MAY 23RD, 1498
Marsilio is sixty-five years old, but he is not out of breath when the guards let him into the cell they call the little inn, despite all the steps up between the Senatorial Square and the tower. He goes immediately to the window. “What a wonderful view,” he says. “The river, and the hills behind. Though it might be more interesting to look the other way and see the cathedral.”
Girolamo nods. There are wisps of cloud down low above the hills, but the rest of the sky is clear and blue. The sun is beginning its descent towards the horizon, and the last sunset he will ever see in this life, perhaps his last ever. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
Marsilio turns from the window. “I said I’d come when it was time.”
“Why didn’t you come before?”
Marsilio gives him one of his gentle smiles. “Because we need to be honest with each other, and I don’t think we could have been, before. You told me what you are. I don’t recall any previous versions of my life, but I believed you and I still do. Lying to each other would have been bad for both of our souls. Now, however, we can be honest with each other. I’ve been researching how you might get the stone into Hell, though it’s very strange to do research thinking I might be retracing steps I took before but don’t remember taking.”
“We could have been honest,” Girolamo protests.
“But you went through with that false exorcism,” Marsilio says.
Girolamo sighs, and gestures towards the window. “That view, or a painting by Brother Angelico, the taste of a grape, the twittering of swallows in the eaves, plainsong, or the sound of a girl singing a ballad drifting from a window, fresh new cheese on chewy bread, books I haven’t read, and ones I’ve read a dozen times— Earth is very sweet compared to Hell, and there was valuable work I could do in Florence.”
“You’ve helped a lot of simple souls find God,” Marsilio agrees. “But have you prayed?”
“Only into emptiness,” he admits.
“Have you tried praying to saints to intercede for you?”
He nods.
“I have thought that perhaps you could write down a prayer and I could speak it for you,” Marsilio says.
“We tried that last time,” he says. “I couldn’t do it.”
“Try now.”
He takes up a sheet of paper left over from his meditation on the psalms, which he delivered to his brothers that afternoon. He begins to write. Unlike last time he manages to say something, though he knows God will not hear, and as he writes he pours out his confusion and anger and bitterness and gratitude and hope, filling the page with a desperate scrawl. He gives it to Marsilio, ashamed to have him see it. This is and is not the Marsilio who was his friend. He is the same essential man, but different in the detail of his memory and experience. He does not know Girolamo as his other self did. Marsilio glances at the paper, and puts it inside his robes without reading it. “I will pray for you, now and at the hour of your death,” Marsilio says.
“Have they built the pyre already?” he asks.
“Yes.” Marsilio smiles. “People said the stake looked too much like a cross, as if they were going to crucify you. So they sent Battista up to saw off the crosspieces very short. Now it’s narrow and long necked, and with the ladder leaning against it, it looks more like a giraffe.”
Girolamo laughs. “I never saw it that way. Thank you.”
Marsilio nods, then looks serious. “Now. You have the stone?”
“Yes. Lucrezia Salviati brought it. I’ve had it safe ever since.”
Marsilio nods. “I asked her to steal it from Santa Croce and deliver it to you, and no one ever suspected her.”
“She’s very clever,” Girolamo agrees.
“The best of all Lorenzo’s children. She likes you, too. She even asked her friends in the Ballsy faction not to vote to condemn you. How do you plan to take the harrow into Hell?”
“I thought I might cut a slit in my belly and put it inside,” he says. “Except I am worried about that killing me.”
“What, hours before the fire?” Marsilio teases gently. “Or are you afraid of suicide?”
“Last time, even though we did so much that was so different, I still ended up dying above the fire on the same day,” he says. “I can’t help thinking it might be what God wants, and if so, I don’t want to interfere with that.”
Marsilio nods. “So you want to cut the slit immediately before?”
“Yes. But they’d see, and I don’t have a dagger in any case.”
“And what makes you think it would work?”
“Sheer desperation,” he says.
Marsilio laughs. “Well, it’s worth trying. It doesn’t have to be your belly. And I thought of that too, so I brought a scalpel and some silk thread to sew you up again.”
“Wonderful!”
“I think the best place would be in your chest to be close to your heart,” Marsilio says.
Girolamo gasps. “And that won’t kill me immediately?”
“Certainly not. Infection might kill you later, but there won’t be a later, will there? It’ll hurt, and you’ll have to keep still while I cut into you. Take your clothes right off, there’s going to be a lot of blood.”
He takes off his clothes and piles them on the stool, as Marsilio pulls the mattress under the window, to have better light. “It will be practice for Hell,” he says,
“Really?” Marsilio asks.
Girolamo lies down on his back and sets the stone on his belly. It doesn’t feel warm or cold, as it had been against his skin before. “No. Suffering under a friend’s knife, for a good purpose, is nothing like Hell, no matter how much it hurts. There’s neither hope nor friendship possible in Hell.”
Marsilio has the scalpel in one hand, and a mass of cloth in the other. He is frowning a little as he looks at Girolamo’s bare chest. Girolamo remembers that Marsilio is a doctor of souls, and though his father was a doctor, surgical skill is not inherited. Girolamo himself studied medicine at Padua, in his youth, when Marsilio had been studying Greek. But perhaps his father taught him some things. He hopes so.
