Saint Fire (Secret Books of Venus Series)

by Tanith Lee

  “But—Pliny—”

  “Perhaps all the Roman books, and the Greeks, must go in there. For a while.”

  “Carpocrates is there already.”

  “Wise Venus. Thank you.”

  You think that the Council will dare—”

  “To question me. It’s conceivable.”

  “And to search your rooms—”

  “Also.”

  “Oh, Daniel—”

  “Hush. Listen to me. Your race of all the earth knows the injustice and the pain of life.”

  She had put her hands to her face. She took them down. She said simply, “Tell me. I’m ready.”

  “I have many plans, and many who may assist. However, I’m vulnerable now. I have shown my hand clearly, and at the last moment, lost the valuable weapon—which obviously I considered mine by right. So the arrogant bring themselves to grief. The girl is still in her trance, this I wrote to you. I think she may wake quite soon. But—too late. In the days and nights directly after the firestorm, then she was needed. I’ve been a fool. How could such a power pass through her and not suck her dry? I only pray she’ll come back of sound mind. Able to see and speak and walk.”

  “Pray God she will.”

  “Meanwhile the Brothers of the Lamb, and others discontented, are working like yeast in dough. The man Isaacus—I have learned his history. He was a felon, a thief and cut-throat, at eleven years sentenced to hanging. They duly hanged him. And he lived. Yes, after a day, when cut down, and as they carried him to the Isle of the Dead, he revived. Now we know the reason for his hoarseness. The rope impaired his voice, but could do nothing else. It seems he thought God had worked a miracle for him. He entered the priesthood. Such was his self-denial, his devotion—his fanaticism—that he rose high. To the spot where now we find him. No one is more zealous than a convert. One has only to consider San Paolo, after Damascus. This Isaacus is stronger than I thought—and still, it seems, immune to violent death. Since I’ve also learnt certain lords of the City recently tried to have him slain. But he survived the attack unscathed, and the assassins have disappeared.”

  Veronichi rose. She brought the wine and gave it to him. Danielus drank. He said, “Isaacus sees the world as the mirror of himself. It must be as corrupt and evil as he, in his beginning, and, like him, must go through the school of agony to redemption. Only through suffering can mankind be made whole. But this is the lesson our Church teaches men. The Church has made Isaacus.” He sighed. “I was so careful all these years. I spoke publicly only what was permitted, merely seasoning it a little, tempering the whirlwind. And here and there, now and then, trying to let fall a little light. So the intelligent might see through the windows I tried to make. Some have. But the slowness of it, Veronichi—Then the girl with her fire. I thought I too had been given my miracle.”

  “I know, my love. You deserved a miracle.”

  “If she’d slept only an hour or so. A day. If I could have taken her out to them—I see it in my head a thousand times. The acclaim of her, the shouting and vivacity. They would have swarmed to her—a war won, without bloodshed, gladly. Yes, even the priesthood. How could they deny her gift or God’s promise? It occurred before their eyes. And I could, by the light of Beatifica, have thrust the Council away, down to Hell where it belongs. Sarco would have helped me—he was primed and ready—not even for gain. From an anger like my own. That man, with his face that men see as ugly and evil—and his good, sensible heart. And Isaacus, who has no look of anything, who at ten years raped grandmothers and drowned cats for entertainment.”

  “Could you not—”

  “No, sweet love. I have said, too late. She slept. She sleeps. The City already forgets. The old order is coming back. I saw a woman tonight who thought more of the loss of her bed than the incredible saving of her life. This is how we are. The many-colored Wonderful is no coat we can put on for everyday. And there’s a new story besides. The Maiden, it seems, misled us all. She burned the ships—but failed to kill the heathen enemy, because she is the Devil’s dupe. Ve Nera was spared destruction, in order to damn all the souls that are in her. As one spoils a child, giving it only sweets. We are the plaything of Satanus, now.”

  “I see.”

  “If the worst comes … It won’t. It may. You too must deny me.” Veronichi turned her head. “Deny me. If they examine you, speak of my harshness. That I beat you and kept you ignorant. If they examine you physically, then I forced you.”

  “Daniel—no—”

  “Yes. I raped you, and have often raped you. You were kept in fear, and could never even confess it, for fear—of me.”

  “Very well.”

  “Deny you can read any script save Latin. They know you read Latin. I made you learn it to assist me. Of course in practices and strategies you never understood. I beat you worse if you asked.”

  “Very well.”

  “You are rejoiced that now you need no longer endanger your soul, but can speak to them freely. They are your rescuers.”

  “Very well.”

  He took her face in his own hands, now. He kissed her lips, abstemiously. “Remember, if I die—I shan’t, but I may—I have faith in God. I believe this imbecilic world is not one half of what exists. Once dead, I shall know. And I am free.”

  “I shall die too. The Romans are fine teachers of method.”

  “Ask to become a nun. That will save you.”

  She leered now like a wolf. Her face was cruel. “What? And cut off my hair? Never. I’ll die.”

  He nodded. “Only if it’s your wish. I can wait.”

  Now, with no excitement, they held each other.

  He said, “But this may never happen.”

  Outside, a hand struck on the door, and next moment tried the latch.

  Veronichi got up at once, thrusting her tresses, with a practiced hand, inside the bald cap.

  Into the room came a man from the Primo. He handed the Magister a paper.

  Danielus read. He looked unhurried, almost indifferent.

  “Yes, I’ll come, then.” He sent the man off with the conducting nun, for refreshment. “Veronichi, seek Domina Purita, will you, and beg her pardon for me. Beatifica’s awake. Tell Purita, too. It hardly matters now.”

  “Is the girl—”

  “In her right mind? They’re unsure. She’s weeping and won’t stop. They can make no sense of what she says.”

  “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.<
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  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.

  PART THREE

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

  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

  Henry VI Part One

  1

  ONE HOUR AFTER THE DAWN Auroria, 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.