Devil's Lair (23 page)

“Galehot, my friend and my
betrayer, arranged for my love and I to meet in a garden. I found my lady but
lost my voice. Words failed me, so she asked me to read aloud to her.”

“What did you read?”
Giovanni asked.

“Virgil’s
Aeneid.
The hunting scene, where Dido and Aeneas
ride together in the forest. I read how Juno sent a storm to chase the lovers
into a cave. Fearing the passions on the page, Guinevere stopped my story before
the lovers could unite. She said that next time I should read to her from the
Holy Book.”

Another shade descended out
of the whirlwind: a diaphanous sylph in a luminous gown. On her head she wore a
golden diadem bejeweled in amethyst.

“My love,” she said.

Lancelot bowed. “My lady.”

Alighting beside him,
Guinevere continued the story. “When we next came to the garden, we read to
each other from the Holy Book.”

“The Song of Solomon,” said
Lancelot.

“And I read the woman’s
part, saying, ‘Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for his love is
better than wine.’”

“And I read the man’s part,
saying, ‘Open to me, my love, my dove, my darling, for my head is drenched with
dew.’”

“And I read, ‘I sat down in
his shade with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.’”

“And I read, ‘Your breasts
are like twin fawns that feed among the lilies.’”

“And I read, ‘His mouth is
sweet: yes, he is altogether lovely.’”

“And I read, ‘Your body is
like a palm tree, your breasts like clusters of dates.’”

“And I read, ‘Let his left
hand be under my head, and his right hand embrace me.’”

“And I read, ‘Love is as
strong as death, jealousy as cruel as the grave.’”

“And I read, ‘Make haste, my
love.’”

“And I stopped your lips
with mine,” said Lancelot.

“That night we read no
further.”

Lancelot kissed Guinevere.
His hands were on her head. Her arms encircled him. Their hair stirred, dancing
in the breeze. A wind swirled around the phantom lovers and drew them into the
air. They rose into darkness and disappeared.

CHAPTER 23

They clambered down piles of
rocks to where the shades of gluttons, fat and obscene, wallowed in the swill
of a midden heap, a putrid depository of slop and offal that engorged the third
circle of Hell. A cold rain, mixed with snow, drummed on the refuse, forming a
slush that sucked like clay at their feet. Fetor rose from the ground in a
poisonous mist that promised to choke the life from any trespasser.

Marco said, “We cannot
linger here.”

A path wended through the
mire, but Marco saw it was blocked by a three-headed dog that battened on the
bellies of fat sinners, ripping shades with teeth and claws.

Marco glanced back at the
poet.

“Cerberus,” Giovanni said.
“A hellhound.”

“You might have warned me.”

To observe the beast, they
hid behind a mound of detritus. The shades, wallowing in a profane broth, could
not escape the canine, but rolled and twisted as fangs came down to flay them.
One soul shielded another until the pain grew too great, then rolled off to
save himself at the other’s expense. As the dog swallowed with one throat, he
bellowed with the other two heads in a fiendish harmony that seemed to mock the
banquet songs of the world above.

“We’ll go around,” Marco
said. When he tried to find another way by climbing over heaps of garbage, he
slipped back each time. Offal tumbled after him. He soon tired and rested. “How
did Dante get past?”

Giovanni said, “Virgil threw
dirt down Cerberus’ throats.”

Marco scooped loam into his
fist and approached Cerberus with caution, leading with the Lance. One of the
heads snapped at him. The knight tossed his fistful of dirt into the open
gullet. The dog swallowed and snapped again. The other two heads were busy
feasting on shades moiling in the mire.

The knight retreated to
where his companions waited. “Any other ideas?”

Giovanni scratched the nape
of his neck. “The Sibyl drowsed him with honey wheat cakes laced with a
potion.”

“We have wine,” Nadja said.

“Worth a try.”

Marco held his helmet upside
down as William poured wine into it. The knight set it near Cerberus.

The hound ignored the helmet
and went for Marco’s face. The knight stepped back and brought the Lance up
quickly. Another head came around and bit deep into Marco’s arm, sharp teeth
lacerating flesh. Marco stabbed under the chin. The jaw released him. The
second head let out a roar of pain. The third came for him. Marco slipped, fell
onto his back, jabbed the Lance upward, then rolled away.

Cerberus came after him.
Marco staggered back, jabbing at one head, then the other, but there were too
many and they came too fast. He gave up ground at a frightening pace.

“Fall back!”

Marco glanced behind him and
saw that they had already fled to the cliff.
With each step back, Marco bled more. A trail of blood followed him to
the stoney wall. Now he had no retreat from those slavering fangs.

Have at it, then. We’ll
die together.

“In here!” Nadja yelled.

The pilgrims had found a
cave. He ran for it. The dog snapped at his heels as Marco slipped inside the
rock.

The cave was no more than a
crevice: the height of the cliff and six feet deep. The pilgrims pressed
against the back wall as Cerberus stuck his head inside. His breath was foul.
The humans were beyond the dog’s reach, but trapped. One of the heads lowered
to lick blood from the ground. Soon the others were doing the same.

“Blood,” said William.
“That’s what it wants.”

“The shades have no blood,”
Giovanni said.

“So the hound is always
hungry.”

“And the torments go on
forever.”

“If he wants my blood,” said
Marco, still bleeding, “he’s welcome to it.”

The knight stepped forward,
but Nadja held him back.

