1665
Rome, Italy
I followed him with my eyes as he paced slowly around his office. He held up pages of documents, which I recognized immediately. My notes, I speculated. How did he obtain them? I was lost in deep thought, and his voice pulled me out of the endless pit of thought.
"I see that you are an avid writer, Professor D'Ambrosio." He balanced his gold-rimmed eyeglasses on the tip of his nose and rubbed the rosary beads on his neck between his fingers. The piscatory ring on his third finger from the thumb glistened in the sunlight beaming through the multiple windows in the room.
"Thank you, your Holiness." I knew my end was near, but I did not want it to come any sooner. Disrespecting a figure of high religious authority would rain down trouble and tragedy and humiliation and misfortune and catastrophe to my family and death to me and a new professor for the university and damnation (which was the least of my worries) and bloodshed to my colleagues and fatherless children and a widow and-
"I had ought to study this sometime, Signore Hugo. In the meanwhile, why don't you explain the meaning of this script?" said he, in a gruff voice. I knew it was a rhetorical question, but I wanted to answer, and struggled to stand from my seat.
"Nice try. It's a good thing Seymour can tie knots well. He was such a useful boy, but so naive. He's waiting at the gates of Heaven now, where you will not be. I think this is a piece of heresy don't you think, your Eminence?" A cardinal stepped out of the shadows and nodded with nervousness, retreating right after. He seemed much older than Pope Alexander VII, but had to treat his Holiness with much more respect. A malevolent, merciless grin creeped up on his face.
"Hugo D'Ambrosio, you are charged with heresy. I sentence you to death, and God will be your judge deciding your path to salvation or damnation. I am sure of the latter."
An hour later, I found myself in an animal cage smelling of manure and wet grass, riding to Florence, cuffed and ready to die.
