence.”
”I've been confident all along, Matteo.”
There was silence in the handset. Juan heard Matteo breathing. After a while, said Matteo.
”Do this. Find out what they are doing there. It may be a coincidence. But if not. Find out what they are looking at. It can help us at a later stage when we have the Four-Leaf Clover. And Juan.”
”Yes, Matteo?”
”For God's sake. No weapons. We don´t want to scare them. Not yet. First we need to know that they have the Four-Leaf Clover. Not that they have handed it to someone else. We don´t have time to squeeze them for information. The evenings are bright and getting longer.”
Juan hung up. Looked around the piazza outside the great cathedral. Walked toward the entrance.
*
In the floor mosaic in front of Ludwig and August were two men pictured to the left. A big man with a long beard was in the middle of the image and the center of attention. One of the smaller men, who represented Moses held up a book that the great man also held. At the same time the Great rested his hand on an inscription whose frames were supported by two sphinxes. Their tails formed a caduceus. Under the picture was an inscription.
Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus Contemporaneus Moysu
(Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus, contemporary with Moses)
Ludwig was still amazed that such a pagan expression was in the Siena Cathedral. The man was none other than Hermes Trismegistus, the name of Thoth in Greece.
August translated what it said in the book that Moses held up and the inscription Thoth rested his hand on. He called Ludwig. Told that the sphinx´s inscription revealed that God, the great Creator, had engendered a God that was visible, and he made this God the first and only on earth. He loved this God as his own son, whom he called the holy Word or Logos.
”It sounds as if God had created Thoth as his own son. Have you heard this before?” asked Ludwig.
”Yes and no, it is possible that one or some have mentioned it but it's nothing I've committed to memory because I have dismissed it as something childish. In the scriptures, the more reputable sources from the Church Fathers and the Latin historians Thoth is not referred to as the son of God, even if that title is written sometimes.”
”What does it say in the book that Moses holding?”
”We'll see. Actually, I think I recognize it. The inscription in the book of Moses says something about Egypt's laws and systems. If I'm not wrong there, it's a quote from Cicero. He says that Thoth was the one that gave Egypt its laws and regulations.”
August looked up from his book and looked at Ludwig.
”If we are to interpret this mosaic, it is possible that the artist believed that Thoth gave the law to Moses, which of course means that he introduced them in Israel. That of course means he did not get stone tablets from God. Alternatively, it is like the picture I showed you from Bellarmine´s Theatrum Diabolus. The picture Bellarmine painted of when Thoth gave the interpretation of the laws at the same time he got them by God.”
Ludwig read the inscription again and then said.
”Then this might be the conversation.”
August looked up.
”What do you mean?”
”The code from Corpus Thoth Fraternitatis. Listen to the conversation between the law-giver and the receiver. It must mean this mosaic image, right?”
August looked confused at first and then said.
”Yes, probably. The only question is what the rest means.”
Ludwig took out the Nikon camera, which he had brought with him at August's request. He began photographing the mosaic from all possible angles, while August wrote down the inscription on paper.
After a few hours the cathedral was almost deserted albeit a few guards. The school classes and the American tourists had long since left the cathedral.
40
Rome
Year 1599
Neither Ludwig nor Michele probably thought about it but they rushed towards each other at an ever faster rate, Michele from the past and Ludwig from our now in an event, linking the past with the future. Michele's famous light and Ludwig would soon collide head on.
Michele was hiding in the hills outside Porta del Popolo during the day after he saw Sciarra pulling around outside the Palatine and searched in the poorhouse after him.
As darkness began to fall, he looked out over the Roman church towers. He saw the
citadel´s crowd and heard a thunder rumbled inside Rome.
He looked at the dark sky, but no thunder clouds were over the city. He heard the rumble once again. It went through the town like a breeze and got vanes on rooftops and churches to spin rapidly. The rumblings disappeared out over the plains beyond the gates of Rome.
The city was then quiet and calm.
He made his way down the slope and went just before closing of the city in to Piazza del Popolo. A farmer was chasing a piglet back and forth across the square. An old woman sat hunched over her basket with her palms up. In the basket were snails, figs, garlic and a few small wooden tablets depicting the landscape outside the walls for sale.
