by Rice, Anne
In my sickness, in my fever, I saw everything.
I saw the demons fashioned in the glittering windows, as artfully put together of red and gold and blue glass as any angels or saints. I saw their leering faces as they peered down, these monsters with their webbed wings and clawlike hands, upon the congregation.
Below, allowing a broad central aisle, was gathered in its ruby dark finery the great Court on either side, standing to face the long heavily carved and broad Communion Rail and the high altar behind it.
Paintings covered the cove behind the altar. Demons dancing in Hell, graceful among the flames as though they bathed in a welcome radiance, and strung above them on loose and unfurling banners the golden letters from St. Augustine’s words, so familiar to my study, that these flames were not the flames of real fire but only the absence from God, but the word “absence” had been replaced by the Latin word for “freedom.”
“Freedom” was the word in Latin worked into the high white marble walls, in a frieze that ran beneath the balconies on either side of the church, on the same level as this, my place, in which more of the Court beheld the spectacle.
Light rose to flood the high-groined arches of the roof.
And what was this spectacle?
The high altar was draped in crimson trimmed in gilt fringe, its abundant cloths short enough to reveal the tableau in white carving of figures prancing in Hell, though from this great distance my eyes might have deceived me as to their levity.
What I did see with perfection were the thick candlesticks before not a crucifix but a huge carved stone replica of Lucifer, the fallen angel, long locks aflame, and garments too a torrent of rising fire, frozen in marble, and in his upraised hands the symbols of death—in the right the scythe of the grim reaper—and in the other the sword of the executioner.
I gasped when I beheld the image! Monstrous, it was positioned precisely where I wanted so to see my Crucified Christ, and yet in a moment of delirium and agitation, I felt my lips curl in a smile, and I heard my own mind tell me cunningly that there was nothing less grotesque about the Crucified God if He Himself had been there.
My guards held me firm. Had I tottered?
From the assemblage around me and behind me, from those whom I had not even regarded, there came suddenly the muted roll of drums, ominous and slow, mournful and beautiful in their own muffled simplicity.
At once there followed a deep-throated chorus of horns, in lovely weaving song and effortless sweet intermingling, playing not the repetitious chord music of the night before, but a strong plaintive and imploring polyphony of melodies so sad that they flooded my heart with sadness, stroked my heart and made the tears nearly spring to my eyes.
Oh, what is this? What is this blended and rich music, surrounding me and pouring forth into the nave to echo off the satiny marble and rebound gently and with perfect modulation to the place where I stood, staring, rapt at the distant figure of Lucifer?
At his feet, all flowers laid out in vessels of silver and gold were red, the red of roses and carnations, the red of the iris, the red of wildflowers I could not name, an altar alive and decked and crawling with all those things which were high color, his glorious tint, the one color left to him that might rise from his inevitable and unredeemable darkness.
I heard the dusty, sonorous songs of the reed shawm, the small oboe and the reed dulcian, and other small reed organs played by mouth, and then the more ringing tone of the brass sackbut horn, and perhaps even the light singing of the hammers striking the taut strings of the dulcimer.
This music alone might have engaged me, filled my soul, its threads of melody interweaving, overlapping, harmonizing and then drifting apart. It left me no breath to speak or eyes for other things. Yet I beheld the statues of the demons who ran from right to left—so like the Lords and Ladies of the Courtly table of last night—from the imposing figure of their Devil.
Were they blood drinkers all, these terrible gaunt saints of Hell, carved from hardwood with its own reddish mahogany glint, in their stark stylized garments, cleaving to thin bodies, their eyes half-lidded, their mouths open, and against each lower lip two white fangs, as if made from tiny bits of snow-white ivory to mark the purpose of each individual monster?
Oh, Cathedral of horrors. I tried to turn my head, to close my eyes, and yet the monstrosity of it enthralled me. Pathetic unformed thoughts never reached my lips.
The horns died around me, and the reedy woodland instruments died away. Oh, don’t go, sweet music. Don’t leave me here.
But what came was a chorus of the sweetest softest tenor voices; they called out the Latin words that I could not follow, an anthem for the dead, an anthem on the mutability of all things, and at once came a full lustrous harmonizing chorus of sopranos male and female, of basses and baritones, singing heartily in splendid polyphony in answer to these lone tenors:
“I go now to the Lord, for He has allowed these Creatures of Darkness to answer my supplications …”
What nightmarish words were these?
Once again there came the rich thick chorus of many voices to underscore the tenors:
“The instruments of death await me in their warm and devout kiss, and into their bodies, by the will of God, they shall take my life’s blood, my rapture, my soul’s ascent through their own, so as better to know both Heaven and Hell in their Dark Service.”
The reed organ played its solemn song.
Into the Sanctuary of the church, there proceeded now, to the fullest most lustrous strength of the polyphony yet, a stream of priestly figures.
I saw the Lord Florian in a rich red chasuble as if he were the bishop of Florence himself, only this garment bore the Cross of Christ impudently upside down in honor of the Damned One, and on his untonsured head of dark blond hair he wore a gilded jeweled crown as if he were both Frankish monarch and servant of the Dark Lord.
