Page 337 - The Grotesque Children's Book

Chapter 53.
The birth of the folio

A Cardinal’s plot to kill the Duke and Duchess! Santi was in over his head. He of course
didn’t dare go to the carabinieri or the Duke or his father or Allori or anyone. Even if he
succeeded in exposing the plot and saving the life of the Duke and Duchess, someone would
seek their revenge upon Santi. He contemplated an anonymous letter to the carabinieri, but he
calculated it wouldn’t be long before the swarthy bearded whispering assassin would figure out
that the plot was revealed by the painter on the scaffold who turned out not to be so deaf after all.

So he began putting the plot into his fresco artwork. It was his only option. The problem
was, of course, was that the only person who could interpret the symbols was Aurelio, and what
was Aurelio going to do with the knowledge? Besides which, as soon as Aurelio unraveled the
meaning of the symbols, the clues would be telling him to run for his life and meet at the
designated location where Santi would be hiding with the jewels.

What Aurelio would need was some sort of text which he could give to the carabinieri or
someone else, so they in turn could begin to interpret the symbols. This person would need a
codex which didn’t appear to be a codex (in case it fell into the wrong hands), which could be
used to decipher the clues originally meant for Aurelio; clues which would expose the plot
against the Duke and Duchess, and yet not reveal to anyone but Aurelio the location of Santi and
the jewels. That is, Santi needed to create a codex within a codex. After Aurelio discovered the
location, he could pass along the codex to a clever scientific mind who would see the secondary
interpretation.

That’s when Santi hit upon the idea of creating a folio of stories. To the layman, it would
look just like a mere collection of children’s stories. To the scientist and consequential
carabinieri, it would look like clues to expose the Cardinal’s assassination plot. To Aurelio it
would look like both of those, and also include a map to freedom. Clever Santi!, thought clever
Santi. I wonder if I could even add a fourth layer to it. What would that be?

Thus was born the grotesque children’s book.

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