Saint Fire (Secret Books of Venus Series) (19 page)

“Don’t look sad, Veronichi. You’ve got your way.”

“I’m not sad, my darling, but plotting. Tell me truly, do you love your white-haired knight more than me?”

“Cristiano? Perhaps almost as much. He’ll never know. He would drop dead on the spot where I told him. How could I work that on him? But I gain great pleasure, both sensual and possibly pious, from watching him. Man in the image of the Most High. There it is.”

The light was fading from the window.

She sat by the bed until he slept, then stole away, her robe whispering.

In another room, a young man got up at once. He had white-blond hair, and was of great physical beauty. He had a look of Cristiano certainly, and being only nineteen, a younger Cristiano, more flexible, less stern.

“You’re ready?”

“Yes, lady. And—eager.”

“He would refuse you if you weren’t. Wait for an hour. Then admit yourself to the bed. He’ll sleep a while. Let him
find you when he wakes. Love one another well.”

When the young man had gone, she sat down to comb her hair. There was no jealousy in her heart. Whatever would do her lover good, did good to her. And he would not send her away from the City. The Jurneians had been nothing to her terror of their parting.

Sister Purita waited quietly by the Domina, as church servants carried yet three more chests up the sister-house stair.

So many possessions for with this visiting lady. And yet, she was said to be frugal and devout.

Of course, there would be things of her brother’s, the Fra’s, kept in the island house, and now needing to be made safe. The library had already been brought; it had taken all morning to go up.

Veronichi was to have three of the guest cells. They must already be choked and impassable.

An ugly woman, though quite young. Of course she had never borne a child. Child-bearing aged women. It was a fact, she dressed modestly and unbecomingly.

The Domina sat in her chair, her hand on her walking stick. Now she motioned for the other nun, Permaria, to give her her medicinal tincture. (In the outer world, the fleet was gathering. How far off it seemed, here, how slight.)

“Purita,” said the Domina, “it is you, there, Purita?”

“Yes, holy Mother.” (This was the second time she had asked.)

“Purita, I should like you to read the lesson, as we dine.”

“
I?
” Purita was appalled. The lessons read at meals were
transcribed from the Latin, to benefit the less able nuns. Even so—“My reading’s poor, Mother, despite the help I’ve had—”

“Your Latin does indeed need work, but as you know that will not impede you in this. And you know the text, Purita. You’ve heard it often now. I’ll go through the words with you. Remember, you may interpret, where you understand. God sometimes inspires us to do this.”

Purita glanced at the other nun, who might have been a statue.

The old woman was saying Purita might
invent
the lesson, where she could not decipher it?

“I like you to read, you’ve read for me,” said the old Domina. “You have a clear yet friendly voice, and the accent of the City.”

“I’m common, Mother.”

“That’s not what I said, Purita. Besides, the rose is common in summer. Do we like it less for that?”

She could be crisp, when she wanted. Luchita-Purita wondered sometimes if the Domina acted out her occasional feebleness, her vaguenesses of mind, to trick them all. But definitely her physical strength was failing. They were both needed now, she and Permaria, to help the Mother to her cell.

But then she sat in her room, in the chair, like a cheerful, fat grasshopper, smiling. She loved her room, with its bare white walls lit by the sun, her wide window that looked on the well-stocked garden. You saw her filmy eyes roam over every object, the plain cross and the jeweled one, the hand-high Virgin with white flowers in a vase, the dark religious books, her velvet cushion for kneeling. She liked her walking stick too, which had carved on its top the head of a bird, much polished by use—and caresses. In repose she cuddled the stick like a
toy, and now and then spoke to it, apologizing for her weight and her need, telling it, (oddly) that it reminded her of the boundless strength of Christ, who was the walking stick for every frail soul.

Permaria brought the Domina the huge Bible, placing it open at the lesson, where the transcription lay ready.

“Come here, and read it now, Purita.”

Purita read the lesson stumbling, flushed with anxiety.

“There. You have it all.”

“I stammer, Mother, when I’m nervous.”

“That’s pride, Purita. Did you know that?” Purita gaped. “In your case, it is. You know you can do well and expect so much of yourself, that you become afraid. Sister Gratzilia stutters, yet she reads. God won’t object.”

