It was white and beautiful and unmistakably an angel, with huge wings folded forward and down—wings like a girl’s white woolen shawl. It sat motionless on the earth, praying. It must be praying, for what else would an angel be doing alone at night, when many men were new dead?
“Signora, look!” she whispered, pointing into the darkness. “Do you see?”
“See? Child, I can scarcely see your finger, on a night like this,” the old woman snorted. Abruptly she turned away and went through the door.
Carla Denezzi bent down on her knees in the cold. With the angel for company, she uttered a silent prayer that all men and women, live or dead, should know peace.
Chapter 8
The night was black with no clipping of moon. Damiano stood alone in cold that made his ears ring, and his breath crackled against his face like a tiny fall of snow.
And he was afraid, though not of the cold. His staff stood braced before him, unfelt by frozen hands, and he whispered words he did not remember learning—unless he had heard them in sleep, from his father. With a prickle and thrill the young man intuited that his father had spoken these words at least once.
“Sator arepo tenet opera rotas. Ades, Satan!” he pronounced, but at the concluding word “Dominus” he choked and the word went unsaid.
The omission was meaningless, for a sheet of blackness disassociated itself from the night and flung Damiano into the air—or into the ground. The young man could not tell the difference, for both air and earth had gone suddenly impervious and malevolent. His limbs were stiff in an uncleanly paralysis, and Damiano had no breath to scream. He sailed through winds that were eddies of pain.
This was hell, he thought, and he had not needed an interview with the Devil to find it. He mouthed the words “O God!” not knowing what he said.
The darkness broke under an assault of noonday light. Damiano put his hand to his face and in wonder noticed that he was still on his feet, that his blind, sweeping passage had not disarranged the folds of his mantle.
Under his feet was rock, round and hollowed like a riverbed but colored carnelian. Around him curled huge tines of the stuff, taller than his head. In the distance rose a cliff wall, taller than the Grandfather itself, and within it an enormous arched opening, like a window. Beyond that...
With simple, terrible understanding, Damiano realized that the arch was a window and the cliff wall was a wall, and the rounded, fleshy rock he stood upon, miles above the ground, was an open hand. He swiveled so quickly he fell down, on a palm that was easily as hard as river rock.
The face of Raphael leaned down over him, beautiful, pure and clean-chiseled. It was the angel’s face, but it was hot and ruddy, mountainous in size. “Mother of God!” yelped Damiano in terror.
The face instantly retreated. “Would Father Antonio appreciate such language?” it asked. “Common politeness itself forbids...”
The voice that spoke these words, though naturally enormous, was civilized in expression and modulated in tone. But still, there was something about it of the dry, abrasive sound of a shovel cutting through ashes, and it was not Raphael’s voice at all.
Nor was the face quite as much like that of the archangel as Damiano had first supposed. The lean cheekbones arched out below the eyes in more aggressive fashion, perhaps more barbaric and perhaps also more interesting. Raphael’s hair, though fair enough, was reduced to a childish flaxen next to the gold that curled fastidiously over this enormous head. It was a gold that deserved to be minted in coin.
Then Damiano remembered that Lucifer, too, had begun as an archangel, and Damiano knew he was in the presence he had summoned. The witch sat on the Devil’s palm, his staff across his thighs, toes pointed to the unimaginable ceiling, and he continued to stare.
The terrible eyes narrowed, as a man’s eyes will narrow when he tries to focus on the form of an insect he has captured. “Well. What is the problem, my friend? Did you not expect that little voyage? Did you think I would come to you, when it is so much easier, and more fitting as well, to bring you to me?”
Damiano’s ears were buzzing, and his head was filled with woolly numbness. He dared not open his mouth, for he had no idea what sounds would come out of it. Yet he spared a glance around him.
