The Gift

by Bryan M. Litfin

  “Do your eyebrows still hurt?” Ana asked.

  “They’re killing me. I don’t know how you women do it.”

  “It’s not easy. It hurts to be beautiful.”

  Teo turned from the knothole and looked at Ana. Instead of her usual classic attire, she wore a voluptuous dress with a tight-fitting bodice and a low-cut neckline. Her amber hair, normally smooth with a little wave in it, had been curled into tight ringlets. She had smeared more makeup on her face than Teo had ever seen her wear. Ana waved a fan in front of her face.

  “How do I look?” she asked in a husky voice.

  “I never thought I’d say this, but . . . sleazy.”

  Ana laughed. “Then I’ll blend right in, won’t I?”

  “I guess that’s the point. Get in the rickshaw and we’ll go.”

  Teo rolled the two-wheeled cart into the bright sunshine while Ana sat back and pulled an awning over herself. No one paid them much attention as they made their way to the palace gate. A young guard with a clipboard held up his hand.

  “Who are you going to see?” he demanded.

  “My mistress only sees the best,” Teo said in lilting voice. “He should be on your list.”

  “Which one?” The guard scanned his clipboard.

  “What’s the matter? Are you new around here? Who’s the noblest man on there?” Teo spoke in an arrogant, contemptuous tone.

  “The Duke of Campanya?”

  Teo tsked. “Obviously,” he scoffed.

  The guard inspected Teo more closely. “You don’t look soft enough to be a eunuch. You don’t act like one either.”

  Teo put his hand to his chest and affected a languid demeanor. “You think we’re all alike? We’re individuals, just like you. Some of us are more aggressive than others. But I can assure you, I am what I appear.”

  The guard squinted at Teo with a doubtful expression.

  Teo stepped close to the man. “Are you going to make me prove it? There’s only one way you can know for sure.”

  The guard jumped back, aghast. “Move along,” he ordered, waving his clipboard. Teo pulled the rickshaw toward the hilltop palace.

  “Quick thinking,” Ana said from behind him, “but it’s a good thing he didn’t call your bluff.”

  Reaching the palace, they ditched the rickshaw and entered through a side door. They sneaked down a hallway and turned several corners. Twice they passed a group of palace servants, whom they ignored with the confident air of those who are exactly where they should be. Finally Teo led Ana into a stairwell.

  “The dungeons ought to be down here,” he said. “We need to avoid being seen from now on. There isn’t a good reason for a high-class courtesan to visit a jail.”

  No sooner had Teo spoken than he heard voices and footsteps descending from above. “Hurry! Let’s move!” Ana whispered.

  The pair scurried down the spiral staircase, passing a window at ground level. The stairs went deep underground until they ended at an oaken door. Teo paused, straining to hear whether the persons above would exit to the main floor. They did not; their footsteps drew nearer. Teo glanced at Ana, then eased open the door. The dark, torchlit hallway on the other side was deserted. Taking Ana by the hand, he slipped through.

  “They’re coming,” Ana said. “We need to hide.”

  The hallway was lined with doors. Teo tried several, but all were locked.

  “They’re going to find us!”

  Teo grasped a doorknob. It turned in his hand. “Here’s one! Come on!” Ana stepped into the room. Teo followed her inside just as two burly men emerged from the stairwell door.

  “Did they see us?” Ana’s whisper sounded loud in the darkness.

  “No, the hallway is too dim. I think we’re okay for the moment.” Teo heard Ana breathe a sigh of relief.

  Reaching for a match in his pocket, Teo struck it and held it up. They were in a storeroom. He lit an oil lamp on a shelf. Stone jars with heavy lids contained moldy, worm-eaten biscuits. Tin plates were stacked next to the jars. Manacles lay scattered on the floor, along with something even more ominous—stout wooden clubs.

  Teo put his ear to the door. “I think those guards are gone,” he said.

  “Look at this, Teo.” Ana was reading a log book. Teo peered over her shoulder. The entries were scrawled in the juvenile hand of a barely literate writer. Ana’s finger traced the list. “It tells who’s been imprisoned here and how much food they’re supposed to get. Some of these people must have almost starved.”

