Devil's Lair

by David Wisehart

  The leader slapped him across the face, then cut the pouch from William’s rope belt. “I’m not afraid to kill a monk.”

  “I’m a friar, not a monk.”

  The leader slapped him again. He pulled the glass lentil from William’s pouch. “What’s this?”

  “A piece of glass,” said William.

  “What’s it for?”

  “For you, if you want it.”

  The leader tossed it aside. The glass lentil smacked against a rock and shattered. The man pulled out the vial of oil from the pouch. “And this?”

  “Oleum infirmorum.”

  Another slap.

  “Holy oil,” said William. “To anoint the sick.”

  The leader opened the vial and drank it. “I feel better already.” He tossed it aside. “You a priest?”

  “Would you like to make your confession?”

  Slap.

  Another man said, “If you’re a priest, where are your bags of gold?”

  “I took a vow of poverty.”

  The bandit leader looked at Giovanni’s rich clothes. “What about him?”

  “I took a vow of poetry,” Giovanni said. “It is much the same.”

  Slap.

  “No money,” one of the men reported, “but a bit of food.”

  “They got a girl,” said another.

  The leader grinned. “Then we won’t go hungry.”

  They threw Nadja to the ground. She kicked and fought and screamed. Four men wrestled with her as the leader watched. The two soldiers held Giovanni and William back. The rough gang pulled off Nadja’s kirtle and chemise. They shoved her naked onto the road, pinning her there with her limbs splayed, one man anchoring each arm and leg.

  Giovanni struggled against his captive. The leader punched the poet in the nose. Giovanni’s world went dim. He shook his head and tasted blood. When he looked up again, he saw the youngest bandit kneeling between Nadja’s legs with his proud flesh exposed. The leader shoved the younger man aside to take the first turn.

  “God will punish you for this,” said William.

  The leader bellowed his amusement. “Your god is dead.”

  He dropped his hose and raised his tunic. His hand groped the blonde tuft between Nadja’s legs. “Damn, woman.” He tossed something aside: a tatter of wool blotted with blood. Giovanni saw it land on the road. A wooden peg bounced from the rag and rolled in the dirt like a severed finger.

  The bandit leader spit on his hand, pulled at his limp cock, and slapped it against Nadja’s thighs until his manhood stiffened. He grabbed her ass to elevate her hips and laughed as he entered her. He hollered and sang as he savaged the girl. The others laughed along. They did not hear the warning sounds, the scuff of boots running on the road.

  Giovanni saw the dull flash of a rusty sword, then the face of the man who held it: one cheek scalded by the sun.

  Marco ran to where the girl lay screaming. He held the sword in both hands, raised high. Closing with the rapist, he swung the blade in a level strike at the man’s neck. The blade did not win through but lodged itself in bone and flesh and cartilage. The force of the blow threw the rapist from the girl, knocking him sideways. Blood burst from the man’s neck. The falling body took the sword with it to the ground, the hilt slipping from Marco’s hand.

  The knight reclaimed his sword by pressing the heel of his boot under the dead man’s chin and pulling hard on the hilt. The neck yawned, spouting red mist as the sword came free. Blood streamed off the tapered end like water from a wet dog’s tail.

  The soldier who held Giovanni shoved him forward and scampered for safety. The other men fled in competition with the first. Marco went for them, slicing the breastplated soldier at the back of his knees. The soldier dropped like a penitent and toppled over. Marco chased down the others.

  Giovanni heard the soldier moan, and felt his own bile rise. The poet staggered to his feet, picked up a stone, and went in a fury to the fallen man. The man wore a breastplate but no helm. Giovanni pounded the man’s face with the stone until his hands were bloody to the wrist. Then he sat back, exhausted.

  The man was still alive. His left eye had burst, oozing a clear jelly like fat tears. His left cheek was shattered. His lips were impaled on loose grey teeth. As he rasped and groaned, blood bubbled up from the mangled maw. Giovanni knew he should end it, but the bloodlust had abandoned him and he no longer had the will.