Unwillingly, Purita bent her head, trying to learn the lesson off by heart in the hour before the Solus and the afternoon dinner.

“Permaria, go if you will and fetch me some water. I’m very dry.”

Purita, struggling with the words, heard the other nun go out.

Birds twittered in the garden. A ray of sudden sun found the hub of the jeweled cross. Crimson burst from it like fire.

It was harder now to remember the miracle which had brought her here. Had it happened? Surely it had.

“Sister Purita,” said the Domina. Her voice was so soft, and like parchment. Startled, Purita looked up. “Listen, Purita. I shan’t live many more days. God warned me in a dream. I’m not fearful. His life is lovelier than even this loveliness, which is only its shadow-image.
And for all my lapses, I know I shall find mercy. In my heart I think that all men do, at last.”

Purita stood, her hands on the Bible.

The Domina said, “I’ve told them, I want you by me. You must stay near. When the time comes, I have something to say to you.”

“I—”

“You. You think they will be jealous? Perhaps. But only a few. And I’ve made provision. You have no knowledge, have you, Purita, of what you are.”

“A sinner.”

“Now, that
is
common, for so are we all. The Apostles that Christ chose were common men. They spoke with the accent of the land, some caught fish, they wandered about like beggars. They were his witnesses. And after Christ, his saints too are witnessed. You are the first pure witness to Beatifica, who brought fire from Heaven. The Magister Major has advised me.”

Purita stood with her mouth open. She closed it. She said, “What are you telling me, Mother?”

“You’re not a fool. You’ve seen the duties I have been giving you, and so have others. They see too that you’re careful, and effacing of self. Above all, practical.”

The door opened, and Permaria entered with a pitcher of water.

Purita’s heart bounded inside her, blurring her sight, so the words of the lesson now became jumbled and illegible.
I’m willful, too
. They had forgotten or not known that, this Mother of nuns, this Father of priests, Danielus.

She stopped trying to read. She would
interpret
the passage instead. Let them see how they liked that. In such a mood she had several times committed adultery, once met her outcast daughter and given her money, fed the homeless at the inn
door,
resented
her brother. The mood of rebellion. Or was it only liberty? As when, rebelling and at liberty, she became a nun?

‘You will know, since I gave your order my permission—a matter of form, since the Ducem had already desired it—that I recognize your credentials, and your willingness to fight, for the City, and for God. This of you all, jointly and as individuals. But, Cristiano, as I have said to others of your brotherhood, be very certain you are essential there, and not needed here. The Ducem, as you see, is dispatching three hundred ships at last. His aquean army numbers at least six thousand men. Though Jurneia’s fleet is larger—and here, we are aware, accounting varies—she packs less men on board each ship. She has perhaps a third again our numbers. Conversely, if the fight is lost at Ciojha, Ve Nera herself must be defended, from the land’s edge.

‘My gist, Cristiano, is that, while you wait on Torchara, you might think a second time. Many of the Upper Echelon I have persuaded in this. If you rebut my judgment I will, say no more. Christ be with you. Fight well.’

The returning letter from Torchara was, at core, brief.

‘I have said, Magister, I cannot debate with you. I shall not attempt it. God be with us at Ciojha.’

It was a glorious summer noon. Torchara, an island of shipyards, showed her greenery high up on her inner hill. From her quays Ve Nera was visible in detail across Fulvia, with
the Laguna Aquila, and the Silvian Marshes held, as some poet had said, in her other arms. Out from Silvia on the Isle of the Dead, no smoke went up. They had left the fires unlit. Instead a hundred bells might be heard ringing clear as glass across the water.

Birds fluttered about Torchara, and the somber gulls circled and recircled the forest of masts.

They were white-sailed, Ve Nera’s ships, almost every sheet crossed in Crusader red, and every greatest sail painted, in at least seventy different forms, with the old symbol of the City, the figure of a veiled woman crowned by a star. She had been Venus, once. Now they named her
Maria Stella Maris
—Maria, Star of the Sea. The vessels wore the Ducem’s colors in their flags, and the colors of other lesser lords: plum and saffron, orange, black and gold.

Beautiful. The heart lifted at the sight.

What could stand against it, this perfect entity of wood, canvas and iron, flesh and bone and steel.

