The Book of Thomas - Volume One: Heaven

by Robert Boyczuk

  Lark roused me the next morning and dragged me to the front room where I found Ali sitting up in bed, sipping from a pewter cup. She glanced over the lip of the cup when I entered, but said nothing.

  Kite handed Lark the brass deacon, and instructed the two of us to fetch something more substantial. “Thomas will know where to go,” he said, which surprised me, though it shouldn’t have. Kite would have noted my capacity for remembering things, and known that I could easily find my way to the forum where I’d seen the food stalls—and then guide us back.

  I had no idea how much anything cost in Rome, but was a quick study, stretching our deacon to three meals, and in doing so learning it should have been five.

  Ali left her bed the third morning; Kite supported her as she wobbled around our apartment, until she briefly found her legs. That afternoon, Kite had me resume Ali and Lark’s vocal training, with Ali sitting on the edge of her bed. This was not ideal, for the diaphragm cannot drop properly as your lungs fill with air. I found it awkward assuming the role of her teacher again, and worried how she might react, particularly when I began chiding her for slouching; although she took my advice without comment, she often didn’t comply.

  Three days later, when Ali had become more or less ambulatory, Kite recommenced light sparring matches. I thought it premature, but came to realize that Kite intended it as much for its therapeutic value as he did for polishing her fighting skills. And it did seem to speed her recovery. During this time, Kite rarely left the room, and Ali not at all. Lark and I ran whatever errands were necessary—but always during the day, never at night when darkness swallowed the narrow streets, and the city yielded itself to footpads.

  After a few days, I became adept at bartering with the vendors, and struck up a relationship with two of the more honest ones who seemed to appreciate our trade. I told them my name was Matthew, and that I was new to Rome. I made it known that my master had instructed me to return to the market each day for the next few weeks to purchase our victuals. To entice us, the first one added an extra bun to my bag; the next time, the other added two. Often, when I confessed I did not recognize a certain item of food, they would cut or break off a small sample for me to try. It was in this way that I discovered what an astonishing and complex variety of flavours the world held—several vendors sold what became my favourite, a flat round of bread topped with cheese and olives and onions, spiced with a sauce they called garum, made from fish that had been left to rot in the sun for several days.

  A week passed thus, and it was on the first morning of the second week, as Lark and I returned from the market, I caught sight of two figures emerging from the entrance of our inn: a woman and her squat manservant, a gunnysack on his back. I didn’t get a look at her face before she melted into the heavy midday crowd, but her flowing carriage and graceful dignity recalled Meussin. Kite said nothing of her visit, and I was half-convinced I had only imagined it—until I realized that the three short swords we had acquired in the Postulants’ camp, all roughly the length of the bag the manservant had been shouldering, were nowhere to be found.

  Questions and Some Answers

  It was at the end of the second week that, for the first time since his trial aboard The Charon, Kite and I were alone—Kite had sent Ali and Lark to the forum market. He positioned himself on the edge of the bed, bringing our eyes level. “You have questions.”

  I acknowledged I did.

  “Ask.”

  “You gave Lark and Ali your last coin this morning.” I’d been carefully counting as Kite had doled out his money. “How are we to buy food tomorrow?”

  Kite shrugged.

  “You didn’t answer.”

  “I didn’t say I would.”

  I suppressed my irritation. “Is it because we audition tomorrow?” Other than an angry red gash on her forehead, Ali had recovered, and her voice was in fine form.

  “Yes.”

  “What will happen?”

  “You will audition for the magister capellae. If he likes what he hears, then he will put you forward as a candidate to be examined by the whole schola cantorum.”

  “That’s not what I was asking.”

  “Don’t blame me, boy, for your poorly thought out questions.”

  “You know I can’t sing, and you know Ali could never be a member of the choir.”

  He conceded it was so.

  “And you don’t think much of Lark’s chances, do you?”

  “You don’t think much of his chances—and in this I value your opinion above mine.”

