Throwing aside any last vestiges of caution or respect for authority, Simone cuts the wires with the edge of the trowel and pries the close-fitting lid loose. Even before he lifts it off and sets it aside, the smell of death wafts out, so he’s not completely unprepared to see bones inside. Simone’s not squeamish—given that so many artists’ models are beggars and whores, a painter can’t afford to be squeamish—so it’s natural for him to take a closer look at the bones.
He starts with the skull. Cupping it carefully in both hands, he lifts it from its nest of ribs and raises it to eye level. The face is long and narrow, the cheekbones high and prominent, the forehead slightly lower than he would have expected. He rotates the skull in his hands, looking to see if there is damage—marks of a violent death—but there is none. As the skull comes full circle in his hands, Simone’s visual memory tells him there is something familiar about its shape and proportions. He frowns, trying to place it, and suddenly lays the skull aside and roots in the box until he finds what he’s looking for: the bones of a forearm, which are—as he knew they would be—slightly splintered at their lower ends, just above where they once joined the wrist. Just where a spike would have passed through them on its way into the wood of a cross.
He rummages in the box for the other arm, and then for the feet. All four extremities bear the ragged, splintery evidence of piercings. Martini lays the limbs on the shelf alongside the skull and stares at them, the bones that were within the flesh he studied and sketched so attentively.
His mind ranges back to that odd night seven years ago, when he spent hours drawing by flickering lamplight, capturing every detail of the fresh corpse laid out on the floor of the cell. He remembers the parting words of the jailer: “I do believe he was a holy man…. His only sin was his holiness.”
He fits the lid back onto the box. Then, acting on an impulse he could not have put into words, he reaches for a pair of tools lying on the floor—a chisel and a hammer—and swiftly incises a broad cross on the stone lid of the box. Then, beneath the cross, using the pointed corner of the chisel’s blade, he gouges the outline of a lamb. Working swiftly—for the mortar in the bucket will harden soon, and he is surely risking his life to tamper with the pope’s sealed secret—he replaces the box in its niche, wedges the slab back into place, and trowels mortar into the joints, taking care to mimic the Holy Father’s sloppy workmanship.
As he slathers the final bit of mortar into the gap between the stones, Simone wonders why God has put this dead man—this blameless man, if the jailer’s report was true—in Simone’s path not once, but twice now.
He rises, and starts up the steps. Only then does he remember and turn back. God might require penance of him soon, but d’Albon’s painters needed twenty eggs half an hour ago.
CHAPTER 33
Avignon
The Present
ELISABETH SURVEYED THE LEFTOVER FRUIT AND PASTRIES with surprise when she came to collect the breakfast tray, then peered at the untouched cup of espresso. “What,” she asked in astonishment, “no Monsieur l’Inspecteur?” She cast a glance at the cornflower-blue sky. “Did the sun fail to rise today? Is the world coming to the end?”
“I’m as amazed as you are.”
Instead of taking away the tray, she sat down in Descartes’s usual chair beside the fountain. “I am glad he is not here,” she said.
“I don’t blame you. He’s been eating berries and croissants by the truckload.” I didn’t mention the takeaway treats he always tucked in his pockets.
Her brow furrowed for a moment, then she beamed. “Ah, non. I do not mean for that reason. I am glad because I wish to talk to you. I have something news to tell you. I think you will be happy to hear it.”
“Have you been playing detective again, Elisabeth?” The last time she’d looked this excited was when she’d shared her theory about our “zhondo”: that the unknown skeleton from the palace might be that of Meister Eckhart.
She clapped her hands with delight. “Oui! Remember what you told me?” She leaned closer and spoke in a low, conspiratorial voice. “That the man had a unique shape? Legs that came almost up to the neck?”
I laughed. “Maybe not quite that long. But yes, very long legs for a man his size. As long as mine, and I’m much taller than he was.”
“Yes. So. Last week I got in touch with my cousin—I told you he is a Dominican, yes?” I nodded. “I do not tell him why I ask, so don’t worry, I keep the secret. But I ask him, ‘What do the Dominicans know about the appearance of Eckhart—his size, his shape?’ Mon Dieu, my cousin thinks I am crazy, but he says, ‘Okay, I will do some research.’ And this morning, I have an e-mail from him. No one painted a picture of Eckhart until hundreds of years after he died, so we don’t know what his face looked like. But. Sometimes, behind the back, the other friars called him Ciconia Dei.” She leaned back, looking pleased with herself.
“Why did they call him that?”
Her eyes danced and her smug smile broadened. “It is Latin. It means ‘the stork of God.’”
CHAPTER 34
AVIGNON