‘You’ve gone green.’ He didn’t sound greatly sympathetic. ‘Hang the lantern on that hook above me and sit down with your head between your knees. We can do without you passing out on her.’
I did as I was told. I sank to the cold floor at the far end of the room with my back pressed against the wall, clasped my hands behind my head and buried my face in shame. The terrible slicing noises continued, the determined sawing through resistant muscle and tendon, the sucking sound of organs being displaced. I closed my eyes and bent the whole force of my will towards maintaining consciousness and keeping my supper down. I could not tell how much sand had slipped through the glass by the time I felt able to stand again, but when I opened my eyes and levered myself to my feet, Fra Gennaro was bending over the girl’s exposed abdomen with an ardent expression. His eyes flickered upwards to me.
‘You’re back with us, are you? Come and look at this.’ He prodded with the tip of his knife. He was indicating a swollen organ about the size of a small grapefruit, mottled crimson. ‘The greatest anatomy theatres in Europe would pay dearly to get their hands on this. It is an opportunity granted to very few anatomists. Providence has smiled on us tonight. Do you know what it is?’
I considered replying that Providence had been less kind to the girl, but I merely shook my head.
‘This is the womb, Bruno. The cradle of life. Locus of the mystery of generation. The source, it is believed, of all female irrationality.’ He reached in with bloody fingers and tugged, frowning. ‘Hippocrates said it had the power to detach itself and wander about the body, but I do not see how that could occur. This one seems firmly attached to the birth canal.’
He parted the girl’s legs and quite perfunctorily inserted two fingers into her vagina, pushing up until he could feel the pressure with his other hand. ‘Interesting,’ he murmured. ‘It seems to me that Vesalius’s drawing of the female reproductive organs is seriously flawed …
‘And now,’ he continued, lifting the girl’s womb towards him as if he were a street conjuror about to reveal his greatest trick, ‘watch closely and learn. For if my guess is correct, you are about to witness a secret that some of the most renowned anatomists in Leiden or Paris have yet to see in the flesh.’
He took a smaller knife and made a precise cut in the outer skin. As it ruptured, a clear, viscous fluid spilled out over his hands along with the blood. Gennaro peeled back the skin and extracted from within the womb a tiny homunculus, no bigger than the span of my hand, but already recognisably human. He laid it in his palm, his eyes bright with wonder.
‘Is it alive?’ I breathed.
‘Not now. You see this?’ He nudged with the knifepoint to the twisted white tube that still connected its abdomen with the interior of the womb. ‘It can’t live without the mother. This is very early gestation, see? A matter of weeks, I would say. But note how you can already make out the fingers and toes.’
The creature had the translucent sheen of an amphibious animal, its half-formed limbs and curved spine so delicate as to seem insubstantial. Perhaps it was his casual use of the word ‘mother’, but I felt a sudden terrible emptiness, a hollowing-out, as if it were my insides that had been torn away. This homunculus would have grown into a child, if the girl’s life had not been cut short by those hands around her throat. I wished fervently that I had never followed Gennaro. I began to fear I lacked the detachment to make a man of science.
Fra Gennaro carefully excised the womb and the tiny foetus, severed the cord that bound them, and placed each into a large glass jar he had brought in his bag. ‘But where does it come from?’ he muttered, as he sealed the jars.
‘From the man’s seed.’ I was unsure if he was addressing the question to me, nor even if my answer was correct, but I needed the distraction.
‘Ah, but does it?’ He looked at me, seemingly pleased. His cheek was streaked with blood where he had touched it. ‘Opinion is divided. There are those who say the womb is merely the field of Nature in which the seed is planted, and others who think there is some additional element contributed by the woman, without which the seed cannot germinate. What think you?’
‘I imagine these elements are so small as to be invisible. So that we can only study the effects and must work backwards to infer the cause.’
He nodded and wiped his hands on his apron. ‘It may be that we will never unravel the mystery of conception. But that does not mean we should not try, eh? I shall study this further.’ He patted the sealed lid of the jar containing the foetus. I had to look away.
From somewhere beyond the thick stone walls of our underground mortuary came the distant tolling of a bell. My head snapped around and I met Fra Gennaro’s eye. Neither of us had noticed how long ago the sand had run through the hourglass. I glanced down at myself; my habit was daubed with the girl’s blood and God knows what else.
Gennaro pulled his apron over his head. ‘I need fresh water and new candles,’ he said, decisive. ‘I will tell the prior you are taken sick and unable to attend Matins. Close the hatch and draw the bolt after me and do not open the door to anyone until I return. I will give three sharp knocks.’
Before I could object, he was gone. I climbed the stairs and slid the bolt across, shutting myself in with the girl. She lay splayed out like a carcass at the butcher’s, yellow fat and livid red organs bright against her pale skin. I drew closer to the table, torn between fascination and fear. In Gennaro’s absence, I felt emboldened to test the theory of the killer’s image by looking into her eyes, but all I saw was naked terror and my own reflection. It seemed apt, in a twisted way; I could not escape the feeling that we were as guilty of her destruction as the man whose fingers were imprinted around her slender neck. I backed away, chilled by an irrational fear that she might suddenly turn her head and fix me with those eyes. I tried to intone the psalms but the words stuck in my throat. Instead, I turned over the hourglass and watched the sand drain through in a fine dust. The minutes that passed until I heard Gennaro’s knock were some of the longest of my life.
‘We need to dispose of her before first light,’ he said, brisk again. ‘I will need your help.’
‘How?’
‘We must take her to Fontanelle.’
‘But the city gates will be locked until dawn.’
He slid me a sidelong look. ‘They can be opened.’
He crossed to the far side of the room and unlocked a wooden door in the back wall. I had been so intent on the girl I had not noticed it before. A breath of cleaner air filtered through and I saw that the door opened on to an underground passageway.
‘Part of the network of tunnels and cisterns belonging to the old Roman aqueduct,’ Gennaro explained. ‘It links to another tunnel beyond the boundary wall and comes out on the other side of Via Toledo. Here – help me with this.’
From the passageway Gennaro dragged a cheap wooden casket into the room. I grabbed the other end and helped him position it alongside the table. When he opened the lid, I saw that it was lined in oilcloth, and the inside was already bloodstained. He drew out a coarsely woven cloak from beneath the lining, such as the poorest wear in winter. It smelled thickly of decay.
‘There is one thing I need to do before we transport her,’ he said, draping the cloak over the casket and turning to face me with a stern look. ‘You may prefer not to watch this, Bruno. I have to skin her.’ He turned back to the table and selected a knife with a thin, cruel blade.