The Blessed

by Lisa T. Bergren

  Daria smiled and the tears ran down her face again, her heart heavy with grief, but she clung to the hope within her friend’s words. “Sing of his honor, Anette, his valor, his life. As his body burns, sing for me. I shall pray for you and remember you, weep with you, as you say your final farewells.”

  “Thank you,” Anette whispered. Then she turned and accepted Dimitri’s open arms.

  He took her to a wagon and passed her up to a waiting knight. The young lord took a crate of pigeons from the back of the wagon. “If you have immediate need of us, send one of these home to Les Baux.”

  Daria nodded and took it from him, not trusting herself to speak without breaking down again.

  Dimitri climbed into the wagon. “We shall return, Daria,” he said lowly, repeating his wife’s pledge. The wagon driver flicked the reins and the company moved off, but Dimitri held Daria’s gaze. “You are not abandoned. Look for us within a fortnight.”

  “We shall,” Daria said, raising a hand to the sky in farewell.

  The wagons moved toward the bridge, one carrying the body of the count of Les Baux, under the flag of a sixteen-pointed star. The Blanchettes, the Duvins, and even the Richardieus followed behind, casting Daria sorrowful looks. They would see Anette and Dimitri through the funeral and then return with them.

  She knew Piero was behind her without turning.

  “We must rally, Daria,” he said as the wagons and men turned along the bend in the road. “Find the strength for another battle.”

  “I am weary,” she said, lifting a hand to her head. “So weary. I believed we were free of Amidei and Vincenzo, their master, for a time. I made myself hope. For love. For life.” Her hand went to her belly and she stroked it, as if she could hold the tiny babe in her womb. Amidei knew of her pregnancy. Would he take her child? Would that be his final blow?

  Vito and Ugo neared, Hasani right behind him. Gaspare and Josephine rounded a corner, and the children, playing by the water, stood to watch the procession of wagons rumble by, and ran back to the group assembling.

  “They stare down upon us, not knowing whether to protect or kill us,” Daria said, looking up to Lucien and Matthieu, and four other knights of Les Baux, left behind to guard them.

  “Hush,” Piero said, eyeing the knights. “You know as well as I that they grieve their count.”

  “A count who would now still live, if we had not accepted his hospitality,” Daria said.

  Piero moved into her line of vision. “A count who demanded we come; a count who sent his knights out to collect us. A count who spoke to his father once more because we entered his realm. A count who saw his sister rediscover love, because we came. A count who knew faith, wild and free, of a God who transcends time, because he knew us.” He placed his small hands on her upper arms. “Daria, it will be well. It will be. But you must believe. You must hope. You must stand firm!”

  The small priest walked before them all. “ ‘Qui autem confirmat nos vobiscum in Christum, et qui unxit nos Deus,’ ” he said. He turned to Daria. “Translate it for them, Daria.”

  She paused, searching the ground, thinking of running.

  Away from them. Away from all of it. The pain, the fear . . .

  “Daria de Capezzana,” Piero ground out. “Translate it. ‘Qui autem confirmat nos vobiscum in Christum . . .’ ”

  “ ‘Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ,’ ” she said in a whisper.

  “Louder, please.”

  She raised her face, furious at the impudent little man. “ ‘Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ!’ ” she shouted.

  The others stood mute, wide-eyed, watching their priest and lady.

  “Good,” Piero said, giving her a thin-lipped smile. “Let us go on. ‘Et qui signavit nos, et dedit pignus Spiritus in cordibus nostris.’ ”

  Daria turned away and sighed. “ ‘He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.’ ”

  “A deposit,” Piero emphasized. “Now, from Ephesians. Translate, please . . . ‘in quo et vos, cum audissetis verbum veritatis, Evangelium salutis vestrae, in quo et credentes signanti estis Spiritu promissionis Sancto . . . laudem gloriae ipsius . . .’ ”

  He paused and watched her. She looked at him angrily, stubbornly holding to her grief, not yet ready to embrace hope, light. How dare he slap her with Scripture, use it as a weapon . . .

