Saint Fire (Secret Books of Venus Series) (17 page)

She and he, some long paces apart, stayed upright and in command. And Danielus, and the Bellatae, and the obviously fire-accustomed horse. While the feast chamber of Joffri gave way.

Cristiano glanced aside at the unnamed Council Brother. He was ranting, slavering, clutching his crucifix, which was of plain and modest iron. Sarco prayed, his eyes closed fast.

The Duccessa was fainting now, and her Ladies gathering her. What had this sight done to the child in her womb?

Joffri swung abruptly back. He glared, then laughed shortly.

“Magister Major, you are to blame for this havoc. Come on, let’s go into another room. Bring her, this Maiden. Bring your Soldiers of God. Yes, yes, Brother Isaacus, you and your fellow Council Brother must come with us, of course.

The Ducem’s guards were opening a way for them. Others led the red horse off into the courtyard. As it passed by the dogs now, scented with fire, they shied and barked. A young woman with black, waving hair artfully emerging below her headdress, ran
to touch the horse with her fingers. Having done so, she turned, crying for happiness. And on the tables sprawled the remnants of the cloven swans.

“She is proof of God’s love.”

“Of the wiles of the Devil!”

Sarco once more put his hand on Isaacus’ sleeve. “Hush, brother. You’ll hurt your sore voice worse.” And then, “What the Magister says he most truly believes, of that we may be assured.”

Joffri put down his wine cup.

He stared at the Maiden Beatifica, who sat now in one of the carved chairs, her eyes lowered, her hands folded together on her right knee. She did not look wanton, nor unsuitable in her clothes. He did not fancy her, either, which, if he thought of it, surprised him. God must protect her from the lewd inspiration. God, Joffri knew, was clever.

They were in the Scarlet Room, one of the three halls which led from the feast chamber. The ceiling rose to its rafters, which were gilded. The walls were sheeted with hammered bronze, and marble. There was nothing red in the room, (except for the Maiden’s hair, which looked any way far less red than it had done in the feast chamber.) The Scarlet Room took its title from the pageantry which was sometimes enacted there. The recognition of sons, and betrothals, when scarlet and crimson garments were worn.

Fra Danielus stood by the Maiden. His Bellatae were ranked behind him. Nine of them now. They watched with professional faces, war-priests. But their eyes were dazed, or sparkling. All but that one, the one called Cristiano. His eyes were like silver discs found on the ice.

Danielus had lost none of his composure, and
he was saying not much. He had told them God had sent them Beatifica. She was motivated by Heaven. In the conflict which the City must face, she would give courage in her turn. He did not say, it went by implication alone, the infidel would be afraid, if they heard stories of her.

Isaacus roared, spitting froth, “She must be questioned.”

“So she has been,” Sarco said.

Joffri said, urbanely, “Let
me
ask her something.”

He thought Isaacus, (it had seemed essential to learn that one’s name) would interrupt again. No. He only held up his cross, high in one hand.

Danielus said, “Beatifica, look up. There is the Ducem. Answer him.”

Beatifica looked at Joffri.

What eyes she had. Were they gold?

“Tell, me, Beatifica, tell me if you’re able, if you think God sent you this … gift?”

“What gift?” she asked. She did not say ‘My lord’. However, her tone was gentle, inquiring, as if she wished to please—or comfort him.

“Your fire-bringing.”

“My mother,” said Beatifica, “showed me.”

“Yes, the monster claims her mother taught her to do it, after the woman had died. A witch—a witch, what else.’

Joffri risked a small indiscretion. “Be quiet, Brother Isaacus, if you can. The Council of the Lamb has my reverence, but you are only one of its membership. I am Ducem, and you are very rude.”

Did Danielus smile? Invisibly?

Joffri said, “If your mother taught you, Maiden, how did
she
learn? From a demon?”

“She told me nothing of demons. It was
angels that she saw.”

“Angels—”

“An account of that was sent you, Ducem,” said Sarco.

“Yes but—never until this moment did I—” Joffri stopped. He said, “Other than angels, what have you seen?”

Beatifica did smile. She was pleased to speak of herself. In her previous life no one had been interested.

“I only saw the angels once. But also I saw the serpent in the orchard.”

Now a great quiet filled the room.

Many had not learned of Beatifica’s dreams.

