It was strange … He who suffered so much from the heat had begun to feel chilled to the bone after Benoît’s death.
It was as though the sweet reminiscences that had up until then moved and comforted Honorius Benedetti, the deceased Benoît XI’s camerlingo, during his darkest hours had been sucked into a bottomless pit. Where was the memory of the exquisite lady’s fan he had put away in a drawer, and the swim in the icy river from which he and his brother had emerged pink with cold and delight, only to discover that their feet were bleeding? Honorius, who had been five at the time, had screamed out that they were going to die. Bernardo had quickly rallied, taking his younger brother in his arms and explaining that the crayfish had cut them, but that they would get their own back by having them for lunch. They had gorged themselves on the grilled creatures before falling asleep. Their mother … The intoxicating smell of her hair rinsed in honey and lavender water, which made them want to breathe it in, put it in their mouths and swallow it. What had become of these comforting memories?
Exaudi, Deus, orationem meam cum deprecor, a timore inimici eripe animam meam.85
It was Benoît. Benoît had taken them with him when he died. If only Honorius could resent him for it then his beautiful memories would come flooding back. But he could not. Benoît and his angelic obstinacy. Benoît and his gentle determination.
A wave of sadness filled his eyes with tears. Sweet Benoît.
I loved you dearly, brother. The eight months I spent in your company were my only solace in this palace full of loathsome, sickening fools. Why did you force me to kill such purity, Benoît? I didn’t care about the others, mere insects borne by the wind. When I held you in my arms, when you spewed your blood, I knew that this cold would haunt me for ever.
Benoît, did you not see that I was right, that I was fighting for us both? Why should we welcome revolution, we who cherish continuity? Why should we give up everything in the name of a supposed truth, a truth so vague that it can only seduce madmen? I defend the established order, without which men would once more be plunged into the chaos we have saved them from. Surely you did not believe that they loved Truth? That they prayed for Justice? They are weak, dangerous fools.
Oh, Benoît … Why did you have to resist me, to oppose me unwittingly. If only we had seen eye to eye, I would have laboured tirelessly to seat you on the throne of God, as I did Boniface* – whom I did not even like. I would have been the indefatigable means for you to reign over our world. God illuminated you with His smile, but He gave me the strength to continue fighting. Why did you have to persist in your dream?
I cried for nights on end before giving him the order to slay you. I prayed for nights on end. I prayed that the scales would finally fall from your eyes. But you were blinded by the light. Your death throes were the longest hours of my life. Your suffering wounded me so deeply that I vow to obliterate from my vocabulary for ever the words ‘torment, affliction, ordeal’.
Without you, Benoît, my world is empty. You were the only one who might have been a kindred spirit, but your love for Him separated us. And yet I, too, love Him more than my life, more than my salvation.
I drugged myself so that my vile executioner might enter the secret corridor leading from my office to your chamber. Even as I drank the bitter potion I prayed it would kill me. But death turned its back on me. They blamed my faltering speech on the opium when I was choking with grief.
Remember how I watched you eat those figs one by one. You beamed at me like a child as you recalled the sweet days spent at Ostia. With each shred of purple skin that you spat out into your hand another drop of life drained from you. I counted the number of breaths you had left, and as the poison spread into your veins so my soul drained from my body.
I have no place in my heart for regret, Benoît. Still worse, I have no regrets because I could never have allowed you to strip away our majesty, our supremacy, in the name of some splendid Utopia. Still worse, because since your death I no longer live, I toil. That is all I have left, together with this terrible emptiness.
If in His eyes and yours I acted wrongly, in the eyes of mankind I did what was right. I will accept my punishment. It can be no worse than my present suffering.
Beloved Benoît, may your sweet soul rest in peace. I implore you even as each fibre of my being cries out for an end to this most fervent of its desires.
Honorius Benedetti stood up and dried his face, which was moist with tears. The room was spinning, and he leaned against his enormous work table to steady himself. Finally the dizziness went away. He paused to catch his breath then pulled the braided rope behind the tapestries that brightened up his study. An usher appeared out of nowhere.
‘Show him in.’
‘Very good, Your Eminence.’
The cowled figure stepped into the room.
‘Archambaud d’Arville is dead, run through with a sword. Leone has slipped through our fingers.’
The camerlingo closed his eyes in a gesture of despair.
‘How could that be? Did you warn Arville to be on his guard? Leone is a soldier – one of the finest in his order.’
‘He was supposed to drug him in order to render him weak.’
Benedetti grunted and asked:
‘Do you think this is another intervention by one of theirs?’
‘The idea had crossed my mind.’
‘Why have none of my spies succeeded in flushing them out? I might be forgiven for thinking that they enjoy divine protection!’
‘No, Your Eminence. God is on our side. Even so, our enemies are accustomed to secret warfare. We forced them back into their caves, crevices and catacombs. They turned this defeat to their advantage. They have become an army of shadows whose strength we cannot gauge.’
‘In your opinion, does Leone know that his secret quest was in fact instigated by others?’
‘It would surprise me.’
The prelate’s irritation got the better of him and he demanded sharply:
‘All the evidence suggests that that scoundrel Humeau sold the manuscripts he stole from the papal library to Francesco de Leone. Have you found them?’
‘Not yet. But I am searching tirelessly.’
‘Indeed! I would prefer it if you searched successfully.’
‘Everything points towards Clairets Abbey.’
‘What is Leone’s connection to the place?’ asked the camerlingo.
‘The Abbess, Éleusie de Beaufort. Benoît XI appointed her and I am beginning to wonder whether there might not be some other connection between her and the knight which we don’t know about.’
‘Make it your business to recover the Vallombroso treatise urgently. Without it we are incapable of calculating the dates of birth. And the work on necromancy, too … At this stage any help, however subversive, is welcome.’
‘You don’t intend to … I mean, you are not going to use that monstrosity?’
‘You speak of monstrosities? And what do you suppose you are guilty of since you began working for me?’
The figure remained silent.
‘And what of the woman?’ the camerlingo continued.
The figure drew back his cowl. His face broke into a smile.
‘At this moment in time, Your Eminence, there can’t be much left of her and I wouldn’t want to be in the place of what little there is.’
‘Her suffering brings me no enjoyment. Suffering is far too precious a sacrifice to be wasted in vain demonstrations. I know one thing,’ the prelate murmured, before continuing in a firmer voice: ‘Agnès de Souarcy must die, and quickly, but her execution must be made to look like a just one. I have no need for a martyr on my hands.’
‘I’ll inform her torturer at once. He will be disappointed. He gets drunk on suffering like others do on mulled wine.’
‘He has received handsome enough recompense for his obedience,’ Benedetti pointed out sharply. ‘I detest the enjoyment of torturers. Once his work is done I want him killed. We have no more need of him. His repulsive existence is a stain on my soul.’
‘Your wish is my command, Your Eminence.’
Honorius was exasperated and said through gritted teeth: ‘You are aware of my wishes, now carry them out – I pay you enough! I would hate to lose patience with you. Now go.’
The threat was plain enough and the figure pulled down his cowl and left.
The camerlingo waited a moment before angrily summoning the usher with an angry tug on the bell rope.
‘Has she arrived?’
‘Not yet, Your Eminence.’
Disappointment was written all over Benedetti’s face and he muttered under his breath:
‘Why is she so late? Let me know as soon as she arrives.’
‘Very good, Your Eminence.’