“This is a lie. I prayed for no such thing,” said Vitale. “I live in the house at your pleasure, and seek to put the old library in order, at your pleasure, and to find what Hebrew manuscripts were left behind years ago by the man who left the house to you. But I have never prayed for an evil spirit to aid me in any way, and would never have such evil designs upon my closest friend.”
He stared at Signore Antonio in disbelief. “How can you accuse me of this? You think that in hopes of a palazzo I can well afford to buy I would sacrifice the life of my closest friend in all the world? Signore, you wound me as if with a knife.”
Signore Antonio listened to this, as if his mind was not made up.
“Do you not have a synagogue within this house?” demanded the taller of the two priests, who was obviously the elder. He was a man of dark gray hair and sharpened features. But his face was not cruel. “Do you not have the Scrolls of your Torah in that synagogue set into an Ark?”
“These things are there, yes,” said Vitale. “They were there when I took the house. It’s general knowledge that a Jew lived there, and he has left these things, and for twenty years they’ve been layered in dust.”
At this Signore Antonio seemed particularly affected. But he didn’t speak.
“You’ve never used these things in your evil prayers?” demanded the second priest, a more timid man, but one who was now trembling with ill-concealed excitement.
“Well, I must confess in all truth I have not used them in my prayers,” said Vitale. “I must confess I’m more the humanist, the poet, the physician, than I am the pious Jew. Forgive me, but I have not used them. I’ve gone to the synagogue of my friends for my Sabbath prayers, and you know those men, you know them well, they’re respected by all of you.”
“Ah,” said the tall priest. “So you admit you uttered no holy or pious prayers to these strange books, and yet we are to assume they are your sacred books and not some strange and foreign books of secrets and enchantments?”
“Do you deny you have such things?” asked the younger priest.
“Why do you accuse me of this!” Vitale said. “Signore Antonio, I love you. I love Niccolò. I love his bride-to-be as if she were my sister. You have been to me since Padua as my very family.”
Signore Antonio was clearly shaken, but he stood up straight as if these accusations required all his resolve.
“Vitale, speak the truth to me,” he said. “Have you bewitched my son? Have you said over him strange incantations? Have you made vows to the Evil One that you would offer up to him this Christian death for some dark purpose of your own?”
“Never, never have I uttered a syllable of prayer to the Evil One,” said Vitale.
“Then why is my son in this sickened state? Why does he fail day in and day out? Why is he troubled in this way, while a demon roars in your house this very minute, as if he is waiting to see how well you can work your dark charms for him?”
“Lodovico, is this your doing?” Vitale demanded. “Did you put this in the minds of all these who are present?”
“Allow me to speak,” I said. “I’m a stranger to you all, but not a stranger to the cause of your son’s ailment.”
“And who are you that we should listen to you?” demanded the elder priest.
“A world traveler, a student of natural things, of plants and obscure flowers and even of poisons so as to find some cure for them.”
“Silence!” said Lodovico. “You dare interject yourself here in this family matter. Father, order this musician out of the room. He’s no more than a henchman to Vitale.”
“Not so, Signore,” said Vitale. “This man has taught me much.” He turned to me and I could see the fear in his face, the general suspicion that perhaps the things I’d told him were not true, and now everything hung upon their being true.
“Signore,” I said to the old man. “You see the caviar there.”
“From the Pope’s palace!” declared Lodovico. He then went into a stream of words to silence me. But I persisted. “You see it there!” I said. “It’s black, salty to the taste. You know full well what it is. Well, I assure you, sir, that if you were to eat four or five spoonfuls of it, you would soon be pale and sweating as your son is, and white as he is as well. In fact, a man of your age might well die altogether from that amount of it.”
The priests both stared at the little silver dish of caviar and both backed away from it instinctively.
“Signore,” I went on. “In your orangery, off the main courtyard below, there is a plant known to the Brazilians as Purple Death. I tell you just one of its black seeds is enough to sicken a man. A steady diet of them, ground up and placed in a pungent food such as that, would very surely kill him.”
