The Collector of Dying Breaths Read online

  Chapter 8

  MARCH 14, 1573

  BARBIZON, FRANCE

  Ten days of living in one locked room. Ten days of carefully slicing pages out of the notebook that Serapino had stitched together himself. Ten days of hiding the notebook back under the stone every time I heard a creak and then removing it again. Ten days of sewing page after page of that thick vellum to the inside of my rough-hewn shirt. Of accidentally pricking my finger with the needle and being forced to wait until the blood coagulated before I could continue for fear I would stain those precious manuscript pages. Ten days of listening for the sound of footsteps to make certain I was not interrupted in my task.

  Even though Brother Michael and the two other monks came at the same hour every day—before their midday high Mass—I lived in fear that one day they would come earlier and interrupt me. What would they do if they found me with Serapino’s notebook? Confiscate it and bring it to the abbot? And then surely my trial would include both thievery and heresy for the work that Serapino had undertaken. The goal of capturing the soul in a dying breath so that it could be resurrected through alchemy was as heretical as saying a Black Mass.

  Yes, it is true. Under God’s roof, Serapino had become a man who wanted to break God’s rules. And I had been his helper. We feared not the wrath of an omniscient being but rather that time would run out before we could figure a formula. And we had been right.

  The evening before the trial, I finished sewing the vellum pages into my shirt. The same candles that had illuminated Serapino’s passing were now only a finger high. I had burned three weeks’ worth in half that time. But I’d succeeded in my task. Only the leather binding had proved too thick to save.

  The most important part of my escape plan had also been the most difficult. Mixing potions is complicated. Perfumes do not have to be precise, but poisons do. If the scent of orange blossoms is slightly too strong or too weak in a fragrance, someone might notice, but no one would be affected. But too many grains of the same powered foxglove seeds that can help cure an ailing man can also kill him.

  No, the potion I was making was not intended to kill, just to overwhelm. I had no desire to leave dead monks in my wake, only sleeping ones I could run from. This particular remedy required time to seep and become fully integrated. I needed it to be as strong and powerful as possible, without being fatal, and to work quickly.

  During his lifetime at the monastery, Serapino had collected every herb, spice, flower essence, tree bark, metal, oil, pit and nut that could be grown in Italy or bought in Florence from the traders who came from other lands.

  Often, I’d accompanied him when he ventured out to the markets by the Arno. We’d wander through the aisles of merchants, inspecting their goods, purchasing items that he needed to replenish or obtaining new ingredients that had arrived from far-off lands. Once he took ill, he sent me alone to the markets, and for the first time I practiced the art of haggling with the merchants, in the end getting even better prices from them than Serapino had.

  As I followed his formula, which I intended to use to overcome my guards, I thought carefully about when I should try my escape. Before the trial? Or let it take place and, if I was found guilty, then make my exit?

  I tried to calculate which would be easiest, but there was no way to judge. I had no one to ask. No one to confide in. The loneliness in the cell was overwhelming.

  In the dark, at night, while I pushed the needle in and out of the hemp and into the vellum, as I dripped single drops of liquid into beakers, I went over and over my options, planning, calculating, trying to come up with the best plan.

  I was able to remember the lessons Serapino had taught me and apply them. And one of the most important of those was to always keep your own secrets and silence. Never reveal any more than you have to. Watch and listen.

  And so for ten days that was what I did. I watched and I listened. When the monks came to my cell, I was careful to study their body language, the way they looked at me, and to listen to what they said outside my door before they entered and after they left.

  I had been told that the trial would be on a Tuesday. But on Monday when they came with my daily rations, none of the monks would make eye contact with me. Even Brother Michael, who usually asked after me and gave me some news about what was going on in the monastery, was silent. They came in, left the bread and water, cheese and fruit, and then departed.

  What was going on? What had changed? I had no way of finding out. But I decided to prepare myself in case.

  I had fashioned a holder for Serapino’s breath out of thick cord that I’d made into a belt of sorts. I wrapped it about my naked waist. The bottle was a small thing—no longer or thicker than my forefinger—so it was easy enough to secure and hide.

  Over that I wore the shirt with the vellum book sewn inside of it.

  I took the bottle of the sleeping water I’d prepared and shoved that into my pocket along with a handful of rags.

  In the early afternoon they returned.

  This was the first time other than the day of Serapino’s funeral that they’d come twice.

  “Your trial is today, René,” Michael said.

  “Not tomorrow?”

  “No. And the abbot is waiting. I have prayed for a good outcome.”

  This time he met my eyes, and I believed he meant it.

  Caught up in that moment, I suddenly realized I’d lost the chance I’d been hoping for. This was when I should have opened the bottle and pushed the cloth up to his face when the others were not looking and then catch them by surprise. I’d been foolish. Touched by his words, I was unprepared.

  The pain of Serapino’s passing had turned me soft and overly emotional. I would not survive this way. I needed strength, not tears.

