The Mongoliad: Book Three

CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

Father Rodrigo seemed to hear Ferenc’s desperate plea. The priest relaxed, his hands slackening on Ocyrhoe’s neck. The girl took a huge, loud draw of breath and was about to let it out when a spasm shook Father Rodrigo’s body. His hands tightened again around her throat; she fought at his grip with furious desperation. Ferenc wrenched Rodrigo’s neck more, until he felt it reach its limit.

Father Rodrigo bellowed with pain as he struggled against Ferenc’s grip, but Ferenc’s hands continued to squeeze. Ocyrhoe’s face turned purple, her tongue protruding from her mouth.

“Stop it, Rodrigo. Rodrigo Bendrito!” Ferenc begged. “Father Rodrigo Bendrito! Listen to me!” He felt tears start from his eyes.

It was unfair to have this choice forced upon him. He and the priest had survived Mohi; they had traveled together for so long. He had built fires to warm the man’s body when the warmth of the fevers had fled; he had foraged for tiny streams within rocky clefts in the high mountains for cool water to cool Father Rodrigo’s burning skin. He had brought the priest to Rome so that his message-the last shred of his faith that had kept him alive throughout their journey-could be delivered. Once in Rome, a land as foreign and strange as any he could possibly imagine, he had found someone who could communicate with him. She used the same finger language as his mother, and almost instantly, this tiny girl had become so important to him.

And now he had to choose between them.

This is what was, his mother had told him, showing him the old roots. This is what will be. She patted the soil where she had recently planted the seeds. What grows is what we remember, what we bind ourselves to.

It is the choices we make.

Father Rodrigo continued to strain in Ferenc’s grip, and from some unearthly source of dreadful strength, he began lifting Ocyrhoe’s thin body off the ground.

“Stop it!” Ferenc was screaming now, his lips against the priest’s ear. “You saved my life at Mohi; let me save yours now! Put her down! Let her go! Rodrigo!”

Father Rodrigo shouted, his voice an octave lower than his normal speaking voice; Ferenc almost expected a demon to slink out of his mouth. Ocyrhoe’s eyes began to roll up.

“Stop it! You are killing her!” Ferenc screamed. “Take the Grail and go!”

“She is the Devil; she must die, or she will follow me forever!” Rodrigo shouted, again in a demonically thundering bass.

Ferenc’s body convulsed with sobs. There was no time, no time to think this through, no time to try some other way. Muttering rapid prayers for forgiveness, he made his choice. Closing his eyes as if that somehow made a difference, he shot his left arm forward and snapped his right arm back, twisting Rodrigo’s head at an impossible angle over his right shoulder. Immediately the priest gasped and shuddered, releasing Ocyrhoe. When Ferenc relaxed his arms, Father Rodrigo made a tiny sound, almost like a sigh of relief, and collapsed at Ferenc’s feet.

Ocyrhoe’s terrified coughs and gasps were so loud and painful that Ferenc did not realize for a moment he was gasping too; he turned away and vomited into the grass, then fell to his knees beside Father Rodrigo’s now lifeless body, sobbing like an orphaned child.

A unruly mob swarmed the streets of Rome. As far as Cardinal Fieschi could tell, the mob was leaderless-agitated citizens with no clear purpose or direction. By the time his carriage reached the Vatican, he was certain the swarm of citizenry milling about the streets was simply there to delay his return. Yet another obstacle he had to endure.

His first stop had been the Orsini estate where he learned that the Senator had been summoned to the Vatican-an unwelcome piece of news for who, other than himself, would summon the Senator? The interminable ride through the crowded streets of Rome did little to dispel his apprehension.

He dismounted quickly from the carriage, angrily rejecting the ostiarius’s offer of a helpful hand. “Senator Orsini,” he snapped. “Is he still here?”

“I believe so,” the porter replied. “He asked to be taken to the main receiving chamber.”

“And the other Cardinals?”

“They are preparing to announce the new Pope,” the ostiarius said.

“And who is the new Pope?” Fieschi asked, secretly fearing that some other reversal had occurred in the time he had been absent.

“Celestine IV,” a woman’s voice provided.

Lena, the Binder from Frederick’s camp, stood on the broad steps. She descended to his level and offered him a respectful bow. “Cardinal Fieschi,” she said. “I had hoped to meet you before I departed.”

