Daughter of Ashes, page 29
Albert checked the time on his phone.
“Gardini should be here shortly. I intend to propose that we consider the preliminary investigation closed.”
“What did you say?” Teresa snapped.
“The deputy prosecutor has more than enough material to take to the judge. Now the pretrial phase can begin.”
“Absolutely not!”
“Teresa . . .”
“We need to find out who guided Giacomo’s actions. This case is far from closed. This time there’s someone else behind the murder.”
“They’re just the fantasies of a twisted mind. There’s no mystery man behind Sebastiano’s death. There’s only Giacomo; he’s your mystery man. Why do you refuse to admit it? You’re still trying to save him, to redeem him in your head. But he chose to kill your ex-husband, just like he chose to kill all the others. Except this time he probably thought he was doing you a favor.”
“I don’t think so.”
“I do. And I’m the district attorney.”
Parri whistled to catch their attention. He was waving his arms about, signaling at them to come toward him. Teresa stayed put.
“I don’t want to see the body.”
Albert pushed her in the back, nudging her along.
“I don’t think it’s the body he wants to talk about. That’s at the opposite end of the garden.”
They found Parri waiting for them with the rest of the team.
“There’s something I’d like to show you, Teresa. Don’t worry, it’s nothing too awful. It’s a room of some sort.”
“Of some sort?”
“Well, I nearly fell into it.”
The ground here had been hollowed out. The mouth of the pit was covered by a few wooden slats overgrown with moss and grass and held together by rusty nails. The lid was slightly dislodged, offering a glimpse of bare brick walls. There was no sign of concrete or any other structural elements. It was impossible to see what was at the bottom.
Marini leaned over.
“It looks like one of those makeshift pits they used back in the day to repair vehicles. My grandfather had one in his garage on the ground floor. This one looks like it hasn’t been touched in decades.”
Teresa craned her neck to look inside.
“They’re used in the countryside, too, for the maintenance of farm vehicles.”
Marini lifted one edge of the lid.
“Give me a hand, Parisi.”
They moved it aside until the hole was filled with light and glittered with myriad multicolored reflections.
Teresa sat down on the grass. She could hear the boys talking, but there was a buzzing in her ears growing ever louder. That pit was built, above all else, out of the emotional walls with which young Giacomo had sought—in his own way—to protect himself.
“Superintendent Battaglia? Teresa?”
Marini had had to raise his voice to catch her attention.
“Did you see what’s at the bottom?”
She had. Raw wooden boards on which little Giacomo had found some way to glue pebbles, shards of glass, marbles, and tiny plastic objects. The light shining onto them now brought out stunning aquamarine hues and enduringly vivid reds, shapes and figures that were childlike and yet astonishingly full of life.
This was where his obsession must have begun—in this attempt to retain some kind of humanity, to see beyond his suffering. An attempt that had mostly failed, but which had also saved him in some small way, transforming him years later into the corpse brought back to life and depicted in the mosaic they had found in the greenhouse.
“Looks like a prison,” said Albert. “Maybe his stepfather used to lock him up down there. It would certainly fit the profile.”
Teresa thought to herself that Albert would never be able to see what simmered beneath the surface of things, nor hear the song of creatures lost.
“You don’t understand, Albert. It was Giacomo himself who chose to shut himself away down there. So that he could survive.”
Parri approached her.
“There’s something else I’d like you to look at, Teresa.”
He handed her two see-through bags with items from the scene he had already examined.
“I found these mosaic tiles in the corpse’s mouth. There’s eight of them in total, and based on their size, color, and state of preservation, I would suggest they might be the ancient tiles missing from the crypt in Aquileia. Then there’s this object.”
He showed her an alabaster statuette no more than five centimeters in height. The figure, who had female features, was wrapped in a cloak that had been painted black and designed to open up like a miniature sarcophagus. There was nothing inside, except for an inscription. Teresa read it out loud.
“Mater larvarum.”
Teresa felt Marini’s chin brushing against her head.
“What does it mean?”
“The Mother of Specters. One of the epithets of Ceres, a nod to her nocturnal side.” Teresa spun the statuette around in her fingers. “It must have contained something.”
When Alice and Smoky rejoined the group, the dog immediately began to show signs of excitement again. He kept barking and spinning around in circles. Alice did nothing to stop him.
“He’s trying to tell us something.”
Teresa brought the bag up close to his nose and he immediately sat down, suddenly calm.
“Can he smell the body?” Teresa asked Alice.
“No, he’s already signaled for that. This is a new scent.”
Which must mean the scent of a different body.
Teresa looked at Parri.
“Whatever used to be in here came from a human.”
“A relic, perhaps? Do you think the statuette might be of ancient origins?”
“We’ll have to get it looked at to find out. And we’ll need an archaeologist’s report as well.”
Her friend’s expression turned uncharacteristically dark.
“There’s one thing I can tell you myself. Whatever this might mean, I think it’s intended as a gift for you. And I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit.”