Two days to Ciojha. Propulsion from the slaves’ rowing in the under-deck, a light wind to be discovered, perhaps, when on the open sea.

Only one Magister Major, not Danielus, had come to bless them, but nine members of the Council of the Lamb were there, black crows beside the magenta of the Primo’s higher priests.

Boys were singing praise to God the Deliverer, their voices flung aloft and silencing even the predatory gulls.

Drawing out from land.

Three hundred shining ropes that slipped away. The water spreading, three thousand shining ropes that pulled them on.

Cristiano looked upward, his heart singing like the children on the quay, innocent, savage.

A solitary flotilla of clouds, peach-yellow
from the sun, sailed above them, accompanying them.

“It might be some angelic fleet up there,” Aretzo murmured, “some sign from Heaven. Like the Maiden’s angels—”

Others had noticed. Gazed and pointed.

A war song rose sturdily from the decks, as the other voices faded on the shore.

The fleet of Heaven moved away, melting now into the east.

In the morning, after the easy rocking of night, a frisky wind blew up. The sails bellied out. The slaves were rested at the oars, and fed with meat and wine.

Ve Nera was merciful. She did not shackle her rowers in a fight. If a ship was stoven in, they could take their chance with the crew and soldiers.

Cristiano ate meat, like the slaves. Before a battle you did not fast. He drank the wine. Aretzo fretted. “We go like snails. It will be three days at this pace.”

“So eager to sink your teeth in an infidel throat,” another mocked him.

Jian was not there. He had heeded Fra Danielus and stayed behind. Among the ships there were some hundreds of the Bellatae Christi, distributed mostly in squadrons between five to twenty. On this ship they numbered ten, but all of the Upper Echelon. No one, apart from Cristiano, had received a letter from the Magister Major. No doubt, he had expected Cristiano to persuade others.

The sea was slightly choppy, dragon green in the shadow of the fleet, crushed glass under the sun.

There were a few cannon, purchased from other places. One straddled the fore-castle, an iron vegetable hooped in by
iron rings. They were unpredictable furniture, liable to break loose. When fired, they could knock the cannoneer off his feet and slough his eyebrows. Or otherwise blow up and kill him. Cristiano had seen all this in previous actions, when Ve Nera’s troops had fought with or by fellow cities.

Cristiano, glancing, noticed Aretzo had put on the new favor, pinned beside the Bellatae badge of the Lion and Child. This was only a piece of scarlet cloth. Many of them had taken to wearing it. He knew, though none of them spoke of it, the cloth represented the Maiden Beatifica’s fire.

Some of the soldiers were now seasick.

Over the slap of waves, noises of vomiting and impatient nervousness, dinned the war-song. Or he heard the cannon rattling about in its ties, bound as the human slaves were not.

This ship was named
Virgo Maria
.

The white light of God had failed him. The red glare of war would not. (Hate always more vital than love?)

The red light did not fail. Nor was the voyage quite two days.

On the following morning, soon after sunrise, they saw Ciojha spread before them, perhaps two miles away, like a great whale sunning itself in the aftermath of dawn.

Before the whale, the fleet of Jurneia spread—and spread. And spread.

Like dishes laid for a feast, or the dusky waterlilies smothering some pool.

Sail upon sail, wooden shell on shell.

The sky was pale, losing the brilliance of sunrise.

Men cried out, and fell dumb.

Ve Nera stood on her decks, looking
at the flowers of Jurneia.

The priests came quickly now through the Christian ships, shriving men. Warriors knelt, stuffing the Host even down sea-queasy throats. The Blood of Christ was gulped.

“How many ships, in God’s name?” Aretzo, angry, priming himself.

“The Magister gave eight hundred as the last count.”

“More. Over a thousand.
Look
at them.”

“Perhaps.”

“I hate a seafight,” said one of the
Virgo Maria
’s other eight Bellatae. “I need to get close. Close as a lover to his leman, and sheath in my hot sword.”

His coarseness was not rebuffed. Some of them chuckled.

Cristiano, his eyed fixed on the Jurneians, felt he rushed towards them through the air. His blood tingled. His face was to him like metal, his entire body, impermeable. Yet he was light. He crossed himself stiffly, and the red blaze began to wake behind his eyes.