  “Turn the page,” Teo said.

  Ana complied. “Hey, there he is! The Overseer!” She showed Teo the entry: Ambrosis, Kristiani preest. “It says he’s in cell 26.”

  Teo removed a ring of keys from a peg. “They’re all numbered. Let’s go now, quiet as you can.” He led Ana back into the hallway after peeking out to make sure it was empty. Locating cell 26, he unlocked the door, and they darted inside. The room was lit only by a small hole that served as a skylight. Dirty straw littered the floor. A human shape lay motionless in the gloom.

  “Brother Ambrosius, can you hear me?” Teo knelt beside the man on the floor. When he rolled over, Teo immediately noticed the jagged scar on his forehead.

  “Teofil—is that you?” The Overseer clutched Teo’s sleeve with one hand. His beard, normally snow-white, was now filthy and gray.

  “Yes! We’ve come to get you out of here.”

  The Overseer sat up, and his vision seemed to clear. “I’m weak,” he said, smiling ruefully. “The food in this establishment isn’t so good.”

  Teo fished some jerky from his pocket and handed it to the famished man. The Overseer chewed it, eating with dignity despite his hunger. As he ate, his eyes flicked toward Ana, who waited quietly in the background. Teo suddenly remembered their startling costumes.

  “We came here in disguise,” he said. “This is Anastasia of Chiveis, my closest friend. She is a righteous woman and a believer in Deus.” Ana returned the Overseer’s greeting with a nod and a courteous word.

  When the Overseer finished the jerky, he asked Teo to retrieve a tin pail from the corner. It contained scummy water. The Overseer winced as he tried to use his two hands to drink from the pail.

  “Are you okay?” Ana asked.

  “They tortured me, but I’ll live.”

  “You were tortured?”

  The Overseer lifted his hand into the light. Teo recoiled, and Ana emitted a gasp, covering her mouth and turning away. The man’s fingertips were a bloody, swollen mess. Where his nails should have been, raw wounds festered.

  “Now I am even more defective than I was before.” The Overseer did not seem bothered by that fact.

  “Can you walk?” Teo inquired. “I think we can get you out of here.”

  “I can walk, but where could I go and not be noticed?”

  “The hallway is empty. If we run into anyone, we’ll tell them, uh . . .” Teo thought it over, then motioned toward Ana. “We’ll say Borja’s courtesan pleased him. As a favor to her, he released you. We’re escorting you out.”

  “Ha!” The Overseer shook his head. “No, Teofil, Borja would never release me. The times are evil, my friend. The Christiani are in danger.”

  “More than usual?”

  “Yes. Borja got an affidavit from me that he’ll use to destroy our people. Though I held out under torture, I was forced to capitulate when he began slaughtering the innocent.”

  “Oh, no,” Ana breathed.

  “It gets worse,” Ambrosius said. “Borja has found the New Testament. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. The only thing that man enjoys as much as torture is gloating. He stood right here and desecrated the holy scriptures by—well, never mind, it’s too crude to repeat.” The Overseer grimaced. “Ach! For forty years the Papa sought that book! Now our enemy has it.”

  Teo felt a stab of shame at the Overseer’s words. “Borja might have it now, but we’ll get it back.”

  “Then you’d better hurry. Borja boasted to me
about his big plans. He intends to burn it on Midsummer’s Day in the Temple of All Gods. The entire priesthood will be there to watch the book be consumed by flames before an idol. Then Borja will dissolve the Christiani treaty and wipe out our people.”

  “No!” Ana exclaimed.

  “I won’t let that happen!” Teo vowed.

  “You have courage, Teofil, but what can—”

  Footsteps sounded in the hallway. Someone was approaching.

  Teo ran to the door. “Quick, Ana, over here!”

  They stood on either side of the door with their backs to the wall. The latch rattled, then the hinges squeaked as the door swung open. A guard stepped into the room with a tin plate in one hand and a torch in the other. Teo threw his arm around the guard’s neck, drawing his elbow tight in a choke hold that would restrict the man’s blood flow. In a matter of seconds the guard went limp—but then his tin plate clattered against the stones, and his torch set the straw on the floor ablaze.

