The first light of dawn lay like a stain along the hills east of Fiorenza. The streets were still dark but the red roofs had taken on a subtle glow, as if they smoldered. Above the river a low, wraithlike mist hung, waiting to creep away at the touch of the morning. Birdcalls had just begun, anticipating the church bells.

But this morning Fiorenza was already awake. Around la Piazza della Signoria the people were gathering as they had gathered to watch the burning of Vanities. Today it was another burning, this time of heretics, and though some of the citizens shook their heads sadly, thinking it a scandalous day, that Fiorenza was as dangerous as Spain, more of the citizens reprimanded them for the weakness of their faith and assured their faltering fellows that there was as much good in burning heretics as there was in burning Vanities.

The Militia Christi was busy in la piazza, building up the fagots around the stakes which were set up on wooden platforms; as the fires took hold, the floors of the platforms would collapse and would, in effect, bury the wretched heretics in flame. There were nine such platforms, and a tenth structure along the front of il Palazzo della Signoria waited for Savonarola to harangue the condemned one last time before the fires were kindled. Builders inspected the platforms, searching for flaws and imperfections.

As the morning bells began to ring over Fiorenza, a group of monks approached la piazza. Most of the monks carried one end or the other of a hurdle on which were tied those destined for the stake. Seven of the heretics gazed unbelievingly at the city around them.

Their eyes were red and blurred with suffering. Under their penitent's robes their abused bodies were matted with blood and filth. The remaining two heretics were naked, one man and one woman. The man had succumbed to the torture of the boot, and the legs which dangled on either side of the hurdle were nothing more than distorted sacks of crushed bone. The other was Demetrice, her flesh eerily pale so that even the hideous bruises were dimmed by her loss of blood. One concession had been made: she was tied facedown on the hurdle so that she would not be wholly exposed to the inquisitive eyes of the crowd.

A murmur of interest filled the waiting people. They were not too great a number yet, not more than two or three thousand. These were the fascinated, the angry, the eager. They pressed forward to watch as the heretics were moved from their hurdle to the platforms and secured there in chains. It was a slow process, and by the time the task was complete, the sun was just lifting over the eastern horizon, sending long streamers of golden light down the mountains and into Fiorenza. The mist over the river was beginning to dissipate.

From the western quarter of town, the Domenicani of Santa Maria Novella came in procession, and with full deliberation they stopped before each of the nine platforms while Fra Stanislao pronounced anathema on the heretics.

The crowd was more restless now, and rapidly growing in numbers. The Militia Christi left the platforms and set to work policing the limits of the crowd, making sure that the citizens would be far enough away from the fires to keep from being singed by the terrible heat. The citizens grumbled at this treatment, but complied.

At last Savonarola arrived, and after a few words with Fra Stanislao and Ezechiele Aureliano, he mounted the long platform by il palazzo and looked over the crowd. He felt a surge of satisfaction at the sight. In spite of everything, he had at last humbled Fiorenza and saved her. Neither the power of the Medicis nor the power of the Pope had been sufficient to stay his crusade against sins. Glowing with an emotion which he did not know was pride, he stepped forward, raising his skinny arms to heaven.

The crowd slowly fell silent, and some of their number dropped to their knees to pray. The rising sun touched la Piazza della Signoria at last, shedding impartial splendor on heretic and citizen alike.

"Fiorenzeni!" Savonarola shouted out suddenly. "Behold your triumph! This day, at last, the ungodly are cast out!" His voice was harsh and it echoed down the narrow streets and over the waiting people. He waited while the susurrus of voices faded before going on, savoring the moment. "See here? See what becomes of those who will not put their trust in God!" He pointed at the figures chained to stakes, surrounded by waiting fagots.

Ragoczy moved through the crowd, his magnificent white clothes and foreign grandeur making him a path. He stayed away from the front ranks of people, not willing to expose himself until the last possible instant. Demetrice was badly placed, being on one of the inner platforms. That would mean carrying her body through the narrow gap between two other pyres, which by then would be burning. His eyes narrowed as he calculated the best route. There was only one way that would be safe, and it would mean crossing Savonarola's platform and going east, toward the familiar bulk of Santa Croce.