“What do you want?” Fieschi snarled.

“How was your visit with the Holy Roman Emperor?” Lena asked, oblivious to his agitation. “I don’t see the girl with you. Were you able to successfully negotiate the return of your missing priest?”

Fieschi grabbed the front of Lena’s cloak and drew her to him. “I know you are working with the Emperor, Binder, in a way that violates your precepts.”

Lena remained unruffled. Up close, he could see there was no fear in her eyes. Only a steadiness of resolve that gave him pause. “You know nothing about me or my sisters, Cardinal Fieschi,” she said quietly. Her eyes flicked down at his clenched fists. “Your hands, Your Eminence,” she pointed out. “Are you sure you want to dirty them again? So soon after the last time?”

Fieschi released her, a very un-Cardinal-like oath threatening to spill out of his mouth. “You are not welcome here,” he said, forcing the profane words aside. “You and your sisters. If I see any of you or hear word that you are in my city, you will be marked as spies and treated accordingly.”

“Your city?” Lena noted.

“Yes,” Fieschi snapped. “My city.” He gestured at the buildings around them, especially the rounded dome of St. Peter’s Basilica. “My church.”

“Of course it is,” Lena said, a mixture of admiration and revulsion in her voice. “I will be sure to tell my sisters they are no longer welcome here. When they are released from wherever the Senator has them imprisoned, that is.” She offered the Cardinal a hard smile. “It would be disappointing if we were not allowed the freedom to meet your demand that the Binders quit Rome.”

“Take them,” Fieschi said. “Take all of them with you. I left one with the Emperor already.”

“Yes,” Lena said. “Good. I appreciate you taking her to Frederick. That was very helpful.”

“Helpful?” Fieschi choked, instantly disliking the idea that he had been, in any way, helpful to this woman.

Lena reached up and extracted a tiny chain from beneath her cloak. She closed her hand over whatever was suspended from the end of the silver loop and broke the chain with a sharp jerk of her hand. She laid her still-closed hand over her heart. “Cardinal Sinibaldo Fieschi, I am bound to you with a message.”

“What nonsense is this?” Fieschi sputtered.

“A message from Pope Gregory IX,” she finished. She opened her hand and held it out to him. Resting on her palm was a small gold ring. A Greek letter, broken in half, was stamped on its surface. “He wanted this ring delivered to his successor.”

His heart pounding, Fieschi reached for the ring, but Lena closed her hand suddenly.

“Thus delivered of my message, I am like the fox,” she said, “unbound here and everywhere. Do you agree, Cardinal Fieschi? I will deliver your late Pope’s message because that is what a Binder does, but in doing so, I am freed. Unencumbered by all.”

“Yes,” Cardinal Fieschi said. “Yes. Give it to me.”

Lena closed her eyes briefly and then opened her hand. “And so it is done,” she said softly. The ring fell into Fieschi’s outstretched hand, and he closed his fingers quickly, before she changed her mind.

“Ho, porter,” she called to the ostiarius standing nearby. “Is that carriage available?”

“My apologies, Lady,” the priest said. “It belongs to the Church.”

“Of course it does,” she said. “But I am sure the Church would put it at my disposal, wouldn’t it, Cardinal Fieschi?”

He started at the sound of her voice. The ring was heavy in his hand, and he wanted to look at it. He wanted to put it on.

But not in her presence.

“What?” he said. “Oh, yes. The carriage.” He waved his other hand at the ostiarius. “Let her have it. Get her out of my sight. Out of Rome.”

Lena curtsied, and the ostiarius hurried to assist her aboard the carriage. As the drover snapped his whip at the horses, Fieschi turned away and hurried up the steps. When he reached the top and passed into the shadow of the broad arch of the doorway, he opened his hand and looked at the ring.

The sigil was two fasces-the staves carried by Roman legates in the time before the Church-but they had been bent so that they appeared to form halves of a sundered omega. The ring had been given to him and not to Castiglione. Gregory IX’s successor. The one who would truly carry on in the spirit of the previous Pope.

Celestine IV will not rule long, Fieschi thought. The ring fit snugly on the small finger of his right hand. And then it will be my turn.

He closed his hand and looked at the ring.

My church.