  “Daria . . . ‘in quo et vos . . . ’ ”

  “ ‘And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s own possession—to the praise of his glory.’ ”

  “Again, the deposit, with the hope in the future . . .”

  Daria sighed and sat down upon a boulder. The words were easing her anger in spite of her stubborn hold, easing away the blackness in her soul and filling her with light.

  Piero looked at them all. “Satan’s greatest advantage is if we act like the unholy, if we act as we feel. He wants us to believe ourselves defiled, unclean, unworthy of entering the King’s court. He wants us to serve ourselves, our own ambitions, our own concerns, our own whims and emotions, rather than answer our Lord God’s call.” He paced in front of them. “But we are sealed by Christ, and within us abides the Holy Spirit.

  “My friends,” he said. “Painful though this blow may be, we must believe that our God will ever be victorious. We must cling to the truth, always and forever. We must praise him through the sorrow, through the pain, through imprisonment, through loss. Through it all, he must reign victorious in our hearts and minds, or our enemy shall win again. Do you want that?”

  “Nay,” whispered Tessa, looking up at her priest. The others shook their heads. Even Daria.

  Piero drew near her again and laid a hand on her shoulder. “Take joy, daughter, in our King, for even when all seems dark, he is present, ready to hold us. And the day is soon at hand, when he shall rule again. ‘Et subvertam solium regnorum et conteram fortitudinem regni gentium et subvertam quadrigam et ascensorem eius et descendent . . . fratris sui . . .’ ”

  “ ‘I will overrun royal thrones,’ ” Daria whispered in translation, staring at the river, “ ‘and shatter the power of foreign kingdoms. I will overthrow chariots and their drivers; horses and their riders will fall, each by the sword . . . of his . . . brother.’ ”

  She glanced up at Piero, faltering over the words, tearing up again, but he continued on, steadily staring back at her, willing her to find the strength to continue, to begin again, always, always beginning again. “ ‘On that day, declares the Lord Almighty, “I will take you, my servant . . . and I will make you like my signet ring, for I have chosen you,” declares the Lord of Armies.’ ”

  I have chosen you. Daria rose and looked to the river. On and on the river ran, through time and space, making its way onward as men and women were born and others died along its banks. Ever present, ever constant.

  And across it rode a most welcome sight, a vision from her past, her present, and now her future. Ambrogio Rossellino.

  “You people certainly do not know the first thing about keeping to the shadows, now do you,” he said, dismounting and coming to Daria, embracing her, lifting her tenderly in his arms, then moving on to greet the others. He turned back to Daria, his arms around Tessa’s shoulders, who grinned.

  “I have seen your husband,” he said. “He is well. Unhappy as the pope’s new animals in their cages. But well enough.” He eyed the priest, Hasani, the others. “Word has it the countess shall not press charges, that she believes her brother’s stabbing was an accident. But the pope shall use Gianni’s imprisonment to press his hand. Prepare thyselves, friends. Your greatest battle is soon upon you.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CARDINAL Boeri came to him on his four
th day of imprisonment.

  Gianni glanced up at him and then back to his fingers. “You betrayed us,” he said. He sat in the corner of a barren stone cell.

  The cardinal gestured to the guard to unlock the cell door and let him inside. The guard locked them in together, and with another gesture from the cardinal, left them to speak. No others were held in this group of cells, everyone else freed and pardoned in honor of Maximilien’s generosity. Gianni had been alone the entire time, giving him plenty of opportunity to rehash the fateful night, his failures, and where the blame might ultimately reside.

  Cardinal Boeri leaned against the wall. “I did not betray you. I would have come sooner, but I was only now granted access. They have fed you? Given you water?”

  Gianni sighed and rose, brushing off his pant legs. “You told the pope all our secrets.”

  “Not all.”

  “You told him of our identities, gave him cause to hold me, take me, after . . .”

  “I had not foreseen that occurrence,” Boeri said sorrowfully. “What happened, man?”

