“I thought you said there were five?”
“The fifth is even more of a mystery. It might have been painted later than the others, and the attribution is uncertain. Four were painted over the arched doorways. The fifth may have been in the center, with two on each side flanking it.”
“And the subject?”
“The Assumption of the Virgin—when she ascended to heaven at the end of her life.”
At that moment, despite years of Catholic school, I suddenly saw the story from Mary’s perspective for the first time. “Can you imagine being accosted by an angel who tells you that you are going to give birth to the son of God, then doing it, only to lose your son to a crazy bunch of rabble-rousers? I couldn’t handle it, even with heaven at the end.”
Donata fingered the beads at her neck. I wondered whether I’d offended her with my abridged version of the life of the Virgin. “I see Siena is starting to get under your skin,” she said. “We Sienese feel a special connection to Santa Maria, who has protected us for hundreds of years, and medieval Siena was even closer to her embrace than we are now. When the gates closed at night and the mantle of the Virgin settled over the commune’s inhabitants, priests chanted the divine office through the dark hours of the night, keeping material and spiritual dangers at bay.”
“Since I’ve been here, I’ve started to wonder what it might be like to be a historian instead of a doctor.”
Donata turned to face me. “What is it like to be a neurosurgeon?”
“Maybe it’s like having children. You are expected to be available at high intensity one hundred percent of the time, and the decisions you make have life-or-death consequences. But at least I can take a leave of absence.”
Donata laughed and we walked through the gates into the pellegrinaio, the frescoed hall that used to house ailing pilgrims cared for at the Ospedale. Now it was a museum.
“Do you miss it now, the surgeon’s life?”
I didn’t answer Donata for a long time. I was thinking about the surprising, heady pleasure of watching the past come to life. The OR seemed very far away. “No, I don’t miss it. Not yet.”
“I’m sure your passion for surgery will return.” Donata smiled. “After you’ve had enough time off.”
I nodded, but I wasn’t sure at all.
* * *
I went back to the library the next day, to grill Fabbri about Medicis beheaded in the 1300s, but I didn’t get a chance. Fabbri was frowning as he greeted me. “There is a Signor Signoretti here, asking after you. He insisted, and not as graciously as I would expect from a gentleman of his stature, that he would wait.”
“Where is he?” I looked around anxiously, having built an ominous picture of the man from what I’d heard.
The infamous Signoretti walked into the reading room. His black hair was slicked back from his high forehead, and his pale summer suit hung on him too perfectly. “Signora Trovato.”
“Dottoressa,” I said, correcting his address.
“Ah, of course, but the medical sort of doctor. Not like your late brother, whose expertise was history. My condolences. All who knew him mourn his loss.”
“Thank you for your concern,” I said, trying to suppress my irritation.
“You have not responded to any of my messages, Dottoressa.”
“I appreciate your gracious offer of assistance, but I don’t need it. I hope you will excuse me. As you know, we doctors are very busy.”
It did not require paranormal abilities to feel the anger pouring off Signoretti as the clerk officiously showed him out on my behalf.
I spent the rest of the morning with the Medici collection, which was small, not surprising, since we were in Siena, not Florence. Most of what I found was from the 1500s, too late for what I was interested in. As I was leaving the library, the strap on my bag broke, sending the contents onto the floor.
I cursed inventively, then bent down to pick up my possessions. Fabbri appeared as I stood up with an armful of books.
“Would you like to leave the contents here, and pick them up tomorrow? Perhaps when you return the Accorsi journal?”
“Thank you, I’ll take you up on that offer.” I pocketed my wallet and keys and left everything else in Ben’s carrel, careful to avoid Fabbri’s second question. I tucked my broken bag under one arm, then headed home.
On the way, I had the sensation that someone was following me. Lately I’d had a constant feeling that there was some world hovering just beyond what I could see, the past edging into the present. But this was different.
I stopped at a neighborhood bar whose warm amber light spilled out onto the pavement, and after I had a glass of wine I felt ready to go back out again. As I walked home the unpleasant sensation returned. When I turned onto the deserted Via Cecco Angiolieri, I heard steps behind me speed up, and someone shoved hard against my hip, throwing me to the sidewalk. My broken bag was gone, along with the rapidly moving figure in the dark. I leaped up with my heart pounding, and stood shaking on the corner.
Whoever had mugged me would end up with a bag that was not only broken, but empty too. Part of me hoped it was Signoretti just for the pleasure of having thwarted him, but the idea that he’d resort to violent methods to get information made me nervous. What information could I have, or could Ben have had, that would be worth the risk? And why? Once I was home with the heavy door barred and double locked, I went to Ben’s desk and searched the drawers to be sure all was as I’d left it. I found the small folio and Gabriele’s journal where I’d stored them. I put the journal and folio into a battered leather backpack I found in the back of Ben’s closet, and tucked it under the bottom of my laundry basket full of dirty clothes, just in case. I knew I should return the journal to the archives, but couldn’t bring myself to let go of it yet.
* * *
The next morning I spent a futile six hours filing a police report that I was fairly sure would never go anywhere other than a sergeant’s file cabinet. As I walked out of the station, I decided it was time to distract myself from my brush with Tuscan criminal justice by engaging in some tourist activity—I’d been in Siena for a month and hadn’t done anything recommended by the guidebooks Nathaniel had given me.