TWELVE Ch 15

The inside of the carriage jolted once. It was around noon, the time when the spire of the government office in the central square shone most brilliantly. Romeo and Gallienus had boarded the carriage in front of the unit after receiving a report from the Public Security Bureau that a poster advertising Dante’s 12 had been discovered. The place where the poster was found was Simonetta Street, located on the path to the city wall entrance through which one could enter downtown Bacci. The Public Security Bureau had discovered the poster while patrolling shops that sold smuggled items.

The bruise on Romeo’s lower jaw looked deeper than it had yesterday. Although he had tossed and turned all night and had eaten almost nothing for breakfast, there was no sign of fatigue on Romeo’s face. Rather, his nerves were on edge. Even the sound of the carriage wheels felt grating to his ears.

“Is that man Sforza not a peculiar character in many ways?”

Gallienus, having heard the story of the meeting with Giovanni at the pub last night, recalled the time he had searched Giovanni’s house while arresting him.

Giovanni’s three-story manor, made of grayish-brown brick, had a very spacious interior, unlike its gloomy exterior, befitting his prestige as a medical professor at the Republic’s top-tier university. At the time of the search, there were a total of 512 books in the house, including anatomy and medical texts published across the country. There were also very old manuscript copies, all of which showed signs of having been read. As many as 2,000 nude drawings of Vittorio were discovered, and in the basement, there was one male cadaver for dissection, a young man for whom permission had been obtained from the government.

Anatomical diagrams depicting brains and organs were posted in disturbingly large numbers not only in the basement but throughout the house; judging by the direction of the ink smudges and the slant of the handwriting, Giovanni was ambidextrous. On the first floor of the manor, there was an indoor garden; on the second floor, a kitchen with a cooking brazier and a drawing room; and on the third floor, a study and a bedroom. There were also three empty rooms, but they showed no signs of use.

The flowers in the indoor garden on the first floor were all dried up; withered leaves and yellowed stems were tangled haphazardly on the floor, and the petals crumbled into powder the moment they touched a military boot. The vines clinging thickly to the walls and windows stretched out long, hideously covering the ceiling.

The moment he first opened the manor door, Gallienus had felt puzzled seeing the parched garden, devoid of any vitality, wondering how Giovanni could move in and out of here every day. If it had been in this state all along, inviting guests to the house would have been impossible.

The door to the stairs leading to the second floor showed signs of human touch, where the vines around the wooden door were broken off sparsely as if cut with scissors. A heap of severed leaves had fallen on the floor, and traces of them being stepped on were visible. Going up to the second floor led to hallways on both sides; the drawing room on the right side of the hallway had a thick layer of dust on the doorknob. Upon opening the door and entering, a musty smell wafted out as if it had been neglected for a long time. In the study where Vittorio’s nude drawings were found, nothing special was discovered other than the tightly packed bookshelves. The same was true for the bedroom and kitchen.

Gallienus speculated that Giovanni must have put a great deal of effort into maintaining his relationship with Vittorio in secret. When canvassing the area around Giovanni’s house, no one said they had seen a youth presumed to be Vittorio entering or leaving Giovanni’s home. Giovanni and Vittorio must have continued their secret meetings for several months according to Giovanni’s wishes.

“Have you seen Sforza before, Captain?”

Romeo was sitting with his back straight opposite Gallienus, looking out the carriage window. His eyes, watching the passing street scenery, were out of focus. Because his eyesight was poor, he did not know at all which street this was.

“No, when I went to Bacci University for the search, that was the first time I saw him.”

“I saw that man in the square a very long time ago.”

It was something he had remembered during the search. It happened around the time of his commission as a second lieutenant.

“The weather was very hot, so the season must have been summer. As I happened to pass through the square, a prisoner who had been executed by hanging was dangling from the execution platform prepared for the sentence. After the execution was over, people were gathered, and among that crowd, there was a man drawing the prisoner. I learned that he was Giovanni Sforza after hearing those passing by talk about it. I found out later that because obtaining cadavers for dissection was difficult, he drew the dead prisoner there, but I still vividly remember the scene from that time.”

Gallienus recalled Giovanni’s blond hair shimmering in the sunlight beating down on the square.

“The sight of him standing beneath the feet of a man who died by hanging while drawing was bizarre. I know he is a doctor and an anatomist, but surely not every anatomist enjoys drawing a hanged corpse. Especially in the middle of a square with others watching.”

Listening to Gallienus’s words, Romeo recalled the conversations he had shared with Giovanni at the pub. He had grasped enough of what kind of person the man was.

“It certainly seems he has some extraordinary aspects.”

“Do you think so too, Captain?”

“He is also a clever man.”

Giovanni was not stingy with praising others and possessed a sharpness that accurately grasped the essence of unfamiliar things. He himself had said that the word curiosity was not appropriate, but it was indeed curiosity. Judging by his domestic and international reputation, he easily won anyone’s favor and also possessed many talents. He did not engage in acts that tarnished his honor and was wealthy and social. He possessed the intelligence to keep public evaluation in mind, was calm and bold, and also possessed the cruelty to feel no guilt in using others. Seeing as he expressed no particular sense of loss or sadness over Vittorio’s death, he was a cold-hearted man.

However, Romeo harbored a slight doubt regarding the fact that Giovanni possessed such a hidden side. If a secret could be revealed this easily through a single interrogation, then those who had observed Giovanni closely for a long time should also have told the same stories with one voice. Since watching eyes always followed him, there should have been at least one whispered rumor. But there was none.

As his thoughts reached this point, he became curious about that incident five years ago. The matter of being tried on charges of killing a weaver. At that time, how did the people who knew Giovanni accept that event?

“I heard from Captain Musoyo that Sforza was glad to see you at the pub last night.”

“He seems to think nothing of the fact that I interrogated him.”

The carriage jolted a few more times and then slowed down. Simonetta Street, lined with gable-roofed buildings, was quiet as usual.

When the carriage came to a complete stop, two soldiers sitting on the driver’s seat came down and opened the door.

“We have arrived at Simonetta Street.”

As the two soldiers stepped aside, Romeo stepped out of the carriage first. As Gallienus followed him down, he saw three Public Security Bureau officials wearing dark gray military uniforms standing in the distance. There were two men and one woman; when one of the men appeared to be Sergeant Timoteo Uccio, he spoke to Romeo, who was walking ahead.

“Sergeant Uccio is there. The other two officials are faces I am seeing for the first time.”

The Public Security Bureau, which had no authority for arrest or interrogation regarding Dante’s 12, cracked down on criminal acts such as theft or illegally operated brothels and managed executions and prisons; in cases where they discovered posters during patrols like now, they had the duty to inform the 6th Legion. Romeo and Gallienus had encountered Timoteo several times, and Timoteo had acted insolently while showing a bothersome attitude. He felt dissatisfied that although a situation like the current one fell under the jurisdiction of the Public Security Bureau, their authority was limited.

Because the Public Security Bureau had been in charge of Lubano’s security before the 6th Legion was founded, their influence had been grander than it was now. Since all information heavy enough to be considered confidential was under the management of the Public Security Bureau, there were those among the citizens who feared them. Having supervised and handled Bacci’s security issues more strictly and swiftly than anyone else, they naturally lost that dignity as the 6th Legion was established.