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his
whereabouts.
     
    Against the ceaseless clip-clops below, the
many cities parade before him, each at first a welcome, each in the
end an unwelcome: Rome, Genoa, Turin, Savona, Noli, Venice, Milan,
Chambery, Lyons, Geneva, Toulouse, Paris, London, Oxford, Marburg,
Wittenberg, Prague, Frankfurt, where his traitor-to-be, Giovanni
Mocenigo, finally reached him with an invitation to return to
Venice, offering him both work and protection, which Bruno—homesick
by now, and weary of constant flight—could not resist.
    A few months later, Mocenigo—thirty silver
pieces richer—handed him over to the Inquisition as a heretic.
    Seven underfed and miserable years later.
Many, many visits to the rack later. Many failed attempts to make
him recant later. All these now see him tied to the back of a
donkey choking on wood, and now nearing the Campo dei Fiori.
     
    He caught the drifting song of oil drenched
kindling mixed with the thirst for blood of the growing throng, of
end approaching.
    And still they shoved the cross in his face.
Pleading, as if they had the faintest clue about what they were
asking.

:: 6 :: (Renaissance Rome)
     
    Donkey hoofs no longer clip-clop. They have
come to rest.
    He can hear, and feel—in his arms, in his
chest—the slow breath of the animal. He can hear the soft swish of
tail, as it chases some early-riser flies away. He listens to this
for several heartbeats, and for a time—although he cannot bend his
head to see—all that takes place in the here and now is the
graceful flicking of the mule’s tail.
    He tries to hold on to this moment (and so
many other moments like it that now comes rushing to the rescue),
tries to make it last and last and take the place of all other
moments. Then comes another cross near his face and another
eager-to-please monkish face, and here comes the rising susurrus of
the anticipating crowd. The square then. They have arrived.
    The animal chooses this moment to bray.
Loudly to those nearby, louder still to Bruno, ear pressed against
the braying neck, issuing the grating howls first as rumbling earth
within the thick, redolent hide—he is still in two minds about
whether the strong scent is comforting or disgusting—then as
hissing forth through windpipe and maw, then out into air as
scream.
    And again, and again, as if a trumpet now,
heralding arrival.
    Then the animal has had its say; it is still
now. Waiting, it knows not for what, but waiting. Waiting, like
Bruno.
    A new eternity.
    Or a small bouquet of heartbeats.
    Hands now, a forest of fingers trying to
untie the not yet wholly dried leather thongs, trying and trying
but failing to. Now a discussion, much of which eludes Bruno, but
it must have to do with finding something to cut the thongs with. A
knife, a sword, anything sharp enough. Suggestions are offered,
attempts are made, the words “not sharp enough” are repeated by
someone to his right—he can sense a priestly figure, pointing,
piping (voice like an old organ) “not sharp enough” and much
casting about for another implement.
    More commotion, further attempts, and
finally: someone brought something “sharp enough” and his
compulsory grip on the donkey’s neck slips to his left as he falls
to his right and someone catches him, then drops him as the same
“sharp enough” severs the thong for his feet and he tumbles to the
ground.
    More hands and fingers among other crosses.
He is heaved to his feet.
    The leather thongs are still welded to his
wrists and ankles and he realizes he can feel neither hands nor
feet, what blood normally comes and goes there has lost access.
Still, with the help of many hands, he stands on feet that, for all
their numb silence, still seem to serve.
    How long, he thinks, how long, precisely, am
I for this world? Drink, he tells himself, drink what there is to
drink, even if this wine be foul and painful, it is wine
nonetheless and is better than no wine at all, for now he is
suddenly very afraid to die, and would