APRIL 7TH, 1498
The trial is set to begin at noon. The brothers of San Marco, led by the Angels in their white shirts, process from the monastery to the square in front of the Senatorial Palace. The fragrance of cut boughs fills the square. Half the Senate seems to be gathered in the Loggia, and more than half the city in the square itself. A walkway has been set up and filled with brushwood, green and full of sap. When it is lit, the two monks will walk over fire through the crowd. Girolamo sneezes, and blows his nose on his sleeve. Half the brothers of San Marco have spring colds, and now he seems to have caught one too.
The women and the Angels are stopped at the entrance to the square, where the company of mercenaries Silvestro has hired for San Marco are waiting. They are an eclectic bunch from all across Europe, led by a kilted Scottish captain, Ian Monroe. He nods to Girolamo, and his men close in around the procession of monks, leading them across the square. The sky is still clear, there’s no sign of the clouds that will close in with the spring storm later.
The Franciscans of Santa Croce process in from the other side as they come. The square is packed with men, supporters and adversaries alike. Women and children have been kept out, but he can see them packing the windows of all the buildings around, ready to watch the trial by fire as he and Isabella watched the joust. It is a rare entertainment, he supposes. He shakes his head. “Are you all right, Girolamo?” Pico asks.
He turns and sees him at his side, in his Dominican habit. He nods. “Just look how many people are gathered. Friends and enemies and those for whom it’s just a spectacle.”
“They’ve soaked the brushwood with oil and pitch and put gunpowder in it, to make it burn faster,” Domenico says, at his other side. “Are you sure you don’t want me to go into the fire? I’m ready.”
“I am also ready,” Girolamo says. Ready for martyrdom, or for Hell, or for whatever is coming next. He is ready to die. He has died in this square so many times, what can one more death mean? The fire will hurt, but it is nothing to Hell. It feels to him as if this avowal of faith might really be what is needed to get the stone into Hell.
“I’m sure this will bring down Pope Alexander and heal the Church,” Pico says.
Girolamo remembers the irritations and delays, and is prepared for them. He times it as well as he can, half an eye on the clouds. At the last minute, Brother Mariano contrives another delay, and Girolamo shrugs him off. “I’ll go alone,” he says. “I’m not afraid.” At last, dressed in the plain white habit Brother Mariano insisted on, stripped of the host and the crucifix but with the stone safely around his neck, he walks out confidently from the Loggia into the roaring fire. He is trying to pray, and behind him he can hear Domenico, Silvestro, and Pico praying fervently, chanting the “Our Father” as he has asked. The crowd gasps.
The fire is very hot under his feet, but he remembers Hell, where he expects to be very soon. If he manages to take the stone, then this will all be worthwhile. He feels his robe start to smoulder and walks on, smiling, one hand raised in benediction.
Girolamo makes it a quarter of the way across and is still alive and walking, though badly burned, when the rain comes, the sudden torrential downpour he remembers, that quenches the fires at once. “A miracle!” Domenico shouts, and he hears others take up the cry. The hot steam chokes him, and he feels himself falling onto the still smouldering coals. He clutches at the stone around his neck, afraid of dropping it. Men out of the crowd lift him up. He sees them, ordinary working men, Wailers, with tears on their faces, and among them the Scottish mercenary, Monroe, looking utterly amazed. “A miracle!” everyone is shouting, as Girolamo falls into darkness.
He expects to slam into Hell, so when he wakes to a cool breeze, breathing, with an arc of sunlight illuminating his crucifix, he thinks for a moment that he is in Heaven. Then he realises it is his cell in San Marco. A doctor is trying to make him drink something; he pushes the cup away impatiently. He had been sure he would die in the flames, and is confused to be alive. He clutches for the stone. It’s still safe around his neck, though he is naked under the blanket. What went wrong? Pico is there, bending over him. He tries to speak to him, but nothing comes out but a hiss.
“Drink this,” the doctor says, authoritatively. “It will ease your throat.” He drinks it, and the searing pain of swallowing makes him pass out.
Girolamo is woken again by pain, radiating out from his feet. It is dark, and he knows where he is. Had he felt God’s presence when he woke before? He almost persuades himself he did, so he tries to pray now before he opens his eyes. He finds the same emptiness as ever. The disappointment echoes through him and hurts much more than the pain of his burned flesh. He looks up. Pico is nodding in a chair, and a tallow candle is sputtering down in a saucer beside him, filling the cell with its greasy scent. Girolamo tries to speak, and again he cannot. He puts out his hand to Pico, who jerks awake at once.
“How are you?” Pico asks.
He shrugs, and gestures to his throat.
“The doctor says you have severe burns on your feet, which he has treated, and minor burns elsewhere. He says you should drink water with lemon juice and not try to eat yet.”