“I don’t believe you!” whispered the old man. “Who would do this?”
“You lie,” cried Lodovico, “you tell fantastic lies to protect your cohort and who knows what sins you’re guilty of together.”
“Then eat the caviar,” I said. “Eat not just one small spoon of it, as you try to feed to your brother, but eat all of it, and we shall see if the truth doesn’t come out. And if that is not sufficient, I will take you all down and reveal the plant to you, and reveal its powers. Find a pitiful mongrel in the streets of Rome and feed him the seeds of this plant and you’ll see him quiver and shake and die immediately.”
Lodovico drew his dagger from out of his sleeve.
At once the priests shouted for him to be still, to restrain himself, not to be foolish.
“You need a dagger to eat the food?” I said. “Just take the silver spoon. You’ll find it easier.”
“These are lies that this man tells,” cried Lodovico, “and who under this roof, who would do such a thing to my brother? Who would dare! And this caviar has come from the kitchen of the Holy Father himself. This is vile, I tell you.”
A silence fell as if someone had rung a bell.
Signore Antonio stared at his natural son who still faced me with his drawn dagger. I stood as before, the lute slung over my back, merely looking at him. As for Vitale, he was white and shaken and on the verge of tears.
“Why did you plot this thing?” Signore Antonio asked in a soft voice, his question clearly aimed at Lodovico.
“I plotted no such thing. And there is no such plant.”
“Oh, but there is,” said Signore Antonio. “And you brought it into this house. I remember it. I remember its unmistakable purple flowers.”
“A gift for us from those dear kindred of ours in Brazil,” said Lodovico. He appeared wounded. He appeared sad. “A beautiful blossom for a garden of beautiful blossoms. I made no effort to conceal this plant from you. I know nothing of its powers. Who does know of its powers?” He looked at me. “You!” he said to me, “and your fellow Jew, Vitale, your fellow cohort in this plot. Are you worshippers of the Evil One together! Did the Evil One tell you what this plant could do? If this caviar is tainted, it’s with the poison you both put into it.” His wonderful copious tears were flowing again. “How vile of you to do this to my brother.”
Signore Antonio shook his head. His eyes were fixed on Lodovico. “No,” he whispered. “Neither man could have done this thing. You brought the plant. You brought the caviar into the house.”
“Father, they are witches, these men. They are evil.”
“Are they?” asked Signore Antonio. “And what friend of ours from Brazil sent us this unusual flower? Rather, I think you purchased it in this very city, and brought it home and placed it very near the table where you do your writings, your translations.”
“No, a gift, I tell you. I don’t recall now when it came.”
“But I do. And it was only a short time ago, and at the very same time that you, my son, Lodovico, hit upon the idea that caviar would sharpen the attitude of your weakened brother.”
All this while the patient had watched these proceedings with horror. He’d glanced to the left at his father, to the right at his brother, he’d studied th
e priests when they spoke. He’d stared at me with piercing horrified eyes as I spoke.
And now he leaned forward and picked up the bowl of caviar in his quivering hand.
“No, don’t touch it!” I said. “Don’t let it near your eyes. It will burn them. Don’t you remember this?”
“I remember it,” said the father.
One of the priests reached for the dish, but the patient had set it down on the mount of brocade coverlets, and he stared at it, as if it had a life of its own, as if he were looking at the flame of a candle.
He lifted the small spoon in his hand.
His father suddenly seized it from him and threw the caviar to the side where it fell on the coverlet and stained it black.
Lodovico, before he could check himself, moved back from the bed where the caviar had spilled. He stepped backwards instinctively. And only then did he realize what he’d done. He looked up at his father.
He still held the dagger in his hand.
“You think me guilty of this?” he demanded of his father. “There is no poison there, I tell you. There is nothing but a stain now which the washerwomen will seek in vain to wash out. But there is no poison.”
