Raphael understood she did not expect a reply. He continued to help her through the crowds of people around them. And he listened.
“No,” she said. “Clement VI would be forced to move. Even without that, Clement VI also faces the same pressure to leave which every pope here has faced since Avignon was first established as the papal residency. While Avignon is well-placed in the center of Europe, Rome is the symbolic heart of the church. After all, the church grew from there. Saint Peter himself is buried there. As are many of the other great saints. Some of the feuds and disputes which first drove the popes away from Rome have ended. Exile here by the popes is no longer a political necessity.”
“The pope leave Avignon and return to Rome?” Raphael spoke as he mused, so deep in thought that he stepped into a puddle and hardly flinched. “I had never considered it.”
“It is not farfetched,” Juliana said. “Anyone who pays attention to political matters finds it obvious.”
Raphael kept his next thoughts to himself as he recalled strange words Clement VI had spoken to him during the brief audience. There are some papal matters of great importance which are in delicate negotiations, the pope had said. It will do no good for word of an attempt on my life to reach certain ears.
Could these delicate negotiations be related to a papal move from Avignon? And if so…
“There would be those who would oppose a papal move,” Raphael said suddenly and with conviction. “Those whose wealth depends upon future prosperity of Avignon as the crossroads of all Christendom.”
He heard Juliana chuckle. “For all your jester skills, I believe I may safely say that your mind is equally impressive. You are correct. A great many in Avignon have staked great wealth on the gamble that Avignon remains the home of the pope and his royal court.”
Raphael again felt a flush of warmth. How was it that her praise could mean so much?
“How much at stake? Enough to suit their purpose very well if Clement VI were assassinated before he made a decision to take the papacy back to Rome.” Juliana answered her own question before Raphael could utter a word. “Enough to threaten his successor with the same fate should the same decision be attempted.”
“Has Clement VI made such a decision?”
“He nears it.”
They had reached a crossroad. Wider. Filled with the traffic of horses and wagons instead of milling crowds of people. Raphael put his arm across Juliana’s stooped shoulders to guide her safely along the side.
For a moment, she stiffened. Only for a moment. Then she relaxed and let him guide her along.
“There is more than wealth at stake,” she said. “You may be frightened to hear how important it is that you and I succeed.”
Raphael waited.
“If the pope is killed and it appears that Italy was behind it, then England finally has an excuse to declare war against Italy. The countries of Europe will be forced to choose sides. Either England or Italy.”
“Why would England want war so badly against Italy?”
“Remember the enormous debt that the English king has to the Italian bankers.”
Raphael nodded.
“If England is at war against Italy, it will have the perfect excuse not to honor the loans.”
“What do I care about money matters?” Raphael asked.
“It is not the money. It is the prospect of war.” She paused. “Think about it. What if all the countries in Europe become involved in a war that essentially covers the civilized world? Think of the hundreds of thousands who would be killed, the families that will grieve.”
She shook her head. “Most of all, think about civilization itself. A war that big could very well put us back in the times when the Roman empire had collapsed. A new dark age would fall upon humankind.”
She took his arm. “You and I, it appears, are the only ones who can prevent this. That’s why I need your trust and your help.”
Chapter Nineteen
Shadows, swarming flies, and the smell of warm, moist hay greeted them as they stepped into the stable.
“Remember,” Raphael whispered, “you distract him. And as promised, I will not harm him at all.”
Juliana nodded.
They moved ahead. A horse, haltered and tied to a rail, stamped nervousness.
They saw no other person.
“Strange,” Raphael whispered, “this is mid-morning. No sign of him.”
He strained his eyes to see in the dimness of the building. The roof was low. Piles of dirty straw covered the dirt floor. The only light came from small squares cut in the stone walls. He saw only two horses tethered, yet room for easily a dozen more.
He saw no sign of the stable master.
How can this be? Raphael felt the heaviness of dread in his stomach. His entire plan depended on finding the stable master. Someone had bribed the stable master to lie. Forcing the truth from him would be the first link in whatever chain would lead to the storyteller behind all of this.
To assure himself, Raphael hefted the small sack he carried in his hand. It held a small length of rope and a knife. He intended to bind the stable master and threaten his life for those crucial answers. Wherever those answers led, Raphael would follow.
None of this, however, would begin unless the stable master was here. And it would be risking much to return later, for Raphael was a marked man inside Avignon. He had to move quickly and move unpredictably. Not only did his life depend on this but his family’s as well.
They reached the end of the stable. A small door led out behind to where more horses might enjoy sunshine in a small courtyard.
If the stable master were not outside…
Raphael pushed the door. It did not budge.
Strange.
He pushed again. Harder.
Behind him, the sound of heavy wood slamming into stone. The main doors into the stable had been shut.