  The monks had me walk in front of them from the laboratory to the refectory, where the trial had been set up. It was the first such event at Santa Maria Novella. No infraction had ever been so great that a tribunal had been convened. But suspicion of murder was a serious matter. Protecting the name of the most revered apothecary in Florence was of grave importance to the reputation of the monastery and its pharmacy.

  I’d never been in that room when food was not being served. Instead of the smells of hot dishes and fresh bread, the sweet smell of the gardens infused the air that wafted in through the open casements flanking the south wall.

  The abbot and the two most senior monks in the monastery were in the same seats where they sat for meals at the long dining table. The beautiful slab of cherrywood, smoothed from years of use, was empty, and to my eyes looked naked. Out of context, you can see things anew and learn them better.

  To the right of the abbot was the archbishop of Florence, Niccolò Ridolfi. This dour-faced man, with a protruding forehead and thin lips, was the reason we’d had to wait for the trial to begin. My life was proceeding according to his schedule.

  The brothers who’d brought me to the refectory now escorted me to the table and offered me a chair facing my accusers and judge. Behind me other tables were filled with the members of the monastery. It seemed everyone was present.

  “We are not here to condemn you without giving you a chance to explain yourself, René Bianco,” the abbot began.

  My stomach began to ache. Sweat started to drip down my neck. I felt my bowels liquefy. I had spent so much time planning on how to escape and what to take with me, but I had not thought very much about the trial itself. I knew about civilian trials, but how did monks conduct such things?

  “We are men of God and mercy,” Beneto said. “Please describe the events that led up to the passing of Brother Serapino.”

  “He was very ill . . .” I started in halting words.

  “Yes,” Beneto said, almost encouraging me.

  I searched his face. Today he looked almost benign. I didn’t see the accusation I’d viewed that night in the
laboratory when he came so soon after Serapino had died.

  “Go on,” Beneto prompted.

  “He had been ill for months. He grew weaker and weaker and was in constant pain.”

  “The same illness that befell Brother Adamo during last winter,” said Brother Jacimo, the librarian, who sat on the other side of Beneto. He was an ancient man, at least eighty years old, with a keen mind. Serapino had always spoken well of Jacimo, and I hoped that would bode well for me. He had been of very noble birth—but a seventh son with no hope of inheriting any of his father’s estate.

  “Yes, that’s right.” Beneto looked at me. “Is there a connection there? That they both had the same illness?”

  I didn’t know what, if anything, Jacimo knew about Serapino’s experiments. I had thought no one other than I knew about the collection of dying breaths that Serapino had amassed, but I might have been wrong.

  My mentor visited with each monk as he lay on his deathbed and offered solace and succor along with a syrup that he claimed made death less painful. Prepared with ground and liquefied grains of seeds from the poppy, it offered dreams of the next world to those about to leave this one. But that was not all he did while attending the dying men. Serapino also collected their breaths so he had samples to work with.

  If Jacimo mentioned any of this, a search of Serapino’s workplace might reveal the items I was hiding, and that would be a catastrophe.

  Again, I thought of the lesson Serapino had taught me: Always keep your own secrets and silence. Never reveal any more than you have to. Watch and listen more than you speak.

  “No, I don’t know of a connection, Father,” I said.

  The abbot spoke to Jacimo now: “Are you satisfied with his answer?”

  “Yes,” Jacimo said. “Brother Adamo died slowly of a disease of the heart that I do not believe was contagious. Something not uncommon in the elderly. I was just making an observation.”

  “And so, René Bianco, your mentor was growing more and more sickly?” The abbot returned to the previous line of questioning.

  “Yes, and as the pain became more intolerable and the syrup offered less relief, he spoke to me about hastening his death.”

  “And why would he do that? He was a man of God. We do not hasten death. We wait for God to take us.”

  I was about to speak when I realized the hopelessness of the position I was in. If I told them what Serapino believed and what he’d desired, I would be painting the picture of a true heretic. I would be betraying him. At the same time, the only way I might go free was to tell that truth.

  “He thought such suffering was not necessary.” I chose each word carefully. Maybe I could make an argument that was based on the science Serapino practiced. “With all the formulas and elixirs he prepared, he knew that there were some that could bring about peace sooner.”

  “Elixirs or poisons?” the archbishop asked.

  “Elixirs,” I answered.

  “But elixirs that were poisonous?”

  “Yes,” I said in a lowered voice.

  “And Serapino mixed these poisons?”

  “Yes. In smaller doses, some were cures.”

  “And one of these poisons is made from almonds?” asked Beneto.

  “Yes,” I answered.

  “And that is what I smelled on Brother Serapino’s breath.”

  “Yes.”

  I couldn’t tell if I was making things any better or worse. He was throwing the questions at me quickly, and I didn’t have much time to think through the case he was building.

  “And this particular poison, was it something Serapino made often?”

  “Yes, he kept it on supply, in the laboratory.”

  “He made it?”

  “Yes.”

  “And did you, in the past, ever help him to make it?”

  “Yes, I assisted in all things in the laboratory.”

