Page 42 of The Stone Witch of Florence
FORTY-ONE
UP, UP, UP
July 12th of 1348, the Crypt of San Romolo
“W ake up! Ginevra, wake up!!” came Michele’s desperate voice through the whooshing and whirring and buzzing and the whole air fluttering and shifting and bumping into her. Ginevra couldn’t even tell if she had opened her eyes, so complete was the blackness.
“Michele! The souls. The souls have come back to their bodies!”
“No, woman! It is not the souls. It is the burying beetles! The beasts have taken flight.”
“The beetles?”
“Ginevra, they will devour the relics!”
“Forget the relics! They will devour us!”
“Light your magic light, where are the relics, where is the thief??”
She sat up straight, the pain still pounding in her head, and held the heliodor aloft with her bound hands. The beetles that were touching her saw the light, too, and were upon it in an instant and blotted out its glow. She wiped them from her face and covered her mouth with her headscarf. “Michele, it’s no use, I cannot see a way out!”
The frustrated bellows and crashings of the thief reached them through the shifting blackness as he tried in vain to sweep the swarming insects from his composite saint.
“We must find a way out while he is distracted,” Michele whispered to her. “Come! You are a woman who knows things—use your powers, find the alternate passage he spoke of!”
The inquisitor’s words cut through the fog of her pain. He was right. She was a woman who knew things. And she knew she did not want to be smashed like a beetle. She exhaled and listened and found, beneath the noise of the insects, beneath her throbbing head, the searing sting of the burn left by her coral figa , a gentle tugging upon her left hand. It was Vermilia’s Nemesis stone, and it knew the way out.
“Come, Michele. Do not make a sound.”
The pair struggled to their feet, bound together at either end of the thief’s rope, and slipped through a crack in the wall.
“Virgins!” called the thief. “Do not move! You said you were willing! Do not move or I will smash you as I smash these beetles!”
“Hurry!” whispered Michele.
Ginevra followed the pull of the jasper ring leading them up, up, up through the pitch-black until they burst in a cloud of beetles into the church’s sanctuary, and ran past the green-and-purple-painted hell, into the piazza, into the full light of day, where, struck temporarily blind by the sun’s brightness, they spun around and beat the shimmering beetles from their faces and hair.
“Has he followed us?” said Michele, coughing up insects.
Ginevra touched her coral, and it burned her fingers. “He is near! We must hide.”
But she was too late, the thief was upon them. He grabbed the rope that lay between them and yanked it hard so they fell upon the stones of the piazza.
“Close your eyes or he will curse you!” cried Ginevra to her inquisitor.
“We are all cursed, Virgins!” said the thief, dragging them across the stones and tying them anew to the well’s winch so they were pulled tight against its wall.
Michele cowered with his hands over his eyes. Ginevra, whose vision was adjusting back to the light, saw the thief pick up a lumpy beetle-covered sack. He shook it and out tumbled the arm of San Filippo, the thigh of San Barnaba, and the rest of the relics of the great churches of Florence. In a frenzy, he began again to piece them together into a man. His hands were shaking as he batted at insects with the blessed finger of San Tommaso. He accidentally kicked the sacred head of Zenobio and then had to chase it to the edge of the piazza.
“He has gone even more mad,” whispered Fra Michele, peeking through his fingers. “It is that hair shirt—such a device turns even the most pleasant individuals into complete nightmares.”
“It certainly isn’t helping,” agreed Ginevra, “but worse is the malocchio . Look.” She pointed to the coral that still smoldered against her dress. “It is here and it revels in his misery.”
The thief ran back to his pile, clutching the head, and hastily pushed the relics together, giving up his attempts to align limbs to trunk. “Stop whispering!” he shrieked at them. With a piece of chalk he began to draw another magic circle around the priest and the woman but the cobblestones were rough and his chalk broke so he was left dragging the white dust with his fingers to make his marks.
Ginevra said, quieter still, to the inquisitor, “Like the discomfort from his shirt, the malocchio pushes him further away from his humanity. We must try to bring back the part of him that donned it in the first place, sacrificed his own body to save the souls of his village.”
The thief picked up a loose cobblestone. “With this I will beat you on the head until you are willing.”
“Wait!” cried Ginevra. “Giancarlo di Sporco—this is what you called yourself in your spell? Giancarlo, your spell is made up. Written by charlatans. It’s a shame you didn’t ask me, before you tried it the first time. For I am a witch and could have given you a good spell, a genuine one.”
