Forgiving Rome

by Clay Ferrill

  I rose and excused myself to use His private bathroom and closed the door. The lights automatically lifted against the walls. Holy fucking cow. A solid gold toilet? I didn’t think I had the strength to see his face in realization. The shame he would feel if I had perhaps misinterpreted his intentions. No. Not possible. It had been his desire for me that triggered that verbal onslaught of seduction from me. I only did what he desired of me to do.

  Standing there at the sink waiting for my own body to calm and tenseness to dissipate, he’ll realize what he did in front of a visiting priest of the Catholic Church. I cannot will facts away and he will know. We’ll see when I go back out there. How he behaves will tell me if it was a welcomed seduction.

  I opened the door and smiled widely as he stood up. “I very much enjoyed that meal Your Highness. My compliments to your chefs. It is a shame our meeting is to be so brief. I would have preferred it be … slower. Longer. I would wish it to last as long as it pleases Your Highness. He all but cooed loudly at the finish of my verbal assault on him. I may just be invited to spend the night at the royal family’s palace after all. That’s how strong the pull back to me is once I’ve dosed someone like that.

  His expression is proud, not ashamed at all. He looks resolute and confident in himself. He had wanted that. I need closer proximity to he who must die first. The distant king-to-be. As THE primary member of the members of the jihad, he must be first, His Holiness had decreed it in the Papal Authorization. The leader pulling the genetic puppet strings of the Knights of Damascus, all details supporting his authorization for this fully substantiated and proven.

  I approached him and stood nearby. He had discarded his napkin on the floor. Judging by the lipstick stains on it, it had been Her Highness’s. He’d cleaned himself up with it.

  His Highness was still under some effects. Alert but languid almost. The drunken pull of me now. He turned his head back toward me and asked “would you please be our guest this evening at the royal palace? We may even be able to dine with my father. He is very curious as to the reason for the Pope’s coming visit, and why to visit him, us, so specifically.” I responded shyly, almost demurely, smiling into his eyes “I would be honored to be your guest, future Your Majesty” and winked at him. I knew right then I had devised the perfect plan.

  The Prince would kill his father, in anger, and then die shortly after from a massive heart attack from the shame of his act. Or at least it would look like that’s what had happened. They’d buy that. These men are ruthless. At least that’s the way I will retell the incident when and if questioned. I will then seek out the Princess to console her to seize the only opportunity to dose her and abort the unborn genetic edits she carries. She will survive, I have been assured as she is innocent in this scheming, but unfortunately the serum I am to dose her with will render her invalid reproductively.

  I begin gathering my satchel, sensing the meal is over. I have the feeling he doesn’t dress himself, so I assist in straightening his robes. I am too please him. Standing in front of him, I reach down to touch the top of his hand, busy adjusting himself, and then raise his deliciously exquisite formal white Bisht to turn it on his shoulder slightly. “All straight” and I smiled. He’s been raised this way from birth. It isn’t his fault. Given everything his heart desires and more without question. Against his strong objections to stop, I bring the plates together on the table to busy my hands and pretend not to notice where his hand moves. He smashes fruit into the exquisite woven rug beneath his feet. This rug undoubtedly took years to make by hand. Not even a concern on his face as it squishes into the delicate fibers.

  The car was waiting at the bottom of the stairs. The Prince held the door open for me, to everyone’s shock that had witnessed it, sending the driver back to his seat behind the wheel in rude, barking commands in a language I do not understand. I climbed into the car. “I have only these garments Your Highness, and now” … pausing to put my hand up as if in whisper … “well I smell like I just had sex” and I chuckled boyishly. He responded “I have many fine garments for you to wear this evening when we will dine with my father. My wife, the Princess, is not well feeling today and will not be joining us I’m afraid. She will dine alone in her room as usual.” He smiled in my eyes as he barked at the driver “Drive!” I really fucking dislike this man.

