by Sarah Rayne
He got to his feet, somebody banged a table for silence, and Cosimo looked very solemn and said it was all very well to talk about what to do with the stranger, but they should all remember the likely origins of beings who appeared to transcend the grave. He waited, and heard the words ‘devil’ and ‘demon’ murmur around the tavern, and plunged on.
Why should they not allow God to decide? asked Cosimo, looking fatly responsible and serious. Why should they not revive the ancient honourable practice of the per Dei judicium and see what God thought about the stranger?
He looked so fierce and so stern, even with the fatness, that everyone present remembered that after all Cremona had been purged of the plague-rats more or less at Cosimo’s hand, and also that it had been Cosimo’s lady who had been sacrificed last night. If that didn’t give him the best right of all to decide what to do with the stranger then nothing did, they said firmly and refrained from remarking that Isabella had probably not taken much sacrificing.
It was the tavern keeper himself who asked what form the trial should take, and Cosimo, who had been waiting for somebody to ask this, said, ‘Well, there are several possibilities.’
Isabella came out of a deep, pleasurable sleep, vaguely aware that she was lying on hard ground and dimly wondering why, but strongly aware that there was a familiar soreness between her thighs. For a moment, caught in the drifting, half-drugged world between sleep and waking, she smiled. Ah, have I been doing that for most of the night . . .?
And then memory rushed in, and she sat up abruptly. I am in the catacombs. And with me– She turned her head and saw him still at her side, the dark hair tumbled over his pale brow, a sheen of moisture on his closed eyelids, the sensual, sensitive mouth relaxed in sleep. Something fastened about her heart – O, Ahasuerus! – but then the mischievous smile lifted her lips into the cat-smile as memory peeled back a little further. How many times? Dear God, I lost count. But over and over, as if we were both thirsting, as if we could never have enough of one another. Clutching, clawing, biting, scratching. And then, after the first hungers had been assuaged, gentler, slower, infinitely loving. Remarkable.
She propped herself up on one elbow and looked down at him. He had tossed aside the dark robe last night, and in the dim light in the caves, he had appeared to her only as slender and pale, with a faint luminous glow to his skin.
Now, with the cold grey dawnlight sliding into the cave, Isabella could see the things that the moonlight and the sensuality and the hungry passion had hidden.
Scars. Great ploughed weals and knotted furrows around the upper part of his body. He turned slightly in sleep, and Isabella saw that the scars furrowed his back, latticing in places. Her heart twisted again, and she reached out a hand and traced the scars lightly, as if to smooth them away. Without warning, Ahasuerus opened his eyes and looked straight at her with his level, disconcerting gaze.
Isabella said, in a whisper, ‘Your back—Ahasuerus, what did that to your back?’
There was a moment of the most profound silence she had ever known, and then Ahasuerus said in a voice devoid of all emotion, ‘It was part of a punishment. I was sentenced to suffer what my people called the Triple Death. The Three Agonies.’ He touched the scars lightly. ‘Those are the marks of the first of those agonies.’
And as Isabella waited, her eyes never leaving him, he said, ‘Scourging. I was scourged at the pillar.’
It was as clear as if it had only just happened. The words of the sentence were as plain as if they had only just been pronounced.
‘You will be scourged at the pillar while the sun passes from the east to the west side of Jerusalem . . . The next evening at sunset, you will be nailed to the Cruciferum . . . The evening after that, again at sunset, fires will be lit around the foot of the Cruciferum, and your body will burn . . .’
He could still see his grim prison beneath the cool lovely Temple and he could still smell it; the low-ceilinged, windowless cellar that reeked of the fear and the despairing agony of countless other prisoners.
He had been kept there for several days, lying in the dark, grim place, chained and manacled and given only a few mouthfuls of bread and water. There had been a pile of straw nearby which he supposed was for the relieving of bladder and bowels, and he had felt fastidious disgust. A High Priest to lie in his own ordure? He thought he would rather die and then he remembered that he would die anyway and it ceased to matter.
