The alley dead-ended where the buildings did, against a third building. It was like being in a deep, deep canyon: a narrow slot of sky above, shadow below, and no escape except back the way they’d come. There were no doors, no smaller alleys, nothing. Ocyrhoe approached the crumbling stone and brick of the dead-end wall and began to examine it, as if for cracks. After a few fruitless moments, she turned and faced Ferenc expectantly. He gave her a blank, confused look and shook his head.
Ocyrhoe was sure she had explained this to him in the outpouring of their first “conversation,” when they suddenly realized they could communicate through the silent language she had learned from her kin-sisters, and known to them in some ancient tongue as Rankos Kalba, or Rankalba. She was still confused that he, a male, could know this code, but there was no time to wonder about that now.
Perhaps he had not really understood what she’d said before. Admittedly, she had simplified it; it would be exhausting and very time-consuming to try to explain the Septizodium and the elections and Orsini and Fieschi and too many other things. She sent a silent prayer to the Bind-Mother. Oh, please, let him understand me.
She slapped the cool stone wall, then took Ferenc’s wrists and tapped her fingers on the bony flesh in alternating singles, pairs, threes, fours, grip, then three, then one, and so on—variations signing out the basic message, as if she were leaving notches in a long piece of wood or on a cornice, or tying knots in a cord or her own hair: “Father Rodrigo is inside. Prisoner.” Ferenc blinked, then nodded. “Many rooms, in many buildings,” she continued. “Different rooms with tunnels connecting all. We are close. We must get in.” She noticed confusion in Ferenc’s expression. Too fast, she thought. Whoever taught him Rankalba didn’t finish the lesson. “Understand?” she asked, signing more slowly against his inner arm and wrist.
He mused on that for a moment, then nodded, though his expression suggested he was still unsure. She chewed her lower lip, looked up, then down, then decided to try drawing a map on the dust of the ground. She held out her hand. “Pugio?” she asked, using the Latin word. At his blank look, she mimed holding the weapon and stabbing the air with it, then again held out her hand.
“Pugio,” he said, and he repeated it once more as he gave her his knife. He was, she realized, learning the Latin word.
In the dirt of the alley, Ocyrhoe crouched and drew a bird’s-eye view of this alley and the immediate surrounding streets and buildings. She placed the facade of the Septizodium in the center of it and then drew the surrounding structures; these she knew by rumor were connected via tunnels, but after she drew in the streets, she was not sure how to designate tunnels. When she was finished, she looked up at him. “Mappa?” she said, again using the Latin word.
He nodded agreeably as he squatted next to her. She made a little X on the map beside one of the scratched-in buildings. “FerencOcyrhoe,” she declared, pointing to it. She patted the stone wall again, then etched in deeper the line representing it on the map.
Ferenc nodded. He pointed, on the map, to the interior of the building. “Father Rodrigo?” he said.
Ocyrhoe touched his wrist. “Maybe,” she squeezed, then shook her head. It would take far too long to explain that the Septizodium was a temple that wasn’t really a temple, just an ornamental wall on an otherwise nondescript building. Instead, she pointed to various other buildings on the map, each time signing “maybe here,” until Ferenc nodded that he understood: the priest was somewhere nearby, and they had to find him.
“Hidden door,” Ocyrhoe added, and then he understood why she had been staring at the wall when they first came here. He stood up, anxious to continue their search, but she shook her head and pulled his arm to return his attention to her crude map.
“Priest,” she said, pointing to each of the smaller buildings in turn. “Priest, priest, priest, priest, priest.”
Ferenc’s eyes popped wide open. He babbled something in his native tongue and then, grabbing her wrist, hesitatingly fingered out, “More. More. And more.” He frowned, then firmly amended, “Many. Prisoners?” Rendering a question in Rankalba was not easy. She took his point by the lifting of his brows and general plaintive expression.
Ocyrhoe nodded. “Many prisoners,” she signed. It wasn’t quite accurate, but at least it gave him a vague understanding of what they were up against. He blinked and held his hands out wide, shrugging—a universal gesture of confusion, wanting to understand, not knowing. Ocyrhoe winced. There was no time to explain to him who Senator Orsini was or that he was keeping the cardinals captive until they voted in a new Pope. Even if she could somehow find a simple way to tell him, it would not help him understand her plan to reach his companion.
Not that she really had a plan to reach Father Rodrigo. Just an idea. And probably a very feeble one.
Ferenc patted her arm to get her attention and made a brushing-aside gesture; the bevy of imprisoned priests could await explanation. “Father Rodrigo,” he said gently.
She nodded, relieved that he was willing to stay focused on the task at hand, without a lot of explanation. When he stood this time, she let him.
Ferenc patted the wall and imitated what she had been doing earlier: searching out a secret door. He glanced at her; she nodded. He began to scan the wall himself, one cheek pressed against it as he pressed the opposite hand in front of him against the stone, examining. He did this for about as long as it might take to cross through the green market at midday. Then he shook his head and stepped away from the wall.
He held his hand out, and Ocyrhoe offered her wrist. “Not here. Look other walls,” he signaled. It was slow and awkward; he lacked her fluidity in gesture and movement, but he clearly understood what had to happen. “Where look now?” he asked.
She pursed her lips and, after a moment, pointed toward two other places on the map. He sat beside her again and followed her finger. “Underground,” she signed, trying to communicate the idea that all these buildings were connected by underground tunnels.