“My love,” she said.
Lancelot bowed. “My lady.”
Alighting beside him, Guinevere continued the story. “When we next came to the garden, we read to each other from the Holy Book.”
“The Song of Solomon,” said Lancelot.
“And I read the woman’s part, saying, ‘Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for his love is better than wine.’”
“And I read the man’s part, saying, ‘Open to me, my love, my dove, my darling, for my head is drenched with dew.’”
“And I read, ‘I sat down in his shade with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.’”
“And I read, ‘Your breasts are like twin fawns that feed among the lilies.’”
“And I read, ‘His mouth is sweet: yes, he is altogether lovely.’”
“And I read, ‘Your body is like a palm tree, your breasts like clusters of dates.’”
“And I read, ‘Let his left hand be under my head, and his right hand embrace me.’”
“And I read, ‘Love is as strong as death, jealousy as cruel as the grave.’”
“And I read, ‘Make haste, my love.’”
“And I stopped your lips with mine,” said Lancelot.
“That night we read no further.”
Lancelot kissed Guinevere. His hands were on her head. Her arms encircled him. Their hair stirred, dancing in the breeze. A wind swirled around the phantom lovers and drew them into the air. They rose into darkness and disappeared.
CHAPTER 23
They clambered down piles of rocks to where the shades of gluttons, fat and obscene, wallowed in the swill of a midden heap, a putrid depository of slop and offal that engorged the third circle of Hell. A cold rain, mixed with snow, drummed on the refuse, forming a slush that sucked like clay at their feet. Fetor rose from the ground in a poisonous mist that promised to choke the life from any trespasser.
Marco said, “We cannot linger here.”
A path wended through the mire, but Marco saw it was blocked by a three-headed dog that battened on the bellies of fat sinners, ripping shades with teeth and claws.
Marco glanced back at the poet.
“Cerberus,” Giovanni said. “A hellhound.”
“You might have warned me.”
To observe the beast, they hid behind a mound of detritus. The shades, wallowing in a profane broth, could not escape the canine, but rolled and twisted as fangs came down to flay them. One soul shielded another until the pain grew too great, then rolled off to save himself at the other’s expense. As the dog swallowed with one throat, he bellowed with the other two heads in a fiendish harmony that seemed to mock the banquet songs of the world above.
“We’ll go around,” Marco said. When he tried to find another way by climbing over heaps of garbage, he slipped back each time. Offal tumbled after him. He soon tired and rested. “How did Dante get past?”
Giovanni said, “Virgil threw dirt down Cerberus’ throats.”
Marco scooped loam into his fist and approached Cerberus with caution, leading with the Lance. One of the heads snapped at him. The knight tossed his fistful of dirt into the open gullet. The dog swallowed and snapped again. The other two heads were busy feasting on shades moiling in the mire.
The knight retreated to where his companions waited. “Any other ideas?”
Giovanni scratched the nape of his neck. “The Sibyl drowsed him with honey wheat cakes laced with a potion.”
“We have wine,” Nadja said.
“Worth a try.”
Marco held his helmet upside down as William poured wine into it. The knight set it near Cerberus.
The hound ignored the helmet and went for Marco’s face. The knight stepped back and brought the Lance up quickly. Another head came around and bit deep into Marco’s arm, sharp teeth lacerating flesh. Marco stabbed under the chin. The jaw released him. The second head let out a roar of pain. The third came for him. Marco slipped, fell onto his back, jabbed the Lance upward, then rolled away.
Cerberus came after him. Marco staggered back, jabbing at one head, then the other, but there were too many and they came too fast. He gave up ground at a frightening pace.
“Fall back!”
Marco glanced behind him and saw that they had already fled to the cliff. With each step back, Marco bled more. A trail of blood followed him to the stoney wall. Now he had no retreat from those slavering fangs.
Have at it, then. We’ll die together.
“In here!” Nadja yelled.
The pilgrims had found a cave. He ran for it. The dog snapped at his heels as Marco slipped inside the rock.
The cave was no more than a crevice: the height of the cliff and six feet deep. The pilgrims pressed against the back wall as Cerberus stuck his head inside. His breath was foul. The humans were beyond the dog’s reach, but trapped. One of the heads lowered to lick blood from the ground. Soon the others were doing the same.
“Blood,” said William. “That’s what it wants.”
“The shades have no blood,” Giovanni said.
“So the hound is always hungry.”
“And the torments go on forever.”
“If he wants my blood,” said Marco, still bleeding, “he’s welcome to it.”
The knight stepped forward, but Nadja held him back.
“Wait.” She reached into her rucksack and retrieved a small rag stained with menstrual blood. “Use this.”
He soaked her rag in the blood flowing from his arm, then rolled the cloth into a tight red ball and lobbed it over the beast. Three heads snapped at it but missed. They turned to see where the treat had landed.
“Now,” said Marco.
The pilgrims ran into the open. Giovanni fell in the slop. Marco helped him up.
The dog heads fought each other for the rag. The middle head won and swallowed it whole. The other two looked up.
