Devil's Lair (13 page)

No need for lions,
thought Nadja.
Now they throw Christians to the
fire.

Outside the Colosseum, near the Arch of
Constantine, a crowd descended in such numbers that it seemed impossible to
continue further. William hoped to avoid the throng, but Marco waded in. The
friar grabbed Nadja’s hand and followed. Bodies jostled him. Twice he nearly
fell, but Nadja helped him keep his feet. The knight seemed undeterred. The
tallest man around, he shoved all others aside, creating a path toward the center
to where everyone was looking.

The friar saw, in the midst
of this ecclesia, a theater of blood. Three dozen flagellants, stripped to the
waist and brandishing short whips, walked in a circle. They scourged their own
backs with a zeal that would have shocked Peter Damian. The triple-pronged
whips were spiked with shards of stone and glass, drawing blood as they slapped
bare flesh with a sound like rolling thunder. The air trembled at it. The
throng was led by two Franciscans friars with tattered robes, tonsured heads,
gaunt bodies, and apocalyptic voices. As the flagellants circled, they chanted:

We whip ourselves to
worship Christ,

Who for our lack was
sacrificed.

He felt the lash upon
His skin

To taste the fruit of
Adam’s sin.

Because it is a blow
to God

To spoil the flesh
and spare the rod,

Our pain is felt, our
penance dealt,

By scourge and scab
and burning welt.

O sorry souls who
take no side

For good or evil, woe
betide!

O heathen hearts who
scorn and flee

The waters of the
baptistry!

O carnal curs who do
not trust

In God, but give
yourselves to lust!

O gluttons gorged on
drink and sup

Who turn away the
holy cup!

O hoarders, you who
keep and count

What in the end will
not amount!

O squanderers who
spend and flaunt,

Unbridled by an idle
want!

O wrathful souls with
rage unfurled

To turn your hate
upon the world!

O sullen souls whose
anger delves

To turn your hate
upon yourselves!

O heretics whose lies
result

In twisting canon
into cult!

O homicides who
overwhelm

The portal of the
mortal realm!

O suicides who would
undo

What God Himself has
given you!

O blasphemers who
rail in vain

And burn God’s ears
with your refrain!

O sodomites who
flirt, pervert,

And furrow the
infertile dirt!

O usurers who tender
loans

Then dun the debt
from skin and bones!

O panderers who are
to blame

For luring others to
their shame!

O sweet seducers
tempting fate,

Suborning all to
fornicate!

O flatterers with
honeyed wit,

Who spin pure gold
from purest shit!

O simonists who never
fail

To offer offices for
sale!

O fortune tellers who
divine

By bird and beast and
demon sign!

O grafters, you
collecting alms

With sticky fingers,
greasy palms!

O hypocrites who lie,
and worse,

Who say one thing and
act reverse!

O thieves, so nimble
with the nim,

Forgetting that you
rob from Him!

O evil counselors who
steer

By pouring poison in
the ear!

O sowers of discord
whose art

Is rending mended
things apart!

O alchemists who
master tools

To transmute wise men
into fools!

O counterfeiters who
have doled

Till all that
glitters is not gold!

O traitors, you who
have betrayed

With outward smile
and inward blade,

The Devil waits
within the fire,

To punish sinners,
dead and dire!

Beware the lure of
lusty days!

Beware the call of
evil ways!

Beware the life that
sin defiles

And all the Devil’s
clever wiles,

Or you will fall, as
Satan fell,

From Heaven’s hall to
burning Hell!

Rather than linger at the
Forum, which was filled with pagan temples and the carcasses of cattle, the
pilgrims pushed ahead, hoping to reach Marco’s villa before dusk. These streets
were treacherous enough in daylight. Nadja did not care to meet the denizens of
the dark.

As they rounded the
Capitoline Hill, Nadja saw the unfinished steps leading up to Santa Maria in
Aracoeli, the Franciscan church that had sheltered them on their initial visit,
when they were seeking a man she had only dreamed of.

Marco studied the stairs,
which ended two thirds the way up the hill. “Did they run out of brick?”

“Rienzo lost his throne,”
Giovanni said. “The masons lost their funding.”

“It was the pestilence,” Nadja
said. “The masons lost their lives.”

Giovanni shrugged. “Rienzo
wanted a grand staircase for the Jubilee next year, but I doubt there’s going
to be a Jubilee next year.”

Nadja said, “There might not
even be a Rome.”

They abandoned the pilgrim’s
path for the Tiber, walking past the imperial theater to reach the Ponte
Cestio, where dead bodies were stranded at the roadside waiting for a cart. The
river was fronted by ramshackle houses packed between edifices of ancient
stone. Stairs descended to the river’s edge. Giovanni led the way. They rested
with sore feet cooling in the water and watched fishermen on Tiber Island haul
back their nets. One man cursed as he disentangled a carcass from his lines.

The river was rife with
carrion: horses and dogs and children. Giovanni wondered how far the dead had
traveled. Romans buried their dead outside the city walls or burned them in the
Colosseum. These bodies must have come from towns upriver, from Todi or Perugia
or Città di Castello. Some, perhaps, had floated for days before passing
through Rome to the port of Ostia in search of the endless sea.

