The Reversed Hierophant

Two men, wrapped tightly from head to toe in long black cloaks, walked out of the small door of the Orange Blossom Church where vegetables were transported. The knight guarding the door glanced at them silently. One of them shook out a small parchment pass. The knight glanced at it and said nothing.

The two stepped onto the wet and muddy road of the lower city.

This massive tumor growing on the body of Florence was filled with fishy-smelling water. The working people had exercised an imagination that surpassed all artists in architectural design. Narrow houses were squeezed into the gaps between buildings. A few wooden boards could be casually placed on the eaves with a piece of oilcloth propped up to create a shelter. People with tenacious vitality live in every crevice, like earthworms and maggots in the soil, greedily absorbing the little sunlight and rainwater that leaked from the layers of rotten buildings.

Damp and sticky moss grew from the ground up the walls and into the houses. These little things, nourished by animal manure, are a stubborn disease that can never be eliminated in the lower city. When you step on them, you will feel a soft and disgustingly slippery texture.

Thieves, slaves, criminals, and prostitutes lived here. Many were already dead, and more were hiding in small, dark houses, peering through the cracks at the two people who still dared to walk on the street.

Rafael walked in front. The blood that was surging in Ferrante’s head had slowly cooled down. As he watched the buildings around him become increasingly low and chaotic, he suddenly realized what was happening – His Holiness the Pope of Florence was venturing deep into the plague-ridden area alone, without any protection.

This fact made Ferrante’s blood run cold. He dared not imagine what would happen if His Holiness had an accident – not just illness, there were too many evil deeds in the lower city that could take a person’s life. The nobles didn’t set foot here not only because it was dirty, but also because many desperadoes lived here.

Given enough benefits, these desperadoes would not mind betraying their faith.

Ferrante suddenly stepped forward and grabbed Rafael’s wrist through his cloak: “Your Holiness… please go back! This place is not suitable for you to set foot in. If…”

Rafael glanced at Ferrante from under the wide hood that covered most of his face, his eyes filled with a gentle smile. Since leaving the Orange Blossom Church, he had seemed very patient, a patience different from his usual gentleness. He seemed to truly regard Ferrante as someone he could trust and was trying to bring him closer.

This was not easy for Rafael.

Only sincerity could be exchanged for sincerity. He painstakingly weighed the weight of every bit of sincerity and gave it to Ferrante. In exchange, he would take away Ferrante’s life, freedom, and everything in the future.

What was the value of a person’s life, freedom, and reputation?

Rafael didn’t know, but he hoped he could afford the price.

“Shh…” The young Pope curled his lips, “Call me Rafa. I’m your elder brother now, remember that.”

His attitude was as firm as his footsteps. He led Ferrante through the rugged steps and steep slopes with ease, climbing over low houses. The terrain here was extremely complicated. The steps might be on the roof of someone’s house. Those who saw this terrain for the first time would always hesitate for a long time and unknowingly get lost here. But Rafael seemed to have run here countless times, and he could even climb to a high place to take a shortcut without any obstacles.

He walked faster and faster. The low, sturdy walls and the rotten, damp wooden corridors were all his paths. He climbed in through open windows, walked through public corridors, and then came down from the iron stairs hanging on the walls. His skilled movements were no different from any of the people who lived here.

Ferrante followed him closely, like a ghost, stepping lightly and silently on Rafael’s footsteps as he crossed every obstacle. While jumping and running, he seemed to be back to the time before he went to the papal palace, running on the narrow road with a group of dirty children, causing a burst of curses.

Far away from the Orange Blossom Church, Rafael stopped. He pressed his right knee, which was aching slightly, and broke free from those distant memories. Ferrante approached him: “Your Holiness… Rafa?”

Ferrante’s voice trembled slightly, and he felt a slight guilt as he called out the name.

“Hmm,” Rafael hummed a low sound, stood up as if nothing had happened, and looked around, “Ah, so we’ve come to this place.”

Unlike the other twisted and dilapidated buildings, the houses here were relatively tidy, even decorated with dirty glass. A blackened wooden sign hung from the dark door on the first floor, with a simply drawn rose on it.

Ferrante’s face stiffened.

The Rose Garden.

Rafael noticed his expression and pinched his chin with two fingers, examining the sea-blue eyes carefully, as if trying to find some emotion. After a long time, he released his hand, “You know what this place is, you grew up here – of course, your information was opened to me the day you entered the papal palace.”

Ferrante didn’t speak. Of course he knew about this, but Rafael had never mentioned it, so he just pretended it didn’t exist.

As the son of a prostitute, even among illegitimate children, he was the most despised kind.

He waited for Rafael to say something.