54
IV Century
ANOTHER DAY HAD PASSED since his escape, and it was still the night-time paths that Claudius relied on to keep him safe, resting during the day in the cover of ever-thickening forests. His body covered in dust, he was like earth upon earth, like moss rolling green into the distance.
The lights of Forum Julii flickered at his feet, in the hollow among the hills that led toward the mountain passes, the gateway to the east.
Claudius avoided the city and its commercial roads, keeping away from Roman insignia. He was walking near the edge of the meadow, where the vegetation was thinner, leading Feronia and Mist by their bridles and walking a few steps ahead of them. The horses were jittery, sensing the absence of protective shelter and the safety of the encampment.
Claudius wasn’t used to acting alone, to being the master of his own destiny. He felt, at times, like a flame, flickering helplessly in the wind. The kind of wind that called out to him from the dark depths of the forest, in clicks and murmurs.
Mist started neighing. Claudius had to work harder to calm him down than he’d ever had to before, even on the battlefield.
He remembered an old saying: “The night has the ears of a fox.”
He could have sworn the night had eyes, too. He had felt them following him ever since he had crossed into that now-contested territory. He wasn’t alone.
The moon surfaced from behind the clouds, illuminating a pair of thick antlers among the leaves. A deer emerged from the tangle of branches, unafraid, and they stared into each other’s dark eyes. Claudius could almost hear the beating of its formidable heart. The beast huffed, its warm breath condensing into white vapor.
Claudius knew that this was a sign. Diana was speaking to him through the appearance of the celestial body in the sky, and by sending her sacred animal to him. Yet the message from the goddess of the hunt was enigmatic; it was not for Claudius to know whether he was the hunter or the prey.
The deer swelled its throat and released its call into the sky. A gust of wind tore down a smattering of leaves.
That was when Claudius spotted them, swaying in the shadows: mysterious objects hanging from the branches of linden and oak trees. He walked toward them and held them in his hands. They were made of vertebrae bound together with tendons. The voice he had heard calling out to him as he passed was the sound of their clinking.
The deer bounded off into the night.
Claudius looked up at the moon. What was Diana’s will? He did not know.
A sound like creaking wood caught his attention. His hand went to his hip, but he did not draw his weapon. It was too late. It would be of no use, except to hasten his death.
The shadows had moved around him, until he was surrounded.
The men stepped out of the forest. Their facial features were flat, like those of the barbarians Claudius had encountered in the lands beyond the river Tanais, on the shores of what was known as the dark sea, the Pontus Euxinus.
They were just as Herodotus had described them: strong, amber-skinned, blond-haired, imposing. Their breastplates were carved out of the bones of their mares, smoothed, polished, and scrubbed until they were nearly transparent, then placed side by side like feathers. The tips of their weapons were also made of bone. They did not know metal.
They were Sarmatians, a people of horsemen, accomplished livestock farmers, and spear-wielding warriors.
Fighters so fierce that the great Marcus Aurelius had enlisted them into various Roman legions. And now they had ventured all the way here.
One of the warriors approached Feronia, feeling her thigh muscles and examining her hooves. The mare neighed and reared on her hind legs, displaying her full splendor. The barbarian started laughing, caressed the horse, and said something to the other men, throwing the Roman a defiant look. Claudius approached him, careful not to display any fear. He showed the stranger the things they had in common, and which brought them closer than any shared language could: the stirrups, an innovation these horsemen had brought to the Roman armies; and the rope that tied both horses, as was the Sarmatian way.
The barbarian seemed to understand. Feronia and Mist had spoken for Claudius, declaring that their master, too, was a horse-rider, and their presence living proof of the respect he had for his horses—and which, by extension, was owed to him.
But one could easily end up respectfully killed.
The Sarmatian grasped his shoulder and forced him onto his knees, while another took his gladius from its sheath. The gleam of the naked blade was a reminder of Rome, of the Empire, of a life and a man who no longer existed.
Seeing these symbols of Rome seemed to stir the Sarmatians into a state of frenzy. Some began to pace in circles around him, bringing their torches right up to his face. Others thumped their spears on the ground, inciting their comrades with animalistic howls.
Claudius kept them all in his sights, his senses attuned to their movements even when they were behind him. Feronia and Mist were but a few steps away, untied. It would take but a few quick leaps to get back into the saddle and attempt a getaway. It was only a matter of deciding when to act, and if and how to recover his gladius.
The excitement around him suddenly waned, the crackling of the torches distinctly audible in the ensuing silence. At the sound of rattles, the circle around him opened. A woman stepped through, carrying an instrument similar to the sistrum. She was elderly, her slender frame wrapped in linen, face and eyes painted with white lead. On her bare arms and shoulders he saw glimpses of tattoos of deer with flaming antlers and swans in flight. Other women soon appeared behind her, faces concealed by pale masks with sharp beaks and enormous eyes.
Their masks symbolized the birds used in scarification rituals by the bone-worshippers. Devotees of the bird goddess, theirs was a northern faith inherited from the ancient inhabitants of the Altai mountains. The Roman generals who had served in those territories still talked about it.
