Saint Fire (Secret Books of Venus Series) (27 page)

“Send me word when you can.”

As she watched him go, Veronichi knew that she might never see him again. But she had always experienced this knowledge, every time he left her.

I was too proud. I must come down.

Cristiano contemplated the slope, a mental slope, a mortal one. So steep it was, he could not see the bottom. He had earned that trek by climbing up too high.

Around him, in the torch-lit dark, other men conferred, or rested briefly like himself. A woman sat sobbing, cradling a dead creature you took for a baby, until you saw it was a dog, its neck broken at once, (days before) by the plummeting roof.

Despise no thing
. No hurt or sorrow.

She had loved the dog. Love was love.

Through these days, lending his strength to the soldiers in their Ducal livery, the desperate Venerans in rags, clearing the rubble of the buildings smashed by Jurneia’s bolts and stones. Carrying out men and women, some living, although given up for lost. While most of Ve Nera celebrated, still this must go on.

He had dispensed with maculum and sword, and all the emblems of his calling. Warrior-priest, he had never been tonsured. No one knew him in his dark plain clothes now thick with blood and dust, (as hers had been that night when she prayed among
the dying.) They thought him, so he had gathered, some well-off merchant, magnanimous enough to come out and assist. But his strength and endurance, which the Church had made, were valuable.

When it was finished, and they no longer needed him, he would go back to the Primo, and to Danielus.

“Magister,” he would say, “I’m no longer fit for the Soldiery of God. Let me go over to the fellowship of the lay priesthood. I can serve better there. Man and Christ, both.”

But would Danielus argue—debate—with him? Maybe. It would be more difficult then. Perhaps that had to be, so that he must fight for this, his fall, his
penalty
, as for the other things he had wanted.

So if he must, he would say, “I love her more than God. That’s the greatest sin. I love her.”

But Danielus would say, he thought now, “Through such a love, God teaches us the greater Love, which is only possible in Christ.
Love
her. Cease struggling. Let her show you the way back to sanctity.”

And Cristiano would say, “I don’t seek to cast out my love. I’ll strive for her good. In every work of mine. In every prayer. But I must never look at her again, save from a great distance.”

If he had to, he would beg. “Let me go. For my soul’s sake. Let me go.”

And then the circle shaved from his hair, the belt empty of a sword, the dull and mundane robe. He would wait upon men. Not in pride, as he had, but in humility. Their servant.

Let me descend the hill of my pride
.

Cristiano rose, and moved to lift up another huge stone.

* * *

Ermilla stood to one side. Beatifica moved
constantly about the chamber. Her body and limbs, now quite unconsciously accustomed to the liberty of male clothing, strode like those of a young man.

Her crying was of another order.

It went on and on.

At first Ermilla and her sister had tried to sooth and reassure. They had brought the clean water and the dish of ripe, nicely-colored fruits set ready. Beatifica had not spared anything a glance.

“What does she say?”

It was a gabble—the girl had gone back to her former slavish accents and mumbling.

“She said at first she’d failed. That the fire had never come. I told her it had—but she never listened. Then I saw the unlit candle. I think she’s lost her holy, supernatural knack—is that why she’s crying so?”

Ermilla wrote swiftly to Fra Danielus, and her sister, also clad as a nun, took the letter down.

But the messenger would have to cross all those part-choked canals, to the marsh. It might take some time.

It had. The Luna Vigile had sounded, and still he was not here. And the girl went on and on crying. Poor little thing, her face was swollen, and her gray boy’s tunic all stained with wet. Somehow it was worse, the garb and the striding, with this womanly weeping.

Then suddenly Danielus walked in through the door, and Ermilla felt the awful tension shift away from her, like a veering sail.

“Thank you, Milla. Yes, I see how it is.”

At the sound of his voice, Beatifica did not check. Ermilla had believed she would. Then after all she made a sort of slight motion with her hands, as if trying to catch hold of something.

Fra Danielus crossed
to her. He stationed himself in her path, and as she turned about blindly and came towards him, he said, “Beatifica.”

And at this, the girl stopped still.

Ermilla crossed herself.

