Forgiving Rome

by Clay Ferrill

  He scoffed, setting the painting on the floor next to his fat feet. “Well I don’t like it either” and with that he pressed his slipper on top of it and crushed the frame, the many layered painting’s canvas, cracked and crumpled. The sound it made felt through to my very bones. The agony of it. “Guards!” The doors flew open and they rushed into the small space. “Bring me the fancy French Marquis at once.” They backed out of the room and my heart sank in my chest. My chest huffing breath I fought back my tears of relief. He was bringing my Archy to me. “Pope Julius would have asked them nicely, Your Eminence. He was a kind souled man and my friend. I miss him dearly.” Again, he scoffed a foul-smelling fat breath. “Well he was WEAK!” he boomed loudly into the small space and turned to stomp out of the room, slamming the door behind him and bolting it.

  I rose from my kneeling position and brushed the knees of my britches. I stepped to the small, crumpled form of the painting and ripped the canvas free from the broken wood and rolled it quickly in both hands. I held it in front of me until I heard voices and again the doors opened. The two guards stepped in as I looked past them into the darkness of the hallway outside. I stepped forward two steps to peer over their shoulders into the empty space. The extended arm of the guard pressed against my own arm and my eyes followed it to his outstretched hand. The heavy cloth sack.

  At first, I did not recognize even the gesture of it, so foreign. I backed up a step and reached out my hand, shaking, and grasped it’s gathered neck in my hand. The guard let go and the weight of it I somehow recognized. Sobbing now, I cradled it in my arms to draw open its knotted cord. The blonde of his hair immediately recognized. I caught the sob in my throat and with tears streaming down my face I spoke roughly, my voice broken. “Where may I find his body. I will reunite it with his head before burial.” He lifted his arm indicating I was to leave the Pope’s apartments.

  Holding the bag closely to my center, I followed the guards down the stairs, their slowing intentional as the many sets of eyes stared at me carrying the bag. I let the tears just stream down my face because there was nothing I could do about that. I raised my head proudly and fixed everyone I looked at in the eyes to let them see my profound grief. I silently followed the two guards to the back of the large central cathedral and out a set of doors into a large and firmly packed patch of dirt.

  I lifted my eyes as the doors closed behind me loudly, locking me in this place alone. Right in front of me, his body still tied to the stake, his heart pierced with a spear. Swarming with flies in the extreme heat in this interior Vatican garden of death. The blood still red as it blossomed away from the center of him. He had taken the spear through to wood. Judging by the dried pool of blood, he had already been dead before his head was removed from his body.

  The slumped form of him there still not registering fully. I searched in my mind to grasp the understanding of what I must endure now. Right here I am to endure it. I walked slowly to his body and knelt there in front of him. His cape had been draped over the neck wound to hide it from view. I pulled it down and away and it pooled to the ground around his shackled bare feet. Swollen unrecognizably. The red and blue cape he wore so proudly as a battling warrior for his King. For hours I sat there contemplating. I made no sound aloud.

  As the sun began to set some long hours later, I rose to my feet and loosened the ropes around his shoulders and middle that held his body in place against the stake. The body of Giuseppe Allard Archambault, Marquis de Orleans, my beloved Archy in life, crumpled stiffly to the ground, days dead now and left in the hot sun to rot. I would not have this. No.

  Removing his cape, I covered his body and laid his head gently and softly into the fold of his arm. I rose and went to the doors and knocked. They opened and a small cart was wheeled in. Two guards lifted his body and head to the bed of the cart and then pulling it behind them, one on each branch of the pull, wheeled it out through the main cathedral through the thinned crowd that backed away and raised their scented scarves to their upturned noses. The smell did not bother me. I walked past them with my head held high, my hands folded in front of me. As we passed through the main gates of Saint Peter’s Square the guards set the branches to the ground and walked back to the Vatican. Squatting between them I lifted the carriage and pulled him toward home.