“Come with me,” I said, “down to the orangery. I’ll show you the tree. Find some hapless animal. I’ll show you what this poison can do. I’ll show you how very black it is, this seed, and how perfect was the caviar for concealing it.”
Suddenly Lodovico rushed at me with the dagger. I knew well how to defend myself, and smashed the hard side of my hand into his wrist, knocking the blade out of his grip, but then he went for my throat with outstretched fingers. I brought my arms up instantly crossed, and struck out, forcing his arms apart with a wild and sudden gesture.
He fell back confounded by these simple moves. Neither of them would have been much of a surprise in our times when martial arts are taught to children. I was ashamed of how much I had enjoyed the struggle.
One of the guards picked up the dagger.
Lodovico stood shaken, and then, desperately, he ran his hand along the stain on the coverlet, gathering up but a few grains of the caviar and he put this on his tongue. “See, I tell you, I am maligned. I am maligned by evil Jews who consort to destroy me for no other reason but that I know their tricks and what they would have done to Niccolò.”
He licked his lips. He’d had but the tiniest portion of the caviar, and could easily conceal the effects.
Again a deep silence fell. Only the sudden shuddering of Niccolò broke the silence.
“Brother,” he whispered. “This is all on account of Leticia.”
“A lie!” said Lodovico thickly. “How dare you?”
“Oh, if only I’d known,” said Niccolò. “What is she but one of many lovely young maidens who might have been to me a gentle bride? If only I’d known.”
Signore Antonio glowered at Lodovico.
“Leticia, is it?” he whispered.
“I tell you, these Jews have bewitched him. I tell you it is they who put the poison in the caviar, I tell you I am innocent.” He was weeping, he was angry, he was whispering and muttering, and once again, he spoke. “It was this one, Vitale, who brought the flower to the house. I remember it now. How else should he and his friend know of its power? I tell you, this one, this Toby, is convicted out of his own mouth.”
The old man shook his head at the pity of it.
“Come,” said Signore Antonio. He gestured for his armed servants to take Lodovico in hand. He looked at me. “Take me down to the orangery and show me this medicine.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE YOUNG MAN’S FACE WAS TWISTED WITH MALICE. The very plasticity which had given him such easy grief before now gave him a mask of fury. He pushed the armed men off and walked with his head high as we descended the steps, and gathered, all of us, save for Niccolò, of course, in the orangery.
There stood the plant, and I pointed out the many black seeds which had fallen already into the soil. I pointed out the half-withered flowers already harboring the poison.
A servant was sent to find some poor stray dog that it might be brought into the house, and soon the yelps of the poor little beast were echoing up the broad stairway.
Vitale stared at the purple flowers in horror. Signore Antonio merely glowered at it, and the two priests stood staring coldly at me and at Vitale as though we were still somehow responsible for what had happened here.
An elderly woman, much bewildered and frightened, produced a crockery dish for the poor starved dog and went to fill it with water.
I put back on the gloves I’d removed to play the lute, and requesting Lodovico’s dagger, I gathered the seeds into a heap and then looked around for something with which to crush them. Only the handle of the dagger was at hand. And so I used it to make a powder, a good pinch of which I now put into the dog’s water. I put in another pinch and yet another.
The animal drank thirstily and miserably and licked at the bare dish and then immediately began to twitch. It fell on its side, and then on its back and writhed in its agony. In a moment, it had become rigid, its eyes staring dully at nothing and no one.
All watched this little spectacle with revulsion and horror, including me.
But Lodovico was incensed, staring at the priests, and at his father, and then at the dog.
“I swear I am innocent of this!” he declared. “The Jews know the poison. The Jews brought it here. Why, it was this very Jew Vitale who brought the plant to the house …”
“You contradict your story,” said Antonio. “You lie. You stammer. You beg for credence like a coward!”
