Saint Fire (Secret Books of Venus Series)

by Tanith Lee

  Although they were not broadcast for some days.

  The carcass of the dog, put into the fixed part of the pyre as evidence of the Maiden’s death, went mostly to black shards. Only the heart did not burn.

  And, as the City learned later, a beggar, entreating for alms, when the Heart passed over him, though muffled in a bag, regained the use of both his legs. The executioner’s son meanwhile, employing foul language and blasphemy in a wine-shop, took a fit of sneezing and had to desist. And beside the Canal of Seven Keys, where Beatifica, the story went, had once been a slave, a hen laid three score eggs in an hour, and lived.

  Cristiano, it was Beatifica you loved, not me.

  If ever I am proud, let me remember those twenty-one men who risked their souls for me, speaking the idolatrous prayers of infidels. And let me remember Cristiano, strong as steel to hold me up, until I could stand, and tell him she was not dead.

  When I am a child, then I am invincible.

  When I am most strong, weaker than any infant.

  “Magister—your bed’s ready.”

  “No, Demetrio, I wasn’t asleep. We should talk—”

  “Tomorrow, Magister.”

  Am I old, that he treats me so tenderly, like a father?

  And he had been in error. Not Demetrio, but Lauro.

  Danielus got up from the chair, and now it was Demetrio-Cristiano who went with him. And then the girl came, slipping from darkness.

  “Ermilla—thank you. What lovely bread you baked.

  Yes, a candle. I must light it, mustn’t I? Tomorrow then. Tomorrow.”

  There was a stair, but narrow, wooden. Beyond the parlor and the kitchen, only shadows.

  But now he saw her lean forward. Her fox’s smile. What a wicked face she had, he thought, this strange girl, like a Maenad almost, from the Grecian myths. Seen in a smooth glimmering—a lamp somewhere …

  She put out her hand, and set there on the unlit candle stub Lauro had brought him, a tiny light. Not rosy. A hyacinth petal of flame. From her fingers’ ends.

  “Yes, Magister. It came back to her. She can still call the fire.”

  Was this a dream?

  He looked at her clandestine face. Demure now.

  She was held fast in Cristiano’s arm, as he had been, on the Primo Square.

  Back there in the shadows, had Lauro seen the flame come? Danielus thought not. And Suley was gone.

  It was for him alone.

  “Thank you,” Danielus said, again.

  The stair, as he climbed it, was like a mountain. So life was. Only in the afterlife could one reckon to fly.

  Before going up to their bedroom, Demetrio went out to look at the horse. It was a fine one, malt-black. He had exercised and groomed it himself. Tomorrow he would show Danielus, ask his opinion on it—which could be nothing but favorable. Startle him with the gift.

  He had seemed exhausted, the Magister, and fallen asleep after the meal. That would never have happened—then.

  Demetrio did not admit to himself, was mostly unaware, that Danielus meant far less to him, now.

  Demetrio’s feelings were of friendship, gratitude, and solicitous respect. Cristiano had seen in the Magister a figurehead, and a man standing in the sky. God, then the Magister. Not much else. And now—still God, but God reflected from the mirror of his wife. Who, in his inner mind, he still named Beatifica.

  Before they ended their evening in the world, he should finish reading the letter that Danielus had brought, from Jian. Jian was with the Bellatae Christi at Rome. He served a higher power now. When he wrote to Cristiano, conscientiously, he never called him that. The letter spoke of mundane things, organized combats, monuments, and pageants of the Virgin. It was as if he tried to reassure Demetrio that the cosmos of earthly spirituality safely continued in the absence of a Cristiano.

  Or to make him envious.

  Jian never spoke at all of Ermilla. Just as he did not know where Cristiano had hidden himself, he did not know the name of the woman Demetrio had married.

  Jian believed the Maiden to be dead.

  Danielus had mentioned that Jian, in his other letter to the Magister, had inquired after the Heart and its miracles. That now, was the Maiden.