  “So you know how to make it also?”

  I had stepped into the first trap. It was too late to figure out how to get out of it. “Yes.”

  “So you might have made the particular dose that killed Serapino yourself ? In fact, didn’t you mix it? Is that not what you told me that night?”

  “Yes, I did mix it. Serapino asked me to.”

  “When did Brother Serapino take the poison?”

  “Several hours before he died.”

  “But he was weak, was he not? He had not come to meals in over three weeks. Had not left the laboratory to come to a single Mass.”

  “Yes, he was weak.”

  “So if he could not come to Mass, a man of the cloth who lived his life for God, how could he get up off his sickbed and get a vial of poison?” Beneto asked.

  I could have argued that the same energy was not required to walk five steps as to travel the length of the monastery.

  “Serapino asked me to give it to him.”

  “And you obeyed him.”

  “Yes.”

  “Knowing that he was asking you to help him die.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you try to talk him out of that?”

  “At first, yes, I did.”

  “You did? Why is that?”

  “I cared for Brother Serapino. He is the only family I have known. He is my teacher. I . . . I . . .”

  “But in the end he convinced you?”

  “The pain convinced me,” I said. My voice was low.

  “You decided to play God?”

  “No. I would never do such a thing. Brother Serapino asked me to give him the poison.”

  “You swear that you gave him the poison because he asked for it?” Beneto asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Not because you were tired of being his apprentice? Not because you wanted to take over the apothecary?”

  So this was what was at the heart of the inquiry.

  “No.”

  “But that is what would likely happen, is it not? You are the most knowledgeable of all of us. You are in a position to use what you have learned to gain power here.”

  “I was satisfied working with Serapino. I had nothing to gain by having him die.”

  “Unless he was holding you back. Unless he was keeping you from grander ambitions. You have been an apprentice far longer than is customary. Isn’t that true?”

  It was true. Serapino had kept me an apprentice longer than I thought was right. There had been some rancor between us over how far and how fast I was progressing.

  “There are some of us here who have heard arguments between the two of you to that effect. You wanted more than Serapino was willing to give you. You were greedy for power, René Bianco, were you not?”

  “Those were just conversations, Friar. Two men arguing about ideas. I would never want to hasten his death for my own benefit.”

  “Look at the evidence. We have heard the fights between you about how you wanted more responsibility in the pharmacy. You knew how to make the poisonous bitter almond paste. You were alone with him day and night for weeks with no one to witness your actions. And we know, because we have all taken the same oath and love the same Lord, that Serapino would not break the sacraments in the last hours of his life. So close to heaven to risk entry by disobeying a major rule?”

  “No!” I leapt up, stepped forward and pounded my hands on the table. “He was in terrible pain. Serapino said God would not have made these herbs and flowers and nuts capable of such things if he did not intend for us to use them. He said that God did not make the rules that men impose upon one another in his name—”

  “Heresy!” The abbot screamed and stood, pointing his finger at me. All the hatred in his heart visible on his face. How could I have been so stupid? This was not about burying Serapino in hallowed ground. I alone in that hall knew what I was really on trial for. Years before Beneto had wante
d Serapino to be his lover. I had heard the abbot proposition him. Had heard Serapino rebuff him and then listened as Beneto threatened to remove him from his position overseeing the apothecary if he uttered one word of his proposition to anyone. And then, as the abbot left my mentor’s room, he noticed me huddled on my pallet. He’d forgotten I slept just outside Serapino’s cell. Hatred flashed in his eyes. He’d been mortified in front of an apprentice.

  I finally understood. This trial, my demise, was Beneto’s revenge.

  He was conferring with the archbishop and the librarian. The room was silent. Everyone waited to hear the verdict.

  It was the archbishop who spoke. “I declare you guilty, René Bianco. Since you are not a religious man, we cannot charge you. Therefore we will turn you over to the government of Florence and they will mete out your fate.”

  The abbot addressed the monks who had escorted me into the rectory: “Take René Bianco to the laboratory and lock him up again until the chief magistrate from the city arrives later this afternoon,” Beneto said.

  And then, with a smile that he was trying so very hard to hide playing on his lips, he gazed at me and offered a benediction.

  “May God have mercy on you, René Bianco. I fear you are going to need it.”

  Chapter 9

  THE PRESENT

  FRIDAY, MARCH 14

  BARBIZON, FRANCE

  Jac never lost focus on the space she was in. Only minutes had passed, but a story had begun unfolding in her mind, and she’d become aware of another layer of time. She knew—because it had happened to her many times before—that she’d just experienced an impossibility. She wished she could still convince herself that these manifestations were an abnormality of her brain, some story-telling psychotic episode. Madness would be a relief. But she knew better because she’d discovered the tales that spun out, these fragments of someone else’s life, were in fact provable. The people she saw and heard had lived. She’d researched them. And when she couldn’t find proof of them—because they’d lived too long ago—she’d found other details in the story, confirming she wasn’t imagining it.