Title: Anno Santo
Characters: Chiaro, mostly
Word Count: 595
Rating: PG-13
A/N: Written for Pareidolia for Yuletide 2008. A glance into the (historical) future after volume 10; here's hoping to a swift release of vol. 11!
Summary: An unhappy litany.
---
Anno Santo
---
Technically, the year 1500 should have been a good one. A Holy Year, a festive occasion declared only every twenty-five years, days marked by feasts, plenary indulgences, and more pilgrims than even the bustling, people-stacking hostelries of Rome could accommodate.
A year of joy, accentuated by processions, liturgies, and blessings distributed urbi et orbi.
And now, as the year was waning, past harvest time and into winter, as the days grew shorter and the waters of the Tevere became more mutinous and roiling, Chiaro found that there was little left to say.
He could spend hours in silence, or days, the days turning into weeks, and life continued.
Lucrezia had been sent to Nepi, inconsolable, signing her letters "the unhappiest of women", and while her brother shrugged and her father foamed, Chiaro did nothing.
The one time he had tried, she had hit him, feeble fist glancing off his chin. He had let her pummel away, blinking with tears in his eyes. "I did not do it," was all he could whisper. It was true, but she would not hear him out.
And thus, as the Holy Year waned, Chiaro retreated into a new quality of silence.
He allowed Cesare to gently finger-comb his hair, allowed him close and closer, Cesare's breath against his brow or neck or cheek, but he did so with an impassiveness that often made Cesare stop. Cesare would avert his eyes and bite his lip, radiating a sense of hurt that was hard to bear, but then so was Lucrezia's.
Re-instated in Cesare's service, well-paid and well-appointed, Chiaro never thought of himself as an instrument of justice. Perhaps, he thought at times, his usefulness had exhausted itself in re-uniting brother and sister, making them equals in loss.
It was then that he took to walking the streets alone. Rome wasn't safe after dark: too many bravi and cutthroats roaming the streets. Too many people nursing a deadly grudge. He took to walking past Ripetta where Juan Gandia had met the river, then followed the Corso, ambling deep into Orsini territory. Not that he courted death, no. As a matter of fact, Death gave him a wide berth, as if the Borgia coat of arms identified Chiaro as one of his own.
Often, Cesare would wait up for him. He wouldn't ask where Chiaro had been; the woodsmoke and river smell of his clothes already told him. But he would ask, politely, if Chiaro cared for his company. On those nights, Cesare didn't even try and meet Chiaro's eyes.
The year 1500 drawing to a close, all but the most fervent of pilgrims were leaving, trying to beat winter, hoping to quickly buy their masses and absolutions and be gone before the rains made the roads impassable.
When winter came, Chiaro frequently found himself looking past the now-empty loggia, out toward the stairs where, in summer, his new-found silence had begun. It hadn't been him, it really hadn't been him. He hadn't done it. Not on the stairs and not in Sala delle Sibille.
"Taddeo," he'd tried to tell her, "it was Taddeo," but Lucrezia wouldn't listen. Her grief knew no bounds.
And Cesare - Cesare continued to suffer from every word Chiaro didn't say, every thought he didn't share. Sad and numb, Chiaro held him to ease the pain. He held him through the nights, telling him he could let go whenever he was ready; Chiaro would be waiting for him.
Holy Years, Chiaro knew, were declared only every twenty-five years. He didn't expect them to see another one.
-
fin
-