Saint Fire (Secret Books of Venus Series)

by Tanith Lee

“Do you then, girl, see him?”

  Looking directly at her judges, Beatifica, burning with her joy, (Love casts out fear) softly answered, “Not now.”

  “We must come back to this. She has always claimed to have seen messengers in Heaven, in childhood. Like her madness, it is a questionable assertion. But for this while, let’s get on.”

  Turning, the Pro-Sequitor and the Interlocutor opened up their books on the bench; were brought, by lower priests, a sheet or two.

  Cristiano, shaking and shaken, stood immaculate.

  And the girl sat facing away from him, like a young bride on her wedding day. She needed only a crown of roses.

  The Valley of the Shadow is entered by a million different gates. It has ten million million different names. For Beatifica it had been this, the world, without Cristiano.

  She had so little in her of autonomy. Though she had promised the glorious afterlife to so many, she did not wish to be alone and left behind. Yet, no concept of suicide even, could relieve her. She was, still, the fox.

  Animal, complex mostly in non-complexity.

  To her also, that world of Heaven and this world of earth, were now so little divided that, ironically, she knew of no way to align them or get through. They were like a scene through a window—the angels, the serpent, the scarlet mountain, Paradise—but a window glazed by unbreakable glass. Immediate. Unreachable.

  And also, in the midst of love, she did not know what love was. It had never been hers, or if it had, only for a moment. Unnamed, unrecognized, this stranger, powerful or more powerful than death.

  What could he be, but her angel? And if through her he perished, what was left?

  She had believed the Magister’s reassurance instantly. But then, seen him to be wrong. If the lie were some game he played, or unkindness or punishment of her, it did not matter. All that she cared for was Cristiano and his life.

  In this state, when the black-robed priests took her, she did not care. She barely noticed.

  The Styx boat smelled of recent blood. That meant nothing.

  They did not hurt her, physically. (Even the exploration of her virginity, carried out by holy sisters, was not ungentle. She had experienced such things—or her mother had, in early life.)

  In every other way, her hurt was all-present. The walls of her cell groaned, the air writhed, the dull light ached.

  She ceased to cry. She had gone beyond (lower) than tears. Despair was darkness. In darkness she moved absently about, and answered what was asked. They gave her crusts to eat, which would not have dismayed or offended her, but with which she did not bother. She drank the water, which was sometimes unpalatable. Her constitution was strong, and she survived those days. Taken to God’s Chamber of Justice, she felt no apprehension. Everything—meaningless.

  Until, sitting on the stool, she felt somewhere in the walls or the air, or in the light—the groaning, writhing, aching—end.

  Then, she looked, hesitant, not really knowing what she did—as perhaps she might have done in the cell, if a beautiful odor or color had begun inexplicably to drift about there.

  When she saw him, she felt this: an absence of all things. There was no shock—or none apparent to her mind. It was, rather, as if all her horror and despair had been her silliness. Of course Cristiano lived. And here, of course, he was. Who has never lost that which is loved, and not felt this—the certainty that death is a mistake, a falsehood. Only turn the corner, fling wide the curtain and there the beloved will be. And for Beatifica, he was. So, she looked away. And then the true shock met her, like a tidal wave. She plunged into a golden void, which swallowed her and then replaced her on the shore. Aspergation? Yes. Rebirth.

  Had she ever been happy? Did she know the name of love? Now.

  The Interlocutor had finished with most of his interrogation. The Maiden, (and so she was, examiners had made sure of it) had answered without delay, modestly and usually promptly.

  The basis of his task was to elicit from her the story of her life. He did so.

  She had been a slave from the foothills. Then she had served a wood-seller. Then she had been taken from his house—either by another owner, or a guiding, supernatural agency. The house had burned and so had her master, but she had slight memory of it. Presently she was at an inn, then removed to the Primo, and thereafter taught prayer and worship, which obviously she took to. After which she put on male attire, not by her own choice, but because it was given her. She could bring fire from air, having been shown how by her dead mother, in visions. She had prayed with the dying and wounded troops, who escaped the sea-fight at Ciojha. At last she had burnt the ships of Jurneia, although this too she did not exactly recall. She agreed she must have done it. When asked why, if she did not recall the event, she thought so, she said that the evidence was about her, here. With this none could argue. Jurneia victorious would not have left one stone on another.