  There was talk in Rome of another venture to the Holy Land, less a crusade than a processional. Jian would be part of this. He described his ambition to visit the Tomb in the Rock, the way-stations of Blessed Maria on her mule, heavy with the unborn Christ. The desert of fasts and visions.

  Was I like Jian?

  The horse was peaceful, its coat silk. Demetrio left it, and went to complete the letter under the lantern in the yard.

  Jian’s world, now, did not seem real. Nor this one.

  Demetrio’s pulse drummed. He put the letter away, still unfinished.

  On many nights, he and she—farming folk worn out—would embrace, and lie down on their pallet on the floor, side by side, to sleep. Sleeping, they went away together, or alone, and in the morning, recounted their dreams. But they seldom did dream, either she or he.

  Tonight, they would not sleep.

  He looked up at the higher window, soft-lit by a single candle. He looked at the window some while, his body tensed, attentive all through. Then he left the yard of the unreal farm, and climbed towards her light, through the unreal darkness.

  When she saw the mountains again, she had remembered them. As the year passed, she watched their calendar of winter white, and later their lower mantles of green.

  This farm was planted high, almost beyond the foothills.

  The life was pleasant to her. At dusk, sometimes, she would gaze upwards, but no longer to watch for flocks of angels. It was her homage to the sky.

  In the small room which was their bed-chamber, she sat combing her hair, hearing it crackle, and seeing the sparks fly out, bright blue.

  Waiting for her beloved, she had no thoughts for anyone else, not even for herself. None for the past.

  “Am I really to die then?”

  The executioner had assured her she must.

  She said some sentences to him in return. But she was going already to a great distance. She felt sleepy. She climbed the ladder, just as she had in the house of Ghaio.

  She was on the pyre in the amphitheater at Silvia.

  There were men around her. She flinched from them, although she had become used to the nearness of men, unthreatening and dependent, at the Primo chapel and after Ciojha. These were not like that. And they stank.

  They did not surround her long. Having tied her to the stake, they jumped away.

  Some shouting was going on below. Crowd noises.

  Then a sound like the wind, rising. It carried up to her the smell of smoke.

  She had been told to breathe the smoke. But already she did not like the smell of it. She looked outwards.

  So many people. But now a silence.

  They were burning her. She had no actual fear.

  What had fire been, but her familiar. Yet, she might have recaptured the pain of the live candle against her palm, Isaacus’ penalty after the Ducal feast. No, she did not.

  Human beings had always hurt her. If fire itself had hurt her, she did not reason it out. It was men, not fire, who hurt. The world.

  Rushes of heat began to come. They slapped upwards, soaring against her body. And then the smoke she had smelled billowed between her and everything.

  It was not yet thick, but wavering and distorting—like water.

  Volpa-Beatifica closed her eyes, because they smarted.

  She began to leave herself behind.

  It was then, on the boundary between flesh and spirit, that she heard a vast voice of brass that shook the outer places, but also the innerness to which she went.

  Beatifica—

  Beatifica—

  Who—what—was it? She thought of the picture the Magister had shown her, the man thrown among lions. She thought of the story of the burning fiery furnace, and how the angel had led the chosen ones f
rom the fire. As she had been led from the blazing house of Ghaio.

  Did the angel call to her now?

  Beatifica, cried the angel like a trumpet, God’s light.

  Blast their bloody filth of fire—Beatifica—

  Beatifica—

  Beatifica—

  Make the FIRE burn

  Who is that walking there? said the king, Nabucco.

  Into the furnace I cast three men. But there is a fourth man there with them.

  In the smoke she saw, the girl, her angel. He wore the steel maculum and mail, the sword gleamed in his hand, his wings were spread, salt-white. His hair burned like white gold in the furnace. Cristiano. He said, now, softly, Be quick. Let it be over.