Can’t outrun him, Marco realized.
He turned and locked eyes with the hound: two eyes, then four, then six. Now all eyes were on him. The beast spun its body around. Marco raised the Holy Lance and steeled himself for battle. Cerberus saw blood pooling at Marco’s feet. All three heads came at him at once. Marco slipped to one side and sliced open the nearest throat. Drops of blood came out.
My blood, he realized.
A second head licked the blood from the ground, and Marco cut open the second throat. It, too, bled with Marco’s blood. The last head licked the blood, and Marco stabbed it.
Now all three throats were cut open.
Marco stepped back, but the dog did not follow. The heads lapped at the same rich pool of blood, trying to swallow the red juice but bleeding it out again for another head to slurp. At this rate, the hellhound would never be sated, but fight itself to drink the same blood forever.
And Marco escaped.
Giovanni saw a demon crouching like an animal on the ledge above a stoney staircase, guarding the passage down. The fiend appeared to be half-man, half-wolf. The poet stopped short. The others followed his example.
“Pape Satàn!” the demon bellowed. “Pape Satàn, aleppe!”
The voice was more lupine than human, like wolves baying on a battlefield. It made Giovanni’s skin crawl. He felt the edge of terror slice through his heart.
His own voice trembled as he identified the demon: “Plutus. The ancient god of wealth.”
William looked relieved. “We have nothing he desires.” The mendicant stepped forward to meet the demon. “Plutus! I am William of Ockham.”
“I don’t know you,” the demon snarled.
“I am not your subject. You have no claim on me, nor on my friends. Let us pass.”
Plutus stared at the old man, then nodded. “You may pass.”
Marco went next.
“You may pass.”
Then Nadja.
“You may pass.”
Giovanni held back. Plutus met his gaze. The demon’s yellow eyes were candent in the lancelight. Giovanni want
ed to run but could not lift his feet, as if his shoes were shackles.
Plutus said, “I know you well, Giovanni Boccaccio. I’ve been expecting you.”
“He’s with me,” William said from the top of the stairs.
“No,” said the demon. “He is mine. And he must pay.”
“Giovanni has no money.”
“He deceives you. He cannot deceive me. He must pay.”
William interrogated Giovanni with a look. “Giovanni? Tell him you have nothing.”
Nadja said, “He spent all his money in the tavern.”
Giovanni said nothing.
I am my father’s son, he thought.
He removed his left shoe, reached inside, and found his last silver coin. He took it out and put the shoe back on. His feet no longer felt rooted to the ground, but he stood there a long while looking at the coin, turning it over in his hands. One side showed John the Baptist. The other displayed the lily of Florence. It reminded him of home and family, life and love. It was more than a coin. It was a holy relic. There was a kind of magic in it, a power that ruled men in the world above. A power that ruled Giovanni even now.
“It’s all I have,” he said.
Plutus nodded. “That is the toll: all that you have.”
The poet stepped up and paid the price.
CHAPTER 24
As the pilgrims climbed down through luminescent clouds to the fourth circle of Hell, Giovanni heard below him a rumbling din of screams and crashes.
“The hoarders and the wasters,” he said.
A raging conflict came into view, lit by a mist that hovered above the plain, and he could see now what he had only heard before. A throng of angry shades moved along hundreds of curved tracks, concentric furrows scored into the rocky shelf. The nearest track was ankle-deep, the inner ones progressively deeper. Demons clung to the cliff wall playing infernal music as spirits of the damned scuttled along the tracks in a danse macabre, to the steps of the ridda, but these steps were heavy, for the dancers bore an enormous burden. On each track, two massive boulders rolled toward each other, pushed by contrary teams, the hoarders and the wasters, until the stones collided with an deafening crack, at which point the dancers reversed course, rolling their stones in opposite directions, around the circular chasm, until they collided once more on the far side. This endless cycle was repeated in every track at staggered intervals, with the hoarders and wasters screaming at each other, bellowing in a mad roundelay:
Why do you hoard?
Why do you waste?
We have to have!
We long to lack!
So now deboned,
And now debased,
We round and round and round the track.
Let’s give ’em hell!
Let’s give ’em haste!
Around a torque,
And then attack!
It’s time they feared,
And time they faced,
The underworld and thundercrack!
“We should cross over there,” William said, pointing to where the collisions occurred.
Nadja seemed doubtful. “Where the rocks meet?”
“It will give us more time to cross.”
Giovanni understood immediately. The collisions fell along a diameter that cut from the outer edge through the center to the far side of the abyss. The opposing armies did not cross this collision line but remained secund: trapped forever on their own semicircular arc. By crossing at the collision line, the pilgrims would maximize the distance the rocks must travel before reaching them. A crossing point to the left or right would cut the arc and increase the danger.
“William’s right,” he said. “Let’s go.”
The others followed Giovanni around the pit. When the poet came to the crossing point he hesitated.
“I’ll go first,” Marco said.
