Beyond the Raging Flames (The Hermeporta Book 2) Read online

  It irked him to his core that he was vain enough to care so much about his looks, thinking that he should be above such things, but his stubborn youth - although assisted by powerful skin serums perfected in his research - had become an inner source of pride for him. To the Professor youth was a social currency welcome in any time or country, and one that eased doors open and secured the goodwill of others with less effort. In his experience, wherever he was, a dashing smile could do half his work.

  ‘I’m losing my looks’ he confessed to himself with flat recognition.

  His shoulders slumped before he saw his carry case flash into his mind, and a knot of hope twisted within him before he contemplated facing Illawara.

  The idea filled him with dread. Emotionally charged confrontations were not his thing: as he had learned with Iona. For the Professor the emotional landscape of life was terrain best avoided: perilous, jagged, unruly, full of unpleasantness and heart-wrenching surprises. ‘Get a grip on yourself’ he declared aloud, clenching his fists, embarrassed at his squeamishness.

  He bathed himself as best he could, navigating new sores that emerged from his skin like ugly submarines. He used the bowl of cold water in his room, but when he finished, he did not feel clean and noticed yet another boil starting to appear on his loins, and the gnawing ache of disease that crept through and corrupted his body. He wanted to recoil and separate himself from his flesh, but accepted his folly and instead focused on the cure that lay beyond his reach. Negotiating with Illawara would be difficult, and he questioned himself as to why he had involved her in his quest: or had she, innocent as she was, involved him against his will?

  Professor Sloane avoided the complexities of where his mind wanted to lead him. He dressed, went to his writing desk and wrote a note, with care as his hands trembled, on a piece of paper before he blew on the ink and folded it. He dressed and took up his cloak and the mask he usually wore to the gambling houses, left his room, locked the door and entered the hallway.

  As he walked along the narrow passage he heard people getting up and readying themselves for the day: foreign merchants or local people muttered in their rooms, and pilgrims, from all over Europe, conversed with one another behind their wooden doors. Some speculated on the efficacy of relics they sought, and whether their prayers would get answered or their ailments cured. Before, in the future, the Professor had laughed at their hopes and beliefs, scoffed even, when reading about such things.

  But in pondering a world without easy cures and the Syphilis that would ruin him, he paused to listen, here and there, at some doorways in the hall, and recognised in himself their hopes for the release of burdens - their hopes for redemption.

  The Professor went downstairs and along the lower hall to find Lucia’s room.

  He pressed his ear to the door and listened. He heard nothing and wondered if Lucia had left early to attend to her own affairs. The Professor crouched to slide his note, and spare key, under her door before he left the tavern, and slunk outside into the bleak drizzle.

  Lucia had held her breath when she heard Winston's footsteps and saw the note slide under her door, sensing the Professor listening for signs of her on the other side. She closed her mind to him and feigned absence. She then listened, unmoving, as his footsteps passed down the hall.

  Sure he had left, Lucia then walked over to the note that lay on the floor with trepidation. She did not fear the Professor, but his contamination by the Pox had changed her thoughts about him. His physicality and persona still tugged hard at her, but she wished he had not shared himself with other women. Lucia could not begrudge him the weakness for variety that he shared with so many males: be it a thirst for their own, opposite sex, or both. But in her ideals, she preferred him when he had been under her power: fearful but unsullied, an exquisite statue made flesh, a David of sorts to her Goliath will, not defeating but tempering her desire - so rarely thwarted. She hissed at the air before she stooped to pick up the note and key, almost feeling the weight of the words that were sure to burden her with some request. She opened the fold and admired Professor Sloane’s neat writing.

  Tuesday, 12th of December 1611

  Dear Lucia,

  I’m guessing that you may either be asleep or running your own affairs, but by the time you read this, I will have taken a gondola to Padua.

  I’ve gone to get my case, as you saw and advised, and I thank you for showing me the way. I will find Illawara, but what I’ll say to her I’ve no idea. It may be time for her to go home. I shouldn’t have involved her like this. I need, as you know, my medicine to avoid the worst of what is sure to come.

