Lasciate Ogne Speranza? by Finch

Chapter 1

The title is in Italian. For the translation, see the Author's Note at the end.
Maglor belongs to Tolkien, and the other character isn't mine either.
People totally unfamiliar with anything Italian and Italian history in particular, are advised to read the Author's Notes first. Though for anyone who doesn't recognise the title, this may give away the (intended) surprise at the end of the first chapter.

Dedicated to my Italian friend Giulio, whose reaction to this story pointed me to the appropriate quote:

'Art has been verified. God is the Lord, of angels, and of men - and of elves. Legend and History have met and fused.'
- J.R.R. Tolkien, Epilogue to On Fairy Stories

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Mortality does not change, and neither do mortals.

I have seen yet another emperor die. This one succumbed to what they call the 'bad air' in this part of the world - mal'aria in their language. They think this is caused by vapours rising from the marshes. When I tell them I believe it could just as well be the midges, they shrug and turn away. I know why: the midges and their bites are more difficult to avoid than the vapours, and in their hearts, mortals prefer those interpretations of the world that ascribe them the greatest measure of power and control.

True, many also speak of God's hand or fate, yet more often than not this is merely their way to exonerate themselves when things go awry. As the physicians did when the emperor died, though neither knows the first thing about fate and they only have the vaguest notions of what they mean when they speak of God, as they call their idea of the One.

Others accused the emperor's confessor of having murdered him. For mortals also have a tendency to blame the mishaps of this world on other mortals, whenever they see a chance. And as they maintain that God cannot bear the order of his world to be disrupted, they mete out their ghastly punishments in his holy name. I have learned long ago not to point out to them that if God really could not stand disorder, he would have obliterated the world and everything in it many ages ago. It is not as if he needs it, being sufficient unto himself. And mortals overestimate themselves horribly if they claim responsibility for the marring of the earth. None of them has ever brewed a storm to wreck ships, none of them ever caused a volcano to spew fire, or a river to flood, or a pestilence to snuff out the lives of hundreds of thousands.

The poor confessor was innocent; I had seen enough people die of the mal'aria to be sure that the doctors were right. But the friar mistrusted the judgement of his fellow men and feared for his life. I helped him to flee. I had served the late emperor as a condottiere, as they call it here, a warrior who hires out his sword and his warrior band to the lord who pays and suits him best. I am too good a singer and craftsman to pass unnoticed among Men in these occupations, but as a killer I am less outstanding. My six brothers were all better at it than I was, and after the Silmaril burned my right hand I never learned to fight as well with my left hand as Maitimo did. Even among mortal warriors I am not known for my prowess. It was just sufficient to have the gates opened and let the poor friar slip outside.

Before he melted away into the night he blessed me, admonishing me to repent and mend my violent ways. I nodded; why rebuff him? There was too little time anyway to confess that no amount of repentance could save my fallen soul. I threw my last, shining hope into the waves in what humans with their fallible memories call times immemorial. I wish that my memory was as feeble, but the deathless Elves are not granted such merciful oblivion.

Though most of my fellow condottieri left the imperial army to seek new employment, I told my company to disband and followed the emperor's ashes - they had to burn his body when it began to stink unbearably in the Mediterranean summer heat - to his last earthly resting place in the cathedral of Pisa. I stayed even until long after the burial to watch the sculptor carve the grave monument. Not once did he pay attention to me, lurking in my shadowy corner to survey the details of his work from a distance that would have defeated the eyesight of any mortal. He was an accomplished enough craftsman, who would not have gone without a fair amount of praise even among the Eldar, and he had seen the emperor alive. But he had not seen him wither away and die, as I had.

And so, one evening after the sculptor left the cathedral, I approached the monument with a hammer and chisel I had procured that afternoon. Ascertaining that no one was looking my way I carefully proceeded to carry out a few alterations to the pale marble face, making the eyelids droop a little more and the mouth twist a little further in soundless agony. Some among my kin would undoubtedly have bettered my achievement. Yet none of them are left in this world of Men but I, and thus it fell on me to perfect the picture of imperial suffering and defeat.

'What are you doing?' a stern voice suddenly asked me.