“I tell you I had no part in it!” cried out the desperate man. “These Jews have bewitched me as they have bewitched my brother. If this thing was done by me, it was in a sleep in which I knew nothing. It was in a sleep in which I wandered, carrying out the acts they forced me to carry out. What do you know of these Jews? You speak of their holy books, but what do you know of these books but that they aren’t filled with the witchcraft that drove me to this? Doesn’t the demon rage in the accursed house at this very hour?”
“Signore Antonio,” said the elder priest, the one with the sharp yet gentle features. “Something must be said of this demon. People in the street can hear it howl. Is all this beyond what a demon can do? I think not!”
Lodovico had a thousand protests—that yes, it was the demon, and yes, it had worked its sinister magic on him, and could no one imagine the evil of this demon, and so forth and so on.
But the solemn Antonio was having none of it. He stared at his natural son with a face that was sad to the point of tears, but no tears flowed. “How could you do this?” he whispered.
Suddenly Lodovico broke loose from the two men who stood beside him, their hands barely holding him.
He rushed at the tree of purple flowers and grabbed at the black seeds in the mud of the pot. He caught as many as his hand could hold.
“Stop him,” I cried. And I flew at him, pushing him backwards, but his hand shot to his lips before I could stop it, forcing the mud and seeds into his open mouth. I jerked his hand away but it was too late.
The guards were on him and so was his father.
“Make him vomit it up,” cried Vitale desperately. “Let me get to him, stand back.”
But I knew it was useless.
I moved away, utterly distraught. What had I allowed to happen here! It was too awful. It was exactly what I myself had wanted to do to him, what I myself had pictured, scooping up the seeds, forcing him to eat them, but he had done this himself as if my evil intentions had taken hold of him. How had I let him do this dreadful deed? Why had I not figured some way to turn him from his purpose?
Lodovico looked at his father. He was choking and shuddering. The guards backed away and only Signore Antonio held him as he began to convulse and then to slip to the floor.
“Merciful Lord,” whispered Signore Antonio, and so did I.
Merciful Lord, have mercy on his immort
al soul. Lord in Heaven, forgive him his madness.
“Witchcraft!” said the dying man, his mouth smeared with saliva and mud, and it was his last word. On his knees, he bent forward, his face contorted, and the convulsions shook his entire frame.
Then he rolled over on his side, his legs still twitching, and his face took on the rigid grimace of the poor animal that had died before him.
And I, I who in a life hundreds of years away, and in a land far far away, had used this very poison to dispatch untold victims, could only stand staring helplessly at this one. Oh, what a blunder, that I, sent to answer prayers, had brought about a suicide.
A silence fell over us all.
“He was my friend,” Vitale whispered.
As the old man started to rise, Vitale took his arm.
Niccolò appeared in the gateway. Not making a sound, he stood there in his long white bed tunic, barefoot, trembling, yet staring at his dead brother.
“Go out, all of you,” said Signore Antonio. “Leave me with my son here. Leave me.”
But the elder priest lingered. He was much shaken as were we all, but he gathered his resources and said in a low, contemptuous voice,
“Do not think for a moment that witchcraft is not in operation here,” he said. “That your sons have not been contaminated by their intercourse with these Jews.”
“Fr. Piero, silence,” said the old man. “This was not witchcraft, this was envy! And I did not see what I did not want to see. Now leave me, all of you. Leave me to be alone to mourn my son whom I took from his mother’s arms. Vitale, take your patient to his bed. He will recover now.”
“But the demon, does it not still rage?” the priest demanded. No one was listening to him.
I stared down at the dead man. I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t think. I knew they were all going out, except for the old man, and I must go out as well. Yet I couldn’t take my eyes off his lifeless body. I thought of angels, but without words. I appealed to an unseen realm, intermingled with our own, beings of wisdom and compassion who might be surrounding the soul of this dead man now, but no comforting images came to mind, no words. I had failed. I had failed this one, though I might have saved another. Was that all I had been meant to do? Save the one brother and drive the other to destroy himself? It was inconceivable. And it was I who had driven him to this, most certainly.