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“JUST tell me.”
“Fine. First, San Filippo’s left arm, and San Zenobio’s head, then the thigh of San Barnaba, and from the churches of the Rogazione, the torso of San Piero, the right and left buttocks of San Paolo—”
“I remember when they decided to divide the buttocks. A most magnanimous solution.”
“And the left foot of Santo Stefano. And since we first spoke, to this list are added the shoulder of San Giovanni Gualberto, the finger of San Tommaso D’Aquino, the right leg of San Miniato, the right arm of San Pancrazio, and the bloody bread of the convent of Sant’Elisabetta.”
“Did you know,” said the inquisitor grimly, “the right arm of San Pancrazio is missing its pointer finger. The king of France requested a bit of him so we broke it off.”
“So?”
“Did you know also that the finger relic of San Tommaso happens to be the pointer finger from his right hand?”
Ginevra’s eyes widened with understanding. “Oh. OH. This is so. Very. Strange.”
“Please—fetch my desk from the front hall. My head aches too much.”
She brought it and the inquisitor took pen and parchment and drew a curious figure:
The two of them stared at the sketch in horror. “He is building himself a whole new saint from other saints,” said the inquisitor at last.
Ginevra picked up the parchment and examined it. “But what about the bread relic from the convent? This man looks whole. Did the thief mean to give him supper?”
“He is not whole. Not quite. Whoever heard of an evil spell using eleven of something? He will need twelve pieces. One for each of the apostles.”
“Well, there seems but one part missing and it is not a loaf of bread.”
“Not THAT. Perverted woman. And besides, the left buttock of San Paolo is rather more complete than the right if you know what I mean.”
“Then what, if not that?”
“What he is missing,” said the inquisitor, “is a sacred heart.”
“The blood of Christ, preserved in the convent of Sant’Elisabetta’s miraculous bread,” said Ginevra, understanding. “What will he do, then, with this new saint made of saints?”
“If only we had one of those necromantic books you trafficked, we might know.”
“I told you, I never trafficked—why do you know what is inside such books?”
“A hazard of my trade. They are all variations of the same. Instructions on how to command demons to fulfill base desires. Empty rituals, things like circles with stars drawn inside them, the sort of thing peasants put about their cowsheds to scare away the spirits of their dead relatives. Burning blood and chanting words in the night to make the peas grow. And to trick the ignorant that it is no heresy, the first step prescribed by these books are rituals of Christian penance so strict no man who was not a saint could succeed at them.”
“So our thief wears his hair shirt to prepare for a ritual.”
“It must be so,” said the inquisitor. “And there is nothing we can do about it.” He raised his wine cup to his lips. Little gold chickens stared at Ginevra from purple and green vines. How she hated those chickens, their blank expressions, the monotonous colors from the kilns of—
“San Romolo!” she yelled.
“What? There are no relics of San Romolo.”
“Not the saint, the town... The pottery merchant of San Romolo once bought a secret book!”
“I knew you trafficked them!”
“Shh. Look on your cup—the colors come only from there. Purple and green vines! The same as the liquid in the bottles. Sometimes it is diluted, sometimes intense, but the hue is the same!”
She took the cup the inquisitor clutched, dumped out the wine, and held it next to the onion-shaped bottle from San Pancrazio. The inquisitor opened his desk again, took out the bottles he had gathered in the early weeks of the investigation. Held purple to purple and green to green, and it was true: the liquid inside, all shades of the intense pigments that rendered twirling vines and grapes.
“And look,” he said, “the very shape of the vessels! These are exactly the sort of vials that precious pigments are stored in.” He showed his own painting supplies to Ginevra. “The sort of vials that you must keep hundreds of to run a pottery workshop.”
