The Seventh Sacrament [antikvár]

-1 -The boy stood where he usually did at that time of the morning. In the Piazza dei Cavalieri di Malta, on the summit of the Aventino hiU, not far from home. Alessio Bramante was wearing the novelty glasses from his birthday party the day before, peering through them into the secret keyhole, trying to make sense of what he saw.The square was only two minutes' walk from his front door, and the same from the entrance to the Scuola Elementare di Santa Cecilia, so this was a journey he made every day, always with his father, a precise and serious man who would retrace his steps from the school gates, then enter the outpost of the university in the square which acted as his office. This routine was now so familiar Alessio knew he could cover the route with his eyes closed.He adored the piazza, which had always seemed to him as if it belonged in a fairy-tale palace, not on the Aventino, a hill for ordinary, everyday men and women.Palms and great conifers, like Christmas trees, fringed the white walls which ran around three sides of