The Sibyliad: The Hell Jar: Chapter 4

The Sibyliad is my unfinished "epic" and is composed of several short books.

The Sibyliad

Cycle One: Pluto’s Allegory of the Grave

Book One: The Hell Jar

The End of Book One: The Hell Jar

Incanto 4

I grow tired both of feigning faith and of this Council. Leave me to my studies in Mystra, and I will be well. Had I not laid murder and sorcery at their feet, maybe we would now be on our way. Every representative is homesick and frustrated with these debates over minutiae in which neither side will bend.

Instead, I gave the Council proof of a hell beyond any Christian theology, and I could curse myself for it. Their arguments run in circles with more concern over ecclesiastical law than truth, and meanwhile, the public is kept ignorant both of the proof and the danger. The Council has forbidden me from saying anything beyond its walls. Something unholy walks these streets, and the people of Florence are left to go about their lives in ignorance.

The Council left Ferrara to avoid the plague. May the gods save us from what faces us here.

Alessandra mourned the horrid, little man. She mourned the city and all its mothers, but if the goddess appeared to her now—in this tiny, foul cell—and offered her the opportunity for repentance, she’d find no room to turn. The gods had promised the return of her son.

For that, the world could burn.

As she hoped for sleep, the cell reminded her of another place and time, far away from present impossibilities. She was a child again, lying on her cot in a tiny room and could almost hear the breathing of her nurse nearby. Her brother had outgrown the sopraletti with its screened window into her mother’s room below, and so she was both surrounded and alone.

But those who surrounded her were not her nurse. They were not her mother.

From where she lay, she could not see out the high, courtyard-facing window, only the night glow that breathed space into her confined darkness. It spoke to her of broad horizons and great heights, a mockery of these close walls, the latest of many unfair fortunes.

If she had played a hand in an unfairness upon others, thousands, a city—the city first played its hand against her. Its politics had crushed her father’s fortunes. Its laws had stripped away her child.

From down the hall (perhaps) and through the door came a sound like her nurse’s breaths, soft and steady.

“I did what you commanded,” Alessandra whispered. “I accepted the pact and kept my side.”

The soft sound whispered back in words too distant to comprehend.

“Our scriptures say God is a debtor to no one,” she continued, but inwardly she understood. No verses she’d ever read applied to the gods she now served.

She breathed and the cell breathed with her.

“If you delay, they’ll hurt me.”

The gods had made no promises against her suffering. She squeezed her eyes tight and felt her heart beating. To have her son again, she’d endure anything. Let the torturer come.

A tear ran along the edge of her nose.

She thought of the creature’s head in Daphnis’s hand. Had he killed the beast? No, not Daphnis. He was only a coward who ate at her father’s table, pretending an interest in her hand. Men such as that took advantage of the trust and goodness in others. They took for themselves and gave nothing back and claimed glory in the reflection of greater men—men like Plethon.

Plethon was older than her father, but he had a vigor she wouldn’t have expected. In him, there was no pretense of interest, nor any offered by her, but she had seen in him the kindness and respect that rarely came from others. When his countenance toward her changed in the infirmary, when all she saw saw was contempt and fear, she knew how far she had fallen. His face was a mirror, true and pure.

The hall breathed with the murmurings of unheard threats.

The Council sent the old man to collect their prisoner, and a part of Firat resented the philosopher’s presence in his inquisition. When he saw him approaching, some of that resentment faded. Plethon didn’t want to be here. Firat could see it in the shoulders weighed forward with guilt and the face that showed its many years. Firat threw wide his arms and welcomed him as would an old friend.

Plethon roused himself and embraced him. “Has she said anything?”

“Nothing that makes sense.”

They stood outside the windowless walls of le Stinche and its moat. The great box-like building had only one door, above which were carved the words: it requires charity. Firat unlocked the door and ushered Plethon inside.

“She’s unharmed?” Plethon asked.

“As the Council requested.”