There was another disruption as the ox cart from Sacro Infante forced its way through the crowd and stopped near Savonarola's platform. Five of the white-habited nuns got out, one of them wearing a deep frown. The crowd hissed and rustled in anticipation, for one of the nuns was Suor Estasia del Mistero degli Angeli.

Suor Merzede pulled at Suor Estasia's arm as they neared the platform. "You don't have to do this, my Sister. If you are too distressed, I will take you home."

Suor Estasia turned dreamy hazel eyes on her Superiora. "I am fine, Suor Merzede. Truly I am. I feel my soul yearning for glory. God will enter me today, He will inspire me, giving me fulfillment I have never experienced." Fasting had made her painfully thin and her smile was a skull's grimace. She lifted her rosary and kissed the crucifix. "It will be glorious today, Suor Merzede."

Savonarola had seen the arrival of the party from Sacro Infante and smiled sourly. He motioned to Suor Estasia del Mistero degli Angeli to mount the platform with him. Then he turned back to the crowd. "Today, good Fiorenzeni, we celebrate the Feast of the Forty Martyrs. Today our thoughts must be on those valiant Roman soldiers, who, for their faith and the Love of God, died on the ice while their heathen leaders tempted them to recant with fires. Think of those men, bound together, naked, the lake around them, the night blowing with snow and their comrades in arms watching with fear. Think of them standing in that freezing night, on the ice-covered lake. Think of how their flesh was hurt, and then was numb as God released them and welcomed them to His triumph."

Suor Estasia knelt beside him and bent to kiss his feet. "I am come, dear master. You have called me and I am here." She looked up into his eyes and crossed herself, her face as rapt as if she saw God Himself.

For a moment Savonarola turned his attention away from the crowd and looked down at Suor Estasia. He made the Sign of the Cross over her, then shot an angry glance at Suor Merzede, who stood at the other end of the platform. Their eyes locked; then Savonarola turned back to the crowd.

"Think, now, of these loathsome heretics!" He held his arms up to the pitiful figures chained to stakes. "Think of their atrocious sins! Think of how they are like the fires that tempted the Forty Martyrs, and how their temptations will shortly consume them."

Ragoczy was closer to Savonarola's platform now, but still far enough away not to attract the monk's attention. He touched one man on the shoulder and moved nearer the front of the gathered crowd.

One of the heretics, a man with dislocated shoulders, turned his pain-crazed eyes toward Savonarola and in a cracked voice shouted, "You're the temptation! You're the heretic! You're excommunicated! You have no authority to do this!" He stopped, coughed up blood and slumped in his chains.

A young man in the drab guarnacca of the Militia Christi climbed onto that heretic's platform and gave him a blow in the face with a short cudgel. This was greeted with cheers and he jumped down grinning.

At the far end of la piazza, where the sunlight gave a golden glow in the walls, Ezechiele Aureliano stood with two other members of the Militia Christi. Beside them were short torches, the heads covered with rags stiff with pitch. Next to them stood a brazier in which a charcoal fire burned. Aureliano reached for one of the torches and thrust it into the brazier. In a moment it flared to life and he held it up, wishing that it would shine more brightly against the sunlight.

On the platform Suor Estasia began to sway rhythmically, making a strange, low moaning in her throat as she moved. Her eyes were rolled back in her head and the lids only half-closed over them. The crowd began to take up her swaying, all of them intent on her. She stood up suddenly, nearly falling over with the violence of her motion. Her arms extended, her bandaged hands giving her the look of a large white bird about to fly. When her breath came through her teeth in sharp gasps she lifted her arms higher, crying out incoherently. Then she shouted, "O God! O God! Why won't You speak to me?"

Savonarola and Suor Merzede exchanged glances, his worried, hers significant. He started toward Suor Estasia, but by then the visionary nun was speaking again.

