Beyond the Raging Flames (The Hermeporta Book 2)

by Hogarth Brown

  The Cardinal dug his fingers into his thighs.

  ‘I’ll get out of here without you’ said Orsini, ‘I’m still powerful. I still have friends.’ Antonio’s laughter splintered into the cell like shards of fallen icicles, and Orsini almost dived out of the way.

  ‘It’s OVER for you’ boomed Antonio, ‘you don’t have friends, only enemies.’ Orsini fidgeted. ‘I know almost every person you have intimidated or double-crossed' he continued, 'and I know almost everyone you’ve either wronged or insulted - I could fill the dungeons of the Doge with your miss-deeds… with your crimes, with people that hate you.’ The Cardinal frowned as he wagged his finger in the air.

  ‘I never laid a finger on anyone.’

  ‘You didn’t have to’ snarled Antonio, ‘you always got someone else to do that. What do you think will happen to you if I let your enemies know that you’re caged here, like a rat? How long do you think it would be until you find your entrails nailed to the ceiling, your lungs flayed - your heart cut out and tossed, sizzling to a crisp, in a burning fire?’ Antonio prickled the air as he ran his nails down the door. Orsini’s brow began to sweat, as his arm and neck hairs bristled - covered in Goosebumps. He looked at the blue slits that floated outside his cell. His voice wavered: stabbed by the truth.

  ‘Things will be different, from now on. I’m a changed man Nino; I have my faith in God that he will forgive my wrongs.’ Orsini’s mouth became dry, ‘in God’s infinite love and wisdom I see now that he has brought you here: here as my angel of judgement.’ Antonio laughed again, glass-like, strange, high and sweet, but devoid of compassion.

  ‘How poetic you are when cornered… you should do this more often. You could sing for Carlinos on the Rialto.' The Cardinal trembled with rage and then despair. Antonio had mocked him and his situation. 'If you wish to make amends, then you know what you have to do, your Eminence, as your first act of penance.’ Orsini stood expectant, he anticipated what could be coming. Antonio then reached into his bag and drew out the folded legitimacy document, and slid it between the cell bars. He let the scribed vellum hang there until Orsini reached forward to take it. Antonio then produced a sealed inkwell and a quill which Orsini also collected.

  He struggled to control his fingers as he lay the document flat on his cell bench. Every insignia and official stamp he recognised from The Church: a world he already felt he no longer belonged to. Orsini took up the ink-dipped quill and signed in the relevant spaces as best he could. The Cardinal tried to blow on his signature, but his breath would not obey him.

  ‘I don’t have any pounce powder. It could smudge' he said, as he handed back the document, along with the inkwell and quill, through the narrow bars of the cell hatch. Antonio did not seem to care. He stood, with casual grace, returning the ink and quill to his bag, before he fanned himself with the document to dry the ink. He glared at the Cardinal, as he wafted air over his face. Orsini's fingers reached forward to cling to the bars in the dimness. In silence, Antonio drank in every drip of his enemy’s demise and wretchedness - before he turned heel and walked away.

  Orsini’s eyes widened before he shook at his bars.

  ‘Hey?’ said Orsini, calling after Antonio, ‘HEY!’ he yelled, ‘come back here… I demand it, this instant.’ His expression grew wild, ‘I’m still a Cardinal, you know? I still have power… I still have FRIENDS.’ But all Orsini could hear were Antonio’s steps gliding away, and the giggle and rasp of a man in his cell, two doors down, who had lost his mind.

  Chapter 32

  Letting Go

  Poveglia, Monday, Christmas Day, December 25th, 1611

  Hermes and Illawara drew up to the frozen island of Poveglia with Hermes drenched in sweat. Even with occasionally taking turns it had taken them hours to row through the lagoon patch-worked with ice like a membrane of death. On Christmas Day the streets and waterways were empty, and only the foreign Gondoliers were working. Not one Gondolier had wished to assist them in their task, even when they had made some generous offers with Adriano’s money. They asked an Ottoman Gondolier to take them to Poveglia, and he scoffed at their request. At a loss, after Christmas Eve spent in a tavern, the pair had no choice but to rent a small boat and deliver themselves to the island.