Maybe everything that Claudius and the legion had hoped to find was standing right here before him, ready to take his flesh. Here was a faith that was still very much alive, and a cradle to which he might entrust his own.
Claudius took off his grimy cloak. Beneath it, the pristine tunic of the warrior-priest of the goddess Isis gleamed in the torchlight, as white as the bones these people worshipped.
He bared his chest to show them the tattoo of the winged Egyptian goddess spanning his sternum and collarbones. From within the bandages wrapped around his ribcage, he retrieved the statuette he’d protected with his life. He pushed it open, revealing another object concealed within its hollow core, a winged, diaphanous figure carved from the mortal body of Isis herself.
The old shaman woman, whose fingers were dyed black like the claws of an eagle, took the figure and brought it up to the flames for a closer look, then sniffed at it, seeming to recognize in its scent the smell of bone.
She looked at Claudius, and he did not know whether it was his salvation he saw reflected in her light eyes, or his end.
Silhouetted against the flame, the statue of the goddess looked like it was burning.
It occurred to Claudius that perhaps it had to happen if she was to be reborn.
The Christians thought they had turned her to ash, but from the ashes she would rise again in different form.
55
Twenty-seven years ago
TERESA FELT HER WHOLE body burning. Every part of her was consumed, with a flameless, smoldering, all-consuming ember. The void inside of her was expanding. Someone kept breathing near her boiling skin, triggering a wave of shivers. They insisted that she try to move her fingers, her hands, her feet.
“Just try, Teresa. Give it a go.”
What did that voice know of the effort it took? Still, she did her best to satisfy its request.
“Looks like you’ve regained some feeling. Welcome back.”
Who was this person? She opened her eyes, but everything looked blurry.
The sound of wheels, the creaking of metal, footsteps beside her. She smelled disinfectant, felt the roughness of a bedsheet tucked all the way up to her chin.
Soon she had also regained her sight. Yes, she was back. But where exactly had she landed?
On a bed, being rolled down an excessively bright corridor. Teresa could see everything streaming past, a nurse’s face hovering above her. Her eyes followed a narrow tube attached to an IV drip until it disappeared into the folds of the bedsheet. She pulled at it and felt a stab of pain. It was attached to her.
“Calm down. Stop fidgeting.”
The nurse smiled, but when his eyes fell on her face, he couldn’t quite hide his dismay.
She raised her other hand and touched her cheeks, her nose, her eyelids. She couldn’t feel anything; it was as if she had no face at all. There was a bitter taste in her mouth. Her fingers were stained with iodine. The skin on her arm was purplish. She tried to say something, but her jaw was locked. She had no idea what day it was, if it was night-time or morning. She was confused, struggling to stitch her tattered memories back together.
The nurse pushed the bed into an elevator. The walls and the ceiling were made of steel. Teresa turned her head, her vertebrae creaking with the effort. She looked for her reflection, but did not recognize the woman looking back at her. Destruction and annihilation had trampled all over her. The lower half of her face—imprisoned in a metal brace—had been recomposed, pieced back together, but she did not know how, and did not know if her flesh would be able to forget or if it would forever carry the mark of violence. Who could know whether the body remembered?
She retched, but managed not to vomit. Her skin pulled, held taut by the metal. The nurse dabbed at her lips with a paper towel.
“Don’t worry, it’s just the aftereffects of the anesthesia.”
What did anesthesia have to do with anything? She was pregnant. She was nauseous because she was expecting.
The elevator doors slid open.
On the other side was Albert, and behind him, Antonio Parri. When they spotted her, Albert immediately averted his gaze as if he’d been slapped in the face, while Parri began to cry like a child.
Teresa reached for her friend, but it was Albert who took her hand and placed it back on the sheets.
“Don’t worry. Don’t worry.”
He seemed to be directing the words more at himself as he escorted the bed—and the vaguely human lump upon it—to their destination. He couldn’t bring himself to look at her. All in all, he was not very reassuring. Perhaps he didn’t know how to be.
Teresa wondered if he was telling her not to worry because she was sure to get her working body and her old face back, or because he had finally managed to stop Sebastiano.
Suddenly, she remembered.
The thought of the man who had broken her was like a gut-punch. She tried to tell Albert, pulling at his jacket, but he just kept staring straight ahead.
Sebastiano was free. No one was out looking for him because no one knew he was the one who’d done this to her. Teresa tugged at Albert’s sleeve again, and again he pulled his arm away.
Unlike the previous corridors she had passed through, this one was not deserted, but full of medical staff carrying patient files, people visiting their sick relatives, and orderlies pushing trolleys about. Once Teresa’s head had started working again, she was able to deduce that they had moved her from an operating room into the ward. So it was true that she’d been through surgery of some sort.
The orange light of the sunset filtered through the windows in her line of sight. Pitch-black clouds were piling up on the horizon, long and slender like striations on the earth’s back. And still she did not know what they had done to her, nor how many hours, or days, or weeks had passed.