  A shadow loomed across the body. The poet looked up to see Marco sheath his wet blade, then draw the dagger.

  “A soldier,” Marco observed. “He might have known me. Now he won’t survive the sunset.”

  Marco offered Giovanni the dagger’s hilt: the same dagger he had stolen a few days before.

  The poet shook his head. “Yours now. You do it.”

  Marco knelt over the dying man to deliver the misericord. The breastplate protected the soldier’s chest, so Marco raised the man’s left arm to expose the armpit. He pressed the point of the blade between the upper ribs and plunged it straight through to the heart.

  The next day, when they came upon a rivulet that crossed the road, the pilgrims stopped to drink their fill and replenish their flasks. Nadja went downstream to wash herself. Marco offered to protect her, but she sent him back to the others. She did not want to look at him now, and did not want him to look at her.

  Finding a quiet place where only God could see her, Nadja squatted over the beck and washed between her legs. The rapist had not spilled his seed inside her, she thought, but she had been proven wrong before. This time she needed to be sure. She cleaned her loins as best she could, then washed her face and her hair. After letting her clothes fall to her feet, she rinsed her kirtle in the water and used it as a wet rag to scrub herself all over. She did not stop until her skin was pink and sore.

  From her bag of herbs she took three peppercorns and ground them into a powder between two rocks. She tore a tatter from her wet gown and rolled it in the black powder until the cloth was covered with pepper. Nadja squeezed this pessary into a tight ball and inserted it into her vagina as deep as it would go, then she put her clothes back on and sat on the grass, with her feet in the water, and wept for the child she would never see again.

  CHAPTER 12

  The town of Corona Corvina sequestered itself behind a thick wooden wall on a mountainside overlooking a cliff. As William climbed the steep grade leading up to the gate, he saw the chapel’s roof peeping over the enceinte and the crucifix piercing the sky.

  “Father Ignazio sheltered us on our way south,” he said to Marco, who now led the company. “A good man.”

  “With good wine,” Giovanni added, walking behind them with Nadja. The donkey followed, saddled with packs. The poet clenched tight the reins in his hand, as if the beast were his last worldly possession, and William noted again how the lust for property led men to fear and despair.

  Marco no longer wore his bandage. His wound was nearly healed. William had never seen such a fast recovery. Marco’s sunburn had faded as the rest of his skin bronzed; it took a discerning eye to see where the old color bled into the new. The knight did not limp as before, but marched at a pace that winded the others. Killing the bandits had renewed his confidence. He seemed to gain strength from the death of other men.

  When they arrived at Corona Corvina, the double doors were closed. No guards stood at the gate, no men on the watchtowers.

  “Hello!” cried William.

  No one answered.

  Marco knocked with the flat of his hand, then with the hilt of his sword. The double doors rattled under the blows. The group waited, calling out from time to time and listening for an answer that did not come. The town was silent behind its walls. Losing patience, Marco slid his sword between the doors and lifted the latch on the other side, but the latch fell back into place again. On the second attempt he caught the point of the blade under the latch, then pushed it forward so the wood fell free. He opened the doors and the pilgrims entered.

&nb
sp; Inside the walls, houses and shops and taverns pressed hard against each other, leaving scarcely enough room in the road for two men to walk abreast. But the streets were empty now. The city was vacant and quiet as death.

  Nadja said, “We were here not more than a week ago.”

  “A little more, I think,” Giovanni said.

  William called out again. “Hello! Fat Tom! Father Ignazio! Somebody! Anybody!”

  Marco shouted in a booming voice, “Fire!” This disturbed the crows and rats, but no human voice replied.

  The pilgrims checked the tavern and shops: all vacant.

  Marco returned to the gate and climbed a watchtower. “Over there,” he said, pointing at the eastern wall.

  The pilgrims went to the wall, past the smithy and the bakery, and William saw the breach where someone had hacked through the wooden planks. Here the wall came to the very edge of the cliff. A broken board hung loose. The gap was wide enough for a horse and wagon, but no horse short of madness would have taken that road. The breach opened to the empty sky.

