The Palace (54 page)

"On the eleventh, Ragoczy," Fra Mario said, enjoying his power over the
foreigner. "I fought your uncle once. He wasn't as big a man as you are, but he
fought well. It would be a pleasure to compare your abilities."

Ragoczy did not answer this provocation. Instead he looked at Fra Stanislao.
"And I suppose I cannot confess or attend Mass until the eleventh?"

"That is correct," the old Domenicano said, no longer interested in Ragoczy.

"And if I object?" He leaned against the table, putting his weight onto his
hands. "Answer me, good Brothers. What if I should object?"

Fra Stanislao met his eyes levelly. "Then you will accuse yourself of heresy.
And your fate will be the same as that of all heretics. You will die at the
stake and your ashes will be scattered to the four winds. Until the eleventh,
Signor Ragoczy."

Text of a letter from Pope Alessandro VI to Girolamo Savonarola:

To the irreligious and disobedient excommunicant Girolamo Savonarola in
Fiorenza, His Holiness Alessandro VI issues final warnings.

We are distressed to learn that you, in your pride and all-devouring vanity,
have chosen to defy the See of San Pietro and Holy Church. Though you are
excommunicant, you persist in celebrating Mass and administering the Sacraments,
which not only damns you the more, but condemns those who in misguided trust
receive these sacred things from your blasphemer's hands.

Therefore, we have begun a Process against you, which will demonstrate that
in your continued and unrepentant rebellion against us, you are guilty of the
most pernicious heresy, and for that you will suffer the ultimate penalty, both
in this world and in the world that is to come.

But God is merciful and is more delighted with the return of the strayed
sheep than in the faithful flock. Were it not for this, the Process would be
served without warning and without opportunity for you to recant and abjure your
impious ways. We would betray the trust of San Pietro if we allowed such a
course to be followed. Therefore, you will have one week to repent in public for
your disobedience and continued defiance of our Bull and our Interdict. Your
repentance must be sincere, your confession complete and you must publish it
abroad for all the world to read. Then you must surrender yourself to the
Superior Generale of the Domenicani, and from him learn in which monastery you
will serve as immured anchorite.

On this, the feast day of San Tommaso Aquino, you would do well to think of
his example and to accept the judgment of the Church. By this act you would
spare your congregation much suffering and much terrible doubt. You will keep
them from greater sin, and for that, much will be forgiven you.

We will learn of your compliance with rejoicing. Or we will strike you down
with the full weight of the Church Militant and the Will of God.

Alessandro VI Pontifex Maximus See of San Pietro

 

Roma, the feast day of San Tommaso Aquino, the 7th day of March, 1498

Gelata tossed her head, eager for a gallop. Ragoczy tightened the reins and
leaned forward in the saddle. The gloom of the stable was relieved by one candle
only and its light revealed Ruggiero's dark-dyed face near the door.

"How long will Fra Sansone sleep?" Ruggiero asked as he prepared to draw back
the bolt on the door.

"He should be awake by midmorning, and I will be back long before then. If he
gets restless in the night, burn some of those dried leaves I gave you in a
little brazier in his chamber. That should be enough to keep him out." He drew
his dark cloak more tightly around his shoulders. "I'll leave by la Porta Corsa
del Prato. That gate is open all night for the privy workers. I'll come back by
another gate." He checked his boot and found the knife there. "I'm ready. Draw
back the bolt."

Ruggiero hesitated. "What do I say if you are asked for? One of the
Domenicani may call."

"Tell them I am at prayers and cannot be disturbed. And make certain that
none of them see that there are cases packed. They'll know we're leaving if they
see that."

"Depend on me," Ruggiero said, as he had so many times before.

"With my life, old friend." He moved forward in the saddle as the door swung
open and was away into the night before Ruggiero had bolted the stable door
again.

Fiorenza was ghostly under the cold stars. Ragoczy rode through the empty
streets, listening to the rattle of his mare's hooves as she trotted toward la
Porta Corsa del Prato on the west side of the city near the Arno. Once he pulled
her to a walk as they passed near Santa Maria Novella, for a few of the monks'
cells showed the glow of candles and echoed with the murmur of prayers. The
delay was a minor one, and in a few minutes he had passed through la Porta Corsa
del Prato, past the privy workers who took the night soil from the city, and was
away into the darkness.

