So tie me to a post and block my ears
I can see widows and orphans through my tears
I know my call despite my faults
And despite my growing fears
- Mumford and Sons

Chapter 20

Jane sat on a chair in her room, her finger fidgeting with the skirt of her dress. When she heard steps on the hallways, her back straightened in anticipation, only to fall together when it was only a maid. She stopped, smiling at Jane.

"Is there anything you wish?"

Jane shook her head. "Only… if guests arrive, tell me."

"As always." The maid smiled knowingly, almost making Jane laugh from her anxiety. "Who is he?" It was easy to tell that the woman was anxious as the reaction her boldness would cause.

"None of note," Jane said. The woman merely nodded and walked away, leaving Jane alone. She suddenly wished that she could have spoken to the woman. Not about Julio, necessarily, or about the Vatican. She just wanted to speak to someone who was not of her own kind.

Luckily, not many moments went by before the woman returned. "Your guest has arrived," she said.

Jane collected her skirts and followed the woman through the halls, her heart's beat encouraging her to walk faster but she controlled herself. It was hard, though, to control the smile that spread across her face when she saw Julio. He was wearing rich clothes, his hands clasped behind his back. She'd never seen him wearing such fine clothing.

"Julio. You look to be doing well," she said. He was smiling as well now.

"The Pope would accept nothing less from his doctor's assistant, would he?" Julio quirked an eyebrow at her.

Jane laughed a little. "I suppose he wouldn't." She stepped closer, carefully watching his face for any reaction towards her movements. "Still, it is good to see you well."

One of his hands unclasped from the other, pointing towards her. "As it is with you."

Smiling at his words, her own hand lifted to gesture for the couches by the large window overlooking the garden of the palazzo. "Would you like to sit?"

After Julio had accepted her offer, they both sat. It was obvious by how heavy their silence felt that everything was not as it had been. "I could call for some wine?" Jane offered.

Julio chuckled. "Alec is right; you do spend too much time amongst the humans."

Jane let out an easy laughter, looking down when she realized her mistake. "You have spoken of me?" Jane looked up to meet his eyes, the brown that sometimes seemed to float.

"Of course," he said, hesitating for a moment before looking away from her gaze and adding, "He is your brother."

"I thought you wanted nothing to do with me?"

One of the corners of his mouth quirked upwards. "You thought wrong." He licked his lips, leaning back against the couch. "But that is not why I came."

Jane cleared her throat. "What was your purpose, then?"

"One brought to life by my visit in Volterra."

"You were in Volterra?" Jane looked at him, meeting his eyes.

"Yes, to deliver some of the money that we have made." Jane nodded. "While there, I met with Aro. I remembered a long time ago, one of the first times that we met, when you showed me your talent."

Jane sighed, looking away. "You have spoken of this before."

"Because it is fascinating."

"But never reached a conclusion."

"I have now," Julio said and grabbed Jane's arm, pulling her attention back to him. "I have now."

"Let me hear, then." Jane raised her chin.

"Aro said that there was someone like you before. Not like you, of course, but with the same talent. She died, but Aro told me that when she used it, it felt like the pain of the change. The greatest pain she had ever felt." Julio looked at her as if he expected something to click. "But yours doesn't."

Once more, Jane sighed. "What is the point?"

"That the greatest pain that you ever felt was not the change." Suddenly, his hand flew up to cup her chin. His eyes seemed to bore into hers. "Do it."

"What?" she said, confused.

"Use your talent."

"I can't," she said, but to no avail. Julio just sat there, waiting for the pain. When she finally did it, the reaction was as always and it pained her beyond belief to see it on his face; his face aging by decades, every nerve ending in his body on fire, every muscle, not matter how tiny, trembling from the pain. Releasing a breath that she hadn't noticed she'd held, she stopped.

Julio's face stopped twitching, only the shivering of his bottom lip evidence of his pain just a moment earlier. But instead of fleeing or appraising her talent, as so many before her had done, he asked, "How do you feel?"