So concentrated had I been that the soft footsteps approaching me from behind had eluded me. I started; it was sheer luck that I was not holding the chisel to the marble when the voice spoke up so suddenly, or it would have chipped off the curve of the emperor's lower lip.

Turning without a word, I took in the speaker's appearance: a small, middle-aged man with a brown skin and sharply cut features, clad in faded red and wearing a capocchio on his head that had also seen better days. Though he had to look up at me - I stood at least a head taller than he did, whereas he was stooping a little - he met and held my gaze with an angry glint in his. 'Were you trying to destroy the good emperor's tomb before it is full wrought?'

He was speaking rather loud, and from where I stood I could see the chaplain busy at the altar halt in his movements to peer at us. When no violence erupted, he continued trimming the candlewicks. I stepped aside. 'Does this look like destruction to you, messere?'

'Perhaps I came in time.' He craned his neck, his eyes having more difficulty than mine to pierce the twilight shrouding this corner of the cathedral.

'Why would I want to damage the imperial effigy?' I asked.

'You would not be the first to hate a dead man's memory!' he spat without taking his eyes from the tomb. 'I fear I did come too late. This is not my Arrigo - this is the face of failure! You are trying to destroy his image!'

Whoever the man was, he seemed to be a good judge of craftsmanship, for it was an apt description. But before I could remark on this he wheeled, ready to attack me, or so I thought. I almost laughed out loud; he was no match for me. But I was mistaken: he did not attack and the way his thin lips twisted gave me pause. It was plain to see that his agression was born of grief.

'Your Arrigo destroyed his own image,' I told him calmly. 'He tried to be a peacemaker, but when the mal'aria took him he had become an epitome of war. If that is not failure, I do not know what is.'

The emperor had come to make peace in strife-torn Italy, to end the hatred and bloodshed between the Guelfs and the Ghibellines. Unfortunately his noble intentions, marred by too great a trust in his so-called God-given authority, proved no match for the resentment, vindictiveness and guile of the feuding parties. Slowly he slid into partiality himself, ending up as the figurehead of the Ghibellines. Eventually, he pronounced the Imperial Ban on the leader of the opposing Guelfs and vowed to wipe him from the face of the earth. The ensuing campaign had been savage and cruel, sparing neither peasants nor clerics, neither women nor children. Yet he had believed in the righteousness of his cause until the last. And as he paid me to fight for him, fight was what I did - though having slaughtered more than enough women and children in the darkest days of my past, in this time and place I restricted myself to soldiers and the occasional monk. The soldiers knew the risks of their job and God's servants should wish to be in Paradise anyway, to be dead happily ever after. (This notwithstanding, some of them cursed me to their human inferno, not knowing I carry my own void along wherever I go, without hope of redemption.)

'Failure? You are his enemy indeed,' the little man hissed. 'I ought to denounce you! Pisa is a city of the Ghibellines; shall I rouse the people to tell them there is an accursed Guelf in their midst, come to desecrate the emperor's grave? You are even wearing a sword in church!'

'Which I could easily use on you, were I so inclined,' was my reply. I cared nothing about such rules, as little as I cared about the petty quarrels of these petty people in their petty cities(1). But I do not kill people who merely annoy me, and truth to say this one intrigued me as well. 'So I am his enemy for speaking the truth? Call the virtuous Pisans, then, if that is too much for your feeble ears.'

Again he peered at the emperor's effigy. 'How he suffered,' I heard him mutter. 'The poor lamb of God come to take away the sins of the world...'

At first I thought he had begun to pray, and I was about to go when I realised abruptly that he was speaking of the emperor. 'I've heard that before,' I said.

'Are you telling me you are one of those fools who believed in that letter he received from -'

'Did I believe in it?' he interrupted me hotly. 'I am the one who wrote that letter, messere, and if there was anything foolish about it, it was the divine folly that is wiser than men!'

I should have left him to his pieties there and then. There is no arguing with believers, whether they believe in holy invocations or blasphemous oaths, as I have learned to my never-ending sorrow. But I stayed. 'So you are the fanatic who addressed him as the divine Arrigo, and told him he was the saviour of Italy and the true emperor of the world.' A world, much wider and far older than this little man could begin too guess, a world that remains indifferent to one petty chieftain of Men, whose mortal body will decay to dust in no more than a breath and a heartbeat.