  ‘I can’t feel my arms’ said Hermes, in a cloud of breath, as the boat’s prow cracked through the wafers of ice onto the shore in the December gloom. Illawara made a sound of consolation. The winter sun had become low in the sky, as a freezing mist began to descend over the waters of the lagoon.

  ‘Is that a gondola there?’ said Illawara, pointing to the unmistakable silhouette of a dark curved boat at rest freezing into the shoreline.

  ‘It looks like it. I guess that’s how the Professor got here?’

  ‘Do you think he’s still here?’ she said. Hermes shrugged.

  ‘If he is I doubt if he’ll want to come with us. I’m sure he has his own ideas of how to use the Hermeportas.’

  Hermes seemed startled as if he had forgotten something. He reached into Illawara's satchel on the boat's plank and retrieved a sparkling diamond. Illawara gasped.

  'Aphrodite' she exclaimed reaching forward, 'how could I have forgotten you?' Hermes gave Illawara her jewel still attached to its thong.

  'I almost forgot it myself.' he said. 'I collected it from your room yesterday, I was determined to find you, and if I didn't, I was going to throw it into the lagoon.'

  'Just like Titanic.' Hermes nodded. Illawara gave a rueful nod of understanding. 'I've always loved that film. Thank you' she said before putting the gem in her top pocket over her heart. The pair then jumped out of the boat and together dragged the vessel further up the shore. The island was silent. Nothing stirred on the land, just the eddies of mist - with a macabre life of their own.

  ‘This is an awful place’ said Illawara with a shudder in her men’s clothes.

  ‘This is just the place where Hekate would have wished a Hermeporta located - a portal of death’ said Hermes.

  ‘Who’s Hekate? This place feels like a graveyard.’

  ‘You’ll get to know her’ said Hermes with a rueful tilt of his head, ‘your mother and father worked under her guidance - a lot.' Illawara struggled to imagine her parents, and it worried her that they took guidance from a Goddess that would favour an island like Poveglia. The pair looked up at the ruined church of San Vidal.

  ‘The Hermeporta must be somewhere under this place?' Sneered Hermes, 'that’s what the Christians so often did: they built over our temples and called them their own', he added. Illawara looked at Hermes in the ebbing light, his face troubled, and realised that there was still so much that she did not know about him. The pair walked into the church and scanned the desolate space, looking up into the gaps where parts of the roof had fallen. They searched for stairs in the abandoned church, anything that allowed them to go downward. It took them a while to find the hatch that led to the old temple below. The pair hovered by the open trapdoor and listened to the voices they could hear coming from downstairs.

  They recognised the Professor’s voice, but they could hear the rich tone of a woman disagreeing with him, as the hatch steps glowed, somewhat, with candlelight.

  ‘I’m not sure I can do this’ said the Professor, rubbing his scalp.

  ‘Why not?’ said Lucia, ‘you told me you did it before - that’s how you got here.’

  ‘I know, but this feels different, Lucia - this man helped me.’

  ‘He’s just a Gondolier. He won’t be missed. No one will know. No one will care’ she protested. The Professor crossed his arms.

  ‘It’s a matter of principles.’ Lucia laughed.

  ‘You don’t have any principles. Have you looked at yourself?’

  ‘That’s not fair, that was something quite different. No, this is not right. I feel like I’ve betrayed him.’

  Hermes and Illawara listened intrigued and dared to descend the temple steps with as little noise they could. The Professor and Lucia stood some dist
ance away, with their backs to the onlookers as they argued. Lucia gestured to a body slumped in the corner.

  ‘You act like I’ve slit the man’s throat and performed the ceremony myself, he’s not dead, it’s just a sleeping draught.’ The Professor ran his fingers down his face.

  ‘That was wrong. I told you to leave him alone. We should have rowed back to the mainland yesterday.’ Lucia raised her voice.

  ‘In the dark on Christmas Eve? Don't be foolish' she said, 'or better still we can row back to the city today and snatch someone away as they say grace with their family at the Christmas table. "More pie and goose to go around, everyone. Amen!"' Lucia cried as if a shocked family were looking on as one of their number were dragged away from the table.

  'Lucia, please' said the Professor shaking his head, 'have you no heart?' The sorceress guffawed in Winston's face.