Plethon offered a heavy smile that seemed to apologize for the need to ask the question. “I’m still uncertain how to carry the reality of what we’ve seen. I laid the creature’s corpse before them, and they act like it’s an invention of my imagination. Whatever they might think, and as much as the city will never know...”

When Plethon’s thought trailed off into a choked silence, Firat completed it for him. “We fought the beast, witnessed the deaths, and shared in the loss. That truth belongs to us.”

Even as Firat spoke, his thoughts tripped over the idea of truth. He’d grown up with tales of the demonic ifrit, trapped in a jar marked by the Seal of Solomon, but these were only bedside stories told by his father—ones he thought he’d soon get to tell his own children. Their attraction relied on the deep divide between their horrors and this life. When that divide no longer existed and the stories became real, what was truth?

He escorted Plethon to the largest of the prison’s courtyards and had officers bring Alessandra to them. She walked down the stairs with a composure better expected of a bride at her wedding than a prisoner at her inquisition. She wore the same clothes from the night of horrors, stained brown with blood; her hair clung lifelessly to her scalp and neck, but she held her chin high, her shoulders square, her hands clasped together lightly beneath her bosom.

“The surviving monks are cooperating,” Plethon said. “When you answer the Council, you’ll find no benefit in lying.”

“Daphnis was jealous of you, but his respect for you wasn’t feigned,” she said. “Whatever judgment the monks unleashed upon this city, I hope you’ll survive it.”

“You talk like you played no part,” he said. “That won’t work with the Council.”

“The truth is that after you left my father’s house, the monster was there to take me. From there, I did what I had to.”

Firat could not stay silent. “You consorted with demons.”

“Demons?”

“We saw the creature you released from the jar,” Plethon said.

“Have you tried speaking to the urn?” she asked. “Touched it, even? The Council can make their guesses and accusations, or they can ask. It’s their choice.”

“No one with respect for his soul would touch that object,” Plethon said.

Firat nodded to the officers, and they held back, allowing Alessandra to approach, almost like a free woman.

“You know I’ve touched it. Use me. Let it speak through me.”

“How could they know anything it said was true?” Firat asked.

She smiled. “Plethon’s the smart one. He’ll think of something.”

Firat saw nothing sinister in her smile, nor did she betray any fear. It would have been easier, either way, whether she’d stood against them as some personification of evil or cowered before them and the methods at their disposal. Instead, they entered the carriage and rode together through the streets of Florence, as if setting out for an afternoon in the countryside.

“We’re not meeting the Council at Santa Maria Nuvella,” Plethon said. “The patriarch of Constantinople grows weak from his illness. The council waits for us in the palace given to him and his retinue. They won’t have the jar with them.”

“They can get it,” she said. “They will, if they want answers.”

“You’re entertaining a few false ideas, and I think it’s best to dispel them before we arrive,” Firat said. “The Council’s orders protected you at le Stinche because they intend to witness your inquisition firsthand.”

A solemn recognition revealed itself in Alessandra’s face. “They intend to torture me. So be it. Just secure the urn. I can’t tell them what I don’t know.”

“You’re brave; I’ll give you that,” Plethon said, “but bravery often becomes foolishness. For Daphnis’s sake, I’ll give you this warning. Be careful. Be humble, and speak nothing but what is true. Either way, you’ll suffer, but he wouldn’t want that prolonged. I saw his love for you. Had he lived, I imagine, even now, some of that affection would have remained. Perhaps, his death was the greater mercy.”

Alessandra’s solemnity became something else, something darker with edges of pain and hatred. Firat knew this moment, this breaking of the facade, had been unavoidable, but he regretted the change. For a moment, he’d allowed himself to believe this time would be different, that Alessandra represented a deeper, more virtuous truth which he could not yet understand, a truth that might have offered some meaning to the crime and his final inquisition.

As with the other regents, the podesta only served for six months and brought with him his own judges and officers. Firat and the rest of the podesta’s men had begun their service in January, arriving in the city only days before the Council straggled in from their journeys from Ferrara. Some had taken circuitous routes to avoid threats from their enemies. Some arrived in obscurity and others in pomp and glory. Now, six months later, it was Firat’s turn to leave in obscurity and either return to Venice or continue on to wherever his newfound wealth would take him.

