The Mongoliad: Book Three

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Ferenc’s eyes nearly popped out of his head, making him look like a younger Monferrato. “Father Rodrigo!” he gasped, grabbing Ocyrhoe’s arm and pointing excitedly.

Too far away to tell, she signed on his arm, reluctant to believe the evidence of her ears.

Ferenc and Ocyrhoe paused at the edge of a crowd of at least a thousand people, no longer milling and murmuring, but transfixed, all eyes trained on a small man dressed like a priest, standing halfway up a huge mound of rubble, head bowed as if in prayer. Ocyrhoe could not see his face clearly, but he held out something that flashed and gleamed-something brilliant, golden, almost hypnotic in the steady sunlight. The cattlelike lowing sounds had subsided into a profound quiet. Ocyrhoe was used to the city and its busy, noisy throngs, but she was not used to so large a group falling mute all at once, unified in utter silence.

The three adults-Lena, Cardinal Monferrato, and the soldier, Helmuth-came up behind. The Cardinal was breathing heavily through his mouth.

After a long break, the priest on the mound lifted his head and resumed his harangue. His voice rang out clearly over the onlookers and echoed from the far walls.

Ocyrhoe had seen many prophesiers in many marketplaces, but never before had she seen one of them attract this kind of attention. And his words! She shook her head, still unwilling to believe what she was hearing. He was preaching violence.

Ferenc shook his head and exclaimed out loud, “It is Father Rodrigo!” Around them, outliers glared in disapproval and lifted hushing fingers. Oblivious, Ferenc spoke to Helmuth, the one man who could understand his native tongue. “That is the man we have come to Rome to save!”

Helmuth frowned. “We did not come to Rome to save anyone,” he said. “We came to bring Cardinal Monferrato to vote for the Pope.”

Ignoring him, Ferenc turned back to Ocyrhoe. Tell me what Father Rodrigo’s saying, he signed.

Ask Helmuth, she begged off. Too many words. She couldn’t tell Ferenc what the priest was saying.

The Cardinal was staring open-mouthed at the man on the rubble pile. “Who is that?” he demanded. “How is it this boy knows him?”

Ocyrhoe wondered how best to explain. After a deep breath, she began. “It is Father Rodrigo Bendrito, a Roman priest who once lived near Ferenc’s home. Ferenc and Father Rodrigo traveled together to Rome, and then Father Rodrigo was put into seclusion with the Cardinals in the Septizodium. As he is not in the Septizodium, that could mean the others are no longer imprisoned there, either.”

Monferrato closed his eyes a moment, as if hoping to open them to a different, saner reality. “He is preaching a Crusade. He is telling these people to rise up and defend Christendom against the Mongols.”

“I hear what he’s saying as well as you,” Ocyrhoe said. The man’s face pinked. He puffed and looked outraged that she had dared to address him so abruptly. Out of the corner of her eye, Ocyrhoe saw Lena frown. “He was very ill when they arrived here, both physically and mentally,” Ocyrhoe said quickly, trying to find some explanation that the Cardinal would find suitable.

Monferrato blinked owlishly at her, and she shrugged, not sure what else to tell him. She had no idea why the priest was exhorting the crowd to launch a Crusade against the Mongols. It seemed so unlike the kindly-albeit somewhat dazed man-she had met in the Septizodium.

Beside them, Helmuth was translating Rodrigo’s rant to Ferenc, who looked as if he were watching eels do circus tricks. Ocyrhoe felt somewhat mollified; Ferenc couldn’t believe what Father Rodrigo was saying either. He replied to Helmuth in a tone that Ocyrhoe took to be a defense of the priest, and used the word Mohi several times.

Lena started upon hearing the name. She snapped her fingers in front of Ferenc’s face to get his attention and repeated, “Mohi?”

When Ferenc nodded, she turned her attention to Helmuth. “What was he saying?” she demanded.

The Emperor’s guard shuffled nervously, his face pale. “He talks of the battle at Mohi, as if he and the priest were there.” He said something to Ferenc in Magyar, and Ferenc nodded tersely in reply. “They didn’t just witness it,” Helmuth continued. “They were on the battlefield.”

“You poor boy,” Lena said softly. She touched his arm, her fingers dancing lightly across his skin, and Ocyrhoe was surprised when Ferenc pulled away from Lena’s touch.

Lena hesitated for a moment, and then she turned to the others. “The priest and this young man were present at one of the most atrocious battles Christendom has ever witnessed. It was a battle no one should have had to witness-least of all a man of God-and what the priest saw must have driven him mad.” She indicated Ferenc. “With what sanity he had left, he must have asked this boy to bring him back to Rome, perhaps to seek redemption-or whatever peace might be left for him. But now it would appear that his madness has consumed him, and he is infecting the rest of the city.”

