The Secret Supper by Javier Sierra Read Free Book Online

inconveniences than advantages.
    As to my other choice, Santa Maria delle Grazie—besides being the presumed hiding place of my quarry—presented a small but solvable disadvantage: that was where the crowded obsequies of Donna Beatrice would take place. Its chapel, recently renovated by Bramante, was about to become the center of everyone’s attention.
    Otherwise, Santa Maria had everything I required. Its well-stocked library, lodged on the second story of one of the buildings that opened onto the so-called Cloister of the Dead, held volumes by Suetonius, Philostratus, Plotinus, Xenophon and even Plato himself, purchased in the days of Cosimo the Elder. It stood near the duke’s fortress and at not too great a distance from the Porta Vercellina. It possessed an excellent kitchen, a splendid pastry oven, a well, a vegetable garden, a tailor’s shop and a hospital. And above all, its greatest advantage was this: that, unless Master Torriani was much mistaken, the Soothsayer might well appear to me in one of its corridors without my having the need to solve any riddle whatsoever.
    I was naïve.
    Except in this latter respect, Providence did its work well. There was one cell still vacant at Santa Maria, which was immediately put at my disposal. It was a tiny room, barely a few feet long, holding a cot with no mattress and a small table set under a window overlooking the street called Magenta. The monks asked no questions. They perused my credentials with the same look of distrust as that of the duke’s secretary, but they relaxed once I assured them that I had come to their house in search of peace for my troubled soul. “Even an inquisitor needs time for recollection,” I explained. They understood.
    One single condition was imposed on me. The sexton, a monk with bulging eyes and a strange accent, warned me very sternly:
    “Never enter the refectory without permission. Master Leonardo doesn’t want anyone interrupting his work, and the Abbot wishes to please him in every way possible. Do you understand?”
    I nodded my assent.

8
    The first place I visited was the library of Santa Maria. I was very curious about it. Built over the disputed and now restricted refectory that the Soothsayer had branded the focal point of all evil, it was a vast room with rectangular windows, lined by a dozen small reading tables and the librarian’s large desk. Immediately behind it, protected by a thick locked door, was where the books were kept. What especially drew my attention was the heating: a boiler on the ground floor fed steam into a series of copper pipes that lent warmth to the floor tiles.
    “It’s not for the readers,” the monk responsible for the place hastened to explain, seeing me interested in the ingenious contraption. “It’s for the books. We keep volumes that are too valuable to allow them to be ruined by the cold.”
    I think that Father Alessandro Trivulzio, the guardian and custodian of the library, was the first monk to regard me not with suspicion but rather with shameless curiosity. Tall, bony, extremely pale and exquisitely mannered, he seemed delighted to see a new face in his realm.
    “Not many people come here,” he admitted. “Much less all the way from Rome!”
    “Ah. So you’ve already found out I’m Roman?”
    “News has wings, Father. Santa Maria is still a small community. I doubt that by now there’s anyone in the community who is not aware of the arrival of an inquisitor in our house.”
    The monk winked conspiratorially.
    “I’m not here on official business,” I lied. “I’m here because of personal matters.”
    “It makes no difference. Inquisitors are men of letters, scholars. And here most of the brothers have difficulties reading or writing. If you stay for a time among us, I think we’ll enjoy each other’s company.”
    Then he added:
    “Is it true that in Rome you work in the Secretariat of Keys?”
    “Yes,” I said doubtfully.
    “Wonderful, Father. That’s