The Blessed (19 page)

Lady Blanchette stared at her for a long moment. The tiniest glimmer of hope stole into her gray eyes. Slowly she sank to her knees, still holding Daria's hands. “Lead me, holy woman. Heal me.”

Daria knelt as well. “I am holy only inasmuch that God chooses to dwell within me, as he chooses to dwell within you, too. This is of your Lord and your God, not of me. I am but his instrument.”

She urged the lady to lie down upon her back and waved Gaspare and Piero nearer. She found Lord Blanchette and invited him closer too. “I must ask your permission, m'lady, for us each to place a hand upon you.”

The lady nodded, fear and wonder in her eyes. Piero was at her head, anointing her with an oil and praying in a whisper. Gianni reached to take a hand. Lord Blanchette held the other. Gaspare laid a hand on the lady's belly. Tessa leaned in to touch the lady's shoulder. Daria placed one hand on her liver and lifted the other to the ceiling.

The others in the room seemed to hold their collective breath. It was utterly silent.

“Father God,” Daria prayed, closing her eyes, feeling the Holy Spirit cover every inch of her, sending a shiver down her back. “Thank you for drawing near. We praise you for being present, here. Now. You have called for this lady to know healing. Cover the cancer that invades her belly now. Hold it in your hand, Lord. Take it from her. Squeeze it into oblivion. Fill her belly with healing balm. We ask this of you now. Our King, our Savior. Please, heal this daughter. Let her know you are here, now, Father.”

A surge went through them all, like the force of a mighty wind, at once upon them and then gone, as it had been with Lord Devenue. Lady Blanchette cried out.

The nobles gasped. One woman gave a little shriek of fear. Then they waited.

After a moment, Lady Blanchette began to laugh. First a breathless chortle, then a longer laugh. Gianni helped pick Daria up from the floor, and Daria smiled at Gaspare and Piero, then at Lady Blanchette. The noblewoman gave in to another free, deep belly laugh.

Her husband went to her and studied her face and then began smiling as well. But Daria and Gaspare were already moving toward Duke Richardieu, who was on his knees and looking at them as if he knew what was to come. He accepted Daria placing her hands on each of his ears, Gaspare's hands on each of his shoulders from behind.

Everyone was now on their knees.

Everyone felt his presence.

“Do you believe in the Lord God on High, my brother? Do you believe he cares about you and knows your plight?” Daria asked, intuitively knowing that this man had always believed, known God in an uncommon way, waited upon him in trust and faith. She could see it in his eyes. They were as clear, as knowing and open as his ears were blocked.

“With everything in me,” he said.

“Then be healed,” Gaspare said.

“Yes,” Daria said, “Today, now in the name of Jesus Christ, your scars shall fade away and you . . . shall . . . be . . . healed.”

Daria stumbled backward into Gianni's waiting arms. But she was entirely focused upon Duke Richardieu.

Eyes wide, he slowly looked over to his wife. “Say something to me in a whisper,” he said, his tone no longer too loud.

She whispered something to him, eyes full of wonder and tears.

And then he laughed, laughed until tears crested his lids and tracked down his face, glittering in the glowing, flickering candlelight. He turned to Daria and said, “I can hear. I can hear everything. The Richardieus, m'lady, are in your service.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

ABRAMO walked down the candlelit hallway to his quarters, confident that he had Cardinal Bordeau firmly in hand. He had agreed to bring his closest comrades among the cardinals to meet with Amidei on the morrow.

Abramo met two of his men walking in the opposite direction and paused to confer with them, handing each a bag of silver. They were to bring back the choicest flesh they could find to appease the cardinal's carnal appetites. He paused in his own quarters only long enough to take a long, hooded cape from a chest and pull it about his shoulders. It was raining again outside. He could hear the steady drumbeat of the raindrops atop the ceramic tiles of the roof.

Abramo swept down the stairs, shaking his head when two men tried to accompany him as guards, and again when a beguiling woman, one of his archers, matched his steps. “No,
cherie
,” he said, turning to kiss her. He nipped at her lip, drawing blood, and she came after him more urgently. They stood in the hall, kissing hungrily, until he took her firmly by the arms and set her aside. “I shall be back in a few hours. Be waiting for me in my quarters.”

