This episode is an exercise in restorative justice, featuring the extraordinary participation of Thrix Macrinnalch.
The starting point is the title.
The first time I wrote those words, I did so with a sharp edge (“you and your court of miracles!”) during a foolish argument on social media. And those words hurt.
I felt sorry about it — because in truth, I like the court of miracles — but when words cut, good intentions are not enough to mend the tear.
A couple of years later, Thrix reused the very same words (apparently forgetting where they came from) as the title of a beautiful editorial project: a colouring book “to exorcise stigma, deconstruct bullying, and subvert and reclaim the slur.”
I was moved. It was the first time someone had taken my wrong words and transformed them into something good. I told her so, we talked about it, and our friendship was stitched back together.
With this story, I tried to return the favour — at least in part. And I believe I succeeded, because she says she loved it.
In the tale — inspired by the Tarot with No Name, or Death, whom I like to call Jolene — Thrix joins Admiral Andrea Doria in assigning a series of restorative destinies to the band of colonizers taken hostage three episodes ago, with the addition of a few special guests.
The Regina Isabella pitches off the coast of Portovenere, like an animal exhausted after days of hunting.
On the deck linger the echoes of the last upheaval: the liberation of Albert the Great, sent off in a dinghy with a proposal of peace for Andrea Doria; the game of El Grande that had turned pirates, emperors, and popes into pupils of an improbable ethics of survival; the nocturnal visit of Margherita Hack, with her difficult questions; and the fever-dream of the Hanged Man at the Cascine.
Now the ship seems deserted, except for me and my two companions.
I sit cross-legged on the quarterdeck; Leo Africanus scans the horizon a short distance away, while beside me sits Casanova, cleaning his nails with a carving knife as though he were in a Venetian boudoir.
“Is it over?” I ask him.
“Nothing is ever over, my dear,” he replies, examining his cuticles as if they mattered more than the geopolitical balance of the Mediterranean. “At most, it begins again somewhere else.”
Leone nods toward the coast. “Genoa awaits us. And with it, the price of our choices.”
Then he adds, in that voice of his that always sounds like it comes from the backroom of fate:
“The hostages we must free are not dust to be brushed away. Their guilt does not exempt us from compassion: every life handled demands a restitution.”
The word restitution strikes me like an oar-blow.
A sudden wind rises, the kind that opens doors between worlds.
The sails swell, the Regina Isabella gathers speed, and as soon as the bow crests the next wave, One-Eyed Willy appears on the lower deck. He wears a white bandana, and on his shoulder perches a bedraggled bird.
A limping pigeon, with more fleas than feathers, and the gaze of someone who knows more versions of the truth than it is wise to hear.
“It’s time,” it croaks.
I stare at it, astonished.
Willy doesn’t flinch, and simply says— as though the matter were perfectly reasonable:
“A message has arrived from Jolene. Don’t look at me like that; you know exactly which Lady I mean. She has followed the laments of the hostages all the way here. She says the Court of Miracles is summoning you.”
The pigeon fixes me with one eye, black as a hole in the sky.
“You’ve left debts behind,” it says. “And the dead are out of patience.”
Leone stiffens. Casanova straightens his spine as if someone had just spoken the name of an old lover.
Everyone knows what it means to be summoned by the Court: it is not a criminal trial, but a meeting with the mirror. A re-examination of the threads you have pulled, knotted, broken, or ignored.
A justice that is not satisfied with a verdict: it wants to unweave and reweave connections.
“Where are we being summoned?” I ask.
Willy points to the coast. “To the Palazzo di San Giorgio, in Genoa. Into the belly of the city that Barbarossa never took—except in name given to its walls.”
The pigeon flutters onto the railing, puffs out its chest, and adds in a tone that allows no reply:
“And don’t be late. Other hostages arrived before you. Now we must figure out what to make of them.”
Then it launches into a crooked flight toward the port, leaving an iridescent feather to fall onto my hand.
Before us, the port of Genoa comes into view: solemn, open and yet inaccessible, carved into the wind like an omen.