  I’ve no idea how things will work out, but I expect to be back tomorrow.

  In the meantime, we must make ready to leave ourselves, and we must talk about that. I need you to find the other Hermeporta, you know what Hekate said, and I leave the locating of it to you: it’s in this lagoon somewhere, but you have your ball, and I’m sure you’ll find it.

  Here’s my spare key to my room. I’m paid up to two weeks from now. I entrust my spiders and Soul-lanterns under your care until I return: do whatever you feel is needed to prepare them. You know this better than I.

  Winston

  Lucia sighed after she read the note, wondering what she had gotten herself into since she fled Arcetri. She thought of San Matteo and the impossibility of returning there. That life had ended. She saw in her mind Suor Arcangela and Suor Celeste as two demonesses holding sway over the convent, with the Devil in tow, as a combination of anger and remorse writhed within her. She had underestimated the pair and shuddered at the thought of how they could be corrupting the nuns there: as if that were not easy enough already.

  Lucia thought of all the women she had met that were cloistered, by their families, against their will, and desperate for excitement and contact with the outside world. ‘The place will become a brothel in no time’ she whispered and pondered the Golem, Stella, left behind and passed off as herself, and used as bait to lead the others astray - creating it was her biggest mistake.

  The responsibility of locating the Hermeporta made her pending adventure with the Professor yet more real, although she did not relish the idea of ever interacting with Hekate again. She shuddered when she heard the Goddess’s threat to her life, echo through her mind, should she misstep. Lucia thought of alternative invocations for locating the Hermeporta.

  She had no idea of how to deal with the Hermeporta that the Professor had described, but was confident that any rituals required were not beyond her. Resisting the urge to spy on the Professor Lucia turned her thoughts instead to food, keen to avoid the substandard fare of the inn. She wandered to her window, opened the shutters and looked out at the gloom. She rolled her eyes at the weather and shrugged: ‘urgh, what a sight’ she said. She closed the shutters again, before she wrapped herself in her cloak, and made ready to leave.

  ◆◆◆

  The Professor wound his way through the vein like streets, not paying much attention where he walked and relied instead upon instinct to lead him to the main, watery, thoroughfare. The Professor walked past one of many the costume shops that littered Venice and sold goods all year round, before turning back and buying himself a dark wig to go with his mask which he carried in his hands. After crossing several bridges, in a neighbourhood unfamiliar to him, he emerged upon the Grand Canal and stood and looked at the waters.

  Venice lay before him like a narcotic haze of opiate-induced slowness. The waters were a grey syrup that arched, here and there, with Gondoliers that stirred their paddles at the water as if mixing plaster in tubs. The gondolier's songs, subdued by the weather seemed, to Winston, to resemble the half-warbled songs of birds that mumbled near streetlights in winter: trying to remember the sun. The Professor sniffed at the air as he imagined himself a student again in Oxford. The Grand Canal became the river Cherwell. Winston breathed as if in hope to catch the comforting musk of marijuana upon a warm breeze. He got nothing of the sort. He smelled i
nstead the dank air, brackish water, and the mouldering weight of damp that dulled his senses almost to oblivion. Everything around him seemed to be damp and mouldering: just like his body.

  The Professor looked at the grey waters,

  'I could drown myself' he mumbled, and contemplated a romantic yet tragic finish to his adventure - as if transformed into a Byronic hero, in his mind: a handsome fool, overconfident and vigorous, brought to ruin by gambling, sex, and syphilis. He almost laughed at his whimsy and self-pity.

  Someone gave a shrill whistle, and Winston almost fell into the canal with surprise, as he stared at the water. ‘Raven it’s you’ said the Professor, clutching his chest, relieved to be unburdened from his wayward mind.

  The Gondolier stood on his vessel ebony skinned, and better dressed than before, with a smile that stood in for the sun - such its brightness and warmth.

  ‘Were you going to jump?’ he said. His Italian had improved. The Professor gave a sheepish expression and shook his head, ‘you’re too tall to drown in this water anyway’ said the Gondolier, and the smile came again.

