Meanwhile, Greta studied the mosaics on the ground in front of her by the light of her torch. There were birds, fish, and various creatures. She closed her eyes and took a moment to enjoy the stillness. Why couldn’t things just go back to the way they’d been a few weeks ago? She had tried to escape her fate, but fate had caught up with her.
Her father had caught up with her.
It seemed like a punishment from God that her love for her child had grown strongest at the very moment he was taken from her. Where had she been for the last two years? With the poor, the sick, and the elderly, with all those people who needed her. But not with her son.
“Nothing. Not a trace.”
Greta looked up when Karl returned with his smoking torch. Johann followed close behind.
“We searched everywhere, as well as we could in the darkness,” said Karl. “A few rooms are still intact, including some cellars full of trash, but no cave.”
“Damn it!” snarled Johann. “The cave is probably some way away from the buildings, somewhere in the gardens of Augustus. But that’s a huge area, and it is pitch black. Hagen must have seen Tonio, so the cave is here. But where? Where, in God’s name?”
“Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch’entrate,” said Greta softly.
“What did you say?” Johann asked.
“‘All hope abandon, ye who enter here.’ A fitting sentiment, I find.” Greta pointed at the wall she was sitting on. An Italian inscription had been chiseled into the stone. “Even if the phrase doesn’t at all go with the little birds, rabbits, and fawns in the mosaics.”
Her father hastily brought his torch closer and studied the inscription. Greta now saw that below the words, a square had been etched into the stone. A square with a circle at its center. It looked like a solitary, watchful eye.
“My God,” whispered Johann. “Could it be?” He turned to Karl. “Quick! Search the courtyard!”
“But why?”
“Jesus Christ in heaven, do I have to explain everything to you? This phrase is written in Italian, not Latin, so it was added much later. Most importantly, though, it tells us what is to be found here.”
Greta read the inscription again, and finally she understood.
All hope abandon.
“It is a quote from Dante’s Divine Comedy,” she exclaimed. “From the Inferno.”
The monastery of Santo Spirito owned a large library that, of course, included the books of Dante, Italy’s most famous poet. About two hundred years ago, Dante Alighieri composed his best-known work, the Divine Comedy, in which the poet himself travels through hell, purgatory, and paradise. The description of hell, of the inferno, had gripped Greta strongest of all.
Johann pointed at the letters. “These words are written at the gateway to hell! The porta infernale. Do you understand? It is a sign, perhaps for Tonio’s helpers, like Hagen. The entrance must be somewhere very close.”
“But we searched everywhere,” said Karl dejectedly.
“Then we’ll just search again, damn it!”
Karl slowly walked across the courtyard with his torch. “There is nothing here,” he said after a while. “Only weeds and rubble.”
“Keep looking!”
“What is the meaning of this symbol?” asked Greta, pointing at the square with the circle inside. “It almost looks like an eye.”
“Possible.” Her father shrugged. “Perhaps it represents the entrance to hell. Or—” He broke off. Then he suddenly gave a hoarse laugh. “Of course, a circle! How could I have missed it!” He stood up and tightened his grip on his torch. “The cave isn’t here!” he called out to Karl. “This is just the beginning of our search.”
He gestured at the symbol on the stone. “It is the first sign and refers to the first circle of hell. There are ten of those in Dante’s Inferno. Following the gate are the vestibule of hell and the nine circles representing various sins and crimes. Lust, gluttony, greed, wrath. In the last circle, Lucifer is trapped in a lake of ice.” He smiled grimly. “Tonio truly has a sense of humor.”
“Does that mean we’re not looking for a cave but for another square, this time with two circles?” asked Karl, who was now gazing at the symbol.
Johann nodded. “Then three, then four, and so on. They are markers that will lead us to our destination. To the porta infernale.” He raised his torch and marched ahead. “To the devil in his hell.”
It wasn’t long before they found the second clue, a square with two circles, on a wall a little farther away. From there they followed the third sign, the fourth, and the fifth, gradually getting farther from Augustus’s palace until they reached a small wood at the edge of Palatine Hill. There probably used to be flourishing gardens here a long time ago, but now low-hanging branches blocked out the moon, moss hung down in curtains, and the air smelled of rotting leaves and winter. Greta remembered the first lines from Dante’s Inferno.
In the midway of this our mortal life, I found me in a gloomy wood, astray.
The sentence seemed deeply fitting, as if this poet from long ago had seen right into her heart.
Greta would have loved to bound ahead and search the clues herself, but every time she tried to walk for longer, the pain in her ankle became so great that she was forced to sit for a while. She felt as if someone had tied her up! And somewhere nearby was her son, perhaps already dead. To help her move along a little better, she had found herself a sturdy branch to use as a crutch.
Meanwhile, Johann and Karl had discovered the square with all ten circles and were exploring the surrounding area. The terrain was flat with no rises, and Greta wondered how there should be a cave here. An artificial one, perhaps, but not one
