Authors: David Wisehart
Inside the walls, houses and
shops and taverns pressed hard against each other, leaving scarcely enough room
in the road for two men to walk abreast. But the streets were empty now. The
city was vacant and quiet as death.
Nadja said, “We were here
not more than a week ago.”
“A little more, I think,”
Giovanni said.
William called out again.
“Hello! Fat Tom! Father Ignazio! Somebody! Anybody!”
Marco shouted in a booming
voice, “Fire!” This disturbed the crows and rats, but no human voice replied.
The pilgrims checked the
tavern and shops: all vacant.
Marco returned to the gate
and climbed a watchtower. “Over there,” he said, pointing at the eastern wall.
The pilgrims went to the
wall, past the smithy and the bakery, and William saw the breach where someone
had hacked through the wooden planks. Here the wall came to the very edge of
the cliff. A broken board hung loose. The gap was wide enough for a horse and
wagon, but no horse short of madness would have taken that road. The breach
opened to the empty sky.
William studied the deep
marks in the wood. “More than one axe,” he said. “Three at least. Probably
more.”
“A siege?” Nadja asked.
She was standing back behind
the others, and didn’t see it clearly, but even Nadja might have understood
these marks, which scarred the inner wall.
“No,” said William. “They
were trying to break out.”
He stepped up to the breach
and looked down. Vertigo seized him as he stared at the sheer drop, but he
forced himself to look until he understood what he saw: bodies. Hundreds of
bodies. They were piled far down at the base of the cliff, twisted and
contorted like straw dolls dropped by an uncaring child. A few corpses had been
plucked from the air, their garments snagged by branches so that the bodies now
dangled from the face of the cliff. One had a tonsured head and wore the
surplice and carcalla of a parish priest.
William stepped back.
Devil be damned.
He crossed himself, then
took Nadja by the arm so she would not be tempted to look. “With me,” he said,
and led her toward the center of town.
“Where are you going?” Marco
called out.
“To pray.”
William walked Nadja toward
the jutting crucifix, with Marco and Giovanni trailing, but when he arrived at
the chapel and saw the mark etched into the doors he stopped short.
The knight caught up with
him. “We should sleep at the inn tonight,” he said. “Plenty of food and wine.
Tomorrow we’ll take what we can and continue north.”
“No,” said William, staring
at the chapel.
Across the wooden doors
someone had carved bold letters in a language only Father Ignazio would
understand:
diabolus.
“Wait here,” he said. “I’m
going inside.”
When he opened the doors, a
cloud of black flies escaped. William let them pass before stepping into the
shadowy narthex. The candles had all burned out. Despite the high windows, the
darkness was inconsolable. The stench told William, before he could see it,
what had happened here. The chapel smelled like a hospital, but there were no
sounds of sick patients, no moans, no coughing, no curses, no prayers. Silence
ruled the dark.
He stood with his eyes
closed for the time it took to say twenty-four paternosters. Then William
opened his eyes, dipped his fingers in the holy water stoup, crossed himself,
and walked into the nave.
The townspeople were stacked
five and six high, like cords of wood, in neat rows along the walls from the
narthex to the chancery. A narrow path ran down the middle. The dead were
dressed, but on their hands and feet and faces and necks they bore signs of the
plague: the livid skin, the buboes, and the unique odor of their corruption.
William had loved this
little chapel when first he saw it. The priest was a godly man, unlike other
clergymen William had met, and the people of this town had welcomed the weary
pilgrims with clean beds and warm hearts.
Had it only been a week?
They died so fast.
There was nothing William
could do for them now. Their souls had gone to judgment and had left in their
wake a horror.
For a short while he
searched this ad hoc morgue for a body clothed in vestments, hoping beyond
reason that Father Ignazio was not the priest who dangled from the cliff.
Father, what have you
done?
Had the priest flung himself
over the cliff? Had he led his flock into perdition? Had they sacrificed their
souls upon the altar of madness?
William crossed himself
again, whispering, “
Misereatur tui omnipotens Deus et dimissis peccatis
tuis.
”
When he could no longer
stomach the smells, he rejoined his companions in the bright light of day,
shutting the church doors firmly behind him.
“We should leave,” he said.
Marco chuckled. “The town is
ours.”
“It belongs to the Devil
now.”
Nadja took William’s arm to
steady him. “What is it, Father?” she asked. “What did you see in there?”
“The future.”
CHAPTER 13
North of Capua they joined
the Appian Way and made good time on the old Roman road, stopping at taverns in
Fondi and Terracina and Velletri, where William heard confessions, Giovanni sang
for room and board, Nadja danced the saltarello, and Marco recalled the evils
of dice, losing most of his armor and much of his pride, until they arrived at
last, hungry and footsore, at the Appian gate of Rome.
In a fallow field outside
the city, a group of Minorites and their postulants unloaded a plague cart,
tossing bodies into a mass grave. The trench ran parallel to the road. It was
eight feet wide, ten feet deep, and half a league long. Most of it was covered
with earth, but the open end revealed bodies stacked one upon another. One
gravedigger shoveled dirt over the corpses; another extended the trench.
William asked his friends to tarry and offered a prayer for the dead, then
muttered, “‘
sequere me et demitte mortuos sepelire mortuos suos,
’” and the others followed him to the city
gate.
The portcullis was raised
and guarded by five soldiers who chatted among themselves, ignoring the sparse
traffic moving in and out of the city. There were fewer people coming than
going. Most of those leaving were piled in carts.