  Asked to say why she thought she had been brought to this Chamber to be judged, she said she did not know. But she seemed indifferent, casual. And, consistently, fearless and elated.

  This had made her judges and many of the priesthood present, nervous. Not because it might denote innocence. But since it might mean she could summon up worse defensive powers.

  The Interlocutor asked her to say if she understood the nature of the Devil.

  She said she did not.

  Did she serve him?

  Beatifica stared, and answered no.

  Who then, would she say, that she did serve?

  “My new masters,” she said.

  “Name them.”

  She said, without pause, “Those in the Church.”

  “Who, for example?” relentlessly the Interlocutor insisted.

  He had all the booming hectoring tone of any master.

  Beatifica said, “Yourself.”

  “How do you serve me?” He was affronted, (despite the atmosphere, some of the younger clerks had laughed.)

  “I am here before you, and obey you as best I can.”

  “How? In what?”

  “In answering you.”

  The Shepherds frowned. One, the one who spoke the most, said, “If her wit is natural I doubt.”

  When the Interlocutor went back, Danielus rose for the first time. He seemed calm as deep water.

  “We know, holy brothers, I think, that she has no terror of the name and words of God.”

  “Do we know this?”

  Danielus said to Beatifica, “Speak for us, Beatifica, Christ’s Prayer, and then the Psalm of God as the world’s light.”

  And she, knowing them, uttered them. The beauty of the phrases, spoken by her clear as diamonds, stilled the court.

  God covered with a robe of light,

  Stretching the heavens like a curtain,

  Whose beams are laid in the home of the waters,

  Whose chariot is the clouds,

  Who treads, winged by the winds,

  Who for His ministers takes such spirits,

  And chooses for his servants flames of fire.

  (Let them dwell on those words, these resolute priests. They would have cried out sacrilege, too, if Danielus had told them this very Psalm began in Egypt, the hymn of a Pharaoh to the sun. God, by all his multitudinous names.)

  When the girl had finished, Danielus said, “For now, I say no more.”

  Then the Pro-Sequitor stepped forward, in his fermented red. And an aid of the court, who had just brought it, set up a stand for his books and papers.

  “Those that carefully questioned you, and without recourse to persuasion,” (he meant torture),” say that, asked if your mother had taught you anything else, you revealed that your mother, while living, made you dance about trees. Is this so?

  “Yes.”

  “Is this Christian? How is it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Of course not. It’s a pagan rite, which treats the tree as a divinity. Yes?”

  “She never told me that.”

 
“But she said to dance?”

  “No.”

  “Then who did?”

  “No one.”

  The Pro-Sequitor scowled. He said, “You saw her do it, and followed by example?”

  “Yes.”

  “And this pagan woman then taught you, after death, you say, to make fire.”

  “My mother taught me.”

  “How?”

  “She rubbed her hand along a piece of stick.”

  “And fire came?”

  “Yes.”

  “You thought this divinely inspired?”

  Silence.

  A Shepherd said, “Speak, girl. You have always to reply.”

  “I thought,” said Beatifica, “many people did it. It would be useful.”

  “But you,” said the Pro-Sequitor, “bring the fire from your hair.”

  “It seems so.”

  “What are you saying—seems so?”

  “So it seems.”

  “Explain how it is done.”

  “I can’t explain.”

  “Why not?”

  “I only do it.”

  “What makes you do it?”

  “Others ask me. And their need for it.”

  The Pro-Sequitor opened his arms to the court.

  “She has decided our wants. She rules us.”

  There was a rumble.

  Fra Danielus, the Magister Major, rose.

