Chapter 2: The Broken Sword's Inscription

Midnight. The study door groaned with a teeth-grating rasp. Andrea Barbalini did not turn around as he spread the yellowed parchment across the oak table. The fragment of broken sword hidden in his sleeve ran cold, still carrying the reek of death. He muttered to himself: "If the gates of hell are already open, then the road to truth can only be paved with the dead."

Heavy boot heels sounded from far off, drawing nearer—Bianca Orsini. The noble widow wrapped herself in a velvet cloak, her face pale, the wax seal in her hand catching the candlelight in a glint of scarlet. She stopped three meters from Andrea, her voice hoarse: "You must retrieve that sword tonight. Katerina's people have sealed the entrance to the crypt beneath the Convent of Saint Cecilia and posted musket sentries."

Andrea's gaze turned keen. "Why now? Didn't the prior declare the basement collapsed from seepage and forbid entry?"

Bianca gave a cold laugh and tossed a key engraved with the family crest onto the table. "Half an hour ago, Rosanna Rossi sent an urgent message through the opera house's underground conduits. A man in a nun's habit crawled out of the sewer—lungs crushed, caked in filth. In his fist he clutched an iron shard etched with a spiral pattern only you would recognize."

Andrea's fingers trembled. He seized the key and rose. "Who was that man?"

"No one knows. He died in an alley, his face burned away. Before he died, he pressed the broken sword hilt into the arms of a blind beggar and whispered one phrase: 'The ink is not yet dry.'"

Andrea halted, his back to Bianca, a flicker of understanding crossing his eyes. "'The ink is not yet dry'—that's early Gutenberg printers' slang. It means the list has just been struck, not yet set in stone, still open to tampering. Time is short."

Bianca drew a deep breath, unfastened her cloak, and revealed the faint scar along her collarbone. "Take me to the crypt. I want to see the sealed chest with my own eyes. If you cannot decipher the inscription, we blow up the convent and dig the answers out of the ashes."

The two crossed Rome's labyrinthine alleyways and reached the convent's back gate in the thin mist before dawn. Andrea produced a forged papal search warrant; the guard yielded at the sight of Bianca's gold. Deep in the crypt, stale mildew and lime dust hung thick, the air congealed with decades of silence.

The sealed chest sat on a stone shelf in the corner, its wooden surface stained with watermarks and moss. Andrea pried open the rusted iron lock with brute force; a sour, acidic reek rushed out. He pulled on linen gloves and took out the sword-hilt fragment wrapped in layers of oilcloth.

"This is the key to the 'Passage of the Holy Angel'?" Bianca suppressed her dread. "It looks like nothing but scrap iron."

"Because it was soaked in nitric acid." Andrea studied the fragment in the faint moonlight. "The strong acid corroded the surface inscription, fooling later eyes into taking it for mere ornament. But metal's grain does not lie—acid etching leaves crystalline traces."

Bianca stepped back, catching the acrid smell. "What tools do you need?"

"Silver nitrate, alcohol, hot wax." Andrea drew the reagents from his leather kit. "Silver nitrate heightens the oxidation contrast; wax rubbing reproduces the texture. As long as the inscription exists within the crystal, I can make it reappear."

Bianca set down a small pouch of silver coins. "That's your hush money. If you hear a second gunshot, I'll sink you and this iron into the Tiber together."

Andrea ignored the coins, quickly mixing the silver nitrate solution and dabbing it over the sword's rust with a scrap of parchment cloth. His movements were light and precise, as if handling fragile porcelain.

"Look here." He pointed to a depression near the guard. "The oxide layer is thinner—it was specially polished before the acid bath. The inscription was either carved from within outward after casting, or acid-etched from the outside in."

Bianca squinted but could make out nothing in the blurred traces. "Your developing is too slow. Dawn is coming."

"Patience. In archival science, haste is the first killer of truth. Now for the wax rubbing—go light a fire."

Bianca kindled flames with practiced ease. Andrea spread warm beeswax over a sheet of thin cotton, pressed it hard against the hilt's hollows, and scraped the surface smooth.

Moments later, the cooled wax sheet had turned deep brown. Andrea peeled the cotton away and held it up to the firelight.

A marvel happened. Where age and acid had eaten the surface, a clear relief rose into view. It was no ornamental design but an inscription embedded within the metal itself.

"Heavens." Bianca caught her breath. "I recognize these letters. A variant of Latin?"

"No—a lingua franca." Andrea put on his monocle to examine it. "'Societas'—the Brotherhood. After it, a string of numbers and symbols. 'X' stands for the unknown, and in the cryptography of that era, it meant 'the list.'"

He pointed to the spiral's center. "Here is carved 'Nominum Liber'—the Book of Names. This sword is a signpost, pointing to a roster of every Brotherhood member who carried out an assassination. The list is hidden in this convent; the spiral on the hilt is the key to the lock."

Bianca's eyes grew complex, fear tangled with a twisted excitement. "If my father's name is on that list..."

"Then you would already be dead." Andrea's tone was flat. "You are alive because you are bait, not a confidant. This list could overturn the whole power structure of Rome. What Katerina wants is not merely to purge her political enemies—it is to control information itself."

From above the crypt came the sound of heavy footsteps, torchlight spilling dust through the cracks. An old, commanding voice rang out: "Dr. Barbalini, why are you conducting such witchcraft experiments in this damp vault?"