She listened intently to Father Rodrigo’s sermon, as if hearing him differently now. She had the same expression on her face that Ocyrhoe had seen previously-her attention both intent and distant.

Privately, Ocyrhoe thought Father Rodrigo looked much healthier than she had ever seen him. And he spoke with a great deal of verve. His words were clear and direct. He spoke without hesitation or confusion, as if the message he was delivering to his rapt audience was one that he knew quite well.

It was a strange message, one she did not understand fully. He spoke of trees-cedars-being cut down and the darkening of stars. He spoke both of the need for faith and the end of the Church, and when she glanced over her shoulder at Lena, she noted that the Binder woman was mouthing words almost in concert with Father Rodrigo.

A disturbance rippled through the crowd and further discussion as to the sanity of Father Rodrigo was cut short by the arrival of other figures on the makeshift pulpit. From around the side of the mound of rubble came a young boy and half a dozen men dressed in white uniforms, each with an image of crossed keys emblazoned on their chests. Three of the men carried pikes, and were already pointing their tips down toward the crowd. The other three men rushed Father Rodrigo and brandished swords close to his face. He gave them a curious glance, then returned his attention to the crowd, calling upon them again to take up arms, to drive the darkness back to the East, whence it had come.

The guards looked disgusted and reluctantly sheathed their swords. One of them circled from behind and grabbed Father Rodrigo around the neck, while the other two lifted his legs and tied his ankles. They then tossed him like a pig carcass, pulled back his arms, and used a length of rope to bind his wrists behind him. The cup he had been holding fell clanging to the stones. The guards, still manhandling the unresisting priest, did not notice. Ocyrhoe did, and when she glanced at Ferenc, he nodded, indicating he had seen the cup fall too.

Behind her, she heard Lena draw in a sharp breath.

The crowd, released from the spell of the priest’s prophetic ranting, turned ugly. Swiftly, a chain of possession from the vendors’ carts materialized, and the angry citizens began to pelt the soldiers with vegetables.

The soldiers ignored the fusillade of vegetables. One even reached out and intercepted a flying cabbage, giving the crowd a brief bow and a crooked grin. Within a few heartbeats, they had efficiently draped Father Rodrigo over the largest man’s shoulder and departed in the direction from which they had come.

The crowd growled and surged to the left, as if it would move, in one unit, around the ruins and follow the soldiers and the trussed up priest. But as quickly as it moved forward, it fell back again like a wave on a beach meeting a sea wall. A phalanx of uniformed, helmeted men equipped with yet more pikes erupted into view. The crowd’s shouts of protest twisted into cries of alarm, then pain, and the mass swayed sideways and back to get away from the prodding, jabbing weapons.

Without another word, the five travelers grabbed each others’ hands and shoulders and fled down a small street that led south, away from the market. After a score of paces, they stopped and stood in a circle, staring at each other, husking out frightened breaths.

“What just happened?” Cardinal Monferrato demanded.

“Guards… from the Vatican,” Ocyrhoe said. “They wore different uniforms from the men who serve the Bear-Senator Orsini. They will likely take this priest to Saint Peter’s or the Castel Sant’Angelo. We should go there, not to the Septizodium.”

“Why? Isn’t the Septizodium where the Cardinals are being held?” Helmuth shook his head. “The Emperor does not care about this priest friend of yours, and neither do I. He wants us to go to the Septizodium.”

“Those soldiers take their orders from the College of Cardinals,” Ocyrhoe argued. “How could the Cardinals be commanding them if they were still imprisoned in the Septizodium? How would they even know-”

“Child,” Lena said sternly, and Ocyrhoe silenced herself at once. “What was the message you were given to deliver, by the English Cardinal?”

Ocyrhoe already understood the point of this lesson. “It was to bring the Emperor’s men back to the Septizodium,” she said in a resigned tone.

“You are under oath,” Lena said simply. “Does a Binder interpret the message that has been given to her or does she simply deliver it?”

Ocyrhoe lowered her eyes. “She delivers it,” she said. “But I think it is a waste of time to go there.”

“What you think matters less than what you are sworn to do,” Lena said, not unkindly. “It is a characteristic that many rely on with the Binders.” A note of bitterness crept into her voice, which caused Ocyrhoe to raise her head, but Lena, seeming to anticipate Ocyrhoe’s gaze, was already looking away. “Let us continue with what we came here to do,” she said softly.

Ferenc had been watching them all with increasing impatience, and at this lull in the conversation he grabbed Ocyrhoe’s arm and urgently pointed back in the direction Father Rodrigo had been taken. It took no translator for her to understand what he wanted. She gave Helmuth a plaintive look, and the German soldier brusquely translated to Ferenc what had just passed between the two Binders.

