Dr. Stefano Calicchio - s.calicchio[at]stelor.it
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THE EMERALD TABLE
by
SERGIO MARCHI
Finalist for the Award “Selezione Bancarellino”
In America by Lulu.com Edition
In Greece by Kedros Edition – Atene
http://www.kedros.gr/main.php?manufacturers_id=1311_id=1311
In Italy by Boopen Edition srl - Pozzuoli (Na)
The book, mainly aimed towards teenagers between 11 and 14, is set in 1568 and tells a story about a boy from a humble background called Bernardo who risks his own life to bring back to light a mysterious object. which was created more than three thousand years before by the father of all alchemists Hermes Trismegistus. The object has the power to give immortality and turn all that is negative into positive. This object, namely the emerald Table, was lying in darkness in the dungeons of the Castle of Peschiera Borromeo, near Milan. Its recovery, after hundreds of ups and downs, completely changes the boy’s life and Bernardo is eventually elected – against his will – arbiter in the eternal struggle between good and bad. 
Beginning with the table itself, the events that take place in the tale have actual historical references. The concept of the table is taken from King Salomon’s famous writings, Clavicula Salomonis, which tell of how the King poured all his knowledge into a table and subsequently, to avoid letting it fall into wicked hands, made it disappear until it was discovered by Hermes Trismegistus.
Carlo Borromeo
Emerald Table
CHAPTER ONE
Translation by Chiara Montani
The sun hadn’t risen yet but the weak light from the East, preceding any dawn, was enough to highlight the outlines of the side of the Lombard countryside washed by the Lambro river, not very far from Milan.
Hidden by the almost total darkness of a moonless night, the day of October 23 in the year 1568 was going to begin.
Wrapped in a thick foggy blanket, hovering over the marshland like a ghost over his grave, the landscape looked somewhat spooky. Apart from the birds, only the tops of the tallest
trees, turned yellow with the near coming autumn, could dominate that seemingly out of place, huge cloud and look at the sky that was still dotted with stars.
Suddenly, woken by the distant howling of a wolf, two ravens flew lazily up, flapping their wings noisily. Some barn owls, accompanied by their dismal wailing, tired of hunting, sneaked into a rather tumbledown little house, followed by a boy close behind. Pale-faced, about 16 years old, dressed with cheap shabby clothes, he cautiously approached that apparently uninhabited hovel.
After making sure that nobody was spying on him, he knocked three times at the door at regular intervals: first one set of two knocks, then two sets of three and finally one set of four knocks. He hadn’t to wait for an answer: a figure wrapped in a mantle hastened to open the door, checking that nobody had followed the boy.
In the same instant, a ray of sun suddenly appeared, and pierced the fog, defeating the darkness for good and making everything look different as if by magic.
But for any prying eyes the hovel had become uninhabited again.
“Come in, Bernardo, and bolt the door firmly,” said the man who welcomed him, waiting for an explanation for such an early visit. Then, since the boy did not open his mouth, he burst out:
“Come on, speak, do not linger as you usually do.”
“Master, first let me get warm, please. I’m numb with cold because outside the bad weather is beginning to settle in and my feet ache because I’ve been walking for more than one hour.”
“You didn’t have to come if you didn’t want to.”
“No Master, actually I did want to come.”
The man the boy called Master was an old alchemist with a slightly hunched back and thick silver-coloured hair. In the underground of that ancient dwelling, where he had been living away from the rest of the world for a long time, he had installed a laboratory for his experiments. It was perfectly equipped with small pots, vessels, test tubes and strange devices he himself had invented which grumbled night and day, crackling and puffing sinister clouds of smoke.
He was eighty-nine years old but as sprightly as a spring chicken.
“Bernardo, when I was your age, I could run naked on the snow without feeling the cold or any aches in my limbs,” said the old man teasing him, joyfully remembering that old fun, turned into a faded memory by now.
“Times were different then, Master.”
“No, the boys were different then. Nowadays you are all sissies. Now, once and for all, will you tell me why you have arrived here at this hour?” he proceeded to say with a rather shrill voice.