Beatifica raised her face, bloated by tears, the face of an infant that has lost its mother but perhaps found someone who may help. Ermilla knew this from her own children. Beatifica said, in a small dead little voice, “Magister.”

“Thank God,” Ermilla breathed, “she knows you.” But Danielus said softly, “Forgive me, Milla. But go out now.”

Ermilla obeyed. She was happy to be spared the rest.

Danielus placed his hands on the shoulders of Beatifica, lightly. He had a calming touch. Somehow all the legends of him were true. A lovely woman had made herself plain in order to stay with him. And once, a mad dog, running snarling up to him, had fallen dead coincidentally at his feet. But that had been because one of the Bellatae had killed it to preserve him.

“Now, Beatifica. Tell me why you’re crying. Have you been to a terrible place in sleep?”

“No,” she said. She hung her head. Between his hands he felt her fragile as a husk. Something was gone from her. It did not surprise, though it filled him with a kind of horror, when she said, in her former slavish voice, “The fire won’t come. I do as mumma said, but it won’t come. I couldn’t light my candle.”

“You mustn’t be afraid,” he said. He lied. She had reason. So did he. “What you’ve done has exhausted you.”

“I couldn’t—so I didn’t do as you asked—the ships—oh he’s dead—he’s dead—”

The sword of her, worse than lust or anger, turned in him.
Mea culpa. Oh God
the fault is mine. Perhaps this is what I have always denounced—a punishment, and well deserved. Tears—water not fire.

“No, Beatifica. You did all I asked and all the City asked. You saved Ve Nera, Beatifica.”

“How could I? I never can do it now. He died. He died.”

Danielus thought how he had stood with her before, explaining so simply, (just as he had about the farm, and the feast) that she must bring down fire to terrify the Jurneian fleet. He had not anticipated the magnitude of her response. He might have done. For when he had told her everything, he also told her the peril of Ve Nera without her intercession. He had said the Jurneians would slaughter them all. But, he had told her, that the Bellatae Christi would be tortured, for the Jurneians hated the knights of God. He had known, although she did not say this, that she asked him then,
And Cristiano, too
? Danielus had replied to her, “And Cristiano. He too they will kill, slowly and most wickedly.”

The Bellatae had become the source of her inspiration, her
impulse
, through which she worked her magic. He did not leave this crucial act to that alone. No. He let her understand that Cristiano, whom she loved, her angel—being in mortal flesh—might be subjected to an agonizing death if she should not call down the fire of Heaven.

Her answer—she had burnt seven hundred ships.

Lovers are selfish. Though she had convinced others that Heaven lay beyond death, she could not bear to lose her love, even to God. Who could?

And now, remembering none of it, finding she could not light this bloody candle, she broke her heart, which was that of the purest and most naive of children, thinking Cristiano had died
as Danielus had forewarned.

Yes, justly punished, I.

“Beatifica, Cristiano is unharmed. I swear to you upon the Wounds of the Christ. You know, do you not, I’d never offer such an oath for a falsehood. Look about you, where is the enemy? The City stands.”

Out of the web of swollen lids and laval tears, her eyes were at once returning. Like lamps through heavy mist.

“Cristiano—”

“Is alive. And whole. You brought the fire, Beatifica. That’s why it fails you now. Burnt out, my dear girl, my gentle girl. But he lives, through you.”

Never in his life, he thought, had he seen such eyes on him.

And this also was his punishment. To be her savior, when he himself had first thrust her down to Hell. Sickened, he let her go.

And Beatifica said to him, in the trained silver voice she had recently come to have, “Where is he?”

There was no other recourse. The game had turned into a snare. Meshed as he was, he owed her all the time he did not have. All the risks he must not take.

“I’ll send for him at once. And while you wait, you must eat and drink.”

“When I see him.” Obdurate. As only women ever could be in such a pass. (Veronichi:
I will die
.)

“When you see him. But sit here. And sip the water.”

“Send for him.”

Danielus, her slave, hastened to the door. He called out into the corridor.

For an hour then, they waited. For another hour.

The secret of her concealment was out. Servants, then Bellatae, came to the door. None had found Cristiano. Jian came, and kneeled to her,
and Danielus beheld how she had learned to be truly gracious, for she touched his forehead, and thanked him, only her eyes again going far off. Danielus persuaded Jian to leave.