The view was endless, and the young man’s vision was not, but he saw enough to convince him that he was in a room of some sort. Four flat walls, chalky white, supported hangings indistinguishably embroidered in red. There was an enormous expanse of polished, tile floor on which stood a table the size of a cathedral, supporting a bowl filled with tawny grapes. Four windows looked out in four directions, displaying respective cloudy vistas of blue sea, green fields, icebound rock, and featureless sand. Though these views were incompatible, and for the most part uninhabitable to man, as Damiano peered from one window to another he felt a keen longing to be in any of them, flying through the sweet, free air (flying? Why flying? Damiano had never in his life flown anywhere). In freedom, true freedom, under sunlight or shadow, answerable to no one, not even to...
“It is my audience chamber. A pleasant place, is it not? Merely to sit in it and breathe the air calls forth the best qualities in a man. And it is convenient to all places and times. I too have spent many hours gazing out at my dominions.”
Damiano nodded absently, thinking that the attraction was more out the windows than in the room itself, where the air smelled flat, like a dead fire. He wondered if perhaps that was how Satan himself felt, and whether that was not the reason he spent hours staring out at the places where he was not. Also, if these vistas were like others the youth had seen, then they were a cheat, for once one had labored toward them, one invariably found one was still standing on soil that was similar in looks and feel to that of home, breathing and rebreathing the cloud of one’s own breath. Damiano could understand if Satan felt that frustration when he gazed out his windows, for the great demon’s breath was particularly stale. In fact, for one brief instant he felt he understood the Devil very well, but then that moment passed.
Satan cleared his throat. “I think you requested an audience, Dami?”
Hearing his name spoken, Damiano shivered uncontrollably. Delstrego would not have been so bad to hear, though any evidence that the Devil knew one was unpleasant to the ears. To have Satan call him by his Christian name would have been understandable, since most everyone in Partestrada called him Damiano, having known him since a child. But to be called Dami, as Carla and as Raphael called him Dami, by these lips that were only too massive to be Raphael’s, and in that scraped-ashen voice... that was worse than having the Devil reprimand him in Father Antonio’s name.
Yet he planted his staff and climbed to his feet again. “I did,” he answered, his voice sounding unexpectedly steady. “If you are Satan, that is.”
The fair brow shot up in a gesture distractingly familiar. “I am,” whispered the gray voice, “Lucifer, the ruler of the earth and of mankind. I heard you, and since I try to be open and accessible to all my subjects, I have helped you hither to me.”
Damiano’s gaze of confusion continued, and at last the huge face flushed. The effect was like sunset on the mountains. “You speak of audacity! You act as though you don’t believe I am who I say!” Fingers curled around the young man, threatening to shut out the light.
Damiano recalled how Father Antonio had once said that no man is as offended at doubt as is the habitual liar who has for once told the truth. Though he stood in a dread so thick as to be indistinguishable from despair, this small observation comforted him. “I believe you, spirit. I believe you because you look so much like the archangel Raphael, whose face I have seen and whom I know to be related to you. But still that paradox astounds me, that you should look so much like an angel.”
The once-highest of the archangels went redder than beets, until his face had the look of flayed flesh. His fingers curled around the tiny figure of gold and scarlet until it seemed he would crush it.
But Damiano stood brace
d, and the huge embrace halted, with a perfectly manicured thumbnail resting against the young man’s throat. “There was,” admitted Satan, “a Utter of creatures spawned, with a superficial resemblance to me. Imitation, no doubt. But I am by far the greatest.”
Damiano nodded, feeling the cold horny nail against his adam’s apple. “I was told you were greater than they,” he replied. “I only brought it up to explain why I was staring.” He coughed, backed away from the thumbnail and felt the end of a hard finger between his shoulder blades.
Satan smiled, thereby destroying the last resemblance with Raphael. “Who,” he crooned, “gave you such good information? One of my lieutenants on the earth, I presume. A murderer, or the pope at Avignon?”
Damiano glanced up sharply. “Raphael told me. He said you were always the greatest of the angels.”