Raphael turned to the new sound, Juliana with him.
With those doors at the front of the stable now closed, the inside of the stable grew even darker. Dust danced in the square beams of sunlight cast through the openings of the stone walls. Raphael could see only the outlines of an approaching figure in the deepened shadows.
Without thinking, he pushed Juliana behind him. Something about the figure’s approach showed a certainty. A deadly intention.
“Who goes there?” Raphael called.
No answer.
Five more steps. The figure stepped through a shaft of sunlight.
Without hesitation, Raphael reached into his sack for his knife. That brief glimpse had shown him hair, dark and curling behind the ears, framing a narrow face and glittering eyes. The hooked nose. The cold smile of large white teeth. The same cruel face of a man who had aimed a crossbow at his heart from a rooftop. The pope’s assassin had reappeared.
“No crossbow on this occasion?” Raphael asked. He wondered if his pounding heart was louder than his question. “You shall not find me so helpless.”
Silence, except for the soft tread of footsteps across scattered straw.
Raphael crouched and held his knife in front of him. He had never before fought with a knife. But he was a jester. Fast hands. Sure eyes. A body trained to perform deeds of skill under the pressure of the watching eyes of large crowds. He would not die quietly. At the very least, he could attempt to save Juliana by surviving long enough to let her flee through the other door.
“It is him,” Raphael hissed to Juliana, “the one who attempted to kill the pope!”
Raphael felt a surge of adrenaline. If he could beat this killer, he could ask questions. Questions to lead to the storyteller who had sent the assassin to kill the pope and now perhaps him.
A few more steps and Raphael could lunge forward with the knife.
Yet the assassin did not draw a weapon of his own.
Strangely, he brought his fist to his lips instead.
Raphael had seen such a movement before. He tried to recall where. It came to him t
he same moment he heard the puff of expelled breath.
In the garden…
He tried to react. In the garden Juliana had toppled Demigius in the same —
Too late. As he was throwing himself sideways, he felt a sharp stab of pain on his neck. He slapped at his skin and found a tiny dart.
“No,” he moaned. “It cannot be.”
He spun back to Juliana. “You? But how…”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I had no choice.”
He tried to form more words, but his lips felt numb, his knees like collapsing hinges.
As he sagged forward, the dim shadows of the stable became the blackness of his worst nightmare.
Angel Blog
Poor, poor Raphael.
Are you sensing sarcasm here instead of compassion?
He wasn’t going to die there in the stable. How did I know? I’d been sent to protect him in the river. Although I would never presume to speak for our Father, it was logical for me to assume that I’d be sent again if his life were in real danger. Thus, I didn’t have to waste any time feeling sorry for him.
But I was almost certain that he would wake up feeling sorry for himself. Hence, my sarcasm.
Let me burst a bubble for you.
Life is not supposed to be easy.
If it was supposed to be easy, your self-pity would be justified. If it was supposed to be easy, I’d understand when you humans walk around wringing your hands with a “woe is me” expression for the world to enjoy.
But life is difficult.
Here are three words for you: Get over it.
Not only is life difficult, but you should expect it to be a series of problems that continue and continue until you breath your last breath on this earth.
Depressing?
Only if you expect that life is going to be easy.
But there’s a wonderful paradox. As soon as you approach life with the attitude that it will be difficult, then life becomes much easier. Because when you have the right expectations, you’re not constantly disappointed.
After all, you don’t step outside in a blizzard in a bathing suit, ready to apply suntan lotion and read a book beside the pool. No, you look outside, see the snow hitting the ground, and you dress according to what conditions you expect to face. Then, in a parka and boots, the weather is much easier to bear and you don’t think twice about it once you’re outside.
Faith is not meant to make your life easier.
Faith is meant to sustain you and help you understand there is a purpose to life on earth, a reason to persevere through any and all problems.
If I ever had the chance, I would try to tell this to Raphael.
In the meantime, I doubted he would be in a very good mood when he woke up…
Chapter Twenty
Raphael woke. Thirsty. Flies tickled his face as they crawled across his skin.
Raphael shook them loose and immediately regretted the sudden movement. His head throbbed and he blinked his eyes into wakefulness.
He was still in the stable. Sitting in straw. Back to a wooden pole. His hands were cramped in an awkward position behind his back. It took several moments for him to realize his wrists were tied together.
Raphael groaned and fought to his feet. He tried to take a step forward. Pain stabbed through his shoulders. It took another several moments of struggle to understand that his wrists were bound behind the pole. He could sit and he could stand, but beyond that, no movement at all.
He groaned again. This time more at Juliana’s betrayal than at his aching head and the tearing pain of his shoulders and arms.