The knight stepped across the outermost track, a shallow groove in the rock. Giovanni and the others followed at his heels. The stones in the first track were far away. There seemed little danger of being crushed.
As Giovanni crossed the concentric tracks, moving inward to the abyss, pausing each time to check for oncoming boulders, he noticed that the grooves were becoming deeper and that the rocks crashed more frequently, owing to the shortened paths. When he reached a track as deep as his legs were long, he began to worry. They were only halfway across this infernal plain.
William stretched an arm across Marco’s breastplate. “Wait.”
The pilgrims stood on a ridge looking down into the next fosse. Giovanni saw no stones approaching. He was confident they could make it across with time to spare, but the friar’s caution was probably wise.
William said, “After the rocks collide, we go.”
Marco nodded.
Giovanni heard the rumble of many stones and felt the ridge tremble, but saw no danger in the gloom.
Until he did.
Down the track they rolled, fast as a falling star. Giovanni covered his ears. Two stones crashed before him like the rocks that splintered the Argo, then they bounced back and the opposing shades pushed the rocks the other away.
“Now,” said William.
The pilgrims jumped down and climbed back up on the other side. Marco struggled in his heavy armor. He no longer wore the helmet, which remained behind with Cerberus. Giovanni offered a hand, but the knight waved it away.
“No problem,” Marco said.
The next ditch was a problem, and the one after that. Giovanni could see that Marco was starting to tire.
“Let me take your bag,” the poet said at the next rise.
Marco nodded, panting.
The pilgrims were nearly across the plain when Marco called for a rest and sat down.
“Leave the armor,” William suggested.
Marco shook his head. “I’m fine.”
In the next ditch, Marco struggled to ascend the far bank. Giovanni tried to help but couldn’t reach the knight’s hand.
“The Lance,” Giovanni said.
Marco raised the Lance. Giovanni grabbed it and pulled the other man up.
There were only three more ditches. We’re going to make it, Giovanni thought, but when they tried the same trick at the next ditch, Marco slipped from the Lance and fell back. Giovanni, William, and Nadja tumbled together into the next fosse. The poet jumped to his feet and saw the rocks coming.
“Up,” he said.
He formed a cradle with his hands for Nadja to step in, and boosted her up to the rise from which they had fallen. Then he did the same for William. He was alone in the ditch now, and saw the stones bearing down on him. William leaned down to help him. Giovanni jumped for the friar’s outstretched hand, caught it, and scrambled up. The rocks smashed behind him in a thunderous crack.
He saw Marco below in the previous ditch. Two boulders were coming for the knight, closing fast.
Marco said, “Lower the Lance.”
Giovanni looked for the weapon. “Where is it?”
“There.” Nadja pointed behind him.
He saw the Holy Lance laying in the ditch where the three of them had fallen.
No time, he thought.
Giovanni dropped to his knees and reached down for Marco. The knight jumped for the poet’s hand, but couldn’t make it. He was too far down and already exhausted.
“Go,” he said. “Go.”
He thinks he’s a dead man. Giovanni looked back down at the Lance and noticed something he had missed before. The shaft’s not broken. The rocks in that ditch had crashed, but the Lance was a unharmed.
A miracle.
Or—
“Lie down!” he yelled.
“What?” The knight stood still.
“On your back! On your belly! Lie down! Now!”
“Yes,” said William. “Get down.”
The rocks were nearly upon him. Marco dropped where he stood. He was too tall to lie crosswise. He crouched.
The rocks collided at the height of a man’s chest. For
a brief moment Giovanni could no longer see the knight. When the boulders bounced back, he saw that Marco’s armor was deformed. The back plate was crushed at the sides and bent up in the middle. It looked like he had a hump.
“Marco?” Giovanni called.
The stones rolled away, pushed by dancing shades. Marco wambled to his feet with one hand against the wall to steady himself.
Giovanni jumped down to meet him.
“Let me help you,” he said.
The knight nodded weakly. Together they stripped off Marco’s armor. They left it there, all but the shield, which Giovanni tossed up to Nadja. The poet made a step of his hands to give Marco a lift, while the others pulled him to safety.
The pilgrims retrieved the Lance and made it across the last three tracks without further incident. They climbed down together, shaken and exhausted, to the fifth circle of Hell.
CHAPTER 25
On the steps Giovanni paused and surveyed the gloom. Black water gushed from the cliff, bubbling over craggy debris, to form a wide marsh where the damned were drowned. A flotsam of lost souls shimmered on the dim tide. The air was pungent with mildew and rot.
“Welcome to the River Styx,” he said.
Marco pointed to a pale, flickering glow above the mere. “What’s that?”
“Ignis fatuus,” William answered.
“Foolish fire,” Giovanni said. “Those who follow the lights are lured to their death.”
“We used to call it the friar’s lantern,” Nadja remarked.
“That’s odd,” said William. “We used to call it the witch’s candle.”
Nadja suggested they find a place to rest or sleep.
Giovanni said, “Not a good place to stop.”
“If we wait for a good place,” said William, “we’ll find no rest in Hell.”
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