allowed the sword of the Lansquenet to continue its trajectory and, by inertia, to drag behind the arm that held it. The Katzbalger’s sharp edge went to stick it on the table, splitting it in two. The Teuton, unbalanced, fell to the ground together with his sword. Lambrusco’s jug, flown in the air, drew an arched trajectory, falling and crashing right on his head. Around the Lansquenet, a red patch of wine and blood was formed. Andrea took advantage of the momentary dizziness of the adversary to come over him and lean the tip of the sword against the nape of the neck.
«What’s your name, friend?», he asked him, lifting him by the arm and returning him to an upright position, but without lowering his guard, continuing to threaten him with the tip of the sword.
«Franz», the other answered.
«Well, Franz. You are lucky for today. I keep your sword and spare your life. But don’t get in my way anymore, because I won’t be as lenient with you a second time», and so he pushed him towards the exit, turned him around and kicked him out with a kick in the ass, sending him eating the dust of the square in front. It did not go as well for his companion, who lay lifeless on the ground in the pool of his own blood. Fulvio had not hesitated to sink the blade of the stylet at the slightest attempt of his opponent to escape from the grasp.
The man with the stolen face was watching the scene stunned. In the meantime another innkeeper had left the kitchen, very similar to the first one, although with less hair on his head, most likely his brother.
«What have you done?», the latter intervened. «You are insane! We’re accustomed to the harassment of these handsome people. We let them vent, they get drunk, they do some damage, they mess something up, but then they leave, and for days and days we live in peace. Now instead...»
«Two days will not pass that nothing will remain of this place but smoking ashes», his brother replied, massaging his painful neck. «And the guardians of the embankments will be found at the bottom of the floodplain, finished who knows how!»
«I imagine that the guardians of the embankments are you two», Andrea said, addressed to the two innkeepers. «Meanwhile, at the bottom of the floodplain let’s throw this cheek!»
«In fact, my Lord, it was not a good idea to let that Franz free. He will surely come back here in force and demand his revenge. And we will no longer be here. It will be the two of them who will pay the price» Fulvio intervened, addressing a nod to Geraldo, who helped him to pull up the corpse, drag it to the window and throw it into the canal that ran behind the inn.
Andrea, Fulvio and Geraldo emerged from the windowsill, observing with satisfied air how the strong current was carrying away the inert body of the Lansquenet.
«I’ll find a way to offer adequate protection to our guests», Andrea said. «I’ll talk about it with the Duke of Ferrara. I am sure he’ll send some of his guards here to protect them. Fulvio, Geraldo! Let’s go. Let’s try to reach the city before nightfall.»
The Guardians of the embankments paused at the entrance of the inn, watching the three knights move away until they disappeared into the afternoon fog. In their hearts they knew that no guard of the Duke of Este would ever arrive in that remote place to offer protection to two innkeepers. All that remained was to bolt the place and move away from Pallantone. Their lives were at stake.
CHAPTER 8
Bernardino went out in front of his store with a copy of his last work in his hand. He wanted to see it in daylight, to see how the colour illustrations had come. With that illustrated edition of the Divine Comedy he had surpassed not only his predecessor Federico Conti, but also himself. Bernardino had taken up the Florentine edition of the poem of the great poet Dante Alighieri. He knew that in the year of the Lord 1481, Lorenzo Pierfrancesco De’ Medici had commissioned Sandro Botticelli to create one hundred plates illustrating scenes from the poem. Of these one hundred, Botticelli had made only nineteen, which had been engraved on plates, in order to be printed, by the engraver Baccio Baldini. Since the work was not completed by Sandro Botticelli, the Florentine edition, which had a white space at the beginning of each song, was eventually marketed without images. The dream of being able to realize a princely edition of the Divine Comedy, with all the illustrations printed in colour, had been cultivated by Bernardino for years and years. He had managed to have the missing plates drawn, in the same style as Botticelli, by some Benedictine monks of the Abbey of St. Urbano, in the country of Apiro. But the real master’s touch, which had allowed him to see his dream come true, was that of having had some of his trusted collaborators trace the engravings by the Florentine Baccio Baldini. The latter had been given for dead in Florence in 1487, at the age of fifty-one. Another thirty-five years had passed and, therefore, if he had been alive, he would have been over eighty years old. A rare, but not impossible thing, Bernardino had always said. And in fact, it was known that his workshop continued to produce very fine engraving work on gold and copper, which could not have been the work of his young students. Behind it was his hand, which continued to work in the shadows. Why he wanted to be believed dead, even if the hypotheses were very much, no one knew for sure. Someone said that he wanted to escape the creditors to whom he owed exorbitant sums. Others said that he feared Botticelli’s wrath, because he had not met his expectations in making the engravings of the plates with which some of his works were to be printed to decorate the poem by Dante Alighieri. The fact is that the nineteen plates produced at the time had remained in the engraver’s workshop and had not been printed. Not only that, but they were no longer claimed by the Medici who had commissioned them, nor by Botticelli, who had conceived the drawings.
Paolo and Valentino, two faithful workers of Bernardino, had gone to Florence and had identified the engraver’s workshop. Not even a shadow of him. Perhaps a few years ago he had really died and his students had in fact managed to refine their workshop techniques until they reached and surpassed the art of their master. It was not an easy task for Paolo and Valentino, but in the end the offer in money made Baccio’s students capitulate, who gave up the engravings of Botticelli’s works for a sum of three thousand gold florins. Much more than they were actually worth, but Bernardino was convinced that he would certainly recover the sum with interest if he managed to print his Divine Comedy. The friars had made not only the missing illustrations, but also the engravings of the same on copper plates, which Bernardino would then bring back on lead plates, more suitable for printing. Using coloured inks for the illustrations was not new, but it involved long and repetitive steps to obtain a good result. Besides black, Bernardino had used red, blue and yellow. No more than four colours, it had been said, otherwise he would not come up with them.
He browsed with satisfaction page by page, appreciated each of the hundred illustrations, smelled the smell of printed paper, felt the leather cover with his fingertips following with his fingers the engravings of the title, letter by letter, D, I, V, and so on. He finally raised his eyes to the blue, clear, cloudless sky of the early afternoon of a day at the end of March. He admired the swallows that were already circling in the air, animating it with their garrisons. He was tired, he felt tired. He wanted to be one of those swallows to see the world from a different perspective, from above, flying like them and swooping down on everything that attracted his attention. But he understood, from the heaviness of his legs, that age was getting more and more felt every day. At great stride he was about to reach sixty, and they were not few, especially for someone who had always worked like him. He had the feeling of a void in his chest, his heart taking a dive like when you feel a sudden fear. A few missed beats, a few coughs, and the heart resumed at an accelerated pace, only to be quieted down in a few moments. It was an unwelcome sensation, but to which Bernardino had been getting used for some time. Once the sight was in focus again, a few steps away from him, the noble Lucia Baldeschi materialized.
«Bernardino!