“She saw the Serpent,” grated out Isaacus. “Bear witness, Brother Sarco. You heard as well as I. The
Serpent
.”

Beatifica said, “Magister,” (him she gave a title) “do I tell them of it?”

Danielus said, “I believe you must.”

“Then, I saw it in an apple tree. But the fruits of the tree were gold and silver, like the sun and the moon.” From speaking the Latin, from talking so much, her voice had changed now utterly. It was a lovely voice, mild but of great clarity. It had scarcely any gender, not feminine—but not masculine in any way. “The snake came down the tree to me. I thought it was a cat—but it hadn’t legs, or ears, so it was a snake. It stared in my face with eyes that were profound.” (She had learned this word, found it apt, used it aptly.) “But I never picked the fruit. They would have burned my hands. I knew not to. Before the snake could speak to me, I was woken.”

In the void, it was Jian who spoke, unable to prevent himself. “Eva, the first woman, heeded the Serpent, plucked the apple, and damned the
world with her sin. This Maiden could not—
would not
. And God Himself woke her from her trance.”

Isaacus, in his fury, cast down his iron cross on the floor. It rang.

“She is a
seducer
sent by
Hell
. This fire she brings comes from the Pit. Haven’t I heard tales that she burns men alive?” He moved fast and ungainly, snatching a lit candle from its spike. “
This
is the natural fire of this world, and what she brings is filth from the guts of the Fiend, a sulfurous belch.” Isaacus raised the candle and croaked, in his voice of pebbles, a blessing over it. “Now it is God’s fire. Do we doubt
God’s
fire is stronger than the flames of Hell?”

He went rolling towards the girl, like some boat cut loose on a lagoon. She gazed up at him, not moving. Changed as she had, still she was the slave.

Jian moved. With a vast thrust, the black priest shoved him away. Jian had not thought he would need much strength, but Isaacus was brimmed by his virtue.

Isaacus seized up the girl’s right hand by the wrist.

“With
this
she calls her dirty genius. With
this
I
punish
her—”

Cristiano saw her start, flinch. Only a little. But she was used to ill-treatment and wounding.

Isaacus dropped her hand.

He waved the candle, victorious.

“She’s flammable despite the Satanic influence. She
burns
.”

Cristiano sprang around the chair. It was Jian, staggering still, who somehow caught him back. Danielus who reined him in.

“
Wait
.”

Leaning to the girl, the Magister lifted her hand and looked at it. Tenderly,
perhaps. As a father might.

Then he said, “Get up, Beatifica.”

When she did so—her face showing nothing, only her eyes, as if bruised—he raised her right hand in his own, and showed them all.

“You blessed your candle, Brother Isaacus, and called on God.”

“You heard me,
Magister
.”

“Then God has answered you. And everyone of us.”

On her hand, at her palm’s center, a red and awful, weeping mark.

“Where else,” said Fra Danielus, “have we seen this sign?”

Joffri did not know whether to shout with laughter or hide his eyes. Not one of them was unfamiliar with the cross, the icon of Sacrifice upon it. Nor the holy pictures of its aftermath. How could they be in doubt? The insane Isaacus, seeking to reveal her as devilish, had scorched her hand. With the divine stigmata granted only to saints, the bleeding scar of the nail which had pierced the palm of Christ.

Sunset diminished on the sea. They had come far, and had further to go. As darkness bloomed, it gathered the ships, and formed them into one vast single thing, a cloud of wood and sails.

Those that could had answered the cry to pray.

God is great. There is no god save God. Hasten then to greet Him, hasten that His power make you rich in Him, richer than a thousand golden mantles. There is no god save only God.

Suley-Masroor, Master of the
Quarter-Moon
, came from the trance of prayer. He got up from the deck. The warmth of the day was softly going with
the light. The sea was very calm. The oars were at rest.

On every vessel now, the lanterns were lighting high up in the fore-towers, yellow eyes blinking to each other. Sails furled in, described two masts or three. The
Quarter-Moon
had three, and the wind-catcher at his stern. He was male, the ship, like all the ships of Jurneia and Candisi, for it was the sea which was female, unpredictable, and lovely.

The Master walked forward to the tower. He climbed the ladder, and the watch stood aside for him.

“It’s good to pray,” said the watchman.

“Yes, always good. For those moments we become again as God would have us, and are without sorrow.”

But after prayer, he thought, the world came back, and this sailing on to make a war.