'It was a good letter,' he said, straightening, though not to his full yet insignificant height. His stoop must have grown into his back, as happens so often with elderly mortals.

'It was,' I had to concede. 'Full of eloquence and conviction, of arduous faith, of trust and praise. And flattering, too. He believed it, every blasphemous word, every presumptuous turn of phrase, every ludicrous notion. It tempted him into shouldering a responsibility his fragile mortal back was too weak to bear.'

Maybe I was harsher than the man deserved, suggesting he had spurred his beloved Arrigo onward on the road to destruction, but he asked for it. I expected a new outburst of animosity, and for a moment, it seemed as if the entire, huge cathedral of Pisa was too small for his surging emotions. But the volcano did not explode. I can't tell why not. Maybe because he could perceive the shard of pity for the emperor still lodged in my hardening heart.

'You have read the letter? You can read?' he asked, suddenly curious.

I can read dozens of languages in many different scripts. I have read a great deal of what Man has seen fit to entrust to parchment, papyrus, silk, stone, bone, wood, bark and this new invention called paper that is made from shreds of cloth chewed to pulp - just as the thoughts that are entrusted to writing are often made from shreds of truth chewed to fancies and half-lies.

'I did not have to read it. I was standing within earshot when it was read to the emperor,' was all I said.

He peered at me, but as I stood with my back to the candlelight I doubted he could discern much of my face. Not even my eyes; once they used to shine with the fierce light that had earned me and my kin the epithet of flame-eyed, but throughout the ages the fire has dimmed and now it takes an effort to make it flame.

'If you know what was in the letter,' he said finally, 'then you must also know that it left room for doubt. You must also know how little he heeded it. I advised the good Arrigo to subdue the viper's nest called Florence, the sick sheep of the flock, the money-loving root of all evil in this fair land, before any other city. But did he act on it? No, he allowed himself to be led astray by self-seeking and untrustworthy counsellors, and when he finally saw I was right and laid siege to that altar of iniquity, it had grown strong enough to withstand the sword of his justice.'

The passion with which he spoke surprised me; it seemed almost too much for one, small, elderly mortal, and I felt a fire in his soul such as I had not sensed in many centuries. 'You seem to hate that city.'

Abruptly, he turned away and began to walk to the nearest side porch, treading slowly and carefully; the floor seemed to rock with the uneasily shifting shadows of the candle flames. But I would not be dismissed so easily. Putting my tools away I closed the distance between us with a few long strides. His footsteps rang angrily in the hollow vaults overhead; mine made less noise, but I did my best not to walk soundlessly, as I am wont to do when I manage to forget what I am for a time - an ever present temptation, and afterwards invariably a source of despair.

Though he noticed my presence, he did not speak until we stepped outside the cathedral, halting at the edge of the wide sward of grass surrounding it. Beyond it, a veiled woman flitted by in the direction of the city walls. To our right, beyond the apsis of the cathedral, a sliver of silvery moonlight glinted off the dome of the baptistry, but my father's Silmaril in the heavens, the Gil-estel that the mortals of this time called Venus, had already set. It was just as well; to me the star had become a mockery after all these ages, instead of a sign of hope.

To our left, the partly finished campanile with its elegant arches was a pale ladder vainly striving against the darkened heavens in which the first stars were coming out. Though the tower was leaning visibly, the Pisans kept building on, apparently oblivious to the possibility that it would crash down on the heads of their descendants some day(2). However, I had ceased trying to warn mortals against their own follies long ago.

Finally, the little man turned towards me. 'Yes,' he said fiercely. 'I hate that city, I hate Florence as only one who loves a thing more dearly than he loves his own right hand can hate it. I gave her everything I had, to cleanse out evil and bring peace, but she spat me out. I was exiled on pain of death; I have not seen her for a dozen years now.'

Ah, I thought. So that is what you wanted from the emperor. Your Arrigo was to subdue your city to enable your return. Well, I could hardly blame him for cherishing such hopes, even though they were built on the sand of wishful thinking.