“Wait.” She reached into her
rucksack and retrieved a small rag stained with menstrual blood. “Use this.”

He soaked her rag in the
blood flowing from his arm, then rolled the cloth into a tight red ball and
lobbed it over the beast. Three heads snapped at it but missed. They turned to
see where the treat had landed.

“Now,” said Marco.

The pilgrims ran into the
open. Giovanni fell in the slop. Marco helped him up.

The dog heads fought each
other for the rag. The middle head won and swallowed it whole. The other two
looked up.

Can’t outrun him,
Marco realized.

He turned and locked eyes
with the hound: two eyes, then four, then six. Now all eyes were on him. The
beast spun its body around. Marco raised the Holy Lance and steeled himself for
battle. Cerberus saw blood pooling at Marco’s feet. All three heads came at him
at once. Marco slipped to one side and sliced open the nearest throat. Drops of
blood came out.

My blood,
he realized.

A second head licked the
blood from the ground, and Marco cut open the second throat. It, too, bled with
Marco’s blood. The last head licked the blood, and Marco stabbed it.

Now all three throats were
cut open.

Marco stepped back, but the
dog did not follow. The heads lapped at the same rich pool of blood, trying to
swallow the red juice but bleeding it out again for another head to slurp. At
this rate, the hellhound would never be sated, but fight itself to drink the
same blood forever.

And Marco escaped.

Giovanni saw a demon
crouching like an animal on the ledge above a stoney staircase, guarding the
passage down. The fiend appeared to be half-man, half-wolf. The poet stopped
short. The others followed his example.

“Pape Satàn!” the demon
bellowed. “Pape Satàn, aleppe!”

The voice was more lupine
than human, like wolves baying on a battlefield. It made Giovanni’s skin crawl.
He felt the edge of terror slice through his heart.

His own voice trembled as he
identified the demon: “Plutus. The ancient god of wealth.”

William looked relieved. “We
have nothing he desires.” The mendicant stepped forward to meet the demon.
“Plutus! I am William of Ockham.”

“I don’t know you,” the
demon snarled.

“I am not your subject. You
have no claim on me, nor on my friends. Let us pass.”

Plutus stared at the old
man, then nodded. “You may pass.”

Marco went next.

“You may pass.”

Then Nadja.

“You may pass.”

Giovanni held back. Plutus
met his gaze. The demon’s yellow eyes were candent in the lancelight. Giovanni
wanted to run but could not lift his feet, as if his shoes were shackles.

Plutus said, “I know you
well, Giovanni Boccaccio. I’ve been expecting you.”

“He’s with me,” William said
from the top of the stairs.

“No,” said the demon. “He is
mine. And he must pay.”

“Giovanni has no money.”

“He deceives you. He cannot
deceive me. He must pay.”

William interrogated
Giovanni with a look. “Giovanni? Tell him you have nothing.”

Nadja said, “He spent all
his money in the tavern.”

Giovanni said nothing.

I am my father’s son,
he thought.

He removed his left shoe,
reached inside, and found his last silver coin. He took it out and put the shoe
back on. His feet no longer felt rooted to the ground, but he stood there a
long while looking at the coin, turning it over in his hands. One side showed
John the Baptist. The other displayed the lily of Florence. It reminded him of
home and family, life and love. It was more than a coin. It was a holy relic.
There was a kind of magic in it, a power that ruled men in the world above. A
power that ruled Giovanni even now.

“It’s all I have,” he said.

Plutus nodded. “That is the
toll: all that you have.”

The poet stepped up and paid
the price.

CHAPTER 24

As the pilgrims climbed down
through luminescent clouds to the fourth circle of Hell, Giovanni heard below
him a rumbling din of screams and crashes.

“The hoarders and the
wasters,” he said.

A raging conflict came into
view, lit by a mist that hovered above the plain, and he could see now what he
had only heard before. A throng of angry shades moved along hundreds of curved
tracks, concentric furrows scored into the rocky shelf. The nearest track was
ankle-deep, the inner ones progressively deeper. Demons clung to the cliff wall
playing infernal music as spirits of the damned scuttled along the tracks in a
danse macabre, to the steps of the ridda, but these steps were heavy, for the
dancers bore an enormous burden. On each track, two massive boulders rolled
toward each other, pushed by contrary teams, the hoarders and the wasters,
until the stones collided with an deafening
crack,
at which point the dancers reversed
course, rolling their stones in opposite directions, around the circular chasm,
until they collided once more on the far side. This endless cycle was repeated
in every track at staggered intervals, with the hoarders and wasters screaming
at each other, bellowing in a mad roundelay:

Why do
you hoard?

Why do
you waste?

We have
to have!

We
long to lack!

So now
deboned,

And
now debased,

We round
and round and round the track.

Let’s
give ’em hell!

Let’s
give ’em haste!

Around a
torque,

And
then attack!

It’s time
they feared,

And
time they faced,

The
underworld and thundercrack!

“We should cross over
there,” William said, pointing to where the collisions occurred.

Nadja seemed doubtful.
“Where the rocks meet?”

“It will give us more time
to cross.”

Giovanni understood
immediately. The collisions fell along a diameter that cut from the outer edge
through the center to the far side of the abyss. The opposing armies did not
cross this collision line but remained secund: trapped forever on their own
semicircular arc. By crossing at the collision line, the pilgrims would
maximize the distance the rocks must travel before reaching them. A crossing
point to the left or right would cut the arc and increase the danger.