Capocci’s hands had been badly burned, and the Master Constable had found some cloth that had been soaked in water and wrapped around them, to provide some relief from the pain while a healer was found. Colonna kept wanting to check the bandages but, realizing he was being a fussy nursemaid, would catch himself. Capocci ignored the other man’s fluttering presence, his gaze steady and unwavering.
Fieschi did not shy away from that gaze. Whenever he glanced over, Capocci’s expression was the same, and he found no reason to give the man any satisfaction. He met Capocci’s glare with a calm and untroubled expression of his own. He knows nothing, he thought. He might have seen Somercotes’s body, but he cannot know what happened. He wants to believe that I am responsible; it would fit his impression of me—a simple solution that would ease his mind.
Fieschi looked away from the wounded Cardinal, returning his attention to the line of guards and the open field beyond. His mind drifting, wondering about the races that had once been held in the valley. Thousands of citizens had once clustered around the raked sands while charioteers beat their horses bloody in an effort to gain glory for their leaders. The pagan rituals of the gods of Imperial Rome had been brutal, savage rites of a weaker age, but they had had their place in that world. It did not surprise Fieschi that a place like the Circus had fallen into disuse; Christianity was, after all, civilized. Love for Christ had brought them all out of darkness, and—with proper guidance—that love would bring them all to salvation. It was much as Augustine said: Rome loved Romulus and made him a god; the devout believed Christ to be God, and therefore loved Him.
Yet he could not help but wonder about the power of that crowd’s love. The roar of their voices, chanting and screaming the names of their champions. The orgiastic surge of delight when their man won a race. Or the tumultuous rage when a favorite son fell, his body most likely crushed beneath the wheels of another’s chariot. To control that energy, to know that these men raced for your pleasure, to soak in the emotional exultation of the crowd that had come to worship at this barbaric temple of your creation. Such power was an aphrodisiac to the Roman Emperors, surely, as it would be to any ruler. It was an earthly love, a devotion to the materials of the flesh and the world; while it felt fierce and all-consuming, it was not the same love one could have for Christ, for God.
He had, in fact, had this argument with Frederick once. Years ago, before the Holy Roman Emperor drifted from his allegiance to the Pope. Frederick, reveling too much perhaps in his delight at playing the fool, had taken the side of Imperial Rome. It was better to have the love and respect of your subjects, he had argued, than to persist in frightening them with the threat of losing the love of a Supreme Being they will never know.
He had quoted Scripture in response. Fieschi caught himself smiling at the memory. The thirty-first Psalm. Diligite Dominum, omnes sancti eius, quoniam veritatem requiret Dominus, et retribuet abundantur facientibus superbiam.
God rewards the faithful, and His rewards were abundant to the proud believer.
The Rome of Romulus was gone, sacked and pillaged as it grew too decrepit to protect itself. Rome belonged to Christ now, and he was going to make it the heavenly city that Augustine had posited.
“Ego autem in te speravi, Domine,” he whispered, lighting touching his forehead with a trembling finger. “Deus meus es tu.”
Fieschi caught sight of the mad priest, standing in the far corner of the stable like a forgotten child. He clutched a plain jar in his hands, holding it tightly as if it contained a sacred relic. Much like he had clung to his satchel when he had been first lowered into the Septizodium.
Fieschi finished making the sign of the Cross before letting his hand drift toward his satchel. He still had the priest’s parchment, the page covered with the frenzied scribbling of a heretical prophecy. For an instant, Fieschi almost felt some empathy for the deluded priest. To be so bereft of God’s love that he could be snared by the heretical vision of those words, to be so lost that he could believe that he had been the recipient of a divine visitation. To feel the Serpent’s tongue and mistake it for the whispering voice of an angel.
He sent a silent prayer of gratitude to God. Quoniam fortiduo mea at refugium meum es tu. His purpose was clear; his path was like a ribbon of shining white stones, laid before him.