The boy, Timoteo, ran up beside Rodrigo, panting and wide-eyed.
“I thought I’d lost you!” the boy cried.
“I am here, no harm. I have been walking and thinking.”
“They will be looking for us. We have been gone too long!”
“Then let them find us.”
They passed by the dumping ground that a thousand years earlier had been the Forum, the center of Roman government and religion. There were many markets in the city of Rome, but one of the largest was in the open space between the Forum and the Colosseum. The cemented combination of debris and ruined buildings had raised the height of the ancient Forum so that it seemed to peer and hover awkwardly over the western edge of this market.
He remembered climbing those rubbish-strewn ruins as a child, and he even remembered a section-if it were still intact-where part of a wall of the Temple of Vesta had fallen, without breaking, onto its side, creating a flat area not unlike a dais. The accidental acoustics of half-fallen columns around it had made it an effective place to shout from, if, as a child, one wanted to get the attention of several hundred market-goers and market-sellers at once. He had done that when he was younger than the lad who followed him-Timoteo. He even remembered how to get there.
Rodrigo approached the awkward, angular bulge on the earth that was the ruins of the Forum. The boy stumbled up after him.
“This way, my son,” Rodrigo said with a smile. “I am going to show you a secret way into the marketplace, and then you are going to witness something that people will talk about for generations to come.”
He led the boy up a wobbly crest of boulders and broken walls that formed an uneven series of steps and stairs. They moved sideways across what had once been the upper portico of some great administrative building. The stone was warm and reflected the bright afternoon sunlight. It felt wonderful, so wonderful, to feel the sun shine upon him in his native city. Rodrigo watched the familiar pathways of years gone by unfold before him, unchanged but by the smallest degree. When they reached the edge of the portico, he gestured to the boy to look.
Below them by some dozen feet spread the western edge of the enormous market. It was mostly a fruit and vegetable market, but to the north there were several horse traders, and farther east the mercers’ stalls began.
Timoteo took in an awe-filled breath at this unusual perspective. “It’s beautiful,” he said. Then, pointing to a small crowd gathered together and facing a single point, he asked, “What is that?”
Rodrigo looked and huffed dismissively. “Nothing has changed since my early days here. That, my son, is a false prophet, preaching some heresy to gullible innocents whose souls he may well damn for all eternity. Such men as he are popular in gathering spots like this. Look, there is another one,” he said, and pointed to the south where a smaller band of women with market baskets stared slack-jawed at a man in a bright blue robe who stood on a cart, gesticulating madly. “And there too.” A bowshot to the east of him there was another man, this one dressed in sack cloth, shouting abusively into a growing crowd made up mostly of young men.
“Where do they come from?” Timoteo asked, genuinely alarmed at seeing souls led astray. “Why does anybody listen to them?”
“That,” said Rodrigo, “is an excellent question. Let us attempt to find the answer to it. Will you come with me?” He gestured forward. The portico ended but abutted the fallen temple wall that Rodrigo had anticipated. He had to take one unnerving jump across a gap the breadth of an arm; the gap was deep and he could see the jagged stubs of ruined columns below. For the boy’s sake, he acted as if it did not bother him.
The boy, perhaps for Rodrigo’s sake, acted likewise, and jumped right after him.
Now they stood in clear view of hundreds of people. Rodrigo glanced down at the boy. “Et in semitis quas ignoraverunt ambulare eos faciam. Ponam tenebras coram eis in lucem, et prava in recta,” he said, and seeing the boy’s confusion, he offered him a genial smile. “It is my time,” he explained, “I have something to show them.” He reached into his satchel and pulled out the communion cup he had brought with him from the tomb of Saint Peter.
Timoteo’s eyes grew very wide.
A guard entered the antechamber where the Cardinals were clustered in their confusion, a squirming figure thrown over his shoulder. He dumped his cargo in the middle of the marble floor, and gesturing at it, he offered a terse explanation. “This one ran up to me like he was being pursued by the Devil,” he said. Out of the corner of his eye, Fieschi saw da Capua hastily make the sign of the Cross to ward off any truth to the man’s statement. “Name’s Timoteo, he says. He’s seen something. Maybe what you’re looking-”
“Of course,” Fieschi said, waving the guard away from the boy sprawled on the floor. The boy was still half hysterical, and with little prompting from Fieschi, his story spilled out in frighteningly rapid rush of words. The Cardinals listened to his story, and their expressions changed from incredulity to disbelief to-for more than a few-horror. Especially when he reached the part about…
Fieschi nearly pounced on him. “Magical priest?” he said, furiously gesturing the others to back away. “This man. Was his name Bendrito? Father Rodrigo Bendrito?”
“Yes, Your Eminence,” Timoteo said, trembling even more now that he was being stared at by so many angry, well-dressed men. “I was assigned to go with him into the city.”
Annibaldi glanced up and signaled to one of the several extraneous guards by the door. “Release Lucio,” he said, “but bring him back here.” Then his eyes, like all the others in the room, went back to the boy.
“He took me to the marketplace at the Forum,” the boy said. “He was kind, he seemed normal, until we got there, and then… and then…”
“And then what?” demanded Fieschi. “What happened? Where is he? Why did you leave him there? He could be anywhere now!”
“Oh, no, Your Eminence,” Timoteo said, gaining courage. “He’ll be very easy to find. You’d have a hard time not finding him, I think.”
“What does that mean, boy?” Fieschi demanded, as all the Cardinals exchanged confused looks.
“He began preaching,” said the boy, and stood up, taking a deep breath as if to reassure himself his lungs could still do that. “Like all those crazy preachers in the marketplace. He began prophesying and talking about the Mongol invaders bringing an end to the world, and how to defeat them.”
There was the slightest collective sigh as all the Cardinals exchanged knowing glances. “So he is still demented,” said Fieschi. “Despite reports to the contrary.”
“He did not seem demented, Your Eminence,” Timoteo said. “He got a lot of attention right away. Well, not he himself so much, but…” his eyes widened. “Your Eminences, I know you won’t believe this, but he was carrying… he said it was… it did look-”
“What?” Fieschi demanded.
The boy seemed on the verge of tears, but his face was caught between despair and such a wild delight that Fieschi could not help but feel a sense of dread creeping over him.
“It glowed,” the boy said, “When he held it up. It was so bright, and it blinded me. I put up my hand to shield my eyes, but he turned it and it only glowed more brightly. He smiled at me, and… and he said it was-”
“Damnation, boy!” Fieschi could not contain his impatience. “What was he tossing around out there?”
“The Cup,” the boy said, staring around at the group. “The Cup of Christ.”
“What?” demanded most of the voices of the room, followed immediately by Colonna and Capocci breaking into quiet guffaws.
“I saw it,” the boy insisted.
Fieschi watched his face closely. At heart, Timoteo seemed a practical young fellow, and the reactions of the Cardinals had made him swallow hard. Perhaps he was wishing he’d never said a word, but Fieschi suspected the boy would defend his story vigorously, now that he had told it. He would elaborate now, adding more details to the story. It was quite wonderful, actually, he reflected, to see how God shaped the world with such subtlety.