None of the city-states on the peninsula felt particularly welcoming. The greater their fear of the Ottomans grew, the more precarious his life became. He needed direction, and somehow, when Alessandra had stood before them, unbothered by the threat she faced, he imagined she possessed an answer to life’s mysteries. Her bravery had seemed a compass.

If only it had been so.

The carriage stopped, and Plethon and the prison officer escorted Alessandra out of the carriage. Strangely familiar walls loomed over her, immediate to the street and running from one corner to the next. Her childhood memories were filled by such scope and grandeur in their lost palace in Montevarchi, and the similarity interrupted her fears. She had withstood the threats of torture, only so thoughts of her mother could make her cry.

The men allowed her a moment as she stared up the height of the building, past the small ground floor windows to the narrow and high ones of the first and second floors. Her eyes lingered on the windows of rooms similar to those where her mother had died. Her lips pulled into a delicate smile, and that smile surprised her.

She breathed deep and stepped into a hall so tall and wide, her present house could have fit within its empty space and still left room for the grand, sweeping staircase. The marble beneath her was hard and unforgiving, but the art on the walls spoke of the Christian principles of redemption from judgment. These were not images one might find in church paintings, but she recognized them all the same. Any child in Italy would. The paintings illustrated scenes from Paradisio by Dante, culminating in three women before the white rose of heaven: Mary, Lucia, and Beatrice.

The officer urged her forward by she resisted.

“Wait,” she said. “Allow me to prepare my soul.”

He removed his hand. Alessandra focused on the painting. If there remained any hope of salvation, she would find its promise there.

Beatrice was Dante’s idealized woman, love personified, whom he had first met when they were both nine years old, and here she had been captured in the innocence of youth. It was Beatrice who led Dante through paradise.

Next was Saint Lucia who was martyred at twenty-one for her prophesies against the Roman Emperor. In the painting, she appeared as she might have in those final days.

Mary had been in her late forties when her son was crucified, and though no one knew how long she lived upon the earth, here she was depicted in old age. The white rose of paradise behind them, which had been said to represent so many things—including the very meaning of the universe—seemed to Alessandra symbolic, too, of Mary’s assumption into heaven.

Artistic understanding came in the memory of her vision of hell. The very air had opened like a black rose.

With that understanding, she prayed. Remember, most gracious Virgin Mary, never was it known that anyone who fled to your protection, implored your help, or sought your intercession, was left unaided.

Plethon placed his hand upon her shoulder. “It’s time.”

The silent prayer became vocal. “I fly to you, my Mother. To you I come, before you I stand, sinful and sorrowful. Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in your mercy, hear and answer me.”

Plethon’s hand held still and patient, and she felt in his touch the gift of this moment of prayer. She closed her eyes.

Men of faith sought judgment. I seek only my son.

No other words came. She stood with silent head bowed and heard her own plea. She’d asked for mercy but made no offer of repentance.

Plethon drew her closer against him and, whispering, continued her prayed. “Protect us. Lead us, as in everything, by thine illustrious children. You entrusted them with our destinies, fulfilled as just they ought to be.”

For too brief a moment, no one moved, and then Plethon escorted her out of the hall.

A crowd had gathered in the loggia off the main courtyard. Here she would stand and be judged. One of two possibilities awaited her. She would lose her life, or—if the voice of the urn proved true—she would have the meaning of life restored. She wiped her face and reconciled herself to either future. If the urn had lied and the Council condemned her, she would regret adding to her father’s sorrow, but better this than becoming a stranger to her child.

The men turned to watch her entrance, and Plethon positioned her in the center of the courtyard, beneath the open sky. She looked up into a still, blue pool. If she were to allow herself, she’d fall upward into its waters.

