The Mongoliad: Book Two

33

“Do you smell something burning?” Colonna asked, rousing from the meditative mood he had fallen into.

Capocci dropped his latest de-stingered scorpion into the clay jar and raised his head to sniff at the musty air of their underground prison. When they had first arrived in the tunnels and broken corridors beneath the Septizodium, the air had been stale and still, a stagnant miasma undisturbed for many years. The effect of their presence, initially, had stirred up the dust and decay of old Rome, clogging the air with tiny particles that caked the insides of their noses.

Da Capua had sneezed nearly constantly for several days before Colonna had offered to cut off the offending part of his face. He had then started to complain that the stench was eating at his soul-presumably, an item more difficult to remove. Since then, the ambient aroma of the tunnels had settled into a faint but unavoidable effluvium of sweat and charcoal.

But Colonna was correct. There was now a pungent scent of burning matter.

“It troubles me to agree with you, my dear Giovanni,” Capocci said. He fit a plug into the top of his clay jar, trapping the unhappy but harmless scorpions inside, and then stripped the leather glove off his hand. “I think we should go see if someone has set his beard on fire.”

“Oh,” Colonna raised his eyes toward the roof and clutched his hands theatrically to his chest, “please let it be Fieschi.”

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.

He had fallen to his knees-surrounded by intersecting wheels of sparks, flames, and embers circling on the edges of vision-when hands roughly grabbed him. He had fought at first-valiantly, but foolishly-thinking he had been grabbed again by the skeleton, but when the fleshy hands roughly shook him and a voice called his name, he realized he was no longer dreaming.

He was wide-awake. The corridor was filled with smoke from a fire that had been started in one of the narrow rooms used by the cardinals. Rodrigo stared at the black billows, agape with horror and wonder.

He knew in which room the fire burned.

Somercotes.

“Do not struggle so,” a voice growled in his ear, and he twisted his head to see Colonna, the tall one. “There is nothing more we can do.”

No! What about Somercotes? He struggled in the cardinal’s grip, trying to break free so that he could run to the aid of the warm-hearted old man. He can’t be dead.

A shape eclipsed the orange-shot gloom in the corridor, and for a second, through a break in the stinking wave of smoke flowing along the ceiling of the hall, he caught sight of Capocci, in the doorway of the burning room, his white beard spread out around his face like a splash of white sea foam.

Rodrigo broke free of Colonna and fell, banging his knees against the hard floor. Ignoring the pain, he scrambled toward the door. He had to help Capocci. He had to help save Somercotes.

In his mind, he saw the younger version of Somercotes-the one from his dream-pointing toward the door of the hut. The doorway was filled with light. It was happening again…

Save us, the angel whispered, and Rodrigo began to scream and gibber and beg as Colonna grabbed his leg and hauled him away from the glowing portal.

Ferenc and Ocyrhoe rested in the shadow of the niche, further obscured from the road by the thick trunk of the tree that had forced itself, obstinately and resolutely, between several of the large foundation stones of the nymphaeum. The ten-sided building, like many of the older temples built far from the center of Rome, had lost its luster and allure, though its marble facing was mostly intact. No one worshipped there now-a fact she had verified while Ferenc dozed-though, in her heart, Ocyrhoe suspected rites and ceremonies dedicated to Minerva had taken place beneath its rounded dome.

She felt safe here, her back against the sun-warmed stones. The goddess had resided here once, and much as a child instinctively knows-and remembers-its mother’s embrace, Ocyrhoe drew courage from the faded memory of that divine presence.

They had walked as quickly as Ferenc’s ankle had allowed; though she feared their pace would draw attention, she had been surprised and relieved to discover how easy it had been for them to slip along the edges of the restless crowds. The Bear’s guards were watching for runners, and as the citizens of Rome became more frantic, there became too many targets to watch effectively. Made invisible by their more temperate pace, they trailed in the wake of the crowds, letting the mob pull them along, until she spotted the rounded dome of the nymphaeum.

Ferenc was propped up in the corner of the niche, eyes closed, head against the wall. He was worn out-as was she-and as they had walked, she could tell his ankle pained him. Ocyrhoe had insisted on taking a rest-ignoring his persistent protests that he could keep going-and shortly after they had found this hiding place, he had wedged himself into the corner and dozed off.

Such a stupid thing, that jump! At first, she had wanted to scream at him; he had thrown away their one chance to slip out of the city undetected. Instead, he had foolishly injured himself while saving her, without even considering the possibility that she hadn’t needed saving. She could have out-climbed that guard. She was smaller and faster; he would not have been able to keep up. And then they would have both made it to the top of the wall.

But what then? Where would they have gone from there?

She was still angry, and not just because he had doubted her plan but also because he had been right to question it. What stung most had been the embarrassment of his clumsily signed question: Have you ever been out?

She hadn’t even considered how they would have descended from the wall. She was a child of the city; it was all she had ever known and all she ever wanted to master. She had wanted to be a part of the city the way the other kin-sisters were: both slave and master of the temples, the plazas, the roads, the aqueducts, the gardens, the walls. She had wanted to learn every bump and rock of the seven hills, to know them well enough to walk across them barefoot and know where she was by the texture of the ground beneath her feet. Her world was Rome, and what made her heart ache was the realization of how small and insignificant her dream was. She could walk across the entirety of Rome in a day; outside the walls, she could walk for days-weeks, years, her whole life, even-and not reach the edge of the world.

Her fingers touched and affectionately scraped at the warm stone of the nymphaeum. She was an ant, dreaming the tiny dream of an ant, in a world erected by and for giants. I am frightened, she thought, praying to a goddess she did not know how to summon. I am just one small girl, and I am not very strong.

Ferenc stirred, his eyelids fluttering. As his senses returned, he sat up sharply. Ocyrhoe laid a hand on his arm, and he calmed at once. Her fingers began to tap and squeeze. “We are safe for now,” she signed. “No one is paying attention. They are looking for people who are fleeing.”

He nodded as he looked at the wall behind and above them. “Where are we?” he queried.

“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.