Immortal
Page 48
“I have to know from your own lips,” I croak. “I was stolen as a babe, wasn’t I? You didn’t cast me out into the street. And are you as different from other people as I am?”
Over the next hour, as the light brightens from indigo through lavender into gold, they tell me my story.
“We are the sons of Seth,” my father says. His voice is grave and he doesn’t take his strong, warm hands from my shoulder. “We trace our lineage directly back to Seth’s descendants who did not perish in the Deluge. There are other families like ours. For a long time we lived side by side with ordinary mortals. Then they began to fear and threaten us, so we scattered and hid ourselves. Over the last few centuries we’ve come together again, and we’ve been gathering our strength, so that one day we can live openly again.”
“Better days are coming,” I say, knowing I won’t live to see them.
My father nods. “It’s been hard for us, though we’ve been protected for millennia by the Cathars, who conceal our secret.”
“I heard stories about foreign nobles who had lost a son and who traveled in the company of Cathars,” I say. “There was a letter about them.”
“That was us, that foreign couple!” my mother cries. “You heard of us!”
“The original Cathars were cousins to Seth’s sons, and have served us since the beginning times, which were far different from what history records,” my father says. “Man’s history on earth is unimaginably long and strange. People aren’t yet ready to know the true history, how Gods came from the stars and mixed their seed with the primitive beings on earth to create the first humans. The first such man was Adam, and he had three sons. Seth’s seed was mixed again with that of the Gods from the stars, creating our race. Other men fear us because of our gifts.”
“We were all created by Gods from the stars,” I say with wonder.
“We Sethians have been entrusted with secrets from those Gods, because we are most like them,” my father continues. “At various points they return and we are in contact with them. Man’s true history is full of these encounters, which kings and Popes have concealed, or passed off as visitations by angels. They did not want ordinary humans to know about man’s true origins and the existence of a secret race of men. They feared this knowledge would destroy their authority, that it would destroy civic order and law, which, because of man’s immaturity, depends on seeing God as a vengeful judge who lives outside them.”
“I used to wonder about God’s vengefulness,” I remark. “Now I see that God is love, inside everything, within each of us.”
“The Cathars know this, too, and tried to keep this knowledge alive in the world during times of ignorance and barbarism,” my father answers.
“People say the Cathars have treasures that are coveted by those in power,” I say.
“Treasures which we entrusted to them.” My father nods. “For instance, the creators from the stars told us how to make the Ark of the Covenant, which we gave to the Cathars for safekeeping just before the sack of the Temple in Jerusalem. Then it was our turn to help them after the crusades. We hid them and helped them find hiding places for all the artifacts, relics, and documents that chronicle the true history. One day, in a few more centuries, we will reveal all of this, when we take our rightful place as guides and advisers to mankind.”
“So where have you been before now?” I ask.
“We have been living in mountains far to the east of here. I am more than five hundred years old,” my father says, gripping me more tightly.
“We were traveling. Your parents were in Avignon and I was in Florence, when I saw you by the river,” says the young woman, my cousin Demetria. “What you said about being hungry two hundred years ago, your hair color, your features; I rode at once to get your parents!”
“You were stolen from your crib when you were not even three years old,” my mother adds, anguished. Her hands stroke my arm, which lessens the agony in my body, as if she were giving me a consolamentum. It is not the consolamentum, but it is a soothing and maternal caress, and I feel lucky to know it now, when I need it most, and when the impact of meeting my mother is so great that it distracts me from the pain. She says, “I dismissed a nursemaid who wanted vengeance. We were living far from here, in a village near the Nile River. I searched everywhere, even here in Florence, I should have found you then! I have never stopped looking for you!”
“If not for an angry nursemaid, I would have had family and home,” I say softly. A pang of sadness and regret and anger slices through me, and then the whole situation strikes me as funny. A common nursemaid, thwarting people gifted with the life span and hardiness of gods! I laugh, but only briefly, because even laughing hurts. “But I wouldn’t change anything, because in living this life, I got to love Maddalena. That makes everything worthwhile.”
“I would have liked to know your wife,” my mother sobs. “And my granddaughter! I should have tried harder, searched different cities. There must have been something else, something more, I could have done to find you.”
“I looked for you,” I say softly. “I made inquiries and sent out agents.”
“We hide ourselves very well,” my father says. “We have to, else we are hunted and killed.” He groans and pounds his forehead. “We never thought that you’d be looking for us!”
“I don’t know how we can get him out,” Demetria says. She is tall and slim and beautiful, with quick hands and an alert expression always on her face. She paces around the cell.
“It’s too far gone,” I say. “This is my fate. I’m going to join Maddalena. I’m ready.”
My mother utters a sound like a bone breaking and huddles into Demetria.
“I can pay the executioner to snap your neck before the flames reach you, you don’t have to suffer,” says my father. His face is raw, his voice thick, and I know what it cost him to say that, because I, too, had a child. Perhaps it was easier for me because I didn’t have to watch her die, as he will watch me. He grips my shoulder tightly, fiercely, as if he could pour himself into me and take my place at the stake. I wonder what it would have been like to have grown up knowing him, loved by him, sheltered by him. But I would not have met and loved Maddalena under those different, more fortunate circumstances. And she is all the meaning my soul has ever wanted, so I would not change anything about my life. Not the streets, not Silvano’s brothel. Changing any step would alter the whole journey. At least I know in these final hours the closeness and warmth of a family—my family, who are like me, to whom I belong. I am no longer a freak, no longer an alien thing listening to God’s spiteful giggles. I am a son, I belong, I am loved by my family and by God.