Girolamo would like to say that the last time he tried to drink it didn’t go well, but he accepts the cup and sips cautiously. This time the pain of swallowing is terrible, but bearable to his mortal flesh. He tries to speak again, and still can do nothing but make a scraping “Hhhh” of breath going out, or a hiss of drawing it in.
“I’ll get paper,” Pico says, and leaves, but comes back a moment later with the wax tablet and stylus from Girolamo’s desk. He uses them all the time for making notes for sermons. “This seems quicker,” Pico says.
“Thank you. Safer too,” he scrawls.
Pico bends over to read it, and grins. “No record.”
“What happened?” Girolamo writes.
“After? Everyone proclaimed it a miracle, even, at last, Brother Mariano. Your prestige is enormous. We’ve had half the city here asking after you, friends, enemies, the Lukewarm, ambassadors, and spies. You’re suddenly everyone’s well-beloved brother.” Pico stops smiling. “It was a true miracle, everyone agrees. Did you know God would send the rain?”
He nods.
“So what now?” Pico asks.
He shrugs again. “Council?” he writes.
“A meeting of the Chapter?” Pico asks, frowning.
He shakes his head.
“A Senate meeting?” Pico is holding on to the tablet, so Girolamo can’t expand his meaning. He hisses. It’s infuriating.
“Oh, you mean a Church Council? To depose the pope? And debate my Nine Hundred Theses? And reform the Church?”
Girolamo nods, although Pico’s Nine Hundred Theses had not been on the agenda in his mind. Pico hands back the tablet. “Get Angelo to write to everyone,” Girolamo writes. He underlines everyone, and adds, “Charles of France is dead, write to Louis. All kings. All cardinals. All.”
“Charles dead?” Pico asks, astonished.
Girolamo nods and waves away the distraction.
It takes nearly a year to convene the Council, a year in which Pope Alexander attacks him constantly, to no avail. His standing in Florence is too strong, since coming through the fire. The city will not accept even his excommunication or the interdict Pope Alexander tries to impose in desperation. Valori is unassailable in the Senate. His enemies in Florence are abashed. The cardinals start arriving. Emperor Maximilian comes, so do Stanislaus of Hungary and Isabella of Castille. Louis, the new king of France, does not. Pope Alexander’s price for giving him a divorce from his deformed wife so he could marry Charles’s widow, Anne, is that he shun the Council. He sends some cardinals along though, and England sends its one solitary cardinal. Girolamo still cannot speak to welcome them, and though it is a constant frustration, he writes speeches and sermons for others to give. His voice seems a small price to pay for this triumph. Pope Alexander writes to him conciliatingly, and he detects superstitious fear behind the words. At first, Girolamo had thought his survival was a failure, but now he battles pride constantly.
“When I was pope, it felt like someone else’s agenda. This Council is mine, mine and Pico’s,” he writes on the wax to Marsilio, who shakes his head. Marsilio is, again, the only one who truly knows what he is.
“I wish I was as sure as you are of what you’re doing,” he says. “It feels demonic. It feels like tempting God.”
Girolamo still can’t speak when it’s time to open what they are calling the Second Council of Florence. Pico is going to give the opening oration. He’s very excited about it all. Girolamo has agreed to give a silent blessing. He is a little worried that things will get out of his control, that they already are. Pico and Domenico are both bubbling with enthusiasm, and without a voice he can’t rein them in. He keeps the mercenary escort under Monroe to protect them when they go about in the city, though he has no open enemies now.
Pope Alexander remains in Rome. There wouldn’t be room for him anyway, Domenico jokes. Florence is full, as full as it was for the Council of 1439. People have come from every nation in Europe, bearded representatives of the Greek church, monks of every order, bishops, archbishops, cardinals. Even the king of distant Norway has sent a bishop. Every bed in the city is taken. The procession winds from San Marco to the Duomo for the service that will mark the formal beginning of the conference. The streets are lined with enthusiastic spectators, Florentines and curious visitors. It is almost sure that they will depose Pope Alexander. Everyone sees the triumph in the fire as proof of God’s support. Girolamo’s other wounds have healed, though his feet are still tender. He wishes he could speak.
As they turn the corner by the Baptistery, Girolamo is surprised to see Cesare Borgia in the crowd. He recognises him from his previous life, where they sat on the council of cardinals together. Cesare is a cardinal now, and if he’s here he should be in the procession. But he hasn’t announced his arrival, and is dressed as a student, not a cardinal. Girolamo frowns and hisses, but no one pays any attention to him. Monroe and his other mercenary bodyguards step aside as arranged as they come to the steps of the cathedral. Is Cesare here as a spy? He wouldn’t know that Girolamo would recognise him. Their eyes meet. What Girolamo sees there alarms him, and he hisses again in shock and alarm, trying to call back Monroe to help him, but it is too late. Cesare takes a swift step forward, and before anyone can stop him the knife he had concealed in his hand is sticking out of Girolamo’s chest.