Of Love and Evil (The Songs of the Seraphim 2)

I felt lost and knew only that I was wandering away from the houses to which I’d been sent. And when I thought of the soul of the dead man, going now to the utter unknown, I was desperate.

CHAPTER NINE

I STOPPED. I FOUND MYSELF IN A NARROW MUDDY LANE, overcome with the stench of the filth flowing into the gutters. I thought again of trying to reach a church, a place where I could go down on my knees in the shadows and pray to God for help with this, but then again the thought of the round yellow badge on the left side of my chest stopped me.

People passed me on both sides, some politely giving me room, others shouldering me out of their path, while others milled at the open cookshops and bakery shops. The fragrances of roasting meat and baked bread mingled with the stench.

I felt suddenly too weak in spirit to go further, and finding a narrow margin of wall between a fabric merchant’s open stall and a bookseller, I slipped my lute around into my arms, and then holding it like a baby, I leaned back and rested and tried to find above the narrow margin of the sky.

The light was dying fast. It was getting chilly. Lamps burned in the shops. A torchbearer made his way through the street with two smartly dressed young men behind him.

I realized I had no idea what month of the year it was here, and if it corresponded in some way to the late spring weather I’d left behind. But the Mission Inn, and my beloved Liona, seemed utterly remote, like something I’d dreamed. That I’d ever been Lucky the Fox, a paid assassin, seemed unreal as well.

Again, I prayed for Lodovico’s soul. But the words seemed meaningless suddenly, in the face of my failure, and then I heard a voice say very close to me,

“You don’t have to wear that badge.”

Before I could look up, I felt the badge being ripped from the velvet of my tunic. I saw a tall young man standing there, dressed very well in brilliant burgundy velvet, with dark hose and black boots. He wore a sword in a heavily jeweled scabbard, and a short cloak over his shoulders of gray velvet as fine as that of his tunic.

He had long hair, much like my own, but it was a soft brown in color, very lustrous and curled just as it touched his shoulders. His face was remarkably symmetrical and his full mouth very beautiful. He had large dark brown eyes.

In the gloved fingers of his right hand, he held the round yellow badge that he’d so easily ripped from its stitches, and he crumpled it up now, as best he could, and tucked it into his belt.

“You don’t need it,” he said in the most gentle confidential way. “You’re Vitale’s servant and he and all his household and family are exempt from wearing the badge. He should have thought to tell you to take it off.”

“But why, what does it matter?” I asked.

He lifted a short red velvet cape that he’d been carrying over his left arm and he put it over my shoulders. He then put a sword on me, buckling the belt into place. I stared at it. At the jeweled handle.

“What is all this?” I asked. “Who are you?”

“It’s time you had a little rest, and time to think,” he said in the same soft confidential voice. “I’m to take you away from here for a while, to give you some time for reflection.”

He took my arm. I slung the lute over my back again and let him lead me out of this alley.

It was now almost completely dark. Torches were passing us, making a spitting sound as they flared, and some of the shops now poured their light into the narrow walkway. I couldn’t quite see for the glare of the lights.

“Who sent you to me?” I asked.

“Who do you think?” he answered. He had slipped his arm around me, under the lute, and he was pressing me gently forward. His body seemed immaculately clean and smelled faintly of a dark sweet perfume.

The others I’d encountered here had not by any means been dirty, but even the best of them had a slightly dusty appearance and some smell of natural skin and hair.

This man gave off nothing of the sort.

“But what about Vitale?” I asked. “It’s all right to leave him at such a time?”

“Nothing will happen tonight,” the man assured me, looking directly into my eyes as he bent slightly towards me. “They’ll bury Lodovico, and it won’t be in consecrated ground, of course, but the father will accompany the body to the site. The household will mourn, whether it is permitted to mourn a suicide or not.”

“But that priest, Fr. Piero, what about his accusations, and I don’t know whether the dybbuk is still raging.”

“Why don’t you put yourself in my hands,” he said, as gently as if he were a physician, “and let me heal the pain you’re feeling? Let me suggest that you’re in no state to help anyone just now. You need to be refreshed.”

We walked through another huge piazza. Torches blazed at the entrances of the immense four-storied houses, and lights shone in myriad towers against the dark blue sky. A sprinkling of stars was visible.

I saw that men around me were very ornately dressed, flashing ringed fingers, or bright colored gloves, and many were hurrying in groups as if to an important destination.

Women in lavish silk and brocade made their way daintily through the dust, their drably dressed servants hurrying to catch up with them. Finely decorated litters passed, the bearers trotting under their burden, the passengers concealed behind brightly colored curtains. I could hear music in the distance, but the noise of voices swallowed it up.

I wanted to stop and take in all of this ever-shifting spectacle, but I was uneasy.

“Why didn’t Malchiah come to me?” I asked. “Why did he send you?”

The brown-haired man smiled and, looking at me lovingly as if I were a child in his care, he said, “Never mind about Malchiah. You will forgive me a little mocking tone when we speak of him, won’t you? The powerful ones are always mocked a little by the less powerful.” His eyes flashed with good humor. “Come, this is the Cardinal’s palazzo. The banquet has been going on since this afternoon.”

“What cardinal?” I whispered. “Who is he?”

“Does it matter? This is Rome in an age of splendor, and what have you seen of it, so far? Nothing but the dreary goings-on of one miserable household?”

“Wait a moment, I don’t …”

“Come now, it’s time to learn,” he said. And again it was as if he were talking to a small child. I found this both attractive and extremely off-putting. “You know what you’ve been longing to see all this time,” he went on, “and there are things that you should see here because they are a glorious part of this world.”