The sight of Father Rodrigo’s body was horrible, made more so by how his death had come to pass. His eyes remained open, and Ocyrhoe couldn’t bear passing in front of them. She felt like they were still watching her, like part of him was still aware inside the sprawled body. She didn’t know which part of him it was-the befuddled Father Rodrigo who had been kind to her, or the monster that had he had become in the end. She didn’t understand how the transformation had happened, and thus, wasn’t entirely sure that whatever it was that had possessed Father Rodrigo couldn’t animate his dead body.

Ferenc rocked and forth on his knees, weeping profusely, and she didn’t know how to console him. What could she say to him? That the priest had left him no choice? She would have died if Ferenc hadn’t acted, and with each painful breath, she was glad he made the choice he had.

The satchel lay nearby, forgotten, as did the cup. Using the satchel, she scooped up the lackluster cup and closed the bag tight around it. The cup no longer glowed, and she put the idea out of her mind that it had taken on a dull rose tint.

The Emperor had only asked that the priest and the cup be separated, and they had in the most brutal way possible. But what was she supposed to do with it now? Take it back to the Emperor?

The Cardinal would be sending men out to search for Ferenc and Father Rodrigo. She had had a few hours’ head start on the search parties, but the longer she stood here, the closer the men of Rome would get.

I can’t go back, she realized. This is what Lena meant for her to do. The Binder had told her she was ready to leave the city, that she had the skills to survive outside the walls that had been her home. Ocyrhoe didn’t understand how Lena could have anticipated this series of events, but somehow the Binder had known.

What had Lena called her when they had first met? An orba matre. Ocyrhoe didn’t know what that meant, but as she furiously thought about what she was supposed to do, she realized Lena had been speaking from personal experience. She and Lena were the same, albeit at different stages of their lives. With that insight came the understanding that Lena would have never asked anything of Ocyrhoe that she wouldn’t have been willing to do herself.

Ocyrhoe wasn’t alone. There was an unassailable connection between her and the other woman. They were, in fact, bound to one another. “Unencumbered by all,” Ocyrhoe whispered, and shivered as she felt the words were being spoken elsewhere at the same moment.

She knew what she had to do.

She touched Ferenc lightly, and he spooked at her touch. He looked at her, his face puffy and his eyes red from crying, and her heart ached at the sight of his suffering. How she wished she could ease it. Using soothing words and a light touch, she talked to him, explaining what had to be done.

They didn’t have the tools to bury the priest’s body, and Father Rodrigo deserved better than to be dragged into the hills by scavengers. His body needed to go back to Rome, and someone needed to go with it. Someone like Ferenc.

Eventually, he nodded, understanding what she wasn’t telling him, and he rose from his kneeling position and set about taking care of the priest’s body. Moving dead weight was much harder than she imagined it could be, but between them they got Father Rodrigo’s body across the saddle of one of the two horses Frederick had given them.

Ferenc helped her to mount her own horse, and once she was in the saddle she put the satchel carefully into one of her saddlebags and made sure the flap was securely tied down. She looked down at Ferenc. “My friend…” Her voice was but a whisper, the bruised muscles of her neck twitching with a new dismay. She didn’t want to say good-bye…

She touched her waist and pointed to his, indicating that he should give her his knife. Blinking back tears, he complied, unsure of what she intended to do. She felt in her tangled hair for the braided piece, the one with the knots he had recognized when they had first met. She separated the strand, and cut it with a quick jerk of his knife.

He accepted her gift, kissing the back of her hand as he did, and he did not try to stop the tears from streaming down his cheeks. He shook his head when she tried to give back the knife, offering her the sheath as well.

“Okay,” she said, pressing the sheathed knife to her lips. “It will keep me safe.”

Ferenc nodded, a brave expression on his face, and then he turned and leaped up onto the third mount with a nimbleness that amazed her. With a final sad smile, he leaned over and gathered the reins of the horse that carried Father Rodrigo. He clicked to the horses and they began a slow walk. Back toward the Emperor’s camp. Back toward Rome.

She watched them for a moment, until the sight of them became too much to bear, and she turned her gaze in the opposite direction. She had absolutely no idea where the road led. That part of her mind that had, in Rome, been an exquisitely detailed, crowded map was now blank parchment. Fresh and unmarked, waiting to reveal itself to her.

And she knew it would.

She pressed her heels against her horse’s side, nudging him forward on the unknown road.