  I smarted at his suggestion, and at his knowing how I felt when I’d never shared a word of my concern. “Yet you’ve arranged an audition,” I said. “You’ve no money left, and no hope of a commission from the Church. Why proceed?”

  “I think you’ve already reasoned it out, Thomas.”

  I had—at least part of it, only I wanted confirmation. “Ignatius sent word about us, didn’t he?”

  Kite nodded. “They are expecting three boys. One with a voice that would make Angels weep.”

  I felt my cheeks colour. “Since I can no longer sing, can I assume Ali and Lark are here to maintain that pretence?”

  “Yes,” he said, “and no.”

  I let his latest ambiguity pass unchallenged, for I wanted the ‘and no’ part of his response to be true. I’d feared Lark and Ali were mere window dressing, to be dispensed with the moment Kite had achieved his purposes. But Kite’s training regime and his negation suggested otherwise—at least for Ali. “You need Ignatius’s letter, and us, to get inside the Vatican.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  He shook his head in a way that made it clear he would not answer this, or any other question, about his intentions.

  “You do not trust me.”

  “I have faith in you—much as you have faith in God.”

  “Then why won’t you tell me?”

  “Faith is not an absolute, Thomas. It exists only in relation to doubt.”

  I wanted to object to this, but realized it would only lead us in circles. So I changed tack, hoping to catch Kite off guard. “Did you arrange the ambush?”

  A terrible cloud darkened Kite’s face; he clenched his hands so hard his knuckles went white. Then, as quickly as it had manifested, the storm vanished. “No,” he said, his sang-froid restored.

  I said before that I had no way of knowing if anything Kite told me was true; yet, I believed him in this. Which meant it likely that he and Ignatius had conspired together. But for what cause? Though you may think it odd, I had not pursued an opportunity to speak to Kite about the question of his allegiance or on his assertion that war between the Church and Lower Heaven was imminent. I had several good reasons for this: first, I had no faith in any answer he might give, nor hope of determining the veracity of what he said; second, his actions thus far shed no light on his loyalties, and an equally compelling case could be made for his support of either the Church or Lower Heaven; third, knowing the truth would have changed nothing for me, and so it would be safer for me to reserve judgement, and to act from that ignorance rather risk being caught in a falsehood (for, as my father’s inquisitor had said, I made a very poor liar). I could see no advantage to my knowing.

  Despite this, I asked.

  “On the side of the Angels,” he said. “As best I can tell.”

  Although I’d expected this answer, his proviso vexed me. “How can you not be sure?”

  “Causes are an illusion. Things change.”

  “Morality doesn’t,” I said, and meant it, not knowing any better back then.

  “And who determines what’s moral?”

  “God.”

  He laughed. “Tell me, boy, do you believe the Angels are intermediaries between Heaven and Earth?”

  “Yes.”

  “And that they are our Guardians, anointed by God?”

  “Of course.”

  “And do you believe in the infallibility of the Magisterium and th
e Pope, as promised by Christ?”

  “Yes.” As soon as I said it, I understood what he was trying to make me understand: if the Church were to war with the Angels in Lower Heaven, then on whose side would be virtue? God seemed to have blessed both.

  “Choosing sides wisely is a tricky thing,” Kite said.

  Still, I could not accept his assertion. If I did, then there was no moral compass. “Everything proceeds from God,” I said, thinking aloud. “Since the Angels are closest to Him, shouldn’t the righteous stand with them?”

  “If virtue were as easy to catch as the clap, you’d be right.”

  “But God created the Angels—”

  “And us, too, Thomas. Only he made us in his image, not them. We are flawed, but so are the Angels. Or have you forgotten Satan?”

  I had no answer to that.

  “You are not asking the right questions. You concern yourself with whose side is most virtuous, and you haven’t even asked me the why of it.”

  He was right; I had been avoiding the question. So I asked: “Why?”

  “The Church is starved, and there’s no more to be wrung from the lower Spheres. Drought plagues all the lesser Spheres, and each year worsens. Crops wither, people die. Not just in Los Angeles Nuevo, but everywhere. Even in Rome. You may not see it, but hunger is here, prowling the back alleys.”