  “Trickery,” Gianni said, going through it for the thousandth time in his mind. “Amidei was there. I was furious. He had Daria, Daria again. I couldn’t let . . . I wanted to . . .” He paced back and forth. “He is the Sorcerer, Cardinal.”

  “I know.”

  “He turned my fury, my desire for revenge into—”

  “Confusion.”

  “Yes,” Gianni said, feeling the pain again in that moment of realization that something had gone desperately, terribly wrong. “I thought I stabbed Amidei. I thrust my dagger in, and I swear, it was our common enemy’s face before me . . . and then it was Armand.”

  His legs buckled beneath him and he bumped heavily into the wall, sinking then, face in his hands.

  Cardinal Boeri let him weep for a moment, then leaned over and patted his shoulder. “Our enemy is crafty. Well he knows how to make his way into the human heart. Now get hold of yourself, Sir Gianni, and rise. Rise. We cannot make war upon the enemy if we are not on our feet. Or at the very least, upon our knees in prayer.”

  His tone awakened something within Gianni, something he had not felt since leaving his father’s fields outside Siena and going to the holy city to discover his future as a squire of a knight de Vaticana de Roma. He pushed upward on weak legs and faced his former employer, wiping his face of tears.

  Cardinal Boeri reached up and took his cheek in hand. “Do not feel your sorrow as shame, my son,” he said. “You have lost a friend, a friend by your own hand. But turn your sorrow into righteous determination to see this thing through, to honor Count Armand’s life, given in the midst of a noble cause.” He dropped his hand and paced before him, then paused and looked back to him. “I have my own confessions to make.”

  Gianni studied him, waiting. Could he bear another blow? More deceit?

  The cardinal sighed heavily, as if trying to draw strength to say what he must. “I confess I set out to use you and yours, Gianni. I wished to control you, the Gifted. To make you make the pope see he must return the papacy to the Vaticana de Roma.”

  “Your dream,” Gianni whispered.

  “Indeed. Forgive me, friend. But there is more. I had thought that if I were to have you all firmly in hand, if you owed me a debt, if I could control you, I could use you for more than that. I had terrible dreams, Gianni, terrible ambitions. I wished to use you to become pope myself.”

  Gianni watched his face, saw his own misery and guilt reflected in his cardinal’s eyes. The cardinal set to pacing. Gianni waited for him to continue.

  “My time with you, back here in Avignon, and at Maximilien’s masquerade. Afterward, I saw . . .”

  His eyes were drawn to the window, and his face blanched at the memory. “I glimpsed . . .”

  Gianni sighed. “Did you attend Lord Amidei’s ceremony?”

  Cardinal Boeri started and turned. “Ceremony? Nay. But Gianni, there is something foul among my fellow cardinals. Amidei had made his way among them. He owns a few of them. I glimpsed unspeakable things. Terrible things. They tried to bring me in, persuade me to join them. They promised gifts that you cannot imagine. Of the flesh, of power . . .”

  Well he could imagine. Daria had faced such temptation. But it was he who had succumbed to Amidei’s trickery.

  “Their draw was powerful, so powerful . . . Gianni, they believe themselves gods. Amidei had done that—made them see themselves as gods. They cloak their goals in language of the holy, but this group of men are on a most unholy course.”

  He crossed the few feet between them, his face awash in concern and anger. “But naming their sin as such served only to convict me as well. I understood at last that my call was not to bring the papacy home, nor for me to be pope—that is only my own ambition. My call is to support you and yours to battle against the one who has been our enemy all along—the dark lord. That is why I was given the letter, why you came to be the captain of my guard. God knew it all along, that we would join together to fight his foe. If we can defeat him, it will be a victory for all within the Church, from the least to the greatest.”

  Gianni nodded at him, well understanding weakness, failure, accepting his apology.

  “Forgive me, friend. I have not been a father of the Church. I have ministered only to my selfish ambition.”

  “You are forgiven,” Gianni said, clasping the cardinal, elbow to elbow. “Now hear my own confession and let us plan as absolved and free men.”