  William studied the deep marks in the wood. “More than one axe,” he said. “Three at least. Probably more.”

  “A siege?” Nadja asked.

  She was standing back behind the others, and didn’t see it clearly, but even Nadja might have understood these marks, which scarred the inner wall.

  “No,” said William. “They were trying to break out.”

  He stepped up to the breach and looked down. Vertigo seized him as he stared at the sheer drop, but he forced himself to look until he understood what he saw: bodies. Hundreds of bodies. They were piled far down at the base of the cliff, twisted and contorted like straw dolls dropped by an uncaring child. A few corpses had been plucked from the air, their garments snagged by branches so that the bodies now dangled from the face of the cliff. One had a tonsured head and wore the surplice and carcalla of a parish priest.

  William stepped back.

  Devil be damned.

  He crossed himself, then took Nadja by the arm so she would not be tempted to look. “With me,” he said, and led her toward the center of town.

  “Where are you going?” Marco called out.

  “To pray.”

  William walked Nadja toward the jutting crucifix, with Marco and Giovanni trailing, but when he arrived at the chapel and saw the mark etched into the doors he stopped short.

  The knight caught up with him. “We should sleep at the inn tonight,” he said. “Plenty of food and wine. Tomorrow we’ll take what we can and continue north.”

  “No,” said William, staring at the chapel.

  Across the wooden doors someone had carved bold letters in a language only Father Ignazio would understand: diabolus.

  “Wait here,” he said. “I’m going inside.”

  When he opened the doors, a cloud of black flies escaped. William let them pass before stepping into the shadowy narthex. The candles had all burned out. Despite the high windows, the darkness was inconsolable. The stench told William, before he could see it, what had happened here. The chapel smelled like a hospital, but there were no sounds of sick patients, no moans, no coughing, no curses, no prayers. Silence ruled the dark.

  He stood with his eyes closed for the time it took to say twenty-four paternosters. Then William opened his eyes, dipped his fingers in the holy water stoup, crossed himself, and walked into the nave.

  The townspeople were stacked five and six high, like cords of wood, in neat rows along the walls from the narthex to the chancery. A narrow path ran down the middle. The dead were dressed, but on their hands and feet and faces and necks they bore signs of the plague: the livid skin, the buboes, and the unique odor of their corruption.

  William had loved this little chapel when first he saw it. The priest was a godly man, unlike other clergymen William had met, and the people of this town had welcomed the weary pilgrims with clean beds and warm hearts.

  Had it only been a week?

  They died so fast.

  There was nothing William could do for them now. Their souls had gone to judgment and had left in their wake a horror.

  For a short while he searched this ad hoc morgue for a body clothed in vestments, hoping beyond reason that Father Ignazio was not the priest who dangled from the cliff.

  Father, what have you done?

  Had the priest flung himself over the cliff? Had he led his flock into perdition? Had they sacrificed their souls upon the altar of madness?

  William crossed himself again, whispering, “Misereatur tui omnipotens Deus et dimissis peccatis tuis.”

  When he could no longer stomach the smells, he rejoined his companions in the bright light of day, shutting the church doors firmly behind him.

  “We should leave,” he said.

  Marco chuckled. “The town is ours.”

  “It belongs to the Devil now.”

  Nadja took William’s arm to steady him. “What is it, Father?” she asked. “What did you see in there?”

  “The future.”

  CHAPTER 13

  North of Capua they joined the Appian Way and made good time on the old Roman road, stopping at taverns in Fondi and Terracina and Velletri, where William heard confessions, Giovanni sang for room and board, Nadja danced the saltarello, and Marco recalled the evils of dice, losing most of his armor and much of his pride, until they arrived at last, hungry and footsore, at the Appian gate of Rome.

  In a fallow field outside the city, a group of Minorites and their postulants unloaded a plague cart, tossing bodies into a mass grave. The trench ran parallel to the road. It was eight feet wide, ten feet deep, and half a league long. Most of it was covered with earth, but the open end revealed bodies stacked one upon another. One gravedigger shoveled dirt over the corpses; another extended the trench. William asked his friends to tarry and offered a prayer for the dead, then muttered, “‘sequere me et demitte mortuos sepelire mortuos suos,’” and the others followed him to the city gate.