The pope’s fingers shifted and pressed against his head, pulling Ferrante towards him. In the foul air of the lower city, he heard Rafael’s soft voice, “There’s nothing to be ashamed of. The woman I once considered my mother also worked here. If possible, I hoped she was my mother. For that, I would accept the contempt and disdain of anyone. I even envied and hated her future children, what a good mother he would have…”

Ferrante heard Rafael’s almost silent whisper, “So you see, before you were born, there was already someone who envied you like this.”

Ferrante’s eyes widened.

Rafael patted his head, “Your eyes are too much like Lia’s. When I first saw you, I felt familiar.”

Lia, how long had it been since he had heard his mother’s name?

Ferrante looked at Rafael stupidly. The blond, purple-eyed Pope reached out and touched his forehead, brushing Ferrante’s curly, soft black hair up, revealing those deep sea-blue eyes and the high bridge of his nose. He carefully examined his outline, and his cold fingers brushed against Ferrante’s lips and cheeks, as if examining a precious and rare work of art.

The feather-like touch made Ferrante shiver involuntarily. He approached Rafael like a baby bird approaching its only source of warmth and turned his face slightly to meet Rafael’s touch.

“You have the same gentle eyes as hers,” the Pope said softly, “with long eyelashes and lips…”

The fingers pressed on Ferrante’s eyeball through the thin eyelids. Ferrante involuntarily closed his eyes. Tears welled up at the corners of his eyes, and the hand wiped away his tears and slid down, pressing against his lips.

“You and Lia are so alike…”

After his vision cleared, Ferrante opened his eyes. Rafael was momentarily dazed. In those eyes filled with a thin layer of water, he seemed to see the eyes of the woman who was connected to this boy by blood, her eyes always shining with tearful tenderness.

Rafael’s childhood was very miserable. An orphan without parents, he was adopted by an old thief who had a rare fit of kindness. Saying it was adoption was an overstatement; it was more like giving him a bite to eat so that Rafael wouldn’t starve.

The criminal chain in the lower city can almost be said to be very mature, even to the point of being passed from generation to generation. Old Aaron was a thief. He wasn’t very skilled and could only do odd jobs, barely making ends meet. When he got older, he couldn’t go out stealing anymore, so he had to adopt Rafael—children were small, agile, and Rafael was so cute that he could easily sneak into many places to steal. After they had depended on each other for a few months, old Aaron passed away, and Rafael inherited his dilapidated wooden shed, joining a group of street urchins and continuing to make a living by stealing.

There were many street urchins in the lower city, and Rafael was the most inconspicuous one. He followed old Aaron’s dying words, cutting his hair into a mess, trying not to wash his face, and avoided going up to the main downtown area. Although it was easier to make a living there, it was very dangerous for him.

He lived like this, alternately eating one meal a day. Then one day he met Lia, who was soliciting customers at the door.

A skinny street urchin and a prostitute.

Their story was sad and boring. Perhaps it was because of her instinctive desire for warmth, Lia would occasionally help this too-young orphan, putting half a piece of steaming rye bread in his dirty little hand and watching the skinny child gobble it up.

Now Sistine I had become rich and powerful, his believers prostrating themselves at his feet, willing to present all rare and precious flowers to him, even if they had to polish the petals with gold and inlay the stamens with gems. But when he was young, hungry and cold, he could only secretly pick a flower from the door of someone else’s house, carefully protecting the curled edges, and cross half of the lower city just to give this withered and not-so-beautiful wildflower to her.

Rafael once secretly called her mother in his heart.

He didn’t know who his parents were or why they abandoned him. He hoped they were dead, so he could convince himself that this was just a trick from fate, and that they actually loved him very much. Lia didn’t deny this guess.

Because of malnutrition, it was difficult to tell his age. Lia guessed he was about three years old, maybe even a year older. After they became familiar with each other, Lia would take him to her room, let him sleep on her lap, and gently pat his back, whispering something. Rafael didn’t care what she said, he fell asleep in the smell of Lia’s cheap perfume, outlining the shadow of his mother in his mind.

He had once truly wished that Lia was his mother. When it rained and his wooden shack leaked, he would squat under Lia’s eaves. Sometimes she would let him in, sometimes she wouldn’t—mostly because there were customers. He would carefully shrink himself and curl up in the most hidden corner of the eaves so as not to be seen. The customers who came here didn’t usually care whether their bed partner was of age or even female.

He listened to Lia’s muffled, hoarse cries in the rain and wished it would rain harder and harder. He hoped a bolt of lightning would strike, splitting the house and everyone inside to pieces. Then he would jump into the ruins, hold Lia’s hands and run forward. They wouldn’t need a direction, or a road. They would just need to run, run forward, run in the rain, run in the wind, and keep running all the way out of the lower city and out of Florence.

