Bless me, God, so that I may remember.
And he did. He remembered all of it, as clearly as if he was experiencing it for the first time. Was this God’s love? Or, by invoking those names that Brother Albertus had taught him, had he transgressed against the glory of God? Algaros, Theomiros.... The names of angels, according to Brother Albertus, aspects of God that would fill him with the celestial majesty.
He had tried to forget. After covering and burying the dead, he had knelt in prayer before the hearth where the woman had been killed. He had asked God to undo all that had been done to him. He did not want to remember anymore. He wanted to open his eyes and be innocent again.
But God never answered his prayer. His knees aching, the wound in his abdomen slowly weeping down his side, he had refused to quit praying. He would pray until God heard him, or until his soul went to God directly. He wouldn’t stop.
And then the angels had come. First, they were nothing more than beams of light, streaming through the holes in the rough walls of the house. They came swirling and combining into a winged figure that floated over the hearth.
Aperi mititissime animam meam. Mercifully open the dullness of my soul...
Rodrigo clenched Colonna’s earthenware jar tight to this chest. Our secrets, he thought, imagining a great door closing over the part of his memory that refused to fade.
A clatter of metal and the chatter of voices drew him away from that memory and cast him into another. Soldiers, wearing purple and white, were coming toward him and the smoking hole of the secret entrance of the Septizodium. Rodrigo saw them coming, but he also saw—with equal clarity—a sweltering afternoon in a marketplace. Ferenc was there, riding beside him, and there was a girl too. Behind them. Watching them. He had seen her again. Where? In the darkness of the dragon’s belly, before it had been woken from its slumber. Like a tiny bird that had been swallowed, she had fluttered down into their prison. She had brought him something... the ring! Archbishop Csák’s signet ring.
“Father Rodrigo.”
He started, blinking heavily. His vision blurred, swimming with too many distinct images, too many layers overlapping. Eventually, cleared away by a minute wash of tears, all that remained was the concerned faces of Cardinal Colonna and another man whom he recognized but did not know. “Yes?” he said.
Colonna indicated the other man. “This is Master Constable Alatrinus.” His voice was flat. “He and his men are here to ensure our safety...”
The Master Constable nodded. “Please, Father. Let my men escort you.”
“Where?” Rodrigo managed. He was still clenching the jar, and he lowered his arms, though he did not relinquish his burden. He caught sight of a ring on his right thumb, and he stared at the ornate band. The Archbishop had been a large man, much heavier and taller than Rodrigo, and his hands had been enormous.
But that wasn’t why he stared at the ring. He stared because he had no memory of putting it there.
“A safe distance,” the Master Constable said. He put a hand on Rodrigo’s shoulder and squeezed slightly, misinterpreting the priest’s confusion as being caused by inhaling too much smoke.
One of the guards called for the Master Constable’s attention, and the hand disappeared from Rodrigo’s shoulder. Someone else was coming out of the tunnel, a soot-blackened apparition with white hair.
“It’s Capocci,” Colonna breathed with a sigh of relief.
Confusion grew as more guards arrived, overfilling the narrow terminus of the alley. The Master Constable shoved his way through the crowd to Capocci’s side as the white-bearded Cardinal sank to the ground. Rodrigo could not hear the Cardinal’s response to the Master Constable’s question, but the answer was plain to read on the latter’s face as he stood.
“Find out how many they’re pulling out of the courtyard,” he said to one of his men. “Tell them I have three. Get an accurate count.” The man nodded, and brushing past Colonna and Rodrigo, he ran to deliver his message.
As several other soldiers knelt to help Capocci to his feet, the Master Constable gingerly approached the smoking mouth of the tunnel entrance. Was he going to go in? Rodrigo felt a shout rising in his throat; he wanted to warn the Master Constable. How could the man not see that no one could still be alive in there?
“Ho!” the Master Constable shouted. “Is anyone there?”
Rodrigo choked on his words as something moved in the darkness of the door. The Master Constable jumped back, startled by the sudden appearance of a figure. What had he summoned with his words?