Many months later, as the bishops and Vicar of the Inquisition lift de Rais’ order of excommunication, a wave of sound builds in the courtroom. It is not the discontent I expect, the astonishment that matches my own. It is agreement, pathos, forgiveness. Despite all the stories of children being hung by the neck, defiled, cut limb from limb before a pack of bestial savages, sacrificed to demons, they accept his anguished pleas of regret.
As he trembles with sickness for want of his hippocras, as he admonishes all of his onlookers to revere the Holy Church, as he goes on and on about how the liquor and rich foods made him do it, my scalp tightens and the rage builds. Here is the true demon revealed, the very real scourge of the land, and yet, the court promises to give him his place at the feet of God.
They even embrace him in fellowship.
And I, this humble creature, this soldier of fortune, this builder of cathedrals…I am the monster. Though they cover the cross as he speaks of all his crimes…I am the heretic.
When the assemblage becomes so moved by the Spirit that they must bow and scrape in prayer, I feign an injury, and instead, prop against the wall, head dipped, eyes closed upon my avowal to never again entertain the slightest notion of Divine Truth.
If God exists, he is not to be found in the justice of men.
Three days later, de Rais and two of his cronies are put to death. Poor Poitou, once a victim of his master himself, proves braver than anticipated. He goes to his hereafter in a pile of ash. Once again the disparities abound, as the baron’s funeral pyre is put out, and his charred corpse removed; he will be resurrected on Judgement Day, while the humble thieves who facilitate this mockery of the crucifixion shall never rise again.
As the crowd looks on, I take an accounting. Most of the ones named in the indictment are beyond my grasp, either fled in ignominy or convicted of mortal offenses — dear, sweet Francesco Prelati will meet his end by an executioner’s rope, his reward for taking up the Devil’s work. There is only one man I can reach, and I know exactly where to find him.
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