Ferenc squirmed and flung up his arms in frustration, then grabbed her forearm. She wanted to pull away-he could not possibly understand-but he did not. Lie to them about where we are going, he signed.

At that, she snatched her arm from his fingers as if she’d been burned. “No!” she said angrily, and shook her head. “Never. Never!”

“You obviously have no control over anything that is happening,” said Senator Orsini furiously. “How are you of the slightest value to me? I should demand payment for all the choice viands you have supped upon at this table. I might as well have thrown them to my dogs. At least I know their loyalty is solid.”

Cardinal Fieschi seethed and twitched with frustration. “Total control is impossible, and not even useful. There has been a hiccup in our plan, but don’t you see it has allowed things to unfold in a way that can be even more fruitful?”

“No,” said Orsini. “I don’t see that at all, nor do I care for your inference that I am too stupid to understand your clever plan. In fact, I am so unmoved by your cleverness-”

“Orsini, what is it we want?” Fieschi demanded. “We want a Pope we can control, do we not? One who will repel the advances of the Emperor.”

“We would have had that in Bonaventura. And it is your fault Bonaventura is not now the Pope.”

“If anything, it is to my credit he is not,” Fieschi shot back. “But even if I’d voted for him this last round, he would not have won. Do you understand that? It would have been another deadlock. Unless Frederick were to release one of the Cardinals he holds hostage, and allow that man to come back to Rome, it would always be a deadlock. Even after removing one of Castiglione’s supporters from the equation entirely, there was no way to avoid deadlock.”

“Deadlock is better than chaos,” Orsini huffed. “Currently we have chaos. I should never have trusted you to steer anything. I will remember that when we really do have a Pope in power. The Bishop of Rome and the Senator of Rome will have plenty to talk about, but you have lost your place at that table.”

Fieschi could feel the heat rise in his face so intensely he wondered if even his eyeballs had turned red. You imbecile, he wanted to shout at Orsini. Are you really so blind you do not see how much more is at stake? Rome means nothing compared to the world that the Church commands. You are nothing but a convenient tool, and you are rapidly becoming inconvenient.

Instead, he forced a tight smile and said, with tempered condescension, “If you will listen to me for but a moment, you will realize that I have actually helped to set that table. We have the Pope in a room a half mile from here. The citizens of Rome have already heard him speak and they were mesmerized by his rhetoric. We will be able to steer him in any direction we desire, and the masses will eagerly follow. He offers us power that would be unimaginable if Bonaventura had been elected.” He sat back in his seat and crossed his arms, looking up at the Bear smugly.

Orsini made a dismissive face. “What do we care what the masses do?” he snorted. “They have no power.”

Fieschi altered his tight smile into a sympathetic one. “Come with me to the Vatican compound and you may change your mind. It took me two hours to get here because the mob was so thick. There is something hypnotic about that priest. Come with me and see for yourself, and then dismiss the masses-if you dare.”

Orsini shook his head stubbornly. “If he has that kind of power and he’s a madman, then he is extremely dangerous and must be killed immediately.”

“But he is pliable,” Fieschi insisted calmly. “I saw Somercotes win him over easily. If we stage the next few days carefully, I am confident that I can make him my creature. And then all that power is ours to use as we want.”

“And if you fail?” Orsini said. “I do not share your confidence in your abilities.”

“If I fail, then get rid of him, and we’re back to where we were before,” Fieschi said. “A deadlocked College of Cardinals and no Pope.”

Orsini thought about this for a few moments. Fieschi watched him, and was careful not to make a sound or indulge in even the slightest movement lest he trigger Orsini into some truculent response.

Finally Orsini asked, grimly, “What are the other Cardinals doing about all this?”

Fieschi made a dismissive gesture. “Some of them are poring over old codices of canonical law trying to establish if we may…” He lifted his hands. “Annul the election? Force a resignation? I doubt they will find any definitive answer or procedure, but the longer we stay here, the more time they have to create an argument against keeping him.”

“Are you the only Cardinal who wants to see him remain the Pope?”

Fieschi shrugged. “The only one who counts,” he said firmly. “I have two unlikely colleagues, but they are mostly interested in entertaining themselves. They’re not taking any action, they are just sitting back to watch what unfolds.”

“Is one of them Colonna?” Orsini asked in a disgusted voice.

Fieschi sat upright and said sharply, “Do not refuse this course simply because you don’t want to agree with Colonna. That is childish. The entire Colonna-Orsini feud is childish. Do you even remember what your ancestors first argued about?”

