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Chapter 4


Sansone and Bartolomeo guided the horses along the Via San Gallo, one of Firenze’s major streets, until they reached the Porta de San Gallo, Firenze’s northernmost gate. One they were outside the city walls, Sansone sat beside Davit on the wagon seat and took the reins, and Bartolomeo climbed into the back where he found a clear spot to sit down and seemed to fall asleep. Gregorio at first was envious of that ability, but soon his own eyelids were drooping shut in the warm sun, and the gentle movement of the wagon lulled him to sleep.

Gregorio jerked awake as the wagon came to an abrupt stop. He sat upright with a gasp, confused for a moment as to where he was, and looked around frantically. After a moment, he sagged back against the barrel, relieved that he knew where he was.

“Sorry to disturb your slumbers, friend Gregorio,” Davit said as he climbed down from the wagon, “but we need to rest the horses for a bit, and give them a chance to drink and feed a little as well. You might want to stretch your legs and take a piss yourself.”

“Where are we?”

“We passed through Fiesole while you were resting your eyes,” Davit said with a smile, “and are well on our way to Bologna. It will take us two and a half or three days to get there, and we’ll spend probably a couple of days there. That’s home for us, and I’ll need to talk to my father and get at least one good meal before we continue on our way.”

“Where do we go after that?”

“Probably Ferrara, but we’ll have to see.”

Gregorio nodded. He’d come down through this part of the countryside when he’d traveled from Innsbruck to Roma a few years ago. He knew where most of the major towns and cities were, and they seemed to be going in the right direction.

Davit turned away to talk to Sansone while he was checking the horses’ hooves. Gregorio wandered off and looked back down the road. He could see Fiesole in the far distance, visible as a mound below him. He could see hints of Firenze beyond that.

He turned and looked the other way. The road continued to climb gradually as far as he could see. The pass through the Apennine Mountains to Bologna was rather low, he knew, especially in comparison to the Alps, but it was still a fair distance between the two cities, and the terrain was hilly.

They had stopped in a bit of a wide spot in the road where the trees did not press up against it. There was a bit of a spring to the south of the road, and Bartolomeo had led the horses there to drink after Sansone had finished the hoof checks.

A sense of fullness reminded Gregorio of a pressing matter, and he strode over to an old half-dead malshapen wild olive tree and proceeded to water its trunk. Feeling rather lighter at the conclusion, he stepped back and buttoned his culottes. Order restored to his clothing, he wandered back to the wagon in time to be offered a pull at a wineskin. The wine was dark and a bit sweet, but rather better than he usually got.

“Thank you,” he said as he handed the skin back to Davit. “That’s good.”

Davit shrugged. “Kosher wine,” he said. “It keeps fairly well.”

Sansone and Bartolomeo had left to perform their own tree-watering rituals. Davit looked at Gregorio.

“Will the Romans miss you? Will they know they should have reason to look for you?”

Gregorio had thought about that more than a little over the last few days. He shook his head. “I just worked in the library. I’m nobody special. The Spaniards wouldn’t know me from Julius Caesar. They killed the library’s custodian, and I don’t know what happened to the cardinal. They killed a lot of people in the Vatican. So really, I don’t think…I don’t think they will be looking for me.”

“So why are you so afraid of being followed, of members of the church clergy knowing about you?”

Gregorio said nothing, just hugged his bag to his chest.

Davit shrugged. “You said you carry a message and a gift? Is that it? Is that what you are so concerned about?”

Gregorio hesitated, then finally nodded almost convulsively.

“Ah. You know I am Jewish.” Davit crossed his arms. “The things of your church mean very little to me. I will help you because Giuda asked me to. But I do need to know what you are carrying to know what risks we are running and know what plans to make.” There was a long moment of silence, before Davit murmured, “Just me. Sansone and Bartolomeo will not approach until I beckon them to.” He lowered the tailgate of the wagon. “Here. Just for a few moments.” He stepped back, leaving the way clear for Gregorio to approach.

It took a deep breath on Gregorio’s part to break him free from where he stood to step to the tailgate and set his bag on it. After another deep breath, he opened the bag and laid bare what was contained in it, turning to his left and facing Davit along the length of the tailgate. Davit pursed his lips and nodded slowly twice.

“A book.”

Gregorio said nothing. Davit took a step up to the tailgate, gently touched the cover of the codex with his hand, and opened the cover. He leaned forward and examined the first page, index finger moving above it but not touching. Perhaps a minute or so later he straightened.

“So, I assume it is a Bible, based on the first page and the binding.”

Gregorio nodded, “Yes. The greatest and oldest of Bibles. It has been in the Holy Father’s library for close to two hundred years, but It is much older than that.”

“I can tell,” Davit said dryly. “Very old material, very old hand that wrote it. Is this the message or the gift?”

“The gift.”

“And who do you take it to?”

Gregorio shook his head.

“And who told you to take it?” Davit’s eyebrows arched.

Gregorio looked down. “Saint Jerome.”

Davit’s eyebrows arched even higher. “A…saint.” Gregorio nodded. “One of the dead saints, I presume?”

