“Near one of the big gates,” she replied. “Two roads, two waterways.”
In some ways, it was the worst gate for them to pick, as it straddled two roads—the Via Praenestina and the Via Labicana—and would have the largest contingent of Orsini’s men. But at this same location, two of the ancient aqueducts that serviced Rome also entered the city—the Aqua Claudia and Anio Novus. The great wall that encircled Rome, built long ago by a man named Aurelian, was erected after the city had been founded. For many generations, Rome had not needed its walls, and when Aurelian had the fortifications built, he did not dare tear down the parts of the city that stood where he wanted the wall to go. Here, at the Porta Maggiore, the wall wrapped itself around road and waterway.
The walls embraced Rome’s history; they did not split or block the old temples and mausoleums. And as she had discovered during her brief exploration of the nymphaeum while Ferenc had slept, some of these buildings were built on top of older structures, and some of those were riddled with crypts and underground chambers.
*
Coughing and choking, Capocci stumbled against the rough panel that was the secret exit from the Septizodium. It moved beneath him, and caught off guard, he flailed to keep his balance as the door swung out and spilled him into the alley. He fell to his knees, cradling his blistered hands against his chest. His tangled beard was a wild array of soot-blackened hair, sweat-shiny knots and curls rising about his face like a spiny bush that had been drained of life and color.
Smoke and gray ash leaked out of the door behind him, a thin flurry lifted by the heat into a clear-blue sky. Capocci crumpled to the ground, landing on his side and rolling onto his back. His chest heaved, gulping great draughts of clean air. He had seen the sky only earlier that morning—during the communal meal the cardinals shared at the slop buckets—but now it seemed so different, so much vaster. He marveled at the smooth emptiness, at the plain purity, a blue unsullied, unblemished, as if it knew itself to be the only true color known to God and man.
Something clouded his view—a round blur that, when he focused his eyes, resolved into a man’s face. Capocci frowned, wanting to push the man back.
Not now. I want to see the sky. My breath, my salvation...
“Cardinal Capocci,” the man said, “can you hear me?”
Capocci squinted at the man’s face, trying to place it. He wasn’t one of the other cardinals, but he seemed familiar. The shape of his nose, the width of his mouth, the neat beard—these all belonged to someone he knew. “Master Constable,” he croaked, finally remembering—the man in charge of watching over the cardinals in the Septizodium. There were other guards nearby, as well as the tall figure of Cardinal Colonna, his face puckered with concern and dread.
“Cardinal,” the master constable continued, “is there anyone else? Is there anyone else inside?”
Capocci raised his hands to cover his face but paused at the sight of their raw and blistered skin. He dropped them back to his chest and closed his eyes, shaking his head from side to side.
God had sheltered him from the fire. He had seen the writhing thing that hissed and spat in the center of the inferno; he had even tried to grab hold and pull it out. But the arm had come away. It was no longer human; the Devil had taken the man’s soul and burned away everything that had been good and pure of the man; all that was left was sizzling fat and overdone meat.
“No,” he wheezed in response to the master constable’s question. “There is no one else.”
*
The tomb was simple and yet unlike any other monument in Rome. A freedman’s tomb, built for a baker. Also, it was outside the Aurelian Wall. Ocyrhoe squinted up at the large, round holes that perforated the side of the building—a series of open, unblinking eyes that looked away from Rome.
They were a stone’s throw from the Porta Maggiore, and she would not have dared to stand this close to the gate of Rome had she been on the other side. But the Bear’s guards were not looking in this direction; all their attention was on the crowd pressing against them from within the city. The crowd on this side was smaller—more confused than angry. Several merchants, in fact, were selling their wares directly out of their carts, taking advantage of the press of people milling about.
She had been right about the crypt under the nymphaeum. It had connected to older tunnels, and though they had wandered aimlessly for what seemed like days, it had only been a few hours. Ocyrhoe didn’t want to think about their fortune—they could have gotten lost for a long time underground—but the path had seemed obvious to them. Perhaps it had been the lack of dust in certain passages, or the smoothness of the stone underfoot, or even the persistent vibration of the water in the Aqua Claudia overhead: these clues and others had guided them well.
They had escaped the city.
Ferenc took her hand, pulling her away from the tomb of Eurysaces, the baker, coaxing her into the wide world beyond Rome. She squeezed his fingers, giddily flashing him a grin. She was glad he was with her. Together, they would find the army of the Holy Roman Emperor and deliver Somercotes’s message.
She laughed. She was really doing it. She was delivering a Binder message. She was going to save them all.
Here Ends The Mongoliad:
Book Two
Ferenc
A Magyar youth, rescued from the battlefields of Mohi by Father Rodrigo Bendrito. Devoted to the priest, Ferenc accompanies Father Rodrigo on an incredible odyssey.
Ocyrhoe
An orphan of Rome, Ocyrhoe has just begun her training in the Binder ways when her kin-sisters disappear from the city. Thrust into a game of intrigue that threatens the future of the Holy Roman Church, Ocyrhoe must use all of her newly realized skills to survive.