Beati Paoli

by Luigi Natoli

part two, chapter 24

Don Raimondo had resumed the trial against Mrs. Francesca. A new order of the king, "considered that for the security of the kingdom it was necessary to proceed slowly, and that the formations assumed and the explanations given on the opportunity to proceed against that Mrs. Francesca were sufficient to bring her back to justice, reconfirming the powers given to Mr. Duke of Motta, as vicar general," he committed the continuation of the trial. It was a first victory, to which he promised to follow others. He had begun with crooked interrogations, enveloping between contradictions, surprises, suggestions the poor woman, to try to tear from her what he believed the foundation of the persecution of which he was object: and insisted on the name of Blasco da Castiglione, who was, instead, completely unknown to Mrs. Francesca.

But his negative answers did not seem sincere to Don Raimondo, who resorted to the threats of torture, and, for the most cruelty he even showed her the various instruments of torture in use in those times: the rope, the easel, the wedges for the nail, the coin, the bite, the brazier, the funnel; frightening instruments, each of which shouted a story of tears and spasms. The poor woman paled, shook, tormented her hands for despair, cried out:

"But why? Why? But I don't know anything!... Why do you want to kill a poor woman who didn't do anything? But is there not a God to move you?..."

These desperate words were caught in flight by the duke, who seemed to be scandalized.

"You blaspheme!... You say heretical propositions!... I will hand you over to the Holy Office, because this is beyond my competence."

It was a pretext. In truth he had found nothing to incriminate Mrs. Francesca and pronounce a sentence against her and feared that, by appealing to the great criminal court, she would have her acquitted. But the Holy Office? Who had jurisdiction over it? And what authority could a victim tear from the dungeons in that terrible courtroom? And who would question the denunciation of a man of quality and as authoritative as the Duke of Motta?

He made his accusation: and the next day Mrs. Francesca was from the famuli and the guards of the Holy Office carried from the dungeons of Castellamare to those of the Inquisition, where other buried lives lay victims of superstitious exaggerations or private vendettas. Nothing was more painful and heartbreaking than the exit of Mrs. Francesca from the Castle, where she also remained abandoned and at the mercy of those wicked magistrates poor Emanuele.

She fell on her knees, prayed, begged, cried out that she was a good Catholic, who fulfilled all religious practices, who had never blasphemed: But they didn't give her an ear. She was taken away, thrown into a sedan, gagged so that she would not shout in the street, and carried away.

She was locked in a narrow cell without windows, except for a door that gave over a semi-dark corridor; a stone seat attached to the wall was also to serve as a bed; in a song a pitcher of terracotta with stinking water. A hole in a corner served as an unclean place, and plagued the cell. When the poor woman came to recognize the horror of the dungeon, she burst into tears and, as she sat down, exclaimed:

"Oh, God! God... take me with you... I can't take it anymore!..."

Emanuele had remained alone; until that day he did not know why they had closed him in the Castle with his adoptive mother, nor had anyone questioned him. Don Raimondo, either for part taken, or because he reserved to probe the soul of the young man, after having torn some confession to Mrs. Francesca, had almost forgotten it. On the other hand, he had the boy arrested for having him hostage, and thus forced Don Girolamo to show up or let himself be caught; and he thought that the boy could give him some clue about his uncle's refuge, his relationships, but he could certainly not say anything about that secret that he wanted to discover.

Nevertheless, when he was sure that he had buried Mrs. Francesca in the dungeons of the Holy Office, he wanted to question the young man.

Emanuel knew that the Duke of Motta was the master of those servants with whom he had to say and, without knowing him, had conceived for him an aversion that almost reached hatred. The author of the arrests and in charge of proceeding, had increased this aversion. When he saw himself in the presence of the duke, his eyes glowed with hatred.

The duke looked at him with the frown of the wolf standing before the lamb.

"What's your name?" he asked bitterly.

"Why should I tell you?" answered the young man, looking proudly at him.

"Because I'm imposing it on you."

"You had me arrested, so you know my name. It's useless to tell you."

"Do you know you're insolent?... And that I could make you regret it?"

Emanuele raised his shoulders with an expression of contempt, which made Don Raimondo tighten his jaws.