Rude laughter barked and boomed, till Damiano swayed on the palm of the Devil’s hand, his own hands over his ears and eyes. “Humility!” roared the red face. “I love it!” Then, with whip-crack speed, it was sober. “And I am gratified to find a man without an exaggerated respect for that twittering crew.”
Damiano stiffened and set his jaw. He had not come to get into an argument with the Devil, like the one he had been dragged into by General Pardo, but he was an Italian born and could not hear his friend so demeaned. Not by any man or devil. “Power is not everything, Great Lucifer,” he stated. “I don’t think it means anything, to Raphael. Not like music does. And though he may be less powerful than you are, he is still far above me.”
Satan set his eyes on Damiano as a wolf might have set its teeth in his neck. He could neither move nor look away.
“He is far above you, boy, because he has made you believe it. Be aware that spirits are very subtle and they say nothing by chance.
“I have a certain reputation in that direction myself, Damiano, but I swear to you that I am forthrightness itself, compared with the spirits who bow to the Beginning.”
“The Beginning?” echoed Damiano.
Satan sighed and his face knit into lines of pure philosophy. “All things, and spirits, came out of the Beginning. Exploded from It, you might say. It had no choice in the matter and would certainly have maintained us all as part of Itself, if It could have.
“But It could not, for freedom is as old as the Beginning, if not older. Ever since all of us, spirits and creatures alike, escaped and became ourselves, It has been trying to cozen us into returning, so It can consume us again. With that in mind It spread the tale that It transubstantiates into bread, to be consumed by man, so that man will feel less objection to the truth that It consumes man, like bread.
“To be dissolved into another! That is the antithesis of freedom.”
It was God he was talking about, Damiano realized.
“In fact, Damiano, though I am the lord of the earth I am also the one apostle of freedom upon the earth, and those who serve me know the gifts of liberty, for there is nothing I will deny a man. I will not even deny him the intellectual pleasure derived from bowing at the altar of the Beginning, if that is his desire, though that Other does not extend such courtesy to me.
“In fact I have many who worship me in such part-time fashion, some of them worthy men in cardinal red. I...”
Damiano had lost the thread of Satan’s conversation, for he was still trying to understand how freedom could be both natural and a gift. Perhaps his lack of attention was written in his face, for the Devil stopped in midsentence.
“But here now. You didn’t come all this way to discuss histories, or to tell me that that fluttering limpid brother of mine knows his place. What do you want of me, Damiano Delstrego? What is your desire, my dear brother witch?”
Damiano filled his lungs with dry air, more deadly than fumes of sulfur. “A bargain,” he announced.
“Of course. A bargain,” echoed the red angel, and his smile held a languorous ennui. “Everyone wants a bargain from me. You’d think I were a tradesman, instead of only the inventor of trade.” He dandled Damiano gently between his fingers, knocking him to his knees.
“All men lust after my bargains, little friend, though some pursue them harder. It seems to run in families, for you are not the first Delstrego with whom I have spoken...”
Damiano made no reply, though the blood in his heart congealed. Still he knew better than to trust the Devil concerning his father. Raphael had said to have hope, so he cast his eyes down at the immaculate ruddy palm.
“Bargains...” Satan ruminated, and he sat back in his gilded throne, which was the only chair in the room. “I am sempiternally bored with striking bargains with mortals. They never have anything interesting to ask, or anything worthwhile to give.” He sighed like a gale in a cave.
“I think you want what I have to give,” began Damiano, grimacing as he spoke, but the Devil cut him off.
“That comes second, little witch. First is the matter of what you want.”
This was simple to say and not frightening. “I want peace,” stated Damiano.
After a moment’s pause, Satan grunted. “There are many avenues toward that goal, Damiano. I could build you a castle in a green valley where no man has ever set foot. Obedient demons would do your will and never say no to you. Succubi, too. Unrest is a product of your interaction with other mortals, believe me. With no human company, you would be sure to have peace.