  She flung up her head. She felt the torrent of her own pyrotechnic burst through her, as never had she felt it before. She the candle, she the altar. And to her fire, this other fire of the world—nothing.

  A slave. She had obeyed.

  And with her slave’s obedience, the goal of the priest, directed by her angel, she took back her power and made the world’s fire burn.

  There was an explosive thud, and flash.

  Smoke, an indigo column, rushing, thrusting.

  She saw herself one moment, garbed in the flames of her own fire. They were cool. They tingled. And her skull filled like a cup with brilliancy.

  This was the light of God. She had been told. She knew.

  She gave herself to the light. And was received.

  When the center of the pyre crashed in and she dropped to the cistern below, the Maiden was burning like a torch. When they threw water over her, shouting, the fire went out. And she lay unscathed, and fully clothed, on the weave of her hair which, for some moments, looked pale as ashes.

  They picked her up, the men below, who had also risked their lives. But she slept.

  “Is she gone? Is she dead?”

  “No. Not a mark. Look, her heart beats in her throat, you can see.”

  They carried her away through the tunnel under the arena, where, knee high, water yet rippled like snakes. They put her in a boat.

  She slept.

  “She’s cool. Not hot or fevered.”

  They rowed her from the land, across a web of blackest sea. They rowed her to the land again.

  In a columned chapel, partly ruined, that the Romans had built on the stony shore, (to Neptunus) the Maiden lay asleep.

  Night ended. Morning began. Day passed. Night returned.

  Then the man arrived they had been told to expect.

  He had been one of the Soldiers of God, and that was on him still. But he walked as if lugged by a chain, approaching wide-eyed, not knowing why or for what.

  “Signore—Bellatoro—she’s in there.”

  He went by them. At the back of the chapel, where a timbered cell had been attached, a red-haired girl lay asleep.

  Cristiano stood looking at her.

  He did not know that Jian had been, that once, and unrecognized, her angel also. He did not know that somehow she had heard Cristiano’s own whispered prayer.

  He did not know who she was, or what the world was in which she might have survived the pyre of sainthood and oblivion.

  “He’s lost. Doesn’t grasp what he’s doing.”

  “Come away. Leave him privacy. This is an age of miracles. We’re favored and cursed to live in it.”

  Cristiano leaned above her, and then he reached out and smoothed the flame of hair back from her forehead. As a brother might. But, till then, he had never been even a brother.

  It was the first time they had touched.

  Her eyes flew open. She was there. Back from a long journey, she thought. Cristiano had been on the road with her. She gazed up at him. Danielus had believed she might not know this man without the mail of Christ. But she said, “You led me from the fire. You’re my angel. Don’t go away.”

  She never noticed Cristiano was no longer winged.

  Nor did he.

  For she had burned. But now the fire was out …

  Their sleeping room was bare, only the sparse mattress on the floor, a chest, a stool. One end, however, had been divided off, making the small chamber smaller.

  Beyond the curtain they kept their private altar, where a cross of carved wood was set, a copper cup, and the flowers Ermilla regularly gathered, in a white jug.

  They had not fasted. They did not, now. At all times they ate sparely.

  They sipped the water from the cup.

  It would not matter that the Magister was in the house. He would sleep soundly. Sunrise always brought them back, as it woke them on other summer days, blooming through the unglazed and unshuttered window. Better than a bell, the Auroria of mountain dawn.

  They did not exchange a word, he or she. Alone, they did not ever speak at great length. Having no need.

  Kneeling, they faced each other, by the altar.

  In the warmth of the summer they were naked.

  As in the Garden, before nakedness became the mark of disobedient knowledge and the stigma of the Fall.

  (Outside, soft noises. An owl across the fields. The stirring of animals. Stars turning in sky. The moon, singing, as it sailed its nacre boat.)

  Cristiano reached out his hands, and Beatifica reached out her hands. Their hands joined.

