Free Saint Fire (Secret Books of Venus Series) by Tanith Lee Page B

gold and gems that they gave the impression of a metallic tapestry. The ceiling was sheathed in silver and gold. There were seven great arched windows, set with diamond glazes of saffron, red and water-green. All this shone into a floor of polished obsidian, and so gave a sense of ultimate light floating on a lagoon—or in a sea of glass.
    They crossed the floor, Volpa hesitating, her balance interrupted.
    A door, painted and gilded like the walls, let them through into a rose-walled annex. A second door gave on a golden room.
    On a backdrop this time of rich yellow, golden angels ranged. Candles burned like stars against a roof that was a sunburst.
    Two huge painted images at once confronted the eye, a glowing golden man among a pride of amber lions; the Primo Lion of gold and brass, with a haloed infant god astride it.
    Between these paranormal scenes, two men were seated upright at the table. One was another clerk, she discounted him. The other wore the habit of a Magister Major, and on his hand an emerald watched, like another eye.
    Volpa, the Vixen, saw him only as part of the whole.
    (She was not alone in doing that.) He had the face of a disciple from the pillars of the Basilica, and although she had never entered it until now, she knew. His face had moved beyond the human. As a priest should, he poised between Man and God.

4

    “Have you been taught the storyof Danielo?”
    Volpa shook her head. “No, signore.”
    “He was a Hebrew, made slave to the great and cruel King Nabucco, in the wicked city of Babylon. There Danielo, through his wisdom, his visionary skills, and his faith in God, gained such power that men were jealous of him. They entrapped him and had him thrown into a pit of lions. The mouth of the pit was then closed with a stone, and sealed by Nabucco’s own royal seal. There is the picture of this event.”
    Volpa regarded the picture of the golden man among the lions.
    Danielus said, “In the morning, when they opened up the pit, do you suppose they found Danielo still alive?” Volpa said, “Yes, alive.”
    “Why do you think that? There were many lions, all kept hungry. I see you have no answer. But certainly Danielo lived. Because God had closed up the mouths of the lions as decidedly as Danielo’s enemies had closed the mouth of the pit. God is capable of any miracle.”
    The girl sat quietly in the chair. Mostly her eyes were lowered. She raised them in response to tones of the voice, a slave trying to divine an owner’s wishes. (Had she stipulated that Danielo lived simply since she believed the questioner wished for this reply?) Yes, a slave. But even Danielo had been a slave.
    “I’ve been hearing, Volpa,” the Magister Major halted, reviewing her ugly name, then went on, “that you also can perform a miracle.”
    She glanced up, away.
    He said, “Why don’t you do it now? Show me your cleverness.”
    She sat there,eyes down.
    “The woman who saw you do this until now, hers has been an erring soul. But at once she’s come to God because of what you did. Through your act, this woman has found solace and regained the hope of eternal life.” Volpa sat silent.
    The scraping of the clerk’s pen beside Danielus was an irritant. It answered where the girl stayed dumb. She did not look either deranged or witless. Nor did she look like other women of her type—girls, rather, she was no more than fourteen. In another year, or less, might come the sudden blossoming one saw among the females of this City and this land. For now, she had a boyish quality, despite the curve of her breasts.
    “Again,” said Danielus calmly, “beside a marvel which seems to have brought only good, we must place men of the Silvian Quarter, who claim to have seen you set fire to the house of your former master, Ghaio. More, to have seen you walking garbed in flames. Can you do such a thing?” Volpa raised her head.
    She was a slave, but when she met one’s eyes, it was not a slave you saw. A warrior who