“As you wish,” said the woman, turning at once.

Amidei tore his eyes from her and continued down the stairs, wishing he had not left her sister behind to aid Vincenzo in his attack. How had they fared? Had they managed to divide the Gifted? To lay any of them low? Why had the man not sent a messenger with word of their progress?

He was in the stables, waiting for the boy to bring his saddled horse, when a messenger at last arrived, worn and wet from a long, hard ride. He moved toward the man, recognizing his cape. “You come with word from Baron del Buco?”

“Indeed, m'lord,” the man panted. He dismounted and fished a letter from his side satchel. He grinned as he handed it to him. “M'lord, permit me to tell you the best of it.”

“Be about it, then,” Abramo groused. There was little light to read a letter anyway. He would read it later. “How does the baron fare?”

“Very well, m'lord.”

“And?”

“And your orders were carried out,” the messenger said lowly. “We were able to take down two of the Duchess's knights.”

“Killed them?”

“They are dead.”

“Well done,” Abramo said, clapping him on the shoulder as if he were del Buco himself.

“We would have taken more had not the cardinal come to their aid,” the man said.

“Cardinal?” Abramo asked, feeling the pain of his empty eye socket when he narrowed his eyes with a frown. “Which cardinal?”

“A Boeri. De Vaticana de Roma.”

Abramo rocked back on his heels. This was poor news. He had been here and told the pope of the Gifted. Now he went to their aid?

“He had with him the slave, the man captured in Venezia.”

Abramo's consternation and confusion grew. “The slave? Daria d'Angelo's Hasani? How is that possible? I sent him off with Turkish slavers.” He paced back and forth, his mind racing.

“Mayhap they were intercepted.”

“Mayhap.” The doge's men, most likely. Abramo stifled a growing need in his belly to growl out his frustration. Hasani was a direct threat, with his gift of visions. He should have killed him, before Daria's eyes, flayed the flesh from his bones until none was left.

What had Hasani seen ahead that he himself could not see? Would he keep the Gifted from falling into his trap, here in Avignon?

He stuffed Vincenzo's letter into a pocket of his cape and mounted his stallion. He must get to the woods outside Avignon, deep inside the cave, and find communion with his master. His master would know what to do, give him guidance and direction, as he always did. And once he had his orders, he would return to the palace to ease his fury in the woman who awaited him even now.

“THEY will lay waste to you and yours,” said a grim Duke Richardieu. Healed, whole, he was their patron, fully in their service, but he grew more and more agitated when he knew it was their aim to go to Avignon to address the pope himself. “Why not continue your ministry in secret? Why not continue to travel and heal and preach and minister to those about the country? Why must you march through the gates of a city that is destined to bring you down?”

“Because we can do the greatest good if we can persuade the pope to think differently, to see that God is alive and well and calling to us, his people, to worship him as king, instead of the Church, his earthly vessel.”

“You do not believe the Holy Father thinks his God is alive and well?”

“Alive and well,” Piero said, pacing, his small hands clenched together behind his back. “But I fear he sees God as his instrument in the heavens, rather than himself as God's instrument on earth. We are but poor vessels, able to do only what God deems best. But the papacy . . . it is an office fraught with difficulty.”

“Cornelius is widely known as a wise and prudent man. His Cistercian roots serve him well.”

“Indeed. But already he has built a new palace where the old would no longer apparently do.”

“Ignoring the vast buildings at his disposal already, in Roma,” Cardinal Boeri put in.

“In his stead,” Piero continued, “any man might be swayed by the power, the prestige. You must know the perils yourself, my lord. A simple man knows his place. With a surfeit of money, success . . . one begins to think himself a rival of God.”

“ ‘A rival of God,' ” Petrarch remarked, chin in hand. “Mind if I borrow that, Father?”

Gianni watched as Daria leaned farther into the corner of her chair and raised a tired hand to her brow. The healings had sapped her energy. He caught her eye and gently nodded toward the door with a smile, urging her to take her leave.