“You lie in your throat. There is no such thing as a witch.”
“I will prove it to you, jettatore , that I have the magic to change a person from one thing into another.”
The inquisitor gasped.
The thief scoffed at her, still clutching his cobblestone. “I am a wealthy and learned man; for months I studied secret texts. A low woman like you could not succeed where I have failed.”
“I speak the truth, Giancarlo. And I’ll wager you for our freedom that I can change you from one thing to another.”
“And when you fail, as sure as I wear the cilice, I will beat you and then leave you tied here to bake to death in the sun.”
The inquisitor peeked nervously at Ginevra through his fingers.
Ginevra swallowed against the nausea and the sting of the smoldering coral. Laughter to drive away misery. “Cilice? You wear no such hair shirt.”
“What?? Do you think I know not what shirt is upon my own body? That I am not every moment aware of its itching and chafing.”
“I tell you, you wear no such shirt.”
“What is this, then?” He rent apart his tunic and revealed the appalling garment.
“That is no shirt, but your own hairy belly!”
“You mock me! I will not stand these base insults. Look, obnoxious woman.” He dropped the cobblestone, and, for the first time in months, peeled the cilice from his skin and held it out, shaking it at her. “See, see-est thou!”
Ginevra choked at the stink of the garment, and replied, “And see-est thou—I have changed you from itchy to comfortable. A worthy spell, all can agree.”
The jettatore let out an involuntary “ha,” then clasped his hand over his mouth. And whether it was Ginevra’s small play of wit or simply the physical relief of being free from the tortuous hair shirt, Giancarlo suddenly recovered the small bit of himself that was not owned by the Eye, and the violent fiend plopped down upon the ground and began to sob.
“I did everything right,” he wailed. “I purified my mind and punished my body, followed every specification the book required. I prayed and prayed, but it mattered not. I am forsaken by God.”
“What is happening ?” said Fra Michele, still covering his eyes with his hands.
“I wore the shirt! I had not one, but two virgins. Woe, woe to me!”
“Um—there, there, it is not your fault,” called Ginevra. “Only God decides who is living and who is dead, and we cannot sway it.”
“It was not God, but I who brought death here. The plague came to San Romolo, potent and vicious! My whole life I have brought only misfortune! I heard what you called me—a jettatore —you are not the first. Before the plague struck anywhere else, it came here, in the late winter. My whole village, dead in a day! My mother, my father, and neighbors! All dead besides me... This is why your bishop would not help me in the end. I am cursed.”
“Wait, what did you say?” cried Fra Michele, still covering his eyes. “What about Bishop Acciaiuoli?”
“I went to him with my spell. Asked him to share the relics. He said it was a good idea! Gave me his blessing. Showed me a safe place to keep them, while we were gathering them together.”
“This is impossible,” said Fra Michele. “Impossible. I cannot believe it. The bishop is a learned, sensible man. He does not believe in such spells.”
“If the bishop said you could take what you needed, then why all the sneaking?” asked Ginevra.
“He said the people would not understand, that they would not approve.”
“Of course they wouldn’t! I don’t,” retorted an indignant Fra Michele.
“He said our relationship must be kept secret, that I must do it all on my own, so I had to go around and slink and ask for directions.”
“If you were to keep it secret, why did you shout your thefts from the ringhiera platform for all to know? Why if not to shock and scare Florentines? To cause panic and disorder?”
“I know not what you speak of. I did no such thing. I love all people. I left saint water in place of everything I took so nobody would be without divine protection.”
“Lies, lies from a thief. A jettatore ! You have failed, so you seek to cast blame on someone other than yourself. A typical sinner,” said Fra Michele.
“No! I am many things, but I am no liar. Here is proof.” The thief took something out of his tunic and moved toward the bound prisoners at the well.
“Stop!” said Ginevra. Her coral glowed like a coal. It had never been exposed to a jettatore for so long before. The fabric of her dress beneath it was black and singed. “The malocchio still does its vile work through your eyes... Come no closer or you will burn me up!”
“Enough of my cursed gaze!” he wept. “If it is my eyes that bring this misfortune, then it is time I put out my eyes! I would rather be blind than see the misery I have caused.”
“Stop it!” said Fra Michele. “Stop crying! If your eyes are causing all this misery, then just put on a blindfold. That should work, right?” He turned toward Ginevra.