'I can never return,' he went on, gazing past me, 'except on my bare knees, begging for pardon, throwing myself at the merciless mercies of her wicked masters. If they catch me on her territory and I do not bend, I will burn - as if I am not aflame already. Not that I expect you to know what it is to be exiled from the place of your birth.'

I groped for support against the wall of the cathedral, its stones still warm from the day's heat. 'But I do,' I said, unable to keep the catch from my voice, and almost I added: I have been exiled from the place of my birth for more years than you could ever imagine, even if you were able to count them.

He heard my distress and to my surprise he allowed it to mitigate his own. 'Sit,' he ordered me. I slid down along the wall, the scabbard of my sword scraping across the tiles. He sat down as well. From the heart of the city, beyond the unfinished belfry, the wind carried a waft of song and laughter towards us.

'You were exiled, too?' he asked, 'From where? What is your name?'

'Macalaure,' I replied, and after a slight hesitation I added: 'Of Valinóre.'

He did not comment on the names; they do not sound too outlandish too Italian ears, and wherever I happen to be in this peninsula, people simply assume I am from elsewhere, which is true enough.

'Macalaure,' he repeated, as if savouring the name on his tongue. 'I am Dante Alighieri.'

Chapter 2

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'So we have something in common,' the little man called Dante Alighieri went on. 'Are you a Ghibelline then, exiled by Guelfs? Most of those who served the emperor are.'

'I am neither Guelf nor Ghibelline. I am a condottiere, serving the one who pays best.' It was not entirely true; towards the end the emperor had not paid me

enough to keep my company at full strength, but that was none of this man's concern.

'Then for what were you exiled, Macalaure?' he wanted to know.

'For murder, and rebellion,' I said bluntly. 'Desiring to avenge the murdered head of our House and the theft of our jewels, we slew those who declined to aid us and refused to seek the pardon of those who condemned us.' In the course of time, I had found to my chagrin that told like this, our tale was nothing out of the ordinary. And in truth, Dante did not look particularly shocked.

'I also refused to seek pardon,' he mused.

'But you say you did nothing wrong.'

'I only sought to serve my city.'

'That's the difference,' I said. If I were to tell him the full tale of the atrocities I had committed he would not be sitting at my side for long.

'Your city,' he began after a while. 'Valinóre. I do not believe I have ever heard the name before. Where on earth is it to be found?'

Nowhere on earth, of course. But how could I tell him that it had been removed from the circles of the world, and that even the straight road that had remained open to the Eldalië for a while was closed now? My new acquaintance had told me he would not crawl back to Florence on his bare knees, but I would gladly crawl back naked to the lands of my birth, if only it would be granted to me. Naked as a disembodied soul I would return - if only I had been able to die. But I never died: not by weapon, not by torment, not by grief. Even such deaths were taken from me, it seemed. I tend to laugh a little when mortals believe that death is the harshest of sentences. But the laughter soon dies. There is nothing to laugh when time and again, life - if it can be called that - proves an inescapable punishment. In my native tongue the word for world is Doom (3), but I may be the only speaker of Quenya who fully comprehends what this means.

I don't even fade, though I often think it would be more convenient than staying visible. But I fear the guilty cannot fade if their guilt is too substantial.

'It's far from here,' I replied to his question.

'It's not here in Italy.' A factual statement, delivered with such utter certainty that denying it would be useless. Apparently, Dante was as knowledgeable as he was curious. But I was loath to disclose more about myself, so I chose to remain silent.

It did not work. 'So, how far away is it?'

'Too far,' I replied curtly.

'Further away than Cathay (4)?' he asked, eying me intently.

'Much further.'

He shook his head impatiently. 'Messere, the world happens to be round (5). If you travel beyond Cathay, you will eventually return to the place where you set out.' He snorted.  'If it is further away than Cathay one would almost think that your Valinóre is not on this earth at all.'