  “But not in the Kingdom of Angels?”

  “When you are starving, it’s hard to see past the feast on another man’s table. And make no mistake, Rome is starving. When the Cardinals look up, all they can see are the Angels, who are rumoured to number less than two thousand, yet are the sole occupants of the greatest material Sphere. They see the glory of the Celestial Gardens, while vast tracts of surrounding land lie fallow; they see pristine streams and rivers and lakes, while deserts bloom in Spheres below; and they see magnificent palaces, each for the benefit of a single Angel, while the Vatican’s Chapels fall into disrepair.”

  “Then,” I said, “they have the right of it.”

  “Perhaps. But there are Angels who would say it’s the cause of the drought that needs to be rectified, not its symptoms. Lower Heaven may look green to the envious, but its Gardens wither, too. If there is abundance, it is the consequence of the Sphere having so few inhabitants. Ceding part or all of Lower Heaven to the Church will change that, and although it might make things better for a time for the few lucky souls the Church anoints, it will do nothing to stave off the inevitable.”

  “The inevitable?”

  “Plague, war, famine, death,” he said, casually naming the horsemen.

  I was incredulous. “God would never let such a thing happen.”

  “You forget your Bible.”

  Still, I shook my head in disbelief.

  “The Jesuits have been keeping records for a millennium, Thomas. The droughts grow worse, more some years, less others. But always worse. If God were going to act, don’t you think he’d have done so by now?”

  As loath as I was to do so, I accepted most of what Kite said as true. Yet I could not accept the cruel or indifferent God he posited. “You said you were on the side of the Angels. If you believe all is hopeless, then why are you here, doing their bidding?”

  Kite looked at me as if I’d missed the obvious. “Because,” he said, rising from the bed, and signalling an end to my questions, “the Angels pay up front.”

  I didn’t believe him then, and I don’t now. I thought better of Kite—better, I suspect, than he thought of himself.

  Audition

  Before we departed the next morning, Meussin appeared. My heart buoyed as I saw her breeze past Lark, who’d opened the door. The same manservant I’d observed before followed her into our apartment. He seemed of middle age, yet was no taller than me, although he was much broader, from his wide face through his barrel chest and down to his stumpy legs. Throughout, his frame rippled with hardened muscle. In our travels, we’d once encountered two similar men at an inn. Ignatius had told me they were from the heathen Spheres, where people tended towards such a physique. He added that ignorant people found their shape grotesque and believed it to be a punishment for their unrepentant natures. If this were true, then this particular man was more unrepentant than most, because God had squashed him even flatter than the other two.

  The meeting must have been prearranged, for immediately Kite handed over his halberd and morion to the servant who withdrew, pulling the door closed. In exchange, Meussin gave Kite a letter folded in three, which he tucked into the breast of his uniform. They said nothing, Kite and Meussin, but only looked at one another, she burdened with the ache of sadness, and he without expression. I knew Kite was a hard man, cynical and embittered, but I could not understand how he didn’t falter under that affecting gaze. She raised a hand as pale as the vellum of Ignatius’s letter and laid her fingers, one after the other, on Kite’s ruddy, scarred cheek. Then she turned, and fled our apartment, leaving an emptiness that seemed both profound and irreversible.

  We gathered our few paltry possessions.

  As we pushed out into the bustle of the narrow, jumbled streets, I confess my mind was in turmoil about many things; curiously, though, what bothered me the most wasn’t Meussin’s perplexing visits, or an audition that wasn’t an audition, but that the four of us had set out, for the first time in months, unarmed.

  We arrived at Porta Santo Spirito, the imposing concave gate at the southern limit of Stato della Città del Vaticano. Kite produced Ignatius’s vellum and the letter Meussin had given him. As he unfolded the letter, I could see it had been freshly inked and that it bore a wax seal with the crossed keys of the Holy See. The Garde waved us forward after only a cursory glance. And so we passed between the strangely truncated columns that flanked the gate, our footfalls echoing in the passage under the massive wall that ringed the Holy City.

