Saint Fire (Secret Books of Venus Series)

by Tanith Lee

  “Have the three lost ships returned?”

  “No, Master. There’s no sign of them. The storm was bad.”

  “May those men be found, or ascend to Paradise,” said Suley-Masroor.

  They had lost five vessels in all since setting out. Four in the sudden spring gales, and one which had simply gone down, mysteriously, perhaps previously holed by spies. (They had caught a lot of spies, in Jurneia, prior to embarkation.) With the lost vessels, the fleet now totaled eight hundred and twenty-seven ships. It seemed the Lagoon City of Venarh had almost half that number again, over one thousand. And, as a last spy had confirmed, also ballistas and cannon.

  Suley-Masroor remembered joking with his blind old father-in-law, telling the old man the Venarhans had only four hundred vessels. (He would gossip, when Suley was gone, and make his daughter, Suley’s wife, afraid. Her three brothers were already with the fleet. It was sometimes best to dissemble.)

  “I’ll watch. Go down for your food.”

  Suley-Masroor stood in the fore-tower of the Quarter-Moon, staring out at the shining abyss of sea and night. Behind him, like a zircon, the evening star was rising up, Aspiroz, that the infidels of the west named Hesper, or Venus—another name they gave, so he understood, to their City.

  He was reluctantly thinking about the dream he had had. Twice it had come to him. If it came again tonight, only then, would he permit himself to consult his sacred talisman. But it was strange, the dream.

  In the dream, Suley-Masroor was hunting in the waste, alone but for his horse. The land was spare and dun, as he had often seen it, but then among some boulders a water-spout spangled. As he approached, he saw a yellowish fox, which sat still as the stones. Normally such a creature, of which there were several in the desert, would sprint away. But no, It did not shift itself. Even in the dream, he thought this odd, and hesitated, although the sight of the water filled him with thirst.

  Then the fox got up, and trotting to the outlet, drank. But no sooner did the tongue of the fox touch it, than the waterfall changed. Suley-Masroor cried out in horror as spurts of steam and fire burst from the rocks in place of water.

  Here, he woke. On both occasions at this instant.

  The Chosen of God had, in the dawn of history, struck mountains to produce streams of water. This mocking mimicry of that act lodged like a burning shadow in the Master’s mind. What did it mean? Was it only an inevitable anxiety—or some premonition sent to warn?

  Cristiano dreamed of the Vigil.

  He kneeled, not in the Soldiers’ chapel, however, but in some open place of the Primo, which he did not recognize. It had a floor of glass, black glass. Pillars of gold, dull and ancient, rose to the dome, which was luminous and high, sounding with night winds, and with moonlit clouds that curiously passed through it, in and out.

  He saw a window. The Virgin was depicted there.

  As he kneeled below, slowly transcending his body’s pain, as if dragging himself up a steep stair to the bell-tower of his own skull, he became aware that the hair of the Virgin was like copper. It was this, shaded by night, which had seemed to form her damson mantle.

  Dreaming, Cristiano knew shame. But why?

  More than the hurt of his body, he ached for God. But God did not arrive.

  Instead, gradually, Cristiano grew conscious of other Bellatae, kneeling as he did before the window. Jian was to his left, and just at his back, Aretzo. Behind these he now saw, (leaving his body, drifting above them) the ranks of the Upper Echelon, and behind these, the lower militia of God. There were two Magisters Major present also, but not the third, not Danielus.

  This concerned Cristiano, and he had a sense of searching for his own Magister, which kept him disembodied, moving on and on. The Basilica was filled, end to end; that in spite of being larger than it was. The priesthood was there, the lay brothers too, almost all the hierarchy of the Church. And beyond them, others knelt, men in mail like the Bellatae, faces locked in casques, their drawn swords held between hands in gloves of steel. Banners hung among them, leaning a little, or straight as the pillars. Emblems of the Lion and the Child, of the Lion and Star, of the Boar and the Bear and the Lynx—Ve Nera’s Crusader banners from two centuries before. They were, these men, the first Knights of God. The warriors of the Suvio, the first cry to Battle, which had been uttered at the water’s edge, when the Laguna Fulvia was choked with craft, and the sea, beyond the sand-bars, with high-sailed cogs bound for the Holy Land.

