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Gone were the fumbling customs agents, the stoic soldiers, the peddlers of trinkets looking to part you from your coin as soon as you arrived. Gone was the pastry man who sold you hot fried bread that he plucked from a cauldron of bubbling lard with his bare fingertips.

Gone were the merchants’ wives, flouting sumptuary laws in their striped purple gowns and ridiculous red turbans, and the country mendicant who shouted at them. Where were the vegetable sellers, with their lettuces and garlics spread on clean blankets on the cobbled streets? And the new kittens who sat on the garlics and mewed for their mother cats? Gone, gone, gone.

“Piero,” she whispered, for it seemed strange to speak loudly in this empty space, “was it like this when you left?”

“Not quite,” he said with a shiver. “There were still some people walking about when I was last here. Half the city must have died while I was away. Come, I will take you to Bishop Acciaiuoli now. Let’s hope he’s still alive.”

NINE

SOMEBODY LIKE

AN INQUISITOR

June of 1348, City of Florence

At the beginning of the summer, in the days just before Piero would be sent on his errand to Genoa, a June sun blazed down onto the rooftops of Florence. The plague settled in, as pervasive and relentless as the heat, finding its way into the cracks of walls and the pores of the Florentine people. Not a drop of clarity had fallen on the mystery of the missing relics, nor a drop of rain on the parched city.

During these steaming nights, the Inquisitor Michele kept his lamps burning late, flipping through records and panicking. At the suggestion of a physician, he drank only strong Spanish wine from a silver ewer, and kept his room filled with perfumed smoke from a flaming brazier. Together, the alcohol and lack of fresh air pushed the normally astute man into a constant mild delirium, and in this fragile state, Bishop Acciaiuoli came to pay him a visit.

“It is seven relics missing now,” said the bishop from the doorway. “San Barnaba’s thigh bone is gone as of his feast day, June 11. Stolen and replaced with this.” He walked forward and dropped a small bottle on the inquisitor’s desk. Grass-green liquid swirled inside its bulbous base.

“Ahhh,” said Inquisitor Michele, pulling his skullcap from his head and holding it over his face. “I was so engrossed in my work I didn’t even see you come in.”

“The citizens are distraught. Waiting for more thefts to be shouted from the ringhiera.”

“Who keeps doing that?” said the inquisitor. He fingered some of the many loose parchments on his desk, as if the solution was misplaced among them.

“I come to speak with you,” said the bishop, losing patience, “because, as the world crumbles around us, infected riffraff knock upon my door at all hours. They ask me where our relics are—and more precisely, what is our inquisitor doing to get them back?”

“Many things! First, I sent my men out to gather clues. But they all died, besides Giuseppe. So now I await responses from parishes. And also I read! And research! I can’t leave my home, you understand. I was ill as a child—”

“Doing research. Waiting for letters. Is that really all?”

“I could do more if you would help me, if you would lend some of your hired guard to watch over our churches until the thief is caught. I have no one—”

“What good would that do? My men would die the same as yours, sitting outside in contaminated places. Look, Michele, these are hard times. Everybody is frightened.”

The inquisitor said nothing, only continued to stare at his papers.

The bishop sighed. “If I’m being honest, it’s not just the door-knockers: I’ve received a concerned letter from His Holiness on the matter, and I wasn’t certain how to respond.”

The inquisitor looked up from his desk now. “Word has reached the Pope already?”

“Indeed,” continued the bishop. “And it seems we haven’t much to tell him. But I suppose I can explain your efforts, reassure him that you’re doing all you can, given the circumstances. He’ll appreciate hearing some good news, no matter how slender. He wrote in some distress, you see—so many of his cardinals have died. Most of them French, of course. So no great loss there. But now I hear our lone Italian cardinal is dead also. We must pray for our departed brother in red, mustn’t we?”

“Of course, may his soul be at peace, in Christ’s name, Amen.” The inquisitor made a few more appeals to God on behalf of the Italian cardinal before stopping abruptly, mid-devotion. “But—why did the Pope not write to me directly, if he has concerns?”

“Because, as you know, it was I who requested your appointment after his last appointee turned out to be such a tyrannical disaster. He wants to make sure I chose well. But you’ve been doing your best, and you’ll continue to do so. I’ll let him know.” He turned to go.

Even through the warmth of the wine, Inquisitor Michele felt like a failure. The bishop was right: it was his responsibility to track down heresy, and there was no greater sacrilege than stealing relics.

“Wait!” he cried, rather more loudly than necessary. “It is clear to me: we must hire an investigator, someone familiar with sorcery, who can track the thief, interpret the little bottles.”

Bishop Acciaiuoli gave him a bewildered look. “You mean...somebody like an inquisitor?”

“Yes. No. I mean, somebody who can go into the city without succumbing to disease.”

“No man is safe from pestilence, you know as well as I. God takes whom He pleases.”