The Regina Isabella glides in, silent, toward the Palazzo di San Giorgio — which the sea still laps against, loyal as a dog or treacherous as a god — and we prepare to disembark.
There are eight of us: myself, Leo, Casanova, Pope Borgia, Marcus Aurelius, Caterina di Ferdinando de’ Medici, Willy the One-Eyed, and the youngest of the Barbarossas, dressed in brocade with waxed mustaches, emissary of the great Khayr ed-Din.
On the stone steps of the quay, two marble lions stand guard over our arrival. In the sky, a lightning bolt splits the cloud covering the sun: more than a weather phenomenon, it feels like a seal finally cracking open.
As soon as our feet touch the dock, the Barbarossa crosses his arms over his chest and murmurs something in Arabic — a Qur’anic verse, perhaps an oath, or perhaps both.
Leo Africanus lifts his gaze, studying every corner as though it were an ancient manuscript; while Casanova smooths his hair back with theatrical flair.
“In Genoa,” he says, “even Death puts on her makeup before making an appearance.”
Slowly, from the arcades behind the palace, two figures advance, wrapped in black cloaks, their faces hidden beneath Venetian masks.
Their craftsmanship must once have been exquisite, but now the feathers are soaked, the pearls blackened by salt, and the veils cling to their cheeks like forgotten tears.
When they reach us, they remove their masks. Beneath the cracked white plaster emerge two ancient faces:
They are Mauro and Eleuterio, martyrs of the sea, contested for centuries between Genoa and Venice — brothers sworn upon the deck of a galley, before the same chains dragged them down into two different waters.
Now they return together, dressed in light and sea-salt. Their hands, still marked by shackles, gleam like branches of coral. It is said that their blood, scattered across the Adriatic and the Tyrrhenian, taught the fish not to fear borders.
We are about to speak when a woman’s voice slices through the silence:
“My loves! Late as usual!”
From the most ramshackle carriage in the port — a miracle of crooked wheels painted fuchsia and turquoise — steps Aunt Thrix, undisputed Queen of Genoa’s queer scene.
Her pink hair falls over her shoulders like a domestic wildfire; her dress is a wandering altar to Frida Kahlo: pierced hearts, weeping stags, hands praying without God. At the corners of her eyes she has glued two emeralds, and on her lips a smile that tastes of rum and rough-edged mercy.
When the echo of her voice fades, Genoa shifts register.
The shadows beneath the arcades stir, and from them emerges a freak Court of Miracles, a carnival of souls who have rewritten their own forms:
a gayguaro with amber pupils and a feline stride,
a leopard-bear laughing like a thunderstorm,
a depraved drag queen with ostrich wings and a broken rosary,
a zorra y mucha honra smoking from an ivory cigarette holder,
a homewrecker in leather boots and lace jacket,
a southern faggot with a hairy chest and a cross-shaped earring,
and a comrade with a cunt, holding a drum and beating the rhythm of destiny.
“Welcome to the Court of Miracles,” Aunt Thrix proclaims,
“where no one is saved and no one is lost.
Here even Death allows herself a laugh before the kiss.”
And in that moment I understand that the crossing has only just begun, and that Genoa is not merely a port, but a stage.
And the curtain, only just raised, smells of sea, of wine, and of resurrection.
On the seafront, the sky turns the color of copper.
The sea goes quiet. Even the boats stop creaking, as if they were holding their breath.
Silent, the queer crowd encircles us like a ring of multicolored flame.
There is no trace of hatred in their gazes, only attention — which is far more hard to bear than hatred. This unsettles even more the small band of colonizers whom the Barbary pirates tore away from their arrogance, their dogmas, their presumptions of dominion.
Aunt Thrix steps forward, her dress rustling like a curtain, and plants herself before us, staring down the hostages one by one with the air of someone unimpressed by a few aristocratic beards.
“Welcome to the Court of Restorative Judgment,” she says, enunciating the words as if they were the opening formula of a rite.