This would be the proper moment to rise and leave. By now, I had risen and left for years innumerable, always moving on before people could wonder in earnest why I did not age; why I never fell sick; why my injuries healed so swiftly; why I saw things they failed to see, or heard things they did not hear. In short, before they could wonder whether I was angel or demon and faced the choice between adoration and exorcism. Always an unpleasant choice, not only for me but for everyone involved: mortals seldom agree and yet are rarely able to cope with their mutual disagreements. As I was not worth fighting over, I usually left before it would come to that.

This night, I did not leave. After all this was but one man, who could only fall out with himself.

'If it's nowhere on earth, you tell me where it is, messer Dante,' I heard myself say. 'Maybe on the moon? Somewhere among the stars? Yes, I think that's where it must be.'

'The stars? You would claim it to be Paradise?' (6)

'I would.' What did it matter if we both meant different things? The original meaning was garden; fair enough..

'Paradise is lost,' Dante said caustically. 'Are you a blasphemer as well as a murderer and a rebel? No wonder that you can't go back, then.' He paused. 'Have you considered repenting of your evil deeds, messer Macalaure? For as it is written, he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. (7)'

I could imagine why the man had managed to get himself exiled, what with that tongue in his mouth. 'Rest assured that I'm not alive for want of trying to get killed,' I told him. 'Though it's doubtful if the sword that will take my life will ever be forged.'

'Don't boast about your profession, which is but a necessary evil!' he growled. 'Knowing what it is to be an exile, I only wanted to counsel you. But if you keep mocking me...'

I had no more asked for his counsel than the emperor had for his letter - which would be the appropriate remark to make if I wanted to be rid of him. But I never reached a decision, for he continued, in that annoyingly pedantic way of his: 'A man needs to know that he is lost ere he can see the need of guidance.' He shifted position, his clothes rustling against the stone wall. When he raised his voice again, it was in a different tone, almost a chant.

'Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita

mi ritrovai per una selva oscura

ché la diritta via era smarrita -

[Halfway the path of life that we must tread

I found myself in dark woods straying;

I had gone wrong, the straight road lost ahead.]

I straightened in surprise: this was a poem I knew! Moreover it was a poem I admired like few other works of mortal beauty. And so, unable to help myself I took over, singing softly - the most natural thing to do if poetry is song, as poetry should be.

'- ahi quanto a dir qual era è cosa dura

Esta selva selvaggia e aspra e forte

Che nel pensier rinova la paura.'

Tant è amara che poco è piu morte -'

[Alas for me, I have a rough time saying

How wild and harsh it was, this wood of death.

Its dreadful memories defy allaying,

the bitterness still robs me of my breath - ] (8)

And on I sang, until I reached the part where the poet encounters the leopard, and I could not resist the temptation to conjure up the feline on the lawn in front of us. The spotted predator crouched before us in all its bestial glory and fearsomeness, ready to pounce, its eyes glittering in the light of the moon that had risen above the baptistery now.

Dante's gasp put an end to my singing, and the leopard vanished. 'Something wrong, messere?' I asked innocently.

'Nothing,' Dante said, panting slightly, as if he had been holding his breath. 'I - I truly had no idea you knew my poem... or that you could sing so well...' He faltered; apparently he was not going to admit to seeing a leopard on the premises of the Duomo of Pisa. But I also sensed his embarrassment at having misjudged me, ascribing me barely enough civilisation to be civil.

Meanwhile, I was amazed as well. 'Your poem?' This pedantic, aggressive little fellow the creator of such beauty, the maker of this sculpted music of words?

'Mine indeed,' he said proudly. 'But these are just the first verses of a large work depicting my journey to the depths of the Inferno, and from there through Purgatory to Paradise.'

His journey? The man could hardly be more than fifty years of age; what devilry could he have committed, what remorse could he have felt, what vision of light and beauty could his eyes have beheld, to claim such a journey for his own? But of course - he was human, and they live so much faster.

'Where did you hear it?' he wanted to know.

Actually, I had never heard it recited, though the verses had sung through my head while I read it. 'At the court of Verona,' I replied. 'They have a copy of the Inferno there.'

'Ah, yes,' he said. 'I had it copied out for Can Grande della Scala (9). It is the only part that is finished so far. Do you remember more of it?' he added eagerly.