  “Holy brothers, that is like accusing the baker of ruling the man he sells a loaf.”

  The clerks laughing, and hushed.

  From the Council benches, Isaacus spoke like scraping pots.

  “Who bids the baker bake?”

  The Pro-Sequitor turned and bowed to the Council, to Isaacus.

  “Human need bids it,” Danielus said. “Even Jesus fed a crowd with bread when they were hungry.” He sat down. The clerks were almost applauding him. They were mostly young. The young tended to favor him. And the older ones, not.

  The Pro-Sequitor—turned a page.

  He said, “There are the burnings we must come to. Do you say you brought fire and burnt the Jurneian ships?”

  Danielus rose. “Holy brothers. Many of us saw this very thing. It was a miracle, but it was well witnessed.”

  “I myself,” said the Pro-Sequitor, “saw something of it. I saw the rigging and masts in flames, and the fleet sunk. But thousands of the Jurneian heathen escaped and are now in our prisons. How can this be? Meanwhile we have the tale she burned at least two Christian men in the City. To ashes.”

  Danielus said, “Her fire seems to find out those who will burn.”

  “What does this mean?”

  “Some men are set for burning. They carry it in them like a spark.”

  “For their punishment?”

  “It may be so.”

  “Then—why not these infidel? They were spared.”

  Danielus said, “In that instance, I think it may be called mercy.”

  “We can have no mercy on enemies—the enemies of this City—and of the Church.” This, Jesolo.

  The Pro-Sequitor raised his voice, unvibrant and thin but carrying. “Beatifica, why did you burn Christian men?”

  She shook her head slowly.

  “You must speak an answer.”

  “I don’t remember it.”

  “Beatifica, if now an assassin, an infidel, ran into this room, raising his knife against the revered Shepherds, there, and we called on you to slay this man by your fire—would you do it?”

  “No.”

  A great muddle of noise.

  Again Danielus rose, but it was Jian, standing at his back, who cried, “Her fire’s left her. She means only she can’t.”

  Danielus turned. He put his hand on Jian’s shoulder. Then turned back. Danielus said, across the racket, stilling it, “Answer, Beatifica. Does the knight tell us truly?”

  “I can’t bring the fire. Not since the night of the ships.”

  “In the service of this City,” said Danielus, “she used up her gift, perhaps. Can it be God gave it to her only for that hour?”

  “Chastisement was the portion of Ve Nera! God willed it. The City must be cut, and bled to heal. And we—the healers—are bereft.”

  Isaacus, standing now.

  Danielus glanced at him, and looked towards the judges.

  “Brothers, God is not put off, if He wishes to chastise us, by a single battle won. Even assuming a battle might be won, against His wish.”

  “She is the devil.”

  “Brother Isaacus forgets. Women are the weaker vessels. Why choose a woman above a man, for such weighty work?”

  “The easier corrupted.”

  “The easier found out.”

  “So she is.”

  “No, brother. Nothing has been found. Nor is this court to be influenced—resist that error.”

  The Pro-Sequitor began, “I seek to find if any of these guides she vaunts so, these angels and so on, are demons, who have misled the wench. If that’s so, and she will admit it, we may at least save her soul.”

  This was offered to them all, including Isaacus. But Isaacus gave an appalling crunching roar. He did not sound human, more like masonry knocked down in the aftermath of the cannon-stones.

  “She—she—this wench—this woman—Satanus may take any shape. Who says she’s innocent? What has she said of her visions—she rants of snakes and flying things.

  The Serpent is the Devil. Her angels may be of the Devil—did some not fall in the Pit with him? And her mountain is red, the very color of Hell fire.”

  “So,” said Danielus sharply, “is the robe of the Pro-Sequitor.” A true gasp went up like steam. He added, delicately, “But who among us would think to associate him with the Fiend?”

  Isaacus moved about the bench. He came out into the open space. Like some incomprehensible beast from the shadow.

  The foaming rabid lethal dog had died at Danielus’ feet, killed by Cristiano, long ago.