At first, she was taken aback, but then she closed her eyes and felt. She wanted to answer his question truthfully, even if the answer was not as she wanted it to be.

"Better," she whispered, her eyelids opening slowly to reveal that a small smile had spread across his lips.

"That proves it." Slowly, his smile vanished and was replaced with an expression of disappointment. "I was right." His hand upon hers.

"About what?" Jane's hand turned to take his in it, enveloping it.

"About what causes the pain that you send others." His eyebrows furrowed. "The most painful moment that you have ever gone through is the one right now; every moment that you ever live is pain."

Jane shook her head. "I feel no pain."

"You do not, simply because you have learned to ignore it but," His hand cupped her chin again, "others have not." He swallowed. "To you, the pain of the change – the most painful feeling any of us have ever felt – it would be a relief to you."

"No," she insisted. "I feel no pain."

"It has grown since last. Is it my fault?"

Jane shook her head, repeating the words that she was beginning to disbelief. "I feel no pain." But her heart stung with a feeling as if a thousand needles had been pushed through it, a cold emptiness filling her.

"I am sorry," he said.

And then he was kissing her. She didn't realize that she had cried until he pulled back and her blood had clung to his nose, to the space beneath his eyes.

"Do not be. I should thank you." She didn't know why, but still she nodded to herself. She wanted to lean in again and kiss him or let him embrace her, but in that moment, the door flung open and Lucrezia stepped in.

Her steps faltered when she noticed Julio. "Oh… you had company? My apologies."

"None required," Jane said, smiling at the girl who seemed embarrassed even if she didn't reveal much of it. "Did you wish to see me?"

"Yes, well… my father calls for you." She once more looked at the both of them, a pleased smile on her face, before leaving the room, carefully closing the door behind her.

Jane turned her face to Julio once more. "I must leave," she said in a quiet, somehow husky voice. After a moment's thought and gathering her courage, she pressed her lips against his. His hand only just made it to her cheek, caressing the bone there, before she pulled back and stood up abruptly. "I will see you later."

He nodded. "I hope so."

Jane didn't wait another second. She knew the importance that time had these days, so she walked through the secret passages that Lucrezia had showed her years earlier to the Vatican. She exited through a trapdoor in the wine cellar. The door was placed so that you weren't likely to be discovered, neither as you crawled out of the door nor when you went up the stairs to the hallways.

She asked one of the servants dressed in the red of the Papacy where she could find the Pope and he quickly led her to a small chamber in which Rodrigo sat behind a small desk.

The man looked up when the door opened. "Giovanna," he said, smiling in greeting. "You came quickly."

"As quickly as possible, your Eminence." Jane looked over her head and saw the servant leave, closing the door behind him.

"Your Eminence?" The Pope sounded almost startled. "It has been long since I last heard you say those words."

Jane nodded. "I thought perhaps you might need to hear them on this day."

He smiled, this time not just out of politeness. "Have a seat."

She complied, sitting down in front of the man who seemed to grow older with every day. "You called for me?"

"Yes, I need your assistance." Jane noticed that he was holding a paper, probably a letter of a sort. "I just received words that Savonarola has overstepped regarding my forbidding him to preach."

"Yes?"

"I would send Cesare and his manservant to arrest the man, but Cesare, apparently, is in Milan." It didn't take much to tell that this didn't please the Pope. "So, I would send you, to meet him on his way back and assist him when he arrests Savonarola."

Jane nodded. "Of course. When should I leave?"

"Tomorrow morning, if it is possible."

"It is," she said without a second thought. She would have plenty of time to talk to Julio if he wished to do so during the night, so leaving the morning after wouldn't be a problem.

"You would send her to take care of Savonarola?"

The Pope looked up, surprised, and Jane turned around completely even if she had already guessed the identity of the man. Juan.

"Her, a woman, in the stead of your firstborn son?" he continued.