"Is it that so much sin is here, that You remain hidden from me? You are like light behind a cloud. Shine forth! Shine that we may be guided by your light to the Mercy Seat!"

The crowd groaned in sympathy with Suor Estasia. There were strangled sobs now from some who watched, and the murmur of prayers was stronger, a countermelody to the words from the platform.

"Do not desert us! See, we offer You these creatures, heretics all, and purge ourselves at the same time we give them to You in sacrifice for the expiation of our sins!" Suor Estasia dropped to her knees once more, sobbing hysterically.

Savonarola knew the moment. He shouted out to Ezechiele Aureliano, "It is time!"

Aureliano grinned broadly and handed the lighted torch to the nearest member of the Militia Christi. "The wind is from the south. Start in the north. Otherwise you'll work in smoke."

The outbreak of shoutings, of wailings and prayers, was unbelievable. The cacophony drowned out the rush of flames as the torches were thrust in among the fagots at the foot of each stake.

Ragoczy moved quickly. Taking advantage of the confusion, he pushed through the crowd and broke out into la piazza. The light of the fires caught the diamonds on his white silk tunic and for a moment they blazed red as rubies. He glanced quickly around him, and then rushed toward the stakes in the center of the platforms.

There was a cry from one of the Militia Christi, but the noise of the crowd was too great. Only one man heard the shout, one of the builders who had made the stakes and platforms and stood as near as he dared, watching the pyres flare into life. He saw where the young man had pointed, and he ran toward the white-clad stranger.

Ragoczy was almost between the first stakes when the builder's hand closed on his shoulder. At another time caution would have stopped Ragoczy before he used his remarkable strength while so many could see, but seconds were too precious for this circumspection. He reached back for the hand that held him, and with a sudden jerk flung the man into the air and over him. The builder crashed to the ground and shouted as his hands touched burning wood. He rolled away, then reached for the leg of the stranger. The black-heeled boot came down full force on his hand and the builder screamed. He was still screaming when two small hands fastened on his arms and lifted him to his feet. Dark, penetrating eyes glared into his, and in that moment before he was thrust back into the flames greedily consuming the nearest heap of fagots, Lodovico recognized the foreigner. "You're Francesco Ragoczy," he said in wonder before the searing pain claimed him.

Although the fight with Lodovico had taken little more than a minute, it was enough time for two youths in the guarnacca of the Militia Christi to run into the center of the stakes, six of which were now burning. One held a short sword and the other a torch, and both were determined to drive him into the flames.

Ragoczy stepped back, but only to get more room. When he had distance enough he came out of his crouch, kicking upward at the young man holding the torch. His foot caught the other's jaw, snapping his head back and tossing him half his body length, to land against one of the unlighted pyres.

The other young man took a wild swing with the short sword, but instead of moving aside, Ragoczy let the sword pass him, then stepped squarely up to the young man and forced his arm back even farther than his slice could carry it. Slowly, inexorably his arm was borne back until there was a terrible grating snap and the arm hung down, the bone splintered at the shoulder.

Now all the pyres were blazing and Ragoczy could feel the heat pull at him, insinuating itself around him, anxious to feed on his clothes and his body.

A great cloud of dark, greasy smoke rolled skyward, and the brightness of the dawn was dimmed by it. The rush and cackle of the fires masked the screams of those they consumed.

Ragoczy ran the few steps that separated him from Demetrice's stake, and then leaped upward to land on the platform beside her. He saw that the ends of her hair were beginning to burn and he pulled a knife from his boot, gathered her hair at the nape of the neck and swiftly cut it away. Her chains were terribly hot, but he took them and pulled at them until they broke.

In the crowd there were shouts now as the wind blew the smoke away. People pointed, shrieked, screamed as the foreigner lifted the naked body of Demetrice Volandrai free of the chains and the stake.

On his platform Savonarola heard the new, strange commotion, and fear stabbed at him. He could not see through the smoke to the various pyres, but he knew something was going wrong. Quickly he ran to the end of the platform where Suor Merzede stood in furious silence. He glared at her, as if accusing her of this disruption. "What is happening?" he demanded.