  It was a short drive to the Royal Palace compound. His Highness whispered something into the car phone and as the car pulled up at the first entrance, my passenger door was promptly opened. His Highness looked at me and spoke kindly “please go with Habib, Father, he will show you to your suite where you may rest and bathe. I will have clothing sent to you an hour or so before we are to dine and then come to help you dress properly. I will see you then shortly my friend. Go with Habib now.” I exited the car and as soon as the door closed the driver sped away to the more formal royal entrance a quarter mile in the distance at the apex of the grandest, largest circular drive with many large fountains of spraying precious water wastefully evaporating into the air. In the fucking desert. I dislike this entire royal family and this architect needs to die, too, except the beautiful Princess, that is. She has been tortured long enough.

  Chapter Seven

  The Stallion of God

  1510 A.D. Vatican City, Rome, Italy

  It has been many months now since I have had word from Giuseppe, my Archy, and when I am not busy at task painting someone else’s vision, I am riddled with worry and fear that he may be hurt somewhere, or worse, that he may have been killed in battle. I dismiss this last thought, again, because I believe in my heart that I would know if the other half of me had ceased breathing in life. I would just know. For the bulk of the time since arriving here in Rome, I have been here only to pass in visiting. I cast eyes on his family estate every Sunday afternoon. I do not live in the manse of it as he had wanted for me. Most of the time when I make this trip on foot, it is just to clear my head of horrible thoughts, thoughts of the possibilities of his fate. Why does he no longer write to me?

  I do not even enter past the grand gates and walk up to the vacant palace. I am not recognized here in this place. They know not who I am to the lord of this large house and likely, now, they never will. I return to the long walk back to my humble, small rooms near the Vatican. Living nearer to a place where I am rarely allowed to enter as an Assistant, even as a First Assistant. I had used only one of the twenty gold ducats Archy and his mother left for their portraits. To secure my private rooms here important to me, rather than share the Assistants bunkhouse with the other artist’s assistants. A fraction of the cashed ducat bought for me this alone place for the entire ten years of my father’s commitment of me.

  We have secured many fine works and have been busy preparing them for hanging inside the grand and growing Papal Palace. I see the works pass as they are loaded on the wagons that will deliver them to their forever homes and secured there. Doubting, sadly, that I will ever see them hanged ever again. So closely guarded this Pope Julius. I have yet to be summoned to view my painting in his private apartments, as was a condition of my acceptance. It had been agreed and not fulfilled. My mother’s painting Yellow Roses in Moonlight. It had been a condition of my acceptance almost two years hence now. Dwelling on this particular topic too long bitters my stomach. I will think of my Archy to feel renewed.

  On the long walk back into Rome today I noticed two things that have previously escaped my notice. One, my hair is entirely too long and unruly in this heated wind that tangles and blows it wild. My beard too sparse in growing to look as handsome and full as Archy’s. I know I look drawn, unkempt and haggard for such a young man of 28 years. I decide that I will shave my beard and cut my hair when I get back to my rooms before retiring for a long, needed sleep. Clean up my image. Twice now, I have been allowed into the newly-constructed and recently finished indoor corridor where the curvature of the walls to the rounded cove ceilings prevent the hanging and display of regular stretched-canvas paintings. It h
as been a quandary, how to display art in the vast space. I know I have the solution that the Master will find pleasing. Perhaps even Pope Julius himself will approve of my vision.

  Seven more years of this I must endure. I must further refine my charcoal sketches before I present them to him. If my sketches are viewed favorably, as subject and theme good and holy enough for the grand space, I would like to paint them myself. The second thing I notice that I have not noticed before, is that when I think of him now, Archy, I remember only the best of him. A smile always crosses my face and lifts my spirit so. The single image of him usually appears to me now, he is standing in his full uniform as I awaken, tears streaming down his beautiful face in my loft barn room, so sad to be parting from me. My Stallion of God.

  My heart hurts with the anguish of him feeling pain when he thinks of me now. Too tempting would it be to just push my image from his mind and purge thoughts of me because they disturb him too much. Perhaps. Try as I can and do, often on this walk back into Rome, I cannot envision what is inside his head when it concerns me. Remember my love, I love you his last words spoken to my ears.