The strong piercing notes of the horns dominated the song. A march had begun. The drums rumbled beneath, hushed and steady.
Florian had taken his place before the altar with his face to the congregation, and on one side of him stood the fragile Ursula, her hair full and loose and down on her shoulders, though shrouded like a Mary Magdalene in a scarlet veil which hung to the very edge of the hem of her tapering gown.
Her upturned face was directed to me, and I could see even from this great airy span that her hands, shaped as a steeple, with fingers pressed together, trembled.
On the other side of this high priest Florian stood his bald Elder, in his own chasuble and thick embroidered lace sleeves, another priestly assistant.
Acolytes came from either side, tallish young demons with faces of the usual chiseled ivory, and the simple surplices of those who attend the Mass. They took their positions ranked down the long marble Communion Rail.
Once again, there rose the magnificent chorus of voices around me, falsettos mingling with true sopranos and the throbbing basses of the males, as redolent of the woodlands as the wooden horns, and beneath it all the heavy driving brass declaration.
What did they mean to do? What was this hymn which now the tenors sang, and what was the answer that came from all the voices so close to me, the words in Latin unstrung and only incoherently enveloping me:
“Lord, I am come into the Valley of Death; Lord, I am come to the end of my Sorrow; Lord, in thy deliverance I give life to those who would be idle in Hell were it not for thy divine plan.”
My soul rebelled. I loathed it, and yet I could not look away from the spectacle below. My eyes swept the church. I saw for the first time the gaunt, demonic fanged demons on their pedestals rising between the narrow windows, and everywhere the glint of racks upon racks of tiny candles.
The music broke again for the solemn declaration of the tenors:
“Let the fount be brought forward, that those who are our sacrifices should be washed clean.”
And it was done.
Ranks of young demons in their guise as Altar Boys c
ame forward, carrying with them in their preternaturally strong hands a magnificent baptismal fount of deep-pink Carrara marble. This they set some ten feet before the Communion Rail.
“Oh, abominations, to make it so beautiful,” I whispered.
“Quiet now, my young one,” said the regal guard beside me. “Watch, for what you see here you will never see between Heaven and Earth again, and as you will go unconfessed to God, you will burn in darkness forever.”
He sounded as if he believed it.
“You have no power to damn my soul,” I whispered, trying in vain to clear my eyes, not to so love the weakness that still caused me to depend upon their clamping hands.
“Ursula, farewell,” I whispered, making of my lips a kiss.
But in this miraculous and private little moment, seemingly unnoticed by the whole congregation, I saw her head shake in a small secretive negation.
No one saw because all eyes were now on another spectacle, far more tragic than any of the controlled and modulated ritual we had beheld.
Up the aisle, driven by acolyte demons in tunics of red and lace sleeves trimmed in red and gold, there came a poor wretched sampling of the lost ones of the coop, shuffling old women, drunken men and little boys, mere children, clinging to the very demons who escorted them to their deaths, like piteous victims of some horrid old trial where the offspring of the condemned are led to execution with their parents. Horror.
“I curse you all. I damn you. God, bring down your justice on this,” I whispered. “God, bring down your tears. Weep for us, Christ, that this is happening.”
My eyes turned up in my head. It seemed I dreamed, and once again came the bright green limitless meadow to my eyes, and once again, as Ursula ran from me, as her spirited young form rushed across the high breaking field of grass and lilies, there rose another figure, another familiar figure—.
“Yes, I see you!” I cried out to this vision in my half-rescued dream.
But no sooner had I recognized it, locked to it, than it vanished; it was gone, and with it was gone all comprehension of it, all memory of its exquisite face and form and its meaning, its pure and powerful meaning. Words fled from me.
From below I saw the Lord Florian look up, angered, silent. The hands beside me dug into my flesh.
“Silence,” said the guards next to me, their commands overlapping one another.
The lovely music rose higher and higher, as though the climbing soprano voices and the throbbing, winding horns would hush me now and pay tribute only to the unholy baptism.
The baptism had begun. The first victim, an ancient woman of bent and bony back, had been stripped of her poor garments and washed with handfuls of water in the fount, and now was led to the Communion Rail, oh, so frail, so unprotected by her kith and kin and her guardian angels!
Oh, and now to see the children stripped, to see their tiny little legs and buttocks bare, to see their bony shoulders, those tiny parts where it seemed the winglets of baby angels once sprouted from their backs, to see them washed and then delivered to stand trembling along the stretch of marble balustrade.
It happened very fast.
“Cursed animals, for that is what you are, not airy demons, no!” I muttered, struggling in the grasp of the two loathsome minions. “Yes, cowardly minions, both of you, to be a party to this evil.”
The music drowned out my prayers. “Dear God, send my angels to me,” I said to my heart, my secret heart, “send my wrathful angels, send them with your fiery sword. God, this cannot be borne.”
The Communion Rail now had its full complement of victims, naked and trembling all, and blazing with carnal human color against the luminous marble and the colorless priests.
The candles flickered on the giant Lucifer, with its great webbed wings, who presided over all.