  The Professor shook his head at himself for forgetting the general shallowness of the waters, that would struggle, at his height, in some parts to reach his chest if he stood in them. But life's facts we blunted by the illusions of the floating city, and even knowing the truth, the Professor found Venice’s impressions maintained. If he could not get his hands on his penicillin, drowning was still an option.

  The Gondolier came to the side of the decking where the Professor stood. He climbed into the vessel, and the two exchanged a brief embrace. ‘You don’t look well - is that why you carry those things? To hide yourself?’ said the Gondolier with evident concern after assessing the Winston close up. If he had not felt so cold, the Professor would have blushed, but he coughed instead.

  ‘No, I’m not well’ he said, ‘which is why I need a gondola to the mainland.’ Raven gave him a look his father, Gerald, would have described as “bush cunning” and seemed to read Winston without effort.

  ‘A woman did this to you’ he said with grave portent. The Professor seemed startled by his insight, but could not deny his statement and just looked down. ‘In my country, we have a special name for them, but here they’re everywhere.’

  He nodded like a novice in agreement, realising that the man’s profession had already exposed him to a variety of people, and life, that took many years, if ever, to accumulate. ‘In my country, we have doctors that could fix you’ he said, with a smile less bright than before. The Professor tried to be polite, and half smiled back at the attempt of comfort from a man that could not help him. Winston imagined tribesmen trying to rid him of his syphilis with incantations and cockerel’s blood.

  Winston ached as he lay down in the gondola and wrapped himself with Raven's African print fabrics as if resting on a warm bed. He admired all over again the Gondolier’s graceful strokes that propelled the boat forward. The sway of the vessel comforted him enough for a light sleep. Halfway to the mainland, in the ebbing mist, as if to call up a lullaby to his dosing passenger the Gondolier began to sing:

  ‘With hair as dark as raven’s wing,

  with eyes as blue as the sea,

  to her, the men come a wandering,

  all wishing her husband to be…’

  Raven's accent still dominated his Italian, although it had improved more than enough for the Professor to easily understand. He recognised the tune of Greensleeves Raven sang to along with the words. He bolted up from his slumber.

  ‘Who do you sing about?’ he said, animated.

  ‘The beauty of Padua’ answered the Gondolier, almost in surprise that his passenger did not know the woman that was sung and spoken about by almost all his passengers of late. ‘My friends taught it to me…’

  ‘Where can I find her?’ he said, interrupting.

  The Gondolier told the Professor the rumour of the street that others supposed her to live on, and when the Gondolier mentioned that St Anthony’s lay nearby he became sure of Illawara’s location. ‘Thank you’ he said and lay back in silence as the Gondolier carried on his song, and pondered the impression that Illawara must have made upon all those she met, let alone a whole city. Soon they had reached the Paduan mainland, and the Professor grateful for his useful tip-off gave a generous fair. Raven thanked him again, smiled and waved before he wound his arms in circles to move away back over the misty lagoon and become a shrinking silhouette, like a splash of watercolour seeping into the dull water and the misty air.

  ◆◆◆

  Beppe’s breath rushed in and out of him as adrenalin pulsed through his body and ignited his veins. Ten men, armed and strong, stood ready to be briefed by the Inquisitor who had amassed their rank in preparation for Illawara’s arrest. The men jangled and fidgeted, excited for the chase and eager to see the infamous beauty - be she a witch or not. He hurried his words, sensing his men resented the delay, and completed the formalities before he made a gesture with his hand and led the men, shining and keen, out of the Palazzo Ragione to stride through the streets.

  ◆◆◆

  Downtown Orsini paused to talk with Cook before he stepped into a carriage, and with his Henchman not wanting to waste a moment more in delay. Cook was pensive all day since learning of Orsini's true rank, and clumsy in her work like a novice new to her kitchen. The Cardinal was unable to eat another morsel as he had awaited his Henchman. A week or so of restraint around Cook's food allowed him a touch more ease in his clothes. The Henchman had arrived later than planned and had brought back a bag of items with him that Orsini did not wish to know the full use of - the iron objects clanged in the hessian swag. Since learning of Orsini's status, Cook had become nervous around him. As he made to leave Cook muddled her words and tried to apologise for what she considered, upon reflection, as inappropriate humour and language to use in front a man of his office: Orsini waved her apologies off.

