AFTER HIS BRIEF encounter with Sephy, the master paid the bill to the young waiter and left with the notebook under his arm. He headed to the Praça dos Apóstolos, while his mind sailed through a sea of uncertainties, as a series of things remained there, spinning in his mind.
We should have thought carefully before acting rashly...
The uneasiness we felt upon learning that the Fajardo family had sold a medieval cipher document to an unknown person made us unable to repress our desire for protection, upon deducing that the manuscript could be Iacobus's diary, or a way to get to it, as the chronicles of the time claim.
Perhaps the solution to the problem was not to kill an innocent man, but to recover the document. Simple as that! But emotions complicate everything.
The death of the paleographer was of no use. And worst of all, I ordered the cryptogram to be burned, when I should have studied it first, to be sure that it really was a threat. Now, there are two people who have a copy of the text. Thanks to Azogue, one of them will work for us without anyone even suspecting it. The other must disappear, for safety. I just hope that the one who was saved from death manages to translate the manuscript. That way, we will know what we have to focus on, before others come to know the secret that we have managed to keep for centuries with so much effort...
I could not bear to have to authorize new crimes. We are not murderers... He bought an art magazine at a newsstand that was about to close. Later, he stopped to contemplate the masterpiece that adorned the upper part of the Velez chapel. The chain surrounded the stone octagon erected in the past by master masons, carefully protecting the Gothic-Flemish wonders that were kept inside.
The thick links represented the continuity of tradition, something that Iacobus had never been able to understand, which is why he had been punished. He reflected again, walking towards the buttresses located behind the chapel. It seems incredible that the Fajardo family had been the custodians of the secret for so many years. We had never thought of anything like it, although we always had doubts...
Perhaps Iacobus, before he died, had had time to insert his manuscript among the papers of Ludovico Fajardo, who was the second Marquis of Velez. They knew that De Cartago had survived the torture for only a few weeks and that Don Pedro's son had been very angry because of the punishment inflicted on the mason by his own companions, which is why he visited him every day, as if he were an officer wounded in combat.
In the letters of the then construction foreman Justus Bravatius, he reported that both the movements of the aristocrat and those of the traitor were spied on, since it was not possible to communicate with the latter.
Nothing suspicious was found that would lead them to think that there might be some kind of complicity or alliance between the two.
But there was one detail that escaped the former masters: the idea of confiscating papers and documents from Iacobus's notary, who, according to reports, was his brother or nephew.
We will not make the same mistake, not now that we have the information provided by Azogue, who miraculously learned that the manuscript of discord had been found in Toledo and that it had been sent by email, just a few hours ago, to the paleographer's lover and to one of his workmates.
God is with us.
He is on our side. And we will remain faithful to His will, protecting the Ark of the Testimony. He stopped under the metal scaffolding of the restoration work on a ruined building at the back of the cathedral, in front of the shields of the Chacon y Fajardo families.
Like other passers-by, he ventured onto the metal walkway built by the renovation company to connect the various squares surrounding the temple.
Halfway there, he stopped to look at some strange signs carved into the stone with chisels. He recognized the different stonework marks: a triangle with a cross at the top... A square with a cross in the center... An hourglass leaning against it... And finally, the initials IDC.
— Iacobus de Cartago... — he whispered coldly, not caring about the people who were looking at him as he passed by. — Even in death, your inheritance invites confusion. I would give ten years of my life to know where you hid the diary!
It seemed to him that someone was laughing at him from the depths of hell.