It was treacherous to ride at a gallop through the night. Too many dangers
attended on it, so Ragoczy held Gelata to a strict trot, while he studied the
road for hazards. Once the mare shied at the howl of a dog, and once he thought
he heard pursuers and urged her into a gallop. But then they were far into the
hills and the old castle was around the next bend. Ragoczy let the mare drop to
a walk and he looked about, seeking out a new hiding place for her. At last he
dismounted and pulled her into the shelter of a boulder. The distance to the
castle was greater than before, but he feared that as the day of the auto-da-fe
neared, the vigilance of the Domenicani would increase. He tied Gelata to a
thick tree root that was deeply embedded in rock, and then he made his way,
secret as a shadow, toward the bulk of the castle.

This time the stones were dry and his desperation gave him speed. In less
than a quarter of an hour he was pulling himself over the stone frame of her
cell's high window. He dropped swiftly to the floor, calling to Demetrice as he
moved toward her. His voice was low and he was not entirely surprised that she
did not hear him.

She was huddled on her pallet against the wall. Ragoczy dropped to one knee
beside her and leaned toward her, touching her shoulder gently to waken her.

With a painful gasp she opened her eyes, eyes that were bruised and puffy,
the lids abraded, beneath a badly cut forehead where the blood had only recently
dried. "No…" she whispered.

Ragoczy's eyes narrowed as fury burned in him. His hands were deliberate in
their care, ministering to her terrible bruises and wounds as efficiently as
possible. He longed for a candle or a lantern but knew that he courted disaster
if there should be light seen in Demetrice's cell. Rage and anguish warred in
him every time Demetrice moaned, every time he found a new swelling or cut or
burn.

When at last he had done all that he could, he tried again to wake her. The
back of her hands were raw, and so he placed his kisses on her palms, whispering
her name again.

This time her lids fluttered and opened as far as the swelling would allow.
Her eyes were agonized and bright and she brought up one hand to protect her
face. "No more. No more. I said what you wanted. I said it. I said it." Her
voice was rising and her body twisted. She smothered a shriek as she cringed
away from him.

"Demetrice, no. It's San Germano. Demetrice. Demetrice." He moved nearer, and
pain keen as steel stabbed him as she shrank away, horror in her beaten face.

"I'll say it again. I will. Anything. But no more. No more." She started to
cry, thin, wailing sobs that were the worse for being quiet. "No more. No more."

"Demetrice," Ragoczy said again, sinking back away from her so that she need
not be afraid. "It's San Germane It's Francesco, amica mia. I've come back, as I
said I would."

He hadn't truly expected her to hear him, but she blinked suddenly and then
began to weep as a child does, with a kind of determination, and it was a moment
before Ragoczy realized it was for relief.

"San German'," she said when her sobs had stopped. Cautiously she extended
her hand toward him, saying as sadness thickened her words, "I told them I was a
heretic. I said that I had profaned the Cross and mixed the Host with
excrement." She shook her head slowly in disbelief. "I had to tell them. They
wouldn't have stopped if I hadn't."

He took her hand, being careful not to touch where the skin had been torn
away. "It's not important," he said in as reassuring a tone as he could manage.
He knew that was true. Her confession was expected. The auto-da-fe was now less
than two days away and Savonarola was eager for victims, for his last gesture of
defiance against the authority of Roma and the Pope. He longed to take her in
his arms, to cradle her there, protecting her from the hideous sentence that had
been passed upon her.

"But I'll burn," she said calmly. "They told me that. I will burn in this
world and the next." Her eyes closed in a momentary spasm of distress, but this
was quickly mastered and she went on resignedly. "Your petition didn't work. But
nothing would have, would it, San Germano?"

"Probably not," he allowed, remembering his interview at Santa Maria Novella
two days before. In the dark he could not see the full effect of the bruises on
her face, but he knew they were ghastly from the large areas of darkness on her
fair skin.

