Free Blood Ties by C.C. Humphreys Page A

someone so young? A boy with blood on his hands?
    Gianni knew what he wanted from Cardinal Carafa – a mission. Killing Jews was good training, but it was old sport. Besides, evil though they were, the Holy Church faced greater enemies now, greater threats, both within and without. The man he had finally got to see understood this, had led the fight against the heretic, the witch and the sinner from the very beginning. This man had founded the Inquisition in Rome, rooting out dissent wherever he discovered it, purging with flame and sword the length of Italy. Now he was preparing to take that fight to the enemy beyond, to the lands where Luther, Calvin and their ilk held sway. Even beyond them, to the new worlds opening up across the great oceans, where savages worshipped idols in the darkness of sin, in ignorance of the True Church’s holy light. The Jesuits had begun such work. But even though Gianni had been educated by them, he knew them as weak, unwilling to do all that must be done. They had tried to teach him to cure with the power of love. He knew, in his own experience, how much more effective was the power of hate.
    As this man knew. Gianni gazed now at the shrunken figure, swathed in red on his red throne. Carafa! Even the name made his knees go weak, so he was grateful when, before the raised dais, he was able to prostrate himself, lie spreadeagled as he had lain before the crucifix in that rough chapel earlier, while above him the shaven man showed he was not mute, leaning in to whisper secrets into the old man’s ear. Secrets that had brought Gianni here.
    Fingers prodded him and he looked up to meet the gaze of his hero. Long, thin fingers beckoned him forward, one with a huge emerald upon it, thrust out. Falling again to his knees, almost sighing with ecstasy, Gianni kissed it again and again.
    ‘Enough.’ The voice was soft, set at a high pitch, a quaver in it, a voice that did not need to strain to be obeyed. Instantly, Gianni laid the hand down, stepped back, knelt again at the foot of the throne.
    ‘You have been about work for the greater glory of God, I hear.’
    ‘ Ad Majoram Dei Gloriam .’ The Jesuits had taught him Latin with rigour, they were good for that at least. Effortlessly, Gianni slipped into the ancient tongue. ‘If your Holiness deigns to think so. I do what little I can.’
    There came a rasp from above, which Gianni realized was a laugh. ‘And it is much. Sometimes, with all these new enemies we forget our original ones.’ He paused. ‘Look at me, my son.’
    Gianni raised his eyes, almost expecting to be blinded. But the man who sat there was just a man, an old one, near eighty it was said, not unlike the old Jew, the same sallow skin hanging in folds down a lined face, a stray wisp of white hair peeking from beneath a cap. Under tufted white brows though, there was nothing old in the keenness of his eyes.
    ‘And I hear you desire to be of more service. To the Faith. To me.’
    His heart began to beat even faster. ‘If you consider me worthy, Holy Father. If you let me, I would happily die for you.’
    That rasp again. ‘I am not your Holy Father yet, my son. If all goes well, I may well be Pope, within weeks. Then let my enemies fear. Let the heretic quake in his false worship, the witch cower in her coven. I will root them out, cast them into the flames, redeem their souls by the flaying of their flesh.’ The voice rose in pitch, in power. ‘And you would join in that crusade, my son? You would die for that?’
    ‘Try me, Most Holy. Let me prove worthy of your trust.’
    ‘Oh, I will.’
    Carafa raised a hand and the shaven man placed a parchment into it. Squinting in the light, he read for a moment, then spoke again.
    ‘Do you know Fra Lepidus?’
    It was a name from his past, a name he tried never to recall, for it conjured a vision of a cold cell floor, of a rope biting into flesh, a falling stick.
    Blinking, Gianni stuttered, ‘A holy man, your eminence. The