  His most recent letter, eight months hence now, read hundreds of times, lamented on the battles he had fought for his King. It was then that I noticed him referring to things yet untold to me. I suspect a missing post would explain his references to something he has not yet shared with me. His letters are always interspersed with mentions of my body parts and how he remembers and longs for their taste on his hungry tongue. Even in prose he is my lover. Even from the distance of a single fold of pulped parchment paper that traveled endless miles to reach my department at the Vatican, help me feel the mouth he describes tracing across my bare skin. In my mind he is with me still and always. We run down the hill from my home in Urbino, into our lake naked and youthful, our passion shared under the tree in the deep grasses there hidden from view.

  In two weeks’ time I shall make the trip home to Urbino to visit with my mother for a month and find out if she has any new information from her cousin the Marquise about her son. It seems a long time to wait, but I have no choice. Making the trip home on horseback should shave two days off the trip if I am steady in my pace, but I will have to leave the horse there and take a carriage back to Rome, cutting my visit short by three whole days to allow for the additional days it will take to get back to Rome. I have learned a great deal here, though. I learn the art of barter, I learn the humbling talent of begging for more supplies for my work, and I learn that I will never again agree to a servitude where my talents and skills are so wasted. I have gifts to God in me, I know.

  I was nine years old when I painted Yellow Roses in Moonlight. If the Pope favors that painting so much, certainly he would approve of my larger-scale works, perhaps even the murals I envision as the black sketched frescoes that could easily and fluidly adorn the great new corridor’s vast blank space. The curved ceilings as well. We shall see. I must continue to perfect the sketches. My only chance.

  I look forward to seeing my mother again, and Ilsa whom I often miss more than my mother, and especially on laundry days. I am anxious to see the farms now that some wealth has been restored to the estate. Her letters to me long, she tells me she has hired permanent workers and one of them occupies my loft room in the barn, the other the small cottage that she paid to have somewhat restored, its leaking roof now repaired with some nicer furnishings to make it a more comfortable home for the new groundskeeper named Caravaggio, a “brute” from Sicily. Her letters to me are always very descriptive and she seems very pleased with how things progress, her tomatoes have been plentiful.

  She seeks to instill in me some peace I believe, peace from my worrying. I had been so reluctant to leave them alone there without a man in the house. Twice now they have harvested vegetables that Ilsa takes into Urbino to sell as if she were a merchant. Not handsome profit, but mother does let Ilsa keep the ducats from whatever she sells there. I am happy to hear that we have once again restored Ilsa’s meager wages, back-paying her for working for nothing as we struggled to keep everything running after father’s untimely death. I admit openly now that I have no mind for the farm business and am happy not to be burdened with it.

  I round the corner of the road where the house containing my small apartment is located and see the two men yet again, but now in front of me. I walk to them casually, studying each man carefully. They do not to appear menacing and I do not feel they mean to harm me. I have nothing for them to loot regardless. I stop a few feet in front of them. “Are you the artist Raphaello Sanzio da Urbino?” asked the smaller, older man. He withdrew a rolled parchment wrapped and tied with a delicate red ribbon and handed it to me. He crossed his hands in front of him and stared over my shoulder. He spoke into the air “I am to wait for your reply.” I looked at him and then down at the scrolled note and removed the ribbon tie, tucking it into my pocket. I unrolled the note.

  Written in a very elegant hand, it was a note from Marquise de la Orleans! I blinked in astonishment, having not thought of her in months, perhaps over a year now, guilty because he unfinished portrait is still in Urbino. I think only of her son the Marquis, my missing warrior lover. I read her elegant scrawl carefully twice. Archy is here in Rome? Here?! I am summoned to join them for dinner this evening and she has stated here underlined, she will not accept no as answer. I lift my face to look at the old man, a smile as broad as the Tiber itself is spread across my face.

  “My answer is yes, kind sir. Yes!” Without smiling, he produced a small card with a time and place written in the same skilled calligraphy. At sundown a carriage would arrive for me here to take me to their palace. I was just there having only returned now hours later. Was he there then? Had I been so distracted in thoughts that I failed to consider that possibility and approach the grand house?