Plethon cleared his throat, and the Council fell silent. He introduced certain members, and she thought he meant to introduce them all until he skipped an elderly man, thin and frail. She realized this had to be Joseph II, the patriarch of Constantinople, to whom the Ferrantini family had surrendered their home. She recognized something in him, something she had experienced the night Daphnis and the others died but could not then appreciate. She had no word for it, perhaps a disassociation of the body from the spirit, something anyone who had visited the dead would understand. She saw it in Daphnis’s fall and confirmed it in his death, and now she saw it here, in Joseph and in the space he inhabited. It spoke something to her, not a secret, no; it was not the message that startled her but the messenger. Joseph would not leave this house alive.

“On behalf of the Greek church,” Plethon said, “I give you Mark Eugenicus, Metropolitan of Ephesus, and Cardinal Bessarion of Nicaea. Representing the Latin church, I give you Cardinal Cessianus and John of Montenero. Others may question you as well, but these are your lead inquisitors.”

The formality served as a mask, a humane facade hiding the terror beneath. She who had called down damnation stood to be judged by men who had dedicated their lives to God, but none of those gathered and none left behind at Maria Nuvella had ever met the God they worshiped and in whose name they governed and taught.

Blessed are those who have not seen, yet believe.

They served blind, but she had seen. She’d peered into the heart of hell and pulled forth a goddess.

At Plethon’s command, men dragged the corpse of the half-decapitated empusa out of the garden and into the courtyard. They laid both body and severed head before the gathered crowd.

“This creature is the killer you enlisted us to find,” Plethon said over the roar of startled murmurs. “The monks who died in San Marco had called this creature out of hell with the intent of bringing judgment upon the city. They did so using the jar I brought to you at Maria Nuvella.”

The Council fell silent.

“One of our number was lost in this inquisition,” Plethon continued. “Daphnis Lamonidis, a secretary to the emperor, was assigned to work by my side, and I first met Alessandra through him. She warned us of what she’d seen, but we would not believe a woman’s word. We left her to face this creature alone, and that fault falls on my shoulders. What then should we require of her? I adjure the Council to tread carefully and not make my sin your own.”

Voices rose again, in anger rather than fear, but Mark of Ephesus, a thin man with a narrow, graying beard, silenced them and stepped forward to begin the questioning. He walked her through the events at the house, on the road, and at the monastery.

“And you attest to the veracity of your statements, in their whole and without reservation?” he asked.

“I do,” Alessandra said.

The men whispered among themselves and pulled first Plethon aside and then the prison officer, until it seemed they had forgotten her.

Then Cardinal Cessianus turned his full and shaven face toward her, his eyes dark and hooded beneath a red cap. He wore a short cape that buttoned in the front, also in the Pope’s color. The cardinals wore red as a signifier; they were bound to the papal body and acted as an extension of his authority. Cessianus’s repressive posture declared the meaning of his clothing better than most. No mere pomp, his was a blood-red expression of power.

“How do you explain your reaction upon meeting the devil?” Cessianus asked.

“I—”

“A Christian soul would have cried out to God and man for salvation,” Cessianus said.

“My father—”

“You received the devil like a friend.”

“I—”

“Have you consorted with demons in the past?”

“Never.”

“Don’t lie to me. No woman could have withstood such a presence unless she’d already deadened her virtue at the damnable altar.”

“I have withstood much in life, more grief and sorrow than I thought my soul could bear, but when the creature first presented herself to me, I saw only a woman, silent and strange. When I realized she was something other, the shock had passed, and I thought of my father. I considered myself dead and sought to see him spared.”

“And with that same nobility of spirit, you participated in the murder of a half-dozen men of God,” Cessianus said.

“They sought only to participate in the will of the Lord and the advancement of His kingdom,” she said. “By their self sacrifice they sought to usher in the wrath of God. Perhaps, they have. Perhaps what they unleashed that night was His angel of death.”

“Angels are not women,” Cessianus said.

“I wouldn’t know.”

“I would,” Cessianus said.

Above, gathering clouds burned red against the lapis sky.

Mark stepped forward. “Tell us about the jar.”

