“And now we should go to bed, because in an hour it is matins. But I see you are still agitated, my poor Adso, still fearful because of your sin. . . . There is nothing like a good spell in church to calm the spirit. I have absolved you, but one never knows. Go and ask the Lord’s confirmation.” And he gave me a rather brisk slap on the head, perhaps as a show of paternal and virile affection, perhaps as an indulgent penance. Or perhaps (as I culpably thought at that moment) in a sort of good-natured envy, since he was a man who so thirsted for new and vital experiences.
We headed for the church, taking our usual path, which I followed in haste, closing my eyes, because all those bones reminded me too obviously, that night, of how I was dust and how foolish had been the pride of my flesh.
When we reached the nave we saw a shadowy figure before the main altar. I thought it was again Ubertino, but it was Alinardo, who did not recognize us at first. He said he was unable to sleep and had decided to spend the night praying for that young monk who had disappeared (he could not even remember the name). He prayed for his soul, if he were dead, and for his body, if he were lying ill and alone somewhere.
“Too many dead,” he said, “too many dead . . . But it was written in the book of the apostle. With the first trumpet came the hail, with the second a third part of the sea became blood; and you found one body in the hail, the other in blood. . . . The third trumpet warns that a burning star will fall in the third part of rivers and fountains of waters. So I tell you, our third brother has disappeared. And fear for the fourth, because the third part of the sun will be smitten, and of the moon and the stars, so there will be almost complete darkness. . . .”
As we came out of the transept, William asked himself whether there were not some element of truth in the old man’s words.
“But,” I pointed out to him, “this would mean assuming that a single diabolical mind, using the Apocalypse as guide, had arranged the three disappearances, also assuming that Berengar is dead. But, on the contrary, we know Adelmo died of his own volition. . . .”
“True,” William said, “but the same diabolical or sick mind could have been inspired by Adelmo’s death to arrange the other two in a symbolic way. And if this were so, Berengar should be found in a river or a fountain. And there are no rivers or fountains in the abbey, at least not such as someone could drown or be drowned in. . . .”
“There are only the baths,” I observed, almost by chance.
“Adso!” William said. “You know, that could be an idea? The balneary!”
“But they must have looked there. . . .”
“I saw the servants this morning when they were making the search; they opened the door of the balneary and took a glance inside, without investigating. They did not expect to find something carefully hidden: they were looking for a corpse lying somewhere theatrically, like Venantius’s body in the jar. . . . Let’s go and have a look. It is still dark anyway, and our lamp seems to go on burning merrily.”
So we did, and without difficulty we opened the door of the balneary, next to the infirmary.
Separated one from the other by thick curtains were some tubs, I don’t recall how many. The monks used them for their ablutions, on the days the Rule established, and Severinus used them for therapeutic reasons, because nothing can restore body and mind better than a bath. A fireplace in one corner allowed the water to be heated easily. We found it dirty with fresh ashes, and before it a great cauldron lay, overturned. The water could be drawn from a font in another corner.
We looked in the first tubs, which were empty. Only the last, concealed by a drawn curtain, was full, and next to it lay a garment, in a heap. At first sight, in the beam of our lamp, the surface of the liquid seemed smooth; but as the light struck it we glimpsed on the bottom, lifeless, a naked human body. We pulled it out slowly: Berengar. And this one, William said, truly had the face of a drowned man. The features were swollen. The body, white and flabby, without hair, seemed a woman’s except for the obscene spectacle of the flaccid pudenda. I blushed, then shuddered. I made the sign of the cross as William blessed the corpse.
FOURTH DAY
LAUDS
In which William and Severinus examine Berengar’s corpse and discover that the tongue is black, unusual in a drowned man. Then they discuss most painful poisons and a past theft.
I will not go into how we informed the abbot, how the whole abbey woke before the canonical hour, the cries of horror, the fear and grief that could be seen on every face, and how the news spread to all the people of the compound, the servants blessing themselves and uttering formulas against the evil eye. I don’t know whether the first office that morning proceeded according to regulations, or who took part in it. I followed William and Severinus, who had Berengar’s body wrapped up and ordered it laid out on a table in the infirmary.
When the abbot and the other monks had left, the herbalist and my master studied the corpse at length, with the cold detachment of men of medicine.
“He died by drowning,” Severinus said, “there’s no doubt. The face is swollen, the belly taut. . . .”
“But he was not drowned by another’s hands,” William observed, “for in that case he would have reacted against the murderer’s violence, whereas everything was neat and clean, as if Berengar had heated the water, filled the bath, and lain in it of his own free will.”
“This doesn’t surprise me,” Severinus said. “Berengar suffered from convulsions, and I myself had often told him that warm baths serve to calm agitation of the body and the spirit. On several occasions he asked me leave to light the balneary fire. So he may have done last night. . . .”
“Night before last,” William corrected, “because this body—as you see—has remained in the water at least one day. . . .”
William informed him of some of the events of that night. He did not tell him we had been in the scriptorium furtively, but, concealing various circumstances, he told him that we had pursued a mysterious figure who had taken a book from us. Severinus realized William was telling him only a part of the truth, but he asked no further questions. He observed that the agitation of Berengar, if he had been the mysterious thief, could have led him then to seek calm in a refreshing bath. Berengar, he said, was of a very sensitive nature, and sometimes a vexation or an emotion brought on his trembling and cold sweats and made his eyes bulge, and he would fall to the ground, spitting out a whitish slime.
“In any case,” William said, “before coming here he went somewhere else, because in the balneary I didn’t see the book he stole. So he had been somewhere else, and afterward, we’ll assume that, to calm his emotion and perhaps to elude our search, he slipped into the balneary and immersed himself in the water. Severinus, do you believe his illness could make him lose consciousness and drown?”
“That’s possible,” Severinus said, dubiously. For some moments he had been examining the hands of the corpse. “Here’s a curious thing . . .” he said.
“What?”
“The other day I observed Venantius’s hands, when the blood had been washed off, and I noticed a detail to which I attached little importance. The tips of two fingers of Venantius’s right hand were dark, as if blackened by some dark substance. Exactly—you see?—like two fingertips of Berengar now. In fact, here we have a trace also on the third finger. At the time I thought that Venantius had handled some inks in the scriptorium. . . .”
“Interesting,” William said pensively, taking a closer look at Berengar’s fingers. Dawn was breaking, the light indoors was still faint, and my master was obviously suffering the lack of his lenses. “Interesting,” he repeated. “But there are fainter traces also on the left hand, at least on the thumb and index.”
“If it were only the right hand, they would be the fingers of someone who grasps something small, or long and thin. . . .”
“Like a stylus. Or some food. Or an insect. Or a serpent. Or a monstrance. Or a stick. Too many things. But if there are signs also on the other hand, it could also be a goblet; the right hand holds it firmly and the left helps, exerting less strength. . . .”
Severinus was now gently rubbing the dead man’s fingers, but the dark color did not disappear. I noticed he had put on a pair of gloves, which he probably used when he handled poisonous substances. He sniffed, but without receiving any sensation. “I could cite for you many
