Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore, Venezia In the flickering peach candlelight of his monastic cell, Tommaso Frascoli keeps his emotions in check as he reads the letter his mother wrote for him more than two decades ago.
His training as a monk has taught him much about writing. The choice of paper, type of ink, nature of the nib and even the chosen script all speak volumes about the writer.
The first thing he notices is that the paper is not cheap. It is an expensive cream-coloured parchment, not unlike the important documents bound with red silk ribbon lying on the grand desk of the abbot.
The second thing to strike him is that the letter is full of strong, bold strokes and ornate loops, written above and below an imaginary line that's been impressively adhered to. Stylistically it's difficult to place; the letters b, d, h, and l, in particular, are beautifully ornamental and remind him of sixteenth-century italic Bastarda script. Then again, some of the mannerisms are more suggestive of the over-disciplined Cancellaresca.
Tommaso's fully aware that he's studying style before substance. He has to fight his curiosity in order to read the meaning of the text before learning more about its author.
He tilts the paper at the candlelight and examines the flow of the earthy black ink, the pressure of the fine but strong nib. It's a cultured hand. Not that of a common whore found working near the shipyards. She must have been one of the intellectual courtesans who – it is rumoured – play music like angels and paint like Canaletto. Or he could be fooling himself. Yes, he's fully aware of the fact that, right from the outset, he wants to think nothing but the best of the writer.
He smooths out the paper on the small table where his Bible and candle rest and finally reads it: My dear child, I have asked the good monks to baptise you as Tommaso. It's not your father's name, simply one that in my dreams I always wanted, should I have a son.
At the time of writing, you are two months old and I know I will be dead before you can crawl, let alone speak. If I did not have this disease, one that doctors say will kill me as surely as the plague took so many of our family, then I would never have deserted you.
My milk is still fresh on your lips and my kisses still wet on your head as I hand you over to the holy brothers. Believe me, they are good people – all my love is with you, and always will be.
Our separation will cause you great pain, of this I am sure. But by arranging it now, I can at least be certain that you are in safe and godly hands. Had I waited for death to take me by surprise, then I know not what may have awaited you.
One day, Tommaso, you will understand why I had to make sure you and your sister had the care of the Holy Lord around you. With this note you will receive a wooden box and inside it 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 must never leave your care.
Your sister is a year older than you and I have left her with the nuns. A similar box, and duty, await her.
My child, I have separated you both for good reason. As painful as it may be, please believe me that it's best (for you, her and everyone) that you do not seek her out.
The duties that I leave to you both are more easily fulfilled if you never meet.
Your chances of long-term love, happiness and salvation absolutely depend upon you never being reunited.
Tommaso, I love you with all my heart. Please forgive my actions, and grow to understand why I had no choice in this matter.
My darling, my dying prayer will be for you and your sister. I am fortified in the knowledge that you will become everything I dream you will be, and through the grace of the good Lord one day we will all be safely together again.
All my love, for ever,
Mamma
Tommaso's stomach is churning.
He's close to tears. Her final words jump out at him – all my love, for ever, Mamma. He feels as if he's going to crumble into dust.
What must it have been like to have known her? To have understood that love?
He reads the parchment again. Holds it to his heart and stares at the stone wall of his cell. What did she look like? What illness had befallen her? The dreaded syphilis? That awful French disease. The pox?
Next he thinks of his sister – wonders whether they ever lay together alongside their mother. Whether they looked into each other's eyes. Whether she's still alive and well.
Only after a hundred other thoughts and doubts does he peer into the plain wooden box at his feet by his modest bed.
He reaches in.
Lifts out a small package.
Something wrapped in a large silk handkerchief. Silver, by the look of it. An heirloom? A gift to a courtesan from a rich and grateful lover? Or perhaps compensation from the man who infected her?
There's some scribbling, a language he doesn't understand, perhaps Egyptian.
He turns the tablet over.
The face of a priest, an ancient seer wearing a conical hat similar to a bishop's. The figure is that of a young man, thin and tall, not unlike himself.
The hairs on the back of his neck prickle.
A gong sounds downstairs. Time for the communal evening meal. Soon other monks will be filing past his cell, pressing their faces through his doorway, enquiring whether he wishes to walk with them.
Tommaso bundles everything back into the box and pushes it beneath his bed.
He walks smartly to dinner.
His life changed for ever.