She tried to tell what little she knew, what little she had experienced, but it proved more than they were willing to hear.

“The God of glory doesn’t ask for human sacrifice,” Cessianus said. “Nor will He forgive a suicide.”

“According to the urn,” she said, “sacrifice is not destruction but the foundation stone of what is to come.”

“Why would we care what that infernal thing says?” Cessianus asked.

“Because,” Alessandra said, “you asked.”

The officer whispered, “Be careful.”

“Lies and the father of lies,” Cessianus said. “Every minute her words are not tested is a minute wasted. Take her to the garden.”

Mark held up a hand. “Not yet.”

No one moved.

“The voice called both itself and you the tools of a god, used for her own purposes,” Mark said.

Alessandra nodded.

“What god?” he asked.

“She never said. A goddess. The creature guarded me; I could not run, but the jar made me a promise. If I did as the goddess required, my life would be spared and my son returned to me.”

Cessianus smiled. “Did you believe her?”

“I wanted to,” she said. “I begged her to promise that such might be true.”

“And how did she answer?” Mark asked.

“She said she’d spoken, and that meant more than any man’s promise.”

The assembly murmured among themselves. Here and there men of the Council cried out, denouncing her in the name of God.

Cessianus shouted, “Enough!”

A sudden silence focused on Cessianus , but then Joseph, patriarch of Constantinople, lifted a frail hand.

“If you mean to harm this woman, I will play no part in it,” Joseph said. “Take me to my rooms.”

Attendants led him out, and when he was gone, Mark spoke. “Nor can I condone what your hearts intend. My role in this matter is ended.”

Mark followed Joseph, and others followed after, Latin and Greek, alike. When they were gone, she remained before her accusers. Although half their number had left in protest, none had moved to save her.

Until now.

Plethon stepped into the center of the courtyard. “I first must have my turn. If you would ply the rope to her arms after I’ve spoken, that is upon your heads, but you will listen.”

Again, the Council murmured, but no one spoke against him.

“We have been called by God to this city for other purposes, not this. Leave her to the city’s judgment, as the ecclesiastical crime was instigated not by Alessandra but by those who died.”

“And how do you suppose the city would handle the matter?” Cessianus asked.

“I will testify before them as I testify here, she is a survivor of and witness to a tragedy. I saw the woman the monks unleashed upon this world, and with Alessandra’s help, we might yet avert the promised destruction of Florence.”

“Her words must be tested,” Cessianus said.

“Must mine?” Plethon asked. “Must yours? You condemn her because her testimony was not foretold in scripture, but that same scripture speaks less about what is found beyond than what is expected of us here. Not even a Cardinal should be surprised if eternity offers more than his finite theology. As for what is clear and what is known, the Lord has spoken; be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”

Cessianus spoke into the ensuing silence. “Maleficos non patieris vivere.”

The remaining members of the Council rose, their cries of outrage united and strong. Men in Florence were tutored in Latin; Alessandra was not. Whatever the pronouncement that sealed her fate, she could not answer, not even if they’d been ready to listen.

They marched her into the garden. Over the grass, trees, and flowers, a tall monstrosity of wood loomed, supporting a rope suspended over a pulley.

Brilliant clouds turned gray, like ashes left by a dying flame.

The prison officer pushed away the men who held her. “Where are the operators we sent you? There are laws, and as men of the book you’re bound to abide by those laws. Blood may not be shed, and no permanent harm may come to her. If you try to operate the strappado on your own, you’re likely to kill her. This is an inquisition, not an execution.”

Cessianus circled him like an animal hungry for blood. “Then you’ll operate it. Torturing women is in your nature.”

Alessandra saw a bristling anger in the officer’s eyes, but he held his tongue. Despite his claims, these were the most powerful people in the Christian world. Whatever they did here, the city would excuse it all.

“As for the men you sent, what we deal with today is not for the world to see,” Cessianus continued. “You’re the only outside witness the Council has approved, and even so, no righteous ear would accept your testimony over ours.”