'Most of it.' Again I sang, in a voice deep as time. And singing I created another illusion: the great gate to the Inferno these verses depicted. I drew the image directly from the mind of their maker; if such a gate exists anywhere in the universe, I haven't seen it. Majestic and terrible it loomed on the greensward, blotting out the sky and the stars. My voice can no longer summon up any images of light and joy, but I have no trouble conjuring up those of darkness and danger.

'Per me si va ne la città dolente,

per me si va ne l'etterno dolore,

per me si va tra la perduta gente.

Giustizia mosse il mio alto fattore:

fecemi la divina podestate,

la somma sapienza e 'l primo amore.

Dinanzi a me non fuor cose create

se non etterne, e io etterno duro.

Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate.'

[Through me the road towards the dismal city

through me the road to everlasting pains

through me the road to souls that find no pity.

Justice did move my Maker, God who reigns:

I stand here by divine authority,

high wisdom, love that all sustains.

Ere I was made naught else was made to be

unless eternal - as I, too, shall last.

Lay down all hope, you that go in through me.] (10)

Unable to continue, I fell silent. And on which side are we? On which side am I? The gate of Hell grew larger and larger, and I felt the mortal cringe at my side. But just as it seemed to be all about us I let it melt away, and the lights of heaven became visible again.

'I could almost believe... that you could sing the stars from the sky, if you tried,' Dante said, after long silence and in an odd voice. 'But - why these verses, out of several thousands?'

Perhaps there was one star I would sing from the sky if I could - except that it would burn my unclean flesh if I so much as touched it. But should I have chosen the verses in which Dante painted the infernal punishments of his enemies with brush strokes full of spite and malice (11)? I didn't think so, and therefore I didn't reply.

He made his own guess, then. 'It is a sin for a living man to despair, Macalaure,' he began, almost desperately, as if he tried to convince someone he feared would never be convinced - a feeling I knew well . 'You may find yourself on the wrong side of that gate yet, and -'

You may find yourself on the wrong side of that gate? If I told him I was a traitor and the son of a traitor with a bunch of traitors for brothers, he'd immediately relegate me to the deepest pit of his inferno, where treacherous souls are frozen into the ice of Cocytus. He would think it a particularly fitting punishment if he knew we had left our own ice, the freezing fangs of the Helcaraxë, for our kin to die in. But there are things you don't tell, so as not to make someone else feel tainted by your presence - and I feared it would shatter our fragile rapport. I merely turned my head towards Dante, and with an effort I made the flames in my eyes leap.

His hand shot up to make the sign of the cross, but then it fell back to his lap.

'Why don't you cross yourself?' I wanted to know.

'I am not sure,' he replied after a long silence, shaking his head, his voice unsteady. 'I wondered if you were a fallen angel, beautiful but doomed, come to tempt me with the images of my own devising. One who knows the desire hidden in the heart of all artists - the wish to see their art come alive as if they were the equals of the Creator. Not that I would be so tempted,' he went on, his voice growing in strength. 'I have been granted my own visions, and I know the truth of them. If I can't conjure them up with words and verses, the only magic I possess, I am not worthy of the name of poet. I would not be worth my salt. So as you see you could never tempt me into selling my soul, whatever you might offer to show me.'

Yes, I thought, the man was a true poet: he knew about the dangerous fires of creating. 'Even if I could fulfill your desire, you would not want to sell your soul to purchase what you may receive freely one day,' I heard myself say, and the intensity of my own words amazed me, as I had thought such passion lost. 'Art is a gift, meant to be bestowed on the giver, to assist in the effoliation and multiple enrichment of creation. Though we may not be the Creator, we are made in the image of a maker.' (12) It hadn't done me much good, but he was not yet beyond hope.

When Dante looked at me again it was with the gaze of an equal, proud and free. 'Only another artist could say such a thing... Surely you are a fallen being like all of us, but though I don't think you are human, you can't be a demon either,' he said, and in a subdued voice he went on, surprising me deeply: 'Maybe your lost Valinóre does glitter among the stars, after all...' Then, abruptly, he threw the last lines of his infernal poem at me:

'...tanto ch'i' vidi de le cose belle

che porta 'l ciel, per un pertugio tondo

e quinci uscimmo a riveder le stelle.' (13)

[and, peering through a round hole, then my eyes

could see the heavens blaze in all their beauty

and we resurfaced gazing at the starry skies.]

