The Kingdom of Light Read Free

and find out something about the ship.’
    He looked around. At the end of the cabin, fixed to the wall, there was a cabinet reinforced with strips of iron. Forcing in the tip of his dagger, he pulled out the hinges of the door. Inside there was a leather-bound book. It must have been the ship’s log. After taking a quick look, he put that in his bag as well.
    The stench of decomposition had become unbearable. Dante was seized with a violent attack of retching, as the feeling of nausea become more intense. He managed only to ascertain that their clothes contained no other objects worthy of interest, before he was forced to leave the cabin.
    A S SOON as he was outside he stopped for a moment to catch his breath. His mind ran to the terrible deaths of the oarsmen. Now he understood the awful contraction of their limbs. Anyone who had escaped the poison was left in chains to die of thirst beneath the roasting sun, and the murderer hadn’t bothered to unlock their fetters. They had tried to free themselves until the very last, and their desperate cries must have filled the swamp for days. But their incomprehensible language, rather than bringing anyone running over, would have frightened the few inhabitants, terrified as they were by a fear of ghosts.
    Dante thought he could still hear the cries rising up from the benches. He turned to the Bargello: ‘Order your men to bring back very carefully every fragment of the machine in the wardroom, and have it brought to Florence with the utmost care. Strip off one of the sails and turn it into a bag.’
    ‘And … these people?’
    The poet looked hesitantly around. He could do nothing more for those wretches. But he wouldn’t leave them there to rot among their chains. ‘Set fire to the ship. Let it turn into a funeral pyre, and let their God receive them along with their souls,’ he commanded. ‘And let people know as little as possible about this story for the time being.’
    ‘But the galley was empty. No precious cargo, nothing but rubbish. Why such secrecy?’ the chief of the guards objected suspiciously. ‘Apart from those corpses.’
    ‘Yes. Apart from those corpses,’ the prior interrupted, starting to climb down.
    The men hurried to accomplish their task, impatient to get away from that accursed place.
    ‘Let’s get back to our horses,’ Dante said when he saw the flames beginning to attack the ship. As they moved away, he darted one final glance at the top of the dune. Red tongues rose higher and higher as the fire took hold of the carcase. They looked like fingers rising from the funeral pyre in a plea for justice.
    Or revenge.
    T HEY REACHED Florence early the following day, after a forced night-march that had exhausted both men and horses, while the constellations of the Zodiac waned above their heads. The tops of the walls gleamed in the rays of the early-morning sun, as if they were made of copper rather than brick and stone.
    During the night a sandy rain had fallen, with intervals of clarity. While the starry vault had been visible, Dante had looked up to work out how much time had passed. At that moment Gemini, his birth-constellation, was shining in the sky. The twofold splendour of Castor and Pollux seemed to guide him, giving him the strength to conquer the unease that had lately taken hold of him. Several times the Bargello had suggested a rest, encouraged by the protests of his men. But each time Dante had rejected the idea, determined as he was to keep going.
    The pyre of the ship had erased the visible traces of the slaughter, but not the right of those souls to be avenged. He had to find the man responsible, the man who had fled after committing that savage crime.
    In front of him swayed the bag containing the fragments of the mechanism. The horse swerved nervously each time its cargo groaned with its metallic voice, as if sensing that it was carrying shards of hell.
    ‘Open the door in the name of the city of Florence!’ Dante called with the