Plethon broke free of the settling crowd. “I fought alongside Firat, your eminence. His hand slayed the creature and saved my life. He deserves respect.”

Cessianus stood still. “He is here before us. What greater honor is there?” His gaze settled on the officer. “Bind her.”

The officer secured Alessandra’s arms behind her back and the rope around her arms. “You’ll be lifted off the ground and dropped. The device will seize the rope before you hit the ground and dislocate your shoulders.”

Alessandra breathed in rapid, shallow bursts. She looked from one face to another, seeking a savior but finding none.

In her soul, she felt the dark clouds above grow heavy.

The crowd parted and gave a wide berth to men carrying the empusa. Its wings dragged across paths and grass and over hedge rows, until body and head lay at her feet. She stared at the torn flesh of what remained of its mouth, the tongueless floor, and the cascading rows of devil’s teeth.

“What is this beast?” Cessianus asked, and at his words, the officer drew the rope taught.

Alessandra’s arms pulled back, away from her body. She gulped for air and fought to form words. “The urn. Bring me the urn. I’ve told you all I know, but she knows this creature. She knows its world. Ask and she’ll speak through me, but the urn must be in my hands.”

“What is this creature?” Cessianus repeated.

The rope pulled her arms again. Bent forward, she danced upon the tips of her toes. “The urn called her an empusa. Her empusa. It served the woman.”

“Who was the woman?”

Her arms pulled higher. The muscles in her shoulders stretched taught. Her toes tickled the grass but not the ground beneath it. “I saw her at the edge of a marsh lit by fire. I heard a name. Persephone.”

“What else?”

Alessandra’s feet kicked helplessly at the air. “Another name. I heard another name.” She rose higher. “Please, in the confusion of her coming, I heard another name. Herophile of Cumae.”

Murmuring rose from the crowd like the sound of distant thunder.

“What of Herophile?” Cessianus asked.

With a jerk, she rose higher, and pain wracked her shoulders, back, and chest. “Just the name. Only the name.” She stared down into Cessianus’s uplifted face. “I’ve never heard it before. It means nothing to me.”

Cessianus turned to the crowd. “Fetch the jar.”

“Please,” she begged, her voice strangled. “Mercy.”

Cessianus signaled, but the officer refused to move.

“If you won’t do it,” Cessianus howled, “I’ll drop her myself.”

Plethon stepped between them. “If the jar is coming from Santa Maria, then give the woman rest. Let it speak through her as you intend. This isn’t necessary.”

Cessianus pushed past Plethon and held the officer by the collar. “When her lies are stripped away, then we’ll have no need of pain. We have not yet reached the truth.”

Alessandra cried out.

The officer spoke. “Of what lie do you suspect her?”

Cessianus drew the officer’s sword. “Herophile.”

Wet winds blew with the threat of a coming storm.

“It is only a name,” the officer said.

Cessianus traced the blade from Alessandra’s bosom to her chin, as gentle as a husband’s touch. It stirred her at the edge of consciousness. Thoughts twinkled like fireflies at the borders of her vision and were gone, forgotten, lost, with only vacant space to remind her something had once existed there. She was no more indelible than those lost thoughts. She waited, and only that one idea remained, burning cold and blue in the gathering night of her mind.

“There is but one pagan oracle the church has received as its own,” Cessianus said. “To the sibyl of Cumae, God gave prophecies of the coming Christ. Of the names attributed to her, first and foremost is Herophile.”

Alessandra muttered, “Only a name.” The storm pressed into her chest and closed her throat. The darkness grew behind her eyes.

Below, Plethon spoke. “The sibyl aged but could not die, and according to a line by Petronius, she shriveled away until her acolytes left her hanging in a bottle.”

Cessianus pulled back the sword, eager for the killing blow. “If you don’t drop her, I will.”

Lighting ran white through black clouds, and Alessandra felt its crackle within her heart.

“Hold!” the officer cried and let loose the rope.

Thunder echoed along the streets, and rain and Alessandra fell.

—Thaddeus Thomas

Table of Contents: The Sibyliad