"I cannot see, good Prior. I don't know." The nun's face, framed by her white coif and gorget, seemed unreal but her hostility burned as hot as the flames at the stakes.

With an impatient oath, Savonarola moved away from her and tried again, futilely, to see through the smoke. This was impossible, and so he motioned for one of the Militia Christi, but the smoke hid them as well, and shouts were useless over the deafening noise of the crowd, the fires, the dying heretics.

It was no easy thing to balance Demetrice over his shoulder, but Ragoczy managed it. He could smell burning flesh and the sweaty stench of the crowd. His feet were getting hot, and he knew if he were to keep his protective earth in his boots, he must get away from the flames immediately. One last adjustment of Demetrice's weight and he jumped from the pyre onto the flagging of la Piazza della Signoria.

Landing between the fiercely burning pyres was hellish, and Ragoczy forced himself not to look at the holocaust around him. There was one break in the flames, and one break only. It led to Savonarola's platform, where Suor Estasia stood, her hands extended toward the flames as if in benediction.

Savonarola was still at the other end of the platform when a hideous apparition appeared out of the roiling smoke in front of Suor Estasia. It took him a moment to realize that what he thought was a visitation of demons was in reality a man in blemished white carrying a body across his shoulder. He started toward them, and froze as Suor Estasia screamed, a long, shuddering sound that cut through the rush of the fires and the sound of the crowd.

Ragoczy had just gained the platform as he saw Suor Estasia. He saw the recognition in her eyes and for a moment could not move. He held Demetrice's body more firmly and met Estasia's tormented hazel eyes. "Estasia," he said as gently as he could.

"Francesco." She reached out her covered hands to him, seeing him as she saw her visions. "Is it me you carry? Where do you take me?"

Ragoczy swallowed once, and searched for an escape. With his free hand, he touched Estasia's half-open lips. "Don't betray me, diletto mio. Don't. Prego."

She stared at him, at the whiteness of his clothes, not seeing the soot that clung to them, watching the fire flash in the diamonds on his chest. "No," she whispered as she touched her lips where his fingers had been.

He nodded, and turned, moving toward the end of the platform away from Savonarola.

Estasia watched him, the same somnambulistic glaze to her eyes that she sometimes wore in trances. "No," she repeated to herself. "I won't betray you." Slowly, methodically she began to tear at her habit, first pulling off the coif so that her close-clipped chestnut hair came into view. "Won't betray you," she repeated as she ripped the wrappings off her hands with her teeth.

At the far end of the platform, Savonarola watched with horror as Suor Estasia pulled away her garments. Behind him Suor Merzede began a steady, anguished weeping.

Many in the crowd saw Suor Estasia as she gradually shed her garments, and they watched in fascination as the nun stepped along the platform, her hands moving over her emaciated body. Her face was transfixed as she prayed. "O God, Who sent me this messenger to show me Your love, forgive me. I was blind to Your caresses." She lifted her shrunken breasts and massaged the nipples. "See how my flesh warms to You. O God, possess me! I am Your handmaiden, I long for Your embraces, I offer my body to Your pleasure, to Your delight."

Savonarola started toward her, and she reached for him, drawing him against her side, which was still welted with angry red from the use of her scourge. Languidly she kissed his mouth as her hand pressed at his habit, seeking his genitals. The Domenican prior of San Marco yelled and struck out blindly with both hands, then ran back toward Suor Merzede, his face filled with revulsion.

The fires were burning fiercely and Suor Estasia smiled at the raging pyres. Slowly, deliberately she climbed down from the platform as Francesco Ragoczy had shortly before. She looked at the furnace that the stakes had become and she looked at the crowd that watched her with awe-stricken eyes. She began to sing.

Ragoczy was almost through the crowd when three Domenicani Brothers started in pursuit of him. The press of people made it hard for them to reach him, but they slowed his escape as well. Carefully he moved Demetrice so that she was better balanced, then he began to look for a weapon other than the knife in his boot.