Rodrigo sighed. "I do not send a woman, but my other son. The woman, our ally, who has proved deserving of our trust, is only sent to make your brother aware of his duties."

"Have I not proved worthy of your trust?" The aggression in his voice was building, but so was something else – a quiver, a hint of something different.

"If anyone, you have, but you are recovering from injuries attained on field of battle," Rodrigo said, his hand making flying gestures as he ignored Juan's attempts to cut in.

"I do not need strength to capture a monk." Juan stepped further into the room. "Not even one of status or lineage, just a mere peasant given a cloak."

"What battle?" Jane cut in, furrowing. There were many things, apparently, that she did not know of.

"The battle against the French dogs," Juan spat.

"And Caterina Sforza, the mistress of Forli," Rodrigo elaborated. "You have met her once, I believe, when Giovanni Sforza came to court Lucrezia."

"She shares blood with the Vice Chancellor of Rome, yet she fights the city?" Jane raised an eyebrow, not doubting the bravery that stood behind such actions.

Juan let out a breath. "While you speak, said city crumbles." With that, he stormed out of the room, leaving Jane once more alone with the Pope.

"Would you speak to him for me?" Jane looked at Rodrigo, once more taken aback. "I would do so myself, but I have too much on my hands for the moment."

Jane stood up instantly. "Yes, Your Eminence."

"Tell him…" He sighed, leaning back. "Tell him that I trust him more than any other person in the whole of the world and that I want him to get well."

Jane was unsure if she saw tears starting to make their way out of the old man's eyes but she decided to let that matter stay unsure. She walked out into the halls, following the echo of Juan's steps. Once more, she found him on a balcony, drawing fresh breath.

"It is a beautiful city," she commented as she let her eyes wander across the buildings. They glimpsed golden in the light of the sun.

"Only complimentary to the beauty you hold."

Jane looked at his back. "Your words speak one truth, yet the tone with which you speak them seems disconnected." She heard his laugh as she walked to his side. He was fidgeting with a longer pipe made of tree and a strange powder. "What is that?"

"Opium," he said. "For dulling my pain."

"The pain of your injury?"

"What else?"

Jane shrugged silently. "Your father told me to deliver a message."

"I spoke to him mere seconds ago, why not tell me then?" There was anger in his eyes, reasonable anger.

"You ran out of the room too quickly for him to speak." Jane tried to level her voice, tried to calm him without it being noticeable. "He asked me to tell you that he trusts you more than anyone else in this world or the other."

"More than God?" He chuckled sarcastically. "More than Cesare?"

Anxiously, Jane reached out her hand and rested it on top of his which was pressed against the railing of the balcony. "Your hand is sweaty."

Another sarcastic laugh. "Does it disgust you?"

"He told me to tell you that he loves you."

Their eyes met and for a moment, a change happened inside Juan's eyes. For a moment, Jane expected Juan to smile, perhaps even to ask if those words were true. But then he changed back. "He better do. After all that I've gone through." After a moment's silence, which he spent looking at the street beneath them. "I am a peasant, you know. Just a peasant."

He didn't leave this time so Jane was the one to turn away when it was apparent that he wanted privacy. She found Giulia to be standing in the hallway from which she had just exited, smiling and giving a slight nod.

Jane quietly walked away from Juan into the shadows where Giulia stood. "His eyes hold the anger of a dog who does not know whom to trust so instead barks at anyone."

"What are you doing here?"

"To see His Holiness." Giulia didn't smirk and her tone wasn't suggestive as it usually was. But it wasn't sad as it had often been lately when she spoke about her lover. It was determined. "I have a suggestion for him."

"A suggestion?"

Giulia smiled a small smile. "Giovanna, you as well as I know that His Holiness' eyes have been diverted from me, but do not think that I will leave my current position without negotiations." Jane frowned. "I would have property, and my brother in a red cloak. In return, I will not cause a scandal and I will help him to relief from his biggest fear at the moment."

"What is that?"

"Treachery."