“Don’t cry out,” Marsilio says. “The guards would be in here in a moment, and then I’d be burning beside you in the morning.”
“Are you sure you want to take the risk?”
“The possible salvation of all the fallen angels may rest on this,” Marsilio says. “St Luke guide my hand, St Cosmas and St Damian lend me skill.”
With no more hesitation, he slices into Girolamo’s skin. He blots the blood at once with the cloth. Girolamo shuts his eyes and grits his teeth and endures the pain in silence, even when the stone grinds against his ribs, agonisingly.
“There, sit up,” Marsilio says, after a surprisingly short time. “I have to sew you up again, but that will be easier if you lean against the wall.”
He sits up. The wound is bloody but not very large. He can feel the pressure of the stone in his chest, but it doesn’t hurt. “Much less bad than being tortured,” he says.
Marsilio takes up a needle threaded with a length of strong silk. “Glad to hear it. I hope it works.”
“I know my body won’t go to Hell.”
“How do you know that?” Marsilio starts to sew Girolamo’s flesh together.
“I have a different body there. But I think this may work, when my flesh is transformed.”
“What are you going to do next time, if this doesn’t work?” Marsilio asks, continuing to sew, his eyes on the flaps of skin.
Girolamo has been thinking about this. He knows he won’t be able to think about it properly in Hell. “This time I tried to do everything as closely as possible to what feels like right. If it doesn’t work, and if I am granted another chance, I’m going to try doing different things.”
“That seems sensible. What?”
“There seem to be three other paths, if this doesn’t work. My first thought is to try this again, only this time to walk into the fire, with the stone. Maybe dying then would take it into Hell with me.”
“It’s tempting God,” Marsilio says.
Girolamo nods. “Yes, but God sends the rain to put the fire out. It might be what he wants. Dying that way, perhaps the stone would come with me.”
“Mmm. What are the others?”
“The second is that if what Crookback said is true, if it’s the key that Christ gave Peter, then perhaps it needs to be used by the Pope, from Peter’s throne.”
“You think you could make yourself pope?” Marsilio asks, stitching away neatly.
“Maybe. In 1495, or early in 1496, Pope Alexander offers to make me a cardinal. I could accept that, and do my best with politics in Rome to make myself pope. Alexander’s so corrupt, when he dies the college of cardinals might well want to vote for someone more devout. If not me, maybe someone I could trust to use the stone for me. And if I were pope I could at least try to make the whole world pure, as I’ve tried to do here.” Girolamo winces at the pain of the stabbing needle, and tries to hold still.
Marsilio’s face doesn’t show any reaction. “What’s the third?”
“Well, why do I have the stone? Why me, why now?”
“I’ve wondered about that. You might be the first demon to be contrite.” Marsilio ties off his thread and bites the end, neat as a master of the linen guild.
“If that kind of thing is the case, maybe I need to improve my soul.”
“Oh yes! Splendid,” Marsilio says. He wipes Girolamo’s chest and passes him his clothes. The wound burns and throbs, and the thread tugs as Girolamo pulls his habit over his head.
“You think that’s more likely to work?”
“I don’t know, but it seems better for you. How would you do it?” Marsilio wipes his hands on the cloth, and puts the scalpel and needle case back inside his clothes.
“I thought I’d leave Florence, travel, read, try to learn something different. At the very least I’d be having conversations I hadn’t had before and meeting people I don’t already know.”
“I have some friends in other cities I might suggest you look up.” Marsilio smiles. “I can’t write down their names and addresses for you, but you might remember.”
“Oh, thank you!” Girolamo is absurdly touched that Marsilio, knowing what he is, trusts him with his friends.
“I don’t want to burden you with too many. Let me see. There’s Carlo Valugi in Brescia, Oliviero di Tadduo Arduini in Pisa; he died this year, but that shouldn’t stop you! Marco Aurelio in Venice—and another Venetian, Bernardo Bembo, the poet. He might not be in Venice though, he’s an ambassador. His young son is very promising too, Pietro. In Rome there’s Domenico Galletti, he’s an Apostolic secretary, and a Platonist.”
“And should I tell you what I really am?” he asks.
“Of course you should!” Marsilio looks mildly astonished at the thought. “Knowing you are a demon, that there are no human souls in Hell now, that you have the stone of Titurel and are seeking for a way to harrow Hell, that demon souls may be redeemable—even if I can’t help, and I might be able to, how could I want to be ignorant of these things, in any world, when they are so important?”
It hurts to say, but it’s true. “Pico didn’t want to know.”
“You startled him and frightened him, this time,” Marsilio says. “Tell him more gently, if you’re going to tell him. If you march into a man’s bedroom in the middle of the night and declare that you’re a demon, it’s going to be hard for him to take it in. Very few of us can be sure of telling good from evil.”
“And Angelo?”
Marsilio looks sad. “Dear Angelo quarrelled with me when I warned him not to eat with Piero. He didn’t go, but he hasn’t been warm towards me since. I should count it a triumph, because he’s still alive, but it’s sad to lose a friend.”