With feet rested and muscles
stiff, the company climbed back to street level and walked downriver to the
Aventine Hill, through the districts of three rival families, the Savelli, the
Caetani, and the Frangipane. At each district they were confronted by local
militia, dagger-wielding bravoes less loyal to Rome than to their barons.
William negotiated safe conduct in return for hearing confessions. The local
priests had perished. Now everyone feared for their souls. One confession
inspired the next, and by the time William uttered his last “
Absolvo te,
” the hills of Rome were already birthing shadows.

Marco’s villa stood majestic
on the northwest slope of the Aventine with a view of the moonlit city. Across
the river, torchlight marked Saint Peter’s in the distance. The pilgrims paused
to admire the vista before resolving their climb at Marco’s front gate.

The iron latch was broken.

“It wasn’t broken two weeks
ago,” Nadja said.

Marco swung the gate wide
and entered. The others followed up stone steps to the portico. Marco pushed
open the door and stepped into the front room, where high windows welcomed the
moonlight. He heard footsteps inside: the slap of bare feet running on marble
tiles, then falling silent.

He called out, “Hello?”

In the next room a wooden
something scraped the floor. The sound of a jostled bench. And again, the sound
of running feet. Marco chased the footfalls with his own, racing into the
dining room, through the kitchen, and down the hall, where he caught sight of a
child, a barefoot boy dressed in a dusty black tunic, who darted into a bedroom
and leapt to the open window where Marco caught him by the ankle and hauled him
back inside.

Holding the boy upside down,
Marco demanded, “Who are you?”

“Please.”

The boy could not have been
older than ten. He was unwashed and stank of death, though he showed no other
signs of pestilence.

“Who are you?” Marco
repeated, the irritation welling in his voice.

“Nobody.”

“Do you live here?”

“No. I mean, yes.”

“Which is it?”

“Please, sir.”

Marco gave him a shake.
“Tell me, boy.”

“Three days. Only three.”

“Do you know me?”

“No, sir.”

“Have you seen me before?”

“No, sir.”

“The truth, boy.”

“Yes, sir. Trying, sir.
Please, sir.” The boy was crying now. His face was turning red.

“I’ve seen you.”

“No, sir.”

“Yes. In the neighborhood.
I’m sure of it.”

Was it true? He wanted it to
be true. He wanted to remember this boy, this place.

The boy shook his head.
Tears rolled down his forehead and splattered on the tile. “No, sir.”

“Whose place is this?”

The boy pointed to the
testered bed. Marco saw a dead man lying in the linen: slack face covered with
purple sores.

It’s not the boy who
smells of death.

William spoke from the
doorway. “His name was Tancredo. He told us you had gone south with the army.”
The friar crossed himself. “He was your majordomo.”

CHAPTER 14

The boy’s name was Nek. He
was nine years old. He claimed to have no family, said he never had a family,
and denied angrily that his parents had fallen sick.

Nadja learned these things
as she washed his hands and face in the cold bath. Nek’s dark curly hair was a
matted nest for fleas and lice. Nadja did what she could to rid him of the
vermin. The boy did not complain of this attention, nor did he seem to welcome
it, and he only spoke to answer her questions. Truth and falsehood danced
together in his words, and Nadja could not always tell one partner from the
other. She hoped the boy would learn to trust her, but for now his words were
few and his eyes were fearful and he trembled like a newborn kitten.

The men buried Tancredo
behind the house. William spoke the prayers for the dead. Giovanni sang the
Dies
Irae.

When he went back inside,
William found Nadja combing the boy’s hair, working through the knots. The
friar had hoped to speak with her in private. Nadja was more open when they
were alone, and there were things she might not say with the boy listening.

“Marco must come south with
us,” he said.

Nadja’s brush caught in the
boy’s hair. She pulled apart the tangle, and began brushing again.

William said, “We cannot
stay here, Nadja. And we cannot take the boy.”

The brush snagged, and the
boy cried out.

“I’m sorry,” Nadja said.
“Hold still.”

“Don’t pull so hard,” the
boy complained.

“Things are hard now, but
they’ll be better soon.”

“They’ll get worse,” said
William.

“Don’t scare the child.”

“Fear, too, is a gift from
God.”

“How can things get worse?”
said Nadja.

“You’ve seen it.”

“I did not see the boy. Why
not? If my dreams are true, why didn’t I see Nek?”

“Because he’s not coming
with us.”

“The boy, at least, is
real.”

“We can take him to Santa
Maria in Aracoeli. The Franciscans will care for him. Feed him. Cloth him.
Teach him to love the Lord.”

“Does the Lord love him?”

“Very much.”

“So do I.”

“Then leave him here.”

Nadja continued brushing,
and said no more.

Marco woke past midnight.
The bedroom was dark and cool and redolent of roses. A soft wind billowed the
curtains of the testered bed. Marco sat up slowly, quietly, trying not to wake
the dead man beside him.