  'Heart, you say? I have more heart than an army of Spartans.' She crossed her arms, 'come now, you knew as soon as your friend agreed to take us here that this would be his end: this is a journey of no return. Winston - we understood this.' The Professor ruminated on her words.

  'I'm different now, I can't do it' he confessed, 'I've hurt a lot of people, Lucia.' Illawara and Hermes exchanged glances. But Lucia did not seem impressed.

  'Don't be weak' she said, 'I can only guess at how many people you would have sacrificed to do what you have done already - did you not delight and revel in the details of your deeds when you first informed me of the Hermeporta and its power?'

  'You were trying to kill me, remember? I had to make it interesting.'

  'This is not the Thousand and One Nights.'

  'You know those stories?' Lucia put her hands on her hips.

  'When I trade with the East I don't just buy herbs; I also buy books in case you have forgotten the reason why you came to me in the first place?' The Professor looked embarrassed. 'How are we going to travel on this mission you’re talking about without the human sacrifice?' Lucia continued, 'do you want your friend to row us back to town to buy sausages? Maybe we can offer the Hermeporta those?'

  ‘Don’t patronise me’ he said. She rolled her eyes.

  ‘We’re here now, and most the day is gone already. It’s better that we do it now, and get it over with: he's drugged, he won't feel a thing. Why delay?’

  ‘She’s right’ said Hermes striding forward into the candlelight. Lucia and the Professor spun round with alarm.

  ‘Who are you?’ said Lucia, eyeing Hermes with suspicion.

  ‘The Professor knows me. I’m Hermes, Illawara’s guardian and companion’ he said, forthright, ‘and you are?’

  ‘She’s a witch’ interjected the Professor. Lucia turned to narrow her eyes at him, before turning back to Hermes, observing his poise before she addressed the intruder.

  ‘I’m Lucia Borghese, sorceress, intermediary to her holiness Diana, and high priestess to her holiness Hekate.’ Hermes struggled to hide that he was impressed, realising he dealt with a woman of immense range and power.

  ‘Lady of the Mysteries’ he said to her, with a slight bow, ‘compared to you I’m but a junior in my learning, but I wish to resume my studies when I’m able to return to my home in Alexandria.’ Illawara leaned forward.

  ‘So that’s where you’re from: I’d always wondered…’ said the Professor, rolling time in his mind to remember Hermes transforming in front of his eyes. The Professor began to scan the space behind Hermes into the deeper reaches. Lucia listened as Hermes continued.

  ‘I assisted Illawara’s parents as they worked with her holiness Hekate, and his holiness Hermes.’ Her eyes flashed, and the Professor listened hard as Hermes explained himself.

  ‘Her holiness Hekate did speak of this’ said Lucia, before gesturing to the Professor, ‘He was touched by her in the ceremony I used to conjure her presence - she silvered him’ she added, pointing to the Professor’s platinum hair.

  ‘A blessing’ said Hermes, with another bow, ‘with one touch she could have killed you - if she wished.’ Hermes held the Professor’s gaze to emphasise his point, before turning again to Lucia. ‘Lady, there could be a solution to our problem.’ Hermes paused to compose himself, aware that Illawara would be listening, ‘as you seem to know already, Illawara’s parents were the co-inventors of the Hermeportas.' The pair nodded, 'it was them that made the first sacrifices to the Hermeportas they created, but they used their own blood. Those spirits they conjured at that time, became manifest to serve and animate all the Hermeportas since then. Their blood wrote those spirits into being with their essence, and their lifeforce.' The pair stepped forward. 'Just a few drops of “creator” blood is enough for them to obey the will of any traveller.’

  The Professor felt almost every hair on his body stand on end. Illawara listened, transfixed, from where she sat awed by what she heard. Lucia’s brows had raised into high arches.

  ‘You’re modest’ she said, ‘for your knowledge, in this respect, far outstrips my own.’ Lucia then flicked her eyes to the floor where the Gondolier slumbered on one of his colourful blankets before she looked back at Hermes. ‘If what you say is true, and I suspect it is, as I understand it, then we still have a problem. We don’t have the creator’s blood, to awaken the Hermeporta without a full human sacrifice.’ The Professor’s gaze startled with confusion behind Hermes.

