Isabella cautiously pushed the oak door open. The Papal Study, from what she knew, had been acting as an makeshift library for the church until the official one was finished being built. The room was expansive and decorated with frescos of the Old Testament. Rows of bookcases were filled with manuscripts from Constantinople, Paris, Cairo, and Jerusalem.

After being locked away for so long, Isabella's only comfort for a time was ink covered pages. She had learned to take comfort in them. The characters and their adventures removed her from a dark room and into fantasies of King Arthur and Odysseus. However, even the midst of numerous literary works, she couldn't help but feel uneasy.

"I understand you can read Latin."

Isabella turned from the bookshelf she was examining and immediately bowed at the sound of the Pope's voice. "Yes I can, Your Holiness."

"Please stand," he held out a hand for Isabella. "It's just us and the Lord. There is no need for that."

Isabella gently took the open palm and stood. Among the rows of books, Biblical characters staring down at her, and the Pope; Isabella couldn't help but feel miniscule. Perhaps that was the purpose of the study: to feel small in mortality.

Pope Martin led her to a table upon which a tome sat open. Upon it's pages colorful character danced among the script. "If you would be so kind to translate this passage for me."

Isabella bent closer to the page and the must mixed with mineral dyes wafted to her nose. She studied the eloquent script for a moment before reading.

It was Revelations.

"So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration... And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns…"

Isabella could feel her stomach tighten with anxiety as she continued with the passage. Pope Martin was trying to say something. Something about the letter that her father had sent.

" For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities. Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double. How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her."

"You may stop there," Pope Martin said. "Now tell me, what happened to the woman later in the book? Surely someone of your status would know."

Isabella didn't look up but instead remained fixated on the illustration of the woman's fate in vivid colors. "Fire rained down on her from Heaven and she cast into Hell to burn for eternity."

"Correct," he said. "Now why was that?"

"Because she spoke blasphemy against the Lord and was proud for doing so."

The Pope nodded. "Give me your hand."

Isabella took a step forward and swallowed. She placed her shaking hand into the Pope's. He inspected it for moment, almost like a steak. "Your father," he started. "Wrote to me that you had received the stigmata after having a dream of the Devil and yet…" he let go of Isabella's hand. "I see nothing. Not even a scar."

"In all due respect, Your Holiness," Isabella's voice shook. "The stigmata is not a mortal wound."

"And yet it does not appear before me, the Pope," he took a step forward. Pope Martin was slightly taller than Isabella and it was emphasised with his bold stance over her. "Either you lie or I am not the Holy Father."

Isabella snatched her hand away from the Pope. "Sir," she said indignantly. "Are you implying that my father and I have committed blasphemy by falsely claiming stigmata to you?"

The Pope moved around the table. "Possibly. And like the woman who sits upon a beast from Revelations, you are proud of it."

"I am not proud, Your Holiness," she cried. "When the stigmata first to me in my dreams it would be so painful that I would wake. The pain would continue to ravish my body with no mortal wounds. I couldn't walk for days because the invisible nails that pierced my feet remained in reality. I couldn't close my hands to pray because agony would crawl up my arms at any movement," she moved toward the Pope and felt herself stand taller despite the tears pricking her eyes. "I am not proud of the stigmata because of the cost it bears. I owe nothing but thanks to Lord for granting me the ability to empathize with our Savior's death."

Isabella didn't know from where inside her the boldness or the words were coming from to confront the Pope. "If it does not appear to you, Your Holiness, it is because you are of this realm. You desire nothing but power and mortal things. Your death from this position will be soon and swift. You will not live to see my work in the name of the glory of Florence and the Lord."

Pope Martin had backed against the table. His face was twisted into one of confusion and fear. Then, in an instant, he turned to anger. "You… you, a girl, dare to question my authority? Just because you made a vow does not mean you are free of crime. It does not mean Cosimo de Medici is free of blasphemy by indulging you in your delusions. I will have you imprisoned for this...this insolence to the Church! Guards!"

Isabella felt unusually calm as the wooden doors slammed against their hinges to reveal guards. She felt at peace in the eye of a hurricane. Those words were somehow not her's. She did not plan to say them and now that they were in the air, she felt as if she did her duty.

"You do not have to drag me," she said. "I will go to the prisons willingly as long as I am granted my Bible, rosary, and conference with my uncle."

Pope Martin's complexion matched his red robes. "We will see."

"How could you be so stupid?"

Isabella sat on the bed of her cell. The creaks and groans of the frame had kept her awake most of the night until she fell asleep from exhaustion. The stone walled chamber was not unlike other cells, but upon hearing that Isabella was Medici the jailer gave her a warmer blanket and less stale food. Both the food and the blanket remained untouched at the foot of her bed. "I said the truth and so did Father."

"The stigmata?" her uncle paced the small space. "I do not doubt you or your father's words, but how could you have been foolish enough to tell the Pope that it would not come because he is not a holy man? He is the holiest man on earth, Isabella. That is why he is called the Pope! People have been burned at the stake for less!"

"It wasn't me who said those things!"

"Then it was the Lord?"

Isabella stared her uncle in the eye. "Is there any other option?"

A silence fell between the two. Lorenzo sighed and sit next to Isabella. "There hasn't been someone who has taken your Vow in over a thousand years. We can't be sure of… what comes with it. However, you said what you said and now you are imprisoned for blasphemy and insolence- both at the Pope's request. I will talk to him and see if we may come to an arrangement. There has to be a way to persuade him from you rotting in a jail or swinging from a rope. You're more valuable to the Church outside these walls than inside them. It may take a couple days and I'll have to send word to your father."