In the third hour, when Cristiano had not been found, her eyes went right away into the mist.

She began to weep again, in deep, convulsive, low cries.

Water, not fire.

Tears not joy.

The lesson of pain not the teaching of Heaven.

Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa
.

And in the fourth or fifth hour, when the Prima Vigile had long sounded and faded, other steps, other voices.

Danielus, going out, beheld the Eyes and Ears of the Council of the Lamb.

They had not come for him.

For her. This lost and weeping child. For her.

O, Burn her, burn her! Hanging is too good.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Henry VI Part One

O
NE HOUR AFTER THE DAWN
A
uroria
, the trial began
of the Maiden Beatifica.

The day was, even so early, very hot. It was the Lion month. Soon, the prisoner would be sixteen years of age. And since she had never been sure of her dates, it was conceivable she might be sentenced to die on her birthday. God’s Chamber of Justice was a room kept distinct from the secular justice of the City. The latter was conducted elsewhere by Ve Nera’s magistrates, or, in infrequent higher cases, the Ducem. All trials that had to do with the Church took place, as did the priestly inquiries and torturing, in one of the several under-rooms, reached by long corridors that ran below the Primo and the square. Many who had been questioned, (by voice or instruments) had come to learn the long winding walk (or drag) to the Chamber, and back to the cells and the black boxes of pain and terror, most without one window.

By religious law, as by common law, all were supposedly tried. But the trial was often brief, and the accused sent in minutes to be investigated more thoroughly. In some instances too, an investigation was conducted somewhat prior to the trial. For more general offenses—vanity,
lewdness, the failure to declare eligibility for, or render payment of the Council’s taxes—only the most cursory bow was given to the ethic of a trial. The wrong-doer never saw God’s Chamber, having given up the ghost.

For the Maiden, a trial was decreed essential. And, though it had been thought unwise to conduct it publicly, (the rabble would crowd in and interrupt, mistaking it for a show) even so, representatives of the people must attend.

The Ducem himself might well have been called to do so; this was a rare case. But he was miles away, lying sick at Forchenza. He had sent instead two of his advisors, Prince Tizanio and Prince Ulisse.

God’s Chamber of Justice, though underground, was powerfully lit, night or day, by flaring torches. It was a large room, and the torches needed for it numbered over a hundred. The rising heat of the City above would soon be nothing to the heat of this buried space.

On a raised platform, under the theological banners of the Lion with Child, and the winged Lion, and the white and gold banner which proclaimed in Latin
Peace to you, Ve Nera
, sat three judges.

Each was clad, not in black, but a heartening, cloudless white. They had been appointed by the Council of the Lamb, (which sat now, all twelve members, ranked to the right of the dais.) Collectively, these judges bore the name of Shepherds of God. Their duty was to drive off menacing sin from the soul of the accused. They would do this as sternly and brutally as any good shepherd faced by a ravening wolf.

Before the ranked Council sat the Interlocutor, in gray. Next, sat the Pro-Sequitor.
His
duty was to follow after any hint or scent of wrong, driving it towards the Shepherds.
This man wore red. He was not Brother Isaacus, and yet, in the strangest way he almost seemed to be. For Isaacus sat directly at his back, and was speaking to him often, very low, the hoarse words indecipherable. To the left of the dais, on a bench, sat one Magister Major of the Primo. Normally no Magister would be summoned, but in such an unusual case, his presence was asked. And today his purpose was dual. He, and they, knew it. But Danielus sat composed, without any papers or books about him, such as the Council and the Pro-Sequitor had laid out. His hands were clasped lightly. And the emerald gleamed on his finger, steady, disturbed only by fluctuations of the lights.

Behind Fra Danielus stood a line of the Bellatae Christi, of the Upper Echelon. This was not, given the importance of the case, anomalous. However, the Council had looked askance at it. The Soldiers of God were counted. In all there were twenty-five of them. It was known besides that almost all the lower Bellatae Militia salvaged from Ciojha, were above, packed in around the square. There were also the bemused crowds, some of whom had come to the Primo, it was understood, because they thought the Council meant to honor the Maiden there. And how would it go when they learned otherwise?