“Because of something serious,” answered Bernardo with a frightened air. “Yesterday, the Archbishop Borromeo came to the little church of Linate. He arrived unexpectedly. He wanted to search the room of the Chaplain who is my uncle, as you well know. He was not alone: there was also a... I don’t recall how he called him, a man of law, I think, who was writing, was writing… I don’t remember what.”
“Maybe a notary?” suggested the man, as if he knew something by intuition.
“Yes, a notary. The priest called him by that title,” he said confidently.
“What did they find, if I may ask?” the Master wanted to know.
“Strange things, that I had never seen before, closed inside a trunk. ‘Things that shouldn’t have anything to do with a chaplain’, said the notary. ‘Things stinking of magic’, added the Archbishop. I was there by chance but they still asked a lot of questions to me too.”
“What did you answer?” enquired the alchemist calmly.
“The truth, sir! That I do not know anything! But I would have answered like that even if it had not been true. I know how some things can end. I can still smell the stink of the burnt skin of the last witch who was caught out some days ago and… sent to the stake. I can still hear her piercing cries and I remember the glow of the fire illuminating the night” said the young man, visibly troubled as a result.
“Why did you run here?”
“I do not know, sir, but I felt the need to come and tell you about all this.”
“Perhaps you did the right thing.”
Then, after briefly pausing, the lively old man started to speak again:
“So, our dear Carlo Borromeo doesn’t seem to have got out of the habit of running after witches and wizards. By now, with his position, he should have something more important to do. Unless this matter is more serious than it appears and does however require his presence. I would like to know who has told goodness knows what to Borromeo and compelled him to make this surprise visit. It is not like him to make such a fuss over a mere magic formula uttered in the little church of some out-of-the-way village in the marshland. I hope it is not because the chaplain wanted to tell something extremely secret to the Archbishop and used this device as a way of muddling the gossiping wives. Maybe your uncle knows things he should not know,” he went on, walking all around the room with his hands behind his back, always followed by the attentive eyes of his pupil, who appeared surprised by that idea. “The objects you said were hidden in that trunk may have been placed there intentionally, in order to make the whole comedy more believable. Yes, the more I think about it the more I’m convinced that the true reason must be something quite different.”
“What other reason could it be? You are making my head spin, with all this reasoning of yours. What are you implying to me?” urged the boy. “That it could have been your uncle who called the Archbishop to make him investigate about me” explained the old man, causing bigger confusion inside the boy’s head. “Have you ever told him about you and me? “
“No, you must believe me. And I never even said the word ‘alchemy’.”
“But… somehow he must have discovered us, perhaps he followed you once to here and you didn’t notice.”
“No it is not possible, I’ve always been very careful.”
“One never can say that for sure, after all it is two years that we’ve been meeting almost every day. Anyway, now it is useless crying over spilt milk. All we have to do is hurry up, or all our work risks going up in smoke.”
“But why all these secrets? What’s wrong about learning alchemy?”
“Nothing, if you didn’t have in your mind what I’ve got in mine.”
Bernardo looked at him more and more puzzled, then, as if he feared the answer he already knew, he asked: “Master, I know I’m not very bright, at least I believe so, but today I understand absolutely nothing. Is there anything, by any chance, that you have kept secret from me?”
“I’m afraid there is, Bernardo, but it was for your good. Now I have no other option. The moment has arrived to let you know everything, since it is my intention to put the fate of the world… into your hands. I would have liked to prepare you a bit more, but…” he went on before the boy could protest, “…If what I fear is true, there is not much time left. Don’t be afraid of your uncle’s fate, nothing serious will happen to him, or better still, nothing at all will happen to him. If I am right, everything will fall into oblivion... at least for him.”
At that point, the boy started thinking that the poor old man had completely lost his wits due to his elderly age.
“I know exactly what you are thinking about, I can read it in your eyes. But you are wrong, dear boy,” said his teacher with a firm voice, raising his finger knowingly. “My brain is working at its best. Speaking about brains, have more confidence in yourself, boy! You are very bright and your modesty proves it.”