  I was quite moved as I pulled the cart forward over ruts, struggling, the many peasants and merchants that line the road recognized the fine blue and red cape and as word spread ahead of me, many tossed freshly picked flowers onto the cart and ground in front of me, genuflecting, bowing their heads as we passed. They gathered there watching us pass slowly, lowering their hats over their hearts, lowering their heads in remembrance of the generous prince of a man that never failed to toss them small silver florin from his home country of France. So generous a man was he. I had no coin to offer.

  A woman rushed up to me and begged me drink from her meager cup. The cool water sweetened with lemon. I drank from it deeply feeling it surge down into my aching belly. I lowered my eyes in thanks and resumed pulling him home. By the time I reached the gates of his house, no longer ours, the followers numbered over 100. As I struggled the cart up the short incline onto the graveled drive, two men rushed to help push it up and over the small bump that keeps the water inside when the lawns here are flooded to nourish them. As I rounded the last curve I first saw Marguerite standing at the top of the stairs and two uniformed men rushed past her carrying a large trunk into the house followed by two more. The back of the carriage I did not recognize. The Marquise lowered her head and stepped out onto the stone, turning her head to look at me as her smile grew huge.

  I saw her eyes shift to the cart and the colors there, her breath caught as the color drained from her face. The smile disappearing then and had I known it right then, I would have cherished the moment more for I would never again see her smile like that. “Noooooooo!!” she screamed at the top of her lungs and starting running toward us. “Nooooo! Nooooo! Nooooo!” she continued screaming as her billowing gown caught the air and floated behind her, showing her jeweled shoes and stockings as she increased her speed. My mother’s head then popped up from the carriage and finding me with her eyes, now steaming with tears of grief, the screams of his mother, her cousin, recognized instantly. The shocking grief that descended over us all.

  Her screams as she peeled back the thick cloak covering him, his body bloated from the sun, but recognizable to her instantly, his proud colors, his belt buckle. The torn leather strap that had held the solid gold sheath for his sword, presented to him by King Louis IV himself shortly after his coronation as King of France. That had been the year before I met him. I laid my hand on top of his and patted it gently as his mother grieved. I do not understand where my body gets this much water to produce in tears.

  My mother approached slowly and grasping my arm firmly, she pulled me away from the cart and the foul smell of him. She walked me away a few yards and dropped my arm and went back for the Marquise who at first refused to release him from her strong embrace. She laid over the top of his body wailing. He would not like this one bit. I called out to her “come away with us mother. Let us prepare to bury your son. Please. Come with us now. Let us grieve him inside.”

  My mother pulled her away and rested her head against her breast and let her cry and sob, patting her shoulder gently. I followed them stopping numerous times to glance back at the cart there. Something inside of me building in ferocity and anger. The feeling was borne of revenge. It was new to me but instantly recognizable. I will avenge his cruel and senseless death. As their god is my witness, I will see him avenged. I stopped crying, resolute to assume the strength of him then. I let it pass into me. I felt that warmth build inside of me too. A resolve to help my grieving mothers and bury half of my heart and soul in the dirt here. I stopped at the top of the stairs and gathered Marguerite to my chest, kissing the top of her head as she sobbed loudly. Her son, tears streaming down his face as well, hugged her from behind.


  I stepped back from her and looked her in the face. “We need to triple the guards. Can you help me see to this? The Marquise is to be kept safe. She is not safe here in Rome.” I lifted my eyes to her son’s. “We need to bury him here. I trust you know where there are shovels for this task?” He nodded and bounded down the steps and over to the cart. He stood there for a moment looking down onto his body reverently and then gathered the branches and pulled the cart forward and around the back of the house.