"I'll make you whip," he grinned.

"Do you think you're scaring me?"

Don Raimondo made a sign to the assistant scribe, who came out of the hall, and came back shortly afterward followed by three people with a repugnant and ferocious appearance.

"Answer," said Don Raimondo, "or I'll have you whipped."

In response, Emanuele spit in his face: "Here's my answer."

The duke jumped on his feet with tight fists, eyes injected with blood:

"Fry him to death, forgive us!" cried he.

Those three handfuls threw themselves on Emanuele, who like an angry bull, before they had laid their hands on him, with a hole in his chest sent rounds the first that appeared before him, and punched, kicked, bitten, defended himself from the other two. For a minute he saw that demonized group fighting around the room and it was necessary to bring in some soldiers, in order to be able to tie the arms and legs of Emanuele and spill it bites on a stand.

"Make his meat jump!" shouted Don Raimondo.

They dulled the young man's back, and with a whip they began to strike each other. The whips whistled like snakes, and left on the flesh red signs, bulging, tearing, tearing. Emanuele writhed, mugged with pain, anger, biting the wood to which he was bound, and his spasim seemed to swell Don Raimondo's heart with satisfaction. Never had he turned out to be as fierce as at that moment; his nature had abolished the cold and reserved mask of which he covered his face and at every whip he accompanied the act of the executioner, with an incitement:

"Strong! Strong! Strong!..."

Emanuele fainted. The scribe shyly observed:

"Very illustrious! The boy dies."

Don Raimondo, recalled by those words, resumed his dominion and made a sign to the executioner to stop.

"Enough. Take him back to his cell."

The two helpers of the executioner, though accustomed to giving torture, were disgusted at that time, because perhaps they had never seen in the magistrate such a bitter desire to torment, and because it was a young man; the freshness of the years always induces more piety. They brought back Emanuele with some care and laid him on the straw of the cell; and while he was still unconscious, they applied an ointment and pieces of cloth on the wounds.

"Poor boy!" they murmured. They made him smell vinegar, hummed his temples with water, sprinkled them on his face. Emanuele bewitched and opened his eyes, but when he saw the figures of the two tormentors, ignoring the pitiful office they had then performed, he took a sly look that contrasted with the pale and spasmodic contractions of the face.

A violent fever attacked him.

Meanwhile, the story of that unnecessary torture, not imposed by the legal ritual and that had all the characteristics of a vengeance, had moved the other prisoners most of whom were lords, closed there or for aiding bandits, or for beating some bosses, or for having contracted marriage with women of different social conditions, against the will of relatives.

They began to murmur and to protest with the castle, and to threaten that they would appeal to the king against the inhumanity of that process, because one should not abandon a young man in those conditions. A doctor was needed, even to prevent that vicar's beast from repeating the torture.

After these protests, Emanuele had a doctor, who was also outraged by that barbarism, ordered the boy to be placed at least in a better cell. Then there were no infirmities in the prisons, and the inmates who got sick were transported to a special hall of the Great Hospital. But Don Raimondo resolutely opposed that Emanuele was brought to you, on the grounds of serious reasons of police and security, known to him, that he could neither communicate. In reality he feared that at the Hospital, where he could not dispose of a segregation as strict as in the Castle, the Beati Paoli with some blow of hand freed the boy and took away a precious hostage. He only allowed his transport to another cell, which offered guarantees of safety.

Emanuele was cared for with love and with interest by the custodians and by the castle itself. From time to time some ladies got to spend an hour with the boy, who did not lack gifts of sweets and fruit from the imprisoned knights. He rested, but his mood became dark, his heart closed: It seemed that an annoying and tormenting thought had nestled in his brain.

One day one of the knights said to him,

"Have a good time; I have news of your uncle... He sends you to kiss and tell you not to lose courage, because he thinks of you."

"Thank you, sir, thank you for the good news..." murmured Emanuele.

Don Girolamo had been warned of both the passing of his wife in the prisons of the Holy Office, which had struck him with terror, that of the torture inflicted on Emanuele, for which he had wept of pain and anger.

In those evenings the usual mysterious shadows at one, at two, appeared and disappeared in the alley of Orphans.