  Isaacus would not crumple. He had survived a day of rope. God was his. He knew God. The world must suffer as he had. All pleasure, since foul pleasures had nourished him, was foul.

  “She speaks,” said Isaacus, “of all her sights sent to her by God. But the Church is God’s. His beloved and chaste wife. Where does she see the Church in this? Has she never been shown the Church in her visions, and told to heed us?”

  “Perhaps,” said Danielus.

  But the Interlocutor had sprung up. He boomed out, like a bell, “Maiden, tell us then, has God never shown you, in your visions, his holy priesthood?”

  She, a bride. Upon her wedding day. Her love. Her happiness. Aspergation in the golden void.

  If she had had the sophistry to evade, even if she had, could she have side stepped at this instant? And they had insisted, she must always answer.

  “Yes,” said Beatifica.

  More than silence, a sort of deafness which heard, this spread from her like ripples in the air.

  The Shepherds leant forward. Eager or unnerved?

  (Forgotten on their chairs, the sparkling princes goggled like sad fish.)

  Danielus stayed on his feet.

  She had not told him anything of this. What had she seen or dreamed? And yet, taken aback and unprepared, somehow it was quite expected to him. He knew it, as the spot of blood may be known. It foretold death.

  But to gag her would damn her. The same, to let her have her say? She was naive. She spoke her mind.

  But might this not be only one more charming, spiritually disarming thing … Why did he know that it was not?

  The Interlocutor again opened his mouth. Danielus interposed very quietly.

  “One moment, holy brothers.”

  “What? What is it?” The Interlocutor, scoring on his target better than the Pro-Sequitor was loath to give over. “She must answer.”

  “That I understand. First, let me ascertain only this. If she has had a vision of the priesthood, when was it?”

  They waited ominou
sly. He turned to the girl. “When, Beatifica?”

  “When I slept, after the night of the ships.”

  Danielus said, generally, “Her visions have been various. This may have come, waking or sleeping. But be aware of this, she lay unconscious five days and the nights between, after she burnt the ships. We thought her dead. You will be familiar, I think, with the notions of delirium, of a fever dream, and a nightmare. Her vision may not be of that order. Can we be sure? Or she?”

  Isaacus let out another awful vocal noise. He was shouting, and none of them made sense of it. Jesolo and another of the Council rose and went to him, and Isaacus thrust them off. They allowed it. He had become, incomprehensibly, disgustingly, a power.

  Isaacus breathed, then spoke. “Look at him there, this Magister, with his army at his back. His Soldiers of God—are they God’s? Or do they serve Danielus? His mercenaries—”

  Danielus heard the shift and rustle of mail behind him, as the Bellatae, despite their discipline, moved. He raised his hand, and they were granite.

  But Isaacus said, in his voice of broken bricks, “See it there. They hear no man but one. Send them out. Send them out, I say.”

  Danielus said, “Brothers, the law itself, quoted by you, allows for seven Bellatae in such a court. In fact recommends it.”

  The Shepherd who spoke the most, answered, stern and cold, “In such a court indeed. But who judges here? Who presides? Sit down, Magister. You’re not here to debate. Sit down.” Without protest, seeming unruffled and amenable, Danielus sat. “The accused here, before such a court, needs her chance to utter, without your interruptions. In such a court, she has God Himself to defend her, if she deserves it. You’re redundant. Now, be still.”

  The Shepherd beside him added, “Nevertheless, the words of Brother Isaacus are very grave.”

  “So they are,” said Isaacus.

  The third of the Shepherds said, “Let us come back to this. Let us get on. Maiden, if God has shown you his priesthood, tell us now what he revealed.”

  Beatifica told them her last remembered dream.

  They listened.

  Of course, she had never considered tact. Others were almighty, impervious. That which is impervious to everything will be impervious to ridicule. Only when Prince Ulisse let out a snort of laughter, then turned his head, (yellow with fear at his lapse) did she half falter.