Girolamo nods. “I know. I shouldn’t tell them.”
“I would say rather you should be careful how you tell them. Or anyone you want to tell. Even I have doubted you, sometimes, as you seemed to rise so high in the state and gained power, and when you wanted to take the host into the flames.”
“But that might be what God wants,” he says. “It’s so hard to know.”
“How many times have you tried to take the stone into Hell?” Marsilio asks.
“This is the second time I’ve tried knowingly,” he says.
“Maybe it will work the next time, the third. Or the seventh.”
“I only have three plans: taking the stone into the fire, becoming pope, and improving my soul. That would make it five times.” Girolamo feels exhausted at the thought.
“Maybe we will have other ideas, if those don’t work,” Marsilio says. He pats Girolamo’s shoulder gently. “I’ll do everything I can to help, in any life.”
“Could you teach me to raise my soul to the higher hypostasis?” Girolamo asks, tentatively.
“I don’t know.” Marsilio looks intrigued. “Didn’t I try last time? I wonder why not? Perhaps because prayer is a good part of it.”
“Of course,” he says, crushed. The wound throbs. “Which do you think I should try first?”
“Perhaps being pope?” Marsilio suggests, cautiously. “We know it’s a harrow because Lorenzo recognised it. Crookback recognised it as St Peter’s key, for binding and loosing. It seems promising.”
“I’ll try that first then,” Girolamo says. “If this doesn’t work.”
“Do you want to confess to me?” Marsilio asks.
“I’m a demon!”
“Yes, but you have the stone, and you are contrite. I am a priest. I can absolve you. If you want that.”
He doesn’t know what he wants. He would love to confess. “I’m not worthy.”
“None of us is worthy but by God’s special grace,” Marsilio says. “Come on now, the sun is sinking, and time is getting short.”
Girolamo hesitates for a moment, staring at his bare feet on the red tiles. “I was an angel in Heaven, and I opposed God’s will, knowing that I was doing that. I wanted to make a world without pain, before I knew what pain was, or free will. God is both greater and more glorious than even you imagine. How could I have turned away? How could we have imagined we knew better? We wanted a world without pain, before we knew what pain was, and instead we created pain. I thought I knew better than God. That is the sin of pride. And wrath. And more pride, always pride.”
“God cannot want empty thrones in Heaven,” Marsilio says.
“He sent his son to save humanity,” Girolamo says.
“How many times, I wonder?” Marsilio asks.
Girolamo looks at him, startled.
“Go on with your confession,” Marsilio says. “You opposed God’s will. And you are sorry?”
“Endlessly sorry. I understand now how wrong I was.” He shakes his head.
“What else?”
“It’s complicated. I have offered communion, as a demon, and heard confessions, and acted as a priest, all the time knowing I was a demon. I knew it was wrong, but I can’t see what else I could have done, if it was God’s will for me to help Florence. I want to confess it, but I don’t know if I am properly contrite. And if I am to try to become pope, or at least a cardinal, or if I am to try this life again and go into the fire, I can’t even promise not to repeat my sin.”
Marsilio nods. “Go on.”
“Cowardice. Gluttony.”
“Gluttony?” Marsilio raises his eyebrows.
“You were surprised last time too. I enjoy the taste of food, more than is right. I don’t just use it for sustenance. I savour it. That’s gluttony.”
“I’m not sure it is, but I will absolve you of it if you feel it is. And the rest. I absolve you of pride and opposing God and gluttony, and as for the false priesthood, if it was God’s will, it is no sin. If not, then you will know when this works, or doesn’t. Give it up if you can, and do as little of it as you can, unless it is God’s will. If only we could know.” Marsilio sighs. “From what I hear of the cardinals in Rome, it will be easy not to perform the sacraments there.”
Girolamo bows his head and Marsilio signs him with the cross. They sit in silence for a few breaths, looking out of the window. The western sky is crimson, the sun is a ball of fire, and the wisps of clouds are like wings of flame.
There is a knock at the door.
“That will be the guards to take me back down all those stairs,” Marsilio says. “Well, climbing them is the price for the view, I suppose. I’d like to go to the top of this tower sometime, on a clear day.”
“I’ve done that a few times in this life. It’s wonderful. You can see the whole city, like a toy spread out on a table.” Girolamo embraces Marsilio, as always amazed at how tiny the great man is. The guard has opened the door and is watching them.
“Well, good luck. Don’t forget I’ll be praying for you,” Marsilio says.
The guard locks the door again. Girolamo hears the bolt shooting into place as he sits down. The sound is like doom, and he struggles against a sudden crash in his spirits. He doesn’t feel blessed, or absolved. The stone, inside him, twinges, and the stitches feel red hot. The sun has slipped beneath the horizon and the sky is fading to purple. He tries to console himself remembering the names Marsilio told him. Friends he hasn’t met yet, friends for another life, maybe. If there is a next time. Hell yawns huge and terrible between now and then. At the thought of Hell, he notices a demon lurking in the corner of the cell. It is a head scuttling sideways, crablike, on a pair of hands. Could it be Crookback? He throws his shoe at it.