  “Hey, what’s going on?” said a voice in the hallway.

  A heavyset man filled the doorframe. Teo socked him in the abdomen and sent him tumbling to the ground, then snatched up the torch. “Come on, hurry!”

  Ana had already helped the Overseer to his feet. The trio dashed into the hallway.

  “Help! Attack!” shouted the man on the floor. He reached for Teo’s ankle, but a swipe from the torch made him withdraw his hand.

  “This way to the stairs!” Ana cried.

  They headed in the direction of the stairwell but were brought up short by guards advancing from that end of the hall. Teo spun, then halted. More men were coming from the opposite direction.

  “In here!” Teo ducked into the storeroom he had used before. Ana and the Overseer followed, then Teo slammed the door and broke the locking mechanism with one of the clubs. The guards began yelling and pounding on the door.

  “It’ll take them a while to break that down,” Teo said.

  “But what then? We can’t stay in here forever, Teo.”

  “I don’t intend to.” He bent to the rear wall and pointed to a line of moist, green algae along the floor. “Look at this.”

  Ana squinted in the torchlight. “What about it?”

  “I noticed it before. Why should it be wet right there? Everything else is dry. There’s only one explanation.”

  The storeroom door shuddered as a guard outside rammed it with his shoulder. It rattled in the frame but didn’t budge—yet.

  “Stand back.” Teo cocked his foot and smashed his heel against the brick wall above the algae. Twice more he did the same. The mortar was old and crumbly. On the fourth try a gaping hole opened up. A cool mustiness wafted into the storeroom, along with the sound of gurgling water.

  “A sewer,” the Overseer said.

  “No, even better—an aqueduct.” Teo held up a brick stamped with four letters: SPQR. “In ancient times this was the sign of all public works. It means the Senate and People of Roma erected it.”

  “How did you know it was here?” Ana asked.

  “One of the Papa’s books said it ran under the Pincian Hill. When I saw the algae, I knew this had to be it.”

  After kicking away more bricks to widen the hole, Teo slipped inside, then helped Ana and the Overseer follow him. The tunnel was tight, but they could walk in single file as long as they hunched their backs. A trickle of water ran along the floor. They traveled a long way by the flickering glow of the torch. No one pursued; apparently the storeroom door was holding firm. Occasional holes in the aqueduct wall admitted thin sunbeams speckled with dust. Finally Teo spotted a larger shaft of light ahead.

  “We can climb out there,” he said.

  The three fugitives clambered out of the aqueduct pipe into a deserted area of what had once been ancient Roma. Many tall buildings surrounded them, now thoroughly decayed. Shrubs and vines obscured whatever was left.

  Ana approached a marble statue poking out of the ground. It depicted a muscular man with wavy hair. His left hand held a conch into which he blew, while his right hand rested on a horselike creature with wings like the fins of a fish. Water had gathered at the base of the sculpture, forming a deep pool.

  “I believe that was part of a fountain,” the Overseer said.

  Teo nodded. “I saw it in a drawing. Fontana di Trevi. People used to throw coins into it.”

  “It must have been magnificent in its day,” Ana said wistfully. “So much beauty has been lost since ancient times.”

  Teo dug a pair of copper coins from his pocket and tossed them into the pool. “Here’s a wish for beauty’s return.”

  Evening’s twilight had gathered in the Painted Chapel when the Papa’s messengers began trickling back to their master. All twelve reported good news: the aristocrats to whom they had been sent would attend the secret meeting. Such a momentous convocation had never before occurred. The twelve local Knights of the Cross would assemble at midnight in the sacred chapel of the Christiani. There the Papa would lay out the cold, hard facts.

  War was on the way.

  Yesterday afternoon the Overseer had arrived at the basilica. The Papa had been delighted to see him, though he was also annoyed that Teofil had disobeyed his orders a second time by entering Borja’s dungeons. Nevertheless, the leader of the Christiani had embraced his friend Ambrosius warmly, then sent him straight to a doctor to receive care for his tortured hand.