  In the farthest reaches of the elongated Basilica, last of all, the people of the City stood humbly. They were very still, as if altered to carvings of wood. None of the children made a noise. The men were serious and the women devout. They wore the fashions of earlier times and of current time. He could not be sure of all their eras. But he noted a Roman matron, wrapped in her draperies, and beside her a broad-chested, bow-legged man in the armor of antiquity.

  These were not phantoms. Nor quite immobile. Their eyes were living and bright.

  At the Primo’s end, in the dream, the doors were shut fast. It was here he turned, and looking back, viewed the colossal gathering, and himself, somehow, at their head, with Jian by him. And the Madonna Window, that too, which was like a slender rosy flame. Before it had been raised the secret icon of the Madonna Standard, kept close in the Sanctum, and shown only in extremity. He had never seen it. Now it was allowed him.

  His sense of disquiet had left him.

  Nothing was wrong, or inappropriate.

  And in the upper air, where the clouds were, he saw the white light of God beginning, and was drawn up into it, and knew nothing else.

  Beatifica dreamed a dream she would not remember.

  She dreamed the angel had come back for her. He bore her up and flew with her across the sky.

  She heard the vast beats of his wings, which were like the drumming of a heart.

  Below, the world stretched out. Night was there, and lamps and other specks of light were being born, as stars were, in the higher sky. The sea and the lagoons seemed like salvers of silver, and the Silvian Marsh, and all the canals and channels, like a running of silver threads. Now and then, she saw their reflection on the waters, two flying beings upheld by the wide, beating wings.

  In the East, on the sea, the moon was up.

  They flew on, out towards the ocean.

  She knew that soon the City would be left far behind and all the land. She did not mind it. She trusted her angel. For the very first, since she had been an infant with her mother, she was able to render the obedience of trust, which had nothing to do with fear, self-negation, or need. It was easy for her to let go, for there had never been anything to cling to. But now, in the clasp of the gray-eyed angel, she was free. In slavery, free. The earth forgotten, without any good-bye.

  5

  Caught in the tangle of pomegranate trees, new buds beamed a juicy red. The eels would dine well, this year. If the world went on.

  The boatman optimistically sang about approaching summer. It was not a bawdy song. Besides, he had rowed Danielus before, and knew he would not be upbraided. Only when they reached the Isle of Eels did he say, “Bless me, Fra Magister. I can do with it. They say the Jurneians will be here inside three days.”

  “Not nearly so soon. You have time to get away.”

  “I? There’s my wife and kits, my old dad, mumma, sisters, too, five of them, the youngest only twelve. Where are we to go?”

  “Anywhere to safety, perhaps.”

  “You think it’ll come to it.”

  “I think it may. Entreat God. Take this.”

  “Oh—Fra—that’s generous. God grant you joy.”

  No one in the garden. (Veronichi had written she was too ill to venture out. Others saw the letter. None had been astounded he must come here, to reassure this querulous, nagging relative.)

  Late afternoon. It was warm. Bees had found the waking fruit trees and the beds of flowers. From the highest point, by the house, he looked out over Aquila to the chu
rch of Maria Maka Selena. Today, its individual island stood to the waist in water. A riddle, this church. In some years the tides discarded it. Magically it appeared to rise up from the mud. Now it had sunk down. It was scales, like the balance of life.

  The girl let him in at the door, and Danielus walked up a narrow stair to the parlor above.

  “So you’re here.”

  “As you see, Veronichi. How could I not come to you, after that piteous letter?”

  “I had that in mind.”

  “I know it. Welcome me, then.”

  It was a small room, off which there led another larger chamber, the door curtained by Eastern silk.

  A table had been draped, and laid with platters of silver-gilt.

  “Are yon hungry, my darling?” Veronichi asked, approaching him.

  “Yes. But for what?”