“I—I don’t know...but...I suppose it’s worth a try...before you go through the trouble of putting out your eyes, at least?”
Still weeping, Giancarlo nodded and ripped a piece off his tunic, binding it around his face. Immediately, Ginevra’s coral stopped burning and she felt as if a weight had been lifted in her chest.
“Did it work??” asked Giancarlo, spinning around in his new blindfold.
“I—I think so,” she said, gasping in relief at the release from pain. “Make sure it is tight, that you can see no daylight through the cloth.”
Giancarlo fumbled with the blindfold, pulling it down farther around his face, then strode toward the well, smacking right into it. He fell into a seated position, clutching his shins, then groped forward and at last untied the ropes that trapped Ginevra and Fra Michele.
The inquisitor gave a little squeal and leaped away, toward the jumble of relics, and prostrated himself before them.
Ginevra got up and stood over the thief, her strength returning. “Where is your proof, then?” He held up a silver key, surmounted by a lion rampant. The crest of the Acciaiuoli.
“Michele, do you recognize this?” Ginevra brought the key to him.
“It cannot be! The jettatore speaks the truth. That is the bishop’s personal key to the Baptistry!”
“It is where we kept the relics, the bishop and I. They needed a dignified hiding place.”
“You said he would not help you in the end,” said Ginevra. “Why?”
“He did not like when I broke the leg off San Miniato. He said that God had changed his mind, that it was no longer a good idea to make the Holy of Holies. He told me to return his key, but instead I shoved him, and ran to the Baptistry, took the relics that we hid together, and brought them back here with me to San Romolo. I never told the bishop where I lived, so I knew I had time before he would find me. You must understand: I had to complete the spell! It was the only way to save us all. God has not been listening to normal prayers.”
Ginevra looked again at the intricate object in her hand and with a new shock of fear realized something: Fra Michele had unwittingly revealed to Bishop Acciaiuoli the true identity of the relic thief and his likely location. But the bishop could not simply have his mercenaries journey to San Romolo. If he did, he risked others learning that Giancarlo had been acting with the bishop’s permission! But if Ginevra retrieved the relics for the bishop, if she was the only witness, he could easily dismiss the testimony of a woman and a convicted heretic. Still, he would not have counted on the inquisitor traveling with her...
“Alone, alone, blind and alone, I will wander the world,” cried Giancarlo.
“Stop wailing,” said Ginevra. “I am tired of all you sad men. You will not wander the world alone: you have made a mess, and you will come back to Florence with us to fix it.”
Fra Michele stopped praying to the relics and looked at her in horror.
“If I go with you, the bishop will chop my head off and string up my body on the ringhiera ,” said Giancarlo.
“You don’t have a choice. We need you as a witness to the bishop’s involvement. And besides, this man here is the inquisitor—he can promise you will not be strung up, right, Michele?”
“Well, erm, it will be—”
Ginevra stared hard at him.
“I mean, that sounds rather difficult, but I will see what I can...”
“See, there you have it. We will all go together.”
“I will not. Not after stealing the bishop’s key.”
“Giancarlo, look—you are not the only person the malocchio watches. Since I was a child, it follows me closely—I punctured it long ago and it waits always for a chance at revenge. Come with us, and once all this is settled, I will try to find a way to rid you of the Eye.”
“I do not like being a jettatore ,” he admitted. “But my village! My poor mother, my dear father. My servants and the laborers of my kiln! I cannot leave them here.”
“You’ve buried them in the crypt of their own church. This is more than many kings and lords could wish for now. Would you stay here alone, talking to skeletons?”
“I must stay and pray for them, for who else will do it? Old people and little babies stuck in purgatory.”
Ginevra was impatient to be away, now. “Michele, can’t you intercede for them?”
So Fra Michele, under Ginevra’s stern gaze, managed to bring himself back to the entrance of the crypt and said a blessing over all the dead and said it counted retroactively since they had no chance to call for a priest and that they were all in Heaven.
Giancarlo was finally convinced, then, to come back with them. Ginevra’s promise to break the curse the Eye had on him sounded much better than wandering the world, blind and alone. The relics, with a few beetles still crawling over them, were loaded onto the donkey, who was fitted with a rope, the other end given to Giancarlo so he could follow along even with his blindfold. This is how they left San Romolo, and they were the last living people there for many years.