Capocci chuckled as he scooped up the other glove. “As amusing as I would find such a sight, I pray God is not inclined to listen to you today.” He put the gloves and the clay jar into a leather satchel. “The theological ramifications would be even more distressing than the sight of our good cardinal, slightly charred.”
As they walked through the halls, not only did the singed odor increase but wispy tendrils of smoke sluggishly curled along the tunnel’s ceiling. And when they heard shouting, they broke into a run.
The central corridor from which branched several of the cardinals’ chambers was filled with greasy, gray smoke. It billowed along the ceiling, crawling and fuming like a living creature, and farther down the hall, a sullen, smoky red maw gaped and snapped, like a yawning, demonic mouth. The air burned Capocci’s throat, and the disturbingly appetizing taste of charred meat filled his mouth. In the haze, someone was coughing and spitting, trying vainly to clear his lungs of the foul air.
Ducking to keep his head out of the smoke, Capocci waddled toward the distressed man. His fingers touched cloth, and he gathered the fabric into his fist. The man felt Capocci pulling on him and staggered into the cardinal’s arms, as if he were throwing himself on Capocci’s mercy. Capocci fell back, dropping his satchel, and tried to lift up and orient the choking man. Who was he?
It was the new one, the strange one—Rodrigo—his face streaked by soot and tears. His eyes were bright, wide and staring, the whites tinted orange and red in the firelit gloom.
“I have you,” Capocci said, hugging the man tightly. He was surprised how frail the priest felt in his arms. Beneath the heavy robe, there was not much to the man, almost like he was a spirit who had animated a bundle of sticks into a simulacrum of a human body. “Is there anyone else?”
Rodrigo hesitated and then shook his head. “S-s-somer...c-c...” he stuttered.
Capocci peered toward the ruddy light farther down the hall, flicking tongues leaping and cavorting inside the red mouth. He pushed Rodrigo into Colonna’s waiting arms and knelt to locate his satchel. “Go,” he snapped over his shoulder. “Take him to safety. Through Fieschi’s secret exit.” He found his bag and pulled out his heavy gloves.
“There is no hope,” Colonna replied, a tight grip on Rodrigo’s shoulder. “No one could bear that flame.”
Capocci tucked his bag into his belt, securing it so he didn’t lose it a second time. “There is always hope,” he said.
Colonna shook his head grimly and then thrust his chin toward the roaring fire. “God be with you, my friend.” He retreated, dragging the dazed priest with him.
“Custodi animam meam, quoniam sanctus sum,” Capocci muttered as he pulled on his leather gloves. “Salvum fac servum tuum, Deus meus, sperantem in te.” He punctuated his plea to God by touching his head, his heart, and the two points of his shoulders.
Anointed with prayer, he walked toward the burning mouth of Hell.
*
The fever had him.
Rodrigo wanted to believe that sustenance and sanctuary had driven out the worst of the spiritual poison that lay siege to him, but now he knew it was not gone entirely. It lurked inside, within the walls of his personal citadel, like a demonic army hiding in his gut, waiting for a chance to break loose and pollute both his body and his soul.
And when that cardinal—the one who had fixed him with his eyes, just as a hawk stares at its terrified prey—came into the chamber where he and Somercotes were quietly discussing scripture, Rodrigo felt the walls inside crack again. A small fracture, but a breach nonetheless, and the poison started to ooze out once again.
After Fieschi and Somercotes had left, Rodrigo had tried to calm himself. If only he could sequester the poison, keep the venom from spreading. The last time, it had eaten almost all of his spirit, and only a fortuitous arrival in Rome—in the company of the waif, Ferenc—had saved him. That, and the presence of the kindly ones in the quorum of cardinals trapped under the city.
They—Somercotes and the two white-haired giants, Capocci and Colona—had treated him with civility and dignity. An image of the four of them formed in his mind. Arm in arm, they walked along a slowly meandering river, a row of silver-leaved trees on their left. The trees swayed and whispered in the light spring breeze.
It was a perfectly lovely fantasy, marred only by the suspiciously generous sun. At first, it cast down on him a most heavenly light, dappling the leaves of the slender trees, but the light reddened, then grew warmer—then hot. And the sun grew larger too, swelling from a tiny dot in the blue-white heavens to an angry red sphere, like a gigantic blot of blood. Flames crawled and leaped across the sun’s mottled surface like dancing imps, and long snake tongues of fire flicked out at random, threatening to span the sky, threatening to drop down to Earth—and touch him. If they did, they would ignite the poison inside, and he and all around him would be blasted to vapor, spreading out over the land to merge with the heat.
Rodrigo turned his head to ask Somercotes if the heat was unbearable, and found himself hand in hand with a charred skeleton. A tongue of fire had lanced down, missing him, but torching his companion instead. Rodrigo tried to pull away, but the skeleton leaned in, eyes dripping clotted gore, while its bony grip painfully squeezed his fingers. When Rodrigo struggled to break free, the skeleton’s jaw fell open, and a stream of gray smoke shot out in a sooty plume, stinging his eyes, blacking his face.
Within a few seconds, the sun was blotted out by the smoke-spewing skull, and Rodrigo began to hack up black spittle, his throat and lungs rejecting the filthy air.