"He will want to come himself, won't he?" Isabella asked.

"You are his daughter."

Isabella swallowed and felt deeply guilty. Florence was in the middle of a war and in financial ruin. That was the entire reason Isabella and Lorenzo came to Rome. Florence needed her father's banking knowledge to pick it up off the ground and end the suffering.

Why couldn't she keep her mouth shut? Where did the words come from? The Cardinal had made it clear that Isabella needed to watch what she said to the Pope.

However, she did not feel guilty for what she said.

"Please hurry," Isabella requested.

Lorenzo stood. "Here," he passed down her Bible with her rosary tucked between the pages. "Prove yourself in any means possible."

Isabella tossed and turned on the cot. It was simply wood, a bit of hay, and some cloth. The blanket remained at the bottom of the bunk. She tried to make it clear to the jailer that she was not to be treated better than any other prisoner based on her family name. He wouldn't have it, "I 'ave 'eard of your vow, Madonna. I'll be 'amned if a 'oly figure is not t'eated 'ight in my 'ail." She swallowed her pride and took the wool blanket.

The moonlight cascaded down onto Isabella's figure as she stared at the wall of the cell. There was a scuttling in the corner and Isabella turned. A brown figure against the stone, a field mouse burrowed in the hay. It must have been brought in with the hay.

Isabella rolled over and plucked a bit of bread from her tray to hold out to the creature. "Are you lost?" she inquired as the mouse tentatively took the bread from her fingers to nibble on. "I am too, I guess."

The mouse turned it head at her as if to say, "Go on."

"I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing. I know I'm supposed to give myself up completely and us go with whatever is required of me, but I'm afraid it is hurting my family. I've already hurt them twice. I didn't marry because of my vow and I ran away for a year. I know that hurt my parents. They thought I was dead. My father even ordered a plaque with my name to be installed in the church."

Isabella held out another piece of bread for the mouse, who instead of taking it, jumped into her palm. The girl gently held the mouse aloft, studying it as it nibbled away. "Was that selfish? Running away? Should I have just endured instead? Even if it killed me?"

The field mouse finished the moursal and Isabella held up another. Once it took the bread, she tenderly stroked its head. "I'm so very lonely, and I guess will be for the rest of my life. This is what I chose: to talk to a mouse in a cell. I can't ask for your judgement for this is a one way relationship. How did Saint Francis manage it? Preaching to animals when you don't know if they agree with you or not?"

The mouse began inspecting Isabella's hand, hoping to find more food. She obliged. "I guess that's the point of it. You just say what is required and hope people listen. The Pope listened, seeing that I'm in a cell. I know I said, or I think I said, that there is more to my life but what if this is it? What if I die hanging in the courtyard? Just another name on the family line?"

The mouse did not reply.

"I'm lonely, I'm scared, and I'm confused," Isabella said. "But I guess that isn't a foreign feeling for me."

She sat the mouse back down on the floor and watched it scurry away into the shadows. A moment later she heard it burrow into the old hay on the floor.

For a moment, she felt at peace.

It didn't last long. Isabella acted on a gut feeling and yelled. "JAILER!"

The man ran to the outside of her cell. "Yes, Madonna?"

"Pass a message to Cardinal Condulmerio that I wish for his counsel."

The Cardinal was awakened by his guards in the middle of the night.

"Cardinal Condulmerio!" One of the young guards shook him awake. "Isabella de Medici requests your presence."

"It's the middle of the night, Louis! Can it wait until the morning?"

"I went down to the dungeons myself, Cardinal. She is quite insistent."

The Cardinal sat up and threw the covers off of himself. "The dungeon? What on earth is she doing down there?"

"The Pope claims blasphemy and insolence, sir."

He sighed. "So she demands my counsel. Give me a moment to get ready."

Cardinal Condulmerio gathered his robes and wrapped them around his body. Somehow he knew that the child would suddenly turn against Pope. Her mother was famed for her sharp tongue, even in Rome, and was not surprising that it would be passed to Contessina de Medici's only daughter. However, he assumed Isabella to be smarter than this. Something must have happened in that room, something unexpected. Something so unexpected, in fact, that the Pope felt the need to imprison the first Perpetual Virgin in a thousand years.

The Cardinal emerged from his room and was guided by the guard to the dungeons. Isabella de Medici was small and the Cardinal could not imagine how she was successfully surviving the night.

Louis fumbled with the keys for a moment before opening the cell's iron door.

Isabella was curled up upon the cot with a blanket wrapped around her body. Her back was turned to the Cardinal, but he could faintly hear her whisper her way through her rosary.

"Hail Mary full of Grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed are thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen."

Something about her voice was strangely calm. She was a brave, young girl, but it was almost unnerving how calm her "Hail Mary" had become at the end.

"Isabella de Medici?"

She sat up and turned to face the Cardinal. "You will be the next pope," she stated bluntly.

The Cardinal rushed to her side. "Isabella, what are you-" His eyes fell her hands which held her wooden rosary. Blood dripped from the crucifix onto the hay floor. Condulmerio felt his knees give way under his body and he dropped to the floor. Gingerly, with utmost respect and honor, he grasped Isabella's hands to inspect the the stigmata.

"You will be the next pope," Isabella repeated. Her voice sounded distant, almost from another room. "You will bring the Lord back to Rome and free those in bondage."