The guest quarters assigned to them within the Abbey walls were simple, clean, and suffocatingly quiet. After the day's journey and the tense encounter at the gate, the silence was a form of pressure in itself. Enzo paced the small room, worrying endlessly.
"The soil is not like ours, my lord," he fretted. "It is a red clay, not a black loam. And their oxen… they are strong, but they are not our team. They do not know my voice. So much can go wrong."
Lorenzo, by contrast, was a study in grim focus. He had claimed a corner of the stable yard and was meticulously checking every bolt and joint on his creation. He ran a whetstone along the edge of the plowshare, not to sharpen it, but as a nervous ritual, a master communing with his work before a great performance. His professional soul was on the line tomorrow.
Alessandro acknowledged their anxieties but felt a core of grim confidence. The principles of physics were the same in this valley as in his own. His design was sound. The true variable was not the soil or the oxen; it was the mind of the man he had to convince.
As dusk fell, a young novice arrived with a quiet summons. "The Father Abbot requests your presence in his study, my lord."
The Abbot's study was a world away from the spartan guest cell. It was a large, high-ceilinged room, its walls lined with shelves holding dozens of precious, hand-copied books and scrolls. A great map of the Liri Valley was spread across a massive oak table. The room smelled of old parchment, beeswax, and power.
Abbot Paolo sat behind the table, a cup of wine before him. He gestured for Alessandro to take the seat opposite.
"My monks work the land to feed the poor and to sustain our life of prayer," the Abbot began, his voice smooth and conversational as he poured a second cup. "But the Lord's bounty is often trapped within the Lord's stubborn earth. This clay you will face tomorrow… it is a form of penance for us. It demands twice the labor for half the reward of our lower fields." He leaned forward, his shrewd eyes fixing on Alessandro. "You speak of new wisdom. It is a bold claim. Ambition is a fine horse, my lord, but it can throw a rider who is not its master."
"I do not seek to master ambition, Father Abbot," Alessandro replied calmly, meeting his gaze. "I seek only to master the soil. A better tool is not a sign of worldly ambition. It is a sign of respect for the time and strength God grants us. To use them wisely is a form of piety, is it not?"
The Abbot smiled that thin, knowing smile again. "You have a theologian's tongue, for a boy who deals in iron. I will grant you this: you are an intriguing curiosity." He took a sip of wine. "But curiosity is not a currency the Abbey trades in. If your device fails tomorrow, remember that ridicule is a heavy burden to carry on a long road home. If it succeeds…" He left the sentence unfinished, letting the possibilities hang in the air between them.
The next morning, the entire monastic community of San Zaccaria gathered in solemn silence around the field known as the Devil's Anvil. The rising sun cast a golden light on the field's surface, which looked less like soil and more like a sheet of cracked, red pottery.
To establish the stakes, Abbot Paolo gestured to his own champion. A team of the Abbey's largest oxen was hitched to their best plow, a formidable tool in its own right. The monk guiding them, a man with shoulders like an ox himself, urged the team forward. The plow point screeched across the baked clay, kicking up dust and making a shallow, pathetic scratch no deeper than a finger. The oxen strained, but the earth would not yield. After ten paces of useless struggle, the monk gave up, shaking his head in defeat. The demonstration was clear.
A profound silence fell over the crowd as Enzo, his face pale and beaded with sweat, walked the Abbey's oxen to Alessandro's plow. He hitched them to the strange, heavy frame. Lorenzo stood nearby, a stone-faced guardian watching over his creation.
Alessandro caught Enzo's eye and gave him a single, reassuring nod.
Enzo took a deep breath and gave the command. The oxen lurched forward. The heavy plow's point bit into the clay. For a heart-stopping second, it seemed it too would fail, the resistance was so great.
Then, with a deep, groaning crack that seemed to come from the very bones of the world, the hardpan gave way.
It was not the elegant, silent slicing from their own valley. This was a brutal, noisy conquest. The iron coulter shattered the clay crust. The heavy share ripped through the compacted soil beneath. The great mouldboard, straining under the immense pressure, lifted a thick, fractured slab of reddish earth and, with a shuddering effort, forced it over.
The plow left a messy, shattered, but undeniably deep furrow in ground that had been untillable moments before.
It was not a pretty miracle. It was a violent one.
The plow team reached the end of the field. The monks stared, speechless, at the raw, open wound in the Devil's Anvil. They had just witnessed an act of impossible power.
Abbot Paolo's face was unreadable, a mask of calm contemplation. He walked forward into the field and knelt, picking up a clump of the shattered clay, crumbling it between his fingers. He stood, brushed the dust from his hands, and turned to face Alessandro. The calculating light in his eyes was brighter than the morning sun.
"A most compelling argument, Lord Alessandro," he said, his voice quiet, betraying none of the shock that held his monks in thrall. "You have my attention."
He gestured back towards the towering walls of the Abbey. "Let us retire to my study and discuss the price of such a miracle."