  Throughout the night I paced the house inside, stopping to check on my mother and the finally sleeping Marquise in her caring charge. Her eyes looked at me so hollowly. I forced a small smile for her. As I was descending the stairs I saw a stream of three lanterns cross the lawn by the fountain and climb the main stairs. I opened the doors, both of them. There were four men standing there with lanterns. Two of them dressed in dark leathers with leather hats pulled tightly to their heads hiding their faces from the two behind them. Swiss Guards. The taller of the two Swiss Guards handed me a small rolled scroll and I unfurled it to read it, leaning into the light from the lanterns held by the two other men, apparently the added guards I had asked for. It demanded the return of the painting Yellow Roses in Moonlight. I turned and found my satchel and walked back to the door and pitched it at him. He captured it against his chest and the two of them left.

  “Might I ask that you position yourselves safely inside the house just inside the door. Marguerite will see to your needs.” I turned to go back inside and both men spoke at once and said the same thing. “The palace is surrounded by Swiss Guard.” He offered another small scroll and I again unfurled it to read it. The seal of the pope and orders that we each, mentioned specifically by name as Raphaello Sanzio da Urbino, Marquise de Orleans, and former Duchess Urbino, are to the kept under house arrest until further notice. I let the note fall from my hand. I cared not. Seal us in here. Only half of me to trap and cage. The other half of me awaits me behind the house. I raised my eyes to them and closed the two doors and bolted them. “I must excuse myself now. I have a friend to bury.” Emotionless, I walked to the rear of the house and through the kitchens into the lawns and past the gardens of the house. The cart was easy enough to spot near the largest tree. As good a place as any I thought to myself as I walked there steady in my step.

  The young man already had half of the grave dug when I approached, slowing my steady gate. As I stood there watching and waiting for him to notice me so I could take over and finish, the two guards from the front of the house jumped into the hole and lifted him out. They both dug heartily for another hour and then spent, they climbed out of the hole. I turned to the young man after he handed around the bucket and cup of water I asked him “go and gather our mothers, please?” He sprinted away quickly to task. I simply stood there stone-faced and waited for what I hoped would take the rest of my life. I want to die. The mothers approached.

  I dared not look into their grieving eyes to see their sorrow, afraid now that it would no longer match my own as his strength grows in me. I looked over to the cart and let my eyes paint over his body in remembrance. I turned and walked to him and gathered his cloak and dropped it to the ground. I did my best to scoop his weight into my arms but he was too heavy. The two guards came up behind me, each one grasping his end. His mother held out a white cloth, neatly folded and let it unfurl over the empty grave. The boy took it from her and laid it out across the grasses there. His body was laid into the cloth then and neatly folded, his body was lifted and lowered into his resting place gently. His mother’s barks of sobs could likely be heard for miles this late at night. No lantern here is bright enough to light his way up to heaven. No god to go home to anyway.

  The glowing of the two meager lamps lit the airborne clods of wet clay and soil down onto his body with thuds, each one of them moving my muscles in jerks. I held my breath for as long as I could and gathered more of his strength into me. Without saying a word, I walked to my mother and kissed her hand and then her cheek, wet with endless flowing tears. I stepped in next to the Marquise and she wrapped her arm around my middle and we three walked back to the house slowly, locked in one another’s arms. As they stepped into the parlor doors I turned to see the last of the dirt thrown over him. Their feet pressing the soil down, tamping it. “Rest well my love. I will see you again very soon. I promise.” I stepped inside and pulled the door closed. It was a fitful sleep alone in our bed. I just gathered the pillows to my face for his scent. I cried myself to sleep with thoughts of my vicious and violent revenge.

  I awoke to a breaking sky of such color magnitude I could not explain it. I had seen nothing of its kind before nor since. On the balcony outside our room I stood naked gazing down at the mound of fresh earth. I lifted my eyes back to the sky and spoke my formal farewell to god aloud. “You have forsaken me god. Abandoned me. Now I abandon you. I will pray to you no more, your cruelty unforgivable. You pass from my thoughts now and I will never again welcome thoughts of you. Not even in the slightest. I do not adopt evil into my soul, but I do not entrust you with it either. It belongs to another and he is lying dead in the ground. I do NOT forgive you.” My mother’s breath caught loudly behind me. I did not startle. “Good morning mother. Look at the color of the sky, so fortunate is it to have Giuseppe’s colorful spirit shown there to our eyes. I am famished.”