  The hurly-burly of Rome fell away immediately. Few people were out, and most of those were robed Clerics. All moved at a subdued pace, save a troop of Gardes who marched past us double-time, halberds shouldered. (From the corner of my eye, I noted Kite’s hand twitched ever so slightly.) We walked on a cobbled street between stately buildings, more ancient than any I had ever seen, and constructed of materials and in ways for which I had no word. The structures evoked in me a sense of ponderous tranquillity and, more than that, of displacement, by which I mean they felt as if they were from a place—or time—outside our own. I suppose this shouldn’t have been surprising since, as the Primoris Addendum to The Bible recounts, when our world was young, God Himself created Vatican City, and placed it here, in the Apostle Peter’s Sphere, that we might feel closer to Him. I didn’t; rather, I felt cowed, as if by a baleful power I had betrayed. I lowered my head and hurried forward.

  We followed the street to where it intersected an expansive avenue of brick, then turned left—and I caught my breath, as any person must on first witnessing the facade of the Basilica di San Pietro. No one could possibly doubt this was God’s work. Saint Peter’s was impossibly large, larger than I had imagined any structure could be, and flanked by massive colonnades on either side, sweeping out like welcoming arms. Atop the cornice, statutes of Saints watched over the square. Above it all hovered the sublime dome of the Basilica. So overpowering was the impression of this vista, and as prepossessed as I was in trying to take it all in, that it wasn’t until we were hard upon the Piazza San Pietro that I realized the immensity of the square—and that it was a hubbub of activity. It overflowed with thousands upon thousands of soldiers, dressed not in the uniform of the Gardes, but in black, loose-fitting jackets and trousers. Each company was comprised of several hundred men in parade formation, and there were perhaps a hundred companies. All stood at attention facing the great facade of Saint Peter’s.

  “They are waiting to be blessed,” Kite said. “For all the good it will do them.”

  He veered right when we reached the edge of the square and had us follow that arm of the colonnade toward the Basilica; we p
icked our way through officers taking advantage of its shade, many of whom cast us curious looks, as if we were the ones out of place. Reaching the end of the colonnade, Kite abruptly turned right and led us up to the entrance to a small Chapel. Its arched double doors were secured with a rusty hasp and padlock, but to the side of the Chapel a smaller, unassuming door stood slightly ajar, and it was through this we walked into an antechamber. On a bench, sat two of the famous Cent Suisse, Kite’s former peers. They rose, and Kite, knowing the drill, held his arms out. One Garde frisked him, never once exchanging a word or meeting his implacable gaze, though he must have known him—how could he not when the One Hundred lived, trained, and fought together? Yet he wouldn’t meet his eyes, and it was as if he was searching a lifeless mannequin. When he finished his search, the Garde indicated that we should all leave our rucksacks by the door. When we had done so, the other Garde rapped on an inner door, and I heard it unlatched from the other side. They permitted us to pass, not asking for our documents, and by this I surmised they both knew Kite and had been informed of our appointment. Inside, we passed another two Cent Suisse, standing at attention on either side of us, eyes forward, as if we were invisible.

  We were in a broad corridor adjacent to the Basilica, and to our left was a series of doors leading to offices of various Church functionaries. To the right was a single door which bore a brass plaque reading Capella Musicale Pontificia Sistina. Kite knocked loudly, once.

  “Come.”

  We entered a compact room; behind a carved desk sat a Priest with a sour look on his face; at his side were small tables, each holding scripts of vocal music. He peered at us over the rims of his spectacles disapprovingly.

  “These the boys?”

  “Yes, Father Jean,” Kite said.

  I was surprised Kite knew the Priest, but shouldn’t have been. Despite its size, the Vatican was home to less than a thousand permanent residents, and given Kite’s intimacy with Ignatius, it is likely he was well acquainted, through contact or by reputation, with all who served this office.