Devil's Lair Read Free Page A

understand it better this time.”
    Giovanni cleared his throat
and read aloud the first canto of Dante’s Inferno . He had a strong Tuscan voice, and knew
the poem like no one else alive.
     
    Midway
along the journey of our life
    I came to
myself in a darkling wood.
    I’d lost
the straight and narrow. I was rife
     
    With
terror. I would name it if I could,
    That
savage sylvan wilderness. To dwell
    On it
renews the fear, for there I stood
     
    Alone,
lost in a bitter dell more fell
    Than
death itself. Before I can relate
    The good,
I have some other things to tell.
     
    I cannot
say how I came to that fate,
    For sleep
entangled me when I misled
    Myself,
abandoning the true and straight.
     
    William watched Nadja, who
stared into the campfire, listening to the poet’s incantation. During their
long trek down from Munich, William had taught Nadja all the Italian he knew.
Enough for the marketplace, perhaps, but insufficient for the subtle inventions
of Dante Alighieri. Giovanni was raised on Dante; the Tuscan dialect was both
his mother tongue and his art. In the two weeks since Giovanni had joined their
pilgrimage, Nadja’s Italian had improved considerably.
    The poet read of the meeting
between Dante and the shade of Virgil, who was saying:
     
    Therefore
I think it best, and recommend,
    That you
should follow me. I’ll be your guide
    And lead
you through eternal dark, to wend
     
    Where you
will hear despairing shrieks: inside,
    Where all
the ancient and tormented souls
    Bewail
the second death, the burning tide.
     
    We’re close to the gate, thought William. A few more days to
darkness.
    If they could find the gate.
If it existed at all. The friar had his doubts. His only guides to the abyss
were Dante’s Inferno and Nadja’s visions: the testimony of a dead man and the dreams of an
epileptic. These did little to bolster William’s confidence. True, Nadja had
led them to the wounded Templar, but the knight was already on the bourne of
death. Perhaps they had arrived too late. Perhaps they should not have come at
all.
    Perhaps I should stop
worrying so much.
    William had spent a lifetime
trying to reconcile faith to reason, but he understood now that reason and
faith were not on speaking terms. This pilgrimage was an act of faith which
reason could not warrant. For all his days of learning and discussion, for all
his nights of quiet contemplation, he had become at last a superannuated fool,
guided by a dead poet’s pen and a young girl’s delirium.
    I will know the truth of
it soon enough. The gate
would be there, or it would not. Hell would open, or it would not.
    Giovanni continued reciting
the dialog between Dante and his spirit guide:
     
    I said to
him, “Poet, I beg of you,
    By God,
of whom you pagans do not know:
    So I may
flee this wood of darkest rue,
     
    Please
guide me down into the world below,
    That I
may come to see Saint Peter’s gate
    And those
who wallow in the fields of woe.”
    He went.
I followed him to meet my fate.
     
    Giovanni closed the book.
With his thumb he traced a cross on the cover and kissed it, then glanced at
the wounded knight. “He may get there before you do.”
    “He will live,” Nadja said.
“God has plans for him.”
    William saw blood seep
through Marco’s bandage, a scarlet bloom that darkened as it dried. “He is a
living miracle. That blow should have killed him.”
    “And the man standing next
to him,” Giovanni said, stuffing the book into his satchel. He withdrew a
blanket from another bag and asked the question William had not dared to speak
aloud. “What if your champion does not survive?”
    “He will,” Nadja insisted.
    The poet shrugged and
wrapped the blanket around himself. “You see farther than I do.”
    William heard the wailing of
the wolves on the battlefield, half a mile behind them. The pack had acquired a
taste for human flesh. They were sated now but by tomorrow, or the day after
tomorrow, the corpses would be too far gone and the