  I turned and walked past her naked, unashamed, and lifted the caftan and raised it over my head, the liquid feel as it moved down to cover my naked body felt amazing. Going into the bathing room, I dipped my hands into the cool basin of water and wet my face generously, running my fingers through the tangles of my hair and smoothing it down. I used some oil of clove and rubbed the drops between my hands and smoothed down my hair more, pulling it through to the ends. I picked up Archy’s hair leather and wrapped it twice around the gathered bundle at the back of my neck and tied it tight.

  Walking back to close the door, I retrieved a large pot and squatted over it to release my bowels and urinate. I rose and covered it with one of the two cloths there and wiped myself clean with the other after I wet it in the basin. I placed them on the second shelf behind the cloth curtain to be removed and cleaned later. I didn’t care. Leaning into the flattened copper reflection I inspect the healed damage to my right eye socket. No more tenderness at all now. Still the bruises there darken my skin.

  When I went downstairs I was the only person on the entire floor that I could tell. I walked into the salon at the front of the house, which is where the Marquise likes to take her breakfasts and finding the buffet fully loaded, I grabbed a plate and started with fresh fruits and a crisp white wine that was chilled in an earthen container with a narrow spout. I remembered the taste of this wine and knew it was from their own vineyards in France. I poured enough for two and gulped at it deeply, pouring it again full. I sat in the chair and faced out the window onto the front grounds as I saw the three carriages make the turn of the last curve and approach the house. I rose and walked to the door and opened it as the three dashingly well-dressed men walked past me into the house and gathered in the foyer.

  The Marquise was at the upstairs railing. No longer crying, her hair was done up very beautifully and she beckoned down to the men bidding them to come up to her small private parlor for their discussion. The three men ascended the stairs in a perfect line as if practiced. So formal they were and here I am in a flowing caftan eating a piece of fruit with a semi-erection tenting the fabric. I returned to the salon and finished eating two more plates of food, finishing the wine entirely. I went back upstairs to my mother’s room and just walked in without knocking. She was seated at her vanity fussing with her hair. I stepped up beside her and offered my hands in the task, remembering the many times I had helped her in this same way. So familiar, the comfort of that one and only thought as I touched her hair and fondled it.

  Using the brush through her hair as my paint brush, I pulled it straight up and teased at it to make it fluffy and then let it
drop over my hands to brush and shape the ends of curls. Her eyes watched me the whole time, trying to read the expression on my face. There was no expression there for her to read. I was stone-faced still and would remain like that intentionally until I felt my mourning period was over. Society does not offer guidance to men grieving the loss of their male lover. We get to pick the mourning periods ourselves.

  Over my shoulder I heard the men leaving the Marquise’s private parlor and descend the stairs whispering in French. When they left the left the front door wide open and one by one, over 50 large casks were carried into the foyer and stacked there. I stood overlooking the scene from the railing as the Marquise walked up next to me and patted my hand, her perfume pleasing and familiar to me. “We will need to spirit this wealth away from Italy my Raphael, my son.” She gripped my arm tightly. “He so very much loved you. You know this I trust” not posing it as a question but a declarative statement of fact.

  I simply nodded, the expression on my face fixed as stone. They brought in the last of the casks and left, closing the doors. She separated from me then as my mother surfaced from her rooms and joined me at the railing overlooking all the stacked dark brown and black casks. The Marquise, now amongst them was lifting the lids and slamming them down one at a time until she found the cask she was looking for. She let the lid drop to the floor loudly. She looked up at us. “Come down here and help me find it. It’s an emerald broach Archy’s father gave to me the day he was born. The reward for providing him with a son and heir. Come.