Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore, Venezia Tommaso's monastic cell is so small he can't even lie full length without his head touching one wall and his feet the other. He's living in a claustrophobic's worst nightmare. No matter. Right now it feels the most comfortable place in the world.
The revelations by the Jew Ermanno have shocked him. Rocked him to his core. His cell seems the only safe place to curl up and think.
And think he does.
He is still uncomfortable about the way the Jew and the other two had pressured him for information about the tablet. Mercenaries – that's all they are. Desperate to have him sell them the artefact – no doubt at a fraction of its value – so they can hawk a piece of his family history all over Europe to the highest bidder. As well as angry, Tommaso also feels disappointed and saddened. He'd hoped his enquiries on the mainland would have led to some answers. Instead, he seems only to have acquired more questions. Very disturbing ones.
Was his mother somehow involved in the occult?
He hopes not. The words in her letter tumble through his mind: something that you must guard – not only with your life, but with your soul. Its meaning is too important and too difficult to explain in a mere letter. It seems to him that she knew of its evil, perhaps even Satanic importance, but was she acting with good intent? He flinches as he remembers her instruction, 'It must never leave your care.'
Were the stories in the Jew's book true? Did his tablet have some unearthly power, something that might be unleashed when reunited with the other two?
His tablet. He realises he is thinking possessively about it. Unquestionably, it belongs to him. Has belonged to his family for generations. And now he doesn't have it. He's let his mother down. The only thing she'd ever asked him to do and he's failed her.
Tommaso feels guilty, and also increasingly angry at the abbot for taking it off him.
He comforts himself with the thought that, if it has the potential to be an instrument of evil, then perhaps it is safer in the care of the abbot and the Catholic Church than with him.
But then again, the jails and torture racks of the state inquisitor are full of villainous priests.
He reaches below the bed to retrieve the box and reread the letter in full. Perhaps there are other things in the missive that will now make more sense to him.
His hand picks up nothing but dust.
He kneels and searches beneath his bunk.
Nothing.
The cell is so tiny it takes only seconds to understand that the box and the letter are gone. Taken, no doubt, on the abbot's instructions.
But why?
Tommaso feels like he's going to explode. Tomorrow he will confront his superior and demand the return of his things. He'll do it whatever the consequences. Whatever.
His head hurts with the strain of it all. He blows out the lone candle in his cell, lies in the darkness and wishes for sleep.
Despite the inner turmoil he is exhausted, and soon drifts into a slumber as dark and rhythmical as the waves he so enjoys rowing through.
Then he hears a noise.
Voices.
Banging.
Cell doors opening. People running. Some kind of panic.
He creaks his way off his bunk and opens the door. 'Fire! Fire!' One of the monks races past him, his face filled with panic.
Barefooted, Tommaso follows. Outside, the boathouse is ablaze. Orange and yellow flames are devouring the black timbers he'd just repaired. The buckets of pitch he'd hauled up from the boat are burning like torches, their contents no doubt spread all over the building.
Several brothers are throwing water on the blaze. To no effect. The boathouse is lost. The best they can do is contain the fire and stop it spreading.
'Brothers! Brothers! Come with me.'
Tommaso leads a team of helpers to the compost heap. They wheel stinking barrowloads of wet mulch to the edge of the fire and lay down an oozing, black wall that dams the blaze. Tommaso is pleased it's working. 'Now, we'll get more. Shovel soil and the wettest of the compost on to the fire and smother the flames.' The brothers work eagerly for him, shuttling past in quick relays; digging, filling barrows, then spreading the putrid compost before returning for more.
By sunrise they've beaten the blaze.
Red-faced, robes torn and totally drained, Tommaso slumps on the grass outside the monastery. His back aches from shovelling and his throat is raw from the smoke and shouting.
'Brother Tommaso.'
The voice comes from above and behind him. He twists to look over his right shoulder. It is the abbot.
He struggles to his feet. Two other brothers flank his monastic mentor.
The abbot's face is solemn. 'My chamber, Brother. Now!'