Outside the gate a barefoot
preacher stood on a wine barrel shouting at passersby. William listened to the
sermon, much of it familiar, and knew the preacher for a Joachite. The man gave
William a nod, but did not pause in his polemic.
“Famine! War! Plague! Death!
What is the meaning of this malevolence? It is the passing of an age. The age
of the Son! The age of Saint Paul! The age of the Church! The age of divine
grace! The second age has passed from this world. The third age approaches.
Prepare yourselves! But what is this new age? This third age? It is the Age of
the Holy Spirit! The age of Saint John! The age of love and liberty! But first,
my brothers, there is this present darkness. Famine. War. Plague. Death. The
Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Behold! The Antichrist is born! He lives among
us even now. He is six years old. A very handsome boy. He has mastered every
field of knowledge. No one alive can equal him. No one can defeat him. There is
another boy, twelve years old, beyond the land of the Tartars. Born into the
Christian faith. He will grow in strength and righteousness. He will destroy
the Saracens. He will reign in peace. But his empire will end! End at the
coming of the Antichrist! Our demon pope will die in hot blood. Surely he will
die in hot blood. But there will come another pope. A good pope. A just pope.
He will create cardinals who fear the Lord! But his empire will end. End at the
coming of the Antichrist. Famine. War. Plague. Death....”
They passed through the gate
and into the city.
Marco’s first impression was
of a vast and vacant countryside. Unlike other Italian towns, which were
crowded with filthy houses and narrow streets, Rome contained within its walls
an expanse of green fields, ripe orchards, and irrigated farms. The drought, it
seemed, had no power here.
“Where are all the people?”
he asked.
“By the river,” said
Giovanni. “These are the old walls. The city is smaller now.”
Not far from the gate they
came to a roadblock manned by a dozen soldiers. Their helmets gleamed. Their
boots were polished. Their chainmail had never been challenged. Marco wondered
if these men fought as well as they dressed.
“Orsini men,” Giovanni
muttered to Marco, but the name meant nothing to him.
“Stop,” said one, stepping
forward and raising a gloved hand. “State your business.”
William answered, “We are
pilgrims on our way to Saint Peter’s. We wish to follow the pilgrim’s path.”
The man noted the blood on
Marco’s tunic and the sword hanging at his belt. “You don’t look like a pilgrim.”
“He’s with us,” Nadja said.
The soldier stood taller
than his companions but shorter than Marco, and had to look up to meet the
knight’s gaze. “For what do you do penance?”
“For killing a man who asked
too many questions,” Marco said. His hand rested easily on the hilt of his
sword.
“This knight saved us from
bandits,” William said quickly.
“A knight?”
“Our protector.”
A second soldier stepped up.
“Have you a name, Sir Knight?”
“Marco da Roma.” He said it
with more conviction than he felt.
“Da Roma?” asked the first
soldier. “Do I know you?”
“Do you?” Marco hoped the
answer was yes.
The man studied him closely.
“Perhaps not.” He turned to the friar. “If you wish to take the pilgrim’s path,
start at the church of Saint John Lateran.”
“Where is that?” asked
William.
“I know it,” Giovanni said.
The soldier answered,
“Follow the wall to Saint John’s gate. The path will lead you to the Vatican.
Follow the other pilgrims. If you get lost, ask directions in a church.”
“And if we can’t find a
church?” Marco asked.
One of the other guards
laughed. “We’ve got more churches than horses.”
“Thank you,” William said.
The first soldier lowered
his voice. “And a word of advice, Father.” He cast a sidelong glance at Marco.
“You may have met some bandits on the road, but most of them are in the city.
Do not wander from the path.”
As Nadja approached the Colosseum from
the basilica of San Clemente, the massive circular walls of the amphitheater
seemed to grow with every step. On her earlier visit to Rome, she had seen the
Colosseum only from a distance, and thought it was as big as a cathedral. Now,
seeing it close up, she knew it was the largest building she had ever seen.
“It must have been built by giants,”
Nadja said.
“By men,” Giovanni assured her. “Great
men who left their stamp upon the ages. Rienzo understood. He dreamed of
recapturing the city’s glory.”
“And its decadence?” William asked.
“Wasn’t it here they threw the Christians to the lions?”
“The Christians won, Father. The lions
are gone.” He glanced at Nadja. “I think its safe to go inside.”
When Nadja stepped inside she wondered
how safe it was. The walls were weathered and cracked and bore the burden of
the sky. “It’s very old,” she observed.
Giovanni said, “The Colosseum has stood
a thousand years.”
“It will not stand a thousand more.”
The poet answered in words Nadja could
not comprehend:
Quandiu stabit
coliseus, stabit et Roma
Quando cadit
coliseus, cadet et Roma
Quando cadet Roma,
cadet et mundus
“The Venerable Bede,” William said to
Nadja. “‘While the Colosseum stands, Rome will stand. When the Colosseum falls,
Rome will fall. When Rome falls, so will the world.’”
The pilgrims walked the circuit but did
not climb down to the bottom, which was overgrown with grass and ivy and
bracken. Ahead of them on the ambulatory an old man pulled a barrow filled with
garments and blankets.
“Care for some clothes?” Marco asked
Nadja.
Giovanni said, “Those come from the
plague houses.”
They followed the barrow to where a
section of the Colosseum floor was piled high with smoking ashes. The old man
threw clothes on the smoldering heap, and watched them catch fire. Nadja saw
bones in the ashes.
“So it’s come to this,” said William.
“Cremated like pagans in a pagan shrine.”
“They died faster than they could be
buried,” Giovanni said.