  “Whatever you wish. Several dishes have been prepared.”

  “I see you’ve put out the gold salt-cellars.”

  “And the glass cups, look. What else have you missed?”

  “Little.”

  Her raven pelt of hair was down, silken as the curtain—like this, she looked quite wonderful. She had traced dark paint around her eyes, and a pomegranate salve on her lips. She was naked. Smooth from pumice, and almost hairless from a clever razor. Scented like a church and a garden, cream, with a core of black feathers and pomegranate bud.

  She wound her arms about his neck.

  “And here we are …”

  As he kissed the delicious fruit of her mouth, she leaped lightly against him. A snake, she wound his body with her slim white legs.

  “I am the first of the dishes?”

  “Always. And the last.”

  “Perhaps not tonight.”

  There were no rushes on her floor. She had heaped carpets there, from Candisi. She lay back on them, and thrusting away the hindrance of the magenta robe, he possessed her.

  There was hardly any play—a sliding of hands on skin, appetite of mouths. She flew swiftly through the gate, and he followed her. They were in a great rush. It had been too extended a wait.

  After a few minutes, she left him, and returned with the precious goblets, filled to the brim.

  “You seem tired, my love. Shouldn’t I have called you here? I was lonely without you. But I can be patient as a spider—”

  “Other things tire me, Venus, not you.”

  “If you call me that, am I the City or the goddess?”

  “Let me decide. The goddess was wise in the sexual arts, I believe …”

  More slow now. He watched her body unfolding like a lily, opening to infinitude, melting in exquisite death.

  “Shall we do this when we’re old?”

  Of course. I shall need some machinery then, naturally, to support my aged limbs.”

  “I doubt that.”

  They walked into the larger room. A great tub of water had been lined with linen drapes. They got in together. The temperature was warm, the surface afloat with asphodel. Afterwards they put on each a loose white robe of Eastern style.

  When they went back, the table had been filled up by food. She sent the server away, and saw to it herself. It was a meatless day, but they ate flesh, both of them, (all the house would.) Braised hare, and a roasted goose, pigs’ livers with a janchia of garlic and ginger, also a dish of carp and one of spear-fish. She fed him sweetmeats, candied roses, quinces in honey.

  “Do you want to sleep now? The bed is cool.”

  “Not yet.”

  “Soon you must. I have plans for your night.”

  “Indeed.”

  He took her hand, looking far away. She attended him, stilly. She had learned early on how to wait, and was adroit.

  “Veronichi, sweetheart, I’d like best, tomorrow, if you would pack up your treasures and your household. Then a boat will come to take you away.”

  “If you insist on it, I will. I don’t want to, Danielo.”

  “The Ducem is assembling the bulk of his fleet at the Island of Torchara. They’ll be ready in five days. Meanwhile the ships of Jurneia are almost here. The likelihood is a meeting at Ciojha. But this may not be any solution. If they are unstopped and come on, we should see the Jurneians before the month is out. Picture it. They’ll crowd the sea. Break the sea walls, and employ rollers and slaves to get across the bar into the deeper parts of the lagoons. They have cannon. You know all this. And that they think all Christians, especially Christian merchant cities, minions of the Devil. They will be raging from the fight, desperate from the journey, and merciless.”

  “Yes. They’re like the Jews in that. Why else have Christians shut my people in ghettos, save as a man must imprison a tiger. They pull our teeth in case we rip them apart.”

  He stared, then roared with laughter, drawing her to him. “In God’s name, dearest Venus, mankind’s decisions are nearly always wrong. Why should they have that right?”

  She kissed him. She said, “Danielo, may I speak to you?”

  “You know quite well you may.”

  “Of matters where I’m ignorant—where I only feel.”

  “Veronichi, to me you can say anything. As to your ignorance, you read every day in books from the greatest minds the world has seen. It’s your knowledge that knows to be circumspect, not your lack.”

  She murmured, “Nothing to excess.”

  “Nothing to excess, beloved, but excess.”