As if he read the Master’s brain, the watchman said, “They are deserving of wrath, our enemies. They cheat us for our silk and spice. They worship a parody of the Most High. A war of trade, but also holy.”

“Have the three lost ships returned?”

“No, Master. There’s no sign of them. The storm was bad.”

“May those men be found, or ascend to Paradise,” said Suley-Masroor.

They had lost five vessels in all since setting out. Four in the sudden spring gales, and one which had simply gone down, mysteriously, perhaps previously holed by spies. (They had caught a lot of spies, in Jurneia, prior to embarkation.) With the lost vessels, the fleet now totaled eight hundred and twenty-seven ships. It seemed the Lagoon City of Venarh had almost half that number again, over one thousand. And, as a last spy had confirmed, also ballistas and cannon.

Suley-Masroor remembered joking with his
blind old father-in-law, telling the old man the Venarhans had only four hundred vessels. (He would gossip, when Suley was gone, and make his daughter, Suley’s wife, afraid. Her three brothers were already with the fleet. It was sometimes best to dissemble.)

“I’ll watch. Go down for your food.”

Suley-Masroor stood in the fore-tower of the
Quarter-Moon
, staring out at the shining abyss of sea and night. Behind him, like a zircon, the evening star was rising up, Aspiroz, that the infidels of the west named Hesper, or Venus—another name they gave, so he understood, to their City.

He was reluctantly thinking about the dream he had had. Twice it had come to him. If it came again tonight, only then, would he permit himself to consult his sacred talisman. But it was strange, the dream.

In the dream, Suley-Masroor was hunting in the waste, alone but for his horse. The land was spare and dun, as he had often seen it, but then among some boulders a water-spout spangled. As he approached, he saw a yellowish fox, which sat still as the stones. Normally such a creature, of which there were several in the desert, would sprint away. But no, It did not shift itself. Even in the dream, he thought this odd, and hesitated, although the sight of the water filled him with thirst.

Then the fox got up, and trotting to the outlet, drank. But no sooner did the tongue of the fox touch it, than the waterfall changed. Suley-Masroor cried out in horror as spurts of steam and fire burst from the rocks in place of water.

Here, he woke. On both occasions at this instant.

The Chosen of God had, in the dawn of history, struck mountains to produce streams of water. This mocking mimicry of that act lodged like a burning
shadow in the Master’s mind. What did it mean? Was it only an inevitable anxiety—or some premonition sent to warn?

Cristiano dreamed of the Vigil.

He kneeled, not in the Soldiers’ chapel, however, but in some open place of the Primo, which he did not recognize. It had a floor of glass, black glass. Pillars of gold, dull and ancient, rose to the dome, which was luminous and high, sounding with night winds, and with moonlit clouds that curiously passed through it, in and out.

He saw a window. The Virgin was depicted there.

As he kneeled below, slowly transcending his body’s pain, as if dragging himself up a steep stair to the bell-tower of his own skull, he became aware that the hair of the Virgin was like copper. It was this, shaded by night, which had seemed to form her damson mantle.

Dreaming, Cristiano knew shame. But why?

More than the hurt of his body, he ached for God. But God did not arrive.

Instead, gradually, Cristiano grew conscious of other Bellatae, kneeling as he did before the window. Jian was to his left, and just at his back, Aretzo. Behind these he now saw, (leaving his body, drifting above them) the ranks of the Upper Echelon, and behind these, the lower militia of God. There were two Magisters Major present also, but not the third, not Danielus.

This concerned Cristiano, and he had a sense of searching for his own Magister, which kept him disembodied, moving on and on. The Basilica was filled, end to end; that in spite of being larger than it was. The priesthood was there, the lay brothers too, almost all the hierarchy of the Church. And
beyond them, others knelt, men in mail like the Bellatae, faces locked in casques, their drawn swords held between hands in gloves of steel. Banners hung among them, leaning a little, or straight as the pillars. Emblems of the Lion and the Child, of the Lion and Star, of the Boar and the Bear and the Lynx—Ve Nera’s Crusader banners from two centuries before. They were, these men, the first Knights of God. The warriors of the Suvio, the first cry to Battle, which had been uttered at the water’s edge, when the Laguna Fulvia was choked with craft, and the sea, beyond the sand-bars, with high-sailed cogs bound for the Holy Land.