I sagged where I sat, wondering whether any of my siblings, far away beyond the Straight Road, had ever left - would ever leave - the Houses of the Dead to see those same stars again.

The sound of boots ringing on the paved gangway around the cathedral cut off that trail of thought. 'Over there. Yes, you two!' a grating voice assailed our ears, while a lamp emerged from around a corner of the cathedral. The barghello (14) with his vigilants, always on the lookout for suspect elements. 'No beggars here after sunset!'

We scrambled to our feet, while the flickering lamp was raised to shed an unmerciful light upon our dubious persons. 'We are no beggars, messere!' Dante said with dignity. I was less sure. What is a beggar but an exile from the society to which he wants to belong?

'Bugger off, and praise yourselves lucky to stay out of the dungeon!' the barghello barked.

I shrugged; what honour had I left to defend against this unmannered secondborn? 'We'll go,' I told the watch, tugging at Dante's sleeve .

For a moment it looked as if he was going to curse the barghello anyway; then he thought better of it and followed me, across the grass and past the leaning tower. While I looked up at its finely sculpted lacework of stone, shimmering in the pale moonlight, it suddenly struck me as a fitting image for the works of mortals, or even for the mortal race itself. It was as skewed as they were, yet they had not abandoned it, nor would - and who could tell if their handiwork would not survive the ages, forever suspended between standing and falling? The emperor had failed, yet his dreams of peace would live on. Dante was no step nearer his city, but he kept creating poetry that would bridge distances greater than that which separated him from it.

Suddenly, I wanted to cry.

Beside me, Dante cleared his throat. 'Where will you be going... son of the stars?'

He could not know that the Eldar are called the star-folk, but are poets not wont to grasp what they do not know? .

'I can't tell you,' I said, shaking my head.

He hesitated. 'Will I ever see you in Florence, if I return there?'

Though I am not particularly foresighted, in that very instant I saw clearly that he would never enter the city of his birth again. Yet I would sooner cut out my tongue than rob him of his hope. I could only wish for him to find a better Florence, wherever it is mortals go when they die. And you? I asked myself. Nai hiruvalye Valinor? Nai elye hiruva? (15) Paradise. Mine, or his, or anyone's. Scant chance. And yet.

'Perhaps we shall meet again,' I found myself saying, before our ways parted.

 

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Chapter End Notes

Assuming that the historical facts underlying this story aren't generally known, I'll venture to embark on a short history lesson:

At the beginning of the 14th century (called Trecento in Italian), the Italian peninsula was deeply divided, both geographically and politically: the North belonged to the Holy German Empire, the centre, called the Patrimonium Petri, to the Church. The Kingdom of Naples in the South tried, mostly successfully, to be independent from the Empire, and Sicily was a fief of the Kingdom of Aragon (Spain). Of the two great political factions, the Guelfs and the Ghibellines, the latter were mostly on the side of the Empire, while the former supported the Church, which at the time did not lack worldly aspirations. Civil strife was the normal state of affairs; local potentates and cities warred with each other in varying and shifting formations. Internal political quarrels within the cities often lead to the banishment of members of the losing faction, and around 1300 Italy was virtually teeming with exiles of both the Guelf and Ghibelline persuasions. The poet Dante Alighieri, author of the famous Divina Commedia, was one such exile, starting out as a Guelf, then becoming a Ghibelline, and ending up as 'a party unto himself'.

In the year 1310, the newly elected King of the Romans, Henry of Luxemburg (in Italy translated as Arrigo) crossed the Alps to be crowned emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and to create order in this bloody chaos. Unfortunately, being inexperienced in the ways of Italian politics, he soon became an instrument in the hands of unscrupulous local leaders. Though many of his adherents, among them Dante, insisted that he should start his lofty mission by conquering Florence, the ringleader of the Guelf resistance against the imperial Ghibellines, Arrigo didn't listen. He managed to get himself crowned, but not long afterwards he also managed to antagonise the Pope by turning his imperial wrath against the papal protégé Robert d'Anjou, King of Naples and the figurehead of the Guelfs. The emperor started a military campaign to subdue King Robert, sparing no one who dared to thwart his majesty. But before he could even reach the Kingdom of Naples he died of malaria in Buonconvento in Southern Tuscany. His ashes were entombed in the Cathedral of Pisa, where the effigy sculpted by Tino da Camaino can still be seen today. (Maglor's contribution to the tomb has to remain conjecture...)