Her eyes were melancholy. "Well, we've shared love." She was silent a moment,
then added, "You know how much it distressed me at first, but I'm sorry now
there were so few chances…"

Ragoczy's eyes brightened. "There is one last chance."

"Yes. I'm glad of that." She tried to lean back but the stones hurt her and
she was forced to sit upright again. "I'm afraid of the flames, San Germano. I
wish I had resisted them longer, and died today." Ordinarily such an admission
would have revolted her, but after her ordeal all the terror had gone out of
suicide. "I'm not a martyr, Francesco," she said, using his name for the first
time.

"What?" he said absently as he turned away from his racing thoughts. For a
moment he was uncertain as to whether he should tell her what had filled his
mind. Then he put such concerns behind him. He moved a little nearer to
Demetrice so that she could see his face in the wan square of light from the
window. "Demetrice, listen to me. I can't save you from death, not entirely. But
there is something I can do. I can give you a kind of… deliverance."

She stared at him, bewildered. "Deliverance? How?"

Again he took her hands, and this time she let them lie in his. "Do you
remember my warning? That if there was too much love between us you might in
time become like me? Do you remember that there is another way to change? If you
share blood with me, then your change is assured. Now. Tonight."

"But there is still the stake," she said softly, not daring to hope that he
might save her.

"Not if you're already dead. Then they'll take you to be buried away from
sacred ground, and the first nightfall after that, you will wake again. Into
my
life." He was talking quickly now, the words almost running together.

"But how would I die? If they torture me again in the morning, it might
happen…" There was a sickness in her face that told more than the anguish in her
voice how much she dreaded what might happen.

"No. Not that way." He felt the knife in his boot. "I will show you how. Two
little cuts, Demetrice mia. Two little cuts and the Domenicani cannot touch you
again." He caressed her face with gentle fingers. "Share blood with me,
Demetrice. Accept my life. Save yourself. Please."

She heard the sincerity in his soft words and though she tried to build
disgust in her heart for the thing he suggested, she found it was impossible.
Every movement hurt her and tomorrow it would be worse. They had promised her
the rack tomorrow, and she had seen for herself what it would do. Suddenly she
shuddered and pressed her hands to her face.

"No, Demetrice," Ragoczy pleaded, fearing he had lost her. He was reluctant
to reach out to her and possibly give her more pain. There was little more he
could say if she refused him. He wished he had told her more gently, so that she
would not be frightened.

In a low voice she asked, "What do I have to do?"

He breathed deeply, gratefully. "Let me love you as I have before, Demetrice.
But this time, you will do as I do. I will make a small cut. You need taste very
little. And when that is done, I'll show you how the other…" He caught her in
his arms and felt his embrace returned. "I must be hurting you," he murmured to
her hair.

"It doesn't matter," she told him before she kissed his mouth. If her wounds
were not forgotten, at least they seemed less important. She tore her penitent's
robe from neck to hem and pressed his head against her breasts.

His hands were kind and sure, and where they went, his kisses followed,
tracing out the loveliness of her, salving her bruises with tenderness, warming
her, succoring her. The intensity of his desire was revealed only in the slight
tremor of his hands. He spoke softly as he sought out her joy and his beautiful
voice was as sweet as the deep strings of a lute. "There was a woman like a star
who burned white-hot in the vastness of the sky. Like Venus hung in the sunset
she was radiant with a splendor that was all her own. When she walked the trees
shook for love of her and the humble earth caressed her feet. To lie beside her
was to fill your temples with the pulse of the tides which are ever drawn to
worship the moon. To savor her lips was to taste eternity and be nourished by
it. Who can say all the extent of her glory?"

The wildness of her response surprised Demetrice, for previously she had been
accepting, almost passive, waiting for Ragoczy to waken the passion that
slumbered in her. But now, with his words tolling through her, she reached
anxiously for him, yearning for his unendurable sweetness. Her mouth sought his
to stop the hymn, then lingered where he had opened his riding mantle.