He looked about the room. “Gentlemen, ladies,” Gianni said, “mayhap we might continue this conversation come daybreak. The night is deep and much has transpired. Let us take our rest and return to our discussions with sharper wit and mind come morn.”

“Well said,” Piero agreed. He rose, and one by one, the Gifted and the nobles filtered out of the room. Only Gianni, Piero, and Hasani, standing as if a sentry in the corner, remained.

“All in all, an inspiring day,” Piero said to Gianni, reaching up to pat the large knight on the shoulder. They turned toward the door and looked back to see if Hasani was following. “It will be—”

Piero broke off and fully turned to study Hasani, trembling and wide-eyed in the corner. The man stared into the distance, as if watching a troubling scene play out before him. His breathing was shallow and fast.

The small priest pulled Gianni to a halt, not wishing their movement to disturb the seer's vision. Patiently they waited for Hasani's vision to come to an end. Never before had they witnessed their friend in the midst of one.

When it ended, Hasani slumped against the wall.

Gianni took a step toward him, but the tall man was already righting himself. He glanced at Piero and Gianni and then looked away, as if embarrassed at having been caught. How long had it gone on? Could he control it at all?

“You must draw what you have seen,” Piero said.

But Hasani was already on the move. They trailed him upstairs, to the count's private hall, to the desk, parchment, and ink that Gianni knew Armand had given Hasani permission to use at any time.

“Is it all right, man?” Gianni asked. “To watch you work?”

Hasani ignored him, already pulling the stopper out of the ink.

“I would take that as approval,” Piero said with a dry smile.

He was clumsy at first, eager to get the drawing down, as if fearful he might forget what he had seen. They soon saw that there were three drawings, and Hasani did a rough outline of one, moved to the next, then the next.

Gianni eyed Piero. They could not yet make anything out of any of the drawings.

Hasani moved the other two drawings to a side table in order to dry without smearing, and set upon the first with amazing skill and speed. In short order, Gianni could make out Abramo, with his eye patch, walking with two cardinals, men Gianni did not know. “Mayhap Boeri can identify them,” he whispered to Piero.

“We must warn these men of the evil in their midst,” Piero said.

“Mayhap they are already one with him. We must tread carefully.”

Piero groaned. Even after all they had seen, discovered, witnessed, it pained him to see Christian brothers potentially deceived and in league with the enemy.

In minutes, the second drawing was taking more shape: a giant of a man, hovering with the hilt of a sword in both hands, ready to pierce another on the ground with full force. As Hasani added facial features, he paused and glanced briefly at Gianni. Sweat dripped down his black temples and down his neck.

The giant was Ciro, the knight who had taken Hasani captive in Venezia, stolen the papers he carried that declared him a freed man. The one who had haunted them in Siena, nearly taken them down on Amidei's dark isle. The leader on the pier, who had ordered the archers to send their arrows flying toward Gianni, piercing Piero instead. A man close to both Amidei and del Buco. The same man who had threatened Daria again and again.

“Still alive, it seems,” Gianni growled, kicking out his chin, urging Hasani to move on, do what he must.

Hasani dipped his quill in the ink, glanced at Gianni again, and completed his drawing.

The man on the ground was Gianni, wounded, his own sword several paces away. Gianni stared at the illustration for several minutes, unmoving.

So this was how it would end for him? Dead by Ciro's sword?

He laughed hollowly. “Do I not even deserve Amidei's own blade? Vincenzo's? Will the Lord not honor me in death with an equal opponent?”

“Cease,” said Piero. “Do not continue that train of thought. You do not know what will happen before this moment”—he paused to tap the drawing—“nor after it.”

“Look at it, Father,” Gianni said bitterly, waving at the parchment in agitation. “You, a holy man, may not recognize a death blow, but I do.” He pounded his chest. He wanted to live . . . live to get through this with Daria and the others and see them all to a time of peace. He wanted to return to Italia with Daria, to know a life with her that did not include constant danger. He wanted . . .