  ‘Yes, you do’ said Illawara stepping forward into the light, with her arm extended, ‘you can use mine.’

  ◆◆◆

  Cardinal Orsini almost dragged his feet, in a near aimless fashion, as he walked through the streets of Padua. By the time his cell door had opened he had convinced himself that every person he had wronged would be standing in a line outside of his cell: poised to strike, slash, and lacerate his flesh in an orgy of revenge. After being told he could leave, with apologies offered instead of reprimands, Orsini had, at first, refused to leave his abode - his place of confinement at once transformed into a womb of safety.

  'The Lord has had mercy upon you this Christmas Day; you're free to go' said the guard. Orsini stood still, wide-eyed for a moment before the guard reached in to yank him out and send him on his way.

  Rome seemed as far away to him as the moon, while he tried to retrace his steps, the Vatican a Basilica made of white cheese in his mind: gnawed through and overrun by gilded mice. As the real moon continued to rise over Padua, slipping out, untainted, from a ruinous sunset that bled to death in the west, Orsini wondered how he too could redeem himself - become clean.

  The streets were barren and denuded of people as he ambled along. Orsini thought of all the citizens of Christendom that would be enjoying time with their friends and families while he walked the streets like an abandoned orphan: tired, shunned and alone.

  He stepped into a familiar street, and then side passage before he knocked on the kitchen door of Adriano’s house. It took a while before the door opened.

  ‘I thought it would be you’ Cook said, her open ruddy face struggling to conceal her unease. ‘I gave the master a sleeping-draught with his Christmas supper' she said, 'he couldn't take any joy in his food: not like him' she added, 'He’s tucked up in bed now.’

  'May I come in?' Said Orsini, shivering with cold. She hesitated and almost shook her head.

  'Oh, you look so like my boy' she sighed, her face a carnival of conflict, 'seeing you here is like bringing him back from the dead.' She then stepped aside to allow him in. He became comforted by the kitchen's heat and the smells of spices that coated his cool skin like warm wax as he walked inside. A fondness for Cook almost overwhelmed him as she offered him a chair to sit on. She turned away from Orsini to fetch up a plate and moved around her table adding things to it. When she turned to him, he saw some sliced goose with vegetables, piles of dolloped sweet preserves, some Gorgonzola, and a wedge of game pie. Cook peered deep into Orsini as he sat, to the point that he felt uncomfortable before she spoke. ‘I’ve locked that slasher friend of yours in the spare room’ she said. He sa
t up alert.

  ‘Did he try to attack you?’

  ‘He’s no match for my rolling pin’ she added with a huff, walking forward with the food-laden plate. She pushed the plate into Orsini's hands before fetching him a fork.

  'Thank you, I'm most grateful' he said before he made a start on his delicious meal. Cook shook her head with a slow blink and cooed as if Orsini were her son: he seemed so young to her.

  ‘Your friend couldn’t catch a cold yesterday - he was staggering about like a kid just dropped from its mother.' Cook jabbed her finger in the air, ‘a shove and a whack across his bony arse is all it took to get him in the room. But if he’d tried anything I’d have battered him’ she added, before shuddering with disgust. ‘Stringy thing, isn’t he? He's got a face like a Monk fish. I bet if I threw him in a pot, he’d struggle to make a decent stock - only glue in those bones.’ She offered him more pie as he munched. Orsini shook his head. She tapped her fingers on the table. She saw some colour come back to Orsini's face as he ate her food, which made her feel proud. ‘The master took some distracting you know? So as not to be made aware of him’ she said, brushing imaginary crumbs from her hefty bust, ‘good job I know what the master needs to comfort him when he's had a shock.’ She gave Orsini an awkward smile. He half laughed before he looked down at his plate and fixed his eyes there. Cook coughed. ‘I doubt your friend knows what month it is, but he’s been asking for you.’

  ‘Do you think he’ll he recognise me?’ Cook shrugged. She stroked her arms, pensive and distracted.

  ‘That tall man you kept here must have done something to him. But your slasher makes my skin crawl.’ She shivered although her kitchen glowed with festive warmth. ‘I’ve also fed that horse-donkey-dove thing on the roof terrace.'

  'Gino, oh, yes, I'll have to do something about him' said Orsini, putting his plate to one side and rubbing his forehead.