  The last image each beheld, as always, at this instant, the eyes of the other, silver, gold. And then the wave of eternal radiance, the light of God, swept down and spun them upward.

  It came always the same. At the touch.

  Together, one thing, they would enter the sphere of ecstasy so otherwise unimaginable, and otherwise so ungovernable. The foretaste of Heaven, and the immortal state. Beyond any physical pleasure, impossible in its wonder and effulgence. Yet always achievable. Always.

  To this, mere sexual union—which they had never known, nor ever attempted, nor ever would attempt—like the fires of the world—was nothing.

  In a glory above all delight, they hung together in the firmament. Would hang there like stars all night, until the dawn reclaimed them.

  Across the wooden places of the house, Danielus, lying yet awake, might dream his waking dream. The Council had not been overthrown, inhuman lies still ruled the City, and the earth. He had lost the sword of flame. But oh, if they, the warrior-visionary, the priestess-saint, if they might produce, from their innocent lust, a child—what might that child not be? What true miracle might that child not work?

  Alas, Magister, you must dream in vain.

  They are virgins, these lovers, and will be till their death. And from their rare and soaring love, no child can ever be created—unless it is an angel.

  For nine further years the mystical Heart of the Maiden Beatifica continued to work miracles in the City of Ve Nera. As belief in these wonders swelled, it became a common cause that the Maiden should be recognized as one of God’s saints. At length the Council of the Lamb, eager to end this—as they perceived it—opposing cult, outlawed the idea of Beatifica, and threatened death by burning to her adherents. On this signal, the City revolted against them. And from Rome came the ultimate edict that the Brothers of the Lamb had exceeded their authority.

  The Council was overthrown, and most of its members, so the story went, secretly murdered by Ve Nera’s princes.

  In that year too, the name of Ve Nera was altered by her Ducem, Joffri, to Venus. This after the goddess of love, who also, like the City, had been born from the sea. The Maiden Beatifica was never officially canonized. One hundred years later, the golden casket, which contained her Heart, vanished without trace.

  In heaven’s luminous land, in splendour rising,

  You, O living Aten, maker of life!

  When once you have dawned in the east,

  The country of the light,

  You brim all places with your beauty.

  You, the beautiful, mighty and aflame,

  Upon the pinnacle of every land,

  Your rays kiss the world

  To the b
oundaries of creation.

  From the hymn of the PHARAOH AKHENATEN

  To his one true God, the Sun.

  “Tanith Lee is an elegant, ironic stylist … one of our very best authors.”—Locus

  SAINT FIRE

  THE SECRET BOOKS OF VENUS BOOK II

  TANITH Lee

  Starting with the premise of a series of novels based on the phases of alchemy and the four primal elements, Tanith Lee created an evocative fantastical alternate to the historical Italy in her Secret Books of Venus quartet. The first volume, Faces Under Water, was set against a backdrop drenched with atmosphere and water in a parallel Venice.

  In Saint Fire, the chilling second volume of the series, Volpa is a strangely beautiful servant girl who glows with an inhuman inner fire. When her master, an abusive wood seller, is mysteriously incinerated, Volpa begins to discover her power of fire. Church leaders, who see her as a mighty weapon in their holy wars, notice her gift and, unable to determine whether her powers are heavenly or demonic, are nonetheless determined to have Volpa on their side. This gripping fantasy of a mysteriously gifted Joan of Arc figure is stunning from beginning to end.

  “Few fantasy writers today can match the sheer beauty and inventiveness of Tanith Lee’s writing … Lee raises challenging questions about faith, justice, and truth in this moving Joan of Arc story.”

  —Millennium Science Fiction and Fantasy

  Tanith Lee is one of the leading fantasy authors writing today. She has written more than fifty novels and short story collections, among them the bestselling Flat Earth series. She is also the author of another Overlook fantasy series, The Secret Books of Paradys, as well as Mortal Suns. She has won the World Fantasy Award numerous times as well as the August Derleth Award.