The Lord Florian now stepped down to take the first Communicant in his hands, and lowered his lips to drink.
The drums beat fierce and sweet, and the voices twined and reached to Heaven. But there was no Heaven here beneath these branching white columns, these groined arches. There was nothing but death.
All the Court had begun to make two streams along the sides of the chapel marching silently up to come behind the Communion Rail, where each might take a victim from those who stood helpless and ready, and now Lord and Lady chose which they wanted, and some shared, and one victim was passed from one to another, and so on it went, this mockery, this lurid, predatory Communion.
Only Ursula did not move.
The Communicants were dying. Some were already dead. None struck the floor. Their pliant dried-up limbs were captured silently and deftly by the attendant demons, and bodies were whisked away.
More victims were still being bathed. Others were taken to the Rail. On it went.
The Lord Florian drank again and again, one child after another put before him, his slender fingers capturing the small neck and holding it as he bent his lips.
I wonder what Latin words he dared to speak.
Slowly the members of the Court slipped out of the Sanctuary, moving down the side aisles again to pivot and take their old stance. They had had their fill.
All through the room the color of blood infused once pallid faces, and it seemed to my misted vision, to my head so full of the loveliness of song, that they all were human now, human for this little while.
“Yes,” said Florian, his voice arching out soft and sure to my ears over the length of the nave. “Human now for this one instant, with the blood of the living, incarnated again, we are, young prince. You have understood it.”
“Ah, but Lord,” I said, in my exhausted whisper, “I do not forgive it.”
An interval of silence fell. Then the tenors declared:
“It is time, and the midnight hour is not finished.”
The sure and tight hands in which I was held focused me now to the side. I was spirited out of the choir loft and down the winding screw stairs of white marble.
As I came to myself, still supported, staring up the center aisle, I saw that only the baptistry fount remained. All victims were gone.
But a great cross had been brought into the hall. It had been positioned upside down, to one side of the altar, and forward, at the Communion Rail.
The Lord Florian held up for me to see five huge iron nails in his hand, and beckoned for me to come.
The cross was anchored into place, as though it had often been brought to this spot. It was made of rich hardwood, thick, heavy and polished smooth, though it bore the marks of other nails, and no doubt the stains of other blood.
The very bottom of it fitted right at the Railing itself against the marble banister, so that he who was to be crucified would be three feet above the floor and visible to all the worshippers.
“The worshippers, you filthy lot!” I laughed. Thank God and all his angels that the eyes of my father and mother were filled with celestial light and could see nothing of this crude degradation.
The Elder revealed to me in his outstretched hands two golden goblets.
I knew the meaning. With these, to catch my blood as it gushed from the wounds made by the nails.
He bowed his head.
I was forced up the aisle. The statue of Lucifer grew immense behind the glittering pontifical figure of Florian. My feet did not touch the marble. All around me the members of the Court turned to attend my progress, but never so much that their eyes were not upon their Lord.
Before the baptismal fount my face was washed.
I tossed my head, twisting my neck, throwing the water impudently on those who tried to bathe me. The acolytes were in fear of me. They approached and reached hesitantly for my buckles.
“Strip him,” said the Lord, and once again he held up the nails for me to see.
“I see well enough, my cowardly Lord,” I said. “It is nothing to crucify a boy such as me. Save your soul, Lord, do that! And all your Court will wonder.”
The music swelled from the loft above. The chorus c
ame again, answering and underscoring the anthem of the tenors.
There were no words for me now; there was only candlelight and the knowledge that my clothes were about to be taken from me, and that this horror would take place, this evil inverted crucifixion, never sanctified by St. Peter himself, for the inverted cross not now to be a symbol of the Evil One.
Suddenly the trembling hands of the acolytes withdrew.
Above, the horns played their most beautiful poignant melody.
The tenors hurled out their question, in flawless voices, from the loft above:
“Can this one not be saved? Can this one not be delivered?”
The chorus rose, in unison:
“Can this one not be released from the power of Satan?”
Ursula stepped forward and drew from her head the immense long red veil that hung to her feet, and threw it out so that it descended like a cloud of red around her. Beside her, an acolyte appeared with my very sword in his hand, and my daggers.
Once again the tenor voices implored:
“One soul released to go forth into the world, mad, and bearing witness only to the most patient ears to the power of Satan.”
The chorus sang, a riot of melody erupting from them, and it seemed a swift affirmation had overtaken their song.
“What, not to die!” I said. I strained to see the face of the Lord in whose hands all of this rested. But he was blocked from my view.
Godric the Elder had come between. Opening the gate of the marble Communion Rail with his knee, he moved down the aisle towards me. He thrust one of his golden cups to my lips.
“Drink and forget, Vittorio, else we lose her heart and her soul.”
“Oh, but then you must lose it!”
“No!” she screamed. “No.” Over his shoulder, I could see her snatch three of the nails from Florian’s left hand and fling them out on the marble. The singing rose high and rich under the arches. I couldn’t hear the nails strike the stone.
The sound of the choir was jubilant, celebratory. The mournful tones of requiem were gone.
“No, God, if you would save her soul, then take me to the cross, take me!”