July, Rome, St.
Peter’s Basilica.
Cerydra knelt on the prayer bench, her staff placed horizontally across her knees.
Sunlight from the church dome streamed through the stained glass windows, casting mottled patterns of light and shadow on the floor.
The air was thick with the scent of frankincense and burning candles; in the distance, a choir chanted softly, Latin hymns flowing like water through the vast space.
She was not here to pray.
She was here to meet someone.
Pope Pius XI sat in a high-backed chair, a set of Jungle Chess laid out on the tea table before him.
The Pope was seventy-three years old, thin, wearing round-rimmed glasses.
When he looked through the lenses, his gaze carried a scholarly, examining gentleness.
“Your Highness,” he said, his voice low but clear.
“Did you design this chess set?” “Yes, Holy Father.” “The rat eats the lion.” “Yes.” The Pope’s fingers gently moved the rat piece on the board.
It was the smallest of all the pieces, carved from the most ordinary beechwood, without any ornamentation.
“My theological advisors debated this rule for three days,” he said, a hint of barely perceptible amusement in his tone.
“Some say it embodies the Christian virtue of humility—the weakest can overcome the strongest.
Others say it hints at dangerous subversive ideas—order can be overthrown by the most humble force.
Which one did you have in mind when you designed it?” Cerydra raised her eyes.
Her white short hair shimmered with a faint blue in the light of the stained glass, and the crystal king piece atop her staff refracted tiny points of light.
“I was thinking of facts,” she said.
The Pope’s eyebrows lifted slightly.
“The lion is the king of beasts,” Cerydra’s voice was calm and clear.
“But it is not a god.
It can be harmed by anything that enters its den, including a rat.
This is not virtue, nor subversion—it is just a fact.
Rules never create facts; rules merely state facts.” The Pope was silent for a moment.
Behind him, in the shadows, stood a young nun in a gray habit, her veil covering most of her face.
She had been as still as a statue, but Cerydra noticed that when she spoke her last sentence, the nun’s head lifted slightly.
“Your Highness is fifteen years old,” the Pope said.
“Yes.” “At fifteen, most people are still learning to obey rules.
You have already begun to contemplate the nature of rules.” “I’ve just spent too long in the game, Holy Father.
Those who play chess eventually understand one truth: rules are written by people.
Rules written by people can be rewritten by people.” The Pope looked at her for a long time without speaking.
The choir’s song echoed under the dome, and the frankincense smoke rose slowly toward the heights, where it was cut by sunlight from the skylight into countless thin layers of gold.
“Your Highness,” the Pope finally said, “you didn’t come today to play chess with an old man, did you?” Cerydra paused for a breath.
“I wish to ask the Holy Father for one thing.” “Please speak.” “I want to give someone a name.” The Pope’s eyes flickered slightly.
“What person?” Cerydra’s gaze shifted to the gray-clad nun behind the Pope.
She stood in the shadows, her face obscured by her veil, but her eyes—those eyes faintly glowing in the shadow of the veil—were fixed on Cerydra.
“Her,” Cerydra said.
The church fell silent for a moment, and then the Pope laughed.
It was a genuine laugh, filled with surprise and delight, making his seventy-three-year-old face suddenly seem much younger.
“You don’t even know her.” “I don’t need to know her,” Cerydra said.
“I only need to see.” The Pope glanced back at the nun.
The gray-clad nun stepped forward, out of the shadows.
The light from the stained glass fell on her face—a young face, perhaps twenty, perhaps younger.
Her features were ordinary, her skin olive-colored, her lips slightly chapped.
But her eyes, those deep brown, almost black eyes, held an indescribable serenity.
Not an empty serenity, but one that had been tempered, as if after some kind of baptism.
“Her name is Maria Josepha,” the Pope said.
“She comes from a fishing village in Sicily.
Three years ago, she walked into Rome alone, wearing only one dress and carrying a prayer book.
She knelt in St.
Peter’s Square for an entire night.
The next morning, I told my secretary to let her in.” “Why?” Cerydra asked.
The Pope was silent for a moment.
“Because the way she looked at me was the same as the way you look at her today.” Cerydra stood up, gripping her staff, and walked before the gray-clad nun.
Their eyes met.
The white-haired, blue-eyed princess and the dark-eyed nun gazed at each other in the light of the stained glass.
The crystal king piece on the staff refracted a small rainbow between them.
“Tiresipios,” Cerydra said.
The nun’s eyes widened slightly.
This name did not belong to this era, nor to any language she knew.
But as it fell in the air, it was like a chess piece placed in the right spot—crisp, certain, unshakable.
“This is the name I give her.” Cerydra turned to the Pope.
“I request the Holy Father to allow her to use this name.” The Pope looked at her for a long time.
“Why?” he asked.
“Because there needs to be someone who remembers this name.” Cerydra did not say more—whether she wanted to use this as an anchor to remind herself of where she came from, or what she most desired: the attitude of the Holy See.
The church fell silent again.
The choir’s voice gradually faded under the dome, leaving only the low lingering notes of the organ trembling in the air.
The gray-clad nun—Tiresipios—suddenly knelt.
She knelt before Cerydra, bowed her head, and her gray veil fell onto the mosaic floor.
“Your subject accepts this name.” Her voice was very soft, with a Sicilian-accented Italian.
“Your Highness.
Your subject does not know where it comes from or what it means.
But your subject knows that from today, it is hers.” Cerydra looked down at her.
Then she bent down, reached out, and gently helped the kneeling nun rise.
Their fingers clasped for a moment.
The nun’s hand was rough and warm, with calluses from years of labor on her fingertips.
The princess’s hand was fair and slender, with faint marks from holding chess pieces on her fingertips.
The Pope watched this scene without speaking.
He had lived seventy-three years and seen too many people kneel before him—begging, confessing, performing, genuine.
But he had rarely seen one person give another a name, and the other receive that name as if catching a star falling from the sky.
That night, the Pope wrote in his diary: “Today, a fifteen-year-old princess gave the daughter of a Sicilian fisherman a name that does not belong to this world.
At the moment they looked at each other, I was reminded of the scripture of Pentecost—’tongues of fire appeared and separated and rested on each of them.’ I do not know what that name means.
But I know that from today, Maria Josepha is dead.
Tiresipios lives.
May the Lord have mercy on both of them, for the path they will walk will not be smooth.”