Orsini made a dismissive gesture. “If you genuinely believe that you can bring this man under your sway, so that he will be my tool, then I will consider-but only consider-ensuring that all civic authority in the city is dedicated to carrying out his enthronement.”

“That is the only sane way to persevere in this,” Fieschi said, feeling a wave of relief that he was careful not to show. Let Orsini think Father Rodrigo was to be Orsini’s tool.

He knew better.

A dried, charred smell wafted toward the five as they approached the alley that ran behind the Septizodium. “We turn left here,” Ocyrhoe announced. “There is a hidden entrance that only Ferenc can find.” Ferenc glanced at her and smiled with sheepish pride, knowing what she was telling them. “Then there is a series of dark passages. We will need at least a candle. Do you still have the candle from this morning?” she asked Monferrato. “The one you used to irritate the Emperor?”

Every time she spoke to him, he seemed startled and slightly annoyed. She wondered how many girls other than servants ever spoke to him, Cardinal as he was. “That was part of the excommunication ritual,” he said. “I gave it to my colleague.”

“Well, we’ll need to get a candle from somewhere else, then, or a lantern,” she said. “But first we’ll show you the doorway. It’s just… Oh!”

They had turned the corner as she spoke. The charred smell hit their faces, wafting on languid curls of smoke that emanated from a large, ragged opening in the rock face, a few dozen paces away.

This was the secret entrance to the Septizodium, but it stood wide open-in fact, the hinged rock that served as the actual door had been lifted away, as if by the hand of God, and lay in the street. Amazed, she turned to Ferenc, who was already staring at her.

“That’s the entrance. Something has happened,” she said, as calmly as she could.

“I think there has been a fire,” the Cardinal said in a concerned voice. Ocyrhoe rolled her eyes. She was not prone to sarcasm, but this man was just too easy a target.

“Let’s take a closer look,” Lena calmly intervened.

“Yes, absolutely,” Helmuth said, so quickly that Ocyrhoe suspected he was embarrassed he was not the first to suggest it.

They walked toward the entrance. Ocyrhoe glanced up at the surrounding rooftops but saw no guards-no one at all. The alley was deserted. As they approached the entrance, preparing to enter with Ocyrhoe in the lead, an echoing, percussive sound issued from the darkness. And then, softer, the sounds of footfall, coming closer to them.

A low, blocky form emerged from obscurity: a small, hunched man, a shovel slung back over his shoulder, wearing the ill-fitting livery of a low-ranking servant. His face was wrinkled, furtive, sad. He stepped through the doorway and paused with disinterest, lowering his jaw slightly when he saw them all gathered. “No entry allowed,” he said, sounding bored. “There are guards back there, they’ll just chase you out.” He took another step to move past them.

“Can you tell us what happened?” the Cardinal asked.

The old man shrugged. “Fire. Someone died.”

“Who died?” Ocyrhoe demanded.

Again the old man shrugged. “Cardinal.”

“Which one?” Monferrato demanded shrilly.

“Foreigner. English, I think.”

Ocyrhoe gasped before she could catch herself. Ferenc tapped her arm. She ignored him and turned to Lena. “The man who sent the message is dead.” She tried to push aside the strange upwelling of emotion-she’d only met Somercotes once, yet she found herself disoriented by the news. “How do I fulfill my obligation now?” she asked, almost childlike. “I was to bring the Emperor’s men to Cardinal Somercotes, but he… no longer lives.”

Lena gave her an understanding look. She reached for Ocyrhoe’s right hand, lifted it, gently pressed the hand into a fist, and rested the fist against Ocyrhoe’s breastbone. “You are like the fox, unbound here and unencumbered,” she prompted.

Ocyrhoe began to echo the phrase before Lena had even finished. Then she heaved a huge sigh, both saddened and relieved that her mission was over. She saw Ferenc watching the two Binders with a wary, envious look.

During their exchange, Helmuth had continued to question the worker, who met the soldier’s demands with a series of shrugs and other signs of stolid disregard-and only a few mumbled words. After releasing the old man with a disgusted kick at his backside, Helmuth informed the rest of the group, “The other Cardinals were escorted to the Vatican compound yesterday.”

“I knew that,” Ocyrhoe said matter-of-factly. Helmuth glared at her. Ocyrhoe had never encountered so many fragile men in her life. They must feel very insecure indeed if a girl talking back caused such unrest.

“Let us go there,” said the Cardinal.

Helmuth grimaced. “The way will be congested,” he said.

“It would have been much less congested earlier,” Ocyrhoe said, unable to still her tongue.

“Silence, brat,” Helmuth said.

Lena smiled, silencing both of them with a look. “A path will present itself,” she said calmly. “I am sure of it.”