Scourged at the pillar, nailed to the Cruciferum, and then burned alive . . . Fear tore through him in great shuddering waves, but he held on to the thought of Susannah: Susannah who had lain with him and who had promised him that there would be the return . . . Susannah would not let him die in screaming torment.
When they finally brought him up out of the underground room, he was so weak that the brightness of the day struck across his eyes like a blow, and he staggered and almost fell. But somehow he forced himself to stand straight and he surveyed the watchers with cold authority. Pride – that overweening pride that had contributed to his downfall! – came to his rescue, and he vowed that no matter how deep the agony and no matter how searing the torment, he would not show weakness or fear. He still wore the white robe of his calling and the cool silken folds gave him unexpected courage. I die, but I die as a High Priest of the Temple. I die as a Scribe and a Scholar of Jerusalem and you cannot take that from me. As the guards pulled him roughly to the immense stone pillar, he shook off their hands angrily, and deliberately stood for a moment studying the instruments for the first part of the execution. Yes, the flagellum was there: the whip made of several strands of square-sectioned leather and with it the flagrum, the lengths of cord with human knuckle bones knotted along them at intervals. He eyed the grisly things with complete calm, and then turned back courteously to the guards and held out his hands, as if saying: now I am ready.
The guards moved at once, chaining him to the stone pillar that was part of the Temple’s kingpost and that was used for the punishment of those who defiled the altar. His back was towards the crowd but he caught, on the edge of his vision, the Elders silently watching, and he knew that if there was to be any kind of rescue, it would be hard won. The Elders were too anxious to show how renegades were dealt with in Jerusalem. He thought it not unlikely that some of them were even enjoying his downfall. Because they had been jealous? Because he had been clever and successful and because the women had been drawn to him? That hubristic arrogance again! Yes, but there was probably some truth in the notion.
The first blow from the flagrum was so much worse than he had been expecting that it almost broke his resolve. The hard knuckle bones jarred sickeningly against flesh and muscle, bruising his ribs agonisingly and he bit down a groan. Remain silent. Whatever they do, whatever the depth of the agony, remain silent. He concentrated his mind until it was focused on a single flame of glowing light and on the silvery call of Susannah’s music.
Shut out the pain. Shut out the agony and the tearing brutality of the flagrum. Let me keep the light in my sight and let me keep the music in my mind, and let neither of them waver . . .
The scourges fell again and again: Ahasuerus heard them singing through the air before each blow, and when the blows came they tore at his flesh, lacerating it into bloodied tatters. Behind him, he was aware of the second guard reaching for the leather flagellum.
The flagellum was agony of a different texture. Subtler. Where the thongs met and tangled as they struck him, the pain was so fierce that the single shard of light blurred and the music faded. He felt salt tears mingle with sweat and sting his lip and he felt the tumbled hair glued to his brow.
But when the guards finally laid down the scourges and stepped up to free the chains and the fetters, he lifted his head and turned to face the crowd and with his last reserves of strength, he forced into his eyes the light that had beckoned and promised, and that had enthralled the women. His body was streaked with blood and the white robe was torn and draggled with gore. But I kept t
he light and I kept the music, he thought with sudden triumph. And if I can only hold on to those two things, I believe I can walk to the Cruciferum with the same courage as the Nazarene Himself . . .
‘The light and the music bore me with them,’ he said to Isabella in the cool dawnlight that filtered into the catacombs. ‘They bore me forward and they took me through the scourging to what was waiting beyond it.’ He stopped, and Isabella thought: the music! This is the source! This is the long-ago source of my family’s ancient, handed-down secret! She waited, hardly daring to breathe, wanting him to go on, wanting to hear of his agonies, knowing in the same breathspace that hearing would tear apart her own flesh.
But Ahasuerus had turned his head to the entrance to the catacombs. ‘Listen,’ he said.
‘What—’ And then Isabella heard it as well.