They said that there was an endless sea at the edge of Florence, so they would run all the way to the seaside and jump in, or stay there—either way, he would follow Lia’s choice.

But this was just the crazy fantasy of a lonely child.

He imagined that the customer would have a stroke in the midst of his frenzy, that a flower would grow out of their head and burst their brain, or that they would trip and fall down the stairs and die. He had arranged countless deaths for every person who came to Lia. Even the most evil devil couldn’t defeat the imagination of a slum child filled with hatred. Even the ghosts that crawled out of hell would have to bow down to Rafael at that time.

But the customers kept coming and going, and his fantasies remained fantasies.

After the customer left, Lia would open the window and pull Rafael from under the eaves. The room had a strange, damp smell. Rafael had become very familiar with this smell during that time and hated the smell of human desire immensely ever since.

“I was only three years old when I met Lia,” Rafael said casually. “She took care of me for a while, and then she left. I tried to find out where she went, but it wasn’t easy.”

There were too many people in the lower city. People were born and died every day. They fled, they fell into poverty, and they found temporary places to stay in the winding alleys and rooms that were more crowded than honeycombs. Rafael was just a child, and he couldn’t find out anything.

Lia was sold to another rose garden. Until he left the lower city, Rafael didn’t know where she had gone.

“…She was by the docks. The inner river passed through there, and there were a lot of people coming and going,” Ferrante said hoarsely.

“Oh, no wonder,” Rafael nodded. “I always avoided that place… During that time, many street urchins were kidnapped, and they were all transported out through the docks. Children were careful not to go near the docks.”

He seemed to want to smile but couldn’t. He just stared into Ferrante’s eyes.

Ferrante met his gaze and saw that for a moment, those lavender eyes seemed to be filled with crystal tears.

“I’m so sorry to her,” Rafael turned his head, took his hand off Ferrante’s face, and took a step back, muttering, “… I’m so sorry to her.”

He no longer looked at the eyes that were so similar to Lia’s. He took a step forward in another direction, and Ferrante followed behind him, hearing the Pope change the subject: “I heard you also participated in the blessing ceremony at the Holy Grail Church?”

“Yes, I can sing an entire hymn. The blessing ceremony needs children like this to sing hymns, and I can get two or three copper coins.” Ferrante replied honestly.

Rafael looked up at the direction and chose a small path to climb up: “I remember you were at… the Holy Grail Church? How were the priests there?”

Ferrante was silent for a moment.

Rafael got the answer he wanted from this silence. He sighed: “Is that why you’re so persistent in finding a saint that fits your imagination?”

Ferrante’s pupils shrank.

They were walking up a flight of stone steps when the pope turned to look at him from above. His unspeakable thoughts seemed to be exposed in the other’s eyes: “You look at me as if I were a saint, but I’m not.”

The Pope, who is the incarnation of God on earth and holds the title of absolute saint, said shocking words in a place where no one knew:

“I am not the saint you want.”

“You made that little girl come to me to expose Francois, hoping that I would punish evil and promote good, but in the end, did you really get the result you expected?”

Ferrante took a step back when he heard the first word. He didn’t expect that matter to have been discovered.

Rafael didn’t get angry. He turned around and continued to walk up: “You hope to see the wicked suffer eternal damnation, you hope to see the good people live happily ever after, you hope the saint will wash away the sins of the world, but Francois is still back in Calais living his luxurious life, and those innocent people who were released are still struggling in a painful life.”

Ferrante’s face changed. He shook his head, trying to leave or to stop Rafael from saying any more… he didn’t want to listen anymore!

But Rafael never softened his heart before achieving his goal: “Don’t you understand? I’m not the saint you want. I am just like you. I crawled out of the mud, doing despicable things for my own purposes and desires in the secular world. If you want a saint, you shouldn’t look for it in me.”

Ferrante stood there stiffly, watching Rafael walk farther and farther away. After the Pope had walked a distance, he finally found that his guards were gone. He looked back and found that the black-haired boy had a look of despair and anger in his eyes that was very familiar to him.

Rafael smiled silently and sadly.

“But I can give you a saint, the perfect saint you want,” said the representative of God on earth. “Come, dear.”

He found himself still unable to resist the voice, even though it had just cruelly shattered his fantasy.

After a moment of stiffness, the boy with black curly hair finally lifted his feet and silently followed Rafael’s footsteps. The young Pope seemed very gentle at this moment. He took Ferrante’s hand and led him through the complex terrain, avoiding the wandering people, and finally stopped on a desolate hillside.

Author’s Note

Rafael, the master of brainwashing, crushes Ferrante, reshapes him, puts his own mark on him, and then you can have a puppy of your own!

Sistine I’s Notes: I went hiking today. My knees hurt, walking was tiring, and I had to talk a lot, but it was worth it because I picked up a curly-haired puppy.

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