“I had a…dream,” Gregorio said, not looking up as he changed the word from “vision” at the last moment.

After a moment, there was a sound almost like a chuckle. “Well,” Davit said, “I can’t argue with that. We Jews have our own mystics, after all.” There was another chuckle-like sound. “So, this is why you think someone might try to find you?”

“Yes.” Gregorio looked up. “This is very important. Sooner or later it will be missed, and they will start searching for it.”

“I can see that.” Davit looked at the codex again, turned the first page and looked at the next. “A fine rendering of the Septuagint, I would say.”

“You read Greek?” Gregorio asked.

Davit shrugged, still looking at the page. “I read Greek, Latin, German, Spanish, French, Turkish, Russian, and can make my way through Dutch and English. And Hebrew, of course. I speak Greek, Latin, northern Italian, Spanish, Turkish, and French fluently, I can make myself understood in Russian, Dutch, and Plattdeutsch. Ladino is my birth tongue.” Gregorio stared at Davit in awe. “I’m the son of a Jewish master merchant and money lender,” Davit concluded with a twisted smile. “Of course I’m a polyglot.”

“I speak Hochdeutsch, Latin, and Roma Italian,” Gregorio said, feeling abashed, “and read only Latin well.”

“That still puts you ahead of most of the world,” Davit said. “And you can learn more if you need to.” He closed the cover of the codex. “Here, wrap it up, and don’t talk about it to anyone. And try not to treat it like you’re carrying a gold bar. If you constantly try to hide it or clutch it to your bosom for protection, you’ll attract attention, which is the last thing you want to do. Right?”

Gregorio stared at him for a moment, then said, “Right.” He busied himself with wrapping the codex in the robe again and closing up the bag, then slung it to hang behind him. “Ready.”

Davit beckoned to his companions, who joined them at the wagon. Moments later they were in motion again.

***

Gregorio spent much of the afternoon worrying about what he was doing. He shifted around in the back of the wagon, staring first to one side, then to the other, then out the back. He wasn’t sure why he had agreed to travel with Davit and his companions. He didn’t think they would hurt him or rob him, but he was concerned that they would just leave him somewhere by himself. And since he was still a little weak from the fever attack, that scared him in his weaker moments. He chewed on his lip, and muttered to himself more than a little bit as the ride progressed.

By the end of the day, he was worn out. They pulled in to a little inn in a very small village. The inn was full, but the innkeeper fed them well and let them sleep in the stable. The pile of hay that Gregorio slept on was dry and smelled sweet, and he immediately fell into a deep slumber.

Sometime in the middle of the night, Gregorio roused. He was lost for a moment, but then he remembered where he was. He pulled his crucifix out from under his shirt, kissed it, whispered an Ave Maria and a Pater Noster, then turned over. As he dropped back to sleep, he thought he had a brief glimpse of a smiling Saint Jerome. Whether it was real or not, it soothed him. He slept without dreams the rest of the night.

***

Gregorio grew tired of riding in the wagon over the next few days. The traces of the road they traveled were probably better than no road, but nonetheless were not comfortable in a wooden wagon with no springs.

At one point, during one of their frequent stops to rest and water the horses, Gregorio approached Davit. “Is this a Roman road?” he asked.

“Not one of the main consular roads, like the Via Appia or the Via Salaria,” Davit said as he pulled out the wine sack. He took a drink and passed it to Gregorio. “But yes, it was an auxiliary road that the legions built, supposedly during the time of the Flavian emperors. After the empire fell, it was never maintained. It is surprising it is as good as it is, a thousand years later.”

“Huh,” Gregorio said. He took a pull at the wine sack and handed it back. “I guess it could be worse.”

“Oh, yes,” Davit said. “You haven’t lived until you’ve tried to take a wagon up some of the tracks in the hills of Dacia.”

“If they’re anything like the hills of Tyrol, then I understand.”

“Worse, my friend,” Davit said as he drove the stopper back into the wine sack. “Worse. Sansone!” He waved a hand at the driver. “Back on the road.”

Gregorio hopped into the back of the wagon and settled on the wagon bed with a stifled groan. His buttocks were getting very tired of the hard wood.

***

Late on the third day they rolled through the gates into Bologna. Gregorio looked around with interest as they entered the city. He had never been to Bologna before. When he had come down from Innsbruck a few years before, he had traveled by way of Mantova to Parma then through a different pass to La Spezia and Porto Venere, where he had caught a ship to Ostia, the port city of Roma. So Bologna was new territory to him.

He rode in the back of the wagon down several streets and around several corners until it pulled to a stop in front of a small shop front. Davit dismounted from the wagon and looked up at Gregorio. “Come,” was all he said.

Gregorio hopped down, only to have the wagon roll on as soon as he let go of the side. Davit beckoned to him, so Gregorio followed him through the shop door.

There was a small room just inside the door, with a desk set before another door to what appeared to be the rear of the shop. A man who appeared to be somewhat older than Gregorio but definitely younger than Davit sat behind the desk.