  When I looked up from the note and card again, the men were gone. I looked up at the arching sun and gauged it to be late afternoon. Dinner with Archy and his mother! Archy!! Archy is here in Rome!! I must take my sketches to show them both my ideas for the grand corridor where my solution is truly the only option. The artist must paint the paintings right there on the walls and I propose to be the artist. I bound up my steps to prepare. Using fresh water, I bathed quickly, adding oil of clove to the water to scent my skin pleasantly. Using more fresh water fetched from the fountain in the square, my torso bare as I darted back and forth in the setting sun, I washed my hair thoroughly and raked my fingers through it to smooth it down, adding a few more drops of the oil of clove. Using the sharper cutting knife of the two that I own, I sawed half of it off and dropped it to the floor and then set to work of removing this scraggly beard from my face.

  Staring at my image in the small glass mirror, my smile wide, I no longer looked haggard and sallow. Color has surfaced on my face making my cheeks rosed in color, my light brown eyes clear. Archy is here in Rome and they have summoned me to be by his side again. Archy!!

  Dressing in my finest clothes, I folded taught and then tucked my ripped cotton blouse and tied it tightly, the long bow dangling now finally even-ended. It took three tries to get them to line up perfectly, so nervous and shaking my hands in excitement. I pulled on the soft leather jacket that Archy had left behind, perhaps intentionally for me. It is a bit too large for my smaller frame, but it is such a fine jacket. It also smells of him so I have often slept with it near my face when I think of him, as I always do when I lay down in bed to sleep. I smooth my britches of fine, thick cloth, a soft reddish color, and bend forward to examine myself up and down with my eyes. I have no grand mirror here to examine the full image of me.

  Tucking my feet into the boots I just scrubbed clean from the walking today, the fragrant clove bathing water now cloudy with the soil and grit I removed with my bathing cloth. Looking down at them, they appear as if almost new.

  Lifting the large parchment rolls from beside my small table, I wrapped them in my carry-cloth and secured the knot at the end to prevent them from
slipping out. I take a deep breath and open my small door to the vacant street, the sun has begun to set, already gone from the west side of the boulevard, the large central fountain in shadow. I close my door just as the grand carriage rounded the corner loudly, slowing to a stop right in front of me. A footman bounced down from his hold on the rear of the coach and opened the door and looked straight ahead in waiting. I walked down the steps and eased myself into the luxurious glistening white enamel and gold gilded interior. Such an incredible display of wealth is this fine carriage.

  Lifting the fine silk of the fabric, I pull the drape over the window and lean my head in to smell of it. I can smell him there I imagine, his scent so familiar to me. I had thought him lost to me forever. I took a deep breath and tried to quell the tears as they formed in my eyes. With my head lowered into my hands I sobbed quietly as the carriage jerked forward and began the long ride, retracing my footsteps today exactly. I had hoped to empty myself of tears as we got closer, the surroundings here in this part of the city outside of Rome so well-maintained, the estates very large and elegant and grand in every way imaginable. The vast wealth of this part of the city still astounds me. The jerk right as we headed over a bump and then up the long curving finely-graveled drive, the horse’s hooves seemed to slow too much. Pulling the curtain back from the open window I leaned my head out and see him standing there at the base of the steps.

  He sees me and begins his insistent bouncing up and down on his feet, his hands clapping together in front of him like an excited young boy, not the proud man and brave soldier he is and has become yet again. I study the smile on his face, truly as wide and bright as the Tiber. Again, my tears renew. I cannot believe my sheer joy at seeing him standing there. Here in Rome. The carriage slows at the start of the grand marble staircase that leads up into the formal foyer. Before the footman can even jump down he is at the carriage door and climbing inside, pulling it closed behind him. His hair wild and long and curly. His head raises to mine, tears stream down his face as well. He lunged his large body into me and wrapped his arms around my neck and sobbed openly as he kissed the top of my head repeating my name over and over and over.