The locked door. The absent stable master. The arrival of the assassin. It was all too perfect. He’d been led here to a trap, like a fly drawn by the honey of her sweetness. What a fool he‘d been. The hour that she had taken to purchase her clothing and the tanner’s dye had seemed too long. She must have used that time to arrange this trap.
Raphael told himself he should have listened to his first inner suspicions as he sat in the dungeon.
She was a puppet of the storyteller, an actor in one of his ballads.
She had betrayed him to the pope. Her excuses for that could easily have been lies, lies he accepted because he had wanted to, deceived so easily by his heart.
She had brought the soldiers to him beneath the bridge.
She had told the storyteller of his intentions to threaten the stable master. The trap would have been child’s play for the storyteller, for if he had first bribed the stable master, he could have easily bribed the stable master again to be absent.
Why?
And why, in light of all of her betrayals, would Juliana take such efforts to keep him alive?
She could have let Demigius kill him in the gardens. She could have let him drown in the river. She could have had him killed here in the stable.
Instead, he was alive. Throbbing head. Cramped arms and shoulders. Bound to the pole behind him. But alive.
Why?
His jaw tightened in anger.
He would find out why. He would wring it from her neck, ignoring that beautiful face and finally twisting the truth from her. Then he would hunt down the storyteller and exact a payment of vengeance which would make death seem like a blessed relief.
But how to escape from the stable?
Raphael laughed a low, mean laugh.
For certain, she and the assassin had bound him to the pole. Yet they had forgotten he was Raphael, the finest jester in the land.
The pole was set only half a step away from the stone wall behind it.
Raphael knew exactly what he would do.
He would lie on his stomach. Yes, it would bring great pain to pull so hard at his wrists. But that same pain would also give him leverage to push at the stone wall with his feet.
Face down, he would slowly walk backwards up the wall, using the leverage of his wrists against the pole to hold him horizontal to the ground as he shuffled his way upward.
At the top, he would be able to slip his hands over the pole. No matter how hard he fell, he would land feet first. He was Raphael the jester, now driven by ice cold anger, and nothing would stop him from escape.
Away from the pole, he would lie on his side, curled like a sleeping baby. He would slide his hands toward his feet, and contort and wiggle until he forced his bound wrists from behind his back to behind his legs. Few others could be so flexible, but he was Raphael the jester, swearing to take revenge on the woman he had once hoped to love.
With his hands behind his legs, he would sit, then pull one ankle through, then the other, so that his bound wrists were finally in front of him. A difficult task, but not impossible for a jester.
No matter how long it took, he would gnaw at the knots with his teeth until the rope loosened.
Once freed, he would hunt Juliana down like the despicable dog she was.
Raphael felt the anger build inside him. And savored it. It was an anger that would drive him to victory. At any cost.
Before evening dusk settled on Avignon, he was free.
Chapter Twenty-One
Raphael stood in the shadows on the outer balcony of Juliana’s room and waited. At his feet were the same rope and knife he had intended to use on the stable master.
Scaling the rooftops and darting along the ledges to bring him here had been a minor effort compared to the pain of working himself loose from the stable. He enjoyed the uncramped rest his wait afforded him.
While his body was a rest, however, his mind danced with thought after thought.
Much of Juliana’s earlier conversations now made sense.
Knowledge of how near the pope was to making a decision to leave Avignon?
From the master storyteller.
Family and traditions and duty to France?
Serving the master storyteller.
He almost smacked the balcony rail in sudden fury.
And she had played him for a fool since the beginning.
Raphael froze, despite the anger that screamed inside him. The light of a candle inside her room told him that she had arrived.
Now, his fury demanded of himself. He would rush inside and hold the knife to her throat and get the truth from her lips.
Yet another part of the same anger — the cold, calculating icy rage — told him to wait. Patience would accomplish more than rash action. He could follow her until she met with the storyteller. As his puppet, surely she must meet him soon.
He crouched and held motionless.
A moment later, he felt overwhelming relief at his decision.
Another candle entered the room.
Who had joined her?
Juliana soon moved near the window to open the drapes.
Beside her stood the the assassin, clearly lit by the candle he held.
Raphael hoped the shadow covered him completely. He forced himself to remain still, despite the conflicting urges inside him. One part wanted to join battle with the assassin. The other part wanted to flee.
He did nothing.
They looked out the window, but the glare of the candlelight in their own eyes made it impossible for either to see into the shadows of the balcony.
If either stepped to open the window…
Raphael held his breath.
They remained in the same spot and spoke in low voices to each other. Raphael heard nothing except a low murmur. Occasionally their voices rose, as if they were arguing without heat.
Raphael could only guess at how long the discussion continued. He only knew that if it didn’t end soon, his thighs would burst from the strain of remaining in his crouch.
Finally, they turned away from the window.
Raphael followed the progress of the light of the candles as they opened the door and stepped out into the palace hallway again.
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