The abbot leaned on his staff, his gaze sharp as an eagle’s, fixed unblinkingly on the wax tablet in Andrea’s hand.

Andrea quickly stuffed the tablet into his inner pocket, pretending to smooth his cuffs with a calm demeanor. “Your Reverence, I am conducting academic research on ancient metal corrosion. Preserving antiquities involves more than paper; it is a study of metals as well.”

The abbot advanced slowly. “Researching in *my* monastery? This place worships only the Virgin Mary. I hear you are searching for a broken sword? An object that belongs to neither the Church nor the nobility, but only to the devil?”

Andrea let out a cold laugh. “The devil? Perhaps. But even the devil keeps records. Your so-called ‘collapse’ is nothing but an excuse to cover up secrets. That fire thirty years ago—did it burn away the library, or the names that should never have been seen?”

The abbot’s face darkened as he brought his staff down heavily against the stone floor. “How dare you mention the fire! That was God’s punishment. What you dig up is cursed. Hand over the iron fragment. It is a relic of the dead.”

“The dead do not speak, but metal does.” Andrea leaned against a stone pillar, guarding his pocket. “Unless you can prove you understand history better than that metal. Rosanna Rossi says that the iron fragment held by the man in the dead nun’s habit bears the same spiral pattern as the one you are trying to seize. Why are you so afraid?”

The abbot’s Adam’s apple bobbed; a flash of murderous intent flickered in his eyes. “Afraid? I am only angry at blasphemer. Guards, take him away. I will melt the fragment myself, returning it to nothingness.”

Two monk-soldiers wielding arquebuses closed in, the slow-burning of the match lock hissing in the silence. Bianca, hidden in the shadows, watched the standoff silently, the silver coins in her hand clinking softly, as if counting down the seconds.

Andrea watched the match cord approaching its end, a chill spreading through his body. He knew that the sound of gunshots would mean the end of both his career and his life. Yet he did not retreat. Instead, he pulled out the unfinished parchment archive and unfolded it beneath the candlelight.

“Before that happens, allow me to complete my final record.” His voice was terrifyingly steady. “The first principle of archival science: a duplicate must be preserved before destruction. If I die, this record will spread to Florence, Venice, and indeed all of Italy, faster than blood. You may kill me, but you cannot kill knowledge.”

The abbot stared at the parchment, hesitation flashing in his eyes. In that era, paper was sharper than a blade.

“You threaten me?” The abbot’s voice trembled; his authority had crumbled, leaving only panic.

“I am not threatening you. I am stating facts.” Andrea rapidly recorded the inscription on the wax tablet with a charcoal stick, the tip scratching against the surface. “‘Societas Nominum’… the Moretti mark… Wait.”

His movements stopped abruptly. He stared at a tiny, subtle indentation on the inner side of the tablet. The metal there was different from the rest, covered in a layer of dark red oxidation.

Bianca sensed the anomaly and asked in a low voice, “What have you found?”

Andrea looked up, his eyes wide with shock and terror, as if he had seen something far more frightening than death. “Your Reverence, please look. On the innermost part of the spiral pattern, etched into the groove of the hilt, is a surname mark, extremely small. It is not Latin. It is Italian. ‘Moretti.’”

The cellar fell into a dead silence, the hiss of the burning match cord amplified to an unbearable volume.

The abbot’s face turned deathly pale. “You lie… that sword is a holy relic of the monastery. How could it possibly bear the mark of a secular family?”

“Moretti,” Andrea’s voice was like an ice pick. “is the family name of Anna Moretti. A printing press worker skilled in typeface design. If her family were once at the core of the Brotherhood, then that list was not just a political document; it was a blood covenant.”

Bianca stepped abruptly out of the shadows, her dagger glinting in the dim light. “Anna? That silent woman at the printing house? How is she involved in this conspiracy?”

Andrea folded the parchment and looked directly at Bianca, revealing the chapter’s key truth: “Because the ‘Moretti’ mark on the inside of the broken sword perfectly matches the design of the copper ring Anna wears on her finger year-round. She is not decoding an ancient format. She is concealing a lineage. She is the one who holds the list.”

The match cord burned to the end.

*Bang!*

The thunderous roar tore through the darkness. Andrea twisted his body to avoid the blast, clutching the wax tablet and parchment tightly to his chest. Blood seeped from his shoulder, staining his white shirt red.

The abbot slumped to the ground, eyes wide, watching Andrea straighten to his full height. In the firelight, the tablet in his hand gleamed. It was not just evidence; it was the first cornerstone leading to the abyss of the “Moretti” name.

“The list… Moretti…” The abbot murmured, his voice shattered.

Andrea stepped over the abbot and walked toward the exit. His footsteps were heavy, his gaze as firm as iron. He was no longer just an archivist; he was both hunter and prey. Anna Moretti would become the next mystery he had to face.

Outside, the first light of dawn pierced the gray haze over Rome, illuminating a black boat skimming across the Tiber River. Rosanna Rossi stood at the bow, watching the smoke rise from the monastery, a cold smile curling her lips. She lit a cigarette, took a deep drag, and whispered into the void: “The game has only just begun, dear archivist. Your next stop is the printing house basement.”

Andrea emerged from the cellar, the morning light blinding. He reached into his pocket and touched the wax tablet, his fingertips grazing the raised letters of “Moretti,” feeling a bone-chilling cold. The fragments of the truth had been pieced together into a single corner, but in the shadows, more eyes were watching.