Davit stopped before the desk. “Itzak,” he said.

“Davit,” the man behind the desk responded.

“Is Father here today?”

Receiving a nod from the other man, Davit beckoned to Gregorio again, and led the way around the desk to the other door. Gregorio followed him into a short hallway, with a door on each side and a door at the end.

Gregorio glanced in the door to the right as he passed by, and saw three men perched at tall desks, pens in motion. It looked so familiar, so much like the work he had done in the library, that for a moment he felt a rush of nostalgia.

A moment later he was following Davit through the door on the left. He paused just inside the door to see a much older man with a full bushy white beard look up from a desk where he was holding a page of writing to capture the light of a lamp.

The older man set the page down and said something to Davit in a language Gregorio didn’t recognize. It sounded something like Spanish, but he didn’t recognize any of the Spanish words he knew.

“Yes, Father, I am home,” Davit said. “And this is Gregorio Agricola, who Dottore Giuda Loria in Firenze asked me to help. He is, as you can see, a goy. Gregorio,” Davit turned to him, “this is my father, Jachobe ben Israel.”

“Ah,” the older man said in a reedy tenor. “It is good to meet you, Messer Agricola.”

“And to meet you, Messer,” Gregorio said in reply, “although I myself am no messere, but a humble scriptorian on a journey.” He nodded, then continued, “May I ask…what is a goy?”

Jachobe’s lips quirked in the foliage of his beard. “It is a Hebrew word that simply means one who is not a Jew. The plural is goyim. It is not, perhaps, the most polite of terms.” He lowered his eyebrows at his son, who simply spread his hands but looked unrepentant.

“I am not offended,” Gregorio murmured. “It is, after all, the truth.”

“It is good to understand and accept truth,” Jachobe said with a slight smile. “So, a scriptorian, are you? And by your accent, not from Italy.” He looked at Gregorio with an expectant air.

“From Innsbruck originally,” Gregorio said. “The last three years I worked in the Vatican’s library.”

“He survived the Spaniards’ attack,” Davit added, “and is trying to get back to the north.”

“Ah, the Spanish,” Jachobe said with a sigh. “It is tragic that a people that produces such superb scholars and translators is so violent. They drove us out of Spain, you know, and now they attack their own religion.” He shook his head, then looked at Gregorio. “I understand your need.” He looked at Davit and back again. “We will take the risk to help you, if only to hinder the Spaniards. We have no love for them.”

“Thank you,” Gregorio said.

Davit moved to the door, only to close it and turn back to the others. “Show it to him,” he said to Gregorio. Gregorio stiffened and his hands tightened on the bag. “Please,” Davit said. “He will know more than you or I about it. And it will bring him pleasure to see it.”

Gregorio hesitated. He didn’t want to reveal what he carried, but Davit knew, and they were going to help him, so at length he nodded and carried the bag over to the desk, where he unwrapped the codex and laid it before Jachobe.

The old man looked at the book for some time before reaching out his age-gaunted hand to turn the cover and reveal the stack of pages. He turned the pages with care, slowly, pausing between each turn to peer at them. After several turns, he stopped and looked up.

“Amazing,” he said to Gregorio. His expression was solemn, yet his voice was light-hearted. “A fine copy of the Septuagint, what you would call the Greek Old Testament. This,” he lightly rested his left hand on the pages he had turned to the left, “this is old, but not ancient. Perhaps two hundred years old. However, this,” he touched the pages on the right with just the tips of his right-hand fingers, “this is indeed ancient. Very old indeed. I cannot tell how old—maybe a thousand years. The texture and quality of the vellum…the hand…the ink…this is the oldest I have ever seen.” He turned another page, and another. “This…is a blessing. Thank you.”

“It has the New Testament as well,” Gregorio offered.

“I am certain that it does, but that does not speak to me like the Septuagint does. I am a Jew, after all.” He stepped with care to a bookshelf to one side of the desk. “Do you know of the Complutensian Polyglot Bible?” He rested his hand on a shelf in front of six fat volumes in uniform binding.

Gregorio’s jaw dropped for a moment. “Ye…yes! The Vatican Library has a copy. How…”

“How do I, a Jew, have one of the six hundred copies that were printed a hundred years ago?” Jachobe shrugged. “My grandfather entrusted enough money to someone who could subscribe to the publication. It contains the first printed copy of the Septuagint. So to a Jew, it is important, but not as important as this.” He rested his fingertips on a single volume on the same shelf. “This is a copy of the first printed edition of The Torah, what your church scholars call the Pentateuch. It was printed in 1482 here in Bologna. My great-grandfather subscribed to that.”

Jachobe shrugged again. “Neither is as important or as holy as the scrolls in the synagogue, but they are easier to produce than the scrolls, easier to carry than the scrolls, easier to read from than the scrolls, and at need, easier to hide than the scrolls.”

He turned back to the desk, and carefully closed the codex. “Thank you for allowing me to see this. I won’t ask why you have it. Keep it safe, young man.”

“I will,” Gregorio said as he began swaddling the codex in his robe again.



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