The sun's heat was left in the ground and pushed out an unbearable stench. From backyards adjacent the piazza heated urine and feces from the animals were still warm on the ground. It was the same stench that Bellarmine hated, a smell Michele also not particularly liked, although he was more used to it than the Great Doctor. Three young men and an older woman swept clean around the obelisk. They shot lettuce and rotten apples to the wall next to the church of Santa Maria del Popolo.
Michele sat in the corner of the piazza opposite the church and waited for the darkness to fall altogether.
Under cover of darkness, he went down town to the sleepy district of Trastevere where he met his friends Mario and Fabrizio. Michele wanted to obviously meet his friends for the good sake of their company, but he also wanted to know more about the Theatre and if they knew anything more.
Late in the evening after many bottles of earthy piquette-wine Michele managed to steer the conversation into Thoth´s Brotherhood when most of the tavern guests had gone home and fallen asleep over the table. Fabrizio started to tell a tale which he said was known in his homeland.
”When I was little my father told me that a monk of Cluny wrote about the Brotherhood´s truths on donkey skins. Shortly after he completed, the Inquisition rode into the village, and wrapped him up in the hides. How they found out what he was doing, I have no idea but I guess one of the monks informed them. They showed no emotion when they burned him with the scriptures. Brutal fuckers, no remorse, no mercy.”
”Cave Canem”, Mario said, and raised a warning finger and smiled his quirky smile.
Fabrizio looked at his partner and shook his head.
”According to the villagers, they burned him in the moonlight as they solemnly from one scene on the village square said that what he had written would elicit something they called nature's wrath, a force that had long been smoldering in the mountains, which had slumbered and almost became extinct in man since Jesus appeared.
From what I have understood, they meant that the Church previously had control over this. They promised anyway horrors. People would in an instant become something they called silver people, they would cease to be God's people, they would wander around lit by moonlight and become barbarians and fencing out of hell. A senseless chaos would break out and all the people would get to swim in the slaughter water. La stagione horrida all year round. I know Michele. Big words. But it is not my words.
I guess that's why the church so dread the day Thoth´s Brotherhood decides to announce the divine truth that is contained in the Theatre. That is why the church as soon as it comes up a little doodle, a pamphlet in the inns and so on makes sure to remove it as soon as possible.”
Michele looked around for what he would say now was dangerous, he knew that right into the spinal cord.
He asked his friends to get closer. He unfurled the linen paper where he had written the maple writing from Pasquino.
”I was at Pasquino the other night and found this maple writing tacked behind the statue.”
”Are you crazy, you were at the Pasquino?” said Fabrizio.
Michele shushed him and looked over his shoulder.
They read the maple writing.
Stand in the shadow of St Paul on Inferno´s first day.
* I-CXVIII-VIII-XXVIII *
Thoth Fraternitatis
”I understand nothing except that it probably has something to do with Dante and his comedy, considering the mentioning of Inferno. Whoever wrote it was keen on keeping the message as secretly as possible”, said Fabrizio.
”Yes, this secret writing must be very secret because as soon as I read it, I was thrown in the Tor di Nona by guards from the Swiss guard.”
”Were you there for long?”
”No, that´s what´s so strange. I was released that same night. There came a servant and a cardinal to prison after midnight and after they walked out, I was out on the street again.”
”Yes, that is strange”, said Fabrizio. Fabrizio thought. ”That is really strange.”
”Have you any idea who it might have been?”
”The college of Cardinals is a motley crew, but there are really only two cardinals who have power.”
”Who?”
”The General Inquisitor Bellarmine of course but I guess it wasn´t him.”
”No, him I would have recognized, even from behind.”
”The other one that is as powerful as Bellarmine is the Medici family´s cardinal Francesco Maria Del Monte. It is he who lives in Palazzo Madama at Piazza San Luigi dei Francesi.”
”But what does Del Monte want from me?”
His friends had equally difficulty to answer the question as Michele.