  “Then listen to me, Daniel. Can you give this up? I mean, what you’ve made your reason and your goal.”

  “You never said that to me before.”

  “Never. But now—”

  “Now more than ever in the past, I say no. No, I must stay true to it. Remember what I told you, of my youth.”

  You were a boy—”

  “And now a man. Nor an old man, yet.”

  She said, “Would you live to be one?”

  He sighed. He put her back, and stroked her hair.

  “Veronichi my Venus, when I was young … I saw two great truths. The truth of the teaching of the Christ, and the lie to which it had been corrupted, into mistranslation, stupidity, and evil. He told us we should live as the flowers live, glorying in delight, hurting no other, loving God and everything that is God’s, which means also humanity, and the earth. Christ told us to have no fear of death and also no fear of life. If God had hated life so much, He would never have made it. Having learned these precepts, I saw the churches and their laws and lessons. That man must detest and obeise himself, crawling in the dirt as a worm, damned by a vast sin committed even before his birth. That he must loathe his natural inclinations, and go in dread and avoidance of every pleasing thing—good food, long sleep, the beauty of a woman, of a man, and the divine gift of lust, without which the human race must have ended long ago.”

  “Danielo—”

  “So then, being forced to enter this bastion of lies, I came to think that, only by dwelling within the iron tower, I might secretly break open some windows in it.”

  “Yes.”

  “There’s little enough I can do, Veronichi. But where I can, I do, I will, I must. Today,” he said, “as I came from the Basilica, I saw the seventeen new birdcages, as they sportively call them, which have been hung out there from the Angel Tower.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “Oh God indeed, my love. In those traps of torture, the Council of the Lamb, ever diligent to remind Ve Nera she must cower, has thrown thirteen men and four women. They are shrieking even now, and will do so until they can shriek no more. And below, the populace, trained like vicious dogs, throws sharp stones at them, and rotten eggs. It came to me long ago, and I think it now, that to tell men they are mired in transgression, and will only escape their filth by much suffering and denial, is to make monsters. There will be some strong enough—hard enough, like steel—who can beat and break out of themselves all natural weakness—and with it perhaps all love of life. But most will fail. They haven’t the colossal strength the saints have had. And
then, failing, what is there left but to become the beast the priests have shown them in the mirror? It’s these subhuman things I saw, both in the torture cages—and jeering below. I see them everywhere. This is what the Church has made of men. And it is all—the misery, and even a lingering death—to save their souls. Today—today I heard the one called Isaacus, promise that if Ve Nera doesn’t mend her sinful ways, we shall have burnings next. Yes, the burning alive of witches and other heretics, in the old Roman amphitheater in the Silvian Marshes. To demonstrate the virtue of this, he reminded us all in his letter, that it had been done there at the time of the Crusades. Am I being too canny if I say, I think he wants this because of the girl who can bring fire, to be even with me? It was plain enough he liked to scorch her. Though she’s beyond him, he saw he would enjoy the sport. And these are the men of God, His lawgivers and examples—Veronichi, can’t you see, my love, there must be also one or two like myself? Oh, simply for the sake of balance.”

  “There are tears in your eyes.”

  “I hide nothing from you. I must hide it from every other.”

  “And won’t God condemn us, Daniel, for our own condition? That we lie together, brother and sister.”

  “You speak of the laws of men, made to control other men. God condemns those that do harm, Veronichi, not those that love.”

  She let her face rest against his face. She breathed his breath slowly.

  “I won’t argue, my lord. I’ll do whatever you decree. Only—if you remain here, don’t send me away.”

  “If not, you must still leave this house. They might well come to it, the Jurneians. These men we must call infidels—and who call us the same—in war, we’ll be the same, no doubt. God has a million names and ten million guises. Man only a few. It’s a shabby name, a dirty guise, Veronichi, when angry or afraid.”

  “Where must I go?”

  “To the sister-house at Santa La’Lacrima, then. It’s fortified like a castle, and has a storehouse I’ve seen is filled. I’m sorry. You won’t be able to live as you do here, or might elsewhere.”