Dante's hopes to return to his beloved yet much-criticised Florence foundered on Arrigo's failure. Refusing to meet the humiliating terms of the city council he was promptly condemned to death, to be burned at the stake if he should be apprehended on Florentine territory. His exile lasted until his death in 1321, and even his remains never made it to Florence. His treatise De Monarchia, a defence of imperial authority as co-equal to the authority of the Church, acquired a temporary place of honour on the Catholic Index. His Divine Comedy achieved world fame, though on the Amazon.com list of the top-100 books of the second millennium CE, The Lord of the Rings eclipsed it...

The idea to bring Maglor and the poet of the Comedy together in a story was inspired by the theme of hope versus despair found in both Tolkien and Dante, their preoccupation with death; their ideas about messianic kingship; their frequent mentioning of stars; the fact that Dante was the greatest poet of his time and Maglor one of the greatest singers in the Tolkien-universe; and finally, by Tolkien's not entirely untroubled relationship with the Italian poet. In an interview for the Daily Telegraph he had said: 'Dante doesn't attract me. He's full of spite and malice. I don't care for his petty relations with petty people in petty cities.' Faced with his own harsh verdict in the draft of this interview, he pulled on the brakes and commented: 'My reference to Dante was outrageous. I do not seriously dream of being measured against Dante, a supreme poet... I was for a while a member of the Oxford Dante Society... It remains true that I found the "pettiness" that I spoke of a sad blemish in places.'

I, on my part, could not resist the temptation to bring this poetic genius from the Primary World together with one of Tolkien's sub-created poetic geniuses for the Maglor-in-history challenge at HASA.

Notes to Chapters 1 & 2

(1)Quoted partly from Tolkien's Letter to Charlotte and Dennis Plimmer, 2/8/1967.
(2)The foundations for the Leaning Tower of Pisa were laid in the second half of 12th century; the last parts were added around 1350.
(3)To wit: ambar (Quenya).
(4)Old name for China.
(5)Educated medievals who knew their Aristotle and Ptolemy were aware of the fact that the world wasn't flat.
(6)A (rough) reference to the layout of Dante's Paradiso.
(7)Revelations 13:10.
(8)First lines of 1st Canto of Inferno. The feeble attempts to translate the Italian original are mine. The use of the term 'straight road' is intentional.
(9)Ruler of Verona from 1311-1329.
(10)Beginning of the 3rd Canto of Inferno. Translation, see note 8. 'Find no pity': readers are free to interpret this as an allusion to the Curse of Mandos: 'There long shall ye abide... and find little pity though all whom ye have slain shall entreat for you.' (QS, Ch. 9)
(11)'Full of spite and malice' are Tolkien's words: see Letter to Charlotte and Dennis Plimmer, 2/8/1967.
(12)Poet: from Greek poiètes, 'maker'. Text in italics taken from Tolkien's essay On Fairy-Stories (NB: to my best knowledge the idea of Man creating in the Creator's image dates back to the Renaissance Dante scholar Cristoforo Landino).
(13)The last lines of Inferno.
(14)Headman of town watch.
(15)'Maybe thou shalt find Valinor. Maybe even thou shalt find it.' Quenya, from Galadriel's Lament, Fellowship of the Ring (with slight alteration from the original Valimar into Valinor).

Final remarks:
- If Maglor admits to Dante that he has murdered but not that he has betrayed his own relatives, it is because in Dante's Inferno and medieval theology in general, the latter is a worse sin than the former.
- Dante's physical appearance is based on Giovanni Boccaccio's Dante biography Trattatello. It seems there are reasons to doubt the veracity of this tract, but as I like the contrast between a tall elf and a small man, I've followed Boccaccio's descrption.