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The fourth man. So the reaper’s scythe had interrupted his escape? He felt a sudden energy filling his limbs, sparked by that unexpected turn of events. His unease seemed to have waned.
    ‘The Angel Inn, you said … Then let’s go there. We might be in time to resume our conversation about that ship.’
    ‘But I told you the man is dead!’
    ‘And I want to talk to him. We can always listen to his mute witness, if we are capable of hearing him.’
    Meanwhile he had turned towards the portal of the church, taking advantage of a narrow passage through the crowd held open by the
bargellini
, but not before nodding goodbye to the philosopher. The chief of the guards moved behind him, shaking his head.
    T HE A NGEL Inn opened on to a little street of beaten earth, in the shelter of the ancient Roman walls, next to the street leading to Santa Maria Novella. It must originally have been one of the perimeter watchtowers, whose top had collapsed in the distant past. Now it jutted from the remains of the walls like the last sentinel of a vanished army, submerged by more recent constructions that had gone beyond it towards the countryside. At ground level a big hall had been built around the circular structure with solid wooden planks; this was where the kitchen was, and where the poorer wayfarers were put up on rough beds wide enough to hold as many as three people.
    On the other side the lane ran into a low dry-stone wall that ran along a vineyard. Clouds of flies buzzed around the dung that passing horses had deposited on the mud before being tethered to the gate-post.
    ‘Who does this land belong to?’ asked the poet, pointing straight ahead.
    ‘The Cavalcantis … I think,’ replied the Bargello after a moment’s reflection. ‘The inn must have belonged to the family, some time ago. It was one of their mills, and the tower was a storehouse before being turned into a staging post for pilgrims.’
    The Cavalcantis again. And again the same sense of sin and treachery. The prior shook his shoulders to rid himself of it, and began concentrating on the inn once more. The sign showed an angel with its wings spread. An unknown hand had painted over an inscription next to the word ‘angel’. But time and weathering had washed it away so that the word was legible once more beneath the blur. The Fallen Angel – that was the inn’s original name. A thin smile rose to the poet’s lips: he was sure that it was Guido Bigarelli who had insisted on the name – that would be typical of him.
    ‘Where’s the body?’ he asked, shaking himself abruptly from his thoughts.
    ‘Come with me. There are some cells upstairs in the tower. The innkeeper hires them out to rich travellers who want to sleep alone. It’s in one of those, on the top floor.’
    Dante hesitated for a moment longer: he wanted an image of the whole to form in his mind before it was overwhelmed by a plethora of sensory impressions. Then, without waiting for the other man to move, he crossed the threshold of the little door and walked alone up the flight of oak stairs that spiralled along the massive wall.
    He suddenly became aware of a strange atmosphere, but one that he couldn’t quite pinpoint.
    He had climbed the stairs very quickly, but halfway up he struggled to breathe in the dense and torrid air. Two small doors opened up on each of the first three floors. The fourth floor had only one door: the whole top floor of the tower consisted of a single room, closed at its apex by imposing chestnut beams. The stagnant air stank, stirred faintly by a feeble draught that came from two little windows set in the front wall.
    ‘Where …’ he began as he crossed the threshold, but even before receiving a reply he stopped, struck by the sight that met his eyes. The space before him repeated the circular shape of the building, with a diameter of perhaps ten ells or slightly more. At the end of it there was a little wooden bed, barely big enough for a man of medium