  ‘Cook' he said, 'you’ve fed me for weeks, we've talked about all things under the sun, you've seen me bare-chested and tied me into a girdle’ he added. ‘You’ve seen, and heard, more of me than anyone has had in years, bar almighty God. No point being sorry for it' he took her hands in his, 'we’re friends now.’

  Cook beamed, and crossed herself with pride as if she had been blessed by the Pope before he added: ‘once I’ve quashed the potential arrest, to celebrate I’ll have your chicken risotto with mushrooms, but for the love of Mary, please lay off the cheese.’

  The Cardinal embraced Cook and broke into a rare smile, which took years off his face. She blushed as much from her recognition of his smile's improvement to his looks as much for his jibe. A fleeting moment of naughtiness replaced Cook's anguish, she gave a quick bow, and Orsini allowed her to kiss his ruby ring: as she had insisted, henceforth, as being "the proper thing".

  Orsini got into his carriage, his Henchman in the driver's seat. He reflected on his exchange with Cook and smiled for a moment once more, before becoming stony-faced at the doom-laden skies. She gave a tentative wave goodbye to Orsini when his carriage, at last, pulled away to go uptown.

  ◆◆◆

  Bianca sat at her table and wrung her hands as Dondo sipped his tea.

  ‘She’s acting strangely, don't you think?’ Whispered Bianca, glancing at the door, ‘since the fight she’s not herself. She avoids me.’

  ‘Well I suppose she’s still embarrassed by how she behaved' said Dondo, ‘I've had more than my fair share of fights. I've fought hard men on ships, but no one as fierce as her, I’ve never had such a beating’ he mused, before rubbing at his fading bruises.

  ‘I mean Grizelda - Illawara’s been odd since she arrived’ Bianca huffed. ‘I can barely get a word out of her these days, and she cannot look me in the eye, she hides something, and she has never hidden a thing from me before’ added the mistress, frowning, before taking a long sip of her tea. Dondo sat still for a while and pondered if he should share his observations on the matter.

/>   ‘I didn’t mention it, but Grizelda left the house recently to go to market but didn’t take any money’ Bianca leaned forward, ‘she said that you had sent her for milk and cheese for Illawara, but she didn’t return with anything.’

  Bianca looked worried.

  ‘What do you think she did?’

  ‘I’m not sure, but she was gone for a while, and seemed different to me when she came back... almost, almost elated.' Bianca grimaced.

  'Elation is strange for Grizelda'

  'Indeed' said Dondo, leaning forward, 'I asked her the cause of her high spirits, but she shooed me and swept the floor.’ Bianca rubbed her top lip and squinted as if recollecting a map of all of her maid’s previous behaviour.

  ‘Maybe she’s in love?’ said Bianca, almost unable to believe her own words.

  ‘That’s what I thought too… I said she was acting as if she waited to hear from a lover.’

  ‘I think she wants Prince Cavalieri’ she said, after another sip of tea. ‘I’ve never seen Grizelda so giddy: just like a foal just out of its mother.’

  Dondo guffawed, and ate another slice of bread with salt and butter.

  ‘That man was a fool and fraud - and with all that rubbish he was saying. What a flamingo - I’m surprised that she was so smitten with him' he whispered, 'it’s not like her to get so carried away’ he added, ‘I’m glad Illawara threw things at him: I felt like doing the same.’ Bianca mused on Dondo’s words but shook her head.

  ‘I'm worried Dondo, there was something more to him. The questions he asked bothered me. Illawara's rage frightened me, but I fear, even more, that she made a grave error.’ She finished her slice of bread and stretched before she spoke again. ‘My son will be with us again soon, and I want the best for him: any more of these gifts we can pawn?’ Dondo said nothing for a while as he stirred his tea.