“Don’t pay the executioner. I want to be alive when I die,” I say with joy in my heart. “Then it will be a good death.”
I am bound and gagged and led through scornful crowds to the Piazza della Signoria. There is a stake and a pile of kindling awaiting me, as there always has been. People beat on me, punch me, spit on me, even cut me with swords and throw slop on me, but I don’t care. I can feel Maddalena nearby. I can smell her, sweet lilacs and lemons, as if she is walking next to me, and it makes me smile. I am tied to the stake, with the priest Gerardo Silvano hovering nearby, checking the chains around my feet and ankles. In the crowd I see Leonardo son of Ser Piero da Vinci, and he is weeping. He stands near Demetria, who has one of her lithe arms around each of my parents. They are weeping, too. I am sorry to see them so sad, though I know there is no sparing them. They don’t yet behold God’s perfection in every moment, even the ones, as Maddalena once told me, that wear cruel faces.
Then, through the crowd, a man makes his way. He is large and barrel-chested, with a thick wild beard and a shaggy mane of black-and-white hair. His eyes are fathomless wells of sorrow and emptiness, and something about them drains away my pain, which is a great relief to me. I nod my thanks to the Wanderer, and he nods back. He gestures and I see that with one of his gnarled hands he holds Maddalena’s hand, and wi
th the other, he holds Simonetta’s. Maddalena’s beautiful head is tilted back, her lovely face is serious and filled with grief. She does not like to see me suffer. In a tight group behind them stand Geber, Marco, Massimo, Giotto, Ginori, Ingrid, Moshe Sforno and beautiful Rachel, Petrarca, Cosimo de’ Medici, all of the people I have loved, all of them present, all of them waiting. I shout aloud with joy and freedom, praising God. The executioner’s fire leaps up to irradiate my body. I am standing in the heart of the sun. Everywhere there is light.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank my wonderful editor at Bantam Dell, Caitlin Alexander, who is directly responsible for many of the strengths of this book. Her insightful editorial advice, which was so often brilliant, has shaped and guided this novel from the beginning.
I would like to thank Martha Millard for her hard work and enthusiasm for this work.
I would like to thank Matt Bialer for his support and good advice.
There are many people to whom I must express my love and gratitude for encouragement, support, and good advice along the way, including, but not limited to: Dani Antman, Thomas Ayers, Barbara, Stephen, Ali, Matt, and Tim Baldwin, Lynn Bell, Bill Benton, Adrienne Brodeur, Paul Brodeur, Kim Bunton, Felicia and Jeffrey Campbell, Silver Cho, Johanna Furus, Stuart Gartner, Dr. Henry Grayson, Dan Halpern, Rita and Myron Hendel, Harrison Howard, Geoffrey Knauth, Drew Lawrence, Rachel Leheny, Jennifer Weis Monsky, Matthew and Miyoko Olszewski, Chris Schelling, Ken Skidmore, Komilla Sutton, Gerda Swearengen, Vincent Vichit-Vadakan, and Arthur Wooten. Thanks to Ronnie Smith, Barbara Pieroni, and the dedicated staff at Writer’s Relief, Inc. I send love and gratitude to the splendid folk on the BBSH healers listserve. Lorine “Granny Bee” Adkerson and Judy Poff are always in my heart.
Professors Michael McVaugh and James Beck kindly answered questions. They are not responsible for any mistakes herein. Frederic Morton and Judy Sarafini Sauli helped with research materials; Wendy Brandes Kassan read a draft and offered comments. Thank you all!
I would like to thank my mother, Jo Slatton, who raised a reader, and who supports me with encouragement and the sage advice, “Writers write.”
Without Jessica Hendel, this book would not exist. She read the first two chapters and said, “Write the rest, Mom. I have to know what happens to Luca!”
Naomi Hendel and Julia Howard have been tireless in their encouragement of my work. Madeleine Howard is a constant source of inspiration. And thank you to my husband, Sabin Howard, who owns every book imaginable on the Renaissance and who shares “Yes!” with me. Sabin is an extraordinary friend and support, and read every word of this novel at least five times.
Finally, I must acknowledge, with respect, Mr. Jon Hendel, who can rightly say “I called it first.”
About the Author
TRACI L. SLATTON is a graduate of Yale and Columbia, and she also attended the Barbara Brennan School of Healing. She lives in Manhattan with her husband, sculptor Sabin Howard, whose classical figures and love for Renaissance Italy inspired her to write a novel set during that time period. Immortal is her first novel.
IMMORTAL
A Delta Trade Paperback / February 2008
Published by Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc. New York, New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved
Copyright © 2008 by Traci L. Slatton
Delta is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Slatton, Traci L.
Immortal / Traci L. Slatton.
p. cm.
1. Orphans—Fiction. 2. Renaissance—Italy—Florence—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3619.L376I46 2008
813'.6—dc22
2007043737
www.bantamdell.com
eISBN: 978-0-440-33741-6
v3.0