  “WORD has it,” Ambrogio said, sitting down at the Richardieus’ table with the others, “that the countess has demanded Gianni’s release. Her lawyers have refused to leave the palais until it is done, claiming the pope had no jurisdiction when he took Gianni from Maximilien’s home.”

  “Go on,” Piero said.

  “And since the countess refuses to press charges, supporting Gianni’s claim that it was accidental, they are having difficulty finding the means to keep him imprisoned.

  “So I would expect him to be released within a day or two,” he said. “But you all shall be brought before the pope again, soon. Are you prepared for that?”

  Piero looked troubled. He paced, chin in hand, thinking. “The countess has departed just this morning, taking her brother’s body home to Les Baux to see to his funeral. We do not know how long she shall be gone.”

  “A week or two, she promised no longer than a fortnight,” Daria said.

  “But without her,” Piero said, “what will become of our noble compatriots? We had thought we would venture into battle with them at our side.”

  “We must be prepared to venture forth,” said Josephine, “without anyone beside us other than our Lord and Savior. If he has brought us this far, for this purpose, we can do nothing but carry onward. He shall see us through.”

  “There is something very dark indeed among the halls of the palais,” Ambrogio said. “I have heard whisperings of foul happenings. The cardinals, they are unraveling; it is as if they are boats that have slipped their moorings and been cast upon the river.”

  Piero stared at him. “Amidei.”

  Ambrogio nodded. “I have seen him among them.”

  “Not all of them.”

  “Nay. He has not had time. But six of the most powerful are most firmly at his mercy. There is a wild look in their eyes. They barely make it through their duties before they slip away from the palais.”

  “Is the pope aware of what is unfolding within his palace?”

  “Nay. Not entirely. He is absorbed in the expansion work, the building of the new wing, the duties of seeing to all of Christendom.” He looked at them all. “Do you know that the palais receives more than three hundred missives a day? From as far away as the Orient? That more than five hundred people are employed by the palais on a daily basis? That four thousand directly report to the Holy Father?” He shook his head. “I have never seen a king so busy. He can hardly be blamed for not recognizing what is unfolding beneath his very nose.”

/>   Piero studied him. “You have had opportunity to spend time with him, Ambrogio? See him talk with others, counsel others?”

  Ambrogio nodded. “From afar. Be encouraged. I believe him to be a good man. Distracted, at the moment, by his countless duties and the constant building within the palais. He has made some misguided decisions over indulgences to raise funds.”

  Piero let out a breathless laugh. “Indeed. Selling papers to get people into heaven, bah.” He sobered. “But deep within him . . . Brogi, do you think Amidei has reached him as well?”

  “Nay,” Ambrogio said firmly. “But there are two cardinals who seem closest to him: Cardinals Morano and Corelli.” Ambrogio looked at the children and motioned for them to depart. “Just for a bit,” he said with a sorrowful smile. “This is not for young minds and hearts.” Reluctantly all three rose from the table and left the room as instructed. A knight shut the door firmly behind them.

  “It pains me to tell you this. It may only be rumor, but it makes sense with the way Amidei works. Amidei has been seeking out Cardinal Morano—by all accounts, an exceedingly faithful man—for spiritual counsel. Amidei confessed a terrible appetite for women,” he said, eyeing Daria. She looked away to the window. “He confessed to bedding many. To desiring more. To experimentation . . . The cardinal absolved him of his sin, gave him a spiked belt to wear and a whip to use upon himself when the desires grew too great.”

  “If only he would flay himself to death,” Vito said.

  Piero lifted a hand to silence him, but the knight only bespoke what they all were feeling.

  “For weeks this has been apparently unfolding. The cardinal has gone on to find a suitable bride for Amidei, thinking that if he eases his need with a Church-sanctioned wife, his carnal days are over.”

  Vito laughed aloud.

  “Amidei has accepted his recommendation—”

  “We cannot allow that marriage to occur,” Daria interrupted, standing.