Mauro and Eleuterio take their places at her sides, like two side-altar saints of a shrine that seeks no conversions, only truth.
Then a shutter bangs open, and on the balcony of Palazzo San Giorgio appears a man in armor, a pale and austere face, a gaze that has witnessed too many centuries.
It is Andrea Doria, the immortal admiral — lord of the sea and of betrayals, keeper of pacts no one dares read anymore. He raises a hand, sheathed in iron, and his voice — hoarse as a torn sail — rolls across the harbor:
“Know this,” he says, in a tone that seems carved in stone, “you do not stand before a human tribunal. Here we do not punish: we repair. And every debt, if acknowledged, may be dissolved.”
Thrix smiles, as if she had been waiting precisely for that moment. Doria continues:
“It is time to return to the sea what is owed to it. In exchange for your wandering shadows, I offer four names: three are guides for your missions, and the fourth is the hostage that Genoa offers as pledge to Death.”
With impeccable timing, four figures advance from the palace gate, each preceded by a different reflection of the sea.
The first in line is Lawrence of Arabia — tall, feverish, his keffiyeh billowing like a forgotten banner. His hands are stained with sand and shattered dreams, and in his eyes lives the desert that recognizes no masters.
“I forged alliances between the wind and the Empire,” he says, “but the latter recognizes no treaties and thinks only of itself; and in the end I betrayed those I had sworn to protect.”
Behind him, limping slightly, advances Richard Burton, the explorer and translator who brought The Thousand and One Nights to Europe and the fever of the Orient into puritan hearts.
His beard glistens with sweat, his voice worn by too many languages. “I offered wisdom,” he murmurs, “and along with it, its perversion. I failed in Damascus, and let too many secrets be lost.”
Following them is Nina Simone, in a violet gown studded with stars. She walks barefoot on the wet stone, every step a thunderclap, every breath a promise.
“I don’t need to be saved, nor do I have sins to atone for — I think,” she says. “But I’m here to sing for those who keep trying.” Slung over her shoulder is a weathered keyboard, polished by salt.
Half-hidden behind them walks Christopher Columbus, in chains. His face is pale beneath the sunburn, his eyes extinguished, his cloak smelling of mold and shame. He holds a cracked compass that always points back at him.
“I thought I was discovering a world,” he says quietly, “but I only lost my humanity.”
Andrea Doria lays a hand of iron upon him. “And now, to save us from extinction, you must first repair the original sin of modernity: your first voyage.”
Aunt Thrix tilts her head, her pink hair stirred by the wind. “A fine haul, Admiral. But you don’t trade souls for icons.”
Doria smiles, and behind the smile creaks the ice of centuries.
“I seek no souls. I seek stories that still breathe. These four remember what humanity has forgotten: the desert, desire, rhythm, and remorse.”
Leo Africanus bows. “And us? What do you ask of us? We have died more times than they.”
The wind rises. The waves thump against the pier like drums.
“You are the pledge,” Doria says. “The guarantee of the future. A covenant to save the species from the fever that has set the earth alight. A play of mirrors and inheritances.”
A thunderclap answers from offshore, and for an instant everyone — saints, lovers, explorers, and monsters — feels part of the same breath.
Andrea Doria opens the ledger of destinies, while Aunt Thrix hands him a peacock quill.
Marcus Aurelius receives a cuirass of mist and a train ticket for the North.
His mission is to reach Hadrian’s Wall, where William Wallace still screams Freedom! across centuries and ruins. He must convince him that freedom, to survive, must learn the discipline of tenderness.
“We shall speak of philosophy, not war,” promises the emperor, his gaze already drifting beyond the horizon, among the mists and the ghosts of the legions.
Borgia and Leo Africanus are given a document sealed with blue wax and a train ticket to Rome.
They must slip into the labyrinth of Italian power and attempt to graft a little logos into the heart of a government that confuses providence with publicity, and care with surveillance. In the meantime — by divine mercy and human irony — they will also take care of a certain Marie Curie fellowship that concerns me.