  The portcullis was raised and guarded by five soldiers who chatted among themselves, ignoring the sparse traffic moving in and out of the city. There were fewer people coming than going. Most of those leaving were piled in carts.

  Outside the gate a barefoot preacher stood on a wine barrel shouting at passersby. William listened to the sermon, much of it familiar, and knew the preacher for a Joachite. The man gave William a nod, but did not pause in his polemic.

  “Famine! War! Plague! Death! What is the meaning of this malevolence? It is the passing of an age. The age of the Son! The age of Saint Paul! The age of the Church! The age of divine grace! The second age has passed from this world. The third age approaches. Prepare yourselves! But what is this new age? This third age? It is the Age of the Holy Spirit! The age of Saint John! The age of love and liberty! But first, my brothers, there is this present darkness. Famine. War. Plague. Death. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Behold! The Antichrist is born! He lives among us even now. He is six years old. A very handsome boy. He has mastered every field of knowledge. No one alive can equal him. No one can defeat him. There is another boy, twelve years old, beyond the land of the Tartars. Born into the Christian faith. He will grow in strength and righteousness. He will destroy the Saracens. He will reign in peace. But his empire will end! End at the coming of the Antichrist! Our demon pope will die in hot blood. Surely he will die in hot blood. But there will come another pope. A good pope. A just pope. He will create cardinals who fear the Lord! But his empire will end. End at the coming of the Antichrist. Famine. War. Plague. Death....”

  They passed through the gate and into the city.

  Marco’s first impression was of a vast and vacant countryside. Unlike other Italian towns, which were crowded with filthy houses and narrow streets, Rome contained within its walls an expanse of green fields, ripe orchards, and irrigated farms. The drought, it seemed, had no power here.

  “Where are all the people?” he asked.

  “By the river,” said Giovanni. “Th
ese are the old walls. The city is smaller now.”

  Not far from the gate they came to a roadblock manned by a dozen soldiers. Their helmets gleamed. Their boots were polished. Their chainmail had never been challenged. Marco wondered if these men fought as well as they dressed.

  “Orsini men,” Giovanni muttered to Marco, but the name meant nothing to him.

  “Stop,” said one, stepping forward and raising a gloved hand. “State your business.”

  William answered, “We are pilgrims on our way to Saint Peter’s. We wish to follow the pilgrim’s path.”

  The man noted the blood on Marco’s tunic and the sword hanging at his belt. “You don’t look like a pilgrim.”

  “He’s with us,” Nadja said.

  The soldier stood taller than his companions but shorter than Marco, and had to look up to meet the knight’s gaze. “For what do you do penance?”

  “For killing a man who asked too many questions,” Marco said. His hand rested easily on the hilt of his sword.

  “This knight saved us from bandits,” William said quickly.

  “A knight?”

  “Our protector.”

  A second soldier stepped up. “Have you a name, Sir Knight?”

  “Marco da Roma.” He said it with more conviction than he felt.

  “Da Roma?” asked the first soldier. “Do I know you?”

  “Do you?” Marco hoped the answer was yes.

  The man studied him closely. “Perhaps not.” He turned to the friar. “If you wish to take the pilgrim’s path, start at the church of Saint John Lateran.”

  “Where is that?” asked William.

  “I know it,” Giovanni said.

  The soldier answered, “Follow the wall to Saint John’s gate. The path will lead you to the Vatican. Follow the other pilgrims. If you get lost, ask directions in a church.”

  “And if we can’t find a church?” Marco asked.

  One of the other guards laughed. “We’ve got more churches than horses.”

  “Thank you,” William said.

  The first soldier lowered his voice. “And a word of advice, Father.” He cast a sidelong glance at Marco. “You may have met some bandits on the road, but most of them are in the city. Do not wander from the path.”