The first Domenicano to reach him was easily dealt with. The monk was older and unhealthily stout. Ragoczy's arm delivered at full force across his belly sent him to his knees at once. The second and third were another matter. Ragoczy forced himself through the crowd as the Domenicani got nearer.

The fire boomed with fury as Suor Estasia stood before it, her face alight with love. "Behold me, God, how I long for you." She pressed her hands between her thighs, throwing her head back as her first spasm shook her. "Your love, God, Your all-consuming love." She stretched her hands forward into the fire, laughing delight as the skin blistered and blackened. "Let me be part of You!" she cried. "O God, my lover, my spouse, my savior and redeemer! Nothing but You! Ravish me! Destroy me!"

There was a horrified silence in the crowd now, and everyone who could see strained to watch as Suor Estasia del Mistero degli Angeli walked, burning, into the fire.

Text of testimony written by the prior of Santa Croce, Orlando Ricci, presented as part of the Process against the excommunicant Domenicano Girolamo Savonarola:

To His Holiness Pope Alessandro VI, Pontifex Maximus, Fra Orlando Ricci of Santa Croce in Fiorenza commends himself and in dutiful compliance to His Holiness's instructions, gives account of that terrible day, March 10 of this year, wherein the perfidious heretic Girolamo Savonarola caused to be burned eight men and women of Fiorenza on false charges of heresy, which said burning resulted incidentally in five additional deaths: those of Suor Estasia del Mistero degli Angeli, a builder called Lodovico da Roncale, two young men of the Militia Christi (which unjust and tyrannous organization of Fiorenzeni youths the said Savonarola employed to carry out his illegal schemes) and a young woman who in her effort to save her father who was one of the martyred souls, rushed into the fire and died.

Many of those who stood by were burned. Some had great blisters, some had hair and eyebrows singed away. There was much catastrophic confusion and it seemed for a time that the whole city must burn, for there were none to bring water, though the Arno is only a few steps away from la Piazza della Signoria.

Before these terrible fires were lit, the said Savonarola exhorted the people to approve the acts, declared that they were pleasing to God and that as such would redeem the city from sin. Now, this is proof of Pride, of infamous Vanity, of the most gross blasphemy, for an excommunicant is without the access to God, and being denied the sacraments is in a state of mortal sin.

The activities of this said Savonarola have been disastrous to Fiorenza for other reasons as well. Good men have been driven away from us because of his accusations and activities. Many of the scholars who were wont to live and teach in Fiorenza have fled in fear for their lives. Artists of great repute who with their work have adorned all Roma as well as Fiorenza are no longer willing to paint here, since their work is judged by the severe and unreasonable standards of the San Marco Domenicani. Musicians cannot work, for music is forbidden most days. Mercers, seamers, and other merchants have not been able to sell their wares, for they have been forbidden to make or purchase such textiles as are deemed vain by Savonarola. As most of Fiorenza lives by the loom, such edicts condemn the people to hunger and poverty. Foreigners, who previously flocked here to learn of us, now are afraid to come within our walls because they might be accused of heresy on the weight of being foreign alone.

Good, Holy Father, the evil of the said Savonarola is an offense to God and the Church. The stench of him reaches even to heaven, where angels vomit from it. For the sake of our religion, for the sake of peace, for the sake of Fiorenza, condemn this mad excommunicant priest as he condemned so many others. He is a rabid dog, infecting all he bites.

This I swear is true, and by my vows as a Francescano, I pray God that I be cast out and damned for eternity if I have said anything that was not accurate and honest. I cannot say that I am without malice, for I hold much against the creature who has caused Fiorenza so much suffering. I pray God that He will lift this burden from my heart so that I may forgive this heinous enemy of mankind as Our Lord forgave those who brought Him to shameful death.

Orlando Ricci

Prior of Santa Croce

Francescano

In Fiorenza, March 12, 1498

P/S: Copyright -->www_novelfreereadonline_Com

***