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confidently towards home.
    Gerardo stood motionless on the threshold listening to the peaceful sounds of the night. If the neighbours had already returned to their beds, it meant that the fire had not caused serious damage. Nonetheless, a description of him would have been given to the authorities and beginning the next morning it wouldn’t just be the Inquisition that was after him, but the city guards too. He would have to find somewhere else to live, assume another name and be doubly cautious from now on.
    He closed the door and secured it with the metal bar. Then he drew his hands through his shoulder-length hair, more to calm himself than to tidy it, and went to kneel at the linen chest. In the absence of a body, he would watch over Angelo da Piczano’s metallic heart buried in the wooden chest beneath two blankets.
    He was certain that Angelo’s soul, wherever it was now, would have great need of comfort.

II
    Beneath a leaden sky, Uberto da Rimini was crouching down on the narrow pathway of San Domenico’s cemetery, pulling out the weeds around the tombs. He had woken early, still irritated that he hadn’t found the dead body mentioned in the anonymous informer’s letter. His annoyance had increased when he remembered the arrogant reception he received from the physician who had refused to let him enter by threatening to cause a student uprising. Uberto took it out on a friar who had knocked over a jug of water on the floor, ordering him to do a day’s hard labour in the cemetery.
    In theory, only the prior had the power to deal out punishments, but he was a weak man, who from the day that Uberto had arrived at the monastery had done his best to make himself invisible. So that when his authority was bypassed, he could always say that he had not been present, that he had not seen anything and that he knew nothing.
    Consequently, it was really Uberto who was in command, and although it seemed proper, given that he was more than capable, he had to be careful not to fall into the sin of pride.
    This was why he had later decided to join the monk in his punishment of weeding the cemetery. He took satisfaction in being as inflexible with himself as he was with anyone else. Besides, physical effort was the only thing that might help him give vent to his anger that morning.
    They worked on in silence, each alone with his thoughts. Uberto bent down to pull out a dandelion growing from the crack between two bricks, but its long conical root broke just below the surface and he was left with a handful of leaves. This meant that the plant would reappear in a few days’ time. He straightened his back, observing the lines of tombstones before him. The requests of prelates and notables who wanted to be buried near St Dominic’s tomb rose year on year, and the monastery had difficulty fitting them all in. The cemetery was full of tombs, and although the friars did their best to keep it in order, the weeds simply carried on reappearing.
    Heresy carried on reappearing too, thought Uberto, after every effort to extirpate it. But it wasn’t heresy’s fault. It was the Inquisitors who, in order not to lay themselves open to criticism from the civil authorities, contented themselves with niggling trials and mild sentences. How could you frighten a heretic if, in the worst case, he was condemned to carry out a pilgrimage to St Peter’s in Rome?
    The only way to stamp out heresy completely was to extract it at the root, whatever the cost. There would be mistakes, certainly. The odd innocent man might finish at the stake, but his soul would be saved because he had died for the good of the Church. It had been the fate of the Cathars of the Languedoc, and, more recently, of Fra Dolcino and his acolytes too. Both Cathars and Dolcinians had disappeared altogether. And the same would have to happen to the templars. The Holy Inquisition’s job in this case was not to find certain proof of guilt or innocence, as the Archbishop of Ravenna,