“Alternately, I could provide you with one hundred years on the oil of the eastern poppy, with never a bad dream. That is peace, and poetry, too. I recommend it over my first proposal.
“Then I could make you my vassal over all Europe, of course. That is a popular request, since many men have come to the realization that power is freedom and freedom is happiness.” Cold gray eyes regarded Damiano, eyes much larger than platters. “And what is happiness, but peace in action?
“You would make a comical emperor, Damiano Delstrego. You have a kind heart.”
Damiano frowned and sat back on his heels. He struck the shoe of his staff against the devil’s palm. “No. No, Satanas, I want peace, not for me, but for all the Piedmont. One hundred years without war.”
Satan peered closely at the tiny thing in his hand. “With you as duke, of course?” he drawled.
Damiano shook his head. “I can’t... I mean I thank you for your confidence in me, but my talents don’t lie in that direction. Only once have I been able to unite and fire men’s minds, and that time I... No, I don’t want to pay that again. I am a man of the arts: an alchemist, a musician, maybe a poet, too, though I have not much experience in that, as yet.”
At a thought his tongue thickened and he grew visibly paler. “Or at least these were the things I had planned to be.” Then he flipped his sleeves and hair back and began afresh.
“With any suitable man as duke. Or without a duke, as one grand republic with Partestrada as capital. Or eight little, quiet republics, with Partestrada as the largest.”
“That is imp...” The Devil cleared his throat, and Damiano seemed to see a cloud of ash spread from his well-molded lips into the room. “Your love for your city does you credit, Damiano, but let’s talk concretely. I can give you General Pardo’s head on a pike.”
Damiano had expected this offer. “That’s no good. Pardo alone isn’t the problem, for there will always be another wolf to raven the fold. I want a respite from wolves. I want peace and prosperity for the Piedmont.”
“Before you said only peace, Damiano. That was bad enough, but now you’ve added prosperity.”
Damiano squinted at the looming face. “I mean peace, but not the peace of devastation and pestilence, when all the people are dead. I mean a thriving peace.”
“The head of Pardo plus the head of Paolo Denezzi.” Damiano swallowed, abashed at how intimately the Devil had read his worst desires.
“No,” he replied weakly.
“... And I will burn down the convent of La Dolerosa at Bard before the month is out,” concluded Satan. “That will change many
things, my eager young lover, and you may return to your own tower with a beautiful bride.”
Damiano’s eyes stung, and his cheeks flushed, though nowhere so red as those on the elegant face of the Devil.
“No.” He was scarcely audible. “Do nothing to touch her.”
The angry trembling of the great hand ran through Damiano and made his teeth vibrate.
“I find your bargaining to be rather of the take-it-or-leave-it variety, little witch,” Satan rasped, and he laid his hand down on the table. Damiano stared, fascinated, at the pond-sized shallow bowl that he had thought to be filled with grapes. “You ask more from me than any man in a handful of centuries,” snapped the beautiful red mouth. “What on earth or in hell do you have to give in return?”
Damiano blinked three times and then was certain that the objects in the bowl were fresh human heads. This knowledge, rather than frightening him, gave him a certain hopeless courage. “Myself,” he said. “My life. My soul. You can have it now without waiting.”
The next instant found him tumbling across the polished wooden surface of the table, his staff tangling with his legs.
“Your soul? Damiano, why don’t you try selling me this throne, or my own left hand?” As Satan leaned over the table Damiano felt the wood creak complaint and the air grow very hot. “Boy, don’t you know what it means to be born a witch?”
Damiano lay flat on his back with his eyes closed. Panic brushed his face. “I know no man is born damned,” he hissed. “Father Antonio has said it, and my heart tells me it is true!”
The deadly ire subsided into irony. “To be what they call damned is only to be free and to declare you are free, shaking your fist at brute authority. I will give a lot to free a man, Damiano, but you’re right; I can’t do it alone. Each man chooses his own ‘damnation.’ And you”—the fiery face turned away—”chose the black path to my door.”
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