Marching feet. People coming up the dry, dusty road towards them.
Isabella pulled her cloak about her and pushing her tumbled hair back with one hand, crawled cautiously out on to the ledge to see what was happening.
It was still very early. The light was pure and clear and there was a glistening newness everywhere. She narrowed her eyes and looked out along the road that wound from Cremona. Yes, there they were, a little band of people coming purposefully towards the catacombs. Travellers of some kind? But travellers were not usually about so early, and in any case they had closed the city gates soon after the plague broke out.
And then she recognised the man leading the little procession. Cosimo. At his side was the monk, Simon.
Chapter Nineteen
Cosimo had been overwhelmed with relief at finding Isabella safe. He had carried her back to the house himself, over-ruling her protests saying, Nonsense, of course she was not too heavy for him.
She must rest in her bedchamber, he said, finally setting her down on their threshold, somewhat empurpled as to face and short as to breath. He insisted on it and there was to be no argument. A terrible ordeal, said Cosimo, busily preparing a dainty little tray for his poor, dear girl, brushing aside the stupid sloven who was babbling about mulled wine and freshly made chicken broth, and who was all right so far as cooking and cleaning went, but could not be trusted with the care of his precious one.
He set the tray with a clean linen cloth, and put out a bowl of the broth which the sloven had made early that morning. There were sweet biscuits and sugared fruits: Cosimo arranged these on a plate and uncorked a bottle of the rich dark wine which Isabella liked and which it was his pleasure to buy for her.
He perched anxiously on the edge of the bed watching to be sure she ate and drank everything, furrowing his brow at the sight of the red marks on her white neck and shoulders, and at the faintly bruised look of her mouth. But when Isabella asked what was happening to Ahasuerus, Cosimo patted her hand and said they would not talk of it: she was to put the entire thing from her mind. The evil creature had been locked in the monks’ cells, and justice was going to be done to him – at noon that very day if they were to be exact – but Isabella was not to be distressed by the details.
He patted her hand again, smoothed the bedsheets and went off to witness the downfall of the creature who had seduced his lady.
In the Campo Santo, an atmosphere of subdued excitement had reigned since daybreak.
The tavern keeper had been up betimes, and had made an expedition to his cellar to bring up several casks of October ale and small beer, along with the wine which he had been storing for the monks, but from which a couple of casks would not be missed. He would say that Father Abbot had miscounted if anyone challenged him.
His wife spent the morning baking some onion and vegetable pasties and a batch of little honey cakes which could be sold quite cheaply but which, since the spectacle had been set for noon, would do very nicely for people to eat by way of a mid-day repast. She had consulted anxiously with her spouse as to whether they should kill the last of the fowl and offer bowls of chicken broth as well. You could get quite chilled watching a judgement of a February morning, said the tavern keeper’s lady seriously and, more to the point, they could charge for the use of the bowls. But in the event, there had not been time for chicken-killing or broth-making.
Cosimo had a bad moment when Brother Simon and a couple of his fellow monks approached him and asked whether Cosimo would not leave Ahasuerus in their keeping: there was something about an ancient vow, and an open sarcophagus brought up from the catacombs, all of which sounded so absurd as to be hardly worth answering.
Cosimo, in fact, was secretly looking forward to the per Dei judicium which would serve a two-pronged purpose: not only would it punish Ahasuerus, it would act as a warning to the impudent young men of Cremona whom he so often caught eyeing Isabella with covert lust. It would be a warning to Isabella herself as well, although Cosimo knew perfectly well that this was not needed.
But looked at from all aspects, the per Dei judicium was going to serve all of Cosimo’s interests very nicely indeed.
He glanced up at the monks’ clock tower and saw that there was only an hour to go.
Isabella had not argued against Cosimo because it would be pointless. She waited until he had gone, allowing him enough time to be well beyond the house, and then thrust the hateful tray aside and swung her legs out of bed. Across the rooftops the monks’ bell was chiming the half hour: Cosimo had said noon and it was almost that now. She pulled a plain gown more or less at random from the lavender-scented cupboard and covered it with her dark cloak before slipping out of the house.