  The information Ambrosius had relayed was shocking. Nikolo Borja planned to burn the New Testament on Midsummer’s Day, then use that stunt to galvanize public opinion against the Christiani. He intended to extinguish the Universal Communion once and for all—and the League of Merchants would provide the military muscle to make it happen. Since hearing the terrible news, the Papa had not ceased praying.

  Footfalls on the marble floor pulled the Papa’s soul from the face of Deus back to earth. The Painted Chapel was dark now, lit only by two candelabras whose waxy tapers had dripped to mere stubs. The Papa pushed himself from the kneeler in front of the altar and stood up, his knees aching. A priest in brown robes approached.

  “All the guests have arrived, Your Holiness.”

  “Excellent. Seat them along the wall. And bring tea! It will be a long night, for we have much to discuss.”

  “I will show them in.”

  The twelve men arrived through the chapel’s rear door. They craned their necks, marveling at the paintings that covered the ceiling and walls. Most of the knights belonged to the lesser gentry, but a few viscounts and barons were among them, and even one earl. The priest brought a tea cart and made sure the guests were comfortable. When they were settled into their places, the Papa stepped forward to address the assemblage.

  “Men of honor and devoted followers of Deus, I welcome you!” Words of greeting echoed from the men in the candlelit hall. “As you know,” the Papa continued, “I have never gathered you all at once. I am well aware of the danger in such an undertaking. Only in the most extreme circumstances would I dare to do so. Yet I fear we have reached such a juncture. My friends, I bring you disturbing news tonight. I have learned that Nikolo Borja intends to dissolve our right to exist—and he is backed up by force of arms.”

  The announcement sent murmurs rippling through the gathered aristocrats. Their tone was indignant. “He can’t do that!” the earl exclaimed. “It’s outrageous!”

  “It is, yet he intends to try. Borja has forced a confession from one of our own. Though its legality is dubious, the people might be convinced by it. Popular opinion is always a precarious thing on which to rely. I fear the situation will be resolved by armed combat. Whoever wins that contest will determine the new scenario.”

  “Does Borja have an army?” called a voice.

  “He has obtained the help of the League of Merchants in hiring condottieri. They will no doubt form a substantial force.” The Papa stood before the knights, turning slowly to meet the gaze of each man seated along the wall. “Brothers, this is why I have summoned y
ou here tonight. I need your help. We must have mercenaries of our own.”

  Once again the twelve aristocrats were thrown into a tumult. They turned to each other in agitated clusters, debating the Papa’s request with heated words. Finally the earl stood and spoke. The other knights quieted to hear what he would say.

  “Holy Father, you make a valid point. We will indeed require men-at-arms if we are to resist our enemy’s designs. But consider the matter from our perspective. We would have to hire troops from the region around Roma, then move them into position and garrison them on our estates until they are needed. Those of us here tonight are men of wealth, to be sure. Yet our costs are high too, and our recent profits have been lean. All our assets are tied up in land. We do not have the kind of liquidity you need—the cash funds to raise an army.”

  The Papa smiled as he approached the earl, stopping a few paces away. The distinguished, silver-haired man looked back at him, confused by the Papa’s mischievous expression.

  “My brothers,” the Papa said, “did I say anything to you about money?” Silence greeted his question, so he went on. “Hear me now. I do not ask for your wealth, but for your organizational skills and the use of your lands. You have the necessary contacts to obtain the troops, and you have space for their tents and supplies. Yes, there may be some cost to you, but I am not asking you to bear the burden of paying the soldiers or provisioning them.”

  The knights were dumbfounded. No one spoke for a long moment. At last the earl broke the silence. “But, Your Holiness, this would be an extremely expensive endeavor. Where will the money come from?”

  “Deus will provide,” the Papa replied. “Just hire the army.”

  “Come on! You can do it! Come to Daddy!” Count Federco Borromo beckoned to little Benito, urging him to take his first step. Benito clung to a chair in Federco’s study and gazed at his father, smiling and cooing. His fat legs were wobbly.