The men drank the last of the wine and ordered a bottle more. They sat in silence for a few minutes. Fabrizio said.
”I know someone who can help you. I met him several years ago. His name is Girolamo and has a bookstore on a side street off Ortaccio. It hangs a banner outside with a quote from the Psalms. Tell him you know me. Promise that you tell me what the maple writing means when you find out.”
They clinked glasses.
Round under their feet the men stood on the piazza in Trastevere. Mario and Fabrizio went to their inn. Early in the morning the day after, they would go to Siena with a dispatch.
Despite the late hour Michele went to Ortaccio´s whore blocks at Augustus Mausoleum. He turned off the Via Ripetta, into a dark side street in Ortaccio.
He found a bookstore with a banner outside with a text from the Psalms in the Bible, just as Fabrizio said. The bookstore´s owner stacked books on each other and put some in a shelf. Michele was tired and slightly drunk. He went straight to the point and said that he was looking for a copy of The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri of Florence.
The bookseller stopped picking the books. He stood in front of Michele who flinched. The bookseller was curious. There were not many who asked for Dante these days.
”If I may ask ... what are you looking for?”
Michele waved to the bookseller, and even though he knew it was foolhardy, he did it anyway, probably encouraged by the alcohol in the blood.
They stood behind the counter. He pulled the note he had written the maple writing on. He told him about the numerical series. The bookseller introduced himself as Girolamo. Looked at Michele with a smile. Happy to discuss Dante with anyone. He said.
”You know the index Prohibitorum? Dante is mentioned there, certainly not with the comedy but with a different book. That makes him difficult to manage. Therefore book knowers have developed different systems to communicate with each other about banned books and infamous authors. But I'm afraid I cannot go into it.”
”I am a friend of Fabrizio from Montefiascone. It was he who told me about your bookstore.”
”Oh, Fabrizio. Why wouldn´t you say that at once my friend. It cannot hurt to help a friend of Fabrizio.”
Girolamo pointed to the numbers and letters under the caduceus.
”That's what these numbers are all about. It's really very simple. It is a way for Dante-knowers to communicate what part of the book they wish to discuss or any part of the reference they refer to. I can imagine that there lies a place, a city, or something like that in this series of numbers due to the nature of the riddle.”
”How do yo
u read it?”
”Simple. In the code * I CXVIII-VIII-XXVIII * the first refers to which location Dante is at. In this case, it´s Inferno. Then usually the song follows. Because this is Inferno the circle of which Dante is in, is usually also written. Then follow which line it is referred to in the book.”
The bookseller looked at Michele. He thought he was too gullible. He smiled from ear to ear.
”Wait here”, said Girolamo and went upstairs to his private residence.
Michele could hear how he unlocked several locks before he lifted something out of a box, which he assumed was Dante's great work. The bookseller walked carefully over the floorboards. He locked the door to the shop and blew out some candles before he beat up the Comedy on the counter.
”We must therefore look in the eighth circle of the Inferno in the eighteenth song on the twenty-eighth line”, said Girolamo and browsed very carefully in the book.
He brought a candle closer to the book and opened the page so that Michele could also read. They read the lines quietly.
Even as the Romans, for the mighty host,
The year of Jubilee, upon the bridge,
Have chosen a mode to pass the people over;
For all upon one side towards the Castle
Their faces have, and go unto St. Peter's;
On the other side they go towards the Mountain.
”I don´t understand”, said Michele. ”What does the castle stand for?”
The bookseller looked at Michele.
”Dante writes here about the pilgrims in Rome who walk to Peter's Basilica outside the castle where the Nolan is in prison now.”
”Castel Sant'Angelo?”
The bookseller nodded.
Michele read the maple writing again.
”The place is thus Castel Sant'Angelo and there you should be on Good Friday, which is tomorrow”, said the bookseller.
”But what has Paul to do with it?”
”Very simple. On the bridge leading to the citadel, there is a statue of Paul the apostle.”
Michele could not help but admire the kindly bookseller but he thought it was a bit strange that Girolamo thought most of it was simple that had to do with the maple writing.