“We’ll handle it,” says Leo. “Wisdom is our trade.”
Borgia smirks: “And diplomacy.”
Lawrence of Arabia and Richard Burton, accompanied by the Barbarossa, receive a scroll smelling of sand and cinnamon. Their destination: Gaza. They must bring not a weapon but a language, helping build a shared dictionary for the living and the dead before they devour one another.
Burton is already jotting notes: “Peace is a dialect of courage.”
Lawrence adds: “And of regret.”
One-Eyed Willy receives a wide-brimmed hat and a rosary of shells.
He is the most reluctant, the most ambiguous — until he unmasks his true identity: beneath the fake beard and eyepatch stands Silvio Berlusconi, survivor of himself, now condemned to the limbo of the cells of Palazzo San Giorgio.
Aunt Thrix peers at him through heart-shaped lenses.
“Berlu is mine,” she declares, “but I want him reincarnated as a little girl.”
A murmur ripples through spectators and hostages alike, as if the request were both sacrilegious and just.
“A little girl?” Doria asks, tightening his lips.
“Yes — daughter of Eritrean refugees in a South African township. As disadvantaged as possible, please. I want to see him learn shame and grace together. I want him to know hunger — but also to remember his passion for songs.”
Nina Simone, silent until now, nods slowly.
“To guide her, I’ll give her the voice,” she says. “A voice that can turn the echo of lies into a cry of love. But the rest — survival, home, the daily struggle of poverty — he’ll have to learn alone.”
I raise the stakes, half laughing, half serious:
“Let’s put him in Italy; with all the Eritreans we have, he might as well play on home turf. Let’s see if he can save himself in the country he helped blind.”
Aunt Thrix laughs — that gravelly laugh that tastes of buridda and stage makeup, of an ancient world that has survived so many ends of the world that it has lost the fear of death, though not the respect owed to it.
“Then it’s settled,” she concludes. “Let her be born like this: with ebony skin, Nina’s voice, and the memory of someone who once believed himself immortal.”
When Columbus’s turn arrives, the assembly grows still.
Doria looks at him for a long time, like a father who knows he must offer a son in sacrifice to the sea.
“I grant you the Céleusta,” Doria says at last, “a six-by-two-forty–meter inflatable, like the ones that cross the Mediterranean today. It’s light, but stable. I’ve prepared the essentials: a magnetic compass, a hand-crank radio, two twenty-liter jerrycans of water, an emergency dacron sail, a six-horsepower outboard engine, six rations of dried food, and a solar-powered GPS. You’ll also have a fishing net and a reflective tarp, for sun and cold alike. And a Bible, if you want it.
You must reach Peru to ask for your forgiveness — with no guarantee it will be granted.”
Columbus nods, stroking the Céleusta the way he once touched the Santa María.
“What route must I take?” he asks.
“You’ll follow the trade winds, as before. You’ll head down toward Cape Verde, then let yourself be carried west. The same stars you betrayed will guide you.
If the wind is kind, you may reach Barbados first, then cross the Caribbean Sea to Colón, at the threshold of Panama. There your sea-journey ends — where the world splits into two oceans, like two consciences. The rest you’ll do on foot, through the Darién. No concessions there.”
Columbus smiles — a tired but lucid smile.
“Then this time I will discover the West for real. Not to claim it, but to ask its forgiveness.”
And so he boards the Céleusta, his small grey ark, which slips away across the harbor waters like a held breath.
Behind him, on the shore, someone murmurs:
“May the sea be gentle with you, Admiral — once more.”
At last only I remain, with Casanova and Caterina de’ Medici.
They laugh; I hold my breath. Our course is set for Monferrato, land of vineyards, fog, and confidences.
The mission assigned to us is a gentle one: there is a certain Giacinto to discuss — and perhaps a new Eden to invent, if time is merciful.
Aunt Thrix closes the ledger with a snap of her fan, while Andrea Doria solidifies once again, returning to his armor of salt.
And the sea — finally — begins to breathe again.
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