The streets were deserted and many of the houses still bore the grisly red plague cross. Cremona felt like a city of the dead. Isabella shivered and made her way to the Campo Santo, glancing over her shoulder every few minutes, imagining stealthy footsteps creeping along behind her.
But nothing stirred in the empty streets and Isabella understood with sudden anger that everyone was congregating in the square to witness whatever was being done to Ahasuerus. As she drew nearer she heard the monks’ bell tower chiming the quarter.
The Campo Santo was Cremona’s heart: it was a large square meeting place, bounded on all sides by buildings: the Exchange and the smith’s forge and several smaller buildings. A wall of the monks’ house ran along the western side and the small clock tower rose above it. Half a dozen tiny side streets led off the square, all of them narrow and shadowy and cobbled. You could stand in any one of them and see everything that happened in the Campo Santo and no one would know you were there. Isabella positioned herself in the deep shadow cast by the monks’ tower and scanned the crowd.
They were all there. All the townspeople and the tavern keeper and the artisans. Several of the monks – Brother Simon among them. Isabella had time to see that Simon was looking very sombre.
Cosimo was at the centre of it all, bustling importantly to and fro, talking to this person and that, and from her shadowy corner, Isabella saw the spring to his step and the unusual flush touching his normally pallid jowls and she understood that whatever was going to be done to Ahasuerus, Cosimo was behind it. Because Cosimo had known – everyone had known – Ahasuerus’s intention. Ahasuerus beckoned to me and I went, thought Isabella.
At the centre of the square, directly outside of the forge where the smith did a roaring trade from the pilgrims and the travellers who passed through Cremona in normal times, a thick squat brazier had been set up and for a moment Isabella stared at it, puzzled. The two carters were engaged in feeding it with wood and charcoal, and as one of them bent to lift fresh wood from a basket of logs nearby, sick dread flooded Isabella’s mind.
Across the top of the brazier, nearly white-hot with heat, lay long iron-handled tongs.
As the monks brought Ahasuerus out, the clock tower chimed the clear notes of noon.
Ahasuerus’s black hair was tumbled and dishevelled and his skin was so pale that it was almost translucent. But his eyes glowed with a clear grey light, and he regarded Cosimo and the rest with icy disdain. Isabella dug her nail
s into her palms, praying for him to escape. But if he cannot escape, then let him not break. Please let him not show fear or pain.
Ahasuerus appeared to be listening to Cosimo with thinly concealed boredom and when Cosimo said, ‘We require you to grasp in both hands the white-hot tongs from the brazier, one in each hand,’ he merely nodded as if to indicate that he understood.
But Isabella, crouching in the shadowy alley, felt cold horror flood her mind.
Trial by ordeal. Trial by burning. Oh God, no. One of the oldest, one of the most barbaric forms of deciding justice. If the victim escaped unscathed it was decreed that God had intervened to prove his innocence. If he did not escape, God had left him to suffer his fate and guilt was assumed. Some form of burning or branding was almost always utilised, and in the past the grisly practice had been made just about credible by the fact that a handful of extremely holy men and women had managed to exert the force of their wills to escape being mutilated.
She stared at the brazier, seeing the shimmer of heat rising on the air, and seeing people backing away from it. The words of that other sentence, exactly as Ahasuerus had repeated them to her last night, wrenched at her mind.
‘You will be scourged at the pillar while the sun passes from the east to the west side of Jerusalem . . . The next evening at sunset, you will be nailed to the Cruciferum . . . The evening after that, again at sunset, fires will be lit around the foot of the Cruciferum, and your body will burn . . .’
And now we’re doing it to him again, we’re burning him again.
The brazier was glowing white-hot, and Cosimo was importantly explaining what would happen. ‘If you are unhurt and unscarred by the tongs from the brazier, we shall know that God has judged you innocent and—’
